Here's How To Get Banned In Destiny

Not everyone likes playing fair in competitive online games (or even cooperative online games). Bungie has a way of dealing with the unscrupulous folk who invade games with ill-intentions. It's not easy getting banned in Destiny but Bungie rolls out clear as day how it can happen.

The latest weekly update from Bungie includes a letter from Destiny's security team, where they explain their policies.

Bungie has two different ways of dealing with unwanted players – restrictions and bans. The former is temporary and the latter is permanent. If you do some janky stuff that warrants a lot of reports you may be temporarily restricted from Destiny. If you're a repeat offender you could be permanently banned.

Bungie's community manager David “Deej” Dague shared the letter from the security response team, who stated...

Restrictions are issued to disruptive players to give them time to reform. Depending on the severity of the infraction, first-time offenders are typically restricted for a week or two, but repeat offenders can receive a restriction that lasts months. Bans are only issued to the players we never want to see in the world of Destiny again.

They also cover people playing with cheaters and cheaters themselves. If you're caught cheating, you're done for. If you're caught teaming with a cheater you'll be punished.

In the eyes of the great Imperial Bungie, someone offering “free” wins in the Crucible is selling services that you should be wary of. People who knowingly team with those who are cheating in one way or another will be punished for abetting in corruption. As stated by the security team...

Please be advised that you are the company you keep. If a cheater is a member of your Fireteam, you may well get caught up in the dragnet we have weaved to ensnare them. Be suspicious if someone guarantees you a flawless run in Trials of Osiris.

You can also get a soft ban for having a spotty internet connection – if you're frequently disrupting matches due to piss-poor lag you may be temporarily restricted from participating in the Crucible. If your connection improves you'll be allowed back in. However, if you just have a piss-poor connection due to your ISP not providing better options, you're unfortunately out of luck.

Additionally, Bungie makes it known that they do not hand out bans indiscriminately. They take great care and exercise sound judgment and investigative techniques based on statistical analysis and community feedback before dropping the banhammer. The security team states...

We analyze the player statistics and corroborate the results with player reports to take action with statistical certainty. We manually verify the results before we issue Restrictions or Bans.

That last line is actual music to my ears.

During the early Diablo III days Blizzard dropped a lot of banhammers on people and it prevented a lot of paying customers from playing the game due to false flags and potential security misinterpretations, especially regarding Linux users. It's nice to know that Bungie manually verifies the data before pulling the trigger.

You can learn more about Destiny's security measures and more about what the developers have been doing this past week by checking out the weekly update page.

Will Usher

Staff Writer at CinemaBlend.