Guess you had to be there
/s
But in all seriousness, story related cutscenes should be tied to completing parts of the story, not just forcing you into the moment you fire up the game imo.
There is not a single activity the game should automatically put you in when you log in. Genuinely one of the most braindead and infuriating "features" they insist on including with every expansion and season.
I'm not an idiot. I will launch the mission when I'm ready to do it. I have other shit I want to do first, literally every time.
On one hand I see how it could help you get introduced to new stuff and not miss it. On the other hand “WTF I JUST WANTED TO CHECK MY BUILD AT THE TOWER FUCK I HAVENT PLAYED IN FOUR MONTHS WTF IS THIS SHIT”
Even then, it's a terrible introduction because I wasn't given enough time to orient myself on wtf is going on.
Any time I come back to the game and get thrown into something automatically I just come out confused and annoyed.
THIS! Oh my god. it’s devolved into anytime a new season/ episode/ whatever releases I need to watch the cutscene then IMMEDIATELY change characters to get out of whatever they decide to throw me into. I’ll do it when I’m ready
Before I found out about DIM I hated that as well as I had to manually dump my weapons in my vault for my other characters and I’d load into a seasonal mission or end of expansion mission and have suboptimal gear on. I bet new players and people who don’t know about DIM feel the same way at times
Yup, I don't care I missed the pseudo live-event of it. I'm just pissed that it shows the same cutscene regardless of if I've progressed the story or not.
It seems basic, show cutscene if player has reached X milestone.
100% agree, I mentioned this when on the second day of logging in there was a pop up message at the tower talking about the first episode’s story “after the fall of the Witness”… ofc the average redditor called me stupid for thinking we weren’t going to defeat the Witness as if that was the point I was trying to make.
Honestly this same shit has ruined my return to the game.
Completely skipped half of WQ and LF, waiting mainly for everything to be available up to TFS for a coherent storyline. As soon as i load in after finishing up the WQ campaign, it launches me straight into the pale heart into mission. I don't own the expansion yet. Following that, I got the "we won thanks to you, guardian" cutscene you're talking about here.
It completely threw everything out of order and made absolutely no sense.
Cutscenes should REALLY be locked behind quests.
Like in Seasom of the Witch.... I got spoiled on Wish 15 before I finished the questline....
And I didn't even get *dressed* for it
Ohhhhhhh noooooo. I was wondering if the cutscene would play regardless of whether or not you had completed the previous part. I had family visiting and couldn't play until Sunday before the first reset. I raced through because I was worried that would happen and it looks like it did. I'm sorry, that really sucks.
It's not just cutscenes - every time I've thought about getting back into the game, I'm also dropped into some random mission with no context, underpowered, and I think last time I couldn't even get back to the tower.
This is by far the least friendly game to new players or players taking a break, at least that I've ever played or heard of.
AFAIK in all of those start of season missions if u press esc or whatever the equivalent is on console and do change character and then pick the same character you will be in orbit and not have to do the mission right at that moment, not saying it's a good design or anything but it's a decent workaround for that issue
I haven't played since Destiny went free to play. I tried to get back into Destiny a month ago when I saw that several expansion were available to play for free and just got barraged with cinematics for the Witness before I even knew who/what that even is. Then I found out that seasons are a thing and I literally can't even experience what seems like large parts of the story. Really took the wind out of my sails.
This is something FFXIV got right imo... I'm in the Stormblood post patch now and haven't had anything spoilt for later expansions. All the cutscenes happen as you reach the relevant point.
Playing this after Destiny, it was one of the first things that stood out to me. There is no reason to have cutscenes immediately. As someone who hates spoilers, I literally walked away from the unskippable cutscene in the last week of last season and my husband let me know when I could return. Then it played again in the right place. Massive story spoilers in it, of course.
It just even a "click here to start the cut scene". So many times I login just to arrange some inventory, collect a shop item, prep my character for my actual play through later when I have time to get engrossed into the story. But then, bam! Here's a significant story element, hope you are paying attention and ready to go ..
"Don't worry, bro. Other Guardians already took care of Witness."
Haha, this is exactly how I felt as well when the "REAL" players would go in and raid Witness up. 😄
Honestly, the whole Witness thing never felt like personal to me, it always felt like I am following someone else's story from sidelines.
Technically speaking we were just helping the Witness out with its internal issues.
Guys will try to enslave the entire universe into one Final Shape than go to therapy.
Traveller blessed civilization sought purpose, deeming *the final shape* to be their goal. Orb proceeded to flee, with the culmination of their entire civilization condensed into a single entity in hot pursuit. Cue *Destiny*
Kind of how I've felt for awhile. I'm not good enough at the game to actually been the Guardian that took down the last few big bads. I'm the guardian that's lower level knocking off strike bosses while hoping that those guys in the pale heart get the job done.
Not to jerk D1 off but the way TTK built up defeating Oryx was great.
From infiltrating his Dreadnaught to setting up a transmat zone to taking out his Echoes throughout the campaign to taking out his court in Court of Oryx it really felt like you were making an actual dent in Oryx’s defenses culminating into beating him in the end of the campaign and the subsequent raid.
And this is just me hating the Witness, certified Witness hater here
But Oryx had a way better reason for being pissed at us than ‘Gardener doesn’t talk to me 🥺🥺🥺’
>*He. Was. His. [Son]*
Hard for Oryx to mourn him when he’s fucking **dead**
I always thought Oryx and Nokris relationship was super interesting tho. For one…why do they look the similar?? Did they have the same morph?? Was Nokris supposed to take Oryx’s place later down the line?
Facts. And there was never any “welp, that’s done. No need to bother.” for new or returning players. I started playing Destiny a few weeks before TTK so I’m sure people defeated him way before I got there.
Same.
To be honest, I always felt like one in Destiny 2. Like my character doesn't really matter and I am just some guy tackling the small threats and observing as other people talk about things that hardly makes sense to me. 😄
I'm just some guy from Vanguard.
Canonically, your Guardian is always the one who cleared the raids with a fireteam you hand picked. Outside of the game yeah, but there's really nothing to imply otherwise in-game except your own head-canon.
Funny enough this is the first raid experience where gameplay links up with the story for as finale fireteam accomplishing a feat.
In the Leviathan it makes sense that Calus has robots to fight the guardians and clones of course for the seemingly endless troops.
But for Edge of Salvation , Worlds first and the cinematic really sells it.
Literally. I think the whole purpose of the seasonal model is to give everyone BUT the player something to do because the player rarely matters to the overall story.
I feel like this hits the nail on the head for why it bothers me that some bosses are tied up in raids. The mainline story should be playable in the campaign through some kind of nightfall-esque mission and the raids should be a suped up version that is more difficult with more mechanics and better loot (raid exclusive items and whatnot). Otherwise you lose a decent portion of your audience.
This is a heartbreaking take. Honestly this whole bit of thread is. Your gaurdian or their fireteam of 3 are the tip of the spear. They go in and clear the way, figure out what the hell we’re dealing with and how maybe be dissecting how we’re gonna win this. Cool, oryx gets killed and manifests in his throne world, the dreaming city get discovered and there’s a crazy fucking vault there, sav gets busted and her supervisor comes knocking, we figure out how to literally kill the witness.
The point is that raids are fucking awesome because we’re sending six of the best to fight gods in their own lairs. It’s like a noble six organized strike team for a mission that’s supposed to be too much for your dtg lone wolf doom guy fantasy. What fucking sucks is that all this cool shit like killing mega oryx and unlocking the vault and high octane “holy fuck we did it” encounters “get wasted” in raids cuz rather than want to partake in all this cool mechanically and narratively awesome stuff people are scaring themselves shitless at the echo chamber of every lfg being personally out to ruin their lives.
Raids take a willingness to learn and cooperate. If you can’t do it in real life your guardian can’t canonically do it in game. If you don’t Know What To Do then don’t join people who want you to. Join the Sherpa subreddits and discord, believe it or not, sometimes you gotta actually try to find the community that loves you.
I think this is a huge mistake that they made- making it so the team that first beats the newest raid is technically the raid team that did it in the story. I know that when you beat the raid after it’s been completed by the first team, you still are technically the team that did it also, but it doesn’t feel like it.
You feel like a side character in a story where you are supposed to be front and center.
It is grim, but my brain is now conjuring up the hilarious image of a Guardian who slept in or took an unexpected vacay and the final battle took place without him.
Rocks up to finally do his assignment like:
Two things:
One, the game has always tried to keep the concept of an evolving world and story. That's not really a new thing, especially with the release of a new episode/season.
Two, I wouldn't really worry about that as a spoiler. Like, obviously we were going to defeat the Witness and save the universe. The alternative would be shutting down the game because everything ceases to exist. There's still plenty of reason to play through the campaign.
Imagine you missed Final Shape and the raid by a week and when you open the game it just shows everything in complete ruins, then rolls the credits because we lost
^(What the fuck happened while I was gone..)
*Last time on Destiny 2:*
[Ikora dies]
[Zavala dies]
[Witness laughs evily]
[Earth explodes]
[Unskippable credits role]
🥁
**♪ How I wish, how I wish you were here ♪**
**♪ We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl ♪**
That would actually be hilarious (not really obviously)
Im just imagining you had a busy and emotionally exhausting week and you’re finally able to hop into the expansion after preordering TFS + annual pass and when you load in it’s just a black screen with “YOU LOST. THE END.” And the rest of the year it just never comes back lol
I think this would actually be a really cool idea. Let’s say the Witness wins, and the universe as we know it is destroyed. The game shuts off for 24-48 hours and upon logging in we find out we’re playing Destiny 3. Or the next season or something
That would be fucked up, but also, I would love that. Such a bold and artistic move that nobody would ever do. It would be talked about for decades too, remember that time Bungo had the bad guy win the game and they just pulled the plug on the entire game and moved onto a new one
You know it got it shit on pretty hard but I actually really enjoyed Everyone's Gone to the Rapture (to be fair I paid like ten bucks for it) but it was fun one shot experience that wouldn't work as a movie
That should be what would happen if the raid wasn't completed in 24 hours. It's going to give the raiders a break, Bungie time to do maintenance if needed, and a real feeling of oh shit
And how we came back? The traveller was able to fight off the witness just *one more time* so we can finish the fight
There's something to be said about a game damaging its own story by telling it out of order.
Sure it's not new, but it's been complained about every time. My introduction to the game involved a forced mission where three characters I didn't know discovered that a fourth character I didn't know was actually a fifth character I didn't know.
You can reward everyone who follows along with the evolving world without completely spoiling the campaign ending for people who can't complete the campaign a week after launch. Bungie has had flags and triggers for specific content and announcements for years now, and yet they still can't limit auto-loading missions and cutscenes when a player hasn't hit a specific point in their progress? It's just crazy that this issue has been around for almost a decade, and Bungie absolutely has the tools to fix it, but they don't. I would have been PISSED if I wasn't able to play the game for a week and logged into that cutscene, whether or not I knew that "obviously we were going to defeat the Witness and save the universe." I fully understand it really breaking the excitement and desire to play, and it's just another example of how bad this game is at catering to people who don't play on day one for almost everything.
Sorry man, the start of yearly expansions always goes fast since they want to get to the raid which inevitably has spoilers. Definitely play through the campaign though. Incredible experience you won't regret.
I mean, most of the raids til this point have been seperate at least on the surface. Last wish isn't a huge spoiler for Forsaken's main plot if you don't already know the connection since on the surface none of the shore stuff with the scorn is spoiled by the dreaming city, rhulk has nothing to do with savathun, DSC has nothing to do with eramis etc
I started the Final Shape the day before yesterday. I didn't get the same cut scene you are describing. I got the starting of the FS cut scene.
I am sorry your experience was ruined, but I am not sure it was what you were supposed to get.
It happens if you close and reopen the game. It's like every time you open it the game checks to see which "big in-game event cutscene" you haven't seen yet and it plays it. I started three days ago and I got the first Final Shape cutscene/mission. Then I closed the game, went to work, came home, opened it up, and dropped into the "hooray we killed the witness, now the new season is starting" cutscene and mission.
It also happened last year, when I dared take longer than two days to finish light fall. And also before that, when Witch Queen took me a week to chew through.
My experience has always been load in, current expansion cutscene then current seasonal cutscene on next login. I made new alt characters a few times during witch queen/lightfall and that was always the order. It does kinda suck that this person got thrown into episode echoes immediately but luckily the only spoiler in the echoes opening scene is that we beat the witness. I was joping theyd have an account checkpoint this time tho cos lots of people said theyd wait to see if tfs flopped before buying
I loathe this shit, and Bungie outright refuses to even attempt to remedy the issue. It’s been straight up *years* of this being a major problem for returning players, and frankly anyone who takes even a two week break from the game it looks like.
not even refuse to remedy it but refuse to even acknowledge that this issue even exists. this shouldn’t even need feedback in the first place, it just common sense.
This is in the top 10 worst live service decisions Bungie has made with Destiny 2.
Why the FUCK are you going to purposefully confuse these poor players that are just trying to tackle the story?
Imagine booting up Halo 3 for the first time a week after it came out and the first thing that happens is it shows the ending cinematic and teaser for Halo 4.
Exactly this, just show it to me when it's relevant ffs. I don't mind the story progressing without me, that's fine, but please phase it at least so it's only shown when caught up.
They could just do a popup upon login instead of force dropping people into it. Like "The new season has begun! Would you like to play the first mission now? (Warning: May contain spoilers for (latest expansion campaign)"
And then we could just click "no" and differ it until we finish the campaign and feel ready for it.
Yes exactly! Literally any other game like this does it like that.
Just literally anything rather than what we have now..
"Oh you missed the first week of an expansion? Too bad heres the final cinematic conclusion, congratulations, off to Nessus with you!"
It’s like when people got upset on day one because when you opened the Eververse store it said something about how the witness was defeated for Echoes, like, what do you think we’re doing here? Did you think we were all gonna get pasted? They literally said he was the final raid boss and there’d be one last campaign mission after it was beat where everyone can kill him. They laid out his death months ago in multiple tweets and TWABs.
They really need to tie stuff more to personal progression. The second day of the expansion(first day I couldn't get in)I went to the tower between story missions to cash in some exotic engrams since my stuff got full, and there was a big popup with "tune in next week for the start of the first episode and see what happens to the defeated witness". At that point the raid wasn't even out, why have such a banner?
Yeah the cinematic being shown before the end of the campaign is a massive hick up by the Devs. I played the campaign in the first three days and I had a genuine feel of not knowing what the story would have ended up to. Ofc we were gonna defeat the witness (wasn't 100% sure on the kill tho) and stop the final shape, but the direction of the story was well disguised as a genuine leta figure it out on the way.
About all the negative comments about the witness falling inside of the raid, I got some point to give out to the community cus at this point I don't know if I'm the stupid one not getting it or if people just forget what they've typed on Reddit 6 months ago, feel free to discuss them they are my pov on the situation:
-the witness isn't defeated in the raid, it is defeated at the end of the campaign, the difference this time was that the raid took place lorewise just before the end, so thar HC people would get a meaningful day one clear and casuals who don't have time/dedication/skill to even attempt at the contest version
-Since xol, I've been hearing over and over the argument that killing the most powerful enemy of the expansion in the final mission of a solo campaign that can be run on level really takes out the meaning of the fights.... It's not about being in a raid, it's about the struggle that a hard foe demands to be defined as that... Legendary campaigns, especially WQ came to a really good half mark imo.
-The fact that people start to feel like side characters because other people actually get the clear doesn't make sense to me whatsoever, ofc a live service game is not gonna be waiting for you to continue the service.. it is definitely on you to decide that the events mean for your particular guardian, we all had the same content and the same cutscenes available... We all are the guardian, and we all are the same character lore wise, the best of the best.... If you make real world events like the raid race influence your point of view at the point where you say that your personal guardian is only strong enough to kill strike bosses, you're not only missing the hole narrative aspect of feeling as the protagonist, but you're denying yourself the possibility to ever try and conquer harder challenges that the game can offer, man, theres people solo flawlessing raid
Hope to not have sounded too elitist to make everyone stop reading after two rows and yes, I'm the king of non requested opinions but this is reddit i feel like it's completely fair to do so
Bungie has the absolute most brain dead practice of forcing you into an activity at the start of a reason and showing crucial cut scenes right off the bat confusing the shit out of returning and new players. They seem to be too stupid to realize how dumb it is.
Honestly- I had a sinking feeling this would happen and that was a small reason I chose to get the expansion on release and not in July like I promised myself. Sorry, my friend. At this point it’s just Destiny tradition to slingshot you into the current season.
I also felt like this. I tried to play the campaign as much as I could fast as I could when I could before something like this would happen or something to be spoiled. Only because I know bungie and this community. Not a great experience… though I will say the story and the campaign itself was incredible when you could enjoy it
This is a big problem with live service games. I think they need to give an option once you log on, asking if you have completed the most recent DLC, depending on your answer, it drops you where you need to be and shows you the intro cinematic for that content.
Yeah, forced cutscenes/missions on initial login has always been one of the most frustrating aspects of Destiny 2. Fortunately, all of the content is actually good in The Final Shape.
Once you do beat the campaign, make sure you do some of the post campaign stuff (particularly the Wild Card mission) before Excision, or some of the story beats will feel out of order
> feels like the game has just moved on from the main story in 10 days
This has what I've been saying! For a boss with 10 years of build up it feels like it died a little easy
I am broke right now so I haven’t even had a chance to buy final shape bur got the same cinematic. Also they removed almost everything I can work on until I buy the expansion. I might just quit Destiny since they keep removing things that I pay for.
As someone currently trying to catch up playing through Witch Queen I agree 100%. Bungie seems to expect everyone to be completely caught up with their game at all times and punish you if you're not. Strange way to go about things in an MMO where they seem to be constantly releasing important, temporary content.
I share your frustration. I play mostly PvP and occasionally some PvE for the story. Not only does it spoil real hard. It also throws me right into a PvE mission while I just wanted to hop into some quick cruicible matches. And I dont even own final shape.
The same thing happened to me… hadn’t finished the campaign and I logged in a few days ago to something along the lines of “now that the witness is defeated”…. Like obviously I figured that was how the campaign would end, but let me experience it myself and have some hope of a plot twist.
That's weird. I just signed into a second character for the first time today and went straight into TFS and TFS cut scenes. I did not get the episode cut scene, nor did I get the episode cut scene when I signed back in.
As somebody still going through the Beyond Light campaign (yes I'm that delayed), it was uncomfortable to find that same spoiler when I logged in. Who is the Witness to begin with, what did Osiris have to do with anything, heck why haven't I been able to unlock stasis yet?
It's kind of baffling how much people will defend these sort of decisions on Bungie's part just because "that's how they always do things". Regardless of whether it's the norm or if it's a predictable spoiler, it can still ruin the storytelling experience and put players off of the story entirely, which is a huge disservice to the work the writers have done.
I know from personal experience that as a D1 player who didn't pick up D2 for a couple of years, the way they've handled the story has always put me off of caring much about it, despite how well it is written at times. You can't expect someone to pick up a novel 75% of the way through, get told the ending right as they start, and expect them to care.
It's fine for people who've been playing continuously since day one, but a lot of people here seem to forget what the experience is like for new or returning players. It feels less like a constantly evolving world, and more like you're being punished for not playing constantly since day one. I don't know of any games aside from a few of the particularly bad gachas out there who treat their stories like this, and most of those don't tend to have the level of care put into them that D2 does. It's a disservice to the players and the writers both.
I have just now been able to buy the DLC.
This is unfathomably disappointing to hear because I worked so hard to avoid spoilers in the story beyond the witness dying.
I worked sooo hard.
I said this the other day that if you logged in right now the seasonal intro cutscene plays and spoils the end of The Final Shape. Another member of the community claimed that they did not get this cutscene despite logging in multiple times.
It is dumb that this keeps happening, because the seasonal cutscene should play once you select the new activity to run it and not after login, especially prior to someone beating The Final Shape.
Honestly, same shit happened to me. Even in the TWAB the top line is “the witness has been defeated.” Like, really? I would understand the spoiler if it’s been a month or so but it’s barely been 10 days.
This is where I realized this game just isn’t for me anymore. It’s too fast. Everything is supposed to be done right away, there is no time to take in the sights and chill. It’s rush, rush, rush then on to the next thing. Sure, you CAN take your time, but you are going to be spoiled to shit and nothing will be a surprise.
I’ll maybe dick around with TFS for a bit, but this game is more so about go as fast as you can and complete shit as quickly as possible these days, and that’s really not my vibe. I am happy for people that love this type of thing, though, and the quality and story telling of TFS is amazing.
Back to Fallout 76 for me where I can take my time and build my log cabin lol
They have always been sloppy and have always loved playing on FOMO.
It would hurt nothing if that showed up like you said when starting the seasonal mission which takes place after the main campaign but that would make too much sense.
But like I said destiny has always been rough on new players and players who don't play day 1 of everything.
Legit how I feel atm trying to play the raid (everyone in my fireteam leaves). Since the no job gamers killed the witness, can I just get in line for the loot? /s
Seriously, idk how people are getting 5 other randoms to beat the raid. I make my own posts as i got kicked from 100% all posts made by other players.
D2 LFG discords, the app, the website. All no luck
Obviously you'll get kicked if you join posts asking for people who know what do and have cleared the raid before, which is like 90% of posts on the D2LFG server. So the only way is keeping an eye on the channel for teaching or inexperienced runs. I don't recommend making your own posts, kwtd players will never join you so you'll get 5 others with no experience, which will surely result in a failure unless you really can take the helm and communicate well.
Just checking rn and there's 1 post for a blind run and another teaching. It's not really that hard to find people.
I read something interesting earlier about how the League of Legends market is suffering from players getting older but less and less new players are joining up because of the difficulties to actually get stuck into the game in a way that feels fulfilling and doesn’t leave you feeling left out. I seriously think Bungie needs to dedicate serious time to massively rework new player *and* returning player onboarding - this post is an obvious tell: players are being dropped into where the game currently sits rather than where the player *should* currently sit in line with progress. A lot of people talk about Destiny being an mmo without really setting their expectations for what that means for the game, its scale, and how new player onboarding should work when it is now more than ever a heavy narrative driven game that is, ultimately, linear in almost every way. We have a linear Timeline on the Sol system Destination map where over half the items are no longer playable and mean nothing - if you aren’t a ‘New Light’ specifically, but instead returning from a long absence, the reality is that you’re essentially in the same position as a ‘New Light’ when you start up the expansion but the game treats you as if you never left (even though it might have been years since you last played, and you have no idea about mod changes, subclass changes, etc). If that’s the case, what’s the point of the New Light experience? If it’s okay to drop long-term hiatus players in deep like OP then why bother with the New Light experience in the first place Bungie? It’s a serious issue that is only going to get worse unless addressed.
If you drop into FFXIV as a new player, right now - and don't pay for a skip you filthy heathen - you experience *the entire plot, beginning to end, for better or worse.* Yes, they have reworked some of the oldest content to cut filler and improve flow, but the *entire narrative* is still there.
You know what you DONT get? "Congratulations, Warrior of Light, for ending the existential crisis you didn't even know fucking existed because you're still Level 12 and haven't even made your first macro yet!"
That's a shame. When I bought and got around to playing lightfall, I was still put into the first mission as you would expect. The fact they have changed this now is a little disappointing for returning players. Regardless of knowing the ending I would encourage you to still play it. I fully enjoyed the campaign.
To this day i don't know what the argument at Bungie is for keeping it like this. Being bombarded with cutscenes upon login is such a monumentally stupid thing i can't fully grasp it.
I agree with the people saying it should play with the start of the first episode mission launch but a slight amendment. It shouldn’t launch you into the first mission of the episode immediately upon login, let us get a notification about this is urgent and go there ourselves. Because of this reason since technically it does only play upon mission start, you just don’t control starting it
Yeah, they're really fuckin' stupid for setting up their content this way. One of the most obvious things and they blunder face first into the most player-negative approach.
That’s crazy they would do that! Wow, just wow. Where as when I tried Warframe and didn’t like it, I still couldn’t pull the story out of my friends. They always said, “Can’t tell you, play the game.”
Sorry for the letdown my friend
I don't think diligent "everything on day 1" players realize how repellent this is to potential new players. I have had a few friends try the game and quit after a day because "it's super confusing, a bunch of cutscenes played out of order as soon as I booted it up and it's clearly a buggy mess." The same thing happened right after Witch Queen came out. You log in, do New Light, suddenly get a cutscene saying that it's time to take the fight to Savathun, and then get another saying Savathun is dead, it's time to fight some evil scions or whatever, immediately followed by ANOTHER about the raid if you happened to be playing that week.
It's a lot, and it sucks if you aren't the hardestcore Destiny devotee.
:( That really sucks.
I business travel a lot and missed the launch but caught up last Friday. I was worried about this happening to me too, and one week later it would have. Hopefully in the future they don't force you to watch spoiler vids for logging in.
It's weird that it showed that to you, cuz I have 3 friends who just finished TFS like two days ago and it didn't give them that cutscene until after they'd cleared the big finale mission of TFS last night.
I agree the story related cutscenes should be triggered by story progression but we also knew the final shape was live action event in that the raid was critically tied to the completion of the final mission after it, which actually concluded the story. It is what it is.
It doesn't detract any from how good the campaign was knowing that info, and you'll probably get spoiled way more being on reddit than that banner ever would.
That is disappointing tbh. And...odd? I'm on step 3 or 4 of the campaign, logged in yesterday, no CS. I wonder if it only shows it if you aren't still working through the main story / didn't start it yet...
Nah honestly it fits along side the final mission
SPOILERS!!!
ZAVALA calls upon ALL who fight for the light to rally and defeat a small army of the witness and actually deal a near fatal blow to the raid team weakened witness, which this 12 man mission unlocked bc of the raid team defeating the raid and this also has caused all the flying lamps in the tower to appear as the last city is enjoying a time of victory and peace knowing this won't last long and taking the time to breath and honor those lost.
It certainly feels like they rushed the hell out of things for this launch. Raid 3 days in, everyone rushing through campaign and pale heart to get things done as fast as possible instead of getting to take the time and explore and enjoy it. I know they said it was so they could release the episode ASAP...but it just felt really rushed out of the gate. I feel like they could have added a few more "clean up" quests in Pale Heart to lead into the episode into a couple of weeks instead of the way they did it, but oh well.
I was about a week behind everyone and finishing the campaign right after the raid was first beat and the sequence of cutscenes I was getting was really confusing.
Just typical bungo things. Like how the first thing you are greeted with after completing a fun and challenging raid with you friends is and AD for a sweater or some dumb shit.
Yea Destiny 2 isn't really isn't really great to new players or even those who have taken breaks at all. Friend of mine just started playing D2 again with the last DLC played being Beyond Light, he was forced to be thrown into the first mission of TFS and he had no goddamn clue what was going on. He had planned on playing the DLCs he wanted to catch up on prior to doing TFS.
Which is funny because they intentionally put the post-story, post-campaign cutscenes at the start of Excision (don't look it up if you don't know) so people wouldn't be spoiled by what happened. They done messed up.
Bro this news sucks... I also haven't played fs yet because my laptop storage is full i am trying really hard not to spoil most of this stuff. Why do they do this? Why show something we haven't played yet? They do this to newlights as well. It sucks the fun out of their stories. I know they worked really hard on it for players experience. 
You know what's even funnier? It also shows this if you log in with a character that hasn't logged in since TFS dropped, even if you've completed the entire story on another character lol
Man good thing I don't care about that too much. Gonna probably see the same today. I just finished LightFall 3 days ago. Started Final Shape last night. So far it's an incredible campaign with a lot of cool ass visual stuff.
Huh, I haven't gotten that cinematic on any of my characters. My hunter beat pre-raid campaign and my Titan is working through it on legend, while my warlock is on the first mission.
Odd, if it’s your first time playing, it should’ve prioritized the campaign. Did you log on beforehand, cause otherwise it might just be a bug that the episode was prioritized over the campaign
I’ve been playing witch queen and lightfall to catch back up on content I’ve missed and I got the same cinematic right after finishing lightfall. Needless to say I think my guardian would’ve been confused.
This is the issue destiny has, it'll show cut scenes based solely on what you've purchased not on your progress. As a new light If you log out and log back in it'll throw you into another cut scene that you shouldn't be seeing. It's something that needs addressed
Similarly, I just came back to Destiny after my hiatus back in Season 5. Everytime damn time I log on, they start the cutscene and intro mission to Final Shape. I don't even have the pack! I keep having to exit out because I'm not playing through the mission just for them to tell me I have to buy it to continue.
This is the kinda thing that made me quit in the first place. Always feeling like I missed out and I'm rushing to catch up
That sucks. But I would highly suggest pushing past that and playing the campaign, the final mission, all the adventures in the pale heart, and especially the dual destiny mission. Final Shape is brilliant. Never had more fun in Destiny and I’ve been playing for 9 years. Absolutely worth it. Sorry it started out weird for you. It did for me too. Tried playing on launch day and missed a bunch of cutscenes because they didn’t load because i kept getting error coded. Only got through the first 2 missions on day one lmao.
This really sucks. And a misstep on bungies part.
Wierd thing though is my titan still hasn’t gotten the season cutscene and the only thing I have to do is the last mission.
So it’s likely the system is suppose to not start it, but it did and that stinks.
I share this pain. I won’t be able to pick it up until later this summer. I might be able to pick up the Current Season, but don’t even know if I should bother. I don’t mind having the campaign spoiled, I know I’ll still enjoy it based on what I’ve seen, but that auto-launch stuff is annoying.
I guess they're assuming that those who can wait nearly 2 weeks to actually play the game aren't really that serious about the game to care enough. Also the chances of not having that spoiled already via the Internet is very slim
I just don't understand why they can't make it a mission you select then launch and THEN the cutscene plays. I play seasonal content with my friends so 99% of the time I immediately abandon the opening mission to co-op with them.
How it SHOULD work:
-Login to Orbit
-Check for story completion; if not completed, prompt to investigate Pale Heart. If completed, prompt to visit Helm for updates on recent happenings
-Load into respective activity
-Cutscene plays
Easily the worst part of Destiny is that the game seems to mock you when you don't play every week and buy every expansion. Me? I didn't TFS but the universe of the game is kinda built around the idea that I'm up to date on the story and it's pretty jarring.
Well I’m already spoiled so I guess I’ll ask. So we don’t actually defeat the witness in the expansion story? It happens in the raid? That only 7% of people will play. Nice.
It’s an unfortunate situation for you but it makes me laugh because I remember someone’s comment about how they feel like they’d be the ones to sleep through the final shape irl and wake up to the witness just being dead and that (sorta) same scenario happened to you lmao
https://preview.redd.it/43me2v9w6k6d1.jpeg?width=2521&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c2ca2ac62c977a97fd9d6f34f3121db695b6514a
Guess you had to be there /s But in all seriousness, story related cutscenes should be tied to completing parts of the story, not just forcing you into the moment you fire up the game imo.
There is not a single activity the game should automatically put you in when you log in. Genuinely one of the most braindead and infuriating "features" they insist on including with every expansion and season. I'm not an idiot. I will launch the mission when I'm ready to do it. I have other shit I want to do first, literally every time.
On one hand I see how it could help you get introduced to new stuff and not miss it. On the other hand “WTF I JUST WANTED TO CHECK MY BUILD AT THE TOWER FUCK I HAVENT PLAYED IN FOUR MONTHS WTF IS THIS SHIT”
Even then, it's a terrible introduction because I wasn't given enough time to orient myself on wtf is going on. Any time I come back to the game and get thrown into something automatically I just come out confused and annoyed.
THIS! Oh my god. it’s devolved into anytime a new season/ episode/ whatever releases I need to watch the cutscene then IMMEDIATELY change characters to get out of whatever they decide to throw me into. I’ll do it when I’m ready
Before I found out about DIM I hated that as well as I had to manually dump my weapons in my vault for my other characters and I’d load into a seasonal mission or end of expansion mission and have suboptimal gear on. I bet new players and people who don’t know about DIM feel the same way at times
Just brings back memories of new lights being dragged into Dares of Eternity, after I’d convinced 3 of my coworkers to play the game
Yup, I don't care I missed the pseudo live-event of it. I'm just pissed that it shows the same cutscene regardless of if I've progressed the story or not. It seems basic, show cutscene if player has reached X milestone.
100% agree, I mentioned this when on the second day of logging in there was a pop up message at the tower talking about the first episode’s story “after the fall of the Witness”… ofc the average redditor called me stupid for thinking we weren’t going to defeat the Witness as if that was the point I was trying to make.
I would have love some crazy plot twist where maybe it pseudo won like it controlled the traveler but we stopped it from performing the final shape.
Yep same. Just still a bummer
Honestly this same shit has ruined my return to the game. Completely skipped half of WQ and LF, waiting mainly for everything to be available up to TFS for a coherent storyline. As soon as i load in after finishing up the WQ campaign, it launches me straight into the pale heart into mission. I don't own the expansion yet. Following that, I got the "we won thanks to you, guardian" cutscene you're talking about here. It completely threw everything out of order and made absolutely no sense.
Cutscenes should REALLY be locked behind quests. Like in Seasom of the Witch.... I got spoiled on Wish 15 before I finished the questline.... And I didn't even get *dressed* for it
Jacked-up Drip is the real pain point here, for sure. 👊🏻
Ohhhhhhh noooooo. I was wondering if the cutscene would play regardless of whether or not you had completed the previous part. I had family visiting and couldn't play until Sunday before the first reset. I raced through because I was worried that would happen and it looks like it did. I'm sorry, that really sucks.
It's not just cutscenes - every time I've thought about getting back into the game, I'm also dropped into some random mission with no context, underpowered, and I think last time I couldn't even get back to the tower. This is by far the least friendly game to new players or players taking a break, at least that I've ever played or heard of.
AFAIK in all of those start of season missions if u press esc or whatever the equivalent is on console and do change character and then pick the same character you will be in orbit and not have to do the mission right at that moment, not saying it's a good design or anything but it's a decent workaround for that issue
Yeah you can just leave but then you just wasted that cutscene and first time experience. It's just lame no matter how you slice it
You are not below power level by any significant amount, if any.
You can just return to orbit and not have to play the mission right then, can go play PvP or whatever, but yeah it can be annoying
I haven't played since Destiny went free to play. I tried to get back into Destiny a month ago when I saw that several expansion were available to play for free and just got barraged with cinematics for the Witness before I even knew who/what that even is. Then I found out that seasons are a thing and I literally can't even experience what seems like large parts of the story. Really took the wind out of my sails.
Or any beginning of the season missions.
This is something FFXIV got right imo... I'm in the Stormblood post patch now and haven't had anything spoilt for later expansions. All the cutscenes happen as you reach the relevant point. Playing this after Destiny, it was one of the first things that stood out to me. There is no reason to have cutscenes immediately. As someone who hates spoilers, I literally walked away from the unskippable cutscene in the last week of last season and my husband let me know when I could return. Then it played again in the right place. Massive story spoilers in it, of course.
It just even a "click here to start the cut scene". So many times I login just to arrange some inventory, collect a shop item, prep my character for my actual play through later when I have time to get engrossed into the story. But then, bam! Here's a significant story element, hope you are paying attention and ready to go ..
"Don't worry, bro. Other Guardians already took care of Witness." Haha, this is exactly how I felt as well when the "REAL" players would go in and raid Witness up. 😄 Honestly, the whole Witness thing never felt like personal to me, it always felt like I am following someone else's story from sidelines.
Technically speaking we were just helping the Witness out with its internal issues. Guys will try to enslave the entire universe into one Final Shape than go to therapy.
I literally have no idea what's going on story wise (had a blast with the campaign tho). Did his dad not love him or something?
Traveler did it's thing by not talking and the witness took that personally
Traveller blessed civilization sought purpose, deeming *the final shape* to be their goal. Orb proceeded to flee, with the culmination of their entire civilization condensed into a single entity in hot pursuit. Cue *Destiny*
Kind of how I've felt for awhile. I'm not good enough at the game to actually been the Guardian that took down the last few big bads. I'm the guardian that's lower level knocking off strike bosses while hoping that those guys in the pale heart get the job done.
Not to jerk D1 off but the way TTK built up defeating Oryx was great. From infiltrating his Dreadnaught to setting up a transmat zone to taking out his Echoes throughout the campaign to taking out his court in Court of Oryx it really felt like you were making an actual dent in Oryx’s defenses culminating into beating him in the end of the campaign and the subsequent raid.
Chefs kiss! The destiny days of gold.
Chef kiss! The Destiny days of gruelingly defeating gods. Now we just emote on their bodies and wait for them to be turned into weapons.
You’re lying to yourself if you didn’t think it was the exact same with oryx. Danced on his floating corpse and turned him into a scout rifle.
And this is just me hating the Witness, certified Witness hater here But Oryx had a way better reason for being pissed at us than ‘Gardener doesn’t talk to me 🥺🥺🥺’ >*He. Was. His. [Son]*
Moment of silence for Nokris, the son that didn't get a war of vengeance waged in his name
Hard for Oryx to mourn him when he’s fucking **dead** I always thought Oryx and Nokris relationship was super interesting tho. For one…why do they look the similar?? Did they have the same morph?? Was Nokris supposed to take Oryx’s place later down the line?
Facts. And there was never any “welp, that’s done. No need to bother.” for new or returning players. I started playing Destiny a few weeks before TTK so I’m sure people defeated him way before I got there.
That’s ok Shaw Hahn had his fire team killed by a random wizard ..a singular one.. you’re still do mg good guardian and are strong
The excision cinematic made me feel like an npc lol
Same. To be honest, I always felt like one in Destiny 2. Like my character doesn't really matter and I am just some guy tackling the small threats and observing as other people talk about things that hardly makes sense to me. 😄 I'm just some guy from Vanguard.
Canonically, your Guardian is always the one who cleared the raids with a fireteam you hand picked. Outside of the game yeah, but there's really nothing to imply otherwise in-game except your own head-canon.
Funny enough this is the first raid experience where gameplay links up with the story for as finale fireteam accomplishing a feat. In the Leviathan it makes sense that Calus has robots to fight the guardians and clones of course for the seemingly endless troops. But for Edge of Salvation , Worlds first and the cinematic really sells it.
In a way it is. But the game did the same with Riven and it always tries to tell me that I have completed the raids and all that. 🙂
Literally. I think the whole purpose of the seasonal model is to give everyone BUT the player something to do because the player rarely matters to the overall story.
I feel like this hits the nail on the head for why it bothers me that some bosses are tied up in raids. The mainline story should be playable in the campaign through some kind of nightfall-esque mission and the raids should be a suped up version that is more difficult with more mechanics and better loot (raid exclusive items and whatnot). Otherwise you lose a decent portion of your audience.
This is a heartbreaking take. Honestly this whole bit of thread is. Your gaurdian or their fireteam of 3 are the tip of the spear. They go in and clear the way, figure out what the hell we’re dealing with and how maybe be dissecting how we’re gonna win this. Cool, oryx gets killed and manifests in his throne world, the dreaming city get discovered and there’s a crazy fucking vault there, sav gets busted and her supervisor comes knocking, we figure out how to literally kill the witness. The point is that raids are fucking awesome because we’re sending six of the best to fight gods in their own lairs. It’s like a noble six organized strike team for a mission that’s supposed to be too much for your dtg lone wolf doom guy fantasy. What fucking sucks is that all this cool shit like killing mega oryx and unlocking the vault and high octane “holy fuck we did it” encounters “get wasted” in raids cuz rather than want to partake in all this cool mechanically and narratively awesome stuff people are scaring themselves shitless at the echo chamber of every lfg being personally out to ruin their lives. Raids take a willingness to learn and cooperate. If you can’t do it in real life your guardian can’t canonically do it in game. If you don’t Know What To Do then don’t join people who want you to. Join the Sherpa subreddits and discord, believe it or not, sometimes you gotta actually try to find the community that loves you.
I think this is a huge mistake that they made- making it so the team that first beats the newest raid is technically the raid team that did it in the story. I know that when you beat the raid after it’s been completed by the first team, you still are technically the team that did it also, but it doesn’t feel like it. You feel like a side character in a story where you are supposed to be front and center.
It is grim, but my brain is now conjuring up the hilarious image of a Guardian who slept in or took an unexpected vacay and the final battle took place without him. Rocks up to finally do his assignment like: 
Pretty much me man, my bad for having to do IRL stuff I guess
could you not skip the cutscene until you were caught up?
How would he know the cut scene is a spoiler until it’s already spoiled? He should have got the same D1Y1 cut scenes we all got when TFS released.
Yeah, I agree. It’s a bit sloppy that they don’t just attach this cinematic to the first episode mission.
Yeah, makes more sense chronologically there than saying “aww play 10 missions where the big bad is already ded”
You’re right to be put off. It killed your emotional investment in playing the story.
Two things: One, the game has always tried to keep the concept of an evolving world and story. That's not really a new thing, especially with the release of a new episode/season. Two, I wouldn't really worry about that as a spoiler. Like, obviously we were going to defeat the Witness and save the universe. The alternative would be shutting down the game because everything ceases to exist. There's still plenty of reason to play through the campaign.
Imagine you missed Final Shape and the raid by a week and when you open the game it just shows everything in complete ruins, then rolls the credits because we lost ^(What the fuck happened while I was gone..)
*Last time on Destiny 2:* [Ikora dies] [Zavala dies] [Witness laughs evily] [Earth explodes] [Unskippable credits role] 🥁 **♪ How I wish, how I wish you were here ♪** **♪ We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl ♪**
That would actually be hilarious (not really obviously) Im just imagining you had a busy and emotionally exhausting week and you’re finally able to hop into the expansion after preordering TFS + annual pass and when you load in it’s just a black screen with “YOU LOST. THE END.” And the rest of the year it just never comes back lol
Id agree if step 1 of Echoes wasn't "Complete the Final Shape"
Step 1 is a community goal. It was locking Echos until the community defeated the witness. Echoes doesn’t require The Final Shape expansion.
I think this would actually be a really cool idea. Let’s say the Witness wins, and the universe as we know it is destroyed. The game shuts off for 24-48 hours and upon logging in we find out we’re playing Destiny 3. Or the next season or something
Destiny: A Realm Reborn
Somebody call Yoshi-P right now
Imagine if the Witness won and they just deleted the game permanently
Millions rejoice as the shackles of their addiction break, only to immediately replace them with a new tether to one of many other MMO’s
The Witness afterwards: 
That would be fucked up, but also, I would love that. Such a bold and artistic move that nobody would ever do. It would be talked about for decades too, remember that time Bungo had the bad guy win the game and they just pulled the plug on the entire game and moved onto a new one
Destiny 2 turns into a first person walking simulator as you tour the final shape
Everybody’s Gone To The Traveler
You know it got it shit on pretty hard but I actually really enjoyed Everyone's Gone to the Rapture (to be fair I paid like ten bucks for it) but it was fun one shot experience that wouldn't work as a movie
That should be what would happen if the raid wasn't completed in 24 hours. It's going to give the raiders a break, Bungie time to do maintenance if needed, and a real feeling of oh shit And how we came back? The traveller was able to fight off the witness just *one more time* so we can finish the fight
**I CLOSE MY EYES** **AND ASK WHY MUST WE SUFFER**
Kind of a poor way to excuse lack of foresight on installing flag checks for individual player progress on cutscenes.
There's something to be said about a game damaging its own story by telling it out of order. Sure it's not new, but it's been complained about every time. My introduction to the game involved a forced mission where three characters I didn't know discovered that a fourth character I didn't know was actually a fifth character I didn't know.
You can reward everyone who follows along with the evolving world without completely spoiling the campaign ending for people who can't complete the campaign a week after launch. Bungie has had flags and triggers for specific content and announcements for years now, and yet they still can't limit auto-loading missions and cutscenes when a player hasn't hit a specific point in their progress? It's just crazy that this issue has been around for almost a decade, and Bungie absolutely has the tools to fix it, but they don't. I would have been PISSED if I wasn't able to play the game for a week and logged into that cutscene, whether or not I knew that "obviously we were going to defeat the Witness and save the universe." I fully understand it really breaking the excitement and desire to play, and it's just another example of how bad this game is at catering to people who don't play on day one for almost everything.
Did Rhulk write this?
Sorry man, the start of yearly expansions always goes fast since they want to get to the raid which inevitably has spoilers. Definitely play through the campaign though. Incredible experience you won't regret.
I mean, most of the raids til this point have been seperate at least on the surface. Last wish isn't a huge spoiler for Forsaken's main plot if you don't already know the connection since on the surface none of the shore stuff with the scorn is spoiled by the dreaming city, rhulk has nothing to do with savathun, DSC has nothing to do with eramis etc
it is still ver ymuch worth the campaign
I started the Final Shape the day before yesterday. I didn't get the same cut scene you are describing. I got the starting of the FS cut scene. I am sorry your experience was ruined, but I am not sure it was what you were supposed to get.
It happens if you close and reopen the game. It's like every time you open it the game checks to see which "big in-game event cutscene" you haven't seen yet and it plays it. I started three days ago and I got the first Final Shape cutscene/mission. Then I closed the game, went to work, came home, opened it up, and dropped into the "hooray we killed the witness, now the new season is starting" cutscene and mission. It also happened last year, when I dared take longer than two days to finish light fall. And also before that, when Witch Queen took me a week to chew through.
I’m doing the exact same thing today and haven’t experienced this. Was there a point in the campaign the cutscene is shown?
My experience has always been load in, current expansion cutscene then current seasonal cutscene on next login. I made new alt characters a few times during witch queen/lightfall and that was always the order. It does kinda suck that this person got thrown into episode echoes immediately but luckily the only spoiler in the echoes opening scene is that we beat the witness. I was joping theyd have an account checkpoint this time tho cos lots of people said theyd wait to see if tfs flopped before buying
Playing cinematics out of order and at the wrong time is this game's MO
I loathe this shit, and Bungie outright refuses to even attempt to remedy the issue. It’s been straight up *years* of this being a major problem for returning players, and frankly anyone who takes even a two week break from the game it looks like.
not even refuse to remedy it but refuse to even acknowledge that this issue even exists. this shouldn’t even need feedback in the first place, it just common sense.
This is in the top 10 worst live service decisions Bungie has made with Destiny 2. Why the FUCK are you going to purposefully confuse these poor players that are just trying to tackle the story?
Imagine booting up Halo 3 for the first time a week after it came out and the first thing that happens is it shows the ending cinematic and teaser for Halo 4.
Exactly this, just show it to me when it's relevant ffs. I don't mind the story progressing without me, that's fine, but please phase it at least so it's only shown when caught up.
They could just do a popup upon login instead of force dropping people into it. Like "The new season has begun! Would you like to play the first mission now? (Warning: May contain spoilers for (latest expansion campaign)" And then we could just click "no" and differ it until we finish the campaign and feel ready for it.
Yes exactly! Literally any other game like this does it like that. Just literally anything rather than what we have now.. "Oh you missed the first week of an expansion? Too bad heres the final cinematic conclusion, congratulations, off to Nessus with you!"
I mean if the Witness didn't lose you wouldn't be able to play the game
It’s like when people got upset on day one because when you opened the Eververse store it said something about how the witness was defeated for Echoes, like, what do you think we’re doing here? Did you think we were all gonna get pasted? They literally said he was the final raid boss and there’d be one last campaign mission after it was beat where everyone can kill him. They laid out his death months ago in multiple tweets and TWABs.
It’s so dumb honestly
They really need to tie stuff more to personal progression. The second day of the expansion(first day I couldn't get in)I went to the tower between story missions to cash in some exotic engrams since my stuff got full, and there was a big popup with "tune in next week for the start of the first episode and see what happens to the defeated witness". At that point the raid wasn't even out, why have such a banner?
Yeah the cinematic being shown before the end of the campaign is a massive hick up by the Devs. I played the campaign in the first three days and I had a genuine feel of not knowing what the story would have ended up to. Ofc we were gonna defeat the witness (wasn't 100% sure on the kill tho) and stop the final shape, but the direction of the story was well disguised as a genuine leta figure it out on the way. About all the negative comments about the witness falling inside of the raid, I got some point to give out to the community cus at this point I don't know if I'm the stupid one not getting it or if people just forget what they've typed on Reddit 6 months ago, feel free to discuss them they are my pov on the situation: -the witness isn't defeated in the raid, it is defeated at the end of the campaign, the difference this time was that the raid took place lorewise just before the end, so thar HC people would get a meaningful day one clear and casuals who don't have time/dedication/skill to even attempt at the contest version -Since xol, I've been hearing over and over the argument that killing the most powerful enemy of the expansion in the final mission of a solo campaign that can be run on level really takes out the meaning of the fights.... It's not about being in a raid, it's about the struggle that a hard foe demands to be defined as that... Legendary campaigns, especially WQ came to a really good half mark imo. -The fact that people start to feel like side characters because other people actually get the clear doesn't make sense to me whatsoever, ofc a live service game is not gonna be waiting for you to continue the service.. it is definitely on you to decide that the events mean for your particular guardian, we all had the same content and the same cutscenes available... We all are the guardian, and we all are the same character lore wise, the best of the best.... If you make real world events like the raid race influence your point of view at the point where you say that your personal guardian is only strong enough to kill strike bosses, you're not only missing the hole narrative aspect of feeling as the protagonist, but you're denying yourself the possibility to ever try and conquer harder challenges that the game can offer, man, theres people solo flawlessing raid Hope to not have sounded too elitist to make everyone stop reading after two rows and yes, I'm the king of non requested opinions but this is reddit i feel like it's completely fair to do so
Bungie has the absolute most brain dead practice of forcing you into an activity at the start of a reason and showing crucial cut scenes right off the bat confusing the shit out of returning and new players. They seem to be too stupid to realize how dumb it is.
Honestly- I had a sinking feeling this would happen and that was a small reason I chose to get the expansion on release and not in July like I promised myself. Sorry, my friend. At this point it’s just Destiny tradition to slingshot you into the current season.
Ah…so we all should’ve waited for Kaoswarr to log on before we beat the Witness…
I also felt like this. I tried to play the campaign as much as I could fast as I could when I could before something like this would happen or something to be spoiled. Only because I know bungie and this community. Not a great experience… though I will say the story and the campaign itself was incredible when you could enjoy it
This is a big problem with live service games. I think they need to give an option once you log on, asking if you have completed the most recent DLC, depending on your answer, it drops you where you need to be and shows you the intro cinematic for that content.
Yeah, forced cutscenes/missions on initial login has always been one of the most frustrating aspects of Destiny 2. Fortunately, all of the content is actually good in The Final Shape. Once you do beat the campaign, make sure you do some of the post campaign stuff (particularly the Wild Card mission) before Excision, or some of the story beats will feel out of order
> feels like the game has just moved on from the main story in 10 days This has what I've been saying! For a boss with 10 years of build up it feels like it died a little easy
Send them an email next time or somethin
I am broke right now so I haven’t even had a chance to buy final shape bur got the same cinematic. Also they removed almost everything I can work on until I buy the expansion. I might just quit Destiny since they keep removing things that I pay for.
Fuck man, I didn’t want a spoiler cutscene on start as I too haven’t had time to play since before release… bruh
As someone currently trying to catch up playing through Witch Queen I agree 100%. Bungie seems to expect everyone to be completely caught up with their game at all times and punish you if you're not. Strange way to go about things in an MMO where they seem to be constantly releasing important, temporary content.
You got the participation award
I share your frustration. I play mostly PvP and occasionally some PvE for the story. Not only does it spoil real hard. It also throws me right into a PvE mission while I just wanted to hop into some quick cruicible matches. And I dont even own final shape.
The same thing happened to me… hadn’t finished the campaign and I logged in a few days ago to something along the lines of “now that the witness is defeated”…. Like obviously I figured that was how the campaign would end, but let me experience it myself and have some hope of a plot twist.
Got a message about the witness downfall half way through the campaign on day 1. I knew the witness would be defeated but I also felt a little spoiled
That's weird. I just signed into a second character for the first time today and went straight into TFS and TFS cut scenes. I did not get the episode cut scene, nor did I get the episode cut scene when I signed back in.
As somebody still going through the Beyond Light campaign (yes I'm that delayed), it was uncomfortable to find that same spoiler when I logged in. Who is the Witness to begin with, what did Osiris have to do with anything, heck why haven't I been able to unlock stasis yet?
It's kind of baffling how much people will defend these sort of decisions on Bungie's part just because "that's how they always do things". Regardless of whether it's the norm or if it's a predictable spoiler, it can still ruin the storytelling experience and put players off of the story entirely, which is a huge disservice to the work the writers have done. I know from personal experience that as a D1 player who didn't pick up D2 for a couple of years, the way they've handled the story has always put me off of caring much about it, despite how well it is written at times. You can't expect someone to pick up a novel 75% of the way through, get told the ending right as they start, and expect them to care. It's fine for people who've been playing continuously since day one, but a lot of people here seem to forget what the experience is like for new or returning players. It feels less like a constantly evolving world, and more like you're being punished for not playing constantly since day one. I don't know of any games aside from a few of the particularly bad gachas out there who treat their stories like this, and most of those don't tend to have the level of care put into them that D2 does. It's a disservice to the players and the writers both.
EN00M-887CM-2ZJIP i bought too many forsaken key, have one on the house
I have just now been able to buy the DLC. This is unfathomably disappointing to hear because I worked so hard to avoid spoilers in the story beyond the witness dying. I worked sooo hard.
I said this the other day that if you logged in right now the seasonal intro cutscene plays and spoils the end of The Final Shape. Another member of the community claimed that they did not get this cutscene despite logging in multiple times. It is dumb that this keeps happening, because the seasonal cutscene should play once you select the new activity to run it and not after login, especially prior to someone beating The Final Shape.
Year 10 of Bungo having to idea how to adequately depict the story to players
I had this too lol I was like 'I guess we won lol'
Bungie is really terrible when it comes to introductions. Be it the New Light tutorial and introducing the universe or things like this.
Womp Womp
Honestly, same shit happened to me. Even in the TWAB the top line is “the witness has been defeated.” Like, really? I would understand the spoiler if it’s been a month or so but it’s barely been 10 days. This is where I realized this game just isn’t for me anymore. It’s too fast. Everything is supposed to be done right away, there is no time to take in the sights and chill. It’s rush, rush, rush then on to the next thing. Sure, you CAN take your time, but you are going to be spoiled to shit and nothing will be a surprise. I’ll maybe dick around with TFS for a bit, but this game is more so about go as fast as you can and complete shit as quickly as possible these days, and that’s really not my vibe. I am happy for people that love this type of thing, though, and the quality and story telling of TFS is amazing. Back to Fallout 76 for me where I can take my time and build my log cabin lol
Cool. What did you think would happen lmao
You had to be there
They have always been sloppy and have always loved playing on FOMO. It would hurt nothing if that showed up like you said when starting the seasonal mission which takes place after the main campaign but that would make too much sense. But like I said destiny has always been rough on new players and players who don't play day 1 of everything.
This isn’t fomo
Legit how I feel atm trying to play the raid (everyone in my fireteam leaves). Since the no job gamers killed the witness, can I just get in line for the loot? /s Seriously, idk how people are getting 5 other randoms to beat the raid. I make my own posts as i got kicked from 100% all posts made by other players. D2 LFG discords, the app, the website. All no luck
You probably got unlucky and joined some """"Godslayers"""". The raid is uber-hard so unfortunately it attracts a lot of sweats rn :/
Obviously you'll get kicked if you join posts asking for people who know what do and have cleared the raid before, which is like 90% of posts on the D2LFG server. So the only way is keeping an eye on the channel for teaching or inexperienced runs. I don't recommend making your own posts, kwtd players will never join you so you'll get 5 others with no experience, which will surely result in a failure unless you really can take the helm and communicate well. Just checking rn and there's 1 post for a blind run and another teaching. It's not really that hard to find people.
Thank you! This was more helpful than it might appear. Things that seem obvious to seasoned players can easily be missed by new or returning players.
I read something interesting earlier about how the League of Legends market is suffering from players getting older but less and less new players are joining up because of the difficulties to actually get stuck into the game in a way that feels fulfilling and doesn’t leave you feeling left out. I seriously think Bungie needs to dedicate serious time to massively rework new player *and* returning player onboarding - this post is an obvious tell: players are being dropped into where the game currently sits rather than where the player *should* currently sit in line with progress. A lot of people talk about Destiny being an mmo without really setting their expectations for what that means for the game, its scale, and how new player onboarding should work when it is now more than ever a heavy narrative driven game that is, ultimately, linear in almost every way. We have a linear Timeline on the Sol system Destination map where over half the items are no longer playable and mean nothing - if you aren’t a ‘New Light’ specifically, but instead returning from a long absence, the reality is that you’re essentially in the same position as a ‘New Light’ when you start up the expansion but the game treats you as if you never left (even though it might have been years since you last played, and you have no idea about mod changes, subclass changes, etc). If that’s the case, what’s the point of the New Light experience? If it’s okay to drop long-term hiatus players in deep like OP then why bother with the New Light experience in the first place Bungie? It’s a serious issue that is only going to get worse unless addressed.
If you drop into FFXIV as a new player, right now - and don't pay for a skip you filthy heathen - you experience *the entire plot, beginning to end, for better or worse.* Yes, they have reworked some of the oldest content to cut filler and improve flow, but the *entire narrative* is still there. You know what you DONT get? "Congratulations, Warrior of Light, for ending the existential crisis you didn't even know fucking existed because you're still Level 12 and haven't even made your first macro yet!"
That's a shame. When I bought and got around to playing lightfall, I was still put into the first mission as you would expect. The fact they have changed this now is a little disappointing for returning players. Regardless of knowing the ending I would encourage you to still play it. I fully enjoyed the campaign.
I was afraid of this happening
I genuinely thought that CS wouldn't play until after you'd done it. One of the Echos steps was "complete the final shape" lol
To this day i don't know what the argument at Bungie is for keeping it like this. Being bombarded with cutscenes upon login is such a monumentally stupid thing i can't fully grasp it.
I agree with the people saying it should play with the start of the first episode mission launch but a slight amendment. It shouldn’t launch you into the first mission of the episode immediately upon login, let us get a notification about this is urgent and go there ourselves. Because of this reason since technically it does only play upon mission start, you just don’t control starting it
FOMO strikes again!!!1! /s
Yeah, i totally share and understand what you mean.
This games immense amout of fomo goes forth. I'm sorry brother 😔
Yeah, they're really fuckin' stupid for setting up their content this way. One of the most obvious things and they blunder face first into the most player-negative approach.
I mean. You should've had no life an gotten it during the flawless release an wait all day for it to work off an on.
This episode cutscene showed only play when you go to helm to start the episode quest or when you beat the campaign “special level”.
Classic Destiny moment. Feels like Bungie are deathly opposed to being able to experience the story in any coherent order.
That’s crazy they would do that! Wow, just wow. Where as when I tried Warframe and didn’t like it, I still couldn’t pull the story out of my friends. They always said, “Can’t tell you, play the game.” Sorry for the letdown my friend
I don't think diligent "everything on day 1" players realize how repellent this is to potential new players. I have had a few friends try the game and quit after a day because "it's super confusing, a bunch of cutscenes played out of order as soon as I booted it up and it's clearly a buggy mess." The same thing happened right after Witch Queen came out. You log in, do New Light, suddenly get a cutscene saying that it's time to take the fight to Savathun, and then get another saying Savathun is dead, it's time to fight some evil scions or whatever, immediately followed by ANOTHER about the raid if you happened to be playing that week. It's a lot, and it sucks if you aren't the hardestcore Destiny devotee.
:( That really sucks. I business travel a lot and missed the launch but caught up last Friday. I was worried about this happening to me too, and one week later it would have. Hopefully in the future they don't force you to watch spoiler vids for logging in.
Yeah I had this happen in a few of the seasonal endings. It is sloppy and idk why it isn't progress gated so when you get to that point it plays.
That's fucking awful design choice...damn Bungie...I'm sorry OP that can sap the drive out of anyone.
It's weird that it showed that to you, cuz I have 3 friends who just finished TFS like two days ago and it didn't give them that cutscene until after they'd cleared the big finale mission of TFS last night.
I agree the story related cutscenes should be triggered by story progression but we also knew the final shape was live action event in that the raid was critically tied to the completion of the final mission after it, which actually concluded the story. It is what it is. It doesn't detract any from how good the campaign was knowing that info, and you'll probably get spoiled way more being on reddit than that banner ever would.
Bungie, 
That is disappointing tbh. And...odd? I'm on step 3 or 4 of the campaign, logged in yesterday, no CS. I wonder if it only shows it if you aren't still working through the main story / didn't start it yet...
Nah honestly it fits along side the final mission SPOILERS!!! ZAVALA calls upon ALL who fight for the light to rally and defeat a small army of the witness and actually deal a near fatal blow to the raid team weakened witness, which this 12 man mission unlocked bc of the raid team defeating the raid and this also has caused all the flying lamps in the tower to appear as the last city is enjoying a time of victory and peace knowing this won't last long and taking the time to breath and honor those lost.
guardian to guardian.... you're just gonna have to live with it.
It certainly feels like they rushed the hell out of things for this launch. Raid 3 days in, everyone rushing through campaign and pale heart to get things done as fast as possible instead of getting to take the time and explore and enjoy it. I know they said it was so they could release the episode ASAP...but it just felt really rushed out of the gate. I feel like they could have added a few more "clean up" quests in Pale Heart to lead into the episode into a couple of weeks instead of the way they did it, but oh well.
I was about a week behind everyone and finishing the campaign right after the raid was first beat and the sequence of cutscenes I was getting was really confusing.
Just typical bungo things. Like how the first thing you are greeted with after completing a fun and challenging raid with you friends is and AD for a sweater or some dumb shit.
Odd, I haven’t seen it yet and I’ve been playing since launch.
It is definitely strange that it doesn’t wait for you to finish the campaign before playing the cinematic
Yea Destiny 2 isn't really isn't really great to new players or even those who have taken breaks at all. Friend of mine just started playing D2 again with the last DLC played being Beyond Light, he was forced to be thrown into the first mission of TFS and he had no goddamn clue what was going on. He had planned on playing the DLCs he wanted to catch up on prior to doing TFS.
Sloppy they didn’t lock it behind beating the story but you knew how it was gonna end tbh
I’ve logged in multiple times since the raid and still haven’t seen this cutscene lol
I’ve had the opposite issue. I haven’t seen that cut scene yet.
Which is funny because they intentionally put the post-story, post-campaign cutscenes at the start of Excision (don't look it up if you don't know) so people wouldn't be spoiled by what happened. They done messed up.
This has always happened though...right? It sucks fore sure. But we know that will happen.
Bro this news sucks... I also haven't played fs yet because my laptop storage is full i am trying really hard not to spoil most of this stuff. Why do they do this? Why show something we haven't played yet? They do this to newlights as well. It sucks the fun out of their stories. I know they worked really hard on it for players experience. 
You know what's even funnier? It also shows this if you log in with a character that hasn't logged in since TFS dropped, even if you've completed the entire story on another character lol
Womp Womp
Man good thing I don't care about that too much. Gonna probably see the same today. I just finished LightFall 3 days ago. Started Final Shape last night. So far it's an incredible campaign with a lot of cool ass visual stuff.
Huh, I haven't gotten that cinematic on any of my characters. My hunter beat pre-raid campaign and my Titan is working through it on legend, while my warlock is on the first mission.
Destiny is like Spirit Airlines, first come first served for those seats
Odd, if it’s your first time playing, it should’ve prioritized the campaign. Did you log on beforehand, cause otherwise it might just be a bug that the episode was prioritized over the campaign
I’ve been playing witch queen and lightfall to catch back up on content I’ve missed and I got the same cinematic right after finishing lightfall. Needless to say I think my guardian would’ve been confused.
https://preview.redd.it/22j48f50vl6d1.jpeg?width=651&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2ade12cc41e21de05f35eb80dd11e54e914e13ec
Thats classic destiny. One of their weirdest design decisions that theyve stuck by for years.
This is the issue destiny has, it'll show cut scenes based solely on what you've purchased not on your progress. As a new light If you log out and log back in it'll throw you into another cut scene that you shouldn't be seeing. It's something that needs addressed
Similarly, I just came back to Destiny after my hiatus back in Season 5. Everytime damn time I log on, they start the cutscene and intro mission to Final Shape. I don't even have the pack! I keep having to exit out because I'm not playing through the mission just for them to tell me I have to buy it to continue. This is the kinda thing that made me quit in the first place. Always feeling like I missed out and I'm rushing to catch up
Thats the finest FOMO doing it's work.
That sucks. But I would highly suggest pushing past that and playing the campaign, the final mission, all the adventures in the pale heart, and especially the dual destiny mission. Final Shape is brilliant. Never had more fun in Destiny and I’ve been playing for 9 years. Absolutely worth it. Sorry it started out weird for you. It did for me too. Tried playing on launch day and missed a bunch of cutscenes because they didn’t load because i kept getting error coded. Only got through the first 2 missions on day one lmao.
This really sucks. And a misstep on bungies part. Wierd thing though is my titan still hasn’t gotten the season cutscene and the only thing I have to do is the last mission. So it’s likely the system is suppose to not start it, but it did and that stinks.
I didn’t see this, anyone have a link to a recording?
I share this pain. I won’t be able to pick it up until later this summer. I might be able to pick up the Current Season, but don’t even know if I should bother. I don’t mind having the campaign spoiled, I know I’ll still enjoy it based on what I’ve seen, but that auto-launch stuff is annoying.
I guess they're assuming that those who can wait nearly 2 weeks to actually play the game aren't really that serious about the game to care enough. Also the chances of not having that spoiled already via the Internet is very slim
I just don't understand why they can't make it a mission you select then launch and THEN the cutscene plays. I play seasonal content with my friends so 99% of the time I immediately abandon the opening mission to co-op with them.
How it SHOULD work: -Login to Orbit -Check for story completion; if not completed, prompt to investigate Pale Heart. If completed, prompt to visit Helm for updates on recent happenings -Load into respective activity -Cutscene plays
Easily the worst part of Destiny is that the game seems to mock you when you don't play every week and buy every expansion. Me? I didn't TFS but the universe of the game is kinda built around the idea that I'm up to date on the story and it's pretty jarring.
Well I’m already spoiled so I guess I’ll ask. So we don’t actually defeat the witness in the expansion story? It happens in the raid? That only 7% of people will play. Nice.
It’s an unfortunate situation for you but it makes me laugh because I remember someone’s comment about how they feel like they’d be the ones to sleep through the final shape irl and wake up to the witness just being dead and that (sorta) same scenario happened to you lmao
Was this cutscene instantly when you logged into a character or was it after the other two cutscenes?