Ok. This is going to be a big one. Emotes are fine. Masks are fine. Sparrows and sparrow horns are fine. Power is not fine. The Sterling Treasure boxes provide undeniable routes to power gains whether its the armor itself or the reputation boosters. The armor dropping at 3 Defense is a good move, making it so that there is no direct power gain because you have to infuse it up with the strongest gear you already have so you'll just end up at the same Light as you were before you bought the box. What is a problem is the fact that the bonuses on all of the armor are rolled at random meaning that players can just buy their RNG. Instead of having the gear sit with set perks so that one player couldn't buy a roll better than another's, it's been made randomized allowing this to happen. The armor (I think for most at least within my clan) is not the biggest problem though.
The biggest issue with Eververse in Spring, 2016 is the advent of the reputation booster. These boosters (even with just the slightest chance of dropping) fundamentally go against what you (Bungie) had initially said about Eververse. You're never going to ask players to buy their way to the top. So what is this then? Explain how a player boosting their reputation does not have a direct advantage over the player not boosting their reputation. It allows faster access to package which contain all of the "new" faction gear that you can earn. A player can only get Devil You Know Y2 from a Vanguard package so by allowing payers to purchase these boxes, you are allowing players a chance to get new stuff faster than other players. This is a direct advantage no matter which way you look at it.
The armor I can deal with. I don't like the randomized perks but it starts at 3 Defense and doesn't provide any Light increases. The boosters are an issue though. If someone would have said to me 6 months ago that Bungie was going to make reputation boosters and armor purchasable through micro transactions, I probably would have laughed in their face. But it seems I have put too much faith you Bungie. i admit, this is not enough to get me to stop playing the game, I'll just vote with my wallet and not purchase any treasure boxes, but this is absolutely as far as you take this. Any further and I and others might just quit.
Of course, you could always just remove the rep boosters from the treasure boxes and we'd be cool, but who am I kidding? You guys aren't gonna do that.
-
My understanding is you can't pick and choose. I could be wrong. But my understanding was the faction engram or whatever could contain any one of X items. So if you want [x] with [c] perks... Maybe you get X, maybe you get y or z instead. Let alone with the perks you want. Try again, maybe you get w or v instead of X. Rinse-repeat, you're talking about potentially a LOT of money to get a good perk roll on something you want. Unless I'm wrong and you can say "Give me a random pulse rifle" or something.