Somebody once asked why I use set roll weapons when I play Destiny…
Destiny is heavy on random number generation (RNG). In a game full of RNG, I want to avoid relying on it to the greatest extent possible.
First and foremost, I detest farming: I find it boring.
Secondly, Bungie has the habit of committing sweeping changes to the game-world in its weapon balance updates. Consider:
Armor Piercing Rounds
Shoot to Loot
Shot Package shotguns
Rangefinder shotguns
Braced Frame Clever Dragon
… and many more!
Finally, I want viewers of my stream to know that they can achieve my level of performance.
There may come a time where I will be forced to lean on the various god-roll weapons that I keep stashed away in my vault to remain competitive. However, I will not deviate from my policy as long as possible.
Just because I limit myself to vendor rolls and set drops doesn’t mean that you have to. At the end of the day, you play the game how you want to – don’t let me force your hand.
The Destiny Trials Report team (@TrialsReport) DMed me a dataset giving Trials of Osiris K/D for players who have played 50 or more Trials of Osiris matches. The data covers Trials of Osiris from the launch of Destiny: Rise of Iron to the end of Trials of Osiris on Black Shield this past weekend.
A total 726,830 accounts (308,982 on Xbox, 417,848 on PlayStation) met the filtering criterion for 50 or more Trials of Osiris matches played.
The following tables depict player counts and K/Ds for each percentile.
Table 1: Trials of Osiris K/Ds, Percentiles, and Number of Players Below Each K/D (Xbox)
Percentile
Players Below
K/D
99
305,893
1.96
97
299,713
1.67
95
293,533
1.54
90
278,084
1.36
75
231,737
1.12
62.591
193,395
1
50
154,491
0.88
Table 2: Trials of Osiris K/Ds, Percentiles, and Number of Players Below Each K/D (PlayStation)
Percentile
Players Below
K/D
99
413,670
1.96
97
405,313
1.67
95
396,956
1.54
90
376,064
1.35
75
313,386
1.1
64.411
269,139
1
50
208,924
0.86
I was a little surprised to learn that the average Trials of Osiris player has a K/D below 1.0. I have some ideas why this might be the case.
Here’s the same data, represented in a scatter plot:
Chart 1: Number of Players vs. Trials of Osiris K/D
Background
I was chatting with iwz delta on the afternoon of Wednesday (February 22, 2017), and I brought up statistics, specifically how players like us are a rarity in the Destiny population. Both of us are anti-meta players who have achieved some degree of success.
During the conversation, I talked with him about the bell curve, and I posited that Destiny’s player population was probably distributed as such.
The conversation still lingering in my mind, I reached out to the Destiny Trials Report team on Twitter:
@TrialsReport Do you know where I might find a breakdown of Trials K/D by percentile? <3
Soon afterwards, I received a response, linking me to a tweet by SilverAndSlaver:
Ever wondered how your K/D stacks up against other Trials players? I looked into it thanks to data from @TrialsReport and here's the results pic.twitter.com/QpBVlx4RjR
SilverAndSlayer didn’t have plans to revisit the analysis for a month, so I took it upon myself to begin poring over whatever data I could obtain. I briefly considered enlisting outside help to programmatically scrape Trials of Osiris K/Ds, and was elated when the Destiny Trials Report team reached out with data.
A big thank you to Destiny Trials Report for improving the quality of life for all us Destiny Trials of Osiris players, and for providing me with this dataset!
More
We have the data, now what?
Theoretical distribution of player K/Ds – does it hold true?
The following are my casual observations – I’m open to hearing what my fellow guardians have experienced since update 2.5.0.2 went live.
Sidearm usage has skyrocketed – many players sound surprised when they talk about how deadly sidearms are. The Last Word vs. Sidearm is a 50/50 trade, with sidearms edging out The Last Word in a startling number of situations. It’s tough times for my go-to hand cannon, and I’ve begun running meta loadouts to increase my individual lethality in firefights.
Had Bungie been more conservative with their experimentation, they could have collected clearer data on how the shotgun nerf affected special weapon selection. We probably would not have seen such an expedient rise in the proportion of sidearm kills relative to other weapons had Bungie opted against introducing such drastic changes to special ammo behavior (removing all special ammo from players between rounds, with the glaring exception of sidearms) between rounds of Elimination.
I suspect that Bungie will eat their liver on this recent change to special ammo behavior. The present state of special ammo allows players to use sidearms as they would primary weapons. In essence, everyone and their grandmother is running around with a pocket The Last Word, only with more rounds and greater potency.
I would be pleased to see a reduction to sidearm base range – we’ll see, in time.
Amazon’s Twitch Prime offered me and other Amazon Prime members a free subscription to any Twitch streamer, and I used mine to subscribe to DrLupo’s stream. After learning that there was a Discord server for subscribers, I got into it by linking my Twitch account with Discord, and made my introduction. I posted in the LFG channel for Xbox One, and stepped away.
By morning, I received a couple of responses from people who were also interested in playing Trials of Osiris. I looked them up, and added them to my friends list.
On Sunday, I fired up Destiny, intending to run Trials until I grew bored of it. I hit up IcarusUndead, one of the guys from DrLupo’s Discord server. IcarusUndead had never gone to the Lighthouse, and I made it my personal mission to see to it that we’d get there.
Shortly after we got into a party, a guy that I’ve played with in the past, Leonaeu Reeves, invited me to chat. Leonaeu Reeves established a reputation for trash-talking other players and talking himself up, even though he’s an overwhelmingly average player.
The last time that I played Destiny with Leonaeu Reeves, he wanted to get carried through the King’s Fall raid on Heroic, and he hadn’t boned up on any of the raid mechanics. I should have bailed when even his clanmates ghosted on him, but I really wanted to knock out the Oryx challenge, and I stuck with it through an overwhelming number of wipes. Details of these many failed attempts can be found in the following two pages:
This, combined with his attitude in our post-raid discussion, left a sour taste in my mouth.
I took us to the Classic Free-for-All playlist for warmup, and to gauge the competence and attitude of IcarusUndead against Leonaeu Reeves. The first game that we instanced into (bungie.net/en/Legend/PGCR?instanceId=5704046696&characterId=2305843009259344551) was already in progress – we joined in just as the heavy ammo spawn was announced.
I lucked out, spawning in near C heavy. I killed a player near C spawn, and secured heavy, clawing my way up the scoreboard. My two fireteam members were not as fortunate, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles.
When the scoreboard came up, Leonaeu Reeves lamented how I’d gotten control of heavy ammo. I acknowledged that it provided me with a leg up, but also told him that I had to defeat two players in order to secure it in the first place.
We queued up again, looking for a fresh game.
“I don’t like Rumble,” he griped.
Fool, how else do you expect to increase your personal competence? There’s nothing better than subjecting yourself to the chaos of free-for-all and learning from your every encounter.
I told Leonaeu Reeves that I’d get back in touch with him after the run, and he left the party.
I searched DestinyLFG.net for a suitable Trials partner. IcarusUndead and I went through two failed runs before picking up a third player who stuck with us until we hit a flawless passage. I asked my fireteam whether they’d be down to keep playing for a chance to get the Vigilant Disciple, Destiny’s year three “Scarab” emblem, and they were game.
While we forged on in hopes of obtaining the emblem, I received messages from Leonaeu Reeves, which I responded to bluntly:
Messages received from “Leonaeu Reeves” on Xbox Live
I blocked him and moved on, but the incident warranted reflection. I could have done more to avoid hurting Leonaeu Reeves’s feelings.
The run: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArHZdL_X1tg
I want to close with this: no one owes you anything. You want something? Go earn it, or play the lottery and hope that it’s your lucky day, but don’t cry when you don’t end up with the golden ticket.
