Solutions to the Skyscale problem?

The Skyscale is a very beautiful mount, no question. It's magnificent, and it's animations are very natural. However, the Skyscale teased to us in game seems to be fairly underwhelming and it's functions only represent a very niche and restricted advantage through climbing walls.

As a proper Dragon mount, I feel that the mount creation team were too afraid to take the risks needed to do a dragon justice, so I wanted to input my suggestions on how to make the Skyscale a mount that will have more use past the current map.

1. Proper, leveled flying. A dragon with wings needs to be able to fly. Not just 'glide'. At this point of time, it is lesser than the Griffon in terms of flight ability. Even in the map, I see more people on Griffons than Skyscales because it's simply easier to use.So, what I suggest is this.

   • Put up barriers around the skybox. This will block the dragon from going above or beyond the map, and will set a maximum altitude. The game won't break if you set up a proper canopy. Apply 'no mount zones' if needed.
   • Add 'Endless Flight' as the last mastery, but make it HARD to earn. I think a lot of people are worried about flight being too accessible for everyone and too easy to use. But there are also a lot of people who are really hoping for this feature and I don't think it's right to just dismiss them when there are ways to compromise. Make 'Endless Flight' available only to those who work very hard for it. Make it ridiculous, even, like a completing collection with 100 items to unlock the mastery. This will ensure that only people who are willing to work for the feature will get it - and those are also the people who will appreciate it the most.edit: Alternatively, instead of endless flight - simply make gliding forward/backward/sideways NOT use up energy. Only have ascension use energy. Then players can at least fly at a stable altitude, but still have to use walls and cliffs to get higher up.

2. Please let us continue to gain spirit shards while waiting for the masteries to unlock. Or give us an alternative way to use the extra xp instead of it disappearing.

3. Let us manually aim the target area for the Dismount ability. Breathing fire is cool, but not when it misses the enemies pretty much every time.

the reason why ppl use the griffon more is because no one is able to unlock the skyscale and to borrow one you need to get to specific places, allot of ppl already have the griffon so to not use them is simply not viable.

@sorudo.9054 said:the reason why ppl use the griffon more is because no one is able to unlock the skyscale and to borrow one you need to get to specific places, allot of ppl already have the griffon so to not use them is simply not viable.

I see, and understand, of course.However I am hearing a lot that because the Skyscale's abilities are so limited - there are a lot of people who are remarking that the map is easy enough to use with a griffin, so how is Skyscale relevant? Climbing walls doesn't seem like a useful enough ability when you already have a springer with high jump height, and a Griffon that can already reach high altitudes.

The problem is that: The abilities that the Skyscale has, have already been accomplished by other mounts.

I'd guess players, right now, are using Griffon more than Skyscale because obtaining the Skyscale permanently isn't possible, yet.I don't think the Dev Team is afraid. If that were so, there would be a much different acquisition method for the Skyscale. If anything, adding 100 collection items should scare them. Heh.

@Dragon Priestess.9760 said:

@sorudo.9054 said:the reason why ppl use the griffon more is because no one is able to unlock the skyscale and to borrow one you need to get to specific places, allot of ppl already have the griffon so to not use them is simply not viable.

well, since literally no one has ever unlocked the masteries yet, you can't really judge till it's reviewable.

I feel the premise is flawed. The LS chapter has only been out for a day. Since the mount is time-gated, we can't know if there is a problem that needs a solution. Let's wait to see some fully traited ones.

We got to look at it's masteries when they were unlocked during the livestream. They weren't very impressive.

I think you're misunderstanding the design structure of mounts in this game. The Skyscale was very meticulously designed so that it has a reasonable place within the set, without stepping on anything's toes. It is actually quite easy to use and fly. The Spring is fast ascent, and the the Griffon is fast horizontal movement over empty space. The Skyscale is for precision ascent and traversal over empty space. This makes it slower, but infinitely more maneuverable.

Also, I'm uncertain if you're misunderstanding or not, but it can't climb indefinitely. It's climb height is restricted in the same way its flight is.

@"Dragon Priestess.9760" said:

• Add 'Endless Flight' as the last mastery, but make it HARD to earn. I think a lot of people are worried about flight being too accessible for everyone and too easy to use. But there are also a lot of people who are really hoping for this feature and I don't think it's right to just dismiss them when there are ways to compromise. Make 'Endless Flight' available only to those who work very hard for it. Make it ridiculous, even, like a completing collection with 100 items to unlock the mastery. This will ensure that only people who are willing to work for the feature will get it - and those are also the people who will appreciate it the most.

I agree completely that skyscale feels like a really niche mount, and I can't see myself using it much outside of a few situations despite it looking cool. However, I've gotta say that I fall VERY much in the "flight being too accessible" camp of players. ANet's been great about their implementation of "flight" in their game - it's not unrestricted, and requires interacting with the terrain/updrafts/landing spots constantly. I'd hate anything added to the game that just let players soar mindlessly over maps at max altitude... no thank you please... too many games have done that and it's awful.

That being said, I do get your concerns about wasting experience gain in PoF until the mount's unlocked, and the mount itself feels quite clunky to use so far... maybe it'll be better with the "wall cling" mastery.

1. Make the mount be able to climb a wall. If you run out of your flight bar and adrenaline on a ledge, if the mount can stick to the wall, why can it not climb up the rest of the way and use the propel feature when it wants to just leave the wall and fly? It’s so dumb the way it is right now because you have to awkwardly glide back down and find a ledge and start over. And the height gain is seemingly the same as a springer. So why not just use a springer?

2. Don’t make it climb the wall, leave it as clinging, but let the flight bar regenerate so it can take off and reset the canopy.

These restrictions make absolutely no sense and seem to only exist because they’re afraid of it overshadowing other mounts. But 9 times out of 10, if I see a cliff I need to get up somewhere, I’m generally going to see if it’s something I can scale with the gryphon first and then resort to springer. They’re trying to avoid abandoning mounts with adding other mounts, but it’s already happening... Raptors and jackals are land mounts that are far faster than gryphons in land, but you still see people sing flapping and gliding distances instead of using those other land mounts.

Part of this could be solved with a more intuitive mount selection system, but in general, it’s going to happen either way. And designing the Skyscale to be this clunky mount with an overarching canopy restriction on top of flight regen and adrenaline regen is just so incredibly pointless.

@Lauren.3061 said:

@"Dragon Priestess.9760" said:

• Add 'Endless Flight' as the last mastery, but make it
  HARD
  to earn. I think a lot of people are worried about flight being too accessible for everyone and too easy to use. But there are also a lot of people who are really hoping for this feature and I don't think it's right to just dismiss them when there are ways to compromise. Make 'Endless Flight' available only to those who work very hard for it. Make it ridiculous, even, like a completing collection with 100 items to unlock the mastery. This will ensure that only people who are willing to work for the feature will get it - and those are also the people who will appreciate it the most.

My argument is that the Griffon already breaks all of these rules. A good griffon user can maintain their altitude, and even continue to gain altitude without ever having to land, if they play their skills right. Yet people still play on the ground, and there are many who still prefer to use other mounts instead.

I'm loving the test Skyscales so far :) To me they work just fine like they are.The only improvement I'd consider just to make it even more interesting throughout Tyria would be adding a mastery, which would prevent the skyscale from losing more altitude than where it left of from, unless it would descent intentionally. That would let it fly high indefinitely, as long as it started from a high location to begin with. :) Shouldn't cause much problems the griffon doesn't already face and would be fun as heck. :D

As people gain proficiency and masteries with the Skyscale, it will be used more. (Yeah, and when we own it, though I have seen a few dyed Skyscales flying around--beta players?) I'm personally looking forward to experimenting with one in Verdant Brink and Tangled Depths especially. Hovering seems so very useful.

It was never meant to be the be-all and end-all of mounts, so it will not and should not ever replace the griffon. It seems that it will fill its own personal niche very nicely.

@Dragon Priestess.9760 said:

@Lauren.3061 said:

@Dragon Priestess.9760 said:

• Add 'Endless Flight' as the last mastery, but make it
  HARD
  to earn. I think a lot of people are worried about flight being too accessible for everyone and too easy to use. But there are also a lot of people who are really hoping for this feature and I don't think it's right to just dismiss them when there are ways to compromise. Make 'Endless Flight' available only to those who work very hard for it. Make it ridiculous, even, like a completing collection with 100 items to unlock the mastery. This will ensure that only people who are willing to work for the feature will get it - and those are also the people who will appreciate it the most.

I barely does. In order to use griffon, you'd need to gain height somewhere first. Doing the infinite altitude trick requires a lot of time which really isn't worth the effort. All of this is very much different from a mount that has the ability to fly.

You're more likely to get Anet to add UM/VM orbs in their respective maps (or a new kind for core maps) than for Anet to give the ability for the mount to fly by itself.

@kharmin.7683 said:I feel the premise is flawed. The LS chapter has only been out for a day. Since the mount is time-gated, we can't know if there is a problem that needs a solution. Let's wait to see some fully traited ones.

Videos exist on the matter idk why people still say things like this. Please use the internet.

I am personally left wondering to the specific niche of the Skyscale. The Skyscale feels just too slow to compare with the just buffed Springer in vertical movement. It got faster charging time.And the griffon feels a lot more responsive for snap movement. The Skyscale is very sluggish in comparision.

We can only judge how good the mount is when it really gets released, and thats at best on saturday, right now all we get is demo mode.

If you watched the guild chat episode about the skyscale, you would know they've already set ceiling heights for it.

What problem? It works as planned. Each mount has a specific use.

@"Cragga the Eighty Third.6015" said:As people gain proficiency and masteries with the Skyscale, it will be used more. (Yeah, and when we own it, though I have seen a few dyed Skyscales flying around--beta players?)

You can dye the borrowed ones. Set the dye for your locked skyscale and it will apply to the borrowed one as well.

The solution is easy: remove all these pointless restrictions / limits on its ability to fly and let us have the flying mount the community has always been asking for. The skyscale would still be slow / limited enough to not render any of the other mounts useless and it wouldn't "break" any content which hasn't already been broken by the other mounts either.

I have to admit, I felt a wee bit disappointed even using the skyscales around the zone, they felt VERY Clumbsy to use. I really like the idea and I liked being able to feel the weight, but the skyscale reminds me of the old springer before it's speed was increased. It's slow, sluggish.. and dragons to me outclass a gryphon for agility and strength and stamina. It flies VERY Slowly. I see more people on the griffon because it's simply just faster/easier to use.

people use griffon over other mounts that are more proficient in the necessary movement because of the work that went into getting it (or because they just like the look more). Skyscale will be the same, people will use it even if a springer or raptor is better, because of the work that was put in to getting it.

after getting all the masteries for the skyscale, it's actually fun for me. yeah you gotta do some parkour but when used right, the dash, replenish mastery and bond of vigor make it, for me anyway, better than the griffin

@Prideofshadows.4106 said:after getting all the masteries for the skyscale, it's actually fun for me. yeah you gotta do some parkour but when used right, the dash, replenish mastery and bond of vigor make it, for me anyway, better than the griffin

I've barely used my Griffon lately, though I think it's just because the Skyscale is new. Once that new car smell fades, I'm sure I'll be switching back and forth.