I believe that base normal endgame shouldn't be exclusive to the hardcore players. It seems that the culture around raids always leans towards whatever the meta build and weapons are and I think that's not ok. So here are the changes I would like to present to not JUST make raids more accessible to all, but to keep the prestige of getting seals and triumphs done. First, lets attack the power change as this applies to ALL players: Hardcore or not.
POWER
Power was changed to be used a metric for difficulty. That shouldn't be the case. Power should be the barrier to entry when it comes to activities to ensure that the people involved aren't held back or carrying a person through due to their light level. Power sharing does this but it also encourages people to NOT play the game and just have people who DID play the game give a handout to people that didn't. I believe this is bad because of the implications of having someone play less to achieve more in terms of endgame. To bring even MORE value to power, allow us to be over leveled for all content with a limit on how much. This amount should be the same for all activities like it was before. Those who like to chill and grind levels through bounties would be pleased and earning passive levels by just playing would have increased value to simply,..... well.... playing. It won't feel like peoples time is wasted. Also add elements to the game IN GENERAL where we can do pinnacle activities but instead of RANDOM LOOT, we get a currency that can be traded for a slot of our choosing. In general I think with this change, max power should be exclusive to normal raids and trials. And then you use your max power to
enter Master content. All of this would allow you to keep the same structure of how it is now, but soft cap is given by doing ANYTHING, Hard cap is achieved from doing ritual playlist and seasonal weekly tasks with focusing being available to whatever loot you need at vendors and pinnacle cap is achieved from normal raids. Master content would be AVAILABLE to all who care to do it for seals.
DIFFICULTY
I agree that difficulty needed to be added to the game, but making it based on power was a bad move. People want to play less from leveling especially when it doesn't matter after a certain point. So how do you add the difficulty back with this power change? Mechanics. How complicated and how much you have to pay attention along with how accurate you need to be with an encounter should determine the difficulty. Normal raid should have no coordination needed (will say why later) and Master raids need to be what we have NOW but amped up a bit in terms of mechanics. Its so strange as to why Bungie ditched the mechanic difference between normal and master/prestige.
MATCHMAKING
This is the reason as to why I said that the normal raids shouldn't have coordination. Add matchmaking. This would allow people to get the BEST loot in the game while also taking the time to learn basic mechanics that don't need coordination. Similar to dungeons but with more time needed to do them. the time is the difference. And also, off topic, make dungeons master modes also have different mechanics that REQUIRE coordination with resolving mechanics. Master content in general should have more difficult mechanics. Also add matchmaking to normal dungeons. Fireteam finder should be mainly used for those wanting to do master content (not matchmade).
REWARDS
For both dungeons and raids, the chest after each encounter should be a vendor like the final chest in raids but only have the loot pool for that encounter. Instead of a random loot drop, you can choose to select a free node that will allow you to roll on a random loot drop that you never had before that is ALSO PINNACLE. Once you do, you have to wait next week to be able to click on it again. BUT you can buy what you have discovered for spoils and next week use spoils to buy what you discovered and also have that be pinnacle instead of the random loot node. SPEAKING of spoils, the newest raid should have its own spoils. This will encourage people to run the NEWEST RAID even further. This would allow for a healthy amount of random players to always available to raid at any point in the week.
Once a new raid comes out, have THAT have the specific spoils and have the OLD spoils be available to convert into spoils of conquest (universal spoils for old raids). Also have the exotic be sold at the last encounter chest for MAXIMUM SPOILS! I also think that the final encounter chest should ONLY have the loot from that encounter too (adept or not) so that the encounters before it still have value. Normal mode would have ONE reward from a players choosing per week in general and only someone spoils and master would give TWO choices with double spoils. Also have red borders be able to be bought for spoils. Random or not, its up to Bungie. I couldn't care less personally. Challenge only available for master rewarding THREE choices and EVEN MORE SPOILS. Maybe increase the max spoils?
I think this is a healthy way to get players to get from POINT A to POINT B. Basically getting rid of any semblance of RNG and replacing it with a grind that GUARANTEES the loot that players need/ want. And this game wouldn't be seen as a GAMBLING ADDICTION. Players time is valued for both hardcore and casual gamers with a set limit in mind. People who want a challenge get a challenge with master content, and casual gamers can just chill. Imagine being able to do a raid when you get home from work. You can just chill and choose to not talk to anyone. Maybe people will say "Hi" and "gg" to their fellow guardians and realize that other people AREN'T SO BAD! Which will encourage players to talk, get better at the game and learn and EVENTUALLY join a clan to get things done more efficiently so that they can do EVEN MORE THINGS in game and do raid nights with clan members. Solo players get their fix and so do people who want to socialize.
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I agree with everything but the Matchmaking for Raids/Dungeons. Part of the reason Raids don't have matchmaking is due to the mechanics. The coordination needed even for normal raids makes difficult for Random Matchmaking to work. Prime Example is the Corrupted strike With the ball mechanic. Most people still don't know or do it even after 5 years. And if you have to dumb down the mechanics for Matchmaking to work, then it will ruin what makes a raid unique. It's part of the charm of Raids. If people were more willing to learn and others would be more willing to teach, then more people would do raids.