Future 2 gamers are satisfied the sport is secretly ripping them off. Whereas on its face an epic area opera about humanity confronting cosmic evil in a post-apocalyptic future, Bungie’s sci-fi shooter can also be a Pokémon-style collectathon the place as a substitute of cute magical creatures, gamers seize uncommon, ornate, and highly effective weapons. The sport’s newest “weightgate” controversy is a unusually compelling conspiracy principle proposing that sure ideally suited weapon variants are dropping at a lot decrease charges than junk ones, and it’s reigniting outdated debates about Future 2’s loot system and whether or not it’s really enjoyable or not.
In case you’re a daily participant you possibly can in all probability guess that I’m speaking about: perk mixtures and god rolls, however when you’re not, it’s essential to know a factor or two in regards to the fundamentals on the coronary heart of Future 2’s loot chase. Most weapons you may get within the sport drop with two random perks which do all the things from enhance reload pace to extra fascinating stuff like add elemental explosions to precision hits.
Some perk mixtures are thought of a lot, significantly better than others primarily based on their synergy with the weapon’s underlying stats and the broader meta governing character builds at any given cut-off date. These mixtures are known as god rolls they usually determine whether or not the Legendary drop you simply discovered is value holding or junk that ought to be instantly destroyed. In principle, perk mixtures ought to be fully random, offering an equal likelihood of getting a god roll as every other doable permutation. However a brand new conspiracy says that’s not really the way it works, and gamers suppose they’ve the mathematics to show it.
On the coronary heart of this scandal, which Future aficionado Paul Tassi at Forbes is calling probably the most important within the sport’s historical past, is a brand new grenade launcher known as VS Chill Inhibitor. It was simply added to the sport in Episode: Revenant, the second content material replace since The Ultimate Form growth in June, as one of many legendary drops within the new Vesper’s Host dungeon. The god roll perks are Envious Arsenal and Bait and Change, which reload the weapon from reserves and enhance injury, respectively. Each are activated by doing injury with different weapons, making it a simple to make use of however extremely efficient risk.
However gamers have been farming the primary encounter within the Vesper’s Host dungeon advert nauseum and struggling to attain this specific god roll greater than seemingly every other in latest reminiscence. Theories instantly emerged shortly after the dungeon went reside that there have to be some form of bug on Bungie’s finish that’s unintentionally making the god roll for VS Chill Inhibitor shockingly uncommon. One participant’s information testing this speculation blew up over the weekend, a lot in order that Bungie determined to reply instantly.
“Hey all, we had a dialog with our Sandbox people this morning about this,” the Future workforce Twitter account wrote on October 21. “There is no such thing as a perk weighting energetic for any legendary weapon perks in Future 2. We’ve added perk attunement for Unique Class Gadgets in a latest replace, however that’s a special system.” It appeared like an open-and-shut case, with the denial leaving no wiggle room for alternate interpretations or theories. Days later, nonetheless, gamers have continued operating the numbers and are discovering Bungie’s refutation even tougher to imagine.
Right here’s the crux of the conspiracy as its taken form this week, as articulated by T1Vendetta. It’s not that Bungie is deliberately making essentially the most fascinating god rolls for weapons tougher to get than different perk mixtures, however relatively that its RNG code is randomly favoring some mixtures over others. Particularly, there’s an concept that perks that are listed additional away from each other within the tables for Bungie’s API for Future 2 are much less more likely to seem collectively, whereas these nearer in proximity drop collectively way more continuously. So whereas these disparities are literally taking place on a regular basis, gamers solely discover them when a weapon’s god roll occurs to mix two perks which might be unusually distant from each other within the desk.
An evaluation by YouTuber Skarrow9 walks gamers via the speculation in additional element and showcases anecdotal participant information and crowdsourced analysis to again it up. There’s a rising suspicion in the neighborhood that that is really as a result of a bug relationship again to the discharge of The Ultimate Form, as evidenced by the weird perk distribution drop charges for a grenade launcher reissued in that growth known as Truthteller. “At this level, it could appear there’s no malice being directed at or from Bungie on this, however the information is there,” wrote a participant on the subreddit in one of many many common threads discussing the difficulty. “Whether or not it’s a bug or challenge with how perks are generated, we simply need solutions or additional investigation.”
There are already some gamers attempting to sleuth out how a bug like this would possibly sneak into the sport with out Bungie detecting it, with one guess being that it’s as a result of a hidden bias someplace in nonetheless the RNG is programmed for perk drops in the meanwhile. Bungie hasn’t weighed again in to make clear if the group continues to be tilting at windmills or there actually is a few deeper drawback at work that’s holding gamers from getting the god roll they need. Regardless of the precise fact of the matter seems to be, the whole ordeal has gamers grappling with a a lot bigger query: was Future’s loot chase ever really good?
The sport has all the time tried to stroll a tightrope between giving gamers what they need when they need it and making them grind for it till they get fortunate. Making loot straightforward and easy to achieve would defeat the aim of the sport, however in some unspecified time in the future an excessive amount of busy work and RNG could make the entire thing really feel extra like working a slot machine than really having enjoyable. These trade-offs, and the way efficiently Bungie is balancing them, have been on the forefront this month, particularly as a result of weapon crafting was semi-retired.
That system used to work as a supply of bad-luck safety that finally let gamers forge the precise god roll they wished whether or not it ever dropped or not. It was a double-edged sword, nonetheless, as a result of it additionally made precise god rolls redundant when gamers did occur upon them. As a substitute of grinding to unlock crafting patterns to make their most well-liked gun, gamers at the moment are simply again to toiling away in the identical actions again and again ready to get fortunate. As somebody who returned to the Future 2 loot mines this month, it undoubtedly sucks.
“The benefit of weapon crafting will all the time be superior to grinding weapons mindlessly,” reads one put up that just lately gained lots of consideration on the subreddit. Person lordofabyss principally argues that managing a number of rolls throughout dozens of weapons since you don’t know which one would possibly unexpectedly change into a part of the long run meta is a ache and a multitude. It’s additionally a drag for many who don’t, for no matter purpose, ever really get the god roll they had been chasing. One other large thread factors out that, no matter crafting, the general stage of rewards for tougher actions in Future 2 really feel needlessly stingy. There’s nothing worse than operating dungeon or raid encounters for an hour and getting nothing helpful.
One dialog on Twitter put these long-standing points with Future 2 within the context of MMOs extra typically, which Bungie’s sport has slowly change into over time. “RNG is RNG,” tweeted CammyCakesYT. “No matter if there’s an unknown underlying bug…Future 2 grind feels dangerous in comparison with different video games bc it has all the time been lacking: Participant buying and selling, Crafting system for advanced modifications, Cosmetics to make use of spare forex on.” With out diving deep into the weeds of Future 2’s loot chase in comparison with these in video games like Ultimate Fantasy XIV, Diablo IV, or Warframe, one factor it’s clearly affected by in the meanwhile is the truth that god rolls are basically the one factor to chase proper now.
Possibly that can change with subsequent yr’s formidable Codename: Frontier plans, which Bungie has stated will borrow from metroidvanias and roguelikes to construction content material in ways in which probably feels extra contemporary and satisfying. For now, bugged god rolls or not, the state of Future 2 is feeling a bit shallow. The brand new dungeon is great and the potion-based tonic system this Episode is a very cool concept, however the underlying grind holding it altogether is feeling weaker than it has in a very long time.
Replace 10/24/2024 7:20 p.m. ET: Bungie has responded to the Future 2 group’s ongoing discussions round alleged perk weighting and confirms it will likely be renewing it’s personal investigation. It undoubtedly seems like there could be greater than a kernel of fact to the “weightgate” conspiracy principle in any case.
“Whereas we’ve confirmed that there isn’t a intentional perk weighting on weapons inside our content material setup, we at the moment are investigating a possible challenge inside our code for a way RNG perks are generated,” the event workforce tweeted. “Many because of all gamers who’ve been contributing to information assortment throughout the group. This information has been monumentally useful with our investigation, and we’re at the moment engaged on inner simulations to verify your findings.”
Replace 10/28/2024 5:08 p.m. ET: Bungie confirmed it was in a position to replicate the anomalies in participant findings and can be pushing out a hotfix on November 5 to handle the disparity in perk drop charges.
