Future 2 gamers are satisfied the sport is secretly ripping them off. Whereas on its face an epic house 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 unusually compelling conspiracy concept proposing that sure ultimate 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 truly enjoyable or not.
In the event you’re a daily participant you’ll be able to most likely guess that I’m speaking about perk combos and god rolls, however for those who’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 will get within the sport drop with two random perks which do every thing from improve reload velocity to extra attention-grabbing stuff like add elemental explosions to precision hits.
Some perk combos are thought of a lot, significantly 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 referred to as god rolls they usually determine whether or not the Legendary drop you simply discovered is price maintaining or junk that must be instantly destroyed. In concept, perk combos must be utterly random, offering an equal probability of getting a god roll as some other doable permutation. However a brand new conspiracy says that’s not truly 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 largest within the sport’s historical past, is a brand new grenade launcher referred to as VS Chill Inhibitor. It was simply added to the sport in Episode: Revenant, the second content material replace since The Last 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 injury, respectively. Each are activated by doing injury with different weapons, making it a straightforward 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 some other in current reminiscence. Theories instantly emerged shortly after the dungeon went dwell that there should 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 knowledge testing this speculation blew up over the weekend, a lot in order that Bungie determined to reply straight.
“Hey all, we had a dialog with our Sandbox of us this morning about this,” the Future group Twitter account wrote on October 21. “There isn’t any perk weighting lively for any legendary weapon perks in Future 2. We have now added perk attunement for Unique Class Objects 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 operating the numbers and are discovering Bungie’s refutation even more durable to consider.
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 probably the most fascinating god rolls for weapons more durable to get than different perk combos, however somewhat 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 regularly. 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 can be unusually distant from each other within the desk.
An evaluation by YouTuber Skarrow9 walks gamers by way of the idea in additional element and showcases anecdotal participant knowledge and crowdsourced analysis to again it up. There’s a rising suspicion in the neighborhood that that is truly as a result of a bug relationship again to the discharge of The Last Form, as evidenced by the weird perk distribution drop charges for a grenade launcher reissued in that enlargement referred to as Truthteller. “At this level, it might appear there’s no malice being directed at or from Bungie on this, however the knowledge is there,” wrote a participant on the subreddit in one of many many widespread threads discussing the difficulty. “Whether or not it’s a bug or concern 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 may 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 remains to be tilting at windmills or there actually is a few deeper downside at work that’s maintaining gamers from getting the god roll they need. Regardless of the precise fact of the matter seems to be, your complete ordeal has gamers grappling with a a lot bigger query: was Future’s loot chase ever truly 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 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 truly 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 needed 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 popular gun, gamers are actually simply again to toiling away in the identical actions over and over ready to get fortunate. As somebody who returned to the Future 2 loot mines this month, it positively 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 may unexpectedly turn into a part of the long run meta is a ache and a large number. It’s additionally a drag for individuals who don’t, for no matter purpose, ever truly get the god roll they have been chasing. One other huge thread factors out that, no matter crafting, the general degree of rewards for more durable 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 turn into through the years. “RNG is RNG,” tweeted CammyCakesYT. “No matter if there may be 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 complicated modifications, Cosmetics to make use of spare foreign money on.” With out diving deep into the weeds of Future 2‘s loot chase in comparison with these in video games like Last 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 solely factor to chase proper now.
Possibly that can 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 probably 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 extremely cool thought, 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’s going to renewing it’s personal investigation. It positively seems like there is perhaps greater than a kernel of fact within the “weightgate” conspiracy concept in any case.
“Whereas we have now confirmed that there isn’t any intentional perk weighting on weapons inside our content material setup, we are actually investigating a possible concern inside our code for the way RNG perks are generated,” the event group tweeted. “Many due to all gamers who’ve been contributing to knowledge assortment throughout the group. This knowledge has been monumentally useful with our investigation, and we’re at the moment engaged on inside simulations to verify your findings.”
