Destiny Dev: Idlers Are Responsible For Damaging Player Experience

Online gaming is a fantastic feat of the modern video game world. It brings together countless individuals from all corners of the world, from innumerable cultures and creeds, and lets them adventure and play together. But the experience can often be marred by a select few. The AFK players, “away from keyboard”, or  “Idlers” as they come to be known as recently.

In a recent posting from Destiny’s Community Manager, DeeJ, User Research Lead John Hopson points out that “In Destiny’s community, the efforts of a dedicated player can have a huge impact on the experience of hundreds or thousands of other players. Most of the time, this is awesome. When someone is willing to put in the time as a Raid sherpa, a clan leader, or a forum moderator, we all benefit and Destiny comes a little bit closer to its potential as a shared world.”

This is all very true, the community does indeed support Destiny, but this is something that many gamers have a problem with. Saying that Bungie should have built the game to be self sustaining in this regard and not place the experience solely in the player’s hands. Because the game relies so heavily on players to carry it, the experience can be ruined by “toxic” players that constantly idle and drag the fire-team down.

Because of this, restrictions have been placed on “toxic” players in regards to matchmaking. These restrictions apply only to “the activities where they are chronically idle”. If the player persists in their repetitive nature of idling, then they will “apply stronger and (eventually) permanent restrictions on their accounts.”

So how does this policy apply to the players? “There is no way you will accidentally be flagged under this policy unless you are a truly dedicated idler, someone who has really gone out their way to repeatedly cheat their teammates.”

Point two once again calls the community to action, to help out where Bungie simply cannot. It reads, “Please be sure to use the reporting system to let us know how your teammates are affecting your Destiny experience, both positively and negatively. We will never act on player reports alone, but we use those reports to find areas and individuals where our automated detection systems aren’t working correctly. They are an invaluable part of how we tune the live experience of our game.”