If you’ve been screwed over by loot in Avengers’ endgame, you’re not alone. Some players are running the game’s most punishing missions and getting diddly-squat for their efforts. Now, developer Crystal Dynamics says the issue both is and isn’t a bug, depending on what missions you’re running.
As noted by Forbes’ Paul Tassi, this issue specifically affects the elite hives, missions in which you progress through various floors with differing objectives. These seem to “reward” players with low-level uncommon gear or, occasionally, no gear at all, despite being a mission type that has a chance of dropping exotic gear, the most powerful gear in the game. Some players have thought it’s a bug, while others surmise that exotics are limited to one piece per account.
In the official Reddit thread for collating the game’s known issues, developer Crystal Dynamics confirmed that elite hives are indeed wonky. Instead of dropping a superpowered piece of exotic (red) gear, sometimes, the mission will mistakenly replace that prize with an uncommon (green) piece of gear. Even worse, it registers with a Power level of 1—as low as you can possibly get. Crystal Dynamics acknowledged the issue and clarified that it will be fixed in the next patch.
But the developer also said that exotics are dropping “as intended.” There’s no iron-clad guarantee you’ll get an exotic from running any mission, let alone an elite hive. So, while getting a low-level piece of gear as a reward might be a bug, not getting an exotic item could just be an instance of bad luck, at least for the time being. Crystal Dynamics says it plans on monitoring drop rates for exotic loot and will “make adjustments as needed.”
Loot-based games live and die on their, well, loot. The original Destiny launched with a busted loot system. Instead of finding weapons outright, you’d find items called “engrams” and then decode them. Every so often, you’d decode a purple engram only to earn a lesser, blue weapon. The engram system stayed, but the unpopular outcome was fixed post-launch, making it much more palatable. And who can forget Diablo III’s legendary redemption arc, a ground-up redux that came to a head with 2014’s well-received Reaper of Souls expansion and a totally revamped loot system? That all took two years.
Marvel’s Avengers, meanwhile, has only officially been available for six days. Players may well be in the endgame now, but the game is still finding its footing.