Bungie i$ being $ketchy...
Another week another video game controversy… This time we’re looking at Destiny 2’s hidden XP scaling, and Bungie’s lack of communication. By scaling, I mean that as you play Destiny 2, you are told you’re getting a certain amount of XP, but in actuality, you are getting much less.
So, this all started when players were noticing that they weren’t being given the proper amount of XP for the various activities in Destiny 2’s end game, mainly the public events. Taking it upon himself, EnergiserX on reddit, posted what he found through his own in depth investigation, proving that there was indeed XP scaling going on.
That’s right, this dude is like an old P.I… but with video games, and we need more people like him!
The day after these findings were posted, Bungie released a statement confirming the XP system in their game. Bungie goes on to say,
“We are not happy with the results, and we’ve heard the same from the community.”
I think they really meant to say they’re not happy that they got caught doing this sneaky shit.
To “fix” the issue, Bungie released a patch removing the XP scaling. However, in a brilliant move, they neglected to tell anyone that the amount required to level up was doubled. That means, during the endgame, instead of leveling up at 80,000 XP, you need to get 160,000. It took another brave soul on Reddit to bring this up for Bungie to confirm the increase.
But, why would Bungie even hide the XP scaling in the first place? Many believe it has something to do with, guess what? Microtransactions, of course!
See, once you reach the level cap you can still level up to receive a Bright Engram, that’s what the 160,000 XP now gets you. These engrams are pretty much loot boxes (similar to Star Wars Battlefront II), and can be bought with real money. So, slowing down someone’s progress through grinding may just make them want to buy the very thing they’re grinding for. There’s no way around it, this is just another greedy money grabbing scheme embedded into a big blockbuster game.
Bungie has only made it worse for themselves by hiding it and then acting like it was some kind of mistake that the downscaling was happening. And then, to seemingly punish its players with an even longer grind is completely ridiculous.
Destiny 2’s game director, Luke Smith, posted on Twitter, that he, and project lead Mark Noseworthy, will be addressing the community’s feedback and answering questions sometime this week. I will update this article with any further damage control that comes out of that.
In the meantime, some good news about Destiny 2. A free trial has been made available, so... there’s that.
