This is my analysis of the current shader system, the community's current position on it, and various solutions that will appeal to the community and developers. This is an issue that had been bugging the community since day one, and I think its time to become more constructive with our criticism of it, rather than just knee-jerk reactions. No insults, mockery, etc. Let's get started. Some of the current complaints regarding the shader system include: * Shaders are difficult/inconsistent to come by. * Shaders are consumable, when they used to be permanent. * Shaders are lost when you apply another shader. * In order to shade all your armor the same way, you need five shaders, as opposed to one. * Shaders cost glimmer to apply. Luke Smith explained the current shader system well through Twitter, so I'm going to paraphrase here. Shaders are obtained through gameplay, with them dropping more often after level 20. The developers desire for them to be an ongoing reward for playing, encouraging people to go back to certain areas to grind for the shader. In writing, this sounds like a sound plan, but it isn't the greatest in execution. Here is why. There are around 40 shaders in the game, obtainable through various methods. One big problem here is that not all the shaders can be 'farmed' like Luke Smith explained. Currently, around half of the shaders in the game are only obtainable through Eververse or Bright Engrams. This means to get half of the shaders in the game, you have to grind for a Bright Engram in hopes of getting a few of the shader you want, or wait week after week for the chance of that shader you want being available directly. For the other half of shaders, you can obtain them through chests, raids, engrams, etc. This does encourage farming in planets or the raid. The issue here is that the methods of obtaining them are inconsistent. By farming for chests, there is only a moderate percent chance to obtain a few of the shader you desire. This chance goes down to 0% when the odd "chest cooldown" kicks in, preventing you from obtaining anything. You can also get shaders from planet faction engrams, but those are also unreliable ways of obtaining them. The raid shaders are also difficult to obtain, as you have one shot per week, per character for the chance at getting them. The issue that encompasses both the Eververse and "Farming" shaders is that there is no reliable way to obtain them consistently. This can be fixed through several methods. The first being the ability to simply buy them. For example, with the Farming shaders, you can go to the person within that area and purchase shaders from them either one at a time, or in packs. So if you want more of the Dead Zone Foliage shader, you can go to Devrim and buy a pack of five for, say, 5000 glimmer. Same applies to the Raid vendor, being able to buy them directly with glimmer. Note, that if shaders can be purchased through more glimmer, it may be best to REMOVE the glimmer cost to apply them! As for Eververse, simply make Tess's entire inventory available for purchase at all times, rather than on rotation, and boost the number of shaders you get from the purchase. So instead of waiting for Midnight Talons to roll around again, you can buy them in packs of five for 100-200 Bright Dust whenever you want. This would make obtaining shaders much more easy, and would still encourage players to go out and grind for the glimmer or Bright Engrams (To dismantle contents into Bright Dust) to buy them with. This can be further improved by adding shaders to the collection section in the vault. Once you've obtained a shader, you can purchase them directly from the collections section of the vault. That way, you don't have to go from planet to planet just to buy shaders. This section would include all shaders, and can be purchased for the same price as they would be directly from vendors. It might also help if shaders are returned to the player's inventory when replaced. For example, if my helmet has Dusk Mine on, and I replace it with Xenosilver, I get that original Dusk Mine back. This would encourage players to be much more free with the use of shaders, rather than hording them out of fear of wasting them. There are other solutions that are popular in the community as well. One popular idea is very similar to the paragraph above, only making shaders free from the vault once you've obtained them once. This may go against the idea of making shaders an ongoing reward though. Another popular one would be to make shaders infinite use, rather than consumable, and, once again, removing the cost to apply them. This would give shaders a much more free feeling, similar to Destiny 1. If this route is taken, an "Apply to all" option would be nice. Lastly, Giving shaders guaranteed methods of obtainment, such as "Do X to get Y" would be a step in the right direction. This would remove the RNG aspect of attainment entirely, making them much more reliable to obtain. For example, doing Glimmer Extraction Public Events on Nessus will ALWAYS give a few Nessus Pursuit shaders, or completion of different segments of the raid will ALWAYS grant a few copies of the shader. These are ideas that Bungie can take to change how the current shader system works for the benefit of the players, while still keeping the original premise behind changing the shaders in the first place. I'd love to hear what the community thinks of these ideas, so let me know! Thank-you!! Short Summary of ideas: * Remove glimmer cost to apply shaders. * Make shaders purchasable from vendors in packs of five for 1000-5000 glimmer/100-200 Bright Dust. * Make Tess's inventory available at all times, rather than on rotation. * Replacing an already applied shader with another returns the original applied shader. * Making shaders obtainable from the vault collections, either for the prices above or for free. * Removing the consumable aspect entirely, and can be applied freely. * Giving shaders guaranteed methods of attainment.