#i'm a hater of the capitalist hellhole we live in and i hate how the modern gaming industry works

[thefirstknife]

I don’t understand people who are upset we don’t have all the answers about the Veil right now because quite frankly I thought that was the point? Like if we had all the answers then we get to the issue (that a lot of these same people had) where the seasons feel disconnected and like little actually matter until the last one before the expansion. They didn’t give us everything probably because we’re supposed to discover the answers as the year goes on before we chase the Witness through whatever portal it made. Bungie is doing what they wanted and yet people still complain

Yep, pretty much. They also did explicitly say in the latest TWAB that yes, the story will continue throughout the year. Some people took that as Bungie "having to tell us that there's more story because of how shit their writing is" but what I saw was community managers trying to politely explain to tens of thousands of raging players that the story isn't over. It felt almost passive aggressive to me given that this is exactly what players wanted:

We know there are still plenty of questions left unanswered at the end of Lightfall’s Campaign that you’re all eagerly awaiting answers to. As the events of Season of Defiance get into full swing this week, know that this is just the beginning of the next year of storytelling that will connect the events of Lightfall and The Final Shape. We can’t wait for the community to learn more about The Witness’s origins, its objective, and the ways we can thwart it and its disciples throughout Season of the Deep, as well as Seasons 22 and 23 later this year.

You made a great point about that. People asked that seasons become more meaningful. I remember that initially seasons were kinda all over the place and not really connected into a full story. Like, there were very few connecting points between Undying-Dawn-Worthy-Arrivals. Nothing that couldn't be summarised in 2 sentences. Even less if you look at Black Armory-Drifter-Opulence seasons from Y2.

On one hand, it meant that you could skip any and not lose much. But on the other hand, those that weren't skipping complained that the seasons aren't very well connected between each other and the main campaign of the year. This was a serious enough complaint that it became the reason for more connected seasons and also a reason to let seasons last the whole year, as detailed in a TWAB from April 2020:

We have been making progress carrying the overarching narrative Season over Season in Destiny 2. Saint-14 and Osiris led to the Warmind which leads to… [REDACTED]

It’s not perfect yet. The bridges between Seasons can definitely be improved, and we could do a better job of recognizing prior Seasons’ narrative threads in the active Season. 

In Year 4, we are going to build a better interconnected narrative and, more importantly, let players be a part of that narrative no matter when they enter the current year.

I'm putting this here because people have notoriously bad memory, but we have tangible proof of people asking Bungie for seasons that have more meaningful and interconnected narrative. Bungie listened, but that also meant that skipping a season became harder if you wanted to stay in the loop. Obviously you can watch a playthrough online, but you know. But clearly the majority wanted seasons to be meaningful and were happy when Bungie listened.

And now suddenly we don't want the story to continue during the year? I understand the FOMO complaints and monetary complaints. If you buy an expansion, you want to NOT feel forced into buying all seasons for it in order to experience the full story. It's just strange to me that we are dropping that issue at Lightfall when BL and WQ were the same. A lot will say that they liked it before, but now just got tired of the same thing over and over, but what exactly is that thing? A good and connected narrative that links expansions and seasons? Do we now want a break year where seasonal stories are irrelevant and nothing meaningful happens?

Obviously, connected seasons benefit Bungie. I am aware that connecting the narrative like this means more people will feel compelled to buy the seasons. But if they're already making contect they want us to buy, then people want their purchase to mean something instead of getting content they easily could've skipped. It's kind of an impossible conundrum? We want the seasons to be good and narrative rich and meaningful, but we also want the seasons to be easy to skip and not necessary to play. That's kinda contradictory.

I genuinely don't know what is the solution and I welcome discussion about it. I just find most of the discussions about this kind of stuff to be very strange. Like, in most cases it just boils down to a contradiction of wanting the story to feel worth investing yourself into, but also easy to sit out. Those two things just can't both be true at once.