"One thing that we always wanted to do as we made Destiny, was to make sure that there was one player bucket," he explains. "We didn't want to shard players into different servers, so we could all play together if we wanted to play together. But more players in a space doesn't always mean better gameplay. In fact, we learned from the work we did on previous Bungie games that three was very much the sweet spot for fireteams to be able to coordinate. It creates a triangle formation, so you can always have a good combatant experience and always be progressing." -This really doesn't explain it. They give an alright explanation for story missions; but there's no reason we can't explore Old Russia in a 16 man group while chatting it up, other than them just not wanting to let us. If the players are there anyway, why not let me group with them so we can interact?

I couldn't find the exact article I wanted to show you guys but basically they explained that 3 was the perfect number because of a lot of internal testing, and that it is much easier to get a friend or two to play with than it is to play with 3+ friends all the time. Since they determined 3 was a sweet spot, 6v6 game modes made sense because it's the idea of two fireteams joining forces to take down a common enemy. Basically, there's a reason they chose to do things the way they did. I understand that it isn't really essential for clans because they obviously have a lot more people to interact with, but Bungie is trying to appeal to the casual in this situation. I wish you could still meet up with guardians from your clan in the tower though...not sure why we can't do that.

I understand what they were going for but it seems a bit too restrictive. I don't see any real reason to keep players from just messing about in Explore Cosmodrome together. My most common issue in the game was that we generally had 4 online, we either had to leave a friend behind or do PvP. The Explore mode seems like the perfect place to allow a larger group to play together yet we can't. Just doesn't make sense to me. Meeting up in the Tower would seem like a given, it is weird that we can't even do that. It really takes away from the social aspect.

I agree but unfortunately it is what it is. If anything, the whole 3 people fireteam idea should have been just limited to Strikes and PvP modes. Maybe with enough feedback they will change it over time, but I find it unlikely because there is a huge emphasis on there being 3 people in a fireteam.

The main concern here is that there can already be 16 people freely roaming in explore mode! Story missions, strike missions, even raids... I understand.... but the fact that in Explore mode, literally 16 people CAN be shooting at the monster means they don't care about players hanging out together.... so the fact that they restrict our ability to communicate with each other, baffles me... same with the Tower. Like I said, I'm not "whining" over it and I know it certainly won't be changed short term (if at all) but I'm curious behind their reasoning.

I imagine that they wanted you to encounter other fireteams while you explored so if you had 16 people in your group, you'd never encounter other people. Also, a group of sixteen players would make everything in the game feel ridiculously easy. There would absolutely be no challenge with that many people being able to work together and coordinate.

Encountering other fire teams doesn't do you any good if you can't talk to them without them being in your fire team.