Destiny's Melee Problems Should Be Improved Soon

A new, bug-fixing update is on the way for Destiny next week, and this will be followed soon after by another set of changes that should improve issues players have experienced with melee attacks.

Update 2.2.0.2 arrives on Tuesday, May 3, at about 10 AM PT, according to a new Bungie blog post. The developer didn't go into great detail about what this deals with except to say it will "fix a few chests, quests, and rewards--nothing major." It also includes changes to melee attacks, but these won't be implemented immediately. Instead, Bungie will wait a week to do so in order to give it time to examine the other changes being made.

Sandbox engineer Jon Cable goes into depth on exactly what's being altered about melee attacks. Bungie is hoping to reduce the instances where a melee attack appears to land but does no damage, as well as those where a melee misses a target it should hit.

"When a melee attack seems like it connects, but it doesn't do any damage, this is usually a networking problem," he explained. "Most commonly, it occurs when there is an issue communicating your position to the other machines in the game, or if your would-be victim is having a similar problem. I've tweaked some networking logic related to player positions during melee attacks which should help address these issues. This error can still occur, because the internet isn't perfect, but it should be better.

"When a melee attack whiffs, this is usually a sandbox problem. I've fixed a bug where we were starting the target search from an incorrect position. Normally, we begin searching for targets from the perspective of the attacker's head. This bug would result in the target search falling short. If the melee lunge didn't get you close enough to the target, or if the target was moving away from you, your melee would not connect. The new fix should make Arc Blade and Shoulder Charge much more reliable. There are still situations--especially when the target is moving away from you--where you will not connect."

If all goes according to plan, these melee changes will be implemented on May 10 at 10 AM.

Earlier this month, Bungie launched Destiny's big April update, the most substantial content release since The Taken King last September.