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Unpopular opinion: Icebrood Saga is bad


Clyan.1593

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Visions of the past was hands down the best thing to come out of LW so far, at least giving us some okay repeatable semi- engaging/hardcore content (or rather making it more accessible and adding a reward structure to it), and it wasn't even a "proper" LW patch.

The rest has always been filler to me, littered with economy breaking grind maps in a desperate attempt to keep players engaged with a meaningless money/achievement grind while waiting for proper content (Expansions/Elite Specs, Raids, Fractals etc.) with engaging mechanics, new systems that drive the game forward and adding new layers or keeping the game fresh with new assets, mobs types/animations to learn and so on.

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It is not that unpopular.

Story wise, prologue was solid. Then Bjora Marches killed it. I lost interest afterwards and stopped doing any story missions.

Maps, again prologue was good. It is not highly repeatable, but also a semi non-combat area so that is to be expected. Bjora Marches as a whole is okay. It struggles with many of PoF bad map designs aspects, particularly the island mentality. The map has no flow. But it has no hearts, so that is a major plus. As for creating a feeling isolation or dread, it fails miserably. Too edgy and over the top. And the sad part, Anet did this well with Orr. Did the devs who created BM never set foot in Orr? Dunno...

Then of course Anet taking a full episode and map then split it into two is pathetically lazy.

The worst part is mastries, if they can even be called that. locking opening doors and chests behind a grind is not a mastery. Same for getting some minuscule combat bonuses from killing mobs.

Not much to be said about strikes. If you have established systems, do not create a new ones.

I think some of the disappointment is also from Anet undeservingly over hyping LWS5. Calling it a saga, doing expansion type release announcement (which was clearly lacking) and calling it “expansion like,” does not help, when you do not have the content to back it up. Not even close.

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I wouldn't call it bad. I think the Charr / Jormag plot line is way more interesting than Kralkatoric was, and maybe on par with Joko and the scarab plague (Joko was such a delicious villian - even Aurene agrees!) but at the same time, I feel the whole "Norn" thing got left behind with Episode 1+2. For me anyways, the Saga is about Bangar leading the Charr to ruin but chasing after / becoming subject to Jormag, and what Ryland is going to do about it. Braham, his bow, the spirits, all seem rather minor to the story for me. This is about a charismatic demogogue leading his people, and Tyria, into potential catastrophe.

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Like with almost everything regarding story and lore in GW2, what we get is (unfortunately) very superficial - there is no depth to it. I can see how that turns some players off.

The strike missions I personally like a lot because they aren't as time consuming as raids. Dungeons get as repetitive as strike missions, but the fact that they consume more time keeps me from playing them more often. I rather have and am more likely to play repetitive content that takes less than 5 minutes to finish than repetitive content that takes up to 30 minutes.

I also liked the Icebrood Saga maps we've got so far. Especially the Bjora Marches have a very tense atmosphere.

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I don't have any problems with the story but that's because I'm not really overly demanding in that regard. However the maps just bore me to death, not just since season 5 but pretty much since Thunderhead Peaks. I already had enough of the desert theme after PoF but at least Istan had a decent meta with GH. But everything after Jahai Bluffs just makes me want to play something else with Dragonfall being the worst offender here.

@otto.5684 said:Not much to be said about strikes. If you have established systems, do not create a new ones.I have to disagree here, there is nothing wrong with creating new systems in order to reach parts of the playerbase the already existing content failed to reach. Issue here is that strikes didn't really do that (nor was that ever their intention).

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For me the story started strong but fizzled out real quick. I hope it picks back up soon.I liked every map so far apart from the new one, there's just too much going on everywhere you look which makes sense for what it is but not something i'm fond off.The Masteries I feel like are kind of useless, It's just locking things away behind them and needlessly adding essences to monsters.

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Story makes sense but it is very short and fast in every episode. It use to be army vs army battles, cataclysm all around(whole world map in the ice with snow and storms), not killing some mechanical charr car. We "learned" something about raven and other aspects but there are not really animals or anything after that. Norns are minor in this story. We are hunting Bengar, he was next to us many times, same with ryland.....still no execution, no death. It is getting boring and looks like "we are hunting you but hey we reached you and we let you go" and at the end those dies in pointless way. Every character should be more popular and its death to be glorious, to pull feelings from us players like it happened for Aurene. Like Almora died and none even care, some other charr dies, none cares. If Norns were in the story and died, none would care as well. Like why are there just Logan and Kasmeer, why aren't there whole human army or Sylvari or Asuras.

We need epic fights like those in "Lord of the rings", some medival eternal fights where some fighters become heros and some heros become legends that stay in the past. I am personally disappointed to hunt some big characters with few other characters then to see them to talk instead of instant fighting/getting in conflict.When player play the story, it should have in its memory whole thing, to show some feelings, to wish to play a new episode.

Maps are fine, events are fine, everywhere is something happening. Problem is that every minor part of the map feels scripted, you always know what will happen right there and how hard it gonna be. That is wrong, if whole map was a battlefield where 2 big armies fight on multiple fronts 24/7 it would make playing on that map interesting. It would make repeatable content useful. When new episode come and when some villians/heros dies or w/e happens, old maps should change(at least for player who completed the story and the map). It is hard to happen and to make but it would make better experience with these stories. Just ask yourself why are Dragonstand,Dragonfall, Auric Basin, Domain of Istan(before its destruction).still very good maps. These maps have some kind of progression, some lanes. It used to happen on new map drizzelwood coast but what happened is scripted thing and it is not working(we shouldn't be able to drop on other side of the map). We shouldn't have ability to move where we want when we want. In Dragonstand to complete one achievement, you have to do meta event, to unlock some path, all lanes have to succeed in order to get there, it brings big will from everyone to fight epic battle, to play like team. Drizzlewood brings nothing to me, like i can solo drop there or here.

Problem with Bjora Marches is that all events always happen on same spot of the map and those repeat 1000 times per day. It is cool that everywhere is something happening, but when you see same thing that died 10 minutes ago...it is bad. When Drakkar came, it was like the best meta event with few first runs. After 10 runs, it became boring and terrible.

We don't need scripted map nor scripted stories, we want maps and stories that have multiple options for each thing to happen. Example: Drakkar meta event could go as it went, but what if Drakkar not wake up from the ice and we have to drill the ice to reach him then to mess with its dreams or w/e, Or what if Drakkar escaped the ice before we reached him to surface and start bringing destruction all around.

Icebrood saga is not that bad but it is not good either(These are my opinions). Hope devs will work better for Primordius and Cantha.

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@"Yggranya.5201" said:I have never played MMO with good story but is average too much to ask?

FFXIV and SWToR have good stories imo.

SWToR it's mostly about the individual class story from my experience, after that the generic stories were pretty meh.

FFXIV is great story (With slight exception to 2.1-3.0 which involved a lot of fluff and obnoxious fetch quests, but after getting to 3.0 it goes on very strong with many people finding the 3.0 story the best in the game) and in fact, the story of XIV is pretty much the only reason to play the game given its actual game systems suck (Combat is flat, repetitive and boring, side content is grindy and unrewarding, PvP is forgettable, Raids are pathetic outside of Savage where they're just Simon Says where you simply push your predetermined rotation while walking out of the bad circles)

But yeah, the key is to have actual characters. With character development that changes them over time with good reason (Not like Braham and his 180 flip from adoring the Commander to "UR NOT MY REAL MOM!" mega-emo phase). Whom react to situations like actual people, not as walking plot devices.

Also, it helps not to write in Mary Sue's like Aurene (Or Thrall AKA Green Jesus in Warcraft)

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Strikes have been the highlight for me personally. Strong replayable content with little to no additional work since its basically all reused assets from lw story or maps, id love a cm for these but ehh.

Story i feel like is going abit slow but then again thats prob to be expected with an expansion in the works.

The maps are a mixed bag and the way they wejt about the achievements this time around has been a shitshow.

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Definitely agree with OP on this one. My main problems with the Saga:

  • The story has been extremely predictable (Possibly because the trailers showed too much while the story is moving at a slow pace each episode) and there have been close to no twists that I did not see coming from the start of each episode based on the trailers, unlike most of the pre-Saga episodes, which often had at least one twist many players did not see coming.

  • The achievements are really grindy (20x or more for events in Bjora), many require competition among players to complete (target shooting in Grothmar), both of which were much less prevalent in prior seasons, which had a lot of more challenging, one-time, more satisfying story-based achievements instead. I stopped bothering with LW achievements after Grothmar because they require almost full completion for the meta, which requires at least one or two heavy grind achievements to be completed, for a very small reward. It is very obvious these were just made to pad playing time, which just makes them seem less worthwhile/satisfying to do.

  • The maps since Bjora, while pretty to look at as usual, are boring and I have no reason to go back to them after finishing map completion. Maybe it's just because I don't feel motivated enough to do the achievements (see above point).

On the other hand, the strike mission and prologue were really enjoyable and have repeatable group content that I go back to often.

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I am a returning player that quit before HoT came out. I really didnt care at all about core story and just went through the motions.I bought everything and decided to complete all the story up to date. I really loved all HoT through LVS4, it was so good, but once again I find myself not caring about anything that has happened in Icebrood Saga. I can tell there is less passion and creativity going on in this saga.

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I find it funny that people seem to dislike IBS.

Icebrood Saga, so far, has been my favorite living world season.

  • The slower pace of the story means everything gets developed more, rather then the constant stream of "introduce a new character -> kill them off the next episode" break neck pace we saw previously.
  • The maps that get released with each episode are smaller, but have nearly the same amount of events as the LWS3/4 maps did, making them far more packed with content, giving me more reason to stay on them longer.
  • We got a lot, and are getting more, Norn lore. Lots of stuff about the spirits, and Asgeir.
  • Likewise, we are finally getting more content about the Charr's broken society, other then just more flame legion vs everyone else
  • Jormag's more manipulative approach had less to less mindless "samshy smashy the dragon minions" narratives, a welcome relief over previous stories which usually just ended up being 4 maps of "fight dragon minions"

Strikes are useless, just like all of Anet's attempts at "hard" content have been(Dungeons, Fractals, Raids), but pretty much everything else is a big step up over past LW seasons IMO.

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@"cptaylor.2670" said:

  1. Strike missions - the loot boxes you get from doing the 3 crystal weekly turn in are generally just a few pieces of unidentified gear. The prophet shard system seems needlessly convoluted and extravagant. I'm not sure why they can't just have ONE color of prophet shards.

The 3 different colors instead of one lets them sneak in an extra week of timegating for things you can buy with the crystals unless you really want to grind the strikes during the week that matches the color you want. It is 1 extra week instead of 2 because of the conversion available.

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Maps are ok.Story I don't really care that much. The way it is presented I think it is getting better with every expansion and LW. Content wise well I never liked story in GW2.Drakkar meta is good. Not the best but good. Grothmar metas are good. Drizzlewood meta is good.Strikes are ok. They could be a bit more interesting just not as long as Forging steel. Cold War really is boring.They are releasing a lot of nice looking skins that can be acquired in game which is cool if you are into it.Masteries are the worst up to now. They really have no meaning, no real purpose. Like someone said just something they added cuz they needed to add it. And acquiring the charges before you can actually use it is really annoying and useless.I like the puzzles and jumping puzzle.

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I've never been overly excited about the story in this game. I feel like the quality of writing has just generally declined across all of popular media (i.e., games, movies, TV) lately. Exceptions are ones that are based on books, like The Expanse and Game of Thrones seasons 1-4 (or 5?); you just notice a stark contrast in quality (pun intended).

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This saga is... I don't know... A half product?

I do not even know how the masteries works!

Take blue and red balls like Pacman.

The story? Meeeeehhhh. The good guys are the best ones and the bad guys are bad even when they go to the toilet.

I hope something happens, this saga does not deserved an streaming announcement.

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I'm not a fan of the direction they have gone with the masteries in this and other seasons. I think it's a total mess. I think any mastery earned should be game wide. IMHO I think they went down the wrong path starting with LWS3 with mastery skills that were limited to using on specific maps. While the Bloodstone Fen gliding skills wasn't a mastery track; it should have been and also should have been game wide wherever there is ley lines. All the Ancient Magics should have been game wide. I would like to see ley-lines appearing around world boss fights (not Tequatl as it's pre-HOT) so players could use gliding attack skills. Before mounts it would have been good for bouncing mushrooms and Oakheart's essence to have bloomed around Tyria, planted by NPCs as part of a story line. I think masteries in general could have been a way to update core Tyria and other parts of the game for players who unlock them.

I know they don't like going back to revisit old content but I think it would help them and the players a lot going forward if they would revamp the entire mastery system and move some things to core masteries such as bouncing mushrooms, oakheart's essence and magic gathering (of combined Unbound/Volatile magic). I even thing some things in the future should become community unlocked with new content releases.

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I do not care that the story is lame. All game stories are pretty lame. I love reading, and have thousands of books, so maybe I am spoiled by real stories. Game 'stories' are just a tool to progress the critter killing. I am fine with that.

I think my main disappointment with this chapter is that the prologue was so good. Not the story, but the area, the events. everything about it was fun. It is honestly the best thing I have seen in any Guild Wars since the pre-searing (the pre-searing is the best video game of all time). The problem is that with that great a start - there was nowhere to go but down...

I found Bjora to be very boring and Drizzlewood looks like something they slapped together over the weekend. But, it is free content, so no worries.

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