Bungie's Destiny 2 Dynamically Scaled Earned XP - In Detriment of the Player

[Raevenlord]

Bungie's Destiny 2 was one of the hottest PC releases of the year - and in most regards, it has delivered a tight, rewarding FPS experience. It has brought to the PC space the same satisfying FPS experience its developers have been honing ever since Halo. However, if there's one facet Bungie still has a lot to work on is its relationship to its player base, the way it chooses to communicate, and basically, how not to do things in order to increase attractiveness of its microtransactions, as some players have been putting it.

Case in point: the Destiny community has erupted over the past few days in regards to a (visually and mathematically proven) reduction in received XP as reward for some in-game actions (such as shooting bad moon wizards, completing public events, and so on). It was proven by users that earned XP during activities could be reduced by up to 95% (through activity repetition) over the base experience for that action. Yet nothing in the game ever pointed toward reduced experience in these scenarios. In fact, the XP numbers added to the XP bar with each action really didn't change at all - the XP scaler was working behind the scenes and oblivious to the player. Bungie confirmed the findings, saying it was "not performing the way we'd like it to" since the games' inception, and were "working on a fix".





Well, the "fix", released last Sunday, really did stop all XP scaling from occurring. However... the caveat is that it has also sneakily, non-transparently, and absent from the release notes, hiked the required XP for leveling up by 100% - from 80,000 points to 160,000 points. So yes, in fact, XP now decreases less than it did before, but I think Bungie might have missed the point there.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[yogurt_21]

but I think Bungie might have missed the point there.

not if their point was to make it longer/harder to level thus increasing the time it takes to hit max level.

 

[Baffles]

Ugh, I hate how everyone is just running with this story. Destiny 2 has a ton of other issues that need to be addressed but this particular one is completely irrelevant. This XP change only affects the XP it takes to gain levels AFTER you've hit max level, after which the only rewards are the bright engram "loot crates" which only really contain cosmetic items.

Anyone who actually plays the game knows that hitting the max character level is a breeze and the game is designed fairly well around making sure you hit level 20 by the time you've completed the main story quests, provided you do a bit of side missions here and there.

I'd prefer some noise be made about providing more and better endgame content, rather than some boohoo about how Bungie nerfed a mechanic that players were exploiting and "lied" about it.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

Ugh, I hate how everyone is just running with this story. Destiny 2 has a ton of other issues that need to be addressed but this particular one is completely irrelevant. This XP change only affects the XP it takes to gain levels AFTER you've hit max level, after which the only rewards are the bright engram "loot crates" which only really contain cosmetic items.

Anyone who actually plays the game knows that hitting the max character level is a breeze and the game is designed fairly well around making sure you hit level 20 by the time you've completed the main story quests, provided you do a bit of side missions here and there.

I'd prefer some noise be made about providing more and better endgame content, rather than some boohoo about how Bungie nerfed a mechanic that players were exploiting and "lied" about it.

Yeah, I've already essentially maxed out all three player slots, and I've pretty much played through the interesting stuff already, so I haven't played in a while. I bought the expansion pass edition, so I'm still committed to keep playing. I had played the original so much that I didn't think I'd ever miss it, but there's something to the original when it came to gameplay that 2 doesn't quite match. I played the strike missions a lot, and the ones in version 2 aren't as good--a little too much time spent traversing the worlds, IMO.

And what is this exploit? I hadn't heard of it, but I'm not a crucible player.

 

[GreiverBlade]

that's funny ... because once i did hit lvl 20 the XP per kill/task was higher than before hitting 20 50-150 before and regularly 600'ish after

not if their point was to make it longer/harder to level thus increasing the time it takes to hit max level.

i've seen worse MMO for "time to max lvl" .... specially since max lvl is 20 (less than a day in total and just before Io main quest mission )

unless you mean light level (which is also easy to reach) it's 305 (my friend is 302 atm ) i am currently 211 atm and i got from 160 at lvl 19 (a bit low it seems ) to 211 just by reaching 20 and getting rewards from faction engrams mostly

 

[cadaveca]

sitting @ lvl 283.. can't say I care about the XP scaling

 

[Baffles]

And what is this exploit? I hadn't heard of it, but I'm not a crucible player.

People were just spending all day farming public events (for what, I'm not sure), and noticed they were getting less and less experience every time. Public events give honestly more experience than they should have been, so it was the fastest way to fill the bar.

 

[kn00tcn]

nobody liked the small sentence that said you would get more xp for competitive/raids? i mean they should have just written it as a bonus, but still, everyone focusing on the grinding part that people choose to... grind

 

[Boosnie]

They can prove xp loss matematically but can't draw scientifically.

 

[GreiverBlade]

They can prove xp loss matematically but can't draw scientifically.
View attachment 94349

who care ... it's beautiful ... no wonder why that Leviathan is named "World Eater"

and "unscientifically" or rather illogical matter ...
1. the Traveller
2. Io ecosystem and Nessus planetoid (well at last the colors of Io are 100% right, thought the fossiles and other things found on it ... are less ... hum we need more than orbit HD pictures then ... )
3. Titan setup

well .... i guess that's why it's a science fiction type of game, right?

 

[Boosnie]

who care ... it's beautiful ... no wonder why that Leviathan is named "World Eater"

and "unscientifically" or rather illogical matter ...
1. the Traveller
2. Io ecosystem and Nessus planetoid (well at last the colors of Io are 100% right, thought the fossiles and other things found on it ... are less ... hum we need more than orbit HD pictures then ... )
3. Titan setup

well .... i guess that's why it's a science fiction type of game, right?

You are right, but I cannot stand air friction in space.

 

[GreiverBlade]

You are right, but I cannot stand air friction in space.

solar wind? ... that would explain the "fumes" on the Leviathan, space isn't a still void neither

 

[rtwjunkie]

solar wind? ... that would explain the "fumes" on the Leviathan, space isn't a still void neither

Exactly what happens to comets.