Anti-cheat should be the highest priority item. Higher than the release of Beyond Light, successful seasonal events, bug fixes, and any new content. Casual players do not realize how prevalent it is because they cannot discern between a player that is better than them and a player that is wall hacking. In non-SBMM modes, the cheating players are all in the higher skill brackets. They are in more than half of my games, and I know a number of players from an old clan that have suddenly gone from 0.9 average players to 1.5+ k/d because they are using wall hacks. One of them received a hardware ban for repeatedly using wildly blatant cheats but the other two have been able to use both the wall hack and aimbot all the time with no ban or suspension.
I'm probably close to what would be considered a "whale" that the gaming industry talks about in terms of microtransactions. I have 3 accounts with enough playtime and titles to be considered mains. I've bought DLC and cosmetics for all of them. I got my girlfriend into the game and have bought her the DLCs and some cosmetics. I haven't preordered Beyond Light and I fully intend not to purchase it at all. If an effective anti-cheat were implemented, I'd preorder it today on my two primary main accounts and for my girlfriend. It is absolutely needed ASAP.
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Good story and PvE for me are more important that a balanced Crucinle but for your sake I hope they fix this. [spoiler]Sorry, all out of salt.[/spoiler]