First off u ain't getting tier 5 until the end of each season. So ur lucky if u even get to use a tier 5 armor set/weapon for a month. And then they force u to go back to tier 3 for end game content of the next season why waste uur time grinding at all.

This is honestly the issue I am most concerned about out of all the upcoming additions and changes. On the Exotic angle, Bungie has said they'll rotate Exotics in and out counting as 'Seasonal Gear' (so like how Antichamp mods in the Artifact work between Seasons). But LFG is absolutely gonna become an even deeper toxic cesspool, because that's the nature of LFG systems. I still remember back when I played WoW you basically couldn't get into a raid on my server if you didn't have the '1st month' title from the latest raid. So if you fell off the bleeding edge once, you couild basically forget ever getting back there, unless you could find enough clan-mates who were raid-capable and able to do the power grind, which was unlikely outside of an elitist raiding clan anyway. But the bit that really concerns me is the Salts and the Dattos of the community telling Bungie to balance the endgame around those bonuses (in particular the survivability bonus, because the damage difference just slows you down, but surviving in limited res environments determines if you even finish). If that happens, the endgame will basically only be playable for people who can no-life and then also decide to (I can currently no-life as I'm between jobs, but I want to play multiple games, not purely D2). Bungie [i]cannot[/i] balance around such a small demographic, no matter how many Raid Races or stream views they have; that [i]will[/i] kill the endgame, and that kills the desire to grind for a lot of the playerbase.

That’s because it is. Even if it’s not true, this makes me think the amount of content is very minimal. This is very clearly the implantation of artificial grind because it’s also clearly just not compelling. Cyclical grind of temporary and no more meaningful bad luck protection or on demand weapon experimentation. Use temporary destination gimmick abilities to chase gear with temporary buffs that you upgrade with a temporary resource to increase your temporary level. Repeat again in 6 months. Really? THIS is the new system? This era of temporary is supposed to be better than unlocking something new and permanent for our kits? This is better than balancing and expanding on crafting so meaningful bad luck protection and on demand weapon experimentation could be retained? Aside from the armor changes everything else is like the antithesis to encouraging build crafting. We’ll see a cycle of most players all using the same stuff every 6 months over and over again.

This sounds even worse than I initially thought/heard. Sounds like more of play the way Bungie wants you to play instead of the way you want to play.

I made a post like this about a month ago. It screamed look at the writing on the walls. You wouldn't believe how many people still don't see it.

Completely agree. This is what has my finger lingering over the refund button. I felt like the power grind was already frustrating enough. This just sounds like a whole new level... Very bad move, one I think they will lose tons of players over. If not now, then over time.

Grinders will be working full time for Bungie without compensation.

I'm willing to bet the buffs for new gear will be walked back on within a year when bungie sees that people aren't happy about it.

BINGO !! but something player engagement metrics something I guess Bungie needs players logged in "grinding" power/light for hours to show those numbers to sony

I like the build crafting implications but...at the end of the day we are still doing the same thing we've done for years...grind it..lose it...re grind it and so on.

I think it is not that wild. LFG for sure, but the buff is not responsible for ppl acting like a d*ck. It’s the ppl. Additionally the buff will come gradually. You don’t go second week all T5. To me it’s like an Artefakt buff I am using, or not. Trace rifles are buffed this season, never touched one, personal dislike. Players tend to see a peek max somewhere and instantly set this new peek as normal or must have when comparing their stuff. The sad thing would be if Bungie does the buff to push the usage of the new gear because it’s that lame, no one would choose it over their old stuff otherwise. Armor could be a slight annoyance, but I think they will define new as „tiered“ armor. They were quite lazy with armor.

Reminds of how FFXIV or WoW does gear every patch, higher Ilvl gear means it's required to do content at that point and time for prog raiding. This is similar in every aspect to how MMO gear grinding is, except in those games the BiS gear can be purchased with currency earned through a weekly cap, or the Raid tier at the time. Weapons were the same in terms of earning them this way as well. I'm personally experienced in this type of grind and not sure how well others will accept it, those who never experienced this type of gear progression, casual players never cared for this in either of those MMO games and would wait till content was nerfed and more approachable a few expansions after it's initial release.

I think it's meant for incremental progress to keep people play season over season to stay at the top not to grind flat out...ei if you just do happen to find a "new" armor that lines up with whatever your already using you replace it and get a bonus so it's an advanced treadmill that rewards the forever grinders but won't affect most players all that much outside of end game content...