Just put the Skyscale in the shop [Merged]

[Linken.6345]

52 minutes ago, Labjax.2465 said:

Ok and how many MMOs don't have that big of a playerbase who invest those kind of hours, despite following the same formula as the last one? How many WoW clones that fizzled out or had a niche audience, but that was it.

I don't see how exceptional status is a counterpoint here.

Well 10k players seems enough to keep an mmo afloat.

They also give a nod to gw1 at the end.

 

[Gehenna.3625]

11 hours ago, Smoky.5348 said:

The reason someone like me looks at the whole of the effort is because I could spend that time playing aspects of the game l actually do enjoy. Why would l do something l don't enjoy for weeks to obtain something that offers nothing but convenience? Especially when l could get a skyscale transmog for a fraction of the effort? The "prestige reward" of the skyscale mount doesn't feel worth it to me to go out of my way to follow a checklist of directions.

l mean, maaaaybe it'd be better if this stuff had more of a focused UI like story steps instead of just hiding on a specific map and in the cheevos panel? 'Cause that's another facet of my own issues with this: l don't know where to start, and then l don't care to look it up because l don't feel the reward is worth it. Sounds like a me-problem, but that's where I'm coming from as someone who doesn't like the typical MMO grind.

Well, MMOs have to take into account people playing a lot, because a lot of people do. That's why they play MMOs after all. I don't begrudge you your point of view, but just because you don't have a lot of time to play, MMOs are not going to be very suitable to you. So you made the choice to play an MMO and that comes with certain limitations. In the end when you give an easy way and a hard way to do things, the vast majority of players will choose the easy way. And that's why putting things in the gem store that you usually have to put in a lot of effort for in game should be limited.

11 hours ago, Labjax.2465 said:

People like to drag this reasoning out in defense of standard MMO design, but the fact is, there are single player games that get played by people a heck of a lot and a large part of what makes them work is:

1) sandbox (when non-linear), ex: skyrim

2) replay value (when linear), ex: mass effect

Personally I put a lot of hours in single-player games. Mass Effect in particular. I put 200-300 hours in each easily. That means about 1000-1200 hours for the trilogy and andromeda together. I'm sure some people have played more hours in ME but I bet that a lot of people haven't put in as many hours as I have either. By comparison, I put 6500 hours in GW1 and over 4000 hours in GW2 and I'm not done here yet. That's a massive difference. 

Now regardless of the individual numbers, it does indicate to me that there is a difference in how you approach content for people that log in. Single-player games tend to have specific audiences, but MMOs  have more content types (OW, story, lore, pvp, wvw, raids, etc.) in order to appeal to different player types. In the case of Mass Effect you might have the story crowd and the combat crowd and those in between. And some like the co-op function but that's really it. And that's a narrow focus compared to an MMO if you think of it. 

The difference is that single-player games don't need to have long-term goals. Replay value is great for me, but also not necessary since a lot of people play single-player games one after the other. I'm different in that I stick with games a lot longer and therefore I play fewer games overall. 

As for sandbox games, I don't really care for those, so I don't play them. Easy as that. Again they have a narrower focus for a specific audience. 

11 hours ago, Labjax.2465 said:

And that's with games that get little to no content updates after launch. MMOs regularly do content updates and yet this excuse is still made as to why they have to stretch everything out into infinity. I don't buy it. I think it's one of those things that's more "this is how we've always done it" than people want to admit, i.e. it's not as necessary as it seems, it's just people are afraid to break the mold and not have it work.

I think you underestimate the difference between single-player games and MMOs. These are entirely different beasts, if only for the persistent world and having to deal with dozens or even hundreds of people playing in the same map at a time. 

11 hours ago, Labjax.2465 said:

I mean, in some ways, GW2 did break the MMO mold and fans of it regularly praise it for that, yet in the ways it didn't, it gets defended as if it was necessary not to in those areas. Ain't that a contradiction?

It's not a contradiction. MMOs that break the mold as it were, break the mold in certain ways, but not necessarily in every way. That's just an unrealistic expectation. And GW2 does have a lot of things different in OW even. Like the event system and world bosses where you can just join in without having to join a party/group.

What I think GW2 has done is to do standard fare MMO things in a different way and does it in a more limited way. There are no standard quests, but there are tasks (hearts). There are time gated elements, but not that many. Besides there really have to be long-term goals in a game where there is no gear treadmill. People just want things fast, and I get that, but if you make it too easy for people to get stuff done, the next phase is that they'll complain about the game being too easy and lack of content. In fact that's already happening. 

In the end I think that the people that complain here about the Skyscale being too grindy to the point they don't do it and/or leave the game over it, are few and far between. That, I think, is enough reason for Anet to not change it.

[Labjax.2465]

9 hours ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

Personally I put a lot of hours in single-player games. Mass Effect in particular. I put 200-300 hours in each easily. That means about 1000-1200 hours for the trilogy and andromeda together. I'm sure some people have played more hours in ME but I bet that a lot of people haven't put in as many hours as I have either. By comparison, I put 6500 hours in GW1 and over 4000 hours in GW2 and I'm not done here yet. That's a massive difference. 

Now regardless of the individual numbers, it does indicate to me that there is a difference in how you approach content for people that log in. Single-player games tend to have specific audiences, but MMOs  have more content types (OW, story, lore, pvp, wvw, raids, etc.) in order to appeal to different player types. In the case of Mass Effect you might have the story crowd and the combat crowd and those in between. And some like the co-op function but that's really it. And that's a narrow focus compared to an MMO if you think of it. 

The difference is that single-player games don't need to have long-term goals. Replay value is great for me, but also not necessary since a lot of people play single-player games one after the other. I'm different in that I stick with games a lot longer and therefore I play fewer games overall. 

As for sandbox games, I don't really care for those, so I don't play them. Easy as that. Again they have a narrower focus for a specific audience. 

I think you underestimate the difference between single-player games and MMOs. These are entirely different beasts, if only for the persistent world and having to deal with dozens or even hundreds of people playing in the same map at a time. 

It's not a contradiction. MMOs that break the mold as it were, break the mold in certain ways, but not necessarily in every way. That's just an unrealistic expectation. And GW2 does have a lot of things different in OW even. Like the event system and world bosses where you can just join in without having to join a party/group.

What I think GW2 has done is to do standard fare MMO things in a different way and does it in a more limited way. There are no standard quests, but there are tasks (hearts). There are time gated elements, but not that many. Besides there really have to be long-term goals in a game where there is no gear treadmill. People just want things fast, and I get that, but if you make it too easy for people to get stuff done, the next phase is that they'll complain about the game being too easy and lack of content. In fact that's already happening. 

In the end I think that the people that complain here about the Skyscale being too grindy to the point they don't do it and/or leave the game over it, are few and far between. That, I think, is enough reason for Anet to not change it.

Right, so you are a bigger fan of GW1 and 2 than you are of Mass Effect. I don't see what your anecdotal thing about your hours spent is supposed to mean there. Unless you feel the game has held your time hostage, in which case maybe you shouldn't have spent all that time in it.

As for people "wanting things to be fast" and there "have to be long-term goals," I don't have a quote on hand, but I seem to recall something about FFXIV expecting that players will come and go, and that some of them will burn through content and come back when there's more. I seem to recall SWTOR having a similar mentality about its players.

The idea that someone should be persistently there every day and never dare to spend their time in any other game is not a universal view of MMOs.

There are usually goals in MMOs, yes, but "have to be long-term goals because there's no gear treadmill" doesn't make sense. You can replace that with short-term goals that take about as long as a gear treadmill. That is a more valid comparison. Unless your goal is to stretch content into infinity because you don't want to release new stuff frequently enough... in which case, doing so forcefully with time-gates is just going to make a lot of people bored because of the gates instead of bored because of lack of content. You can't force fun out of nothing.

In the end, for me, this has little to do with skyscale and more to do with design philosophy in general.

[kharmin.7683]

2 minutes ago, Labjax.2465 said:

The idea that someone should be persistently there every day and never dare to spend their time in any other game is not a universal view of MMOs.

 

One could argue that every MMO would want players spending as much time as possible in their MMO and no others.

[Ashen.2907]

15 hours ago, Linken.6345 said:

Well 10k players seems enough to keep an mmo afloat.

They also give a nod to gw1 at the end.

 

10k is enough if the game is built from the ground up to be kept afloat by that number. It was a good interview but the dev was pretty clear that his mentioned number was specific to his game based on how they built the game.

[Sobx.1758]

17 minutes ago, Labjax.2465 said:

As for people "wanting things to be fast" and there "have to be long-term goals," I don't have a quote on hand, but I seem to recall something about FFXIV expecting that players will come and go, and that some of them will burn through content and come back when there's more. I seem to recall SWTOR having a similar mentality about its players.

The idea that someone should be persistently there every day and never dare to spend their time in any other game is not a universal view of MMOs.

If someone wants to just hop in, burn through content once and go away until new one is released, then that still isn't exactly a reason to make long-term rewards easier to get. In fact, it's the opposite of being a reason to do it, since those people will still "burn through it fast and leave until more arrives", while the people that actually stay have less long-term goals. This is exactly why there's nothing wrong with those optional long term goals as opposed to what some people try to say on this forum.

Edited July 17, 2022 by Sobx.1758

[Knighthonor.4061]

On 7/4/2022 at 11:26 PM, Ashantara.8731 said:

That can indeed be an issue, but not just in GW2 but in any MMO. Who's late to the party often has it a lot harder.

However, the solution cannot be to just give endgame achievements away easily. That would devaluate every endgame reward.

If your work is really draining you that much, you either should go looking for another type of game which doesn't require much time investment or you should change your mindset and accept that it will take you a while to get there.

With that logic nobody should ever play any MMO since no game is perfect and all games have imperfections of some kind in their game design. That's a poor 💩 solution rather than actually having developers adjust their game as population has moved on and adjusted to new content.

 

The Skyscale quest was only cool for its reward itself. The Quest could be totally skipped and not a thing would be missed. What should happen is create a new story instance that solo players can do to unlock the skyscale with a few fixed time breaks.  Or create a new incentive for vet players to come back and repeat those content in masses like they did with the Season of Dragon achievement for legendary precursor.

[Smoky.5348]

On 7/17/2022 at 5:20 AM, Gehenna.3625 said:

Well, MMOs have to take into account people playing a lot, because a lot of people do. That's why they play MMOs after all. I don't begrudge you your point of view, but just because you don't have a lot of time to play, MMOs are not going to be very suitable to you. So you made the choice to play an MMO and that comes with certain limitations. In the end when you give an easy way and a hard way to do things, the vast majority of players will choose the easy way. And that's why putting things in the gem store that you usually have to put in a lot of effort for in game should be limited.

To explain myself, I don't really think the Skyscale itself should be in the gem store. I just think its collection needs to be refined so more people see reason to do it.

1 hour ago, Knighthonor.4061 said:

The Skyscale quest was only cool for its reward itself. The Quest could be totally skipped and not a thing would be missed. What should happen is create a new story instance that solo players can do to unlock the skyscale with a few fixed time breaks.  Or create a new incentive for vet players to come back and repeat those content in masses like they did with the Season of Dragon achievement for legendary precursor.

That story instance idea doesn't sound half bad. Then, l wouldn't have to sit and do nothing until something pops up in LFG or w'ever. And even if the timegating would still be arbitrary, it would at least have a more direct and personal story reasoning. However, l do wonder how compatible it'd be with parties and if it'd give everyone credit who's eligible.

[DenimChicken.8639]

I played this game a long time and quit sometime after Heart of Thorns. I took a 5 year break

 

I come back like 3 months ago and I'm having a blast again.

 

Then I start the skyscale grind. I did the first and second parts. I haven't logged in since.

 

I'm sorry man...but this is so freaking boring. At LEAST make this some sort of grind fest where you have to kill a bunch of stuff. But having to youtube where to find all this random crap? come on.......such....lazy....game design.

 

[disco.9302]

If you're leaving the game, please could you send me your stuff since you won't really need it anymore 😙

[Izzy.2951]

Wait for other similar grinds, im doing the griffon now and even tho its x100 times easier and faster you have to watch youtube videos again.

[costepj.5120]

You found some content in the game you didn't enjoy, so you stopped playing the game entirely? Seems like an extreme reaction to me. If you don't like KFC fries (who does?) you can still eat the chicken.

[Tiamat.8254]

It is a grind, but the reward is worth it. But you don't need the sky scale so what's the problem? 

And I think you can go to the new WoW expansion soon that is using the same mechanics for their mounts there. 

[Danikat.8537]

It's only the first sections which are like that. Once you've found all the eggs you're done with going around Dragonfall looking for hidden items and the later collections are more varied. The last one requires 250 of each season 4 map currency, but there's now several ways to get that including playing the story of each episode to get it from the 'return to' achievements.

I was disappointed by the Newborn Skyscales collections too. The first one wasn't too bad because it gave you actual hints, but then it's like they ran out of time to write them and only give you the area of the map. I ended up using the maps on the Wiki to narrow it down (I could have used the step by step instructions to go straight to the spot, but I didn't want to make it too easy.)

After that though it gets more varied, and includes more combat. There's even a few world bosses in later steps.

[Firefox.2348]

The skyscale grind is nothing compared to the other grinds in the game. Just keep going and do a little each day. Don't try to rush as if you need you skyscale now. You'll get it, then look back and be "hey...that wasn't so bad."

 

Ever play wow and do pathfinder? The skyscale could take only a couple weeks just like that. And when you get to the map currencies, do the 'Return to' achievements! You will get 250 of each currency at a certain tier.

Edited August 2, 2022 by Jools.6293

[squeegee.4320]

Things have gotten WAY grindier as time has gone by. Compare LWS2 achievements to IBS achievements ("complete some special objective" vs. "do X content 250 times").

[Lottie.5370]

You're right, a "grind fest where you have to kill a bunch of stuff" is totally not "such....lazy....game design", but having to go to different parts of the game to explore and complete different tasks.... is? 😕

[DexterousGecko.6328]

4 hours ago, Jools.6293 said:

The skyscale grind is nothing compared to the other grinds in the game. Just keep going and do a little each day. Don't try to rush as if you need you skyscale now. You'll get it, then look back and be "hey...that wasn't so bad."

 

Ever play wow and do pathfinder? The skyscale could take only a couple weeks just like that. And when you get to the map currencies, do the 'Return to' achievements! You will get 250 of each currency at a certain tier.

 

"It could be worse" isn't exactly a compelling argument.

[Sobx.1758]

8 minutes ago, DexterousGecko.6328 said:

"It could be worse" isn't exactly a compelling argument.

And that might be what you think he said if you disregard the part boiling down to "don't rush it and it's ok".

[Squeesidhe.4761]

I'm getting closer to solving ANet's Anti-Fun Equation (i.e., the Skyscale grind). I'm gathering my last dozens of material for the saddle, and then I just have to do the flying stuff. 

 

Having ground it out this far, these are my impressions:

 

1. The entire process just seems... cynical on behalf of Anet. I see this cynicism in a lot of the GW2 game design, but it is very obvious here. Unlocking a Skyscale doesn't strike me as something designed for fun or entertainment, but to keep players locked into active play for as long as possible. If I recall, this launched during a major content draught? It shows. 

 

2. There's too much repetition. You go on a scavenger hunt, then go on another right after. You collect snacks, but also need to collect food. There are entire steps that could easily be combined or eliminated.

 

3. At one point you create a scavenger hunt only to have Gorrik tell you you just wasted your time and nothing you collected matters. Sometimes I think Anet hates its players. 

 

4. I hate jumping puzzles. I kittening hate them so, so kittening much. 

 

5. There are sections that are just major momentum stoppers if you haven't done them already, like the Deldrimor door puzzles. This one step, which was just one part of a multi-part unlock chain, took me two or three days. One of the rooms had, like, two billion spiders.  

 

6. My character is the Pact Commander. She has personally killed a God and several Elder Dragons. Doesn't she have people who can build a saddle for her? Doesn't she have more important places to be? 

 

7. One of the Priceless Treasures the Commander must obtain on this epic quest is... a single piece of sandpaper. 

 

8. I enjoyed that various quests took me to places that I'd never thought to visit before. One of my favorite things in this game is when I discover a new area or a new vista. The environmental design is still unmatched in my opinion. Even the areas that are 10 years old still look great. 

 

9. Collecting materials for the saddle is just so looooooooong. It's easy, but it takes so. kittening. Long that playing the game has become a chore. And yes, I know there are various tricks and things you can do to shorten the process and yes, I know you did the whole thing in half an hour and what are people complaining about, but even using various methods to shorten the grind it is still brain-killing tedium. This is boring. Anet, you're game design here is boring!! Shame on you! Look at yourselves in the mirror and cry from shame! Bad game designers, bad! Feel terrible about yourselves!

 

10. One small change would make the Skysaddle grind much better: make it so mobs have a chance to drop the material appropriate to their zone. Even if its just a small chance. That way you are no longer wasting your time fighting mobs, and killing them becomes part of the grind. Right now they are just roadblocks interfering with your grind. 

 

11. Basically... Anet, please stop designing the game as if it was played on a phone. Stop with the cynical time gates and time-dilating grinds and other exploitative junk. Do you have anyone on your team who tests this stuff out to make sure its actually fun to play? That it is challenging but enjoyable, and doesn't take so long that it becomes work? That sections can still be completed by solo players coming in after the initial rush? That unlocks aren't tied to game modes like jumping puzzles that are for specific tastes but are as fun as an auto accident for everyone else? 

 

12. I think the Skyscale unlock is a classic example of "looks good on paper." 

 

13. The Knights of the Round Table sought the Holy Grail. The Fellowship had to deliver the One Ring to Mount Doom. My epic quest is to find snacks and saddle components. My character is apparently the Pact Intern. 

 

 

 

 

[Skynet.7201]

And the best troll post of 2022 goes to......

[The Greyhawk.9107]

4 hours ago, Squeesidhe.4761 said:

~Snip~

Who told you the Skyscale was released during a content drought? It was released as part of the final chapter of LS season 4.

[Randulf.7614]

Not only was it not part of a content drought, it’s implementation was based on community feedback who specifically fed back the griffon was too hard to get due to groups and high costs. You make a lot of assumptions, but you weren’t there for release so a lot of the things in your above points are incorrect. And what is boring to some, wasn’t boring to everyone else.

The Skyscale was designed to ensure players could chip away at their leisure, have a small story to go with it and be able to get it fully solo. They even provided the ability to skip over jumping puzzles. It’s fine to hate jumping puzzles, but they aren’t an issue with skyscale since they can be skipped with the treats at that stage.

Apart from its length and the currency requirements (rendered moot by the return to living world rewards), it looks good on paper because on paper it’s what many wanted.

Yes it is a time sink. It’s a highly sought after, luxury and non essential mount. It’s exactly the sort of thing mmos make time sinks out of. The only issue is that players these days want these cool things quickly because modern gaming has brought that in. 

[ShroomOneUp.6913]

7 minutes ago, Randulf.7614 said:

Not only was it not part of a content drought, it’s implementation was based on community feedback who specifically fed back the griffon was too hard to get due to groups and high costs. You make a lot of assumptions, but you weren’t there for release so a lot of the things in your above points are incorrect. And what is boring to some, wasn’t boring to everyone else.

The Skyscale was designed to ensure players could chip away at their leisure, have a small story to go with it and be able to get it fully solo. They even provided the ability to skip over jumping puzzles. It’s fine to hate jumping puzzles, but they aren’t an issue with skyscale since they can be skipped with the treats at that stage.

Apart from its length and the currency requirements (rendered moot by the return to living world rewards), it looks good on paper because on paper it’s what many wanted.

Yes it is a time sink. It’s a highly sought after, luxury and non essential mount. It’s exactly the sort of thing mmos make time sinks out of. The only issue is that players these days want these cool things quickly because modern gaming has brought that in. 

well the skips got patched in a few days later actually but its about the same time period.
and to be fair SOME aspects could have been done more exciting. the egg collection was boring. that doesn't mean I disagree with you tho. the mount needs to be a "play the freaking game" effort only. They just needed to change to presentation of this effort (and the hints can be less cryptic too, since they already have to look it up in the achievement panel)

[Kori Jenkins.9017]

5 hours ago, Randulf.7614 said:

Not only was it not part of a content drought, it’s implementation was based on community feedback who specifically fed back the griffon was too hard to get due to groups and high costs. You make a lot of assumptions, but you weren’t there for release so a lot of the things in your above points are incorrect. And what is boring to some, wasn’t boring to everyone else.

The Skyscale was designed to ensure players could chip away at their leisure, have a small story to go with it and be able to get it fully solo. They even provided the ability to skip over jumping puzzles. It’s fine to hate jumping puzzles, but they aren’t an issue with skyscale since they can be skipped with the treats at that stage.

Apart from its length and the currency requirements (rendered moot by the return to living world rewards), it looks good on paper because on paper it’s what many wanted.

Yes it is a time sink. It’s a highly sought after, luxury and non essential mount. It’s exactly the sort of thing mmos make time sinks out of. The only issue is that players these days want these cool things quickly because modern gaming has brought that in. 

The problem is the "chip away at their leisure" approach really only achieves the goal it's trying to do when the content is brand new for everyone. Running in circles around Dragonfall to get a mount that everyone else already has isn't really fun or engaging content. Alt tabbing to the wiki constantly to find out where the items are isn't fun or engaging. 

 

Where I think the issue creeps in is the repetitive elements of it. If you weren't literally doing multiple loops around Dragonfall for the first part of the collection and were instead exploring other zones for it, the complaints wouldn't be as bad.

 

Also this isn't really relevant to your post in particular but some have said the skyscale isn't necessary and I completely disagree. A lot of train groups require it to keep up. There's a good chance you're going to miss out on some events in a Dragonfall train if you don't have the skyscale and need to use the griffon or springer to get up a cliff. 

 

I fully relate to OP. I quit around when I started the collection myself. I don't think it was due to the collection specifically, but it was likely a factor. Putting it in the shop isn't the answer, but future collections need to be less tedious than this one was (and I suspect they generally have been, I can't play EOD right now due to a computer issue, so I don't actually know).