I don't disagree with you about the dying-being-permanent thing being a skill check. It's a classic one. You have one life. Use it well. My point is it maybe isn't appropriate for the game, maybe it isn't ideal for fun-factor (which I think should still be a consideration in hard mode), and maybe it has undesirable implications on the way the game plays, since the game at the grand scale was designed so that teammates could pick each other up. On that last one, consider that the game, as a whole, is designed based on your abilities as a player. Everything accounts for that, from big things like level and mission design to weapon design to the minor details that have implications on gameplay. When you take things away from us, that ecosystem that is carefully designed to work as a whole is thrown out of balance. It no longer is about what strategy you choose and how well you execute. It’s more about that you have the right gear, choose the right strategy (because they’re now limited), and that you execute (barring glitches). More specifically, though, let’s just look at the warlock, for instance. The sunsinger subclass offers players the ability to revive themselves. In the core game, that’s not a huge benefit. It’s certainly useful to have, but it isn’t vital. Once respawning is messed with, that perk skyrockets in appeal. So for hard mode raids, the sunsinger subclass becomes extremely more appealing than voidwalker. I’m arguing that they should both appeal and both be viable in their own ways, and while you can totally run voidwalker in a hard mode raid, there’s little in that class that counterbalances the ability to resurrect yourself if you die. And I want to be clear that it’s not as simple as “just don’t die” or “if you die, you’re not good.” That’s all beside the point I’m making. The point I’m making is that, yeah, no matter how good you are, you’ll die in the game from time to time. And that’s okay! The game is specifically designed to kill you occasionally. You’ll make a mistake, or something will glitch. It doesn’t matter WHY you die, just that you do, and when you do, the encounter is typically ruined, and your team is forced to wipe to try again. This is why fireborn appeals so much. Nobody wants to be that guy who ruined everything with his mistake. But if all of that is convoluted, just think of it this way. You have a tool box. Inside that tool box is a hammer. You have a lot of nails to hammer. Unfortunately, this is hard mode, so when you go to do your job, you find Bungie has taken your hammer. So instead of using a hammer, you slip off your shoe and go to work with its sole. Or maybe you use the side of a wrench. Either way, it gets the job done, but it’s clumsy as hell. This is what subtractive design does. It certainly makes the tasks you have to complete more difficult, but it makes them more difficult in a needlessly inconvenient and awkward way. [quote]Relying on level difference is weak, temporary and artificial means to adding difficulty. Also the last thing this game needs are more bullet sponge enemies.[/quote] Couldn't agree more. But that's not what I'm saying. That's additive, but it's lazy, I agree. A good example of additive difficulty is the witches in the final encounter of CE coming out if you kill the boomers, or the gatekeeper who blocks your ability to use bottom center. Or in VoG, the shield Atheon puts around the people who aren't teleported, or the oracle that can appear above the gateways. These are pretty creative elements that add to the difficulty in a natural way that makes sense within the context of the game experience. Another analogy: Imagine that the act of playing Destiny is like juggling. It's certainly harder to juggle with only one hand (subtractive), but you can do so much more with two hands and increasing difficulty by adding objects you have to juggle.