Many posts were about the skill combinations, not complaining about the tree itself. Bungie decided to limit the options and make set "loadouts". Note, I didn't say I personally like the decisions or that they were the "best" solutions. Merely that the player feedback drove the decision making.

Of course there were posts about combinations, but never have i saw a post complaining about the difficulty of perk tree selections as far as the skill tree goes, to suggest that the community was behind that decision is disingenuous The dumbing down had nothing to do with us, this one is all on them. Smith thought Noseworthy was having a hard time and made it easier for him lol

I'm just going to re-quote the part of my post I feel you're missing. [quote]Note, I didn't say I personally like the decisions or that they were the "best" solutions. Merely that the player feedback drove the decision making.[/quote] If there weren't discussions regarding "Warlock nades with added burn time are broken OP, why can't Titans and/or Hunters have nade combo like that?!" on the boards...would you think there'd been as much emphasis on balancing the skill trees between the classes and sub-classes? I imagine you'd say, "prolly not...no" Effectively, we drove that change, regardless of what you think of the solution or outcome, we're still the catalyst.

Balance does not mean neuter, that decision rests solely on bungie's shoulders. Their myopic vision of changes is what drives them, not us. Usually the changes they implement are a 180 variance of what we are asking for. Example, fix stickies, the obvious solution was to remove tracking, easy fix. No more chuck and run 90 degree turn kills. Instead they gutted them, longer regen time less kill power. No one asked for that, just that something be done about the issue. A squarely bungie problem, was it initiated by community request, probably, but the fix was worse than the issue. So six of one half dozen of the other

You're still complaining about the decision/solution/outcome/result and not what drove it to begin with. [quote]A squarely bungie problem, [b]was it initiated by community request[/b], probably, but the fix was worse than the issue.[/quote] I bolded the part where you confirm my argument.

Sure, but not one complained about COMPLEXITY of the skill tree. Whether or not people spoke up about what perks should/should not be between classes has nothing to do with the opening statement. Who complained about the skill tree, never saw that post, perks sure, the skill tree being dumbed down...never happened. One doesn't equate to the other

Well, to be fair - there have been complaints about the skill tree itself in the past - but mostly it was from the perspective of one sub-class to another. I.E. - why can they do this, but I cannot etc. We likely won't see eye to eye on this, and honestly we don't have to. I think you understand my point, you just don't like the idea of being considered part of the problem and would prefer to have Bungie/Activision be fully at fault. Which I do feel they have blame to share, btw. That's fine. I'm not saying any one specific member of the community is the problem, or even A problem. But I do think the way this community posts about issues is very confusing (to the average reader) as well Bungie and it's mostly the reason we get these hackneyed patches and mechanic changes. Not because they WANT to alienate the playerbase, because they're actually trying to and failing due to the vast inconsistency of feedback that often focuses around the same issues. Just look at weapon changes. It's clear they don't know exactly what we want (and in many cases we don't seem to agree on what we want) but they're trying to appease feedback and imo such is problematic at the core. I'd prefer they stuck with their vision and just ignored the community. That's why D1 vanilla was so magical after all.

Oh this is most certainly true regarding, the community lol. No dont get me wrong, i do agree that most of the changes were in response to community input. My issue stems from bungie whether thru engine deficiency or inability to comprehend the root cause of the problem, making asinine balance changes. My guess is the game engine, i think limitations in the engine design are the reason that they they cant make subtle, nuanced changes. I think its an all ine way or the other limitation in the engine. Some of the changes are so comically inept i have to chalk it up to engine design, the only other option is incompetence i.e sticky nades and grenades in general

[quote]Some of the changes are so comically inept i have to chalk it up to engine design, the only other option is incompetence i.e sticky nades and grenades in general[/quote] Definitely a fair opinion, and I don't fully disagree. I just can't help notice and remember how many threads would be created with near nonsense arguments about specific issues/mechanics/topics that'd get massive upvotes. Here's something funny for you. Do you remember in D1 everyone crying about getting ghosts in Nightfalls? In D2 we started complaining that some of the cooler ghosts/sparrows/ships were locked behind Eververse, and should be obtainable in game. What did they do? Add fkn ghosts back to Nightfalls lol.