Slashdot Mirror
Destiny 2 Misrepresented XP Gains To Its Players Until the Developers Got Caught (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Destiny 2, like its predecessor, depends largely on an open-ended "end game" system. Once you beat the game's primary "quest" content, you can return to previously covered ground to find remixed and upgraded battles, meant to be played ad nauseam alone or with friends. To encourage such replay, Bungie dangles a carrot of XP gain, which works more slowly than during the campaign stages. Players are awarded a "bright engram" every time they "level up" past the level cap; the engrams are essentially loot boxes that contain a random assortment of cosmetics and weapon mods. Everything you do in the game, from killing a weak bad guy to completing a major raid-related milestone, is supposed to reward you a fixed XP amount. As series fans gear up for the game's first expansion, slated to launch December 5 on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, its eagle-eyed fans at r/DestinyTheGame began questioning whether those rewards were really as fixed as claimed. Some players began to suspect that they were actually getting less XP than advertised each time they repeated certain in-game missions and tasks, such as the game's "Public Events."
With stopwatch in hand, a user named EnergiserX tracked the modes he played, keeping an eye on any shifts in XP gain over time. He put enough data together to confirm those suspicions: the XP gained in certain modes would shrink with each repetition. Worse, the game gave no indication of these diminishing returns. The XP-gain numbers that popped up above the game's XP bar didn't reflect the game's hidden scaling system. Thus, there was no way for a player to accurately calculate how their XP gain had been affected or scaled without going through EnergiserX's exhaustive process. With findings in hand, the tester posted on Reddit with calls to the developers for a response, which the community received on Saturday. Bungie confirmed its use of an "XP scaler" and added that it was "not performing the way we'd like it to," which meant the developer would remove that XP-scaling system upon the game's next patch. However, Bungie didn't clarify how the developers actually would have liked for this XP-scaling system to work, nor what factored into it announcing any changes beyond the system simply being discovered. Bungie issued a patch on Sunday that removed the XP-scaling systems, but it introduced another unannounced change to the XP system. "Bungie decided to tune the speed of XP gain by doubling the required XP needed to 'level up,' from 80,000 points to 160,000," reports Ars Technica. "Patch notes didn't mention this change; Bungie, once again, had to be questioned by its fanbase before confirming the exact amount of this XP-related change."
With stopwatch in hand, a user named EnergiserX tracked the modes he played, keeping an eye on any shifts in XP gain over time. He put enough data together to confirm those suspicions: the XP gained in certain modes would shrink with each repetition. Worse, the game gave no indication of these diminishing returns. The XP-gain numbers that popped up above the game's XP bar didn't reflect the game's hidden scaling system. Thus, there was no way for a player to accurately calculate how their XP gain had been affected or scaled without going through EnergiserX's exhaustive process. With findings in hand, the tester posted on Reddit with calls to the developers for a response, which the community received on Saturday. Bungie confirmed its use of an "XP scaler" and added that it was "not performing the way we'd like it to," which meant the developer would remove that XP-scaling system upon the game's next patch. However, Bungie didn't clarify how the developers actually would have liked for this XP-scaling system to work, nor what factored into it announcing any changes beyond the system simply being discovered. Bungie issued a patch on Sunday that removed the XP-scaling systems, but it introduced another unannounced change to the XP system. "Bungie decided to tune the speed of XP gain by doubling the required XP needed to 'level up,' from 80,000 points to 160,000," reports Ars Technica. "Patch notes didn't mention this change; Bungie, once again, had to be questioned by its fanbase before confirming the exact amount of this XP-related change."
The game shows you how much XP you earn as you earn it and it's lying as soon as the scaling kicks in.
They are of course also happy to sell the item you get for that XP for real money.
It's amazing how people will pay for the privilege of running on a meaningless treadmill, and also pay for the privilege of not running on the meaningless treadmill, seemingly unaware that they don't have to run on the meaningless treadmill in the first place.
No it isn't, the whole plan since forever was to remove control of PC games from gamers. The problem is the market can't defend itself in a post internet age. You need physical proximity to the business to hold these companies accountable.
The big plan was to rebrand games as "mmo's/online" and push drm since the informed members of the public are 100's of miles away, what are they going to do? Then all the corporate world had to do was wait for a new generation of gamers to grow up who don't know any better and are ignorant. The vast majority of the public is tech ignorant. If not for the internet these scam practices wouldn't be possible. The wall between the stupid half of mankind and the corporate world came down post mass internet penetration, allowing the corporate world to steal PC game software by cutting the software into two chunks and defrauding the public.
Most of the public is too ignorant and uninformed to participate an a high tech capitalist society, the human brain didn't evolve to deal with it and we see the irrational dystopian outcome.
You're all missing the point.
The purpose of diminishing returns isn't to "break up the grind" -- it's to reduce the number of Bright Engrams produced. Bright Engrams, unlike other loot, which aren't rewarded on level up but instead drop from enemies, can be purchased with cold hard cash. Fewer bright engrams generated naturally = more people purchasing bright engrams for money. Aside from new game sales and expansion purchases, it's the only way Bungie/Activision make additional money on the game.
When in doubt, follow the money!