The eternal question of Guardian Games is not which class is the best, but which class will get a Bungie-weighted algorithm that works in their favor. And now we appear to have an answer to that.
In Guardians Games 2024, we had Hunters positively dominating the event as every day, they would rack up more points than other classes in featured activities. Some of this was player population, but some of it was players moving to their alt Hunter to play and almost surely win, given the 10-15 or so event weapons you get from each winners package.
Bungie saw that this was happening, and this past week, said they were tweaking the balancing of the classes so the others had a chance. Now? Titans are on top, and not just on top, but utterly crushing the other classes every session without fail. We’re talking 3-5x the number of points as other classes, far higher than the advantages Hunters ever had.
This time around, there are likely three reasons for this happening. Well, two and a half.
- The algorithm boosted Titans to an absurd degree. Possibly where it’s even a bug where the boost was implemented incorrectly. Regardless, it is something Bungie will have to walk back, but if so, it might even be too late. And it seems like they’d probably just throw days at Warlock next if we’re continuing the loop.
- Also, people are still just doing the same thing as with Hunters, seeing Titans winning and not bothering to play anything else but Titan if you have access to one, even if it’s not your main, to get that valuable winner package. Getting those packages also is necessary for a permanent, exotic version of the Skimmer hoverboard introduced during the Games.
- Finally, I am told that one of the most popular Destiny 2 streamers, Aztecross, has promised to stream in a maid outfit if Titans win. So that appears to be motivating some.
I don’t like Guardians Games because the whole class competition thing never makes sense. Hunters are the most numerous so they would always win if there was no weighting. But because there has to be weighting, it often doesn’t come down to “effort” by other classes, but simply who the algorithm favors. And in this case, there’s also poor incentive structure. You can jump around to any class you want rather than just committing to one, so you surge toward the winning one to get prizes that are miles better than anything else you can grind out during the event. This year’s may be one of the worst balanced I’ve ever seen, and that’s saying something, as this always goes pretty poorly.
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