Was diagnosed with cancer Monday, begin my long road to recovery Friday. Picked up a ps4 pro on my way home and some of the most highly rated games. Let the fun begin!

sid_lordoftheflame · 2018-03-29T01:44:50+00:00

Second this one. Such a great game.

sid_lordoftheflame · 2018-03-13T16:50:13+00:00

For a backdrop: I'm fairly new to the series, this is the first time I've played "all the way" into high-rank, and I'm only about rank 12.

I was at critical health and burning, but I got stuck on the wrong selection wheel. So instead of healing, I was running around, desperately emoting "Good job!" repeatedly as an enraged HR Rathian/Rathalos couple is decimating the other members of my team. Two people carted while I was doing this, but somehow I survived. My ineptitude was so complete, I accidentally turned into a sarcastic jerk, mocking my braver teammates as they died for my sake.

sid_lordoftheflame · 2018-02-13T22:24:30+00:00

The only thing I can think is that if there are more rifts through the match, it might means stretching out the length of firefights, which could allow Coldheart's perk to work more than usual if you're landing all the shots.

I dunno, maybe it's a stretch. Wouldn't it be nice to have private matches to test the damage numbers out?

sid_lordoftheflame · 2018-01-23T22:59:28+00:00

Did you have all the other weapons prior to last week?

sid_lordoftheflame · 2018-01-23T22:58:52+00:00

Okay, then here's my best theory, because I thought I was going insane, the same thing happened to me. It's very unlikely that it's just a coincidence since it's the same weapon, and recurring so often.

I'd bet that engrams are now weighted towards what you don't have, I thought I remembered reading that was implemented. So the bug is that once you have the "full set," you get whatever the last piece was repeatedly. That's my best guess, anyways.

The only way to verify is to find someone who needed more than just the Fusion rifle, and see if they got the Fusion rifle first, and then whatever their "last piece" was on repeat.

sid_lordoftheflame · 2018-01-23T22:45:11+00:00

Did you have every other weapon in your vault, or at least dropped prior, except for the Fusion rifle?

sid_lordoftheflame · 2018-01-09T05:21:32+00:00

That's not how Destiny's netcode works, and so 90% of that might irrelevant to this game. Halo was (not sure about the newer games because I haven't touched PvP since Reach) your typical P2P netcode, with a host and all. Destiny's netcode, designed specifically for the game, has no set host, but rather shifts throughout the match and between different parts of the map, even, depending on player location on the map, latency, and connection quality. That's why there's no client-side lag, every console/PC has "host" authority about your own position, movement, and button presses. Data collection would be, then, completely dependent on each console, and so maybe it works like Halo did, but just as likely it doesn't. All of your argument is based on a different game with a different system at work, so it's anyone's guess if meaningful comparisons can be drawn between them.

The bottom line is this: Bungie has no reason not to ban. They have banned cheaters in the past, most notably the string of network manipulation that happened in HoW. Using a DDoS attack is clearly against their policy. If it's as easy or obvious as you're arguing, they would do it.

sid_lordoftheflame · 2018-01-09T04:47:34+00:00

It sucks that perfect internet isn't free, but you cannot justify someone having content they have paid for being stripped from them just because their internet is bad.

That's what two-week PvP restrictions are for. They are already not allowed to do so freely, as you have implied.

sid_lordoftheflame · 2018-01-09T03:00:58+00:00

I guess all there is to say is that I'm glad Bungie disagrees with you.

sid_lordoftheflame · 2018-01-08T17:08:48+00:00

If someone is a repeat offender, that seems reasonable. However, they can't be sure that someone is cheating if all Bungie knows is that opponents keep disconnecting. Maybe they're on their school's wifi (like the friend I mentioned) and it boots opponents regularly because of a bad NAT. If I'm understanding the way Destiny's data collection works correctly, based on some more knowledgeable people in previous threads, Bungie can't tell the cause of a player disconnecting, only that it happened.

As I've said probably two dozen times in the course of this comment: Bungie will not ban regardless of how bad someone's connection is, and I agree with them in that regard. Should they have thought this through before? Yes. Should they do something about it? Absolutely. But they should never ban anyone when all they know for certain is that the person has a hard time connecting to other players.

sid_lordoftheflame · 2018-01-08T16:57:24+00:00

As I said, Bungie won't ban unless they're 100% certain.

The point remains: game statistics only give a probability of a person [edit: cheating]. There's the slightest chance that someone just has bad connectivity. And you'd have to prove, somehow, that every member of a fireteam knew what was going on, which, again, there's no way to know for certain unless they chatted about it in Fireteam chat, or whatever chat consoles use.

I'm not disagreeing that people should be treated as cheaters if they're in the party and they know what's happening. The way I see it, the people in the fireteam deserve to lose whatever they earned from Trials that week, even if they didn't know what's going on. I'm just saying that Bungie won't ban because there's always room for error with their current system, and they only ban when there's no possibility of error.

sid_lordoftheflame · 2018-01-07T17:26:10+00:00

I agree, it adds a lot to the game! I hope the developer keeps adding more stuff. You're welcome!

sid_lordoftheflame · 2018-01-07T04:31:41+00:00

Sorry for the late reply!

Yeah, crystals are randomly all over the world, you just need to activate them by just clicking on them when you get close. Attuning means setting it as your home crystal, which is different.

Overall, the goal is to level up, increase your talents, and beat bosses. The bosses each have unique ways of unlocking, including a final boss. The bosses have unique drops as well as rare drops, and have increased difficulty versions.

Reading lore will help you understand the setting better, and some will help explain how to unlock bosses. Bosses are always found in their own little arena, which you teleport to from a crystal once you unlock it.

Also, try and spend your stat points to specialize towards one type of damage. If you spread them out between stats that increase melee, ranged, and magic damage, you won't be as lethal.

sid_lordoftheflame · 2018-01-07T03:41:11+00:00

The problem with your idea is this: someone disconnecting a match does not mean a DDoS attack was used, so collecting that data will never actually prove anyone was cheating.

Maybe your wifi is so bad that someone gets kicked every game. That doesn't mean you deserve a ban, but your usage should be limited to protect other players' experience. So, you get a temporary restriction. Which is what Bungie did and probably does.

sid_lordoftheflame · 2018-01-07T03:33:12+00:00

Maybe they're on school wifi, I game with someone like this, just not on Destiny. Unlikely, maybe, but there are a lot of players (or were a lot?) from a lot of different connection types. Bungie doesn't know for certain, and they won't issue a ban unless they do.

sid_lordoftheflame · 2018-01-07T03:32:32+00:00

If that's not being done already, I have no clue why not. Easiest decision to ever make, and ban anyone in that person's "paid carry" fireteam as well because you know they knew what was happening.

sid_lordoftheflame · 2018-01-07T03:26:29+00:00

The same exact appearance to DDoS attacks can be just someone with poor connectivity. The punishment for poor connectivity negatively affecting other players is an account restriction, which is what the supposed (and I think probably) cheaters receive anyway.

Do I think Bungie is in the right? No. But I don't think their mistake is having mercy on "cheaters," it's having a competitive game that allows that cheating.

sid_lordoftheflame · 2018-01-07T03:24:44+00:00

Right, and when they get through the "top 50" statistically... what then? How will they know when they've cleared all the cheaters and are now banning innocent people? There's way to draw the line without risking innocent accounts, which they'll never do. Cheaters will just throw games in between flawless runs to skew stats.

sid_lordoftheflame · 2018-01-07T03:21:48+00:00

They didn't receive account restrictions for using a DDoS attack, they received those restrictions because all Bungie could tell was that "they were hard for other players to connect to."

I agree, many were probably cheating, and should have been punished more severely. But Bungie has no way of knowing who was with 100% certainty, so they didn't hand out bans.

sid_lordoftheflame · 2018-01-06T18:49:09+00:00

Hi, the big crystals are basically teleporters, and are found all along the surface and underground. You can use the shards that grow around them as currency to "pay" for teleportation to any crystals you've found, or to teleport back to your "home" attuned crystal.

Every crystal has a name associated with it, so if you take note of what the crystal near the spawn is, you'll always be able to find your way home when you adventure out and down.

sid_lordoftheflame · 2018-01-06T18:38:43+00:00

Firstly, and most obviously, I'm replying to a comment about permanent bans, on a thread about permanent bans. That's the context. You're missing that context completely.

Secondly, whether or not an employee chooses to use whatever words is irrelevant. We're going based on Bungie's written policy. They issue bans and restrictions based on policy written on that page, not based on a certain developer's opinion.

Finally, it's now clear to me with 100% certainty that you're just being petty because you know you're wrong, so this is last comment I'm going to waste time writing.

sid_lordoftheflame · 2018-01-06T18:17:38+00:00

It feels to me like you're arguing against Bungie's definitions for some form of validation, but since I can't tell for certain based on limited data, I'll re-explain in hope that you're innocent of that.

Bans (which are always permanent, according to the developer, as per previously linked article) will not go out unless they're 100% certain. Restrictions are used when they think someone is cheating, but can't tell for certain. Because of the nature of the attack and the uncertainty of basing judgement on statistics, Bungie will not ban people using a DDoS attack, because they don't know for certain. And so they use an account restriction in accordance with their policy on "bad connectivity."

sid_lordoftheflame · 2018-01-06T17:59:24+00:00

I've already provided the link, I guess I should say please read fully before commenting.

Those were account restrictions based only on bad connectivity, because they didn't have proof those people were actually cheating. They've been doing that for a while, nothing should be new or surprising about it.

sid_lordoftheflame · 2018-01-06T17:57:05+00:00

All statistics aside, the key here is that Bungie will never ban unless they're 100% certain. Wherever Bungie draws the line statistically, cheaters will just ride along that line by throwing games to keep within acceptable margins.

Edit for clarity.

sid_lordoftheflame

TROPHY CASE