Highlights
- Destiny 2 players have discovered an exploit that allows them to combine incompatible weapon parts and perks, resulting in overpowered weapons with high damage, fire rates, ranges, and infinite ammo potential.
- While the exploit has brought a refreshing twist to the game and attracted a high player count, it also undermines the value of difficult triumphs and achievements for players who completed them authentically.
- Bungie faces a dilemma in how to address the exploit, as leaving it unfixed would ruin certain game modes, patching it takes away from player enjoyment, and taking action against exploiters may cause outrage in the community.
In Destiny 2’s latest exploit, players found a way to place incompatible weapon parts and perks from one craftable weapon onto another. This resulted in weapons that were able to deal massive amounts of damage due to their new perks, fire rates, ranges, and infinite ammo potential. While the game went through several iterations of fixes to address Destiny 2’s craftable weapon exploit, the damage was already done by this point. Ultimately, these kinds of exploits put Destiny 2 between a rock and a hard place when it comes to offering a balanced difficulty throughout the game while also providing a fun experience.
Glitches and exploits in Destiny 2 play a large role in the game, and as unusual as that sounds, the community is unapologetically a driving force behind perpetuating this cycle. Anytime players find a major exploit in the game, it spreads like wildfire around social media platforms and individual communities, because players know to act on it before it inevitably gets fixed. Otherwise, players who don't immediately participate in an exploit risk the chance of it being removed from the game and never getting to experience the benefits it can provide.
Destiny 2’s Recent Craftable Weapon Exploit is Both a Major Success and Defeat
Overall, there was a relatively high player count in Destiny 2 because of the recent exploit, indicating that players were happily enjoying the glitch while it was available. These kinds of exploits take Destiny 2's power fantasy to new extremes, providing an enjoyable experience for players who strive for this feeling. After some of the recent difficulty balancing changes in Destiny 2, the relaxed pace and difficulty that the craftable weapon exploit enabled was an especially refreshing twist that many players were happy to embrace in high-end content.
At the same time, exploits like this break the difficulty of the game, consequently depreciating the value of difficult triumphs and achievements for players who completed these feats authentically. Not just in PvE activities, but this exploit also turned Destiny 2’s PvP game modes into utter chaos, which was especially rampant in the competitive Trials of Osiris.
While it wasn’t permanent, the initial attempts to fix the craftable weapon exploit stirred further controversy in Destiny 2 because they ended up affecting everyone, including players who didn't partake in the exploit. Specifically, the first fix made Destiny 2’s craftable weapons unable to be equipped, and then a second fix reenabled craftable weapons, but it disabled a few legendary and Exotic weapon features. It was unknown how long the temporary fixes would be in place while a permanent fix was eventually released, which put players in an unfortunate situation.
The record number of players active and potentially using the exploit during this time window shows that any repercussions targeted towards the exploiters could impact a significant amount of the community. Consequently, taking action against and punishing the players who used the exploit could easily lead to outrage in the community, given how popular this particular exploit was.
Bungie seems to be aware that players are eager to exploit Destiny 2, on certain occasions even condoning players to partake in an exploit in the meantime of it being patched. The gap between players who do and players who don’t exploit is noticeably large, which has been made clear in Bungie's explanation for the upcoming removal of Legendary Shards from Destiny 2.
Ultimately, Destiny 2 is faced with a multi-sided dilemma when it comes to dealing with the new craftable weapon exploit, and none of the outcomes are in good standing. The first option of leaving the exploit unfixed would lead to certain game modes in Destiny 2 being ruined by overpowered weapons. The second option of patching the exploit takes away from the fun that players have been having in the game recently. Lastly, no matter how small, any kind of repercussive actions taken against players who used the exploit are likely to cause a devastating divide in the game’s community of longtime players.
Destiny 2 is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
