TL;DR read the title, now what? You're back at 6 wins, finally, after a few card resets and some tough and close games against great players. Your mercy is intact, and you get pumped for the first flawless of the weekend, and some very sought after Adept loot. After all, it’s a weapon you really want and you set aside time and scheduled with your teammates to play for it this weekend. You're loading into the game and inspect your enemies stats beforehand with Trials Report. Their ridiculous stats make it all too evident that they are cheating. After trying hard to combat the blatant cheats, you still inevitably lose 5-2 and your Mercy is gone. You're bummed but you're also so used to cheaters in the game mode that you just figure you lost the lottery this round. You take a deep breath and requeue again and inspect your selected enemies. It's the same team, again. You lose. You reset your card and try again, hoping not to be knocked out again by hackers this time. This exact scenario happened a few weeks ago, but each weekend for more than a month dozens of flawless passages my teammates and I worked hard for were ruined at the finishing line by blatant hackers. We are a decent team, with a reasonable amount of flawlesses shared between us. We have earned our turns in the Lighthouse, but it still takes a lot of hard work, persistence, and sweat. Losing is part of the game, but disappointment turns to bitterness when taking the following into consideration: Many of the cheaters that knock us out at the finishing line have been farming up to hundreds of flawlesses for an entire season -sometimes multiple seasons - without being banned. All the while laughing all the way to the bank with their free loot. For us and bar the upper 1-5% of Trials players the cheater lottery is not a nuisance, it’s a major problem because it significantly impacts our ability and motivation to obtain Adept Trials rewards. The effort is simply not worth it. [b]It shouldn’t be like this.[/b] If you feel I am exaggerating, know that [b]I am obviously aware most games occur without cheating taking place[/b]. My issue is that it is happening [b]enough[/b] that it is undermining the whole experience. For some perspective: A hacker/hacker team farms 20 flawlesses one weekend, this means: 420 other players had their time wasted and ruined, 60 of whom were deprived of a fair flawless game they might have worked really hard for. So 1-3 players ruined 420 other players' time, then remember how you sometimes meet hackers on [b]every single card you play[/b]. [u]But it’s not just your typical hackers: [/u] One weekend we met a team on our flawless game who had more than 900 games played this season, with over a hundred flawless completions which would normally suggest highly competent players. However, they were all between 0.2 and 0.7 KD, and were well below 1300-1310 light. This puzzled us until two of us got disconnected before even loading fully into the game. After our remaining teammate in the game was looking to beat them 1v3, they just left the game. Regardless, two of us still had a loss on our card and no mercy, so too bad. From their stats and huge number of flawless completions it was clear they were using targeted network manipulation to disconnect opponents and cruise to easy wins. [u]Boosting services are also a big issue here: [/u] As I see it, I believe most people don't and won't ever cheat, whereas a few will. However, when cheating becomes as prevalent and goes unpunished for as long as it has in Destiny 2, you stretch a lot of those otherwise non-cheating players to cheat as well or to enlist boosting services that do "to even the playing field". Across a few different days one weekend, we faced the same two-piece hacker duo boosting a few different people. In one of the games, the boosted player’s clan description yielded a link to his clan’s discord server. So, we took a few screenshots and went in to reveal to his clan that he was being boosted by cheaters. This guy seemed to be a respected clan member with a 200+ level steam account, who was active in several communities. His stellar defence was that he accidentally ended up in an LFG with hackers and didn't realise it until they went flawless together (right…). So even seemingly respectable players are paying for or otherwise enlisting boosting services, and why shouldn't they? Where are the consequences? These people get to enjoy the fruit of their easy labour for an entire season or more. Because Trials and Survival are open to play for Free to Play players, they can just get a new account if they get banned and do it again for a whole new season. I mean why not? They get easy loot and maybe feel some satisfaction winning against honest players? Honestly, I don’t know how the empty, entitled souls of cheaters work. Cheating is an issue that outweighs game balance, and it will always exist. It is a cancer that plagues every single PvP game. The arms race between cheaters/cheat providers and game developers will always be an issue. In Destiny 2 there is no arms race, not really. In most games, the full-on blatant spinbot flying auto-aim infinity rocket launcher cheaters are a small nuisance, because they are usually banned extremely fast. So, in most other games the cheaters that are the real problem are those who try to hide that they are cheating. In Destiny 2 I have in comparison come across very few people who I suspected of toggling cheats and trying to seem legitimate, most cheaters you come across in Survival or Trials are completely blatant about it. They know anyone can inspect their 400+ 98% precision accuracy sniper kills, or their insane 12.5 weekly trials K/D after a hundred games, but they do not care, they can blatantly cheat for [b]months[/b] because they get away with it. Why put in the extra effort to try to hide it if you don't have to? [b]Relying on community reports and pursuing legal action against cheat providers as the only defences against cheaters is like fixing one of the ten holes in your sinking boat while yelling at the water to stop.[/b] This is where Destiny 2 is right now. It's something, but it won't stop you from sinking. Realistically, using this same analogy, the best you can do is plug eight or nine of those ten holes in your boat, but then at least you can hope to stay afloat. [b][u]So what can be done? Feel free to add your experiences and suggestions.[/u][/b] [i][b]A "Prime" system[/b][/i] like in CS:GO would add at least one more impractical barrier that would stop quite a few cheaters. To get Prime status in that game you need to be a certain game Rank, and connect a phone number to your account. The difference between playing Prime and non-Prime in CS:GO matchmaking is night and day when it comes to cheater frequency. [i][b]Preventing access to Trials/Survival from free to play[/b][/i]. As it stands there are literally zero barriers preventing someone banned from just recreating an account and starting over almost immediately. And lets be honest, if you are a fresh free-to-play player, why would you throw yourself into the sweatiest Survival or Trials right off the bat anyway? Regular crucible modes should be more than enough to pique your interest to unlock these modes. Or give Season Pass holders the option to not queue with the F2P pool. [i][b]Dedicated servers for, at the very least, competitive PvP modes[/b][/i]. The only long term, dependable and sustainable method, because it allows for immediate and aggressive anti-cheat systems. I would argue that a sizeable portion of D2 players are sticking around for PvP. Of these, the most stubborn and loyal are those who play competitively. So if you want to cultivate a loyal, long-standing PvP community, you need to have a platform with integrity. Cheaters will erode that integrity and players' patience over time far more than any fluctuating balance issues [b]as long as they are allowed to[/b]. Which is my main point: The lack of client-side anti cheating systems, or at the very least some other barriers to plug maybe one or two more of those holes in the boat, is what is allowing them to continue - this is Bungies responsibility to fix, to ensure players -customers- are satisfied and won't permanently quit due to Bungie’s [i]passive acceptance[/i] of cheating. Players who [b]pay[/b] for your game through season passes and Eververse are having their experience ruined by tourists who don't spend a dime and don't give a damn. I would at least hope this is a concern for them long term, not least in regard to fostering a reputation as a company that doesn't tolerate abuse of their platform. I think the community deserves concrete assurance that you intend to implement proper safeguards against cheating on your platform. Please take the integrity and longevity of PvP in this game more seriously Bungie, the game deserves it.