[Megathread] Destiny

[Endus]

@Edge- Imagine a combination of them trying to intentionally deceive (which is worse than just doing it without trying to hide it) + looking for something / anything to flame about since they're already in a frenzy.

Even that's unfair, really. They weren't really trying to "deceive", or at least I don't see any potential gains from doing so. The one argument seems to be "they lied to drive sales of bright engrams for silver (real money)". That doesn't make internal sense, though, since those sales would only get driven if users knew they were facing a longer and longer grind, and elected to buy the engrams instead. By not telling customers this was happening, they cut that possibility out. So I can't agree that's a reasonable explanation.

It seems far more likely they wanted to disincentivize "loot cave" type grinding, where you do the same thing over and over (like heroic public events, currently), in favor of mixing things up and doing different stuff. Especially since they stated that XP gains were increased for certain types of content, by this same system; it wasn't just a throttling.

Is that bad messaging to customers, because A> they didn't know this would be happening and B> the game UI reported the full XP but only applied a fraction? Sure. Is this reason to start boiling the tar and getting the bags of feathers ready? Really not. Especially when the conversation basically went;

"Hey, Bungie, it looks like you're throttling XP, see these screenshots? Isn't that kind of fucked up that there's no messaging about what's going on here?"
"Yeah, you're right. That's not working out like we'd hoped, based on your complaints. We're gonna end that right away and see if we can work out something better moving forward."

If that's where it ended, fine, but instead we get;

"OMFG, Bungie is LYING LIARS who are trying to STEAL MONEY by making customers make VOLUNTARY PAYMENTS by NOT TELLING THEM THERE'S REASONS TO MAKE THEM."

Which is nonsense, really, if you sit down for half a minute and think about it.

It's like the lootbox stuff. Don't like lootboxes? 'Kay. Don't buy 'em. They're not functionally different from packs of trading cards, in terms of whether or not they're "gambling" (I'll admit they could be defined that way, but only if that definition is so broad as to be silly in terms of banning stuff that it covers). Lootboxes and microtransactions are everywhere today because customers like them. If you don't, that's fine. Don't buy 'em. Why get bent out of shape if others do? If you're straight-up buying advantages in the game, that I can see as an argument for "bad gameplay", but that just means the game design is bad and I'd recommend not playing it, not that it's some egregious wrong being perpetrated on unfortunate customers. I think more of the average consumer than that.

[GoKs]

Yea I didnt even notice that xp throttling since the brightengram just isnt anything special to me, I never really even look at my xp bar, when I get a BE I am like "oh a level" but other then that it doesnt bother me at all. Look there are plenty more stuff that effects the game in a way worse way then this BE shit that has allot of people up in arms.

I would have liked it if the Exotics where more..... EXOTIC, but currently there is just no need to equip one when the legendaries does the same thing. I heard allot from the guys here on the forum and even my friends that played D1 that the stats on the weapons was random rolls, and you had to grind out stats for a weapon you liked to make it more powerfull, now that seems like a great idea to implement, even make the Eexotics scale higher, like the legendaries in WoW. Give them ways to make your char feel stronger when equiped, because currently for me at least it doesnt make me feel stronger.

Make the enemies have levels (also from D1) so you can feel the power progression, because now I dont feel like I am getting stronger. No need for you to lock content behind Light levels 240,260,270 or 280 if you are going to do the same dmg at lvl 10 as you do right now at level 20 @305 because of scaling, just seems silly. Like I said the game can improve allot, but I still dont think it is as BAD as some of the people here try to make it. Please bungie pretty please take away that peer to peer shit for the pvp, it is just stupid as hell.

[Bugg]

The VW of the gaming industry?

[Gorsameth]

<Snip>

How is an XP bar that is in no way tied to the actual underlying numbers and instead displaying random progress not a willful deception?

"Woops we forgot to write the code that connects the 2, our bad".

[Tenjen]

Honestly an anti farming mechanic "woth good intentions" for level ups which get you the same loot box as the shop was bound to raise brows.

[Baconeggcheese]

Even that's unfair, really. They weren't really trying to "deceive", or at least I don't see any potential gains from doing so.

I say deceive because the xp bar was set up to purposefully give incorrect information if I'm understanding correctly, which is absolutely intentional deceit regardless of reasoning.

Its not something I personally care about because the cash shop has nothing of real importance in it but yeah.

[Jtbrig7390]

[Bugg]

What matters (for me) is that the future Destiny 2 will be Better (more fun to play) than today's D2.

The XP scaling I don't personally mind, because cosmetics/transmog was never my thing. The bad thing was lieing about it I think.

Maybe we will have something close to the D1 Weaponsmith in D2? Anyone heard anything? I enjoy weapon diversity, and I hope we will have more of that in the future...

[Elim Garak]

What matters (for me) is that the future Destiny 2 will be Better (more fun to play) than today's D2.

D3 will be worse than today's D2

[CogsNCocks]

There's nothing of value in those Destiny 2 loot boxes anyway. Don't understand why anyone would enter their credit card details to buy that crap.

[RobertoCarlos]

Damn that is a 'shady'(get it shady.....ill see myself out) as hell move there bungie-activision.

Trying to mislead experience gains to the modern gamer is incredibly short sighted and stupid.

Are they not aware people test the shit out of even old games on the ps1 because some people find it interesting how games tick.

Not gonna defend them anymore, thats a very anti-gamer move. And the height of corporate greed.

[nekobaka]

There was reports of XP gain looking spotty from launch week. The devs just never admitted it until recently over 2 months later when someone went to test it. While shady the length of time for someone to give a shit enough to check really shows how many cared.

[Nutri]

Worst part is, they put something very shady in their game hoping (or EXPECTING) nobody would find out. Now that the cat is out of the bag they'll try to PR it as being the 'good and caring developer' by presenting it as "we heard you! And guess what, we're changing it because you asked for it! Rejoice!". They have been dead silent about pretty much everything going on in D2 since launch! Even the community managers are simply not engaging the actual community on the forums/reddit.

I think they went "f*ck, the bloody Internet found out our xp stagger. With the bad press EA is getting we just have to patch out out."

[Proskill]

ok so now after removing bonus xp for playing longer, they doubled the xp required for level promotion ? just wow

[dope_danny]

ok so now after removing bonus xp for playing longer, they doubled the xp required for level promotion ? just wow

"we heard you, we are listening and we will try better in the future" message coming in 5....4....

[Rekz]

ok so now after removing bonus xp for playing longer, they doubled the xp required for level promotion ? just wow

How are they ever going to get you addicted to loot box gambling if you're able to get bright engrams off leveling normally?

[Endus]

ok so now after removing bonus xp for playing longer, they doubled the xp required for level promotion ? just wow

The XP-scaling system was meant to produce a certain time-to-level. There's no reason they'd want to change that goal, and by reducing the scaling XP (which went BOTH ways), this leaves it at about the same time-to-level. A slight improvement, for the most part. http://www.gamerevolution.com/news/3...bright-engrams


Like, seriously, what is people's problem, here?

Is it that "Bungie lied to players"? They never stated there was NOT XP scaling, and XP scaling is hardly unique to Destiny 2. The XP bar was even giving you the proper information. If the numerical XP reward on the UI had been adjusted based on the scaling amount, would that have settled all this for you? Because it seems really silly to me to get this bent out of shape over that. And if it wouldn't have, then this wasn't your issue in the first place.

Is it that there's XP scaling at all? Well, now you don't have it. Even with doubled XP, that should settle your issue, right?

Is it that players weren't told about scaling XP? Not really sure why that's a big deal; XP scaling isn't that unusual.

Is it that there are lootboxes? People enjoy lootboxes. That's why they've been successful industry-wide. Why is it "bad" that a company sells customers what customers want? Because they're enticing, they make you want to buy them? That means it's a desirable product, and that's it. Is it because they remind you that you can buy them? Like pretty much any business in the world does? Seriously, come on.

Is it that you can't get free lootboxes faster than you already can? Well, this is just you wanting more free stuff, it isn't really a complaint.

And lastly; is it that, taking all the above, you think that Bungie was maliciously trying to drive lootbox sales? This doesn't make sense, for a host of reasons. First, of course they want to drive lootbox sales; they're a business, and if they didn't want to sell lootboxes it wouldn't be an option. That's not "malice", that's business. Second, the only way players could make a choice to buy lootboxes rather than grind them out for free is if they knew that grinding them out was going to take too long; they would have to know the XP scaling was biting them in the ass, and choosing to buy instead. By this not being clearly pointed out to the player, this couldn't be driving lootbox sales.


People are so quick to presume malice, without being able to actually describe any malicious motive that makes any consistent sense. It's not like that's the only explanation. XP scaling helps to disincentivize behaviours like grinding content over and over for hours, encouraging players to take a break, or engage in other parts of the game. And they could've just tied the numerical reporting of XP rewards to the pre-scaled amount rather than post-scaled, without thinking about it or by honest accident. I can understand being irked that there was no communication regarding scaling beforehand, but that's a pretty darned minor issue, and the virulent hate for Bungie in this doesn't make the least bit of sense to me.

[Jtbrig7390]

Like, seriously, what is people's problem, here?

Read the last couple pages and maybe you will figure that out. We get it Endus gaming company's can do no wrong and its the customers fault 100% of the time. I bet you also thought there was nothing wrong with battlefront 2 as well.

Since clearly all you are going to do is defend company's to death replying to you more then I have is pointless. Welcome to ignore ( As in no more reply's since you can't put a mod on ignore).

[Rekz]

It's been explained to you many times already Endus but you're just selectively tuning it out.

[Endus]

Read the last couple pages and maybe you will figure that out.

I've read it. I tried to paraphrase the arguments, and why I didn't see any merit to them, in my post. So I'm asking for an explanation beyond those points.

We get it Endus gaming company's can do no wrong and its the customers fault 100% of the time. I bet you also thought there was nothing wrong with battlefront 2 as well.

My issue with Battlefront 2 was that it affected gameplay directly. Bright Engrams don't, really. The only gameplay effects are minor personal benefits, like slightly faster sparrows, or minor quality-of-life boons like a Ghost that detects resources on a particular planet, and these don't affect multiplayer performance at all.

I've always taken issue with pay-to-win systems. Which Battlefront 2 basically was. And which Destiny 2 is not.

- - - Updated - - -

It's been explained to you many times already Endus but you're just selectively tuning it out.

I paraphrased those "explanations" in my post. They aren't explanations; they don't hold merit. I'm not tuning anything out; the arguments I've seen don't hold up to scrutiny. What am I missing, that I didn't cover in that post? If it's so simple and obvious, that should be an easy ask.