Bungie cancels Trials of Osiris stream to address ‘how we’re reacting to your feedback’ instead

Though we’re only about a week out from Curse of Osiris, Bungie has made the noteworthy step of cancelling a planned reveal of new content in the latest of their recent weekly livestreams, and will address recent player ‘feedback’. We’re feeling safe in assuming this feedback has been around the recent Destiny 2 XP issues.

Contention first arose over Thanksgiving last week, when members of the Destiny 2 subreddit undertook research into XP gains after hitting the level cap in Destiny 2, and discovered that players were not earning as much XP as they should be earning. This throttle increased exponentially when undertaking activities that could completed quickly, such as grinding Public and Heroic Events.

Bungie responded by holding its hands up in a news post and admitting that this system was indeed in place, that it wasn’t working as intended. The system was immediately switched off, with Bungie promising that XP levels would stay consistent across the board. However, this wasn’t the end of the matter, as this past weekend it emerged (again via the Destiny 2 Reddit) that with the above change, Bungie had in fact also increased the amount of XP needed to complete a level to almost double the original.

The reason that this is such a bone of contention is to do with our old friend loot boxes. In case you’re not aware, upon reaching the level cap in Destiny 2, any additional levels gained will instead grant Bright Engrams (an item in game that grants players a random item or items including ships, sparrows and gear). The loot inside is mainly cosmetic, but these Engrams can also be bought with real world money, which has of course put them under heightened scrutiny thanks to the ongoing discussion around lootboxes in EA’s Star Wars Battlefront II.

As a result of all this, a post on the Bungie.net forums from Community Manager DeeJ has revealed that a livestream originally scheduled for this evening that was set to reveal new weapons and armour for the expansion has changed. Istead, Bungie’s going to have some of its higher-ups explain ‘our goals for the game going forward’ as well as ‘how we’re reacting to your feedback with some game updates.’

Our plans for tomorrow have changed. Check out the Bungie Blog tomorrow (Wednesday) for developer commentary about Destiny.https://t.co/BnoVGtImDo pic.twitter.com/gHQNvLnURn

— Bungie (@Bungie) November 28, 2017

Destiny 2 Curse of Osiris is still set to land on December 5 for PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4, while the main game has just launched a free trial.