I think you're missing something. Every week you have a shot at 5 Etheric Light, two Armor Cores, two Weapon Cores and one 42 light level Trials Armor. All of this is a guaranteed item PER CHARACTER. Not only could you hit level 34 week one on all characters, you could also have four Etheric Light left over. All of these are guaranteed drops. Yes, GUARANTEED, if you can earn them. Okay, you personally couldn't get there. Great players did because Bungie built the expansion accordingly. Now, let's take a look at getting to 30 in VoG or 32 in the Dark Below. You could only do so by raiding. Well, Iron Banner, too, but that was inconsistent and had time constraints. With the raids, you had to achieve a minimum level to join, hope and pray for armor drops, then hope an pray that you had enough mats to upgrade that armor, and across all three characters. You literally did not have the ability to hit 30 or 32 on week one, two or three, unless you were extremely lucky with RNG. I had two 33's and a 34 week one of HoW. Now I have three 34's and multiple 365 weapons on week two. I played Trials once, so that wasn't how I got there. The gist of this post is: it all takes time. This game is rewarding exceptional players, while giving the marginal players a chance at making some progress. Etheric Light should stay how it is or this game will be a total bust by becoming too easy. Take your time and enjoy the challenge. Edit: I forgot to mention that they added Etheric Light to the Nightfall (unlike the promised Radiant mats) and you can get Etheric Light from Iron Banner. Essentially, if you were extremely lucky, this week you can get 8 Etheric light per characters. Highly unlikely, but you are guaranteed 7. That's 21 - 24 Etheric Light...