When this Episode first started I was excited that the Vex would actually become part of the story and not just a plot device for other factions. And instead, it feels like I got a duo of lovers quarrels...
SAME! I just typed that. hated it - it was so boring. if that are the 'loose threads" we will "close" i rather they took the game offline and make something better - overhauling D2.
The Maya as the Conductor reveal absolutely should have been the Act 1 finale. They weren't able to properly pace the story because it dragged for so long initially and then didn't leave them enough time to flesh out the results/consequences of that reveal.
They never have enough time. Never enough time to flesh out Lightfall, never enough time to beyond light and so on. The narrative team are shit and never gonna learn. Things don't matter when there's no loss (like someone dying). The loss needs to be for us, not on the villians.
@@culguyvegetaOne of the major downsides to MMOs, especially love service ones: Your game must constantly be evolving. But there’s never enough time for that, because gamers could leave before you release something really great.
@@garrettviewegh9028 true. But bungie are always evolving and that's the problem. They constantly go back to the drawing board to rebuild and give the bare minimum rather than building on something that's already there. They had Destiny 1, they went and build Destiny 2 and somehow made it worst because they rebuilt. Every fucking year they're rebooting the franchise when all you need to do is polish what's already available. Also reboot for what ? Bare fucking minimum.
Minimum viable product. Bungie always apologizes whenever something is poorly received knowing full well that they were never aiming for it to be great unless they have to
Super disappointed we never got an actual boss fight with Maya. Just fight her weak replacement for Argos, the Nessus Planetary Core Mind. Hell, I would have accepted Maya “possessing” a Vex boss and she speaks to us while we fight that. I wish this Episode explored the Golden Age and its mysteries way way more than “Maya is trying to recreate the Golden Age solely to find her Waifu again” what if a group of Neomuna Citizens held lots of respect for Maya due to her being one of their legendary “Founders” and act as Double Agents to help convert the Neomuna Vex? What if Maya was able to successfully recreate bits and pieces of a Golden Age City and it comes through like the Time-Tears on Mars? What if Maya uses Neomuna Nanites to forge a powerful new version of Vex who can convert other Vex through touch? The possibility’s were endless here and they ignored all of that because “oh surprise lol Maya is God-Roll Farming her perfect Girl because she’s down bad.”
I just want a humanoid boss fight that isn’t some colossal being. Having a corrupted Zavala as a raid boss would have been legendary. Still, they could’ve had Maya control some larger Vex Minotaur or Hydra amalgamation instead of using invisible abilities so that Bungie doesn’t have to worry about creating a unique villain.
@@cameronsalmon1314 just show us SOMETHING instead of telling me everything. Telling me she’s bad. Telling me she’s gonna destroy the system. Blah blah blah show us that she can do that
The most optimal boss fight we could have gotten without creating a unique boss model could’ve been us eliminating Wyverns while seeing Maya visibly switching control between them. Like seeing her as a phantom switching bodies as she’s defeated.
Instead of Ikora being there, it should've been Osiris. As much as it was Saint reasserting himself, it also features Osiris doubting his own choices in the past. He had more on the line than Ikora did and just because he's lightless doesn't mean he's not capable. Give Ikora, Crow and Zavala time to work away as a fireteam in the background while other characters like Saint, Mithrax etc centre stage on these episodes
Agreed, I love Ikora but Osiris fits better imo. He's also capable of using Strand, so there's no reason to think that he can't do anything to harm her
Funny you talk about our characters not doing anything. At the end of week 2 when we finally see The Conductor and she controls Saint-14 once again then we evacuate, I jokingly said “We could have easily just shot her” as our guardian was unaffected at that time
I actually hate how we didn’t get to see Saint kill Maya. One of the most powerful guardians ever and his shield dings her. I really want to see our mentors kick ass for once.
Honestly I wish saint and Osiris stayed mythical lore figures. They were so much cooler as ideas. I really don’t get why bungie needed to bring either of them back other than for cheap narrative intrigue.
@@notaspeck6104lol you are 100% right, Shaxx has always been one of my favorites and since they don't use him in seasonal stories his myth is basically intact, vs others that just look like wimps.
Season of the Splicer continues to be the absolute best season, enjoyable gameplay, kick ass storyline, moments that really made me question everything, and question who the good guys were.
I would like to compare the two since they're pretty similar. They both set up a presumably future major villain, we never get to fight them, we fight a vex harpy instead. They end up getting away, but at least Saint learnt a lesson about himself😛 even had the same VA's involved, just the mind control was swapped around a bit😝 i think this would've been a pretty good season, had it been a season🙃
The story had a fantastic skeleton and concepts, but the execution was simply mid. We're meant to be in the epilogue of Final Shape and the Light and Darkness saga but ultimately, nothing happened, or at least it feels that way. I understand the Episodes are meant to be self-contained stories and are setting up villains for the future, as stated by Bungie themselves, but the problem is that this isn't the time for filler. How does this connect into Revenant, if at all? We learned basically fuck-all about the Echo and it's not a "stay tuned" situation like the Veil was, we at least knew we'd learn more about the Veil in the future, but it was set up that each Echo would be dealt with in their respective Episode and here we are with Maya MIA in a very unsatisfying conclusion and no idea how we are moving forward. The dichotomy between Osiris and Saint, and Maya and Chioma, was handled *somewhat* well. I'm getting really tired of Osiris and Saint's relationship being forced front and centre like they aren't their own people in the world, when both men have been built up as really competent characters. On the other hand, they did well to show how Saint and Osiris supported each other despite their faults, especially when both Osiris and Maya are control freaks, and how Maya and Chioma's relationship descended into abuse when they didn't have the support structures Saint and Osiris have. It was a really cool dynamic despite my annoyance surrounding the writing of Osiris and Saint's relationship. Maya's set up as a villain was really god damn metal, yet had god awful pacing. Having her be so far gone she kills her lover hundreds of times over to find the "correct" one is really chilling and a great way to make us hate her as a villain, yet the reveal came too late in my opinion and should have been sooner to give us a reason other than the Echo to chase her. The natural evolution of her controlling nature being that she obtains the Echo of Command and decides she wants to shape the universe as the Witness did feels like a good, if a bit large, escalation, yet to learn nothing of the Echo on top of the awkward epilogue of "Look at what she could've been! She's still Human after all!" just felt off and disappointing. The content was neither here nor there. The regular seasonal content was incredibly disappointing and felt underdeveloped after Lightfall's entire year of escalating experimentation in activity design, with Bungie stretching their legs a bit and making roguelite content in Destiny. On the positive side, when the mission actually worked, I think the Exotic mission was *really, really* good. It was on the longer side but didn't have any overly long mid-sections like Presage and Zero Hour. It was a challenge, but not insanely overtuned like Avalon was.
I imagine Bungie wanted to do a rough concept of this idea eons ago given how we have had literal ages of peppered Lakshmi/Maya stuff over time but I'm guessing they just never had a really good space to incorporate essentially somebody going rogue and getting control of a different opposing species through their own volition. That in itself sort of made things a bit shaky because even if you really enjoy the lore/stories of Destiny, Lakshmi/Maya stuff isn't really the most prominent thing and you sorta have to already be aware of kind of arguably obscureish references and nods again spread through a very long amount of time. Or in short I guarantee an overwhelmingly large amount of the playerbase has zero clue the extent of who these characters are and what their background meant . Having Saint and Osiris I get was to be a more immediate reference point, but having part of their arc be a rehash of the possessed Osiris-Saint concerned was a bit cheap and not terribly interesting. I do think what we got isn't the worst thing as a very streamlined origin for the Conductor as a character going forward since often Vex villains can be extremely whatever. Good that we got this out of the way now but yeah we should've dealt with this way sooner and it makes the reality of how we had god awful dump seasons like Defiance, Worthy, Plunder sting even more. I do agree with the sentiment that it is awkward how our guardian is just there in the middle of stuff when we've been proven to be plot armor space jesus in TFS
@@bepisboye3855 I think Maya's story was kind of awful, personally, and even accepting that there's room for disagreement there, like. Turning one of the franchise's first canonically gay characters, if not the first, into an abusive lesbian trope is like. A choice.
Vex stories are the weakest link in the storytelling imo. In terms of strongest to weakest, it's hive->eliksni->cabal->golden age drama returning->vex, or at least that's what it feels like to me Do appreciate seeing someone who's chill with Saint and Osiris's relationship but has frustrations with the actual storyline and narrative choices vs just 'uuuuu gays ruined destiny' tho, that's nice to see. Personally, I did enjoy seeing the Maya-Osiris parallels and the way that Maya and Chioma were so alike Saint and Osiris, but I feel like it was all way too close after FS, where we got that ending sequence implying they were enjoying spending time with each other for once. It feels like Bungie keeps promising they can have a happy ever after as a retired old married couple but then they keep getting dragged back into conflict, which is frustrating to see
While the use of the killing their lover 100 times over is a good personal reason to hate the villain, it doesn’t raise the stakes at all. Did we ever have any clue as to how maya planned on accomplishing her goal? I sure didn’t Xivu arath was a clear threat because we knew exactly what her plan was. Open a big portal and put us in a heckmate scenario. Savathun was threatening even as a background character in splicer because we knew the plan was to make us all go at eachother's throats as resources were depleted. Seeing how this affected people beyond just one rando who likes time travel was a great way to raise the stakes. Butbhere we got nothing for that. I knew she wanted "golden age" and was going to "convert humanity to vex", but the methods seemed completely beyond what we were aware of. Give us some kind of rocket we are stopping the launch of a la doctor who waters of mars (gosh that episode freaked me out) to prevent the vex from spreading to earth and converting humanity. Any kind of method at all.
I feel like this episode drives home just how terrifyingly accurate vex simulations are. How they are indistinguishable from reality. The simple fact that Maya killed her Chioma says it all.
One factor was madness, but also, yeah. Seems like Maya had gone through so many Chiomas, that she couldn’t tell her real wife, from the thousands of other copies in the network. Where Osiris deviated from her, is that he knew his Saint was dead. He couldn’t go back in time and save him, he’d had to travel to other timelines to save him. And when the truth was revealed that Saint wasn’t from Osiris’ timeline, he didn’t care. His expirnece were different, but his body, soul and spirit were the same. Where the difference cared very much for Maya. Perhaps she’s doomed to be lose herself in the Vex Network, with only cold, Vex for company.
@@helleboreofficial4692 Same. I was in tears, and so proud of that title--was the only title I've ever actually tried to get in this game, because I loved Rasputin.
If the cutscene would have ended with vex coming under her control on Europa and marching towards Clovis bray I would have felt that "Oh Shit" moment about her getting away. Ikora even brought up clovis.
lol. Before TFS i had this theory that Clovis was going to succumb to/take over the Vex. They’re pretty similar and Clovis has used and studied the vex before on Europa. Europa season where the planet is being terraformed completely with a massive Clovis-head vex boss dungeon/raid.
@The5lacker I mean, imagine it. The Conductor took dozens, possibly hundreds, of Chiomas, ripped them from their Mayas. I imagine they might want some payback. I mean, remember what Saint did to Savathun XD.
Acts 1 and 2 really built up my hype for Act 3. And seeing the horrors that Maya committed on Chioma got me excited to have a final boss fight against her. Bungie just needed to make the inflated balloon have a nice pop. But they pricked the top of the balloon, letting all the air out without even the comedic fart sound to accompany it. What disappoints me the most is the wasted potential. We could have had permanent changes to Nessus. We could have had Vex factions fighting each other. We could have had some of Neomuna's citizens turning traitor because they respect Maya as one of the cities' founders. We could have had Maya discovering and assuming control over a Vex frame we've never seen before, introducing it to everyone in the same way we were introduced to Hive Lightbearers, Tormentors and Subjugators. Instead, we got busywork and repeated runs of an exotic mission which didn't even change aside from bonus objectives. I don't want to judge Bungie too harshly for the wasted potential, but they clearly didn't learn their lesson about not making their players do the same damn thing week after week, and that's thoroughly pissed me off. To be clear; I loved the story right up to the ending. But a bad ending to a good story is like getting a gone-off cake after the best steak dinner you've ever eaten.
I waited to do a lot of the seasonal content until Act 3 so I could binge it. Yeah, running the same exotic mission like 4 times in a row was super not fun 😑
I absolutely detest the bs excuse of „breaking mind control through a strong will!“ That’s absolutely a stupid way of making a main cast immune to our villians power. It’s like having super strength but everyone else is stronger than you. Like what’s the point of having the power then?
Thats where Failsafes "contingency" shouldve come in. Couldve pulled something like Perseus with Medusa. Or Elden Ring where finding a certain Rune helps you resist mindcontrol in a bossfight.
@@fulgerion I think what got me was that she can pull it on Humans and Awoken too. With Saint, it made sense for him to be susceptible to it, considering what they said about her having control over the Radiolaria, and that being a fundamental part of how Exos are constructed. But she suddenly jumped from being able to control Vex through the Radiolaria to just *everyone*, which imo cheapens the idea that she's now weaponising the Vex via organising them. It's no longer a specific threat, the Choral Vex are now just her personal private army which she could have raised from anyone.
It reminds me of people thinking that being physically strong will let you break out of tasers easier. When it's the opposite. More muscle means it's harder to control yourself when electrocuted. Like it's specifically targeting your mind and controlling it. Surely having a stronger will or conviction would lead to a more devastating effect? Idk really the only time this works for me is when implement some type of intentional nullification to it. Like how batman is shown to be resistant to telepathy because he's able to shut off his thoughts through meditation
@@hotsoup1339Radiolaria is a microorganism she now controls. Whose to say we didn't take some to the bloodstream while splashing in the milk? I don't think a guardian alive hasn't been splashed at least once by the milk. Converting something to Vex takes time. Reaching it's brain while still in a fluid state, then waiting for an order, is functionally much faster. It's already inside us.
Honestly I don't really think it was him having a strong will. It was more so his acceptance as himself as an individual. Alone, singular. That and he had his memories mixed in with himself in the correct timeline and came out with one conclusion "I am me, it matters not the timeline." Pair that with experience with the mind control before and he very well has a good range of experiences and the right headspace for him to resist and break free of the mind control. That and saint listened to the voice before where as now he is actively resisting the offer. So maybe the guardian's and Ikora's inexperience may be something they didn't expect would hurt them in that way. Then again this is just healthy speculation and not taking things at face value. Sometimes it's hard to think of these things when you're not actively thinking about how this would logically happen. That and I've been told that I think about things in a very different way. So yeah, maybe my thoughts could give y'all some insight. Maybe not. Who knows?
Honestly I’m really starting to resent the narrative team for not letting us kill villains they know would be satisfying. Eramis, Maya, Xivû Arath. So now the story of the episode is over and Maya isn’t dead and we still haven’t secured The Echo. What the fuck do we do now? Just jump into Miisraxx’s Scorn Vampire Hunting?
I agree with people like Maya and Eramis, I can excuse Maya a little bit because she's just been seen, but like how she escaped is so ass. Xivu Arath, I'm completely fine with surviving because hive gods deserve an expansion, at least. But it's really annoying how they make her lose every time she comes to bother us, like nobodies gonna care about a villain if all they do is lose, Seraph handled her really well Deep and Witch I feel kinda made her nothing more than a mad dog.
Heres the thing. Maya is the first Vex villain. Think about that, one of the most dangerous factions in Destiny, and she's the first villain amongst them. Finally they are getting some form of character. If Maya dies here, and we retrieve the Echo, they go back to normal, which people have complained about for years.
I truly hope we get to kill Fikrul. Which would be ironic since they’re the ‘unkillable’ scorn. Idc what scorn culture the lore of Wardlords ruin implies, this may be small minded of me but…. I think it would be a good thing to wipe those creatures out. In fact creatures is too good a term for them considering they’re literally zombified fallen, I can only imagine how horrible they are from an Eliksnis perspective. The genocide of the Ahamkara I think we can agree in retrospect was a bad idea borne from an understandable fear of them, but Scorn… if theres an episode where we truly go to war with the Scorn as a collective race/entity to destroy, my Guardians name is first on the enlistment roster. We are monster hunters, I hope we kill Fikrul.
One thing I hope bungie does is, as a result of maya separating these choral vex from the collective, one particular vex develops on its own, creating a new frame, learning to communicate and speak, and becoming a real actual face for the vex as a villain.
I think a cool example would be a Choral Vex Mind that chooses to be our Vex nemesis, similar to that of the Vex Mind that was solely created to counter Saint-14. Heck, bring back Quria as well to be a partner of sorts, if she still lives.
lol I’d love a Cortana 2.0 or a sort of Ultron style villain. Still definitely a robot and doesn’t understand the points of being alive, but it sort of learning What if they had a vex kidnap Mayas and Chiomas trying to capture them to learn about the light/dark from their knowledge of the veil
@Xander--gd5lb imagine a free willed vex mind learning from the manual calculations left behind by asher. Learning how to manually predict and calculate paracausality from that. And then generating a vex faction that could simulate them into reality (heck give it an echo as a source of power that it can grant a fraction to its stronger tier vex). That sounds like a cool vex faction
Simple fix in my opion the patrol zone itself shouldve changed as the story went along the changes visibly being seen and updated wouldve helped massivly
It wasn’t that bad bro. Activities were fun. But I think they seriously are taking feedback form this episode it had some problems like time gating every 3 weeks
13:07 YES! I’m so sick of seeing my character standing on the side while stuff happens. It has happened so many times and this scene in particular pushed me over the edge.
I don’t think the cadence of the finale was there. It felt like the movement of everything was too rigid, and Ikora pumping the shotgun was too cliche. While the story premise was fine, the way they paced left me with no surprise.
I feel like the three-weeks-on, three-weeks-off thing just kind of made the story feel like it had even lower stakes. That, combined with Maya's reveal not happening until pretty late in the story, and the last three weeks just being replaying Encore over and over... it all just kind of weakened any tension for me. I'm going to give Echoes the benefit of the doubt here, because none of the other first seasons of the year have really done it for me either.
Feels like a proof of concept. It was heavily loaded towards the final act. Lots of stuff to do with TFS, so I was good, but they'll want to work on pacing. There was enough content, it just needed spaced properly. Beyond that, I love the evil that drives Maya. Mainly because it's real. It's human enough to make you uncomfortable in a "this person is wrong on a fundamental level" sense.
Everyone needs a break from time to time. We just finished a 10 year saga. Even those of us staying need a moment to breathe. Doesn't mean the game's in a bad spot necessarily, but a little bit of recovery time after the decade long rollercoaster that was Destiny is in order.
@@scourgewatcher Itd be interesting if he serves as a leader of rebel vex simply against Maya and her wanting to control and free the other vex. He could theoretically serve as a John Connor if you do a terminator like vex season
Is Asher still alive? I was under the impression that by the end of the Vexcalibur mission, and he did... Whatever he did with the veil calculations, he got assimilated into the vex network and disappeared. Is he still alive in there somewhere?
i do greatly appreciate your commentary byf, and im sure the dev team, if they heard it, would say the same. your analysis is critical but always constructive, rather than just straight bullying like most people tend to do, and its great to hear.
I started this year by losing my dad. So, this episode's focus on loss, letting go, and finding yourself, did strike quite a chord with me. I really enjoyed the story, but it definitely was made difficult to enjoy certain parts of it knowing what was going on internally at the team. This exotic mission will have a place in my heart deeper than others. Quantifying how many times Maya degaussed Chiomas....I would've loved the opportunity to pull those I have lost back into this world, but I know it wouldn't be right. That little bit of detail goes so far in showing me how, on a very fundamental, human level, Maya is a vile fiend that needs to be put down. I hope when Maya does come back into being relevant into the story, we battle her with a Chioma of our own; given body and form.
Everytime the Vex have a spotlight they usually fail into a plot device for a character that isn't vex which they'll get used, its getting really tiring to see and I want an actual fully vex villain/story
This will probably get buried in the comments. But I just want to say, your videos are awesome. I love putting them on when I am playing. Doesn’t matter if the season is slow and boring or fun. Your work makes it fun to listen to podcasts or lore as we grind out a strike or a crucible match. You are as much a part of the gaming experience as any, and I hope that this makes your day!
If I could change the finally, I would’ve made Maya’s defeat satisfying. Have it so that her freeing the vex of a hive mind back fire on her. Maybe during the final battle have other vex’s fight back because they don’t agree with Sunderesh’s ideals. In the end when she falls into the radiolaria, it’s less of an escape but more akin to the souls of the damned pulling her down deeper into hell.
They should’ve had a Vex mind take the echo and become self aware- a Vex that takes the strengths of us the guardian and apply them to the Vex using Light and Dark. It could’ve work as a coming of age story where at the end of the arc the Vex takes a name a becomes a new power in the world or have a Vex want to be a guardian to only twist it and become a villain. It could work
If anyone from Bungie reads this, you can't make a villain sympathetic after they cross the point of no return. The epilogue quest just made those Maya seem worse, because it seems fake and forced. Edited for incorrect word choice.
The point of the epilogue quest isn't to humanize the Conductor, it's to show what could have been if she didn't fall into obsession. The point is to show how far gone she is.
Not really. They did it with Eramis, Ghaul, hell, even Oryx himself. And it's worked wonderful for two of them (Eramis is okay, not great). This is one of those good moments.
Instead of asking if the story is bad, we should ask if it was good. Bungie has been walking a fine line of "not bad" for as much content as they could for a long time.
@thefryguy4461 Okay, only now have I sort of caught up with the season story fully. Went through it a few times. Yeah, no, this sucks ass. It's a big fat nothing
Was it good? No. It was not good. It was bad. Things happen offscreen and our character does nothing about it, and I'm not even really sure what happened, if anything. The vex are individuals now, I guess. Is that better? Are they scarier as a result? Or just different? A narrative reskin? Maya controls an unknown number of Vex with rainbow collars. Is that more Vex than we've killed so far? She's like the third or fourth most threatening Vex enemy so far.
It was a garbage ending - No major boss fight against Lakshmi Sunderesh powered by the Echo of Command (in a exo body fused in a Vez Hydra like battle) - No emotional/impactful confrontation between a resurrected Chioma in exp body against Maya - No resolution about the whereabouts of the Echo or what happened to Exo Maya - No return of Clovis Bray or any indication of what he has been doing since season of the Seraph + No Failsafe been put into a Exo body This is just Lightfall storytelling once again and truly shows that the writing dept. Is worthless at this point
At this point the narrative of Destiny 2 is always losing something to gain something. I remember Destiny 1 when it was the age of triumph when we as a Guardian think it was a glorious era. Nowadays, we never end a story arc on a true win, always something to sour the mood or the climax of what we do in a season is pointless.
When my only knowledge was Echos may involve Maya and the Vex, my theory for the story was: Clovis escapes from his prison on Europa, finds Neomuna and is upset that it is beyond what he could ever have made. But wouldn’t admit that to anyone. Tries to seize the Veil for himself and lead an army of exos and Vex to get it, and confronts Maya in the process. This leads to a Vex civil war on Neptune. We’re called by Nimbus to arrive quickly. Clovis offers his help after he nearly dies. We reluctantly work with him. Clovis, us, Nimbus, and others, team up with the Ishtar Collective. Clovis tries to betray us and uses darkness from the Veil to fight Maya. But is killed by her instead. And turned into a Vex Mind. After we regroup and kill the Vex Mind Clovis, we discover something that gives us the upper hand, and we kill Maya. Stopping Nimbus right before he does it. Neomuna can’t have their hero being a murderer. Maya, even as an Exo, is different from the Vex. We take away the Echo, and lock it in the rebuilt Prison of Elders. Much more secured than before. Maya is later kept in a cell, hidden deep under Europa, guarded by Coaltion troops. Neouma could’ve been comprised by her, and no one felt comfortable having a reminder of Lakshmi around on Earth. The Prison of Elders, would be a bad idea for obvious reasons. Instead, she rots on the frozen moon, deep underneath Clovis Bray facilities and Riis Reborn. Dead exos still litter both locations: a constant reminder of her misdeeds. She is haunted by it, and goes mad in isolation. Meanwhile, Neomuna, learning of the dark history their city was built on, strengthen relations with Earth and the rest of the Coalition. Quinn acting as a representative, and Nimbus, an ambassador with her. Osiris, among his other new roles now being mortal, mediates meetings among the Coalition military leaders, and newly reformed civilian side of the alliance: The Consensus.
The issue with Echoes is that Maya's plans have not been hindered. She is both still alive and still has the Echo. And the destruction of Argos, Planetary Core all the way back in Curse of Osiris really murdered any gravitas that content dealing with delving into Nessus could have
Gotta say, probably one of the best starts of a season ( lets be honest echoes was a season not an episode) and one of the worst endings. Not a single payoff. What was this terrfying power Maya had, this idea of a new order. We got her bathing in a river, saint not being controlled thanks to the power of friendship and two ults in a cinematic to win against this world ending threat. I am hoping for a finale with an inmese vex gate destroying things, maybe even a bossfight against the first human (sort of) enemy but it seems unlikely. The concept of Maya discarding her Chioma was cool and all but this season was literally just gossip between two couples. I was more excited for the pterodactyls we got as a specimen that the story (which was basically repeat yet egain encore with more lasers and two new cabal). It is funny because this mission had failsafe installing a safe backdoor in the case that everything went wrong, foolish of me to think, oh, bungie is setting up for us to fail and then something happens. But nothing, we literally won with just 2 ults. Worst subversion of espectations ever. And I don't want to be this critic with Destiny at its current state with the low playerbase but come on, I have seen seasons with a bigger story than echoes. Gotta say gameplay wise wasn't half bad and a lot of secrets but story wise? Disapointing is being nice
The loot was the best part of this season hands-down. Narratively, this episode did not hit. The first act was hinting at a vex civil war which would have FINALLY made the Vex as villains in this franchise exciting since Splicer. Same with making Maya the face of a faceless villain for 10 years. Buuuut they hardly tapped on the vex civil war. Then it became a duo of lovers quarrels (taxing this statement from @briangreen8292). The exotic mission was bad, mainly for two reasons. 1) it repeated itself with very little changes (The controlling of the Cabal by the last week was just brushed over and had no explanations that would have needed one). 2) Instead of fighting new -- or at least renamed -- bosses it just seemed dull. Each week put a new subjugator/tormentor duo and hydra so we're not re-killing bosses that has no explanation why they're even back. It kinda worked with the Presage mission but not this one. And we didn't even fight Maya at all. I'm a day 1 D1 player and have LOVED the lore of this game since. That being said...if Bungie never truly touches the vex plot again I'll be content with that and that hurts to say.
I do like that the Vex are finally having a big bad villain that we can have interactions with. Even tho they never got big story development and one faction just being pawns of the Witness, I've always been interested in both their aesthetic and their methods of doing stuff, like simulations, time travel, etc etc.
Correct me if Im wrong but didnt they say the seasons are gonna be self-contained stories? and in the last lookout whats to come with the next expansions they even called the episodes the "epilogue" of final shape. To me at least it does not feel this way, it feels like i just played the intro to a story that i am not allowed to follow anymore for a long time.
That was my first thought when the final cutscene ended. How are these episodes even supposed to be self-contained if we are changing the world, like is Failsafe just going to vanish from the ship next episode? Will there still be compelled enemies roaming around? Are we actually going to collect an echo from any of these episodes, or would that disconnect the story if someone hasn't played a different episode? What makes an episode self-contained vs a seasonal story? At this point I'm pretty sure they just used the word self-contained as a buzzword to try and differentiate episodes from seasons.
One of the best things Destiny can do to help its story is to ditch the romances. There have only been a handful of good romances in Destiny. Zavala and Safiyah, Eriana-3 and Wei-Ning, Mara and Sujr Eido, and Drifter and Eris. There were a few other minor ones, but these were so good because they worked to further the plot and moved alongside it. The romances we got with echoes felt forced and didn't really move with the plot but rather made the plot stop and move with them. The Saint and Osiris romance was retconned to become a romance in the first place and always feels forced and by this point is just overused and boring. The Maya and Chioma romance got a bad start with the veil containment but had potential. In echos, however, it feels forced and takes away from the vex themselves. I'd love to have a vex-themed season where the main enemy is a vex mind with tons of lore behind it like Atheon, Argos, Penoptes, Quria, and to an extent even Zydron. I really hope Bungie moves away from this soap opera structure to a more traditional space opera feel. Let's get some big bads that are actually big and bad. What happened to villains like Phogoth, Valus Tuark, Calus, Gaul, Oryx, Savathun, Skolas, etc. You've done it once before Bungie, you can do it again.
If the ONLY "benefit" of Maya Sundaresh's 'defeat' is that the Vex FINALLY evolve a personality matrix for each and every Vex, then that is a good thing FOR the Vex. And who knows? Maybe Maya's stewing somewhere in the Vex Network will give Bungie some time to develop a story around her that gives us added impetus to finally end this Monsterous Creature that once was Maya Sundaresh.
Here’s to the future, man, I hope that the next steps for story content in other games serves you well. Me personally, I’d love your take on CoD Zombies someday - it’s always been a bit of a wack storyline - but I think I’d like to see it if not solely because it’s something I like and it would be interesting to see how someone such as yourself would see it. Besides that, of course, here’s to that future :)
Could we at least have gotten a different boss fight? I don't even need it to be Maya. Maybe she got tired of finding Chioma and decided to "make" her own, Frankensteining together a mind from the degaussed mind that's gone insane and possessed a cyclops or something. You could even have Maya floating in the middle of the arena, commanding the cyclops. I don't know. Just not a repeat of the same damn mission.
Thank you for the story summary. I haven't played since I finished The Final Shape, the seasonal stuff didn't grab me at all - but it's good to know what happened. I honestly don't know if I will return to the game given everything that's happened at Bungie and the end of proper campaigns. But I will keep watching your vids in case things do get good again someday so I know what's happened in the story.
Honestly I think its a huge fumble to not update keep the new nessus environment design. They put in so much work and it all looks soo cool and fun to explore but then like you go to patrol and its like oh yeah this is temporary.
well ALOT of people dont care about the story at this point they're just playing for the gameplay which IS the best part of the game anyways. not saying that the story is not important its just taken a backseat for the gameplay
It sucks seeing the state the community is in right now. I quit playing the season after Shadowkeep came out. I came back a month before Final Shape, and I am hooked again, with so much to do. Unfortunately, all my friends that stuck with the game over that time are burned out and falling off. I will say that were it not for your videos, I likely never would have even come back. You kept my love of the lore alive during that time, and made a return to the game possible, because without knowing what had transpired, I would be lost.
Byf is right we should see our Guardian being more involved in cutscenes, it would make us feel more involved and like show us that we're doing something instead of just standing there watching a villain monolog I also wanna add that I completely understand Byf's decision to cover more games and content outside of Destiny and with how much work and effort he out into covering the lore for Destiny I can confidently say I look forward to what other stories he'll show us
I don't think it matters how good of a villain Maya is. Not having a boss fight with her and having to run encore multiple times to get the story to inch forward was bad. It needed a mission where we fought our way to the conductor, then had a fight that ended with her losing the echo, but escaping alive
I feel like having to run the exotic quest three different times (at a minimum) was bad. It got so repetitive, and bungie saying thus is our most ambitious exotic quest yet is a joke, they should have actually made thre separate levels as we dive futher into nessus not just hey rember this maze we made you run litteraly two quest steps ago well geuss what your running it again but this time we added flying enemies on the parkour section. Also, they could have at least changed the boss and mechanics the final time i ran it for the story i speed ran it because it had become muscle memory. It did not feel like this grandiose epic battle it was a chore.
I’m starting to wonder if I just have a different mindset then a lot of the community or if I played a different game then everyone else because I throughly enjoyed the story in Echoes because it was character focused. To me, for years story in Destiny has felt like “this character on this planet with these enemies” and not much else. And I think Bungie feels like this too, with the quote about making situations, not story, in the Frontiers Blog. This story was so much more grounded to me. At the end of the day it wasn’t about the conductor or the vex, it was about the characters and how they relate to one another, and without characters Destiny’s story wouldn’t be anything worth while.
i'm really glad that we didn't fight and defeat Maya this episode, and not just because i want her to be a bigger player in the future, representing the Vex. i'm glad we didn't fight her yet, because we honestly never really got a great reason to feel anything from fighting and defeating her. other than her "killing" simulated versions of her wife... she kinda didn't do much else to effect us, the last city, or anyone else. it would be a completely different story if she forced saint to go on a murder spree in the Eliksni Quarter or something, but that obviously didn't happen. she gave saint and osiris some minor relationship drama. ok, there's nothing about that that's driving me to want to kill her. i'm glad to wait until she does something actually awful in the future to take her out.
Havnt gone thru the story myself but you brought up Maya willing to ennact that same perfect "single iteration" treatment. This seems like the Witness Echo having influence like Clarity Contril or the shards of Nezarec, meanwhile the Witness was the apex of that echelon, so i wouldn't rule out some potential hidden hand. Sol Divisive are proof enough that the Witness is familiar with the vex. Just theorizing tho! Love how you seperated the story from Bungie as a company- objectivity is paramount in any good faith analysis
My biggest pain point for how Echoes wrapped up is, like Byf mentioned, participation in the story. I think there exists a world where we could have fought the Conductor in between the end of Encore and before the cinematic and still had the events that followed. How it is now, I just felt so disconnected and even thought I had somehow missed something I was supposed to experience when the cutscene started. It felt like we took a much larger backseat to the story as it played out, where we were only passive observers, not active participants.
I don't blame you for covering multiple games. I'm still a big Destiny 2 fan and myself and my FT still play; however, we are not playing daily as we were before and with SM2 out I found a game I enjoy playing besides D2. I tried First Descendants but was annoyed by the story line and the amount of grinding. SM2 is simple, get a big gun a melee weapon and go fight. I like the story, so far, and the world of the imperium. It's got a good bit of Fallout's Brotherhood of steel where religious iconography and lifestyle exist.
There were so many narrative choices that baffled me during this. One long running theme was Saint wrestling with his sense of self and his place in the world, but that conflict only came about because of Maya and the resolution to that conflict means that nothing has changed going forward. It's the same kind of character development in a filler arc that just doesn't change anything for the rest of the story. I also just do not understand why Ikora is randomly here during the story and not Misraaks. If the conflict is Saint being unsure of who he is, then the ONLY valid character to help him through that is Misraaks. He's the only one who has feared and hated Saint, came to understand him and accept who he really is, forgive him, and is probably now Saints closest friend excluding Osiris and the Guardian. It would have meant so much more if we had him on the comms telling Saint he knows who Saint is deep down and helping him come to terms with things. Ikora feels so tacked on and has almost no relevance to the story itself, and honestly almost feels like a "we will include whoever we can book for the voice work" situation over an actual intended story element.
I still agree with a passing comment from an aztecross video early in act 2. Saint 14 should have been corrupted completely by the conductor and we would have had to fight him as a story boss to get him back to his senses. Not only would it show the conductors power, but it would show us how it feels to fight against a legendary guardian in a non PvP arena. It would also make Saints 'break free' moment that much deeper because he would be succeeding where he previously failed.
You absolutely nailed a problem that's been growing for a while. At least for me; the Guardian no longer feeling as the badass protagonist. More often than not it feels like you're the simple footsoldier sent to do fieldwork. You're making someone else's story come to a satisfying conclusion, rather than growing our own Legend. It feels like we are the B-character in all of these stories since Beyond Light. We helped Elsie prevent the dark future. We helped Misraaks protect his people. We helped a bunch of characters work through their trauma. We just shine our light on others now.
@@Blanktester685 No it hasn't. During D1 and the early stages of D2 the Guardian was the central piece and others were our supporting cast. They helped us achieve the means and methods to beat the big bad. And once done we got the accolades, and sometimes voice lines, for defending the universe against the Vex/Crota/Oryx/SIVA
If Vex can simulate humans and exos in ways that seems undistinguishable from reality, why can't they simulate their own leaders like Atheon and why don't these leaders or villains keep coming back for more?
Can you talk about the lore behind enigma protocol please. A lot of people don't like it but I enjoy both the lore implications and the speedrun gameplay.
Pipe dream here: I'd love to see the forces of the city start reclaiming Sol. I know this means Bungie creating new maps and whatnot, but if for one season we are discovering all the secrets and wiping all the enemies for that area to claim it and make it safe again.
I say we had agency here as our battle did contribute to the defeat of the Conductor as she stated to be wounded at the time, plus she didn’t have full use of the Echo yet. Plus for the story telling of LF, it was to be told a a year of story telling continuing throughout till Final Shape, LF’s story is centered around Neomuna and Light and Dark nature.
The way Byf talked about the story was more compelling than how Bungie visually and audibly presented it. The action and animation happening in the cutscenes is ridiculous and it pulls me out of what’s happening.
Honestly, the final missions of Acts 1, 2, and 3 felt like they should've been the first 3 missions in Act 1. If you're going to make a big episode, make every week count. Instead (excluding the 3 weeks of no story on the tail end of each act) we basically got 2 weeks of nothing and then a little bit of actual story.
I’m really hoping Asher Mir comes back with a sort of “Band of Merry Men” like Praedyth and other people trapped in the Vex Network. Couple that narrative with Maya like an AM out of “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream,” there might be a stronger outcome. I have been taking the Episodes as vignettes into “what might happen next” scenarios, so I haven’t been bogged down narratively; I’ve only been really bogged down by the cadence of the content and three weeks of story connected to Encore.
I am interested in seeing where the “Vex thinking for themselves” plot thread goes, maybe we’ll finally get a personable Vex instead of a human character controlling them. Aside from that… I liked the exotic mission overall, but having it as the vehicle for the story three times in a row sucked.
I'm definitely way more interested in the Fikrul/Crow stuff probably coming next episode and Xivu/Eris/Savathun probably coming in Heresy. This episode? I really just don't care for it. At all.
I’d just like to point out that this format of storytelling is what eventually lead to us liking Savathun as a story. It has to be built up somehow and the Vex have had an issue of villains for years. Maya isn’t designed to be a villain of the season, she’s clearly being built up as something much greater. MSUND_12 is something they’ve been hinting at for years and if we just ended her in the first instance of interacting that would be bad storytelling. This game needs to build up Maya as the villain she clearly has the potential for and fleshing out the vex in the process is great! We’re also getting an evolution of Cabal through Maya (although it was barely touched on in the finale of Encore) which is good because that’s more variety of factions again. The format of telling all this unfortunately I think is what makes it struggle. Having to wait 15 weeks to have experienced all of this just doesn’t feel right. In a similar problem to Savathun, we need to know when generally we’re going to run into Maya again. Witch Queen worked so well because the entire setup of Beyond Light’s seasons we knew was building to us confronting her. I can presume Apollo will be that actual confrontation or some other time in Frontiers but this works better if we actually KNOW that endpoint. As it currently stands we’ve beat Maya but she has the Echo of Command and we’re just not going to deal with that because we’ve got Revenant and Heresy to deal with first. Xivu is suffering from a similar thing. We’ve gotten some great setup with Deep, Witch, Seraph, Lost, etc. When we do finally confront Xivu it’s going to be massive. Maya is going through the same setup currently but we need to know WHEN we’re going to finally end it so the buildup leads to something and not just cliffhangers.
Really well said, it's sad the morale is so low because I'm pretty sure this would be the general takeaway from this Episode. Based on what this Episode did, it seems Bungie is trying to use the Episodes to establish old side villains as main villains for the next saga: Maya with Echoes for the Vex finally getting personality, Fikrul with Revenant for the Scorn coming into their own as a threat other than a mindless army, Xivu with Episode 3 with a Hive comeback, possibly even signaling a total overthrow of the Hive as an enemy faction similar to the Fallen and Cabal with Mithrax and Caiatl (not meaning that Xivu would become an ally, just that in-world the Hive would suffer a catastrophic schism that sort of quells them as a threat). Unfortunately, all of this is- and has been in the case of Echoes- delivered in a format that is decidedly worse than seasons at a time where morale is at the lowest since Season of Defiance.
That sounds nice in theory but people who didnt play any of those seasons still liked Savathun as a villain. Weirdo looking for godroll wife is simply not as compelling as "God of Deceit got our powers"
It would be great to see the end tag line stick around. It's kinda your thing, and it's a lot like Mesome's outro line. WHICH IS BLESS YOUR FACES. But seriously, Per aspera ad astra is basically a dead giveaway whatever it is, it's Byf.
Honestly overall, I give Echoes 5/10. Pros: Exploring more of Nessus. Weapon Design Solar Side-arm Pistol Exotic Mission: It's fine not perfect by any means. Season of Dawn weapons Episode Armor/Season Pass Armor is ok for all 3 classes imo. Cons: THE STORY. The beginning was interesting and where it may lead to, BUT this story alone is based on lore from characters a-lot of players probably have never heard of. You can tell stories about the Vex which I still liked about this Episode, but something that players can understand. The other weapons besides the sidearm aren't that good imo.
I honestly give the ending of Lightfall a pass because it makes sense for our Guardian to hesitate in shooting our Ghost, most Guardians would. If you were suddenly told to shoot your oldest and closest friend, you'd hesitate too.
Personally, as much as Maya's story and the fucked up shit that she did with Chioma was ok, I was a little disappointed that the Conductor is her. Aside from the exo head, I really liked the Conductor's design, silhouete. It felt menacing in the keyart and I got chills when I first noticed it spying on us on Nessus. I was hoping that it was an "ascended" Vex Mind, one that was still Vex, but had evolved to be a singular entity, thanks to the echo.
If they wanted to keep maya alive, they should’ve went with the “Callus is a robot” type ending like in the raid. They could spin it as if she had many contingency plans like making more copies of herself while looking for chioma at the same time. That way we could feel satisfied by destroying the conductor but then have the reveal that this is only one of many mayas.
Honestly I think something that would have been satisfying was if after we kill maya, a massive vex swarm appears, claiming the echo. The one picking it up being one of Maya's independent vex, it spreads the conversion further, even letting vex choose their appearance between the precursor, normal, and descendant vex
This is where I keep hoping that Asher Mir is still somewhere in the Network and can be brought back to help us. I refuse to believe that my favorite grumpy old Gensym Scribe is gone forever.
This is exactly why I saved one character to play Echoes in its entirety instead of piecemeal, so that I would have a baseline by which to compare the delivery of one style of Bungie drip feeding to another. I’ll say, it definitely inched me closer to liking Echoes overall by having it all playable at once. On the other hand, it didn’t change the opinion I share with you in that there didn’t feel like there was a lot of closure, or at least as much as we could have had. Otherwise, Echoes was still a good-I’d argue VERY GOOD-commentary on human nature, and how dark one can get once twisted by their own hubris and selfish desires to the point there’s not enough light left to see the way back to their humanity. Echoes wasn’t perfect, but it wasn’t even close to as bad as Lightfall. Hell it wasn’t even close to as bad as some of our worst seasons. It’s just too bad that perception muddies the water enough for most to not see that.
Bungie said going in that Episodes would be more self-contained stories with the goal of being able to play them in any order and not needing to play all of them to jump into the next expansion. Unfortunately that means that we can't have events which immediately and drastically change the world of the game like Splicer and Chosen.
I thought a cool idea to end these episodes would to have the dungeons act as raids. So the final boss of the dungeon would have been Maya. (I’m also happy though because I think an October haunted house dungeon would be crazy)
18:21 I will say, though that I definitely understand and appreciate the parallels of the relationships in the storyline between Osiris and Saint - 14 and Maya and Chioma. One is willing to accept his partner, no matter what universe he is from, the other is willing to reset their partner over and over again to find the perfect version… Even deleting the real one in this journey to perfection.
A couple of things: 1) I thought we were getting some sort of epilogue mission? Possibly set on Europa? I'm sure I read that somewhere 2) Everyone is saying Maya tanked a Nova Bomb, but I thought it was just a void melee like a Pocket Singularity? It didn't have the wind-up motion of a Nova Bomb I think the story would have had some narrative symmetry if Maya's messing with the Vex had awakened some ancient Vex Mind from 2082 Volantis who had turned up to give her the smackdown. In their arrogance, Maya AND Lakshmi have both underestimated the Vex in the past, and it has lead to their absorption/destruction. This could have been another 'How many times do I have to teach you this lesson old man' type of moment, and given us some more Volantis lore, which we desperately need. I agree that we should have claimed the Echo though, even if Maya had managed a Skeletor last-minute-gettaway. It would have made all the effort worth while.
Did not enjoy the story one bit, 2 lover quarrels, vex only had a bit of cool happen by not beingnunder one mind yet no gameplay show of this. This episode was a classic case of why lots of gamers are getting sick of modern games. Really hope we get something bitting next episode and not a badly written lover problem
When this Episode first started I was excited that the Vex would actually become part of the story and not just a plot device for other factions. And instead, it feels like I got a duo of lovers quarrels...
@@briangreen8292 It did feel like two bad soap operas colliding.
SAME! I just typed that. hated it - it was so boring. if that are the 'loose threads" we will "close" i rather they took the game offline and make something better - overhauling D2.
💯,, thought i was the only one that felt like that lol
Hope you don't mind mate I'm taxing the lovers quarrel phrase in my comment.
There’s really no other role for the vex unless they stop holding back and throw everything they have at the universe
The Maya as the Conductor reveal absolutely should have been the Act 1 finale. They weren't able to properly pace the story because it dragged for so long initially and then didn't leave them enough time to flesh out the results/consequences of that reveal.
They never have enough time. Never enough time to flesh out Lightfall, never enough time to beyond light and so on. The narrative team are shit and never gonna learn. Things don't matter when there's no loss (like someone dying). The loss needs to be for us, not on the villians.
@@culguyvegetaOne of the major downsides to MMOs, especially love service ones: Your game must constantly be evolving. But there’s never enough time for that, because gamers could leave before you release something really great.
@@garrettviewegh9028 true. But bungie are always evolving and that's the problem. They constantly go back to the drawing board to rebuild and give the bare minimum rather than building on something that's already there. They had Destiny 1, they went and build Destiny 2 and somehow made it worst because they rebuilt. Every fucking year they're rebooting the franchise when all you need to do is polish what's already available. Also reboot for what ? Bare fucking minimum.
Minimum viable product. Bungie always apologizes whenever something is poorly received knowing full well that they were never aiming for it to be great unless they have to
@@icarusrising2787 no wonder they're getting sacked. If this is how things continue, more will leave next summer.
Super disappointed we never got an actual boss fight with Maya. Just fight her weak replacement for Argos, the Nessus Planetary Core Mind. Hell, I would have accepted Maya “possessing” a Vex boss and she speaks to us while we fight that.
I wish this Episode explored the Golden Age and its mysteries way way more than “Maya is trying to recreate the Golden Age solely to find her Waifu again” what if a group of Neomuna Citizens held lots of respect for Maya due to her being one of their legendary “Founders” and act as Double Agents to help convert the Neomuna Vex? What if Maya was able to successfully recreate bits and pieces of a Golden Age City and it comes through like the Time-Tears on Mars? What if Maya uses Neomuna Nanites to forge a powerful new version of Vex who can convert other Vex through touch? The possibility’s were endless here and they ignored all of that because “oh surprise lol Maya is God-Roll Farming her perfect Girl because she’s down bad.”
Bruh not god-roll farming 💀
You’re not wrong tho
I just want a humanoid boss fight that isn’t some colossal being. Having a corrupted Zavala as a raid boss would have been legendary.
Still, they could’ve had Maya control some larger Vex Minotaur or Hydra amalgamation instead of using invisible abilities so that Bungie doesn’t have to worry about creating a unique villain.
@@cameronsalmon1314 just show us SOMETHING instead of telling me everything. Telling me she’s bad. Telling me she’s gonna destroy the system. Blah blah blah show us that she can do that
The most optimal boss fight we could have gotten without creating a unique boss model could’ve been us eliminating Wyverns while seeing Maya visibly switching control between them. Like seeing her as a phantom switching bodies as she’s defeated.
She want her 5stars gf with constellations
Instead of Ikora being there, it should've been Osiris. As much as it was Saint reasserting himself, it also features Osiris doubting his own choices in the past. He had more on the line than Ikora did and just because he's lightless doesn't mean he's not capable. Give Ikora, Crow and Zavala time to work away as a fireteam in the background while other characters like Saint, Mithrax etc centre stage on these episodes
Osiris being there and popping off the warlock strand super would of been sick
Agreed, I love Ikora but Osiris fits better imo. He's also capable of using Strand, so there's no reason to think that he can't do anything to harm her
Funny you talk about our characters not doing anything. At the end of week 2 when we finally see The Conductor and she controls Saint-14 once again then we evacuate, I jokingly said “We could have easily just shot her” as our guardian was unaffected at that time
For real, just show us your HP bar.
😂@@yikaiye9241
Wouldve been crazy if we didnt take the 2 most useless people for that situation with us at the time
Our guardians love shooting things. Not sure why our character didn’t attempt at all to see if he could injure or kill her.
I actually hate how we didn’t get to see Saint kill Maya. One of the most powerful guardians ever and his shield dings her. I really want to see our mentors kick ass for once.
I hate that Saint 14 didn’t lobotomize himself when he emerged with his other self. That would’ve been way more satisfying.
Honestly I wish saint and Osiris stayed mythical lore figures. They were so much cooler as ideas. I really don’t get why bungie needed to bring either of them back other than for cheap narrative intrigue.
@@notaspeck6104lol you are 100% right, Shaxx has always been one of my favorites and since they don't use him in seasonal stories his myth is basically intact, vs others that just look like wimps.
Season of the Splicer continues to be the absolute best season, enjoyable gameplay, kick ass storyline, moments that really made me question everything, and question who the good guys were.
I would like to compare the two since they're pretty similar. They both set up a presumably future major villain, we never get to fight them, we fight a vex harpy instead. They end up getting away, but at least Saint learnt a lesson about himself😛 even had the same VA's involved, just the mind control was swapped around a bit😝 i think this would've been a pretty good season, had it been a season🙃
The story had a fantastic skeleton and concepts, but the execution was simply mid. We're meant to be in the epilogue of Final Shape and the Light and Darkness saga but ultimately, nothing happened, or at least it feels that way. I understand the Episodes are meant to be self-contained stories and are setting up villains for the future, as stated by Bungie themselves, but the problem is that this isn't the time for filler. How does this connect into Revenant, if at all? We learned basically fuck-all about the Echo and it's not a "stay tuned" situation like the Veil was, we at least knew we'd learn more about the Veil in the future, but it was set up that each Echo would be dealt with in their respective Episode and here we are with Maya MIA in a very unsatisfying conclusion and no idea how we are moving forward.
The dichotomy between Osiris and Saint, and Maya and Chioma, was handled *somewhat* well. I'm getting really tired of Osiris and Saint's relationship being forced front and centre like they aren't their own people in the world, when both men have been built up as really competent characters. On the other hand, they did well to show how Saint and Osiris supported each other despite their faults, especially when both Osiris and Maya are control freaks, and how Maya and Chioma's relationship descended into abuse when they didn't have the support structures Saint and Osiris have. It was a really cool dynamic despite my annoyance surrounding the writing of Osiris and Saint's relationship.
Maya's set up as a villain was really god damn metal, yet had god awful pacing. Having her be so far gone she kills her lover hundreds of times over to find the "correct" one is really chilling and a great way to make us hate her as a villain, yet the reveal came too late in my opinion and should have been sooner to give us a reason other than the Echo to chase her. The natural evolution of her controlling nature being that she obtains the Echo of Command and decides she wants to shape the universe as the Witness did feels like a good, if a bit large, escalation, yet to learn nothing of the Echo on top of the awkward epilogue of "Look at what she could've been! She's still Human after all!" just felt off and disappointing.
The content was neither here nor there. The regular seasonal content was incredibly disappointing and felt underdeveloped after Lightfall's entire year of escalating experimentation in activity design, with Bungie stretching their legs a bit and making roguelite content in Destiny. On the positive side, when the mission actually worked, I think the Exotic mission was *really, really* good. It was on the longer side but didn't have any overly long mid-sections like Presage and Zero Hour. It was a challenge, but not insanely overtuned like Avalon was.
good criticism 👍
I imagine Bungie wanted to do a rough concept of this idea eons ago given how we have had literal ages of peppered Lakshmi/Maya stuff over time but I'm guessing they just never had a really good space to incorporate essentially somebody going rogue and getting control of a different opposing species through their own volition.
That in itself sort of made things a bit shaky because even if you really enjoy the lore/stories of Destiny, Lakshmi/Maya stuff isn't really the most prominent thing and you sorta have to already be aware of kind of arguably obscureish references and nods again spread through a very long amount of time. Or in short I guarantee an overwhelmingly large amount of the playerbase has zero clue the extent of who these characters are and what their background meant . Having Saint and Osiris I get was to be a more immediate reference point, but having part of their arc be a rehash of the possessed Osiris-Saint concerned was a bit cheap and not terribly interesting.
I do think what we got isn't the worst thing as a very streamlined origin for the Conductor as a character going forward since often Vex villains can be extremely whatever. Good that we got this out of the way now but yeah we should've dealt with this way sooner and it makes the reality of how we had god awful dump seasons like Defiance, Worthy, Plunder sting even more.
I do agree with the sentiment that it is awkward how our guardian is just there in the middle of stuff when we've been proven to be plot armor space jesus in TFS
@@bepisboye3855 I think Maya's story was kind of awful, personally, and even accepting that there's room for disagreement there, like. Turning one of the franchise's first canonically gay characters, if not the first, into an abusive lesbian trope is like. A choice.
Vex stories are the weakest link in the storytelling imo. In terms of strongest to weakest, it's hive->eliksni->cabal->golden age drama returning->vex, or at least that's what it feels like to me
Do appreciate seeing someone who's chill with Saint and Osiris's relationship but has frustrations with the actual storyline and narrative choices vs just 'uuuuu gays ruined destiny' tho, that's nice to see. Personally, I did enjoy seeing the Maya-Osiris parallels and the way that Maya and Chioma were so alike Saint and Osiris, but I feel like it was all way too close after FS, where we got that ending sequence implying they were enjoying spending time with each other for once. It feels like Bungie keeps promising they can have a happy ever after as a retired old married couple but then they keep getting dragged back into conflict, which is frustrating to see
While the use of the killing their lover 100 times over is a good personal reason to hate the villain, it doesn’t raise the stakes at all.
Did we ever have any clue as to how maya planned on accomplishing her goal? I sure didn’t
Xivu arath was a clear threat because we knew exactly what her plan was. Open a big portal and put us in a heckmate scenario.
Savathun was threatening even as a background character in splicer because we knew the plan was to make us all go at eachother's throats as resources were depleted. Seeing how this affected people beyond just one rando who likes time travel was a great way to raise the stakes.
Butbhere we got nothing for that. I knew she wanted "golden age" and was going to "convert humanity to vex", but the methods seemed completely beyond what we were aware of. Give us some kind of rocket we are stopping the launch of a la doctor who waters of mars (gosh that episode freaked me out) to prevent the vex from spreading to earth and converting humanity. Any kind of method at all.
I feel like this episode drives home just how terrifyingly accurate vex simulations are. How they are indistinguishable from reality. The simple fact that Maya killed her Chioma says it all.
One factor was madness, but also, yeah. Seems like Maya had gone through so many Chiomas, that she couldn’t tell her real wife, from the thousands of other copies in the network. Where Osiris deviated from her, is that he knew his Saint was dead. He couldn’t go back in time and save him, he’d had to travel to other timelines to save him. And when the truth was revealed that Saint wasn’t from Osiris’ timeline, he didn’t care. His expirnece were different, but his body, soul and spirit were the same. Where the difference cared very much for Maya. Perhaps she’s doomed to be lose herself in the Vex Network, with only cold, Vex for company.
Byf is right. Saint shouting, "YOU ARE MY PEOPLE" was probably the best seasonal story climax they have made.
That's defo a banger line.
Personally though I gotta go with the finale to Seraph.
@@TANKMASTER81000 how so? Him screaming a line?
@kintero27 he says that to mithrax after he tells him to save his own people when the vex incursion starts in the eliksni quarter.
@@helleboreofficial4692 Same. I was in tears, and so proud of that title--was the only title I've ever actually tried to get in this game, because I loved Rasputin.
@@aq5426 mhm. Seraph, Godslayer, and Discipleslayer are my three favorite titles. Glad I have em all
If the cutscene would have ended with vex coming under her control on Europa and marching towards Clovis bray I would have felt that "Oh Shit" moment about her getting away. Ikora even brought up clovis.
lol. Before TFS i had this theory that Clovis was going to succumb to/take over the Vex. They’re pretty similar and Clovis has used and studied the vex before on Europa.
Europa season where the planet is being terraformed completely with a massive Clovis-head vex boss dungeon/raid.
Honestly, learning how the good Mayas are, it makes me wish we had a Mayas vs Conductor cutscene.
The fact we never got a "Are *you* the Maya that Chioma fell in love with?" reversal was *criminal.*
@The5lacker I mean, imagine it. The Conductor took dozens, possibly hundreds, of Chiomas, ripped them from their Mayas. I imagine they might want some payback. I mean, remember what Saint did to Savathun XD.
Acts 1 and 2 really built up my hype for Act 3. And seeing the horrors that Maya committed on Chioma got me excited to have a final boss fight against her.
Bungie just needed to make the inflated balloon have a nice pop.
But they pricked the top of the balloon, letting all the air out without even the comedic fart sound to accompany it.
What disappoints me the most is the wasted potential.
We could have had permanent changes to Nessus.
We could have had Vex factions fighting each other.
We could have had some of Neomuna's citizens turning traitor because they respect Maya as one of the cities' founders.
We could have had Maya discovering and assuming control over a Vex frame we've never seen before, introducing it to everyone in the same way we were introduced to Hive Lightbearers, Tormentors and Subjugators.
Instead, we got busywork and repeated runs of an exotic mission which didn't even change aside from bonus objectives.
I don't want to judge Bungie too harshly for the wasted potential, but they clearly didn't learn their lesson about not making their players do the same damn thing week after week, and that's thoroughly pissed me off.
To be clear; I loved the story right up to the ending. But a bad ending to a good story is like getting a gone-off cake after the best steak dinner you've ever eaten.
Space Marine II has definitely helped fill a void that was left by Bungie. It's atmosphere and gameplay are so fun
Yeah i feel like they're saving Maya to be the villain of a vex expansion or raid instead
I waited to do a lot of the seasonal content until Act 3 so I could binge it. Yeah, running the same exotic mission like 4 times in a row was super not fun 😑
I absolutely detest the bs excuse of „breaking mind control through a strong will!“ That’s absolutely a stupid way of making a main cast immune to our villians power. It’s like having super strength but everyone else is stronger than you. Like what’s the point of having the power then?
Thats where Failsafes "contingency" shouldve come in. Couldve pulled something like Perseus with Medusa. Or Elden Ring where finding a certain Rune helps you resist mindcontrol in a bossfight.
@@fulgerion I think what got me was that she can pull it on Humans and Awoken too. With Saint, it made sense for him to be susceptible to it, considering what they said about her having control over the Radiolaria, and that being a fundamental part of how Exos are constructed. But she suddenly jumped from being able to control Vex through the Radiolaria to just *everyone*, which imo cheapens the idea that she's now weaponising the Vex via organising them. It's no longer a specific threat, the Choral Vex are now just her personal private army which she could have raised from anyone.
It reminds me of people thinking that being physically strong will let you break out of tasers easier. When it's the opposite. More muscle means it's harder to control yourself when electrocuted. Like it's specifically targeting your mind and controlling it. Surely having a stronger will or conviction would lead to a more devastating effect? Idk really the only time this works for me is when implement some type of intentional nullification to it. Like how batman is shown to be resistant to telepathy because he's able to shut off his thoughts through meditation
@@hotsoup1339Radiolaria is a microorganism she now controls. Whose to say we didn't take some to the bloodstream while splashing in the milk? I don't think a guardian alive hasn't been splashed at least once by the milk. Converting something to Vex takes time. Reaching it's brain while still in a fluid state, then waiting for an order, is functionally much faster. It's already inside us.
Honestly I don't really think it was him having a strong will. It was more so his acceptance as himself as an individual. Alone, singular. That and he had his memories mixed in with himself in the correct timeline and came out with one conclusion
"I am me, it matters not the timeline." Pair that with experience with the mind control before and he very well has a good range of experiences and the right headspace for him to resist and break free of the mind control. That and saint listened to the voice before where as now he is actively resisting the offer. So maybe the guardian's and Ikora's inexperience may be something they didn't expect would hurt them in that way.
Then again this is just healthy speculation and not taking things at face value. Sometimes it's hard to think of these things when you're not actively thinking about how this would logically happen. That and I've been told that I think about things in a very different way. So yeah, maybe my thoughts could give y'all some insight. Maybe not. Who knows?
Honestly I’m really starting to resent the narrative team for not letting us kill villains they know would be satisfying.
Eramis, Maya, Xivû Arath. So now the story of the episode is over and Maya isn’t dead and we still haven’t secured The Echo. What the fuck do we do now? Just jump into Miisraxx’s Scorn Vampire Hunting?
Not to mention the infinite lives of Savathun.
I agree with people like Maya and Eramis, I can excuse Maya a little bit because she's just been seen, but like how she escaped is so ass.
Xivu Arath, I'm completely fine with surviving because hive gods deserve an expansion, at least. But it's really annoying how they make her lose every time she comes to bother us, like nobodies gonna care about a villain if all they do is lose, Seraph handled her really well Deep and Witch I feel kinda made her nothing more than a mad dog.
Heres the thing. Maya is the first Vex villain. Think about that, one of the most dangerous factions in Destiny, and she's the first villain amongst them. Finally they are getting some form of character. If Maya dies here, and we retrieve the Echo, they go back to normal, which people have complained about for years.
I truly hope we get to kill Fikrul. Which would be ironic since they’re the ‘unkillable’ scorn. Idc what scorn culture the lore of Wardlords ruin implies, this may be small minded of me but…. I think it would be a good thing to wipe those creatures out. In fact creatures is too good a term for them considering they’re literally zombified fallen, I can only imagine how horrible they are from an Eliksnis perspective. The genocide of the Ahamkara I think we can agree in retrospect was a bad idea borne from an understandable fear of them, but Scorn… if theres an episode where we truly go to war with the Scorn as a collective race/entity to destroy, my Guardians name is first on the enlistment roster. We are monster hunters, I hope we kill Fikrul.
This ignores the fact that Maya’s use of the Echo has had an impact on the Vex that could linger on after her death, should she ever die.
The coolest thing about the vex that I don't see anymore is the stories of existencial horror sorrounding them
Exactly. The vex have so much potential and they keep wasting it cause they're scared
One thing I hope bungie does is, as a result of maya separating these choral vex from the collective, one particular vex develops on its own, creating a new frame, learning to communicate and speak, and becoming a real actual face for the vex as a villain.
I think a cool example would be a Choral Vex Mind that chooses to be our Vex nemesis, similar to that of the Vex Mind that was solely created to counter Saint-14. Heck, bring back Quria as well to be a partner of sorts, if she still lives.
lol I’d love a Cortana 2.0 or a sort of Ultron style villain. Still definitely a robot and doesn’t understand the points of being alive, but it sort of learning
What if they had a vex kidnap Mayas and Chiomas trying to capture them to learn about the light/dark from their knowledge of the veil
@Xander--gd5lb imagine a free willed vex mind learning from the manual calculations left behind by asher. Learning how to manually predict and calculate paracausality from that. And then generating a vex faction that could simulate them into reality (heck give it an echo as a source of power that it can grant a fraction to its stronger tier vex). That sounds like a cool vex faction
Simple fix in my opion the patrol zone itself shouldve changed as the story went along the changes visibly being seen and updated wouldve helped massivly
So glad this “episode” is over
It wasn’t that bad bro. Activities were fun. But I think they seriously are taking feedback form this episode it had some problems like time gating every 3 weeks
Your vid is the only way I could get the story. That broken Encore mission broke me.
13:07 YES! I’m so sick of seeing my character standing on the side while stuff happens. It has happened so many times and this scene in particular pushed me over the edge.
I don’t think the cadence of the finale was there. It felt like the movement of everything was too rigid, and Ikora pumping the shotgun was too cliche. While the story premise was fine, the way they paced left me with no surprise.
I feel like the three-weeks-on, three-weeks-off thing just kind of made the story feel like it had even lower stakes. That, combined with Maya's reveal not happening until pretty late in the story, and the last three weeks just being replaying Encore over and over... it all just kind of weakened any tension for me.
I'm going to give Echoes the benefit of the doubt here, because none of the other first seasons of the year have really done it for me either.
Feels like a proof of concept. It was heavily loaded towards the final act. Lots of stuff to do with TFS, so I was good, but they'll want to work on pacing. There was enough content, it just needed spaced properly. Beyond that, I love the evil that drives Maya. Mainly because it's real. It's human enough to make you uncomfortable in a "this person is wrong on a fundamental level" sense.
Everyone needs a break from time to time. We just finished a 10 year saga. Even those of us staying need a moment to breathe. Doesn't mean the game's in a bad spot necessarily, but a little bit of recovery time after the decade long rollercoaster that was Destiny is in order.
Ok
Was waiting for Asher to come in at the last minute to get it away from her while fixing his body...
He’s dead though… Season of Defiance confirmed it in Avalon.
@@scourgewatcher EXACTLY
@@scourgewatcher Itd be interesting if he serves as a leader of rebel vex simply against Maya and her wanting to control and free the other vex. He could theoretically serve as a John Connor if you do a terminator like vex season
Is Asher still alive?
I was under the impression that by the end of the Vexcalibur mission, and he did... Whatever he did with the veil calculations, he got assimilated into the vex network and disappeared. Is he still alive in there somewhere?
@@ninjathis3009 likely if the clones of Maya and others are he could just be in hiding with the rise of the conductors
i do greatly appreciate your commentary byf, and im sure the dev team, if they heard it, would say the same. your analysis is critical but always constructive, rather than just straight bullying like most people tend to do, and its great to hear.
I started this year by losing my dad. So, this episode's focus on loss, letting go, and finding yourself, did strike quite a chord with me. I really enjoyed the story, but it definitely was made difficult to enjoy certain parts of it knowing what was going on internally at the team. This exotic mission will have a place in my heart deeper than others. Quantifying how many times Maya degaussed Chiomas....I would've loved the opportunity to pull those I have lost back into this world, but I know it wouldn't be right. That little bit of detail goes so far in showing me how, on a very fundamental, human level, Maya is a vile fiend that needs to be put down. I hope when Maya does come back into being relevant into the story, we battle her with a Chioma of our own; given body and form.
Everytime the Vex have a spotlight they usually fail into a plot device for a character that isn't vex which they'll get used, its getting really tiring to see and I want an actual fully vex villain/story
This will probably get buried in the comments. But I just want to say, your videos are awesome. I love putting them on when I am playing. Doesn’t matter if the season is slow and boring or fun. Your work makes it fun to listen to podcasts or lore as we grind out a strike or a crucible match. You are as much a part of the gaming experience as any, and I hope that this makes your day!
Hello
If I could change the finally, I would’ve made Maya’s defeat satisfying. Have it so that her freeing the vex of a hive mind back fire on her. Maybe during the final battle have other vex’s fight back because they don’t agree with Sunderesh’s ideals. In the end when she falls into the radiolaria, it’s less of an escape but more akin to the souls of the damned pulling her down deeper into hell.
They should’ve had a Vex mind take the echo and become self aware- a Vex that takes the strengths of us the guardian and apply them to the Vex using Light and Dark. It could’ve work as a coming of age story where at the end of the arc the Vex takes a name a becomes a new power in the world or have a Vex want to be a guardian to only twist it and become a villain. It could work
If anyone from Bungie reads this, you can't make a villain sympathetic after they cross the point of no return. The epilogue quest just made those Maya seem worse, because it seems fake and forced.
Edited for incorrect word choice.
Bad take
@@WHlSKYtxSo is yours
The point of the epilogue quest isn't to humanize the Conductor, it's to show what could have been if she didn't fall into obsession. The point is to show how far gone she is.
@@WHlSKYtxAgreed
Not really. They did it with Eramis, Ghaul, hell, even Oryx himself. And it's worked wonderful for two of them (Eramis is okay, not great). This is one of those good moments.
Instead of asking if the story is bad, we should ask if it was good. Bungie has been walking a fine line of "not bad" for as much content as they could for a long time.
It was not good, it was bad
@isaacgirouard5924 agreed, but even if it was just "not bad", is not good enough.
@thefryguy4461 Okay, only now have I sort of caught up with the season story fully. Went through it a few times. Yeah, no, this sucks ass. It's a big fat nothing
Was it good? No. It was not good. It was bad. Things happen offscreen and our character does nothing about it, and I'm not even really sure what happened, if anything. The vex are individuals now, I guess. Is that better? Are they scarier as a result? Or just different? A narrative reskin? Maya controls an unknown number of Vex with rainbow collars. Is that more Vex than we've killed so far? She's like the third or fourth most threatening Vex enemy so far.
It was a garbage ending
- No major boss fight against Lakshmi Sunderesh powered by the Echo of Command (in a exo body fused in a Vez Hydra like battle)
- No emotional/impactful confrontation between a resurrected Chioma in exp body against Maya
- No resolution about the whereabouts of the Echo or what happened to Exo Maya
- No return of Clovis Bray or any indication of what he has been doing since season of the Seraph
+ No Failsafe been put into a Exo body
This is just Lightfall storytelling once again and truly shows that the writing dept. Is worthless at this point
Great comment, completely correct.
the final week really could not have been more disappointing
At this point the narrative of Destiny 2 is always losing something to gain something. I remember Destiny 1 when it was the age of triumph when we as a Guardian think it was a glorious era. Nowadays, we never end a story arc on a true win, always something to sour the mood or the climax of what we do in a season is pointless.
When my only knowledge was Echos may involve Maya and the Vex, my theory for the story was: Clovis escapes from his prison on Europa, finds Neomuna and is upset that it is beyond what he could ever have made. But wouldn’t admit that to anyone. Tries to seize the Veil for himself and lead an army of exos and Vex to get it, and confronts Maya in the process. This leads to a Vex civil war on Neptune. We’re called by Nimbus to arrive quickly. Clovis offers his help after he nearly dies. We reluctantly work with him. Clovis, us, Nimbus, and others, team up with the Ishtar Collective. Clovis tries to betray us and uses darkness from the Veil to fight Maya. But is killed by her instead. And turned into a Vex Mind. After we regroup and kill the Vex Mind Clovis, we discover something that gives us the upper hand, and we kill Maya. Stopping Nimbus right before he does it. Neomuna can’t have their hero being a murderer. Maya, even as an Exo, is different from the Vex. We take away the Echo, and lock it in the rebuilt Prison of Elders. Much more secured than before. Maya is later kept in a cell, hidden deep under Europa, guarded by Coaltion troops. Neouma could’ve been comprised by her, and no one felt comfortable having a reminder of Lakshmi around on Earth. The Prison of Elders, would be a bad idea for obvious reasons. Instead, she rots on the frozen moon, deep underneath Clovis Bray facilities and Riis Reborn. Dead exos still litter both locations: a constant reminder of her misdeeds. She is haunted by it, and goes mad in isolation. Meanwhile, Neomuna, learning of the dark history their city was built on, strengthen relations with Earth and the rest of the Coalition. Quinn acting as a representative, and Nimbus, an ambassador with her. Osiris, among his other new roles now being mortal, mediates meetings among the Coalition military leaders, and newly reformed civilian side of the alliance: The Consensus.
@@garrettviewegh9028 Nice!
It was a rather interesting approach on morality , and what makes us...us?
The format needs a lot of work, but it was interesting.
The issue with Echoes is that Maya's plans have not been hindered. She is both still alive and still has the Echo. And the destruction of Argos, Planetary Core all the way back in Curse of Osiris really murdered any gravitas that content dealing with delving into Nessus could have
Waiting for byf to go over the lore of the gugu being assimilated by the witness into the echo
Gotta say, probably one of the best starts of a season ( lets be honest echoes was a season not an episode) and one of the worst endings. Not a single payoff. What was this terrfying power Maya had, this idea of a new order. We got her bathing in a river, saint not being controlled thanks to the power of friendship and two ults in a cinematic to win against this world ending threat. I am hoping for a finale with an inmese vex gate destroying things, maybe even a bossfight against the first human (sort of) enemy but it seems unlikely. The concept of Maya discarding her Chioma was cool and all but this season was literally just gossip between two couples. I was more excited for the pterodactyls we got as a specimen that the story (which was basically repeat yet egain encore with more lasers and two new cabal). It is funny because this mission had failsafe installing a safe backdoor in the case that everything went wrong, foolish of me to think, oh, bungie is setting up for us to fail and then something happens. But nothing, we literally won with just 2 ults. Worst subversion of espectations ever. And I don't want to be this critic with Destiny at its current state with the low playerbase but come on, I have seen seasons with a bigger story than echoes. Gotta say gameplay wise wasn't half bad and a lot of secrets but story wise? Disapointing is being nice
The loot was the best part of this season hands-down. Narratively, this episode did not hit. The first act was hinting at a vex civil war which would have FINALLY made the Vex as villains in this franchise exciting since Splicer. Same with making Maya the face of a faceless villain for 10 years. Buuuut they hardly tapped on the vex civil war. Then it became a duo of lovers quarrels (taxing this statement from @briangreen8292). The exotic mission was bad, mainly for two reasons. 1) it repeated itself with very little changes (The controlling of the Cabal by the last week was just brushed over and had no explanations that would have needed one). 2) Instead of fighting new -- or at least renamed -- bosses it just seemed dull. Each week put a new subjugator/tormentor duo and hydra so we're not re-killing bosses that has no explanation why they're even back. It kinda worked with the Presage mission but not this one. And we didn't even fight Maya at all. I'm a day 1 D1 player and have LOVED the lore of this game since. That being said...if Bungie never truly touches the vex plot again I'll be content with that and that hurts to say.
I'm excited for you to branch out and explore new games, Byf!!
I do like that the Vex are finally having a big bad villain that we can have interactions with. Even tho they never got big story development and one faction just being pawns of the Witness, I've always been interested in both their aesthetic and their methods of doing stuff, like simulations, time travel, etc etc.
Correct me if Im wrong but didnt they say the seasons are gonna be self-contained stories? and in the last lookout whats to come with the next expansions they even called the episodes the "epilogue" of final shape. To me at least it does not feel this way, it feels like i just played the intro to a story that i am not allowed to follow anymore for a long time.
That was my first thought when the final cutscene ended. How are these episodes even supposed to be self-contained if we are changing the world, like is Failsafe just going to vanish from the ship next episode? Will there still be compelled enemies roaming around? Are we actually going to collect an echo from any of these episodes, or would that disconnect the story if someone hasn't played a different episode? What makes an episode self-contained vs a seasonal story? At this point I'm pretty sure they just used the word self-contained as a buzzword to try and differentiate episodes from seasons.
One of the best things Destiny can do to help its story is to ditch the romances. There have only been a handful of good romances in Destiny. Zavala and Safiyah, Eriana-3 and Wei-Ning, Mara and Sujr Eido, and Drifter and Eris. There were a few other minor ones, but these were so good because they worked to further the plot and moved alongside it. The romances we got with echoes felt forced and didn't really move with the plot but rather made the plot stop and move with them. The Saint and Osiris romance was retconned to become a romance in the first place and always feels forced and by this point is just overused and boring. The Maya and Chioma romance got a bad start with the veil containment but had potential. In echos, however, it feels forced and takes away from the vex themselves. I'd love to have a vex-themed season where the main enemy is a vex mind with tons of lore behind it like Atheon, Argos, Penoptes, Quria, and to an extent even Zydron. I really hope Bungie moves away from this soap opera structure to a more traditional space opera feel. Let's get some big bads that are actually big and bad. What happened to villains like Phogoth, Valus Tuark, Calus, Gaul, Oryx, Savathun, Skolas, etc. You've done it once before Bungie, you can do it again.
If the ONLY "benefit" of Maya Sundaresh's 'defeat' is that the Vex FINALLY evolve a personality matrix for each and every Vex, then that is a good thing FOR the Vex. And who knows? Maybe Maya's stewing somewhere in the Vex Network will give Bungie some time to develop a story around her that gives us added impetus to finally end this Monsterous Creature that once was Maya Sundaresh.
Here’s to the future, man, I hope that the next steps for story content in other games serves you well.
Me personally, I’d love your take on CoD Zombies someday - it’s always been a bit of a wack storyline - but I think I’d like to see it if not solely because it’s something I like and it would be interesting to see how someone such as yourself would see it.
Besides that, of course, here’s to that future :)
Could we at least have gotten a different boss fight? I don't even need it to be Maya. Maybe she got tired of finding Chioma and decided to "make" her own, Frankensteining together a mind from the degaussed mind that's gone insane and possessed a cyclops or something. You could even have Maya floating in the middle of the arena, commanding the cyclops. I don't know. Just not a repeat of the same damn mission.
Warlock jump at 5:35 (i can make this joke cuz my primary is a warlock)
Thank you for the story summary. I haven't played since I finished The Final Shape, the seasonal stuff didn't grab me at all - but it's good to know what happened.
I honestly don't know if I will return to the game given everything that's happened at Bungie and the end of proper campaigns. But I will keep watching your vids in case things do get good again someday so I know what's happened in the story.
Honestly I think its a huge fumble to not update keep the new nessus environment design. They put in so much work and it all looks soo cool and fun to explore but then like you go to patrol and its like oh yeah this is temporary.
well ALOT of people dont care about the story at this point they're just playing for the gameplay which IS the best part of the game anyways. not saying that the story is not important its just taken a backseat for the gameplay
It sucks seeing the state the community is in right now. I quit playing the season after Shadowkeep came out. I came back a month before Final Shape, and I am hooked again, with so much to do. Unfortunately, all my friends that stuck with the game over that time are burned out and falling off. I will say that were it not for your videos, I likely never would have even come back. You kept my love of the lore alive during that time, and made a return to the game possible, because without knowing what had transpired, I would be lost.
Byf is right we should see our Guardian being more involved in cutscenes, it would make us feel more involved and like show us that we're doing something instead of just standing there watching a villain monolog
I also wanna add that I completely understand Byf's decision to cover more games and content outside of Destiny and with how much work and effort he out into covering the lore for Destiny I can confidently say I look forward to what other stories he'll show us
REAL excited for your 40k videos!
24:32 my favorite exotic, Salty
I don't think it matters how good of a villain Maya is. Not having a boss fight with her and having to run encore multiple times to get the story to inch forward was bad. It needed a mission where we fought our way to the conductor, then had a fight that ended with her losing the echo, but escaping alive
I feel like having to run the exotic quest three different times (at a minimum) was bad. It got so repetitive, and bungie saying thus is our most ambitious exotic quest yet is a joke, they should have actually made thre separate levels as we dive futher into nessus not just hey rember this maze we made you run litteraly two quest steps ago well geuss what your running it again but this time we added flying enemies on the parkour section. Also, they could have at least changed the boss and mechanics the final time i ran it for the story i speed ran it because it had become muscle memory. It did not feel like this grandiose epic battle it was a chore.
I’m starting to wonder if I just have a different mindset then a lot of the community or if I played a different game then everyone else because I throughly enjoyed the story in Echoes because it was character focused.
To me, for years story in Destiny has felt like “this character on this planet with these enemies” and not much else. And I think Bungie feels like this too, with the quote about making situations, not story, in the Frontiers Blog.
This story was so much more grounded to me. At the end of the day it wasn’t about the conductor or the vex, it was about the characters and how they relate to one another, and without characters Destiny’s story wouldn’t be anything worth while.
i'm really glad that we didn't fight and defeat Maya this episode, and not just because i want her to be a bigger player in the future, representing the Vex. i'm glad we didn't fight her yet, because we honestly never really got a great reason to feel anything from fighting and defeating her. other than her "killing" simulated versions of her wife... she kinda didn't do much else to effect us, the last city, or anyone else. it would be a completely different story if she forced saint to go on a murder spree in the Eliksni Quarter or something, but that obviously didn't happen. she gave saint and osiris some minor relationship drama. ok, there's nothing about that that's driving me to want to kill her. i'm glad to wait until she does something actually awful in the future to take her out.
Did my lore dad just say he would cover DRAGON AGE, im so excited 🎉🎉🎉
Havnt gone thru the story myself but you brought up Maya willing to ennact that same perfect "single iteration" treatment. This seems like the Witness Echo having influence like Clarity Contril or the shards of Nezarec, meanwhile the Witness was the apex of that echelon, so i wouldn't rule out some potential hidden hand. Sol Divisive are proof enough that the Witness is familiar with the vex. Just theorizing tho! Love how you seperated the story from Bungie as a company- objectivity is paramount in any good faith analysis
Your warframe and Doom series were some of my favorite content. Really excited to see what other series you look into.
My biggest pain point for how Echoes wrapped up is, like Byf mentioned, participation in the story. I think there exists a world where we could have fought the Conductor in between the end of Encore and before the cinematic and still had the events that followed. How it is now, I just felt so disconnected and even thought I had somehow missed something I was supposed to experience when the cutscene started. It felt like we took a much larger backseat to the story as it played out, where we were only passive observers, not active participants.
I would love Byf videos on Elden Ring lore
I don't blame you for covering multiple games. I'm still a big Destiny 2 fan and myself and my FT still play; however, we are not playing daily as we were before and with SM2 out I found a game I enjoy playing besides D2. I tried First Descendants but was annoyed by the story line and the amount of grinding. SM2 is simple, get a big gun a melee weapon and go fight. I like the story, so far, and the world of the imperium. It's got a good bit of Fallout's Brotherhood of steel where religious iconography and lifestyle exist.
There were so many narrative choices that baffled me during this. One long running theme was Saint wrestling with his sense of self and his place in the world, but that conflict only came about because of Maya and the resolution to that conflict means that nothing has changed going forward. It's the same kind of character development in a filler arc that just doesn't change anything for the rest of the story.
I also just do not understand why Ikora is randomly here during the story and not Misraaks. If the conflict is Saint being unsure of who he is, then the ONLY valid character to help him through that is Misraaks. He's the only one who has feared and hated Saint, came to understand him and accept who he really is, forgive him, and is probably now Saints closest friend excluding Osiris and the Guardian. It would have meant so much more if we had him on the comms telling Saint he knows who Saint is deep down and helping him come to terms with things. Ikora feels so tacked on and has almost no relevance to the story itself, and honestly almost feels like a "we will include whoever we can book for the voice work" situation over an actual intended story element.
I still agree with a passing comment from an aztecross video early in act 2. Saint 14 should have been corrupted completely by the conductor and we would have had to fight him as a story boss to get him back to his senses. Not only would it show the conductors power, but it would show us how it feels to fight against a legendary guardian in a non PvP arena. It would also make Saints 'break free' moment that much deeper because he would be succeeding where he previously failed.
You absolutely nailed a problem that's been growing for a while. At least for me; the Guardian no longer feeling as the badass protagonist.
More often than not it feels like you're the simple footsoldier sent to do fieldwork. You're making someone else's story come to a satisfying conclusion, rather than growing our own Legend.
It feels like we are the B-character in all of these stories since Beyond Light. We helped Elsie prevent the dark future. We helped Misraaks protect his people. We helped a bunch of characters work through their trauma. We just shine our light on others now.
its been like that since vanilla d1.
@@Blanktester685 No it hasn't. During D1 and the early stages of D2 the Guardian was the central piece and others were our supporting cast. They helped us achieve the means and methods to beat the big bad. And once done we got the accolades, and sometimes voice lines, for defending the universe against the Vex/Crota/Oryx/SIVA
If Vex can simulate humans and exos in ways that seems undistinguishable from reality, why can't they simulate their own leaders like Atheon and why don't these leaders or villains keep coming back for more?
Can you talk about the lore behind enigma protocol please. A lot of people don't like it but I enjoy both the lore implications and the speedrun gameplay.
Pipe dream here: I'd love to see the forces of the city start reclaiming Sol. I know this means Bungie creating new maps and whatnot, but if for one season we are discovering all the secrets and wiping all the enemies for that area to claim it and make it safe again.
I say we had agency here as our battle did contribute to the defeat of the Conductor as she stated to be wounded at the time, plus she didn’t have full use of the Echo yet.
Plus for the story telling of LF, it was to be told a a year of story telling continuing throughout till Final Shape, LF’s story is centered around Neomuna and Light and Dark nature.
The way Byf talked about the story was more compelling than how Bungie visually and audibly presented it. The action and animation happening in the cutscenes is ridiculous and it pulls me out of what’s happening.
I sincerely think that Destiny will never top the "You are my people!" of Splicer.
Honestly, the final missions of Acts 1, 2, and 3 felt like they should've been the first 3 missions in Act 1. If you're going to make a big episode, make every week count. Instead (excluding the 3 weeks of no story on the tail end of each act) we basically got 2 weeks of nothing and then a little bit of actual story.
I’m really hoping Asher Mir comes back with a sort of “Band of Merry Men” like Praedyth and other people trapped in the Vex Network. Couple that narrative with Maya like an AM out of “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream,” there might be a stronger outcome. I have been taking the Episodes as vignettes into “what might happen next” scenarios, so I haven’t been bogged down narratively; I’ve only been really bogged down by the cadence of the content and three weeks of story connected to Encore.
I am interested in seeing where the “Vex thinking for themselves” plot thread goes, maybe we’ll finally get a personable Vex instead of a human character controlling them.
Aside from that… I liked the exotic mission overall, but having it as the vehicle for the story three times in a row sucked.
I'm definitely way more interested in the Fikrul/Crow stuff probably coming next episode and Xivu/Eris/Savathun probably coming in Heresy. This episode? I really just don't care for it. At all.
I’d just like to point out that this format of storytelling is what eventually lead to us liking Savathun as a story. It has to be built up somehow and the Vex have had an issue of villains for years. Maya isn’t designed to be a villain of the season, she’s clearly being built up as something much greater.
MSUND_12 is something they’ve been hinting at for years and if we just ended her in the first instance of interacting that would be bad storytelling. This game needs to build up Maya as the villain she clearly has the potential for and fleshing out the vex in the process is great! We’re also getting an evolution of Cabal through Maya (although it was barely touched on in the finale of Encore) which is good because that’s more variety of factions again.
The format of telling all this unfortunately I think is what makes it struggle. Having to wait 15 weeks to have experienced all of this just doesn’t feel right. In a similar problem to Savathun, we need to know when generally we’re going to run into Maya again. Witch Queen worked so well because the entire setup of Beyond Light’s seasons we knew was building to us confronting her. I can presume Apollo will be that actual confrontation or some other time in Frontiers but this works better if we actually KNOW that endpoint. As it currently stands we’ve beat Maya but she has the Echo of Command and we’re just not going to deal with that because we’ve got Revenant and Heresy to deal with first.
Xivu is suffering from a similar thing. We’ve gotten some great setup with Deep, Witch, Seraph, Lost, etc. When we do finally confront Xivu it’s going to be massive. Maya is going through the same setup currently but we need to know WHEN we’re going to finally end it so the buildup leads to something and not just cliffhangers.
I am so happy to see someone with a brain in these comments
Really well said, it's sad the morale is so low because I'm pretty sure this would be the general takeaway from this Episode.
Based on what this Episode did, it seems Bungie is trying to use the Episodes to establish old side villains as main villains for the next saga: Maya with Echoes for the Vex finally getting personality, Fikrul with Revenant for the Scorn coming into their own as a threat other than a mindless army, Xivu with Episode 3 with a Hive comeback, possibly even signaling a total overthrow of the Hive as an enemy faction similar to the Fallen and Cabal with Mithrax and Caiatl (not meaning that Xivu would become an ally, just that in-world the Hive would suffer a catastrophic schism that sort of quells them as a threat). Unfortunately, all of this is- and has been in the case of Echoes- delivered in a format that is decidedly worse than seasons at a time where morale is at the lowest since Season of Defiance.
That sounds nice in theory but people who didnt play any of those seasons still liked Savathun as a villain. Weirdo looking for godroll wife is simply not as compelling as "God of Deceit got our powers"
@@elseggs6504and when inevitably we get to Maya’s Witch Queen moment I’m sure the same thing will be true
i want to see a long form video of byf narrating the Horus Heresy
It would be great to see the end tag line stick around. It's kinda your thing, and it's a lot like Mesome's outro line. WHICH IS BLESS YOUR FACES. But seriously, Per aspera ad astra is basically a dead giveaway whatever it is, it's Byf.
Games that I would love for you to cover their lore:
Halo, Dishonored, Titanfall, Mass Effect and Bioshock !
Can't wait for the dragon age lore videos. I love this franchise as well.
Honestly overall, I give Echoes 5/10.
Pros: Exploring more of Nessus.
Weapon Design
Solar Side-arm Pistol
Exotic Mission: It's fine not perfect by any means.
Season of Dawn weapons
Episode Armor/Season Pass Armor is ok for all 3 classes imo.
Cons: THE STORY. The beginning was interesting and where it may lead to, BUT this story alone is based on lore from characters a-lot of players probably have never heard of. You can tell stories about the Vex which I still liked about this Episode, but something that players can understand.
The other weapons besides the sidearm aren't that good imo.
corrasion is the 2nd best pulse in pve.
I honestly give the ending of Lightfall a pass because it makes sense for our Guardian to hesitate in shooting our Ghost, most Guardians would. If you were suddenly told to shoot your oldest and closest friend, you'd hesitate too.
Personally, as much as Maya's story and the fucked up shit that she did with Chioma was ok, I was a little disappointed that the Conductor is her. Aside from the exo head, I really liked the Conductor's design, silhouete. It felt menacing in the keyart and I got chills when I first noticed it spying on us on Nessus. I was hoping that it was an "ascended" Vex Mind, one that was still Vex, but had evolved to be a singular entity, thanks to the echo.
Take me back to the forsaken drop and I’ll be happy forever
If they wanted to keep maya alive, they should’ve went with the “Callus is a robot” type ending like in the raid. They could spin it as if she had many contingency plans like making more copies of herself while looking for chioma at the same time. That way we could feel satisfied by destroying the conductor but then have the reveal that this is only one of many mayas.
We’re tired, it’s been a long time. I’ve been playing other games for awhile and really enjoying the change.
Honestly I think something that would have been satisfying was if after we kill maya, a massive vex swarm appears, claiming the echo. The one picking it up being one of Maya's independent vex, it spreads the conversion further, even letting vex choose their appearance between the precursor, normal, and descendant vex
This is where I keep hoping that Asher Mir is still somewhere in the Network and can be brought back to help us. I refuse to believe that my favorite grumpy old Gensym Scribe is gone forever.
Shohreh Aghdashloo is a crazy good actress and voice actress. The contempt in maya’s voice at the end is so… true
This is exactly why I saved one character to play Echoes in its entirety instead of piecemeal, so that I would have a baseline by which to compare the delivery of one style of Bungie drip feeding to another.
I’ll say, it definitely inched me closer to liking Echoes overall by having it all playable at once. On the other hand, it didn’t change the opinion I share with you in that there didn’t feel like there was a lot of closure, or at least as much as we could have had. Otherwise, Echoes was still a good-I’d argue VERY GOOD-commentary on human nature, and how dark one can get once twisted by their own hubris and selfish desires to the point there’s not enough light left to see the way back to their humanity.
Echoes wasn’t perfect, but it wasn’t even close to as bad as Lightfall. Hell it wasn’t even close to as bad as some of our worst seasons. It’s just too bad that perception muddies the water enough for most to not see that.
You really hit the nail on this one! Abilities and magic and hard to do clips. Thats the pvp right now
Bungie said going in that Episodes would be more self-contained stories with the goal of being able to play them in any order and not needing to play all of them to jump into the next expansion. Unfortunately that means that we can't have events which immediately and drastically change the world of the game like Splicer and Chosen.
My theory is that Maya and her newfound status as the Conductor will be part of why we have to flee the Sol system to go explore new planets.
I want to see if Asher can figure something out with the vex after seeing how Maya messed with things from the inside.
I thought a cool idea to end these episodes would to have the dungeons act as raids. So the final boss of the dungeon would have been Maya. (I’m also happy though because I think an October haunted house dungeon would be crazy)
I would love to see byf do remnant lore be awesome
18:21 I will say, though that I definitely understand and appreciate the parallels of the relationships in the storyline between Osiris and Saint - 14 and Maya and Chioma. One is willing to accept his partner, no matter what universe he is from, the other is willing to reset their partner over and over again to find the perfect version… Even deleting the real one in this journey to perfection.
A couple of things:
1) I thought we were getting some sort of epilogue mission? Possibly set on Europa? I'm sure I read that somewhere
2) Everyone is saying Maya tanked a Nova Bomb, but I thought it was just a void melee like a Pocket Singularity? It didn't have the wind-up motion of a Nova Bomb
I think the story would have had some narrative symmetry if Maya's messing with the Vex had awakened some ancient Vex Mind from 2082 Volantis who had turned up to give her the smackdown. In their arrogance, Maya AND Lakshmi have both underestimated the Vex in the past, and it has lead to their absorption/destruction. This could have been another 'How many times do I have to teach you this lesson old man' type of moment, and given us some more Volantis lore, which we desperately need.
I agree that we should have claimed the Echo though, even if Maya had managed a Skeletor last-minute-gettaway. It would have made all the effort worth while.
Did not enjoy the story one bit, 2 lover quarrels, vex only had a bit of cool happen by not beingnunder one mind yet no gameplay show of this.
This episode was a classic case of why lots of gamers are getting sick of modern games. Really hope we get something bitting next episode and not a badly written lover problem