The Destiny Reddit has been sporadically filled with posts alleging that something wasn’t right with experience gains in Destiny 2. Various player anecdotes talk about seeing experience numbers pop up, but the progress bar filling at different rates. After reaching the level cap of 20 (soon to be 25 with the release of Curse of Osiris), each additional level up grants players a Bright Engram. These engrams act as Destiny 2’s loot boxes, giving players various sought after cosmetic items like emotes, ships, and sparrows. It’s understandable then that players are upset by not seeming to earn all of the experience that they are owed.
Bungie finally took to their blog to acknowledge that there is indeed an experience throttle on certain activities in Destiny 2. Effective immediately, this throttle is turned off while Bungie analyzes experience gains and adjusts the system. Here is the statement from Bungie regarding the issue.
We’ve seen community discussion around XP gain in Destiny. After reviewing our data, we agree that the system is not performing the way we’d like it to. Today, we’d like to describe what’s going on under the hood, and talk about what you can expect going forward when it comes to earning XP in Destiny 2.
Currently, XP will scale up when playing longer or fixed duration activities like Crucible competitive multiplayer matches and the Leviathan Raid, and XP will scale down when playing activities that can be quickly, repeatedly chained, like grinding Public Events. We are not happy with the results, and we’ve heard the same from the community.
Effective immediately, we are deactivating this system.
As a result, players will see XP earn rates change for all activities across the board, but with all values being displayed consistently in the user interface. Over the course of the next week, we will be watching and reviewing XP game data to ensure that these changes meet our expectations, as well as yours. Any additional updates to this system will be communicated to you via our official channels.
Though Bungie is acknowledging this now, it still leaves some questions about the nature of this throttle and why it wasn’t openly communicated to begin with. According to the various posts on Reddit, the displayed numbers on the screen wouldn’t change, but the actual gained experience would shrink with repeated activities. Why this intentional limitation wasn’t communicated to players earlier (or why the numbers don’t communicate real experience gains) is anybody’s guess.
A few posts in the hours since Bungie’s announcement have expressed additional concerns, including getting less experience from playing those regular fixed activities like Crucible and Strikes, and debates over what it means that players will see “XP earn rates change” for all activities.
It’s interesting to note that this issue involving a system in Destiny 2 that impacts microtransactions. It comes just after EA and Star Wars Battlefront II have been facing scrutiny for their progression and loot box systems that allowed players to pay for advantages. Bungie is heading into the launch of Curse of Osiris, Destiny 2’s first expansion, in just over a week. It’s easy to assume that they don’t want bad press about experience gains to surround the release. If Bungie decides to update the experience gain system any further, or communicates anything else, we’ll keep you updated. Did you ever find yourself affected by the Destiny 2 XP throttle?
[Source: Bungie]
