Just put the Skyscale in the shop [Merged]

[DoctorOverlord.8620]

Getting the skyscale has vastly improved my enjoyment in GW2 while exponentially increasing the fun I have with the game, and something that so radically improves the gameplay should not be gated by a tedious quest line.   Things that are chiefly flex cosmetics like Legendary items should require time-consuming quest chains but the gameplay benefits of a Legendary are nothing compared to the incredible difference when you see when you get a flying mount.

The point to the game is to offer a fun experience.  You've already 'earned' that by giving ArenaNet your hard-earned, real world cash.  The old-school MMO attitude that you should only have fun after you've killed 10,000 rats needs to be thrown in the trash heap where it belongs. 

ANet seems to be realizing this as they take steps to make the raptor mount more accessible to new players.  Getting a raptor also made playing GW2 much more fun because movement is such a core mechanic for MMOs.  Anything that can improve player movement should not be held away from them much less gated by a tedious, pointless timesink.

That said, the first part of it where you are hatching and raising your skyscale were actually enjoyable and served to build a bond with your mount.  I also approved how the middle part of the quest line allowed you to buy out its useless timesinks with gold.  But the last part with the tedious and pointless mat gathering sucked out any enjoyment getting the skyscale may have offered, resulting in the quest line that misses the mark at offering a fun experience to players.  If it had managed to be fun, we wouldn't be having this discussion in the first place.

Edited August 3, 2022 by DoctorOverlord.8620

[Tiilimon.6094]

Put everything on the gemstore and let us pay people to join our guilds and let us buy guild levels too, perhaps we could also buy / trade friends?

Could also make PVP rank work with a subscription so it starts at a low rank and raises as you pay a weekly fee, would bring some balance back to the world as actual skill would mean less than money so it would be more realistic.

We can already buy a lvl 80 character and tier 1 legendaries so I don't see any problems with it.

[Ultramex.1506]

This got merged, explain why it suddenly pop up from the graveyard again3

I hope Anet will never give in when complaints about skyscale pop up again, mmo need long term goal grind (how they are implemented is a different topic) and if Anet change just because someone doesnt want to put in time and effort, it will hurt the game in the long run

Edited August 3, 2022 by Ultramex.1506

[Gibson.4036]

For all the people saying “alt tab to the wiki”, there are overlays you can use like GW2TacO to avoid that and still get guided.

I know people will still feel they shouldn’t have to use third party software, but I though I’d put that out there for anyone who doesn’t know.

[stormemperor.3745]

On 7/2/2022 at 6:24 PM, Squeesidhe.4761 said:

The unlock quests for the Skyscale mount are beyond tedious. Just put the mount unlock in the Gem store and I'll just buy the damned thing. 

real skyscale is the friends you made during the journey

[SnackParty.3178]

Wasn't a fan of the scavenger hunts, but there's a bitter sweet spot. Get involved with metas while you're there. Dragonfall can be a fun map to interact with a big player base with. Map is easier for a bit, to explore after meta is clear with the free extra waypoints. 

[Vayne.8563]

On 7/3/2022 at 2:12 AM, DexterousGecko.6328 said:

I guess I have to wonder, why? Why does it need to be earned? What would happen if suddenly everyone had easier access to Skyscales? Would the game just suddenly get boring for everyone? Would all of those people that got the Skyscale suddenly leave?

No but many of the people considering the game would see it as pay to win, and once that rumor starts gaining traction, the new steam people who might want to sign on won't.  It's not just about if I'll leave or I won't leave. It gives the game a worse reputation than a mount that you have to play for that takes some time.

[Lysico.4906]

No.  Earned mine.   Go earn your.    Put the effort in

[Smoky.5348]

 

21 hours ago, Randulf.7614 said:

...be able to get it fully solo.

"There's even a few world bosses in later steps," someone else said.

So, how are world bosses compatible with "fully solo"?

 

On 8/2/2022 at 6:05 AM, Tiamat.8254 said:

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

How is the grind worth it if we don't need it?

 

17 minutes ago, Lysico.4906 said:

No.  Earned mine.   Go earn your.    Put the effort in

"We got the skyscale, just do what we did, forehead."

 

14 hours ago, DoctorOverlord.8620 said:

Getting the skyscale has vastly improved my enjoyment in GW2 while exponentially increasing the fun I have with the game, and something that so radically improves the gameplay should not be gated by a tedious quest line.   Things that are chiefly flex cosmetics like Legendary items should require time-consuming quest chains but the gameplay benefits of a Legendary are nothing compared to the incredible difference when you see when you get a flying mount.

The point to the game is to offer a fun experience.  You've already 'earned' that by giving ArenaNet your hard-earned, real world cash.  The old-school MMO attitude that you should only have fun after you've killed 10,000 rats needs to be thrown in the trash heap where it belongs. 

Definitely true. Just because MMOs have a reputation of repetitive, lengthy material-farming doesn't mean that was ever a fun idea. Remove the tediousness and make it an actual questline.

 

Lastly, if l were to call a conspiracy theory, I'd think a moderator is merging topics to this one to help discredit further skyscale complaints. But, that'd be silly, right? 😛

Edited August 3, 2022 by Smoky.5348

[Danikat.8537]

28 minutes ago, Smoky.5348 said:

"There's even a few world bosses in later steps," someone else said.

So, how are world bosses compatible with "fully solo"?

 

You can skip them using Extra Pungent Skyscale Treats. (I mentioned them in response to someone who said they were disappointed the first few steps weren't combat-focused.)

But it also depends on what you mean by solo. World bosses can be completed without joining a party or squad and without communicating with other players. They can't be completed totally alone with no other players involved in the fight, but in my experience that's not what most people mean when they talk about playing GW2 solo.

[DenimChicken.8639]

On 8/2/2022 at 5:05 AM, Tiamat.8254 said:

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. 

 

There are several world events out there that yield the best gold per hour and if you don't have a skyscale mount, you can't keep up with the zerg as they fly to different bosses and that drop chests. You end up trying to keep up with them on your assortment of mounts but you aren't able to tap the boss to get credit.

 

So yeah, the flying mount for me is pretty much essential. 

[DexterousGecko.6328]

"it's not that great, you don't need it"

 

okay, so then there's no reason it's locked behind such a grind then. But there is, isn't there? I remember leveling up all 12 or something of my character's mounts in ESO to max speed/stamina/storage. It took months but I would gladly let new players have all that without any effort because of how artificial it is, and how much it improves the game.

[Silent.6137]

51 minutes ago, DexterousGecko.6328 said:

"it's not that great, you don't need it"

 

okay, so then there's no reason it's locked behind such a grind then. But there is, isn't there? I remember leveling up all 12 or something of my character's mounts in ESO to max speed/stamina/storage. It took months but I would gladly let new players have all that without any effort because of how artificial it is, and how much it improves the game.

So, what should players play for if there's nothing to grind for? Log on and do events for loots? Why? They don't need the loots since everyone can just log on and basically get anything they want with virtually zero efforts. Fun games!

[DexterousGecko.6328]

14 minutes ago, Silent.6137 said:

So, what should players play for if there's nothing to grind for?

 

I don't know, I never grinded for anything when I played Halo 3 with my buddies, and we put hundreds of hours into it. Same with many other games. The purpose was to play and have fun.

[Gibson.4036]

19 minutes ago, Squeesidhe.4761 said:

I played 80 rounds of PVP to get 50+ each Mistonium and Branded Masses. Not sure it was worth it. There are a LOT of angry white guys in there who probably have Punisher stickers on their cars, stormed the capitol, and like to do their own research. Hoo boy. Think it might have been better to just harvest nodes like lobotomized robot. 

No need to robotically harvest nodes now.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Return_to_All_or_Nothing
 

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Return_to_A_Star_to_Guide_Us

[The Greyhawk.9107]

59 minutes ago, Squeesidhe.4761 said:

I played 80 rounds of PVP to get 50+ each Mistonium and Branded Masses. Not sure it was worth it. There are a LOT of angry white guys in there who probably have Punisher stickers on their cars, stormed the capitol, and like to do their own research. Hoo boy. Think it might have been better to just harvest nodes like lobotomized robot. 

 

 

Edited August 4, 2022 by The Greyhawk.9107

[Squeesidhe.4761]

6 minutes ago, The Greyhawk.9107 said:

 

 

Reward tracks at the end give the option for 50 of the material, or other things but you have to choose. 

[Squeesidhe.4761]

So I finally completed the Saddle and Gorrik was like, give it here, and I was like, OK here it is, and that was it. Weeks of grinding. Whatever, it's done.

 

Now I'm doing the flight rift things and each time I touch one a toolkit pops up advising me that I have to train a rift repair mastery or something. I haven't unlocked the mount yet - why does this notice keep displaying? Couldn't they disable the notice for this part? Not for the first time do I seriously wonder if Anet has anyone on their team who plays this stuff before it goes live. 

[The Greyhawk.9107]

26 minutes ago, Squeesidhe.4761 said:

Reward tracks at the end give the option for 50 of the material, or other things but you have to choose. 

Not what I was referring to, but thanks for playing.

[Sunchaser.9854]

Yeah, For real. Just when you do like 80 items and you go. "Okay, that was like 20 hours. this 1/7 has GOT to be over now!" you find out there's more, and more, and more. and more. Like a house with a plumbing issue that leads to a den of rats that leads to a hidden chamber that leads to a hidden entrance to your neighbor's house.. That continues on and on never ending, and each time y our enjoyment and excitement becomes boredom. So you say you'll get a griffon to speed the skyscale grind up even though you only planned on one.. And then i just went back to try the skyscale demo.

 

Went "meh", and went back to griffon and then just put it on the bottom of my list of priorities after a full Ascended gear and weapon swap spec (needed for my class's optimum rotation 20k to 39k vs mechanist afk 1 to 37k. If you actually don't have enough abilities, you can't trigger the swaps on cd that you need to do to do more rotations to provide 50% alacity vs the mechanist's afk 100% alacity), raiding, iceblood masteries and pretty much anything else. 

 

I mean.. People rave over the thing. And if it was put in opposite ends as the 250g casual mount and griffon as the time intensive unlock. That could be fair. But so far, it's pretty much the 'casual' slow 33% speed mount that grabs onto any walls. That's good for short distances but has a grind probably longer than the 2 seconds any short distance roll is gonna save while griffon can saves hours or 5-15 minutes easily on a fast flight. 

 

 

 

 

 

I mean if you only use one mount keybind. Skyscale is a great generalist. If you want a mount that's ready to use out of the box, it's fine. But Roller beetle for flats with A griffon/springer swap for instant beetle energy regen, and griffon for aerial terrain are my go tos. 

People will say Griffon can't fly. and it might be true it can't gain raw height.. But a springer griff + 20-30% energy jadechip combo can easily tool away the cost into a long distance flyer that loses less distance over feet. I made another post, but for a 'flying mount', i remember the skyscale had to land 3-4 times for a 1 minute trip that the springer griffon flew across in one leap. Some people will call it more effort spending 2 days to learn how to fly a griffon, and then spend 4-20+ days grinding for a skyscale. But im putting my ascended Viper gear, dungeons runes, fun gameplay, and strikes first before it.  I already paid for it, so i might as well unlock it someday.

 

But people always act with such drama when i say i don't really feel like i care much about it anytime soon when i find myself constantly dismounting the demo to fly my griffon even in dragonfall. 😛

[Meadow.7283]

I must say before the skyscale I was one of the laziest players ever and during the entire process of getting it I was whining about it. But then near the end I started changing. I enjoyed running around and being challenged on every aspect of the game. And the map currencies needed toward the end got me fully playing and not just glancing around on the living world maps, and through the story that I previously didn't really care about. 

This journey completely changed me and my experience of the game, I actually do collections now and have worked on properly gearing my character and seeking out content that takes time to complete. If this mount had been in the shop, I would have just wasted money unlocking it, used it for a few minutes, then probably exited the game again. I think it's important that it stays the way it is, if you can try not to think of it as tedious but instead as a journey. I can't change your mind for you, but hopefully the collection will! Good luck.

[Izzy.2951]

Yeah sure put it on the shop but at 50.000 gems. so you can support arenanet production in gw2 and you dont have to do all the grind the rest of us did.

 

That way also people wont buy it with gold KAPPA

[Smoky.5348]

8 hours ago, Danikat.8537 said:

You can skip them using Extra Pungent Skyscale Treats. (I mentioned them in response to someone who said they were disappointed the first few steps weren't combat-focused.)

But it also depends on what you mean by solo. World bosses can be completed without joining a party or squad and without communicating with other players. They can't be completed totally alone with no other players involved in the fight, but in my experience that's not what most people mean when they talk about playing GW2 solo.

I feel like the option to skip stuff with an item like that is a, "Here, now stop whining," bandaid solution from ANET, and is a problem in and of itself... But, I do understand your point now. Appreciate it.

4 hours ago, Zero.6712 said:

This journey completely changed me and my experience of the game, I actually do collections now and have worked on properly gearing my character and seeking out content that takes time to complete. If this mount had been in the shop, I would have just wasted money unlocking it, used it for a few minutes, then probably exited the game again. I think it's important that it stays the way it is, if you can try not to think of it as tedious but instead as a journey. I can't change your mind for you, but hopefully the collection will! Good luck.

That sounds good and all, but the fact it took you until the tail end of it to reach that epiphany is what's bad about it. The whole collection ought to give that feeling, not just the final stretch. If it's so important as a journey, it needs to have a more streamlined interface, more clear directions, and less tedious goals so no one has reason to complain at any point during it to begin with. Other people having done it before won't stimy the complaints; the journey actually being a fun thing to do all throughout will.

[Ashen.2907]

On 8/2/2022 at 11:40 PM, DoctorOverlord.8620 said:

Getting the skyscale has vastly improved my enjoyment in GW2 while exponentially increasing the fun I have with the game, and something that so radically improves the gameplay should not be gated by a tedious quest line.   Things that are chiefly flex cosmetics like Legendary items should require time-consuming quest chains but the gameplay benefits of a Legendary are nothing compared to the incredible difference when you see when you get a flying mount.

The point to the game is to offer a fun experience.  You've already 'earned' that by giving ArenaNet your hard-earned, real world cash.  The old-school MMO attitude that you should only have fun after you've killed 10,000 rats needs to be thrown in the trash heap where it belongs. 

ANet seems to be realizing this as they take steps to make the raptor mount more accessible to new players.  Getting a raptor also made playing GW2 much more fun because movement is such a core mechanic for MMOs.  Anything that can improve player movement should not be held away from them much less gated by a tedious, pointless timesink.

That said, the first part of it where you are hatching and raising your skyscale were actually enjoyable and served to build a bond with your mount.  I also approved how the middle part of the quest line allowed you to buy out its useless timesinks with gold.  But the last part with the tedious and pointless mat gathering sucked out any enjoyment getting the skyscale may have offered, resulting in the quest line that misses the mark at offering a fun experience to players.  If it had managed to be fun, we wouldn't be having this discussion in the first place.

My Legendary armor has, and continues to, provide orders of magnitude more gameplay benefits than my flying mount.

This game was fun beforethe addition of the Skyscale mount so your comparison to killing 10k rats before you can have fun falls flat. If the game was not fun without the Skyscale then no one would have played long enough to get one.

[Ashen.2907]

1 hour ago, Smoky.5348 said:

so no one has reason to complain at any point during it

This is not achievable.