In its recent Destiny 2 competitive PvP overview, Bungie provided some insight into one of the game's recent ban waves. Specifically, it would seem that the game's new version of competitive PvP provides ample data for in-depth statistical analysis which, in turn, readily reveals players that are doubtlessly cheating and/or setting up win trading sessions, where fireteams throw matches to bump up the other players' competitive rating.
While Destiny 2's mid-season Crucible updates were certainly the highlight of Bungie's recent blog post, with new cosmetics and weaponry getting some announcements as well, there was a veritable wealth of other curious information in there, too. For example, the studio admitted that climbing the competitive ranks is "probably" a bit too difficult at this time, but the revamp of the playlist appears to have been a good thing overall.
At least, the competitive PvP revamp was a good thing for those who play Destiny 2 as it is intended to be played. As part of the blog, Bungie included a special PvP Division rank graph to illustrate its point. The straight and thin black line is Bungie's "target" ranking for the players' skill rating, the thick black line is the mean Division players managed to reach, and each dot is a particular player. Bungie noted that the model allows for outliers, but that it also pinpoints truly severe standouts. Further, the graph also shows how these standouts have exceedingly high competitive Division ranks, but a low skill rating.
These statistical anomalies are almost definitely examples of win trading, Bungie explained, and "[the studio was] super happy these players called themselves out to us." Following a confirmation that there aren't serious bugs leading to players getting thrown into high-skill matches and somehow winning, developers could investigate the outlier players' match histories and issue permanent bans. Though Destiny 2 had problems with false cheat detection in the past, Bungie's detailed breakdown of the data gives the studio a high assurance of what truly went down.
Naturally, Destiny 2 is no stranger to ban waves, as its popularity means it's a prime target for hacking and cheating of all sorts. Win trading has, historically, been a big problem for its competitive modes, but it seems that the revamped PvP systems and division ranks now give Bungie a better idea of when, exactly, these events might be taking place.
Some players may recall 2021's Destiny 2 Hakke casino, where players jumped into Trials of Osiris looking for others wearing the infamous Hakke emblem. After spotting a team with the emblem equipped, they worked out a deal to trade wins with one another. This was a huge exploit that put a short-term dampener on Bungie's attempts at revitalizing Trials. With permanent bans getting issued for win trading now, however, and with proof that Bungie can easily spot them, it's less likely that something similar will happen again.
Destiny 2 is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
Source: Bungie
