Redditor finds Destiny 2 is cheating on Experience gain

[Ragona]

After EA has been the main target of peopls hatred, it might be worth checking out another contender:

Remember Activision, the guys that patented a way to lure people into buying lootboxes by cheating on their ingame matchmaking?
Well apparantly this one isnt that far off....

As a redditor found out, Bungie is cheating on the amount of experience points you get the more you play. But why is this such a big deal? Well, Bungie is "kind" enough to give us lootboxes for a level up like Overwatch, but apparantly messes with you just enough, so you are fed up just grinding at some point, while limiting the lootboxes you can earn playing the game reasonably.

Link to the full post and results:
https://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/7eyt90/here_is_what_is_really_going_on_with_xp_in/

TLDR – If you earn XP slow, the ingame display is correct. If you play normally, the game drops some XP (~ 50%). If you power-grind XP the game will drop most of your XP (in testing, I managed to lose ~95% of the XP during an 'enemies moving against each other' event)

- There is a hidden scaling factor that ramps up as you earn XP more quickly.
To get one thing clear: There is no cap to XP. You can keep earning XP as fast as you want, and you will always be making progress towards that next bright engram. You will just face dramatically diminishing returns the faster you go.

All credits to https://www.reddit.com/user/EnergiserX

It's not comparable to EAs shadyness in Battlefront II, but i still find it worth mentioning every time bullshit like this is being uncovered.

 

[DocSeuss]

This is really frustrating, since some items can only be obtained randomly, those items are limited to game seasons, and XP gain is the only way to get chances to unlock them.

Sucks it looks like I'll be missing out on some cool emotes and ships because Destiny 2 isn't accurately reporting XP.

 

[Abriael]

Sounds like a balancing factor to keep XP progression steady, which isn't new to Destiny 2. The link with loot boxes is really reaching.

 

[Tecnniqe]

Bungie have a huge player incentive problem and they only keep getting caught with systems pushing players away rather than pull them in.

It's almost like they do the opposite of what people like.


"The best rewards; 2 tokens and a blue" like for real? And now this, which honestly, is not surprising in the least...

Sounds like a balancing factor to keep XP progression steady. The link with loot boxes is really reaching.

Click to shrink...

:thinking: the only thing XP does is give you bright engrams, the Destiny lootbox. There's no other reason to gain XP.

 

[famousmortimer]

Lame.

Generally speaking the bright engram microtransaction thing doesn't bug me. It doesn't alter gameplay. But giving diminishing returns on XP gain is shitty. Especially since they don't even tell us.


I'm disappointed in Bungie.

 

[Hero_of_the_Day]

And there are people who say lootboxes don't effect them 'cause they don't buy them...

 

[electricblue]

XP matters for like the first 10 hours of the game, at most.

 

[Htown]

so at first I thought this was similar to the idea of "rest XP" from MMOs, but there's a difference between that and actively lying to the player about how much XP they're gaining. If I understand correctly, if you start earning too quickly, the game will tell you you're earning 100 xp while only actually giving you 5.

 

[data]

I would say this is even shadier since EA does it blatantly and openly compared to Activision where you would never notice if no one calls them out on it.

 

[Wagram]

Reminds me of the original Final Fantasy XIV (while not as bad as FFXIV). They would reduce your xp the more you played until it eventually hit zero. 24hr reset iirc.

 

[Htown]

XP matters for like the first 10 hours of the game, at most.

Click to shrink...

oh well if they're only being shady for ten hours, I guess that's fine then

seriously what is the point of this?

 

[saenima]

I'm sure this hidden manipulation of the player has NOTHING to do with loot boxes. At all. Not a chance.

...

 

[Saint-14]

What is funny is that they had a double xp event awhile ago.

 

[gaogaogao]

So they throttle your xp gain and lie about it?

 

[Aokiji]

Oh this should be good

 

[Ragona]

You dont limit the experience gain for balancing purposes if there is no balance aspect to the level past 20. Its all about the engrams. So obviously it is related.

 

[Abriael]

:thinking: the only thing XP does is give you bright engrams, the Destiny lootbox. There's no other reason to gain XP.

Click to shrink...

Besides leveling up. Not all mechanics are necessarily designed for the endgame only.

 

[NullPointer]

And there are people who say lootboxes don't effect them 'cause they don't buy them...

Click to shrink...

Yeah, this is one notion I'd like to see fall by the wayside.

 

[Anton Sugar]

Well this is fucked up. Is this common?

 

[LightKiosk]

This on top of more things locked behind Eververse and Bright Engrams, things that should be progression rewards, is a damn shame.

You're practically punished for being a dedicated player for going beyond the 3x Bright Engram XP boost, and they expect you to pay money to close the gaps. This isn't how I wanted Destiny to turn out.

 

[Animal Liberation Ⓥ]

Yeah, this is one notion I'd like to see fall by the wayside.

Click to shrink...

Agreed. Disingenuous apathy at best.

 

[Ragona]

Oh yeah you can also buy XP boost items for silver..the microtransaction currency...
You can say what you want, but intentionally giving out wrong information (xp earned vs. actual xp earned) on purpose in order to hold you back is straight out manipulation.
And when there is microtransactions involved its even worse.

 

[Zenner]

Not notifying the players up front is the worst part. There was a huge backlash in EverQuest 2, when players discovered a similar XP scaling mechanic for themselves, shortly after launch. All it does is erode player confidence about an even playing field. (SOE's rationale was that it was good for the retention of less-frequent or casual players, giving them a hidden bonus that reduced over time)

 

[rakkadakka]

You still level past the point where you hit 20.

It determines how fast you earn the cosmetics they have behind a paywall.

 

[Tecnniqe]

Besides leveling up. Not all mechanics are necessarily designed for the endgame only.

Click to shrink...

When you sell lootboxes and reduce XP gained by up to 95% and lying about it, it seems pretty clear why...

The more you play the more likely you probably are to cave in once the boxes come slower and slower... and yet there isn't much content in there at all and majority of decent looking cosmetics shaders are in those engrams.


No doubt they reduce the XP to keep players from getting Bright Engrams yet have no problem selling you 100 in a minute.

 

[ApeEscaper]

People still want to buy and support these companies man

 

[danowat]

Is this the first game to do this?

Maybe I'm naive, but I was under the assumption that XP gain in games was a linear progression from one level to another, I had no idea that they'd be tuning it based on playing time.

 

[Syril]

Huh? Like, the interface actually gives false EXP numbers next to the meter?

 

[Htown]

Is this the first game to do this?

Maybe I'm naive, but I was under the assumption that XP gain in games was a linear progression from one level to another, I had no idea that they'd be tuning it based on playing time.

Click to shrink...

there have been MMOs with the concept of "rest xp", where you get more XP if you haven't logged in in a while, but those are all very transparent about when you're earning "extra" XP and how much, and when you go down to the regular amount

and as far as I know they never drop XP this much, and there isn't the lootbox thing involved to pull more money from the player

 

[Al3x1s]

^ you get rested type XP in Destiny 2 too I believe so that's a different matter.

This is a pretty shitty practice. Does he actually compare if he gains XP faster when he's playing fast than when he's playing casually? Like if you gain an average of 100 xp per second when playing casually, is the average when going fast over 1000 so that even if you lose 90% of it you still earned more than when playing casually? And how much more, to make it worthwhile enough. Etc. If I got this right.

 

[Tecnniqe]

there have been MMOs with the concept of "rest xp", where you get more XP if you haven't logged in in a while, but those are all very transparent about when you're earning "extra" XP and how much, and when you go down to the regular amount

and as far as I know they never drop XP this much, and there isn't the lootbox thing involved to pull more money from the player

Click to shrink...

MMO concept is that you have a baseline XP (100%) gain and when rested you get something like 200-300% XP gain for up to 3 levels depending on how long you've been logged out, as an example.
However, this is usually highlighted with a different colored XP bar and it will tell you as you highlight it but you always have the baseline.

This goes something like 100% gain > -50% > -95% from the base XP. It does not boost you, rather it lowers the more you play after its small initial boost.

 

[Nirolak]

there have been MMOs with the concept of "rest xp", where you get more XP if you haven't logged in in a while, but those are all very transparent about when you're earning "extra" XP and how much, and when you go down to the regular amount

and as far as I know they never drop XP this much, and there isn't the lootbox thing involved to pull more money from the player

Click to shrink...

That's also in the game, but it's separate.

The first three levels you gain each week are at a 3X rate, after which you return to the normal rate for a bit, and then you tank down to something like 5-10% the normal rate after playing for a while.

The game is also selling experience rate boosters that are being dampened here.

 

[caff!!!]

This sucks, but I'm at the point in the game where all the bright engrams in the world won't help me level up.

 

[Shawcroft]

Huh? Like, the interface actually gives false EXP numbers next to the meter?

Click to shrink...

Yup, which in my opinion is the most scummy part about this. If diminishing returns were surfaced and communicated properly it would be annoying, much like the cooldown on chests, but eh. A stupid design decision.

Destiny 2 on the other hand is happy to report you +11500 XP gained on some heroic world event whilst your bar might barely move by a few pixels in the worst case scenario.

 

[Deleted member 7450]

Well, I mean...


¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Rudolph]

I love how people are just cool with dishonesty lol

 

[spam musubi]

Don't some JRPGs have anti-grinding systems like this? Some games actively punish you for grinding.

 

[-PXG-]

This has been theorized and discussed since the game launch. People eventually concluded that it's highly possible that the game gradually reduces EXP gains as you earn more EXP. This isn't new. Most people don't care because the game showers you with rewards anyway. Everything is generally easy to obtain and requires minimal effort.

 

[Deleted member 31817]

I don't get it, yeah it's scummy but if xp is as useless as some of you guys say...what's the objective to doing this any way?

 

[Inugami]

Is this the first game to do this?

Maybe I'm naive, but I was under the assumption that XP gain in games was a linear progression from one level to another, I had no idea that they'd be tuning it based on playing time.

Click to shrink...

The original WoW beta had this, but it wasn't hidden, and the backlash caused it's removal pretty quick (replaced with just rested xp instead of a penalty for playing to much)

 

[GalaxyDive]

I don't think this is necessarily malicious on Bungie's part - starting with the loot cave and extending a couple years in whenever they started putting enemies on cooldown (so you couldn't farm majors for glimmer, die, and repeat the encounter), they put numerous failsafes into the game to prevent excessive xp/glimmer/engram/etc farming beyond the scope of their intended design.

This is probably an example of one of those design failsafes for Destiny 2.... buuuuuuuuuuuut the problem now is that they shipped a game where endgame grind is tied into MTX, and everything is going to be (rightfully) judged against that.

 

[Ragona]

I don't get it, yeah it's scummy but if xp is as useless as some of you guys say...what's the objective to doing this any way?

Click to shrink...

Because they give you bright engrams (=lootboxes) as level up rewards after hitting the max level. So limitting and cheating on the exp you gain limits the amounts of lootboxes you get, while still waving that carrot infront of you.

 

[saenima]

Don't some JRPGs have anti-grinding systems like this? Some games actively punish you for grinding.

Click to shrink...

Do these JRPGs have loot boxes you can either get with those experience gains or with real money?

And do they lie about it?

 

[Tecnniqe]

I don't get it, yeah it's scummy but if xp is as useless as some of you guys say...what's the objective to doing this any way?

Click to shrink...

After you hit max level, 20, the XP bar rewards you with Bright Engrams (lootboxes with cosmetics, ships, boosters and speeders) every time you would level up otherwise.

So to speak they decrease the engram rewards the more you play while lying about it and trying to sell them to you.

 

[Deleted member 2834]

On the bright side, this gen of consoles could kill off a substantial amount of overly attached people who are increasingly facing the harsh reality that coporations ain't their buddies

 

[Deleted member 11976]

I wonder if this is a failsafe to counter situations where enemy spawns triggered by multiple activities overlapping in the same area (HVT, Adventures, Public Events, etc.) in the same instance might lead to an abnormal amount of XP gain per minute. It doesn't seem shady to me, it just seems like edge case handling. /shrugs

I sideeffect of this design is that it will displease people who want to poke at the boundaries to find said edge cases. I don't think Bungie thinks they're pulling a fast one with this one at all -- the nature of their community and the game itself means their players love to minmax, farm, and analyse ways to optimize their playtime for maximum gains. In the age of YouTube and Reddit, you really can't "get away" with anything in your design since someone will find and document it, as was done here.

 

[Deleted member 31817]

Because they give you bright engrams (=lootboxes) as level up rewards after hitting the max level. So limitting and cheating on the exp you gain limits the amounts of lootboxes you get, while still waving that carrot infront of you.

Click to shrink...

After you hit max level, 20, the XP bar rewards you with Bright Engrams (lootboxes with cosmetics, ships, boosters and speeders) every time you would level up otherwise.

So to speak they decrease the engram rewards the more you play while lying about it and trying to sell them to you.

Click to shrink...

Lol, man. How far Bungie has fallen.

I remember people defending the loot box mts in the original thread because they were all useless items, has that changed? I only played the beta and 1.

 

[danowat]

Doing this is one thing, doing it in such a way that's its hidden from the player is extremely disingenuous.

 

[Deleted member 1003]

Yup D2 has XP cooldowns AND chest opening cooldowns.

Don't want you having too much fun or play the game how you want to play it.

And Bungie hasn't said a damn thing about it.

 

[joecanada]

t

And there are people who say lootboxes don't effect them 'cause they don't buy them...

Click to shrink...

there is zero chance that a big corporation hasn't pre-planned the elements of gameplay that would steer people to lootboxes and additional revenue stream..... this is like a fundamental of business - direct customers to secondary revenue streams. the easiest way to do this in video games is make things that are easier to buy and harder to just "get".
bright engrams are mostly shit but people who are really into the game will buy them for sure. making this super shady.