The problem is that even with lots of friends its not always that easy. Prior to HoW the way you had to level up legendaries was with lots of materials. But that material would drip in eventually. The hard part was to get to level up your exotics (hard as in you will probably have more ascendant mats than exotic shards). Now its the other way around. I have all Pre HoW exotics besides the Necrochasm and they are ALL ascended. I am still struggling to get enough Etheric Light to level up all my legendaries, though. I used to have ALL legendaries at MAX but far from all my exotics. They reversed their own system, showed again that Destiny lacks one thing completely: Consistency. I have a wife and a daughter. I have a job. I still get to play a LOT considering these factors. But the catch is that there is only one day per week where I can guarantee that I will have several hours of undisturbed play time to do group activities. And once that day is over, all activities I have not yet finished that require a group will essentially be unavailable to me until the next week. I am not saying they should change these activities, this is something I had gotten used to already. But at least in the past that did not mean that I could not progress on my own anymore. I could still gather mats, slower but still. Now they have basically locked me out of leveling up when I am by myself. The only exception to this is iron banner. I think the Etheric Light has done more harm than good for the game. The people who play several hours a day for several days a week with lots of people will probably not see such a difference. The light will come in because they play 34, 35, several times, etc. The game did not use to lock you out for not having as much time as others but now it does, and THAT is the whole problem with this.