Destiny 2 has had a shader problem since before the game even launched. The system of customizing and coloring armor from Destiny 1 was expanded to include weapons and other items in Destiny 2, but in the process, shaders were made into consumable items rather than permanent unlocks. One of the biggest problems surrounding consumable shaders right now is the inability to delete multiple at one time. If you play Destiny 2 a lot, you’re likely sitting on hundreds of unused and unwanted shaders that are just continuing to take up inventory space the more that you earn (while at the same time, never having enough of the ones you actually like).
In the most recent “This Week at Bungie” blog post, Senior Design Lead Tyson Green stepped in to acknowledge the issue with shaders and give a little bit of insight into why it’s not that easy to let players delete entire stacks of them at once. As each shader is an individual item, it triggers an individual reward bundle(ie. the glimmer, shards, or Bright Dust you obtain for discarding them). Allowing players to delete multiples or stacks of shaders would cause problems with triggering numerous reward bundles. For example, how would the system react if you were nearly maxed out on glimmer and discarded a stack of shaders?
In terms of the actual deletion mechanics, Green reveals that part is fairly easy. The concern is how the system will interact with other systems and they want to allow for a “stronger solve” before implementing a solution that is just as likely to lead to other issues. This is why items that don’t break down into other “rewards” can be deleted as stacks while shaders can not.
Green also says that they are looking at other Destiny 2 shader feedback and working on solving those issues:
- It should be easier to get rid of a stack of shaders. We are looking at mass exchange solutions.
- We know you miss D1 Armor Shader mechanics. Looking at ways to re-integrate that capability without losing the ability to shade weapons, Ghosts, ships, Sparrows, or customize specific pieces of armor.
- We also understand you want shaders to be more freely usable and not limited by availability. We’re looking at re-introducing shader collections or a way to get copies of a shader in your possession.
A lot of the above feedback points are the kinds of things that I think Destiny 2 is missing in making rewards that can vanish into thin air. I recently wrote about reward impermanence in Destiny 2, so it’s great to see that they are looking to address some of those issues and bring back some permanence and clout with the shaders.
Bungie also revealed this week numerous new things that are coming to Destiny 2 in the January 30 update, alongside the return of Iron Banner.
[Source: Bungie]
