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[KitGuru] [UPDATED] Destiny 2 investigation reveals ‘hidden XP scaling’ system

6K views 88 replies 46 participants last post by  Rei86 
#1 ·
Quote:
Over on Reddit, user 'EnergiserX' posted details of their investigation into the Destiny 2 XP system after you hit the level 20 cap. It seems that there is a "hidden scaling factor" that will impact how much XP you unlock in a short space of time. The more XP you try and gather in a short space of time, the less each point is worth. According to the post, this scaling factor can "increase at least to the point where you're only really earning four percent" of the XP you should be getting.
Source.

All of these schemes are going to be scrutinized from now on and developers and publishers will soon have to be transparent about them.

Edit:

Update: Bungie has responded by deactivating the current XP scaling system and they will be reviewing the system next week:

https://www.bungie.net/en/Explore/Detail/News/46494

Quote:
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.
 
#3 ·
Bright engrams are earned with XP. Bright engrams contain content that is otherwise only available by paying real money. The more active you are, the more XP it takes to earn a bright engram. The desired effect is active, dedicated players are more likely to want/need to spend real money because earning takes much longer. Is my understanding correct?
 
#4 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by MrLinky View Post

Bright engrams are earned with XP. Bright engrams contain content that is otherwise only available by paying real money. The more active you are, the more XP it takes to earn a bright engram. The desired effect is active, dedicated players are more likely to want/need to spend real money because earning takes much longer. Is my understanding correct?
Bungie also seems to offer a paid item that increases XP earned. There's an ongoing discussion as to whether or not this simply alters the scaling factor or if it might actually SLOW your progression because the more XP you earn in a short time span, the greater the scaling factor scales down your true earnings.
 
#5 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Owari View Post

Bungie also seems to offer a paid item that increases XP earned. There's an ongoing discussion as to whether or not this simply alters the scaling factor or if it might actually SLOW your progression because the more XP you earn in a short time span, the greater the scaling factor scales down your true earnings.
Paying extra money to reduce or eliminate the negative XP scaling seems like a dirty, dishonest scheme. Paying extra money for an item that promises to increase XP gain but may actually have the opposite effect (possibly as a scheme to keep the player paying) sounds downright illegal.
 
#6 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by MrLinky View Post

Bright engrams are earned with XP. Bright engrams contain content that is otherwise only available by paying real money. The more active you are, the more XP it takes to earn a bright engram. The desired effect is active, dedicated players are more likely to want/need to spend real money because earning takes much longer. Is my understanding correct?
Pretty much.
The more you are active, the less you feel that your time spent earns you enough, so you will feel obligated to spend real money, as you already spent that so much time, so might as well throw a few bucks into the game so your time spent won't feel so useless.

I have to say this is very dirty practice. Especially since it is not transparent to the players, as they expect the time their spend, worth the same XP as it was 5 hours ago.
 
#7 ·
Just give me a complete game for my money. Is that an unreasonable expectation?
 
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#8 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by MrLinky View Post

Paying extra money to reduce or eliminate the negative XP scaling seems like a dirty, dishonest scheme. Paying extra money for an item that promises to increase XP gain but may actually have the opposite effect (possibly as a scheme to keep the player paying) sounds downright illegal.
Yep. This is just the top of the iceberg too if this is allowed to continue. Gaming has become EXTREMELY manipulative. I honestly want no part of mainstream gaming these days, aside from Overwatch where I at least know spending money is 100% optional.
 
#9 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gunderman456 View Post

Just give me a complete game for my money. Is that an unreasonable expectation?
At current state of video games, oh yeah, it is extremely unreasonable request.
You should actually say thank you that your character has legs and you don't have to pay 2x the game price just to get one of the two missing legs.
 
#10 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gunderman456 View Post

Just give me a complete game for my money. Is that an unreasonable expectation?
The lawyers in those famous offshore specialized firms need to be paid man, think of the lawyers!

And who is going to pay the rent of those shell companies' headquarters? It's still a whole floor with two people working on it!

tongue.gif
 
#12 ·
I received a free copy of this game with my 1080Ti but still haven't played it. Articles like this and all the bad things I heard from friends about the 1st game are keeping me from even bothering to try it. Oh well, back to Pokemon on my 3DS. At least the 1080Ti is making me a little money mining while I'm not playing games on it.
 
#13 ·
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Originally Posted by tpi2007 View Post

Source.

All of these schemes are going to be scrutinized from now on and developers and publishers will soon have to be transparent about them.
This makes sense as a casual gameplay scenario... its well within the dev's rights to do this kind of thing.

Unpopular maybe, but seriously: xp is "your character learning"... go memorize a spanish bible in 1 hour and get back to me.
 
#14 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by prjindigo View Post

This makes sense as a casual gameplay scenario... its well within the dev's rights to do this kind of thing.

Unpopular maybe, but seriously: xp is "your character learning"... go memorize a spanish bible in 1 hour and get back to me.
Who are you quoting, and why are you bringing a spanish bible into this?
confused.gif
 
#15 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by prjindigo View Post

its well within the dev's rights to do this kind of thing.
I mean it is published by Activision the company with that manipulation patent. This game along with Overwatch and any game they have a hand in is ripe for the picking to even have profiled lootboxes bough with money for fixed odds so this isn't surprising at all not what happend with destiny 1.

Quote:
daveequalscool • 1d
they also lied about Xûr's offerings being random pregenerated under their control back in D1

edit: source 1 -- "Bungie has explicitly and repeatedly claimed that Xûr's stock is both random and out of their control."

still looking for something directly from Bungie...

edit 2: source 2 is Deej on Bungie's forum -- "we can't reach out and stock his shelves ourselves."
https://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/7eyt90/here_is_what_is_really_going_on_with_xp_in/

Source1
Quote:
If Megamanexe4 is right and Bungie has been able to alter Xûr's stock all along, then they've either been lying to Destiny's community or at least intentionally misleading them
https://www.geek.com/games/bungie-is-at-war-with-a-datamining-gamer-that-can-predict-the-future-of-destiny-1618212/

Source 2
Quote:
Xur is randomized. There are times when we can pull off miracles like making him stay in the Tower longer when Christmas is cancelled, but his inventory is governed by the same chaos that influences all the loot drops
https://www.bungie.net/en/Forums/Post/97882173?page=0&sort=0&showBanned=0&path=1
 
#16 ·
Yup, this game is staying off my list, no matter how interesting it might be.

I miss when Bungie was actually a decent company that made GOOD games.
 
#17 ·
everything is awful in video games now.
 
#18 ·
You know what?
This is good.
This is Great!

We need more angry gamers. I don't mean that hardcore gamers should spend "even more time" whining and complaining, but getting casuals to care is going to take a landslide event. We need this thing to hit critical mass and actually see tens of millions of gamers avoiding products that don't conform to Fair Play practices. Battlefront II is a good start but we're not there yet.
As successful as CD Project RED was with TW3, they should sell Ten Times more copies of Cyberpunk (if it's good, etc...).
Good developers who respect the gamer need to become the pillars of the industry, and the mainstream aren't aware enough yet to make that happen.

I know in the long term it's just a cycle: Small company does good work. Small company becomes big company. Big company gets bought out or sells out. Big company becomes evil.

But at least right now it's time for a changing of the guard. Hopefully Activision and EA will go the way of THQ in the not too distant future.
 
#19 ·
#21 ·
I can only agree with ILoveHighDPI, it's difficult for players with actual quality standards = minority to make an impact but now it seems to be getting so bad to a point where this mass marketing of gaming and hunting money at any cost of quality is starting to piss off even the regular players... well well well.
 
#22 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by ILoveHighDPI View Post

You know what?
This is good.
This is Great!

We need more angry gamers. I don't mean that hardcore gamers should spend "even more time" whining and complaining, but getting casuals to care is going to take a landslide event. We need this thing to hit critical mass and actually see tens of millions of gamers avoiding products that don't conform to Fair Play practices. Battlefront II is a good start but we're not there yet.
As successful as CD Project RED was with TW3, they should sell Ten Times more copies of Cyberpunk (if it's good, etc...).
Good developers who respect the gamer need to become the pillars of the industry, and the mainstream aren't aware enough yet to make that happen.

I know in the long term it's just a cycle: Small company does good work. Small company becomes big company. Big company gets bought out or sells out. Big company becomes evil.

But at least right now it's time for a changing of the guard. Hopefully Activision and EA will go the way of THQ in the not too distant future.
Agreed. Even the CD Projekt team (CDPR / GOG) have to be reminded from time to time because the inclination seems to be somewhat there. A few months ago there was a big discussion because they wanted to shove the "optional" GOG Galaxy client into the download files of new games and some older games that were being changed to include achievements, cloud saves and overlay support, so you'd likely end up with it installed - not to mention the wasteful download every time if you were not planning on using Galaxy to download your games, citing that things were changing and that new experiences, etc, as if achievements, overlays and cloud saves were a new thing and as if GOG gamers weren't exactly the type of gamer that has had enough of that crap (annoying achievements and unnecessary / performance impacting / buggy overlays with other game clients).

I put "optional" in quotes because they always made sure to put that word in writing, even the marketing material writing, that it is optional, and rightfully so. In the long-term discussion what everybody knows is that ensuring that games are not functionally dependent on a client is the basic premise to keep them DRM-free, which is essentially what makes GOG what it is. After the backlash against these plans in the forums they ended up deciding to make two download options, the GOG Galaxy infused download and the "Classic Installers" download (not to be confused with the GOG Downloader Links) that doesn't have the client in it, as was the norm up until then.

The subtlety that still denounces their intentions for those unaware is that on the user account page for each game it defaults to the GOG Galaxy infused links whenever they are available, with a nice sentence detailing its benefits at the bottom, but with no mention that the "Classic Installers" option is available under the "More" drop down menu (where the games' changelog and links to the store page and reviews options are). The gray "More" menu button has, for years now, even before this change, always been accompanied by a very visible blue "Try GOG Galaxy" button to its left, so it's not for a lack of visibility and awareness that gamers haven't known about and been able to exercise that "option".

So yeah, we as a community need to keep reminding even the good guys and pushing back. It was thus interesting to note the other day them giving their view on the Battlefront II backlash, by giving some (somewhat vague) reassurance that Cyberpunk 2077 wouldn't have any bullcrap in it. We'll see about that, I think is the best attitude to always have.

Speaking of the more casual gamer who really needs something big to start moving, it seems to be happening too, with the players of FIFA 18 also starting to wake up:

https://www.techspot.com/news/72033-fixfifa-campaign-looks-boycott-ea-game-black-friday.html
Quote:
Electronic Arts has made plenty of headlines in the last several weeks, mostly involving loot boxes and progression system controversies in two of its most prominent titles - Star Wars Battlefront 2 and Need For Speed: Payback. Both of those games have received considerable negative feedback that EA has been forced to address. A third property has also come under fire but has not received as much attention.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MrLinky View Post

@tpi2007 You should add this to the first post:

https://www.bungie.net/en/Explore/Detail/News/46494
Quote:
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.
Edit: added more to quote.
Thanks. Done.

I quoted their whole answer to make it clear that the deactivation is seemingly temporary, with some sort of change to the system being introduced after next week's review. We'll have to see how it ends up then. But for now, good on them for listening and acting quickly.
 
#25 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Defoler View Post

This is just going to make people even more nit-pick at games' systems from now on. Which is great.
Though I have a feeling that without a couple of huge class action lawsuits about those unfair practices, things won't change fast enough, if at all.
If they disclosed this kind of information from now on, there would be no cause for a lawsuit, I think.
 
#26 ·
Their original system probably wouldn't have even been an issue if they had been transparent about it from the start.
 
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