Skill Gap: PC vs Console

I think playing on PC makes you realize what is possible with the game via movement and freedom in aiming. OSK recently hopped onto console to avoid cheaters on PC and he's been absolutely smashing teams. Like the decision making you have after you've played on PC is just not comparable.

Top tier controller players on pc are the same. Just playing with and around pc players will make your gameplay better. I think once crossplay is available, there will be an initial dip, but controller players will learn to adapt and catch up without too much trouble. Input methods aren't a huge deal, just learn to play around the weaknesses of controller. The number 1 faceit player plays on controller.

Honestly until Bungie has a hard fist over cheating and people running on potato speed Internet, I don’t think they should be taking these ambitions to begin with. It’ll be nice having faster queues and playing with friends on other platforms but they have plenty of issues they need to iron out before that.

DDOS protection is finally hitting consoles next season for one; while that’s long needed they need to address all the other detergents going on.

Plus I imagine my buddy on ps4 is going to get absolutely curb-stomped even harder if this becomes mandatory.

I wonder if console playstyles will become more fast and movement-crazy as time goes on and people get more used to the new consoles and aware of their capabilities. People have been trained to play slowly/passively and lane more because on old consoles that was the safer/better bet.

And currently even if you realize you can move more fluidly, if the other team is still stuck in their old ways and hanging back hard-scoped, you won't really be that successful. You need both teams to be playing more aggressively and moving unpredictably to achieve balance in that sense.

This guy's been tearing it up in the freelance comp lobbies on XSX lately. Keep running into him and struggling to win. He uses Tarrabah and hits steady streams of bullets from crazy ranges and slides around like a maniac. I could have sworn he was on MnK but he's not.

The main difference between console and PC for Destiny 2 is the overall pace of the game.

It's SO MUCH SLOWER on console.

Im on ps5 and didn't even know you could "slide backwards" till I saw a PC player do it. But I can't do it. That alone is hard enough to overcome in 1v1

I've played a ton on PS4 and a bit on PC with both controller and MnK. I honestly did fine against the average PC player while using a controller, but there were some players who were far better than the best players I've encountered on console and essentially were never going to lose a primary gunfight to somebody with the kind of limitations controller has.

In terms of control, PC can do things which are either more difficult or impossible on console. Not all of it is hugely gamebreaking, but some of it is pretty ridiculous. Being able to 180 quickly and acquire targets in CQC is something a controller can't do. If you have no dodge/dash, you pretty much just have to guess where they are and hope it works out. This makes hunter jumps really OP on controller. They can simply jump when you push them and there is a decent chance they will kill you simply because you can't turn fast enough. MnK can slide almost independently from where they are looking, including backwards. There are a few things controller players can do to help like different control schemes and buying a controller with paddles, but there are still inherent advantages to MnK which will always persist. I personally didn't play MnK long enough to get really comfortable with it, but I felt like I could use single-shot weapons like HCs easier on MnK while weapons which required tracking like ARs were still easier on controller despite the lack of recoil. I mean, I could hit shots at ranges outside where controller will ever consistently land even with perfect aim simply because of bloom and AA degradation on controller, but when firing in the sweet-spot where controller almost tracks their head for you, controller was easier.

The metas (in terms of playstyle) were somewhat similar, but still pretty different. On controller, range is more of a hard cap. A few meters after damage dropoff you basically can't even hit the target no matter what. PC you can still put damage in and damage floor comes into play a bit more. PC has more aerial combat because of the precision of MnK and that on most control schemes for controller you have to take your thumbs off the stick to jump/dodge, then move it back to shoot. There are just a lot of little things that add up.

Overall, yes, the average PC player is better than console. Good console players won't suddenly be unable to compete, but everybody on console will be brought down a tier if PvP crossplay in enabled. Only the absolute best console players will be able to hang with the top ~10% on MnK.

I think that FOV on old consoles will turn out to be a major disadvantage. I watched a demo of fov settings with warzone and I would be same thing happens: guy with higher fov sees enemy before enemy sees guy...this will apply to console vs console and I am wondering when the fallout will start. Only tried pc crucible a couple of times (with controller) and it was bad but not that bad...ie getting destroyed...the difference between the feel of weapons is actually mental. I would go to that thing for season of the worthy on the EDZ when it was bugged on my console( ie open destiny on stream) and try guns out. Every gun was like a laser beam. If I had the hang of m+k there is no way I wouldnt be better. The movement and awareness at higher fov is just superior and the ease of recoil and aiming is 1000% better. I tried to replace my sticks on the xbox controller...there is a site you can go to to test out your drift and I did that. Its actually crazy hard to move straight left right because of the joystick design...same with moving at an angle on any plane...there are no straight lines!!! Thus m+k have a natural advantage because of the mechanical movement of a joystick...on m+k you are moving around on a 2D plane whereas the controller joystick gives you a way different experience. In game modes like crucible this matters a lot...pve it matters but its not going to ruin the experience if you are on a joystick.

The two ecosystems are different but people can adapt quickly, e.g. COD modern warfare has cross play and controllers are on an equal fighting field with MnK. However, time will tell how people will adapt.

I wont mention names but dude was openly doing recovs and had around 200 viewers. I would assume the guy is pretty good.

However I watched for an hour and a half and just wasnt impressed. He looked sloppy. Lots of missed shots. Tons of just camping and laning. He trampled most teams, but only because they made dumb mistakes.

If they're doing recovs, and easily steamrolling teams, then it really wouldn't surprise me if they're just being lazy. Why put in more effort than you absolutely need to? Especially if they're paid recovs. It's basically just grinding a job at that point.

In terms of skill and player population differences I'm not too certain on how to assess the below (based on last week's trials numbers):

• Playstation: 42,805 players, 7,357 flawless (17.6%) - 167,309 matches (3.9 per player)
• Xbox: 37,751 players, 4,490 flawless (11.9%) - 141,788 matches (3.8 per player)
• Steam: 31,100 players, 8,205 flawless (26.4%) - 123,599 matches (4 per player)

So we have a situation where the platform with the lowest population has the highest flawless rate - with some pretty sizeable discrepancies between them. Steam players are playing more matches on average, where Xbox players are playing less overall.

I could see an argument from the above numbers that either Steam or Xbox has the highest skill delta, with Playstation in the middle either way.

Would be interested to see the long term trend but I don't have time to do that.

Overall my view is that if crossplay is forced then players will adapt, and that a lot of the issues will be covered up by pure population for most game modes most of the time. Your average console player and your average PC player are probably pretty equivalent in skill - it's more the top 0.5-1% that you'd really start seeing significant differences.

You'll have PC players complaining they were bullshitted on flawless by console players, and the same the other way.

I play on Xbox (Series X) and PC. I have a PS4 but haven't played Destiny on PlayStation since the Forsaken era. I've played a bit on Stadia to try it out, but don't have a ton of experience there.

My thoughts:

1. Crossplay should be default ON with an easy OPT-OUT option. If you don't notice you're playing PC players, who cares. If you do notice and you don't want to do it anymore, it should take you 2 seconds to rectify the problem from the game settings. If the default was to opt-out and you had to manually opt-in, nobody would do it and crossplay might as well not exist. On by default with an easy opt-out is the way to go in 2021.

2. I have no idea who you watched, nor do I play on Playstation but as an Xbox and PC player my first-hand experience is that contrary to popular belief the average Xbox player is actually better than the average PC player in normal quickplay-like playlists like Control. On the high-end in modes like Trials this is not the case, but in general Crucible I run into way more sweaty players on Xbox than on PC. PC seems to have more tourist free-to-play people in the quickplay modes, whereas almost everyone still playing Crucible on Xbox is an old Destiny diehard sweat.

3. As an Xbox-main player, assuming Bungie does the right thing with crossplay (default on, with opt-out option) I only plan to opt-out for Trials and only then to avoid the possibility of running into cheaters late-card. In modes where a single loss doesn't really matter, I'll gladly match into the PC population.

My main gripe is the sensitivity of controller is far too slow in general. It’s terrible slow on 10. I play warzone, Gears 5 and other games and the sensitivity can be adjusted exactly to how you want. You can’t do that in D2

if they'd let controller players customize their controls more, i think a lot more people would find that they're way better than they think on controller without a bunch of arbitrary handicaps on what settings they can fucks with

I play controller on pc and it’s literally just the sensitivity that needs changing. Even on 10 it’s way too slow. Against MnK players in close quarters they can fly around me and I can barely keep track of them. I have had to change my whole play style since coming to PC just to deal with. As an agressive Titan too it’s taken a lot of getting used to... praying they can up the sensitivity one day. I would be so happy

well yeah but on console we can't just activate the cheats

PS: not shitting on console players. Im just one guy making an observation. Id like to see others opinions.

Yes you are you dick.

I play both console and pc with a controller, and I can say that console is significantly easier to play on than PC simply because I don't have to go up against M and K. Even though the recoil is more manageable and the FOV is higher on PC, I still prefer console because I am not at a disadvantage against other players.

Console main here on a series x, I dabble in pc occasionally with a controller.

In qp I can easily still be top of the board, when I play solo comp tho it's torture. Mnk aim is cracked and I'd hate to know what a trials card would be like against pc players.

I for one am hoping for an opt in, specifically opt in per platform. Id love to open up my player base with ps5 but don't want to have to deal with pc.

If cross play isn't opt in its going to absolutely destroy the console player base, probs be the first time ever that I'll actually be forced to put the game down.

Wait until they make Traction a “must have” for MnK players.

Frame rates are going to be the real enemy for console players.

Better players are still faster than average players on console, but the overall pace is a bit slower by necessity. You cannot slide shotgun someone, flip a 180 mid-slide, and shotgun someone behind/above you like you can on PC. Player engagements have to be more tactical in general due to the controller aim speed. Not to mention effective range is much more important on controller because you lose reticle friction and get a lot of ghost bullets beyond weapon effective range. Players can be much more reckless on mnk than on controller due to the bullet ghosting thing alone.

I prefer using a controller, but I do not like playing against mnk even when I am using mnk. The reason is because the speed of mnk negates a lot of play styles and loadouts that are viable on console where it is all controller users, and are a lot of fun too. I can compete with mnk players while using a controller, but it's a real fun-sucker because I have to play certain ways. I hope crossplay is opt-in.

im not really sure to be honest, but theres def a lack of settings for controller on console. I have the series x, ive played destiny on pc before but just stuck with pve.to be honest i didnt like using a mouse and keyboard.

Movement feels more accurate, but i dont feel any faster. What i mean by this is that on things like jumping puzzles, it has become so much easier with the boost in frame rate.

im kind of like true vanguard in teh sense that i love that nostalgic arena feel controllers bring. Ill say that the frame rate boost is huge for aiming. its harder for me to miss shots, and i had pretty good aim at 30fps (compared to the rest of the console population). If they added more settings for controller, like turn speed etc, i think it could help console players tighten the gap against mnk.

Also on the series x, the frame rate is really consistent in pvp. I rarely ever notice a dip in frames. I can def do a lot more in engagements too, but i cant react nearly as quickly as a pc player would.