100% agree with it.

Six on six was way too chaotic. If you haven't played PvP in Destiny it might not sound like it should be, but it is. The PvP in Destiny has a lot of depth, match ups and variables to consider. Even pure skill only gets you so far if you don't know what to expect. The smaller game modes have always been better. They played more tactically and rewarded skillful play and team coordination a lot more than 6v6 ever did.

That's not to say 6v6 was always bad and always sucked. I tremendously enjoyed almost every single Iron Banner there was. But that is for two reasons:

1. It created an influx of players as loot rewards drew more people to the mode. As an average player in heated matches, it boosted my performance through the roof when less experienced people entered, which was fun.

2. The requirement to win caused people and clans to team up a lot more, creating amazing high contention matches that were very satisfying.

Neither of those things happen in regular PvP. You're dependent on randoms, there is more variety in gun selection and whatnot. You get killed no matter how good you are or how good your map sense is because you just cannot account for that number of players. Skill-excluded. Smaller teams mean better play and a better experience. Additionally, having every single mode locked at 4 players means map design should flourish, as they know exactly what to design them towards. In the past, some maps felt like clear 6v6 maps and were too big for 3v3 and vice versa.

I'd also like to point out that 4v4 sounds like the perfect size too. 3v3 was always cool, but it always felt slightly empty, but that extra person would really help push it to feel perfect.

Sounds fine to me, I used to like 4v4 Halo 2

I bet it's better for the competitive scene, but as a casual pvper I'm more in the "the more, the merrier" camp.

Smaller game mode types are always going to have an issue with a certain selection of people that don't want to have the pressure to compete as well as the rest of your team. The less players on a team and the more that pressure increases. There really isn't a good solution for this other than having modes that accommodate different team sizes. For Destiny, it's hard for me to speak because I don't know how the PvP changed after I stopped playing right before the first DLC.

So, from the outside looking in, four seems like a sweet spot to me. Any lower and I think you're really turning off some casual players and any higher you're running into it being too chaotic like others have brought up.

Sounds like a downgrade to me. 6v6 is already a low number and easily low enough for competitive play/esports.

This is me as well. I'm not great, so not having the team's success rest so heavily on me was nice.

I don't like low team count games because I can't hide the fact I did terribly. I played some Quake Champions and holy hell, 4v4 sucks especially in that game. That said this makes sense in the realm of esports. I was always under the assumption that people who cared about Destiny PvP liked the low team modes more. And even in my brief time with Destiny, 6v6 seemed a bit too much some times.

4v4 is better for the health of the competitive aspect of the game but I think in the end it will weed out a lot of the more casual playerbase, people who just want to jump in for a few rounds and mess around. The move to 4v4 for every mode makes every mode more competitive by default. I'm curious if they'll end up changing that somewhere down the line and until we have a chance to play it for a while, its all just assumption anyways.

Ensures that I pretty much never touch PVP. I'm a casual player and played solo the vast majority of the time. That being said, this isn't my first rodeo, and can hold my own most of the time in PVP. On good days with decent team mates I was usually at the top of the scoreboard. This is a death sentence to people like me. It means I'll almost always get matched with other random people, and against teams of four friends.

It also means I'm going to dislike the map design more probably. I remember from the beta the map on the moon with vehicles and stuff. That was dope. After launch there was never a single vehicle map in rotation, or made for DLC. For Bungie to seemingly abandon any vehicle combat in multiplayer is beyond disappointing.

Their game isn't built in a way that makes super competitive and serious multiplayer fun. They should have embraced the chaos and dome something crazy like some 10 on 10 modes or something fresh. Now it just looks like they're trying to make a bad version of Halo 5's multiplayer without the variety

From a Veteran Destiny players perspective, 6v6 was far too chaotic to be fun the vast majority of the time. It took away what made Destiny beautiful which was thoughtful play, controlling the map, having to know when to push or back off of players. It was a very cerebral game. When Destiny launched I absolutely despised it's PvP, which is why I pretty much only played PvE like Raids and Nightfalls. That all changed during House of Wolves when Trials of Osiris first launched and some kindly gents from around here (@ll_exile_ll, @pyrodactyl, @acidbrandon18, @veggiesbro, etc) showed me the ropes and took me to the Lighthouse for the first time or two. After playing 3s, between Elimination, and my then favorite Skirmish (Salvage is and always will be a garbage mode IMO), I realized that it wasn't Destiny's PvP I didn't like, but rather the uncontrollable chaos that was, is, and will always be in 6s. No joke, I played a game of Clash the other day and had 8 straight deaths to Supers within 2 minutes (this wasn't Mayhem btw). You frequently are killed from across the map while engaging in 1v1 situations, and it's just always been extremely hard to maintain any form of map control without running a full fireteam of 6 all coordinating their movements (even then its still difficult). Add to this the fact that Destiny's maps were either Designed for 6v6 or 3v3, then used for both, and you have maps with extremely awkward engagement angles when you are on the opposite (way too clutter in 6s, or way too sparse in 3s). Destiny, in my opinion, formed over more than 1,000 hours just in Crucible, worked much better in 3's, with the only problem being a little too much time between engagements.

4v4 fixes that by locking down map size, built from the ground up for 4v4 Crucible. The size is nice because it creates a nice size matchup between solo players, 3s, 2s, and 4 man teams. It is, like many are talking about, perfect for pushing Destiny closer towards a true Competitive Multiplayer game. But I don't think that in any way interferes with or hinders the Casual PvP community behind Destiny 2.

@falconer: That's not entirely true. Destiny launched with both Bastion and First Light as Vehicle enable PvP modes that were in random rotation of Clash and Control if I remember correctly. 1 of the 3 maps added during The Dark Below was Skyshock, another Vehicle enable map (and the only other one that would be added to Destiny). The problem with Vehicle maps in Destiny is they were always relegated to a specific playlist called Combined Arms. Said playlist was seen by Bungie as a event playlist, similar to Iron Banner. It's never really been available more than once or twice per month that I can remember, but during Rise of Iron the Combined Arms playlist seemed to come up more frequently than it had in the past due to how they changed Crucible map rotation. They again changed said map rotation for Age of Triumph which has led to Combined Arms rarely being featured again. I wouldn't at all be opposed to them launching a DLC map or two that is large and 8v8 to reintroduce a Combined Arms playlist. It would be especially interesting since there have been hints that Destiny 2 will allow players to utilize an actual tank in combat either on a specific mission or on Patrol, or both. The reason I have very different feeling on Combined Arms than 6v6 is that both Combined Arms and Mayhem were always just goofy fun PvP modes. I really hope Destiny 2 has something like that, just a goofy relaxing PvP mode.

@hestilllives19: Ah, well that explains why I never saw them then. I feel like they didn't do a good job of communicating that then. They always make a big deal about Iron Banner on social media, but I don't remember ever seeing anything about Combined Arms.

Im not great at multi player shooters. To me, having less team mates means I need to perform even better only putting more pressure on me. I will probably not play very much of Destiny 2 PVP.

To the people fearful that smaller teams means they'll have to play better: that all depends on the matchmaking Bungie will be doing. If it works right, you won't 'suck'. You'll be on the same level as everyone else.

It does seem like they are trying to cater a bit more to the competitive players with this change though. But as a competitive player myself, I obviously do not mind. It is by far the most fun I've ever had with an online shooter in a competitive setting. I'm happy Destiny 2 moves to emphasize that further. But if the matchmaking works properly, people who are less competitive should also have a good time with it. I'm guessing at least the various PvP events will attract even those that aren't normally into PvP as it did before.

@zevvion: I really hope they do some serious overhauling to what Destiny currently does in that regard. Putting Skill Based Matchmaking in regular Crucible and Card Based in Trials is a weird mix. Especially when they don't seem to be doing anything to beef up the networking architecture surrounding Destiny 2 as they refused to comment about tickrate, matchmaking algorithms, netcode, etc, and have only confirmed NO Dedicated Servers which means Destiny will once again freely give away our IP information to opposing players (not really happy about that). The only comment was Luke Smith saying we've bolstered the technology behind Destiny 2, whatever that means. Hopefully they have at minimum drastically improved Destiny's horrible net code, made the tickrate actually 30 on consoles and at least 60 on PC, and ideally also added a Ranked/Unranked playlist setting so that they can keep the current SBMM in Ranked and have a reason to play the SBMM version and a pure Connection Based system for Unranked. The reason this is a great system is that everyone can have great connections in regular Crucible, and both your top tier players and bottom tier players can play in the Ranked playlist and be matched with similarly skilled opponents. It's a system that works for everyone. But Destiny's current always on SBMM system just leads to horribly connected matches on the top end constantly because the system refuses to match outside of your skill level and grabs players from all the way around the world. On the competitive side, with Trials, the Card Based Matchmaking system needs to be retooled as well. I'd love to see Pure Connection Based MM until games 8, 9, and 9+ (that is if Trials is still 9 win based) where it does Card Based Matchmaking again. It would keep that competitive spirit alive but improve connection quality significantly. There is no denying how much less latency was involved with Trials matches prior to Card Based Matchmaking being introduced, and to be honest, games past 7 wins are horrific anymore since the population has dipped below 300,000 each weekend. Now that Trials will likely be 4v4, considerations for Connection Quality will be of utmost importance if you ask me. Honestly, these are my biggest concerns for Destiny 2 PvP, these "Unknowns", rather than the change to 4v4 Crucible.

I just realized, Iron banner (or the Iron banner equivalent) is going to be playable now!

Not sure how many people in the Destiny bubble realize this but Destiny PVP is a very fast game noisy and often difficult to read a brutal experience for newer / unskilled players having smallers team won't mean git gud, the slower movement and increased TTK will give people more time to think and be alive less players will also help too but with the added benefit having more available hosts and less burden on one creating a better connection in game.

There are more important metrics, but, this does make it seem like the mode will be less chaotic, which could be better for people at my level.

That said, the fewer people there are, the harder it will be for me to shoot unsuspecting better players in the back...

I'm mostly a Battlefield player when it comes to PvP, so when people use "chaotic" as a negative descriptor, I am confused.

@veektarius: Chaotic just means uncontrollable in this sense. For a game trying, like Destiny does, to assert some sort of competitive nature, being able to control your surrounding environment and other players as much as possible is very beneficial. It's not something that is even really possible in games like Call of Duty or Battlefield. But it certainly was in 3v3 Destiny. Your movement, map positioning, and map awareness, all dictate how a match would play out the vast majority of the time. If you lost, you either made a mistake, they made an extraordinary play, or a mix of those two. It's what made the game fun, like a moving parts chess match with guns.

@hestilllives19: Ah, but I don't like chess! Your move...

Nah mate. I want more players, not less. Give me 12v12. I am most def in the minority here, but the PvP was the only thing I liked about Destiny. I literally hit the level cap by only playing PvP, the only single player stuff I did was playing up to the second mission on the Moon, bought all my gear using marks and Motes of Light earned in the crucible. I could not give a fuck less about competitive play, I want big, dumb, fun bullshit. I want as much chaos as humanly possible. I wanna wreck at least 6 players with every Fist of Havoc. 4v4 sounds badumb to me.

I think it's good. Gives it more of a squad vs. squad feel. Make matches feel more personal and less chaotic, for lack of a better word. But I was never huge on the multiplayer, so maybe it'll actually suck.

Though, I would love to see a separate mode that just blows everything out and includes vehicles and stuff a la Halo. 8v8, 12v12, big maps, etc. In fact, weren't vehicles in the MP at some point? I remember riding around in one of those hover bike things with guns, and also there being turret emplacements around the map (Moon map I think). Build up that stuff alongside the smaller-scale stuff, and include CTF.

My Destiny friends and I have been talking about it a lot. My feelings on Destiny PvP shifted so much over my tumultuous relationship over its lifespan. The first two months of Vanilla Destiny, I played exclusively Clash. Now, it's my least favorite mode. When Rift was introduced, I thought it was a fun, joke mode, then a stupid joke mode, now I love it for its teamwork and map control. I hated my first experience with Trials, now I'm a fan, but as I only really play casually with my friends, the best I've ever done is 6 or 7 wins.

I'm going to really miss 6v6. I think all the 3v3 modes transition well to 4v4, but a lot of 6v6 doesn't transition down to 4v4. Control will have to be reworked or brought down to 2 control points. Rift cannot exist in its current state. I understand when good Destiny players say they dislike 6s due to the chaos. I'm confident enough in my skill and awareness to believe that if it's me and one other player at primary range, I'm going to win those engagements most of the time. Having someone come in from the side or behind and blindside me is frustrating.

But I worry that there won't be much game type variety with just 4v4. If Control is two points, how will it differ much from Countdown? With smaller maps, outside of Clash/Rumble, engagements will happen at the same points. I haven't studied a bunch of footage of PvP from the reveal, and its only one map, but it felt as small as any map in Destiny 1, a typical left-middle-right/top-middle-bottom trilane map.

My friends have told me to cool it; there hasn't been enough revealed yet for me to panic over. I've seen one strike, one mission, one PvP map & mode, and a few subclasses. I'm trying to not worry - plus, that reveal, overall, got me pretty excited. Basically, I need to start appreciating that D2 will be its own game and may not have every little bit of what I love from D1. But as someone kind of in between a casual Destiny PvPer and a hardcore one, losing 6s makes me a little sad. That and the diamond-shaped subclass blocks (the need to use one or the other, as opposed to mixing-and-matching); I understand the reasons why Bungie would do it the way they have, but I don't fully agree with them. But again, it's months away and there is more to learn.

@omniscientcajun: Rift is basically Bomb from Halo and Control is Strongholds in H5 which has three cap zones both work well in 4v4. Countdown has one team attacking to arm either one of two objectives with the other team defending after scoring or failing to the teams swap roles first to 5 wins, Countdown is Counterstrike having nothing in common with control. Destiny 2 lacking game type variety wouldn't down to the 4v4 team size, Destiny after three years has far fewer modes than Bungie launched with in Reach.

I'm in the casual (i.e. bad) PvP camp, so this isn't good news for me. I liked the 6v6 and the free for all mode.

I'll still jump in every now and then for variety, so I apologize in advance for ruining your 4 man team.

@ares42: This way a team wipe by ultimate ability will be less effective.

and from what i remember the ultimate ability meter charges up fast in Destiny!