There are two ways to answer this. In fact, the real answer is broader and more philosophical and probably should be its own thread, because it addresses many if not most of these other specific discussions.
Yes, you are right, as far as it goes. Random rolls in D1 caused many of us to grind endlessly for "god rolls" or at least very good rolls. I put a huge amount of time into it. I'd say for the majority of my time playing D1 at all, I was mainly collecting stuff I didn't actually need for any real purpose. The guns you actually needed, that you couldn't just substitute something else for, was a short enough list to almost count with one hand, but the guns you WANTED were in the dozens. It turned into a brutal, joyless grind fest at times.
And I think that's basically what Bungie wants less of. In a nutshell: less obsession by the people like us, broadly speaking, the people who are into the game enough to come here and post frequently on a message board about it. They'd be happy if we played less. As long as we buy the game, they don't benefit much if we play it 2000 hours rather than 200 hours. They want more casual players.
If you understand that, it explains a whole lot of these "why did Bungie do this?" threads. Example: Bungie made it so you couldn't use a sniper as a primary in Crucible because a casual player won't realize you can do that and will get frustrated with Crucible when he shoots an opponent five times, they survive, gets shot once, he dies, over and over.
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So the game has been dumbed down because casual gamers are retarded? Sounds about right..
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Dumbed down, yes But I would say casual players are smarter than us or at least making a smarter choice in how they approach Destiny ...
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To simply put it; yes.
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Not true. Concurrent players is a big deal to them considering how long they want this game to live on. They just launched, if there's a huge drop off that's a big issue. Bigger than D1 since now there's multiple studios involved. Just saying.
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True, but think like Bungie: Would you rather have X number of joyless, grinding, jaded vets grinding for a god-roll Grasp, and new or casual players feeling lost and alienated? Or would you rather have X times 5 casual players? You get total hours and concurrent players either way, but one way gives you 5x the revenue stream. I don't know their real numbers, I doubt it's a 5x difference. But it's clear that Bungie is NOT catering to people like us, and that's probably ok. I am actually happier lately not grinding as much as I used to. It really felt like a job at times.
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Oh I'm sure purchases are a huge deal. As it should, but if there's a huge sudden drop off then what to do next? Look at forums and Reddit? They backed the wrong horse. When they jump ship and we get sick of getting shafted, then we will have acknowledgment.