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 be a Pokémon-style collectathon the place as an alternative of cute magical creatures, gamers seize uncommon, ornate, and highly effective weapons. The sport’s newest “weightgate” controversy is a surprisingly compelling conspiracy principle proposing that sure best weapon variants are dropping at a lot decrease charges than junk ones, and it’s reigniting previous 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 combos and god rolls, however should you’re not, it’s necessary to know a factor or two in regards to the fundamentals on the coronary heart of Future 2’s loot chase. Most weapons you will get within the sport drop with two random perks which do every little thing from improve reload velocity to extra fascinating stuff like add elemental explosions to precision hits.
Some perk combos are thought of a lot, a lot better than others based mostly on their synergy with the weapon’s underlying stats and the broader meta governing character builds at any given cut-off date. These combos are known as god rolls they usually determine whether or not the Legendary drop you simply discovered is value conserving or junk that ought to be instantly destroyed. In principle, perk combos ought to be fully random, offering an equal probability of getting a god roll as another doable permutation. However a brand new conspiracy says that’s not really the way it works, and gamers assume they’ve the mathematics to show it.
On the coronary heart of this scandal, which Future aficionado Paul Tassi at Forbes is calling doubtlessly the largest 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 Closing Form enlargement 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 improve harm, respectively. Each are activated by doing harm 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 another in current reminiscence. Theories instantly emerged shortly after the dungeon went reside that there should be some type 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 immediately.
“Hey all, we had a dialog with our Sandbox people this morning about this,” the Future group 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 current 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 working the numbers and are discovering Bungie’s refutation even more durable 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 more durable to get than different perk combos, however slightly that its RNG code is randomly favoring some combos 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 prone to seem collectively, whereas these nearer in proximity drop collectively far more steadily. So whereas these disparities are literally occurring 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 by means of the idea in additional element and showcases anecdotal participant information and crowdsourced analysis to again it up. There’s a rising suspicion locally that that is really because of a bug relationship again to the discharge of The Closing Form, as evidenced by the weird perk distribution drop charges for a grenade launcher reissued in that enlargement 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 in style threads discussing the problem. “Whether or not it’s a bug or difficulty with how perks are generated, we simply need solutions or additional investigation.”
There are already some gamers making an attempt 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 because of a hidden bias someplace in nonetheless the RNG is programmed for perk drops for the time being. 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 conserving 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 at all times 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 simple and easy to realize would defeat the aim of the sport, however sooner or later 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 at all times be superior to grinding weapons mindlessly,” reads one put up that just lately gained a variety of consideration on the subreddit. Consumer lordofabyss principally argues that managing a number of rolls throughout dozens of weapons since you don’t know which one would possibly unexpectedly turn out to be a part of the longer term meta is a ache and a large number. It’s additionally a drag for many who don’t, for no matter motive, ever really get the god roll they have been chasing. One other huge thread factors out that, no matter crafting, the general stage of rewards for more durable actions in Future 2 really feel needlessly stingy. There’s nothing worse than working 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 turn out to be over time. “RNG is RNG,” tweeted CammyCakesYT. “No matter if there’s an unknown underlying bug…Future 2 grind feels unhealthy in comparison with different video games bc it has at all times 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 Closing Fantasy XIV, Diablo IV, or Warframe, one factor it’s clearly affected by for the time being is the truth that god rolls are primarily the one factor to chase proper now.
Perhaps that may change with subsequent yr’s bold Codename: Frontier plans, which Bungie has stated will borrow from metroidvanias and roguelikes to construction content material in ways in which doubtlessly feels extra recent and satisfying. For now, bugged god rolls or not, the state of Future 2 is feeling a bit shallow. The brand new dungeon is superb 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 should renewing it’s personal investigation. It undoubtedly feels like there could be greater than a kernel of fact within the “weightgate” conspiracy principle in any case.
“Whereas we now have confirmed that there isn’t any intentional perk weighting on weapons inside our content material setup, we at the moment are investigating a possible difficulty inside our code for the way RNG perks are generated,” the event group tweeted. “Many due to 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 inside simulations to substantiate your findings.”
