OwnedCore Report #9

**Kenneth** · 11-26-2017

Welcome to OwnedCore Report #9! This is where we cover all things OwnedCore while also bringing you news from around the gaming world to keep everybody updated. This one is going to include me trying some new stuff to see if you guys like it. Some topics that will be covered are Destiny 2 and their XP throttling being exposed, Community Highlights, and a bunch of hot topic gaming news from the last two weeks. Oh and WoW is adding that raid where we seem to end the reign of Sargeras.

Destiny 2 XP Fiasco

So if you have not heard already Destiny 2 got caught with their pants down with this whole "the more you play the less rewards you get" system. A reddit user named "EnergiserX" realized what happened to your XP once you hit the level 20 cap and made a thread about it. Whenever you hit the level cap in Destiny 2 you still gain experience and whenever you fill that experience bar you get a Bright Engram which can be turned into a random cosmetic item such as a new ship, new shaders for your gear, or even an exotic sparrow. It is a very similar system to Overwatch and their lootboxes. You level up, you get a reward box, you get cosmetics.

According to EnergiserX's findings if you tried grinding a ton of XP in a short period of time Destiny 2 would secretly lower the amount of experience you got for tasks without telling you. It was so significant that if you grinded long enough the objective XP would only be worth 4% of what it was the first time you did it for full XP. 4..fucking..percent. The worst part about this is the game shows that you received a certain amount of XP but in reality would be giving you much less. So they clearly were hiding it from the player. XP scaling is something seen in a lot of modern day MMO's and this won't be the last time we see it but the fact that it was so extreme and so fishy that they were hiding it that made it blow up on the main stream gaming media outlets.

With the main stream outrage came a statement from Bungie that essentially states that they are exterminating the system.

We've seen community discussion around XP gain in Destiny. After reviewing our data, we agree that the system is not performing the way we'd like it to. Today,
we'd like to describe what's going on under the hood, and talk about what you can expect going forward when it comes to earning XP in Destiny 2.

Currently, XP will scale up when player longer or fixed duration activities like Crucible competitive multiplayer matches and the Leviathan Raid, and XP will scale down when playing activities that can be quickly, repeatedly chained, like grinding Public Events. We are not happy with the results, and we've heard the same from the community.

Effective immediately, we are deactivating this system.

As a result, players will see XP earn rates change for all activities across the board, built with all values being displayed consistently in the user interface. Over the course of the next week, we will be watching and reviewing XP game data to ensure that these changes meet our expectations, as well as yours. Any additional updates to this system will be communicated to you via our official channels.

So what do you guys think about all this?
Is Activision the good guy for getting rid of it after being caught or are they the bad guy for even doing this?

Community Highlights

Putting this here again because its a big one. Smitten is doing another huge giveaway just click right here it ends soon!

Must be that time of the year because we got another giveaway by Ket. He is doing Albion 7 day trial Keys for Memes!

Nyarly posted his Tales of Exploration with some old school spots from back in the early WoW days.

Madorisiath is at it again with a video on How to Escape 7.3.2 Mage Scenario Violet Hold

Antorus, the Burning Throne

We have been in 7.3.2 for a decent amount of time and this coming Tuesday, November 28th, we are getting the 5th and last raid of the Legion expansion. "Players will face a stronghold of the Legion including eredar lords and imprisoned titans."

Antorus includes the following:

5 wings

11 bosses

More legendaries

Two new mounts Seen here and here

A unique 2h sword model. Seen Here

And most importantly, the relief that you will be done with green raids for awhile once you finish

Community Interview

Today I talked with the famous member Confucious. Some of you may know him from Bawx chat or others in threads related to pandas.

Q: Do you think throttling exp in general is an issue in games?
A: No, I think throttling can be a good thing for a game if the developers' intention is to keep the gap between casual and hardcore players smaller. It's of course annoying if you are the hardcore player but probably does lead to a reduction of botting and stuff. Doing it without telling the player is weird but it's so uncommon now days maybe they assumed the backlash would be smaller or hoped people wouldn't find out.

Q: If you had more time to game right now would Destiny 2 be a game you would give a shot? Why or why not?
A: I would play it if my real life friends did or my brother did but I would not play it alone. The only game I enjoy playing alone is lord of the rings online, otherwise I just play to spend time with other people

Q: Did you see the Battle for Azeroth or Classic server stuff at Blizzcon?
A: Yes, I'm interested in playing on the classic realms with my real life friends. I don't have too much interest in the new expansion, even though that means I won't be able to play as a panda. I like lord of the rings online because it is very similar to vanilla wow with some nice features added on that makes it more complex

Q: Are there any games coming in the future your hyped for? Monster hunter? Red dead 2? etc
A: I don't keep much attention to what new games are coming out. I didn't really see anything at the last E3 that interested me. I would like a new star wars action adventure game like what 1313 was going to be or a new star wars rpg.

Q: How the hell is Myshkin doing and can we get a pic?
A: He is very big and very fast. He's about 16 lbs now

Gaming News from Around the Globe

Figured I would try adding interesting gaming news from the two weeks prior to the report. Lets give it a shot.