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What is your opinion on IceBrood Saga


vier.1327

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Hi there, we are at the end of the season and I want to ask;

What is your opinion on IceBrood Saga, 1 to 10, being 10 the best score.

Mine is clearly a 2.

It is the first time I do not play the chapter the first week that is online.

Masteries are meh, capes does not add anything, at least for me, and the story has been disappointing and difficult for me to follow. DMs also meh, and strike missions feel like half a raid boss.

I do not know what happened to the game direction, maybe Covid-19 or focusing too much on End of Dragons. But this season has been the worst that I have played ( playing since the beginning of Ls2)

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I'm not going into detail - there's loads of others threads on this subject and my thoughts can be found better in those

In summary it's average. It has some moments and some of the gameplay has been enjoyable with maps ranging from great to uncharacteristiacally poor (usually the second half of each map). In fact it started off excellently. This Chapter and the last were a low point though. It's not even that the idea of DRMS or the story is inherently bad, it's just side content that should be accompanied by deeper content. The DRM's also need a solo option. Players should have the option to do challenges or story at their own pace.

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@Randulf.7614 said:I'm not going into detail - there's loads of others threads on this subject and my thoughts can be found better in those

In summary it's average. It has some moments and some of the gameplay has been enjoyable with maps ranging from great to uncharacteristiacally poor (usually the second half of each map). In fact it started off excellently. This Chapter and the last were a low point though. It's not even that the idea of DRMS or the story is inherently bad, it's just side content that should be accompanied by deeper content. The DRM's also need a solo option. Players should have the option to do challenges or story at their own pace.

I agree on the quality and quantity of the content, at that point I learned to accept it was going to be that way till the end. I'm mostly sad because we're likely never going to get the Wolf and Leopard shaman armors or similar nifty skins. Quality of the weapon models dropped Drastically too. Some of the dragonslayer weapons that have blue blades look like they're made out of plastic, or unfinished. The only weapon that I could notice was different was the Azure Dragonslayer Staff, it has an effect and seems to be the Only one that does, the Crimson Staff doesn't, it isn't consistent.

On the other hand, I have readily been able to solo all the DRM storyline missions, and even the normal ones so far. It is excruciatingly long, but it is possible. One -major- gripe I have though : the Norn Shaman allies. They just die. All-The-Time. What point are they if they're dead from the start of a boss battle to the finish. Every time I see them as default allies my mind draws a blank and I back out. They are a pain to make use of, and their benefit is negligible. I dont ask for their buff to be boosted, but their health please. You get only 4, but they last as long as a standard Vigil soldier. So 20 seconds against 2 non veteran Destroyer. Enough.

Sidenote : You made the United Legion allies give us Charrzooka that properly use the animation : Please extend this to the Racial Charrzooka skill. It is a bundle, and the model look awkward, whereas the new model and animation works perfectly for it. Throw your charr engineers a bone !

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@Weindrasi.3805 said:Icebrood Saga started out REALLY promising--the Prologue was the absolute best episode IMO. The episode immediately after when we first go to Bjora, and the interlude where we got to join Ryland's warband were also good. Everything else has been average to below-average.

Pretty much exactly this. It's been going downhill every patch, which is quite sad as I was really excited for new fun content.

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@Weindrasi.3805 said:Icebrood Saga started out REALLY promising--the Prologue was the absolute best episode IMO. The episode immediately after when we first go to Bjora, and the interlude where we got to join Ryland's warband were also good. Everything else has been average to below-average.

This.

That said, I simply lowered my expectations overall, which prevents me from being disappointed. The moment the first champions episode launched in the state it was in, I was expecting 3 more along similar lines. As such the current one with slightly more diverse encounters and diverse tasks was a small positive surprise.

I also did enjoy most of the content, especially the early episodes. I think a lot of players are simply focused on the Champions releases right now, which I hope will come together as a fleshed out episode by the end, and thus disappointed.

The masteries were okay but not ground breaking. Then again most season masteries were underwhelming (Ancient Magics was near useless, Crystal Champion while immensely useful was nothing groundbreaking amazing but rather a fix to some intentionally left out mechanics) so in that regard the current ones did not surprise me. The way station and easy access to EMP for CC is probably one f the most useful additions for general PvE.

I have enjoyed the story and am saddened that it is delivered in such short bits. I think this season/saga will be measured by how it ends and transitions into EoD in the future, and being mid season it seems unfinished (which to some degree makes sense).

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aside from story (after the prologue), which imo is veeery lackluster, the maps are really well made, and staples for farming and fun. Sadly mobs are veeeeeeery boring, barely anything new or challenging, it's really off-putting having gone through the insanity that was heart of thorns, and the punishing range of mobs in path of fire and then regressing to the most generic mobs ever.Strike missions are cool, really hope they at least give us one or 2 more.Dragon response missions are very boring imooveral not bad, even if the content is slow and this final chapter is very lackluster so far, the maps are incredibly replayable compared to other LW episode maps.

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It started out so strong. The Prologue was the most fun I have since GW2 launched. The prologue was almost as good as GW pre-searing!Then each release just got worse. Well, not sure about the latest, I have not even bothered looking at the latest one. I quite frankly do not care to go wherever it went...

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As a story-player i liked how IBS started, but am currently really disappointed. So much tension was build up in the first episodes on beautiful maps with great story telling, and now instead of the story taking off, It feels really rushed, scrapped down and trashed. You cant deliver an epic story through 3 small text boxes per mission. It feels like everything is happening off-screen instead that we are part of the story, like we been before in other seasons. This is like the opposite of what i liked Guildwars for in all other seasons, so now with just 2/4 of "champions" remaining i cant imagine an intersting, epic conclusion.

Talking about the DRMs in general: The idea is alright. Should be implemented as alternative group content for all players (ideally scaling from lvl 20 on for leveling new players). - They should not be hidden in a late game only hub. Bring them accessible from the main capitals. - And last but not least: They should not be used as the main late game story experience.

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3 because the map look good. I would have put 2 but since the prologue was so good I'll jump one number. But oh my god the champion stuff is awefull.... And the new meta is the worst, so freaking grindy, probably gonna be the first meta achivement ever I wont do, I have no willingness to farm those awefull grindy boring achivement.

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Tbh the story is good and the first few maps have a lot to do.

Overall i am not fan of the champion releases but i do like DRM more than i liked strike missions. The ability to do stuff solo but also in groups without making stuff to easy is kinda nice.

Overall i am luke warm on the whole shtick but i dont hate it.

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@Tukaram.8256 said:It started out so strong. The Prologue was the most fun I have since GW2 launched. The prologue was almost as good as GW pre-searing!Then each release just got worse. Well, not sure about the latest, I have not even bothered looking at the latest one. I quite frankly do not care to go wherever it went...

My hypothesis is that the prologue got produce mainly pre lay offs. The lay offs had a big impact on the release quality as far as i can see.

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It has some really low lows, but also some really good patches. All in all, I'd still rank it higher than LS2 and LS1, but considering that in the meantime we have learned how good the LS can get, it's a disappointing season.

I really hope ArenaNet does not consider any of this "expansion-level content" anymore. Otherwise, I'd be very concerned for the actual expansion content. I do hope it will be way above IBS-level content.

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Honestly, the first half before everything got fucked up with NCsoft firing people and corona where really good, better then some others living world seasons, but after the firing and the corona, they pretty much throw it away in the trash bin with the drm and just placed every hope they had in their new DLC.

Some people will find it stupid as saying, just delay the extension and finish the saga correctly.Others will find it's a good choice, think what you want.

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As other people have said I think it's a shame they're so obviously rushing it because of the complaints about not having another expansion after season 4. For one thing I always thought one of the strengths of Anet was that they're willing to experiment and do things on their own schedule, but apparently having established a 'pattern' of LS season, expansion, LS season, expansion, they are now required to rigidly stick to that or get accused of killing the game.

But mostly I just think it's a shame they were persuaded to cut IBS down to the bare minimum, hold some stuff back for the expansion and shift most development to that. I'd love to have seen what they originally had planned, I think the story is very interesting and I'd like to find out more about things like the long-term effects of the civil war on the charr, how the dragons see their relationships to each other (and the deceased dragons) and the prophecy Braham has been given, but now we're unlikely to get more than the key points in brief scenes because we have to rush everything so we can pay for the next part of the story. (Which I still see as the only real difference between an expansion and a living world season - one you have to wait until it's all finish and then pay full price for, one you get gradually and it's free if you log in during the release.)

I like what we are getting, but I will forever wonder what we could have had and how much more interesting it could have been if only people had been willing to give them a chance instead of endlessly going on about the game dying because they didn't have to pay for it.

(P.S. I didn't vote because I don't like rating things out of 10, especially something as complex as this. I could decide what score I'd give to the art on each map, the map design, each part of the story, the achievements, the combat etc. etc. and then produce an average but that would be completely meaningless because it would mash together so many totally separate factors.)

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@"Danikat.8537" said:As other people have said I think it's a shame they're so obviously rushing it because of the complaints about not having another expansion after season 4. For one thing I always thought one of the strengths of Anet was that they're willing to experiment and do things on their own schedule, but apparently having established a 'pattern' of LS season, expansion, LS season, expansion, they are now required to rigidly stick to that or get accused of killing the game.

I don't think complaints factored into that decision.

I'm pretty sure cold hard numbers in term of revenue were to "blame" for their decision to change their approach. Given the revenue was at an all time low and not recovering.

Players give way to much credit to the forum drama and bs. If revenue was up and the game in a good spot without an expansion announcement, I can guarantee you the forum mumbo jumbo would not have mattered. It's just in this case the forum mumbo jumbo coincided with a huge drop in players willing to spend money.

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Storywise I really like Icebrood Saga, but I wish these new chapters were a bit longer. We wait weeks and weeks for a new chapter, and then do it in less than 30 minutes.

In terms of masteries I don't like it that much, for some reason it all feels a bit confusing to me. For example, when we got the Raven mastery I thought we would get the Bear, Wolf, and Snow Leopard masteries as well. But turns out we got other masteries instead (and I don't think we have enough time to get the other 3 Spirits at this point). Then the allied factions and dragon response missions... I just don't find this fun to play and don't think it adds much to the game.

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Started as 10 with the prologue but has been going downhill from there. It's 2 now.

I have zero interest in doing these DRMs more than once or trying to find a group for the challenge modes. I used to complete all map meta achievements before but of these Saga ones I have done only the two first ones. Then they started to require huge amount of grind and strikes and now it needs the challenge mode DRMs. These episodes and content turning more and more into group content takes away all my motivation.

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Gonna put a 4, but it's because of the 4 episodes. Not the 4 upcoming chapters! /jkThe four episodes got good looking maps, the little lores pieces were nice and the story well was for the most okay with some weird twists and unwanted deaths.I would have preferred going further into woodland cascade or ascalon than having those DRMS. Really. Each DRM make me want to remove points. They are unnecessarely long, reward not enough faction marks, all challenges drm can't be done solo and that's an issue. No lore / No extra talk in those... 2012 foes not even new ones.A story so predictable and flat feeling like a kid written it. "Oh! So surprising! The dragon about LIES and PERSUASION, LIED! W O W unexpected...." and I just have enough of that skrittpoop of I want to corrupt the spirits of the wild.... oh i'm ice, so it's logical, i'm freezing peoples!!! WHO WROTE THAT? So bad god. I don't even speak about the other half of the arcane council that don't show themselves (maybe because they understood that this saga is bad and they rage-quit). Aurene that has no role. Wow.So yeah was kind, a 3 or 2 out of 10 is maybe more suited.

PS: Stop promising stuff you not gonna do, you already lied and scammed us by showing in the trailer centaurs and what seemed like kraits, things we don't have and will never have at this point is seems; and now you announcing using the spirits of the wild again? I tell you, this gonna be scrapped and cut content again.

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It's unfortunate, because icebrood saga started pretty strong with the prologue and the first Bjora episode was pretty decent, but it's just gotten worse. The 2 episodes/1 map thing wasn't really working for me. I absolutely hated Drizzlewood for being 1 map rather than 2 because the meta was such an awful slog as a result of that decision. But now we don't even get maps and instead get these truly boring and uninspired instanced DRMs. It's not good. Here's hoping EoD saves the game!

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I really liked grothmar, LS4 prologue. Still play almost every day on this map. Good drops, noice events, beautiful map, boring story as always but at least fast episodes.

Then Bjora was cool, great maps and metas, boring story, cool jumping puzzle aspect of many achievements.

I didn't like drizzlewood but the map is awesome, and I understand people appreciate it, especially during the hard farm period at the beginning.

And then... Oboi... I don't even have enough motivation to try the new content.

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