Making her way across the shattered remains of a Russian landscape, a Guardian hunkers down behind a boulder and checks her ammo. She’s fully stocked and ready to mow down an endless wave of enemies, which is exactly what she’s rumored to find around the next bend. Legend foretells of a mythical “Loot Cave,” a place that is home to a continuous stream foes and, thus, a never-ending supply of valuable items. When she arrives, however, her heart sinks. A sign is posted nearby announcing that the notorious cave has been renovated and no longer offers untold riches. The Guardian’s Destiny has been forever changed.
Every now and then, a glitch or an exploit pops up in a game that earns a bit more attention than the average developer “woopsie.” That was exactly the case for a certain cave nestled deep within the Cosmodrome map of Destiny, a place where an endless number of enemies would spawn and try to rush onto the scene. If players stayed at an appropriate distance from the cave and shot down the enemies before they made it too far, they would continue to emerge every few seconds, making for an endless loop of baddies to murder.
Being a loot-driven game, which meant that players could maximize their time by simply setting up shop in front of the cave and shooting the enemies to their heart’s content. After you got bored of that mindless act, you could run into the cave and score all of those shiny items at once, upping your chances of actually getting something worthwhile rather than taking the long road to the top.
Bungie caught wind of this situation, however, and has finally taken action to stop players from taking advantage of the spawning error. Destiny is a sort of “living” game when it comes to updates, meaning that the developer can quickly and easily address issues as they arise. Enter Hotfix 5 which, along with making some other tweaks to the game, eliminates the ridiculousness that was the infamous Loot Cave.
In the official notes, Bungie refers to the Loot Cave as part of “a humbling number of economy exploits.” The cave is specifically mentioned within one of the game’s developer blogs, and the team even admits that how the community discovered, responded to and rallied around the exploit was “inspiring.” However, they go on to explain that spraying a single cave with an endless fountain of bullets is not how they envisioned Destiny being played and, thus, decided to nip it in the bud.
“The Hive of the holy ‘Treasure Cave’ have realized the futility of their endless assault on Skywatch and have retired to lick their wounds and plan their next attack,” reads the statement. “Respawn timers for monster caves in Skywatch have been normalized to 40 seconds (increased from 6).”
So raise a glass, Guardians, and toast the death of the storied cave; perhaps the first of many legendary “hiccups” to enter (and quickly exit) the world of Destiny.
