Secrets of the Obscure general feedback [Merged]

[Ashen.2907]

20 minutes ago, Aresz.8240 said:

Wow, I recommend Anet refund everyone's money!  Glad I don't have the new expansion now. 

I only bought the expac to be able to do the strikes with my friends and am still not fond of much of the rest of it, but the post you quoted is peppered pretty heavily with inaccurate and/or false statements. Obviously some of it is subjective but some of those claims are factually incorrect.

[KeConan.4563]

Story - 5/10
Skywatch Archipelago Map - 5/10
Amnytas Map - 2/10 (unoptimized, unplayable)
Skywatch Archipelago META - 5/10
Amnytas META - 2/10
SoTo Masteries - 3/10
Weaponmaster Training - 3/10
Rift Hunting - 2/10
Wizard's Vault - 6/10
Relics - 5/10
New Strike Mission - 4/10
Fun Factor - 3/10

Overall - 4/10

Edited September 17, 2023 by KeConan.4563

[ReV.6097]

Loved the begining, and the Kryptis world. Wanted more of their world, although I haven't beaten the expansion just yet, I was hoping we'd get to jump into their realms more like we did when we first got dragged into the portal.

 

The Wizards tower safe map is a favourite.

The enemies are cool. The tentacle head meta boss  is pretty good.

The wizard vault is a mix of greatness and absolutely crap at the same time.

I like having the choices to spend points on anything, but I hate having to consistently go out of my way to do more than just play a  short time, just to get my daily item/points.

The old style let you log in and get a reward, so if you was having a busy day and couldn't play then it wasn't too much of a problem to get your log-in item, but now if I log in I have to make sure I have enough time for all the dailys, which I don't always have time or want to. 

For a busy working family man, I find it a little tedious sometimes logging in now since I play so late, and often feel rushed to do my dailies before the reset.

Often just waiting for my days off. 

 

So, in all honesty, It's good, but no longer flexible and somewhat annoying.  

Edited September 17, 2023 by ReV.6097

[Jevnaker.4325]

My feedback on gw2 in general but related to the new expansion.
You got to stop locking what is basically quality of life improvements behind expansion content, like the mounts you could have them aded with expansions and have their full potential masteries be expansion unlocks but aquiring the mount itself should require only level 80 and owning the expansion in my opinion. The same goes for something that is  even more directly related to the newest expansion and quality of life the weapon master training thing it should have been added with this most recent expansion fine, but it should in no shape or form require to play it cus it mainly affects characters / players nowhere near the required expansion content.

Also on that note rangers are long overdue for getting pistols and rifles for their core "class" / specialisation outside of this weapon master training. which i have been saying since day one because in basically every other game pistols /rifles are equally as part of the ranger/hunter class fantasy and design as bows are. 

On that weaponmaster and mount unlock being gate kept ? behind expansion content despite being quality of life upgrades,  i am currently contemplating making a throwaway character use an level 80 token i have on it just to do the minimal requirements for the mount and weaponmaster training unlocks and then deleting it again while going lalalala with fingers in the ears to not spoil myself on story.

I like gw2 as a whole but each expansion i am saddened to see quality of life improvements of various types locked behind expansion content. Also on the wizard vault i have same issue most days it gives me content for at least one expansion which i havent gotten to yet or are in anyway near to getting started with which makes it impossible for me to complete the 4 required things for the daily in the new system, i only have the pve option on cus that is the things i do.

Edited September 17, 2023 by Jevnaker.4325

[Eday.4850]

Hey there,

I'm here to give my opinion after finishing the Soto story. For context, I'm an avid lore explorer (especially with the charr race), and I truly love the current game state. That being said, some part of lore I found in the last extension gave me some nervousness.

The current state of the world is quite "bad". Not worst than being exterminated by the dragon cycle, but definitely bad :

Spoiler

- The humans just understood that their gods would never come back
- The norns and their spirit, which the main one were freed to help save the world (even if, on that one, I'm not quite 100% sure as I'm still trying to understand the implications)
- The sylvaris had their worst with Mordremoth
- The charrs just went out of a civil war
- The asuras... Well... Aside from the Inquest being mostly destroyed by Joko, they're quite fine.
- Cantha is in a dangerous state as they still haven't found a new reliable energy source since then.
- Elona was just saved from two large threat
- Aurene isn't here anymore to help us (yet)

 

I know that the final act of the previous extension was the most extreme thing we could have done yet, but please, Anet, don't be like some competitor, which always goes into more and more extreme with their story to the point where it doesn't make any more sense at all, where every new extension implies a drop of the player base instead of making more come in.

After the end of the last extension, everything was possible, but please... Please don't end up going further and further into the extreme to a point where we can't even have a grasp of the importance of a Tyrian mortal.

I truly prefer an extension like season 1, with a villain contained in the world of Tyria, than jumping from Mists to Mists, or even worse, from planet to planet.

 

Please, dear Anet, Guild Wars 2 doesn't need this extreme to be awesome.

Edited September 20, 2023 by Eday.4850
light edit in text

[Gop.8713]

I don't play for the story, but I do play through the story, at least a handful of times. And I agree, the stories with smaller scale 'non-dragon' adversaries (Scarlet, Beetlestone, Joko, etc.) have generally been more engaging and memorable than the more abstract dragon arcs . . .

And I would say this current arc is definitely leaning more towards the abstract ; p

[Ashantara.8731]

16 minutes ago, Eday.4850 said:

- The humans just understood that their gods would never come back
- The norns and their spirit, which the main one were freed to help save the world (even if, on that one, I'm not quite 100% sure as I'm still trying to understand the implications)
- The sylvaris had their worst with Mordremoth
- The charrs just went out of a civil war
- The asuras... Well... Aside from the Inquest being mostly destroyed by Joko, they're quite fine.
- Cantha is in a dangerous state as they still haven't found a new reliable energy source since then.
- Elona was just saved from two large threat
- Aurene isn't here anymore to help us (yet)

1. Cantha found a ley-line resource during the Gyala Delve story, Taimi and Joon are working on setting it up as a new power source.
2. The correct plural of the races are: humans, norn, charr, sylvari, asura. (All plurals except that of the human race are declined without the "s".)

15 minutes ago, Eday.4850 said:

Please, dear Anet, Guild Wars 2 doesn't need this extreme to be awesome.

I sense some anxiety there. 😉
 

Edited September 20, 2023 by Ashantara.8731

[kharmin.7683]

5 hours ago, Gop.8713 said:

I don't play for the story, but I do play through the story, at least a handful of times. And I agree, the stories with smaller scale 'non-dragon' adversaries (Scarlet, Beetlestone, Joko, etc.) have generally been more engaging and memorable than the more abstract dragon arcs . . .

 

Praise Joko!

[Eday.4850]

6 hours ago, Ashantara.8731 said:

1. Cantha found a ley-line resource during the Gyala Delve story, Taimi and Joon are working on setting it up as a new power source.
2. The correct plural of the races are: humans, norn, charr, sylvari, asura. (All plurals except that of the human race are declined without the "s".)

I sense some anxiety there. 😉
 

1. You are totally right about Cantha. It's just that it's still not 100% replaced yet, Joon & Taimi still working on it.
2. Hah! My whole life was a lie!

And yes, definitely. Soto looks nice, but I truly hope that the whole Tyria won't have to know about this as it would have large consequences for the whole world; plus, this would imply the symptoms of another game that went always further more into the extreme. And I really don't want this to happen for the game. This would just break everything and give the impression that everything we've done so far was meaningless. That last feeling was truly one I felt all along the story until I understood the true goal of the sorcerers:

Spoiler

Being simple watchers and protectors of life in Tyria. As long as life existed, they wouldn't intervene.

But if they become something else than just this... I don't know, it would give the same feeling as Ankka had after she went full crazy.

Edited September 20, 2023 by Eday.4850
Added spoiler

[GunlangAlpha.2870]

SoTo is Mediocre at best ( personal opinion). The solo instances were very difficult for what felt like little reward. Admittedly i am not a legend, but man wow.  The story seemed repetitive ( close rifts, close more,  annnd more). It felt like it was more of an extra mastery track for the skyscale i already have with some annoying instances rather than an expansion. 

Edited October 1, 2023 by GunlangAlpha.2870

[Danikat.8537]

I finally finished the new skyscale collection and this seems like a good place to put feedback.

It certainly serves the purpose of being quicker and easier to complete. I think it took me about the same amount of time from doing the first step to the final unlock, but with the original collection I did almost nothing else in that time, whereas with this one I did bits as and when I remembered and felt like it and completed some items in the collections without even knowing it was required (like defeating 4 world bosses). Having all the sub-collections unlock together definitely made it easier, as did the cheaper saddle components.

But I'm disappointed that we don't get to see the skyscale hatchling or interact with them while they're growing. For me that detracts from the process. It wasn't a big deal for me because it was never going to be my skyscale, I've already got her, but if I did this collection first then later did the Season 4 one I'd definitely feel like I'd missed out.

I see it a bit like the gen 1 legendary precursor collections. If someone just wants the mount unlocked I'd recommend this collection like I'd recommend buying a precursor, whereas if they want to experience the whole process and get the lore and story I'd recommend the Season 4 collection, like I'd recommend doing the precursor collections.

[FrizzFreston.5290]

On 8/30/2023 at 5:49 PM, Khaos.6479 said:

What is the problem with stocking it ? Can you tell me ? This is really not a good point. What if i want to spend all that money at the end of the 77 days for some reason ? If Anet doesn't want us to stock it, well they can put back to 0 at the end of the 77 days. End of that problem.  

And the problem of the karma is that you can't spend it like the money of the WV.  

The problem with stockpiling it too high, makes it "less fun". It makes it impossible to binge and binge and binge, then do a whole load of nothing to buy everything.

It is basically forced pacing playing the game and feeling rewarded for doing so. Which is technically what the dailies are supposed to do.

Ofcourse, the downside is that some people feel like they are feeling forced to get a reward, and /or might get burned out faster because they feel forced to play, otherwise they feel left out. Personally the new daily system lead me to playing the game more, but I do feel like I'm otherwise missing out. Even though right now there's not really that much in the vault anymore for me to buy. 

[Klypto.1703]

I tried really hard to like this and get into it, but I just couldn't.  I had no intention of playing Diablo 4 but this expansion drove me to it.

[Zera.9435]

On 8/22/2023 at 7:25 PM, Manifest.8417 said:

Definite Downgrade of the old system, We now get less rewards. getting spirit shards is even more of a pain now

The acquisition of spirit shards has been moved to rift farming. I've been doing rifts every day and I've gotten a decent amount of xp from that. Granted, the only reason I've been doing rifts is because of the several tens of thousands of essences I still need, so if you aren't working on the legendary armor, then yes I can see your issue.

Before soto and rift farming, if I wanted to farm spirit shards I would get xp buffs and do Dragon's Stand Meta and tag as many events as possible and do all 3 treasure mushrooms (each one gives a spirit shard in addition to xp). Then after that I'd go find some treasure mushrooms in the other HoT maps. It gave me something to do and it wasn't boring.

[idpersona.3810]

On 10/9/2023 at 11:27 AM, Zera.9435 said:

The acquisition of spirit shards has been moved to rift farming. I've been doing rifts every day and I've gotten a decent amount of xp from that. Granted, the only reason I've been doing rifts is because of the several tens of thousands of essences I still need, so if you aren't working on the legendary armor, then yes I can see your issue.

Before soto and rift farming, if I wanted to farm spirit shards I would get xp buffs and do Dragon's Stand Meta and tag as many events as possible and do all 3 treasure mushrooms (each one gives a spirit shard in addition to xp). Then after that I'd go find some treasure mushrooms in the other HoT maps. It gave me something to do and it wasn't boring.

Getting spirit shards has been a much bigger hurdle for me after SotO than before. While I'm thankful for the ideas on getting them, I still think they should be added back into the daily chest, since there isn't any equivalent from the WV as before. That was a/the major source of spirit shards for me (and I imagine other players as well).

Since SotO came out, I've managed to do the daily every single day, which doesn't really matter anymore (for the sake of this). Before, that would have accounted for 141 spirit shards (47 days*3). Which is about half what's needed to craft a legendary weapon. The only reason I've gotten enough this last month to get to craft one is because 7 character birthdays went by (for a total bonus of 210 spirit shards).

Including those 210, I've gotten 371 shards in the 47 days in total since SotO came out. In the 47 days prior to SotO, I earned 683 spirit shards from dailies and gaming. I didn't really do the math until just now, but the difference is kind of ridiculous.

[DeanBB.4268]

Which weapon are you crafting that requires so many spirit shards? I don't recall them being a big component. Are you crafting the precursor also?

It's been a long time since  I made one.

Edited October 10, 2023 by DeanBB.4268

[idpersona.3810]

29 minutes ago, DeanBB.4268 said:

Which weapon are you crafting that requires so many spirit shards? I don't recall them being a big component. Are you crafting the precursor also?

It's been a long time since  I made one.

200 for the bloodstone shard and 74-150 for mystic clovers, depending on gen 1 or 3. I'm holding off on any gen 2s right now plans-wise, since mystic coins are so expensive currently. 

[DeanBB.4268]

Are you buying 10 Clovers weekly from the forge attendant? Buy out all the WV has this season? There's a current thread with lots of other sources of Clovers, or just check the wiki for the activities you partake of. Random mystic forge is required less and less nowadays.

[BlueJin.4127]

Buying clovers directly costs more Spirit Shards than using the Mystic Forge, so it’s a worse option for players low on Spirit Shards.

For players who did not stock pile Spirit Shards before multiple nerfs and don’t play a lot, Spirit Shards can be a bottleneck for making legendaries.

Edited October 11, 2023 by BlueJin.4127

[costepj.5120]

Just play some WvW and you'll soon be swimming in spirit shards (ToKs). I have over 25,000 left.

[idpersona.3810]

12 hours ago, BlueJin.4127 said:

Buying clovers directly costs more Spirit Shards than using the Mystic Forge, so it’s a worse option for players low on Spirit Shards.

For players who did not stock pile Spirit Shards before multiple nerfs and don’t play a lot, Spirit Shards can be a bottleneck for making legendaries.

This. I thought the conversation was about the same, not less. But that option doesn't solve being short on spirit shards either way.

3 hours ago, costepj.5120 said:

Just play some WvW and you'll soon be swimming in spirit shards (ToKs). I have over 25,000 left.

That's where (almost all of) the other 2/3 of my spirit shards used to come from. I haven't been back into WvW though since SotO, which is on me. My WvW characters/builds were broken and I haven't had the inclination to head in and figure out how to rebuild them into something I want to play yet. But even with getting tons of ToK from WvW, I still always end up with spirit shards being one of the main bottlenecks to crafting legendaries.

Edited October 11, 2023 by idpersona.3810

[Ashantara.8731]

On 9/17/2023 at 10:13 AM, KeConan.4563 said:

Story - 5/10
Skywatch Archipelago Map - 5/10
Amnytas Map - 2/10 (unoptimized, unplayable)
Skywatch Archipelago META - 5/10
Amnytas META - 2/10
SoTo Masteries - 3/10
Weaponmaster Training - 3/10
Rift Hunting - 2/10
Wizard's Vault - 6/10
Relics - 5/10
New Strike Mission - 4/10
Fun Factor - 3/10

Overall - 4/10

This is a good list, so I will go with it:

Story: 10/10
Skywatch Archipelago Map: 10/10
Amnytas Map: 5/10
Skywatch Archipelago Meta: 5/10
Amnytas Meta: 3/10
SotO Masteries: 4/10
Weaponmaster Training: 5/10
Rift Hunting: 1/10
Wizard's Vault: 9/10
Relics: 3/10
New Strike Missions: 6/10
Fun Factor: 7/10

Overall: 6/10

[Curunen.8729]

Finally had time to finish the story and I enjoyed most of it.

Love the change in direction, the art and music, the new zones, the themes explored with the kryptis and the smooth integration of Zojja with the entire wizard thing being acceptable in the context of the whole game.

But the best thing is Peitha's VA - absolutely killed it. Fantastic performance, easily one of the best in the entire game - balance of menace and uncertainty. I find myself mimicing her intonation and delivery IRL for fun - talking to myself out of earshot obviously! She's got a similar vibe to G-Man from half life.

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

Story
The best since PoF. I was not a huge fan of LW4, IBS, EoD and especially not EoD+ (or however we call it). Secrets of the Obscure so far is well written with new companions and interesting story-arcs. The dialogues and the overall 'aura' actually feels like a good RPG once again. Commander is not almighty, with Aurene out of the equation, we are basically mortal again. Our new team is made of ascended, which seriously outclass us at this point. The enemies are strong, threatening and follow some sort of a big plan - more or less. I'm really looking forward to the next chapters.

Maps
Definitely an improvement to Gyala Delves. They are (imo) using some sort of new tech here, which seems to solve a lot of the EoD problems without ending up with an almost empty map. The only downside: Skyscale. You need that dragon to play these maps.

- Skywatch Archipelago: A vertical map. After the Heart of Thorns backlash, they have tried again with Draconis Mons (LW3) which was a huge improvement - but still difficult to maneuver. Making the map in the shape of an ascending spiral was a good idea. In this new map, they have made the spiral-concept much bigger, which made the whole thing easier to navigate. Of all vertical maps we have in the game, this one is by far the best to navigate.

A lot of people complained that the map is just a copy-paste of the old content. But that is not quite the case here. Each of those fractals (very poor choice of words) resemble certain old areas, but they are improved. If you have played for an extended time-period, you probably noticed that they improved each fractal by following the feedback from the playerbase.
o Primal Maguuma is easier to navigate, due to its one-layer-design.
o New Kaineng is shrinked to an acceptable size, with both updrafts/leylines and ziplines to optimize navigation. It feels less empty than the original city and you do not spend most of your time traveling between the layers anymore.
o Elona is more compact, without limiting the mount-accessibility.
o Droknar's Light is a nice structure in the Shiverpeaks, very compact, with nice quests and some interesting lore. Having Dwarvens to deal with is a good change from the whole Braham-focused storyline, many people were so tired about.
o Rata Novus is a blast for all Asura lovers. It finally feels like a pulsing city. One of my personal favorite locations in the new expansion.
o The side-areas offer some changes while still fitting into the concept of the rest. 

- Wizard's Tower: In my option, it outclasses Arborstone. It is more compact and feels more alive. Even with just a few players inside, you never feel lonely in there. The utility-features are all within range, except for the strike-portal. The architecture is nice. The minigames are interesting. It does lack a couple of important features, which have not been added so far.

- Amnytas: This is a coin with two sides for me. The overall design of the massive city - that has almost 0 living infrastructure - is kinda cool. I do not really get why it has leylines and some of the architecture makes no kitten sense. But for an overrun battle-zone, which needs to be reclaimed it is well designed. The different stroylines in the bastions and the different themes keep it interesting.

The flip-side of the coin is the actual mapping of the structures. I belong to the few guys who 'accidentally' saw parts of it from below. If you would ask me straight forward, I would guess that half of the buildings were built with the help of AI. There is so much wasted space, so many dead corners and a whole lot of copy-paste-structures which do not align with anything. All of the arcs are in fact loops, which are more or less sunken into the ground. I know why so many of us have trouble with FPS drops even on high-end engines. Amnytas wastes a lot of resources just by inefficient map-design. In an MMORPG that is 11+ years old, this should not be a thing, especially not with NEW content. If an old map from the early days had these flaws, it would be acceptable.

Meta Events
Both are well written from the technical point of view. The events line up well, even in Amnytas which has a lot of different elements. I really like that the meta-event ignores progress of the normal events. ANet considers DE still a masterpiece, but it is far away from satisfying the masses. Partially because of the ridiculously long preparation time. Not in SotO so far. The lore behind the meta-events is a bit messy to say the least. They are pulling out a lot of weird mind-constructs to justify what is going on, resulting in weird and overdramatic NPC chatter.

Loot is meh. The meta-chests are good. But the effort/reward ratio is not very good. The trash-mobs drop not much and the mini-chests at the end of the meta-events contain a laughable amount of loot. The event-chains are a good source to farm materials & currencies for collections, but that is it.

I really like the moving islands in Skywatch Archipelago, which must have taken ages to stabilize. A job really well done. Especially the part with the movement-aligning. Which was a huge mess in all previous attempts. Here it just works fine.

I also like the portal solution for the Amnytas meta-event. It simplifies navigation and helps playing without the mount.

The final phase of the Amnytas meta however is questionable. The yoga-part is acceptable. But the 'everyone on their skyscales & mash projectiles' is a design flaw that looked good in theory, but butchers the game-performance significantly. We do no longer have Aurene though, where we could just raise our hands and channel energy. I still think this could have been solved better.

Masteries
I did not expect much. The 'compensation' for people who previously owned the Skyscale is acceptable. It is good that it is not too overpowered. But the improved effects could have been a little better imo.

Unlocking a vendor to purchase a set of recipes is not a mastery, it is a joke. We had a similar situation in IBS with the masteries that enhanced the loot of a gathering node in our home instance. I had my fair share of giggles with this 'mastery', but this should not be a thing.

Arcane Treasures & Greater Arcane Treasures. Where do I start? We are playing simon-says yet again. It is a common theme in the game for a while now, with different variations. But I do feel mocked, whenever I see yet another version of it. Is this really the best you can come up with? Loot is not great, but acceptable.

The griffon/skyscale interaction with updrafts & leylines has a separate mega-thread on the forums. I belong to the group of player who like the feature, but there is also a group who dislikes it.

Weaponmaster
Works as it should. Balancing it is your job. I've tested it a couple of times and created a few new builds with it. In its current form, it is way too overpowered. I'm curious what you come up with in the next balance patches. The unlocking however is a little weird. The same level of weird as learning how to seal an area in a 5-minute crash course. Done by an amateur who has never done anything magic-involved in their entire life. I giggled in both situations though.

Relics
In school marks, this would be an F. You have removed most of the awesome rune-effects, gave us a set of weird ones and promised to add more core-effects. But in the current announcement, you only mention expansion-relics. The few relics that were shipped, were buggy and lacked proper tooltips. When I wrote down my list, I noticed a huge variety in how the tooltips were written. They were definitely written by different persons. The lack of important information is also a massive problem. Sure this is way easier to balance than the original system, that is correct. But I see it as a massive downgrade of the combat-system. My opinion does not count. I would however like to know what exactly is the full plan of your combat-system adjustments. The ultimate simplification would be a rock-paper-scissors system. With every simplification change, we move closer to that end. RPS isn't something we need an MMORPG for.

Rifts
By far your best approach on the topic yet. Recycled mobs with recycled attack-patterns, using re-skins of both the models and the animations ... questionable. But the concept itself works out. The repopulation of old maps also works great - as far as I noticed it. There is however the problem, that the rift-squads often ignore the map-events. That could be solved with carefully placing the rift locations near key-event-locations. Which was done in a few maps already. 

Really looking forward to the convergences, hoping they are also a leap forward and a drastic improvement to anything we have seen before.

Wizard's Vault
Looking forward to the refresh. So far I am happy with the offered loot. The tasks could be better some days. Especially WvW Defense as a task with a seriously broken mechanic multiple days per week is not a great idea. I'm playing the PvE & WvW mix. But I'm thinking about switching to full PvE, because the tasks are often impossible for me to complete.

The WvW changes done in favor of the Wizard's Vault have reduced my motivation to play that content to almost 0. I think I am not the only one, who has made this experience. In my opinion, the changes lead to PvE players avoiding the content again. With a high chance of getting less new players into the content. I'm glad about all the skins and stuff I have unlocked before the change. Next generations should always have easier access to things. 

Skins
Astral Ward armor is weird. I know it is designed to be somewhat of a precursor to the new legendary armor, but three times the exact same skin for all three weight-classes is a bit meh. Especially for such a high price. I still hesitate to get any of these.

Rift Hunter Armor. Same problem, but significantly cheaper. Acceptable. Though I am worried if they keep this concept for the future. Same skin for all weights.

Weapon Skins looking good. Not too impressive, not too controversial. The ascended shield skin is special however. I wonder how many bad mails you have received for that one so far.

Skins from collections/quests are awesome.

Quests/Collections
By far the best so far. Quite entertaining. Not too difficult, not too easy. Interesting sub-stories and lore.

-
A small request: After completing the Waylit Latnern, I was really happy to see dwarven in core Tyria. The more shocked I was when I saw that they were only added for a single collection-step and removed instantly after. I know they do not fit into the original core Tyria lore. But I think once you have completed that collection and maybe the the Champions mission in IBS, there should be dwarven permanently repopulating Tyria visible for those players. 

Edited October 28, 2023 by HnRkLnXqZ.1870
O_O this wasn't supposed to be THAT long. Sorry ​😔​

[Tuna Bandit.3786]

In general I like SotO but too many small things that should have been ironed out from the start.

Example: How can the NPC in Skywatch "recognize" that I already raised a skyscale, yet in first story instance I am confronted with SEVERAL screen POLUTING popups on how a Skyscale works? - The system should have recognized I already unlocked and fully mastered my skyscale and therefor know the basics of Skyscale Flight.

Sure it might be handy to explain the dash forward, since maybe some are not even away, but Hovering? Moving? Seriously? You think after 4 years of owning a Skyscale, I need to learn the basic mechanics? - sloppy game design. Said NPC proofs you can easely tell the difference between someone already having a Skyscale and someone new to skyscales - I call this lazy.

Popups is also the main gripe I have with this expansion. It feels I constantly need to stop to click these away. You cannot X them away, you cannot turn them off - for someone that (due to arthritis in his hands) LOCKS the mouse on the character for movement without pressing buttons, this is a pain in the (lets keep it clean and say) kitten. It really degrades my enjoyment in (specifically) the new maps.

Ley Lines: hardly visible, hijacks me on my mighty Griffon (that never needed it) and if I choose not to train it? See above: Popup nightmare "you found a ley line" STOP it already! Not even MORE to click away PLEASE.

Dont get me wrong, I love the expansion, love the maps, the story was great so far. The design (even some assett re-use) is great. (astetics is a bit a personal preference though) But all these small annoying things like the invisible ley lines hijacking me and the sheer amount of constant popups really degrade my enjoyment. 

On the rifts: Press F to open, later press F to close - small issue: can we please remove the option inbetween? Player goes down, I rush to press F to revive them only to open a rift already opened. Small annoyance.

It might appear I am mostly negative, but the nature of feedback is that you more often post the things you like to see improved, than the things you are happy with. That is why I say it again: 

Overall I am happy with the expansion.