We've been eagerly anticipating Rift in Destiny since we played Uplink in the Black Ops 3 Beta. Neutral bomb gametypes are fairly simple in design, but mastery comes from taking these simple rules and working with a team towards success, which may not be as simple.

This simplicity reminded me of Trials, where success comes from communication, coordination, and a pinch of skill (and luck).

I saw a post or two complaining about joining one-sided rift games, and blaming Bungie for the match. But the reality is that your true skill may be exactly the same as your enemy's (heck, you could be more skilled), but if the enemy team is coordinated, and communicates well, then they have a very clear advantage.
The other night, Squid and I were doing Trials with J4im3z(sp?), and he got dropped right before the match was made, leaving Squid and I against a full team. And yet, we coordinated and communicated well enough to go 4-1 (before the enemy team got their Supers and turned the game around on us). Had we had a bit more luck, we would have won. We had the coordination down.

Rift takes this idea of short, rapid-fire gameplay, and spreads it into a full 6v6 Gametype, where each dunk is as satisfying as completing a round in Trials (and each failure as painful). I love it.

And much like an LFG group for trials is less than ideal, I highly recommend going into rift with a full Fireteam. When we got a team going tonight on PS4, we were completely unbeatable.

Here's one of our games. Not the only Mercy that Shaxx had to grant tonight. :P

By the way, we do have an official song for Rift. You may hear it often when we score. :P

PS. Despite having lousy stats, I'm in love with Banshee's Armory Specials. Especially the Fusion Rifle...

I'd agree with your assessment. We played a few games of Rift tonight with an Xbone crew. Even had some All-stars with Zero and Squid, but we got squashed pretty well. Just like capture the flag in Halo, its all about communication and team movement. Knowing when to strike and how to protect the carrier are easily as important as killing.

I'm looking forward to more of this though. Some of the beating was simply not knowing the new maps. I had no idea which routes to take, what points to hold. I'm also relearning the weapons. Subtle changes make a big difference in how a gun plays.

Its not necessarily Bungies fault. Someotherguy, CommandrCleavage, Destroyoboy and myself played some games together last night and having the majority of your 6 man team on the same page is a huge game changer. We had a won a no mercy match, and then also had some REALLY fun/challenging matches. Several times we won/lost with less than 200 point difference.

Rift is very fun. and makes me think of this when I score (warning bad language ahead)

Probably still no match for shotguns, but I had fun with it.

I'd agree with your assessment. We played a few games of Rift tonight with an Xbone crew. Even had some All-stars with Zero and Squid, but we got squashed pretty well. Just like capture the flag in Halo, its all about communication and team movement. Knowing when to strike and how to protect the carrier are easily as important as killing.

Huh, that's interesting. I played with breitzen, Paddy, Ragashingo, SteelGaribaldi, and Speedracer and we got wrecked maybe two or three times out of a dozen games. Definitely felt more strategic, but we were holding our own.

gotta get your slamjam on

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I wish I could have watched that other team rage out when we won in the last 5 seconds of that game on Black Shield.

CC

Seriously though, nicely done! Hopefully I'll get to jump on with you all tonight!