I always have some amount of cores, whether it be 2-10 everyday and the number never really gets over that because I use so many. I don't necessarily hate it like so many others do, but I absolutely do not like them being a part of the system. My reasoning for disliking them, is because it very heavily impacts the number of gear you can masterwork if you are averaging around the amount im at. It reduces my desire to masterwork weapons as I will have to farm more after consuming them if I want to continue comfortably making progress without temporarily hitting a wall...for like maybe an hour. I get enough by passively playing the game to the point where it's not really slowing me down, but it's also expensive enough to keep me from investing in other aspects of the game or in other characters. Something I understand from the more hardcore players point of view, is that playing the game more really does reward you with more cores and once you get to max light, cores slowly trickle in more and more and you amass quite a few of them. I had over 67 before season of the drifter started but I blew 45 of them on masterworking 3 weapons, and there are people with literal hundreds just from playing the game so much. With the system itself, it's just more tedious for the casual to average player to juggle. It dissuades ones desire to masterwork as the cost is really high while the need for infusing is higher because light has such a large impact on content, but once you get there it evens out more. From the time I've spent, even on only 1 character, I don't like it the way it is. I never have enough spare resources to juggle masterworks and infusion. It doesn't really change how I feel about the infusion system itself to the point where it makes me want to quit, but it's still unnecessary and it acts like a constant 5 pound weight on my ankle. It's just there to slow you down but it doesn't keep you from moving. In my honest opinion, I dislike the requirement of planetary materials more than I dislike cores as with cores they will amass over time, but with the planetary materials I have to actively go out of my way just to go anywhere. I don't farm ahead and I really don't plan to because it's slow and obnoxious. I think reducing the cost of infusion with cores could easily be reduced to 1 core as it still requires an uncommon material to continue to level, but it's not as demanding. This system has made the game more tedious than meaningful as I already know what I'm going to do with the cores. I don't have to sit and ponder what I'm going to use them for because the necessity for leveling is so much greater than my desire to masterwork or to level the weapons I enjoy using. It makes creating diverse load outs for endgame a pain in the ass and honestly it cripples the diversity bungie is trying to strive for. I still haven't changed my armor since forsaken has released, I still don't worry about leveling exotics I want to use for fun, and I still don't really masterwork. I sure as hell don't throw on the higher light gear I get as I enjoy how my character looks as well as I enjoy the mods I have equipped. The infusion system is just annoying and I hope they change it in some way because right now I have no desire to farm gear I might never even use as it would be costly anyways to get it where I want it to be. It's a pain in the ass but I'll still take the infusion system as it is over none. Thank you for reading my rambling, if you did so. Feel free to let me know how you feel about the current system and why it might drive you away or not bother you at all.