If you’re a hardcore video gamer, chances are that you know the difference between a cheat, a hack, and an exploit. Exploits mean that a player uses bugs or glitches, the game system, rates, hitboxes, speed, or level design to their advantage. These are sometimes seen as cheating because they involve using the game in a way that was not intended.
Players of Bungie’s Destiny 2 found a serious loophole, exploiting it to their full advantage and straight-up gaming the system. This group of players found a way to get free Flawless cards in Trials of Osiris and in doing so, created their own casino, complete with a random number generating algorithm.
Destiny 2
Destiny 2 is a free-to-play online-only multiplayer first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie Inc. Originally released as a pay-to-play game in 2017 for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Microsoft Windows platforms, it has now expanded to more platforms and is free to play.
The game itself is a massive world of exploration, combat, and role-playing. With incredible visuals, music, and graphics, it’s easy to see why Destiny 2 has become such a popular video game worldwide.
The creator of Destiny 2, Bungie Inc. is constantly reworking the game, releasing new “seasons” every month or so. These seasons are basically new content or quests that allow successful players to reap specific and exclusive rewards. These updates revise reward systems and even change how players manage losses and damage.
Trials of Osiris
One of these updates was the return of a special event quest called the Trials of Osiris. In this event, as players make their way through combat in the world of the Crucible, they have the opportunity to visit a location called The Lighthouse, an exclusive zone available only to the best of the best.
In order to gain access to The Lighthouse, players have to have a perfect (or near-perfect) record of wins: seven wins out of seven — or out of eight, depending. This is what’s called a “Flawless Run” and is not an easy feat, although it does come with some serious perks.
A Flawless Run
Destiny 2 is largely dependent on loot drops and thus rewards skilled players by giving higher-tier loot drops to those who win more.
In the Trials of Osiris game mode, players are rewarded top-tier drops for winning seven matches in a row. This was called a “Flawless Run” and, in theory, rewarded players for achieving a difficult feat.
Gaming the System
During one of Destiny 2’s updates, the Season of the Chosen, players were given the option to swap characters in-game. This was the loophole necessary for players to create a system where they could farm high-tier loot drops with impunity.
The system was called “Hakke Casino” as it utilizes the randomness mechanism similar to that used by slot machine games to determine a winning outcome.
During a game lobby, a queue to get into the game, players decorated 2 of their characters in the Hakke symbol. When players joined the lobby if they saw two players in the symbol, they knew they were farming loot drops using the loophole.
Once two teams matched using the visual code, one team member would send a friend request and they would each send a message.
“/random 1-10.”
This was just a random number generator that put out a number from 1-10. Just as if you were rolling a 10-sided die. The team with the lowest number would simply quit out of the match and lose by default. Before they quit, however, they would swap characters to preserve their own winning streak and join another queue, looking to do it all over again.
The average time it takes to play a match (including matchmaking time) is approximately 15-20 minutes per round, and there was no guarantee of a win. Using the Hakke Casino, players could get several Flawless Runs in the time it took to actually play the game and complete one legitimately.
Fallout
Developer Bungie is very aware of the Hakke Casino and shut it down rather quickly. They partnered with BattleEye software that disables most forms of eSports cheating. BattleEye is known for its security and anti-hack countermeasures and is used in several high-profile games including PUBG, ARMA, and Fortnite.
The company disabled Trials of Osiris after finding that around 50% of the players going Flawless during a certain weekend showed 0 kills on their records. This just goes to show the powerful impact of the user-exploited win trading scheme.
Bungie also adjusted its matchmaking settings, and how victory is awarded to players. After these changes were made, if a team decides to withdraw or quit early, it no longer counts as a victory for the other team, making it impossible for players to farm using the old Hakke Casino method.
This is a paid guest post.