Bungie has received a ton of criticism for Destiny 2. Much of the end-game has been gutted. There’s a stealthy cooldown on loot chests where opening too many in quick succession gives you nothing. Strikes aren’t rewarding enough and neither is the raid or its Prestige version.
The main focus seems to be on chasing cosmetic items, especially since shades are now consumable and players can earn Bright Engrams to unlock Eververse items. Eververse is the in-game cosmetic store which grants you emotes, armour, cosmetics, mods, ships and shaders for real money. But hey, at least you can just grind out experience points and simply earn Bright Engrams on your own right?
It seems things aren’t that simple. Many players on Reddit and the Bungie forum are beginning to report on the XP gained doing something like a Heroic Public Event isn’t in line with the progress bar. As Reddit user lbeLIEvel demonstrated, with a buff that gives triple XP, the fireteam medallion buff, an EDZ Ghost that gives 10 percent extra XP and playing solo, completing one Heroic Public Event offered slightly more than 9,000 XP.
However, completing another Heroic Public Event a few minutes later yielded roughly the same amount of XP but the progress bar doesn’t fill up in the same way. In fact, it’s less. A lot less. Bungie forum user SuicidalKirby referenced the same Reddit post and then offered up a batch of screenshots showcasing similar results (and it’s not just for activities that yield 9,000 XP).
It’s hard to say whether this is a bug or intentional. If it’s the latter, it may push players to purchase Bright Engrams with real money rather than grinding for them since the process takes so long. With more events and seasons adding more items to Eververse, it certainly doesn’t reflect favorably on the developer. We’ll have to wait for an official statement from Bungie on the matter.