Previous Episode: bit.ly/ReturnTo5 Next Episode: bit.ly/ReturnTo7 Grothmar Valley really surprised me with the amount of experiences it had to offer. Especially since I was expecting something terrible. In the later episodes I get to experience why exactly I’ve only heard bad things about the Saga but it didn’t stop me from enjoying Grothmar Valley to the fullest at the time where I was recording this.
I think Grothmar Valley is GW2 at its finest. The event design in it really makes the game feel like an MMO. They're simple enough, but you actually have to take a moment to think about how you fit into a bigger whole for most of them and consider what your teammates are doing throughout, it's not JUST a big Zerg blob. I hope they bring out more things like this into EoD where events are supposed to have you think about your allies and interact, purely through the mechanics of the event.
The criticism IBS gets is completely justfied and deserved, but people that haven't played it don't realize it only concerns the final episode. That episode was released in four different chapters, taking four times the usual time and... well you'll discover it yourself, but it royally screwed up the amazing expectations that had been set by how stellar the beginning of the saga was.
The Dragon Response Missions are a nice alternative to Strikes and Dungeons but yeah, the way theyre used for the frigging finale chapter of Irritable Bowel Syndrome is terrible.
Grothmar was a huge change of pace. I love all the events there. More involved instead of smash smash smash. The concert is freaking awesome and it's a creative as hell idea. Anet has really improved their game with map/event design, I can't wait for what's next. Hence, why I went back to the game and continue to play. End of Dragons will be glorious
Icebrood saga is amazing. Grothmar valley is the most beautiful map in the game and it's really refreshing to have funny events like concerts and blasting each other with charr cars instead of escorting some random people or fighting big bad bosses. Bjora Marches is also very good. Especially the feeling of uneasiness constantly following you around is something that they managed to nail perfectly on this map. And then we have Drizzlewood coast. "Finally a good fucking meta". The rewards are good and it really feels immersive, being such a long meta, plus all the events are funny and never dull or boring. I actually liked the strike missions too. When you have all the challanges up and you are playing alone, they are at least somehow challenging. I just wish they made them single player only and a lot harder. They could have worked well as single player high level content in alternative to party/squad content. We all know how bad and rushed the last events were, but that doesn't take anything away from the first maps
The events are so good in Grothmar Valley! I really hope we will see more of this creativity in End of Dragons. And I totally agree with the rest of your assessments :)
I actually love most of the Icebrood Saga. It's only the last act that was disappointing because the "Champions" story felt rushed while the gameplay felt like a slog. But the new zones (Grothmar, Bjora, Drizzlewood) are all really great, it has some great new music and setpieces, and still took the story to some fun and exciting places.
Yeah the last episode felt way too rushed. Not too sure why they rushed it, maybe due to concerns of community backlash in it being "late" if not released as "scheduled" (maybe partially our fault because well, people kept screaming about not enough content to keep them playing and what not... so this is what we get I guess), a deadline they just had to fulfill, or they just wanted to get this saga over with and focus on the expansion instead.
I guess only Anet knows but from the outside it just looks like they needed more people to work on the expansion and just did the bare minimum for the ending while trying to draw it out as much as possible. Which is of course not a great combo
the thing about ICBS is the grand finale.. they had to redo the full story (seems like they actually half it) and the timings were.. nvm, you can do a full run now! so its actually an amazing (endless) playthrough with awesome maps, amazing new ideas that i hope they re use and really entertaining metas.. as for grothmar alone.. omg! i remember when it launched.. such an amazing experience! in an era when we didnt know what a "saga" would be it was really inspiring and give us hope for this new road they took.. especially after the funko issue :P
Ah~~~ This map is super fun. There was a time that my husband had to quit gw2 bc he was too busy. So I experienced the whole Icebrood saga alone twice bc I also made his acc finish the storyline in order to make him can play with me immediately once he has free time :( Then finally he got the time to play, and when I introduce this map to him he had a lot of fun that night lol. All the events are so fun especially the concert lol
The prologue set a very good expectation for me going into Icebrood Saga. Every part of it is an absolute treat, from the graphics to the events, moving you around the map and adding a real variety. The story was also amazing, and I feel like alot of that continued into the middle of icebrood saga. Right up until they reached Icebrood Saga: Champions I was having a wonderful time with Icebrood Saga. The strikes themselves are wonderful and Im very glad to hear they're continuing to iterate on them instead of abandoning them. I'm very interested to see if you enjoy Icebrood Saga: Champions when you get to it, because I definitely didn't 😶🌫️
I still have to dive into strikes! Only done my first one yesterday for the "return to achievement" and there I had no idea what was going on lol. Regarding Champions: let's just say I figured out that my worries in this episode, about my perception being different to everybody elses, are definitely unwarrented... but the video on it should be up in about 3 weeks :)
@@MasterOfNoneGaming about three weeks sounds pretty good to me. I'll be looking forward to it. Good luck getting deeper into strikes too! I'd like to hear your opinion on how the different content types do or don't mesh together as well. Strikes, Dragon Response Missions, Scrying Pool, for some reason a sort of strike being in the scrying pool, etc.
The "I hate IBS" crowd are very vocal. It's a meme now. But the maps are always busy, the metas seem popular, so it can't be that bad. The last chapter was just a little rushed
Yeah I just finished the last chapter but the video will only be out in about 2 or 3 weeks. The ending is definitely a shame and I can understand why it would leave such a bad taste in peoples mouths.
It was just sad to see the saga go downhill. I loved grothmar! One of my faves as well. It set the expectations for the saga to be really high, as noone expected the prologue to be this good. The IBS meta's are popular indeed, as they are profitable. Noone would do the winter meta in bjora if it wasn't so profitable. Oh well.
Icebrood saga isn't has bad as people make it out to be, it definetly has it's flaws, and some pretty major ones, but a lot of the criticism came cause people were really worried about the game being dead
If you consider IBS as living World Season 5, it is fine except for the last part. And even that is not as bad as most people bring around during its Release times remember. As a new / returning player you don't have the wait time between the chapters. Still the new type of missions introduced there has some flaws. Also the final fight is entertaining, but considering the stakes at hand everything was just rapped up to quickly. But there is another reason for the bad rep of IBS: It was not announced as a regular living World season, but as a replacement for an actual expansion. So the expectations werde higher, including new elite specs and game systems.
This is about the conclusion I made as well. I feel like as a returning player it's much more enjoyable since you can play through it at your own pace and don't have the same expectations.
Not keeping up with the game, this was not clear at all. The only thing that seeped to the outside so to say, was how bad IBS was. I mean, playing it now is pretty obvious but yeah, an interesting thing to think about.
Previous Episode: bit.ly/ReturnTo5
Next Episode: bit.ly/ReturnTo7
Grothmar Valley really surprised me with the amount of experiences it had to offer. Especially since I was expecting something terrible. In the later episodes I get to experience why exactly I’ve only heard bad things about the Saga but it didn’t stop me from enjoying Grothmar Valley to the fullest at the time where I was recording this.
I think Grothmar Valley is GW2 at its finest. The event design in it really makes the game feel like an MMO. They're simple enough, but you actually have to take a moment to think about how you fit into a bigger whole for most of them and consider what your teammates are doing throughout, it's not JUST a big Zerg blob. I hope they bring out more things like this into EoD where events are supposed to have you think about your allies and interact, purely through the mechanics of the event.
Couldn't agree more!
The criticism IBS gets is completely justfied and deserved, but people that haven't played it don't realize it only concerns the final episode. That episode was released in four different chapters, taking four times the usual time and... well you'll discover it yourself, but it royally screwed up the amazing expectations that had been set by how stellar the beginning of the saga was.
The Dragon Response Missions are a nice alternative to Strikes and Dungeons but yeah, the way theyre used for the frigging finale chapter of Irritable Bowel Syndrome is terrible.
Grothmar was a huge change of pace. I love all the events there. More involved instead of smash smash smash. The concert is freaking awesome and it's a creative as hell idea. Anet has really improved their game with map/event design, I can't wait for what's next. Hence, why I went back to the game and continue to play. End of Dragons will be glorious
Icebrood saga is amazing. Grothmar valley is the most beautiful map in the game and it's really refreshing to have funny events like concerts and blasting each other with charr cars instead of escorting some random people or fighting big bad bosses. Bjora Marches is also very good. Especially the feeling of uneasiness constantly following you around is something that they managed to nail perfectly on this map. And then we have Drizzlewood coast. "Finally a good fucking meta". The rewards are good and it really feels immersive, being such a long meta, plus all the events are funny and never dull or boring.
I actually liked the strike missions too. When you have all the challanges up and you are playing alone, they are at least somehow challenging. I just wish they made them single player only and a lot harder. They could have worked well as single player high level content in alternative to party/squad content.
We all know how bad and rushed the last events were, but that doesn't take anything away from the first maps
The events are so good in Grothmar Valley! I really hope we will see more of this creativity in End of Dragons.
And I totally agree with the rest of your assessments :)
I actually love most of the Icebrood Saga. It's only the last act that was disappointing because the "Champions" story felt rushed while the gameplay felt like a slog. But the new zones (Grothmar, Bjora, Drizzlewood) are all really great, it has some great new music and setpieces, and still took the story to some fun and exciting places.
Yeah the last episode felt way too rushed. Not too sure why they rushed it, maybe due to concerns of community backlash in it being "late" if not released as "scheduled" (maybe partially our fault because well, people kept screaming about not enough content to keep them playing and what not... so this is what we get I guess), a deadline they just had to fulfill, or they just wanted to get this saga over with and focus on the expansion instead.
I guess only Anet knows but from the outside it just looks like they needed more people to work on the expansion and just did the bare minimum for the ending while trying to draw it out as much as possible. Which is of course not a great combo
Great video. Very on point. :)
Glad you enjoyed it!
the thing about ICBS is the grand finale.. they had to redo the full story (seems like they actually half it) and the timings were.. nvm, you can do a full run now! so its actually an amazing (endless) playthrough with awesome maps, amazing new ideas that i hope they re use and really entertaining metas..
as for grothmar alone.. omg! i remember when it launched.. such an amazing experience! in an era when we didnt know what a "saga" would be it was really inspiring and give us hope for this new road they took.. especially after the funko issue :P
Ah~~~ This map is super fun. There was a time that my husband had to quit gw2 bc he was too busy. So I experienced the whole Icebrood saga alone twice bc I also made his acc finish the storyline in order to make him can play with me immediately once he has free time :( Then finally he got the time to play, and when I introduce this map to him he had a lot of fun that night lol. All the events are so fun especially the concert lol
That concert took my by surprise! I hope we get to see more really cool events once End of Dragons launches.
The prologue set a very good expectation for me going into Icebrood Saga. Every part of it is an absolute treat, from the graphics to the events, moving you around the map and adding a real variety. The story was also amazing, and I feel like alot of that continued into the middle of icebrood saga. Right up until they reached Icebrood Saga: Champions I was having a wonderful time with Icebrood Saga. The strikes themselves are wonderful and Im very glad to hear they're continuing to iterate on them instead of abandoning them.
I'm very interested to see if you enjoy Icebrood Saga: Champions when you get to it, because I definitely didn't 😶🌫️
I still have to dive into strikes! Only done my first one yesterday for the "return to achievement" and there I had no idea what was going on lol.
Regarding Champions: let's just say I figured out that my worries in this episode, about my perception being different to everybody elses, are definitely unwarrented... but the video on it should be up in about 3 weeks :)
@@MasterOfNoneGaming about three weeks sounds pretty good to me. I'll be looking forward to it. Good luck getting deeper into strikes too! I'd like to hear your opinion on how the different content types do or don't mesh together as well. Strikes, Dragon Response Missions, Scrying Pool, for some reason a sort of strike being in the scrying pool, etc.
The "I hate IBS" crowd are very vocal. It's a meme now. But the maps are always busy, the metas seem popular, so it can't be that bad. The last chapter was just a little rushed
Yeah I just finished the last chapter but the video will only be out in about 2 or 3 weeks. The ending is definitely a shame and I can understand why it would leave such a bad taste in peoples mouths.
It was just sad to see the saga go downhill. I loved grothmar! One of my faves as well. It set the expectations for the saga to be really high, as noone expected the prologue to be this good. The IBS meta's are popular indeed, as they are profitable. Noone would do the winter meta in bjora if it wasn't so profitable. Oh well.
Icebrood saga isn't has bad as people make it out to be, it definetly has it's flaws, and some pretty major ones, but a lot of the criticism came cause people were really worried about the game being dead
If you consider IBS as living World Season 5, it is fine except for the last part. And even that is not as bad as most people bring around during its Release times remember. As a new / returning player you don't have the wait time between the chapters. Still the new type of missions introduced there has some flaws. Also the final fight is entertaining, but considering the stakes at hand everything was just rapped up to quickly.
But there is another reason for the bad rep of IBS: It was not announced as a regular living World season, but as a replacement for an actual expansion. So the expectations werde higher, including new elite specs and game systems.
This is about the conclusion I made as well. I feel like as a returning player it's much more enjoyable since you can play through it at your own pace and don't have the same expectations.
seriously. people only hate 'champion' not IBS.
Not keeping up with the game, this was not clear at all. The only thing that seeped to the outside so to say, was how bad IBS was.
I mean, playing it now is pretty obvious but yeah, an interesting thing to think about.
IBS was good until champions, change my mind
Definitely agree.