But you are right about the economy being less than agreeable to those without the time to invest.

You can buy planetary materials which are rotationally used to buy Shards from Spider. I grow my Shards that way (up over 2.1k since Forsaken started where I was at 1.3k) and I still spend 30 every day I remember to getting MW cores from Spider and on other things. Breaking down legendary world shaders as discussed here already if you aren’t using them is a good boost, too.

My problem with that is then I basically have to spend time trolling around whatever planet of the week farming and grinding out mats, which is not how I want to spend the sometimes not even twoish hours a night I get with the game, or ever really.

I realize and accept it as a solution, and that my unwillingness to use it is basically my problem, not the game's. It doesn't change the fact thay Destiny's economy just isn't friendly to players with lives and real world commitments who don't have four hour blocks of time to spend.

As an aside, this is also why I don't think I've ever triggered and used one of the medallions. Lasts four hours? Dude, if it rolled over between sessions, hell yeah, but I'm reluctant to burn something I know I'm not going to get full use out of.

Ugh. I'll keep it all in mind. Maybe it'll become a nighly ritual to grind out bounties on whatever planet of the week before diving into strikes, but that cuts into the limited time my fireteam has for running strikes.

No good solutions.

Meanwhile, I have glimmer for days. Getting glimmer is no problem. Sure would be nice if I could buy something useful with it, like bundles of shards.

Meh.

I didn’t keep accurate records but I did receive several masterwork cores and - more importantly for me - three or four mod components.

Thanks for the tip! Next time I’ll mute the speakers :)

Still... there has to be a better way to get mod components. Purchase from gunsmith?

4200 Seeds (at 55 seeds per package from Brother Vance) netted (after dismantling everything from those packages):
+15 Masterwork Cores
+10 Mod Components
+ 76 Mercury Shaders (one per package)
Which, after cashing in the shaders brough me back to 695 shards.

840 - 695 = 145 shards “actually” spent for those 15 MW Cores (and 10 mod components) for an average of 9.66667 shards per MW Core

Oh, and I also netted approximately 500 gunsmith materials from dismantling the contents of those packages, which gave me 15 more shards, bringing the average down to 8.66667 shards per MW Core.

In particular, use this method when he’s selling Simulation Seeds. Brother Vance will sometimes give you Masterwork drops in addition to legendary drops. I bought 700 shards worth of simulation seeds last week... I traded all the seeds into Vance, and ended up with about 20 masterwork cores, 30 mod components, and almost 600 legendary shards back in my inventory.

Why does that game make you do this? Why not simply sell Masterwork cores for 5 shards per if you can do what you just did? Save us the trouble.

There are too many useless materials and so much bullshit in this game already. What's the difference between one planetary material and the other? There isn't any. The game needs one currency and that is glimmer. No shards. No Simulation seeds. Just glimmer. This shit is soul crushing and boring so it should be streamlined.

Also because there's a glimmer cap, you're always going to have to play to earn more if it's used for everything.

Masterwork cores make sense because they do something unique, but I don't see why Spending 75,000 glimmer with banshee shouldn't let you masterwork something.

Fewer roadblocks. Simplify currency. Just stop getting in the way of fun.

There is a reason I am in the 540s and have no motivation to go up. It's all the bullshit in the way (and the fact that I will likely not be able to raid blind - another boneheaded move with the raid power level).

I don't understand why Bungie keeps making the game better, but then adds fucking shit to it that ruins the good parts. I'd love to be doing all the cool high level stuff, but not enough that I am going to do the pointless grind.

Bought a ton of mats and spent all of my Weapon Parts. Ended up with a few Masterwork Cores, a Minor Spec mod, and refunded a couple hundred Legendary Shards. Blah.

I gave him about 300 and just got some junk drops. Good looking out!

well that means i am turning in some of my 3000 weapon parts this afternoon!!!!

At the end of the month, it is planned to a patch exotic duplicates. ( Again. ಠ_ಠ)

• Adjusting Exotic rewards to help reduce the number of duplicate drops
  • Players may still receive duplicates, but there will be better chances for Forsaken >exotics when receiving Exotic rewards

Odds are one of you are going to get Sunbracers as a Hunter if you do this before then. :P

Wait.

Anyway, I don't mind spending a few minutes burning through thousands of Parts if they're at least somewhere in the loot pool. My RNG luck will guarantee three more Vigilance Wings before anything new, but at least there's a chance. :)

Heh. "few minutes" Lol.

And I assume that Masterworks are in there as well, along with a chance for new Weapon Mods?

I think that in theory that is the case, yes. I've been quite surprised that none of my gunsmith packages have given me a masterworked weapon either. I think I've just had bad RNG with Banshee though. I've bought maybe half a dozen packages from the Cryptarch (the ones for 40(?) legendary shards) and at least half of them have been a masterwork though.

I think that in theory that is the case, yes. I've been quite surprised though that none of my gunsmith packages have given me a masterworked weapon either. I think I've just had bad RNG with Banshee though.

I may or may not have gotten my Trinity Ghoul from like the first 5-6 packages I turned in since starting forsaken :D

Before y'all get your hopes up too much, I've easily turned in ~5000ish gunsmith materials in the past couple weeks and haven't had a single exotic drop from Banshee. I know it is possible - but... RNG with a very low value assigned to it and all that.

I hear ya. Until now, I hadn't even bothered trying because I didn't realize that exotics were even a possibility from Banshee. Anyway, I don't mind spending a few minutes burning through thousands of Parts if they're at least somewhere in the loot pool. My RNG luck will guarantee three more Vigilance Wings before anything new, but at least there's a chance. :)

And I assume that Masterworks are in there as well, along with a chance for new Weapon Mods?

well that means i am turning in some of my 3000 weapon parts this afternoon!!!!

I just haven't brought myself around to the stupidly time-consuming process of turning in all of my Weapon Parts. I had no idea that he could drop an exotic…

Come on, RNG! Baby needs a new Two-Tailed Fox!

Before y'all get your hopes up too much, I've easily turned in ~5000ish gunsmith materials in the past couple weeks and haven't had a single exotic drop from Banshee. I know it is possible - but... RNG with a very low value assigned to it and all that.

well that means i am turning in some of my 3000 weapon parts this afternoon!!!!

I just haven't brought myself around to the stupidly time-consuming process of turning in all of my Weapon Parts. I had no idea that he could drop an exotic…

Come on, RNG! Baby needs a new Two-Tailed Fox!

well that means i am turning in some of my 3000 weapon parts this afternoon!!!!

That might take roughly 30 minutes to do :D

I am getting in the habit of turning in 500 every time I go to the tower.