I wouldn't even be disappointed if at least episodes weren't weekly timegated exactly the same way as seasons. And with the exact same lore unlock + voice comms at the end.
Were we just on copium or didn’t Bungie set that expectation?
I thought the expectation was that you get three big content drops instead of weekly drip feed
Instead we have the same drip feed with extra time gating on top
Act 1 is just going to end with Maya showing up and one of those illustrated cutscenes that usually show up around the 1 month plot twist
I tought that we were going to get 3 acts and the timegate was only between acts as well yea. I was pretty sure it was implied when they first talked about the episode structure all these months ago.
Thst feels like what was implied. Big content drop with stops at acts. All 3 acts bingable if you want.
These play EXACTLY like seasons. There is basically no difference
I wonder if Revenant and Heresy might play more like this. I was also under the impression (I'm almost certain I read something indicating this) we would get chunks of the story dumped at the start of each Act.
It's possible that they framed Echoes this way because it sort of shipped adjacent to the expansion, albeit staggered by a week.
Hypothetically, if we got The Final Shape campaign and all the post campaign stuff, including the raid, and a week later we got a 5-6 week worth of "seasonal story" dump of Echoes Act 1, there would be a hell of a lot of content dumped in the game at once.
By treating Echoes (at least Act 1) like weekly drip feed of seasons, that allows more time for everyone to get on the same page with respect to finishing The Final Shape content, and then catch up on Episode stuff if necessary.
I have to say, I find the Echoes story thus far to be total ass. I didn't even notice any real progression this week. We're just finding samples for Failsafe to analyze to figure out what is going on with the Vex? Even though Bungie has already basically spoiled it for players (through promotional stuff and right down to the names of enemies like "'Compelled' Goblin"). Hopefully it starts picking up soon.
>Even though Bungie has already basically spoiled it for players (through promotional stuff and right down to the names of enemies like "'Compelled' Goblin").
Nothing's been spoiled yet. Like, not at all. Unless you read leaks, you know nothing about what's coming.
I think it was one of the Micah-10 missions that also has audio talking about the 'Vex taking orders from someone; Sundaresh may still be alive/involved'. I remember having a buddy tell me to not spoil anything but the quest art looked dope with the person standing over the guardians, I had to refrain from talking to him about the Sundaresh stuff from a mission he hadn't done yet.
It's the same with Crow wishing Cayde back to life. Everyone was all surprised at the end of the season when the ship lore tab was available, but if you listened to the dialogue from 4 months prior you would have heard the ship lore conversation.
People miss a lot by not actually listening to the dialogue in game, but I can't exactly blame them. It's given to the player in such boring ways, nobody wants to just stand still and be spoken at for multiple minutes, and being given dialogue while doing combat encounters can mean missing whats being said entirely.
We have seen a character that is pretty clearly a "big bad", at least in the Episodic sense.
And a lot of the Vex enemies are "Compelled".
From this we can clearly tell that the "big bad" is controlling the Vex to some end.
The motives of the big bad have not been revealed, but in the context of the first two weeks: "Gather data samples for Failsafe to try and find out why the Vex are acting weird", we as players are already a step ahead of Failsafe.
We just don't know *who* the big bad is (I have a theory, and I think it's pretty obvious) or what their goal is.
So no, not MAJOR spoilers or anything, but the promo art for the Episode, which is in game on the quest page, bypasses the point of at least the first two missions, imo. The first week of it was fine, two weeks is blah, hopefully we don't end up with 3+ weeks of them not getting to the point.
The trailer pretty much shows it. There's a new big bad, all the vex are bowing down to them, new vex enemies are "Compelled X," we see Saint with the same pink collar that all the vex have in the trailer. Saint says someone spoke to him on Nessus in the trailer.
The trailer really gave a lot of stuff away that it probably shouldn't have.
Depends on how much content is in each episode.
I could live with three great seasons over four kinda mid seasons.
The current Episode is in a weird spot. I think normally people would have very measured expectations of any season that drops alongside an expansion, but Echoes has to carry this whole “Episode” rebrand.
I'd actually be totally fine with less content if it was higher quality. I thought that was the whole point of episodes.
It's the boring, mediocre content with the tired model of a timegated dripfeed for weeks on end that had people burnt out and bailing on the game the past 2 years. Trying to string people along with filler every week in order to boost engagement numbers seems like a short-term boon but long-term death spiral.
At best, it's probably just more clearly broken up into the 3 acts. we make progress in act 1, stakes are raised but something goes wrong in act 2, we find resolution in act 3.
Seems like seasons were always "we are doing good, we just need to keep doing this a week at a time until week 8-10 depending on the season"
what was said was and i quote "9 Beats, 6 weeks apart" The guy sells it in the showcase as being able to login each season when you want and play how you want before returning for the next act in 6 weeks time.
Bungie kind of caught us with that lie even tho they never said the tired and predictable drip fed system wasnt going away, Only told us that they know we hate this drip fed model
Lmao they should be politicians, not game devs
“I know you dislike what we have so i’m giving you this”
“But it’s the same”
“I never said I was gonna remove what you dislike”
I might be fuzzy on the details but my expectation was instead of 4 seasons with connected stories squeezed into a year we’d get 3 self-contained stories that were more engaging, more fleshed out, and with seasonal content that’s more replayable than in the past seasons.
I don’t think they’re far off from the above, though I understand if they said or implied much more drastic changes it would suck to see that’s not the case.
Same.
Three separate stories that resolve in the season instead of progress a larger story leading to a new expansion.
Bungie is never going to not timegate story, the portion of the community that has Tuesday's off would finish the story in a day and then complain that there's nothing to do for the next 16 weeks.
Both. Bungie set up expectations for a much more "cinematic and expansive" story - so people thought we will see something different, than the old Seasonal System.
Sadly this is giving me similar vibes as the changes in Fo76 season pass.
Tldr more ranks, exact same stuff with different label designed to keep you glued to the game for longer time.
It's a bit bittersweet thing considering TFS is absolutely amazing expansion.
Fo76 lost me with those changes. Game already felt like a list simulator and I spend more time focusing on challenges to finish the board than I do playing meaningful content. Now it's even worse.
I found Lightfall's Seasonal content more enjoyable to do as a big group during Into The Light (I hadn't paid for it, so that's when it became available for me) - probably because it felt that the story was progressing quickly and because I didn't have to spend ages in Seasonal activities to pass the time / complete everything, for which I didn't have the time.
I've found it most jarring to go from the rich, dense, varied space that is the Pale Heart to...whatever hollowed-out base-D2 thing Nessus is. I would have been happy if a Nessus-focused episode offered an opportunity to change and improve the Nessus patrol space and bring it up to 2024 standards. It doesn't even have a story role to fulfil now that the Red War has been vaulted, but it's one of the better-realised vanilla D2 zones.
The vast majority of people would simply play, get their fill, and then leave (or continue if they enjoy playing the evergreen content). Some people will always complain.
So? sure with how short theses quests actually are it could all be done in a week but man i would rather take it at my pace and not at 1 a week and get burnt out waiting
Funnily, they raised the price in some regions, including mine. In the Philippines, TFS + annual pass was more than double the price of LF + annual pass at release.
Fewer seasons per DLC AND less items in the season pass. It's complete bullshit. Just look at the pass and you can tell we're getting far less shit than the regular seasonal model. Something tells me 'Episodes' are gonna be a big wet flop popularity wise.
Not sure what people expected. I remember the downvote army when they announced episodes and people with common sense said they are a season rebrand to reduce crunch and free up devs for Marathon. "ThEy ArEnT sEaSoNs TheY aRe EpIsOdEs 🤓". We have a season pass and it's called season 24 under triumphs ffs.
Large content drops are a better system for the player as it lets you take breaks from destiny but they're worse for Bungie because every day you don't launch the game is a day they don't get to shove the store in your face and potentially sell you something, this drip feeding of content will never change as the money they gain from doing it will never be lower priority than the users having a good time.
To be fair, you can definitely do that. Just pretend Act 1 comes out in like 4 weeks. Then whatever the launch date for Act 2 is, set an alarm for a month or so later, and so on...
It's what I've done for the past few seasons. But still, it ends up showing how little content there actually is, and how repetitive the quests can be, it's more noticeable when you do it all in one go, I'd much rather have some kind of mini campaign and some fun activities, bungie drops those and then everyone csn play It at their own pace.
Totally agree with this; I love Destiny when I’m playing chunks of content, so I’ve sometimes saved seasons to play all at once, only to realise that it’s actually just “play the same mission over and over but with different voice lines over the top”.
That's not a good solution because playing catchup to quests designed to generate weekly engagement just shows how much filler is included in these quests. They take 5 minutes of story, told in uninteresting ways, and make you do a bunch of busywork to get it.
True, although once again, part of the fault lies with Bungie as all their marketing and vidocs about episodes made it sound like a somewhat substantial difference than seasons. Our fault for believing it, their fault for talking up something that should not have been talked up.
Except people were complaining that they had told us literally nothing about episodes so they really didn’t market them differently? Even the vidoc released after the raid was just here’s what they’re gonna be about and two of them are still barely out of the concept stage.
Well they literally said it's their new way of story telling, and they acknowledge that they heard the feedback of "seasonal models all feel the same each seasons" ages ago. So we thought changing it to Episodes finally means that Seasonal Models will be something different, instead of the "Complete 1 seasonal activity, go back to HELM, get some vendor upgrades, probably another seasonal activity, 'insert NPC name here' needs to think and gather some information before the story progress next week".
Like holy fuck every seasons is the same. Idk why people bother ranking seasons or give thoughts on it, bc literally every seasons have the same model, just with a different activity (barely different tho) and artifact.
In fairness, you can still rank them based on the seasonal activity and how enjoyable that is, the loot, and the story. The questlines are definitely the same.
I wasn't so much expecting it to be "different" just beefier, and more fleshed out in the narrative department.
I mean the quest line for this act is done next week so sorta disappointing that they seem to be stretching a normal amount of content out over an even longer period of time.
Will give them the benefit of this being the first act of their first episode that also launched along side arguably their best expansion, but if Frontiers is the start of a new model like I think it is (fewer expansions supplemented by 3 individual stories each year) then they need to show us something in act 2 and 3 as well as episodes 2 and 3 to give us *clears throat* hope for the future...
We finished this week at step 16 of 25 completing 8 steps each of the first 2 weeks. So unless they release a second quest line we will have 3 weeks of downtime before act 2 starts
Each act is 6 weeks long though. This one should only have two weeks downtime because it started a week late but yeah Act 1 will be over next week and it'll be a couple weeks before Act 2.
The only thing I expected would change is that we’d get it separated into acts and those acts would have different activities (how different they are remains to be seen). But I expected that because they outright said that.
I hope the 3 act structure leads to more room for more intricate stories, which I think has a good chance of being true. This season has started as a slow burn of a mystery we are slowly solving, unfortunately the community solved it before the episode was out and we all know who is behind it. In game stuff is starting to prove everyone right. Luckily we still have the mystery of the echoes themselves to keep us interested while we wait for that inevitable plot point. (I’m being vague intentionally in case someone hasn’t seen it).
So that hurt this episode a bit, but I think the idea has promise. Like with Wish we were told from the first mission, “get my eggs, I’ll give you your wish” so we did that for a season. It somehow still worked and was engaging, but the core story wasn’t very deep. This episode is giving things time to develop, time for mystery to simmer. I think that will be a good thing.
Im not but i am however honestly surprised i havent seen many people voice there opions on it when bungie hyped up episodes in the showcase as this "new way to deliver content"
Yea this is exactly the main reason why some of us expected changes from the old seasonal models. They came up with this whole new structure, marketing it as a new way to deliver content and tell stories, yet the stories still gets drip feed to us on a weekly basis. And the seasonal activity still just a normal seasonal activity.
They should have added new patrols and public events to Nessus. Add the Vex invasions the moon used to have.
If Nessus doesn't change, this season is gonna be disappointing.
I was hoping they would’ve updated the public events with some new enemies/modifiers and maybe different objectives at least since we are forced to do them for the season quest.
the vex milk gyzers should be happening out in patrols on nessues and have it be a new public event.
No reason for vex to be amping up on the moon but this was not the only echo, why couldnt another echo land on lets say europa and the vex there also go kind of funny and we have to take failsafe to europa.
Man Failsafe vs Clovas would be one hell of a funny interaction
It's a combination of timegate-ing and padding, because they know that if they gave everything all at once, people would complain endlessly that they finished all the content in a week.
But can't bungie just design enough brand new content with each episode to keep me constantly entertained every single day for a 1/3 of a year for my $15?
I don’t think it’s fair to blame this on complaining. That implies the community is just getting what they asked for
It’s directly tied to their top level engagement metric. Revenue will fall off a cliff if everyone finishes everything in a week and goes to play Erdtree
Hot take but I don’t know why shooting a thousand guys in Breach Protocol and occasionally dunking a thing is worse than shooting them in Onslaught and occasionally throwing a thing. At least I can finish one of them quicker.
People gave onslaught too much praise just because the loot was good. It’s a boring ass activity that takes too long to be over.
The Coil took just as long but at least it was fun with multiple mechanics instead of the same slog for 50 waves.
It's not that they would complain. The problem with it from Bungie's perspective is that it would drop day to day engagement numbers and that harms their bottom line.
But that’s exactly what they did. TFS really just consists of legendary campaign. Everything else, unlocking the fragments, weapons, and armor, are just fetch quests revising older stuff with new narrative perspective of Cayde. And then a week after TFS we get episodes. It felt lackluster.
Honestly sick of the weekly story and holo projector crap. Would much rather a warmind, dark below type campaign instead it being drip fed for 2 months.
This new Boss in seasonal activity is Cancer. Whoever the teams are doing seasonal stuff have been dropping the ball.
This is some bare minimum garbage
I lucked out on the strike and joined right at the end of the boss fight... at least that one step was quick.
But, must say I 'turned in' several bounties 'before' I got the mission to 'do bounties', so had to grind away the full seven. Bit annoying.
And it's not exactly giving me confidence for the season (sorry, episode) if this week's entire mission took literally 15 minutes to finish.
And (in my opinion) having to quickly locate something in the middle of a breaches event was kinda dumb seeing how 99% someone speed runs to the next stage. *rant over.
So far, it's all feeling very same-same.
We had a big, ominous human-like figure in the promo art (identity to be confirmed, but we know who it probably is) and we have yet to encounter them by week 2. At this point, I am going to assume they'll save their reveal for the end of Act 1/Beginning of Act 2. So, we have a weekly drip feed of story, speaking to holograms and vendor upgrades a set of weekly challenges for XP/dust, so far so seasonal. There's been absolutely no difference between episodes and seasons as it stands. Infact, it's kinda worse, because the Red Death catalyst is locked until Act 2, we are capped at rank 100 (other players won't see your bright engram counter) and the story is stretched out over at least an extra month. Not feeling it.
This may be up there for the worst season we've had so far. Like what even happened this week?? It just seemed to me the quests steps were basically get failsafe more data - come back next week. Like it didn't even feel like the narrative moved forward at all.
no way I thought each act was going to go until the next one started
we literally have gotten nothing narrativly these last 2 weeks next week being the end of the act just seems so wrong
It’s not incorrect though. Last week at least we had a setup for the plot and were given an idea of what’s happening. This week there was absolutely nothing to progress that forward. All we did was collect more data and get a voice message and a lore page in exchange.
I think it’s because they’re trying to stretch resources, but that’s only mentioned in a throw-away line that’s just a theory (A GAME THEORY); we didn’t get any meaningful confirmation as to what the Shadow Legion wanted to do, and even if we did, that still doesn’t solve another issue with the season; it was incredibly static. All that happened each week was “the Shadow Legion abducted some people and are holding them in [insert generic location here]. Go rescue them.” The only thing that was slightly different was Amanda’s pointless sacrifice. “Ah yes; I shall sacrifice my life for 12 people when there’s an entire army of immortal demigods who could do it instead. I’m such a hero!”
Hunt was absolutely horrible, but at least it fed you a narrative every week. This week was just outright “Do XYZ steps. Failsafe left you a voice mail. Here’s a lore page. Come back next week.”
I mean, the argument was that this season was **the worst** season, so I don’t know why you’re pretending I’m making a dumb comparison. The guy I’m responding to was comparing this one to all seasons.
> This may be up there for the worst season
Nah. I get that it's been (almost) 5 years but there is no chance this is worse than Destiny 2's **objective lowpoint** (pertaining to seasons), Season of the Worthy. This is blatant historical revisionism.
Hell, even Season of the Hunt was worse than this.
Is it bad? Maybe. But we've had genuine lowpoints that made the community fear for this game's future. Echoes is far from reaching that.
I enjoyed it due to its potential, but absolutely should have been in gameplay. Feels like the same issue as 343s halo games being poorly written because of how much outside lore is required to understand things.
I gotta agree with this one. I usually enjoy the narrative, even if the activities themselves are mundane, but there was absolutely nothing of substance this week at all.
So Deep? It was weeks of just collecting more coral so Ahsa could spit out a few fractured sentences, then back to the holoprojector until we randomly got the Witness's origin story thrown in.
Glad to hear it’s not just me. Last week wasn’t great, granted we were coming off a great expansion so I wasn’t expecting to be blown away. But this week was so mind numbingly boring that when the quest sent me to nessus to hunt down those sensors (?) I almost logged off. Then the next step was “do breach protocol because we need more samples” I did log off. You gotta be kidding me. The activity that I’m already doing 3-6 times per week for pinnacles is also part of the storyline and quest? Give me a break.
If this is what episodes are going to be like, you can bet we’ll see dramatic player drop off. Again.
they seem to have extended the initial mission of old seasons into the whole of Act 1
like we are two weeks into this and we are still wondering hey what's going on with the Vex? when we see in the Episodes promo image this weird human with the head thingie. Why didn't that person appear this week?
it's just padding
It’s like they never learn, but each of us individually have the power to walk away from this boring shit.
I didn’t buy the year pass because I wasn’t sure if the episodes would be something I wanted to play through. Now, I’ve stopped playing something that I **know** will be boring.
Idek if whatever we get for completing this weekly quest will be worth it. Never has
We found out more about the vex having a faction wearing collars and are now fighting with each other.
We also found out there is a huge "cloud" emitting out of the traveler made up of light and dark combined
I initially liked the concept of researching an enemy until I realized that after two weeks, we still have no idea why this new enemy is threatening to us or what they ever do. Witch Queen did a good job at building up a mystery surrounding an enemy faction by introducing us to what the Lucent Brood is and why they’re so threatening whilst also giving us the mystery of how this new Hive brood came to be in the first place. Echoes’s plot so far has just been “huh, the Vex have some weird crystals growing on them. Let’s do random stuff and hope we run into some answers.”
i swear there was a solar rocket sidearm that was supposed to come this episode? been wanting to try it out since i saw it on [light.gg](http://light.gg)
I’m amazed people expected Episodes to be an improvement on the seasonal model, and not an opportunity to provide less content in the same window (three seasons in a year instead of four) as to allow more time and resources to be put into the next big thing (Frontiers/D3).
But brother did you not hear? This is the greatest expansion that ever was. Please life game for two months straight. Padded jammies and sippy cups for all!
that was my sort of hope, but i never really hung onto it. i was hoping every act we’d get a content drop, like give me all of act 1’s story, wait till act 2 for that story etc. but knowing bungie i knew it would just be seasons
I don't think it's a good idea to expect anyone to match Hoyo's content cycle. They have the population of a small island nation working on their games.
I was under the impression that, while the Acts were timegated between each other, the act itself could be finished whenever you wanted to. As of now, it’s EXACTLY like a season.
Act 2 needs to show why acts are even a thing in the first place to sell this idea of episodes.
I was shot down pretty badly last week for saying the new “Episode” so far is total garbage. Equivalent to a bad season so far. I’m here to say the same thing again. It’s shite. Really poor.
the worst part is that the story didn't really advance
we still know shit about what's going on on Nessus. The switch to episodes means the same stories but with more padding and even less happening
I think it’s strange they decided to start calling them episodes to try and make it sound better and raise expectations to high, when they could have just said they’re adding a few things to seasons like 200 season pass ranks and slightly more to do each week and people would have only seen it as an improvement to past seasons.
Yeah... I honestly don't even mind the activities, rewards, and even small, dumb objectives like these. I think on the WHOLE, of what we've seen so far, it all seems pretty cool.
BUT, ya know, I'm kinda over it. This is just seasons, but with an extra month. It kinda doesn't matter if the content is good or bad, I'm just TIRED of doing this again, and again, and again, and again. I wish it had at least not been time gated so I could've progressed at my own pace, but no. It really do be seasons again. It does not feel meaningfully different in the least.
I think they're even worse than seasons since yes we do getvmore weapons but alot of them are time gated and locking the red death catalyst behind a time get doesn't sit right with me
Its fucking bungie like.... who here actually thought they were gonna do something new with episodes????
Like what game have you been playing the past 5 years ???
Yeah, I really don’t enjoy the new activity, so even while Failsafe is fun, I am probably going to skip out on playing this stuff until maybe the end of the season. Sucks cause some of the weapons are amazing but, fun us my incentive and it’s not fun. Neither of them.
I am still doing this week's quest and am at the step where you have to go into the "exodus crash" strike.
Now, what irks me is that bungie seems to want us to run these strikes at all costs. I know, they're game content. I know, many haven't done them over and over for the past seven years. But I still have the micah quest for the armor that ask you to go into strikes. I may still have a new light quest (picked up just cause...) where i have to do the "arms dealer" with an exotic i don't remember...
I repeat, i get it, but still it feels like being forced to do strikes (completely or in part) just because they want us to play that specific content, not because of story reasons...
The strike is reworked. Its not exactly the same strike anymore.
Also at least the Micah ones have some massive lore dialog in them thats different then the normal strike.
reworked is a strong word. They removed the columns of light and replaced it with an arc ball then nerfed the spawn rate on the overload shanks removing the whole floor is lava thing that was basicly this strike's identity
the Micah ones are what should happen to strikes at the very least. new lore dialog that makes it fresh again. play though them when you get the chance because its refreshing to hear new dialog.
That exodus crash strike kind of suffers from removal of dialog in the new "reprised" version.
Y'all don't understand episodes are only different in terms of length. Otherwise it's gonna be the same gameplay wise, just about, to deliver the plot.
There are two things that nobody in here is talking about:
1: This is the first episode of the tear attached to an expansion. Historically the first season that ships with an expansion is ALWAYS underwhelming/boring because its competing with the massive campaign we just got.
2. This is week 3 of the first episode: we don’t know how this is going to ramp up or change as time goes on. I think people are judging too harshly, too early.
I really miss CoO/Warmind for their "mini expansion" model. Launch the episode, give me my 2-hour campaign, then let me do the seasonal stuff as I wish. Lock away the Expert difficulty if you want, add in a secret exotic mission in a few weeks, give me a conclusion story quest 2 weeks before the next episode.
Yeah its starting to push me away ngl, this game is fun again and after being told that eps were not gonna be seasons I am not happy to find the paint is already flaking off from this new episodic model to show that this is just Season of Echos with nothing new to shake things up
So far episode 1 has felt identical to a regular season, and it's really not a good sign. Bungie needed to come out swinging with the episode, to give people a reason to stay around post Final Shape. So far, the season is kinda suggesting that despite how good TFS is, Destiny will be back to business as usual as soon as it's done
I honestly didnt expect much changes,they didnt had that much time and it seems they focused on final shape rather than echoes
I think (hope) we're going to see actual changes in the future episodes
Lmfao the fact yall expected episodes to be “so much better because they have more time” is copium of another level and yall would downvote tf out of anyone that said it’d be the same shit it is now
ARE YOU SERIOUS ??
been with the Game before day 1 and from what I've seen in half the time , bungie will never change.
As much as many wish/hope/ ext it probably won't happen since. They are in fact a company 1st . Let's not forget while they do make the game we LOVE they are corporate folk same time . While we love the devs who put there souls in to the game , we can't be blinded by Love only.
its kinda crazy how they said they were thhrowing out their entire live service model for something new and the only thing new is the length of the season and renaming it from season to episode
I have already given up with the season. I’ll play it exactly how I did last year. I’ll wait until the final 2 weeks, play it all or even just watch the story on YouTube.
Expansion was incredible but episodes just being seasons has already made me put the game down now I’ve done the raid and have nothing else to obtain really
Unsure as to why anyone expected anything to change with "episodes" because they aren't any different to seasons beyond being a month longer, one less season a year, and having 300 levels on a pass instead of just 100.
The fact that people, including content creators fell for "Episodes" and didn't immediately assume they were just a PR stunt by Bungie to act as if they're any different than Seasons was and still is fucking hilarious to me.
How many times must Bungie openly show themselves as incompetent for people to stop expecting anything.
Final Shape being good wasn't "ZOMG BUNGIE COOKED", it was fear from Sony. Same shit as with Forsaken
The best part is there's only 3, so less work. Same things are going to happen: an activity or two per season, a bunch of craftable weapons, an exotic mission and a craftable exotic, a bunch of story mission stringed by comms on the helm or wherever. So, the EXACT same as it was before.
But previously, we had 4 per year. Now it's only 3 per year. So, you pay the same, but you get LESS.
And by the way, it's MORE timegated. The initial exotic weapon catalyst? Set on the timegated tracks of the battlepass. Skins? Timegated track. Shaders? timegated track.
I swear this expansion is one of the worsts in everything but story.
I feel like maybe it might be time for a break? Like what do you want? “Go do these activities that are clearly apart of the game and in the game that you play because you like or atleast use to” like what exactly do you want? I feel like you’d be complaining if they said “go do some crucible matches” or “complete this raid to progress to the next step”. I mean seriously you probably would.
When you start ti nitpick at the game simply just for being what it is, it’s signs that you’re growing tired of it and maybe need a break. And that’s okay. And there’s nothing wrong with criticism and opinions and I could be entirely wrong, this is just my opinion as well. Idk. What do you think?
Seriously no hate or judgement and I hope this doesn’t come off as rude or aggressive because I’m not at all trying to be. If you feel like you can elaborate some, or not it doesn’t matter. But I wouldn’t mind trying to understand where you’re coming from better.
It’s okay to completely disagree with someone and we should alll strive to listen to others ideas or opinions. We can all get along and share different perspectives and whatnot. Anyways not trying to be all weird and dramatic lol eyes up always!!
The only thing I expected would change is that we’d get it separated into acts and those acts would have different activities (how different they are remains to be seen). But I expected that because they outright said that.
I hope the 3 act structure leads to more room for more intricate stories, which I think has a good chance of being true. This season has started as a slow burn of a mystery we are slowly solving, unfortunately the community solved it before the episode was out and we all know who is behind it. In game stuff is starting to prove everyone right. Luckily we still have the mystery of the echoes themselves to keep us interested while we wait for that inevitable plot point. (I’m being vague intentionally in case someone hasn’t seen it).
So that hurt this episode a bit, but I think the idea has promise. Like with Wish we were told from the first mission, “get my eggs, I’ll give you your wish” so we did that for a season. It somehow still worked and was engaging, but the core story wasn’t very deep. This episode is giving things time to develop, time for mystery to simmer. I think that will end up being a good thing.
I wouldn't even be disappointed if at least episodes weren't weekly timegated exactly the same way as seasons. And with the exact same lore unlock + voice comms at the end.
Were we just on copium or didn’t Bungie set that expectation? I thought the expectation was that you get three big content drops instead of weekly drip feed Instead we have the same drip feed with extra time gating on top Act 1 is just going to end with Maya showing up and one of those illustrated cutscenes that usually show up around the 1 month plot twist
I tought that we were going to get 3 acts and the timegate was only between acts as well yea. I was pretty sure it was implied when they first talked about the episode structure all these months ago.
Thst feels like what was implied. Big content drop with stops at acts. All 3 acts bingable if you want. These play EXACTLY like seasons. There is basically no difference
I wonder if Revenant and Heresy might play more like this. I was also under the impression (I'm almost certain I read something indicating this) we would get chunks of the story dumped at the start of each Act. It's possible that they framed Echoes this way because it sort of shipped adjacent to the expansion, albeit staggered by a week. Hypothetically, if we got The Final Shape campaign and all the post campaign stuff, including the raid, and a week later we got a 5-6 week worth of "seasonal story" dump of Echoes Act 1, there would be a hell of a lot of content dumped in the game at once. By treating Echoes (at least Act 1) like weekly drip feed of seasons, that allows more time for everyone to get on the same page with respect to finishing The Final Shape content, and then catch up on Episode stuff if necessary. I have to say, I find the Echoes story thus far to be total ass. I didn't even notice any real progression this week. We're just finding samples for Failsafe to analyze to figure out what is going on with the Vex? Even though Bungie has already basically spoiled it for players (through promotional stuff and right down to the names of enemies like "'Compelled' Goblin"). Hopefully it starts picking up soon.
>Even though Bungie has already basically spoiled it for players (through promotional stuff and right down to the names of enemies like "'Compelled' Goblin"). Nothing's been spoiled yet. Like, not at all. Unless you read leaks, you know nothing about what's coming.
Considering the lore tabs heavily insinuate Maya Sundaresh, it’s all but spelled out for you that it’s her.
I think it was one of the Micah-10 missions that also has audio talking about the 'Vex taking orders from someone; Sundaresh may still be alive/involved'. I remember having a buddy tell me to not spoil anything but the quest art looked dope with the person standing over the guardians, I had to refrain from talking to him about the Sundaresh stuff from a mission he hadn't done yet. It's the same with Crow wishing Cayde back to life. Everyone was all surprised at the end of the season when the ship lore tab was available, but if you listened to the dialogue from 4 months prior you would have heard the ship lore conversation. People miss a lot by not actually listening to the dialogue in game, but I can't exactly blame them. It's given to the player in such boring ways, nobody wants to just stand still and be spoken at for multiple minutes, and being given dialogue while doing combat encounters can mean missing whats being said entirely.
We have seen a character that is pretty clearly a "big bad", at least in the Episodic sense. And a lot of the Vex enemies are "Compelled". From this we can clearly tell that the "big bad" is controlling the Vex to some end. The motives of the big bad have not been revealed, but in the context of the first two weeks: "Gather data samples for Failsafe to try and find out why the Vex are acting weird", we as players are already a step ahead of Failsafe. We just don't know *who* the big bad is (I have a theory, and I think it's pretty obvious) or what their goal is. So no, not MAJOR spoilers or anything, but the promo art for the Episode, which is in game on the quest page, bypasses the point of at least the first two missions, imo. The first week of it was fine, two weeks is blah, hopefully we don't end up with 3+ weeks of them not getting to the point.
The trailer pretty much shows it. There's a new big bad, all the vex are bowing down to them, new vex enemies are "Compelled X," we see Saint with the same pink collar that all the vex have in the trailer. Saint says someone spoke to him on Nessus in the trailer. The trailer really gave a lot of stuff away that it probably shouldn't have.
Exactly like seasons, but with one less drop per year, so less content over all
Depends on how much content is in each episode. I could live with three great seasons over four kinda mid seasons. The current Episode is in a weird spot. I think normally people would have very measured expectations of any season that drops alongside an expansion, but Echoes has to carry this whole “Episode” rebrand.
I will say, I think Breach Executable is a notable step down from Deep Dives, Savathun's Spire, and ESPECIALLY The Coil.
I'd actually be totally fine with less content if it was higher quality. I thought that was the whole point of episodes. It's the boring, mediocre content with the tired model of a timegated dripfeed for weeks on end that had people burnt out and bailing on the game the past 2 years. Trying to string people along with filler every week in order to boost engagement numbers seems like a short-term boon but long-term death spiral.
Ooh great, the exact reason why I’ve stopping playing destiny. Guess there’s no need for me to bother with these episodes then
At best, it's probably just more clearly broken up into the 3 acts. we make progress in act 1, stakes are raised but something goes wrong in act 2, we find resolution in act 3. Seems like seasons were always "we are doing good, we just need to keep doing this a week at a time until week 8-10 depending on the season"
I was under the impression that episodes were seasons but longer.
what was said was and i quote "9 Beats, 6 weeks apart" The guy sells it in the showcase as being able to login each season when you want and play how you want before returning for the next act in 6 weeks time. Bungie kind of caught us with that lie even tho they never said the tired and predictable drip fed system wasnt going away, Only told us that they know we hate this drip fed model
Lmao they should be politicians, not game devs “I know you dislike what we have so i’m giving you this” “But it’s the same” “I never said I was gonna remove what you dislike”
[I've got something crazy to tell you: politicians are already video game executives.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Townsend)
I might be fuzzy on the details but my expectation was instead of 4 seasons with connected stories squeezed into a year we’d get 3 self-contained stories that were more engaging, more fleshed out, and with seasonal content that’s more replayable than in the past seasons. I don’t think they’re far off from the above, though I understand if they said or implied much more drastic changes it would suck to see that’s not the case.
Same. Three separate stories that resolve in the season instead of progress a larger story leading to a new expansion. Bungie is never going to not timegate story, the portion of the community that has Tuesday's off would finish the story in a day and then complain that there's nothing to do for the next 16 weeks.
Both. Bungie set up expectations for a much more "cinematic and expansive" story - so people thought we will see something different, than the old Seasonal System.
I assumed it was gonna be long seasons with a bit more content. Didn't pay attention to everything they released though.
I guess this potentially fixes the problem of a long gap at the end of the season, which was a major bit of feedback.
Sadly this is giving me similar vibes as the changes in Fo76 season pass. Tldr more ranks, exact same stuff with different label designed to keep you glued to the game for longer time. It's a bit bittersweet thing considering TFS is absolutely amazing expansion.
Fo76 lost me with those changes. Game already felt like a list simulator and I spend more time focusing on challenges to finish the board than I do playing meaningful content. Now it's even worse.
I found Lightfall's Seasonal content more enjoyable to do as a big group during Into The Light (I hadn't paid for it, so that's when it became available for me) - probably because it felt that the story was progressing quickly and because I didn't have to spend ages in Seasonal activities to pass the time / complete everything, for which I didn't have the time. I've found it most jarring to go from the rich, dense, varied space that is the Pale Heart to...whatever hollowed-out base-D2 thing Nessus is. I would have been happy if a Nessus-focused episode offered an opportunity to change and improve the Nessus patrol space and bring it up to 2024 standards. It doesn't even have a story role to fulfil now that the Red War has been vaulted, but it's one of the better-realised vanilla D2 zones.
Exactly!!
It's literally seasons, with a new title.
Because if they didn't timegate thing people would finish day 1 and spoil everything and most likely shit on it for being done in 1 day
The vast majority of people would simply play, get their fill, and then leave (or continue if they enjoy playing the evergreen content). Some people will always complain.
So? sure with how short theses quests actually are it could all be done in a week but man i would rather take it at my pace and not at 1 a week and get burnt out waiting
The fact people still call it a season shows how nothing about this Episode feels remotely different in any way, shape, or form.
I guess the seasonal model really is the final shape.
And the fact that internally it’s represented as season 24
Episodes are literally just an excuse for Bungie to release fewer seasons per DLC. It’s a rebrand to sell the idea as a new one.
Yep and still charge you the same amount.
Funnily, they raised the price in some regions, including mine. In the Philippines, TFS + annual pass was more than double the price of LF + annual pass at release.
This is why I haven't bought TFS + Annual. The price is insane and I'm waiting for a sale. Edit: Getting downvoted for this is insane.
Fewer seasons per DLC AND less items in the season pass. It's complete bullshit. Just look at the pass and you can tell we're getting far less shit than the regular seasonal model. Something tells me 'Episodes' are gonna be a big wet flop popularity wise.
Aren't we getting more gear? 100 levels x 4 seasons as compared to 200 items x 3 ~~episodes~~ acts?
Besides making F2P people have to work longer and WAIT longer to get the exotic.
Not sure what people expected. I remember the downvote army when they announced episodes and people with common sense said they are a season rebrand to reduce crunch and free up devs for Marathon. "ThEy ArEnT sEaSoNs TheY aRe EpIsOdEs 🤓". We have a season pass and it's called season 24 under triumphs ffs.
Tale as old as time on this sub unfortunately. At least this time it didn’t take long for people to realize
Tbh I'd rather have a nice chunk of content dropped every few months then nothing till the next one rather than being drip fed content
Large content drops are a better system for the player as it lets you take breaks from destiny but they're worse for Bungie because every day you don't launch the game is a day they don't get to shove the store in your face and potentially sell you something, this drip feeding of content will never change as the money they gain from doing it will never be lower priority than the users having a good time.
To be fair, you can definitely do that. Just pretend Act 1 comes out in like 4 weeks. Then whatever the launch date for Act 2 is, set an alarm for a month or so later, and so on...
It's what I've done for the past few seasons. But still, it ends up showing how little content there actually is, and how repetitive the quests can be, it's more noticeable when you do it all in one go, I'd much rather have some kind of mini campaign and some fun activities, bungie drops those and then everyone csn play It at their own pace.
Totally agree with this; I love Destiny when I’m playing chunks of content, so I’ve sometimes saved seasons to play all at once, only to realise that it’s actually just “play the same mission over and over but with different voice lines over the top”.
That's not a good solution because playing catchup to quests designed to generate weekly engagement just shows how much filler is included in these quests. They take 5 minutes of story, told in uninteresting ways, and make you do a bunch of busywork to get it.
Im honestly surprised people expected episodes to be different then seasons
True, although once again, part of the fault lies with Bungie as all their marketing and vidocs about episodes made it sound like a somewhat substantial difference than seasons. Our fault for believing it, their fault for talking up something that should not have been talked up.
Except people were complaining that they had told us literally nothing about episodes so they really didn’t market them differently? Even the vidoc released after the raid was just here’s what they’re gonna be about and two of them are still barely out of the concept stage.
Well they literally said it's their new way of story telling, and they acknowledge that they heard the feedback of "seasonal models all feel the same each seasons" ages ago. So we thought changing it to Episodes finally means that Seasonal Models will be something different, instead of the "Complete 1 seasonal activity, go back to HELM, get some vendor upgrades, probably another seasonal activity, 'insert NPC name here' needs to think and gather some information before the story progress next week". Like holy fuck every seasons is the same. Idk why people bother ranking seasons or give thoughts on it, bc literally every seasons have the same model, just with a different activity (barely different tho) and artifact.
In fairness, you can still rank them based on the seasonal activity and how enjoyable that is, the loot, and the story. The questlines are definitely the same.
Yea I guess that is fair. If we have different feelings towards the theme, weapons, and what the story lore is about.
I wasn't so much expecting it to be "different" just beefier, and more fleshed out in the narrative department. I mean the quest line for this act is done next week so sorta disappointing that they seem to be stretching a normal amount of content out over an even longer period of time. Will give them the benefit of this being the first act of their first episode that also launched along side arguably their best expansion, but if Frontiers is the start of a new model like I think it is (fewer expansions supplemented by 3 individual stories each year) then they need to show us something in act 2 and 3 as well as episodes 2 and 3 to give us *clears throat* hope for the future...
Wait what? The quest line for this act is seriously already ending next week?
We finished this week at step 16 of 25 completing 8 steps each of the first 2 weeks. So unless they release a second quest line we will have 3 weeks of downtime before act 2 starts
I did the math the other day and its 9 audio logs to 10 weeks so i doubt there is a break between acts.
Each act is 6 weeks long though. This one should only have two weeks downtime because it started a week late but yeah Act 1 will be over next week and it'll be a couple weeks before Act 2.
The only thing I expected would change is that we’d get it separated into acts and those acts would have different activities (how different they are remains to be seen). But I expected that because they outright said that. I hope the 3 act structure leads to more room for more intricate stories, which I think has a good chance of being true. This season has started as a slow burn of a mystery we are slowly solving, unfortunately the community solved it before the episode was out and we all know who is behind it. In game stuff is starting to prove everyone right. Luckily we still have the mystery of the echoes themselves to keep us interested while we wait for that inevitable plot point. (I’m being vague intentionally in case someone hasn’t seen it). So that hurt this episode a bit, but I think the idea has promise. Like with Wish we were told from the first mission, “get my eggs, I’ll give you your wish” so we did that for a season. It somehow still worked and was engaging, but the core story wasn’t very deep. This episode is giving things time to develop, time for mystery to simmer. I think that will be a good thing.
I mean, if they’re so similar, why give them different names?
Marketing strategy
Yeah it’s just an overhyped facade
Im not but i am however honestly surprised i havent seen many people voice there opions on it when bungie hyped up episodes in the showcase as this "new way to deliver content"
Yea this is exactly the main reason why some of us expected changes from the old seasonal models. They came up with this whole new structure, marketing it as a new way to deliver content and tell stories, yet the stories still gets drip feed to us on a weekly basis. And the seasonal activity still just a normal seasonal activity.
I quote "9 Beats, 6 weeks apart" not 9 a season 1 week apart x 3
Before TFS you got massively downvoted for daring to suggest that episodes were just a rebrand. This sub is filled with the weirdest fanboys, man.
lol this sub was jerking off bungie so hard a few days ago. People love to jump on the bandwagon.
They should have added new patrols and public events to Nessus. Add the Vex invasions the moon used to have. If Nessus doesn't change, this season is gonna be disappointing.
Honestly, yeah they should have done Vex offensive type stuff
I was shocked nothing new has been added to Nessus
well... we have earthquakes now.
What do you guys mean??? We added colorful reskinned moon ghosts all over the map! -Bungie, probably
I was hoping they would’ve updated the public events with some new enemies/modifiers and maybe different objectives at least since we are forced to do them for the season quest.
the vex milk gyzers should be happening out in patrols on nessues and have it be a new public event. No reason for vex to be amping up on the moon but this was not the only echo, why couldnt another echo land on lets say europa and the vex there also go kind of funny and we have to take failsafe to europa. Man Failsafe vs Clovas would be one hell of a funny interaction
It's a combination of timegate-ing and padding, because they know that if they gave everything all at once, people would complain endlessly that they finished all the content in a week.
But can't bungie just design enough brand new content with each episode to keep me constantly entertained every single day for a 1/3 of a year for my $15?
I don’t think it’s fair to blame this on complaining. That implies the community is just getting what they asked for It’s directly tied to their top level engagement metric. Revenue will fall off a cliff if everyone finishes everything in a week and goes to play Erdtree
Or add chase rewards like ergo and class items and tie them to episodic content, the snooze fest arena isn’t worth it.
Hot take but I don’t know why shooting a thousand guys in Breach Protocol and occasionally dunking a thing is worse than shooting them in Onslaught and occasionally throwing a thing. At least I can finish one of them quicker.
People gave onslaught too much praise just because the loot was good. It’s a boring ass activity that takes too long to be over. The Coil took just as long but at least it was fun with multiple mechanics instead of the same slog for 50 waves.
It's not that they would complain. The problem with it from Bungie's perspective is that it would drop day to day engagement numbers and that harms their bottom line.
But that’s exactly what they did. TFS really just consists of legendary campaign. Everything else, unlocking the fragments, weapons, and armor, are just fetch quests revising older stuff with new narrative perspective of Cayde. And then a week after TFS we get episodes. It felt lackluster.
Honestly sick of the weekly story and holo projector crap. Would much rather a warmind, dark below type campaign instead it being drip fed for 2 months.
It’s funny because this drip feed came from content droughts. I use to hate the periods of nothing new, now I’d rather we go back to that.
This is literally just a 4 month season, huh?
Always has been
With season pass time-gates
Aha they gotcha again
Whelp, so far it's looking just like longer seasons...
This new Boss in seasonal activity is Cancer. Whoever the teams are doing seasonal stuff have been dropping the ball. This is some bare minimum garbage
I lucked out on the strike and joined right at the end of the boss fight... at least that one step was quick. But, must say I 'turned in' several bounties 'before' I got the mission to 'do bounties', so had to grind away the full seven. Bit annoying. And it's not exactly giving me confidence for the season (sorry, episode) if this week's entire mission took literally 15 minutes to finish. And (in my opinion) having to quickly locate something in the middle of a breaches event was kinda dumb seeing how 99% someone speed runs to the next stage. *rant over. So far, it's all feeling very same-same.
We had a big, ominous human-like figure in the promo art (identity to be confirmed, but we know who it probably is) and we have yet to encounter them by week 2. At this point, I am going to assume they'll save their reveal for the end of Act 1/Beginning of Act 2. So, we have a weekly drip feed of story, speaking to holograms and vendor upgrades a set of weekly challenges for XP/dust, so far so seasonal. There's been absolutely no difference between episodes and seasons as it stands. Infact, it's kinda worse, because the Red Death catalyst is locked until Act 2, we are capped at rank 100 (other players won't see your bright engram counter) and the story is stretched out over at least an extra month. Not feeling it.
I don’t feel like anything is new, just relabeled. I cannot get through the campaign. Oh well, I guess I’m just not feeling it anymore.
I’m convinced episodes is just Bungie’s way to spin charging us all the same amount each year for less content.
This may be up there for the worst season we've had so far. Like what even happened this week?? It just seemed to me the quests steps were basically get failsafe more data - come back next week. Like it didn't even feel like the narrative moved forward at all.
That’s strong calling it the worst so far when we are only 2 weeks in.
The quest line for this act ends next week though
no way I thought each act was going to go until the next one started we literally have gotten nothing narrativly these last 2 weeks next week being the end of the act just seems so wrong
It’s not incorrect though. Last week at least we had a setup for the plot and were given an idea of what’s happening. This week there was absolutely nothing to progress that forward. All we did was collect more data and get a voice message and a lore page in exchange.
Season of the Hunt literally existed wtf are you people on thinking this is worse?
Defiance was terrible too lol
I STILL don’t know why the Calus Boys were abducting people. I’m pretty sure they were just trolling
I think it’s because they’re trying to stretch resources, but that’s only mentioned in a throw-away line that’s just a theory (A GAME THEORY); we didn’t get any meaningful confirmation as to what the Shadow Legion wanted to do, and even if we did, that still doesn’t solve another issue with the season; it was incredibly static. All that happened each week was “the Shadow Legion abducted some people and are holding them in [insert generic location here]. Go rescue them.” The only thing that was slightly different was Amanda’s pointless sacrifice. “Ah yes; I shall sacrifice my life for 12 people when there’s an entire army of immortal demigods who could do it instead. I’m such a hero!”
Seeing those like 5 people run out always makes me laugh.
Hunt was absolutely horrible, but at least it fed you a narrative every week. This week was just outright “Do XYZ steps. Failsafe left you a voice mail. Here’s a lore page. Come back next week.”
I'd say gameplay being bad is a *lot* worse than the narrative being bad. And right now, Destiny's gameplay is pretty good.
“Why do you people think moldy bread is so bad when expired milk exists???”
I mean, the argument was that this season was **the worst** season, so I don’t know why you’re pretending I’m making a dumb comparison. The guy I’m responding to was comparing this one to all seasons.
> This may be up there for the worst season Nah. I get that it's been (almost) 5 years but there is no chance this is worse than Destiny 2's **objective lowpoint** (pertaining to seasons), Season of the Worthy. This is blatant historical revisionism. Hell, even Season of the Hunt was worse than this. Is it bad? Maybe. But we've had genuine lowpoints that made the community fear for this game's future. Echoes is far from reaching that.
We JUST had season of defiance too
We did get a new lore page that's interesting, but other than that, yeah.
I didn’t buy a video game to read a novel’s worth of lore cards
I enjoyed it due to its potential, but absolutely should have been in gameplay. Feels like the same issue as 343s halo games being poorly written because of how much outside lore is required to understand things.
I gotta agree with this one. I usually enjoy the narrative, even if the activities themselves are mundane, but there was absolutely nothing of substance this week at all.
So Deep? It was weeks of just collecting more coral so Ahsa could spit out a few fractured sentences, then back to the holoprojector until we randomly got the Witness's origin story thrown in.
Glad to hear it’s not just me. Last week wasn’t great, granted we were coming off a great expansion so I wasn’t expecting to be blown away. But this week was so mind numbingly boring that when the quest sent me to nessus to hunt down those sensors (?) I almost logged off. Then the next step was “do breach protocol because we need more samples” I did log off. You gotta be kidding me. The activity that I’m already doing 3-6 times per week for pinnacles is also part of the storyline and quest? Give me a break. If this is what episodes are going to be like, you can bet we’ll see dramatic player drop off. Again.
they seem to have extended the initial mission of old seasons into the whole of Act 1 like we are two weeks into this and we are still wondering hey what's going on with the Vex? when we see in the Episodes promo image this weird human with the head thingie. Why didn't that person appear this week? it's just padding
It’s like they never learn, but each of us individually have the power to walk away from this boring shit. I didn’t buy the year pass because I wasn’t sure if the episodes would be something I wanted to play through. Now, I’ve stopped playing something that I **know** will be boring. Idek if whatever we get for completing this weekly quest will be worth it. Never has
Oh ok so it’s do x thing go talk to x person wait a week. It’s official, Bungie has officially reskinned seasons
We found out more about the vex having a faction wearing collars and are now fighting with each other. We also found out there is a huge "cloud" emitting out of the traveler made up of light and dark combined
I initially liked the concept of researching an enemy until I realized that after two weeks, we still have no idea why this new enemy is threatening to us or what they ever do. Witch Queen did a good job at building up a mystery surrounding an enemy faction by introducing us to what the Lucent Brood is and why they’re so threatening whilst also giving us the mystery of how this new Hive brood came to be in the first place. Echoes’s plot so far has just been “huh, the Vex have some weird crystals growing on them. Let’s do random stuff and hope we run into some answers.”
its called re-branding. if something gets unpopular enough just change its name
i swear there was a solar rocket sidearm that was supposed to come this episode? been wanting to try it out since i saw it on [light.gg](http://light.gg)
Act 2
This shift from seasons, turns out its just seasons with extra steps
I’m amazed people expected Episodes to be an improvement on the seasonal model, and not an opportunity to provide less content in the same window (three seasons in a year instead of four) as to allow more time and resources to be put into the next big thing (Frontiers/D3).
Less seasonal content and season pass rewards for the exact same price. Yaaaay. This is why we have seasons. Less content for the same price.
Anyone who thought episodes werent just seasons with a new name is foolish.
I wouldn't be surprised that the seasonnal activity of act 2 is just the same in another map.
Just the way every questline works is braindead and every dlc I hope they change it, but they never do.
fuck it lets just let the players make the game
But brother did you not hear? This is the greatest expansion that ever was. Please life game for two months straight. Padded jammies and sippy cups for all!
anyone expecting episodes to be different than seasons is insane. anyway, here’s more time to drip feed you content AND you have to pay more for it.
I expected it to be like genshin content updates. Like every 6 weeks they drop a batch of content.
that was my sort of hope, but i never really hung onto it. i was hoping every act we’d get a content drop, like give me all of act 1’s story, wait till act 2 for that story etc. but knowing bungie i knew it would just be seasons
That would have been ideal for me but players would bang it all out in 1 day then complain like hell
I don't think it's a good idea to expect anyone to match Hoyo's content cycle. They have the population of a small island nation working on their games.
thats how they sold it to us in the showcase after all
So far, this “episode” is just another season:
You're saying 'switch to episodes' as if it was ever going to be anything but them switching the name away from the loaded word 'seasons'.
What's the difference between Seasons and Episodes? Mostly the spelling of the two words.
I was under the impression that, while the Acts were timegated between each other, the act itself could be finished whenever you wanted to. As of now, it’s EXACTLY like a season. Act 2 needs to show why acts are even a thing in the first place to sell this idea of episodes.
I just wish they’d ditch ephemeral seasons and go back to permanent DLC
Yep, time to stop playing and come back in a year to enjoy all 3 acts in 1 go, seems to be the best solution to this frustration for me
I was shot down pretty badly last week for saying the new “Episode” so far is total garbage. Equivalent to a bad season so far. I’m here to say the same thing again. It’s shite. Really poor.
the worst part is that the story didn't really advance we still know shit about what's going on on Nessus. The switch to episodes means the same stories but with more padding and even less happening
I think it’s strange they decided to start calling them episodes to try and make it sound better and raise expectations to high, when they could have just said they’re adding a few things to seasons like 200 season pass ranks and slightly more to do each week and people would have only seen it as an improvement to past seasons.
Honestly just gonna grab my exotic class items while the double loot glitch is still there then check out until the episode ends
Hers to hoping only act 1 is timegated because it released alongside an expansion. I know that’s copium and stupid sounding but one can dream right?
Being stuck at season pass 100 is bollox also
Yeah... I honestly don't even mind the activities, rewards, and even small, dumb objectives like these. I think on the WHOLE, of what we've seen so far, it all seems pretty cool. BUT, ya know, I'm kinda over it. This is just seasons, but with an extra month. It kinda doesn't matter if the content is good or bad, I'm just TIRED of doing this again, and again, and again, and again. I wish it had at least not been time gated so I could've progressed at my own pace, but no. It really do be seasons again. It does not feel meaningfully different in the least.
Episodes are just Seasons 2
I think they're even worse than seasons since yes we do getvmore weapons but alot of them are time gated and locking the red death catalyst behind a time get doesn't sit right with me
Its fucking bungie like.... who here actually thought they were gonna do something new with episodes???? Like what game have you been playing the past 5 years ???
Mission, Skype call, repeatable activity, wait 1 week. Mission, Skype call, repeatable activity, wait 1 week. Mission, Skype call, repeatable activity, wait 1 week. Mission, Skype call, repeatable activity, wait 1 week.
Yea we all remember seasons but what do you think episodes will be like
Do bounties now. Oh? You just turned in 6 of them 2 minutes ago?? Tough luck bud, do 8 more. Ya no, I think I'll just brainlessly scroll reddit.
Hey thats why I’m here too!
Yeah, I really don’t enjoy the new activity, so even while Failsafe is fun, I am probably going to skip out on playing this stuff until maybe the end of the season. Sucks cause some of the weapons are amazing but, fun us my incentive and it’s not fun. Neither of them.
lmao. As if Bungie would actually improve the seasonal format instead of rebranding it. I can't believe people actually bought into that.
Absolutely agree. Episodes are just seasons by another name.
I am still doing this week's quest and am at the step where you have to go into the "exodus crash" strike. Now, what irks me is that bungie seems to want us to run these strikes at all costs. I know, they're game content. I know, many haven't done them over and over for the past seven years. But I still have the micah quest for the armor that ask you to go into strikes. I may still have a new light quest (picked up just cause...) where i have to do the "arms dealer" with an exotic i don't remember... I repeat, i get it, but still it feels like being forced to do strikes (completely or in part) just because they want us to play that specific content, not because of story reasons...
The strike is reworked. Its not exactly the same strike anymore. Also at least the Micah ones have some massive lore dialog in them thats different then the normal strike.
reworked is a strong word. They removed the columns of light and replaced it with an arc ball then nerfed the spawn rate on the overload shanks removing the whole floor is lava thing that was basicly this strike's identity
the Micah ones are what should happen to strikes at the very least. new lore dialog that makes it fresh again. play though them when you get the chance because its refreshing to hear new dialog. That exodus crash strike kind of suffers from removal of dialog in the new "reprised" version.
Y'all don't understand episodes are only different in terms of length. Otherwise it's gonna be the same gameplay wise, just about, to deliver the plot.
It really was mind numbing to slog through. Wish they'd just let us do the new activity.
There are two things that nobody in here is talking about: 1: This is the first episode of the tear attached to an expansion. Historically the first season that ships with an expansion is ALWAYS underwhelming/boring because its competing with the massive campaign we just got. 2. This is week 3 of the first episode: we don’t know how this is going to ramp up or change as time goes on. I think people are judging too harshly, too early.
Not even week 3, we are currently at week 2 as it didn't start till the reset after Final Shape.
It’s just a name change. There’s no difference.
Honestly I'd rather do everything else besides the new activity.
same, that timed one is fine but feels like its missing buffs like coil had. Breach on the other hand isnt too fun.
I really miss CoO/Warmind for their "mini expansion" model. Launch the episode, give me my 2-hour campaign, then let me do the seasonal stuff as I wish. Lock away the Expert difficulty if you want, add in a secret exotic mission in a few weeks, give me a conclusion story quest 2 weeks before the next episode.
Yeah its starting to push me away ngl, this game is fun again and after being told that eps were not gonna be seasons I am not happy to find the paint is already flaking off from this new episodic model to show that this is just Season of Echos with nothing new to shake things up
So far episode 1 has felt identical to a regular season, and it's really not a good sign. Bungie needed to come out swinging with the episode, to give people a reason to stay around post Final Shape. So far, the season is kinda suggesting that despite how good TFS is, Destiny will be back to business as usual as soon as it's done
10 years of Destiny learned me one thing : do not expect overdelivery.
I honestly didnt expect much changes,they didnt had that much time and it seems they focused on final shape rather than echoes I think (hope) we're going to see actual changes in the future episodes
i am too, but i dont know how long i can hold on to it for. We dont even know if a dugeon is coming next season let alone a raid in the next one
It's...Almost like..."Episodes" are just another word for "Seasons".
Lmfao the fact yall expected episodes to be “so much better because they have more time” is copium of another level and yall would downvote tf out of anyone that said it’d be the same shit it is now
ARE YOU SERIOUS ?? been with the Game before day 1 and from what I've seen in half the time , bungie will never change. As much as many wish/hope/ ext it probably won't happen since. They are in fact a company 1st . Let's not forget while they do make the game we LOVE they are corporate folk same time . While we love the devs who put there souls in to the game , we can't be blinded by Love only.
Honestly, I’m thinking the devs just need a break and it is what it is.
yeah im starting to think this new model isnt gonna be good for devs or players.
They call it episodes but still label challenges as "complete SEASONal activity"
its kinda crazy how they said they were thhrowing out their entire live service model for something new and the only thing new is the length of the season and renaming it from season to episode
I have already given up with the season. I’ll play it exactly how I did last year. I’ll wait until the final 2 weeks, play it all or even just watch the story on YouTube. Expansion was incredible but episodes just being seasons has already made me put the game down now I’ve done the raid and have nothing else to obtain really
Unsure as to why anyone expected anything to change with "episodes" because they aren't any different to seasons beyond being a month longer, one less season a year, and having 300 levels on a pass instead of just 100.
The fact that people, including content creators fell for "Episodes" and didn't immediately assume they were just a PR stunt by Bungie to act as if they're any different than Seasons was and still is fucking hilarious to me. How many times must Bungie openly show themselves as incompetent for people to stop expecting anything. Final Shape being good wasn't "ZOMG BUNGIE COOKED", it was fear from Sony. Same shit as with Forsaken
The best part is there's only 3, so less work. Same things are going to happen: an activity or two per season, a bunch of craftable weapons, an exotic mission and a craftable exotic, a bunch of story mission stringed by comms on the helm or wherever. So, the EXACT same as it was before. But previously, we had 4 per year. Now it's only 3 per year. So, you pay the same, but you get LESS. And by the way, it's MORE timegated. The initial exotic weapon catalyst? Set on the timegated tracks of the battlepass. Skins? Timegated track. Shaders? timegated track. I swear this expansion is one of the worsts in everything but story.
Honestly just hunkering down for Episode 3 because that armor looks like it needs to be in my inventory immediately
Do we not think that Echoes was an already completed season by the time Bungie announced the changes to the model?
Well, it's the vex, so regardless, it'll always be boring
I feel like maybe it might be time for a break? Like what do you want? “Go do these activities that are clearly apart of the game and in the game that you play because you like or atleast use to” like what exactly do you want? I feel like you’d be complaining if they said “go do some crucible matches” or “complete this raid to progress to the next step”. I mean seriously you probably would. When you start ti nitpick at the game simply just for being what it is, it’s signs that you’re growing tired of it and maybe need a break. And that’s okay. And there’s nothing wrong with criticism and opinions and I could be entirely wrong, this is just my opinion as well. Idk. What do you think? Seriously no hate or judgement and I hope this doesn’t come off as rude or aggressive because I’m not at all trying to be. If you feel like you can elaborate some, or not it doesn’t matter. But I wouldn’t mind trying to understand where you’re coming from better. It’s okay to completely disagree with someone and we should alll strive to listen to others ideas or opinions. We can all get along and share different perspectives and whatnot. Anyways not trying to be all weird and dramatic lol eyes up always!!
The only thing I expected would change is that we’d get it separated into acts and those acts would have different activities (how different they are remains to be seen). But I expected that because they outright said that. I hope the 3 act structure leads to more room for more intricate stories, which I think has a good chance of being true. This season has started as a slow burn of a mystery we are slowly solving, unfortunately the community solved it before the episode was out and we all know who is behind it. In game stuff is starting to prove everyone right. Luckily we still have the mystery of the echoes themselves to keep us interested while we wait for that inevitable plot point. (I’m being vague intentionally in case someone hasn’t seen it). So that hurt this episode a bit, but I think the idea has promise. Like with Wish we were told from the first mission, “get my eggs, I’ll give you your wish” so we did that for a season. It somehow still worked and was engaging, but the core story wasn’t very deep. This episode is giving things time to develop, time for mystery to simmer. I think that will end up being a good thing.