The Skyscale Quest Line Is WAY Too Grindy, And Insulting [Merged]

[Akisohida.8963]

So I need to find 21 scales, blanketing the island. Ok.

Now I need to do 30 events, to  get medicine. ....Sure.

Now I need to give it to 14 Skyscales. Oh joy; moving around the island that frequently teleports me back to camp...Again...

Oh, now the quest tells me those 3 steps, which took literal hours. Possibly DAYS if you don't have 12 hours a day to spend playing, were literally worthless to the plot. Way to actually laugh at my spent time, game. Way to laugh at me for playing you.

And now I need to go back around the island, for a FOURTH TIME, to get 21 eggs that I could not collect earlier.

 

Leaving aside the 30 Events; that's 55 different things I have to collect or interact with on multiple loops around the island. I'm not even seeing new sights or interacting with new things. I'm flying to basically the same places as the first two times. But I could not pick up the eggs early because the game said so.

 

And according to the wiki; even after I do all this; I have time-gated quests that total to 3 days & 8 hours? Why? Why?!

Why is this mount buried behind the worst grind I have run into yet? And an arbitrary 3-and-a-half-day time gate? Why? Because the mount can hover? Because it can fly slightly  upwards?

 

I know I have a habit of saying stupid things or overreacting, but this entire collection quest just feels...insulting. It insults my time with way too much to do with 0 variation. It insults me by, IN UNIVERSE saying those hours I spent were worthless. Ha-ha. Silly player. You did not make a difference. 

The medicine did not show him they were aging faster. No; the asura literally says 'What you did was useless. Oops.' Insert shrug. Cue laugh track.

It insults me by making me waste literal hours that mean nothing to the plot, only to then make me waste literal hours waiting for the plot to move forwards. For...no reason.

 

The mount is not super powerful. I can't fly anywhere. I can't break the game. I don't get some godly attack. It does not raise my stats. I can't even fly that high compared to the gryphon.

So why is the grind absurdly long, absurdly insulting, and absurdly time-gated behind THREE DAYS of waiting?

 

 

I don't expect the devs to reduce it; If they were; they would have already. But this is...Argh. I know a few people who would get to the "Oops. You wasted your time" attempt at a 'joke' and stop playing, because they don't like when games literally laugh at the player after making them jump through hours worth of hoops. And I can understand why they'd drop the game.

It's not funny; its sadistic. It's the developers, or writers, basically slapping the player in the mouth and then laughing at their frustration. "Look what we made you do. Your spent time did not even matter in-universe. Hope you don't mind us having a laugh at your expense!"

 

 

Let me try to explain my frustration another way:
Imagine a game let you customize a hero. It's not you, it's your mentor. You get to equip him and your character. You decide his training, his skills, his gear. You spend 3 days levelling him and you up. You get to the battle with his arch-nemesis. The game is building towards you and him, fighting together, to redeem him!

And then the game kills him in a cinematic for comedic effect. No epic fight. No last words. Just knocks him off a cliff with a silly *Smack* sound and a Goofy 'Wah-ha-ha-hoooy!' yell. None of your gear, or levelling, or skill allocation or ANY of your 3 days of hard work mattered; He was going to die for a joke, and nothing would change that. You wasted 3 days for a joke.

And worse, the villain breaks the fourth wall to look at the player and say 'Boy! Hope someone did not spend 3+ days working hard to fight me! Because this was always going to happen! Hahaha!'

 

THAT is what the 'Lol, the medicine was never going to work.' so-called 'joke' felt like. I felt disrespected for using this product. I felt like the writers, or devs, or whoever, were laughing at me. This was a meta joke at my expense. 'You wasted all that time circling the island 3 times and fighting 30 battles. Lol! We Asura are silly!'

 

And, as far as I am aware; I still have to spend 3 days and 8 hours working towards this mount. Not counting however long it takes me to collect the 21 eggs.

This bloody quest is too grindy, too time-gated, and too insulting of the customer's time.

 

 

Sorry for the rant. But sometimes critical feedback is better than positive feedback, and I tried to keep my points clear and not insulting. I also just needed to vent after being laughed at by the game for spending the last 3 days of my free time starting this collection.

Edited May 2, 2022 by Akisohida.8963

[Xerxez.7361]

Just wait until you start working on a Legendary Armor set and learn that to quickest one is time gated by 6 weeks (30 weeks+ for all 3 Sets) 😄

Edited May 2, 2022 by Xerxez.7361

[Akisohida.8963]

2 minutes ago, Xerxez.7361 said:

Just wait until you start working on Legendary Armor and learn that to quickest one is time gated by 6 weeks (30 Weeks for all 3 Sets) 😄

See, that also seems absurd to me.

I love GW2. I'm still playing it, even while most my friends play FF14. I like the combat more. I like the story more. I want to see what will happen in the future.

 

But grind is NEVER good. It...It feels like grind is used when people feel they don't have enough content to keep players, you know?

Why create more content when you can just spread out what you have behind arbitrary time-gates?

 

I don't do much with crafting, but that does seem like too much waiting.

But back to the skyscales; if the 21 eggs ended it;  I'd be miffed, but fine, it would be over. But after this last loop around the island for the FOURTH time; I get to events that are arbitrarily locked for no reason other than 'Because'.

 

There no reason to stop the player dead when this is not end-game content anymore. I don't want to do EoD  until I get my skyscale. So I basically get to log in, do whatever task I have to do, then log out until I can log in and further it again. Then, I will log out until I can once again further my task.

Why not remove the bloody time gates? They serve no function, no task, other than to stop the player dead because this is what the devs decided would happen at this point in time.

[Labjax.2465]

Mounts should never be locked behind this much BS, imo, just on principle. It's one thing to do that with a cosmetic look, but mounts fundamentally change how you play the game and, importantly, how easily you are able to keep up with other players in the open world. Like cache keeper run in drizzlewood, I could not imagine doing it without a griffon. Those who have one will get there way sooner than everyone else and the ones who have to take longer will have to hope people auto attack.

I don't care that I went through all the BS for skyscale myself already, I would be happy if they went through all the collection-ridden mount "journeys" and made the mount itself as easy to get as raptor/springer/jackal and made the collections into a skin instead. Then all the people who want to feel prestigious still can with their special skin and people who just want to enjoy the mount mechanics and keep up with events can also.

[Akisohida.8963]

15 minutes ago, Labjax.2465 said:

Mounts should never be locked behind this much BS, imo, just on principle. It's one thing to do that with a cosmetic look, but mounts fundamentally change how you play the game and, importantly, how easily you are able to keep up with other players in the open world. Like cache keeper run in drizzlewood, I could not imagine doing it without a griffon. Those who have one will get there way sooner than everyone else and the ones who have to take longer will have to hope people auto attack.

I don't care that I went through all the BS for skyscale myself already, I would be happy if they went through all the collection-ridden mount "journeys" and made the mount itself as easy to get as raptor/springer/jackal and made the collections into a skin instead. Then all the people who want to feel prestigious still can with their special skin and people who just want to enjoy the mount mechanics and keep up with events can also.

I like your idea. Make it easier to get the mount and maybe...
 

Maybe people who run the whole thing get their pick of 1 of 3 skins:
One made out of vines and plants (Think like a Sylvan Hound) for Melandru's area.

One like a skeleton & green flame for Grenth's area.

One made out of metal & fire, like the Forged, for Balthazar's area.

[mythical.6315]

1 hour ago, Akisohida.8963 said:

There no reason to stop the player dead when this is not end-game content anymore.

Content that was originally "end-game" content in GW2 doesn't suddenly stop being "end-game" content.  Content doesn't have an expiration date.

Edited May 2, 2022 by mythical.6315

[Akisohida.8963]

1 minute ago, mythical.6315 said:

 

Content that was originally "end-game" content in GW2 doesn't suddenly not become "end-game" content.  Content doesn't have an expiration date.

Actually, by the very term 'end game'; it's not end game content anymore. Because the story does not end there anymore.

Ergo: Content that was originally end game content is no longer end game content when it's not end game content any longer.

 

Can you call Living World 1 end game content? No, because it is not at the end of the game.

Same with Path of fire; it is no longer end game content because it's no longer end game. No one calls Path of Fire 'end game content' anymore.

Nor is Dragonfall, or Skyscales. They are no longer end game content because, literally, they are not end game content anymore.

 

I never said the content expired. It's not just end game content anymore. It's just content. Horribly grindy, horribly time-gated content.

I don't know what you were trying to argue, but you are incorrect.

[mythical.6315]

20 minutes ago, Akisohida.8963 said:

Actually, by the very term 'end game'; it's not end game content anymore. Because the story does not end there anymore.

Ergo: Content that was originally end game content is no longer end game content when it's not end game content any longer.

 

Can you call Living World 1 end game content? No, because it is not at the end of the game.

Same with Path of fire; it is no longer end game content because it's no longer end game. No one calls Path of Fire 'end game content' anymore.

Nor is Dragonfall, or Skyscales. They are no longer end game content because, literally, they are not end game content anymore.

 

I never said the content expired. It's not just end game content anymore. It's just content. Horribly grindy, horribly time-gated content.

I don't know what you were trying to argue, but you are incorrect.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Endgame

Or you can just use ArenaNet's definition of endgame and just call the entire game endgame 🙄

 

Edited May 2, 2022 by mythical.6315

[Dunroy.1058]

Really endgame is the content you do after hitting level and gear cap, that keeps you coming back to the game. In that regard, yes LW1 is end game, as is every expansion, every LW season, all content that is primarily done after hitting cap. Just because it's old doesn't mean it's no longer end game. End game in MMOs doesn't mean content at the end of the game, it means content at the end of the treadmill, and since GW2 has no treadmill, all content aimed at level 80 is technically end game content.

[Zavijah.2695]

There were some parts I was genuinely surprised the slog was still going. But once it was said and done, I greatly appreciated the process. 

Not since the long arsed questline in Kingdom of Sky expansion in Everquest 2 have I had as long a questline and I really enjoyed knowing I was working towards a permanent absolute game changer. 

I'm all for removing the time gates between each step. But not removing any of the steps. I'm all for making the map currency easier to get, but then again the Return To achievement for each zone coincides nicely with that and will give you, anyway.

[Xelqypla.6817]

Slow down and only do a little bit per day. It's longer than you think and you WILL burn out if you keep trying to rush through it.

 

Personally, I worked on the 250 of each currency (Bjora Marches mainly) and grinding some extra gold for treats early on to break up the grind, since I knew I would need them later.

[Freya.9075]

Did you use tacO to slow the process down? It’s really useful. Some ppl love collections like this. The exploration to find them, and others don’t. TacO exists purely for these ppl who wants to speed things up and not having to find all the parts needed. 

[nosleepdemon.1368]

I did it all without a guide, save for a single scale that was driving me bonkers which a guildie gave me a hint for... I was actually standing right next to it. Egg on my face... Or should I say, scale!

 

Anyway. It's not that hard. I found it kind of cute watching the Skyscale grow up. It sounds like you don't enjoy the game. Why not take a break?

[Dante.1508]

I agree took me years to finally finish it.. was a horrible trek across tyria doing stupid collections.. Just because. And the end product was really bad.

I am so tired of sticking to everything every time.

Edited May 2, 2022 by Dante.1508

[Tiamat.8254]

Good job you don't actually need the mount then. 

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

There are no time-gates between the first 3 collections: Scales, Medicine, Fever.  Why did it take you 3 days?  Do you mean 72 hours of in-game playing, or you did do a bit on each of 3 days? 

There is a 2-hour wait after the next collection of Eggs.  And 2-hour waits between the other major collections.  The 3-day wait is for feeding the baby skyscale (4 times a day for 3 days) and watching it grow.  You say you want what you do to make a difference in the story; well, there it is. 

And, of course it is end-game content.  Even Orr is end-game content, or most of it.  Anything that requires L80 is end-game.  If it wasn't, then there was no end-game content for nearly a year when there have been content droughts.  Lol. 

If you find this particular content, beneath you, it is suggested you use only your Griffon and the other Mounts.  If you have no Mounts, 2 are given freely in End of Dragons (plus Skiff and Siege Turtle). 

 

Edited May 2, 2022 by Inculpatus cedo.9234

[lezbefriends.7516]

5 hours ago, Xerxez.7361 said:

Just wait until you start working on a Legendary Armor set and learn that to quickest one is time gated by 6 weeks (30 weeks+ for all 3 Sets) 😄

This is killing my motivation to come back.

Edited May 2, 2022 by lezbefriends.7516

[Cuks.8241]

Yeah the first part is tedious mildly said. 3 steps that are basicaly the same in the same map. I actually got the scales by myself turning every rock on the map. The eggs I just said kitten it and wikied everything. 

[MajinSoul.4512]

I enjoyed doing the Skyscale collection. The only tedious part was collecting the map currencies back in the day but new players don't have to undergo that grind thanks to the "Seasons of the Dragons" achievement. You get to visit a ton of different places and do all kinds of content (jumping puzzles, collecting items, events, ...). 

[kharmin.7683]

What content requires the skyscale?  I can't think of any.  It was meant to be a legendary type of mount so the grind is appropriate.  You can complete content without it.

[megamino.1430]

Hmmm... One thing that i can say that the mount is Account Wide meaning you only need to unlock them once and the alt can use it freely without any restriction. However, whether it is an appropriate answer i cannot say. Other than that, skyscale just a flying mechanic that you can use to go to your destination "faster". This "faster" also can be translated as "you can reach any point with any mount, if you don't have skyscale but you have a maxed out raptor or springer, it's also getting the job done but faster than you walk" type of translation.

so pretty much it's an optional... i prefer some resource gathering rather than 250 gold Griffon farming, it's not boring and repetitive but also it's an optional xD

[xDumplinx.7983]

I really feel sorry for the OP if they ever try to get a legendary.  If a couple days time gating is too much the legendary collections and crafting will make them smash their computer

 

i can imagine a pile more of these types of threads showing up once the game launches in Steam. Everyone wanting a handout or easy mode and complete removal of any time gating so they can have what others have worked for instantly

Edited May 2, 2022 by xDumplinx.7983

[Sarius.9285]

10 hours ago, Akisohida.8963 said:

The mount is not super powerful. I can't fly anywhere. I can't break the game. I don't get some godly attack. It does not raise my stats. I can't even fly that high compared to the gryphon

all of that is wrong tho lol.

 

10 hours ago, Akisohida.8963 said:

I don't expect the devs to reduce it; If they were; they would have already

they already did. it used to take alot longer at release, now it honestly can be done in 3-6 days with 0 issue 

[Sarius.9285]

4 hours ago, lezbefriends.7516 said:

This is killing my motivation to come back.

it shouldn't tho. Legendary gear is the latest of the late game things to get. also, the journey to get there is alot of fun

[DragonMoon.6098]

It's supposed to be an achievement. It wouldn't be an achievement or an accomplishment if it was just instant gratification and poof everybody has a skyscale. If it was locked behind group content? Then yes, okay, I can see the complaint. But this stuff can be done 100% solo so what is the big deal? I don't game 12hrs a day either and I got the Skyscale after maybe a week's worth of work. Maybe two. Just take your time with it and you'll get it. 

It's just like legendary gear. It wouldn't L-E-G-E-N-D-A-R-Y if everybody has it. 

I'd rather see folks complaining about the griffon and the 250G+ that it takes. At least the skyscale is cheap to get in terms of gold (if I remember right). 

Edited May 2, 2022 by DragonMoon.6098