Last week, Bungie discussed the outcome of the first Trials Lab: Capture Zone event. It was a success in some ways, and a failure in others. The bottom line seemed to be that despite there being three zones, one on each team’s side and a tie-breaker in the middle, the middle zone was always the one that defined which team would win. This isn’t what Bungie had in mind when launching this mode, so it needs to add in some more neutral zones away from team spawns.
I agree with this wholeheartedly. I think that Capture is such a hard game mode to get right in many ways. The core of the issue is always that there are certain zones that are hard to capture once the enemy has them and is defending them. If that zone is the one that defines the winner, then it can be an unfair advantage depending on where it’s placed. Map layouts have easier routes to zones from one side or the other. Iron Banner always makes this more obvious, but you’ve just got to live with it in many cases.
Bungie has the opportunity to look at Trials maps and define the correct place that’s fair for both sides in the upcoming changes for Trials Labs: Capture Zone. It could place them in the wrong area and make the game mode so much less fun to play, or put them somewhere that makes this competitive mode even more competitive.
I’m excited to see what Bungie does. I think it knows how to get this right, but it’s only going to be right if feedback from Guardians is taken on board each week. We’ve already heard that it’s listening to Guardians when it comes to feedback from that initial week, so I don’t see why more feedback wouldn’t be welcomed.
We should all prepare for this to be the main focus for Bungie at the moment. It’s not going to look at other competitive modes while it’s trying to get this right. If we put too much pressure on it, then it’ll move away too fast and this potentially fantastic new mode could be left stunted with zones that give a clear advantage to one side or the other.
Let us know what you think about Trials Labs: Capture Zone in the comments.
