[quote]Man, this Core thing. I need some clarification here, do you actually have to Masterwork anything?[/quote] Nope. In fact I have not masterworked a SINGLE item since Bungie did this. I'm saving all of my cores for infusion. Because trying to squeeze as much build variety out of this game as I can (in spite of Bungie) is more important to me than the benefits of Masterworking. (#MeaningfulChoice). [quote] there some kind of "power-user" strategy I'm missing here that puts the game in easy mode but is crippled by the Core economy?[/quote] No. Its an issue of basic game design...and the fact that Bungie is cheating and breaking one of the most basic rules of design for loot-based games. ....this can't be easily or quickly explained. Because it digs deep into game design and player psychology. Sit down. This is going to take awhile. But it will answer question about why what Bungie did was underhanded....and why parts of the community are so angry about it. In order to understand what's going on here you have to understand three things. 1. Progression in loot-based games (and RPGs in general) are divided into VERTICAL PROGRESSION (power to deal damage and resist damage) and HORIZONTAL PROGRESSION. (individualizing and optimizing how that damage is dealt). 2. Vertical progression in every GOOD game is an INVESTMENT grind. IOW, you level up and gain vertical power in direct proportion to how much you play the game. Most games handle this by awarding experience points...and you then invest those points into unlocking abilities on a character skill tree. As such vertical progression is a MID-GAME function....and is very common and basic. 3. Horizontal progression in every good game is blending. Part Investement. Part RNG. Part mid-game part end-game. How each game blends this depends on the genre...and the individual game. As such players will give devs a wide latitude in how they do this...as long as the unpredicatability remains in this area. In most LOOT games. Horizontal progression is part investment (which skills you unlock on the tree) and part RNG (what perks you get on loot). Part mid-game (see above)...and part end-game (min-maxing). Okay...those are the rules of the game. The rules that EVERY OTHER game designer follows in one way or another. HERE's THE PROBLEM. 1. In order to make the game more accessible and more appealing to shooter gamers, Bungie opted to strIp down the character skill trees to the bare MINIMUM...and push off a large part of progression onto LOOT. So youre character level is basically useless. in this game. Your ITEM LEVEL (power level) is now part of vertical progression. And abilities that are usually on character skill trees are now part of armor and weapon perks. 2. The problem is that this now added a huge factor of RNG to VERTICAL PROGRESSION....which is against the rules. Since in vanilla Destiny 1 (Forever 29) your progression could be completely halted by failing to get the right loot item to drop. 3. Bungie fixed this by adding infusion to the game. You could take the vertical power of an item you didn't want....and give it to the item you do want. This fixed TWO problems. It removed the RNG of vertical progression....also allowed the player some element of control over mid-game ABILITY acquisition because the player was free to choose which gear item to infuse. Plus it created a rulebook consistent Horizontal progression system that was part RNG (which items drop) and part Investment (you had to play to unlock the weapons perks. So you ended Destiny 1 with a system that the vast majority (who played the game as a loot-game) enjoyed....or at least accepted. Then came Destiny 2. Bungie proceeded to BREAK Destiny 2 as a loot-game (imo) because they wanted the Crucible to become an e-sport. How they did it is was by: Stripping the character trees to the barest minimum, and giving us no control over which abilities we combined; Blowing up all forms of horizontal progression by watering down the perks on everything, removing armor perks entirely, and going to FIXED rolls on weapons. Essentially stripping down the game' vertical progression to pure ITEM SCORE (power level) once you filled in your character tree......and the game's horizontal progression was reduced to simply getting particular items to drop....since weapons had fixed rolls..and armor had no perks at all except tiny stat bonuses to mobility, resilience and recovery. So you want up with a shallow game with a minimal vertical progression....and no end-game horizontal progression. Which is part of the reason why Bungie couldn't get any one to play any of last year's end-game content. Not fun to play because of the weapon system changes. Not rewarding to play since Bungie had foolishly mashed all horizontal progression FLAT in the name of pvp balance. NOW, HERE's THE CURRENT PROBLEM. 1. Instead of just taking their medicine like a man...and fixing how they themselves broke a workable system.....Bungie decided to CHEAT. They are cheating (imo) because they expended so much of their resources FIXING the myriad ways they broke Destiny 2, that they had very lttle bandwidth left to create new loot for Forsaken (look at your Collection screen. The new additions to the loot table are kiddie-pool shallow) 2. If you remove "enhancement cores" from the cost of infustion, you have a WORKABLE and healthy progession system like we had at the end of Destiny 1. Vertical progression is an investment grind. Horizontal progression is part RNG grind and Part Investement. Only this time the investment is getting the materials to meet the higher infusion costs, and the breadth of the game you hve to play to acquire them. (THIS IS WHY PEOPLE ARE DEMANDING THEY BE REMOVED, THEY INSTINCTIVELY UNDERSTAND THAT THIS IS WHAT IS FAIR). 3. The problem is that Bungie doesn't trust that they added enough LOOT to the game to support the sort of end-game, loot-grind that was Destiny 1s end game. So they decided to deal us from the bottom of the deck. They added CORES to the cost of infusion, but then not only UNDERSUPPLIED the game with them deliberately....they made ALL the sources in the shipped game PURE RNG. They did this deliberately because it BROKE the relationship between speed of progression and player time investment, and allowed Bungie to control the speed at which you could progress REGARDLESS of how much you played the game. So if you were a new or returning player: a. It made both Vertical and Horizontal progression RNG grinds. RNG based on what items dropped....and RNG based on whether you could get access to cores or not. b. it stripped you of tremendous amounts of freedom with regards to what parts of the game you played...or what gear you got to play with. Unless you were willing to pay a power penalty (again without regards to how much you played.) If you were a veteran player: a. It made Vertical and Horizontal progression RNG grinds for the same reason above. b. You could mitigate that by dismantling old MW items from Y1 for their cores (another reason why Bungie did this to force us to abandon Y1 gear without having to take the PR hit of ANOTHER hard reboot of the game)....and rapidly deplete your stores of resources. c. Again you are stripped of a great deal of freedom of how to play the game---in terms of gear choice and build choice---again, unless you are willing to severely deplete your resources...and you still hit up against a necessary resource that was deliberately undersupplied to the game. TLDR: Instead of having a progression system that respond PREDICTABLY to player effort and time investement with PREDICTABLE rewards (every progression system in every good-and-successful game)....you havea system deliberately engineered to function as an RNG-based system. So that it respond UNPREDICTABLY to player investment with UNPREDICTABLE rewards....and SEVERELY curtails player freedom. This was done to benefit Bungie....and to keep us grinding at the game FAR LONGER than we would if we had a proper system. While adding NOTHING but a joyless grind for a number to the game....and NOTHING that actually makes the game more enjoyable or more rewarding for the actual player. In short. Bungie wants us grinding away in frustration and anger like addicts....because they don't trust that this game is deep enough to keep us happily playing if we were more consistently and predictably rewarded.

I'm going to start out by saying yes, I [i]did[/i] read all that. And I'm impressed. I always appreciate at the very least your... dedication to the conversation, which is often found lacking on the forums, and your insight is well thought out and unnaturally patient considering the audience. Second... in the future you can save a [i]whole[/i] lot of time by just asking if your conversation partner understands the basics of game design :) That being said, you're absolutely right, and I fully agree, with some minor edits. Bungie does have a trust problem, but I don't think it's with the amount of loot. They [i]know[/i] there's not enough loot, they see it in the players stats and forum comments all the time. I think the issue is that for some reason they don't trust us to see that the game itself is good enough fundamentally and that we'll keep coming back. So they make development decisions out of fear and panic, adding the world's worst RNG, Cores to keep us grinding, progression walls, time gates, and balance changes that leave us more frustrated than confident, feeling the addict's guilt of spending so much energy on something ultimately so unfulfilling. Regarding Cores, my issue boils down to the specificity of the forum complaints. [i]THIS[/i], what you just said, is what people should be posting, not some treatise (or toxic screed, usually) about how Cores are evil or bad, but how the systemic problem of poorly designed grind [i]in general[/i] is slowly killing the game (and me). Honestly, at this point instead of trying [i]yet again[/i] with Destiny 3, I wouldn't mind if they went dark for a while and just refactored [i]the whole thing[/i] so the grind and progression is more fluid and natural and doesn't feel like a tedious chore that no matter the progress or rewards [i]still[/i] leaves us feeling dissatisfied when we shut down.

[quote]Second... in the future you can save a whole lot of time by just asking if your conversation partner understands the basics of game design :)[/quote] Fair enough. Occupational habit. :) [quote] I think the issue is that for some reason they don't trust us to see that the game itself is good enough fundamentally and that we'll keep coming back. So they make development decisions out of fear and panic, adding the world's worst RNG, Cores to keep us grinding, progression walls, time gates, and balance changes that leave us more frustrated than confident, feeling the addict's guilt of spending so much energy on something ultimately so unfulfilling.[/quote] Agreed. 100%. They don't trust what they've built to keep us playing...and failed to LEARN from mistakes of vanilla Destiny 2. Which failed because they destroyed BOTH the loot-based game AND the power-fantasy that underlied the game. So the game was less rewarding to play as a loot game...and less rewarding to PLAY AS A GAME. So instead of just reversing course and coming back to the formula that was successful....they did a Bungie over-correction. So we got this over-engineered, manipulative, and over-controlling MONSTROSITY of a progression system. Of which cores are only ONE of the many problems. Its the most glaring and annoying problem...but only one of many that has stripped the game of its rewards of playing...in order to try to strong-arm and coerce us into playing. [quote]THIS, what you just said, is what people should be posting, not some treatise (or toxic screed, usually) about how Cores are evil or bad, but how the systemic problem of poorly designed grind in general is slowly killing the game (and me). [/quote] Agreed. But in fairness, many people only "get this" on a instinctual/gut level....and haven't taken the time....or don't have the gaming experience to break it down on a rational basis like I did here. ...and you see how much time and effort it took me. Even knowing EXACTLY what I wanted to say. All most people understand is that they're grinding harder and harder....for less and less....at a game that feels less and less fun...and more and more like a CHORE to get over and done with..... ..with each passing day, and they're mad. Mad because something that they used to take joy in playing is being systematically destroyed....and Bungie is too arrogant and stubborn to listen and do something about it. [quote]Honestly, at this point instead of trying yet again with Destiny 3, I wouldn't mind if they went dark for a while and just refactored the whole thing [/quote] Agreed. The problem here is that Bungie is constantly REACTING...and never RESPONDS. They have NO clear vision for what this game is supposed to be....and to the extent that they DO, its always FIGHTING the core identity of the game they actually made. ...and since THEY have no center....they are constantly reacting to the loudest, angriest voice in the room. Which almost always belongs to an angry minority. So the resulting changes piss off the majority.

This is more about having to use cores for infusion. Most everyone agrees they should be there for Masterworking but not infusion.

Ah... of course. Thanks. Guess I'm one of those assholes that hasn't had a problem with it. Don't get me wrong, I think the reason Cores are being used for infusion is straight up bullshit but I'm more concerned by the systemic problem of grind in Destiny overall. Cores are just a part of it, and one I just haven't had any issues with because I'm not infusing things all the time. But I still get why people are frustrated.

It’s not even about necessarily infusing all the time but lack of variability in what can be infused. I’m reduced to running just one class, Titan, using one leveled set of armor for events that require light level. Sure, I may switch Titan subclasses but my armor is no longer tailored to each subclass’ abilities. I’m not worried much about masterwork armor so my cores go to just leveling up armor or weapons that I like. Unfortunately there are a lot of weapons that I would use for different scenarios but I can’t because of the infusion system. Same for armor sets. The cost of infusion and long, slow grind for it caused me to leave my Warlock and Hunter behind. I enjoyed playing Destiny 2 prior to the new infusion system and I played all my classes and kept gear load outs designed for each subclass and varied my weapons accordingly. I enjoy the Forsaken content but the infusion system has seriously restricted how I play this game and effects how I now view Destiny as a whole. I used to look forward to bringing up my characters and trying new combinations but now the limited time I get to play is spent on chasing infusion material for just my Titan.

I get you with the one class strat. Because of the relentless grind in general and the time commitment leveling requires, I’ve all but abandoned my Titan and Warlock.