[merged] About the Skyscale Timegate...

[IndigoSundown.5419]

@Lithril Ashwalker.6230 said:Take a look at the Guild Wars 2 living story and the main player story there is no time gate on it and several days can pass within that story but I can still complete it all in one go and reach 80 in one day. Why is there a time gate on getting one mount when there's no time gate for the story?

There was no need for a time gate for the Living Story because the design assumption was that the story would be played as players leveled their characters. Instead of a time gate there is a level gate. Players are able to access a chapter (usually about 3 levels worth of XP) every 10 levels. Sure, someone can wait until they level to 80 and then do the story in one go (or scroll/tome to 80). At that point, the level gate goes away. That was not, I don't believe, how ANet envisioned the LS being played.

[Kidel.2057]

@Starfall Leyline.2481 said:

@Kidel.2057 said:

@Starfall Leyline.2481 said:

@Kidel.2057 said:

@Starfall Leyline.2481 said:So I think you and I agree more than disagree.With this last post, I do, sure.

That post and my previous posts haven't really said anything different. It was more just addressed directly to you rather than to the general topic. My opinion has always been that the Skyscale needs to be stronger for time invested, but that it isn't a bad mount. And my opinion used to be that I disliked the timegates, but as I've done the collections, I changed over to where I enjoyed them. I haven't really changed my tune at all. If you go through my previous posts, you'll find I do reiterate I think the Skyscale needs to be improved, though I do mention I think people don't give it enough credit even for what it is.

I didn't mean to imply that you changed your mind, but just specify where I do agree with you.For example, while I may agree with you that the mount needs to be stronger in proportion to the time invested (so a lot), I also think it's relatively bad (as any flying mount that is inferior to gliding in some regard should be considered bad) and has some serious issues that need to be fixed, such as the fact that the wall clinging takes priority over trying to land on a ledge (see

https://imgur.com/a/27bekmJ

and partially

https://imgur.com/a/9TMt1xj

).

My personal opinion, and feel free to correct me, is that you didn't have enough time to review the mount as much as some of us did (not only with the Guild Chat video, but also with actual gameplay), so you didn't notice all its issues and you didn't notice how it pales in comparison to the free Springer, or how bad it is in horizontal movement compared to gliding (I don't think it's fair to compare it with Griffon, of course, but the fact exists that I can use Springer+Griffon as well).

And yet even you think that it needs

some

improvements. :)

I hadn't formulated them into specifics until I watched the livestream video and saw the clear-cut explanation of how it worked. I had time to work with the rental mounts, so my opinion on it needing to be stronger was based on my feel of it. For the video, I didn't realize they had ever demonstrated the masteries, so when I found out they had I dove right in to see (what I don't often have time for, or pay much attention to, are dev videos). I made a post in your other thread detailing what I'd like to see changed in the mount. That being said, in my own playing with the mount, I didn't find the wall cling to be overly annoying. I had just heard that they were going to give the ability to exchange endurance for stamina, and from there I went on the assumption that the places I couldn't land easily on I'd be able to just 'hop' over/onto.

For the record, I find your other thread to be a lot more constructive than this one has been in general, so kudos for that.

Thanks. I also think that some timegate opinions are a bit too exaggerated (but I agree that the feeding part makes no sense and that scales/sick/eggs could be 1 quest) and that we should focus on how to justify the timegating (also because it's going to stay, let's get real).

[Kidel.2057]

Seems like we are going to need jumping puzzles, mini dungeons, and 2 world bosses (Shadow Behemoth, Inquest Golem) plus the branded Ley Line Anomaly in Vabbi.

Just for the first part of achievement 4 (it works like achievement 1, with locked parts).

[JustTrogdor.7892]

Update from Reddit on the collection:https://old.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/bqo0kx/more_collections_d/

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

Were upset over the mount being timegated in a game that should be learned before an instant level 80 boost be unlocked...there is no time fate from artificially boosting to 80 or playing the story and doing events to hit 80 in a few hours, why us there a timegate to access a mount?!

Remove instant 80 boosts until you have your first level 80 naturally leveled up and beaten your first personal story on first character, then you can justify timegating crap. Hypocritical to allow new players to boost to 80, ask what to do now when they know nothing of the game to begin with before given such access to instant 80 then denying people ability to work butts off for a collection mount through a timegate.

I put forth the effort in collecting the items and building my toon...it didn't cost me anything but efforr, but now it costs time?!?!

[Vyrulisse.1246]

Even MORE Charged Quartz Crystals? This gets more and more ridiculous by the day. A.net really needs to address this in a real way.

[hostileskeleton.7364]

@Melian.5368 said:Timegating is one thing but making players depend on RNG just to be able to complete the collections is another crime in itself. In the Claw of Jormag boss event a lot of people can't progress because darned elementals don't freeze them due to the sheer number of players, pets and minions around.

I didn't get my ice encasement from Jormag actually and I haven't progressed in my LS enough to get to Bitterfrost but the veteran ice elementals around where Jormag spawns can give you the achievement.

[Aza.2105]

I don't have a problem with the time gate. But that is just me.

[Esterie.7409]

20 more charged quartz crystals (if you can't afford to buy the food from other players). That's 44 days of a daily gated crafting material. So far. I'm amazed, genuinely.

Edit: The more I think about it, I just wish this went the way of the griffon: No timegate, and being able to purchase the food from Living World 3 heart vendors for a set cost. I don't care if it came out to be even double the cost of the griffon, at least it would be stable, and we wouldn't have to wait day/s to find out what the next hurdle is going to be. I had zero problems with the griffon collection, I didn't even mind the cost. But this? I'm finding more and more difficulty with justifying keeping up with it every day and risking losing days worth of progress. That's not a good feeling, and does not make for a fun game.

Edit 2: Some people on reddit are saying that this new food is entirely optional, used as a bypass of sorts to finish the collection more quickly. As in, instead of doing the jumping puzzle or mini dungeon to complete the objective, you can use this (currently) expensive food to instantly finish it. Which I'm fine with, it will still be possible to finish the collection in one day without the food to "keep up". I still stand by what I said regarding the first stage of feeding our baby skyscale, that I would have preferred to be able to purchase the food from vendors and not having timegates at all, but at least it's not as bad is it could have been.

[Kidel.2057]

Extra-pungent Skyscale Treat ist selling for 50g atm and you need 20.This is getting ridiculous. Most of the ppl already made gold using their quartz by selling the extras on the tp, so the new items will have a huge price for longer.

(btw told you that the final steps would still require time gated items)

[hostileskeleton.7364]

I wish the charged quartz wasn't limited to 1 a day. It's unbelievable to me with how the collection itself is already timegated. I think using a different resource or changing the quartz charging the maybe 3/day or 1/character/day would be better. Maybe limit it to lvl 80 characters so that people can't just farm with new characters. Dunno, just feels bad that my progress is so halted.

[Aerlen.5326]

Me Two Days Ago: The Timegate is fine but requiring a few group events is going to make it messy, those who aren't keeping up will not get their Skyscales because they can't finish a meta no one does alone. Needs to be solo content that can be done at your own pace, epic quests are fine.Me Today After Seeing Newest Collection: This entire thing is beyond ridiculous. not soloable, and not fun. Either a gold sink OR a timegate, one or the other, not both and not something I better do ASAP while people will port to JPs and not a never ending collectathon. Legendaries take less work!

At this point, this mount needs to do my housework, heal my disabilities, and whisper ASMR into my ear at night to be worth this much crap. I have 2-3 days before I reach the newest collection and I have to hope people will still be porting, I cannot do most JPs.

[Uzunari.1964]

This whole thing feels so painful,.. The worst part is that I don't even care for this flying piece of s... I just like to have all the masteries :/ Wondering what did I do to Anet to deserve such ugly mobile-game like timegate nonsense.

[MidnightX.6294]

the game should be fun.timer-lock is not fun!

[Instinct.7513]

WOOOORST PART ABOUT ALL THIS...? Is I have a feeling the Skyscale isn't even worth this much grind. I got a feeling most people will very rarely use their Skyscale. It seems only useful in maps with a lot of very high vertical movement... like Dragonfall, some parts of Desolation, and maybe specific HoT areas. Other than that... the vast majority of people will use it just as often as you see the Jackal used. People who use Jackal as their main mount instead of the Raptor are exceptions to the rule... but not the rule.

[Ashantara.8731]

@Gambino.2109 said:Question guys, if Anet was to rework this to eliminate these terrible time gates.. after the first wave of players went through it..

Would you (being one of those first wavers) be upset

A little, but that's fine with me. Better this than players complaining forever. ;) I don't think they will rework it, though.

Off I go to do my last feeding of the little rascal. :)

[PixelJaeger.2403]

I have the bad feeling that the next episodes will require that (in my opinion) terrible useless mount in order to advance the story.In my point of view the Skyscale isn't worth putting that much effort into it.Pros:: It can hover... it can launch off of cliffs...Cons: it's awfully slow... it can't dive... you have to get it in order to advance your mastery rank...

Yeah sorry, no. I'll pass.I'm not against working towards a goal. I'm not against timegated stuff.But Collections within collections within timegates seems to me like a tryhard way to keep me artificially long in the game.I could do with the way they did the Griffin or the Roller-Beetle. Hell, i even wouldn't mind having to do 8-10 Collections.Don't get me wrong, i like the content and will play it. But until they fix that mess i'll wont even go near the Skyscale collections.

Many of the folks i play with (guilds, allied guilds, friends) are really annoyed by the way the Skyscale collection works.Some of them already quit playing the content/GW2 and went to other games. All in all it seems that many people are ticked off in a big way.This collection-design is a desaster and will ensure many players quitting, which can't be what ANet wanted.

Again: What i wrote here is MY opinion. you can agree with it, which is fine. and you can disagree with it, which is also fine.

[Aerlen.5326]

@Rukario.1695 said:

@Aerlen.5326 said:

@LucianDK.8615 said:

@Aerlen.5326 said:Me Two Days Ago: The Timegate is fine but requiring a few group events is going to make it messy, those who aren't keeping up will not get their Skyscales because they can't finish a meta no one does alone. Needs to be solo content that can be done at your own pace, epic quests are fine.Me Today After Seeing Newest Collection: This entire thing is beyond ridiculous. not soloable, and not fun. Either a gold sink OR a timegate, one or the other, not both and not something I better do ASAP while people will port to JPs and not a never ending collectathon. Legendaries take less work!

At this point, this mount needs to do my housework, heal my disabilities, and whisper ASMR into my ear at night to be worth this much kitten. I have 2-3 days before I reach the newest collection and I have to hope people will still be porting, I cannot do most JPs.

Did you not read that the food can be used to SKIP the jps?

Finally did see that, yes.

Which means a big ole gold sink that no one needs. Sure, I can do it this time.. but what next?

This is a soul sink :|

Day 5 will set players up with crafting their Saddle for the Skyscale and other. I'm not at liberty to say much more than that due to forum rules.

I find the censoring of what this collection entails frustrating too.

Anet, if people knew exactly what to expect - they could judge if it was worth starting and if they could finish it. I can look up all the steps for any given Legendary, it's not a big mystery, and then I can decide if that's within my abilities and time as a player. Imagine if people knew from Day One that charged crystals were involved or what metas and events were going to be important or that they'd need to farm up resources.

[Rukario.1695]

@Aerlen.5326 said:

@Rukario.1695 said:

@Aerlen.5326 said:

@LucianDK.8615 said:

@Aerlen.5326 said:Me Two Days Ago: The Timegate is fine but requiring a few group events is going to make it messy, those who aren't keeping up will not get their Skyscales because they can't finish a meta no one does alone. Needs to be solo content that can be done at your own pace, epic quests are fine.Me Today After Seeing Newest Collection: This entire thing is beyond ridiculous. not soloable, and not fun. Either a gold sink OR a timegate, one or the other, not both and not something I better do ASAP while people will port to JPs and not a never ending collectathon. Legendaries take less work!

At this point, this mount needs to do my housework, heal my disabilities, and whisper ASMR into my ear at night to be worth this much kitten. I have 2-3 days before I reach the newest collection and I have to hope people will still be porting, I cannot do most JPs.

Did you not read that the food can be used to SKIP the jps?

Finally did see that, yes.

Which means a big ole gold sink that no one needs. Sure, I can do it this time.. but what next?

This is a soul sink :|

Day 5 will set players up with crafting their Saddle for the Skyscale and other. I'm not at liberty to say much more than that due to forum rules.

I find the censoring of what this collection entails frustrating too.

Anet, if people knew exactly what to expect - they could judge if it was worth starting and if they could finish it. I can look up all the steps for any given Legendary, it's not a big mystery, and then I can decide if that's within my abilities and time as a player. Imagine if people knew from Day One that charged crystals were involved or what metas and events were going to be important or that they'd need to farm up resources.

I believe the problem is that it hasn't been released publicly, therefore it's granted it's against the rules. Tomorrow at Server Reset, everyone will be allowed to discuss the next collection.

Though I agree, the information is already out there (stripped down, however,) so it would be nice to at least have room to contemplate on current facts.

Anyway ... I'm still pretty pissed off about the time-gating as my entire weekend has now passed without anything going on with the collection.

Instead of doing the mount collection I'm stuck on the TP doing trades to make sure I have extra gold after the mount collection--having already gotten that much, I'm now just wasting time as I try to gain more.

[Ygdrasill.9135]

I don't mind the time gating. I don't even mind the gold outlay. Assuming you don't have every alt able to craft the food/grow lamp you will be spending gold on those. We get to use borrowed ones and those are pretty easy to come by so at least they could play a part in the main story. The part I'm a little disappointed in is the lack of even an attempt at making it game immersive. If we have to go on 21 item snipe hunts, at least give us scanners so we could do some of that strictly inworld. As it is, everybody is going to have the wiki open going from item to item down the list trying to place their personal waypoints in the right place and then heading over. I was doing it along with my girlfriend so at least we could share the finds and the frustrations. Without that it would just have been pure grind and no fun at all. All this for a mount that most won't really have any use for. In my case, I'm not very far in Heart of Thorns so I look forward to using it to my advantage in the jungle.

[Rukario.1695]

@Ygdrasill.9135 said:I don't mind the time gating. I don't even mind the gold outlay. Assuming you don't have every alt able to craft the food/grow lamp you will be spending gold on those. We get to use borrowed ones and those are pretty easy to come by so at least they could play a part in the main story. The part I'm a little disappointed in is the lack of even an attempt at making it game immersive. If we have to go on 21 item snipe hunts, at least give us scanners so we could do some of that strictly inworld. As it is, everybody is going to have the wiki open going from item to item down the list trying to place their personal waypoints in the right place and then heading over. I was doing it along with my girlfriend so at least we could share the finds and the frustrations. Without that it would just have been pure grind and no fun at all. All this for a mount that most won't really have any use for. In my case, I'm not very far in Heart of Thorns so I look forward to using it to my advantage in the jungle.

Having done all of the HoT maps, unfortunately I can't say the mount will help much, not unless it gets tweaked to compete with the Griffon.

[dexcaliber.7481]

Guild Wars franchise is a 2nd life for me, Season 4 is great and this last episode I find to have been great fun. Anyways, after I got the Griffon I was disappointed (but it was expected) that unlocking the mount unlocked it across the whole account, I had so much fun doing the Griffon run that I thought that with such a creature it should have been per character, but oh well I understand. Now we get the Skyscale and I am enjoying doing everything to acquire this mount. Time-gating is never really a issue since I log in work on what I need and then go off to some other far away land and work on whatever, so Skyscale no rush. It will be a personal achievement to unlock this mount and fly around. The only items I really need are Charged Quartz Crystals (I knew I shouldn't have cleaned out my Mat Storage) but off to Dry Top again to farm what I need. Whether I unlock it within the next week or next month I know that the Skyscale is worth the work and time put in. Arenanet Great Job!!!

[Jangle.5986]

I'm a new player of just over 3 months that just finished the griffin last week. Was quite fun, even though I'm poor now :)

The skyscale i got up to the eggs Friday night, after losing the will to live & reading the threads I've not logged in since. No idea what a charged crystal is, no crafting abilitys yet and certainty not enough gold by the sounds of it. Screwed...

I'd need a 10 page guide on all these events/puzzles and what not, all for whats essentially a good looking afk mount, thanks but im out, it's not even a choice. The whole thing combined is behond ridiculous for us newish players. That teapot guy reaction was pretty much mine, was about the only thing that did make me chuckle at least.

[LordHanuman.5873]

First i'll start by saying this. I'm not much of a person for story. Too much commentary for me mostly as I enjoy the PVE running around bashing things. I still have many stories to complete however. I felt this story was Too Short i felt that it should have taken more time to down Kralk and to finally beat him. I've had bigger fight battles in other story lines.Now that being said. The story itself was pretty awesome with what content they placed in there. I have just begun working on the Collection and while long I am in no rush to get the next mount, keeping up with the Johnsons, The enjoyment of collecting things to put together to reach a goal is one of the reasons I enjoy GW2. Time Gating. So what it's not like I won't be back tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that, or next week.While the skyscale is not my favorite mount - ( I love my griffon ) for the flight dive and soaring ability. The collection and new play area map push me to work towards this completion. I can see where the skyscale can help you in certain areas climbing up the cliff face, the firebomb attack on dismount, and just hovering just out of reach by a large number of enemies.Personally I think some mounts should have been much harder to obtain while the griffon to me felt nicely balanced and i think the shorter story and the larger collection and time gating is understandable. I personally will enjoy the journey to obtain mine.

[Wyvern.7951]

I've gotten a bit further in my collections, so I just wanted to leave feedback since I am feeling a little better and more level headed now. (:

First part of the collection (Day 1)This part of the collection is extremely mind numbing to be honest. Going around the same spots over and over feels like an absolute slog. I dont mind doing scavenger hunts. I actually really like them, but not when it's like this. Thankfully it gets better after this.

• This part really could have been more varied. Having to collect the scales and do events is a good start. It's a lot fun exploring this beautiful map and the meta is enjoyable. The next two parts of this collection are what killed the fun for me. Having to do the same thing two more times back to back feels both tedious and boring. If we could collect the eggs and give medicine out simultaneously, It might help make day 1 a little better.

Part 2 of the collection (Day 2)Very enjoyable. I actually liked this part of the collection a lot. It made me go into areas and discover parts of Tyria I missed out on.

• No changes needed here.

Part 3 of the collection (Day 3)The skyscale hatchling is positively adorable and this part of the collection is pretty fun as well. I enjoy going around hunting things. Fetching toys is pretty fun too!

• The only probelm here is the extra timegates with feeding. It kinda kills the momentum. Having each main collection spread out over a few days is alright. Not a huge fan, but it makes sense from a lore perspective. However, I dont see why the feeding has to extend that even more. We already have time gates. Do we really need timegates within timegates??

I haven't gotten to Part 4 yet. It looks good from what little I've seen of it so far. I'm happy to see Anet made a craftable option/buyable option for those who don't like JPs. (: The JPs looks fun for those who enjoy that type of content. I hate JPs with a fiery passion, so I'm glad I can by pass some of them.

Overall so far....Aside from the beginning and the feeding timegates, it really isn't that bad of a collection. Once you accept this isn't going to be like other mounts you've obtained, it becomes a fairly fun experience. Hopefully the next parts aren't too bad.

I still think Anet really should have communicated with the player base that this mount was going to be harder than usual to obtain. It would have helped temper expectations. I bet a lot of people went into this living story expecting it to be like how we've unlocked prior mounts.