Destiny 2 fans are conflicted after Bungie patched a method of safety beating the Starcrossed Exotic mission final boss by adding a wall forcing players to enter the arena to deal damage.
Alongside Wish Tokens, Season of the Wish also saw the introduction of a new Exotic Mission, Starcrossed. Completing the Starcrossed mission rewards the Wish Keeper bow which is a unique Exotic that has great synergy with various Strand builds.
However, players quickly figured out that this mission’s final encounter – Akardon – could be exploited by shooting the Hydra boss through a barrier near the entrance with a powerful Exotic like Wish-Ender. This allowed Guardians to avoid the boss entirely and skip most of its mechanics.
An initial fix that made the method slightly less reliable was implemented on January 9, but this was easily circumvented. On February 6, Bungie returned this time adding a change that completely ruins the method and it has left the community divided.
Starcrossed final boss has been patched
Noticing a change to the Starcrossed Exotic mission’s final boss, one Guardian posted on Reddit, “Not sure how long it’s been live but this is Bungies way of ‘fixing’ the Vex wall that you could shoot through to cheese the Starcrossed boss.”
The attached image reveals a newly added wall in place of what used to be a barrier. While the old barrier could be shot through using anti-barrier weapons, this newly added wall is solid forcing Destiny 2 players to enter the arena to deal damage.
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The most upvoted comment responded, “This is hilarious though, people were still somehow abusing it so Bungie really just said ‘nah, f**k you, no more window, do it right'”.
Those who supported the change replied, “I mean. It was kind of expected,” and “destiny 2 players when they have to play the game,” followed by a mocking Fearful Face emoji.
While both of these comments received plenty of support, not everyone agreed the patch was needed, “Bungie fixing the symptoms and not the cause again. Every time there is an issue with ‘cheesing’ its because of sh*t encounter design or problems with bugs.”
Another like-minded Guardian argued, “It just goes to show how bad Bungie’s level design is now that the only way they can make an encounter ‘chellenging’ is to make a boss who does so much damage that he one shots you, and make an encounter room where there is literally no where to hide. I’m so sick of this kind of level design.”
With the exploit patched, it is now recommended to stick to the left side of the room using cover and refresh your buff when necessary. Though more difficult, Akardon isn’t too hard with an LFG group meaning most players should still be able to complete Starcrossed.