Over the last week, Bungie initiated a new wave of bans targeting offensive accounts in Destiny 2. Unfortunately, this recent action has banned a seemingly disproportionate amount of players claiming innocence. One of these players is known as Dre, the sole operator of the popular Destiny 2 tool, D2 Gunsmith.
Dre has taken this ban as an opportunity to step away from both Destiny 2 and D2 Gunsmith, his reason being the game’s state and its moderation.
Genuinely don’t know what I did, but I’m not appealing it. They know more than me, lol. pic.twitter.com/981ksg3fm9
— dre (@aundre_kerr) September 27, 2022
This is despite Bungie repealing the ban just days later. Other users see this quick repeal as lucky or a privilege. “Unless you are a big content creator you will stay banned for months over a false positive,” Twitter user @Panora_ says.
Bungie has also banned numerous players with thousands of hours. Twitter user @Permifyyy tweeted his story of being suddenly banned while playing. According to him, Bungie has not told him a reason for his ban. It’s been 2 months since his ban.
The official Bungie Help Twitter account recently tweeted about the situation:
Human error on a new cheat detection caused some incorrect bans to occur this week. We've turned the new detection off while we investigate the error and process the related unbans. All preexisting anti-cheat systems are still in effect.
More details to come in this week’s TWAB.
— Bungie Help (@BungieHelp) October 3, 2022
The recent ban wave has targeted players suspected of using net limiters. These programs modify a player’s connection to a game’s servers. In Destiny 2, net limiters can increase the damage of certain weapons and alter the abilities of certain abilities. Some theorized that Bungie may have falsely targeted those with unstable internet connections as net limiters.
Since its move to Steam in 2019, Destiny 2 on PC has seen a massive surge in cheaters and other bad actors. With the launch of the Witch Queen expansion in February, Bungie had implemented the anti-cheat software BattlEye into the game’s security arsenal. Before then, it wasn’t uncommon to run into players cheating in competitive modes like Trials of Osiris, whether it was subtle or very, very obvious.
Compounding the situation is the split views on these bans. Some players believe that those who are banned are at the very least suspect of some form of cheating. It’s not hard to imagine why one would adopt such a mindset. Last year’s situation involving a Destiny content creator named BakenGangstamay be the cause of such mindset. Community manager @A_dmg04 had to reply publicly in order to calm the uproar from Baken’s ban:
Following up. Took some time to triple check this with the Security team.
We have detected 2 accounts under your ownership using cheat suites while playing Destiny 2, and have banned 4 accounts total. (Includes ban evasion)
This is our final communication on this matter.
— dmg04 (@A_dmg04) June 30, 2021
Because of Bungie’s appeal system, relative silence over their reasoning for bans, and supposed favoritism for content creators, many players are becoming frustrated with Bungie’s overcorrection of the past three years. This recent Destiny 2 ban wave has only further escalated tensions.
Billy Bob
This would be devastating news to me if I played the game