POLL: The Quest for The Skyscale: The Long and Grindy Road

[Javonovich.5280]

The problem I have is that it’s a great marketing tool that could attract new players… until they realize it’s pretty out of reach for people starting the game.
 

I’d like to see the base skyscale more easily obtainable, then the mastery skills used to upgrade it behind more of the timegating and progression quests. I think this is a reasonable middle ground.

 

(My bias is that the SS has really broken the game’s core philosophy of exploration. But there’s really no turning back now. We’ve got it, and now we have to deal with it.)

[IAmNotMatthew.1058]

16 hours ago, abc.4918 said:

I know everyone keeps referring to the "return to" acheivements as a way to make the Skyscale easier to obtain but, god, for those of us that can't stand the story mode stuff (walking talking simulator with poor controls), the "return to" stuff is just another slap. I don't know how difficult (or tedious) getting the "return to" acheivements done but for someone like me it's likely much worse than just grinding out the currencies. [Still haven't finished EOD story since I got those maps unlocked and I play hours most every day.]

Then gather them the old way we did. The choice was presented, since people complained a stack of each material was "difficult" to gather.

[Batalix.2873]

Imo although skyscale is convenient for short bursts of mobility and casual roaming, it is not as efficient as griffon or roller beetle for longer distances.

 

I got griffon almost immediately after I completed PoF, took two or three evenings. And just having that opens up mobility so much. I also am of the opinion that griffon is just a cooler and better designed mount than skyscale, perhaps one of the centerpieces of GW2's unique branding and style.

 

Even that said, it only took me about four days to get skyscale with the return to achievements (outside of treats and lamp, which I elected to craft myself to save money). I waited an extra two weeks or so on the time gated stuff but honestly that still is not bad when it takes five, ten minutes to charge your quartzes and craft. It's easier than doing dailies.

 

I genuinely think that people who are whinging for skyscale to be easier have a really immature approach to a game that, generally, makes you work for things. If you can't spend even a couple weeks working toward the "prestige" mount in the game, when legendary gear takes months to years, what are you even doing playing this game?

Edited November 9, 2022 by CourtJester.5908

[Batalix.2873]

Duplicate post

Edited November 9, 2022 by CourtJester.5908

[Bladestrom.6425]

5 hours ago, Javonovich.5280 said:

The problem I have is that it’s a great marketing tool that could attract new players… until they realize it’s pretty out of reach for people starting the game.
 

I’d like to see the base skyscale more easily obtainable, then the mastery skills used to upgrade it behind more of the timegating and progression quests. I think this is a reasonable middle ground.

 

(My bias is that the SS has really broken the game’s core philosophy of exploration. But there’s really no turning back now. We’ve got it, and now we have to deal with it.)

 

This would be a bad thing.  One of the best things about a mmorpg  is the first year or so where you play; the sense of exploration and discovery etc and as with other games flying mounts would destroy that.   We all remember day 1 of a mmorpg and how amazing that feels, and how rare that is considering how few AAA mmorpg there are. That's what we want to present for new players along with the big ticket long term goals, its where GW strengths lie - the sense of a rich diverse living world with no pressure to rush to the end.

 

What Skyscale offers that some people are not getting is that it is a long term objective (its not even that long) with a really desirable reward at the end of it, that's awesome and actually hard to capture without power creep. So for new players its a new massive world with hundreds of hours of gameplay with significant rewards throughout and then at max level you have really tasty items like legendry weapons and premium mounts to aim for.   For many games that end-game is slowly getting gear with bigger and Bigger numbers on it, dull as it is.  

Edited November 9, 2022 by vesica tempestas.1563

[azorean.1850]

its not long or grindy. did people forgot what grind actually is!!

[Silent.6137]

3 hours ago, azorean.1850 said:

its not long or grindy. did people forgot what grind actually is!!

Many have never experience the true grinds of old MMOs, so impossible to forget what you've never seen/done.

You kinda expect it then. Of course, things changed and so does attitudes.

[Danikat.8537]

8 hours ago, azorean.1850 said:

its not long or grindy. did people forgot what grind actually is!!

Some people seem to use 'grind' to mean anything you need to do in a game. For an extreme example I saw someone on another forum say they were "grinding exploration" before they could carry on with a quest and when I asked what that meant it turned out they needed to run across the map to get to the next quest marker. (And no, this wasn't a long way, I think in terms of time required it's roughly equivalent to going across Queensdale or Metrica Province.)

I tend to think it only applies to repeating the same action in the same place over and over. So in terms of the skyscale I'd say gathering currencies before the 'return to' achievement were added (or without using them) could count as grind, although when I did it I usually got drawn into doing event chains which gave me currency and didn't involve grinding. The initial collections where you go around Dragonfall 3 times finding 'hidden' items could also be called grinding, but I don't think that name applies to the rest of the collections outside of those two steps.
 

4 hours ago, Silent.6137 said:

Many have never experience the true grinds of old MMOs, so impossible to forget what you've never seen/done.

You kinda expect it then. Of course, things changed and so does attitudes.

Actual grinding isn't unique to old MMOs. My usual example is Pokemon games where it was quite likely you'd get to a new town with a team that was too low level to beat the next gym, couldn't progress until you did and the only option to level up your pokemon was going around the area outside the town fighting the same pokemon over and over. I think they mostly fixed the scaling to stop that happening in the newer games, but I doubt they eliminated it completely.

[Omega.6801]

Can we get a merge thread for these requests, we have them twice a week?

[Zok.4956]

4 hours ago, Danikat.8537 said:

Some people seem to use 'grind' to mean anything you need to do in a game. 
(...)
I tend to think it only applies to repeating the same action in the same place over and over.

Grinding means to repeat the same actions over-and-over. But it is only grinding if you do not like those actions and you just do it to collect/get something in return that you need/want for something else you like/want.

Example: If I have fun playing WvW and doing WvW-activities over and over (capture, kill, defend,...) and I get wvw-tickets doing this it is not grinding. But a player that hates WvW and just wants the wvw-tickets to buy legy wvw-armor could think/say that doing wvw-activities for the legy armor is grinding.

And sometimes, if players really hate the activity or are very impatient, doing something "over-and-over" could mean "doing it more than once". 😉

 

[Ashen.2907]

On 11/8/2022 at 8:01 AM, kharmin.7683 said:

Then there is absolutely no reason to make a poll.  The OP could have just reviewed all of the existing threads and understood the general consensus on the topic.  That seems like more of a reason for a forum than some pointless poll.

The point of a poll such as this is similar to those old magazine questionaires to determine which celebrity hunk you were most suited to marry....purely for entertainment and to create a topic that my sister and her friends would gush about endlessly.

[Gibson.4036]

20 hours ago, Ashen.2907 said:

The point of a poll such as this is similar to those old magazine questionaires to determine which celebrity hunk you were most suited to marry....purely for entertainment and to create a topic that my sister and her friends would gush about endlessly.

Also, to legitimize making an entirely new thread, instead of just adding to one of the existing threads. 😄

Edited November 11, 2022 by Gibson.4036

[casualkenny.9817]

The part that I feel was poorly designed was the series of 3 collection of circling the same map finding the scales medicine eggs. Doing 1 was interesting, but the 2nd started, and then the 3rd started, all on the same map and areas, and consecutively. That part feels like a bad decision.

 

Spoiler

(I have completed it 5 times, and I won't need to do it again, so there is no personal interest involved. I don't think it will be changed for at least 2 more years either. I do think that the skyscale is an essential mount specifically for players who do open world group content that needs travelling, just as I do think raptor is an essential mount in core open world for the same for pre-purchase accounts. I am not interested in debating any of these statements, and I am stating them purely to provide context to my non-spoiler comments.)

 

[Silent.6137]

20 hours ago, Ashen.2907 said:

The point of a poll such as this is similar to those old magazine questionaires to determine which celebrity hunk you were most suited to marry....purely for entertainment and to create a topic that my sister and her friends would gush about endlessly.

Yup. It is exactly that. Entertainment. Just as GW2 is. Pure entertainment. It really baffle me when players object to any forum topics discussing the game they are playing. There's really no obligations for them to read it.

17 hours ago, Gibson.4036 said:

Also, to legitimize making an entirely new thread, instead of just adding to one of the existing threads.

Adding to an existing thread would not make the polls visible and easily accessible to vote on. It'll be so far buried that any such poll will be useless and just a waste of time and effort.

Edited November 11, 2022 by Silent.6137

[ProtoGunner.4953]

Imagine these complainers getting the skyscale within two hours or outright buying it and then complaining there's nothing to do in the game. I really would love to have quests or quest chains where you can get unique and cool skins for skyscales and other mounts.

[baseendje.8452]

On 11/10/2022 at 7:00 AM, Silent.6137 said:

Many have never experience the true grinds of old MMOs, so impossible to forget what you've never seen/done.

You kinda expect it then. Of course, things changed and so does attitudes.

The reason I was so excited about GW2 when it came out is that it was the promised MMO that didnt have you grind sensless to get to the cool and fun content. I have never experienced the true grinds of old MMO's because I don't play games that waste my time doing boring stuff over giving me a fun and entertaining experience.

52 minutes ago, ProtoGunner.4953 said:

Imagine these complainers getting the skyscale within two hours or outright buying it and then complaining there's nothing to do in the game. I really would love to have quests or quest chains where you can get unique and cool skins for skyscales and other mounts.

How about we flip that around, we get nice quests or quest chains to unlock the mount and then you can have your collections to unlock the skins.

Edited November 11, 2022 by baseendje.8452

[Linken.6345]

1 hour ago, baseendje.8452 said:

The reason I was so excited about GW2 when it came out is that it was the promised MMO that didnt have you grind sensless to get to the cool and fun content. I have never experienced the true grinds of old MMO's because I don't play games that waste my time doing boring stuff over giving me a fun and entertaining experience.

How about we flip that around, we get nice quests or quest chains to unlock the mount and then you can have your collections to unlock the skins.

So you will ride around on a invisible skyscale then ?

Since that is what it will be without its skin.

[baseendje.8452]

5 minutes ago, Linken.6345 said:

So you will ride around on a invisible skyscale then ?

Since that is what it will be without its skin.

Nah Anet knows they could sell an invisible mount skin for 2000 gems ez

Edited November 11, 2022 by baseendje.8452

[SuavePuppy.2809]

1 hour ago, baseendje.8452 said:

we get nice quests or quest chains to unlock the mount

What is a collection if not a quest chain?

[baseendje.8452]

15 minutes ago, SuavePuppy.2809 said:

What is a collection if not a quest chain?

what is beans in tomatosauce if not healthy and nutricious meal?

[Freya.9075]

18 minutes ago, baseendje.8452 said:

what is beans in tomatosauce if not healthy and nutricious meal?

A fart inducing treat. Not so healthy though, but nutritious sure. They got a point though. Some collections are like chain quests. Would it feel different if you got a quest from an npc to gather certain items (eggs) and bring it back to them? Cause that’s exactly what the first parts of this collection is. A 3 part fetch quest line for gorrik. After that, you’ll have some toy fetch quests, treat fetch quests and so on. It’s no different then an npc giving you a task to do. 

[baseendje.8452]

18 minutes ago, Freya.9075 said:

A fart inducing treat. Not so healthy though, but nutritious sure. They got a point though. Some collections are like chain quests. Would it feel different if you got a quest from an npc to gather certain items (eggs) and bring it back to them? Cause that’s exactly what the first parts of this collection is. A 3 part fetch quest line for gorrik. After that, you’ll have some toy fetch quests, treat fetch quests and so on. It’s no different then an npc giving you a task to do. 

Sure, this is why I included the adjective 'nice' describing said quest. I am not going to have an argument about whether collections consisting out of more collections can or cannot be considered a quest or questline. Like I am not going to have an argument on whether beans in tomatosauce may be considered a healthy and nutricious meal. Still I don't consider either of them being nice. And yes that is my own subjective opinion, no need to have an argument about whether I am entitled to hold that opinion or not.

Edited November 11, 2022 by baseendje.8452

[Freya.9075]

12 minutes ago, baseendje.8452 said:

Sure, this is why I included the adjective 'nice' describing said quest. I am not going to have an argument about whether collections consisting out of more collections can or cannot be considered a quest or questline. Like I am not going to have an argument on whether beans in tomatosauce may be considered a healthy and nutricious meal. Still I don't consider either of them being nice. And yes that is my own subjective opinion, no need to have an argument about whether I am entitled to hold that opinion or not.

Obviously, you’re entitled to have opinions. No arguments from me there. Opinions are part of this though, because if anet creates nice chain quests, someone will always criticize it. Which is fine since we all have preferences. But it will not solve the “issue” we got now with this collection as it is just that. Opinions. 

[Zok.4956]

3 hours ago, baseendje.8452 said:

The reason I was so excited about GW2 when it came out is that it was the promised MMO that didnt have you grind sensless to get to the cool and fun content. I have never experienced the true grinds of old MMO's because I don't play games that waste my time doing boring stuff over giving me a fun and entertaining experience.

GW2 is the promised MMO where you don't have to grind before you can play content and where you don't have to grind for essential things like gear/armor/weapons.

You can play all content (with the exception of high level fractals) with cheap exotic gear and you don't need the Skyscale for playing content. You can use Springer and Raptor instead and these you get for free when you play the PoF story or if you have EoD.

Every MMORPG has some form of progression-system, not only for player retention but also because (a lot of) players want to feel progression in the jouney of their character and want the feeling of having achieved something. 

Most MMOs take the easy way and increase the max-level with every expansion which invalidates existing gear. GW2 does not increase the max level and instead user another progressions-system (the mastery system).

If you don't like those kind of time-gates and progression systems, maybe the genre is not the best choice for you.

[baseendje.8452]

1 hour ago, Freya.9075 said:

Obviously, you’re entitled to have opinions. No arguments from me there. Opinions are part of this though, because if anet creates nice chain quests, someone will always criticize it. Which is fine since we all have preferences. But it will not solve the “issue” we got now with this collection as it is just that. Opinions. 

Precisely! Just to be clear, I am not trying to argue here to have collections removed from the game, it is pretty clear that there are plenty of people here enjoying them. I would however like it if Anet would consider alternative paths to completing some of the collection heavy unlocks for those who are not into them. I tryed to suggest something like that in the other thread, as I think this could be a way to make both sides happy, but from the reactions it seemed like a lot of people hate the idea of people getting an alternative path. (Even though I don't really see how that affects their own gameplay).

1 hour ago, Zok.4956 said:

If you don't like those kind of time-gates and progression systems, maybe the genre is not the best choice for you.

In my option GW2 + HoT is absolutely world class, best MMO experience out there. Some design choices since PoF I am not so fond of in particular heavy realiance on collections. But I'll remember that I can play all content without mounts next time that I try to keep-up with a meta-event train while the rest of the players fly of and finish the next event before I can even get there.

Edited November 11, 2022 by baseendje.8452