Destiny 2 players are grinding loot from a cave again
Back door.
Four years, two games and countless expansions later, Destiny players are once again grinding loot from a cave.
The latest exploit lets you grind out tokens for this week's Faction Rally event by running in and out of a cave's back door to farm a respawning chest.
- Head to the Lost Sector named The Weep on Earth's European Dead Zone.
- Shoot everything in the cave, loot the chest.
- Run to the cave's back entrance then back to the chest - you can loot it again.
- Repeat that last step over and over and over and over.
Once you get into a rhythm (I tried it, for science) you can get a drop of three tokens every 15 seconds. It is by far the fastest way to accrue those tokens in the game.
Bungie recently updated Destiny 2 to try and stop people farming Lost Sectors by adding a cap to the amount of loot which will drop within a given timeframe. But, clearly, Bungie forgot to limit Faction Rally tokens in that cap.
The exploit isn't particularly notable in its ingenuity. It's not particularly game-breaking, either. Bungie will, I'm sure, patch the technique, but all it does is offer up a selection of items from your chosen faction's loot pool.
It is still attractive to players, though, because of the way Bungie has handled loot in the game - making it a random drop unlocked by handing these tokens into what feels like a slot machine. It's a topic I've written about at length before.
Destiny will always be a game about random loot drops, and Destiny players will always try and bend the rules/downright exploit the game's systems when they find a weakness. But I can't help but wonder if Bungie could do more. The studio has acknowledged the token system is not the best fit for everything in the game (and indeed, the token system feels all-pervasive). Future versions of Iron Banner will offer some fixed rewards as well as token-based drops, Bungie has pledged.
Bungie had a good system in Destiny 1 to get around this sort of exploit - Record Books which asked players to complete a wide variety of things for a guaranteed reward, and a path to unlocking a full set rather than simply grind out (through an exploit, or just by playing the game) and rely on luck. These are not available in Destiny 2.
Farming isn't fun. Apart from the initial, fleeting joy of seeing Destiny's systems exploited, it quickly becomes monotonous work. It's not how I'd like to play the game to be rewarded. It's certainly not how Bungie would like me to play the game and be rewarded. But, until something changes, players will continue to farm Destiny's loot. And after this cave is patched, I'm sure there will be another.