Even for the most skilled Destiny 2 raiders, the final boss of the game’s Spire of Stars Raid Lair can be quite a challenge. Taking down the imposingly named Valus Ca’uor requires balancing several different puzzle-based mechanics while also hitting the boss with damage during the very narrow periods when he’s vulnerable. Recently, a dedicated raiding group called BAM Optical Raiders finally managed to defeat Valus Ca’uor, which wouldn’t be particularly exciting news on its own except for one unique fact: all of BAM Optical Raiders’ members are deaf.
After announcing the Spire of Stars victory via Reddit, BAM Optical Raiders’ leader, who calls himself Jason, sat down for an interview with PC Gamer in which he explained how elated the team was after they finally secured the kill:
“It took us about 20 attempts in four weeks. Our successful attempt took two hours to complete, and the team was crying we were so happy. All the work we had put into it had finally paid off, and it was well worth it. We are a raiding clan after all, so where some players just see an emblem and bad loot, we see another badge of honor.”
Normally, Destiny 2 raiders rely heavily on voice chat to communicate efficiently in the heat of battle, but obviously that’s not an option for deaf players. Instead, BAM Optical Raiders rely on a custom-built tool called Jarvis 9.9-40 that allows users to create and display custom visual callouts for specific raid mechanics. In fact, Jarvis was actually developed by two friends of Jason’s, two men who identify themselves as Maverick and Jaime. Jaime also spoke to PC Gamer about Jarvis, saying that the tool was made specifically for Destiny 2’s Leviathan Raid, but has since been updated to accommodate the game’s two Raid Lairs:
“Jarvis is a fairly simple web app designed to aid in communication. It was created to address problems with the Leviathan raid in Destiny 2, specifically the over-reliance on voice communication. Several of the encounters are far more challenging if you’re unable to use voice comms, and players had to find ways around that restriction.”
Jaime went on to explain that Jarvis was an evolution of earlier methods employed by deaf gamers, methods such as Discord bots and using Skype to quickly sign to each other over video chat. Jarvis offers a simpler solution, allowing users to calibrate the specific callouts they’ll need ahead of time and being able to instantly see or display those callouts with the push of a button.
In other Destiny 2 news, Bungie has released a sizeable new update for the game which brings it up to version 1.2.3 and paves the way for the upcoming Solstice of Heroes event.