i dont play as much because of core cost. this is down to how i want to play - i got my preferred weapons and gear, that complement the supers etc im running on each character. i set mine up not for an ingame purpose but for how fun i find them to play. i keep several weapons in my inventory for each slot, so when i get sniper bounty from devram i can swap to a sniper and do it, im not limited to whatever i got currently and changing weapon if ai get a higher one - which means when i get a higher one i want to INFUSE but the cores dont drop much if at all once you did the 6 bounties from the sniper. and i dont get enough legendary shards from dismantle to keep buying the cores from spider. these two things, plus all the ether spirals i dont have anything to spend on, mean that when the cores are done, i dont see the point in playing. i still get annoyed when i need cores to infuse a handcannon into another handcannon just because they have different names. i can sort of get why blues need more cores because they are inferior to purples... but when the cores stop dropping (or the pretend network errors - contacting d2 servers happens a lot for no reason lately) then i stop playing - and its not like i feel like playing other games even. often i wind up writing instead. because the cores dont drop. once i get gear that does what i need for how i play my three, i dont want to change. with weapons i have jotuun now, and for now its a keeper, but otherwise i keep autorifle, bow, handcannon, and machine gun. otherwise my chars might hang onto a black armory pulse rifle and submachine gun, or they might store them. but i will NEVER run a shotgun. if i cant infuse it, it gets dismantle. im not interested in fusion rifles because theres a 90% chance by time its finally got round to firing that the target is evading and you dont hit it. i only run sniper for bounties because no weapon that uses green ammo has much magazine capacity, and i got more out of running ringing nail with ace of spades on my hunter - both use same ammo type. my warlock uses two exotic bows mainly switching from the arc one only if need the void bow. ringing nail is on her purely for public events or solar bounty and blind well, or when she does rumble because ether doctor is like a mini machine gun with its mag size but it does take time to down a shield so ringing is better in pvp. my titan is void and again the gear worn complements playstyle - mods to make up deficient in areas like mobility or resilience etc, uses crimson (swapped with my hunter - both are fun but crimson has kill counter) and ringing nail, also had misfit - and machine gun. all 3 actually have a sword for black armory bounty and all have a spiteful fang bow to swap to for same reason. and thats the problem. if i was just a weapon junkie who didnt care what i was using, and enjoyed all of them, fine - but im not. because if i was just able to use anything i wouldnt need to use cores until i hit 700 and then i could just instantly fully masterwork everything and be done with needing them for a while. BUT then when the cap goes up, back in the infusion issues... not enough cores. i hate shotguns which are useless, fusion rifles which are only good for hitting dead targets that are not moving, or missing live ones, or hitting the gunship in cabal mining but not doing as much damage as a machine gun. trace rifles - i loved those but now they use green ammo, which doesnt seem to drop often as primary, and werent as effective as other weapons... and so they dropped out of my armory entirely. i would play a lot more like i did before the system was changed to need cores to infuse, before osiris and warmind, if cores dropped more. one way would be to not need cores if your infusing a handcannon of same type - rare, legendary, exotic - into the same kind. keep it as now if infusing say exotic into a legendary. that would mean cores would only be needed for cross type - say, sniper into a bow. but it still wouldnt be ideal. if there was another vendor offering bounties that resulted in cores, then it would probably double the numbers of cores - because right now after the bounties spider does are gone, you rely in buying lagendaries from the world vendors and banshee in masses and hoping for a masterworked one to drop (=1 core for sure minimum) or random dismantling of them in large numbers will provide random number of cores. very occasionally. remember, you like to gate content behind power level, and now behind pseudo-strikes (okay i dont mind that all that much for black armory, except when you spawn me alone in an ignition and not bother to drop anyone else in...) or worse behind a long quest that requires the raid or requires multiple occasions of pvp. being GATED behind soemthing means you have no reason to play it if because you have no cores dropping, and need them for infusion, and the bounties are done... you cant play the gated content anyway because you dont have the level. or you arent comfortable with the high level gear you are keeping, but NOT USING because you will be playing next tuesday, possibly wednesday, for cores to infuse it, probably get another prime engram, but cant infuse it, so stop playing for another week.