[merged] About the Skyscale Timegate...

[Lord Alfred.6541]

To much time locked content

[Evil.1580]

I see some people are still unpleased. I guess we are talking about instant gratification at this point.ANET, the point of a game is to be fun and time consuming. There is nothing fun in instant gratification. Please consider this - people that want it will be the 1st who will abandon GW2.

[Ragnarox.9601]

so enjoy another timegate cause you need 250 ls4 map currencies, locked by 25 daily so 10 more days xD i hope this mount has some legendary status with legendary skin cause everything seems like legendary farming... You did this anet, half of your playerbase hates you.

[Evil.1580]

@Ragnarox.9601 said:so enjoy another timegate cause you need 250 ls4 map currencies, locked by 25 daily so 10 more days xD i hope this mount has some legendary status with legendary skin cause everything seems like legendary farming... You did this anet, half of your playerbase hates you.

Why would you stop at 25 daily? If you don't have any of the mats you can farm them for 1 day, if you want to. Nothing is time gated here :)

[carvanha.7341]

Personally I feel that the timegate issue would largely be ignored by the community if they model the collection based on Legendary Weapons/armor or Mawdrey.In example,1) Working towards a legendary weapon = you get experimental and precursor skins.2) Legendary armor = you also get the precursor skins.3) Working towards Mawdrey = you get Mysterious and Cultivated vine backpack skins

My suggestion is that, if Anet were to reward the community in between the timegate by giving us a baby skyscale backpack skin, the community wouldnt be in an uproar over the timegating issue.... The community wouldnt even mind if the duration were twice as long... but obviously if a baby skyscale backpack skin is made, it would definitely be in the gemstore lootbox than out there as a PvE reward

[Aesyr.6059]

"Oh, you don't have enough Charged Quartz? Buy the items on the trading post. Oh, you don't have enough gold? Buy gems with real life money and change them into gold." If you don't have anything better than this tired old song and dance, and if you don't see why this kind of defence of ArenaNet is the reason predatory business practises are all the rage in the entire industry right now (because this same sad little excuse gets thrown around all the time) then I have some bad news for you."

No offense but... Gold doesn't come only from gems. You can also play the game and get it.

[Evil.1580]

@eldrin.6471 said:

@"bOTEB.1573" said:I see some people are still unpleased. I guess we are talking about instant gratification at this point.ANET, the point of a game is to be fun and time consuming. There is nothing fun in instant gratification. Please consider this - people that want it will be the 1st who will abandon GW2.

instant gratification.NOPE. i think most people just want balanced and proportionate.we pay them to give us the game we want not to play out there sadistic collection fantasy son us.pulling a stunt like this when the company is clearly struggling and just laid off a lot of staff is hard to fathom.guild wars 2 is on a one way trip to nowhere.

"this mount and collection is way to much effort for to little reward"These are your words. You want even less effort, no? What would be less effort in your opinion?

[Evil.1580]

@"eldrin.6471" said:this mount and collection is way to much effort for to little reward.how does pissing of a significant percentage of your player base help keep a sustainable population in this game? cant wait to see the next quarterly earnings report.

But you have used the word effort. See? Read your 1st sentence :)

Also, I am not very sure about this line of yours:"we pay them to give us the game we want"

The users are not developing the content, nor they are the storytellers. I think you are kinda confused....

[Airyll.7849]

@"bOTEB.1573" said:These are your words. You want even less effort, no? What would be less effort in your opinion?

You seem to be very good at nit-picking comments that serve your own narrative and intentionally ignoring all constructive comments that reveal the actual problem with the mount:The Skyscale's collection is equivalent to that of a legendary collection, with additional unreasonable time-gating and not enough reward. The time-gating has been mostly resolved, but this still now leaves us with a legendary collection that does not give you a legendary outcome. The Skyscale is a mediocre mount compared to the others we already have access to; it cannot travel on the ground as fast as the Raptor, the Jackal or the Roller Beetle / it cannot ascend as quickly as the Springer or the Jackal (via portals) / it cannot fly as fast as the Griffon and by extension, a skilled Griffon flyer will also be able to stay airborne longer than the stop-start nature of Skyscale's "flight".

The effort that goes into getting the Skyscale does not equate to the reward I get. I actually find the collection to be really fun, and I don't mind it, but I'm loathed to do it because I'm doing it for... a sidegrade. A not-even-a-sidegrade, in fact. We're not asking for the collection to be less effort; we're asking for the reward of the collection to appropriately match the effort required to get it. For legendary collections everywhere else in the game (weapons, armour and trinkets alike) you get impressive visual effects, you get the ability to stat change whenever you want for no cost, you can always retrieve upgrades you have put into them without needing an extractor to do so - they are upgrades to Exotic and Ascended gear, not a sidegrade. Considering the fact that the Skyscale takes as much effort and time as Legendary collection does, why does it not give something of appropriate value as a reward?

We aren't asking for "less effort". We're asking for the Skyscale to reflect the amount of effort it needs.

[Evil.1580]

@"Airyll.7849" said:We aren't asking for "less effort". We're asking for the Skyscale to reflect the amount of effort it needs.

"this mount and collection is way to much effort for to little reward"Since the mount isn't changing, you want to put less effort in order to obtain it.In other words you want to get closer to instant gratification :)

Also crafting any legendary collection with its precursor will take you more time/money than this collection, aka the effort put in it is more than the effort you put in the mount collection. Example - Aurora. You are 15 days time gated just to get the back, which is 2 times more than the mount collection, at its previous state, after the change next week it will be 3 times ... you must be aware that tomorrow many players will have the mount.

[Kylden Ar.3724]

@"ScyeRynn.4218" said:Timegates, legendary precursor-like collection inception, bugged events required for the collection, just bad ideas and implementation from the get-go. It's 2019 and this game has seen all kinds of examples for what works and doesn't work on all parts of the game. They knew this was a bad idea and here they are doing the same things once again. They will continue to do these things again and AGAIN. It will never end until new direction and a new design vision takes over.

The game has so much potential and it's being wasted. We should be on Expansion 3 already, not waiting 4-5 more months for ANOTHER hollow LW episode that will take baby steps toward a new story, only to wait 4-5 more months for another short LW story episode. You all whined and complained at the idea of the game having a paid sub and here we are with scarce, empty, repetitive content and yet we're still paying more money than we would for a sub.... on mount skins, BLC chests, and other nonsense like waypoint unlocks and a tele-to-friend that has a 1-hour recharge? Seriously?

It wasn't just the direction of the game that ruined GW 2, it was most of YOU. You get what you asked for and deserve.

Been saying this for years. It might not be a mobile game, but every time the player base lets them get away with these things or justifies it by saying, "It's not that bad, not like a real mobile game" they turn up the boil just a bit more. And you can't blame them, they need to get paid and eat for their work too. But we could tell them that we don't like it and would prefer real expansions and content with our wallets, the thing they really will listen to.

Instead, we get this. And more and more signs of their slow slide to Zynga games levels of gem-store shenanigans.

[Aesyr.6059]

@Airyll.7849 said:

@"bOTEB.1573" said:These are your words. You want even less effort, no? What would be less effort in your opinion?

You seem to be very good at nit-picking comments that serve your own narrative and intentionally ignoring all constructive comments that reveal the actual problem with the mount:The Skyscale's collection is equivalent to that of a legendary collection, with additional unreasonable time-gating and not enough reward. The time-gating has been

mostly

resolved, but this still now leaves us with a legendary collection that does

not

give you a legendary outcome. The Skyscale is a mediocre mount compared to the others we already have access to; it cannot travel on the ground as fast as the Raptor, the Jackal or the Roller Beetle / it cannot ascend as quickly as the Springer or the Jackal (via portals) / it cannot fly as fast as the Griffon and by extension, a skilled Griffon flyer will also be able to stay airborne longer than the stop-start nature of Skyscale's "flight".

The effort that goes into getting the Skyscale does

not

equate to the reward I get. I actually find the collection to be really fun, and I don't mind it, but I'm loathed to do it because I'm doing it for... a sidegrade. A not-even-a-sidegrade, in fact. We're not asking for the collection to be less effort; we're asking for the

reward

of the collection to

appropriately match

the effort required to get it. For legendary collections everywhere else in the game (weapons, armour and trinkets alike) you get impressive visual effects, you get the ability to stat change whenever you want for no cost, you can always retrieve upgrades you have put into them without needing an extractor to do so - they are

upgrades

to Exotic and Ascended gear, not a sidegrade. Considering the fact that the Skyscale takes as much effort and time as Legendary collection does, why does it not give something of appropriate value as a reward?

We aren't asking for "less effort". We're asking for the Skyscale to reflect the amount of effort it needs.

Do you really think it should work this way ? Again, no offense by any means, it's a real question. Don't you think if the reward isn't good enough, then people that don't think it's worth spending time on it just shouldn't do it.I don't craft every single legendary weapon only because it's available and I feel the need to do it at all cost. From my point of view, it's not worth spending time crafting them. Thus I just don't craft, but I don't ask the recipe to change, or the legendary to be improved.(Again, don't be triggered here, It really is discussion, not here to taunt or whatever)

[tekhiun.8653]

Are there people still defending this terrible system ? Enjoy you time gated ala mobile game style MMO then, because it sure looks like the devs won't do anything about it by now, hope you all enjoy being blocked out for content just for the sake of "extending content".

Maybe they should change the whole system and timegate Raptor along with the other mounts, afterall that we shouldn't be after instant gratification right ?

[Nemezijus.6851]

There is a high chance that this mount is the same for LS4 as Aurora for LS3, making the mat request reasonable. I see people throwing phrases here such as "the majority of people...". You don't know what the majority wants, needs or does unless you did a survey from a large sample of the population. Otherwise your 'majority' is just biased by those who complain out loud, I wonder what fraction of total players that is..

[tekhiun.8653]

@"Nemezijus.6851" said:There is a high chance that this mount is the same for LS4 as Aurora for LS3, making the mat request reasonable. I see people throwing phrases here such as "the majority of people...". You don't know what the majority wants, needs or does unless you did a survey from a large sample of the population. Otherwise your 'majority' is just biased by those who complain out loud, I wonder what fraction of total players that is..

The fact that we are comparing legendary gear with a mount shows how the whole system is flawed. We get mounts in this game just by progressing in the story or a collection that takes a couple of days to finish. If you like the trend to time gate stuff that wasn't before to the level of legendary gear, I hope you enjoy this game, because I surely don't.

[Blanche Neige.7241]

@"Lord Alfred.6541" said:I started now with the 4th collection achievement for the skyscale, only to see, that its first part is after a 21 day time gate once again (Charged Quartz Crystal are required). At this point, I like to say: "I hate you, Arenanet!"

You can go farm a few golds and buy the skyscale food off TP

[Nemezijus.6851]

@tekhiun.8653 said:

@"Nemezijus.6851" said:There is a high chance that this mount is the same for LS4 as Aurora for LS3, making the mat request reasonable. I see people throwing phrases here such as "the majority of people...". You don't know what the majority wants, needs or does unless you did a survey from a large sample of the population. Otherwise your 'majority' is just biased by those who complain out loud, I wonder what fraction of total players that is..

The fact that we are comparing legendary gear with a mount shows how the whole system is flawed. We get mounts in this game just by progressing in the story or a collection that takes a couple of days to finish. If you like the trend to time gate stuff that wasn't before to the level of legendary gear, I hope you enjoy this game, because I surely don't.

Look, you don't NEED to get this mount. Pretty much everything in the current maps can be reached/traversed with the core PoF maps. We used to get mounts with quick collection or events, but that was for the mounts which were necessary for progression. Consider Skyscale to be another luxury mount in par with Griffon. If you just for a moment stop and think of Skyscale as a legendary-type reward (and why not - in the saddle thread i posted that if anything Skyscale is far more functional than Aurora) then the time gate and mat requirements seem reasonable. The story would be different if obtaining this mount is required for progression in story or map events. But it is not, so there is no NEED to have it. There is only "I WANT" to have it.

[Genesis.8572]

@"bOTEB.1573" said:Since the mount isn't changing, you want to put less effort in order to obtain it.The functionality of the mounts have been changed and adjusted before, with the springer receiving the most recent update last week. So the idea of ArenaNet adjusting the skyscale - especially once more players have the fully unlocked and upgraded skyscale at their dispoal - is far from being farfetched.

[Xervite.5493]

After crossing all those annoying time gates I have come to a part where the player is forced into doing jps in order to progress collection. This is where I stop the collection and forget about this mount, nothing is more frustrating than locking content behind JPs, never done one never gonna do one. Thank you for the awful collection Anet.

[Brynioch.1873]

@"Lord Alfred.6541" said:I started now with the 4th collection achievement for the skyscale, only to see, that its first part is after a 21 day time gate once again (Charged Quartz Crystal are required). At this point, I like to say: "I hate you, Arenanet!"

Either the food OR do the jumping puzzles. Not both. You don't need a single quartz for the forth collection.

@"Xervite.5493" said:After crossing all those annoying time gates I have come to a part where the player is forced into doing jps in order to progress collection. This is where I stop the collection and forget about this mount, nothing is more frustrating than locking content behind JPs, never done one never gonna do one. Thank you for the awful collection Anet.

You don't need to do any jumping puzzle. Extra-Pungent Skyscale Treat lets you skip all of them. One for each.

Can people actually start informing themselves before raging atleast? Nobody forces you to get the mount. You force yourself through this and blame ArenaNet.

[tekhiun.8653]

@Nemezijus.6851 said:

@tekhiun.8653 said:

@Nemezijus.6851 said:There is a high chance that this mount is the same for LS4 as Aurora for LS3, making the mat request reasonable. I see people throwing phrases here such as "the majority of people...". You don't know what the majority wants, needs or does unless you did a survey from a large sample of the population. Otherwise your 'majority' is just biased by those who complain out loud, I wonder what fraction of total players that is..

The fact that we are comparing legendary gear with a mount shows how the whole system is flawed. We get mounts in this game just by progressing in the story or a collection that takes a couple of days to finish. If you like the trend to time gate stuff that wasn't before to the level of legendary gear, I hope you enjoy this game, because I surely don't.

Look, you don't NEED to get this mount. Pretty much everything in the current maps can be reached/traversed with the core PoF maps. We used to get mounts with quick collection or events, but that was for the mounts which were necessary for progression. Consider Skyscale to be another luxury mount in par with Griffon. If you just for a moment stop and think of Skyscale as a legendary-type reward (and why not - in the saddle thread i posted that if anything Skyscale is far more functional than Aurora) then the time gate and mat requirements seem reasonable. The story would be different if obtaining this mount is required for progression in story or map events. But it is not, so there is no NEED to have it. There is only "I WANT" to have it.

It is so reasonable that the devs decided to change it, so yeah that argument doesn't stick at all.

Why didn't they made it so the mount was required as a part of the quest ? I mean being essential part into defeating an elder dragon, beats the hell out of this whole time gated collection when it comes to making the player the having a connection to a mount. This is what they should have done after all the hype and marketing they did with this mount. They even made a stream where they decided not to tell us anything about this terrible system. Gives the mount during the story and then make this whole timegatted stuff about something else. Ascended gear, mount skin , anything that already has a precedent in being timegated this way.

When they decide to omit such thing all they do is create the potential to very frustrating user experience. In my case I was locked out of content for o 24 hours because I was 10 minutes too late, I lost an entire day off work I took only to get this mount. Am I supposed to be satisfied by this ? All I felt after finishing that terrible fetch quest on day one , where you have to come 2 to 3 times to the same location just to press F and run back to the next, was frustration over the realization of how bad they decided to artificially extend this collection, I mean who here was expecting to just give the medicine to a sick skyscale and be done with it ? If GW2 had an actual quest system with it's interface and didn't try to disguise quests as collections where they get buried in that cluncky interface, perhaps that wouldn't have happened or even if they had told us in advance that certainly wouldn't have happened.

The whole experience was so awful I just decided not to play the game anymore, it completely put me off it. The funny thing is that I am currently playing a game that has a timegate to train my mount, but hey it's not a hard time gate, where someone can either be locked out for hours or do the same action within 2 minutes of each other depending of when they do that action ( how does that even make sense in the story telling I don't know) . It's a time gate based on the time you do that action to train your mount, and guess what when they released this game they actually made sure to tell everyone how it was gonna work so people knew what they were getting to., instead of making it a "surprise" like Anet decided to do.

It doesn't matter if it's a case of want or need, what matter is what kind of experience they give to players, and this one was pretty terrible all in all. There is no megathread about people complaining of how we get the new GS leggy for a reason.

[Ashantara.8731]

@"Stephane Lo Presti.7258", I read your post (thank you for that) and wanted to give you a quick feedback as to why many people are unhappy with the current status quo, as it is not just a time-gate thing:

• People are more likely to accept time-gates and work with them if they know beforehand how long that time-gate will be. Not knowing whether it will be a week or a month can make one "grumpy" and impatient.
• People are more likely to enjoy time-gated content if they are given the opportunity to look through said content requirements in advance and prepare for each step from day one. That might make it less "realistic", but let's face it, this is a game and people play it for enjoyment, not for doing more "chores." ;)
• Edit: Please don't make things that need to be collected (e.g., suspicious bushes that drop food for the gazelles) or killed (rats in Kourna) for any of the hearts "unique." It takes much longer to finish, plus players are fighting over it and stealing it under each others' noses. No fun, no camaraderie.

Again, thank you for communicating the status quo. Cheers. :)

[Knighthonor.4061]

@Sileeent.5861 said:

@Trise.2865 said:How many times do we have to tell people not to blast through content in 10 minutes? to take their time and enjoy it? They never learn...

But some people enjoy blasting through the content in few minutes, where is the f*ck'n problem?! :p

The timegate is just a terrible design. They wanted it to look more real as Skyscale still needs to grow, but nobody wants GW2 to be more real. People should be able to play at their own speed without compulsively getting down if they don't want it themselves. That's one of the reasons many people play this game, because of the freedoms, but this timegate took away some of that. :/

yeah I spend less time playing stuff I want to play because I have to grind out zones over and over again on zones I dont want to play.

[Nemezijus.6851]

@eldrin.6471 said:so you are happy with the skyscale collection?and as you said its mostly the players who are not happy that post on this thread.i never use the forums.but since anet provide no other way of communicating with them im forced to raise my concerns here .

Happy? Maybe thats an overstatement. I treat this collection like any other legendary collection but less-pricey. I don't head rush to do it until I burn out but I do it at my own pace.I didn't pay money for this episode, I got it for free and in order to get it's ultimate(!) reward I have to complete a large collection. Just like with Aurora last season. Or any other legendary weapon/armor sans insane material cost. This is fine by me. As I wrote before, Skyscale is not a must-have mount, there is nothing ingame that is doable exclusively using it. Its a bonus (luxury) mount and I think the requirements for it are just fine.

[CJtheBigBear.9610]

Disregarding the issues with the map currency part of the collection for a moment, I actually have a request.

Would it be possible to change it so that we can buy 25 of any combination of the map currencies from the vendor in Dragonfall, rather than just 5 of each 5? I know that some maps don't give as much of their currency for meta rewards and node farming, so I'd like to be able to spend my volatile magic on those maps, and just grind the ones that are more easily obtained.