Highlights

  • Destiny 2's The Final Shape expansion received great reviews, but Episode 1 is controversial due to time-gated content and issues over the Season Pass.
  • Players are upset with the level cap for the Season Pass and XP gain limitations, causing them to save Seasonal Challenges and bounties for Act 2.
  • Bungie's decision to time-gate content and limit XP gains is causing frustration among players, potentially affecting their experience and enjoyment of the game.

Destiny 2's The Final Shape won back a lot of long-time fans of the series and also made for an incredible fresh start for newcomers thanks to a story that's both an end and a new beginning, all while packing incredible new features and gameplay improvements. Even though the expansion is currently the best release ever for Destiny 2, it is being marred by some glitches, but it is mainly the game's new take on Episodes vs. Seasons is stirring controversies. One of the main points of discussion is that Destiny 2's first Episode does seem like a longer Season, with the con of also having time-gated content beyond the story.

Destiny 2's Echoes Episode does have a 3-week storyline for its first act, but the big problem is that it's composed of three acts total, with Act 2 starting on July 16 and Act 3 running from August 27 onward until Episode 2 launches. The cornerstone of the dislike for time-gated content arises from how this problem was present in Seasons and seems to be exacerbated by Episodes, given that new weapons and activities will be unlocked with Act 2 and 3, and this also applies to Destiny 2's Season Pass.

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Why Destiny 2's Season Pass Levels and Acts Are Creating a Problematic Precedent

Destiny 2's Season Pass For Echoes Limits Players' XP Gains

Destiny 2's Season Pass has been given a lot more rewards both on the free track and the paid track with Echoes, which makes sense given the longer lifespan of Episodes over Seasons. However, both tracks are currently limited to level 100, which was the regular cap for Seasons, whereas they go up to 150 with Act 2 and 200 with Act 3. The current model tries to balance out the time-gated content with more rewards, even rare items like Deepsight Harmonizers, but it wasn't made clear from the get-go how Seasonal Challenges, bounties, and XP in general were treated after hitting level 100.

As it stands, hitting level 100 in Destiny 2's Season Pass for the Echoes Episode provides players with another XP sink in the form of the Bright Engram Bonus, which provides one Bright Engram for every 500,000 XP gained past level 100. Given that the counter under the Bright Engram Bonus section of the Season Pass increases with each claimed Engram, many players inferred that this represented Season Pass levels for when Act 2 would start, essentially giving Guardians rewards at a slower rate, but still making progress toward the Season Pass.

Instead, as per the July 2 update's patch notes for Destiny 2, it seems that Bungie always intended level 100 to be the cap for the Season Pass until Act 2 started, meaning that current XP gains only go toward Bright Engrams and nothing more. This has aggravated the time-gated content controversy in Destiny 2 because now players who have gotten to level 100 in earlier weeks may have claimed rewards from Seasonal Challenges that will not contribute to the tracks of the Season Pass come Act 2. Not only that, but future Seasonal Challenges completions may be best left untouched until Act 2, lest XP bumps are "wasted" on Bright Engrams rather than Season Pass tracks.

Destiny 2 Has an XP Gain Issue

To further worsen the controversy, Bungie released a statement on Twitter saying that XP gains are currently being increased via a more generous Weekly Rest bonus because the earn rates are lower than intended. It's unclear how this may have affected claimed Seasonal Challenges and their respective XP awarded for the time being. Yet, the whole issue regarding Seasonal Challenges and the Act-based level cap for the Season Pass remains, and Bungie's decision to time-gate content is backfiring more due to the length players need to go to retain their XP sources ahead of Act 2's launch if they hope to get Season Pass rewards soon. All this is why Destiny 2 has an XP gain issue, and why it will remain until Bungie makes big changes to the formula.

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How Destiny 2's Time-Gated Season Pass Creates More Issues

Destiny 2 Players Saving Seasonal Challenges and Bounties For Act 2 Can be a Double-Edged Sword

Currently, there are a couple of new Destiny 2 Echoes weapons that will be unlocked with Act 2, and they will also be awarded via the Season Pass. Players who are keeping Deepsight Harmonizers to obtain these weapons' crafting patterns as quickly as possible will have to wait longer with claimed Seasonal Challenges, as there will be five weeks of Seasonal Challenges to complete before Act 2 is released. Since Seasonal Challenges typically only cover 10 weeks, those who claim most or even all of the Challenges before Act 2's release will have a much harder time getting to level 150 and then 200.

In the case of the new weapons, they are locked behind levels 110, 119, and 140 on the paid track, and levels 131, 141, and 145 on the free track, meaning the issue is potentially affecting free-to-play gamers the most. Since the new weapons, Exotic Engrams, and Deepsight Harmonizers are the biggest things to look forward to in Act 2's tracks of the Season Pass, and considering that most of these rewards are in the latter half of it, players will need to keep Seasonal Challenges unclaimed for another couple of weeks and possibly store up completed bounties too.

This is in direct contrast with the game's philosophy, and while it's always been the case to store bounties ahead of big expansions, doing this -- or even feeling the need to do this -- between each act of each Episode can be quite tiring. It also defeats the purpose of leveling up during a Season or Episode, as not gaining XP from these big sources can slow down Destiny 2's Artifact level gains, which in turn means players need more time to get fully ready for hard content.

In fact, Destiny 2's Grandmaster Nightfalls are currently capped at 2020 Power Level and enemies will be at 2040 Power Level. While before The Final Shape players needed just 5 levels on the Seasonal Artifact and had to reach the level cap to be ready for a GM, now that's not the case. Instead, players need at least 15 levels on the Artifact and a base Power Level of 2000 (the current cap) to be on par with pre-The Final Shape GM Nightfalls. As such, slowing down on the XP grind to get levels more easily on the Season Pass in Act 2 is not pleasing fans, and Bungie may need to change things sooner rather than later.