Failsafe at the end of Act 1 is all like, “they hurt my friend so now it’s time to get serious!” Yeah we’re gonna get serious, we’re gonna get more samples, but really angrily.
Echoes are just seasons with more time gates. Also, the teams working on seasons are not the expansion teams. Let’s get that distinction clear here because Bungie absolutely nailed TFS.
But they should borrow traits that make the campaign good, since it's now the new story and game progression for the next year. Not a reduction in quantity and quality through even more drip.
I don't think there's anyone who is seriously saying TFS was in any way bad or such. If anything TFS was so damn good they're now suffering from the success of it as the come down from an amazing expansion to a middling seasonal story is even more drastic.
@MonsieurAuContraire The Final Shape was fun, but the story was more of the same from Bungie. The guardian does everything while the characters pretend we don't exist. Of all the revelations in the main campaign, only 2 of them are new and 1 of them is immediately glossed over. The most interesting dialogue takes place comes from Micah during OLD story missions. Certainly better than lightfall, but not as good as Witch Queen. Probably on par with Forsaken.
I think the mini campaign per act makes sense. 3 story missions in a row, a beginning middle and end with a teaser to the next act. Let the activities drop your mcguffin to upgrade failsafe and have a separate upgrade path for her alone. You’re right, story and grind needs to separate.
I suggest adding new difficulty settings that ramp from week to week. A mini campaign with 3 missions each act and every week those 3 missions go up in difficulty…. Maybe add a leaderboard to make it fun
Two things come to mind "drip fed" and "life support". So who is ready for more seas... i mean episo... i mean a future of frontiers... Nailed it in one. Take care Myelin, great as always my man. Peace
I think they're risking an exodus of players here that were already thinking of bailing after the Light & Dark storyline was wrapped up as what's to keep them coming back for more of the same? This was their chance to change up what we expect by delivering even more dope shit, but it seems they're just fumbling it now.
@MonsieurAuContraire that's kinda where I'm at. I've been playing way more than usual, between grinding out new weapons and doing the raid. Been playing a ton of Gambit, and just enjoying the game. I finished that first story week and having picked it up since except to help some of my clan through the raid. They advertised episodes as a departure from the norm, but I guess I should have known that, in Bungie Speak, that means the exact same thing but less, and more spread out. I immediately thought, "nope, not doing this again."
I misss the old Vex aesthetics from D1. There was something so mystical about it. Especially the black garden aesthetics. The modern aesthetics for the vex seem like a cliche matrix, or a random pixel game like geometry dash.
D1s design was peak destiny and I'll stand by that forever. D2 feels like a fortnitified flashing lights fest at times, and the armour and designs kinda suck in comparison.
@@gargathulothhastur4981it’s commonly theorized that the Vex were Thee antagonist due to their hidden agenda My guess is the vex were the darkness or what was left of it the black garden is where the dark heart is located not to mention their entire objective is to consume, change, and exterminate anything going against their vision (sounds familiar like how d1 darkness was described as aye?) the ships are clearly meant to be Vex designed so as why they decided to do universal I’ll never know The vex were/are the true antagonists and its infuriating bungie decided to refuse using them for a smoke head puppy eyes as the antagonist. Did I forget to mention even the vex can infect hive throne worlds? Ya know where hive gods go to regenerate and can never be truly killed unless they die in there? Yeah they were clearly teasing the vex to be the ultimate antagonist but cop out when they were gonna be front and centre
@@fear_the_smile961 I used to play Warframe, "Rich people" that you are referring to get massive tangible bonuses over free players. At least D2, for all its faults, is not P2W
@@fear_the_smile961 Statistically most gamers lives at or below poverty lines. Most videogame whales are actually in debt generally. Very few people playing videogames are ACTUALLY rich. It's actually a common trait for people that are bad with fiscal responsibility to spend more money than they can/should.
@@fear_the_smile961 in the grand scheme of things 50-100$ is a drop in a puddle. Most of the people complaining have already spent probably over 100 hours with the content and then some. That's like 1$ an hour...people spend over 5$ for a cup of coffee. Perspective matters but people don't have it when it comes to gaming.
Just as I suspected, one whole season that was cut into three with increased rewards and nothing else. We're being strung along again and this time, I fear the community unwilling to wait any longer. Especially with so many new games coming along.
I think what’s funny is that an episode fits inside an act, 6 missions -> 6 weeks. Act 1 had 2 weeks with missions and 1 worthless filler week, I predict that acts 2 and 3 will be the same.
I still think I would rather they release all of the act 1 content when act 1 starts, then we can work through it at our own pace and like read a book or something after. The main problem with echoes is that this particular cliffhanger doesn’t feel good
I would do the same. But we all know people are gonna complete everything in 1-2 days then complain that there's no more content. Bungie is in a lose-lose situation and its their own doing.
@@ocean_0602 I think the secret to success is realizing this is a game and there’s other stuff to do. It’s okay to play other games or even feel sunlight on your skin
That last mission was pretty good, a bit longer and it could be a strike. The changes to the destination in the mission were really cool Act 2 really needs to add all the changes to the Patrol Space.
I was hoping against hope that they would drop the whole episode at once and we'd be able to play the whole thing at our own pace. Bungo got me again. Edited for spelling error
For me you nailed exactly my thoughts with your suggestions at the end of your critique. A mini campaign to begin each Act would allow me to actually enjoy the whole story as it unfolds in action, moreso because the current format means i won't get to engage with the end mission we had this week because i simply refuse to go through all the pointless grind in between. I would be more than happy spending an hour or so running a small campaign and then stepping away for a few weeks till the next one. Instead though i have had to watch a content creator's gameplay of the Act 1 end mission so that i at least get to experience it. We all engage with games in our own ways. No way is right or wrong. For 10 years i have enjoyed Destiny by literally opting to play the content i find to be fun. Yes i miss out on a lot but at least it also allows me time to enjoy more of a variety of games. I am an old gamer too, older than you good sir, so i really don't need mindless grinds just to force up the numbers and make it look like consistent player engagement. And don't get me wrong, i am not running down Bungie. Yes they disappoint me at times but they deserve credit for their passion and creativity. It's just a shame their formatting is lacking the motivation for me to engage regularly.
This absolutely represents how I feel. I was so bummed immediately after running the first seasonal event and realizing nothing had changed. Literally haven’t played since, it was so demotivating.
We went from destroying The Witness, the big bad, culminating point of Light and Dark Saga, to running errands for Failsafe in the blink of an eye. The way they unmistakebly keep breaking the power fantasy momentum every single time. Wish "someone else" would be doing the data gathering and we just swoop in to do the Big Flashy Thing; in this case, rescuing Saint-14.
They also could have given us a more complete experience like Myelin describes and still have a few weeks to do other things/games instead of being disappointed after 3 weeks of lethargic drip. We would leave satisified and come back excited for more, not leaving disappointed and frustrated and upset knowing the next Act will go the same way.
you could've taken that break regardless, episodes is clearly a worse version of seasons where we get a fraction of the same content for the same price tag
edit I mathed wrong, fixed it One thing I've pointed out is that if this is the model, 3 weeks on, 3 weeks off, we are only going to get 27 story weeks, while the 4 seasons, usually around 8 missions, would be 32. They aren't telling more story, they are telling much less
@@DaitoFoundry 8(missions)x4(seasons) is 32 3(acts) x 3(missions per act) x 3(episodes) is (3x3)x3 is 27 So either way we’re getting less, OP’s math is just terrible and I don’t know how he knows how to read.
@@gagekellstrom3978 I'd argue that there's a quantity vs quality thing here. We got 8 weeks of story each season, but how many of those weeks were substantive? The number of seasons that were jam-packed with story for all 8 of those weeks are few and far between, really only Haunted comes to mind. Conversely, this act, conservatively 2 out of the 3 weeks had substantive story. I appreciate a tighter and more focused story, I think the format we had before was quite meandering and often full of fluff.
Crazy plot twist: we, the guardian who came out of the corridors of time, is ALSO NOT the original guardian that went in. Saint’s crisis people can brush off. But when the Conductor reveals OUR TRUTH? now stuff gets real.
Idk why people are upset about saint As a lore nerd I also have said what if saint isn’t “real” I mean come on if you found out ur from a different timeline and the version of you that is from this timeline was dead you probably feel some type of way too People just don’t or can’t relate to characters
@@SepticEmpirehe's a robot copy of a golden age person that has been reset 14 times before he got reset by a ghost into an undead paracausal being. If he was worried about being a copy that ship sailed 1000 years ago.
@@meateaw he probably went through it back then too Idk if saint remember his pre exo self since becoming a guardian but this time is different This is him from a different timeline I image he was shown his grave (the one we see in curse of Osiris) then told he’s a fake he shouldn’t exist and that Osiris doesn’t love him and only love him because the real one is dead and he’s just the replacement If that happens to you I’m sure you’d go crazy like he did
When they first pitched Episodes to the community I thought it was going to be like the mini-campaign idea you had, as soon as I did the first week's quest I went "oh, so we're doing the same thing as before, great..." I do hope that act 2 and 3 will pick up the pace a bit, maybe they've intentionally kept the story light so people can focus on The Final Shape's campaign, but I don't have a lot of confidence.
I'm glad I didn't buy the Annual Pass cause episodes look really bad so far. They just divided a season worth of content into 3 acts and time gated the already time gated content then bloated it to last 120 days.
Honestly this is about what I expected from this episode. I think and hope that the next episodes will be larger and better, but obviously we cannot know for sure. Overall this is simply not a surprise
They also said in the showcase that we would be able to play the episodes in basically any order we want. Thank u for speaking up and calling this stuff out.
I dont have high hopes for the rest of this episode considering there will only be 3 weeks of story for each act. Hopefully episode 2 will be better but only time will tell
“We are due for a bad expansion” is insane but so real To add, I absolutely love the idea of the mini mission. Maybe a 40-60min mission. Legendary or heroic. Where its act 1 start to finish. Love the idea of the little tid bits of lore linked to activities.
My thoughts of act 1 is that we got 2 missions in 3 weeks. Week 1 we had an opening mission and a cutscene to setup the story, Week 2 was go collect data and come back next week, the third and final week had a mission that kicked the story into gear only to tell us to wait till act 2. There is no point waiting for acts 2 and 3 to judge the episodical model because we can look at the game and the triumphs. it’s 9 quest steps, 3 weeks each act. It’s not changing in acts 2 and 3. We all got caught out with episodes because during the showcase they told us that seasons would be a “new way of content delivery”. We were told 3 major story beats 6 weeks apart. Bungie told us episodes would be different and we foolishly believed them. We have no community management team (well dmg is back but idk if that will change the community involvement). We now have a new Game Director and Joe Blackburn was the lead when the changes to seasons were announced. He listened to the community yet I have heard not a word from the new guy. A side note I have figured out is that as a traditional season echos would slap hard, a typical season length is 12 weeks and the quests last around 6 to 7 weeks. Take act 1 had a story mission in week 1 and 3. Do the math and you get 6 missions. We are getting 6 story missions total which means as a season we would have zero filler
100% your suggestions are right on. I've played since alpha, back on ps3 (now on PC) and I dont have the time to grind anymore , but I want to finish the story . So your idea of a mini campaign is great. As I'm typing this message I have only had time to do the first mission of the episode and I watch your videos so I dont miss the story because sometimes I dont have time to grind for the story... thanks...
Did you notice that they got the Failsafe dialogue colours wrong? When shes her cynical persona her colours are supposed to be red, while when shes talking like a nice "person" her colours are supposed to be yellow/golden.
Bind yourself to the shield. Bind yourself to me. And if you abandon your purpose, let the Vault consume you, as it consumed me.” -Kabr Keep this kind of content up and speak your mind, it’s why I sub!
As someone who has played every season except for the one where rasputin crashes the world eater thing, nothing burnt me out more than being told in all the marketing that episodes would be the big shake up people have been begging for for years only to log in, finish the amazing final shape content and start the episode only for it to be the exact same shit with a different code of paint. If we had been told it would be the same ol same ol and not to expect too much idk if I would be this burnt out, went from playing 100 hours week 1 of TFS to no game time since
I wish that acts where just destination rework. With a new exotic mission reworked strikes, a loot refresh, and a small campaign to go with it. As well as changing up the destination. Like what we are seeing with nesses.
I thought, when they announced Episodes, that we would get the whole act worth of story at the start of each act. Like what you're said. I was so disappointed when I finished the first week story and had to wait for the next week.
your suggestion is a great idea. the way it should work is that at the beginning of a season a single campaign mission drops. it tells a complete act. 45 minute campaign style mission. then once you beat the mission you get the "well now we have to collect the data while we wait for the next mission" as an excuse to do the seasonal/episodic activity over and over. rinse and repeat until the next mission drops. etc.
Act 1 was, "Wow, the Vex are acting really weird aren't they? Man it's just so weird what the Vex are doing. The Vex are up to something big! Isn't it cool that nessus looks a little different now? Uh oh. Saint is having a mental health crisis. Looks like we'll just leave him alone for a while with his turbulent emotions and new sense of vulnerability after getting mind controlled. I hope that doesn't do any damage to hik while we wait for Act 2 :smile:" I hate how many times an NPC says, "The Vex are acting weird" or "The Vex are up to something big." Classic tell don't show
i definitely feel your pain man. i had to tap out of destiny a while back, i only keep tabs on it through creators like you (for whom i am very grateful). i honestly wish destiny was more similar in release style/cadence to halo. i'd rather watch a movie than a soap opera - i'd rather come back, sink my teeth into a meaty, meaningful, dense, well-executed, complete story chapter once a year (or even less often) than try to maintain interest in a constant slow drip forever. i can't handle the pointless repetitive grind (not to mention the million different currencies/materials/upgrade doodads and inventory management). there's SO much i love about this game, but i didn't feel like it respected or rewarded my time investment often enough and i had to get out.
With the scattered holograms around Nessus, I was actually hoping Ashur had made a return, given how Sloan had come back in Season Of The Deep. Maya is great because she's someone who's popped up is the lore here and there enough to spark warranted curiosity, where this is now a worthwhile story beat to explore.
Do you think because of the focus of Final Shape they had to import the old season model for the first episode and the following Episodes will be diffrent?
I mean it kinda seems like it considering we're getting the dreadnought back. We didn't get any new destination with echoes but I could see Bungie lumping in the pale heart with it. I think most people are still farming their exotic class items and doing stuff in the pale heart. A new destination every episode would be ideal.
That's the hope. But others point out the season team and campaign team are separate. My guess is the delay probably put all hands on deck to make Final Shape as good as it is, but they're also probably finishing up or finished Episode 2. It's not likely Episode 2 will be any different.
What i would like is a return to the annual pass model Where they drop all the story in 1 go, and you can play it at your own pace and throughout the period things get added, either exotic quests or activities as opposed to what it is now, 3 weeks to get 1 meaningful crumb of story, then 3 weeks of nothing
Here is my dream scenario for episodes: Parcel out the story telling across 5-6 repeatable, strike/campaign length missions. Everyone front loads their seasonal grinding, so only drop one mission at the beginning of act 1 and steadily increase the frequency for acts 2 and 3. Do a legend/expert version of each mission that drops exclusive lore (and extra loot) for those that want to make the effort. One of the missions could even be the exo quest. We could still have grindable activities (breach executable) and unfolding activities (enigma protocol), we can just be real about what they’re for.
I honestly think the end of act 1 is building up the hype for act 2. Which could give us some revelations of who this Conductor is and what it mission is
Oh man, I just love having to listen to Saint/Osiris. Hey, did you know they are lovers? Why don't we have a few more seasons just to really drive the point home that they are gay for each other, not sure if anyone made the connection yet.
I think what they should do is release all of the story of act 1 all together with the weapons and activity(s) for act 1 and then update the dialogue weakly in said activities to develop the story a bit more and lead into the next act eventually
It does seem like players are being punished for not playing since day one. Some players are probably going to be confused about the mention of the infinite forest and Saint being a fake.
Kinda unrelated but i feel like these episodes are just here to build background / lore for the new saga: new frontiers. My theory is maya will be the main villian in her own expansion, hopefully in the vex home world. Revenant will set up lore for an expansion based on fikural, hopefully in riis and heresy will hopefully do the same for xivu and her expansion in her war moon or torobotl
I genuinely regret getting the year pass.. as always I appreciate your passion, man. Hope they can change things around, with Final Shape out of the way I was so hopeful for the future
They could take a page from the Helldivers book and make a "data threshold" we have to reach to "unlock" act 2. We know Bungie would find a reason to release the act anyway, but they could spin it as "Collect enough data to help find out what is happening to Saint in Act 2."
On one end I think something like the lost ghosts quest line would be a great addition to seaso- ahem, episodic content. Strikes, campaign missions, and adventures brought back and slightly edited, with fresh dialogue and a side objective. I even feel like they did a okay job at writing around the elephant in the room of it being enemies and locations from an older time in the game (although I doubt these mysteries will every see a conslusion). However, even all of those were something I managed to grind through in an evening, and if I didn’t have time off, would maybe have taken only 2 or 3 nights. The fact is I don’t know how they can design content that we won’t just blitz through, especially if they know it’s going to expire at some point. The problem is seasonal/episodic content that’s on a conveyor isn’t given enough room. I think of the long, and occasionally grindy quests from black armory, opulence etc. that they don’t do any more because people complained about said grind, leading to this shallow-but-infinite content style that doesn’t have an incentive at the end.
Its great to hear an honest review! So many of the streamers clearly are on Bungie's D and can't say anything negative or they dont get access or something.
Respect to the end bit: the lore that’s coming is great and I understand others importance of continuing to share that knowledge with the community. I do appreciate your feedback in addition. I’m having a decent time with the gameplay loop. The concern I’ve felt is the grind of storytelling like you mentioned 😂
My *hope* is that this particular “Episode” was originally developed under the Season model, that the model was changed to allow a better structure for subsequent Episodes, and that Episode One is therefore essentially a Season that was shoehorned into this three-Act system that might be better implemented for future Episodes. I say “hope” because even though that would mean this particular Episode is just going to feel like a Season all the way through, it’s a halfway plausible explanation for how future Episodes might be substantially different. (I’m also aware this is not an ideal hope. It’s merely the best one I can imagine that might actually be true.)
always been a supporter of yours ever since the low bucket voice recording myelin games in D1. Youve always kept it real and always have solutions or ideas on how to fix the problems, i agree that right now it doesnt look like episodes are any different than seasons and i hope they prove us wrong lol but i am enjoying the game a lot right now too so idk lol
i realized week 1 of episode that it was just rebranding coz they wanted to charge more for less stuff(less season or dungeon in deluxe edition). so ill just do what i did the years before. see ya all in act 3 week 3 when i can get have a good time playing whatever it is this episode has to offer without all the annoying timegatting.
This episode imo should involve Clovis and the black garden too. A raid refresh would have been a great addition. There should be changes to the major vex gates in game to depict this internal struggle between the main vex and Ishtar vex for gate control. A good time to bring back a newly recompiled Panoptis and a battle through the infinite forest to showcase the Curse of Osiris linked plot and our lost vendor. We need a thicker story in episodes not bare bones.
If she doesn't get an Exo body in this episode, i bet she will after Bungie sees how well people are receiving her now compared to her original debut. I get the feeling that something is going to happen to either Devrim or Hawthorne to build up a story with the remaining one.
First : love your video and appreciate your point of view and saying what's-what out loud. If nobody talks, reacts, criticizes, nothing changes. But it is Bungie, like always. Not saying everything. Saying just enough to keep you. (prismatic, class items) Then, it's a round of "we're listening" and the community goes crazy and applauds when a little change is made, like surges removed. There's a duality in this community. We have to point out the mistakes and yes, preferencial treatments. Prismatic class items in Dual Destiny is a mistake. Oh, but the big guns says "get good", so it's ok then. No, it's not! That "act 1 is over" after 3 weeks is a slap in the face.
I hope, maybe as a side quest between weekly mission, we get to Upgrade failsafes weapons, and maybe use her like Strategems from helldivers in the weekly activity, after we deposit those data blocks and stuff.
The corridors of time is a strange one. Remember this, the corridors was a time machine that used paracausal energy. Paeacausal means without causation. He IS our Saint, he is a saint that breaks causality, we saved the original AND our original died. Sadly the writers of this season forgot the whole fucking premise of guardians and using paracausal energy for our time machine. Thr vex can do causal time travel, ie time travel that has impacts in causal time (eg. butterfly effect time travel). But the time machine we used was paracausal time travel. We can break causality with our time machine because it was designed to do that.
It wasnt Saint speaking , it was Maya, little by little becoming the new witness by fusioning all her copies in the vexnet and her mind clones produce by the veil
My dream for episodes is that they drop the seasonal activity along the first 3 missions along with hard modes for those missions. then for act 2 they add an exotic mission, then act 3 we get two more missions and a spin on the seasonal activity. Kinda like house of wolves with more girth.
A mini campaign, fill the story with missions that are unique, not necessarily expansive, but different and not samey. Then add special dialogue to seasonal acitvity aswell as loot to enhance the story.
Failsafe at the end of Act 1 is all like, “they hurt my friend so now it’s time to get serious!” Yeah we’re gonna get serious, we’re gonna get more samples, but really angrily.
And this is worth $50 plus tax.
@@He_Shall_Reign_Unto_TheAges $15
Bro 😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣
This comment was worth those $50 plus tax 🤣
I had a good chuckle then cry after
Im so happy we get to help an old man save his robot lover boy again and pay to do so.
Echoes are just seasons with more time gates. Also, the teams working on seasons are not the expansion teams. Let’s get that distinction clear here because Bungie absolutely nailed TFS.
But they should borrow traits that make the campaign good, since it's now the new story and game progression for the next year. Not a reduction in quantity and quality through even more drip.
I don't think there's anyone who is seriously saying TFS was in any way bad or such. If anything TFS was so damn good they're now suffering from the success of it as the come down from an amazing expansion to a middling seasonal story is even more drastic.
@MonsieurAuContraire The Final Shape was fun, but the story was more of the same from Bungie. The guardian does everything while the characters pretend we don't exist. Of all the revelations in the main campaign, only 2 of them are new and 1 of them is immediately glossed over. The most interesting dialogue takes place comes from Micah during OLD story missions. Certainly better than lightfall, but not as good as Witch Queen. Probably on par with Forsaken.
I think the mini campaign per act makes sense. 3 story missions in a row, a beginning middle and end with a teaser to the next act. Let the activities drop your mcguffin to upgrade failsafe and have a separate upgrade path for her alone. You’re right, story and grind needs to separate.
I suggest adding new difficulty settings that ramp from week to week. A mini campaign with 3 missions each act and every week those 3 missions go up in difficulty…. Maybe add a leaderboard to make it fun
Two things come to mind "drip fed" and "life support". So who is ready for more seas... i mean episo... i mean a future of frontiers... Nailed it in one. Take care Myelin, great as always my man.
Peace
Echoes immediately killed the high that Final Shape gave me.
Same it was total whiplash. You ride the high of tfs only to get hit with this shit
Didn’t learn your lesson from the Witch Queen about how a great expansion is followed by disappointment?
I think they're risking an exodus of players here that were already thinking of bailing after the Light & Dark storyline was wrapped up as what's to keep them coming back for more of the same? This was their chance to change up what we expect by delivering even more dope shit, but it seems they're just fumbling it now.
@MonsieurAuContraire that's kinda where I'm at. I've been playing way more than usual, between grinding out new weapons and doing the raid. Been playing a ton of Gambit, and just enjoying the game.
I finished that first story week and having picked it up since except to help some of my clan through the raid. They advertised episodes as a departure from the norm, but I guess I should have known that, in Bungie Speak, that means the exact same thing but less, and more spread out. I immediately thought, "nope, not doing this again."
Honeymoon phase is certainly over.
I misss the old Vex aesthetics from D1. There was something so mystical about it. Especially the black garden aesthetics. The modern aesthetics for the vex seem like a cliche matrix, or a random pixel game like geometry dash.
That's because even Bungie did not know what they were doing with the story at that point.
I agree it's way too bright now instead of the more murky and mossy textures of D1
D1s design was peak destiny and I'll stand by that forever. D2 feels like a fortnitified flashing lights fest at times, and the armour and designs kinda suck in comparison.
I hate they are sticking with the 80s retro VR look for the Vex. It just looks so out of place.
@@gargathulothhastur4981it’s commonly theorized that the Vex were Thee antagonist due to their hidden agenda
My guess is the vex were the darkness or what was left of it the black garden is where the dark heart is located not to mention their entire objective is to consume, change, and exterminate anything going against their vision (sounds familiar like how d1 darkness was described as aye?) the ships are clearly meant to be Vex designed so as why they decided to do universal I’ll never know
The vex were/are the true antagonists and its infuriating bungie decided to refuse using them for a smoke head puppy eyes as the antagonist.
Did I forget to mention even the vex can infect hive throne worlds? Ya know where hive gods go to regenerate and can never be truly killed unless they die in there? Yeah they were clearly teasing the vex to be the ultimate antagonist but cop out when they were gonna be front and centre
1 Episode = 1 season x 3. Not even three seasons, just one season, but three times. So barebones.
People that play this game are rich and dont care. If that's their audience than let's play warframe instead.
@@fear_the_smile961 Warframe gotta be the most boring game Ive played, its nothing even like destiny but I do respect it.
@@fear_the_smile961 I used to play Warframe, "Rich people" that you are referring to get massive tangible bonuses over free players. At least D2, for all its faults, is not P2W
@@fear_the_smile961 Statistically most gamers lives at or below poverty lines. Most videogame whales are actually in debt generally. Very few people playing videogames are ACTUALLY rich. It's actually a common trait for people that are bad with fiscal responsibility to spend more money than they can/should.
@@fear_the_smile961 in the grand scheme of things 50-100$ is a drop in a puddle. Most of the people complaining have already spent probably over 100 hours with the content and then some. That's like 1$ an hour...people spend over 5$ for a cup of coffee. Perspective matters but people don't have it when it comes to gaming.
Just as I suspected, one whole season that was cut into three with increased rewards and nothing else. We're being strung along again and this time, I fear the community unwilling to wait any longer. Especially with so many new games coming along.
Episodes are not like Seasons, proceeds to be exactly like seasons but you have to wait longer to finish the story
I think what’s funny is that an episode fits inside an act, 6 missions -> 6 weeks.
Act 1 had 2 weeks with missions and 1 worthless filler week, I predict that acts 2 and 3 will be the same.
I still think I would rather they release all of the act 1 content when act 1 starts, then we can work through it at our own pace and like read a book or something after. The main problem with echoes is that this particular cliffhanger doesn’t feel good
This is all I want as well
I would do the same. But we all know people are gonna complete everything in 1-2 days then complain that there's no more content. Bungie is in a lose-lose situation and its their own doing.
@@ocean_0602 I think the secret to success is realizing this is a game and there’s other stuff to do. It’s okay to play other games or even feel sunlight on your skin
@@thehungarywaffleinc.7775 God forbid D2 players touch another game let alone touch grass 😂
@@ocean_0602 the truth is sharp 😔
That last mission was pretty good, a bit longer and it could be a strike. The changes to the destination in the mission were really cool
Act 2 really needs to add all the changes to the Patrol Space.
I was hoping against hope that they would drop the whole episode at once and we'd be able to play the whole thing at our own pace. Bungo got me again.
Edited for spelling error
For me you nailed exactly my thoughts with your suggestions at the end of your critique. A mini campaign to begin each Act would allow me to actually enjoy the whole story as it unfolds in action, moreso because the current format means i won't get to engage with the end mission we had this week because i simply refuse to go through all the pointless grind in between. I would be more than happy spending an hour or so running a small campaign and then stepping away for a few weeks till the next one. Instead though i have had to watch a content creator's gameplay of the Act 1 end mission so that i at least get to experience it.
We all engage with games in our own ways. No way is right or wrong. For 10 years i have enjoyed Destiny by literally opting to play the content i find to be fun. Yes i miss out on a lot but at least it also allows me time to enjoy more of a variety of games. I am an old gamer too, older than you good sir, so i really don't need mindless grinds just to force up the numbers and make it look like consistent player engagement. And don't get me wrong, i am not running down Bungie. Yes they disappoint me at times but they deserve credit for their passion and creativity. It's just a shame their formatting is lacking the motivation for me to engage regularly.
They spent all of the brainpower making The Final Shape campaign good, to justify the cost of the expansion. Now back to brain farting and idiocy.
Could not agree more with everything you said in this video. These were my thoughts exactly
I've always appreciated your passion and honesty. Cheers to you
This absolutely represents how I feel. I was so bummed immediately after running the first seasonal event and realizing nothing had changed. Literally haven’t played since, it was so demotivating.
I SOOO appreciate the CONSTRUCTIVE FEEDBACK that you are collecting and providing to the D2 community!
We went from destroying The Witness, the big bad, culminating point of Light and Dark Saga, to running errands for Failsafe in the blink of an eye. The way they unmistakebly keep breaking the power fantasy momentum every single time. Wish "someone else" would be doing the data gathering and we just swoop in to do the Big Flashy Thing; in this case, rescuing Saint-14.
TBF this is how all RPGs are. You go from defeating god to picking up groceries for an old woman in a cottage.
I'm glad there is a 3 week break. I can catch up on BG3, sucks for those who want to play this all the time though.
Yes! We are still getting the bloody content, people are in such a rush for everything it's maddening.
How I feel lmao everyone’s mad man time I have time to do other shit
They also could have given us a more complete experience like Myelin describes and still have a few weeks to do other things/games instead of being disappointed after 3 weeks of lethargic drip. We would leave satisified and come back excited for more, not leaving disappointed and frustrated and upset knowing the next Act will go the same way.
I wish more people were like you
you could've taken that break regardless, episodes is clearly a worse version of seasons where we get a fraction of the same content for the same price tag
edit I mathed wrong, fixed it
One thing I've pointed out is that if this is the model, 3 weeks on, 3 weeks off, we are only going to get 27 story weeks, while the 4 seasons, usually around 8 missions, would be 32. They aren't telling more story, they are telling much less
Where are you getting this math? There’s 3 acts for each of 3 episodes. That’s 9 acts. If each act has 3 weeks of content, that’s 27 weeks total.
@@DaitoFoundry 8(missions)x4(seasons) is 32
3(acts) x 3(missions per act) x 3(episodes) is (3x3)x3 is 27
So either way we’re getting less, OP’s math is just terrible and I don’t know how he knows how to read.
@@gagekellstrom3978 I'd argue that there's a quantity vs quality thing here. We got 8 weeks of story each season, but how many of those weeks were substantive? The number of seasons that were jam-packed with story for all 8 of those weeks are few and far between, really only Haunted comes to mind. Conversely, this act, conservatively 2 out of the 3 weeks had substantive story. I appreciate a tighter and more focused story, I think the format we had before was quite meandering and often full of fluff.
@@DaitoFoundry Yikes I have no clue haha
@@DaitoFoundry I mathed the other side wrong too, 4 seasons at around 8 episodes would be 32 weeks of story
Myelin out here channeling darkside royalty lore with all this truth.
Did the onslaught perk get a stealth buff? Or did grenades always give free x3 onslaught proc?
Crazy plot twist: we, the guardian who came out of the corridors of time, is ALSO NOT the original guardian that went in. Saint’s crisis people can brush off. But when the Conductor reveals OUR TRUTH? now stuff gets real.
Idk why people are upset about saint
As a lore nerd I also have said what if saint isn’t “real”
I mean come on if you found out ur from a different timeline and the version of you that is from this timeline was dead you probably feel some type of way too
People just don’t or can’t relate to characters
@@SepticEmpirehe's a robot copy of a golden age person that has been reset 14 times before he got reset by a ghost into an undead paracausal being.
If he was worried about being a copy that ship sailed 1000 years ago.
@@meateaw he probably went through it back then too
Idk if saint remember his pre exo self since becoming a guardian but this time is different
This is him from a different timeline
I image he was shown his grave (the one we see in curse of Osiris) then told he’s a fake he shouldn’t exist and that Osiris doesn’t love him and only love him because the real one is dead and he’s just the replacement
If that happens to you I’m sure you’d go crazy like he did
When they first pitched Episodes to the community I thought it was going to be like the mini-campaign idea you had, as soon as I did the first week's quest I went "oh, so we're doing the same thing as before, great..."
I do hope that act 2 and 3 will pick up the pace a bit, maybe they've intentionally kept the story light so people can focus on The Final Shape's campaign, but I don't have a lot of confidence.
I agree, glad some of the big creators are bringing it up, called that it would be the same thing as a season from the beginning
I'm glad I didn't buy the Annual Pass cause episodes look really bad so far.
They just divided a season worth of content into 3 acts and time gated the already time gated content then bloated it to last 120 days.
Amen! Preach brother! "Seasons, but worse" would have been a hard sell.
Honestly this is about what I expected from this episode. I think and hope that the next episodes will be larger and better, but obviously we cannot know for sure. Overall this is simply not a surprise
They also said in the showcase that we would be able to play the episodes in basically any order we want. Thank u for speaking up and calling this stuff out.
I dont have high hopes for the rest of this episode considering there will only be 3 weeks of story for each act. Hopefully episode 2 will be better but only time will tell
“We are due for a bad expansion” is insane but so real
To add, I absolutely love the idea of the mini mission. Maybe a 40-60min mission. Legendary or heroic. Where its act 1 start to finish. Love the idea of the little tid bits of lore linked to activities.
My thoughts of act 1 is that we got 2 missions in 3 weeks. Week 1 we had an opening mission and a cutscene to setup the story, Week 2 was go collect data and come back next week, the third and final week had a mission that kicked the story into gear only to tell us to wait till act 2.
There is no point waiting for acts 2 and 3 to judge the episodical model because we can look at the game and the triumphs. it’s 9 quest steps, 3 weeks each act. It’s not changing in acts 2 and 3.
We all got caught out with episodes because during the showcase they told us that seasons would be a “new way of content delivery”. We were told 3 major story beats 6 weeks apart. Bungie told us episodes would be different and we foolishly believed them. We have no community management team (well dmg is back but idk if that will change the community involvement).
We now have a new Game Director and Joe Blackburn was the lead when the changes to seasons were announced. He listened to the community yet I have heard not a word from the new guy.
A side note I have figured out is that as a traditional season echos would slap hard, a typical season length is 12 weeks and the quests last around 6 to 7 weeks. Take act 1 had a story mission in week 1 and 3. Do the math and you get 6 missions. We are getting 6 story missions total which means as a season we would have zero filler
100% your suggestions are right on. I've played since alpha, back on ps3 (now on PC) and I dont have the time to grind anymore , but I want to finish the story . So your idea of a mini campaign is great. As I'm typing this message I have only had time to do the first mission of the episode and I watch your videos so I dont miss the story because sometimes I dont have time to grind for the story... thanks...
Hey thanks. I like how simplified the explanation is. I'm very dense and can't understand the in game storytelling lol.
Still don't understand why prismatic colors is represented by fusion of arc and solar (if you look at your bar colors before pink)
Bungie just chose a color to differentiate from the other subclasses
Pyramid orange and traveler light blue
It’s light and dark
It combines Resonance yellow and the arctic blue of the Traveler's Light.
You are absolutely 💯! This is bull.... we get 3 weeks of sub mediocre play, then a 20-day wait.
10000000% agree with every single point
Also myelin the story ideas are bang on point, would love to see this change so bad.!!!!
Did you notice that they got the Failsafe dialogue colours wrong? When shes her cynical persona her colours are supposed to be red, while when shes talking like a nice "person" her colours are supposed to be yellow/golden.
Bind yourself to the shield. Bind yourself to me. And if you abandon your purpose, let the Vault consume you, as it consumed me.” -Kabr
Keep this kind of content up and speak your mind, it’s why I sub!
As someone who has played every season except for the one where rasputin crashes the world eater thing, nothing burnt me out more than being told in all the marketing that episodes would be the big shake up people have been begging for for years only to log in, finish the amazing final shape content and start the episode only for it to be the exact same shit with a different code of paint. If we had been told it would be the same ol same ol and not to expect too much idk if I would be this burnt out, went from playing 100 hours week 1 of TFS to no game time since
I wish that acts where just destination rework. With a new exotic mission reworked strikes, a loot refresh, and a small campaign to go with it. As well as changing up the destination. Like what we are seeing with nesses.
Nessus getting a bunch of new secrets and an activity like Overthrow would have been so cool
That would take effort. Something bungo cant do under sony or under their executives.
For me the biggest problem is where is the ending to this act? Who is the bad guy in this ? I mean we are back to what is the vail thing
I thought, when they announced Episodes, that we would get the whole act worth of story at the start of each act. Like what you're said. I was so disappointed when I finished the first week story and had to wait for the next week.
your suggestion is a great idea. the way it should work is that at the beginning of a season a single campaign mission drops. it tells a complete act. 45 minute campaign style mission. then once you beat the mission you get the "well now we have to collect the data while we wait for the next mission" as an excuse to do the seasonal/episodic activity over and over. rinse and repeat until the next mission drops. etc.
Act 1 was, "Wow, the Vex are acting really weird aren't they? Man it's just so weird what the Vex are doing. The Vex are up to something big! Isn't it cool that nessus looks a little different now? Uh oh. Saint is having a mental health crisis. Looks like we'll just leave him alone for a while with his turbulent emotions and new sense of vulnerability after getting mind controlled. I hope that doesn't do any damage to hik while we wait for Act 2 :smile:"
I hate how many times an NPC says, "The Vex are acting weird" or "The Vex are up to something big." Classic tell don't show
Yeah i could easily imagine the last act 1 mission being a week 1 mission for a season, diplay the threat and build stakes.
😂😂😂 the killing failsafe comment was hilarious
i definitely feel your pain man. i had to tap out of destiny a while back, i only keep tabs on it through creators like you (for whom i am very grateful). i honestly wish destiny was more similar in release style/cadence to halo. i'd rather watch a movie than a soap opera - i'd rather come back, sink my teeth into a meaty, meaningful, dense, well-executed, complete story chapter once a year (or even less often) than try to maintain interest in a constant slow drip forever. i can't handle the pointless repetitive grind (not to mention the million different currencies/materials/upgrade doodads and inventory management). there's SO much i love about this game, but i didn't feel like it respected or rewarded my time investment often enough and i had to get out.
Appreciate you Myelin
Knock knock …
Whose there ?
Hello?
I’ll tell you in 3 weeks
With the scattered holograms around Nessus, I was actually hoping Ashur had made a return, given how Sloan had come back in Season Of The Deep. Maya is great because she's someone who's popped up is the lore here and there enough to spark warranted curiosity, where this is now a worthwhile story beat to explore.
Curious if they are writing the missions a couple weeks ahead of time and this is all being winged.
Do you think because of the focus of Final Shape they had to import the old season model for the first episode and the following Episodes will be diffrent?
I mean it kinda seems like it considering we're getting the dreadnought back. We didn't get any new destination with echoes but I could see Bungie lumping in the pale heart with it. I think most people are still farming their exotic class items and doing stuff in the pale heart.
A new destination every episode would be ideal.
That's the hope. But others point out the season team and campaign team are separate. My guess is the delay probably put all hands on deck to make Final Shape as good as it is, but they're also probably finishing up or finished Episode 2. It's not likely Episode 2 will be any different.
What i would like is a return to the annual pass model
Where they drop all the story in 1 go, and you can play it at your own pace
and throughout the period things get added, either exotic quests or activities
as opposed to what it is now, 3 weeks to get 1 meaningful crumb of story, then 3 weeks of nothing
Here is my dream scenario for episodes: Parcel out the story telling across 5-6 repeatable, strike/campaign length missions. Everyone front loads their seasonal grinding, so only drop one mission at the beginning of act 1 and steadily increase the frequency for acts 2 and 3. Do a legend/expert version of each mission that drops exclusive lore (and extra loot) for those that want to make the effort. One of the missions could even be the exo quest. We could still have grindable activities (breach executable) and unfolding activities (enigma protocol), we can just be real about what they’re for.
Byf may be lore Daddy, but you're wise old lore Grandpappy! A real OG and full of integrity!
I honestly think the end of act 1 is building up the hype for act 2.
Which could give us some revelations of who this Conductor is and what it mission is
As soon as it felt the same I just left for helldivers, maybe I’ll try waiting till the end so I can do everything all at once.
theres so much to do that i could care less about how episodes or seasons always go , to me it is what it is lol
Oh man, I just love having to listen to Saint/Osiris. Hey, did you know they are lovers? Why don't we have a few more seasons just to really drive the point home that they are gay for each other, not sure if anyone made the connection yet.
I think what they should do is release all of the story of act 1 all together with the weapons and activity(s) for act 1 and then update the dialogue weakly in said activities to develop the story a bit more and lead into the next act eventually
The season we brought him back is due to a loop we completed thanks to Osiris building a time machine. Kinda like a closed time loop.
Thank you for speaking your truth to power, oh guardian Myen
It does seem like players are being punished for not playing since day one. Some players are probably going to be confused about the mention of the infinite forest and Saint being a fake.
Kinda unrelated but i feel like these episodes are just here to build background / lore for the new saga: new frontiers. My theory is maya will be the main villian in her own expansion, hopefully in the vex home world. Revenant will set up lore for an expansion based on fikural, hopefully in riis and heresy will hopefully do the same for xivu and her expansion in her war moon or torobotl
I genuinely regret getting the year pass.. as always I appreciate your passion, man. Hope they can change things around, with Final Shape out of the way I was so hopeful for the future
That's weird. Becuase i have had the questline telling me for 2 weeks now telling me that failsafe will contact me when act 2 starts.
I love your content bro, I can't play D2 anymore, i'm just tired of the game but I will always love the story, thank you.
Great insights, thanks a lot
I think failsafe is the only thing I like from this season so far. Very charming and surprisingly funny dialogue.
They could take a page from the Helldivers book and make a "data threshold" we have to reach to "unlock" act 2.
We know Bungie would find a reason to release the act anyway, but they could spin it as "Collect enough data to help find out what is happening to Saint in Act 2."
On one end I think something like the lost ghosts quest line would be a great addition to seaso- ahem, episodic content.
Strikes, campaign missions, and adventures brought back and slightly edited, with fresh dialogue and a side objective. I even feel like they did a okay job at writing around the elephant in the room of it being enemies and locations from an older time in the game (although I doubt these mysteries will every see a conslusion).
However, even all of those were something I managed to grind through in an evening, and if I didn’t have time off, would maybe have taken only 2 or 3 nights. The fact is I don’t know how they can design content that we won’t just blitz through, especially if they know it’s going to expire at some point.
The problem is seasonal/episodic content that’s on a conveyor isn’t given enough room. I think of the long, and occasionally grindy quests from black armory, opulence etc. that they don’t do any more because people complained about said grind, leading to this shallow-but-infinite content style that doesn’t have an incentive at the end.
Its great to hear an honest review! So many of the streamers clearly are on Bungie's D and can't say anything negative or they dont get access or something.
I appreciate your opinion Myelin and always enjoy when you give it. Like you I hope they get it together but history has told us otherwise.
31:12 THAT'S WHAT I TOUGHT WHEN THE EPISODE THING WAS ANNOUNCED
thank you for your efforts
Love the Content!
Thanks for your opinion. Totally agree!
Agreed with everything in the critique section
Respect to the end bit: the lore that’s coming is great and I understand others importance of continuing to share that knowledge with the community.
I do appreciate your feedback in addition. I’m having a decent time with the gameplay loop. The concern I’ve felt is the grind of storytelling like you mentioned
😂
The rendered cut scene at the beginning with the mouse cursor in it gets a mark for quality????????
My *hope* is that this particular “Episode” was originally developed under the Season model, that the model was changed to allow a better structure for subsequent Episodes, and that Episode One is therefore essentially a Season that was shoehorned into this three-Act system that might be better implemented for future Episodes.
I say “hope” because even though that would mean this particular Episode is just going to feel like a Season all the way through, it’s a halfway plausible explanation for how future Episodes might be substantially different.
(I’m also aware this is not an ideal hope. It’s merely the best one I can imagine that might actually be true.)
What gun is he using in the beginning of the video?
Ikora named it an echo in the cutscene said echo seems fitting
always been a supporter of yours ever since the low bucket voice recording myelin games in D1. Youve always kept it real and always have solutions or ideas on how to fix the problems, i agree that right now it doesnt look like episodes are any different than seasons and i hope they prove us wrong lol but i am enjoying the game a lot right now too so idk lol
i realized week 1 of episode that it was just rebranding coz they wanted to charge more for less stuff(less season or dungeon in deluxe edition). so ill just do what i did the years before. see ya all in act 3 week 3 when i can get have a good time playing whatever it is this episode has to offer without all the annoying timegatting.
Does anyone know if you play as an exo, can you hear the voice that Saint is talking about?
This episode imo should involve Clovis and the black garden too. A raid refresh would have been a great addition. There should be changes to the major vex gates in game to depict this internal struggle between the main vex and Ishtar vex for gate control. A good time to bring back a newly recompiled Panoptis and a battle through the infinite forest to showcase the Curse of Osiris linked plot and our lost vendor. We need a thicker story in episodes not bare bones.
I thought the main reason for the rebranding to episodes was because they’re all separate stories so you don’t have to play them in order
I hope Failsafe gets a new ship and becomes a bigger part in our game, i feel so bad for Devrim and Failsafe they never get any love.
If she doesn't get an Exo body in this episode, i bet she will after Bungie sees how well people are receiving her now compared to her original debut.
I get the feeling that something is going to happen to either Devrim or Hawthorne to build up a story with the remaining one.
@@voltus20 They should have killed Hawthorne and made Saint the Clan vendor and kept Holliday around.
Hawthorne suuuucks.
100% agree with everything in this video.
First : love your video and appreciate your point of view and saying what's-what out loud.
If nobody talks, reacts, criticizes, nothing changes.
But it is Bungie, like always. Not saying everything. Saying just enough to keep you. (prismatic, class items)
Then, it's a round of "we're listening" and the community goes crazy and applauds when a little change is made, like surges removed.
There's a duality in this community. We have to point out the mistakes and yes, preferencial treatments. Prismatic class items in Dual Destiny is a mistake. Oh, but the big guns says "get good", so it's ok then. No, it's not!
That "act 1 is over" after 3 weeks is a slap in the face.
my only push back is that the episode isnt complete.. im okay with seeing the complete episode fleshed out.
I hope, maybe as a side quest between weekly mission, we get to Upgrade failsafes weapons, and maybe use her like Strategems from helldivers in the weekly activity, after we deposit those data blocks and stuff.
What in the ever-loving hell makes you think Bungie is capable of doing something that competent?
The corridors of time is a strange one.
Remember this, the corridors was a time machine that used paracausal energy.
Paeacausal means without causation.
He IS our Saint, he is a saint that breaks causality, we saved the original AND our original died.
Sadly the writers of this season forgot the whole fucking premise of guardians and using paracausal energy for our time machine.
Thr vex can do causal time travel, ie time travel that has impacts in causal time (eg. butterfly effect time travel).
But the time machine we used was paracausal time travel. We can break causality with our time machine because it was designed to do that.
It wasnt Saint speaking , it was Maya, little by little becoming the new witness by fusioning all her copies in the vexnet and her mind clones produce by the veil
My dream for episodes is that they drop the seasonal activity along the first 3 missions along with hard modes for those missions. then for act 2 they add an exotic mission, then act 3 we get two more missions and a spin on the seasonal activity. Kinda like house of wolves with more girth.
Tell 'em Myelin!
I was distraught by the lack of "peeeeace" at the end
A mini campaign, fill the story with missions that are unique, not necessarily expansive, but different and not samey. Then add special dialogue to seasonal acitvity aswell as loot to enhance the story.