I'm 26 years old, and my experience with games is predominantly with first person shooters( battlefield), and mmorpgs like Warcraft which heavily relied on team-based gameplay and communication for success. Having read many of the posts so far I can safely say that most players will never reach end-game gear or dungeons assuming Bungie is designing raids and flash points like their predecessors. Frankly, those who have played MMOs know it doesn't matter how much time is spent playing this game ( as many are already going to be spending 100+ hours per week lol). I will be discussing the top reasons below: 1) Maturity. Players who are highly tolerant of failure, never succumbing to hissyfits are much more likely to find a spot with serious clans. 2) Focus. This means no excessive chatter about nonsense, seeing issues as they arise and correcting them without someone telling you to, constructive guidance of team mates, etc. Especially during the final 20% of the boss's health, how many people start to panic in that critical moment? 3) Raid Awareness. Seriously this is probably the most important reason most never succeed. You simply are not aware of all the going-ons in your environment. Where your teammates are, where the enemies are, how the battle map is changing, what's being said on the microphone by the leaders and key players, all happening simultaneously. Raiding is a multi-tasking activity. These are my primary reasons for now, but as raiding exists right now, and this is not coming from an elitist perspective- no matter how many hours you put in, experience with COD or being "lone wolves" will not give you an advantage. Most will most likely get groups, but never advance, and this is why games like Warcraft had to cater to bad players through matchmaking and dumbing down end-game content.