Now with 3 releases, what is your opinion of the content delievery in the new "Saga" era?

Came back and played the new "addition" (cant really call it more than that), short story its just half of a map with the same events and drakkar is another zero effort 1 spam boss, at least at world bosses like the chak one in hot you can feel some level of participation because you affect your lane and you can fail, on drakkar although failure is possible its just to basic to matter, you dont feel like you could have done better or change outcome you are just stacking and taking a nap i don't know what you guys do.

But in the end if you compare it with any other release even against the first one of this season its just half a map i cant really see anything more to it, and its certainly far less than any other living story release of the previous season, those at least had one map per release and a legendary, some even had a fractal, a raid or a mount as well as other uniq things, i even remember videos from wooden potatoes nerding out by finding on those maps new assets and models etc.... as for these last 2 releases (the pre had the concert that was kind of cool) even the enemies are core enemies svanir and bears etc... with just an extra aura of red, green or blue, no interesting mechanic no new animation just ... meh (i know drakkar and the boneskinner are both new models but used poorly and that's it, 2 patches ... 2 models).

And please no useless arguments of more is cumming and balance patch has 900 skill changes (witch you can divide in basically 3 groups a) reduction of approximately 30% on damage/boon or similar percentage in cool down increase, b) reduction of approximately 100% of damage on cc skills and c) actual changes of game play (heals, one or two mechanics changes, and a couple more), and guess what group c) does not amount to even 5% of the changes so meh), or swiss that seems as broken as if they started to make it a month or two ago instead of a year (for basically UI changes and queue of teams (that they already had made for the previous system)), and even if you could use those arguments they would be mute since the company itself has more than once stated its a different team from the one that makes content.

But back to my question, its been about 6 months give or take (more if you count the time we were waiting for the pre first episode) and 2 maps with some strike missions that again are just meh at best, half a year, just think about that, and technically almost half a season (they normally have 6 releases per season so half-ish (and before some one calls out that the first one was a prelude i would say that the prelude had more than any of the 1 and 2 releases, so i am counting it)).

My question is has it been enough for you to be convinced that they are invested or have you come to the realization that at some point anet gave up and its just trying to spin it for as long as they can?

And before you go out on a crusade to attack my perspective please don't, i am insignificant and in no way the owner of the truth i am just calling it as i see it, if you have a different opinion that's your prerogative and i am not here to change it (although i would be curious if anyone can point me what expansion level content as been added in half a year of time, since "expansions" normally deliver it up front and technically last for about 2 years so a quarter of expansion level content, although i would settle for any you can point out, ty in advance if you do), i am honestly just curious, so if you wish to participate ty, if not well it has been fun.

PS: i didn't forget about masteries, i just choose not to talk about a soulless bar useless map bound rng mechanic that i don't even use to tell the truth because of again whats the point, even the ones for the mushrooms as simple as they are, as useless as they have become with mounts, still provide in a small part a different way to move through the world, i can run through a HOT map and have fun and feel an impact of the masteries in the way i play the game, as for the new season i couldn't care less about them and fail to see how they change the game play in any meaningful way.

PS: (i am just thinking out loud now), where did i read a story about a dragon that controls minds and turns friends into foes into what ultimately is a pointless quest that results in going back to a dragon that tells us what to do in a vague useless way like ... "go there and it will be reveled" or ... "i found out the bad dragon is planning bad things" no shit Sherlock, i think it was on guild wars 2, sarcasm a part i do think the team should really make an effort to some what make the the dragons at least feel different, fingers cross this one doenst alsobasically suicides himself.

but what really gets me what absolutely makes me giggle is that for a dragon that wants to "talk with us", a dragon that as sent countless minions even a boss like one, and now another boss like one personification with drakkar, after all that and the ability to just have any svanir/koda/friend/tree/whatever come to us and talk or just whisper it to us ... he still had nothing of any relevance to say ... nothing, its just hilarious.

it could be an elaborate metaphor for the social network dependency of our society, so many forms to talk and nothing to say, but i do highly doubt it.it just makes it all comic and pointless like there is nothing behind it no plan no nothing, it just really wants to talk to us, it kills any dread any writing at all, i fell like when i first watched the raiders of the lost ark (Indiana Jones first movie), and at the end i came to this realization that if Indiana had done nothing just sit back and chill the outcome would have been exactly the same, i mean they would still have found the arc and take it to the ritual and still basically suicide them self, i movie about a dude that does absolutely nothing, it does sound like guild wars 2 to me, but again that's just me.

have a nice day

This poll doesn't ask of us what the thread title claims it does. You ask what we think of the content delivery, yet the options require us the make guesses about the intentions and mindset of the developers. Don't expect many answers.

I was surprised the poll was there after the text wall... More to the point, I will give my opinion on the saga once it is fully released. I do wish it came all at once as an actual expansion. Yes I would have paid for it that way.

I LOVE the Icebrood Saga through and through! It just doesn't captivate me as much as a Living World or Expansion does.

It is essentially "expansion level content" without any of the stuff that makes an expansion. No advancing the gameplay routine. No QoL features or Masteries. No new ways to play classes.

It is a Living World season relabeled as such to exclude a new legendary weapon every episode, have no new daily task areas, and a weak goal in the overarching story. We are chasing after a charr having a temper tantrum from not having his own dragon. Jormag feels inconsequential in that we just so happen to be within proximity of it.

We can color back pieces now. Not any of the old ones, however. (Don't comment about Build Templates, because that flopped into the lowest quarter in Anet history.)

@"Eloc Freidon.5692" said:It is essentially "expansion level content" without any of the stuff that makes an expansion.

LOL. :)

@"Eloc Freidon.5692" said:

It is essentially "expansion level content" without any of the stuff that makes an expansion.

I think right now the "Saga" falls far short of expansion like content.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_2:_Heart_of_Thorns

• LS releases, New Maps, Mastery System, Elite Specs, New Spvp, New WvW map & reworked mechanics, Created Guild Halls, Raids, Fractals, Legendary Armor and new weapons, various other little things added.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_2:_Path_of_Fire

• LS releases, New maps, Mounts, Elite Specs, Bounties, new guildhall, and various other little things added.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Icebrood_Saga

• LS release, Strike Missions, templates? complete skill reworks and rebalancing? .... still waiting for anything concrete(Alliances/Swiss Turny?)

I like what the map has become. From a group perspective, there is always something to do, unlike a few others - which is usually what I look for from new maps (something for my guild to do together).

Where it falls down is in challenging content. There needs to be something that engages more organized groups and skilled players more in the open world.

I am between "they are clearly reashing content and have no clear plan or vision for the game" and "they are doing what they can."

Is this high quality repeatable content? No. Is a similar to things we have seen/played before. Pretty much. Is it the best Anet can do? Unlikely. I would give the maps 7.5/10 and the story 4/10.

This is just a rambling expression of disappointment with a poll attached to it.

The option I would like to have voted for isn't on there: saga is just a holding pattern to buy time until they can cobble together a proper expansion, but the effort to make said expansion could very well die out before it comes to fruition. I realize this sounds quite similar to option #4, but usually "focused on something else" means "focused on another game/project", and I'm not sure that's really happening.

The longer the post went, the more I raised my possible vote. Holy walls of rambling!

I'm going to be a touch brutal.

I am taking my time and enjoying the content more in the Path of Fire expansion on my Berserker than I have been doing on my Guardian & Thief in the new saga releases. They're just not gripping me as much.

Sorry ArenaNet.

I love Icebrood Saga, but each release is kinda short? I kinda expected more story and things to do. They dragged meta achievement for map with a TON of achievements which can be frustrating.Strike Missions are not bad, but it's bad that they are a required piece of content in order to finish off meta achievement. Would also be nice to see Strike Missions Scale, so you can do them solo too.

Anyway, I love the story. It took on a more serious and darker approach and I hope it stays that way. It's refreshing not to have Taimi around anymore too.My only annoyance is with the change of Drakkar's model, as it didn't stay true to GW1 model (which was a ton creepier imo).I'll judge it once we have all releases of the saga, of course. So far, though, I'm enjoying the maps and story. Just wish that it was longer.

Meh, I have a few positive things to say about it, but not many.

Story: Prologue was great, but Ep 1 + 2 were lacking by comparison. The end part of Ep 2 was a surprise for me, and I enjoyed it, but I yawned through the rest. By the end of the Prologue, I was super excited to see what happened next with Bangar...but by the end of Ep2, he wasn't even relevant. Oh, and I miss Taimi.

Map: Grothmar was cool, and in retrospect I like what they did with Bjora - expanding a map rather than making separate ones, that way players doing Ep1 or Ep2 shared a map, and could respond to commander tags and such. The environments of both maps are nice and I enjoyed the various events and metas.

Achievements: that said, the requirement to do the same events over and over and over again is a big swing & miss for me. I still have a bunch of Grothmar APs incomplete because I don't care enough about them to do the event just for the AP. Drakkar is referenced down below.

Map currency/rewards: another huge swing & miss for me. Hatched Chilies are useless and can't be consumed for even karma. Ice Shards rain from the sky (rip to anyone who bought a home node..well for Grothmar as well) and while you can buy amulets and trinkets with them (good!), the main purpose they serve is to craft Boreal weapons, and if you're someone who thinks they are uber ugly (as I do), it seriously devalues this currency. I have a bit stashed away from whatever use they have for them at the end of the saga, but really, I farm them just for easy ascended accessories.

I do like the plentiful amount of herb nodes (odd you would think in Shiverpeaks) as well as the legacy mats you get from chests (steel ingots, etc)

Masteries: Woah boy, terrible terrible. I played Ep1 for about an hour before logging off and taking a break until Ep2, and as such, came back with no mastery points completed. Consequently my first Drakkar kill (as well as my 2nd) I wasn't even able to loot the chests. Same with Raven meta. Care to guess how crappy that feels? Back in HoT you needed mastery to buy keys from the vendors, but you at least got some keys from completing the meta (in Tarir for instance) so you still got to unlock something.

Worse yet, many of the MP are locked behind achievements that require you to craft all the Boreal weapons (see above), complete all the Light Puzzles, win Raven Meta 15 times or something, etc. I currently need one more MP, and will probably get it from either killing Boneskinner when it comes up in rotation or maybe getting more Raven metas done. Either way, I never had anywhere near this close to problems getting mastery points in PoF; this feels almost like a step backwards to HoT and how they did Core, and given how something as basic as meta rewards are locked behind masteries now, it's a pretty kitten move.

World Boss Drakkar: Not a bad boss fight, but nothing spectacular. It isn't in any way really hard, which is why I'm surprised at just how many groups I join fail it. It kind of reminds me of the Vinetooth in AB. But what really bakes the noodles here is the terrible design of the Nimble achievement, which at least for the time being, serves to sabotage more groups than not as people try to cheese the event by AFK'ing, or by standing at max range on a LB ranger pressing 1. If this achievement didn't exist, these players would be putting out more DPS as they would actually stack. And I got my achievement the other day, the 4th time having done Drakkar, without afk'ing or staying at range, on a Reaper, with 2 left on the counter. Yes it is doable, but many players aren't even trying, and subsequently groups are failing because of it.....and even those that succeed, there is no guarantee a given player even gets to open the chests.

I'm not going to bore anyone with conspiracy nonsense, ded game, etc etc. I don't know if they are giving it their 'all' or just 'phoning it in', all I can comment on is whether or not I enjoy their design, and for me, I see a whole host of poor design decisions.

Barely trying

Company has downsized and is now in sustainment mode. Expansions will take away from releasing other content. I wish they'd add more weapons for each profession though

I seriously don't know what to think of this "saga" so far. The prologue was one of the very best LW releases so far, then episode 1 was one of the worst. Episode 2 I have barely played, but it's quite okay. Not great, but alright.So it all averages at "meh" so far. :D Could become an impressive season, or the opposite.

Every time this question comes up I chime in that I would prefer less frequent, more polished, more substantial releases over the frequent and therefore smaller releases anet has chosen to pursue, but I continue to assume that anet has a better idea of how to keep the game alive than I do and I don't think they should cater to my preferences at the expense of what they see as the best way forward . . .

lets be honest.. ka-braham is just no crowd-puller.

I'm not sure how useful this poll is, as I don't really identify with any of the answers provided. Having said that, I agree with what you say overall.

I know it's unreasonable to expect an expansion to materialize out of nowhere. But ultimately, that is the standard. By now there should have been another expansion. There isn't one, and I'm afraid I have to agree that what we have instead seems pretty weak.

The prologue episode and Grothmar Valley maps were really more what I expect from GW2. It was a solid offering with plenty to do and a ton of that GW2 personality that brings it all back for me. Maybe it didn't bring the expansion-level content we were hoping for, but it did bring something new in strike missions.

Then we got episodes 1 and 2. The story was pretty pathetic. The metas are long, boring, and uninspired, albeit visually impressive in the case of Drakkar. The events are copy/paste on the latest section of the map. The masteries feel like the sort of contrived filler everyone hates.

The difference in quality is clear. And perhaps with the faster release schedule, it could be said that less content is to be expected. But less quality, too? Players aren't going to accept that.

You could literally erase everything they added with the saga and nobody would notice a thing...that says somethingI think they are either stringing ppl along with the few resources they have OR they have something major planned but lack optimal teams to complete it in any reasonable way. Either way, its a long time before things improve...they already mentioned nothing else was coming this year other than the saga setting up 'exciting things that they cannot talk about' .....sound pretty promising /rollseyes

Generally speaking, I have liked what we have gotten so far.

• Grothmar Valley, and Bjora Marches, are some of my favorite LW maps(still far behind the PoF maps)
• The metas actually feel like metas, instead of something people can sneeze and miss like many other map metas
• The map currencies aren't such a chore to get(I still hate looking at maps like Jahai because of mistonium)
• And while the Icebrood Saga masteries actually require more EXP then past LW masteries, they actually feel a lot quicker to get, making the process less of an annoyance like it was before.

I also like the Charr and Norn a lot, so seeing them front and center is nice, and the more Lovecraftian backdrop they have made for, at least Bjora Maches, is a nice change of pace from the more direct smashy smashy plots we have had thus far.

I don't care about strikes, and dislike that they made doing strikes a requirement for the episode 2 meta, but thats the worst problems I've had.

For me, this looks like the minimum necessary. I do hope the reason is that they have something else in the pipeline, kept secret up to now. But I'm not too optimistic. I mean, usually, when a developer has a secret project, especially in gaming domain, there are leaks that are part of the strategy to tease customers about it. But we hear nothing? To my eyes, that's no good sign. But of course, that's just a feeling I get. I will be over happy if something comes. Crossing fingers.

I'm enjoying it, however it isn't satisfying my need for an expansion.

The quality of the story is good, i'm excited to see what's going to happen next and i'm very much looking forward to finally seeing Jormag.I am however tired of waiting months for new story content and only getting a few hours worth every time a new living world patch drops.

I am very much in the expansion camp with a lot of people because of this.I long for another big content drop that only an expansion can provide and there's not all that much in the game right now that is making me want to play a lot of Gw2.

I still love the game, I'm still excited for what comes next but I'm not all that motivated to play much atm.My main motivation comes from the story, it's what I love most about Gw2 so living world can only hold my interest for a short amount of time per release.Once i've done the story, got a few things I want and played the same events on the new maps more than a few too many times I start getting bored and feel like playing other games for a while until the next patch drops.

I have a hard time believing they're fully focusing on GW2 if this is what they bring with Sagas. Arguably the content is a bit more than LS chapters but not to the point where it can replace expansions and not enough to tie people over from one Saga to the next.

On top of that the content has been very hit and miss and indeed a lot of it is the same stuff just dressed up differently (so rehashing is a thing). I'm still trying to motivate myself to play but it's tough cause I'm done with the Bjora Marches as far as stuff I wanted to do there and well the rest of the game is still what it has been for quite some time now.

So they must have their focus elsewhere. If Sagas are what we get when they're fully focused on the game as a studio, there's something very wrong.

Unless this Saga comes at some point with a game changing feature like full Housing, new Race or entirely new continent, I will never consider it Expansion level. We have had GREAT LW episodes in between expansions, and unless one of the above gets implemented in this LW episode, it will never be more to me then another (great?) LW episode.

Tweaks and small enhancements like the Builds do not an expansion make. So if this is going to be it, unhappy about the content level.