The mood around Destiny 2 is currently poor. Bungie has already acknowledged this and now wants to be more open about its plans regarding the most critical aspects and problems. The studio has made a start with its plans to improve the Trials and the measures against cheaters.
The mood is poor – Here’s what Bungie plans to do: If you are currently on Reddit, generally in the community, or in Destiny 2 itself, you’ll notice in many places – The mood is poor.
It’s not just about the meager content of Season 10. Many see Destiny 2 at a low point, but at the same time, they do not see any measures from Bungie to turn things around. It is criticized that the developers do not even clearly communicate how Destiny 2 and its problems are to proceed.
Bungie has also noticed this. In a recent thread, community manager Cozmo23 admitted: Bungie knows that a lot of players are currently unhappy with the state of Destiny 2. They want to counter this and talk specifically about the most important problems of the game by the end of Season 10.
They made a start in the current “This Week at Bungie” blog with plans for the Trials and measures against cheaters – both major points of criticism from the community.
How Bungie plans to improve the Trials of Osiris
What is the problem with the Trials? The Trials were supposed to be the big highlight of the season but have problems and are almost dead after 5 weeks.
A major problem is the rewards. Many find them not attractive enough, especially for flawless runs and compared to other endgame activities. Special rewards, such as the Adept weapons from Destiny 1, are missing. Additionally, it’s sometimes more effective to reset the ticket early after 3 wins instead of going for 7 wins for flawless. This way, one farms rewards through the tokens.
Cheaters are also a big problem in the Trials, but more on that later.
These are Bungie’s goals for the Trials: The aim is to encourage good players to go for 7 wins. Generally, the rule should be: The further you go, the better the rewards.
Players who have already achieved a flawless run over the weekend should receive incentives to repeat it – not just to ruin the flawless for other teams.
Furthermore, Bungie wants to ensure that the Trials offer something for all players – regardless of skill. Not everyone is a PvP god, and the Trials are meant for the best PvP players – Bungie is aware of this. However, someone who is not as good in the Crucible but tries their best at the challenge should also be rewarded.
This is what Bungie specifically wants to change in the Trials: To prevent players from just farming 3 wins on the ticket, token milestones will be introduced in Season 11 – at 3, 5, and 7 wins. These will provide increasingly larger amounts of tokens. The bonus from the Season Pass will additionally increase the token amount, and a flawless run will earn you a ton of extra tokens.
For players who are not PvP pros, there will be a weekly bounty that should encourage weekly participation in the Trials – without needing victories. If the bounty is completed, it rewards players with the same item that is also earned for 3 wins.
In order to ensure that the Trials can compete with other endgame activities in terms of rewards, there will be higher chances to earn Masterwork materials through the Trials. In Season 11, there will be Masterwork/Infusion resources for 3, 5, and 7 wins. Additionally, the idea of introducing a new Trials ticket focused on farming Masterwork materials is being considered.
Furthermore, Bungie is looking into how to improve the Trials in the long term. They are currently considering possibilities for new flawless weapons – similar to the Adept weapons from Destiny 1. Although these would not carry the same name, they would have other differences to stand out from other firearms.
Currently, there is the idea for a kind of Adept mod slot instead of the regular mod slot. This special slot could then utilize custom-built mods alongside regular weapon mods. However, this is still an early concept, so a lot could still change.
These are Bungie’s plans against cheaters in Destiny 2
Cheaters have become a major problem: Numerous players complain that there seem to be more and more annoying cheaters in Destiny 2 – especially on PC. And their feeling seems to be correct. Bungie has now reported that cheating in Destiny 2 has significantly increased since January 2020 – on average by about 50%. At higher skill levels, even more significantly.
Cheating is ruining a lot of players’ Destiny experience with Aimbots, Memory Poking attacks, Wallhacks, Lag Switching, and DDOS attacks – especially for many Trials players. This causes a lot of frustration and adds to the negative mood.
With the return of the Trials, Bungie expected the rise. Therefore, they were prepared and anything but idle. Before the Season of Worthy, they were weekly limiting or banning an average of 656 players, whereas this number has grown to 2,133 players per week in the first 4 weeks after the start of Season 10.
This is what Bungie wants to do about the cheating problem (additionally): However, they are not satisfied with how much cheating is still happening in Destiny 2, especially in the Trials. They want to continue to do everything possible to prevent cheating in Destiny 2 or minimize it as much as possible.
Therefore, they plan to implement additional measures to further curb cheating.
- Resources will be reallocated, meaning more staff will be assigned to the critical anti-cheat area. More capacity simply means more effectiveness.
- A rethinking of Bungie’s anti-cheat policy is taking place. Members of a fireteam where a cheater is present are no longer safe. Bungie now reserves the right to warn or ban anyone who has benefited from cheating – even if they themselves did not cheat.
- Players who play with account-carry services or share account information with these services, allowing them to cheat on their behalf, may also be punished.
- There is consideration to require a certain amount of playtime for participation in the Trials – for example, 100 hours played on the account for participation in matches where a ticket with more than 4 wins is at stake. By increasing the time it takes for a new account to become Trials-ready, they also increase the effectiveness of bans, as newly created accounts from banned cheaters would not be able to start up immediately.
- Furthermore, Bungie might reevaluate the open accessibility of the Trials. The studio states that it may have been a mistake not to tie the Trials to a paid season. This would have provided another hurdle for “Free-to-Play” cheaters. There will be no changes regarding this in the Season of Worthy, but they may rethink this aspect for future seasons.
What do you think of Bungie’s newly launched communication offensive and the presented changes? Can it lift your spirits? By the way, some players are now excited for more after a leaked cutscene: Leaked video shows how Destiny 2 continues and players get goosebumps
