In a blog post, the developers at Bungie addressed not only the upcoming changes in Destiny 2 but also the ongoing XP problem.
These are the days of truth for Bungie and Destiny 2. The community is angry because Bungie isn’t communicating with the players and Destiny 2 has serious problems in the endgame. At least in terms of communication, Bungie has now delivered with the blog post and a podcast.
Whether the measures mentioned will significantly enrich the endgame remains to be seen in December when two major updates and the first expansion Curse of Osiris will be released.
A persistent topic of the last days and weeks: Destiny 2 deceived players into thinking they were earning many experience points when in reality it was much less. This could be proven with external sources such as the Destiny Item Manager (DIM).
Bungie revisited the topic in their blog post – and acknowledges that the mechanic was intentionally implemented. We summarize the essential statements, and which future plans Bungie has for experience points.
The XP Dilemma: A Chronicle
What actually happened?
- Players farming public events in Destiny 2 receive experience points for it. Buffs like a fireteam medallion can increase the yield. The game visualized this with large numbers that appeared above the progress bar.
- Bungie, however, built in a mechanic that ensured that completing the same task too quickly massively reduced the amount of experience points gained. Players could lose up to 90% of the experience gained this way. The game continued to display the high XP gains, however.
- After extensive testing in the community brought the truth to light and the topic also received media attention, Bungie reacted: They removed the mechanic with the note that “internal tests did not yield the desired results.”
- From now on, all players should earn the same amount of experience and that should also be displayed correctly in the game. Since the Guardians could earn more experience this way (the scaling had been removed), Bungie increased therequiredEXP amount from 80,000 to 160,000 experience points per level and thus per Glimmer Engram.
- Interestingly: These Glimmer Engrams can also be purchased for real money in the cash shop.
Bungie only communicated this to players after the community identified irregularities following the system change.
Bungie has now made another statement.
Bungie’s Understanding of “Confusing Variations”
Last weekend, we disabled a scaling mechanism that adjusted XP gain up and down without those adjustments being reflected in the user interface.
Our intention was to keep slower activities just as rewarding as intensive grinding, without introducing confusing variations in displayed XP values, but this silent mechanic did not meet the requirement for transparency that you have for Destiny 2.
This quote comes from the blog post published on November 29. Bungie openly admits here to having intentionally deceived players to prevent “confusing variations in displayed XP values.”
Specifically, Bungie wanted to prevent players from quickly accumulating large amounts of experience points from the same activities (e.g. public events) and thus gaining an advantage over Guardians who prefer to play the Crucible or raids. Those players receive significantly less experience over the same period.
The Podcast Also Offered New Information on the XP Disaster
In Bungie’s latest podcast, the topic was also mentioned. They talked about how many players thought correctly due to the lack of information: The people at Bungie are “shitty, greedy idiots.”
There was indeed the accusation that Bungie had built the XP systems in such a way that as many players as possible would succumb to temptation and spend money in the Eververse.
Furthermore, it was stated that “from a design perspective, it makes sense to reward some activities more than others.” However, they were not aware that the API did not reflect this.
The current disadvantage brought by the disabled system: Now there is an imbalance in XP gains. Because now who simply farms public events gets large amounts of experience points in a very short time, while PvP players receive significantly less experience in the same time.
Bungie was also extremely impressed by the graphics and charts that Redditors painstakingly created. They even discussed offering one of them a job.
How Bungie Plans to Fix the XP in the Future
Bungie has not revealed any specifics, but they admitted that doubling the required EXP for a Glimmer Engram to 160,000 XP was not the optimal solution, and disadvantaged many players.
They are already busy gathering data to make recalibrations so that all players have the same conditions in all activities.
Bungie promises to transparently communicate all further steps and measures, so that no one has to conduct tests on Reddit anymore, because Bungie withheld important information.
A Bad Taste Comes from the Cash Shop
Robert says: The intention of the mechanic is not wrong, many activities should be rewarded differently – however, the execution is poor. Bungie should have been clear that players would uncover this “deception” and should have communicated differently accordingly.
On top of everything, Bungie has to face the accusation of having implemented the scaling mechanic for only one purpose: To push sales in the Eververse. Because the harder it is to obtain Glimmer Engrams through gameplay, the more likely players might be tempted to spend real money.
Hopefully, Bungie will take their own promise to heart and will adjust the system transparently and sensibly.
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