The juggernaut live service title that is Destiny 2 keeps chugging along, with new loot to collect and challenges to attempt. The 14th season of the game, titled Season of the Splicer, is officially launched and running, complete with a new season pass.
However, while the previous season was met with considerable aplomb, the 14th season of Destiny 2 has not been as well-received so far. While the roadmap promises plenty of new content both in weekly and daily doses, another change seems to have gone through much more quietly.
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As mentioned above, a Honeydew error initially prevented players from playing Destiny 2 Season 14 almost immediately after launch. With this in mind, players have not had much time to take in the new season yet. There has, however, been enough time for one Reddit user to ask a pertinent question about XP. Specifically, said user has noticed they are gaining ranks at a significantly slower pace than last season. Since XP in the Season Pass and Universal Rewards are some of the primary motivators for players to log in, less XP usually means diminished motivation.
While the initial post doesn't go into much detail about the challenges or direct comparison with the previous season, other posts quickly pick up the slack. One other poster states the previous XP amounts they were earning, and those amounts are significantly higher than the 30k given by the initial poster. Another poster makes a direct comparison, claiming 50k for the previous season's challenges and 30k for this season's. Considering Destiny 2 players are often very open with their calculations with the goal of helping the playerbase, such as the calculation of how long it takes to reach the Transmog cap, there's little reason to disbelieve these figures.
The response to this has been largely mixed, with some players taking issue with Bungie announcing the XP gains are "Extra Large" while quietly nerfing them. It is still not the chief complaint of most players though, as nerfing Stasis is a bigger concern for many.
Other players do not mind the change, since, as mentioned above, gaining ranks in the Season Pass is a huge draw for daily log-ins. With a slower gain, there's more reason to come back to the game every day. Still, artificially inflating playtime is still frowned on by most players, and just like the new Synthweave feature, this XP nerf will likely be under fire until there is an official response.
Destiny 2 is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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