Thread by @Destiny2Team

Our PvP Strike team has been delivering a lot of updates on changes coming to the game and we just launched several this week. Some early feedback we are seeing and would like to address:

Control will be available as a selectable mode while Checkmate Control is active. More details to come in this week’s TWID tomorrow.

We see a lot of speculation about Checkmate and what that means for core Crucible. We have no plans to turn Checkmate on across all of Crucible, instead we're aiming for a midway point for ability cooldowns, and weapon tuning that doesn't result in specific weapons dominating.

We're also aware of some issues with Checkmate's special ammo implementation and will be trying various new approaches to improve this system.

Regarding Checkmate TTK (time-to-kill) changes: we will be regularly tuning TTK. Our target going forward is to keep optimal TTK consistent with the current Crucible sandbox; i.e. the fastest you can defeat an opponent will remain unchanged.

Meanwhile, we will be looking to reduce body shot damage. The end result is an increase in the skill gap, where consistent head shots are rewarded with faster TTK.

We are aware that there are spawn issues in Countdown Rush on The Citadel and Multiplex. We will be temporarily disabling these two maps in Competitive.

There seems to be some instances in which Belisarius-D (Competitive Pulse Rifle) is not being rewarded for completing the placement series challenge. We are actively investigating this.

Iron Banner kicks off next Tuesday with the new Tribute mode, and we’ve got good news: Lord Saladin will start selling Iron Banner armor ornaments from Years 1 and 2, and the elusive Iron Symmachy set will return as the base set at last. Put those IB Engrams to work!