New data shows more than half of Destiny 2 Desert Perpetual Contest raid clears may have been removed after Bungie’s recent banwave targeting cheaters.
Over the last couple of weeks, Destiny 2 players have been raising concerns about the number of suspicious clears in the Desert Perpetual Contest Mode raid, the latest raid added with the Edge of Fate expansion last month. Community-led investigations suggested that a large portion (over 60%) of the top 100 teams may have used cheats to clear the full raid in 10 to 20 minutes.
While Bungie acknowledged these concerns shortly after the data appeared in the API, the Destiny 2 team officially confirmed yesterday that a banwave had been issued. It targeted not just those who cheated directly, but also players who benefited from being in fireteams with cheaters during Contest Mode.
Now, newly updated leaderboard data suggests the issue might’ve been even bigger than expected, with more than 50% of Contest Mode clears seemingly wiped out following the bans.
New Data Shows Over Half of Desert Perpetual Contest Raid Clears Removed
According to Emblem.report, a third-party Destiny 2 website that tracks emblem redemptions, a total of 2,413 players had unlocked the Timeline’s Blade emblem. This emblem is only awarded to players who successfully completed the Desert Perpetual raid during the Contest Mode window. (thanks, Dioroxic)
But when you compare that to Raid.report, another popular community tool that logs raid completions, the numbers don’t quite line up. As of now, Raid.report shows only 199 fireteams as having completed the raid during Contest Mode. With each team made up of 6 players, that adds up to just 1,194 individual players.
Doing the math, there are 1,219 players who previously had the emblem but no longer appear in the verified Contest completion list. That’s a huge gap, more than 50.52% of all known Desert Perpetual Contest mode emblem holders have seemingly been removed from records.
It’s important to note: this isn’t official data from Bungie, so there are a few things to keep in mind. For one, some of the clears might’ve come from the same team running the raid multiple times. There’s also no way to tell if these removed players were all banned, or if Bungie simply revoked their raid completion and emblem.
Still, this gives us a clearer picture of just how wide the fallout might be after Bungie’s crackdown on cheating in Destiny 2’s raid race. In related news, Bungie has also acknowledged a movement speed bug currently affecting players in Destiny 2.
What do you think of all this? Should Bungie be more transparent about bans and leaderboard removals? Let us know in the comments.
