‘Destiny’ Crucible Will Learn Mercy With 2.0 Update
The Destiny Crucible Handler, Lord Shaxx, is known for telling players to show their opponents no mercy. Bungie is implementing some mercy in PVP multiplayer though with the coming 2.0 update. The developer announced a new mercy rule Friday for those matches that get out of hand.
Bungie Senior Designer Andrew Weldon went into great detail explaining the reasoning behind the mercy rule in a community post on the studio’s website. The User Research team has tracked player behavior in the Crucible along with the point spread between the winners and losers. They discovered that approximately 63 percent of Control games end with point spreads of less than 6,000 points. However, 12 to 13 percent of games end with spreads of more than 10,000 points.
Against my will, @Bungie will bring their Mercy rule with patch 2.0. https://t.co/SaFy6ZGjV9
— Lord Shaxx (@CrucibleShaxx) September 4, 2015
The blowout wins are especially concerning for Bungie since they encourage players on the losing to quit instead of finishing the match through the end. All too often, players will quit matches early when they realize the score differential is already getting out of hand. This results in a vicious cycle of new players joining a match and then quitting when they see no hope of coming back.
Bungie will implement a Mercy Rule in the Destiny 2.0 update for all team-based PVP gametypes except for Elimination and Trials of Osiris. Rumble is also excluded from the rule. The Mercy Rule aims to end Destiny multiplayer matches that get out of hand early. Bungie hope this will discourage players from quitting and keep players from joining bad matches on the losing side. Based on Weldon’s comments, it the Mercy Rule will more likely kick in on games that get out of hand in the first half of a match versus one team pulling away from another later in a match.
You’ll be calling the match, Sir. Get on board this this, or we’ll put your little robot in charge of things. https://t.co/WKNLqzrQxt
— Bungie (@Bungie) September 4, 2015
“When the Mercy Rule hits, Shaxx will call out the end of the match,” Weldon explained. “We immediately disable join in progress to prevent any additional players from joining the game (if anyone has dropped already) and reset the game clock to 10 seconds. After those 10 seconds, the match will end normally. All players will receive their end of match rewards and return to matchmaking.”
In addition to everyone receiving the end of match rewards for a blowout, the winning squad gets something special. Bungie has added a new gold tier medal called, appropriately enough, “No Mercy.”
All Destiny players will get a chance to try out the new maps coming with The Taken King and two of the new gametypes when the 2.0 update hits Tuesday, September 8. This Crucible Preview Event will run up until the launch of the expansion on Tuesday, September 15. At that time, only those that have purchased the new DLC will be able to play the new content.
What do you think of the new Mercy Rule for Destiny PVP multiplayer? Sound off in the comments below.
[Images via Bungie]
