So, I decided I'd try getting back in the game and leveling up my "been level 26 for way too long" secondary character (hunter) by playing some strikes and had pretty much fun. I only have a rare set of greaves so I got over 100 marks and went to see the Hunter Vanguard and.. to be honest, the vanguard hunter greaves are a bit uglier than my father's longjohns, so I decided to try and look for something that's more to my liking. I had already purchased the FWC armor item/cape so I figured I'll start earning rep for them, like I had planned long ago. Stop by at the Vanguard Quartermaster and noticed I can exchange Vanguard marks for materials. I got very excited. "OMG have they finally listened to the PvE players and made it so we can exchange vanguard marks to crucible marks, by exchanging vanguard marks for materials, then the materials for crucible marks!!" I run to the crucible quartermaster and somehow manage to think that I can actually change 20 materials to 10 marks! "WOW, this is AMAZING - no longer I need to go and gather 50 materials to get a measly 5 crucible marks.. maybe I don't need to lose my nerves and get frustrated while sucking hard at PvP to get some faction gear.. THANK GOD!!!" I go see the FWC shopkeep and notice that the helmets have a "Crucible commendation" requirement and learn that you get one for leveling up.. "Ok, that makes sense - so we can't actually get all of the faction gear by material exchange PvE style. That's very fair enough, so the actual crucible players get all the gear while we only get some of it with marks that we can exchange" It made sense.. it felt good. I was excited. Then I realize that the crucible marks are also "exchange [i]marks[/i] to [b]materials[/b]" and not the other way around... And then ofcourse I realize we can ONLY exchange marks to materials now. In other words; All the faction gear is now 100% locked to "people who play PvP" AND some of the gear there even needs you to play ALOT of the crucible to rank up. It's gone from "collect hundreds of materials for very slow crucible mark progress" to "Play PvP or miss out on factiongear indefinitely" Which in turn had me realize that I can only purchase ONE set of gear in the entire game, from the hunter vanguard. If I wish to get a pair of legendary greaves, I [i]have to [/i] purchase those greaves that I think are the ugliest I've seen in the game. :| OR start playing PvP and get good at it so I'm not always frustrated and not-having-at-all-fun... (And I just hit 31 years 6 days ago, so my twitch reflexes are not going to get any better any time soon) Or wish that from the hundreds of blue engrams, one just so happens to be legendary... which has yet to happen even once, even though I've played the game [u]ALOT[/u], despite the breaks I've had recently. I think with all this new info, I'm about to drift even further away from the game than I've been recently. What is there for a gamer that prefers PvE anymore? That cool iron banner gear that gets me to level 30 -> PVP, every faction gear that looks cool -> PVP... and all I get from strikes are ridiculous amounts of green and blue engrams that always give me the same old rustburners time and time again and dismantling them gets me absolutely nothing of value. *sigh* .. annoying and frustrating that I actually mistook the changes for something amazing for just a while. I wish I didn't have a social anxiety disorder, and weren't such a -blam!-ing loser hermit :/ It would be so much fun to normally play with others, as the game does an insanely good job at making me left 100% left out and missing out on everything, if I play mostly alone or without a microphone or don't have the confidence for competitive gaming. :( Could you please Bungie consider adding something cool for PvE players?