Feedback: Whisper in the Dark

How you guys liking the new episode?

I love the new map, its very thematic dark all around (music, graphics, mob-choice).. the story is engaging, the strikemission nicely a step up from grothmar valley one. The new mastery is enough of an intrigue to make it not a straight up powercreep. Overall, I think its a very well done release.Only fly in my soup is that the "big" openworld events are a bit anticlimatic, too easy, too fast done. But thats an overall problem I think mainly due to the scaling system gw2 uses for openworld events, so not that much something to do with the episode.

Very disappointing

One of the worst maps yet - just devoid of any real substance. It lacks storytelling, innovation, richness of lore. It's just four corners slightly different environs with a champ shoved in. I'm guessing the Kourna or Thunderhead map designers did this one. It has everything they got wrong too. Where are the big sprawling maps, rich in life, rich in world building PoF gave us? If we aren't getting expansions, we need expansion level maps at least. The gulf between this and what your map designers have produced in the past is enormous. You guys are better than this and have proved it and made a great strength from it, so why settle for such a low bar? This isn't even Core Map quality. I want big sprawling Tundras, glaciers, snowfields and mountains. Not a few paths, camps and empty caves. The tree area was fine, but the overall map layout just wasn't organic at all.

The visual noise is a huge turn off for the meta. It just detracts and gets in the way and doesn't add anything fun or creative as a mechanic. Ditch the ice border and the thickness of the blue bubble. That should never have passed QA. The meta isn't overly interesting and lacks the creativity you used to be known for as a company, but maybe the problem is I just can't SEE anything!!!!! You have years and years of feedback on visual noise, yet you choose to ignore it and pile it on each release. This has to stop. Either you are reading and utilising our feedback or you are not. At the moment it feels like the latter.

The masteries are a mixed bag. A bit too "lets shove something in even though it isn't really needed" for the essence stuff. Very gimmicky, but the biggest issue is the constant reminder spamming my screen to train it. What do I even need the essence masteries for? The meta doesn't need it. The Bone Skinner didn't need it (nor did it have any real impact on the episode apart from a 2min quick fight out of nowhere). In fact apart from opening chests, I pretty did most of the stuff without it. HoT at least ensured you needed Masteries to progress. Now they're just achievement tick offs and nothing more.edited to reflect a buff to said boss

The story is unacceptably short and weirdly lacking in content. If you look at even the weaker LS episodes, the instances have been fairly substantial. This....this can't be all of epsiode one surely. That length of story can never happen again. The first instance was very good, but it it kinda trailed off after that. The last instance...that was just boring.

The overall atmosphere was fine, but well below the potential it had to really reign in that sense of foreboding. The whispers work really well as did the shadowy figures in that awful last instance, but the Bone Skinner was an enormous let down and waste of potential given how it could have been utilised (see below point)

I expected at least to be stalked by the Bone Skinner ala Resident Evil 3 throughout the episode

Some good dialogue stringing things together and harking back to older events was a plus point.

After the exceptional and amazing Prologue, this ranks as one of the worst ever LS releases so far. I'm hoping the Strike Missions salvage something, because we've gone backwards at speed here. Why is ti accepted practice to have different teams deliver wild variation in quality? There needs to be challenge to this internally

I will give the final cutscene its due for setting up an intriguing plot line and there was some decent atmosphere even if it didn't really get going at all. But if we're only going to get drip fed like this from here on...I'm going to run out of interest fast.

All the promise in the World cannot hold together a lack of delivery. And consistent and quality delivery is something you have struggled with for so long now, I fear it has left Anet altogether. I really want to be proved wrong on that point

edit:Strike mission now tried. Big improvement on the last one. Much harder (yet to complete on two attempts so far and watching someone rage quite because we killed one first was amusing given it is new content).Really enjoyed it.Think this is a good balance - completable, but strong unity needed for gold. Could have used a waypoint outside

I've not started it yet, because I had other things to do tonight and tomorrow I'll have the house to myself so it will be easier to focus on it and play with the sound on. But I've heard a lot of good things from my guilds and I'm looking forward to it.

Some people are saying the open-world boneskinner is too easy, but I've also heard that's a bug so hopefully it will be fixed soon.

i liked it and not completed all history/map yet....

My positive points is about new assets like the re-skin of Sons Svanir, the doors that "auto open"..Thank god inst like Domain of Kourna fiasco where its just a massive reutilization of silverwastes assets, Kourna is basically Silverwastes with some water.

Map is nice, strike mission dont really feel like they tie with the story as well as the last one did (havent seen the boneskinner anywhere or the 2 codans)

Story was too short, like not even worth the 2 month w8 in length. Story should deff be longer.

Pros: What there was of the story was great. They've delivered on the Lovecraftian theme--Jormag is creepy and awesome, and I love that

! "its" voice is so feminine(when it isn't speaking through a dead guy of course... which makes me wonder who it was speaking through in the original trailer).
The lore bits we got between Crecia and Rytlock were neat, especially! the part revealing that Crecia seduced Gaheron Baelfire as part of her spy mission in Flame Legion
and that Rytlock has feelings about it. Also, the death of
! Almorra was unexpected,and I hope they explore this character's story and relationships with other characters more in wake of what happened.

Cons: The story was WAY too short--it should have been twice as long. I detest being spoon fed teeny tiny tidbits of something I like, and then being made to wait months for more. If Anet is going to do Living Story, each chapter must have more story to be satisfying.Also... this may be because I haven't finished the masteries yet, but I found there was WAY too little explanation of what the Aberrant and the Fallen are, and why they're running around messing stuff up.

Too much character whining, too much visual clutter, and way too many large pop up reminders that I can't pick something up yet.

Trees are too high again, but that's my only problem with this one.

The map actually reminded me of the EotN map immediately to the south, owing to the fort, mountain pass and cave layout that is very similar to the area around Gunnar's Hold. The ambient audio and lighting are very well executed and are really critical to getting the atmosphere right.

@Chichimec.9364 said:Too much character whining, too much visual clutter, and way too many large pop up reminders that I can't pick something up yet.

+1

! I guess I could have coped with Braham whining -- he's certainly done enough of that in the past -- but when Jory started whining, it was just too much. I mean, come on. She's come across as such a strong person, and now she can't cope with a doppelganger? Please.

I was also angry how short the episode was I pray we won't be treated to shortness like this again.

@"Chichimec.9364" said:Too much character whining,

Yes, because it's a law set in stone that:

1. Characters are not allowed to have feelings
   2. Characters must always behave with perfect maturity--no relationship troubles ever
   3. And most importantly, characters must NEVER have a mental breakdown after walking into a camp full of the corpses of friends, hallucinating and hearing voices in their heads, and hiking to exhaustion through freezing temperatures. Like, having a mental breakdown in those circumstances is just dumb

What you call whining, I call completely reasonable human reactions.

If that's their way of shipping out lw content in the usual time span of 3-4 months this game is in serious trouble.

• Story too short - much too short - it's ridiculous at best
• Enemies are too weak so the essences are not needed like I assumed before.
• Sad that you need the masteries to open reward chests. That makes me laugh.
• Meta is too weak - we did it first try with no problem without organization or any hints in map chat

Well, I guess their intention is as followed: In 4 weks we'll have Winter's Day and this short episode will definitely cover the time span. But man, where's the innovation? Will this continue without some special things like we had with the expacs or with new mounts like Beetle & Skyscale?

@JeffJeth.9518 said:

! I guess I could have coped with Braham whining -- he's certainly done enough of that in the past -- but when Jory started whining, it was just too much. I mean, come on. She's come across as such a strong person, and now she can't cope with a doppelganger? Please.

Agreed lol this was weird.

I only remembered today was a release when I was flipping through my vids and saw WP mention it. :)

The merchant ... ugh. No node for sale. No portal either until you complete the chapter.

@ugrakarma.9416 said:

@"JeffJeth.9518" said:

! I guess I could have coped with Braham whining -- he's certainly done enough of that in the past -- but when Jory started whining, it was just too much. I mean, come on. She's come across as such a strong person, and now she can't cope with a doppelganger? Please.

Even the strongest person is justified in having a mental breakdown after walking into a camp full of corpses--some of whom were friends; hallucinating your worst fears and hearing voices in your head; and hiking through a blizzard to physical exhaustion. "Strong character" doesn't mean "no moments of weakness, not even in circumstances so extreme they'd kill or drive the average person insane"

@Vinceman.4572 said:

• Enemies are too weak so the essences are not needed like I assumed before.

A really good point. HoT brought masteries in to be something to aid progression - a sort of metroidvania for mmos. Now they are just a thing to check off rather than needed for meaningful gameplay

literally less than 2 hour of content. also strike mission still was too easy

@Weindrasi.3805 said:

@"Chichimec.9364" said:Too much character whining,

1. Characters are not allowed to have feelings
   2. Characters must
      always
      behave with perfect maturity--no relationship troubles ever
   3. And most importantly, characters must NEVER have a mental breakdown after walking into a camp full of the corpses of friends, hallucinating and hearing voices in their heads, and hiking to exhaustion through freezing temperatures. Like, having a mental breakdown in those circumstances is just
      dumb

3 doesn't make sense considering literally everyone knew what the source was. Knowing the source of a problem would do a lot to let you know it's nonsense not to be believed.

Mostly I'm disappointed that Episode 1 was actually shorter and lacking compared to the Prologue. That seems backwards to me.

@Menadena.7482 said:I only remembered today was a release when I was flipping through my vids and saw WP mention it. :)

The merchant ... ugh. No node for sale. No portal either until you complete the chapter.

I saw a node for sale. 50 gold and a lot of something else. I didn't buy it, but it was there.

@Vyrulisse.1246 said:

@Weindrasi.3805 said:

@"Chichimec.9364" said:Too much character whining,

1. Characters are not allowed to have feelings
   2. Characters must
      always
      behave with perfect maturity--no relationship troubles ever
   3. And most importantly, characters must NEVER have a mental breakdown after walking into a camp full of the corpses of friends, hallucinating and hearing voices in their heads, and hiking to exhaustion through freezing temperatures. Like, having a mental breakdown in those circumstances is just
      dumb

"I know the source of this voice is a horrifying force that could snap me like a toothpick--it's already killed or driven insane the people around me" Oh yes, very comforting. Also, the point of #3 is that these characters have been pushed to their physical and emotional limit. Levelheadedness and logic are NOT going to prevail through in that circumstance--not unless they're literal robots.Plus, I get the impression that Jormag's power isn't just saying "Hey bro, you should like, give up. It's a totally good idea". Jormag is also warping their minds so such statements are believable.

But yeah, Ep 1 was stupid short. I hope arenanet gets some sense talked into them about "Maybe we shouldn't hype an episode for months and then make it pathetically short, and expect players to wait more months to get more"

@Menadena.7482 said:I only remembered today was a release when I was flipping through my vids and saw WP mention it. :)

The merchant ... ugh. No node for sale. No portal either until you complete the chapter.

I bought the node as an fyi

It feels even more concerning that now after content for raids, fractals, wvw,pvp etc has dried up or slowed down, that now we cant even get a full length story release anymore.

Loved it, but as mentioned by many others, on the short side. This seems like it would be a really cool episode once the entire Saga is out.

The essence mechanic is interesting and fun, but since it's balanced around open world content players, adept raid or fractal players (or strong open world players) will not need the benefits. Still intersting mechanic (haven't done a new strike mission yet, so can't comment on if the masteries are useful there).

@Randulf.7614 said:

@"Vinceman.4572" said:

• Enemies are too weak so the essences are not needed like I assumed before.

See my comment above. No combat mastery will ever be "needed" to advanced players. The wide range between casual open world only players and the hardcore optimzed means that open world combat content will remain on the light side. This should have been expected to be honest though.

I like the return to snow/icy areas.

The achievements (aside from the weapons) seem on the rather short side (I haven't found any which are to grindy yet). This might be due to this eposide being a bit shorter, or a reaction to the constant complaints from players about to much grind. I don't know.

Enjoyed it overall though I was disappointed by how short the story was.

Good story that I enjoyed sure just really short considering we have to wait months between new story content...It just makes me even more anxious for another big expansion.. I want that content drop experience again.Living world and Living world Sagas are good enough to bridge the gaps between expansions and keep us entertained for a while after one but they cannot give us the big expansion experience that we so desperately crave after a while.

It's been 2 years since PoF released and PoF came 2 years after HoT which came 3 years after Gw2's release.If there isn't a new expansion in development atm then it's definitely time to change that.2 years without one leaves us itching for one.. 3 years without one leaves is really desperate for one.. 4 years without one.. well by that point you're either going to be loosing players or struggling to please them while constantly denying them what they want, ask for and are willing to pay for.

@Vinceman.4572 said:If that's their way of shipping out lw content in the usual time span of 3-4 months this game is in serious trouble.

• Story too short - much too short - it's ridiculous at best
• Enemies are too weak so the essences are not needed like I assumed before.
• Sad that you need the masteries to open reward chests. That makes me laugh.
• Meta is too weak - we did it first try with no problem without organization or any hints in map chat

Well, I guess their intention is as followed: In 4 weks we'll have Winter's Day and this short episode will definitely cover the time span. But man, where's the innovation? Will this continue without some special things like we had with the expacs or with new mounts like Beetle & Skyscale?

Tbf ep 1 and prologue had a gap of 2 months. Story deff needs to be longer but if this pace keeps up its gonna be decent.