A lot of MMOs have matchmaking for some of their harder content, but rarely for the truly endgame activities. The Destiny 2 community has long asked for an LFG system for its Raids and Dungeons. The long-awaited Fireteam Finder is getting a stress test and beta soon. Here’s how to get in.
How to Get into the Destiny 2 Fireteam Finder Stress Test and Beta
Thankfully, there is no signup or waitlist for the Fireteam Finder stress test or beta. Bungie noted in their article on the new feature that they worried about testing such a wide-ranging, complex addition to the game without the benefit of scale. As such, they could have either delayed it further or put it out into the wild to see how (or if) it works when hundreds of thousands or even millions of players log on to try it.
The Fireteam Finder beta period is split across two timeframes:
- Stress test date: November 30 from 9:00 AM PST to 5:00 PST for all currently available Raid activities
- Full beta release date: Sometime in December following the new Dungeon release and based on the results of the Stress test.
The full release of Fireteam Finder should be in late January 2024, a few weeks before the (still officially unchanged) Final Shape expansion launch date of February 27. To access it, you can either open the Roster tab in the Director or use the Fireteam Finder node on activity launch screens.
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I, and many Destiny veterans, have wanted this feature and been leery of it for years — the concern we share regards handling the more complicated mechanics within a Raid. For instance, voice callouts when fighting Oryx in the King’s Fall Raid can be chaotic, as players need to identify things quickly and make split-second decisions based on what they see.
Most veteran Raid teams can, of course, do most Raids with little to no communication. But that’s because they either:
- They know each other and have for years.
- They know the Raid like the back of their hand.
Based on their internal data, Bungie has long claimed that the vast majority of Destiny 2 players do not play the Raid, do a Dungeon, or anything that requires more complicated teamwork. And every time I run a Raid with an established team where a single player is new, every encounter gets a full, five-minute explanation before starting.
The kicker is even armed with exactly how an encounter or Raid boss fight works; inevitably, the new person will make a mistake. Learning Raid and Dungeon encounters in Destiny 2 means doing them, not listening to a word vomit, and being expected to retain everything.
Now extend that particular difficulty to a fireteam with no history together, no class synergy, a bunch of half-built characters, and no voice communication. I remain hopeful but highly skeptical that most Fireteam Finder teams will do well in some of D2‘s harder content. Even the easy stuff can get unfamiliar teams into conniptions after just a few failures.
We’ll just have to see how it goes. Hopefully, it works, but given Bungie’s recent instability, I have my doubts. For more on Destiny 2, look to our guides on the best Unstoppable weapons, how to use Checkpoint bot, and more in our D2 guides hub.
Published: Nov 22, 2023 08:06 pm