Please support Game Informer. Print magazine subscriptions are less than $2 per issue
Bungie Overhauling Destiny 2 Experience Gains After Fan Finds Major Issue
Bungie is making some tweaks to the way players earn experience in Destiny 2. Though the changes may sound like minor number changes, they should greatly speed up the rate at which players level up and (more importantly) earn Bright Engrams.
The change is likely in response to a thorough examination of how players earned experience in Destiny 2 user EnergiserX posted on Reddit. In their post, Energiser noticed how, the faster players earn XP by killing enemies, the more of that experience seems to disappear. While this has the largest effect on those who quickly grind repeatable activities like Public Events most (cutting around 95 percent of their experience gains), this also affected players who simply played the game as intended, cutting their experience in half.
Hours after the post went live, Bungie announced that it had reviewed the data on its end, found this to be the case, and is replacing that system entirely. The amount of experience players earn for all activities has changed, and players should see that the experience numbers they see when they defeat enemies and complete activities should match the experience they earn in the backend. Over the next week, Bungie "will be watching and reviewing XP game data to ensure that these changes meet our expectations, as well as yours."
Our Take
I'm very tempted to think this was Bungie getting caught doing something intentionally rather than an accident. Many of the changes in Destiny 2 seemed aimed at disincentivizing players to spend too many hours playing the game in a given week or grinding, and this experience scaling seems in line with that philosophy. Also consider that the thing players are grinding experience for in the endgame (Bright Engrams) is also the thing they can buy with actual money. Those two elements combined make me skeptical that this was a flaw in the system, but it's hard to know at this point. Either way, Bungie did respond to this backlash expediently, which is good.
I’d like to ask you to support Game Informer’s continued coverage of games with a subscription. For less than two dollars per issue, we mail you a full year of 10 print magazines, each with cover stories and preview features filled with exclusive details about the most exciting upcoming games. We profile and interview game creators. We look back on the rich history of gaming, and we celebrate what’s next.
Here on the website, we offer much of our content for free, including game reviews, daily news, videos, event coverage, and more – all with minimal ads.
We do so with a small editorial team, alongside contributing paid writers from around the world – over 65 individuals from 9 countries around the world, just in the last couple of years.
It’s not possible without support.
In a time when game makers and games coverage have faced hard struggles and layoffs, the future of this 30+ year magazine and community is at risk. Our new standalone magazine subscription is the number one way you can keep us alive – and we believe you’ll get a pretty fantastic gaming magazine in your mailbox every few weeks for your trouble.
Thank you.
