You barely need to touch PvE if you don't want to... you can get weapons and gear from multiple factions + iron banner vendor. You can get level 30 gear from iron banner. You can level up your character and all your items via crucible. The only thing you'd be missing out, if you only played PvP would be the 2 sets of gear that vanguard vendors sell. But if someone only plays PvE, they're now missing out on all Future War Cult gear, all Dead Orbit gear, all New Monarch gear, all Iron Banner gear and all Crucible vendor gear. PvE players have two sets of gear.. And I purchased the game because I love co-op and PvE gaming, yet they haven't added a single new thing to be purchased PvE side :D We previously did have the insanely "useless" (like you said) material exchange as an option, that really wasn't an option at all (To gather all crucible marks like that would've been a mind melting, frustrating and insanely boring grind of picking up materials) and now as they updated it, it was to the exact wrong direction, removing the option completely. It's simply a bit effed up that a person this bad as I am, is forced to go PvP side, where I can actually -blam!- it up for an entire team of other players, don't you think :D I'm actually thinking of you PvP players and doing you a favor of trying to stay away from it ;) ...Just.. try for a second think how insanely limited our options are, if we only play PvE, if you actually wish to understand what people in this topic are talking about.