14 DAY TRIAL // The main efforts of the developers at Bungie are at the moment focused on the launch of the 1.1.2 update for Destiny, but the company is also working on improving the gameplay experience by punishing some players who are not contributing to the overall effort.
John Hopson, the leader of the user research team, explains in the official weekly update that just a small minority of gamers tend to affect the entire community negatively.
The company wants to limit their impact, and the focus will be on those who are idling in both Player versus Player and in Strikes.
Hopson adds, "We’ve restricted a small number of the most toxic players from matchmaking. The restrictions we’re putting on their accounts are temporary and apply only to the activities where they were chronically idle. If the affected players keep up this behavior after the restrictions lapse, we will apply stronger and (eventually) permanent restrictions on their accounts."
The new Destiny policy is designed to apply to the worst offenders, and the team at Bungie is encouraging all players to report those who are affecting their experience.
The studio wants the community to self-police as much as possible but says that it has plans to continue to punish problematic gamers in the future.
Destiny's House of Wolves expansion launch date will also be revealed this month
Bungie has already told gamers that it is aiming to launch House of Wolves at some point in the second financial quarter of the year.
The new expansion is designed to introduce one big end-game raid and more strikes for gamers to take part in, all of them based on the feedback that the community has been offering.
At the same time, there are plans to introduce an increase to the level cap of all Guardians and extra weapons and armor to allow them to perform better in PvE and PvP.
Until then, gamers will get access to the 1.1.2 update for Destiny, itself designed to add a wide range of tweaks to the core mechanics.
The Vault will be expanded so that gamers have more space to store weapons, and there are also bug fixes linked to the end-game raids that feature both Crota and Atheon.