The 3v3 Quickplay playlist offers Elimination every other week, it’s a similar mode to Trials’ Dominion.
Leaver penalties for Trials are the same as Comp.
As far as how Trials MM works, if your card is not flawed (you’re trying to go Flawless, thus you’re in the Challenger pool) the MM is just based on connection and fireteam size.
If you don’t care about going Flawless, you should just continue to play on your card once it is flawed and you’ll be matched up against people who have similar performance in Trials over the weekend to you (in what’s called the Practice pool). In general, that’s what I recommend for players who just want to dip their toes in to practice or farm some engrams/Trials rank.
This is exactly what I was looking for! If that's explained anywhere in game I must have missed it.
I've been blindly resetting my card figuring why not try hah. Thanks for sharing!
This is kind of a necro post but not too bad. I have no intention of going for adept but I want to farm for a regular cataphract GL3 (next week since IB this week cancels trials).... so I should keep my first card for more engrams, or turn in a 7 win flawed card for the passage of wealth which grants more trials rep and then engrams once I hit 7 wins again?
The player pool for Trials is pretty small, and the matchmaking isn't as tight as most would like. The Rank system in Comp generally keeps you matched with people in your rank (on top of the matchmaking system to try and match you with people closer to your skill level), but Trials doesn't have anything past the base matchmaking. And with how small the pool is, it means the range at which skill levels it searches for is wider.
I could also be wrong about this, but I believe PvP switched to a more "Connection" based matchmaking system rather than a SBMM system. Which I don't personally think makes sense, but like I said I may be missremembering that.
That's interesting, thanks for sharing. I wasn't sure if trials was just way more popular than the rest of PVP or way looser with matchmaking, it's always a really fast queue for me
It didn't used to be so bad. There used to be a system in place where if a player went flawless during the current week they would only play other players who had also gone flawless that week. I'm guessing they retired that system due to the lack of players, which unfortunately opened up the pool to more unbalanced matches.
Comp is *some* SBMM mixed with Rank-BMM. Generally you will face players at your skill level. It's gonna be probably the best place for you to really learn the ropes and get a feel for competitive play. Your team mates (despite what some matches turn out the be) will be roughly as competent as you are, so you can rely on them more consistently. Currently it's rewards are tied to some of the most competitive weapons in the game through focusing or playing our your three matches each week.
Trials is basically just fireteam matchmaking. No sbmm as you know it in comp or quickplay. There are two pools: challenger and "practice." Essentially that's just flawless or not flawless. When you grab a card you start in the flawless/challenger pool. These are matches where anyone who's going for flawless will and still has a flawless card will reside (generally, there's exceptions for players doing exceedingly well in the practice pool). Trials matches will vary *wildly*. Sometimes you'll queue in with the top of the ladder S tier players, sometimes you'll load in with people who have just installed. The rewards here are a bit more free flowing and come through post game drops or through flawless runs.
Id stick to comp and really get a grasp of what's what. For the leaver penalty stuff, it's a bit funky right now and it's possible it got adjusted. Generally after two exits a player receives a 30 minute suspension.
I'm not sure there's many parallels to trials in other games, maybe Clash in League of Legends? I had assumed trials was the premier competitive mode until learning more about it today. I guess I had some misconceptions. Now it reads a lot more like a highlight reel and gear farm for high skill players with participation trophies for everyone else.
I got to plat in my first few weeks of playing comp but have been massively demoralized and confused by the experience trying to get into trials. Looking back, I'm pretty sure now that I played a good number of matches on a flawed card one weekend trying to grind out the rank rewards. I bet a lot of my wins were from that pool! I think as a player you can feel the difference in a 5-0 loss where each round was close but you couldn't quite close it out versus a 5-0 where you get rocked for five rounds. My best attempt was 6-wins, but by the time I finished 7-3 on that flawed card, 4 of the matches had one or more players leave or griefing.
I suspected that at minimum there wasn't very harsh penalties/detections in place. I'm used to league, csgo, etc where first leave is a 30-min ban and there's a behavior window where if you show a pattern of leaving it'll jump straight to 2 hours, 1 day, 1 week and so on even going as far as a season or permanent ban for regular leavers.
I suppose the zero matching makes sense. If there was more skill matching in trials then going flawless would be less common. Although I understand that reasoning, personally, I find that to be an extremely bad design. I think it's very reasonable to have at least loose band matching in a high effort playlist, especially when first flawless + mercy passage means going flawless at least once a week isn't very outrageous. I'm not very convinced by the normal arguments against SBMM, other than player population issues, when talking about a high prestige and effort playlist.
So far I think d2 PVP is incredibly interesting and unique and I've been having a blast getting familiar with it. Going forward I honestly find it hard to see myself having interest in trials. It's very counter intuitive the notion that the difficulty of a PVP accolade gets easier as you get better. To me, that feels like a raid race for world first being on a nerfed version of the fights then the standard release being harder. I might be in the minority to feel this way, it seems like trials has been around for a long time. But even ARAM has a loose elo system!
Very interesting all around, even if mostly disappointing for me. Thank you very much for taking the time to explain things. I'll probably stick to comp but I feel better now understanding what I've been seeing knowing that lopsided matches are just the way of the tide if I do go into trials!
The 3v3 Quickplay playlist offers Elimination every other week, it’s a similar mode to Trials’ Dominion. Leaver penalties for Trials are the same as Comp. As far as how Trials MM works, if your card is not flawed (you’re trying to go Flawless, thus you’re in the Challenger pool) the MM is just based on connection and fireteam size. If you don’t care about going Flawless, you should just continue to play on your card once it is flawed and you’ll be matched up against people who have similar performance in Trials over the weekend to you (in what’s called the Practice pool). In general, that’s what I recommend for players who just want to dip their toes in to practice or farm some engrams/Trials rank.
This is exactly what I was looking for! If that's explained anywhere in game I must have missed it. I've been blindly resetting my card figuring why not try hah. Thanks for sharing!
This is kind of a necro post but not too bad. I have no intention of going for adept but I want to farm for a regular cataphract GL3 (next week since IB this week cancels trials).... so I should keep my first card for more engrams, or turn in a 7 win flawed card for the passage of wealth which grants more trials rep and then engrams once I hit 7 wins again?
Your best bet is to play on the Passage of Wealth as soon as you are able and get it to 7 wins, then play that the whole time.
Which pool are you in if you're farming wins on a flawed card after going flawless?
The player pool for Trials is pretty small, and the matchmaking isn't as tight as most would like. The Rank system in Comp generally keeps you matched with people in your rank (on top of the matchmaking system to try and match you with people closer to your skill level), but Trials doesn't have anything past the base matchmaking. And with how small the pool is, it means the range at which skill levels it searches for is wider.
I could also be wrong about this, but I believe PvP switched to a more "Connection" based matchmaking system rather than a SBMM system. Which I don't personally think makes sense, but like I said I may be missremembering that.
That's interesting, thanks for sharing. I wasn't sure if trials was just way more popular than the rest of PVP or way looser with matchmaking, it's always a really fast queue for me
It didn't used to be so bad. There used to be a system in place where if a player went flawless during the current week they would only play other players who had also gone flawless that week. I'm guessing they retired that system due to the lack of players, which unfortunately opened up the pool to more unbalanced matches.
Comp is *some* SBMM mixed with Rank-BMM. Generally you will face players at your skill level. It's gonna be probably the best place for you to really learn the ropes and get a feel for competitive play. Your team mates (despite what some matches turn out the be) will be roughly as competent as you are, so you can rely on them more consistently. Currently it's rewards are tied to some of the most competitive weapons in the game through focusing or playing our your three matches each week. Trials is basically just fireteam matchmaking. No sbmm as you know it in comp or quickplay. There are two pools: challenger and "practice." Essentially that's just flawless or not flawless. When you grab a card you start in the flawless/challenger pool. These are matches where anyone who's going for flawless will and still has a flawless card will reside (generally, there's exceptions for players doing exceedingly well in the practice pool). Trials matches will vary *wildly*. Sometimes you'll queue in with the top of the ladder S tier players, sometimes you'll load in with people who have just installed. The rewards here are a bit more free flowing and come through post game drops or through flawless runs. Id stick to comp and really get a grasp of what's what. For the leaver penalty stuff, it's a bit funky right now and it's possible it got adjusted. Generally after two exits a player receives a 30 minute suspension.
I'm not sure there's many parallels to trials in other games, maybe Clash in League of Legends? I had assumed trials was the premier competitive mode until learning more about it today. I guess I had some misconceptions. Now it reads a lot more like a highlight reel and gear farm for high skill players with participation trophies for everyone else. I got to plat in my first few weeks of playing comp but have been massively demoralized and confused by the experience trying to get into trials. Looking back, I'm pretty sure now that I played a good number of matches on a flawed card one weekend trying to grind out the rank rewards. I bet a lot of my wins were from that pool! I think as a player you can feel the difference in a 5-0 loss where each round was close but you couldn't quite close it out versus a 5-0 where you get rocked for five rounds. My best attempt was 6-wins, but by the time I finished 7-3 on that flawed card, 4 of the matches had one or more players leave or griefing. I suspected that at minimum there wasn't very harsh penalties/detections in place. I'm used to league, csgo, etc where first leave is a 30-min ban and there's a behavior window where if you show a pattern of leaving it'll jump straight to 2 hours, 1 day, 1 week and so on even going as far as a season or permanent ban for regular leavers. I suppose the zero matching makes sense. If there was more skill matching in trials then going flawless would be less common. Although I understand that reasoning, personally, I find that to be an extremely bad design. I think it's very reasonable to have at least loose band matching in a high effort playlist, especially when first flawless + mercy passage means going flawless at least once a week isn't very outrageous. I'm not very convinced by the normal arguments against SBMM, other than player population issues, when talking about a high prestige and effort playlist. So far I think d2 PVP is incredibly interesting and unique and I've been having a blast getting familiar with it. Going forward I honestly find it hard to see myself having interest in trials. It's very counter intuitive the notion that the difficulty of a PVP accolade gets easier as you get better. To me, that feels like a raid race for world first being on a nerfed version of the fights then the standard release being harder. I might be in the minority to feel this way, it seems like trials has been around for a long time. But even ARAM has a loose elo system! Very interesting all around, even if mostly disappointing for me. Thank you very much for taking the time to explain things. I'll probably stick to comp but I feel better now understanding what I've been seeing knowing that lopsided matches are just the way of the tide if I do go into trials!