A couple of years into its lifespan, Destiny retains an active competitive community. But one of its most popular modes, a weekly Crucible event called Trials of Osiris, is currently in a state of chaos as cheaters conspire to ruin the fun for other players. A number of disgruntled players are reporting an influx of spam messages, and some believe they have even fallen victim to DDoS attacks that forcibly disconnected them from the game.
One player, who goes by dorrisx on reddit, says that they received close to 100 spam messages over the course of the weekend, which contained the words “fuck you” along with a link to a suspicious website. These messages are especially disruptive because the PS4 UI displays notifications in the upper-left corner of the screen, blocking Destiny ‘s player radar and making it difficult to track opponents.
Worse still, other players have reported being on the receiving end of DDoS attacks. Because the Trials of Osiris mode awards victory to a team once their opponents are all dead, the DDoS attacks essentially remove players’ ability to fight back, thereby ensuring their defeat. The ultimate objective of the mode is to win nine matches in a row, so it’s easy to imagine how frustrating it must be to go undefeated, only to lose your winning streak to a malicious exploit.
Bungie’s official comment, via community manager Chris Shannon, is that they “swing the ban hammer often, and are always improving [their] methods.” Shannon recommends reporting cheaters using the in-game tool, but this solution is seen as insufficient by many members of the community. Because Destiny uses peer-to-peer networking to connect its players, DDoS attacks are far easier to initiate than they would be against dedicated game servers. Furthermore, many of the spam messages are allegedly coming from proxy accounts, not from the cheaters themselves, making them difficult to track. Time will tell if Bungie can implement a more permanent solution. If they can’t, Destiny might have to fight harder than ever to stay relevant.
Source: Polygon