Bungie confirms Destiny 2 experience actually has been nerfed in Season of the Splicer

Experience gains in Destiny 2 Season of the Splicer feel slower than usual and Bungie has now explained why, revealing a secret mistake dating back to the Beyond Light release.

A few weeks into the season and players have grown accustomed to the new Destiny 2 grind in Season of the Splicer. From new activities, to revamped Raids, and, plenty more, there’s been a good amount to keep Guardians busy.

While chipping away at all the fresh content, players began to notice XP gains were a little off. Compared to previous seasons, the rise through seasonal levels felt slower than usual. It turns out, we’re not crazy as Bungie has confirmed XP is being handed out at a different rate.

However, the current, slower pace is actually what’s intended.

Seasonal Challenges in Season of the Chosen were granting “far more XP than they should have,” Bungie revealed in a May 21 update, and have now been nerfed.

To make sense of it all, cast your mind back to the Beyond Light launch in November of 2020. Grinding through that initial period led to special XP bonuses in Season 12. These limited-time boosts were supposed to be switched off once Season of the Chosen arrived on February 9.

That wasn’t quite the case as an unintended bug kept the XP bonuses intact. “This carry-over resulted in Season 13 Challenges paying out much greater XP than intended,” Bungie clarified.

Rather than making the community aware at that point in time, the devs opted to “leave it in place and let players continue to benefit from it.”

With Season of the Splicer, it came time for Bungie to finally squash the bug. They did just that, though they didn’t make anyone aware in the 3.2.0 patch notes. As a result, everyone felt as though their XP gains were slower, without knowing the previous season was actually just faster than intended.

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Below is a rundown on the accurate payout you can expect from Seasonal Challenges moving forward.

• Extra Large XP = 0.5 Season Pass rank
• x2 Extra Large XP = 1 Season Pass rank
• x4 Extra Large XP = 2 Season Pass ranks
• x8 Extra Large XP = f4 Season Pass ranks

If you’re looking to make the most of the current season and unlock everything on offer, Bungie assured Seasonal Challenges are still the way to go. Any Guardian that completes all Seasonal Challenges can expect to go beyond level 100 no different from usual.

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Season of the Splicer is now locked in with this format, though further changes could be on the way in Season 15.