[merged] About the Skyscale Timegate...

[Endless Soul.5178]

I'm ok with the time gate, and I've barely even started the collection.

[FelixWolf.2348]

Honestly, I think it is a bit too late to change that because you are going to have these scenarios:

• People who don't like the timegate and decided not to get the mount probably already have a bad taste in their mouth and likely not going to go and try for it again, therefor removal won't really fix it(??? I think?).
• People who have progressed, not all but probably a lot, are going to get mad because "OH BUT YOU FORCED US TO WAIT BUT NOT EVERYONE ELSE?".

Personally I would have loved it not to have a timegate, Perhaps ArenaNet could use this as experience from playerbase and not do timegated mounts in the future(if there are more mounts. I'm going to say there are probably going to be more mounts).But what is done is done, I'll just grind until sunday until I get the mount because I MISSED THE FIRST RESET. ;-;

Also my comment to those who say "DON'T RUSH": Some people like to rush and beat each other to getting content as fast as possible, and maybe that isn't your play style, that's fine. But some people want to. Without a timegate you have both options, you can pace yourself or speed through faster than copyrighted blue hedgehog.

[Samnang.1879]

no...i love quests like this, where there is a progress and purpose to it. you're raising the skyscale from baby, train it, feed it etc. i miss when 2nd gen legendaries had quests like nevermore, hope, astralaria and chupa, those were fun to do.

yall want to rush content and then complain theres nothing to do... can't take the cake and eat it too

[Emberstone.2904]

I've already missed two resets because of work, so I'm not even going to bother. The griffon is much faster anyway.

Guild Wars 2, to me, has always been about breaking many traditional MMO tropes like this. Take ascended gear, for example. Nothing is stopping you from crafting your first full set of pinks in one day if you have the gold. If you don't, then play the game. That's all it takes. There's nothing that says I must wait for any reason. Getting the best gear in the game is effort-based.

Guild Wars 2 also had nothing like the Artifact Power system WoW had, where your character's progression was behind everyone else's if you missed even one day of playing. Here, your rewards have traditionally been a reflection of the effort you put in.

It appears that's no longer the case, so this was a really, REALLY disappointing patch for me. I played the story, and now I'm just going to play other games in my free time rather than being forced to wait for no reason other than "because." Even though I can usually put in that effort in the wee hours of the morning, because I missed those resets I would be getting my Skyscale two days later than everyone else.

It's friggin' pointless. I quit the game a few months ago because Anet frustrated me with the Istan nerf and how it was handled, and I was really hoping to be convinced to stay after this patch, but it's clear now they'd rather choose inconvenience over player experience just to keep us playing longer.

I'm done.

[Fundor.2098]

I really loved the episode! The story was well done, the meta is one of the best in the whole game, the Mist Shard armor set costs are fine and they are fun to unlock.The three first collections for the Skyscale started feeling pretty tedious during the second time around the same places, but that was alright, because you gotta work hard for cool things. And flying the test Skyscales made them a lot more fun than they would have been othervice.

And then comes the time gate. Never been a fan of them and never will. They are completely pointless in every hecking thing they are gating. The gated collections or materials are always either tedious or expensive anyway so there's no good reason to time gate them further. It's just an insult to players' free time availability.

It definitely doesn't ruin the episode me. It was pure quality. But it does increase my existing frustation towards every hecking thing in this game, that's locked behind a time gate just because.

I mean... why not just let people do steady progress according to how they can invest time in the game?

[tekhiun.8653]

@"Jokubas.4265" said:

At the moment, I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I want to stop playing, but I might still finish earning it. That's not really a good thing for me though, I just can't help it. This is more or less the reason I quit World of Warcraft. It stopped being fun and started being work, because you spend all your time re-earning things you already earned. They stopped giving you time to enjoy the things you earned.

I completely agree with you. My experience has been of complete disappointment since i finished the first part of the collection. I really thought I was just going to cure a skyscale and get one as a mount, and not "oh go get more 21 items on places you have already been" and then to find out that today I wouldn't be able to continue with the collection because I finish getting those 21 eggs 10 minutes after daily reset. That's a real cold shower from all the excitement I just had after completing the story, and a real let down tbh.

The whole experience really made me think if playing the game was still worth it. And it could have all be avoided if they just had told us from the beginning it was going to be like this, then I knew that I had to hush through the story and map so not to have one of the days I took of work completed wasted. The whole experience has been a complete disappointment, and thats not even counting how many times other players have told me I am an "entitled child" because I did not enjoy having wasted a day I took of work to dedicate to something I was really hoping to enjoy.

[Obtena.7952]

@tekhiun.8653 said:

@RizelStar.3724 said:

@Daniel Handler.4816 said:It's not the end of the world but it is pretty disappointing. I think this was a major oversight and I hope you will consider a player's real world schedule before implementing something like this in the future.

I hope they do consider that in the future or have a timegate that makes sense and adds something positive to the game.

The problem I see here is that the future of gw2 may be this. Basic a mobile game that you play on pc. Don't forget that NCsoft has decided to focus on mobile platforms.

WUT? There has always been some degree of time gated things in this game. What you see here isn't a new trend in GW2.

[Rukario.1695]

Only children think that calling others children is an insult. It's quite obvious they haven't had a full time job if they believe this has absolutely no effect on restricted free-time schedules - and somehow believe our discontent is stemming from entitlement for instant gratification.

[tekhiun.8653]

@Obtena.7952 said:

@tekhiun.8653 said:

@RizelStar.3724 said:

@Daniel Handler.4816 said:It's not the end of the world but it is pretty disappointing. I think this was a major oversight and I hope you will consider a player's real world schedule before implementing something like this in the future.

I hope they do consider that in the future or have a timegate that makes sense and adds something positive to the game.

The problem I see here is that the future of gw2 may be this. Basic a mobile game that you play on pc. Don't forget that NCsoft has decided to focus on mobile platforms.

WUT? There has always been some degree of time gated things in this game. What you see here isn't a new trend in GW2.

How many mounts are time gated on daily reset ? One thing is an item that are plenty of ways to get, an mount is completely different, specially on gw2 since they are not just cosmetic but actually have a specific function.

[Absconditus.6804]

@Gop.8713 said:It's like they want us to play the game or something . . .

Except a timegate is a hindrance to playing. You are literally walled off from playing through the content you want to focus on at the given time. The collection is massive, and it's also repetitive, at least the first day with you visiting mostly the same exact locations repeatedly instead of things being spread out to different locations. Aside from the medicine ingredients from the vendors and unlocking access to those, after you've done 10 events in each of the sections of the map, there's no reason that you will need to do an event again for the rest of day 1. I can't speak for day 2's collection, as I haven't gotten to start it yet. So you just run around, collect the collectibles, then get hit with a timegated wall and log out. You didn't interact with other players. You started to ignore events and the meta. You just ran around collecting to collect with the time you got before the daily reset and felt burned out by it. It weren't fun.

Nobody that I've seen is saying they want the mount immediately, nobody is saying they want it within a few hours. They just don't want this stupid daily reset timegate system to basically push them towards having to complete each collection within a single day. It's already a massive collection. There's probably a money sink in one of the later stages too, I won't be surprised. It did not need this timegating. Timegating is such a lazy game design. The removal of the timegates does not in any way lessen the effort it takes to obtain the mount. The timegate does not require effort. It just tells you that you can't put effort towards what you want for x amount of time. It's like GW2 suddenly became a mobile game, all that's missing is the ability to pay to speed things up.

[Roquen.5406]

@"Deihnyx.6318" said:Almost no one but the person I was answering to... But I'm glad we agree.

Forums will always be the vocal minority, it just may be the person you responded to wants it to be a 2 hour grind and that is it. I meant generally speaking, most people do not mind working for something.

I said multiple times timegates are just one way to do it. They've tried other ways before. They've tried the money sink with the gryphon. People complained just as bad.Again, find a rewarding way to get something where everyone is gonna be happy about it. There is none. Make it a paid content, and people will complain that it should be free, put a gold sink on it, and other kinds of people will complain that they don't have the time to farm.

Can I ask, how does making you wait until server reset the next day reward you? If it is 20 hours to finish achievement wise, why do you feel the need to lock it behind an arbitrary - come back tomorrow to continue? If someone wants to do those 20 hours in a single playthrough or over the course of 2 weeks, why is that an issue? If you truly think a 5 day time gate is long enough to keep people playing...then I fear the game is doomed to fail.

New mounts were never promised. That was my whole point. Heck even the gryphon wasn't promised.Once again, my point here is that with the announcement of LS, a new mount was introduced. In that sense they advertised it as a day one thing to be able to have. They specifically left out that you cannot own it day 1. That is odd to not state.And there is a new mount. They haven't lied. They don't have to give out every detail on how to get it, it's part of the fun.

It is one thing to let people figure out the steps involved in the achievements. It is another to leave out "Oh you have to wait 5 days if you catch every reset to even do the collection". Informing people of the latter gives people an appropriate expectation without revealing the fun parts. Remember these are two distinct things.

I'll be honest. To me a gold sink is even worse than a timegate. Gold sink means brainless farming or credit card. One is a waste of time, the other a waste of money. A timegate, while also being annoying, isn't not a waste of time, more like a delay. But I can still do other stuff in the meantime.

Why not just let the collection take as long as it takes without putting up a wall? Or even better offer both, one way to pay with gold if players want, another to go through the collections. This is how they handled it with the precursors for first gen legendaries. They added in the ability to craft or you can just buy from TP. Players still use both avenues to acquire them. That way you cater to all sides.

To me the best way is through -actually playing the kitten game-, which also include challenging the players. But that too is not possible cause why developing builds and strategies in a game! (and yeah no doing collections through youtube is not what I call challenging)

Once again, how does making you wait until next reset, make this collection, "challenging"? If you have done any of the collection you would see you go collect one item from a bunch of maps, only to find out the next step you do literally the same thing but with a different item. How is that challenging? The only challenge is testing your patience. There is no unique way to do it, you are just retracing the same steps...only you wait because of the time gate.

Timegates are not the worst, and I'm fine if that's non sense to some people.

Also, just because you do not value time vs. money the same way another does, does not mean time is not valuable. For one person, they make enough money that they would rather buy gems to turn into gold, so that they can spend their time in game doing other things they do enjoy. For other players, they may not have the luxury to do so or they may enjoy that grind, so they spend time in game grinding the gold to get the things they do want.

I think both are fair options because we all enjoy different aspects. Once again, you keep mistaking time for challenge. Making someone wait to do something is not a challenge. Requiring a unique set of skills to do something is a challenge.

If you ever played Vanilla World of Warcraft, there was this bow called Rhok'delar, Longbow of the Ancient Keepers. You had to acquire different parts and pieces through raiding, open world, dungeons, etc. But part of the cool thing about this bow was that as you pieced it together you had to use it to complete the finished item. So for example, part of it had you fighting different demons. Each one required a different set of skills, maybe one you had to kite, another you had to burst down, another you had to weaken in a certain way before you could kill it, etc. But they were designed in a way that you had to use your own skillset to get it done. No one could help you, so if someone else tried to damage one of them for you, they would despawn and you would have to wait to try again. It also challenged you to use your character in different ways.

Obviously, this was not perfect but it was definitely my idea of a good way to challenge someone, that does not just time gate something for the sake of longevity. The current system in this game misses that mark by a lot if you ask me.

[Ototo.3214]

Absolutely. They really do not need this time gate to stretch the content, the map is gorgeous, well designed, and feels rewarding to participate in events. If it stays like this people will probably keep coming back to do the meta just like the HoT maps still see play. But...they opted to hype up this mount we can't even get yet. I loved the story, loved the map, and was having a great time once I completed the final instance. Went to go start the collection and was super excited to get my own Skyscale when my motivation was immediately crushed by everyone saying it was time gated in chat. Why? It really serves no purpose. Not too mention that the daily reset requirement will screw over those of us that have to go to work and struggle to finish these bloated collections before the next reset. It also renders all exp completely useless for the next few days for those of us that have 283 masteries already capped. Just, please...Anet. Stop this. I'm fine with something being hard to get, I'm fine with something costing gold to get, I'd have even been fine with the story being gated by requiring a certain Skyscale mastery to progress. But artificially extending content like this I'm not fine with.

[slpr.2647]

this was actually the last straw for me, just uninstalled. time to enjoy some other games that i play.

[Nyraxx The Necromancer.172]

Agreed, time gate was absurdly disappointing, this coming from a longtime and stalwart Anet fan. Many people only have 1-3 days off a week, assuming an average of two days per week, it would take about 3 weeks to get your skyscale, meaning during those three weeks you won't have your skyscale, unlock its masteries, etc.

[Deihnyx.6318]

@Roquen.5406 said:

@"Deihnyx.6318" said:Almost no one but the person I was answering to... But I'm glad we agree.

Forums will always be the vocal minority, it just may be the person you responded to wants it to be a 2 hour grind and that is it. I meant generally speaking, most people do not mind working for something.

I said multiple times timegates are just one way to do it. They've tried other ways before. They've tried the money sink with the gryphon. People complained just as bad.Again, find a rewarding way to get something where everyone is gonna be happy about it. There is none. Make it a paid content, and people will complain that it should be free, put a gold sink on it, and other kinds of people will complain that they don't have the time to farm.

Can I ask, how does making you wait until server reset the next day reward you? If it is 20 hours to finish achievement wise, why do you feel the need to lock it behind an arbitrary - come back tomorrow to continue? If someone wants to do those 20 hours in a single playthrough or over the course of 2 weeks, why is that an issue? If you truly think a 5 day time gate is long enough to keep people playing...then I fear the game is doomed to fail.

New mounts were never promised. That was my whole point. Heck even the gryphon wasn't promised.Once again, my point here is that with the announcement of LS, a new mount was introduced. In that sense they advertised it as a day one thing to be able to have. They specifically left out that you cannot own it day 1. That is odd to not state.And there is a new mount. They haven't lied. They don't have to give out every detail on how to get it, it's part of the fun.

It is one thing to let people figure out the steps involved in the achievements. It is another to leave out "Oh you have to wait 5 days if you catch every reset to even do the collection". Informing people of the latter gives people an appropriate expectation without revealing the fun parts. Remember these are two distinct things.

I'll be honest. To me a gold sink is even worse than a timegate. Gold sink means brainless farming or credit card. One is a waste of time, the other a waste of money. A timegate, while also being annoying, isn't not a waste of time, more like a delay. But I can still do other stuff in the meantime.

Why not just let the collection take as long as it takes without putting up a wall? Or even better offer both, one way to pay with gold if players want, another to go through the collections. This is how they handled it with the precursors for first gen legendaries. They added in the ability to craft or you can just buy from TP. Players still use both avenues to acquire them. That way you cater to all sides.

To me the best way is through -actually playing the kitten game-, which also include challenging the players. But that too is not possible cause why developing builds and strategies in a game! (and yeah no doing collections through youtube is not what I call challenging)

Once again, how does making you wait until next reset, make this collection, "challenging"? If you have done any of the collection you would see you go collect one item from a bunch of maps, only to find out the next step you do literally the same thing but with a different item. How is that challenging? The only challenge is testing your patience. There is no unique way to do it, you are just retracing the same steps...only you wait because of the time gate.

Timegates are not the worst, and I'm fine if that's non sense to some people.

Also, just because you do not value time vs. money the same way another does, does not mean time is not valuable. For one person, they make enough money that they would rather buy gems to turn into gold, so that they can spend their time in game doing other things they do enjoy. For other players, they may not have the luxury to do so or they may enjoy that grind, so they spend time in game grinding the gold to get the things they do want.

I think both are fair options because we all enjoy different aspects. Once again, you keep mistaking time for challenge. Making someone wait to do something is not a challenge. Requiring a unique set of skills to do something is a challenge.

If you ever played Vanilla World of Warcraft, there was this bow called Rhok'delar, Longbow of the Ancient Keepers. You had to acquire different parts and pieces through raiding, open world, dungeons, etc. But part of the cool thing about this bow was that as you pieced it together you had to use it to complete the finished item. So for example, part of it had you fighting different demons. Each one required a different set of skills, maybe one you had to kite, another you had to burst down, another you had to weaken in a certain way before you could kill it, etc. But they were designed in a way that you had to use your own skillset to get it done. No one could help you, so if someone else tried to damage one of them for you, they would despawn and you would have to wait to try again. It also challenged you to use your character in different ways.

Obviously, this was not perfect but it was definitely my idea of a good way to challenge someone, that does not just time gate something for the sake of longevity. The current system in this game misses that mark by a lot if you ask me.

I do not mistake time for challenge, I did say a few times that timegate is not ideal either. It's just not as bad -to me- as say, gold sink, especially because it's very limited compared to other timegates in the game that are much more BS (try getting the whole Tequalt set...). Farming is also time wasted. Farming is worse to me, as it's time wasted that you can't spend on anything else. If you want alternative ways like either gold sink or timegate, sure. But in the end, they both end up artificially keeping players in the game.

"My way" of doing it is basically never represented anymore. It would be challenges, it would be HM map completion like we had in GW2, or literally anything that require the player to put to good use all the billion new skills we learned through the story, to force them to revisit their build, to think outside the box.

[Celsith.2753]

Turns out a time gate is a really bad idea when your servers can't handle everyone trying to zone into an instance at the same time........

[MrRuin.9740]

@Gop.8713 said:It's like they want us to play the game or something . . .

I like playing the game. The whole process to get it could take 2 weeks if was an interesting journey and things to do. This is just a lazy timegate to press the F key in place of actual content.

[Vyrulisse.1246]

Apparently there are even time gated steps INSIDE THE ALREADY time gated collections. Wow A.net, really? I wish they'd say something to justify this.

[DeWolfe.2174]

@Gop.8713 said:It's like they want us to play the game or something . . .

I finished the last egg at 8:03 PM, 3 minutes after reset.So now I'm NOT playing the game for another 23 hrs and 57 minutes.How poorly thought out could this design be????

Worse, now my blood pressures up and I'm angry.So how is that good for your business Anet???

[CJtheBigBear.9610]

@Celsith.2753 said:Turns out a time gate is a really bad idea when your servers can't handle everyone trying to zone into an instance at the same time........

@Rukario.1695 said:Nice, I can't log in. lmao

Oh good, glad it's not just me.Welp. Herein lies the next glaring issue I suppose, lol.

[DeWolfe.2174]

Oh and it's not just the time gating that's a horrible design, it's that they could have made a lot of story and adventuring to get the Skyscale. Circling the same map again and again, just to press "F" 842 times is not quality and engaging content.

[Terminal.5093]

The mastery track should be hidden (like griffon), because now everyone who had max pof masteries is getting no xp or spirit shards until they do skyscale.. so that's multiple daily resets worth of days that people are forced to engage in the content to get back to where they were before.

If you want to talk about fun, it's incredibly not fun having to do the story, see all those bonus xp tomes and then do 30+ events to unlock vendors as part of skyscale collection and be getting less than you'd normally get. And while all this is happening, any other metas, like istan, you're getting no xp for days as well. That's crazy.

Please just hide the mastery track until it's unlocked. This has a knock on effect to every pof map and meta.

[ChronoPinoyX.7923]

So what exactly is the difference between people who want to do things quick and people who can wait?

Simple: People who can wait, can still wait even without time gating.

People who prefer to do things quick are forced to wait...

Not really a hard concept. I support ANet a lot but this was a wrong decision. Anyone who prefers to take their time can take their time if they really want, no one's forcing you to rush it, unlike people who wanna do things quick who are being forced to wait.

[PixelJaeger.2403]

Just wait until you see how many of the collections have subcollections... Timegating is one thing i could live with. But the 2nd collection alone has 14ish sub-collections. I'm really sorry to say that, but in my opinion, the new Mount is definetly not worth that much effort.Don't get me wrong. I'm not against "working" towards something but this collection design leaves more than a bad taste in my mouth.Therefore i will not be going to get it and also be looking for other games to play. This much grinding inside of grinding is ridiculous.

[Menadena.7482]

ROFLOL!!!!

I am probably not going to even be able to START the stuff for the mount until Sunday and my major concern is if people will still be doing the story this weekend. All of you are complaining about 5 days? Please.

[i would rather in not be story gated though, I like to do stories on my own schedule. Raise the cost of it if you want to.]