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Bungie launched Destiny 2’s latest season, Season of Arrivals, on June 9, alongside its reveal of Destiny 2: Beyond Light this fall. But since the season’s launch, players have resurrected an old glitch to help trivialize some of this season’s content. The Forges from Black Armory are now the most popular activity in Destiny 2, due to players exploiting this glitch, and some players feel cheated.
The AFK Forge farm has been a common Destiny 2 exploit for nearly two years. Normally, Destiny 2 has a pretty strict timer for how long a player can be AFK, or “away from keyboard,” and it will kick players for inactivity. But the Forges are activities with an inherently short base timer — when done correctly, the timer goes up as you progress. So, if you get a like-minded group of AFKers, the Forge will timeout and your group will fail before anyone gets kicked.
In Season of Arrivals, this is a great way to get both Umbral Engrams and Altered Element. These are the two primary currencies for Season of Arrivals, with players using Altered Element to transform Umbral Engrams into the specific loot they want. Umbral Engrams can also drop powerful gear, meaning players are using this method to level up very quickly. Why both of these currencies drop on Forge failures as well as completions is anyone’s guess.
Bro. D1 players sat next to a cave while people shot into it for days.
— Gothalion (@Gothalion) June 14, 2020
Despite that it’s an old kind of farming technique, some players feel the community is cheating itself by using this method to burn through the new content so quickly. Others were quick to point out that Destiny has a long history of allowing players to use bugs to farm gear, like the infamous loot cave in the original Destiny.
The criticisms brought up a larger conversation for Destiny 2 players: that the leveling process is getting stale. But Bungie is closely monitoring the conversation, according to community manager dmg04. The studio is also apparently working to address some of the leveling bugs, which likely includes the AFK Forge farm. We’ll update this post if Bungie reveals its plans.
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