‘Destiny’ – Hack allows the player to remove another player’s weapon and armour

A Reddit user going by the name DeafSpaceWizardry made a post late last night describing his experience. Following a Rumble match in the Crucible, he received a message from another Guardian suggesting that he shouldn’t use the much-vaunted Thorn hand cannon in the mode, and instead should simply dismantle it.

The message itself was innocuous enough — it seemed that the player was either venting their hurt feelings after underperforming in the Rumble match, or they were simply trying to offer some advice. DeafSpaceWizardry responded by saying ‘why would I dismantle it, I worked hard for it.’

This is where the story turns sour. The accused player fired back a message saying ‘that’s OK I’ll do it for you’, at which point DeafSpaceWizardry has his game boot back to the menu and display an error code. When he got back into the game, his Thorn had been reduced to one Shard and three Weapon Parts.

The idea of other players being able to remotely dismantle weapons sounds like your classic gaming rumour, but there’s some reason to believe that this story is legitimate. For one, there was another report on Reddit a month ago that described the series of events necessary to do this to another player.

It’s still unclear whether or not this is a real exploit, but for now it seems fair to give DeafSpaceWizardry the benefit of the doubt. If it is indeed possible for other player’s to dismantle your Guardian’s gear, this could potentially have a bigger impact on the Destiny community than any griefing that we’ve seen in the game to date. However, you can expect Bungie to make an expedient response to the problem, if it does turn out to be real.

The studio has been very clear about the zero-tolerance policy on bad apples in the game’s multiplayer, and few would argue against them enforcing harsh punishments for an exploit with such massive potential to spoil the experience for other players. The only question is, how soon can the developers isolate the issue?

Trials of Osiris Is The New Best Thing with Destiny

The agony! The jubilation! The drama and disappointment! I have reached the top of Destiny mountain, and the view is spectacular. It was a pain in the ass getting here, but I guess that was the point.

For the first eight months of its existence, the “best thing” in Destiny was the Vault of Glass raid. It was fun, it was challenging; it required teamwork and careful play.

That is no longer the case. Destiny has a new Best Thing, and it’s an unexpected one. The weekly, competitive Trials of Osiris multiplayer event has overtaken the Vault of Glass as the most challenging, intense, and rewarding activity in the game. It also signals a significant readjustment of Destiny’s focus, and it’s one that many longtime players aren’t happy about.

On Monday, Jason Schreier and I “beat” the Trials of Osiris. Along with our talented teammate Todd (more on him in a bit), we managed to complete an undefeated 9-0 scorecard against some of the best Destiny players in the world. I have never worked harder for a video game achievement, nor have I been prouder to finally accomplish one. I’m still riding an emotional high.

If you’d told me in the fall of 2014 that a 3v3 deathmatch tournament would wind up being the most exciting thing in Destiny, I would’ve had a hard time believing you. What a difference a year makes.

Since it came out last September, Destiny has been a game with two primary focuses. First, there’s PvE, which stands for “Player vs. Environment.” That’s the cooperative, story-based action game that has players teaming up to take on computer-controlled enemies. PvE encompasses activities like story missions, strikes, raids, and most recently, the Prison of Elders challenge mode.

Then there’s PvP, which stands for “Player vs. Player.” In PvP, players go into a virtual space called “The Crucible” to fight against other players competitively. In the game’s fiction, you’re not really fighting other guardians… this is just training for the real PvE fight out in the world. Destiny PvP is not unlike other competitive first-person shooters like Call of Duty or Destiny developer Bungie’s previous series, Halo. You run around, you stay in cover, you aim for the head. PvP Destiny includes a few different types of Crucible matches as well as a week-long, on-again-off-again event called the Iron Banner and most recently, the Trials of Osiris.

For the first months of its existence, Destiny’s PvP wasn’t all that much to write home about. It was fun, but there wasn’t much to it, especially when the game first came out. Furthermore, it had (and continues to have) some glaring balance issues along with regular, game-crippling lag. Both of those things made it hard for salty FPS veterans to take Crucible seriously.

It was—and still is—possible for a player to focus mainly on PvE play and have a perfectly good time. That’s how I played until May’s House of Wolves expansion—my experience of the game (and as a result, our coverage of it at Kotaku) was resolutely PvE-focused. I’d do raids, and patrol bounties, and the weekly Heroic and Nightfall strikes. Then Trials of Osiris happened. In the weeks that followed, my perception of Destiny underwent a fundamental shift.

Trials of Osiris combines the rush of competitive first-person shooting with the seductive whisper of carefully controlled gambling to create something that is both exceedingly rewarding and terrifyingly difficult to quit. It’s the most fun I’ve ever had playing competitive multiplayer—full stop—but it’s also Threat Level Alpha for anyone with a social life to maintain. It is the true test of player ability that many hardcore Destiny PvPers have been begging for, even while its purity has alienated a large number of less skilled players.

Like most things in Destiny, Trials is complicated, full of jargon, and difficult to parse for a newcomer. Here’s the gist:

Trials runs weekly, beginning early on Friday and running through to the weekly reset late Monday night. To participate, you need to form a three-person team (there’s no built-in matchmaking) and each character needs to go to a special vendor and spend a little bit of in-game money on a “Passage Card.” Your Passage Card is your entry ticket.

You then compete in matches against other teams of three. Each match consists of up to nine rounds; whoever wins five rounds first wins the full match. The game-type is elimination deathmatch—if you can kill all three members of the opposing team, your team wins the round. If you only kill one or two of them, the remaining players can revive their teammates and keep the fight going. This opens the door for all sorts of unlikely comebacks, moments of solo heroism, and scrambling, on-the-fly strategy shifts.

Once you win or lose a match, that outcome is recorded on your Passage Card, which eventually starts to look like this:

You can also buy a few “buffs” for your card using yet another form of currency called Passage Coins. Once per card, you can snag any of three modifiers—your first loss won’t count, or you’ll start with a win, or your next win will count double.

If you get three losses, your card is closed out and you have to trade it in back at the Trials vendor for a fresh one. However, if you can get more than four wins on a card, you start unlocking really good rewards—guaranteed rare items, excellent guns and armor, and—if you can get nine wins without a single loss—a trip to Mercury, where you’ll have a chance to get the most elite items currently available in Destiny.

(If you’re good at math, you’ve figured out that with all three buffs purchased, that “flawless” 9-0 run really only needs to be 7-1.)

The result has been a challenging and intense new game mode that stands apart—far apart—from everything else in Destiny. It puts the entirety of Destiny’s PvP under a magnifying glass, exaggerating all of the things that make it fun while bringing its many flaws and imbalances into sharp relief. It is both the best and, sometimes, the worst thing in the game.

Bungie’s new community manager helped start and run the Destiny subreddit

Bungie’s new community manager helped start and run the Destiny subreddit.

For one Reddit user, a hobby has turned into a full-time job at the developer of Destiny. Bungie has given the moderator of the Destiny subreddit a job as a community manager, meaning that he will now oversee an even bigger community of Destiny fans.

User Cozmo is the founder of the Destiny subreddit, creating the group when the game only had some leaked concept art. The subreddit now has close to 190,000 subscribers and thousands of people browsing it at any one time.

Bungie has brought Cozmo on to supplement the work done by the current community manager, Deej. In a post on Bungie’s site, Deej explained that the Destiny community has grown too large for one person to manage. “The fact of the matter is that there are too many of you for me to handle alone,” he wrote. “Sure, I have urk [community and marketing relations manager Eric Osborne] to lead the way, but we both get pulled behind the scenes more and more to make sure you’re informed about the next evolution that Bungie will be hurling at you. But what about the front lines?”

As a result, Cozmo will be engaging with the community, most likely through social media channels and in the forums on Bungie’s sites. Deej will still write the Bungie Weekly Updates.

Since he’s now an employee of Bungie, Cozmo is stepping down as moderator of the subreddit.

This is likely a move to prepare for the upcoming release of Destiny’s next expansion, The Taken King. The expansion launches on September 15 and will cost $40.

The Taken King Getting Quest and Bounty Overhauls from Destiny

In its Weekly Update this week, developer Bungie detailed the upcoming changes to bounties and quests, revealing a dramatic overhaul to the tasks. First of all, The Taken King’s creative director Luke Smith stated that the studio is making the expansion’s new quests more in line with the base game’s Exotic Bounties. These bounties are multi-step, difficult challenges that rewarded players with Exotic weapons upon completion. Destiny power leveling can get the Exotic weapons.

Continue reading The Taken King Getting Quest and Bounty Overhauls from Destiny

‘Destiny’ – After A Weekend With LFG

This weekend there was a perfect storm of events that led me to a situation I rarely find myself in. With no wife around, and no friends in town, I had quite literally nothing to do for two days other than try and be productive by reading, writing, or working out.

Or rather, I played Destiny the way it was meant to be played. With other people. With a headset. Doing high level content. Destiny power levling can raise the level of your.

Continue reading ‘Destiny’ – After A Weekend With LFG

New challenges for the week of July 14 with Destiny

It’s that wonderful time when Bungie’s rotating selection of high-reward activities are rebooted (along with any raid progress made in the previous week), giving everyone a fresh chance at scoring some of the game’s sweetest and rarest loot.

Are you new to Destiny? Don’t know what any of this means? Good news. There’s a Destiny wiki that’s packed with information. Click for details on what Strikes are, and how Nightfall differs from Weekly Heroic challenges.

The House of Wolves add-on also adds a new weekly wrinkle, in the form of Prison of Elders. The multi-round gauntlets are built for endgame play, with the specific enemy types and modifiers changing from week to week.

Here’s a rundown of what’s happening this week:

Nightfall (The Nexus)

  • Epic – This is a standard Nightfall modifier. It just means there are more enemies to fight, and a greater number of Majors (the yellow health bar dudes) on the field.
  • Nightfall – Another standard Nightfall modifier. This one boots the entire Fireteam back to orbit if everyone is downed inside one of the revive-only respawn Darkness Zones.
  • Angry – Enemies can’t be staggered.
  • Brawler – Guardian melee attack do increased damage.
  • Grounded – Guardians take increased damage when in the air.

Continue reading New challenges for the week of July 14 with Destiny

A Mage-like Guardian Class in Destiny – Warlock

“Warlocks have long studied the Traveler, mastering some of its arcane energies. Its true purpose still remains a great mystery, but discovering truth has always driven you into the unknown. Now, our enemies stand between you and your greatest discovery – the secrets of the Golden Age.”

Destiny Warlocks

The Warlocks are a mage-like Guardian class in Destiny, and have been compared directly to both the prototypical wizard class and the sci-fi mainstay Jedi. Utilizing the powers of the Traveler to create magic-like effects, the Warlocks are extremely powerful. Though they have the ability to deal massive amounts of damage, they do not benefit from the pure speed of the Hunter or the strong defense of the Titan classes, making them a class of reserved expertise rather than full-out assault.

Visually, Warlock silhouette’s are an inverse of the Titan ‘V’-shape. Cues of a Warlock is the dark face-mask. Approximately 20% of Warlock gear will show armor, while 80% will be composed of cloth.

An Incredibly Strong Group of Destiny Guardians – Titans

“The first Titans built the Wall, and gave their lives to defend it. Now, you stand in the same high place, steadfast and sure, protecting all who shelter in your shadow. You hail from a long line of heroes, forged from strength and sacrifice. Our enemies may be deadly and merciless, but so are you.”

Destiny Titan

Titans are an incredibly strong group of Guardians, designed specifically to play the role of super soldier or space marine. They are an all-out, heavy assault class, and can be considered a class equivalent of the prototypical “warrior” class. Their armor is composed of heavy metals, and they are designed to withstand a significant amount of damage at the expense of range and maneuverability. Visually, Titan armor holds a strong ‘V’ shape in the overall design. Cues of a Titan can be given in the swept-back helmet or the angled thigh pads. Approximately eighty percent of Titan gear will show armor, while the remaining twenty percent will be composed of non-armor materials.

A Stealthy Class of Destiny Guardians – Hunters

“Hunters once prowled the wilderness and wastelands, taking big risks for even bigger rewards. You’re no outlaw—at least, not anymore—but making your own luck has always meant bending the rules. Your unique brand of daring and ingenuity is needed now more than ever.”

Destiny Hunter

The Hunters are a stealthy class of Guardians, focusing largely on sniping and silent attacks. Designed around the concept of bounty hunters, the Hunter could also be considered the class equivalent of the prototypical “rogue”. Visually, capes and hoods play heavily in this player type’s design. Hunter armor is a mixture of approximately 50% armor to 50% non-armor (cloth) material, being an overall looser fit than Titan gear.

They are to be considered a more long-range, stealthy class than the others. Joe Staten from GameSpot comments on the bounty hunter characteristic of the class, describing them as “cool and collected”. They are usually the one taking a shot before the enemy even knows they are there. Bungie Senior Graphics Designer Lorraine McLees described the class as a “combination of speed and strength”, and Assistant Community Manager David Dague added that the Hunter class “is about stealth tactics”

Hunters were once survivors that roamed the wastelands and wilderness making their own luck. Through manipulation of the Traveler’s energies, Hunters learned how to survive in the wild. This heritage has led to their characteristic tendency of bending the rules to suit their particular situation. Being the trailblazers amongst Guardian classes, Hunters serve as invaluable scouts when surveying hostile and dangerous territory combining their trademark daring and ingenuity.Some fear them as being too dangerous, but their bravery has led to many discoveries dating back to the Golden Age.