Since Lightfall, i feel like most if not all of the changes made to the game have had this factor in mind more than any other: [b][i]Keeping players longer in the game. [/i] [/b] The added difficulty is something i thought the game needed, but it undeniably added a lot of time as a requirement for certain activities that used to be faster. Things like nightfalls, master lost sectors, and legendary missions for instance. On top of that, the fact the commendations are so intrinsically tied to guardian ranks makes them something most players will need to spend time on. It may not seem like much, but really notice how we're all spending an extra 30s on strikes and simples activities, waiting for people to commend. Sometimes, like a hot minute in raids, cuz people first look the endchest and then, commend, if they remember at all. It may no seem like much, but because you do it all the time, and everyone is doing, it ends up adding a LOT of time of "gameplay". And now, you even have to wait, because they stealth implemented a commend cooldown on raids and dungeons, if you or anyone joins the activity after the first encounter. Most folks are not aware of this(like myself until recently). Stuff like this may also seem trivial. but again, because of guardian ranks, lets say youre on your way to the 50 raid/dungeon commends required to rank up. You get to the boss, and a couple of players have to leave because of time, and you now have to invite new people. You invite 2 new guys, complete the activity, only to find then, you cannot commend. because they are on cooldown. They completed a raid via checkpoint in the last x hours, and because of that, YOU now are short, 2-3 commends to rank up. So now, you need to also complete ANOTHER activity, to compensate for that. That is a double "punishment", not just on the people who finished the activity via checkpoint(like doing so was a bad thing to begin with), but also on the people who want/need to commend but cannot. Im not even getting into the changes for older strikes that made little to no sense, again, just to add time to the activity. AND the seasonal activity, that feels longer than any we had previously, by design. I used to play all 3 characters, and the guys i play with were the same. Now, we find ourselves having to choose, 1 or 2, because it feels like everything just takes so long, and we dont have the time, even though our schedules didnt change. That is taking some of the fun of the game away. I Don't know if im the only who feels this way, and if that is the case, ignore this as it is most likely to happen. This is a mix of a rant/opinion post. Im sorry it was this long.