Whelp, played for 2 days in a week for the first time in forever. Went through my vault and deleted gear I had saved for checking out different build diversities so get some Legendary Shards (cause my play time has dwindled to the point where buying 2 cores each time I play along with infusing a couple of items has left me very shard poor) and also netted 10 cores. Because of cores I can't level any gear beyond one real synergized set of gear and can't really try different gear I have in my vault to run it in higher end content and experiment on different weapon types, ability types, so I guess I won't ever use it and my needs for shards and cores outweighs me taking some time to try things out. "Meaningful Choice" indeed. Pretty shitty if you ask me. Played some. Had fun running NFs, strikes (looking to get that Rat King catalyst) and Revelry cause I'd like to get that kinetic LF. Infused some gear when the gains made sense (7+LL gain or so), and bam I'm out of cores and shards again. I've got one loadout at almost max light, but not fully cause I ran out of cores before I could infuse further. The loadout is very limited in regards to utilizing the benefits of the armor and weapons I can use to maximize my character's effectiveness... which is tied heavily to my enjoyment of my playability and since it is so limited therefore heavily tied to my overall enjoyment of the game overall. The fun I had as in SPITE of the stifling progression. Played with friends, had fun. Played content I liked, had fun. I really didn't gain any desire to play more than I had been the last couple of months, which is 1-2 times a week, beyond playing with people I enjoy hanging out with. Sure as heck didn't gain any desire to play solo, and I haven't since Forsaken dropped. To me, Annual Pass content has been bust in most regards. Overall Bungie, this infusion system is still detrimental to my desire to play. When I do play, it is far aside from my previous many reasons... which included trying out many of the different builds, loadouts, abilities, and CHARACTERS (I only play one toon now, and have no desire or plans to progress the others). I really used to enjoy that. Now I feel negative about pursuing those ventures at all because of how limiting infusion really feels. It sucks. Please change it. Want to enjoy the game beyond hanging out with friends and doing the same (but still enjoyable) content over and over.