Ok... a lot of what you’re complaining about seems to come from simply not knowing the rules of the game. You also say you went straight in, rather than watching videos first, because you didn’t want to be “spoiled”. I don’t know man... seems like you’ve gotta pick one or the other. Were you expecting the action to continuously pause so that everything could be explained to you, mid-match? Because that doesn’t seem like a reasonable expectation for a competitive multiplayer game.

Not really. To be honest, I thought that the first time you selected Gambit, a little short video or something would play explaining a bit about the game and how it works--kinda like that Age of Triumph intro from D1, short and concise, yet informative and enlightening; one time deal. Then it puts you back into orbit, select it again and matchmaking. I think that would've been better.

• Only 1 player can invade the enemy team at a time.

Man, if I had known that, I would've recorded that three enemy blitz from the first game. Then I would've knocked down Bungie's door until all those cheaters were flattened(yeah, right). Not to worry though--they'll just do it again next time, and I'll be ready.

Your guide was very accurate and teaching! Hopefully when I someday get Forsaken, I'll face it with a little more of an open mind.

When you summon your Primeval, the enemy's portal immediately activates and they can send a player to try and kill you. So don't focus so much on boss killing that you get your whole team wiped out. Since... as noted. your death heals your Primeval.

It also seems that maybe the portals reopen periodically once a Primeval is summoned? I know I've found off multiple invading enemies (one by one) while dealing with the boss...

Does that have to do with the health bar segments at all? Every time you reach a new segment, the portal is opened? I don't know, but that's my best guess. I know the portal can open multiple times during the Primeval stage, I just don't know what the trigger is.

It also seems that maybe the portals reopen periodically once a Primeval is summoned? I know I've found off multiple invading enemies (one by one) while dealing with the boss...

To some of your questions, here’s a basic breakdown of the rules:

• The goal is to summon a boss NPC (the primeval) and kill it.
• You summon the boss by depositing Motes of Dark (glowy triangles) into the large bank in the middle of the arena.
• Depositing certain quantities of motes in a single deposit can also produce secondary effects, namely “blockers”
• “Blockers” are yellow-bar Taken enemies that get sent to the enemy team’s arena. They appear near the enemy team’s bank. As long as they are alive, the enemy team will not be able to access their bank or deposit any motes.
• If you deposit 5 motes into your bank at once, you summon a “Small Blocker”. 10 motes sends a Medium blocker, 15 motes sends a Large Blocker. This basically refers to the size and toughness of the Taken foe that will block the opposing team’s bank. Larger blockers are more dangerous and take longer to kill.

Regarding Motes:
• Killing ads will cause them to drop Motes of Dark.
• These motes can be collected by anyone on your team

*** To address one of your specific gripes, the reason the motes appear collectively to the whole team is because it adds a layer of strategy to mote collection. Your team might decide to have multiple players race to grab 5 motes each and all deposit them at the same time, sending multiple Small Blockers to the enemy side simultaneously. Or you might want to designate a single Mote collector so they can quickly acquire 15 motes and send a large blocker. ***

• If you die, you will lose whatever motes you are carrying.

Invasion:

• As your team acquires more motes, you will occasionally unlock your teleporter, allowing 1 player on your team to travel to your opponents’ arena and mess with the enemie team.
• Only 1 player can invade the enemy team at a time.
• The invading player will stay in the opponents’ arena for 30 seconds, or until they are killed.
• The invading player will see all opponents on their HUD (making it easy to find and reach them within 30 seconds... the arena isn’t very big).
• The invader gains an overshield and also glows bright red, making them easy to spot.
• If you invade an enemy team after they’ve summoned their Primeval, any kills you score against the enemy team will partially heal their Primeval.

That’s a basic rundown of the rules. Once you know what’s going on, there’s plenty of room for strategy and teamwork. Hope this helps a little.

Motes being shared(or hogged) between teammates seems like a bad idea. I think it would operate better if motes spawned by kills appear only to the person that killed them, or assist-killed if it was a team effort. If a player can't get max motes because someone faster keeps bumping them away from them, only one player can contribute to the chaos, making it less fun for everyone else.

That sounds awful. Only being able to pick up motes you generate doesn't really solve the problem (if other players get way more kills, for instance), and it also means you can't strategize and designate two people to be mote runners while the other two just kill and run to where the next enemies will spawn.

Also, I've only played two games so far and I can already tell from experience—if you're not carrying a sniper or shotgun kinetic, you don't have a chance in hell. Considering how much ammo the PvE enemies drop, you're literally guaranteed infinite ammo for it. Jump in the portal, exterminate everyone from a distance(or up close), and you don't even have to reload.

Well, I didn't run either of those things that you feel are mandatory and did better than fine, so I'm not even really sure what you're talking about. Sure, the meta will get defined, but, just like in Crucible, there are always ways around it.

Speaking of Extermination, anyone with an Infinite Golden Gun or Infinite Instant Homing Gjallarhorning Hammer can jump in, activate it, destroy everyone instantly, and completely wreck the scoreboard, with little to no work. To be honest, so can a Stormcaller, but only if they're spawned in the same galaxy as the other team.

Again, those are issue I didn't experience. Our team easily defeated supered invaders multiple times by teamshooting. When you get invaded, stop whatever else you're doing and make that your focus. Coordinated teams can basically instantly destroy invaders.

Additionally, turning the whole screen red when an enemy invades is excessive. Plus, it nearly makes the red team(or more importantly the one invading) invisible when that happens.

I'll agree there. I don't know what the answer is--they need to make it obvious you've been invaded, but the screen effect is a bit much.

Honestly, it sounds like you played two games with randos with no real idea of what was happening or what to do, so you're just writing it off for not getting it and being great at it immediately.

I will say Bungie should be able to tutorialize it better. Getting popups at the bottom of the screen during a hectic game mode is maybe the worst idea for tutorials I've ever seen.

Ultimately, this mode is nice, but it's not impressive. It's also far too easy to exploit. It will take a little bit of convincing to buy Forsaken in the future, but as for Day one? Nuh-uh.

That's a bummer, I guess. Gambit is only one part of Forsaken, and, while I am tempering my expectations, it really does seem like it might be better for D2 than The Taken King was for D1.

EDIT: That's not to say Gambit is perfect. Far from it. The enemy spawns need to be random, for starters. It's not going to take long for players to have the spawn orders for every map and every round memorized, so that it's just going to be a race, rather than any sort of reacting to randomized events. I do worry about the variety and longevity of the mode. I can already seeing it ending up like Prison of Elders where you know exactly what is going to happen next with the minute variables not really mattering. I think the invasions are the only thing that are going to make you have to adjust strategies and reaction to pressure.

My rocket launcher that does less damage and has far less chance of hitting something only gets 6 rockets max.

Rockets are better for quickly clearing groups of weaker ads. Sleeper is more about dealing both damage to a single target. All things considered, I don’t think Sleeper is overpowered. It’s just extremely effective in niche situations (Gambit in particular, it seems). Although I would say that Rockets could use a touch of a buff at this point.

I have a feeling that at some point, Bungie’s just going to delete Warlocks from the game. We’re just too good at breaking it. :P

PS. In the reddit thread about it, One of the Bungie team commented, saying that they would try to have the exploit fixed by Tuesday... only to delete their comments. Ominous. I hope they don’t delay Gambit access.

I also love that Bungie doesn't tell me important facts about the game until after it's too late. XD

• Deposit your motes! Okay, deposit them where? (I figured it out soon enough)
  
• 14 motes, snuck up on by PVP player(same guy, by the way). Did you know when you die you lose all your motes? I guess I oughta be more careful then, hu--(gets killed by camper with kinetic shotgun)
  
• Use the portal to invade to your opposing team's side! Anyone see it? Oh, hang on there it is. Wait, why is it re--(gets killed by Infinite Homing Hammer from same guy)
  
• Invasion portal open! Jump on through to kill your enemies! You have thirty seconds to get three kills or get killed! So the one time I was close enough to jump through with a charged Stormtrance, I spawn SO FAR AWAY from the entire team, it takes 24 of the 30 seconds I have to make it to one of them, who was attempting to revive a teammate. Landfall kills one, doesn't even bother the other, and I fry through his shield for a quarter of a second before I get killed in two hits from one guy by either a hand cannon or scout rifle. Reduces incoming damage while your Super is active. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  
• Your primeval has been su—! All three teammates INSTANTLY dead. All three rounds. no freaking. joke.

Last round; So I figure, okay this game is screwed. Let me at least find some cover and shoot at the majors and prime from a distance, so I don't feed Mr. Instant Infinite Homing Hammer any MORE kills. On an offbeat, I manage to look at the killfeed, and in 12 seconds, three separate opponents kill my three teammates, two of them simultaneous. I try not to watch the streams so I don't get spoiled, but in the last round, can the entire team just come through at the same time and just decimate anyone they want?

All that was in one game, obviously. I couldn't figure out what was going on.

So I tried another game--this one we ended up winning. I noticed for some reason our portal stayed open for much longer than it should have. Does it close eventually, or does it stay open until someone uses it?

General Thoughts:
Motes being shared(or hogged) between teammates seems like a bad idea. I think it would operate better if motes spawned by kills appear only to the person that killed them, or assist-killed if it was a team effort. If a player can't get max motes because someone faster keeps bumping them away from them, only one player can contribute to the chaos, making it less fun for everyone else.
Also, I've only played two games so far and I can already tell from experience—if you're not carrying a sniper or shotgun kinetic, you don't have a chance in hell. Considering how much ammo the PvE enemies drop, you're literally guaranteed infinite ammo for it. Jump in the portal, exterminate everyone from a distance(or up close), and you don't even have to reload.
Speaking of Extermination, anyone with an Infinite Golden Gun or Infinite Instant Homing Gjallarhorning Hammer can jump in, activate it, destroy everyone instantly, and completely wreck the scoreboard, with little to no work. To be honest, so can a Stormcaller, but only if they're spawned in the same galaxy as the other team.
Additionally, turning the whole screen red when an enemy invades is excessive. Plus, it nearly makes the red team(or more importantly the one invading) invisible when that happens.

Ultimately, this mode is nice, but it's not impressive. It's also far too easy to exploit. It will take a little bit of convincing to buy Forsaken in the future, but as for Day one? Nuh-uh.

And another thing I just remembered—Emerald Coast!? How dare you sully the name of an iconic legend like some cheap whore! Back off, Bungie! That's our name! You will be hearing from my lawyers and their lawyers soon enough.

Just one important thing to remember if you plan to invade...

This clip picks up from that same moment, and goes through to the end of the match. A few nice Invader stops (including that funny moment when where a cloaked, sword-wielding hunter ran straight into my Sleeper shot), an invasion of my own, and then the defeat of the boss.

https://xboxdvr.com/gamer/nevindouglas/video/59655979

[Link] Forsaken ships with 4 Gambit maps. Each map supports 3 races, with 3 encounter variations for each race, for a total of 36 Gambit experiences. The trial has only 2 experiences. So you should see greater variety starting Tuesday.

When asked: "What exactly is an encounter variation?"

[Link] What enemies you face, how they're combined, etc. Imagine if the Cabal sent warbeasts for you to melee, for example, or how different a wave of Fallen Exploding Shanks, which rush you and press you with AoE damage, feels from a wave of Tracer Shanks, which can one-shot you from across the map.

Best of all when asked: Can you guys change it so that players can join mid-match? It really sucks if someone leaves because the games are long and you're likely to lose because of it.

[Link] When Forsaken ships on Tuesday, join-in-progress and quitting penalties will be enabled for Gambit. ...