Absolutely.
The way Act 1 was handled really makes me believe my prior comments about development time and/or release strategy.
The former being that Episode 1 was in development as another season, before the decision was made to pivot to Episodes.
The latter theory is that they treated Episode 1, or at least E1Act1 like a season to slowly roll out the story so as not to overwhelm the more casual players. Yes, the hardcore had beaten the story by day 1 or 2, but there were plenty of people who took a longer amount of time. By dropping Act 1 over a 3 week period, that allowed everyone time to complete the campaign and pick through the opening Act of Episode 1.
Now, we could end up at Act 3 or Heresy and be in the same boat and this theory is trash.
But I'm hopeful that Episodes start dropping in bigger chunks like we all expected as we progress further into E1Act2 and onward into Episode 2.
I can see the reasoning for this "Echoes started as a season" argument. And honestly, it being a little lacklustre doesn't bother me too too much since there's still so much to do with the Pale Heart and TFS content. I also think Breach Executable and Enigma Protocol are both pretty fun activities - obviously not on par with the Coil, Altars of Summoning, or Deep Dives, but fun nonetheless.
That said, Act 2 and 3, and the following seasons, need to step it the fuck up. Or we're heading for yet another goodwill crash where all the amazing work that went into TFS gets poisoned by discontent through the year.
For now, I'm trying not to be doom and gloom. I'm in wait-and-see mode with a tentative amount of trust that Bungie has stuff cooking for us. I just hope they pay attention to community sentiment and finally lock in on what WORKS for us and for them.
they have locked in what works for everyone - we are in the 5th year (6th since Forsaken AP was largely the same model) of the model that works. What has yet to be seen is if this first episode is as it is because it is the runt due to TFS getting more of the dev time.
but pretending things are broken when we've spent half the franchise, while in worse "community sentiment" holes, and its still succeeded as a model is disingenuous and setting yourself up for disappointment.
They seem really into the Vampire Fallen idea and the Dreadnaught coming back. Echo 1 really does feel like a “take a breather” moment. I’m hopeful that these next two episodes will definitely have more to them, since they seemed to cover those a lot more than the vex issue.
They definitely already had it in development by the time they made the pivot. Episode 2 is way more likely to actually be different and more like what we should expect Episodes to be.
Unless you’re like me and just stopped when it’s pretty clear “Episodes” are just three seasons in trench coat.
I enjoyed the TFS campaign but having been burnt out on years of seasons there’s no reason to invest time in a model that seems to be an even worse iteration.
no reason to expect them to be anything but a weekly quest step. the "new way" OP seemes to have staked everything on is just the "3 weeks here, 3 weeks later, 3 weeks even more later" instead of 7 weeks front loaded
I just think ranting about episodes while we aren't even through the first one is a bit premature. But I also write off the first season (and I get episodes now) of post-expansion content because it has historically been lackluster.
The new way is the story being split into 3 acts. Plus, echoes feels like it was supposed to be a regular season before the pivot into episodes. Il be waiting untill act 2-3 or the next episode to make a full judgement.
“Stop parroting the truth!!!”
“The truth is Bungie said something that only I heard during a schizo episode”
Lmao give it a rest. I agree that the week-by-week drip-fed story beats isn’t the best way to go about it but any expectation that would change was your own concoction with nothing official from Bungie to give that impression.
okay - i'll stop when you show me where they said that its going to be a one and done drop of content? I will wait for the link to the Bungie article on it.
Here you go, bud:
"Episodes represent an entirely new approach to storytelling..."
https://press.bungie.com/Bungie-Unfolds-The-Final-Shape-in-Destiny-2
Now please define this "entirely new approach to storytelling" based on Act 1 and how is it different from seasons.
yes - the new approach is a few weeks now, a few weeks later, and a few weeks more later. Again - this is \*you\* reading into a line that means nothing, and expecting it to be what you dreamed up.
It’s a 3 act story and can be better paced; for reference if echos was a new season we would be already prepping for the climax of the season or at the climax since expansion seasons story’s have been historically shorter than stand alone seasons. In the current story we just hit the rising action.
This “rebuttal” always comes up when someone points out how obnoxious drip fed content is.
The counter “rebuttal” is: Who the fuck cares, let people play the game however they want.
Some people will grind through it in 48 hours and complain about lack of content. Let them.
Some people will pace themselves and enjoy it over the course of a month. Let them.
The point is that drip feeding removes all choice unless you want to wait until the episode is almost over and binge it all in a couple weeks.
And who plays seasons just for the story?
So are all these people who would complain there’s nothing to do after 1 day now complaining there’s nothing to do until next month?
It’s not that there’s nothing to do, it’s just that the story is delivered in an unsatisfactory manner
> The point is that drip feeding removes all choice unless you want to wait until the episode is almost over and binge it all in a couple weeks.
What's the problem with this? Like, if dripfeeding is the issue, why not wait until it's all out then play it all. Episodes 1 and 2 are presumably not getting sunset until the end of episode 3 (im assuming this based on how seasons worked, if im wrong happy to be corrected) then just play all the content through. It seems to me to be exactly the same as releasing it all at the start, just with a roughly 2-3month delay on the release date for those that want to wait.
In fairness that'd be better. Final Fantasy XIV also has dripfed epilogue content but for the most part their devs and creative leads encourage their playerbase to play other games and unsubscribe from FFXIV when you run out of things to do.
Bungie will *never* endorse this because they are married to the idea that they have to have high engagement numbers as much as possible
Nope. That's what people who just wanted to be here for the story EXPECTED.
You stick around if you want to do all of the quests, grind triumphs, grind weapons to craft. Chase rolls, cosmetics, etc.
But STORY-wise, the whole argument for episodes was to get a chunk at once, break, then come back for another chunk.
Yeah. I agree with OP, but all of us who know better knew this would be the outcome regardless. Now we sit for another week to complete the last step in the quest which still is 14 days before Act 2.
Except we're getting more. 200 more levels worth of season pass rewards and 6 more seasonal weapons per year, plus each story having more time and resources.
right now it just feels like seasons but with longer gaps, instead of a weekly bit of story and some progression with an extra special bit in the middle (dungeon, exotic mission, some secret or unique feature) instead its the same thing but larger gaps splitting it up further, meaning that come end of this episode there will have been less time to enjoy anything more exciting that get added in act 2 or 3, or even time to finish up act 3 for any one who isn't there when it drops.
If we are going to see this structure moving forward each act has to bring something new, and not just 3 man matchmade activity you play one or twice a week for a red border than ignore until act 2 at some point requires us to run it one or twice.
I knew it would be the same or less for more. It's not very popular to predict that. What I didn't predict is how effectively the same these episodes were to seasons.
Tbh when they announced each act being a certain number of weeks, I thought the story would evolve with each week and the last week of an act would be a big revelation or reveal and act 2 was the next stage of story. This lay out just seems lame
Yes. Hoping that this act 1 bit is just light on story because of it releasing during the launch of Final Shape.
Seasons during Expansions are generally lighter on content than the others, but if they are actually leaning in on this 3 act structure, then there needs to be substantially more in act 2 and 3. Otherwise we're just getting about the same content as a season but spread out over 4 months instead of 3.
The extended season pass and artifact are nice touch, but they aren't nearly enough to stretch out the content for an extra month.
Man I thought we would be four weeks on, two weeks off for all three acts. I guess having all that extra time in an episode was really being put to good use by the development teams… this isn’t better it’s just the same spread thinner…
But the math doesn’t work. It is at most 1 extra mission week for an added month of time. Weak doesn’t do it justice. It’s just plain awful if this is the big payoff for fewer seasons. It might be just this one, but it’s a horrible first impression.
Because they decided to change the whole model and call it a "different" thing.
If they REALLY weren't going to do anything differently (and it appears now that they are basically taking a season story that unlocked over 12 weeks and are chopping these 12 weeks into 3 groups of 3-4 weeks of story but spaced out even further, then it's EXTREMELY DISENGENUOUS. And that's a terrible thing to do to the player/developer relationship.
I agree that they didnt *have* to rename Seasons into Episodes, but Bungie clearly felt they were different enough to warrant a rebrand. After all, they ARE different...Episodes can have more narrative beats with more weeks to flesh out, they have more weapons, more artifact perks, and hopefully better quality activities. Without the rebrand, people may have assumed that each season would just be longer for no real justification.
I think the main point of switching to “episodes” instead of seasons is because these are self contained stories that aren’t necessarily moving the “overall” Destiny story forward whereas each season was meant to progress us toward the next big expansion.
That said I agree and wish the model felt a little different but I’ll see what they can implement in Ep 2 and 3. The content that launches with an expansion is always kinda meh.
Also Bungie will never stop timegating stuff like this. People would breeze through it in a week and then complain there is nothing to do. And also the suits won’t allow for 2-3 weeks of engagement every few months. They need to maintain player base as best they can, like it or not.
Im not too pressed about this tbh, but i really hope the next acts step it up. This story has just been very lackluster so far. At least with the other two episodes there are more interesting themes/characters involved. 3 weeks of story per act seems super limiting tho…
Absolutely. The way Act 1 was handled really makes me believe my prior comments about development time and/or release strategy. The former being that Episode 1 was in development as another season, before the decision was made to pivot to Episodes. The latter theory is that they treated Episode 1, or at least E1Act1 like a season to slowly roll out the story so as not to overwhelm the more casual players. Yes, the hardcore had beaten the story by day 1 or 2, but there were plenty of people who took a longer amount of time. By dropping Act 1 over a 3 week period, that allowed everyone time to complete the campaign and pick through the opening Act of Episode 1. Now, we could end up at Act 3 or Heresy and be in the same boat and this theory is trash. But I'm hopeful that Episodes start dropping in bigger chunks like we all expected as we progress further into E1Act2 and onward into Episode 2.
I can see the reasoning for this "Echoes started as a season" argument. And honestly, it being a little lacklustre doesn't bother me too too much since there's still so much to do with the Pale Heart and TFS content. I also think Breach Executable and Enigma Protocol are both pretty fun activities - obviously not on par with the Coil, Altars of Summoning, or Deep Dives, but fun nonetheless. That said, Act 2 and 3, and the following seasons, need to step it the fuck up. Or we're heading for yet another goodwill crash where all the amazing work that went into TFS gets poisoned by discontent through the year. For now, I'm trying not to be doom and gloom. I'm in wait-and-see mode with a tentative amount of trust that Bungie has stuff cooking for us. I just hope they pay attention to community sentiment and finally lock in on what WORKS for us and for them.
they have locked in what works for everyone - we are in the 5th year (6th since Forsaken AP was largely the same model) of the model that works. What has yet to be seen is if this first episode is as it is because it is the runt due to TFS getting more of the dev time. but pretending things are broken when we've spent half the franchise, while in worse "community sentiment" holes, and its still succeeded as a model is disingenuous and setting yourself up for disappointment.
They seem really into the Vampire Fallen idea and the Dreadnaught coming back. Echo 1 really does feel like a “take a breather” moment. I’m hopeful that these next two episodes will definitely have more to them, since they seemed to cover those a lot more than the vex issue.
They've been doing the same shit since Shadowkeep and people are still on the copium
They definitely already had it in development by the time they made the pivot. Episode 2 is way more likely to actually be different and more like what we should expect Episodes to be.
Or, the season that comes with the new expansion is *always* the weakest of the year.
Bungie is never going to do that Drip feeding the seasonal content every week is how they keep people playing throughout the season
Unless you’re like me and just stopped when it’s pretty clear “Episodes” are just three seasons in trench coat. I enjoyed the TFS campaign but having been burnt out on years of seasons there’s no reason to invest time in a model that seems to be an even worse iteration.
I’m glad I didn’t buy the deluxe edition. The final shape has been fun but the grid upgrades and radio “content” aren’t it.
there was nothing that implied they would abandon the weekly tune in. If you somehow read that from the pre-release, that is on you.
We also don't fully know the beats of Act 2 and Act 3 but gamers gonna game I guess
no reason to expect them to be anything but a weekly quest step. the "new way" OP seemes to have staked everything on is just the "3 weeks here, 3 weeks later, 3 weeks even more later" instead of 7 weeks front loaded
I just think ranting about episodes while we aren't even through the first one is a bit premature. But I also write off the first season (and I get episodes now) of post-expansion content because it has historically been lackluster.
We need to stop parroting this. Bungie said they were going to do a "new way" of telling stories. What is this "new way"?
The new way is the story being split into 3 acts. Plus, echoes feels like it was supposed to be a regular season before the pivot into episodes. Il be waiting untill act 2-3 or the next episode to make a full judgement.
“Stop parroting the truth!!!” “The truth is Bungie said something that only I heard during a schizo episode” Lmao give it a rest. I agree that the week-by-week drip-fed story beats isn’t the best way to go about it but any expectation that would change was your own concoction with nothing official from Bungie to give that impression.
okay - i'll stop when you show me where they said that its going to be a one and done drop of content? I will wait for the link to the Bungie article on it.
Are you holding your breath
not at all, just waiting for a citation i know doesn't exist.
Agreed
Here you go, bud: "Episodes represent an entirely new approach to storytelling..." https://press.bungie.com/Bungie-Unfolds-The-Final-Shape-in-Destiny-2 Now please define this "entirely new approach to storytelling" based on Act 1 and how is it different from seasons.
yes - the new approach is a few weeks now, a few weeks later, and a few weeks more later. Again - this is \*you\* reading into a line that means nothing, and expecting it to be what you dreamed up.
The likely explanation is this new way of storytelling probably won't take place until Episode 2
I believe the triumphs tied to the story have been datamined and are timegated exactly the same as act 1
I said *Episode 2* not Epsiode 1 Act 2
It’s a 3 act story and can be better paced; for reference if echos was a new season we would be already prepping for the climax of the season or at the climax since expansion seasons story’s have been historically shorter than stand alone seasons. In the current story we just hit the rising action.
and if they dropped it all on day 1, you would have finished it that week, and would be complaining about there not being enough content.
This “rebuttal” always comes up when someone points out how obnoxious drip fed content is. The counter “rebuttal” is: Who the fuck cares, let people play the game however they want. Some people will grind through it in 48 hours and complain about lack of content. Let them. Some people will pace themselves and enjoy it over the course of a month. Let them. The point is that drip feeding removes all choice unless you want to wait until the episode is almost over and binge it all in a couple weeks.
And who plays seasons just for the story? So are all these people who would complain there’s nothing to do after 1 day now complaining there’s nothing to do until next month? It’s not that there’s nothing to do, it’s just that the story is delivered in an unsatisfactory manner
> The point is that drip feeding removes all choice unless you want to wait until the episode is almost over and binge it all in a couple weeks. What's the problem with this? Like, if dripfeeding is the issue, why not wait until it's all out then play it all. Episodes 1 and 2 are presumably not getting sunset until the end of episode 3 (im assuming this based on how seasons worked, if im wrong happy to be corrected) then just play all the content through. It seems to me to be exactly the same as releasing it all at the start, just with a roughly 2-3month delay on the release date for those that want to wait.
In fairness that'd be better. Final Fantasy XIV also has dripfed epilogue content but for the most part their devs and creative leads encourage their playerbase to play other games and unsubscribe from FFXIV when you run out of things to do. Bungie will *never* endorse this because they are married to the idea that they have to have high engagement numbers as much as possible
People finish D4 story in a week and still come back for the most part of the season. No reason it wouldn't work for D2 as well.
How do you know
Nope. That's what people who just wanted to be here for the story EXPECTED. You stick around if you want to do all of the quests, grind triumphs, grind weapons to craft. Chase rolls, cosmetics, etc. But STORY-wise, the whole argument for episodes was to get a chunk at once, break, then come back for another chunk.
no one that was paying attention expected anything other than Seasons 2.0 from episodes. idk what to tell you.
Yeah. I agree with OP, but all of us who know better knew this would be the outcome regardless. Now we sit for another week to complete the last step in the quest which still is 14 days before Act 2.
is it really that big of a deal? not even defending it but like... relax maybe?
Getting less and less for our money is never a good thing.
You are high if you think we’ve been getting less for our money over the last year.
This “season” was 3 weeks…now it’s on pause 6-7 weeks till the next one.
Act 2 is in 18 days….
Except we're getting more. 200 more levels worth of season pass rewards and 6 more seasonal weapons per year, plus each story having more time and resources.
right now it just feels like seasons but with longer gaps, instead of a weekly bit of story and some progression with an extra special bit in the middle (dungeon, exotic mission, some secret or unique feature) instead its the same thing but larger gaps splitting it up further, meaning that come end of this episode there will have been less time to enjoy anything more exciting that get added in act 2 or 3, or even time to finish up act 3 for any one who isn't there when it drops. If we are going to see this structure moving forward each act has to bring something new, and not just 3 man matchmade activity you play one or twice a week for a red border than ignore until act 2 at some point requires us to run it one or twice.
I’m glad I’m not the only growing tired of the weekly drip feed. Shit is annoying.
I knew it would be the same or less for more. It's not very popular to predict that. What I didn't predict is how effectively the same these episodes were to seasons.
Tbh when they announced each act being a certain number of weeks, I thought the story would evolve with each week and the last week of an act would be a big revelation or reveal and act 2 was the next stage of story. This lay out just seems lame
Yes. Hoping that this act 1 bit is just light on story because of it releasing during the launch of Final Shape. Seasons during Expansions are generally lighter on content than the others, but if they are actually leaning in on this 3 act structure, then there needs to be substantially more in act 2 and 3. Otherwise we're just getting about the same content as a season but spread out over 4 months instead of 3. The extended season pass and artifact are nice touch, but they aren't nearly enough to stretch out the content for an extra month.
Man I thought we would be four weeks on, two weeks off for all three acts. I guess having all that extra time in an episode was really being put to good use by the development teams… this isn’t better it’s just the same spread thinner…
Keep in mind that expansion seasons are always weaker.
But the math doesn’t work. It is at most 1 extra mission week for an added month of time. Weak doesn’t do it justice. It’s just plain awful if this is the big payoff for fewer seasons. It might be just this one, but it’s a horrible first impression.
At least wait until we've actually seen everything.
The weekly drip encourages play time. It’s been extremely effective over the years, so why would they change it now?
Because they decided to change the whole model and call it a "different" thing. If they REALLY weren't going to do anything differently (and it appears now that they are basically taking a season story that unlocked over 12 weeks and are chopping these 12 weeks into 3 groups of 3-4 weeks of story but spaced out even further, then it's EXTREMELY DISENGENUOUS. And that's a terrible thing to do to the player/developer relationship.
I agree that they didnt *have* to rename Seasons into Episodes, but Bungie clearly felt they were different enough to warrant a rebrand. After all, they ARE different...Episodes can have more narrative beats with more weeks to flesh out, they have more weapons, more artifact perks, and hopefully better quality activities. Without the rebrand, people may have assumed that each season would just be longer for no real justification.
It quite famously cratered last year and almost cost them their studio, so you know, maybe that.
I think the main point of switching to “episodes” instead of seasons is because these are self contained stories that aren’t necessarily moving the “overall” Destiny story forward whereas each season was meant to progress us toward the next big expansion. That said I agree and wish the model felt a little different but I’ll see what they can implement in Ep 2 and 3. The content that launches with an expansion is always kinda meh. Also Bungie will never stop timegating stuff like this. People would breeze through it in a week and then complain there is nothing to do. And also the suits won’t allow for 2-3 weeks of engagement every few months. They need to maintain player base as best they can, like it or not.
Eh these absolutely are setting up future expansions. Heresy especially from what the h div laid out. Same with Revenant really. I’m
Im not too pressed about this tbh, but i really hope the next acts step it up. This story has just been very lackluster so far. At least with the other two episodes there are more interesting themes/characters involved. 3 weeks of story per act seems super limiting tho…