I don't know if I really believe that Bungie is as clueless as the player base thinks they are. Part of me thinks all these moves you mentioned were all intentional and implemented under the guise of "simplification" but really was always intended to introduce new methods to artificially prolong the grind.
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Yeah duh, I was being sarcastic. They totally cut content and released a freemium beta
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I picked up on the sarcasm. I wasn't calling you out, specifically. I've seen a lot of comments on these forums where people either imply or out right call Bungie stupid or ignorant in the ways of making a game franchise. I'm not entirely sure these things weren't intentional from the outset and put in place purposefully.