The big Destiny 2 Trials of Osiris overhaul is nearly here, and Bungie's done a lot to make the PvP mode more accessible and worthwhile.
Designer Alan Blaine broke things down in detail over on Bungie's blog. The short version is that in addition to making Trials more secure with the addition of BattlEye anti-cheat, Bungie wants to motivate more players to participate in the event and for them to feel rewarded for doing so.
That's going to play out in a few ways. Firstly, you'll be able to matchmake without a full fireteam, though you'll be at the mercy of random teammates. There will also be something of a solo Trials playlist in the future, putting you against other players who are queueing on their own. Bungie warned that "going Flawless on your own will be hard-to-impossible," but it will still be a heck of a lot more possible with these matchmaking changes.
As Bungie teased at the big Destiny 2: The Witch Queen reveal, Trials loot is being redistributed. Going forward, you won't get any Trials tokens. Instead, you'll earn Trials reputation for completing matches and winning individual rounds. You'll earn Trials armor and weapons through engrams distributed via reputation rank-ups, just like you would in any other core playlist, with ranks 10 and 16 guaranteeing unique weapons. Plus you'll be able to focus a Trials engram like you would an Umbral engram to tailor your loot.
A big change to Trials Passages underpins all this: Passages are now account-wide and will no longer track losses, meaning you can keep playing the same card until you hit seven wins. If you plan on going Flawless, you'll still need to reset your card if you lose, but if you just want to keep grinding while earning bonuses from rounds, you won't have to start over. The old three, five, and seven-win drops have been removed, but hitting seven wins still gets you an increased chance at extra Trials gear, including high-stat armor. Bungie's hoping that this change keeps people playing Trials for the long-term rather than dipping out after a few wins.
Finally, the rules of game mode itself are getting tightened up. To put another barrier in front of cheaters, you'll need to own the latest annual expansion to access Trials (that's Beyond Light for now, and will be The Witch Queen come February). Matches will be shorter, emotes and swords will be tweaked to prevent peeking around corners, and ammo won't carry over between rounds. Matchmaking will also better account for your Trials performance as well as your current card status to help prevent PvP gods from stomping newcomers at lower ranks.
Trials will return on September 10, and Bungie says it will test more Trials changes throughout the Season of the Lost through the return of Crucible Labs, including the aforementioned Trials Freelance playlist.
The last expansion in Destiny 2's current saga is official: The Final Shape.
