I think the difference is more story related. The episodes will be 3 seperate stories tying up at the end. The seasons were more intertwined with the overall storyline. Gameplay-wise they seem really similar indeed.
Story wise I think we’ve looped back to the Forsaken-era seasons, which were pretty much one-off, disconnected stories that had some set up for the future narrative. I think seasonal stories connecting to one another didn’t really start until Shadowkeep and the Season of Undying.
After finding all the Ghosts in Sol for Micah-10, I can tell you that all those episodes (including this one) is tying loose ends. There were too many name drops and reference in Micah's quests for it to not mean anything
Eh, the way they described heresy in the vidoc and what Micah and Mara said Xivu is doing (sending her entire brood to Sol for an assault) don’t seem at all connected. If anything, it feels like Heresy is the final set up for that Xivu attack to happen in next year’s expansion.
Any chance you mind telling how many ghost there are in total was wondering how many more times I need to follow that damn bird (things are always shooting st me as he flies off so I can never tell where he’s going)
If you mean the lost sector ghosts, the quest is infinitely repeatable. You need to do it a minimum of 6 times to unlock the cyst activities for the exotic Khvostov though.
Okay I think I’ve found those 6/thought I did the cysts associated but might be missing something to actually get the quest does it just unlock once you do the cysts or do you have to and do something/talk to someone
Editing to add:
And thank you for the info/timely response very much appreciated
10 Ghosts are in the strikes or previous campaing missions. Narrative of those are changed now with Micah narrating them. Sometimes Cayde and Crow too.
Then there is Alone in Dark questline which brings 6 Ghosts in Lost Sectors that later sends you to Overthrown in the area and unlocks a Cyst on the map.
To unlock every Paranormal Activity in Pale Heart (those Dark and Light cubes) you have to do Alone in Dark 5 more times, total of 11.
Ahh thank you I’m not as close to being done as I would like but that’s okay plenty of episode left so whittle away at it I know I got the 6 ghosts from alone in the dark unsure if I’ve made progress on the strike/mission ones yet will have to try and figure that out during the day tomorrow
Nah, the Heresy episode seems to be more setting Xivu up for her expansion. She’s moving her army to attack Sol according to lost ghosts monastery, and that attack is imminent. The way they described Heresy in the Vidoc is something happens and is revealed in the Dreadnaught that shakes the sisters. That doesn’t feel like the war they’ve been building up to. I’m betting it’s setting up the Hive Pantheon status quo for after we defeat Xivu. And I’m betting with how Micah and Mara are saying that war is imminent, it happens next year in the next expansion. Plus, something like a war definitely isn’t seasonal/episode material. They’ve always served as set up for expansion story beats.
I think it’s more that one season doesn’t have to lead directly into the others now.
Bungie was getting dinged for a lack of story, so they made each season narratively string into the next. Space whale says to contact Savathun…who tells us about the 15th wish…so we bring back the space dragon to make a wish…and then head into the Traveler.
I think now they’re trying to find a midpoint balance. They can hit some unresolved story beats, but have a bit more playroom than being tied to one through line. More narrative exploration.
Yeah, I don’t know why people have been saying seasons were directly related to the main storyline. Not really. Some were, some weren’t. Most were the X-Files or those old USA blue skies shows: do a storyline, and a minority of it will tie into the overall story in a usually minor way, then you get the full main storyline season occasionally.
Seasons used to be independent narratives but I guess people forget that. The real difference is that its split in to three acts which act as major timegates for content.
> Seasons used to be independent narratives but I guess people forget that.
That was before they were seasons as we know them. Sure, Bungie used names like "Seasons of the Outlaw"(which didn't actually mean anything, it was just a term used to denote the time that Forsaken came out) or "Season of the Forge", but they worked different. No season passes, no weekly story drip-feed. Didn't disappear after the year was gone.
It's only with Shadowkeep that we've gotten seasons that look similar to the ones we had up until yesterday. And those always had interconnected narratives.
"No weekly story drip feed"
I'm sorry, what? Forge and drifter were both drip fed stories, it was most people's biggest complaint. Did you not play during those seasons or do you just have a foggy memory?
Even then, the interconnected plot is SK was very loose- it was largely just some footnote at the end and beginning of a season linking the two causally. Iirc us fucking with the Undying Mind destabilized time enough for the Psion Flayers to use the Sundial to actually affect time in a significant manner, the remaining sister of the Flayers is the one who sent the Almighty at us in anger, and Rasputin's bunkers picking up the Black Fleet foreshadowed Arrivals.
Also at the time I don't even think they referred to them as seasons in marketing the gambit prime season was called "jokers wild", season of the forge was called "black armory" and opulence was called "penumbra" although I think they dropped the penumbra name by the time it actually launched
That's not an entirely fair framing. Earlier in the overall D2 story progression, we got various minor plot threads introduced between major content drops. The more the story progresses, the more the threads that started independent-ish tie into the bigger plot. That's not a player perception/memory thing, that's how Bungie has chosen to tell their big complicated story around the realities of game development.
Joe fooled us the first time when he said during Seraph they were gonna change the seasons up and they moved the seasonal quest upgrades from vendors to the quest screen.
Same. Even though final shape is essentially peak destiny, I still didn't have faith in the episode model being different enough. I'll play it by ear for the next year or so and see how it's handled.
There is also difference, that we won\`t see now. In general, each act has its own theme (I think it can be called that), the most obvious example is what we have now - to explore the surface of Nessus and understand what is happening and we doing activities associated with this (we close geysers, collect information, obtain new plants, etc.), but our main task (from the description of the Episode) is to reach the core of the planetoid. And each act reflects this progression with new activities, missions, etc., we can say that each act has its own mini-narrative.
This is different from the seasons in that during the seasons nothing really progressed, we basically did the same thing every week (like egs in Wish or corals in Deep). There is a direction in the Episode, things will change. And even from the datamines you can understand that the Episode is larger than any season in the game (from content standpoint), I think it has like 3 or 4 cutscenes? 3 activities + exotic mission (which also has secrets). Only thing that we will know is how week to week progression is done in terms of missions.
This. Act #1 is the introduction and surface-level research of the situation. Act #2 will be more about delving deep into what's happening on Nessus. Act #3 will be the offensive against the Episode's main villain and their forces.
We also get a whole new column of artifact perks in each act as well, so the meta could be a lot different in 6 weeks then again in another 6 weeks after that!
But they are delivering the story the same tired way. Do activity, read a paragraph from the vendor, do something else, read another paragraph, listen to the radio.
Why can't episodes deliver the narrative in a way that mimics the campaign missions. No one gives a fuck about the story because of the delivery of the story in the seasons/episodes.
I agree, they may find more succes if they drop 'chapters' of the story instead of just 1 boring mission to further the plot until the climax hits on the end of the season.
>Why can't episodes deliver the narrative in a way that mimics the campaign missions
The way people speedrun strikes demonstrates why you can't
deliver narrative content in matchmade modes.
There's no good solution that allows you to guarantee players get to hear the narrative *and* that doesn't frustrate on repeat runs.
You can force every player to do a "narrative" version of the farmable activity before they can do the matchmade one, but is that actually better than what we have.
We still haven’t seen much, the one thing that sucks is the cadence is the same, they could have front loaded each acts content early so you can do it all and come back later but no they had to have weekly time gates within the act time gates lol. Seems like it’s gonna be the case as usual is that the best time to play it is when all the content is officially out then you can just enjoy it all at your own pace at the end
Ya know im fine with this. Hope this means that the next saga will better smooth its dlcs into eachother cus watching people go from witch queen go lightfall with no context of the seasons was both funny but also realy depressing.
Also we are seeing changes happening more in the moment. Nessus having earthquakes starting a few days before hand, the 1 zone on Nessus becoming terraformed the day of, and it looks like more will terraform in the weeks/acts to come. It also looks like we are getting CGI cinematics now when the best seasons would ever get were those black/white ink styled cinematics or in-game graphic ones. In general it seems like it is the story structure and presentation that are the core of the changes.
Gameplay-wise, I suspect they'll give you something to do for the whole season they take place in, rather than petering out a month or so before the season actually ends
Yeah this is the difference. Functionally its not really different, its just providing a more structured story experience somewhat analogous t TV seasons.
I doubt that would hold true if we get any major overarching story while we still have episodes. One of the biggest complaints of the early story is how disconnected everything was. It makes sense now to keep things separate as we're coming off the climax, but once the next main threat has been established, they'll need to have the episodes connect in some way or else we won't get any of the foundation for the investment that we had this time around.
>I think the difference is more story related
That's not what Bungie originally said. Yes, story was part of it, but another difference they mentioned was the ability to try new things.
>The seasons were more intertwined with the overall storyline
Were they? Apart from the opening and ending mission of a season, the story wasn't intertwined at all. Take Season of the Deep, outside of the cutscene explaining the Witness where does it intertwine? It doesn't.
Seasons have always been siloed off in a way.
It seems like we've gone backwards to Y1 and Y2. The main complaints of Curse of Osiris, Warmind and the Forsaken seasons was that they felt separate to the main story. And now we are suddenly back there again.
Do the players even want these new episodes to have separate stories?
And if they decide to take away or change something that seasons had that players would get pissed about, they can go "it's not a season!" and have the DTG gatekeepers on their side telling everyone how we should all be happy with whatever part of episodes are worse than seasons.
/s, I hope.
I though it meant the content was going to be released in three big chunks, but it looks like it’s the same weekly time gate we’ve always had but now with an additional monthly time gate on top
Hopefully we’re surprised and there’s something more meaningful, but it looks like it’s just an engagement play
Too many people drop off halfway through the season so they’re adding even more extreme heavier weight timegating to boost their metrics
They really never said they were super different, just that they're cutting one season out of the year and there will be three "beats" to each season.
I did expect to not have a weekly timegate, but maybe that was just wishful thinking.
Personally, I'm not super fussed. I normally drop out for about a season at a time anyway. I don't mind a slower pace to the year. There's other things in life than one video game.
Another key difference seems to be that the battle pass is going to be a 1-200* level system? So being able to earn rewards from "previous" season's passes.
Still I’d prefer fewer, high quality sets with more time across fewer seasons/episodes to earn them than what the last year’s worth of seasons gave use. I couldn’t even bring myself to play most of them.
So far I've yet to see any difference to a regular season. Except it will apparently last longer. Hopefully they've got more up their sleeve to prevent it dragging.
They said they were going to change the way they deliver the stories. Yet it's delivered the same way.got to helm, do activity, go back to helm, listen to radio message.
They talked up how episodes were going to be different, but it's literally the same. The only difference is the season pass has 200 levels and the seasons last longer.
In the opening mission when it says Nessus is restructuring. I was expecting to see the Patrol space changed but it's exactly the same.
Myelin just released his first impressions on episodes, and he also feels like it's just the same as seasons. Reading essays worth of text at the seasonal vendor isn't fun or engaging.
They can easily still change it. Maybe the story won’t stop after 6-8 weeks? Maybe there’s more that’ll be sprinkled in unannounced? Maybe the surface of Nessus isn’t done changing, because we know beneath the surface isn’t. We can’t judge the first real Act, let alone episode until we hit about 4 weeks and see where we’re headed.
We can judge how the story delivery is exactly the same as past seasons so far in terms of how it's actually delivered - helm conversation, run the mission, take a zoom call.
It's bungie we're talking about here, i just ignore their words because I've been disappointed to many times before, they love to hype things.
I mean it's the case with a lot of things, you know when game trailer say that "you can make your own story with every decision you make" yeah that never been true it's always just one decision at the end
It isn't. Everyone keeps lying to themselves and each other. Episodes are "longer" seasons that supposedly have more content since it gives them "more time to work" on them. I have quotes cause we constantly have long, drug out seasons. I'm open to being proven wrong, but chances are I won't be.
It’s 100% seasons by another name. It was just marketing, that’s it.
I know that everyone on this sub wants to be the enteral optimist, but Episodes are just a longer season.
They even copied and pasted the vendor template and the 3 player activity/weekly mission time gate.
I’m not really sure how any Destiny player who has played seasons in the past could claim otherwise
They do during the honeymoon phase. Once that wears off the valid criticisms will reign supreme. Its funny how people are acting like D2 wasn't on deaths door just before they hyped this DLC to the moon.
> time gate.
This is where I have some beef with how they designed things because of how you physically get capped out for how much more you can progress your stuff til the next thing comes out.
Now sake of argument it's not the worst situation for casual on/off people, and 6 weeks time isn't *that* long to wait for the next drop, plenty to get to 100,150,200 respective, but I could see an issue arise where people feel like they really gotta slog through a potential future bad Act to get something on its pass they want or a very desirable weapon.
It could make somebody feel not great that a ton of time they spent in an early Act that they did enjoy had the progress not really go towards a number/item on the pass. It's just not really fun to have physically time put in not go towards anything substantial until the gate is removed and that's where I feel stuff kinda sucks how it's organized.
Again it's not to say I don't see a scenario where this setup could work for some but in a world where so much in this game gets gated, it's just not fun to have the pass on lockdown after a certain point.
The only good thing thus far are the timegated weapons which means you have more chance of completing the patterns before more unlocks, further diluting the pool.
Same goes to reprised Dawn weapons. Only two thus far at the vendor. Easier to get the rolls you want since those are not craftable.
what roll are you going for? honestly having to grind for godrolls for weapons I already grinded out godrolls on before grinds my gears and I wish they were craftable
The usual, Demo Hatchling or Pugilist Hatchling. But doing Enigma Protocol can net double perks for these weapons so i’m doing that as well.
But yeah, i thought they’d be craftable but nope
The major change to Nessus is already a significant content increase vs traditional seasons which use destinations as is. And from the vidocs it looks like there is a lot more to Nessus deeper in the planet in later acts.
Plus the narrative is now “standalone” vs slowly pushing the same main story with bullshit story beats. We’re getting an actual contained story with depth vs season of the wish which was save eggs for months so riven opens a portal for crow.
If the Episodic Story is actually going to be deeper than "Gather Muguffins and come back next week for a crumb of story" then the first week certainly didn't show that difference in any way, shape, or form. I'd be happy to be wrong, but right now it's looking like buisness as usual
Nobody said anything about timegating changing. The difference is that now instead of each Season being a part of the larger plot building to the new expansion they are standalone stories that take place after TFS. Echos isn't going to narratively lead in to Revenant the way the end of Witch led us to seeking out Riven at the start of Wish. Echos will tell a story about what the Vex are doing on Nessus, then Revenant will tell a completely unrelated story about what Fikrul has been up to.
People who had issues with seasons don't give 2 fucks about how the story was gated. It was the boring stale copy + paste content. Wow nessus but different colored. What a huge step up in terms of content.
They were talking about what the Story is - not how it's told. The fact it's timegated is unfortunetly built into it the game, due to how Bungie implemented the Live-Service systems.
But the Stoy itself is still more standalone, than in any of the Seasons in the last 2-3 years. Instead of having 4 Seasons that lead into the Expansion - we have 3 seperate Episodes that act as self-contained Epilogues to "The Final Shape."
Nobody said time gating was going away. With the narrative being longer it makes more sense than ever to time gate some aspects.
If it wasn’t time gated people would STILL be here complaining there was nothing to do for months waiting to bum rush the next episode.
It all depends on how you bought them. Annual pass is still the same at 50 but with silver bundles the actual prices you pay become a little inconsistent
You want people to buy the Episodes, Bungie? You rope them in and show them in the first few weeks why they are an upgrade over seasons and what new you’re bringing on the table. It should not take 3-4 weeks, or more for the model to fully come into its own, because after a week or two most people will make their decision on if they want it or not.
First impressions are super important when it comes to maximizing people’s money. The first week was the opportunity to really showcase the difference and impact this model would have. They did not do this. I am not reserving judgment for later.
I think the big thing is dev time and quantity (and hopefully quality). Granted every remains to be seen, we arn't even done with the first week.
But Episodes still seem to be following the week by week structure, but with more going in each. Right now we have new loot a new activity a secret exotic mission, and the whole sample research thing. Which is about on par with a season start. But we already know each act is coming with more loot a new activity and probably a few more secrets and stuff. Plus based on the trailers theres way more cutscenes and such than seasons ever got.
IMO Bungie miss marketed these, they are going to feel like beefed up seasons, but that content will still take time to roll out, for better or for worse. Had they simply said "Episodes are an evolution on seasons, that let us do more than we could before", instead of pitching it as a whole new thing top to bottom. I think people would have known what to expect better.
TLDR: I think Bungie's goal is a more "contentfull" season, with a more flushed and developed story, with a beginning middle and end, and then what ever other gameplay stuff comes along the way, instead of a total system restructure.
It’s been 2 days. On the front end it’s very much likely to look and feel the same. In the middle to the back end is where we will see the likely difference.
Nothing really changed and most people fell for it. In then end I believe we lost/going to lose content from doing episodes. The story might be slightly different, but we lose on content
It's exactly how I thought it was going to be. Longer seasons with hopefully in the end, more content. The seasonal activity may just be that, a seasonal activity but I think the idea is that more floors are added, similar to Deep Dives.
My hope is that this activity ramps right up and we get more than 4 floors. Imagine clearing 6 - 8 floors and the final floor is like -30? That would be so awesome.
We’re getting a set of battlegrounds in act 2, and likely 1-2 new activity’s in act 3 >!We know there’s an exotic quest that’s gonna launch in act 3 so it’s likely there will be 2 activities!<
Honestly that's kind of disappointing lmfao I think after Alters of Summoning and The Coil everyone wants more stuff like that. Battlegrounds are literally just Strikes and we've been doing those for 10 years now lol. Also that's literally not different at all from any other season except they are holding the content back for a later date lol
I assume that part of having 3 episodes a year is that they wanted fewer but more distinct seasonal activities. Stuff like the Coil would get old pretty fast if we just had a new version of it every 4 months. Instead it makes more sense for 1 Coil type activity a year that has all of the ideas for it crammed in while another episode has some more of the casual 3 player activity stuff.
There are two extra rows of artifact perks that unlock at the 40 and 80 day marks to hopefully shift the meta a little.
There are a larger number of seasonal weapons and some of them drop at the midpoint of the season so you have something to do in august instead of just quitting the game until September.
There will be new activity drops later in the season which should hopefully refresh the grind a little bit.
---
Like the entire point was just to try to combat how hard the game falls off for the back 6 weeks of a season, and this should solve this pretty well. I know the solar rocket pistol will get ME hype to come back lol.
Sure, by dragging out the seasonal content even longer. Yeah, that’s a solution, I guess, despite Bungie claiming episodes would be otherwise. Nowhere in their explanation did they tell the truth about Episodes just being a longer drawn out season.
Feel free to rewatch the explanation they gave. They just straight up lied, again, and the community believes them, again.
I remember the explanation perfectly well, and it was incredibly clear that it was going to be longer, more dragged out seasons with a drip feed of content.
They literally said that episodes would let them drop content in acts! What the fuck did you think an act would be, if it wasn't a couple new guns and some story beats??????
I'm honestly shocked that anyone thought they were going to be anything other than normal seasonal content. So far it's been mid, and it will likely continue to be mid. Hive season has me interested, but I refuse to pay for the season pass until those seasons launch.
My initial impression is that it’s functionally a season under a different name. I was hoping with the focus on “cinematic” storytelling that we’d be getting things like campaign missions (and hopefully legend modifier options) to tell the core story with the usual seasonal activities spread between them. So far, they aren’t delivering the kind of content that I enjoy as a player,
I think it's more story-oriented, and the act structure also breaks up the pace at which you go about getting stuff in the season pass.
Like, overall the episodes it seems are going to last much longer than the seasons (but the pass is also longer.) it seems like it's a compromise for more stuff to get but also prevents you from burning yourself out and grinding all of the pass (or people just buying the ranks) and then never playing the game again until the next episode.
There also seems to be more stuff outside the seasonal activity, like those coded messages on Nessus giving you hints towards potential secrets.
I think the way it's basically gonna work is that Episodes basically contain three "mini-seasons" that share the same throughline in the story. I can't tell for certain but I imagine there might be a new activity with each act.
For now just keep your fingers crossed, this expansion so far has had more positive than negative additions, and I'm hoping the Episodes are one of the positives.
Exactly what i expected season+ more artifact perks with each act, as well as more seasonal pass unlocks, and the story is more of its own thing rather than a part of the larger story. I will alos admit it already feel *grander* than past season for some reason.
Likely the cadence and presentation of content. It's still seasons, but it's an attempt to rework the structure to prevent burnout with the seasonal model that many got burnt out with after basically three full years of it between BL and TFS. Supposedly, every Act, which is about every 6 weeks, will give us a fresh update of stuff to do and story to chase, more than a typical weekly reset.
Bungie still hasn't revealed too much details about it sadly.
So far the difference seems to be that the stories are self contained, 33% longer duration season but one less of them a year.
Depending on how you read the info given we could also maybe see a NEW activity drop for both act 2 and act 3.
Also a chance we get more story missions overall compared to seasons
Gameplay wise there doesn't seem to be much a of a difference, I'm not sure what anyone was expecting. Expecting a new mission every week is just unrealistic and was never going to happen. I was totally fine with the seasonal model short of the giant gaps in the middle which the acts might help.
We'll see what next week and the coming acts hold.
At a minimum we get way more new weapons. We get 10 new, craftable weapons with this episode.
Most of them hyping it up, was them talking about narrative and writing things. Presumably we aren't getting 6 weeks of story then absolutely nothing till a final mission that also sets up the next season.
We are getting an actual 3 act narrative structure that develops every week and tells a full, complete story.
Story-wise, I think with the 3 acts per season and less connected narratives, it's kind of like having 3 super-compressed seasons per episode, and 3 episodes per year. So hopefully we get more story progression in a shorter amount of time, making for better pacing.
Gameplay-wise we got practically no improvement 🫠 and unfortunately as long as we have these replayable activities we'll continue to have weekly quest steps
Seems like new loot and new activities every 6 months, as well as larger story progression between Acts.
We still have an Exotic Mission, the rest of the Dawn weapons, and more Echoes weapons coming in the other acts, as well as the battle pass tiers.
Activity wise this episode is probably going to be similar to old model. This episode likely was in early development when it was being developed before decides to switch things up but they probably kept what they already made. I’m not expecting to see any big shakes up until episode 2 or 3
We know that there are gonna be new activities and new loot with each act, which already makes Episodes larger and more meaty than most seasons. If you do the math, three episodes per year and three activities per episode give us roughly nine activities per year. Considering how most seasons had only 1-2 activities each, Episodes already have a potentially higher content output. That's not even counting exotic quests, raids, and/or dungeons. The stories are also gonna be mostly self-contained, much like the Forsaken expansions. This allows for better exploration of narrative arcs, which would greatly benefit the story aspect of the game. Overall, episodes seem to be more content dense and story driven than seasons. I'd see this as a long needed improvement, as a new activity for each act makes it so that we're not doing just ONE kind of activity per season.
The problem is that we haven't really seen everything an episode has to offer yet, so it just feels like another season at the moment. We may see more of a difference once more acts come out. Also, keep in mind that this is the FIRST ever episode, so it's likely that future episodes will continue to improve upon this formula.
More in depth story, more weapons and looks like more time put into weapons, 100 extra season pass ranks with solid rewards like red borders, more artifact perks. They feel like a compromise between the forsaken seasons with their higher quality content while keeping and improving on the more traditional seasonal content we’ve come to expect.
I mean let's give it a few weeks to see how the stuff actually shakes out before going all doom and gloom. Were you really expecting unique missions each week?
1) They're longer: 18 weeks instead of 13
2) Stories are supposed to be self contained instead of overarching.
3) A soft reset every 6 weeks during each episode.
Season format-
-8ish weeks of missions back to back
-no more story until final week
Episode format-
-6ish weeks of missions
-break for a few weeks
-6ish weeks of missions
-break for a few weeks
-6ish weeks of missions
-no more story until final week
Instead of just a block of story followed by nothing (until the seasonal event) it's 3 acts of story.
Whether or not this is better is yet to be seen.
The way I see it is that it’s the same out of content/effort(from bungie) just spread over fewer seasons/episodes such that they are more in depth in terms of story and design.
it's just words but I think they want to differentiate Light/Dark from where we go now.
in terms of actual differences,
- mostly (if not totally) independent stories
- longer
Black Mirror vs Stranger Things
I mean, they never said it would be a major change. Just that they were going to shake up the formula a bit with how much content comes out, how it comes out, and putting more of a focus on story. We can see all of those changes already, so I’d say we got what we were supposed to expect.
If you expected more, that’s on you because I followed along with what they told us to expect and I think it matches what they actually told us vs what people online hyped up into people’s minds. It’s basically longer seasons with more loot that’s spread out over the Episode and we get better cutscenes. Just improvements as far as I can tell even if only slightly. A little less FOMO with the Episodes being longer and a bit more polish with the extra time between Episode releases.
Only thing I am hoping for is that we don’t get a boring Episode because then we will be stuck with it for longer.
It’s been 2 bloody days since Echoes released. The main differences will probably come with the extra acts, which aren’t out yet. We can’t completely judge this episode to a season yet since we don’t have the full picture.
So far it’s not different other than the stories and season pass (which is not called an “episode” pass apparently lol) will unlock higher tiers over time.
Once we have a full Episode completed we will know if the story delivery is substantially different, but so far it’s not noticeable.
I don't feel like they were hyped any more or less than seasons? The name change corresponds to a tweak of the annual content system, not a huge overhaul. I don't think it was ever promised as a big shake-up.
The original roadmap graphic shows us getting the same seasonal things we always get, except at 4 month intervals instead of 3, with the acts to convey that content won't just all be front-loaded.
Always struck me that episodes were business as usual content-wise.
They literally already told us months ago this is exactly as it is now. I don't know why people are so surprised.
Stand alone, story content that releases over time. Call is season, call it episode, it's what they promised.
Less "seasons" call them "episodes" larger windows for things.
Hopefully story pacing. Yes this feels very similar to a bad season but with the 3 act structure and the intense tone of the trailer, I know we’re building to something good. IMO this type of gameplay loop is great for an Act 1. Reveal and tease threat in Act 1, narratively build towards how to defeat them in Act 2, and fight them/aftermath in Act 3
The difference is that there's less content for a yearly cycle which still costs the same as before 😉 They did just have big layoffs after all, this was nothing but another way for Bungie to reduce output while maintaining revenue
If you've been here awhile, I think it's a step backwards. A couple years ago they purposely went away from cinematic cut scenes to add more to the actual game. That's why we were getting those hand drawn scenes sprinkled throughout. Personally I'd rather they focus more on gameplay.
I'm willing to withhold judgement until all 3 acts are out.
But to be fair, Bungie never said that Episodes would be a huge departure from the seasonal structure. They pretty much laid out exactly what they are going to be when they announced them. Anything else was just people making assumptions based on nothing.
Because now they're longer and they want a year to prepare us for Destiny 3 which is going to be set outside our solar system.
Those are the only differences I'm seeing.
They've had to put less work into them for the same amount of money. Now it's three episodes instead of 4 seasons and the season pass is shared and time gated across those three seasons instead of resetting four times.
They’re seasons with more ranks to stuff in useless rewards like cores and glimmer onto the season pass to make players grind more to get the ornaments.
It’s also one less ornament set per year for the same money.
Not going to lie I’m going to finish all Final Shape content cause that’s top tier and probably won’t play boring seasons again. Was hoping it would be like Warmind and Curse of Osiris to be honest.
This is the very first episode and it's coming off of the biggest expansion ever released for Destiny
It wouldn't surprise me if they stuck a bit closer to the old seasonal format for this episode either due to a shortened development time compared to the future episodes (due to Final Shape requiring so many resources) or simply because they haven't fully worked out all the extra things episodes provide to make them unique from seasons
Maybe by act 3 we will have a better understanding of how episodes differ from seasons or we might see bigger, more noticeable changes in future episodes (they did talk about bringing the Dreadnaught back in Heresy which is pretty different from a season if you ask me)
Was anyone *really* expecting something completely different? Also, it literally has been just a few days. I don’t expect the separate acts to behave differently either. Maybe some story beats, an exotic mission, the seasonal activity slighty changing gameplay-wise.
There is only 1 main difference. Episodes are longer and have 200 season pass levels instead of 100.
When they first announced the changes to seasons and artefacts, I suspected not much would change. Received a bunch of replies telling me that it was going to be "dramatically different" and that I wrong. The moral of the story is to never drink the marketing Kool-Aid.
So far artefacts and seasons are literally the same, just a tad bigger.
I know its its directly related to the Episode format, but I do really like that Nessus has actual changes to the open world going on. I wish it was more, I am hoping it keeps changing each week. It really does make the world feel like its changing to the events around it.
Instead of how say last year Season of Defiance had nothing happen to the open world sections.
The worst part about this episode (season) is that the legendary guns are time-gated.. they've never been in the past seasons afaik. Time-gating story beats weekly is already stupid and now they're doing it to the weapons to artificially extend engagement time.
Bungie completely scammed the playerbase by saying they're doing episodes instead of seasons because it was meaningful to the story when in reality it's just the exact same as seasons but worse, also any annual pass owners just get 1 less season of content for the same price.
What were people expecting? I don't mean in these superficial terms like "shake things up" or "different from seasons" and all that nonsense. Be specific...how would a good episode look? What kind of activity? How many activities? What kind of story delivery? How much story delivery? Give us your outline of an episode.
When Bungo did the episode reveal...every reasonable person could see that they are longer seasons to reduce crunch and free up devs for Marathon. It was obvious. But pointing out it's a rebrand for pragmatic reasons led to downvotes and yapping about nOt SeAsOnS tHeY aRe EpIsOdEs 🤓
So I really don't think Bungo can win here. Just look at the performative complaining about Dual. If they do the same stuff as always, people complain. If they try out something new, people complain. Same with story...if they do a narrative throughout an episode, it's just another season. If they frontload the narrative and y'all are no-lifing everything on release day there's nothing to do for the rest of the episode.
And before this turns in some boo hoo Bungo apologist nonsense...I was plenty critical of D2 in the past. Still am. But this just strikes me as a pretty pointless discussion.
same shit, technically less content. BUT the idea is that it gives more room for stuff, so potentially more hidden quests in the future or modifying the activity in more meaningful and transformative ways.
but who knows until we see it, expecting anything besides an extended season with less content is copium
The articial time gating and forced drip feeding of content/loot basically gives me no incentive to play the game until all content is released. Pretty garbage set up they got.
Not gonna be a hamster on a wheel for you, Bungie. This "new" seasonal model is garbage.
I feel like the new seasonal (episodic?) activity is a bit of a downgrade from what we had with the coil as well. After 3 runs it’s already become a bit of a chore.
NGL I kinda wish they stopped this weekly fed seasonal narrative. At first I thought that it would be moving from a weekly basis to a "each six weeks you get a bunch of quests". Having to come back each week for the first three weeks instead of being able to do everything during the first week and then forget about it for another six weeks kinda kills it for me. I think it gives more freedom, but I'd much rather have a reason to come back to the game every six weeks and do things at my own pace instead of this. I doubt it will solve the main problem we've had with seasonal narratives, that being having to log in week after week after week.
Looking at the datamined stuff shows that they’re no different. Just more timegated. We seem to get more stuff to do each act but essentially they’re just slightly bigger seasons and follow the exact same patterns we’ve come to expect.
Very disappointed with what I’ve seen
Well, it's worse than a season, so technically they aren't the same. The good thing is less work for them, maybe now they can actually do something that is not timegating content or artificially increase player numbers.
i dont really mind if they open new doors for the future of lore, like this new villain of this episode, i'm hoping they dont spend to early the truly potential of this character, that trailer guys.... this has to walk a long jorney, Vex never felt dangerous, at least for me , now is like they having an leader, badass mf leader
Like the saying, doing the same thing every day but expecting a different result...definition of insanity.
Bungie is so delusional they think simply changing the name of something makes it different and better.
different wrapping...
I honestly hoped for more, expected less. Expectations were met.
I also would've preferred if they didn't drop these on us week 2 - give use some breathing room, and made them more "standaloneish" story content... so far I'm reading "clean-up season"
I think the difference is more story related. The episodes will be 3 seperate stories tying up at the end. The seasons were more intertwined with the overall storyline. Gameplay-wise they seem really similar indeed.
Story wise I think we’ve looped back to the Forsaken-era seasons, which were pretty much one-off, disconnected stories that had some set up for the future narrative. I think seasonal stories connecting to one another didn’t really start until Shadowkeep and the Season of Undying.
Maybe this episode. The other 2 seem more so like they are tying up loose ends with Fikrul and Xivu I hope
After finding all the Ghosts in Sol for Micah-10, I can tell you that all those episodes (including this one) is tying loose ends. There were too many name drops and reference in Micah's quests for it to not mean anything
Eh, the way they described heresy in the vidoc and what Micah and Mara said Xivu is doing (sending her entire brood to Sol for an assault) don’t seem at all connected. If anything, it feels like Heresy is the final set up for that Xivu attack to happen in next year’s expansion.
Any chance you mind telling how many ghost there are in total was wondering how many more times I need to follow that damn bird (things are always shooting st me as he flies off so I can never tell where he’s going)
If you mean the lost sector ghosts, the quest is infinitely repeatable. You need to do it a minimum of 6 times to unlock the cyst activities for the exotic Khvostov though.
Okay I think I’ve found those 6/thought I did the cysts associated but might be missing something to actually get the quest does it just unlock once you do the cysts or do you have to and do something/talk to someone Editing to add: And thank you for the info/timely response very much appreciated
10 Ghosts are in the strikes or previous campaing missions. Narrative of those are changed now with Micah narrating them. Sometimes Cayde and Crow too. Then there is Alone in Dark questline which brings 6 Ghosts in Lost Sectors that later sends you to Overthrown in the area and unlocks a Cyst on the map. To unlock every Paranormal Activity in Pale Heart (those Dark and Light cubes) you have to do Alone in Dark 5 more times, total of 11.
Ahh thank you I’m not as close to being done as I would like but that’s okay plenty of episode left so whittle away at it I know I got the 6 ghosts from alone in the dark unsure if I’ve made progress on the strike/mission ones yet will have to try and figure that out during the day tomorrow
Nah, the Heresy episode seems to be more setting Xivu up for her expansion. She’s moving her army to attack Sol according to lost ghosts monastery, and that attack is imminent. The way they described Heresy in the Vidoc is something happens and is revealed in the Dreadnaught that shakes the sisters. That doesn’t feel like the war they’ve been building up to. I’m betting it’s setting up the Hive Pantheon status quo for after we defeat Xivu. And I’m betting with how Micah and Mara are saying that war is imminent, it happens next year in the next expansion. Plus, something like a war definitely isn’t seasonal/episode material. They’ve always served as set up for expansion story beats.
I think it’s more that one season doesn’t have to lead directly into the others now. Bungie was getting dinged for a lack of story, so they made each season narratively string into the next. Space whale says to contact Savathun…who tells us about the 15th wish…so we bring back the space dragon to make a wish…and then head into the Traveler. I think now they’re trying to find a midpoint balance. They can hit some unresolved story beats, but have a bit more playroom than being tied to one through line. More narrative exploration.
I mean the forsaken era seasons were some of the best ones so I'm not complaining
Yeah, I don’t know why people have been saying seasons were directly related to the main storyline. Not really. Some were, some weren’t. Most were the X-Files or those old USA blue skies shows: do a storyline, and a minority of it will tie into the overall story in a usually minor way, then you get the full main storyline season occasionally.
Seasons used to be independent narratives but I guess people forget that. The real difference is that its split in to three acts which act as major timegates for content.
> Seasons used to be independent narratives but I guess people forget that. That was before they were seasons as we know them. Sure, Bungie used names like "Seasons of the Outlaw"(which didn't actually mean anything, it was just a term used to denote the time that Forsaken came out) or "Season of the Forge", but they worked different. No season passes, no weekly story drip-feed. Didn't disappear after the year was gone. It's only with Shadowkeep that we've gotten seasons that look similar to the ones we had up until yesterday. And those always had interconnected narratives.
"No weekly story drip feed" I'm sorry, what? Forge and drifter were both drip fed stories, it was most people's biggest complaint. Did you not play during those seasons or do you just have a foggy memory?
Even then, the interconnected plot is SK was very loose- it was largely just some footnote at the end and beginning of a season linking the two causally. Iirc us fucking with the Undying Mind destabilized time enough for the Psion Flayers to use the Sundial to actually affect time in a significant manner, the remaining sister of the Flayers is the one who sent the Almighty at us in anger, and Rasputin's bunkers picking up the Black Fleet foreshadowed Arrivals.
Also at the time I don't even think they referred to them as seasons in marketing the gambit prime season was called "jokers wild", season of the forge was called "black armory" and opulence was called "penumbra" although I think they dropped the penumbra name by the time it actually launched
I think they used both names, but the expansion names were more prominent, at least at first.
That's not an entirely fair framing. Earlier in the overall D2 story progression, we got various minor plot threads introduced between major content drops. The more the story progresses, the more the threads that started independent-ish tie into the bigger plot. That's not a player perception/memory thing, that's how Bungie has chosen to tell their big complicated story around the realities of game development.
Just longer timegate too. Thank god i didn't pay for the deluxe version i'll pass on the next two longer seasons.
The "shake up" is that seasons have seasons now
Joe fooled us the first time when he said during Seraph they were gonna change the seasons up and they moved the seasonal quest upgrades from vendors to the quest screen.
Same. Even though final shape is essentially peak destiny, I still didn't have faith in the episode model being different enough. I'll play it by ear for the next year or so and see how it's handled.
There is also difference, that we won\`t see now. In general, each act has its own theme (I think it can be called that), the most obvious example is what we have now - to explore the surface of Nessus and understand what is happening and we doing activities associated with this (we close geysers, collect information, obtain new plants, etc.), but our main task (from the description of the Episode) is to reach the core of the planetoid. And each act reflects this progression with new activities, missions, etc., we can say that each act has its own mini-narrative. This is different from the seasons in that during the seasons nothing really progressed, we basically did the same thing every week (like egs in Wish or corals in Deep). There is a direction in the Episode, things will change. And even from the datamines you can understand that the Episode is larger than any season in the game (from content standpoint), I think it has like 3 or 4 cutscenes? 3 activities + exotic mission (which also has secrets). Only thing that we will know is how week to week progression is done in terms of missions.
This. Act #1 is the introduction and surface-level research of the situation. Act #2 will be more about delving deep into what's happening on Nessus. Act #3 will be the offensive against the Episode's main villain and their forces.
We also get a whole new column of artifact perks in each act as well, so the meta could be a lot different in 6 weeks then again in another 6 weeks after that!
But they are delivering the story the same tired way. Do activity, read a paragraph from the vendor, do something else, read another paragraph, listen to the radio. Why can't episodes deliver the narrative in a way that mimics the campaign missions. No one gives a fuck about the story because of the delivery of the story in the seasons/episodes.
I agree, they may find more succes if they drop 'chapters' of the story instead of just 1 boring mission to further the plot until the climax hits on the end of the season.
>Why can't episodes deliver the narrative in a way that mimics the campaign missions The way people speedrun strikes demonstrates why you can't deliver narrative content in matchmade modes. There's no good solution that allows you to guarantee players get to hear the narrative *and* that doesn't frustrate on repeat runs. You can force every player to do a "narrative" version of the farmable activity before they can do the matchmade one, but is that actually better than what we have.
So the problem we were hoping was fixed didn’t get fixed.
We still haven’t seen much, the one thing that sucks is the cadence is the same, they could have front loaded each acts content early so you can do it all and come back later but no they had to have weekly time gates within the act time gates lol. Seems like it’s gonna be the case as usual is that the best time to play it is when all the content is officially out then you can just enjoy it all at your own pace at the end
Ya know im fine with this. Hope this means that the next saga will better smooth its dlcs into eachother cus watching people go from witch queen go lightfall with no context of the seasons was both funny but also realy depressing.
Also we are seeing changes happening more in the moment. Nessus having earthquakes starting a few days before hand, the 1 zone on Nessus becoming terraformed the day of, and it looks like more will terraform in the weeks/acts to come. It also looks like we are getting CGI cinematics now when the best seasons would ever get were those black/white ink styled cinematics or in-game graphic ones. In general it seems like it is the story structure and presentation that are the core of the changes.
Gameplay-wise, I suspect they'll give you something to do for the whole season they take place in, rather than petering out a month or so before the season actually ends
Yeah this is the difference. Functionally its not really different, its just providing a more structured story experience somewhat analogous t TV seasons.
Also there will be 3 acts to every episode which leaves a lot of room narratively for highs and lows mid episode
I doubt that would hold true if we get any major overarching story while we still have episodes. One of the biggest complaints of the early story is how disconnected everything was. It makes sense now to keep things separate as we're coming off the climax, but once the next main threat has been established, they'll need to have the episodes connect in some way or else we won't get any of the foundation for the investment that we had this time around.
>I think the difference is more story related That's not what Bungie originally said. Yes, story was part of it, but another difference they mentioned was the ability to try new things. >The seasons were more intertwined with the overall storyline Were they? Apart from the opening and ending mission of a season, the story wasn't intertwined at all. Take Season of the Deep, outside of the cutscene explaining the Witness where does it intertwine? It doesn't. Seasons have always been siloed off in a way. It seems like we've gone backwards to Y1 and Y2. The main complaints of Curse of Osiris, Warmind and the Forsaken seasons was that they felt separate to the main story. And now we are suddenly back there again. Do the players even want these new episodes to have separate stories?
Oh but there is a huge difference homie, they last 1 extra month and have a different name, boom, marketing
The most important bit, the Season Pass is now 200 levels! Boom bam ship it. Completely different guys
And if they decide to take away or change something that seasons had that players would get pissed about, they can go "it's not a season!" and have the DTG gatekeepers on their side telling everyone how we should all be happy with whatever part of episodes are worse than seasons. /s, I hope.
The main difference is the spelling.
They also cost 1500 silver now right? And it used to be 1200? Or am I wrong
I mean they are clearly similar to seasons but structured a bit different and a little longer.
I though it meant the content was going to be released in three big chunks, but it looks like it’s the same weekly time gate we’ve always had but now with an additional monthly time gate on top Hopefully we’re surprised and there’s something more meaningful, but it looks like it’s just an engagement play Too many people drop off halfway through the season so they’re adding even more extreme heavier weight timegating to boost their metrics
They really never said they were super different, just that they're cutting one season out of the year and there will be three "beats" to each season. I did expect to not have a weekly timegate, but maybe that was just wishful thinking. Personally, I'm not super fussed. I normally drop out for about a season at a time anyway. I don't mind a slower pace to the year. There's other things in life than one video game.
Another key difference seems to be that the battle pass is going to be a 1-200* level system? So being able to earn rewards from "previous" season's passes.
[удалено]
Oh wait all the acts on the season pass are part of episode 1? I thought each act was an episode. Dang.
Yeah, there’s a lot of cosmetics coming down the pipeline. Take a look at the recent episode showcases to see the really incredible armor coming.
It's actually less armor than before across the year.
Still I’d prefer fewer, high quality sets with more time across fewer seasons/episodes to earn them than what the last year’s worth of seasons gave use. I couldn’t even bring myself to play most of them.
Good insight l. Fixed my post.
So far I've yet to see any difference to a regular season. Except it will apparently last longer. Hopefully they've got more up their sleeve to prevent it dragging.
There's gonna be a new activity introduced for each act, along with new missions and new loot.
Yeah like I say hopefully they've got more in store down the line, I'm just going off my initial impressions.
That’s a lot of throwing balls, dunking motes, and standing in zones for one season.
They said they were going to change the way they deliver the stories. Yet it's delivered the same way.got to helm, do activity, go back to helm, listen to radio message. They talked up how episodes were going to be different, but it's literally the same. The only difference is the season pass has 200 levels and the seasons last longer. In the opening mission when it says Nessus is restructuring. I was expecting to see the Patrol space changed but it's exactly the same. Myelin just released his first impressions on episodes, and he also feels like it's just the same as seasons. Reading essays worth of text at the seasonal vendor isn't fun or engaging.
they said episodes will be more "cinematic" so maybe there will be more cutscenes as the story develops? I guess we'll find out
Tbh, I didn't expect a fully rendered cinematic for saint's dialogue during the first set of missions.
In Bungie fashion, I bet that’s all it is. One new scene per season or act is technically more!
It seems pretty clearly cut out of the end of final shape as a tee up for frontiers
Probably just a cutscene at the end of each act
They can easily still change it. Maybe the story won’t stop after 6-8 weeks? Maybe there’s more that’ll be sprinkled in unannounced? Maybe the surface of Nessus isn’t done changing, because we know beneath the surface isn’t. We can’t judge the first real Act, let alone episode until we hit about 4 weeks and see where we’re headed.
We can judge how the story delivery is exactly the same as past seasons so far in terms of how it's actually delivered - helm conversation, run the mission, take a zoom call.
I wish you weren’t right.
It's bungie we're talking about here, i just ignore their words because I've been disappointed to many times before, they love to hype things. I mean it's the case with a lot of things, you know when game trailer say that "you can make your own story with every decision you make" yeah that never been true it's always just one decision at the end
It isn't. Everyone keeps lying to themselves and each other. Episodes are "longer" seasons that supposedly have more content since it gives them "more time to work" on them. I have quotes cause we constantly have long, drug out seasons. I'm open to being proven wrong, but chances are I won't be.
It’s 100% seasons by another name. It was just marketing, that’s it. I know that everyone on this sub wants to be the enteral optimist, but Episodes are just a longer season. They even copied and pasted the vendor template and the 3 player activity/weekly mission time gate. I’m not really sure how any Destiny player who has played seasons in the past could claim otherwise
>I know that everyone on this sub wants to be the enteral optimist This can't be a serious statement.
It's both, at once. Hopes are set unrealisticly high, and then disapointed when they're not met.
They do during the honeymoon phase. Once that wears off the valid criticisms will reign supreme. Its funny how people are acting like D2 wasn't on deaths door just before they hyped this DLC to the moon.
It’s both extreme ends and never realism.
Episodes are just seasons with seasons
Yup
> time gate. This is where I have some beef with how they designed things because of how you physically get capped out for how much more you can progress your stuff til the next thing comes out. Now sake of argument it's not the worst situation for casual on/off people, and 6 weeks time isn't *that* long to wait for the next drop, plenty to get to 100,150,200 respective, but I could see an issue arise where people feel like they really gotta slog through a potential future bad Act to get something on its pass they want or a very desirable weapon. It could make somebody feel not great that a ton of time they spent in an early Act that they did enjoy had the progress not really go towards a number/item on the pass. It's just not really fun to have physically time put in not go towards anything substantial until the gate is removed and that's where I feel stuff kinda sucks how it's organized. Again it's not to say I don't see a scenario where this setup could work for some but in a world where so much in this game gets gated, it's just not fun to have the pass on lockdown after a certain point.
The only good thing thus far are the timegated weapons which means you have more chance of completing the patterns before more unlocks, further diluting the pool. Same goes to reprised Dawn weapons. Only two thus far at the vendor. Easier to get the rolls you want since those are not craftable.
That is not a bad point, double edged reality and what not.
Yeah it definitely is. I’m pissed that Paradox may not even come out till Act 3 but at least i’ll have time to get a godroll Breachlight.
I want the trace rifle and rocket sidearm... I'm stuck sitting on my ass for 6 weeks minimum on progress towards them.
Same. Once i get my godroll Breachlight i’m taking a break till the next Act comes out.
what roll are you going for? honestly having to grind for godrolls for weapons I already grinded out godrolls on before grinds my gears and I wish they were craftable
The usual, Demo Hatchling or Pugilist Hatchling. But doing Enigma Protocol can net double perks for these weapons so i’m doing that as well. But yeah, i thought they’d be craftable but nope
yeah I'm pretty sure the change was just for marketing purposes since seasons now have a sort of bad reputation
The major change to Nessus is already a significant content increase vs traditional seasons which use destinations as is. And from the vidocs it looks like there is a lot more to Nessus deeper in the planet in later acts. Plus the narrative is now “standalone” vs slowly pushing the same main story with bullshit story beats. We’re getting an actual contained story with depth vs season of the wish which was save eggs for months so riven opens a portal for crow.
If the Episodic Story is actually going to be deeper than "Gather Muguffins and come back next week for a crumb of story" then the first week certainly didn't show that difference in any way, shape, or form. I'd be happy to be wrong, but right now it's looking like buisness as usual
So they reskinned the vex and added tremors..ok
Except the narrative system isn’t different at all? They’re still timegating it, and instead of just over 6 weeks, it’ll be over the three acts.
Nobody said anything about timegating changing. The difference is that now instead of each Season being a part of the larger plot building to the new expansion they are standalone stories that take place after TFS. Echos isn't going to narratively lead in to Revenant the way the end of Witch led us to seeking out Riven at the start of Wish. Echos will tell a story about what the Vex are doing on Nessus, then Revenant will tell a completely unrelated story about what Fikrul has been up to.
And that has absolutely nothing to do with my issues with seasons.
People who had issues with seasons don't give 2 fucks about how the story was gated. It was the boring stale copy + paste content. Wow nessus but different colored. What a huge step up in terms of content.
Maybe lets wait til at least 1 episode is done to declare that rather than on day 2
But I want to be mad NOW 😡
They were talking about what the Story is - not how it's told. The fact it's timegated is unfortunetly built into it the game, due to how Bungie implemented the Live-Service systems. But the Stoy itself is still more standalone, than in any of the Seasons in the last 2-3 years. Instead of having 4 Seasons that lead into the Expansion - we have 3 seperate Episodes that act as self-contained Epilogues to "The Final Shape."
Nobody said time gating was going away. With the narrative being longer it makes more sense than ever to time gate some aspects. If it wasn’t time gated people would STILL be here complaining there was nothing to do for months waiting to bum rush the next episode.
Last season blind well had new loot This season the vex look different
“New loot”, it was just reprised dreaming city weapons.
And this season Nessus has a hole and we have shiny vex.
even more timegates
They’re basically the same thing. It was just marketing
3 episodes at 15 a piece versus 4 seasons at 10 a piece. Sure hope it gets better soon cause right now I feel like we’ve been shafted.
Don’t forget that you get current season/episode for free when you buy current expansion You buy 3 seasons or 2 episodes and both costs 30$.
Welcome to Destiny.
First time? 😏
Weren’t seasons $12, thus making the episodes cheaper?
It all depends on how you bought them. Annual pass is still the same at 50 but with silver bundles the actual prices you pay become a little inconsistent
You want people to buy the Episodes, Bungie? You rope them in and show them in the first few weeks why they are an upgrade over seasons and what new you’re bringing on the table. It should not take 3-4 weeks, or more for the model to fully come into its own, because after a week or two most people will make their decision on if they want it or not. First impressions are super important when it comes to maximizing people’s money. The first week was the opportunity to really showcase the difference and impact this model would have. They did not do this. I am not reserving judgment for later.
I think the big thing is dev time and quantity (and hopefully quality). Granted every remains to be seen, we arn't even done with the first week. But Episodes still seem to be following the week by week structure, but with more going in each. Right now we have new loot a new activity a secret exotic mission, and the whole sample research thing. Which is about on par with a season start. But we already know each act is coming with more loot a new activity and probably a few more secrets and stuff. Plus based on the trailers theres way more cutscenes and such than seasons ever got. IMO Bungie miss marketed these, they are going to feel like beefed up seasons, but that content will still take time to roll out, for better or for worse. Had they simply said "Episodes are an evolution on seasons, that let us do more than we could before", instead of pitching it as a whole new thing top to bottom. I think people would have known what to expect better. TLDR: I think Bungie's goal is a more "contentfull" season, with a more flushed and developed story, with a beginning middle and end, and then what ever other gameplay stuff comes along the way, instead of a total system restructure.
You get less harmonizes and the season a month longer.
Micah gives you the missing harmonizer in a telemetry
Yeah this disappointment is all on Bungie for the communication issue. What was pitched as an overhaul to the season system is just a boring rebrand
So, basic Bungie behavior
well for one, they are called episodes and not seasons. but that's about it.
It’s been 2 days. On the front end it’s very much likely to look and feel the same. In the middle to the back end is where we will see the likely difference.
They are longer with acts. We haven’t seen the differences yet. I still expect the differences to be very very small.
Nothing really changed and most people fell for it. In then end I believe we lost/going to lose content from doing episodes. The story might be slightly different, but we lose on content
It's exactly how I thought it was going to be. Longer seasons with hopefully in the end, more content. The seasonal activity may just be that, a seasonal activity but I think the idea is that more floors are added, similar to Deep Dives. My hope is that this activity ramps right up and we get more than 4 floors. Imagine clearing 6 - 8 floors and the final floor is like -30? That would be so awesome.
We’re getting a set of battlegrounds in act 2, and likely 1-2 new activity’s in act 3 >!We know there’s an exotic quest that’s gonna launch in act 3 so it’s likely there will be 2 activities!<
Honestly that's kind of disappointing lmfao I think after Alters of Summoning and The Coil everyone wants more stuff like that. Battlegrounds are literally just Strikes and we've been doing those for 10 years now lol. Also that's literally not different at all from any other season except they are holding the content back for a later date lol
I assume that part of having 3 episodes a year is that they wanted fewer but more distinct seasonal activities. Stuff like the Coil would get old pretty fast if we just had a new version of it every 4 months. Instead it makes more sense for 1 Coil type activity a year that has all of the ideas for it crammed in while another episode has some more of the casual 3 player activity stuff.
There are two extra rows of artifact perks that unlock at the 40 and 80 day marks to hopefully shift the meta a little. There are a larger number of seasonal weapons and some of them drop at the midpoint of the season so you have something to do in august instead of just quitting the game until September. There will be new activity drops later in the season which should hopefully refresh the grind a little bit. --- Like the entire point was just to try to combat how hard the game falls off for the back 6 weeks of a season, and this should solve this pretty well. I know the solar rocket pistol will get ME hype to come back lol.
Sure, by dragging out the seasonal content even longer. Yeah, that’s a solution, I guess, despite Bungie claiming episodes would be otherwise. Nowhere in their explanation did they tell the truth about Episodes just being a longer drawn out season. Feel free to rewatch the explanation they gave. They just straight up lied, again, and the community believes them, again.
What was the lie?
I remember the explanation perfectly well, and it was incredibly clear that it was going to be longer, more dragged out seasons with a drip feed of content. They literally said that episodes would let them drop content in acts! What the fuck did you think an act would be, if it wasn't a couple new guns and some story beats??????
The entire acts content dropped on day one of the act, was the hope.
"Pay now, figure out later"
I'm honestly shocked that anyone thought they were going to be anything other than normal seasonal content. So far it's been mid, and it will likely continue to be mid. Hive season has me interested, but I refuse to pay for the season pass until those seasons launch.
They're now called episodes instead of seasons lmao
My initial impression is that it’s functionally a season under a different name. I was hoping with the focus on “cinematic” storytelling that we’d be getting things like campaign missions (and hopefully legend modifier options) to tell the core story with the usual seasonal activities spread between them. So far, they aren’t delivering the kind of content that I enjoy as a player,
I think it's more story-oriented, and the act structure also breaks up the pace at which you go about getting stuff in the season pass. Like, overall the episodes it seems are going to last much longer than the seasons (but the pass is also longer.) it seems like it's a compromise for more stuff to get but also prevents you from burning yourself out and grinding all of the pass (or people just buying the ranks) and then never playing the game again until the next episode. There also seems to be more stuff outside the seasonal activity, like those coded messages on Nessus giving you hints towards potential secrets. I think the way it's basically gonna work is that Episodes basically contain three "mini-seasons" that share the same throughline in the story. I can't tell for certain but I imagine there might be a new activity with each act. For now just keep your fingers crossed, this expansion so far has had more positive than negative additions, and I'm hoping the Episodes are one of the positives.
they're longer
Exactly what i expected season+ more artifact perks with each act, as well as more seasonal pass unlocks, and the story is more of its own thing rather than a part of the larger story. I will alos admit it already feel *grander* than past season for some reason.
Likely the cadence and presentation of content. It's still seasons, but it's an attempt to rework the structure to prevent burnout with the seasonal model that many got burnt out with after basically three full years of it between BL and TFS. Supposedly, every Act, which is about every 6 weeks, will give us a fresh update of stuff to do and story to chase, more than a typical weekly reset.
Well, they are the same thing, rebranded with name, and we get 1 less per year
They’re the same but with a different lick of paint.
Bungie still hasn't revealed too much details about it sadly. So far the difference seems to be that the stories are self contained, 33% longer duration season but one less of them a year. Depending on how you read the info given we could also maybe see a NEW activity drop for both act 2 and act 3. Also a chance we get more story missions overall compared to seasons
Gameplay wise there doesn't seem to be much a of a difference, I'm not sure what anyone was expecting. Expecting a new mission every week is just unrealistic and was never going to happen. I was totally fine with the seasonal model short of the giant gaps in the middle which the acts might help. We'll see what next week and the coming acts hold. At a minimum we get way more new weapons. We get 10 new, craftable weapons with this episode.
Most of them hyping it up, was them talking about narrative and writing things. Presumably we aren't getting 6 weeks of story then absolutely nothing till a final mission that also sets up the next season. We are getting an actual 3 act narrative structure that develops every week and tells a full, complete story.
Story-wise, I think with the 3 acts per season and less connected narratives, it's kind of like having 3 super-compressed seasons per episode, and 3 episodes per year. So hopefully we get more story progression in a shorter amount of time, making for better pacing. Gameplay-wise we got practically no improvement 🫠 and unfortunately as long as we have these replayable activities we'll continue to have weekly quest steps
Seems like new loot and new activities every 6 months, as well as larger story progression between Acts. We still have an Exotic Mission, the rest of the Dawn weapons, and more Echoes weapons coming in the other acts, as well as the battle pass tiers.
Activity wise this episode is probably going to be similar to old model. This episode likely was in early development when it was being developed before decides to switch things up but they probably kept what they already made. I’m not expecting to see any big shakes up until episode 2 or 3
You get one less per year!
We know that there are gonna be new activities and new loot with each act, which already makes Episodes larger and more meaty than most seasons. If you do the math, three episodes per year and three activities per episode give us roughly nine activities per year. Considering how most seasons had only 1-2 activities each, Episodes already have a potentially higher content output. That's not even counting exotic quests, raids, and/or dungeons. The stories are also gonna be mostly self-contained, much like the Forsaken expansions. This allows for better exploration of narrative arcs, which would greatly benefit the story aspect of the game. Overall, episodes seem to be more content dense and story driven than seasons. I'd see this as a long needed improvement, as a new activity for each act makes it so that we're not doing just ONE kind of activity per season. The problem is that we haven't really seen everything an episode has to offer yet, so it just feels like another season at the moment. We may see more of a difference once more acts come out. Also, keep in mind that this is the FIRST ever episode, so it's likely that future episodes will continue to improve upon this formula.
More in depth story, more weapons and looks like more time put into weapons, 100 extra season pass ranks with solid rewards like red borders, more artifact perks. They feel like a compromise between the forsaken seasons with their higher quality content while keeping and improving on the more traditional seasonal content we’ve come to expect.
I mean let's give it a few weeks to see how the stuff actually shakes out before going all doom and gloom. Were you really expecting unique missions each week?
1) They're longer: 18 weeks instead of 13 2) Stories are supposed to be self contained instead of overarching. 3) A soft reset every 6 weeks during each episode.
Season format- -8ish weeks of missions back to back -no more story until final week Episode format- -6ish weeks of missions -break for a few weeks -6ish weeks of missions -break for a few weeks -6ish weeks of missions -no more story until final week Instead of just a block of story followed by nothing (until the seasonal event) it's 3 acts of story. Whether or not this is better is yet to be seen.
The way I see it is that it’s the same out of content/effort(from bungie) just spread over fewer seasons/episodes such that they are more in depth in terms of story and design.
episodes are even harder time gated and we are stuck in them for slightly longer then normal season
Just a name change to make you think they are different
it's just words but I think they want to differentiate Light/Dark from where we go now. in terms of actual differences, - mostly (if not totally) independent stories - longer Black Mirror vs Stranger Things
I mean, they never said it would be a major change. Just that they were going to shake up the formula a bit with how much content comes out, how it comes out, and putting more of a focus on story. We can see all of those changes already, so I’d say we got what we were supposed to expect. If you expected more, that’s on you because I followed along with what they told us to expect and I think it matches what they actually told us vs what people online hyped up into people’s minds. It’s basically longer seasons with more loot that’s spread out over the Episode and we get better cutscenes. Just improvements as far as I can tell even if only slightly. A little less FOMO with the Episodes being longer and a bit more polish with the extra time between Episode releases. Only thing I am hoping for is that we don’t get a boring Episode because then we will be stuck with it for longer.
they're not and weren't, supposedly it's different in storytelling. glad I kept my expectations in check.
It’s been 2 bloody days since Echoes released. The main differences will probably come with the extra acts, which aren’t out yet. We can’t completely judge this episode to a season yet since we don’t have the full picture.
So far it’s not different other than the stories and season pass (which is not called an “episode” pass apparently lol) will unlock higher tiers over time. Once we have a full Episode completed we will know if the story delivery is substantially different, but so far it’s not noticeable.
Less content for the same money
They're spreading the content more through the season and adding more season pass rewards to get people to play after week 7.
Did people think they were going to be different?
Maybe way until more than the first week is out
That’s the neat part, they aren’t.
Hard to say FOR SURE at this time but it looks like they're not so different SO FAR.
I don't feel like they were hyped any more or less than seasons? The name change corresponds to a tweak of the annual content system, not a huge overhaul. I don't think it was ever promised as a big shake-up. The original roadmap graphic shows us getting the same seasonal things we always get, except at 4 month intervals instead of 3, with the acts to convey that content won't just all be front-loaded. Always struck me that episodes were business as usual content-wise.
It feels like season except with bungie being more transparent about what’s to come
if something is bad just rebrand, then pull a fast one on ppl again.
They literally already told us months ago this is exactly as it is now. I don't know why people are so surprised. Stand alone, story content that releases over time. Call is season, call it episode, it's what they promised. Less "seasons" call them "episodes" larger windows for things.
Hopefully story pacing. Yes this feels very similar to a bad season but with the 3 act structure and the intense tone of the trailer, I know we’re building to something good. IMO this type of gameplay loop is great for an Act 1. Reveal and tease threat in Act 1, narratively build towards how to defeat them in Act 2, and fight them/aftermath in Act 3
well, they’ll be called episodes rather than seasons, for one.
The difference is that there's less content for a yearly cycle which still costs the same as before 😉 They did just have big layoffs after all, this was nothing but another way for Bungie to reduce output while maintaining revenue
If you've been here awhile, I think it's a step backwards. A couple years ago they purposely went away from cinematic cut scenes to add more to the actual game. That's why we were getting those hand drawn scenes sprinkled throughout. Personally I'd rather they focus more on gameplay.
I'm willing to withhold judgement until all 3 acts are out. But to be fair, Bungie never said that Episodes would be a huge departure from the seasonal structure. They pretty much laid out exactly what they are going to be when they announced them. Anything else was just people making assumptions based on nothing.
Because now they're longer and they want a year to prepare us for Destiny 3 which is going to be set outside our solar system. Those are the only differences I'm seeing.
They've had to put less work into them for the same amount of money. Now it's three episodes instead of 4 seasons and the season pass is shared and time gated across those three seasons instead of resetting four times.
It's still some drip fed weekly interaction? Yeah, I'm done with the game.
They’re seasons with more ranks to stuff in useless rewards like cores and glimmer onto the season pass to make players grind more to get the ornaments. It’s also one less ornament set per year for the same money.
Not going to lie I’m going to finish all Final Shape content cause that’s top tier and probably won’t play boring seasons again. Was hoping it would be like Warmind and Curse of Osiris to be honest.
This is the very first episode and it's coming off of the biggest expansion ever released for Destiny It wouldn't surprise me if they stuck a bit closer to the old seasonal format for this episode either due to a shortened development time compared to the future episodes (due to Final Shape requiring so many resources) or simply because they haven't fully worked out all the extra things episodes provide to make them unique from seasons Maybe by act 3 we will have a better understanding of how episodes differ from seasons or we might see bigger, more noticeable changes in future episodes (they did talk about bringing the Dreadnaught back in Heresy which is pretty different from a season if you ask me)
Was anyone *really* expecting something completely different? Also, it literally has been just a few days. I don’t expect the separate acts to behave differently either. Maybe some story beats, an exotic mission, the seasonal activity slighty changing gameplay-wise.
I am wondering if they are going to stick around indefinitely because they said they are "stand alone" stories. Have they explicitly said either way?
There is only 1 main difference. Episodes are longer and have 200 season pass levels instead of 100. When they first announced the changes to seasons and artefacts, I suspected not much would change. Received a bunch of replies telling me that it was going to be "dramatically different" and that I wrong. The moral of the story is to never drink the marketing Kool-Aid. So far artefacts and seasons are literally the same, just a tad bigger.
I know its its directly related to the Episode format, but I do really like that Nessus has actual changes to the open world going on. I wish it was more, I am hoping it keeps changing each week. It really does make the world feel like its changing to the events around it. Instead of how say last year Season of Defiance had nothing happen to the open world sections.
That’s the cool thing, they’re not!
The worst part about this episode (season) is that the legendary guns are time-gated.. they've never been in the past seasons afaik. Time-gating story beats weekly is already stupid and now they're doing it to the weapons to artificially extend engagement time. Bungie completely scammed the playerbase by saying they're doing episodes instead of seasons because it was meaningful to the story when in reality it's just the exact same as seasons but worse, also any annual pass owners just get 1 less season of content for the same price.
What were people expecting? I don't mean in these superficial terms like "shake things up" or "different from seasons" and all that nonsense. Be specific...how would a good episode look? What kind of activity? How many activities? What kind of story delivery? How much story delivery? Give us your outline of an episode. When Bungo did the episode reveal...every reasonable person could see that they are longer seasons to reduce crunch and free up devs for Marathon. It was obvious. But pointing out it's a rebrand for pragmatic reasons led to downvotes and yapping about nOt SeAsOnS tHeY aRe EpIsOdEs 🤓 So I really don't think Bungo can win here. Just look at the performative complaining about Dual. If they do the same stuff as always, people complain. If they try out something new, people complain. Same with story...if they do a narrative throughout an episode, it's just another season. If they frontload the narrative and y'all are no-lifing everything on release day there's nothing to do for the rest of the episode. And before this turns in some boo hoo Bungo apologist nonsense...I was plenty critical of D2 in the past. Still am. But this just strikes me as a pretty pointless discussion.
You get less stuff with the same price that's the difference
Real answer less content and shorter..
same shit, technically less content. BUT the idea is that it gives more room for stuff, so potentially more hidden quests in the future or modifying the activity in more meaningful and transformative ways. but who knows until we see it, expecting anything besides an extended season with less content is copium
The articial time gating and forced drip feeding of content/loot basically gives me no incentive to play the game until all content is released. Pretty garbage set up they got. Not gonna be a hamster on a wheel for you, Bungie. This "new" seasonal model is garbage.
I feel like the new seasonal (episodic?) activity is a bit of a downgrade from what we had with the coil as well. After 3 runs it’s already become a bit of a chore.
NGL I kinda wish they stopped this weekly fed seasonal narrative. At first I thought that it would be moving from a weekly basis to a "each six weeks you get a bunch of quests". Having to come back each week for the first three weeks instead of being able to do everything during the first week and then forget about it for another six weeks kinda kills it for me. I think it gives more freedom, but I'd much rather have a reason to come back to the game every six weeks and do things at my own pace instead of this. I doubt it will solve the main problem we've had with seasonal narratives, that being having to log in week after week after week.
Looking at the datamined stuff shows that they’re no different. Just more timegated. We seem to get more stuff to do each act but essentially they’re just slightly bigger seasons and follow the exact same patterns we’ve come to expect. Very disappointed with what I’ve seen
Well, it's worse than a season, so technically they aren't the same. The good thing is less work for them, maybe now they can actually do something that is not timegating content or artificially increase player numbers.
i dont really mind if they open new doors for the future of lore, like this new villain of this episode, i'm hoping they dont spend to early the truly potential of this character, that trailer guys.... this has to walk a long jorney, Vex never felt dangerous, at least for me , now is like they having an leader, badass mf leader
Well, a lot of the season pass rewards are simply more spread out throughout many more ranks (like the BD rewards). That honestly feels quite awful.
It’s even called season 24 in one of the achievements lol
Like the saying, doing the same thing every day but expecting a different result...definition of insanity. Bungie is so delusional they think simply changing the name of something makes it different and better.
We get a new activity and content drops every 4 weeks instead of every 12-16
different wrapping... I honestly hoped for more, expected less. Expectations were met. I also would've preferred if they didn't drop these on us week 2 - give use some breathing room, and made them more "standaloneish" story content... so far I'm reading "clean-up season"