Masterworking a weapon should be special. It should be a weapon that the player absolutely loves, and the fact that it's Masterworked should reflect that.

I don't think the current system actually does reflect that. All you do is spend an arbitrary currency. Sure, that currency is somewhat difficult to come by right now, so having a Masterworked weapon does indicate something.

But I'd like something a little deeper.

I propose that Mastework tiers get unlocked as players actually use their weapons. Maybe you have to spend 10 cores to start the process, which gives you kill tracking and a Tier 1 Masterwork.

Every tier beyond that is unlocked through actually using the weapon. This could be through a simple XP system, like it worked in D1 to unlock gun perks. That feels like the easy way out though. I would love to see a system of challenges, similar to the current exotic gun quests like Ace of Spades. Getting to Tier 2 would be getting some number of kills (50? 100?). Tier 3 could be getting precision kills (for weapons where it makes sense). Maybe use the weapon in X number of strikes, or Nightfalls. Maybe use the weapon to deliver final blows on Majors or bosses. Just spitballing here. Seeing a Tier 10 Masterwork would be relatively rare, as I envision the challenges getting more difficult or intensive as you move up. I think orb generation would be unlocked at Tier 5 or 6, and anything past that would just be for increasing the masterworked stat. Perhaps this system could include a decently difficult challenge that would allow you to reroll your Masterwork stat.

And, so the stabbims of the world don't get screwed over, each gun would have two different sets of challenges (that would have to be completed independently), one for PvE and one for Crucible. Gambit could count towards either depending on the particular challenge.

I want Destiny to better reflect my actions as a player, and using the Masterwork system to actually show which guns I care about and love to use would be great. Spending currencies is not compelling gameplay.

Maybe the masterwork perk could be tied to which challenges you do somehow? So if you do a lot of PvE you get a weapon more tuned to PvE and if you do a lot of PvP you end up with a weapon more tuned for PvP? I'm not exactly sure how that would work.

I feel like a current flaw in the system is that the masterwork is a random drop just like the other perks. So you can get a weapon with amazing perks, but a crap masterworks roll so that it's not even worth applying the resources to masterwork. Seems like it would be better to choose which masterwork perk you want for that particular weapon (similar to how mods work).

Masterworking is not a good mechanic.

There is no downside or tradeoff to masterworking a weapon other than your time. A masterwork weapon is straight up better than a non masterworked weapon, so there is no reason not to and no real choice to doing so other than how much time you want to sink into the game.

Master work should add to a stat at the expense of another stat. So if you wanted to gain faster reloads at the expense of handling, you could.