Destiny 2 Players are convinced that the game is secretly tricking them. While ostensibly an epic space opera about humanity battling cosmic evil in a post-apocalyptic future, Bungie’s sci-fi shooter is also Pokémonstyle collection marathon, where players capture not cute magical creatures, but rare, gorgeous and powerful guns. Gaming’s latest “weightgate” controversy is a bizarre and compelling conspiracy theory that certain desirable weapon variants have much lower drop rates than junk weapons, and it’s reignited questions about Destiny 2’s loot system and whether it’s actually fun.
If you’re a regular gamer, you might have guessed that I’m talking about perks and god rolls, but if you’re not, it’s important to know a thing or two about the basics in the center Destiny 2The Trophy Chase. Most weapons you get in the game come with two random bonuses, ranging from increased reload speed to more interesting stuff like added elemental blasts to pinpoint hits.
Certain perk combinations are considered much better than others based on synergy with the weapon’s base stats and the broader meta control role established at any given point in time. These combinations are called God Rolls, and they determine whether the legendary drop you just discovered is worth keeping or should be destroyed immediately. In theory, perk combinations should be completely random, providing the same chance of receiving a scroll as any other possible permutation. But a new conspiracy suggests that’s not the case, and players think they have the math to prove it.
At the heart of this scandal is the destiny Amateur Paul Tassie in Forbes yes Says it may be the biggest in gaming historyis a new grenade launcher called the VS Chill Inhibitor. It was just added to the game TV Series: The Revenantthe second content update final shape June’s expansion pack as one of the legendary drops in the new Vesper’s Host dungeon. Divine scroll perks are Envy Arsenal and Bait and Switch, which reload weapons from reserves and increase damage respectively. Both are activated by dealing damage with other weapons, making them an easy-to-use yet highly effective threat.
But players have been struggling with the first encounter in the Vesper’s Host dungeon, and seem to be working harder than anyone else in recent memory to get this particular scroll. Shortly after the dungeon went live, theories immediately emerged that there must be some sort of bug on Bungie’s end that inadvertently made VS Chill Inhibitor’s God Scroll extremely rare. A player’s statistics test this hypothesis It broke out over the weekend, so much so that Bungie decided to respond directly.
“Hi everyone, we spoke with the Sandbox folks this morning about this,” destiny Team Twitter account Written on October 21. “There is no active benefit weight for any legendary weapon benefit Destiny 2. We’ve added additional tweaks to exotic items in recent updates, but it’s a different system. This appears to be a clear-cut case, and the denial leaves no wiggle room for alternative explanations or theories. However, a few days later, players continued to tally the data and found Bungie’s rebuttal even more unbelievable.
This is the crux of the conspiracy that developed this week, As explained by T1Vendetta. It’s not that Bungie intentionally makes the most desirable weapon scrolls more difficult to obtain than other perk combos, but that its RNG code randomly favors certain combos over others. Specifically, one idea is that the perks listed in the tables in Bungie’s API are further apart from each other Destiny 2 are less likely to appear together, whereas those who are closer together appear more frequently. So while these differences actually happen all the time, players only notice them if the weapon’s god die happens to combine two perks that are far apart from each other on the table.
Analysis by YouTuber Skarrow9 Guide players through the theory in more detail, and present anecdotal player data and crowdsourced research to support the theory. Doubts in society are getting louder and louder This is actually due to a bug dating back to release final shapeas evidenced by the unusual perk allocation drop rate for the re-released Grenade Launcher in this expansion truth teller. One player wrote on the Reddit subreddit: “It doesn’t seem like Bungie has malicious intent at this point, but the data is there.” Among the many popular topics Discuss this issue. “Whether it’s an error or an issue with the way benefits are generated, we just want answers or further investigation.”
There have been some players trying to investigate how a bug like this could sneak into the game without Bungie detecting it, with one speculation being that it’s due to a hidden bias in how the RNG is currently programmed with perks dropping. Bungie hasn’t stepped in to clarify whether the community is still leaning toward windmills, or there are indeed some deeper issues preventing players from getting the God Scrolls they want. Whatever the truth of the matter is, the entire ordeal has players grappling with a larger question: Is Destiny’s loot chase? once Is it actually very good?
The game is always trying to walk a tightrope between giving players what they want when they want it and making them grind until they get lucky. Making loot easy and immediate would defeat the purpose of the game, but at some point, too much busywork and RNG can make the whole thing feel more like operating a slot machine than actual fun. These trade-offs, and how successfully Bungie has been balancing them, have been at the forefront this month, especially since weapon crafting has been semi-retired.
Once a source of bad luck protection, this system finally allows players to craft the exact scroll they want, whether it drops or not. This is a double-edged sword, however, as it also makes the actual divine dice redundant when players do encounter them. Players now no longer need to work hard to unlock crafting patterns to make their favorite guns, but toil in the same activities over and over again, waiting for luck. As a returnee Destiny 2 This month’s loot mine, it’s really bad.
“The advantage of crafting a weapon will always outweigh the carelessness of polishing it.” read an article It’s been getting a lot of attention on the Reddit subreddit lately. User lordofabyss basically thinks that managing multiple rolls of dozens of weapons is a pain and confusion because you don’t know which one might accidentally become part of the meta in the future. It’s also a drag for those who, for whatever reason, don’t actually get the God roll they’re after. Another big theme points outthe overall reward level for harder activities regardless of production Destiny 2 Feeling unnecessarily petty. There’s nothing worse than spending an hour in a dungeon or raid and finding nothing.
Conversation on Twitter raises these long-standing questions Destiny 2 Within the broader context of MMOs, this is what Bungie’s games have slowly become over the years. “RNG is RNG” Tweet CammyCakesYT. “Regardless of the existence of unknown potential errors…Destiny 2 Grind feels bad compared to other games because it’s been missing: player transactions, a crafting system for complex modifications, cosmetics with alternate currencies. No need to get into the weeds Destiny 2Compared to loot chases in similar games final fantasy 14, Diablo 4or War Armorone of the things it’s apparently running into at the moment is that the god roll is essentially only Something to chase now.
maybe this will change Ambitions for next year Codename: Border planBungie said the game will draw on the styles of metroidvania and roguelike games to structure content in a way that may feel fresher and more satisfying. For now, regardless of whether God rolls or not, the state Destiny 2 It just feels a bit shallow. The new dungeons are excellent, and this episode’s potion-based tonic system is a really cool idea, but the underlying grinding that underpins it feels weaker than it’s been in a long time.