Bungie outlines future plans for Destiny 2

Bungie canceled their live stream and instead opted to post an update to the community on the state of the game and what the future holds for Destiny 2.

Game directors Luke Smith and Chris Barret addressed the issues of XP gain in the blog post and stated that they community has their “commitment that we’re going to do a better job going forward”. Regarding the XP issue they said:

Last weekend, we disabled a scaling mechanism that adjusted XP gains up and down without reflecting those adjustments in the UI. Our intention was to keep slower-paced activities as rewarding as high intensity grinding without confusing variations in displayed XP values, but the silent nature of the mechanic betrayed the expectation of transparency that you have for Destiny 2.

We were able to disable the system with a server-side change, but a new solution is now needed to rebalance XP in Destiny 2. We have begun that work, and will continue to provide updates to you about timelines and specifics. The values coded into our website API are being updated today (and may already have been as you read this post) to reflect the removal of this scaling mechanism. In a future update, we intend to link these internal and display-only values together for greater consistency, and to ensure that when changes are made they are accurately reflected everywhere we report them.

We already see that the newly adjusted 160K XP per level value means that leveling is too slow for some activities, and we have begun the process of collecting data and recalibrating XP earn rates to improve them as quickly as possible.

XP boosts, including both consumable items and passive bonuses like the Well Rested 300% bonus, were always applied after this system and never resulted in early slowing of XP. They should be unchanged by the disabling of this system and will continue to provide their stated increase in XP gain.

Expect to see a lot of conversation from our team on this front, as XP rewards are updated and brought back in-line with player expectations.

The lengthy update addresses changes coming in two updates in December, the Curse of Osiris update on 5 December and another on 12 December. The update covers “Masterwork” weapons, armor ornaments, an improved emote interface, and they are still prioritising private matches and ranked PvP for early 2018.

The full details can be sifted through in the blog update.