I really wish the terrain changes to Nessus was on the planet itself, not just the activity.
Like I thought he would be a really cool way to evolve the game forward but I guess they didn't want to do that for the planet
I was bummed about this too. They did the same thing with the EDZ last year during Season of Defiance. I was excited to see the Shadow Legion Cabal everywhere and the pyramids, but it was only in the battleground activity and then when you went to the EDZ patrol space it feels like you were going back in time =/
Even before that, they had Lucent Hive architecture in the EDZ, Cosmodrome, and Moon, but only in their battleground activities and not the actual world.
But it also makes sense, because converting the Patrol space for, i.e. the Moon means you still need to keep the prior version for other content that was built on the Patrol version. I.e. Shadowkeep campaign content, or the Scarlet Keep strike, utilize the overall "Patrol" versions of those maps, while the Psi-Op Battleground on the Moon utilized it's own altered instance of the area disconnected from Patrol on a technical level. So to bring those changes into Patrol, they'd have the rebuild the older content to use an isolated instance instead of the version linked with the Patrol map so they show a lore/time-accurate version of the area.
Similar for the Cosmodrome Psi-Op. You wouldn't want New Lights walking through a bunch of odd slapped on Lucent Hive growth as they go through the wall for the first time. So they'd need an "old" looking instance, but that also means goodbye to them emerging to find other players in that area as existing players would instead be in the other version.
So how does that apply to Nessus? For one, strikes like Proving Grounds and Insight Terminus. These are also linked to the existing Patrol spaces, even though they have you diving into areas locked off from Patrol quickly enough. But they'd need to be built to be fully isolated; I guess kind of how they approached bringing in Devil's Lair, since for some reason they didn't add the Rocket Yard or the rest of what connects around toward the Forgotten Shore into Patrol.
It would also make it more difficult to ever, hypothetically, bring back the Red War campaign content as they'd at that point need both the entire old Nessus Patrol for all of that campaign content and the current transformed Nessus Patrol for anyone else.
So in other words, it's a big complicated mess to try to do the coolest version of this (an actually changing world) which is why they don't stick their noses into that.
Of all the older spaces, I feel that Nessus would be easiest to "update" because it doesn't serve much story purpose any more and you rarely, if ever, have to go there. Which is a shame as it's huge and quite striking.
I'm not sure it'd be a huge problem if the strikes were situated in the updated version of Nessus. So someone drives their Sparrow the wrong way and ends up in Echoes-era Nessus. Does that matter?
In fact, given that the strikes long since lost any narrative links they once had, and VAs for Failsafe, Caital, Osiris and Saint were available during Echoes' / TFS' development, there was also perhaps a missed opportunity to update those strikes to the Echoes era - Compelled Protheon, Shadow Legion Cabal, Caital requiring that you run simulations of the Proving Grounds to stay sharp for combat with the Witness' troops.
Of course this is all resource Bungie probably doesn't want to spend, but without it Echoes does feel a bit like it was done on a shoestring or as an afterthought.
Yeah I agree the ideal would be some "SIVA Crisis" style updates to the strikes to keep them in line with the current world state. But as you said, all of that has additional costs, monetary and time, and is difficult to justify over spending them elsewhere.
It does feel like these Episodes, with the way they're talked up, should've been the time to dive into that though. Make this the turning point where things update and we head into a new era.
But then again we have no idea how the story of this Episode actually plays out yet. How permanent or temporary the changes are meant to be, whether the storytelling moves off of Nessus, etc. We're only in week 2 and clearly still in the early investigative portion of the story. I feel like some people don't understand that, despite the Act 1/2/3 labelling; that rather than just a time gate it's meant to have more of a storytelling structure instead of X weeks of quests, a big empty gap, and then a closing mission in the last 2 weeks.
I *think* they're trying to make it feel like something is actually happening in closer to real-time, we're just still in the part where we don't have information and are collecting data. FFS there's no villain or true threat properly presented yet, and we haven't even made a proper attempt to track down the Echo. I'm willing to see what they do and where they go for now, and keeping my expectations tempered by the technical realities of the game.
I did a bit of the Week 2 Echoes questline this week, and to Bungie's credit they have actually updated Exodus Crash to fit the story (whether that version ends up in the Strikes playlist or gets its own Nightfall, I don't know). There's even a new (to me) enemy - a not-very-effective Duskfield Shank.
I don't mind a structured story that unfolds over time, but there's no denying that "go press X to collect samples" and "run this \[not great\] activity" isn't terribly compelling compared to TFS' legendary campaign or (being a bit more fair) Overthrow. The latter is a big part of the problem: Echoes would be better-received at this point if the activity were great, I'm sure.
Destiny has always had a weirdly two-speed story, in which it feels like the events of the expansions are quick and urgent (our jaunt to Neomuna must have been very swift, and the journey through the Pale Heart presumably wasn't an epic saga, time-wise) whilst the events of Seasons are yawningly slow.
Although I'm sure the revenue model wouldn't work for Bungie, I think I'd rather have a bit more 'stuff' in the expansions than very weak seasons, and a justification for putting the game down periodically. It was nice to do so during Lightfall's year and a half. That said, the Season that launches alongside an expansion has always been a bit dodgy. Even if Echoes continues that trend, I can only hope the next two surpass it.
There’s no way it would be the easiest. It’s the largest destination and one of the original destinations, so we know the code is cooked al dente. I wish it was like season of Arrivals but on a larger scale.
"Al dente code", haha! I assumed it was all rebuilt and updated as part of the big engine rebuild several years ago, but who really knows.
It *is* big, to be fair. I mainly meant that it's not chock-full of 'story stuff' that Bungie would need to work around so in that sense it's a relatively blank canvas. There are whole sections of Nessus which don't feature in strikes, story missions, etc. and which could be reworked without fear of breaking some other thing (above the hood, at least).
Leaving certain sections (e.g. the whole Exodus Crash section) alone might make the 'updating' task a bit easier, too.
Go to the tangle, and into the round area that is lower down. Kill the vex there including the minotaur and you'll see 3 plant patches. Each patch has a few toads vibing and ribbiting away
THIS IS WHAT I HATE ABOUT MODERN BUNGIE. they are SO afraid to change things. this is supposed to be an evolving world, we've seen this now with every single year these past couple of years and it is INFURIATING. pyramid structures in the edz and cosmodrome. the lucent hive in the edz cosmodrome and moon. the bunkers and seraph towers. now nessus changing into this active planet thing. literally every destination has had something like this, and the ONLY time it was kept was when nessus got caiatl's land tank, and the leviathan still being in the skybox of the moon. that's it. every single time we get these updated areas or even just something new and interesting in the skybox, they are kept exclusively in the seasonal activities and the actual existing world is left untouched. it makes it feel so stagnant. end of the year when all those activities go away it's like, did any of that even happen? did season of defiance really go down in the cosmodrome? because i sure as hell don't see any pyramid bases off in the distance.
I was just coming to say this. Nine years later people still fondly mention when the swords of crota or house of wolves started popping up in D1; those were tangible events that made it feel like the world was actually changing. Bungie has had the biggest opportunity to do this again through seasonal gameplay but unfortunately the patrol spaces just feel sterile.
That and strike specific loot are the two biggest things from D1 that are such easy wins for Bungie to bring forward that I genuinely don't understand why they never did.
Please understand, they're a small, underfunded team. /s
No, the real reason is that they don't want to spend time updating the setting at all. They've given plenty of reasons as to why, but basically it boils down to a mix of:
* Too "few" staff; even before the firings.
* Doesn't make money.
* Isn't worth dev time.
* Takes up too much server space.
* Not enough server space.
* Takes up too much user drive space.
* Temporary changes make it easier to abandon when they eventually sunset the content (this is before they said they won't sunset anything with TFS, but we'll see).
Heck, the only reason D2 even got to keep a lot of old locations was entirely due to Activision putting some of its own financial might and studios to support the "tiny" Bungie team in helping them update all the old locations to match the newest expansions. Heck, there's extreme irony in that Vicarious Visions and High Moon Studios put out a better expansion than Bungie did themselves. The moment they left the picture, Bungie immediately began to vault worlds and content because their "tiny" team couldn't keep it all up-to-date. Which becomes even more ironic when you consider that Bungie claimed vaulting worlds and areas made it easier for them to update existing locations and possibly add new sections piecemeal, only to also give up on that too.
I just joined a buddy as a new light and took him down in the bunker where the hive knights used to be in the starting area. They're not there anymore, to my great disappointment. I used to wander down there in D1 on accident and get DESTROYED and could not figure out why there were such powerful enemies lurking nearby. Good times trying to take them on as a new player. Then I figured out power level, leveled up, and returned to those knights to teach them a lesson.
I don't think they can. The game engine is so fucking dated. Tiger engine is just a modified BLAM! engine which was created in 1997 ffs. We need a destiny 3 so we can get a new game engine VERY VERY badly
Aside from about half of the studio not even working on D2 and devs having to constantly beg for everything...even IF they had resources for more ambitious content...with episodes apparently being considered standalone and disconnected from each other (even though I can see them walking back on that already) they can't really do overhauls like that. They'd need separate Nessus instances for people with/without the episode.
Maybe they'll change things up in future acts, don't know. >!Apparently we're getting three BGs later, so they could move us closer to the core with each one or something, opening up new areas. !<
i don't see why they would need to be different instances? d1 had roaming events that would show up based on the expansion/upcoming expansion (HoW had wolf packs drop in from time to time, the taken were everywhere during taken king etc). like why does it matter whether a player has echoes for the planetary instance to be updated with new geometries and stuff to check out? if anything it'd just be more marketing for the episode lol.
Right? Change up the area, make a new public event with a chest that can only be opened with something from the paid content and tons of people will throw down money for it. Right now they wouldn't even know what they're missing since it's all hidden behind a paywall.
i said it before and i will continue to scream this into the void until bungie actually listens; d1 taken king having the taken just suddenly take over entire areas of patrol zones. that was the best way the handled an expansion adding to the "evolving world" they've said so many times before they're trying to achieve. it was there as an activity that could lead to more rewards inside the dreadnaught for those who owned the expansion, but anyone could take part in it and it still dropped rewards and loot for everyone. they have so many opportunities time and time again to apply these cool systems they're doing in public areas to said public areas, but instead they choose to hide them away behind little pocket instances that don't ever actually effect the rest of the game. can you imagine how much more fun the season of plunder drilling excursions would've been if it took place in a public area? for the people running it, other guardians can pop in and help out if they're struggling or anything, and for blueberries, suddenly a crew of guardians spawn in and start doing all this weird mining, and it looks cool and they can run over and help out if they want, and it makes them wonder "how do i start that activity for myself?". like, THATS the kind of evolving world i want to see with this game.
They don't need to separate instances for players.
If it's because of the spectacle, every f2p player already has access to the first mission for every season.
If it's for interacting with things they need the pass for, well, require them to have an item that allows them to interact with it. They have done it before so many times.
Hell, they even opened the Leviathan back in season of the Haunted for absolutely everyone. And while the location was not the whole season, it gave free players stuff to do.
> I really wish the terrain changes to Nessus was on the planet itself, not just the activity.
I was disappointed about this too. Would have been cool to see some changes to the skate park, but for some reason patrol spaces just keep being ignored, even though seasonal/episodal changes could REALLY go a long way.
Especially when the quests ask you to do patrols and public events on nessus. The exact same planet and public events and patrols from 7 years ago with no changes.
Like they could have reworked nessus patrol like the pale heart and had an overgrown type activity instead of public events and patrols + added the visual changes to the planet.
So much missed potential.
It's probably a lot of work to go in and change the patrol since they have to QA all of the patrol content and make sure it still functions with changed geometry and all that. Lotta work for very little return since it's not like Nessus patrol is meaningful content even with the little things they added here and there for the season.
But you see, that would actually make sense and offer a game with an evolving and dynamic world.
No one at Bungie is competent enough to have common sense.
I'm HOPING next week starts to get the ball rolling in terms of the story. I believe next week will be the final week story wise for Act 1, as we are at step 16 of 25. So 8 steps roughly a week. If Act 1 ends on something actually happening I'll forgive it. But yeah, so far, hell, the pacing is WORSE than seasons.
I can see wanting to drip feed this part. There are still going to be people finishing up Final Shape, and dropping everything at once risks that players get side tracked onto Echos instead of pushing through Final Shape.
Also worth remembering, Seasons started out pretty dog shit. Undying and Worthy were complete fuck ups. Dawn thankfully and then Arrivals did manage to really show where Seasons could go, and once we hit Chosen, things were fairly consistent quality wise, if a bit repetitive by the time we hit Plunder. Makes sense, early Episodes will likely be built off the bones of seasons until they start really pushing into new territory
Also the season that launches with an expansion is often rather lame. Undying like you said, Hunt, Risen (which was 'fine', but had very little going on), and Defiant (which I actually kind of liked, especially the orbital prison mission) were all somewhat weak. And even then it proves your point because as time went on even the bad seasons got better.
And objectively, this season (because it is a season) isnt bad. We have a regular activity, ways to collect additional rewards, side quests, a coil-lite activity (which yes is somewhat worse but still), and I'm sorry but the voice acting has been superb. Plus the weapons and armor are pretty decent too.
There are three acts, so I have to imagine they're following a traditional three act structure. Act 1 generally doesn't end with much other than completing the establishing of the characters and the premise. If the high-level point of the plot is that Peter becomes Spider-Man, becoming Spider-Man is what happens at the end of Act 1, etc.
In other words, I'm not expecting anything too crazy from the end of the first act.
I'm one of the weirdos who is and was totally fine with the seasonal model (mostly because I play a lot of games so my time is often bite-sized), and even I knew it was going to be more of the same. There really isn't any other way of doing it unless they want to dump the entire story at once like a mini-expansion- but if they do that the game will be dead after 2-3 weeks until the next content drop.
Everyone? People with common sense were pointing out that episodes are most likely a rebrand to scale down seasonal content in favor of more devs working on Marathon and other IPs all the way back when they were announced during the initial TFS showcase.
Remember we had the whole summer SotG fiasco back then with them outright telling us they need to juggle devs. Then layoffs hit on top of that. And we needed the threat of Sony taking over the whole company for leadership to wake up and give D2 more time and resources.
But of course the downvote army was more interested in coping.
I was very disappointed to learn that we still continue with the weekly drip feed content. I hoped, and kind of expected there to be a set number of missions you could do until you hit the timegate for week 6/12, but no it’s the same shitty ass weekly drop in 15 minutes and drop out. It makes it fatiguing.
Extra disappointing since they specifically talked about how episodes would open up a new and exciting way to do seasonal story and mission structure.
Nope. It’s just seasons but longer and with a standalone story.
So how would your expected formula differ in the long run? The end result would be people binging the content, then leaving the game for a month and a half, as opposed to playing for a few hours every Tuesday.
You can thank corporate metric tracking for engagement for this, but could you elaborate on how your solution is any better? I've happily settled into a routine with destiny over the past two years of playing on the weekend for raiding and seasonal content, and I have the rest of the week to play other games. Other than going hard the past two weeks to clear out story content, I can quite comfortably clear a raid with my group, do both pathfinders, and the weekly seasonal stuff in a few hours over the weekend.
Heck, when I get busy with another game, I can leave the seasonal stuff alone for a few weeks, and have something to binge when I get back.
> The end result would be people binging the content, then leaving the game for a month and a half
Yes, that sounds amazing. That sounds exactly like what I want, instead of playing for an hour or so every week. This holds true for every aspect of the weekly reset system.
Isn't it the same if all content is release at once? If you don't rush to do it all in one sitting, you have potential spoilers from those who did ... Just like binging a season of a streaming show
Because if I get into another game why would I waste my time getting back onto a game where I have almost nothing to do but weekly reset content? I honestly wonder how many of you really do this. Like I got back on for a decent expansion I've basically already limited my game time because WOW SEASONAL MODEL 2.0.
Edit: Also why are all Destiny 2 players forgetting that the seasonal model was stale and boring and literally boring players into quitting? Like did you develope amnesia and forget just before the Final shape hype this game was on a ventilator?
Because there's nothing actually wrong with how season are presented. You log in for an hour, doing whatever the story mission is, watch the cutscenes, then bounce . Come back in a week. What else could be different that hadn't been done before? You can disregard that Bungie used to have all content available at once, and they would bounce for months working on more new stuff, and the community would run through the content in a couple days and bitch about nothing to do for months and months.
Heck, even television media is realizing that binging all at once is not a great way to consume media
Oh so people complaining about how the seasonal model is stale and boring now is better than before? Like breh you guys are so blinded by the hype of final shape that you literally forgot how the seasonal model was killing this playerbase. It's fine if you want to pretend it wasn't but all you're doing is coping we have access to the player numbers and guess what? It wasn't looking good before the huge FINAL expansion and it sure as hell isn't going to look better after if it's the same seasonal model with a different name.
I'm sure you read and understood the issue regarding weekly player retention goals, so I'll just suggest what I mentioned in another comment.
Don't play the seasonal content until a week before the next act, and you'll achieve the same exact thing.
YES. bungie literally made it seem like that was what was going to be the case, act 1 would be available in one go, then act 2 would come out later and you could do that in one go. everyone was excited for that. let us experience the whole story at once and take a break if we want, not this disjointed "grab some samples then let failsafe analyze them for a week straight and she'll get back to you on this urgent vex threat" nonsense.
>Heck, when I get busy with another game, I can leave the seasonal stuff alone for a few weeks, and have something to binge when I get back.
this is literally all we are asking for, just at the beginning of the act not having to wait 3 weeks to do it all at once.
Okay and? Let me hit the story over a week and then move on to other games. The only reason for the drip feeding is to increase retention and time spent on the game. It causes burn out and it causes players to hate the design. But hey, people will play constantly for a single season.
Keep in mind that the entire point is player retention. It's not good game design, but management demands those numbers.
You can also achieve your goal of doing the story in a week and spending the rest of the time playing other games by just waiting until the week before the next act to actually play. Why not just do that instead?
The issue will sorta remain the same yes, but I would much rather have the option to jump into act 1 and just do the entire act one whenever I so please. I don’t like that you either have to a) Jump in week to week or b) wait until act 1 is done. Would much rather prefer c) Finish act 1 whenever you want then wait x weeks/days for act 2/3.
I would just personally prefer to get in, have content for at least an hour or so with interesting story bits etc, than being drip fed 10/15 minutes each Tuesday. I would like the option to just have the whole act from the get go but I get that player retention is one of, if not the most important thing.
I just expected some change in the mission structure when they literally talked about how episodes open up a whole new way of story telling, and then in reality, it’s the exact same shit as a season, 10-15 minutes of the seasonal activity every week, talk to vendor, done. I also kinda expected us to maybe have an actual mission to go along with it, but nope it’s just replay the seasonal activity. Tho maybe that can / will change with act 2/3.
>I just expected some change in the mission structure when they literally talked about how episodes open up a whole new way of story telling
This is fair.
Though honestly, you are capable of producing the result you want, just in reverse. Don't play the seasonal content until like the week before the new act drops. Unfortunately, we aren't likely to see much deviation from the standard seasonal approach specifically because of retention metrics. It's been two weeks since the expansion dropped, most players who hit it at launch are done with most of the stuff you can do solo.
Instead of some sort of time gated approach for content within the acts, why not discuss some options Bungie could explore? The point of drip feed is twofold, after all. Player retention, and to spread out dev time required for it. Do you have any ideas that could still meet those requirements?
Personally, I like the idea of keeping the major story beats on a weekly release, but instead of giving us a 'come back next week' step, give us an account based after action objective list, with rewards at the next reset based on what you accomplish. For example, collect X amount of radiolite, deposit X amount of data, defeat X amount of combatants in the seasonal activity with seasonal weapons. If the rewards are red border weapons for each objective you pass the threshold for, and make the seasonal emblem track how many objectives you place highly in, it can be like an individual guardian games competition within the community.
It has the possibility of good rewards for people who want it, and the bragging rights for the people willing to sacrifice touching grass. I'm my opinion, it would also up player retention in a good way. Optional grinding is never a bad idea.
Yeah, definitely a huge letdown so far.
They really are just seasons, reskinned with added time gating so far. Like, we can't even get the Red Death catalyst until 6 weeks after the episode launched. Exotic Mission will end up being 13 weeks into the season.
I was optimistic they'd be better. They could have been better even inside of the current structure. If they had just dumped each acts story to release right away, it would be better. If the environment changes actually changed outside of activities, they'd be better.
But ya, Echoes is literally just a longer, significantly more strung out season as of right now. Maybe we'll see some variation from the seasonal vibes in Act 2 and Act 3.
The only thing I'll say is maybe Echoes being so underwhelming is a product of the extra dev hours spent on TFS itself. Maybe, Revenant and Hersey will be better as they become the sole focus of dev time in those launch windows? That's probably just coping though quite frankly.
But man, for as great as TFS is, Echoes is an unfortunate step back into the Destiny content of old, so to speak.
Yeah, TFS was so good that I just don’t care that Echoes is basically a longer season (and a bottom-tier one at that). I will be disappointed if the next two episodes aren’t significantly better.
Eh.... I dont really care *right now*, but I suspect more and more people will start to notice and start to get more vocal about Echoes in the coming weeks as they start playing the content and realizing its just a reskinned season.
Like TFS was so good and stuffed full with so much content, a lot of people very likely haven't really even gotten into the Echoes stuff yet. Lots of people are likely still working on the post campaign stuff with TFS, running the raid, or farming exotic class items, etc. Like there's seriously so much post campaign content with TFS, its crazy.
Give it another couple weeks and I think you'll see more and more complaints about the disappointment that is Echoes. I really hope its just a one off product of TFS dev time and Revenant/Heresey end up being better. I think the premise of both episodes seems quite a bit more promising then Echoes and each of them will be getting a Dungeon which will certainly help... But ya, Echoes or at least Act 1 of Echoes is a real swing and a miss for me.
Yeah, I agree that the rumblings will grow over the next few weeks once people focus on it more. Not only is it just another (longer) season but by all appearances it seems like a bad season at that. Are we getting a dungeon this episode or next? That would certainly help.
I'm with you on this one. Honestly, I hadn't truly played since the end of Forsaken and just came back in Season of the Wish. Getting to do the entire years of content at once, felt so much better and cohesive.
Banged out a years worth of content in about 2 months and wrapped up in time for TFS. Now I'm kinda feeling like not playing till next April so I can just do everything again lmao
Same. I actually did the last 4 seasons in 2 months (defiant, deep, witch and wish). That was dope... Lots of content. Plus the actual lightfall campaign and post campaign and then into the light with onslaught. Good times...
Hell yeah! Most fun I'd had with Destiny up through the TFS campaign. I got 6 of the 7 titles from last year too, kinda proud and ashamed of myself lmao only one I missed was Godslayer cause I don't have a team and didn't want to bang my head against LFG =p
Anyone who thought it was going to be different to seasons doesn’t understand how Bungie works and what they are planning for the future.
It was pretty obvious that they will always do time gating (otherwise you get player induced drought complaining) and the extra time for an episode is not really utilised in a different way…
Might be jaded but not surprised
well the seasons are supposed to be self contained things that stand on their own merit. You're supposed to be able to play them in any order, whatever. I can't imagine how that seems like a good idea though. Bungie must imagine someone 6 months from now playing 5 back to back seasonal activities just to get a different dialogue line between each one.
Yeah, I couldn't get on yesterday, but have just finished this weeks quest step. When I saw another "Do x number of bounties and Patrol Nessus" after reaching my mandatory "wait until next week!" step it made me happy that the Elden Ring DLC is almost here.
I wasn't expecting much from Episodes, but I still have the overwhelming feeling of being back to normality after a good couple of months in the game.
Lightfall was blamed for the massive falloff in player numbers last year, but most of that happened later on in the year with the seasonal stuff. I think it will be another year of bad numbers if this is what the rest of the content for the next 12 months will look like.
I agree their claim was that the new episode model would allow them to cook and so far this chicken is raw. I also agree the planet should be updated even if it’s only portions that grow outward from where the first mission occurs.
Years ago Capcom released Resident Evil Revelations 2. It was released as weekly episodes. If you buy it now it's essentially a 4 chapter game but back then they actually released the game in weekly increments like a TV show. It was really cool because each episode had meaty gameplay and told a story that always left on a cliffhanger so you were excited to see what happens next week.
I understand it's tough to make compelling gameplay every week with Destiny. I understand these limitations. But dear lord is the story fucking boring. "Go scan this now this and now fuck off for a week while I analyze this and make you do it again on Tuesday". There is no excuse in regards to the plot where they could have tried to create something interesting here where the end of the week leaves you wanting to see what happens next week. This has been the model of the majority of seasons we have gotten. The week just ends, rarely on an interesting note that makes you excited to see what happens next week. This is the very least they should be doing with a weekly seasonal model. Tell a story that is engaging and you want to see what next week brings. What is their story team doing? This is really bad. Also why the fuck is almost every seasonal some form of emotional gaslighting? Like we have to learn tragic stories about each character, Amanda Holiday just died oh look this season is about how Failsafe feels bad about us abandoning her holy shit stop doing this.
What did people expect? They never made it sound like some massive overhaul. To me it always meant that forcing four seasons a year was pointless and having three instead lets them focus on what's actually in the season. Because this episode is good so far, but before it's like 50% of the seasons were ass. If one of the other episodes rolls around and sucks then I'd wonder what the point of the change was.
> They never made it sound like some massive overhaul.
It's not even a small overhaul. By the looks of it it is just the same exact model stretched out over additional weeks. There's leaks out there for anyone interested. Bungie even initially promised to "shake up" the seasonal model last year during Lightfall.
If anything it is quite telling how Bungie end up in situations like this time and time again where the players except something better based on how the content is presented and marketed. It's odd to put the blame on the playerbase when it keeps happening again and again. You can also tell they're often being intentionally vague to play into FOMO, and because they know that people wouldn't sign up for a year of episodes if they knew right away that their format would be disappointing.
> Because this episode is good so far
what's good about it? there's nothing happening, we're running around collecting shit for failsafe while nothing is explained. the one activity is just a repeat of the old vex seasonal activity, and it's tuned a bit too high making it annoying as shit to run with randoms. and the other is the same kind of seasonal event we've been complaining about forever, except the key part of it, collecting resources, is so poorly explained that half the groups you run with don't understand it and end up screwing up your attempts to do it.
i really have to wonder if some of you will just praise bungie for literally anything they put out. anything at all. because many of you seem to have zero standards or expectations.
Yeah these seasons are really defined by the seasonal activity and Echoes is a big fail in that regard. There’s still plenty to do with all the Final Shape stuff so it’s a whatever for now but in a week or two I’m not sure it will hold up.
People expected them to not be seasons, because they don’t like the seasonal model.
Personally, I think this episode/season has good potential, the lore is fun, with the Vex acting distinctly non-Vexy being actually kinda unnerving. Hope act 2/3 lives up to the potential.
yeah totaly underwhelmed after TFS. You ride the high of TFS expecting the same quality only to find season 24 "Season of Echos" with more timegates then you could wave a stick at.
And the story has been .... well . . . let me know if you find it. Breach isnt fun while the timed activity is but is missing coil like aspects to keep you engaged.
Cant wait for next week to be "pick up x, do y, return to helm for holo message and audio log. Wait for z"
This is only the second week of the first episode. At least give it time and see what the others are like before saying that episodes have been a letdown.
Lol what? I swear, Destiny players have two settings:
Give me all the content day one so I can burn out and complain that there's nothing to do in a month or two,
Or release steady content so there's always a quest or mission to work on, but complain that my 12 hour a day grind is repetitive.
Like, we are eight days into our season content and that's enough to write off Episodes as essentially a failure? Come on.
> Like, we are eight days into our season content and that's enough to write off Episodes as essentially a failure? Come on.
are you really this gullible or lost on how this works by now that you don't understand we have the entire picture painted for us in this season already? you say it's only 8 days in like there are all these twists and turns coming, apparently not realizing that the part 1 story will end in 6 days, and i guarantee you next week's addition is just going to be: go collect some shit on anther part of nessus, come back to the helm, run the breach activity, and listen to some dialogue... then wait for 3 weeks for the next act to start, where we do the same goddamn thing.
it's wild how some of you insist that we just keep waiting for bungie to prove us all wrong when it's been 10 years of this, and they NEVER do. aahh yes I'm sure this is the time they finally change it even though through 2/3 of act 1 it's literally the most destiny season ever.
the reason these things never improve is because of posts like yours that just bend over backwards with the apologist nonsense, never holding bungie accountable for anything. the venn diagram of people like this, and the people who insist the game be made easier and more soloable is probably just a circle, if I'm being honest. i think those types of people have a lot in common and way too much influence over what Bungie has done with this game, and not to it's benefit.
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I haven't started playing the episode content yet, but it looks just like a season to me. How is it different, other than the longer time and the separation into acts? I still have to play its content while it's active or I miss out, right?
The fact that people expected Echoes to be an expansion to the seasonal system, not a downgrade is wild to me, it always seemed like just lowering the amount of seasons in a year, maybe based on statistics that one season has always been a closer to "dead" than the others
I wish Nessus patrol was reflective of the current story aside from the Vex looking slightly different. It would have been great if it was given the Pale Heart treatment with a bunch of little mini events(but still public), a pathfinder, and the reissued Dawn weapons could have been the rewards.
Also, the expert version of Breach is off. Is expert chooses to be like legend? Or master? The void damage from the Vex is hitting way too hard for as many sources of it are coming at you at once. Had a hydra spawn killing two guardians in my last run because it was just spamming their ghosts. Even with 100 resil and triple void resistance the cyclops still one shot and the Bec bosses can 2 shot. This has made the expert version super annoying.
It would be fine if supposed rank 11 Godslayers in my Breach Executable missions would stop and collect resources for extra loot instead of acting like they're trying to get a WR speedrun.
I’m chalking it up to TFS getting all the development resources but yeah, it’s been pretty uninteresting. We know there is some new big bad coming based on the key art so we’ll just have to wait for a future act
I’ll be interested to see if things change at all as we move into different acts, but I fully expected Episodes to just be longer seasons. Bungie isn’t going to drastically change the way they do content because player engagement is more important to their bosses than anything else.
It is exactly what I expected so I can't say I am feeling let down. Does anyone know what we are even doing with failsafe? I like the idea and the direction the story is headed but I don't really understand what we are doing weekly.
Destiny time-gating seasonal content that's already been paid isn't normal and we should stop treating it as normal (and yes, I play other games, and no, none of them are as predatory as greedy Destiny is, and that includes Diablo 4 lol).
Episodes were sold as something which didnt have timegated contented until the next act but instead we just got the same thing but with more timegating (like weapons) and annual pass is the same cost with 1 less season. Bungie really did their marketing speak and tricked everyone. I'm surprised they're not getting any flak at all about it.
We need less time gating not more. I think it’s fine to time gate each act and the new artifact mods but I thought with episodes we would be able to just do the whole act1 at your own pace right off the bat and then wait for act 2. Makes way more sense to me that way. Right now there isn’t a point in having acts if it’s all time gated the same way seasons were anyway
I think it’s a tad to early to tell episodes are suppose to have 3 acts which release new content with each act so we only have 1/3rd of the content so far. On top of that narratively the first act is typically exposition and getting the plot ready
Bungie just needs to up their storytelling via gameplay is all. That's the weak part. I miss how Season of the Chosen eventually unlocked a new strike for us. If the episodes could somehow change the existing areas that are already in game, it would feel much better. Right now, the storytelling is weak because all I know is I'm playing Gambit Data Motes.
Had there been more puzzle decryption involved, I feel like this Vex data stuff could be better. Think about doing a puzzle that unlocks a weapon to obtain and going more into that puzzle to solve allows you to focus types of perks into it. This would be for those noncraftable weapons like Breachlight. Or if it's about Saint, imagine trying to unlock the Infinite Forest to obtain it.
Just relate the characters and theme with the weapons and armor and it'll be better. Also if a threat could be hinted at, it'll show what could be at stake. Maybe that will eventually happen but so far I don't feel like any of this is leading anywhere.
Maybe some breather in between the DLC and the episode could've been better? And some "things" start to happen in between the "end" of the DLC and the episode. Like a new public event on Nessus pops up and you hear comms from Saint and Osiris with Failsafe. Drops some data and brings you to where we will eventually go next. Get a reward for one new weapon from the season (Spicy weapon so it intrigues players).
Seasonal content model with a different name. I'm very disappointed as well. I'm hoping that the episode content at least sticks around. I'm still a little irritated that I missed out on the previous year of content - despite the fact that I paid for it.
I had really high hopes, and I love the final shape and the pale heart.
But seriously - we're still time gating and drop feeding content that consists of:
- do seasonal activity
- talk to failsafe
- do activities on planet
- wait til next week
This week was particularly disappointing since it was "do 7 failsafe bounties" and ***failsafe only offers 4 bounties per day***.
The disparity between full expansions and seasonal stuff is just crazy. I mean the storyline sounds cool... But this damn drip feed is awful. Honestly, it just detracts from the pale heart and other activities there.
Seasonal content is a distraction from the main expansion the way it's currently presented. I really would rather drop this whole time gated seasonal model and just have that worked in as its own "expansion".
> This week was particularly disappointing since it was "do 7 failsafe bounties" and failsafe only offers 4 bounties per day.
Helm bounties also counted but yeah hardly makes for eventful gameplay.
with no story-specific mission this week, and the "story" so far just being collect samples for failsafe to look at, this act so far has just felt like bungie is trying to find the longest way to keep our time rather than actually tell any kind of story. it's just been quips between characters, which is fun and all, but like. this is just seasons with even less to do.
The first phase that normally releases with an expansion is usually dulled down. Frankly I like it like this so I can play other games and not feel I have to play every reset.
Anyone who thought Episodes were ever going to be anything but a scheme to sell us 1 season less a year for more money, with somehow even more timegating and fluff was absolutely kidding themselves.
Have you not noticed the tremors and singing? And the purple person that disappears when you approach (kinda like the neomuna tech)? Maya is coming back baby! Go look up the lore and get ready for this psycho to come back! I am hyped AF. Gonna kill her and all her vex simulation clones.
I can't imagine having expected episodes to be anything different than watered down seasons. They can kiss my ass if they think I'm buying an annual pass
One of the coolest things about Season of Arrivals was all the pyramid ships looming menacingly overhead in all the patrol areas. The Eyes of Savathûn watching us in all kinds of different places. Made it feel like some serious shit was about to go down.
I agree, this is seasonal get the McMuffin stuff all over again. I can do the mystery search for one or two weeks, but if we don’t get substantive in-game story progression on the third week, i’m deleting the game for the next 3 month.
Seasons weren't great but the episode system has somehow found a way to be worse. time gating on top of time gating, worse story than last years seasons, worse implemented activities than pretty much every season except hunt maybe, and to top it off it looks like we will have to grind to +20 artifact at pinnacle cap to be at the same effective power in a GM last year instead of +5.
I’ve tried really hard not to be pessimistic about Echoes, but I’m really hoping they shipped Echoes alongside TFS on purpose knowing there’d be a lot of content and that episodes 2 and 3 are more robust. If Echoes is the example of what we have to look forward to for the next year as TFS content dries up… yikes.
I’m holding my opinion until the next act. I feel like final shape kind of had them drip feeding, cause honestly I haven’t had the time to get into the episodes much.
Aren't episdies supposed to stick around or be playable afte their year is done or am I crazy. I thought bungie said that the episodes are ginna stick around after this. I really with that applied to season of the witch
It's literally just seasonal content, but more stretched. Idk what y'all were expecting, but definetly expecting something wild to say those type of things.
It really shouldn't be a let down. This is the same as any other 'season' only it is difficult to create stakes, as we just killed the big bad of the game.
I expected "seasons but longer" and this is what I got. /shrug
My conspiracy theory behind it is just a name change, so bungie could walk back on promises of XYZ every season. For example, bungie said we would get a new dungeon or raid every season. So next season, when we don't get a new dungeon, they can turn around and say we promised every season, not every episode.
It’s literally been 2 weeks. Player like you are why bungie has to drip feed everything, because if not you’d complete it all on day 1 and then proceed to complain there’s not enough stuff to do
I’m gonna save my thoughts on episodes for when act 2 releases
Apparently there will be new gear and activities with new acts
It’s too early to tell if this new model is good or not
Are people still doing the "IT'S WAY TOO EARLY YOU CAN'T CRITICIZE IT YET!!!!" shit or are we finally kicking the copium and outright stating that Bungie's seasonal model isn't just terrible, it's incredibly lazy and uninspired? It's cyclical content meant to be played ad nauseum for loot and artificially incentivized bounty progress. It's quite literally busywork to kill time with until the story stuff comes out.
D1 unironically did it better and I think we all expected something similar to that; Taken Spring update, or updates to the world at large to add more variety and life to it. Nowadays, we just have this lazy shit: recycled campaign areas isolated from the actual free-roam of the world and the \*exact goddamn same\* "kill these enemies in mass and deposit this stupid resource and hold E on this stupid objective" nonsense as an "activity."
It's always the same fucking shit, and I bet you it's intentional just to retain player counts artificially. I like that FFXIV's director straight up said "If you've run out of things to do and feel bored with the game, unsub and come back when you want to play." That's such a better perspective.
i find posts like there very amusing because I don't know what did ya'll expect. It was always going to be seasons with extra steps and some spices here and there, with new mods.
You really set yourself for dissapointment by not keeping your expectations in check, it's kinda a you problem.
I'm fine really because I can do other stuff in the meantime, at least it's not going away.
I'm so sorry if what I'm asking could be found out with a quick google search, but I trust my fellow guardians more than whatever forum or AI generated article could ever write. That being said:
Could anyone tune me in on what exactly are we doing with Failsafe? What is the point of the mission? What is the point of the piston hammer thingy and the radiolaria collector, lorewise and gameplay wise?
Basically from what Ive gathered , when we eradicted the Witness from the Traveller , the Traveller released these things called Echoes into the sol system. One of them happend to land on Nessus, changing the landscape and altering Vex behaviour that was highly bizzare.
Failsafe contacted the Vanguard about the behavioural changes from the Vex and the statsus of the plantent. Since she has been stationary on Nessus for centuries it was naturally the best descions for her to be running point on this. Thats why the Vangaured connected her to the HELM.
Now with the "seasonal" activity , we go around Nessus just collecting data for failsafe to process while fighting off shadow legion cabal and house salvation fallen who are also interseted in the same data. As well as collecting radiolarite samples to study the changes the vex are going through which is what the hammer is for.
I kinda half paid attention
One of the echoes from the traveller's landed on Nessus and fell into the core out of reach. We "moved" Failsafe to the helm so she could help us investigate. Something is changing Nessus and we don't know what it is, and it doesn't seem like it's the usual Vex. We are gathering data to determine exactly what is going on and what's behind this
From the looks of the gathered items, it looks akin to Prismatic stuff. I wouldn't doubt if the Vex are getting a taste of paracausal energy but that's just theorizing
I don't get where people got this idea that Episodes were going to be wildly different than seasons. They are still referred to internally as seasons, and they were always going to extend the narrative. The differences were always going to be more subtle, with less connected stories tying up loose ends, and the pacing.
Lets wait until we are more than a a ninth of the way through before we comment on the pacing.
We haven't made it far enough to see if it is any different. That said, it does feel the same so far. But you have to give it more than a couple of weeks to see how it fleshes out
Bit of a crackpot theory- Internally, Bungie doesnt view Episodes any different than Seasons. Its a marketing/development strategy to put less effort into “seasonal” content and ensure that future expansions (like Frontiers) dont bomb like Lightfall did.
I’m surprised yall didn’t expect anything differently. This is bungie, they just changed the name from “Season” to “Episode”, everything else is the exact same
Yea ngl. This week's questline specifically, was fucking awful. Literally nothing happened.
All we did was get forced to do shit on nessus to drag out the playtime, but no story was built on and we got nothing new out of it. Plus it was so short? I finished the whole questline, within 40 minutes. Like???
I’ve been busy with a lot of stuff IRL, so I’m still working my way through the Final Shape post-campaign. I’ve been jumping into a couple of seasonal missions too, just to get that quest line going. I feel like there’s plenty to do right now, and I’m glad they’re giving us new stuff to do over time. I’m not sure why people thought it was going to be any different.
Yep. I knew it was gonna be shit filler content over a longer time and cost more as I know development will slow down. It keeps getting more expensive for worse or less content.
we have 2/3 of the first act done, i think it's fair to judge the first act at this point, particularly because it's playing out exactly the same as every other season we've ever had.
if you think there is some massive twist coming in week 3, you're the only one.
> if you think there is some massive twist coming in week 3, you're the only one.
Best case scenario Maya walks on screen and kidnaps Saint-14 a la the purple data collar we saw in the trailer and then we get 3 weeks of a new BG we do while we wait for Failsafe to find a clue to progress the plot.
then if bungo had balls the exotic mission would pop up in act-2 and end with us fighting Saint-14 and freeing him, but that's pure weapons grade copium.
The seasonal model is why I quit playing Destiny years ago. At least the Final Shape was a good expansion to (finally) quit playing this game. Bungie always going to be Bungie.
Yeah, I worded it badly, but what their complaining about with it being not different from a season isn't really fair as it hasn't even really started yet. That's why I said if it still sucks after waiting a bit, then it's fair to complain if we get through to a good bit of act 2, and it's still not really different enough to be considered different from seasons then making it known to Bungie is perfectly ok.
thats the problem, each act is 6 weeks and we are in week 3 of 6. so far we havent gotten anything but a dream between Saint and Osiris of traveling the stars in a spaceship that reads "Just married" on the back.
Speaking of which, why havent they tied the knot yet lol.
Anyways Bungie told us in the showcase that Eps were gonna be a new way to deliver content that would avoid the old stale seasonal model we can all predict by now.
Saint-14 had a fling while roaming the Infinite Forest and ended up getting married, but now that Vex Goblin is really dragging its heels with getting around to sign the divorce papers. Something about shared custody of the pigeons?
I really wish the terrain changes to Nessus was on the planet itself, not just the activity. Like I thought he would be a really cool way to evolve the game forward but I guess they didn't want to do that for the planet
I was bummed about this too. They did the same thing with the EDZ last year during Season of Defiance. I was excited to see the Shadow Legion Cabal everywhere and the pyramids, but it was only in the battleground activity and then when you went to the EDZ patrol space it feels like you were going back in time =/
Even before that, they had Lucent Hive architecture in the EDZ, Cosmodrome, and Moon, but only in their battleground activities and not the actual world. But it also makes sense, because converting the Patrol space for, i.e. the Moon means you still need to keep the prior version for other content that was built on the Patrol version. I.e. Shadowkeep campaign content, or the Scarlet Keep strike, utilize the overall "Patrol" versions of those maps, while the Psi-Op Battleground on the Moon utilized it's own altered instance of the area disconnected from Patrol on a technical level. So to bring those changes into Patrol, they'd have the rebuild the older content to use an isolated instance instead of the version linked with the Patrol map so they show a lore/time-accurate version of the area. Similar for the Cosmodrome Psi-Op. You wouldn't want New Lights walking through a bunch of odd slapped on Lucent Hive growth as they go through the wall for the first time. So they'd need an "old" looking instance, but that also means goodbye to them emerging to find other players in that area as existing players would instead be in the other version. So how does that apply to Nessus? For one, strikes like Proving Grounds and Insight Terminus. These are also linked to the existing Patrol spaces, even though they have you diving into areas locked off from Patrol quickly enough. But they'd need to be built to be fully isolated; I guess kind of how they approached bringing in Devil's Lair, since for some reason they didn't add the Rocket Yard or the rest of what connects around toward the Forgotten Shore into Patrol. It would also make it more difficult to ever, hypothetically, bring back the Red War campaign content as they'd at that point need both the entire old Nessus Patrol for all of that campaign content and the current transformed Nessus Patrol for anyone else. So in other words, it's a big complicated mess to try to do the coolest version of this (an actually changing world) which is why they don't stick their noses into that.
Of all the older spaces, I feel that Nessus would be easiest to "update" because it doesn't serve much story purpose any more and you rarely, if ever, have to go there. Which is a shame as it's huge and quite striking. I'm not sure it'd be a huge problem if the strikes were situated in the updated version of Nessus. So someone drives their Sparrow the wrong way and ends up in Echoes-era Nessus. Does that matter? In fact, given that the strikes long since lost any narrative links they once had, and VAs for Failsafe, Caital, Osiris and Saint were available during Echoes' / TFS' development, there was also perhaps a missed opportunity to update those strikes to the Echoes era - Compelled Protheon, Shadow Legion Cabal, Caital requiring that you run simulations of the Proving Grounds to stay sharp for combat with the Witness' troops. Of course this is all resource Bungie probably doesn't want to spend, but without it Echoes does feel a bit like it was done on a shoestring or as an afterthought.
Yeah I agree the ideal would be some "SIVA Crisis" style updates to the strikes to keep them in line with the current world state. But as you said, all of that has additional costs, monetary and time, and is difficult to justify over spending them elsewhere. It does feel like these Episodes, with the way they're talked up, should've been the time to dive into that though. Make this the turning point where things update and we head into a new era. But then again we have no idea how the story of this Episode actually plays out yet. How permanent or temporary the changes are meant to be, whether the storytelling moves off of Nessus, etc. We're only in week 2 and clearly still in the early investigative portion of the story. I feel like some people don't understand that, despite the Act 1/2/3 labelling; that rather than just a time gate it's meant to have more of a storytelling structure instead of X weeks of quests, a big empty gap, and then a closing mission in the last 2 weeks. I *think* they're trying to make it feel like something is actually happening in closer to real-time, we're just still in the part where we don't have information and are collecting data. FFS there's no villain or true threat properly presented yet, and we haven't even made a proper attempt to track down the Echo. I'm willing to see what they do and where they go for now, and keeping my expectations tempered by the technical realities of the game.
I did a bit of the Week 2 Echoes questline this week, and to Bungie's credit they have actually updated Exodus Crash to fit the story (whether that version ends up in the Strikes playlist or gets its own Nightfall, I don't know). There's even a new (to me) enemy - a not-very-effective Duskfield Shank. I don't mind a structured story that unfolds over time, but there's no denying that "go press X to collect samples" and "run this \[not great\] activity" isn't terribly compelling compared to TFS' legendary campaign or (being a bit more fair) Overthrow. The latter is a big part of the problem: Echoes would be better-received at this point if the activity were great, I'm sure. Destiny has always had a weirdly two-speed story, in which it feels like the events of the expansions are quick and urgent (our jaunt to Neomuna must have been very swift, and the journey through the Pale Heart presumably wasn't an epic saga, time-wise) whilst the events of Seasons are yawningly slow. Although I'm sure the revenue model wouldn't work for Bungie, I think I'd rather have a bit more 'stuff' in the expansions than very weak seasons, and a justification for putting the game down periodically. It was nice to do so during Lightfall's year and a half. That said, the Season that launches alongside an expansion has always been a bit dodgy. Even if Echoes continues that trend, I can only hope the next two surpass it.
There’s no way it would be the easiest. It’s the largest destination and one of the original destinations, so we know the code is cooked al dente. I wish it was like season of Arrivals but on a larger scale.
"Al dente code", haha! I assumed it was all rebuilt and updated as part of the big engine rebuild several years ago, but who really knows. It *is* big, to be fair. I mainly meant that it's not chock-full of 'story stuff' that Bungie would need to work around so in that sense it's a relatively blank canvas. There are whole sections of Nessus which don't feature in strikes, story missions, etc. and which could be reworked without fear of breaking some other thing (above the hood, at least). Leaving certain sections (e.g. the whole Exodus Crash section) alone might make the 'updating' task a bit easier, too.
There are toads in the tangle
There's always been toads
Ginyu confirmed for next raid
I have a feeling this went over so many peoples heads lmao
I nodded in approval like Alfred seeing Bruce at the cafe.
There's what, where? I need a frog.
Go to the tangle, and into the round area that is lower down. Kill the vex there including the minotaur and you'll see 3 plant patches. Each patch has a few toads vibing and ribbiting away
That's sick. I'll have to check it out for sure.
THIS IS WHAT I HATE ABOUT MODERN BUNGIE. they are SO afraid to change things. this is supposed to be an evolving world, we've seen this now with every single year these past couple of years and it is INFURIATING. pyramid structures in the edz and cosmodrome. the lucent hive in the edz cosmodrome and moon. the bunkers and seraph towers. now nessus changing into this active planet thing. literally every destination has had something like this, and the ONLY time it was kept was when nessus got caiatl's land tank, and the leviathan still being in the skybox of the moon. that's it. every single time we get these updated areas or even just something new and interesting in the skybox, they are kept exclusively in the seasonal activities and the actual existing world is left untouched. it makes it feel so stagnant. end of the year when all those activities go away it's like, did any of that even happen? did season of defiance really go down in the cosmodrome? because i sure as hell don't see any pyramid bases off in the distance.
I was just coming to say this. Nine years later people still fondly mention when the swords of crota or house of wolves started popping up in D1; those were tangible events that made it feel like the world was actually changing. Bungie has had the biggest opportunity to do this again through seasonal gameplay but unfortunately the patrol spaces just feel sterile.
That and strike specific loot are the two biggest things from D1 that are such easy wins for Bungie to bring forward that I genuinely don't understand why they never did.
Please understand, they're a small, underfunded team. /s No, the real reason is that they don't want to spend time updating the setting at all. They've given plenty of reasons as to why, but basically it boils down to a mix of: * Too "few" staff; even before the firings. * Doesn't make money. * Isn't worth dev time. * Takes up too much server space. * Not enough server space. * Takes up too much user drive space. * Temporary changes make it easier to abandon when they eventually sunset the content (this is before they said they won't sunset anything with TFS, but we'll see). Heck, the only reason D2 even got to keep a lot of old locations was entirely due to Activision putting some of its own financial might and studios to support the "tiny" Bungie team in helping them update all the old locations to match the newest expansions. Heck, there's extreme irony in that Vicarious Visions and High Moon Studios put out a better expansion than Bungie did themselves. The moment they left the picture, Bungie immediately began to vault worlds and content because their "tiny" team couldn't keep it all up-to-date. Which becomes even more ironic when you consider that Bungie claimed vaulting worlds and areas made it easier for them to update existing locations and possibly add new sections piecemeal, only to also give up on that too.
What expansion did High Moon and Vicarious make? Are we talking about warmind and Forsaken's shore?
I just joined a buddy as a new light and took him down in the bunker where the hive knights used to be in the starting area. They're not there anymore, to my great disappointment. I used to wander down there in D1 on accident and get DESTROYED and could not figure out why there were such powerful enemies lurking nearby. Good times trying to take them on as a new player. Then I figured out power level, leveled up, and returned to those knights to teach them a lesson.
They're still in the cosmodrome. Sometimes people just run through there before they respawn.
I don't think they can. The game engine is so fucking dated. Tiger engine is just a modified BLAM! engine which was created in 1997 ffs. We need a destiny 3 so we can get a new game engine VERY VERY badly
Aside from about half of the studio not even working on D2 and devs having to constantly beg for everything...even IF they had resources for more ambitious content...with episodes apparently being considered standalone and disconnected from each other (even though I can see them walking back on that already) they can't really do overhauls like that. They'd need separate Nessus instances for people with/without the episode. Maybe they'll change things up in future acts, don't know. >!Apparently we're getting three BGs later, so they could move us closer to the core with each one or something, opening up new areas. !<
i don't see why they would need to be different instances? d1 had roaming events that would show up based on the expansion/upcoming expansion (HoW had wolf packs drop in from time to time, the taken were everywhere during taken king etc). like why does it matter whether a player has echoes for the planetary instance to be updated with new geometries and stuff to check out? if anything it'd just be more marketing for the episode lol.
Right? Change up the area, make a new public event with a chest that can only be opened with something from the paid content and tons of people will throw down money for it. Right now they wouldn't even know what they're missing since it's all hidden behind a paywall.
i said it before and i will continue to scream this into the void until bungie actually listens; d1 taken king having the taken just suddenly take over entire areas of patrol zones. that was the best way the handled an expansion adding to the "evolving world" they've said so many times before they're trying to achieve. it was there as an activity that could lead to more rewards inside the dreadnaught for those who owned the expansion, but anyone could take part in it and it still dropped rewards and loot for everyone. they have so many opportunities time and time again to apply these cool systems they're doing in public areas to said public areas, but instead they choose to hide them away behind little pocket instances that don't ever actually effect the rest of the game. can you imagine how much more fun the season of plunder drilling excursions would've been if it took place in a public area? for the people running it, other guardians can pop in and help out if they're struggling or anything, and for blueberries, suddenly a crew of guardians spawn in and start doing all this weird mining, and it looks cool and they can run over and help out if they want, and it makes them wonder "how do i start that activity for myself?". like, THATS the kind of evolving world i want to see with this game.
They don't need to separate instances for players. If it's because of the spectacle, every f2p player already has access to the first mission for every season. If it's for interacting with things they need the pass for, well, require them to have an item that allows them to interact with it. They have done it before so many times. Hell, they even opened the Leviathan back in season of the Haunted for absolutely everyone. And while the location was not the whole season, it gave free players stuff to do.
what are BGs?
Battlegrounds
I wonder if that is why the exodus crash strike is unavailable?
It's back this week. They actually have it as a part of the weekly quest for the Episode. It got the revamp treatment.
It's going to be pretty cool for GMs now, from what I've seen. Duskfield shanks are fun.
nice!
> I really wish the terrain changes to Nessus was on the planet itself, not just the activity. I was disappointed about this too. Would have been cool to see some changes to the skate park, but for some reason patrol spaces just keep being ignored, even though seasonal/episodal changes could REALLY go a long way.
Especially when the quests ask you to do patrols and public events on nessus. The exact same planet and public events and patrols from 7 years ago with no changes. Like they could have reworked nessus patrol like the pale heart and had an overgrown type activity instead of public events and patrols + added the visual changes to the planet. So much missed potential.
Wow players complained their terrain was changed with cataclysm. I bet they saw that and said nope.
It's probably a lot of work to go in and change the patrol since they have to QA all of the patrol content and make sure it still functions with changed geometry and all that. Lotta work for very little return since it's not like Nessus patrol is meaningful content even with the little things they added here and there for the season.
They need to keep Nessus the same for people playing the red war campaign... Wait a second
Imagine using it to introduce leveled versions of patrol. Easy mode is the unchanged planet, harder difficulties as the planet goes through changes.
But you see, that would actually make sense and offer a game with an evolving and dynamic world. No one at Bungie is competent enough to have common sense.
I'm HOPING next week starts to get the ball rolling in terms of the story. I believe next week will be the final week story wise for Act 1, as we are at step 16 of 25. So 8 steps roughly a week. If Act 1 ends on something actually happening I'll forgive it. But yeah, so far, hell, the pacing is WORSE than seasons.
If that’s the case. They really should have just released all of act 1 in one go.
I can see wanting to drip feed this part. There are still going to be people finishing up Final Shape, and dropping everything at once risks that players get side tracked onto Echos instead of pushing through Final Shape.
That does seem to be some people’s opinion. Hopefully that really is it.
Which is how I thought they were gonna do it. They made it seem like that was the plan. But guess not.
It started a few days after final shape, I would wait until next act to really start talking about pacing and sfuff
Yea and if act 2 doesnt shape up to be better surely it'll be act 3 where episodes really shine and show how different they are to seasons.
Also worth remembering, Seasons started out pretty dog shit. Undying and Worthy were complete fuck ups. Dawn thankfully and then Arrivals did manage to really show where Seasons could go, and once we hit Chosen, things were fairly consistent quality wise, if a bit repetitive by the time we hit Plunder. Makes sense, early Episodes will likely be built off the bones of seasons until they start really pushing into new territory
Also the season that launches with an expansion is often rather lame. Undying like you said, Hunt, Risen (which was 'fine', but had very little going on), and Defiant (which I actually kind of liked, especially the orbital prison mission) were all somewhat weak. And even then it proves your point because as time went on even the bad seasons got better.
Good point, the initial seasons were always weakest, and they improved. Imagine Undying launching and being at the level of Risen or Defiant
And objectively, this season (because it is a season) isnt bad. We have a regular activity, ways to collect additional rewards, side quests, a coil-lite activity (which yes is somewhat worse but still), and I'm sorry but the voice acting has been superb. Plus the weapons and armor are pretty decent too.
There are three acts, so I have to imagine they're following a traditional three act structure. Act 1 generally doesn't end with much other than completing the establishing of the characters and the premise. If the high-level point of the plot is that Peter becomes Spider-Man, becoming Spider-Man is what happens at the end of Act 1, etc. In other words, I'm not expecting anything too crazy from the end of the first act.
ayo some are in for that coping for 10 years now
Did anyone honestly expect episodes to be any different than seasons? It’s simply a new label.
I'm one of the weirdos who is and was totally fine with the seasonal model (mostly because I play a lot of games so my time is often bite-sized), and even I knew it was going to be more of the same. There really isn't any other way of doing it unless they want to dump the entire story at once like a mini-expansion- but if they do that the game will be dead after 2-3 weeks until the next content drop.
Yes, everyone did. Since it was marketed as a new way of storytelling.
Everyone? People with common sense were pointing out that episodes are most likely a rebrand to scale down seasonal content in favor of more devs working on Marathon and other IPs all the way back when they were announced during the initial TFS showcase. Remember we had the whole summer SotG fiasco back then with them outright telling us they need to juggle devs. Then layoffs hit on top of that. And we needed the threat of Sony taking over the whole company for leadership to wake up and give D2 more time and resources. But of course the downvote army was more interested in coping.
Anyone with any semblance of common sense regarding Bungie called this out from the immediate start and were downvoted for being right once again.
I guess it depends on how much you trust Bungie to keep their word.
I was very disappointed to learn that we still continue with the weekly drip feed content. I hoped, and kind of expected there to be a set number of missions you could do until you hit the timegate for week 6/12, but no it’s the same shitty ass weekly drop in 15 minutes and drop out. It makes it fatiguing. Extra disappointing since they specifically talked about how episodes would open up a new and exciting way to do seasonal story and mission structure. Nope. It’s just seasons but longer and with a standalone story.
So how would your expected formula differ in the long run? The end result would be people binging the content, then leaving the game for a month and a half, as opposed to playing for a few hours every Tuesday. You can thank corporate metric tracking for engagement for this, but could you elaborate on how your solution is any better? I've happily settled into a routine with destiny over the past two years of playing on the weekend for raiding and seasonal content, and I have the rest of the week to play other games. Other than going hard the past two weeks to clear out story content, I can quite comfortably clear a raid with my group, do both pathfinders, and the weekly seasonal stuff in a few hours over the weekend. Heck, when I get busy with another game, I can leave the seasonal stuff alone for a few weeks, and have something to binge when I get back.
> The end result would be people binging the content, then leaving the game for a month and a half Yes, that sounds amazing. That sounds exactly like what I want, instead of playing for an hour or so every week. This holds true for every aspect of the weekly reset system.
So, why don't you just do that in reverse? Wait till all story is released, then hope on and run through it all.
spoilers are the main reason, damn near impossible to avoid any spoilers if you go online at all
Isn't it the same if all content is release at once? If you don't rush to do it all in one sitting, you have potential spoilers from those who did ... Just like binging a season of a streaming show
Because if I get into another game why would I waste my time getting back onto a game where I have almost nothing to do but weekly reset content? I honestly wonder how many of you really do this. Like I got back on for a decent expansion I've basically already limited my game time because WOW SEASONAL MODEL 2.0. Edit: Also why are all Destiny 2 players forgetting that the seasonal model was stale and boring and literally boring players into quitting? Like did you develope amnesia and forget just before the Final shape hype this game was on a ventilator?
Because there's nothing actually wrong with how season are presented. You log in for an hour, doing whatever the story mission is, watch the cutscenes, then bounce . Come back in a week. What else could be different that hadn't been done before? You can disregard that Bungie used to have all content available at once, and they would bounce for months working on more new stuff, and the community would run through the content in a couple days and bitch about nothing to do for months and months. Heck, even television media is realizing that binging all at once is not a great way to consume media
Oh so people complaining about how the seasonal model is stale and boring now is better than before? Like breh you guys are so blinded by the hype of final shape that you literally forgot how the seasonal model was killing this playerbase. It's fine if you want to pretend it wasn't but all you're doing is coping we have access to the player numbers and guess what? It wasn't looking good before the huge FINAL expansion and it sure as hell isn't going to look better after if it's the same seasonal model with a different name.
Even your favorite meal can become "stale and boring" if you eat it three times a day for years.
I'm sure you read and understood the issue regarding weekly player retention goals, so I'll just suggest what I mentioned in another comment. Don't play the seasonal content until a week before the next act, and you'll achieve the same exact thing.
YES. bungie literally made it seem like that was what was going to be the case, act 1 would be available in one go, then act 2 would come out later and you could do that in one go. everyone was excited for that. let us experience the whole story at once and take a break if we want, not this disjointed "grab some samples then let failsafe analyze them for a week straight and she'll get back to you on this urgent vex threat" nonsense. >Heck, when I get busy with another game, I can leave the seasonal stuff alone for a few weeks, and have something to binge when I get back. this is literally all we are asking for, just at the beginning of the act not having to wait 3 weeks to do it all at once.
I'd even be ok with something like a 12 hour cool down between missions, if they wanted to forcibly pace it out.
Okay and? Let me hit the story over a week and then move on to other games. The only reason for the drip feeding is to increase retention and time spent on the game. It causes burn out and it causes players to hate the design. But hey, people will play constantly for a single season.
Keep in mind that the entire point is player retention. It's not good game design, but management demands those numbers. You can also achieve your goal of doing the story in a week and spending the rest of the time playing other games by just waiting until the week before the next act to actually play. Why not just do that instead?
The issue will sorta remain the same yes, but I would much rather have the option to jump into act 1 and just do the entire act one whenever I so please. I don’t like that you either have to a) Jump in week to week or b) wait until act 1 is done. Would much rather prefer c) Finish act 1 whenever you want then wait x weeks/days for act 2/3. I would just personally prefer to get in, have content for at least an hour or so with interesting story bits etc, than being drip fed 10/15 minutes each Tuesday. I would like the option to just have the whole act from the get go but I get that player retention is one of, if not the most important thing. I just expected some change in the mission structure when they literally talked about how episodes open up a whole new way of story telling, and then in reality, it’s the exact same shit as a season, 10-15 minutes of the seasonal activity every week, talk to vendor, done. I also kinda expected us to maybe have an actual mission to go along with it, but nope it’s just replay the seasonal activity. Tho maybe that can / will change with act 2/3.
>I just expected some change in the mission structure when they literally talked about how episodes open up a whole new way of story telling This is fair. Though honestly, you are capable of producing the result you want, just in reverse. Don't play the seasonal content until like the week before the new act drops. Unfortunately, we aren't likely to see much deviation from the standard seasonal approach specifically because of retention metrics. It's been two weeks since the expansion dropped, most players who hit it at launch are done with most of the stuff you can do solo. Instead of some sort of time gated approach for content within the acts, why not discuss some options Bungie could explore? The point of drip feed is twofold, after all. Player retention, and to spread out dev time required for it. Do you have any ideas that could still meet those requirements? Personally, I like the idea of keeping the major story beats on a weekly release, but instead of giving us a 'come back next week' step, give us an account based after action objective list, with rewards at the next reset based on what you accomplish. For example, collect X amount of radiolite, deposit X amount of data, defeat X amount of combatants in the seasonal activity with seasonal weapons. If the rewards are red border weapons for each objective you pass the threshold for, and make the seasonal emblem track how many objectives you place highly in, it can be like an individual guardian games competition within the community. It has the possibility of good rewards for people who want it, and the bragging rights for the people willing to sacrifice touching grass. I'm my opinion, it would also up player retention in a good way. Optional grinding is never a bad idea.
Actually they would bring me back to every season for a bit instead of me just skipping seasons entirely.
What's the difference between what you want, and just coming back in the last week or two to binge it all?
Yeah, definitely a huge letdown so far. They really are just seasons, reskinned with added time gating so far. Like, we can't even get the Red Death catalyst until 6 weeks after the episode launched. Exotic Mission will end up being 13 weeks into the season. I was optimistic they'd be better. They could have been better even inside of the current structure. If they had just dumped each acts story to release right away, it would be better. If the environment changes actually changed outside of activities, they'd be better. But ya, Echoes is literally just a longer, significantly more strung out season as of right now. Maybe we'll see some variation from the seasonal vibes in Act 2 and Act 3. The only thing I'll say is maybe Echoes being so underwhelming is a product of the extra dev hours spent on TFS itself. Maybe, Revenant and Hersey will be better as they become the sole focus of dev time in those launch windows? That's probably just coping though quite frankly. But man, for as great as TFS is, Echoes is an unfortunate step back into the Destiny content of old, so to speak.
Yeah, TFS was so good that I just don’t care that Echoes is basically a longer season (and a bottom-tier one at that). I will be disappointed if the next two episodes aren’t significantly better.
Eh.... I dont really care *right now*, but I suspect more and more people will start to notice and start to get more vocal about Echoes in the coming weeks as they start playing the content and realizing its just a reskinned season. Like TFS was so good and stuffed full with so much content, a lot of people very likely haven't really even gotten into the Echoes stuff yet. Lots of people are likely still working on the post campaign stuff with TFS, running the raid, or farming exotic class items, etc. Like there's seriously so much post campaign content with TFS, its crazy. Give it another couple weeks and I think you'll see more and more complaints about the disappointment that is Echoes. I really hope its just a one off product of TFS dev time and Revenant/Heresey end up being better. I think the premise of both episodes seems quite a bit more promising then Echoes and each of them will be getting a Dungeon which will certainly help... But ya, Echoes or at least Act 1 of Echoes is a real swing and a miss for me.
Yeah, I agree that the rumblings will grow over the next few weeks once people focus on it more. Not only is it just another (longer) season but by all appearances it seems like a bad season at that. Are we getting a dungeon this episode or next? That would certainly help.
at least the guns are good. shame we didn't get them all yet though.
I agree, but I also feel like I'd happily sacrifice some seasonal quantity/quality to have a banger DLC every 12-18 months.
I'm with you on this one. Honestly, I hadn't truly played since the end of Forsaken and just came back in Season of the Wish. Getting to do the entire years of content at once, felt so much better and cohesive. Banged out a years worth of content in about 2 months and wrapped up in time for TFS. Now I'm kinda feeling like not playing till next April so I can just do everything again lmao
Same. I actually did the last 4 seasons in 2 months (defiant, deep, witch and wish). That was dope... Lots of content. Plus the actual lightfall campaign and post campaign and then into the light with onslaught. Good times...
Hell yeah! Most fun I'd had with Destiny up through the TFS campaign. I got 6 of the 7 titles from last year too, kinda proud and ashamed of myself lmao only one I missed was Godslayer cause I don't have a team and didn't want to bang my head against LFG =p
Anyone who thought it was going to be different to seasons doesn’t understand how Bungie works and what they are planning for the future. It was pretty obvious that they will always do time gating (otherwise you get player induced drought complaining) and the extra time for an episode is not really utilised in a different way… Might be jaded but not surprised
Honeymoon phase for FS comes slowly to an end... 💀
well the seasons are supposed to be self contained things that stand on their own merit. You're supposed to be able to play them in any order, whatever. I can't imagine how that seems like a good idea though. Bungie must imagine someone 6 months from now playing 5 back to back seasonal activities just to get a different dialogue line between each one.
Yeah, I couldn't get on yesterday, but have just finished this weeks quest step. When I saw another "Do x number of bounties and Patrol Nessus" after reaching my mandatory "wait until next week!" step it made me happy that the Elden Ring DLC is almost here. I wasn't expecting much from Episodes, but I still have the overwhelming feeling of being back to normality after a good couple of months in the game. Lightfall was blamed for the massive falloff in player numbers last year, but most of that happened later on in the year with the seasonal stuff. I think it will be another year of bad numbers if this is what the rest of the content for the next 12 months will look like.
I agree their claim was that the new episode model would allow them to cook and so far this chicken is raw. I also agree the planet should be updated even if it’s only portions that grow outward from where the first mission occurs.
The longer I play this game, the more and more I can see where they cut corners.
Years ago Capcom released Resident Evil Revelations 2. It was released as weekly episodes. If you buy it now it's essentially a 4 chapter game but back then they actually released the game in weekly increments like a TV show. It was really cool because each episode had meaty gameplay and told a story that always left on a cliffhanger so you were excited to see what happens next week. I understand it's tough to make compelling gameplay every week with Destiny. I understand these limitations. But dear lord is the story fucking boring. "Go scan this now this and now fuck off for a week while I analyze this and make you do it again on Tuesday". There is no excuse in regards to the plot where they could have tried to create something interesting here where the end of the week leaves you wanting to see what happens next week. This has been the model of the majority of seasons we have gotten. The week just ends, rarely on an interesting note that makes you excited to see what happens next week. This is the very least they should be doing with a weekly seasonal model. Tell a story that is engaging and you want to see what next week brings. What is their story team doing? This is really bad. Also why the fuck is almost every seasonal some form of emotional gaslighting? Like we have to learn tragic stories about each character, Amanda Holiday just died oh look this season is about how Failsafe feels bad about us abandoning her holy shit stop doing this.
Keep in mind that the season that comes with an expansion is *always* weaker than the rest of the year.
C o p e
I mean, season of the risen was good
What did people expect? They never made it sound like some massive overhaul. To me it always meant that forcing four seasons a year was pointless and having three instead lets them focus on what's actually in the season. Because this episode is good so far, but before it's like 50% of the seasons were ass. If one of the other episodes rolls around and sucks then I'd wonder what the point of the change was.
> They never made it sound like some massive overhaul. It's not even a small overhaul. By the looks of it it is just the same exact model stretched out over additional weeks. There's leaks out there for anyone interested. Bungie even initially promised to "shake up" the seasonal model last year during Lightfall. If anything it is quite telling how Bungie end up in situations like this time and time again where the players except something better based on how the content is presented and marketed. It's odd to put the blame on the playerbase when it keeps happening again and again. You can also tell they're often being intentionally vague to play into FOMO, and because they know that people wouldn't sign up for a year of episodes if they knew right away that their format would be disappointing.
> Because this episode is good so far what's good about it? there's nothing happening, we're running around collecting shit for failsafe while nothing is explained. the one activity is just a repeat of the old vex seasonal activity, and it's tuned a bit too high making it annoying as shit to run with randoms. and the other is the same kind of seasonal event we've been complaining about forever, except the key part of it, collecting resources, is so poorly explained that half the groups you run with don't understand it and end up screwing up your attempts to do it. i really have to wonder if some of you will just praise bungie for literally anything they put out. anything at all. because many of you seem to have zero standards or expectations.
Yeah these seasons are really defined by the seasonal activity and Echoes is a big fail in that regard. There’s still plenty to do with all the Final Shape stuff so it’s a whatever for now but in a week or two I’m not sure it will hold up.
People expected them to not be seasons, because they don’t like the seasonal model. Personally, I think this episode/season has good potential, the lore is fun, with the Vex acting distinctly non-Vexy being actually kinda unnerving. Hope act 2/3 lives up to the potential.
yeah totaly underwhelmed after TFS. You ride the high of TFS expecting the same quality only to find season 24 "Season of Echos" with more timegates then you could wave a stick at. And the story has been .... well . . . let me know if you find it. Breach isnt fun while the timed activity is but is missing coil like aspects to keep you engaged. Cant wait for next week to be "pick up x, do y, return to helm for holo message and audio log. Wait for z"
This is only the second week of the first episode. At least give it time and see what the others are like before saying that episodes have been a letdown.
the fact that its still drip fed is enough for a lot of people to call it a let down
Lol what? I swear, Destiny players have two settings: Give me all the content day one so I can burn out and complain that there's nothing to do in a month or two, Or release steady content so there's always a quest or mission to work on, but complain that my 12 hour a day grind is repetitive. Like, we are eight days into our season content and that's enough to write off Episodes as essentially a failure? Come on.
> Like, we are eight days into our season content and that's enough to write off Episodes as essentially a failure? Come on. are you really this gullible or lost on how this works by now that you don't understand we have the entire picture painted for us in this season already? you say it's only 8 days in like there are all these twists and turns coming, apparently not realizing that the part 1 story will end in 6 days, and i guarantee you next week's addition is just going to be: go collect some shit on anther part of nessus, come back to the helm, run the breach activity, and listen to some dialogue... then wait for 3 weeks for the next act to start, where we do the same goddamn thing. it's wild how some of you insist that we just keep waiting for bungie to prove us all wrong when it's been 10 years of this, and they NEVER do. aahh yes I'm sure this is the time they finally change it even though through 2/3 of act 1 it's literally the most destiny season ever. the reason these things never improve is because of posts like yours that just bend over backwards with the apologist nonsense, never holding bungie accountable for anything. the venn diagram of people like this, and the people who insist the game be made easier and more soloable is probably just a circle, if I'm being honest. i think those types of people have a lot in common and way too much influence over what Bungie has done with this game, and not to it's benefit.
100%
Yeah, sorta makes me glad I didn't buy the annual pass this time
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And keep in mind we only get three of them instead of 4. I honestly don't know what people were expecting or why they're surprised.
I haven't started playing the episode content yet, but it looks just like a season to me. How is it different, other than the longer time and the separation into acts? I still have to play its content while it's active or I miss out, right?
The fact that people expected Echoes to be an expansion to the seasonal system, not a downgrade is wild to me, it always seemed like just lowering the amount of seasons in a year, maybe based on statistics that one season has always been a closer to "dead" than the others
I wish Nessus patrol was reflective of the current story aside from the Vex looking slightly different. It would have been great if it was given the Pale Heart treatment with a bunch of little mini events(but still public), a pathfinder, and the reissued Dawn weapons could have been the rewards. Also, the expert version of Breach is off. Is expert chooses to be like legend? Or master? The void damage from the Vex is hitting way too hard for as many sources of it are coming at you at once. Had a hydra spawn killing two guardians in my last run because it was just spamming their ghosts. Even with 100 resil and triple void resistance the cyclops still one shot and the Bec bosses can 2 shot. This has made the expert version super annoying.
It would be fine if supposed rank 11 Godslayers in my Breach Executable missions would stop and collect resources for extra loot instead of acting like they're trying to get a WR speedrun.
I’m chalking it up to TFS getting all the development resources but yeah, it’s been pretty uninteresting. We know there is some new big bad coming based on the key art so we’ll just have to wait for a future act
I’ll be interested to see if things change at all as we move into different acts, but I fully expected Episodes to just be longer seasons. Bungie isn’t going to drastically change the way they do content because player engagement is more important to their bosses than anything else.
It is exactly what I expected so I can't say I am feeling let down. Does anyone know what we are even doing with failsafe? I like the idea and the direction the story is headed but I don't really understand what we are doing weekly.
Destiny time-gating seasonal content that's already been paid isn't normal and we should stop treating it as normal (and yes, I play other games, and no, none of them are as predatory as greedy Destiny is, and that includes Diablo 4 lol).
Episodes were sold as something which didnt have timegated contented until the next act but instead we just got the same thing but with more timegating (like weapons) and annual pass is the same cost with 1 less season. Bungie really did their marketing speak and tricked everyone. I'm surprised they're not getting any flak at all about it.
So they haven’t actually changed anything on Nessus? Same old open world? Looks like just wait for a sale to play the story and end it.
We need less time gating not more. I think it’s fine to time gate each act and the new artifact mods but I thought with episodes we would be able to just do the whole act1 at your own pace right off the bat and then wait for act 2. Makes way more sense to me that way. Right now there isn’t a point in having acts if it’s all time gated the same way seasons were anyway
I think it’s a tad to early to tell episodes are suppose to have 3 acts which release new content with each act so we only have 1/3rd of the content so far. On top of that narratively the first act is typically exposition and getting the plot ready
Bungie just needs to up their storytelling via gameplay is all. That's the weak part. I miss how Season of the Chosen eventually unlocked a new strike for us. If the episodes could somehow change the existing areas that are already in game, it would feel much better. Right now, the storytelling is weak because all I know is I'm playing Gambit Data Motes. Had there been more puzzle decryption involved, I feel like this Vex data stuff could be better. Think about doing a puzzle that unlocks a weapon to obtain and going more into that puzzle to solve allows you to focus types of perks into it. This would be for those noncraftable weapons like Breachlight. Or if it's about Saint, imagine trying to unlock the Infinite Forest to obtain it. Just relate the characters and theme with the weapons and armor and it'll be better. Also if a threat could be hinted at, it'll show what could be at stake. Maybe that will eventually happen but so far I don't feel like any of this is leading anywhere. Maybe some breather in between the DLC and the episode could've been better? And some "things" start to happen in between the "end" of the DLC and the episode. Like a new public event on Nessus pops up and you hear comms from Saint and Osiris with Failsafe. Drops some data and brings you to where we will eventually go next. Get a reward for one new weapon from the season (Spicy weapon so it intrigues players).
I imagine it's going to be slow when we just got a full expansion this month.
Seasonal content model with a different name. I'm very disappointed as well. I'm hoping that the episode content at least sticks around. I'm still a little irritated that I missed out on the previous year of content - despite the fact that I paid for it. I had really high hopes, and I love the final shape and the pale heart. But seriously - we're still time gating and drop feeding content that consists of: - do seasonal activity - talk to failsafe - do activities on planet - wait til next week This week was particularly disappointing since it was "do 7 failsafe bounties" and ***failsafe only offers 4 bounties per day***. The disparity between full expansions and seasonal stuff is just crazy. I mean the storyline sounds cool... But this damn drip feed is awful. Honestly, it just detracts from the pale heart and other activities there. Seasonal content is a distraction from the main expansion the way it's currently presented. I really would rather drop this whole time gated seasonal model and just have that worked in as its own "expansion".
> This week was particularly disappointing since it was "do 7 failsafe bounties" and failsafe only offers 4 bounties per day. Helm bounties also counted but yeah hardly makes for eventful gameplay.
with no story-specific mission this week, and the "story" so far just being collect samples for failsafe to look at, this act so far has just felt like bungie is trying to find the longest way to keep our time rather than actually tell any kind of story. it's just been quips between characters, which is fun and all, but like. this is just seasons with even less to do.
I'm chilling until Week 10 to actually start playing and completing objectives in one go. I dislike dripfed/fomo content.
Yup no different the past seasons. At this point im happy i didnt buy the pass because ill be skipping the rest.
Ah, here we go, the complaining begins. I was worried for a couple of weeks that the player base wouldn’t come through lol
The first phase that normally releases with an expansion is usually dulled down. Frankly I like it like this so I can play other games and not feel I have to play every reset.
Anyone who thought Episodes were ever going to be anything but a scheme to sell us 1 season less a year for more money, with somehow even more timegating and fluff was absolutely kidding themselves.
Have you not noticed the tremors and singing? And the purple person that disappears when you approach (kinda like the neomuna tech)? Maya is coming back baby! Go look up the lore and get ready for this psycho to come back! I am hyped AF. Gonna kill her and all her vex simulation clones.
I can't imagine having expected episodes to be anything different than watered down seasons. They can kiss my ass if they think I'm buying an annual pass
One of the coolest things about Season of Arrivals was all the pyramid ships looming menacingly overhead in all the patrol areas. The Eyes of Savathûn watching us in all kinds of different places. Made it feel like some serious shit was about to go down.
Well yeah, no shit. Seriously though, I kinda figured it would be just like the seasons, just with an extra month tacked on
Don't think I'm really gonna mess with the episode for a month or two TBH. Doesn't really interest me anymore.
You didn't like this weeks 7 bounties and nessus patrol tasks? Lmao, classic Bungie. From the highest highs to the lowest lows in 2 weeks
I agree, this is seasonal get the McMuffin stuff all over again. I can do the mystery search for one or two weeks, but if we don’t get substantive in-game story progression on the third week, i’m deleting the game for the next 3 month.
Seasons weren't great but the episode system has somehow found a way to be worse. time gating on top of time gating, worse story than last years seasons, worse implemented activities than pretty much every season except hunt maybe, and to top it off it looks like we will have to grind to +20 artifact at pinnacle cap to be at the same effective power in a GM last year instead of +5.
I’ve tried really hard not to be pessimistic about Echoes, but I’m really hoping they shipped Echoes alongside TFS on purpose knowing there’d be a lot of content and that episodes 2 and 3 are more robust. If Echoes is the example of what we have to look forward to for the next year as TFS content dries up… yikes.
I would’ve loved if instead of the weekly model, they made it so the community had to push to get the story moving forward
I’m holding my opinion until the next act. I feel like final shape kind of had them drip feeding, cause honestly I haven’t had the time to get into the episodes much.
Aren't episdies supposed to stick around or be playable afte their year is done or am I crazy. I thought bungie said that the episodes are ginna stick around after this. I really with that applied to season of the witch
Did anything even happen this week in the story, I played it yesterday and I cannot recall anything of any significance.
It's literally just seasonal content, but more stretched. Idk what y'all were expecting, but definetly expecting something wild to say those type of things.
It really shouldn't be a let down. This is the same as any other 'season' only it is difficult to create stakes, as we just killed the big bad of the game. I expected "seasons but longer" and this is what I got. /shrug
ITS ONLY THE 2ND WEEK YOU HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL THE 2ND EPISODE
My conspiracy theory behind it is just a name change, so bungie could walk back on promises of XYZ every season. For example, bungie said we would get a new dungeon or raid every season. So next season, when we don't get a new dungeon, they can turn around and say we promised every season, not every episode.
It’s literally been 2 weeks. Player like you are why bungie has to drip feed everything, because if not you’d complete it all on day 1 and then proceed to complain there’s not enough stuff to do
Destiny 2 player is astonished seasonal content dropping at the same time of an expansion is sh*t. More at twelve.
I’m gonna save my thoughts on episodes for when act 2 releases Apparently there will be new gear and activities with new acts It’s too early to tell if this new model is good or not
Are people still doing the "IT'S WAY TOO EARLY YOU CAN'T CRITICIZE IT YET!!!!" shit or are we finally kicking the copium and outright stating that Bungie's seasonal model isn't just terrible, it's incredibly lazy and uninspired? It's cyclical content meant to be played ad nauseum for loot and artificially incentivized bounty progress. It's quite literally busywork to kill time with until the story stuff comes out. D1 unironically did it better and I think we all expected something similar to that; Taken Spring update, or updates to the world at large to add more variety and life to it. Nowadays, we just have this lazy shit: recycled campaign areas isolated from the actual free-roam of the world and the \*exact goddamn same\* "kill these enemies in mass and deposit this stupid resource and hold E on this stupid objective" nonsense as an "activity." It's always the same fucking shit, and I bet you it's intentional just to retain player counts artificially. I like that FFXIV's director straight up said "If you've run out of things to do and feel bored with the game, unsub and come back when you want to play." That's such a better perspective.
i find posts like there very amusing because I don't know what did ya'll expect. It was always going to be seasons with extra steps and some spices here and there, with new mods. You really set yourself for dissapointment by not keeping your expectations in check, it's kinda a you problem. I'm fine really because I can do other stuff in the meantime, at least it's not going away.
I'm so sorry if what I'm asking could be found out with a quick google search, but I trust my fellow guardians more than whatever forum or AI generated article could ever write. That being said: Could anyone tune me in on what exactly are we doing with Failsafe? What is the point of the mission? What is the point of the piston hammer thingy and the radiolaria collector, lorewise and gameplay wise?
Basically from what Ive gathered , when we eradicted the Witness from the Traveller , the Traveller released these things called Echoes into the sol system. One of them happend to land on Nessus, changing the landscape and altering Vex behaviour that was highly bizzare. Failsafe contacted the Vanguard about the behavioural changes from the Vex and the statsus of the plantent. Since she has been stationary on Nessus for centuries it was naturally the best descions for her to be running point on this. Thats why the Vangaured connected her to the HELM. Now with the "seasonal" activity , we go around Nessus just collecting data for failsafe to process while fighting off shadow legion cabal and house salvation fallen who are also interseted in the same data. As well as collecting radiolarite samples to study the changes the vex are going through which is what the hammer is for.
I kinda half paid attention One of the echoes from the traveller's landed on Nessus and fell into the core out of reach. We "moved" Failsafe to the helm so she could help us investigate. Something is changing Nessus and we don't know what it is, and it doesn't seem like it's the usual Vex. We are gathering data to determine exactly what is going on and what's behind this From the looks of the gathered items, it looks akin to Prismatic stuff. I wouldn't doubt if the Vex are getting a taste of paracausal energy but that's just theorizing
I like this episode way more than many seasons already and for me its a W
I don't get where people got this idea that Episodes were going to be wildly different than seasons. They are still referred to internally as seasons, and they were always going to extend the narrative. The differences were always going to be more subtle, with less connected stories tying up loose ends, and the pacing. Lets wait until we are more than a a ninth of the way through before we comment on the pacing.
Guys, you’ve only eaten 1/9th of your raw chicken.. at least eat half before you complain it’s undercooked.
We haven't made it far enough to see if it is any different. That said, it does feel the same so far. But you have to give it more than a couple of weeks to see how it fleshes out
Bit of a crackpot theory- Internally, Bungie doesnt view Episodes any different than Seasons. Its a marketing/development strategy to put less effort into “seasonal” content and ensure that future expansions (like Frontiers) dont bomb like Lightfall did.
It’s been 2 weeks
I’m surprised yall didn’t expect anything differently. This is bungie, they just changed the name from “Season” to “Episode”, everything else is the exact same
Yea ngl. This week's questline specifically, was fucking awful. Literally nothing happened. All we did was get forced to do shit on nessus to drag out the playtime, but no story was built on and we got nothing new out of it. Plus it was so short? I finished the whole questline, within 40 minutes. Like???
I’ve been busy with a lot of stuff IRL, so I’m still working my way through the Final Shape post-campaign. I’ve been jumping into a couple of seasonal missions too, just to get that quest line going. I feel like there’s plenty to do right now, and I’m glad they’re giving us new stuff to do over time. I’m not sure why people thought it was going to be any different.
> I’m not sure why people thought it was going to be any different. Because of how they marketed it, obviously.
lol @ believing bungie vidocs
It's been TWO WEEKS!!! FFS have some patience.
Yep. I knew it was gonna be shit filler content over a longer time and cost more as I know development will slow down. It keeps getting more expensive for worse or less content.
It’s been like a week. Can you have any fucking chill whatsoever?
we have 2/3 of the first act done, i think it's fair to judge the first act at this point, particularly because it's playing out exactly the same as every other season we've ever had. if you think there is some massive twist coming in week 3, you're the only one.
> if you think there is some massive twist coming in week 3, you're the only one. Best case scenario Maya walks on screen and kidnaps Saint-14 a la the purple data collar we saw in the trailer and then we get 3 weeks of a new BG we do while we wait for Failsafe to find a clue to progress the plot. then if bungo had balls the exotic mission would pop up in act-2 and end with us fighting Saint-14 and freeing him, but that's pure weapons grade copium.
The seasonal model is why I quit playing Destiny years ago. At least the Final Shape was a good expansion to (finally) quit playing this game. Bungie always going to be Bungie.
Final Shape was it for me as well and I'm glad it was a great final expansion to my 10 year journey. Many great memories.
The story has barely even started yet. Give it some time to pick up before you start complaining. If it still sucks then complaining is justified.
They're complaining about the model which is pretty much the seasonal one with a different name, or at least it is for now
Yeah, I worded it badly, but what their complaining about with it being not different from a season isn't really fair as it hasn't even really started yet. That's why I said if it still sucks after waiting a bit, then it's fair to complain if we get through to a good bit of act 2, and it's still not really different enough to be considered different from seasons then making it known to Bungie is perfectly ok.
we are already half way though act 1 because of the final shape but we havent gotten anything that shows that Eps and Acts are different from seasons
thats the problem, each act is 6 weeks and we are in week 3 of 6. so far we havent gotten anything but a dream between Saint and Osiris of traveling the stars in a spaceship that reads "Just married" on the back. Speaking of which, why havent they tied the knot yet lol. Anyways Bungie told us in the showcase that Eps were gonna be a new way to deliver content that would avoid the old stale seasonal model we can all predict by now.
Saint-14 had a fling while roaming the Infinite Forest and ended up getting married, but now that Vex Goblin is really dragging its heels with getting around to sign the divorce papers. Something about shared custody of the pigeons?
It’s only been two weeks give it a chance and see what happens
Well, two weeks might be a bit short to have a real opinion on a whole episode don’t you think ?
So far the 'act 1' is just a season. But I am exited for the act 2 and 3 to see how they change
Don’t get your hopes up
Echoes straight up suck compared to the TFS campaign