Players in Destiny 2 are currently struggling with frustrating connection and stability issues. As discontent in the community has grown, Bungie has responded with an unusually open insight into the causes and proposed solutions. MeinMMO tells you when it will finally get better.
These are the current issues with Destiny 2: For months, Guardians have been plagued by persistent server and stability problems in Destiny 2.
- This includes connection drops with the message “Destiny 2 servers are being contacted.”
- Error codes like Weasel, Baboon, or Mongoose, which can kick you from the game and even lead to a temporary, unwarranted ban because you effectively “abandoned” a competitive game mode by being kicked out.
- Matchmaking issues that turned Destiny 2 into a single-player game, as players could no longer form fireteams.
Due to this multitude of incidents, Bungie has recently had to implement unexpected emergency maintenance more frequently to stabilize the game.
While this has temporarily resolved the issues, it hasn’t really reduced the frustration of the Guardians. On the contrary.
For players, the increasing number of crashes and connection problems is a clear sign that Destiny 2 has reached the end of its life cycle after nearly 7 years. Especially since such problems occurred much less frequently in the past.
However, Bungie has now addressed this issue more openly than ever before and revealed concrete statements about the solutions in a roadmap.
“No process that happens overnight”
This is what Bungie says about server stability and issues: In the current TWiD (“This Week in Destiny” blog) from June 29, Bungie has now responded in detail to the current server problems of Destiny 2 for the first time and has informed us as openly as never before about the current state of server technology.
They had both good and bad news for the Guardians.
The good news: Bungie knows which system is causing the problems. It is the Destiny key service “Claims”.
- “Claims” transfers all player data between the various Bungie servers and usually ensures smooth communication between players, servers, and other components so that every kill, every bullet, and every glimmer unit is sent to the correct recipient.
If the communication channels of “Claims” to other services are disrupted, it can lead to error codes like Weasel or Baboon. However, a simple restart of the service is often not enough to fix the problems.
Although “Claims” is just one of many services that are constantly updated and maintained, the improvements made to this service are a crucial step in addressing both immediate and all potential future issues.
The bad news: Improving the stability of “Claims” and Destiny 2 will not be a process that happens overnight, according to Bungie.
As stated in the TWiD:
Resolving these issues is our highest priority in support, but we must proceed with extreme caution. If we do it wrong, we could inadvertently worsen stability for players or cause new problems. This is not a process that can happen overnight, and we must ensure that [everything] is reliably delivered so that the Destiny 2 experience remains smooth and stable.
writes Bungie in the TWiD from June 29, 2023
Why has Bungie even worked on these services? In preparation for the current DLC “Lightfall” and the upcoming major releases of Destiny, Bungie has begun to scale the server infrastructure, especially to accommodate more simultaneous players in the future.
So when will it run reasonably smoothly again? To address the issues, Bungie plans a combination of server maintenance, network system optimizations, and bug fixes.
However, the developers also noted that the patience of the Guardians will still be tested, as improvements take time.
This is what the master plan looks like at this time to address the issues:
- With the midseason update 7.1.0.5 for Season 21, which is set to be released in a few weeks, Bungie will initially implement an improvement to its logging and alert systems to prevent worsening stability problems in the future.
- At the start of Season 22 on August 22, 2023, Bungie will add a “self-healing” capability to “Claims” to reduce the likelihood of Destiny 2 having to be temporarily taken offline when a problem occurs.
- In early December, with the start of Season 23, the improved logging from Season 21 will then be used to introduce deeper and more comprehensive architecture improvements that enable service stability and quick recovery, as well as a number of other unspecified improvements.
The development team is aware of the difficulties and emphasizes that they can fully understand the frustration of the players. This timeline means that the patience of the Guardians will be tested until at least the end of the year, as there may still be outages.
And even afterwards, Destiny 2 will remain a live service game that will be more or less “in progress” indefinitely.
However, Bungie aims to minimize this risk through extensive testing and monitoring around the clock to bring everything back online as quickly as possible in case of instabilities.
Given the other problems Destiny 2 is currently facing, this open communication is at least a step in the right direction – even if only a part of the problems has been addressed.
What do you think about the proposed solutions and how willing are you to support these changes? Feel free to leave us a comment with your opinion.
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