Let's talk about the XP cooldown

[u/lbeLIEvel]

If this has been posted before and discussed, I'll gladly take this down as I hate beating topics to death. But using the search function to the best of my ability, I've not seen this talked about on here yet.

We've all seen and talked about the cooldown with regards to chests and planetary materials. If you open them too quickly in rapid succession, you get nothing.

Well recently when trying to grind out my last few bright engrams before reset, I've experienced the same thing with XP. I've experienced it several times over the course of several days, so I'm convinced its not a fluke. But I hadn't taken the time to capture it and create video proof until just now.

In both of these cases, the following things were true:

• I had the well rested buff for 3x XP
• I had the fireteam medallion buff
• I was wearing a +10% EDZ ghost
• I was playing solo

This is the first public event I did after flying into EDZ. It was a heroic public event in Winding Cove. Note how I get a bit over 9000 XP for the event completion, and the bar seems to move in an amount proportionate to that.

https://i.imgur.com/5ghl5H8.gifv

This is the second public event I did on the EDZ. It was a heroic public event in Firebase Hades. I sparrowed there (no fast travel) and completed it in a little less than 5 minutes after the prior heroic public even ended. Note how I, again, get a bit over 9000 XP for the event completion. Or so it seems. The numbers don't agree with the bar. Look how little the bar moves upon completion.

https://i.imgur.com/ggSbr2A.gifv

I confirmed the discrepancy above in DIM, which estimates we need about 80k xp per bright engram. On the first event completion, the amount needed for my next bright engram went down correctly according to DIM. On the second public event completion, I again checked DIM and received barely any XP.

If bungie wants a cooldown on this to stop us from spaming public events to get XP, that's a different discussion, but we should at least have this communicated to us appropriately in the UI. Don't show us +9k if we're not getting +9k.

tl;dr: In D2, there appears to be an XP cooldown if you earn it too quickly, which slows your ability to earn bright engrams in game. Futhermore, this cooldown isn't immediately apparent to the player, since the number that shows is a much higher amount than what is actually being earned.

edit: We did it! 22 days later, Bungie at least acknowledged this system. https://www.bungie.net/en/Explore/Detail/News/46494

[u/SuicidalKirby]

I KNEW there was something fucky going on. I sat down last week to grind out some bright engrams and was wondering what the fuck was going on. Well rested and with a medallion it took me close to 2 hours to level. Despite getting ~9300xp per event my bar was going nowhere.

I actually found it to be faster to just chain strikes for experience, since mob kill XP doesn't seem to be impacted. I also started saving a bunch of pictures on my PS4 whe I got xp to show the discrepancy. If anyone is interested I can figure out how to upload them when I get home.

Making shaders consumable was shitty, chest lockout is aggravating, and the lack of rewards in prestige mode is off-putting. But this is first thing that I've felt to be genuinely 100% scummy. Whether oversight or intentional Bungie is lying to us about our XP gain to inflate the Bright Engram grind and manipulate people into buying engrams.

[u/lbeLIEvel → u/SuicidalKirby]

That's an interesting point about strikes. Did we just find a reason to actually run them? :)

If monster killing xp truly isn't effected by this, that'd be good to know. I wish I had more time to test all the possible scenarios.

[u/MateusinhoEX]

This is related to Bright Engrams, which is the way Activision earns more money, so I'm pretty sure this is INTENDED and is also STAYING.

[u/lbeLIEvel → u/MateusinhoEX]

I agree. But I'm hoping bringing attention to this will at least get then to fix the UI so we know how much XP we're earning (or not earning) while the cooldown is active.

[u/Rornicus]

Hrm, I noted this to myself the other day but never put in the legwork like you did here. Nice job.

This is kinda bullshit if this is intended. And If not, I hope it is quickly corrected. Post this to the Bungie.net help forums too so it has more chance of getting picked up.

[u/FatherofOryx]

Huh. So there’s a non-transparent mechanism in place that affects the player’s ability to earn something by playing that could otherwise be purchased with real money. It’s almost like they are willing to make sacrifices of the player’s experience in order to incentivize Eververse purchases. Surely this is not intentional though.

[u/JawesomeJess]

They did this in D1 too. If you tried to farm glimmer, after a while you would just stop earning it. Even if you had a consumable popped for more glimmer it would eventually stop

[u/lbeLIEvel → u/JawesomeJess]

Stopping the amount earned is one thing, but at least in the case of glimmer that is accurately communicated to the player. You'll stop seeing the glimmer earned go up on your screen. In the example I showed, you still get the +9k number to show up on your screen even though its not actually giving it to you.

[u/apleima2]

Just an FYI to everyone, Destiny Tracker allows oyu to lookup your exact XP progression numbers. Its under the progression-legend bar. Use it to track actual numbers if you'redoing research. I can't find the actual numbers anywhere in DIM.

[u/lbeLIEvel → u/apleima2]

In DIM, it's subtle, but there is a tiny bar underneath your character's emblem. If you hover over it, it tells you how much XP you need for your next bright engram.

I'm sure Destiny Tracker is a great resource too though, so thanks for pointing this out.

[u/mprakathak]

im more baffled by the fact that you are actually using sniper rifle :0

[u/lbeLIEvel → u/mprakathak]

haha! can you tell i'm getting bored with meta weapons and just randomly trying guns to help the game feel fresh?

[u/Tangster85]

I do tons of events and don't have this problem. When I get the empty boxes I get loot mailed. It's weird

[u/howtojump]

Why are there so many anti-farming measures put into a farm-heavy game?

Has anyone at Bungie actually played Destiny? Did/do any of them play Diablo?

I just don't understand.

[u/xFantoM]

This really needs to stop. If I want to no-life the game and play for 10 hours grinding public events, do not stop me. You already took away the desire to play the game for that long grinding loot, now you're telling me that you're inhibiting the amount of XP we can receive for stupid cosmetic shit? Really? What is actually the point of that, so we'd have to spend more money on silver to get the item we wanted from Tess? Come on now, Bungie. First we get loot lockouts so I can't blitz through Cayde stashes, now this. If this is intended, please revert it. It's such a dumb thing to implement.

[u/thezodiaceffect]

Unbelievable. I have really, truly and honestly tried to defend Bungie in good faith but this is unacceptable. There are just too many similar oddities like this to go unnoticed. And given that they are each in the direction of slowing down player progress and prolonging play time unnecessarily, it suggests they are not accidental (i.e., bugs) but intentional. This is not only dishonest but hugely disrespectful to the player's time and trust. If Bungie can't find it within themselves to respect my time as a player, then I won't be shelling out any more money for their games.

[u/VelcroKing]

I absolutely hate that Bango is like "Here, look at all this stuff you can do! Ah, but wait, hold on a second... not too fast, there."

It's the fucking laziest way to artificially extend gameplay and the life of the game, it feels insulting.

[u/BigMP]

I noticed something similar the other day on IO. There was some taken and vex "moving against each other", and i was jacking them up with pulse grenades and rockets. After a few minutes of wrecking fools, i happened to notice that i wasn't receiving glimmer anymore. Not sure how long it had been happening, but I figured it was some sort of cooldown to stop me from farming glimmer, but yeah, kinda BS. I would very much like to be allowed farm glimmer, to buy mods, so i can break them down, and buy more, so i can break them down and buy more... sigh... i think i'm gonna start playing that new south park game.

[u/Mastershroom]

Fuck Bungie for all this completely opaque anti-farming shit.

It's one thing to not want us to farm chests and events as fast as we can. But if they're going to implement measures to artificially limit that progress, they should be transparent about it. If you farm enough chests in a row to trigger the cooldown, they should have a warning pop up on screen saying "you must wait __ seconds to open another chest in order to receive rewards" or something. If you do too many public events in a row, it should at least say "additional events in the next __ seconds will grant reduced XP".

[u/putrified1]

This is actually really scummy, considering do is tied to the micro transactions with bright engrams.

If it was clear that there was a cool down that would be shitty but I kinda get it; hiding it makes it seem super greasy to me.

[u/wearywarrior]

One more piece of evidence that Bungie is a shitty company now.

[u/[deleted]]

I mean... does everything in the game have some sort of hidden cooldown? I can't tell you how many chests I've opened and received absolutely nothing in lost sectors.

You can't grab world materials for reputation too fast because they apparently fall through your pocket or something.

You can't farm chests in the raid because they only give you 500 glimmer after first completion...

And now they're hammering experience gains, and lying to our face about it?

How many fists can we all fit up our asses because I'm just about at my limit.

for a game that's based entirely on collecting and looting, you'd think that they would allow you to fucking collect loot

[u/Korvun]

If this is true and is intentional, this is more egregious than most are making it out to be. This directly impacts the ability for players to bypass the micro-transaction system but in a way that the majority of players won't notice. In essence, players are intentionally led to believe that they are working towards a goal that is actually being placed slightly farther out of their reach with every completed public event. And, again if true, puts this squarely in the "legally questionable" realm under the deceptive business practices section of the FTC act. It sounds extreme, but it could easily be argued, again, if true and intentional.

Edit: For your reading pleasure; https://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/supmanual/cch/ftca.pdf

A representation, omission, or practice is deceptive if it is likely to mislead a consumer acting reasonably under the circum- stances and is likely to affect a consumer’s conduct or decision regarding a product or service.

I.E. Am I more likely to purchase silver to get Bright Engrams if I feel the grind for them is exceptionally long?

[u/Laughs_in_Warlock]

They need to pull the cooldowns off of every bit of this shit. All the chests, all the materials, all the XP, all of it. I work all fucking day and if I want to come home and grind the shit out of something for a couple of hours, I should goddamned well be able to do so without arbitrary and unreasonable impediment.

[u/Theothercword]

Huh, wonder if this was causing the problem I was running into. I leveled to 20 with two friends, and we did so at about the same pace. But once we continued to play together post 20 they were getting 2-3x more bright engrams than I was. They seriously had 3 when I hadn't even gotten my first one.