PvP is definitely not "garbage" but it definitely needs significant changes.
Halo was literally the only shooter I cared about until Destiny released and there's a reason i've left it behind. Bungie took those games downhill with each iteration. Maps got flatter, weapons got dumber and they piled in mechanics that simply didn't compliment the gameplay. On top of this, they started throwing away the things that made the first one as balanced as it was like utility weapons, map control and power ups. My biggest problem with Halo right now is the fact that it's so focused on spawn killing and team shooting across the map. Map design has stagnated because competitive Halo players don't want to play anything else; nothing else plays well when you have weapons that take ages to kill and abilities that let you run away from fights. It isn't fun to play solo and it isn't fun to play with a team because nobody really cares anymore. The meta is exhausted and it's boring.
On the other hand, I can boot up Destiny, whip out The Last Word and average 40 kills. Running around shooting things in this game is incredibly satisfying [when it isn't lagging]. I cant really say the same of Halo with projectile weapons and bloom. Obviously the skill ceiling in this game is low and I enjoy being better at it. But Destiny ironically has some of the key elements that Halo has been lacking - height variation and individual skill. The only thing I miss from Halo in that regard is being able to jump and shoot, but after 2 games with jetpack, I've had enough of people shooting and flying.
That's probably where I'll say it stops for Destiny though. I detest the majority of the maps in the game and especially am not fond of all the cheap OHK abilities. I appreciate the fact that you can feel like a superhero during the match - it's part of the game's charm - but every month the balance sways from one OP combo to the next and the latest one has effectively ruined the meta game. It's like Halo 4 where everyone had thruster, light rifles and bolt shots.
Elaborating on that, playing Destiny competitively is a joke. I like playing against evenly skilled teams, but between the bad maps, nooby weapons and the lack of tools to facilitate that competitive edge, you end up with a very small niche of the fanbase. We basically know all the good players because we have to match each other to find competition.
This ties into the biggest issue with Destiny's PvP. It isn't the maps, nor the balance or the skill ceiling. It's the fact that it's tremendously barebones. For all the faults with the latter Halo games, their feature set was ever expanding, with new gametypes, vehicles and even level editing. Destiny doesn't have any of that. There's no map voting, no ranking and no true objective gametypes. Hell, it doesn't even have private matches. Their reasoning against objective game modes ("we don't want to put too much pressure on one player") also doesn't make any sense.
Bungie held back on everything from the lobbies to the gametypes. This is something they pioneered and at one point nearly perfected, so it's especially puzzling how they failed to deliver. Halo's vehicle combat is a staple of the franchise and Bungie also messed that up. It's almost as if they tried so hard to not be Halo that they forgot all the good stuff they did in those games.
Despite the overemphasis on PvP since the game launched, it seems like this entire half of the game was an afterthought. Or rather, Bungie wanted to make it a significant chunk of the end-game but at the same time didn't know what to do with it. Perhaps that's why we still have weapons and even classes that are completely useless in PvE but amazing in PvP, and vice versa.
Trials of Osiris is a decent step towards making the competitive multiplayer portion of the game more interesting. However, considering the current meta game and the fact that its debut will take place on arguably one of the worst maps in the game, I think it's going to be met with significant backlash. We saw it with the first Iron Banner and at this point it's expected for every new bit of content that releases in Destiny. I just hope that Trials at the very least is a catalyst for significant improvements to the Crucible. I'm not looking for Halo out of Destiny, but I'd like to see Destiny's multiplayer find a foothold and become a smarter game for it.
