Destiny 2

[rusty_shackleford]

looks like bungie might be the ones in trouble over the lawsuit with the cheaters
guy who bungie sued is countersuing stating they hacked into an employee's computer

https://torrentfreak.com/aimjunkies-countersues-bungie-for-hacking-and-dmca-violations-220919/

Nowadays Bungie reserves the right to access players’ computers for anti-cheat purposes. However, the older version of the LSLA didn’t allow Bungie to do that. This older copy is the one presented by Bungie as evidence.

“The LSLA in effect at all relevant times does not provide Bungie, Inc. with authorization to surreptitiously access files on Mr. May’s personal computer and/or download information from those files without the direct knowledge and express authorization of Mr. May,” the countersuit clarifies.

imagine giving a company free access to your computer in the name of "anti-cheat", lmao

basically, bungie might be in deep doo doo as they may have broken actual laws

This didn’t stop Bungie from accessing Mr. May’s computer on several occasions between 2019 and 2021, as evidence gathered through discovery suggests. By doing so, the game company allegedly violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which can be seen as hacking.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

The guy that made https://d2gunsmith.com/ was banned recently, it was reversed but he dropped the site and uninstalled the game. Considering that Bungie's solution to the alt+tab "cheat" I posted before was to tag everyone who alt tabs for any reason, it wouldn't surprise me if it really was a mistake.

https://www.sportskeeda.com/esports...2-fanbase-reacts-discontinuation-popular-site

https://www.sportskeeda.com/esports/destiny-2-best-alternatives-d2gunsmith

https://www.keengamer.com/articles/...lateral-damage-including-d2-gunsmith-creator/

Spoiler

DESTINY 2 BAN WAVE CAUSES COLLATERAL DAMAGE, INCLUDING D2 GUNSMITH CREATOR​

The latest Destiny 2 ban wave seemed to have worked too well — many players are reporting that their accounts have been falsely banned. This includes the creator and manager of D2 Gunsmith, who has since quit both Destiny 2 and work on his website due to this ban.
Connor Judge 2022-10-04 1 Comment News

Over the last week, Bungie initiated a new wave of bans targeting offensive accounts in Destiny 2. Unfortunately, this recent action has banned a seemingly disproportionate amount of players claiming innocence. One of these players is known as Dre, the sole operator of the popular Destiny 2 tool, D2 Gunsmith.

Dre has taken this ban as an opportunity to step away from both Destiny 2 and D2 Gunsmith, his reason being the game’s state and its moderation.




This is despite Bungie repealing the ban just days later. Other users see this quick repeal as lucky or a privilege. “Unless you are a big content creator you will stay banned for months over a false positive,” Twitter user @Panora_ says.
Bungie has also banned numerous players with thousands of hours. Twitter user @Permifyyy tweeted his story of being suddenly banned while playing. According to him, Bungie has not told him a reason for his ban. It’s been 2 months since his ban.
The official Bungie Help Twitter account recently tweeted about the situation:




The recent ban wave has targeted players suspected of using net limiters. These programs modify a player’s connection to a game’s servers. In Destiny 2, net limiters can increase the damage of certain weapons and alter the abilities of certain abilities. Some theorized that Bungie may have falsely targeted those with unstable internet connections as net limiters.
Since its move to Steam in 2019, Destiny 2 on PC has seen a massive surge in cheaters and other bad actors. With the launch of the Witch Queen expansion in February, Bungie had implemented the anti-cheat software BattlEye into the game’s security arsenal. Before then, it wasn’t uncommon to run into players cheating in competitive modes like Trials of Osiris, whether it was subtle or very, very obvious.


Destiny 2 Cheating Compilation



Compounding the situation is the split views on these bans. Some players believe that those who are banned are at the very least suspect of some form of cheating. It’s not hard to imagine why one would adopt such a mindset. Last year’s situation involving a Destiny content creator named BakenGangstamay be the cause of such mindset. Community manager @A_dmg04 had to reply publicly in order to calm the uproar from Baken’s ban:




Because of Bungie’s appeal system, relative silence over their reasoning for bans, and supposed favoritism for content creators, many players are becoming frustrated with Bungie’s overcorrection of the past three years. This recent Destiny 2 ban wave has only further escalated tensions.

 

[BlackAdderBG]

Isn't this shit PvE looter, who cares about cheaters, 99% of people probably play solo lol

 

[ADL]

There's crucible and gambit PvP modes which Bungie takes way too seriously for what it is. Exclusively on Windows bundled with intrusive anti-cheat, refusal to support Linux/Steam Deck because it "would affect the competitive experience".

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Isn't this shit PvE looter, who cares about cheaters, 99% of people probably play solo lol

no, if this game cared about PvE it might actually be decent

 

[Mary Sue Leigh]

Korean publisher Nexon going to release a Destiny clone.
I got an unsolicited invitation to the closed beta and it's pretty bad, but at least your characters aren't so aesthetically challenged.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Telesto is that classic Destiny 1 gun which fucks up the game now and then because its landmines interacts with objects in unexpected ways. Memes aside, this might be a community event of sorts, maybe leading up to the next season or expansion. Or maybe a secret mission like Whisper of the Worm. If you pull it out in the game, it's visibly malfunctioning (sparks and smoke) and shoots in an unique pattern that goes up, like a constellation. This continues until you hold down reload, which makes your character slap the gun and it goes back to normal. This is normally how you activate alternate firing modes on guns that have it. It seems nobody figured anything out yet. Community manager says there's no puzzle, but that joke might be part of the secret. (or tips are coming later in case nobody figures it out, like with Corridors of Time and Niobe Labs). Or it's just a time gated quest and there will be more obvious things to do in the next weekly reset, but that's boring.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Constellation fire pattern not relevant, it keeps changing. Now the explosions are heat seeking.



Edit: And it's over. Looks like it was just a micro event they snuck in the empty week between the halloween event and the last iron banner of the season. Lots of tears but it shows that Bungie can now change weapon behavior without a hotfix, which have to be approved for consoles by Sony and Microsoft, so faster updates are possible now. The actual event will probably be about rebuilding the fallen quarter in the city, which will probably conveniently require the stockpiled materials that will be deprecated at the end of the season in a couple weeks.

 

[Norfleet]

Lots of tears but it shows that Bungie can now change weapon behavior without a hotfix, which have to be approved for consoles by Sony and Microsoft, so faster updates are possible now.

I would think that if you're going to create a consoleturd MMO, you specifically keep as much as you can serverside so you don't have to go through the hassle of pushing anything clientside. Coincidentally, this is also the sensible way to design ANY kind of MMO, because you don't want to trust anything clientside anyway.

 

[SerratedBiz]

Lots of tears but it shows that Bungie can now change weapon behavior without a hotfix, which have to be approved for consoles by Sony and Microsoft, so faster updates are possible now.

I would think that if you're going to create a consoleturd MMO, you specifically keep as much as you can serverside so you don't have to go through the hassle of pushing anything clientside. Coincidentally, this is also the sensible way to design ANY kind of MMO, because you don't want to trust anything clientside anyway.

Wouldn't making everything (relatively) server-side make latency and performance worse in a first-person shooter kind of MMO?

 

[Norfleet]

Lots of tears but it shows that Bungie can now change weapon behavior without a hotfix, which have to be approved for consoles by Sony and Microsoft, so faster updates are possible now.

I would think that if you're going to create a consoleturd MMO, you specifically keep as much as you can serverside so you don't have to go through the hassle of pushing anything clientside. Coincidentally, this is also the sensible way to design ANY kind of MMO, because you don't want to trust anything clientside anyway.

Wouldn't making everything (relatively) server-side make latency and performance worse in a first-person shooter kind of MMO?

It certainly could, although there are designs that can work around this, as we see in various fighting games that are designed to deal with this kind of issue. The alternative, however, is that any part of your game that isn't serverside is merely a polite fiction that people are free to ignore.

 

[ADL]

Looks good but fuck seasonal progression resets every three months. I can't wait to play this when they get rid of the endless power grind in a year or two. That shit ruins the game for me.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

1:10 Loud Lullaby, my beloved...

Only thing the level progression really matters for nowadays are grandmaster nightfalls and trials of osiris, and the more retarded bit has been removed from the latter (seasonal level mattering for your overall level, so you were fucked if you fought a bounty XP farmer). For GM nightfalls you still need a minimum level to enter. It's not hard to achieve but it means you need to play enough to get levels in the relevant slots by the time the GMs are available. For raids there is some minor grinding if you want to play them as soon as it's released but even that doesn't count for much because you get level capped so you can't just store a ton of unclaimed bounties from last season to level boost your way through.

For trials I play on the freelance weekends where there's matchmaking so everyone plays, reducing chances of running into megasweats. You'll probably still want to form a team to tryhard if you want the top rewards, but regular rewards are attainable.

 

[ADL]

It's not as tedious as it was but it's still tedious and it sucks not being able to do something on a Tuesday night that you were able to do just fine yesterday because of an arbitrary power grind that resets every three months. Trials and GM Nightfalls are the content I enjoy most so I'm always stuck doing activities I don't enjoy on a timer to get to the stuff I do like and I hate it. Especially because it can waste several weeks of a three month season depending on your RNG luck.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

lightfall indeed

 

[Nelka]

americans shot the goddamn moon down, wtf

 

[ADL]

Read the article here, but I did my best summarizing the most important points.

https://www.bungie.net/7/en/News/Article/lightfall-year-ahead

Four primary goals for the year of Lightfall

Expand players’ imaginations

Bring challenge back to Destiny

Enrich our content

Connect our Guardians

Season 20: Season of Defiance

Season 21: Season of the Deep

Seasons

Umbral Engrams going away, replaced with Seasonal Engrams now stored on-vendor. Focusing will now just cost an engram + glimmer

Seasonal currencies getting removed/reduced, you now get a flat key for the "final chest". Chest is a true upgrade on rewards, no longer necessary for regular loot. These "keys" won't drop as often, so the regular activity will drop more loot itself.

The keys can drop from the activity, so you don't have to play non-seasonal stuff to engage with the season-itself anymore.

Fewer vendor upgrades, more meaningful changes, clearly descriptions. Less time reading, more time playing.

Season 21 will not have a 3x7 vendor upgrade grid.

Lightfall Seasons will be pushed to be more creative and unique like Shattered Realm and Chosen's original reveal of Battlegrounds.

Guardian Ranks will be replace the "Season Pass levels" nameplate shown next to players in Lightfall

Crafting

Fewer weapons will be craftable in following seasons

Non-Craftable weapons (starting with Raid Adepts in Season 21, slowing extending to all others) will eventually be able to be "enhanced", granting Enhanced Perks + Masterwork Bonuses + Mementos + Etc.

Any red border that drops will only be for weapons that have a pattern. If it has a red border, you instantly know it's important and a valued drop.

In Season 21, you will be able to target any craftable weapon with a guaranteed deepsight drop

PvE Combat and Challenge

To increase combat difficulty, Bungie is taking a two-prong approach to combat

1st Approach: Decrease ability uptime but maintain full ability potency. Reduce strength of resilience and some combat style mods.

2nd Approach: Increase combatant difficulty by introducing power-cap scaling throughout the game. Right now it'll just be on the seasonal activity + vanguard ops + Neomuna Patrol.

More experiments on capped light levels/fixed difficulty to come. "The Big Change" will come in Final Shape.

Power Levels will still be a thing in Lightfall. However, in Season 21, the power cap won't even be raised at all.

Crucible

Reintroducing Countdown (Search and Destroy) and also a new variant Countdown Rush, where you must arm/defuse both of the bombs on across the map

Checkmate Control: Highly customized sandbox mode. Seems to be very personal-skill focused based on smarts and gunskill.

Weapon damage, ability uptime, and even ammo are all adjusted in [this] new mode. Will reward players who use their smarts and their skills. So, if the only way the enemy has been able to shut you down in the past is a solo Blade Barrage, they might be in trouble.

Meltdown (Close/Mid Range Martian Map from Year 1) Returning in Season 21

Brand New Vex Network Map in Season 22

Citadel (Medium/Long Range Dreaming City map from Year 2) Returning in Season 23

Matchmaking adjustments will continue. Dynamic Skill Ranges and Team-Balancing focus for more equal skill teammates and high-connection lobbies.

PvP Reward Restructuring. Both Crucible and Trials of Osiris being reworked. Competitive ranking improvements/speed up

Exotic Mission Rotator

Starting in Season 22: Presage, Vox Obscura, and Seraph's Shield all being added on a weekly rotation. More classic missions to be added "back into the fold" (Whisper/Zero Hour?).

Strike Rework

Lake of Shadows and Arms Dealer both being reworked, refreshed, and updated to match current strike quality levels (think Lightblade and Proving Grounds).

Inverted Spire and Exodus Crash being soft-sunset (still accessible from director) until they will be reworked next.

Battlegrounds being moved into the Nightfall playlist. Mars Heist Battleground being the first focus (Grandmaster Escalation Protocol? Better gear up...)

4 out of the 6 Nightfalls in Rotation for Season 20 will be either refreshed or newly featured

Ritual Content Refocus

Much later in the year (probably Season 22-23?), more content and rewards will be pushed towards the ritual playlists following these updates

Lost Sectors will no longer be the source of brand new initial drops of seasonal exotic armor, instead moving to the core ritual playlists

No longer need all three ritual ornaments for seasonal challenges

Slow burn until Final Shape, taking the entire year to refresh the ritual playlists and refresh our core activities

Social Connections

Commendations are an icebreaker for meeting new guardians and rewarding good effort. Trials Teammates or Raid Leaders/Coordinators.

Guardian Ranks aim to show the best of the best in the community, people you can trust

Text Chat moving to Opt-Out instead of Opt-In

Still will be able to leave individual chats, and they plan to improve moderation, filtering, and even Speech-To-Text options.

Fireteam Finder

Being delayed until Season 23's dungeon, regrettably not with Season 22's raid.

Truly fleshing this out to be a first-class system with keywords, tags, control over fireteam members, automatic joining or allowing restricted vetting processes to deny/approve individual people who want to join

Queue anywhere in the game for any activity

A one time power cap increase with the expansion's release with a major change to the progression system in The Final Shape and acknowledgement that the power system sucks, I will now play your game.

Opt-out text chat is nice too.

 

[Robber Baron]

Queue anywhere in the game for any activity

oh wow
a feature requested day 1 of Destiny 1 is being introduced 8 years later

 

[Clockwork Knight]

>leaks were real
>Rasputin is kill

no...vodkabot...if only you weren't russian in a 2023 game...

 

[ADL]

Strand abilities look so fluid and good. I want to know if it plays as good as they look.

 

[deuxhero]

Queue anywhere in the game for any activity

oh wow
a feature requested day 1 of Destiny 1 is being introduced 8 years later

Reminder Sony thought this company was worth 3.6 billion USD and would help them enter games as a service market.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

The sad thing is that it will because others don't come close. Bungie showed that they can maintain a successful AAA live service game for years. The jank and terribru decisions aren't dealbreakers when standards are low.

Youchubers were invited for a Lightfall preview. It's pretty informative, but it's Kackis so listen on 1.2 or 1.5x speed. Interestingly some armor mods aren't even named yet so this is either an early build or names will be decided last minute, lol.



Also Rasputin might have survived inside the Clovis robodog because of that lore piece about a "K9-BLACKBOX", idk. Would be a way for bungie to keep vodkabot around without having to worry about finding ways to take his OP metallic ass out of the fight every other season so the guardians have a reason to exist, and as a bonus they wouldn't have to record dialogue in russian anymore. Woof woof.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

after a whole year i'm redownloading this, keeping my bandwidth full for almost a whole week. i bet i'm still going to be greeted by the unresolved black screen issue.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

for once finally, it feels good to be surprised: i managed to make this work past the tutorial at last.

"immersion breaking: the videogame". i spent the first five minutes closing privacy issues, register here, pay here, pay more here, pay even more here, pay for the earthquake, pay for the niggers, PAY PAY PAY!
the overall game is not bad, reminded me of tabula rasa but on much smaller and much less interesting maps. without char growth and meaningful crafting. it's all a bit too barebone, just the essential, which is decently done, but still only the essential. i'm afraid it's going to last less than what it took me to download it. well, at least it's not an idioticly bad game like vermintide.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Final mission and cutscene of season 20 (Seraph), tying a bunch of loose ends from D1 and leading into Lighfall. It was a modified version of the "seraph shield" exotic mission, which might be replayable in the future. Funny thing is that after this you could go back into the furtive heist missions and there were new dialogues to reflect it, even though Rasputin's suicide means there's nothing for the hive to steal.



A closer look at Calus' beautiful new armor, that he predictably loves because he's a gentleman of taste.



Sony already uploaded the latest OST. What looks like Calus and the Witness' themes are pretty neat.