Destiny 2 News Roundup – Zone Control and Cheaters Pay Up

Bungie was back with their This Week At Bungie update this week talking about Zone Control coming back to the crucible, plus this week some cheaters got some very bad news in terms of a bill to pay. Today I am going to round up all the latest news from Destiny 2 and Bungie, so let’s get to it.

Control is a staple mode in the Crucible. It’s a hybrid of a traditional deathmatch mode of racking up points by defeating enemies and an objective mode where you get points for controlling capture points. But what if it was indeed all about the zones?

As we teased out in a previous TWAB, Zone Control will become available in Crucible Labs starting next week. It’s going to then stick around for the rest of Season of the Haunted except for during Iron Banner. Some of you may remember Zone Control from back in the OG Destiny time frame. This mode is more of a traditional objective mode where the only way to score points is to CONTROL THOSE ZONES!

It’s a simple premise but there are a few things you should know to help your fireteams be more successful and strategic.

Stacking players on the zones is going to capture them far quicker than trying to go at it solo. It can be a little easier to slip one player behind enemy lines to try to take a zone, but they are going to have to pull some heroics for longer periods of time. Controlling an area and being able to safely gather three or more Guardians is the most efficient way to cap a zone. Just watch out for a well-placed Nova Bomb!

Capture Times

1 Guardian: 22.5 Seconds
2 Guardians: 10 Seconds
3+ Guardians: 7.5 Seconds

The initial capture is going to give you one point and you will get two points for every fifteen seconds you hold a zone after that. So, keeping a zone has more value than initially capturing it.

The first team to 125 points wins! If a team falls too far behind and we detect that even if they held two zones for the rest of the match, they wouldn’t get enough points to catch up, a mercy rule will come into effect.

Those are the basics. We will be monitoring the conversation and looking forward to all of the feedback you provide on how this mode plays in Destiny 2.

Speaking of controlling zones… tomorrow, Trials of Osiris will feature the Zone Capture variant. It will also be a Trials rank bonus weekend so jump in and make Saint-14 proud!

Cheaters Pay Up

$13.5M settlement puts the cost of one Destiny 2 cheater at $2,000 By Ted Litchfield, PC Gamer

“Elite Boss Tech” sounds like the name of a nootropic that causes nosebleeds, but they actually made Destiny cheats.

As reported by TorrentFreak, Destiny 2 developer Bungie has scored a major win in its campaign against cheat developers, with the unfortunately named Canadian companies Elite Boss Tech and 11020781 Canada agreeing to a $13.5 million settlement and permanent injunction on their Destiny 2 cheat programs.

Cheat makers always seem to find a way to bypass new anti-cheat software, but in recent years, Bungie has spearheaded an effort to bring them to court, taking a software arms race into a realm where a big company and its lawyers have a clear advantage. Alongside Ubisoft and Riot, Bungie has successfully forced several cheat manufacturers, such as Ring-1 and PerfectAim, to close their doors with the threat of financially devastating legal proceedings and decisions.

Last month, AimJunkies scored a rare legal victory for the cheaters, with a Seattle judge rejecting the copyright infringement portion of Bungie’s case against it. Much of these proceedings rest on the legal logic that the developers’ copyright is somehow undermined or infringed upon by the development and sale of cheat tools, and AimJunkies was able to semi-successfully argue that its cheat tools were entirely of its own creation, using no code or assets created by Bungie, and thus did not infringe on the company’s copyright.

No such luck for Elite Boss Tech and 11020781 Canada (a struggle to type on a keyboard without a numpad), however. The companies seemed prepared to argue a similar case to AimJunkies’, but were unable to get a favorable pretrial ruling. The companies agreed to a settlement with Bungie recognizing their product as something that builds on and alters Bungie’s work, infringing on the dev’s copyright.

The agreement quantifies the financial damage of an individual Destiny 2 cheater: $2,000. I remain haunted by some ludicrous snipers from my time in Destiny’s more competitive Survival queue, but that still feels like a hefty damage estimate. Nevertheless, Elite Boss and OneOneZeroTwoZeroSevenEightOne Canada agreed to that assessment, and the companies’ software was purchased 6,765 times, bringing the total owed to Bungie to $13.5 million.

It’s an eye-watering sum in terms of normal people money—if I had $13.5 mil I’d probably have grabbed a few more $2 RPGs from 1998 in the GOG summer sale—but the real value for Bungie and other developers is the example being set: It’s just not worth it to try and sell cheats for an online FPS if a company can rain legal hell on you.

This strategy of setting a legal example against third-party developers is similar to the playbook of notoriously litigious publisher Nintendo, although cheat makers are a much less sympathetic figure than fan game devs. Recently, mod chip seller Gary Bowser was sentenced to three years(opens in new tab) in prison for being part of a team that sold tools for pirating Nintendo games, and the details of his imprisonment(opens in new tab) are stomach-churning. I don’t like to see anyone bludgeoned by the full weight of the American legal system in general, never mind over videogames.

That’s the grimmer undercurrent I see to this otherwise-welcome culling of cheat manufacturers: potential future consequences for people who are more sympathetic than incorporated cheat-making businesses. As with Bungie’s copyright strike fiasco(opens in new tab), I am reminded of the absolute power copyright holders and platform owners have over the communities of fan creators who make their livings in parallel to games, and who rely on those companies’ good graces to continue.

Player Support

4.1.0.3 RESOLVED ISSUES

Earlier this week, Hotfix 4.1.0.3 was released to the world. Below is a list of some of the issues that were resolved with this hotfix:

• The Hrafnagud ornament for Celestial Nighthawk was unavailable to equip.
• Some players were missing Void and Arc subclass unlocks.
• Players could not use Armor Synthesis.

AIRBORNE EFFECTIVENESS ISSUE

We are currently investigating an issue where some Exotic armor pieces are not granting the advertised airborne effectiveness stat correctly when equipped. The affected Exotic armor pieces are as follows:

• Sealed Ahamkara Grasps
• Lion Rampant
• Peacekeeper
• Peregrine Greaves
• Wings of Sacred Dawn

GCX EMBLEM DISTRIBUTION

Players who have donated towards the GCX celebration should expect all donation emblems to be distributed around the week of June 27, 2022.

KNOWN ISSUES

• Please note that the Flawless Thoughtstealer Triumph requires players to complete all encounters in the Duality dungeon without any members of the fireteam dying.
• The Tears of Contrition Scout Rifle displays the incorrect magazine options when Shaping the weapon at the Relic, and upon Shaping it, it is displayed incorrectly.
• The Without Remorse Shotgun does not appear in Collections.
• The Conflux legend Lost Sector requires The Rift Legend Lost Sector to be unlocked.
• The Leviathan destination weekly challenge does not progress for some players.
• Certain weapon damage buffs are not functioning correctly in PvP, including the Will Given Form buff from the Ager’s Scepter catalyst.

Let me know what you think of the latest news in the comments.