So I get that a looter shooter needs PvP and that PvP needs reasons for people to keep playing. I'm not here to bash Luna Howl even though I hate it (I saw people playing mayhem with it last week. Mayhem! Ffs). However, this post is about how Bungie leans too heavily on its PvP and how it's not working for those of us who like playing games with people, not against them all the damn time. When I say PvP, I mean any event that pits gaurdians against one another in a competitive way. I'm talking about crucible (including iron banner) as well as gambit, which is a PvP activity (the point is to defeat another team of real life people, which is the definition of PvP.) Evidence. 1. There are no less than 6 hand cannons that require large PvP investments to earn. They include Mal, Ace of Spades, Luna Howl, TLW, Not Forgotten, and most recently, Thorn. Those hand cannons never get nerfs despite more than 1/3 of the PvP players using them (with dust rock blues). 2. PvP has more triumphs than any other game mode with nearly 300. Gambit has more than most. Comparatively, the first three leviathan raids have 3 total triumphs between them, despite being 6 total activities (3 normal and 3 prestige). 3. Most of the best PvE only weapons have been nerfed, including Hammerhead, Thunderlord (it was a quest before it was loot pooled), Whisper, and Sleeper. In addition, Coldheart, Mida, Prometheus Lens, and many other guns have been nerfed over the last 2 years. Many others, like Sturm, were good for little more than nostalgia and rat king was only useful for a little while. The popular opinion is because they (the nerfed weapons) were too powerful and people used them TOO much in, you guessed it, PvP. That means if PvE guns work too well 8n PvP, they get nerfed for the benefit of the PvP community. 4. PvP is used constantly in parts of the game where it doesn't make sense. Shaxx gives you PvP missions immediately after you get your light back. The tower is gone, red legion are invading and shaxx wants you to play PvP? Freaking why?! It also grants the most XP in terms of time spent vs xp gained (for newer players or leveling alts) rendering all PvE activities for this less efficient and therefore less desirable. This also applies to individual clan xp. 5. PvE has had one new game mode since D2 came out (adventures) from when D1 existed. PvP now has 3 (gambit,the reckoning, and gambit Prime) along with a whole season, story line, and huge push for players to play it. Bungie adds little rubs to PvE activities (like prestige eater and SOS being equipment locked), but the actual content never changes. Some may say The Reckoning counts for PvE, but you have to play PvP to get the materials to play the reckoning and all the gear you earn is for PvP with no real advantage for PvE play aside from the same old perks that other armor already has. The Reckoning would be a damn fine, repeatable, and grindable horde mode (similar to PoE) if it weren't tied directly to a PvP game mode. PvE players and PvP players both lost game types (prison of elders and trials of the nine). However, of the two, the PvE game mode was more casual friendly while trials was always for sweaties (that's fine, everybody knew that and was fine with it). Some may cite shattered throne and blinding well, but those aren't mechanically different from what has existed before. Defend an area and really hard missions are staples of PvE content, and are not new in any way. The ascendant challenge also falls into that category. 6. There are fewer desirable PvE guns that only require pve quests than there are PvP. Additionally, many of the PvE guns are temporary or otherwise time gated. Thunderlord is now a random drop, wish ender can only be done one weekend per month, and light level desirable pieces (horror story and vow) were missable, week long special events. 7. PvP and Gambit get more powerful engrams per week than any two PvE activities combined. This makes them more desirable to do more often. 8. Most of Destiny 2's PvE content is old and hasn't been updated for 2019 light levels. The first 3 raids still drop 380 gear as do all old public events, adventures, etc. Strikes only go to 500 in terms of difficulty, despite the max cap being 700 now. All PvP, by contrast, is always kept up to date and current in terms of loot drops, difficulty, and integration with new game content. More than half of this game is out of date with itself and it's only the PvE content. 9. Black Armory forced a slog of roughly 100 light levels of weekly powerful engram grinds before it became accessible to anybody, causing it to be basically forgotten by most players and reviled by many who didn't forget about it. Bungie responded by lowering level requirements by, get this, 5. By contrast, Bungie added a "level up quick" mechanic so that everybody can play Gambit Prime in Joker's Wild, allowing guardians to jump straight to 640 to enjoy the new PvP content immediately. 10. Supers and exotic armors are also buffed or nerfed based on their effectiveness in PvP rather than their usefulness in PvE. The sandbox is dominated almost solely by any gear's effectiveness in PvP. 11. Even class choices are widely based in their PvP effectiveness. I've seen a lot of posts about people barely being able to find a warlock in PvP these days (for the Thorn quest) because it's the least effective (broken) of the three in, you guessed it, PvP. I don't know how to "fix" any of it or if this what Bungie and its community actually wants. However, I join the voices and choruses of people who play this game to mow down mobs and earn gear through cooperative play rather than competitive play. Also, while I have your attention, I would love it if we could have the lore cards read to us by a voice actor. It wasn't so bad with grimoire cards but 90% of your story telling takes place in lore now. Would be nice to hit play and go do some bounties or something while I catch up on what's going on in the game world.