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Yes, paying for a larger set of content would be nice. However, if they aren't doing that so they can put the rest of the studio to work on Destiny 2 (and/or the next major content update) is it worth having a smaller "free" update in the meantime?

This is why I am not playing until we get some paid updates.

Rellekh, North and I didn't have too much trouble on the Nightfall but that might have been because of our builds. It honestly felt a bit like fighting Skolas to me.

Our Builds: Two tether-hunters and a Void Warlock. Rellekh and I had a 290ish and 324 Telesto, and North had a 320 Truth. I ran with invisible smoke and the crest so I could revive anyone in a pinch.

Telesto is super helpful in my opinion because it generate orbs on this strike like none other. Specialist is on, and void damage output is insane on it. Truth is good bc: tracking purple death.

Rellekh had 314 light and was super fragile as a result. Her job was to hold down the one safe-zone under cover in the back (opposite side of the loop from where he spawns). She would super the blight as soon as it showed up immediately giving us a place to fall back. North and I staged our attacks on the right so Rellekh would periodically shoot from the left to get his attention.

This let North and I cautiously clear out the zone immediately to the right. We made sure to kill adds before putting bursts of damage on him. Either North or I would tether him and we'd let loose until another round happened. We made sure we had enough firepower to burn him before he started firing the tracking orbs at us.

It's notably easier as a 320, but I ran it a few times last night and these strategies work well:

• In the initial room, there's a high platform on the left side you can reach from the back (left from your spawn perspective). You can kill from there with impunity - only one yellow captain will spawn there at the beginning of the second wave. Make sure you take out the blights behind the center walls (which can be done from the sides of the upper platform.
  
• If you have Telesto, use it. Specialist + Void Burn + extra void explosions + extra orbs = win.
  
• If you have a Nightstalker, tether the final boss before doing damage
  
• If you have a Defender, use a weapons of light bubble before doing damage to the boss
  
• Combine those for a quick boss kill
  
• The area behind the center sphere in the boss room (to the back right from your entry perspective) is safe, except two Phalanxes and a blight will spawn in there with each add wave (one person with a void sword can handle them easily - gee didn't everyone just get a 320 void sword?)
  
• Axion darts are one-hit kills. If you don't get them early - run.

I went through 41 twice last night and it was taken both times.

According to Reddit, you can get the weapons from the High Score challenge as many times as you want

So, I don't understand what to do w/ my scorecard now that it's completed. Do I need to hang onto it to get my reward next week? Do I get my reward when I shard/discard it? Did I already get my reward and I missed it? Do I need to turn it in to Variks, if so, how? I didn't see any way to do that. I'm quite lost as to what to do w/ this completed card in my 'mission' inventory.

It should have rewarded you with stuff when you completed each challenge. Then it will reset next Tuesday.

Let's start with the Challenge scorecard thing. You can only make progress on this card by playing "Challenge mode" POE Activity. This activity has no matchmaking enabled, despite being relatively easy to complete (I guess AFK-ers might be a thing? That seems like a lame excuse, though). It seems to take three runs of the activity on a single card to hit the "combined score" requirement, and each of those runs has ZERO variation.

The is an end game activity. All end game activities aren't match made. Makes total sense to me.

I think that's a bit of a "cart before the horse" argument to me. End-game activities typically don't use matchmaking because they require a level of communication and teamwork above and beyond other activities. Bungie ditches matchmaking for those activities to encourage players to find groups of their own friends to play with.
But PoE doesn't really require any communication or co-ordination (no more than the average strike). It's an "end game activity" in that it's the highest level activity we currently have, but it is nothing like the raids or nightfalls in terms of substance. There really is no good reason for it not to support matchmaking, IMO.

Also, I'm fairly certain Cyber cares about far more than just loot. It sounds to me like his complaint is coming from the perspective of someone who doesn't love the activity, but would still do it from time to time for some loot... but Bungie has perhaps made the activity more of a chore to complete than they needed to?

Right on all counts.

Let's start with the Challenge scorecard thing. You can only make progress on this card by playing "Challenge mode" POE Activity. This activity has no matchmaking enabled, despite being relatively easy to complete (I guess AFK-ers might be a thing? That seems like a lame excuse, though). It seems to take three runs of the activity on a single card to hit the "combined score" requirement, and each of those runs has ZERO variation.

The is an end game activity. All end game activities aren't match made. Makes total sense to me.

I think that's a bit of a "cart before the horse" argument to me. End-game activities typically don't use matchmaking because they require a level of communication and teamwork above and beyond other activities. Bungie ditches matchmaking for those activities to encourage players to find groups of their own friends to play with.
But PoE doesn't really require any communication or co-ordination (no more than the average strike). It's an "end game activity" in that it's the highest level activity we currently have, but it is nothing like the raids or nightfalls in terms of substance. There really is no good reason for it not to support matchmaking, IMO.

I agree with you. But the reason it makes sense to me is because high end players don't need communications. But there are a ton of people that DO need it. In fact I bet a vast majority of the community could use it. That is why I say that.

Also, I'm fairly certain Cyber cares about far more than just loot. It sounds to me like his complaint is coming from the perspective of someone who doesn't love the activity, but would still do it from time to time for some loot... but Bungie has perhaps made the activity more of a chore to complete than they needed to?

I figured as much. I'm just trying to emphasize that We are generally above the mark of average skill level at DBO and we always think about how we deal with new activities instead of how the greater community deals with it.

So, a few of us did both the nightfall and then challenge mode last night. The nightfall was much more difficult (arguably as it should be) but seemed to drop less quality loot. I suppose challenge mode will drop mostly 310-320 blues and the nightfalls will keep increasing so maybe that's why. But I could get 3 people to speed run challenge mode and get 2-3x the loot I could with the nightfall, which is still locked to once a week for loot.

Seems odd. Mostly like they geared all this for newer players and those of us at end-game are already past some of the new content. Which is probably accurate.

I want to be able to "grind" the cumulative score without inconveniencing other people by asking them to run the same crap over and over.

This is actually a serious question.

When I pick up the game again when the next paid update hits, is anybody even going to WANT to do challenge mode and stuff like that with me at that point? Do I have to essentially write it off, or will people partake 6 months from now?