"No Quarter" is live!

[Fire Attunement.9835]

“No Quarter,” the third episode of The Icebrood Saga, is now live!

[Melian.5368]

Woohoo! Nothing better than free content update ^^

[Excursion.9752]

@Melian.5368 said:Woohoo! Nothing better than free content update ^^

What about a free expansion!

Looking forward to this update :smile:

[hugo.4705]

What I've seen since the start it's very good, I like the map. ^^ Good Job.

[Randulf.7614]

Maybe I missed something from the dialogue or forgotten a piece of info from the last episode, but why are we all the way across in Woodland Cascades for a civil war for the Charr? Seems a tad out of the way and increasingly further away from Jormag's last known position

[kharmin.7683]

So glad that the intro to this map was shorter. Thanks, ANet!!

[hugo.4705]

Will make a complete feedback later, but I like the use of the environmental weapons and blueprints that can be put anywhere.A solid 17/20 from me.

[elemainomegalul.4261]

...............................

[SkyCake.4216]

Just some initial thoughts. At the point of typing this, I've completed the new story, taken a base, defended a base, and have done various map events such as escorts and others.

The map is amazing. When I heard about "WvW but in PvE", I was excited. I love large-scale meta maps that you don't just mindlessly zerg. Verdant Brink being one of my favorites. I can see Drizzlewood becoming my new favorite quite easily. But, I'm concerned about the longevity of the map. This probably on my mind since I enjoy Verdant Brink so much and we all know how difficult it can be to get people interested in that map. It it takes too long people (sadly) won't bother with it unless the rewards are extra good. I'm not a rewards driven person. Mostly just something on my mind and something that was considered when designing what I would consider one of the most ambitious maps.

Taking a camp is a lot of fun. The more enemies the better!

Really, my main issue is the story. I actually always liked GW2's story despite the criticism. I still remember killing Zhaitan with my group and Fear Not This Night playing. The fight wasn't great, but I had loved everything up to that point that it became one of my favorite moments in gaming of all time. The story has gotten more "epic" since and has had its ups-and-downs. Enjoyed all of it! Certainly better than Battle for Azeroth's mess of a story that makes no sense.

! Until you ruined Smodur. I have a Charr as my forum icon. Iron Legion is my favorite and my main Charr's legion. I'm the type of loser to type into /say, "Woo, go Iron Legion!" during Grothmar Valley events. I'm so disappointed in Smodur's character. He was always headstrong and kind of annoyingly arrogant. But, I've always liked him enough! After completing the new episode, I can't stand him. You made him short-sighted, stupid, and increased his already kind of annoying (but fitting) traits up to 11. This is the first time in the entirety of GW2's storytelling where I would legitimately suggest that I don't like it. Also, Crecia and Rytlock need to go on an overnight date or something to get this weird tension out of the way.!Overall, really enjoying the new content. Aside from the story for the first time.

[Tuna Bandit.3786]

yeah my feedback, will be as objective as possible

The map looks great, but i see area's for improvement.

Center Screen messages:We are used to that from other maps, but in this map, I get what, 5 to 10 every minute?You obviously went overboard with those messages. This feels worse even than Lake Doric which is a map I systematically avoid due to those annoying messages

And what did you do? You made them bigger, WAY bigged. 4 line messages. Seriously?

The events:

Some bosses have too many portal around to too many high places, you feel you're chasing them for no reason but the chase.It's frustrating that a boss stands on top of a tower, you have only minutes left to finish, you finally reach him, just to see him port to the other side of the camp to another high tower. Come on, seriously? Once or twice ok, but this boss (forgot the name, was in Leadfoot Village) ported at least 7 times during the event.

What I do not like as well: you again came up with a way to let us train something before we can use it: Waypoints, or in this case Waystations.Seriously? What is up with that? Are you out of good ideas for masteries? What is next, a map where we need to train something to be able to view vista's?

The positives: Good map, nice design. More than enough to do. (maybe a bit too much lol) A capping system like WvW would really be a nice addition.

But seriously: Remove the sheer amount of mid-screen messages... Please I beg you!

[blackheartgary.8605]

from the map's appearance enviornmentally wise, to the push and pull of the mechanics of the map... from the use of wvw seige and tactics, to the exploration of the map itself... the LW map in no quarter has check every box and filled every one of my expectations.storywise, you really get the feel that this is in fact war. from the instances, you get a very hard take on what happens during a war, and on the outside while the instances are happening, the conversations and subtleties of the npc's on the map fill in where the story does not. also?there is one npc that you did very well at making me instantly want to punch in the face repeatedly with a skale fin. thanks for that. and no i won't spoil who it is. great work anet... 100/100 the best work so far!

[Headhunter.4796]

Still working my way through POF - can’t wait to start this!

[Lily.1935]

So I really enjoyed the story. It was a bit too short in my opinion considering how long we had to wait for it, but I suppose that can't be helped.

I have some other criticisms for this episode. Primarily in how muted the map feels. Without sound the Music and general ambiance doesn't pick of the slack which is a bit of an issue for me personally. Normally I don't notice it because of the voice acting but It does make the map feel very lonely. It would be nice if we got some better ambiance for the map or helped the atmosphere for future maps.

[Randulf.7614]

Left full feedback in the feedback thread someone else started.

It was a strong episode overall

[Sialor.7396]

Enjoying the story so far, haven't finished yet. That said there is one issue I feel I need to bring attention to. Hiding the skillbar (and other things) out of combat was a very nice QoL feature introduced a while back so if you're adding a mini-game requiring me to use my skillbar maybe you should force it to be visible. (I spent 10 minutes getting knocked around by the sunken submarines)

[Tekoneiric.6817]

I love the new map and the region zones when looking at it on map level. I wish all maps showed the zones better.

I do think they missed out on something with the Dominion Propoganda Speakers. They should have all been elevated on trees and rock faces while making them targets so they can be destroyed with weapons. I haven't looked to deeply at it yet but if they don't have a achievement attached they should have. Maybe even a daily.

[Celtwolf.1687]

And so the race begins to finish this content in the least amount of hours or days. never ending race I might add. take your time and enjoy the ride.

[Woop S.7851]

@"Fire Attunement.9835" said:“No Quarter,” the third episode of The Icebrood Saga, is now live!

Great map and design! Though a few hours after map launch, all outposts were captured by players, must've been a full instance

Any plans to allow players select sides like in competitive missions? Maybe align and fight for Bangar & the Dominion similar to Fort Aspenwood or even Jade Quarry? :)

[Liquid Storm.8097]

For god's sake, how hard is it to add a skip button for dialogues? I mean, you had them in the original story when the game came out, why don't you just copy that concept for LS, too? I don't know about others, but for me, I'm not interested in the story one bit and sitting behind my screen for 5-10 minutes reading/listening to content I have absolutely no interest in is really making me want to shelf this game. That, and WvW lag, but that's another story.

[Celtwolf.1687]

just seen a little bit of Drizzlewood map. All the wvw and EOTM commanders looking for a change need to try this chapter out. Would like for the skill part of siege weapons to come back. they nerfed the blind shots that some people in wvw were doing with arrow carts and trebuchets. I say if you're good enough to make blind shots work so be it. Some of the trebuchet shots you could get someone to spot for you and let you know if you needed to adjust to really zero in your trebuchet. I thought that helped to get people to engage with each other more. hated they nerfed some of the distance on arrow carts they should give some of that range back to give people more options. but i was amazed at how good people were at taking blind shots. just helped out if your siege placement was off by a little bit you could still be effective and not have to waste a blueprint because of poor placement. Now with having to be line of sight to target. placement of blueprints became paramount not how good you were. just my opinion haven't tried it recently though.

[Tuna Bandit.3786]

I have to ad one tiny lil critisism to this story.Without giving away but very last part: Why was the sound so obnoxiously loud? I mean...OMG I had to rip off my headset to not go deaf, because I had not a second time to reach for the volume.

Only one question:Why?

[Kilamanjaro.2705]

Was waiting to finish the story and map before commenting. 2 THUMBS UP!!!I have been critical of the last few releases, especially the last one, but THIS, this is awesome.The team that made this needs a raise and to be consulted on every other release in the future

[Zok.4956]

@Celtwolf.1687 said:All the wvw and EOTM commanders looking for a change need to try this chapter out.

Why should they try this map in particular? The siege weapons from WvW do not transform this PvE-map into some form of WvW. The map is still pure PvE.

[Ashantara.8731]

I love this episode! I wasn't too fond beforehand of the whole Charr civil war idea (what with whiny Rytlock and rebellious Ryland and all), but - burn me! - the execution of it was surprisingly good: dark, well written (except for my Commander still sounding like an uneducated redneck) and exciting to play through.

The map is also extremely well designed. The textures are beautiful and the events, although a bit much to take in at first, make the map seem alive and fun to explore. Looking forward to be doing all those achievements (5,000 seems like a lot... oof!).

Edit: Now that I have played through the meta cycle twice, I have to say that I dislike it a lot. It is too hectic by design. :-1:

[HotDelirium.7984]

! Until you ruined Smodur. I have a Charr as my forum icon. Iron Legion is my favorite and my main Charr's legion. I'm the type of loser to type into /say, "Woo, go Iron Legion!" during Grothmar Valley events. I'm so disappointed in Smodur's character. He was always headstrong and kind of annoyingly arrogant. But, I've always liked him enough! After completing the new episode, I can't stand him. You made him short-sighted, stupid, and increased his already kind of annoying (but fitting) traits up to 11. This is the first time in the entirety of GW2's storytelling where I would legitimately suggest that I don't like it. Also, Crecia and Rytlock need to go on an overnight date or something to get this weird tension out of the way.!Overall, really enjoying the new content. Aside from the story for the first time.! I thought the killing of all those defectors and more seemed a bit out of character but more could be going on behind the scene. The whispers might have gotten to him, like most of us which I would wish somebody anybody would comment on. I find the plot of our thoughts being invaded and what we do about THAT than just blowing up the enemy (of course you can do both since its an action MMO) more interesting. You can't always use force to vanquish an enemy.I wonder if a Khan-Ur plot is around the corner.