Seriously, it's time to hand us the Skyscale

[Ashen.2907]

2 minutes ago, Khisanth.2948 said:

There is nothing difficult about it. Maybe a bit tedious but these two words do not mean the same thing.

This is my issue with the matter, and with many/most collections in the game. Challenge/difficulty is a part of playing a game to varying degrees. Tedium is not. Tedium is what I play games to get away from.

[Khisanth.2948]

6 minutes ago, Ashen.2907 said:

This is my issue with the matter, and with many/most collections in the game. Challenge/difficulty is a part of playing a game to varying degrees. Tedium is not. Tedium is what I play games to get away from.

It is mostly in the first 2 or 3 steps which is just a bunch of "go here, press F". That is out of 22 steps. Could be better but it doesn't warrant the amount of whining that it has gotten.

[Gibson.4036]

2 hours ago, Holgarf.6581 said:

I've had enough of the game's reliance on wiki pages to progress. I spend most of my time alt-tabbing because Anet couldn't be bothered to put systems in the game that rewarded exploration or self-sufficiency - you know, like an MMO should. It is much easier to write a wiki page than code! Many of the games mechanics are designed in a way that you could only ever possibly do them (in a reasonable about of time) by looking at a wiki page. There's a crappy designed achievement in New Kaineng called "The History of New Kaineng". You have to go around finding kids to see if they found a book, but you'd never know this in the first place without either randomly stumbling across one of the kids beforehand or by looking at the wiki page - and without the latter it's not even possible to know how many kids hold these books compared to zone planning documents lying around out in the open. Looking at the achievement in the panel there are no hints in game as to what to do, it's just a document number. Of course if you go to a wiki page there's a map, icons, descriptions. Great design there Anet. It is designed to encourage you to alt-tab out and read up on it on the official wiki page, then rinse and repeat. And yet, people gush over this design like Anet is the greatest creator. There's far too many collections and achievements that are designed in this way, taking you out of the game. Not really relevant to what you're saying but, alt-tab wiki reading quest is just that.

As for the Skyscale... I think it should never have been added to the game (shock horror!) so to give it freely to everyone is a bad idea. It is a do-all-be-all mount that nullified the use of other mounts in the majority of maps, and undoes any unique map design because people can just... go over it. New Kaineng... a vertical map - with admittedly poor traversal design - is basically just a big Skyscale hurdle. Ziplines don't go to enough useful places and the preview trail line doesn't show up much of the time. Cue Skyscale. Scale impassable walls with no way around them - repeat, repeat, repeat (I guess this is another case of where a lack of waypoints to justify mount use ruins map feel). Skyscale isn't hard to get. It takes a while because of ArenaNet's content filler time-gating, which is something that they love doing.

No, the skyscale didn’t nullify the use of all other mounts. It can be used as a jack of all trades that kinda does what the other mounts do but not as well. When players use it exclusively, they are making a choice to give up the power of each individual mount for the convenience of not having to switch. There are players so committed to not changing mounts they will even use it as a land mount for significant distances.

Its so much more effective to switch between the mounts most ideal for the path you are charting. Player’s choice not to do so has nothing to do with skyscale’s implementation.

[Zera.9435]

The real question is why the hell do we care about WoW on here? Let them copy, who cares?

[AliamRationem.5172]

25 minutes ago, Khisanth.2948 said:

There have been times I wished they just copy/pasted things instead of coming up with an inferior thing. For example zipline versus wallows. The wallows do a much better job of displaying where they are and where they go.

There's using a good feature and then there's just copying the same thing over and over for no other reason than to extend the time spent on it.  Examples of the latter would be the skyscale repeat scavenger hunts or the DE pre events.  Why do I want to just do the same thing over and over?  I don't.  They just lacked the time and/or creativity to come up with anything better in those areas.

[Holgarf.6581]

2 hours ago, Gibson.4036 said:

No, the skyscale didn’t nullify the use of all other mounts. It can be used as a jack of all trades that kinda does what the other mounts do but not as well. When players use it exclusively, they are making a choice to give up the power of each individual mount for the convenience of not having to switch. There are players so committed to not changing mounts they will even use it as a land mount for significant distances.

Its so much more effective to switch between the mounts most ideal for the path you are charting. Player’s choice not to do so has nothing to do with skyscale’s implementation.

For general use, Skyscale. I wasn't talking specifics. If you're going to argue them you may as well just say jackal portals defeat Skyscales; Beetle crushes Skyscale for speed; Skyscale can't swim. lol. Still doesn't change the fact that for general navigation and wall-climbing it's 99% Skyscale. Go log on now and witness most people who default to Skyscale for most of their navigational needs - pressing X to quick-mount for general use (I can always provide a screenshot if you would prefer). Can people use something else? Sure. Can they optimise their route to make better use of the other mounts? Sure. Will most people Skyscale like crazy...? Sure! Are they giving up the power of each individual mount, as you say, for the convenience of not having to switch? No lol. But again for general use, other mounts are largely irrelevant and most of the map design doesn't warrant specific mount use because beyond PoF, mount-specific navigation (besides platform-walled scaling) is not included in future expansions.

Anyway, this topic has reached an end-point for me. Have fun.

[Westenev.5289]

I can't speak for anyone else, but the Skyscale has been gamebreaking in all areas of open world, to the point where it's my default mount (only turning to skimmer for permanent evades/water and roller beetle for cross-map travel). Telling people who don't like the achievement to simply not do it is out of the question, since the skyscale is borderline necessary to remain competitive with other players, especially on vertical maps. Having your meta train leave you behind because you can't find a way over a wall and have to go the long way feels... awful, to say the least.

 

TBH, I kinda wish Skyscale was fully avalable in Dragonfall without the achievement,  but had it's mastery system locked behind the achievement (with the stipulation that you'd need to do the achievement to use the Skyscale outside of dragonfall). That way, I wouldn't have been so eager for the achievement to end, because I could just barrel roll all I wanted inside of a profitable meta map while waiting for the timegates.

Edited May 15, 2022 by Westenev.5289

[Gibson.4036]

16 hours ago, Holgarf.6581 said:

For general use, Skyscale. I wasn't talking specifics. If you're going to argue them you may as well just say jackal portals defeat Skyscales; Beetle crushes Skyscale for speed; Skyscale can't swim. lol. Still doesn't change the fact that for general navigation and wall-climbing it's 99% Skyscale. Go log on now and witness most people who default to Skyscale for most of their navigational needs - pressing X to quick-mount for general use (I can always provide a screenshot if you would prefer). Can people use something else? Sure. Can they optimise their route to make better use of the other mounts? Sure. Will most people Skyscale like crazy...? Sure! Are they giving up the power of each individual mount, as you say, for the convenience of not having to switch? No lol. But again for general use, other mounts are largely irrelevant and most of the map design doesn't warrant specific mount use because beyond PoF, mount-specific navigation (besides platform-walled scaling) is not included in future expansions.

Anyway, this topic has reached an end-point for me. Have fun.

We have very different experiences of the game. I admit I rarely use Springer, but I constantly hotkey switch between skyscale, jackal, beetle, skimmer, and griffon as I travel.

Yes, other players don’t do that. Many also reportedly never set their traits, and wear a mix of random stats.

 

Edited May 16, 2022 by Gibson.4036

[Silent.6137]

8 minutes ago, Gibson.4036 said:

We have very different experiences of the game. I admit I rarely use Springer, but I constantly hockey switch between skyscale, jackal, beetle, skimmer, and griffon as I travel.

Yes, other players don’t do that. Many also reportedly never set their traits, and wear a mix of random stats.

 

Same here. I'm constantly switching mounts on-the-fly depending on the map & situations. Don't use griffon or beetle much except for fun. If I need to get somewhere fast, it's waypoints first. Jackal, warclaw, siege turtle and springer, those are very situational but they do get used a fair bit. Main mounts are Skyscale, Raptor and Skimmer.

[Sarge shot Grif.6450]

They added incredibly easy achievements that take care of the hardest part of the collection (currencies), are people really still complaining like it's hard? Sure it takes a little time but it's a PERMANENT account wide unlock and should require at least a little legwork to obtain it.

Edit: I say this as someone who did it before even the timegate fix so believe me when I say it could be soooo much worse.

Edited May 15, 2022 by Sarge shot Grif.6450

[Oriens.5630]

12 hours ago, Raizel.1839 said:

Exactly this, now grind your skyscale or play without it

The fallacy in this kind of logic is how it might be applied elsewhere. Your grandparents likely lived without the advantages of the internet. It doesn't follow that you should therefore not have the advantages that they lacked.

 

In other words one group lacking advantages is not an argument against another group having those advantages.

Edited May 16, 2022 by Oriens.5630

[Raizel.1839]

10 hours ago, Ashen.2907 said:

This is my issue with the matter, and with many/most collections in the game. Challenge/difficulty is a part of playing a game to varying degrees. Tedium is not. Tedium is what I play games to get away from.

 

Tedium has always been part of rpg-style games (even more for online rpg like gw2 is), you will always have to farm/grind for something is those kind of games. If this doesn't suit you, you will probably like more action/adventure games. 

[Silent.6137]

1 hour ago, Oriens.5630 said:

The fallacy in this kind of logic is how it might be applied elsewhere. Your grandparents likely lived without the advantages of the internet. It doesn't follow that you should therefore not have the advantages that they lacked.

 

In other words one group lacking advantages is not an argument against another group having those advantages.

That logic will dictate that I should have a private jet as well if those billionaires have them.

[AliamRationem.5172]

6 hours ago, Gibson.4036 said:

We have very different experiences of the game. I admit I rarely use Springer, but I constantly hockey switch between skyscale, jackal, beetle, skimmer, and griffon as I travel.

Yes, other players don’t do that. Many also reportedly never set their traits, and wear a mix of random stats.

 

It's a common point of disagreement.  I figured it was just players who don't keybind their mounts using the skyscale for multi-purpose.  That makes sense to me.  For my part, naturally I use the skyscale a lot but raptor/beetle/griffon all see frequent use as well.  The only one I'd say the skyscale eclipses almost completely is the springer, which rarely sees any use outside of boss CC.

[Luthan.5236]

Don't know about the thread title. This sounds like someon wants it to be "handed to them" for free? Well you can just do the achivements. They are a lil bit grindy - but not too hard and not toooo extreme. Unless you want to do everything at once.

The turtle with it's strike requirement (expecting that one to get dropped eventually) is more of a problem since they also advertise EoD with the turtle ... to probably new players they want to get interested in GW2. Imagine them going in their cheap newbie gear into a strike and wanting the advertised turtle? 😄

Also remember to split the work on different days. Taking 1-2 weeks is totally fine - and not a long time since you are not locked out of the game and can enjoy other content while working on it.

Focusing to rush it with in the lowest possible amount of time ... can get exhausting. But if people do that ... not the fault of the game.

Edited May 16, 2022 by Luthan.5236

[ProtoGunner.4953]

I heard they minimised the time gates etc. It took me 2-3 weeks to get it back then. Now it takes 2-3 days or a week max I heard? What is your problem? If you don't want to play a game, read a book or go skiing.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

21 hours ago, Holgarf.6581 said:

I've had enough of the game's reliance on wiki pages to progress. I spend most of my time alt-tabbing because Anet couldn't be bothered to put systems in the game that rewarded exploration or self-sufficiency - you know, like an MMO should. It is much easier to write a wiki page than code! Many of the games mechanics are designed in a way that you could only ever possibly do them (in a reasonable about of time) by looking at a wiki page. There's a crappy designed achievement in New Kaineng called "The History of New Kaineng". You have to go around finding kids to see if they found a book, but you'd never know this in the first place without either randomly stumbling across one of the kids beforehand or by looking at the wiki page - and without the latter it's not even possible to know how many kids hold these books compared to zone planning documents lying around out in the open. Looking at the achievement in the panel there are no hints in game as to what to do, it's just a document number. Of course if you go to a wiki page there's a map, icons, descriptions. Great design there Anet. It is designed to encourage you to alt-tab out and read up on it on the official wiki page, then rinse and repeat. And yet, people gush over this design like Anet is the greatest creator. There's far too many collections and achievements that are designed in this way, taking you out of the game. Not really relevant to what you're saying but, alt-tab wiki reading quest is just that.

As for the Skyscale... I think it should never have been added to the game (shock horror!) so to give it freely to everyone is a bad idea. It is a do-all-be-all mount that nullified the use of other mounts in the majority of maps, and undoes any unique map design because people can just... go over it. New Kaineng... a vertical map - with admittedly poor traversal design - is basically just a big Skyscale hurdle. Ziplines don't go to enough useful places and the preview trail line doesn't show up much of the time. Cue Skyscale. Scale impassable walls with no way around them - repeat, repeat, repeat (I guess this is another case of where a lack of waypoints to justify mount use ruins map feel). Skyscale isn't hard to get. It takes a while because of ArenaNet's content filler time-gating, which is something that they love doing.

Those that code the game don't contribute to the Wiki; those that contribute to the Wiki, don't code the game.  You may be confused about who is responsible for the Wiki and its contents. 

[Hotride.2187]

On 5/14/2022 at 8:29 PM, mythical.6315 said:

Let's take this out into the real world.  A one child is paid $10 to mow both the front and back yard.  The other child is paid $10 to mow just the front yard.  Is this fair?  Surely you can see why many who did all of this could be a little upset if others could get it by doing considerably less.

Ah yes I play games cause they are like IRL. Just lol with that logic. Oh no, that other kid got my pixels FOR FREE, the world is ending. What about the kid that was born in a rich family and bought infusions for 10k eu? Lets talk about that too, while we are on IRL topics.

No I cannot see honestly. Getting the skyscale is a timesink and nothing more. What would I tell the players that got it for free? "Woah woah woah, I waited for this and you don't have to? UNFAIR"

I don't know of course, maybe waiting is really hard for some people and really exciting, and really rewarding.

Anyway, your average RPG player reaction all over this thread. I can only admire how spvp requires 0 time investment to "gear up" and just lets you play the game for what it is.

Edited May 16, 2022 by Hotride.2187

[Ledi.9742]

sometimes in video games you have to do things to obtain things you want. if you do not want to do things to get things, video games might not be best option for you.

[LuRkEr.9462]

On 5/13/2022 at 7:44 PM, lezbefriends.7516 said:

Blizzard straight up ripped the Skyscale and is going to make 10x more than ANet because it's a selling point of their expansion. Meanwhile, ANet makes it a tedious side quest that forces us to minimize the game 100 times in order to use guides that also link to other guides (e.g., Runestone 'puzzle'). That is not good design.

 

But people will keep defending it, because they got theirs. I get it, you worked hard, so you're obviously going to think that others should too. You enjoy the reward, which makes you think the journey is worth it. That is flawed thinking. Enjoy keeping this MMORPG off the radar.

More confused this guy has over 1000 posts on the forums and no skyscale. 

[kharmin.7683]

1 hour ago, LuRkEr.9462 said:

More confused this guy has over 1000 posts on the forums and no skyscale. 

There is some forums back-history with the OP.

[Khisanth.2948]

15 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

The only one I'd say the skyscale eclipses almost completely is the springer, which rarely sees any use outside of boss CC.

That is true up to a point. It is true for dealing with the occasional cliff but springer is still best if you are going up multiple staggered steps and especially if the devs gave the step an annoying large invisible lip so your skyscale keeps clinging to air.

11 hours ago, Luthan.5236 said:

The turtle with it's strike requirement (expecting that one to get dropped eventually) is more of a problem since they also advertise EoD with the turtle ... to probably new players they want to get interested in GW2. Imagine them going in their cheap newbie gear into a strike and wanting the advertised turtle? 😄

I can't think of anything in that strike which would require any particularly amazing gear.

Bringing a decent build and knowing the mechanics would be a much bigger factor as is the case for pretty much all content in GW2. This is for simply clearing the strike which is all you need for the unlock. If you want to speedrun it then that is a whole different can of worm but also irrelevant for unlock purposes.

10 hours ago, ProtoGunner.4953 said:

I heard they minimised the time gates etc. It took me 2-3 weeks to get it back then. Now it takes 2-3 days or a week max I heard? What is your problem? If you don't want to play a game, read a book or go skiing.

That is mixing up time requirements. The wait between collections used to be 1 real life day, it is now 1 in game day which is 2 hours. So even with the original version it would not have required 2-3 weeks.  It could have taken you 2-3 weeks if you do less than the maximum per day but in that case it could have taken you 2-3 years as well. I am sure if we wait long enough there will be a post titled something like "after playing for 10 years I finally unlocked the skyscale" With the current version you can probably do it all in 1 day/24 hours but that will a lot of farming.

What you seem to be referring to is time investment.

The EoD collections have a bunch of annoying limitations like this as well. The Thruster Control Unit for the turtle is apparently in the weekly chest which means if you already did the strike this week and then you got the egg to unlock and do the other collections you will still have to wait until next week.

For the EoD elite spec weapon collections which requires completing the various EoD metas there are items which are from the daily chest which means you can only progress 1 weapon per day. Not a huge deal but a bit annoying if you decided "Okay today I am going to clear off a few of these weapon collections only to find out you will have to wait until tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that and ..."

[Sobx.1758]

17 hours ago, Oriens.5630 said:

The fallacy in this kind of logic is how it might be applied elsewhere. Your grandparents likely lived without the advantages of the internet. It doesn't follow that you should therefore not have the advantages that they lacked.

 

In other words one group lacking advantages is not an argument against another group having those advantages.

Trying to compare technological advancement/differences between generations to people wanting handouts in a game doesn't seem to be even close to being a similar thing.

[IAmNotMatthew.1058]

20 hours ago, Oriens.5630 said:

The fallacy in this kind of logic is how it might be applied elsewhere. Your grandparents likely lived without the advantages of the internet. It doesn't follow that you should therefore not have the advantages that they lacked.

 

In other words one group lacking advantages is not an argument against another group having those advantages.

The people who got the Skyscale early didn't live with the advantages of the adjusted requirements that people like me had. People, like me, who got it before Seasons of Dragons didn't live with the advantage of getting the Episodes rapid-fire given out along with the materials.

People already have it way easier to get the Skyscale, work for it like everyone did.

[Borked.6824]

GW2 will remain off the radar, but it won't be because Anet isn't handing out Skyscales.  The worst things about WoW revolve around shortcuts and misinterpreting the expectations of neurotic modern gaming behavior.