‘Destiny’ Banhammer Dropped On Lag Switchers, Bans Not Permanent Though
Bungie dropped the banhammer Thursday on the worst cheaters in Destiny‘s multiplayer modes. The worst offenders in the PlayStation and Xbox shooter were targeted after many weeks of players complaining about others using lag switches and other means of cheating.
“We know you want justice. We’ve seen the chatter. We’ve read the reports,” Community Manager David “Deej” Dague wrote in the Bungie Weekly Update. “Yesterday and today, our Security Response Team has restricted access to the Crucible by the worst offenders among us all.”
While Bungie did not give out details on the number of players banned or their varied offenses, “hundreds of people who have manipulated network traffic.” That means players who used lag switches to effectively make their characters invulnerable because the game can’t register their character getting hit by bullets, rockets, punches, or super abilities.
This kind of cheating had unfortunately become more prominent in the ultra-competitive Trials of Osiris where the desire and difficulty to reach nine wins and the sweet rewards that entailed drove some to cheat. Iron Banner suffers from the same problem, though to a seemingly lesser degree.
Players have collected a copious amount of evidence of cheaters on YouTube over the past months. The video below from Fighting Fireteam is one of the more egregious that I’ve seen as it shows the opposing team not even concerned about trying to take out their opponents. Instead, they wait for the overtime control point capture where their invincible Titan can stand in the middle of the control point, not be killed and guarantee a win.
One thing we don’t know is how long these bans will last. To the chagrin of some, Bungie confirmed that these bans are temporary and limited to Crucible activities only.
Judging by the amount of threads on the http://t.co/JrxfGocWQl forums, majority of the bans issued are PERMANENT. Nice job Bungie.
— Matt (@TheLegendBlue) July 31, 2015
The first part of June was the last time Bungie swung its banhammer. This was a temporary ban as well and primarily targeted those that would drop out of Trials of Osiris matches early to avoid skilled players.
If you do see someone you suspect is cheating while playing Destiny, you can use the game’s report feature. You can click on a suspected player directly from a game results menu to report them or go to the Roster menu and report them there. There are “Cheating” and “Bad Connection” reporting options for those that are manipulating network traffic via a lag switch.
[Images via Bungie]
