You know what, I'll propose an alternate: Consumable, time decaying primary auras. Kinda the same thing, except you use it like a booster. It lasts 30 minutes and then goes away. You have to continue to collect them, and make good decisions about when to use them (similar to how boosters work), but they aren't out there as a permanent issue for the encounter teams to have to plan everything around. As an added bonus, I'll even throw in a cool elemental effect on the surface of the gun. And added to that, they affect any primary you equip in that time period, not just one.

That idea has been considered on other posts as well. A time consumable honestly isnt a bad idea either, but that doesnt fix the diversity issue at all. It just means that during the raid or something ill just use my smite of merain althroughout, and just keep switching elemental auras.

I can see that as an issue. My main point to you is that technically allowing a fixed element on a primary triples your grind time: you have to get the roll you like, or close to it 3 times. Getting elemental chroma-slots is good, but the cost should be enough that they don't simply get changed all the time. You could do that by requiring an armsday period to retool the gun, make it cost a good number of marks, or put a cooldown timer on the slot itself. Or you can limit the source of the consumable to make it less possible that one gun will be the catch-all. The primary issue is that the introduction of elements that can always be swapped makes any and all shielded PVE encounters be basically trivial. whereas you can simply choose not to use them, that's not a good solution from a design standpoint, and it wrecks havoc on the encounter teams options to make challenge encounters. I personally don't care all that much if they come back or not, but I have a feeling that may be the major factor at play here (reference Icebreaker for a similar issue).

Oh, dont get me wrong, there should be a price to pay to swap elements, if there is even the ability to swap. I mean swapping chroma isnt free, and thats just a decor thing. This would be a game mechanic thing. I wouldnt mind a huge fine to pay to reallocate an element to a weapon, nor would i mind simply being stuck with the element i choose until i get a new one. Like i get a god roll gun and make it void. I would be perfectly fine with it being permanently stuck at void, or i have to pay like 50-100 legendary marks to clear the element and reselect a new one. Just with those hefty restrictions, allow us to choose the element it gets. Or make the fine smaller, like 10-25 legendary marks, but the allocated element be randomized, with an option for kinetic to be selected.

It could be interesting. That said, I know one of the reasons they did it was to make the elements on secondary and heavy weapons matter more in your loadout, so I don't know how much of that you'd be fighting to get the change put in. I don't discount the possible fun or utility of the change, but damn do they have their ideas too, lol. Maybe they're even right, but I see a fight either way. then again, for all we know they already have plans for them in ROi, who knows.

Hopefully they bring them back in some form in RoI Also, even if they (bungie) feel one way, they should be listening to their players. The players are the ones paying for the game. They (bungie) are making their boat loads of money off of us, right? I thought the saying was "the customer is always right" I know there are exceptions, otherwise every gun would be nerfed to oblivion, but still, a lot of people are asking for elementaries to be back, so come on. Tons of solutions have been brought up that seem pretty great and balanced, so pick one bungie. ...if this game wasnt essentially a monopoly, then they would be so screwed. Like if CoD kept jerking their player base around, how long do you think it would take before there was a sudden downfall in CoD players, and a huge spike in Battlefield players? But sadly, there isnt really any game quite like Destiny out there to cause some form of competition, meaning Bungie can do next to anything they want, cause there isnt really a similar alternative.

[quote]I thought the saying was "the customer is always right"[/quote] Having worked as a chef, then a retail manager, and now a game balance designer (don't ask), I can tell you that that saying is what service people [i]tell[/i] you is right. What we really generally say after being confronted with that is more [i]the customer always thinks they are right[/i] on good days, [i]the customer is always an asshole[/i] when things have gone more south. It's not a fair statement, no matter which one you choose, really. Either you get everything you want, no mater the cost to me or if it's a long-term good thing, or you only get what I give you, no matter if it's even remotely what you want. On the one hand, I like the idea of options and customization, and just generally feeling like we have a part in shaping the game. On the other hand, I understand that the balance and encounter teams have a job to do, and the elemental primaries might be a big stumbling block for a reason that we can't see. Granted, it would be nice to be [i]told what that reason was[/i] so we could stop barking up the wrong tree, but studios are notoriously close-mouthed about reasons like that for things they do. Generally speaking, I'd like it to be a more open discussion than it is now. Bungie wants one thing, we want another (so to speak), and we have to strain for the middle of that distance to get anywhere.