‘Destiny’ Nightstalker Exploit, Nightfall Rewards To Be Addressed By Bungie

Destiny continues to show off how it has largely improved with the release of The Taken King, but there are still a few nagging issues with the PlayStation and Xbox shooter. One of those lingering issues is Nightfall rewards, but a new Iron Banner-breaking Nightstalker Hunter exploit may have just hit the top of Bungie’s “to fix” list.

Nightstalker Exploit

The Nightstalker Hunter exploit centers on the subclass’ Shadowshot super ability with the “Quiver” perk selected, which gives them three shots instead of just one. Players are able to take the first two shots with super ability, and then quickly press a button to go into their inventory screen and exit out. When they return to gameplay, their super energy bar is full again. This effectively gives the Nightstalker Hunter unlimited super energy.

I ran into this exploit while playing Iron Banner in Destiny last night, and it is, indeed, game breaking. The match was even, with my team slightly ahead, until the other team with three Hunters gained their super ability. Then it turned into a continuous stream of Shadowshot supers feeding Orbs of Light to the other three players on their team, allowing them to gain their supers faster. It was still possible to kill the three Hunters using the exploit, but the difference in power tilted the match in their favor unfairly.

I wondered how this was happening, but didn’t think much of it at the time since it happened in only a single match out of several. Then I woke up this morning and discovered that news of the exploit hit the Destiny community in places like the DestinyReddit group and the official forums, indicating it that is widespread and even worse than what I experienced, as this YouTube video from onionknight69 shows.

Fortunately, Bungie Community Manager David “Deej” Dague responded to one fan’s question on fixing the exploit via Twitter in the affirmative.

.@drunken_sailor9 I can assure you we’re investigating.

— DeeJ (@DeeJ_BNG) October 15, 2015

Now, the question is how soon Bungie can release the fix. Iron Banner is on-going right now, and Trials of Osiris is set to return tomorrow, October 16. This ultra-competitive mode was already hampered by players manipulating network traffic to effectively make themselves invincible previously. The Shadowshot exploit will just make things worse if allowed to continue. It’s still unknown if Bungie plans to issue any temporary bans for players using the Shadowshot exploit.

Nightfall Rewards

As I previously covered as one of the six things Destiny needs to fix, the weekly Nightfall during Year One was a must-do challenge for players to tackle to earn loot and get an experience boost. The combination of modifiers plus potential to be kicked to orbit and made to start over from the beginning when everyone on a Fireteam dies made it a tense, white-knuckle exercise at times, and a glorious damage dealing romp at others.

The Year Two change of no longer being forced back into orbit on a wipe is welcome, but the Nightfall has lost some of the risk / reward. The loot drops at the end are a mixed bag, sometimes rewarding Engrams that produce weapons and gear at less than 280 Light. The activity also no longer gives an experience boost, which was a major reason for completing it every week. Additionally, the 500 reputation bonus for completing the Nightfall has been dropped to a paltry handful of Vanguard and Faction reputation points.

Bungie appears to be trying to figure out how to handle Nightfall Strikes in a way that they aren’t a mandatory start to every weekly reset. However, the disappointing rewards guarantees not many will want to run it at all. There needs to be a more consistent level of rewards to match the high level of difficulty for the activity, and this is something Bungie Creative Director Luke Smith confirms is being fixed.

Nightfall Rewards can be underwhelming. Runes/low # of coins/no reputation burst/weak legendaries all feel like losing. We’re gonna fix it

— Luke Smith (@thislukesmith) October 14, 2015

Iron Banner Rewards

One topic not touched on by Bungie yet is the Iron Banner rewards. The Destiny 2.0.1 update was supposed to increase the number of rewards and make Iron Banner gear drop more regularly. That does not appear to be the case thus far. My experience of not getting much in the way of meaningful rewards in Iron Banner is echoed by others in the community across several posts in the Destiny Reddit group alone.

We’ll have to wait and see if and when this is addressed by Bungie.

[Images via Bungie]