I don't want weapon crafting. I want weapon GRAFTING.
Bungie mentioned they want to make random drops more exciting, which was a reason behind removing crafting for new seasonal weapons.
Weapon crafting removed the joy of earning a random weapon, that feeling that any drop could matter, so we introduced enhanceable weapons.
I'm not sure I follow this logic. A bad roll is still a bad roll, even if it is enhanceable.
I propose a hybrid system which lets us evolve weapons by combining duplicate drops that share a common perk into a copy with multiple selectable perks. I'm calling it weapon grafting, because obviously.
The concept is similar to grafting new apple tree branches onto a sturdy root stock, We get a solid base, and then we take branches from more desirable varieties and graft them on, producing a much more versatile and interesting tree.
It works like this: a weapon's perks can be merged with another copy of the weapon, but only if they already share a common perk. For example:
This may be an interesting roll for PvP, but Enlightened Action is not ideal for a column 3 perk.
However, we later get another drop that look like this:
Again, not great, but Volatile rounds could make a decent PvE option. Because these copies share the perk Enlightened Action in column 3, we can graft one on to the other. So we graft B on to A, yielding:
Not a huge improvement, but the addition of Destabilizing rounds gives us more points to graft to.
Later we get this copy:
Ah! Zen moment. Now we're talking. Since it shares Destabilizing Rounds with our root stock, we can graft on Zen Moment. Now this is getting interesting.
And then to top it off, we get some rolls with TTT, Destabilizing Rounds, and Enlightened Action, Target Lock
Bang, Boom. Now we end up with this masterpiece:
Since this has 3 perks in each column, this copy is now saturated and no other weapons can be grafted on to it.
So what does this accomplish?
Random drops are exciting. Any drop could potentially be used to enhance our base version.
We save vault space. We are creating a more polyvalent weapon, which might replace 3-4 copies that we are hoarding in our vault.
And we reduce RNG. As we add more perks to a weapon, more random drops could be compatible with our main copy.
I think this system would be much more interesting than weapon crafting, and much less frustrating than chugging a tonic and praying to RNGesus.