The heart of this issue, IMO... (Destiny)

by Cody Miller , Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Tuesday, November 28, 2017, 16:07 (2631 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY
edited by Cody Miller, Tuesday, November 28, 2017, 16:40

Everything you say is certainly possible. However, my estimation, that scenario simply doesn’t add up. It took months of play and extensive testing for the community to even realize there was XP scaling happening. If scaling was so successfully hidden, then it certainly wasn’t influencing the play patterns of most players, right?

My take on the reaction is this:

The scaling system, or even the lack of UI for the scaling system isn't the real issue. Others have said scaling systems are common in many of these types of games, and serve a purpose.

I think the issue here, is that beyond level 20, exp is only used to get bright engrams, and bright engrams are available for money. So the scaling is put in place to prevent players from doing activities repeatedly in order to get bright engrams without paying.

Remember, exp does literally nothing else but get you bright engrams after level 20. Grinding these events for exp will not grant you an advantage in game (public events are lucrative with gear rewards though, but that wasn't scaled). You could at least then make the argument that throttling exp could be a beneficial thing if exp made you more powerful. But it doesn't.

And because exp does nothing but get you cosmetics, there isn't really an incentive power wise to grind events. Thus, people unconcerned about cosmetics will play the events that interest them, since for those people exp is pretty much no reward at all.

So the only thing a player could conceivably be doing by grinding events beyond level 20 to get exp would be trying to get cosmetic gear without paying. Throttling exp only really effects this (after level 20), so the intent is clear: we don't want you to bypass paying money to get bright engrams. If exp had some sort of other functionality, the scaling might be justified.

That alone is shady, but the fact that it was hidden makes it more so. That's what I'm guessing the reaction is about.