Shoyld hardcore players not be rewarded for their commitment? Isn't it good for casuals to see what the result of a good build tempered by skill looks like? When I first went to the crucible in d1 I was enamered by the people who mopped the floor with me. I didn't go in expecting to be pro, and no one does. It was nice to see what my character could become once I had invested in the game. Here's the flaw with designing games for casuals, they either leave, or become your hardcore audience. Either way, the things Bungie put in place to help those players "not fall behind," are just going to end up screwing over those same players later.

Why should no lifers run the game? What fun is it for a casual or semi hardcore (which I consider myself) to come in and get perpetually owned by people whose only validation in life is being good at a game? Why should there be gear that only no lifers can have? I myself have done very little raiding, because I don't want to spend the inordinate amount of time they take and I don't really care to play with that many people. I haven't played Trials, because I can't find 3 other people who want to play and I really don't want to enter the mire of cheating and meta that it is either. I have been playing GT Sport as of late and the online races there are full of cheaters and poor sports who don't like getting beat in a fair race, I have stopped playing that for the time being, because the people who suck don't get punished and people trying to play right do get punished, much like Destiny. I don't want everyone to handed everything, but I think that the vast majority of gear should have path open for everyone to earn. Sure there can be raid, trials and nightfall gear, but it should give an inherent advantage over nearly everyone else in the game. Give the gear perks specific to the activity it's from, sure. But what incentive does a new or casual player have to keep playing if they're having to grind unreasonable amounts of time and getting destroyed while they do it? I know that it is gratifying to break through, when I finally got 400 in D1 it was like a weight off. But the grind was a pain in the ass, and when I got there I was so burned out, I didn't care to play that much anymore. I think that in PvP in particular there needs to be a ranking system and a weekly limited loadout list. That would be good for both hardcore and casuals. I just want fair fights based on skill, not whoever put in ridiculous amounts of time or got lucky with RNG. I like balance, that's how I know how good I am, or not.

But there was no perk that "made your gun do more damage," the only outrageously powerful "grind weapon" was the vex mythoclast and that got nerfed into irrelevance. You say, what incentive is there for new players to play, if players who have invested longer are going to destroy them. That is a thing in every game, people who commit more to it and train relevant skills will be far superior in terms of performance than someone who needs to have strafing explained to them. What incentive do new players have to play, if they are already as powerful as everyone else? What is there to work towards? This just irks me so badly because it's something we had and lost. I don't even remember people complaining about it. For the record, one of the most hated guns in D1 was the palindrone, available from the crucible vendor and very lethal with rifle barrelled. Almost all of the other perks that could be rolled just came down to what you valued as a player. You could keep using your favourite hand cannon, and maybe one day find a version with outlaw or firefly on it. It just feels like the magic, the wow factor of destiny 1 is gone. I'm not even excited to pick up legendary engrams because I'm two weeks in and I've seen it all. Every new better devils is just a sigh, as opposed to what could've been genuine excitement to see what new perks this roll had. That got a little bit off topic, but I turn your question back, why should casual gamers run the game? Why should things be balanced for the bottom of the barrel? It's not done like that anywhere else. Games are made for gamers. People who want to play them. As it is right now, I can't even go out and farm tokens in the EDZ to try and get the wildwood vest, because apparently someone at Bungie thought it would hurt your feelings if I got the drop I want, so there's now a cooldown on chests. Open too many and you start finding empty ones. That's the world designing exclusively for casuals is pushing us in. Do you really want every game to feel like you've got a hand on your shoulder, making sure the other kids don't hurt your feelings and making sure you always have a good time?

Games are made to have fun playing, for anyone to pick up and hopefully enjoy, regardless of your skill. I don't think casuals should run the game either. God knows they drive me nuts in PvP with their awful radar awareness and lack of reading tactical situations, or their inability to trigger heroic public events, but I don't want them run out of the game either. I try to be a good teammate in PvP and try to play for team victory in PvP. It feels like the majority of hardcore players ( I said feels like, I know there are awesome hardcores who are super helpful. Quite a few in my clan) are in it for their own gratification and glory and don't care to help lower level or less skilled players along the way. To quote White Men Can't Jump " I'd rather look bad and win, than look good and lose." But this Forum community at least is a bunch of people screaming for LOOK AT ME moments instead of just getting the job done well and right. Yeah, legendaries aren't that exciting, but sometimes they are, too. I was happy enough with the results I got yesterday. The problem is the small loot pool. If they made 4-6 different versions of BD with 4-6 different sets of set perks, that would be better for the players and they could still maintain the balance in PvP, by not giving any one set of perks an advantage over another. Also the mod system could be utilized to make for better customization without wrecking balance. By balance, I mean that players of a certain level, skill or otherwise should be playing against people of a similar level. Not letting a bunch of game elitists (an oxymoron if there ever was one) pub stomp casuals or new people, because that's the only way they get their rocks off. If they're so good, they should be playing their equals, not beating down the little guys.Hence my call for rankings and limited loadouts lists in PvP. PvE, I don't care, because you're not making the game miserable for other people and the "elitists" can be their misanthropic selves to their black little hearts content. As for the magic and the wow factor, for me there was never that much of that to begin with. I started playing D1 after I played the beejeesus out of FarCry 4, which was the first FPS since Borderlands that i was into. I picked up D1 because it was cheap and I wanted a new shooter to play. It fills that role wonderfully, I like the shooting, I'm not big on using my powers, abilities and heavy ammo unless it's necessary or tactically beneficial, because I like shooting stuff and fighting tactically. I don't need a video game to make me feel powerful or in control of things. Motorcycles do that for me. To each their own. Not to be seen as ending the conversation, but I thank you and appreciate your civility and reasoning, even though I may not agree with your point of view. Which is shared by a lot of people, one of my friends feels the same as you do and he is hardcore, we go round and round with our arguments, but we both still play because we like the game for our own reasons. And exhale...

I too appreciate the conversation. It's uncommon to not be screamed at for expressing an opinion. I also agree that there should be rankings for matchmaking. Maybe even seperate queues altogether for fireteams and solo players. A thought I did have about legendary perks though, a single row of 3-4 perks could be randomised from a small pool of possibilities. Allowing each gun to retain its niche and prevent instances of certain archetypes dominating the meta due to their versatility when combined with certain perks. It's not like removing random perks made much of a difference, are we not inundated with 450rpm auto rifles and 600rpm smgs? But yes, thank you for the conversation :)

The DO AR is awesome, if you haven't gotten it yet. I was ripping people up with it in PvP last night, now I have to get one for each character.