Well, here we go again. The unfortunate train of events that started this downward spiral in rewards and progression have appeared to finalized their form in the most recent update. What I'm referring to here is the gear progression system that Bungie has been "revising" since Vanilla Destiny (A period in which I believe they got it all right). So as many of you have likely seen, there are now nine places in this game that can drop gear at the maximum light level, and yet there is only one real place (and two other places with a very small need) that actually has a need for this maximum level gear. DeeJ was quoted as saying a while back that "All players of Destiny have a desire to reach the maximum level", I agree that there is a desire by the players to do so and that everyone "deserves" a chance at it, but we need to look at the bigger picture here. This is the major problem that developed during the April Update, a period in which players who were literally "given" 335 gear then jumped right into the Hard Mode pool for King's Fall and caused all forms of havoc for groups (Backtrack to the forums like 1-2 weeks post April update). My main beef with your design here is that the raid is the only "real" place in the game that a player has a need to be at the maximum light level, and that players who have not even completed normal mode, are equating in their heads that this newfond light level gives them a "free pass" into hard mode without any normal mode experience. This has caused all forms of problems in the past (See House of Wolves and complaints about activities being "too hard" resulting in watering down of the bosses in PoE) for players who enjoy the challenge of these endgame modes. I understand that you want to get more people into the raid, but this is not the way to do it. As much as we love to throw hate around here at people (like me) who complain about this, you can look at what The Division did and how that game has pretty much died in terms of what it's "endgame" was to be. Prior to 1.4, the Incursions, Underground, and DZ were the three end-game sources, and players needed to gear up to reach that point. In their forthcoming 1.4 patch, they're doing essentially what you have done, making "everything endgame". That comes to the big point here Bungie, you've essentially told your players that raiding is completely pointless now, it's just something to do and you're not even guaranteed to progress there any more. Now, I will gladly take this next batch of flak here, but PvP is [b]NOT[/b] endgame for Destiny (The PvE playerbase outnumbers them in an absolute majority, my personal surveying has found roughly a 81-19% split), so when I see that you've essentially made it so anyone who walks into regular Crucible and can maximize their light without stepping a single foot into the raid, and then turn right around and try to join hard mode groups, you can start to understand why I'm shaking my head in disappointment here. You've essentially made our jobs in LFG even more difficult now as we'll need to actually go in and verify that players have done Normal Mode. This whole notion of handouts is bad for Destiny, it removes the whole feeling of "endgame" from your game because now like The Division, nothing is the endgame. As this is a feedback forum however, this wouldn't be a complete post without some kind of a viable solution to the problem, and I have two solutions that are completely fair and fixes this issue. Not to mention the biggest part, they're really easy to make and implement. Bringing in either one will fix the problem, doing both of them would be even better. [b]Solution 1: Readjust Drop Sources[/b] - Raiding is supposed to be Destiny's sole endgame. You had this set up perfectly in Vanilla, players would gear up through all forms of activities and then go to Vault of Glass to obtain Level 30 gear. It was the sole location of it, and it was the only place it was needed. This system was the best system of progression for Destiny and really should have been the model of the game from the get-go. - Cap all activities that are not Wrath of the Machine to 385. (Including PvP) - Adjust player damage in L.E. playlists such that anyone over 385 is treated as a 385 (This is called Clamping in computer lingo) - WotM Normal drops up to 390 (Allows Hard Mode Completion) - WotM Hard drops up to 400 (Drops are guaranteed to be higher than what you have currently) [b]Solution #2: Activity Ranking[/b] - Take a playbook from The Division here and add "Activity Rankings" to all of the raids. Each raid will now have a reputation, kind of like a faction that players can rank up by completing encounters and doing things inside of the raid. Have it so each rank up over 3 gives a "Raid Reward" package containing a random item from the raid, this allows for players who enjoy raiding to continue to earn rewards even after their completion. - Give players reputation bonuses for helping players earn their first completions (Normal and Hard), or performing crazy tasks (Solos, Flawless Runs, Raid Challenges, Etc) - Require reputation level 5 and one normal mode completion to have access to Hard Mode. Those are my two solutions. As you can see, #1 is a bit more "direct to the point", and I'm sure it won't be the preferred method by most players here, but let's be honest, you were all fine with this system back in Year 1 (This would be a complete replica of how leveling worked pre-TDB). #2 on the other hand would be my personal recommendation here, it fixes the problem by locking out anyone who hasn't done the raid from hard mode, while adding more rewards to encourage players to keep doing the raid. This in turn builds on the pool of players running the raid, which means there are more people who would be willing to help others through. I hope you see where I'm getting to here, it feels ever since April that raiding just doesn't have that wonderful of a feel anymore, the rewards have been going downhill and they don't even feel as impressive anymore when there are other sources of gear that are much quicker to obtain. Maxing out should require a challenge, and raiding provides that only "good challenge" in Destiny.