Bungie ended up in hot water when their most dedicated players realized that the developers were stringing them along by using an XP scaler to prevent hardcore grinders from gaining the XP that they rightfully earned. Many recognized that it was likely a ploy to get Destiny 2’s most diehard fans to stop grinding and settle for buying XP pots or cash shop currency to unlock the items they wanted. Well, Bungie apologized profusely and have now promised to increase the rewards for dedicated players in Destiny 2.
True Achievements is reporting that starting December 5th, Bungie will be introducing improved rewards for Destiny 2 players.
The updates for the game will be available between December 5th and December 12th. Anything that does not make it into those updates on those dates will be pushed into an early 2018 update.
The changelog for the upcoming update lists a new weapon tier called Masterworks, that will feature stat trackers, tooltips, and new item detail screens. Improved vendor rewards will also be handed out, along with armor ornaments.
Better incentives will also be rewarded to players who complete Prestige activities, along with better rewards for those who replay Strikes, Adventures and complete Lost Sector challenges.
Bungie also states that there will be quitter penalties for those who quit competitive games, and better incentives for those who complete Crucible matches.
They mention that in the December 12th update they will reward players with more Legendary drops, more armor ornaments, and to add more control over player rewards. The post rounds out with more promises for further updates, where Bungie states…
“With the launch of Curse of Osiris, and the beginning of Season 2, you can expect to see a full suite of patch notes that will document all of the changes outlined above, as well as additional gameplay and sandbox tuning changes the team is making to improve Destiny 2. We’ll also soon be providing pre-load and launch day details, as well as a roadmap for our Season 2 content, which includes The Dawning in mid-December.”
One thing you won’t find in the patch notes is anything dealing with XP scaling, XP gains, XP percentages, or XP rewards.
Bungie slyly uses the wording “rewards”, and then later on in the patch notes talk about consumables, ornaments, weapons, mods, drops, and reputation. General XP is never mentioned, which is an odd omission given that the whole ruckus over the scaling scandal had to deal with the XP being curtailed from the more hardcore players.
Nothing about it says that XP gains will be relative to the events and/or activities you complete. A line that simple seems like it would have been top priority in the long list of changes set to arrive on December 5th or December 12th, but it’s nowhere to be found.
In the blog post on the Bungie website, Luke Smith and Chris Barrett basically explain that they’re still having conversations about XP scaling, writing…
“We already see that the newly adjusted 160K XP per level value means that leveling is too slow for some activities, and we have begun the process of collecting data and recalibrating XP earn rates to improve them as quickly as possible.
“XP boosts, including both consumable items and passive bonuses like the Well Rested 300% bonus, were always applied after this system and never resulted in early slowing of XP. They should be unchanged by the disabling of this system and will continue to provide their stated increase in XP gain.
“Expect to see a lot of conversation from our team on this front, as XP rewards are updated and brought back in-line with player expectations.”
So they’re still having “conversations” about the XP instead of just normalizing it?
It’s bizarre that something that can be easily tweaked server-side requires so much diplomacy and politicking instead of them just letting gamers play and have fun. It’s remarkable that this generation of gaming is marked by developers and publishers putting the necessity of greed above and beyond any amounts of fun and entertainment to be had by their own customers.
