[merged] About the Skyscale Timegate...

[Ototo.3214]

@"Steve The Cynic.3217" said:Re: Charged Quartz Crystals: I have 171 left after making the food and the Grow Lamp.

Lesson: if acquiring a timegated resource is essentially free, acquire it at every opportunity even if you see no immediate (or distant) need for it. Why? Because one day there might be a reason to use it, and you'll be kicking yourself if you could have made it along the way but didn't.

Go round Dry Top and mine all the Quartz nodes (Charged Quartz drops on a semi-rare chance), and visit someone's home instance for another Quartz node and a Krait Obelisk Shard to convert 25 ordinary Quartz Crystals in to a Charged one. You can get more than one Charged Quartz per day.

Translation: I'm not really very sympathetic about the complaints from long-time players about Charged Quartz. For new players coming to this after playing only for a short time, sure, it's a problem, but not for long-time players.

Before you say it: yes, of course there's no significant "for purpose X" reason to make CQCs in the absence of the Skyscale collection. I made them anyway, mostly because I had the node and might as well use it, but also in case I found a use for them. See the lesson up above.

Just wanted to add, there is another rich quartz node in Crystal Oasis in the Glint's Legacy area (bottom right of map) if I'm remembering the name correctly.

[TwilightSoul.9048]

I'll add my opinion into this pile for good measure.

I understand that the time gates and material costs are meant to provide some feeling of accomplishment once you finish the collection, so that the time and materials/gold feel like an investment. That beeing said, I don't think that it actually fulfills that purpose since the timegate isn't a time period spent doing something for the Mount instead its basically just waiting time. Material Costs are fine as long as they're reasonable but I dislike raw Gold costs.Rather than artificial time gates which cause nothing but boredom and insane material/Gold costs which just stops some players in their tracks (it's more expensive than the griffon...), I'd prefer a time investment which is spent actually doing something that is neccessary for the mount, maybe some challenge that requires a little bit of finesse. Although I understand that challenges may not be the best choice either since we have a incredibly wide variety of skill levels across our player base here so challenges may be very frustrating for some players.

Oh and for me, 2h waiting time between collections is exactly the same as an entire day, I'm not gonna log in again 2h later. That waiting time serves no purpose other than to create an artificial time gate which adds absolutely nothing to the game, on the contrary, it actually takes away the excitement to achieve something new because you just sit there waiting or getting invested into something else which doesn't make you wait for no obvious reason. And don't tell me we have to wait because gorrik has to do some research or whatever, we can traver through all of tyria within seconds and kill Zhaitan, Mordremoth, Balthazaar and Kralkatorrik within a day, there is no way gorrik needs 2 Hours for some research or whatever ;)

I hope my opinion offers a new perspektive to this thread.

Have a nice day o/

[lightinius.6503]

I think the upcoming update to lower the timegate to 2 hours is a fantastic compromise. I do like a passage of time between collections and using the in game day-night cycle further cements immersion of growing our baby. Please make that the new standard going forward!

[Genesis.8572]

I do not want the mount "now," but if I am working towards the skyscale, I would like to think that ArenaNet respects my valuable playtime. Going through a timegate is not "earning" the mount. Not being able to do other portions of the collection during that time due to the next collections being locked and hidden is also frustrating.

Also I dislike having things like this requiring jumping puzzle content, since I have several friends who can't do jumping puzzles well and so avoid the content. Sure, a mesmer could portal them up, but that will not be a guarantee with future content when the skyscale collection stops being fresh. The griffon, in contrast, requires you to visit roosts throughout the Crystal Desert. This was good. Some jumps are tricky but they are not jumping puzzles. There could have both other content that ArenaNet could have explored utilizing for the collection other than jumping puzzles. Yes, these things can be potentially skipped, but using a timegated material.

I would prefer if the Skyscale acquisition was more solidly integrated into the PoF experience. I am not suggesting that the mount be acquired "now." But I think that the method of earning it does not feel entirely satisfying or thought-out, particularly from any psychological perspective. The Beetle and Griffon are both mounts earned via collections, quests, and such. These mounts are less problematic to acquire apart from the 250g gold sink for the griffon. There is a story attached to the Griffon involving the gathering of the Sunspears, Kormir, and the griffons of the Crystal Desert. You are doing particular events to help out the Sunspears. It's neat.

I liked the idea that every stage of the collection would confer an additional reward other than "wait for tomorrow until you can begin the next step." Someone earlier had suggested a baby skyscale backpack. That's a good idea for a reward for finishing "Raising Skycales" that I would love to raise up. I'm sure that there are other good rewards that ArenaNet could think up for incentivizing the completion of each stage of the Skyscale collection.

[RizelStar.3724]

@carvanha.7341 said:Personally I feel that the timegate issue would largely be ignored by the community if they model the collection based on Legendary Weapons/armor or Mawdrey.In example,1) Working towards a legendary weapon = you get experimental and precursor skins.2) Legendary armor = you also get the precursor skins.3) Working towards Mawdrey = you get Mysterious and Cultivated vine backpack skins

My suggestion is that, if Anet were to reward the community in between the timegate by giving us a baby skyscale backpack skin, the community wouldnt be in an uproar over the timegating issue.... The community wouldnt even mind if the duration were twice as long... but obviously if a baby skyscale backpack skin is made, it would definitely be in the gemstore lootbox than out there as a PvE reward

I missed the past few pages but, I agree with this too, I think that’s another factor in why the timegate hit me more than it should’ve as well. Cause I’m still working my way towards Shining blade, yet I got some skins and saving the queen which makes the journey worth while. A backpack skin or something would’ve been a very good addition to the overall collection/current unneeded wait process.

[MoonHeaven.2430]

I can't quite figure out what all the backlash is for, at least you know there are other collections necessary, they didn't even have to show them to us as we raised it. I just read the response that led me to this thread, I didn't think the skyscale was all that special considering what I had to invest to collect the griffon, but I don't have to spend gold for it? amazing. invest time raising it? done.

See I remember a time when no matter what I wanted There was a time sink, especially in this game. A legendary weapon, legendary armor, Really cool mount. None of that is instant gratification. Think of it like raising a baby, You invest time and love into the little creature, you feed it, nurture it, educate it, watch it evolve slowly and take on its own characteristics. You raise it. I can see this set of collections as being kind of similar. Your feeding a newly hatched baby dragonette, and caring for it. It should add a level of investment and a sense of love for the little creature.

While I'm not crazy about not being able to just get the quests done and getting it immediately I can see the story type aspect as a way of investing in the creature. We did after all have something similar with Aurine as she hatched. The tedious work was just done for us by the Exalted, our turn... I'd be more thrilled if we had gotten a backpack to carry it around with us as it grew, actually seeing it get bigger until it became too big for the pack and went alongside us as we adventured through the world, like one of the minis, and when it was ready we go through flight training with it, teaching it to fly. That is immersive, That would make a bond.

This is just my personal opinion. While I don't get to play that much I tend to do things I find enjoyable, raising a creature like this.... enjoyable to me.

[Randulf.7614]

Perhaps something after each collection. Chuka eg gives a mini and animated baby tigers for your back in addition to the precursor

[Kylden Ar.3724]

@"Randulf.7614" said:Perhaps something after each collection. Chuka eg gives a mini and animated baby tigers for your back in addition to the precursor

Like, I don't know, the skyscale mount unlocked from the story, and the mastery tracks gated by the Collection? Something like that?

[AriaLacy.2743]

Hello to all ArenaNet developers.

This current episode is amazing and quite uplifting. I am very glad to see our protagonists have a lot of hope restored. General happiness ensues upon the completion of this episode. The daily grind in Dragonfall does not even bother me.

However (yes, it a HUGE however), the Skyscale Saddle collection has broken my spirit. It is simply TOO MUCH. I no longer feel ANY desire to even log in and play with friends, much less play solo. This is worse than the griffon mount collections.

I am a professional graphic designer and artist. I have multiple customers and artwork to produce in during normal business hours, and even work at night and on weekends just to keep up. I do not have enough hours in a day/week/month to devote to collecting the items needed for this collection.Time is not a resource I can afford to give to ArenaNet. Gems and/or gold would be a decent option with which to purchase collection items. Or reduce the amount of materials required for the Skyscale Saddle.250 of each of six materials is a lot for likely any player.

I am very disappointed in the Skyscale Saddle collection now equally disappointed in GW2 itself.

Now, a bit of background: I began playing GW2 in October 2018, my sister kept urging me to try it. And I did. I found it so enjoyable, I left World Of Warcraft in favour of GW2.Now, I find myself on the edge of leaving GW2 for similar reasons.

I must get back to work now.I wish all a fine rest-of-the-day/night.

~Lacy

[sevenDEADLY.5281]

If something that will take no more than two weeks tops for you to achieve is causing you depression and negatively affecting your life, you really need to take a step back from video games all together and evaluate life on a deeper level. People are acting like they simply can't go on any more in life because of something takes some minor effort in a video game. Imagine if you had to face some ACTUAL hardships in life.

[Lupini.6938]

The wait to feed isn't bothering me. Gives a reason to take a break and do other things, like actually spend time on the Dragonfall map learning the events, etc. Finding 21 skyscales does not get me engaged. If it had been 10-12 I'd have taken the time and hunted them myself. At 21, screw it, I'm going to go to a guide--which I see as a failure in the design. Collections shouldn't make players groan painfully when they see the number, and then feel prodded to use a guide made by someone else. The other collections and world tours are the same, just busy work. Evidently I'm less bothered with just waiting than most others, and more bothered by running around mindlessly checking in crevices. IMO.

@carvanha.7341 said:Personally I feel that the timegate issue would largely be ignored by the community if they model the collection based on Legendary Weapons/armor or Mawdrey.In example,1) Working towards a legendary weapon = you get experimental and precursor skins.2) Legendary armor = you also get the precursor skins.3) Working towards Mawdrey = you get Mysterious and Cultivated vine backpack skins

My suggestion is that, if Anet were to reward the community in between the timegate by giving us a baby skyscale backpack skin, the community wouldnt be in an uproar over the timegating issue.... The community wouldnt even mind if the duration were twice as long... but obviously if a baby skyscale backpack skin is made, it would definitely be in the gemstore lootbox than out there as a PvE reward

I also would have preferred something on this design. A backpack for the first set of collection. Skyscale glider wings, or perhaps a "flying" helm with goggles, for the 2nd set of collection. The actual skyscale for the final. The current design is just a lot of busy work for no interim rewards. We get rewards for every mob we defeat, every level, every event. Yet for this, we get nothing but a small achievement point or 2, and more work. With the griffin, it was a new design element, and we were willing to put in the work. With the rollerbeetle, the collections were annoying, but ok..why not. This time around I think we've realized we don't really like the "busy work with only a final reward" design.

[Ragnarox.9601]

@AriaLacy.2743 said:Hello to all ArenaNet developers.

This current episode is amazing and quite uplifting. I am very glad to see our protagonists have a lot of hope restored. General happiness ensues upon the completion of this episode. The daily grind in Dragonfall does not even bother me.

However (yes, it a HUGE however), the Skyscale Saddle collection has broken my spirit. It is simply TOO MUCH. I no longer feel ANY desire to even log in and play with friends, much less play solo. This is worse than the griffon mount collections.

I am a professional graphic designer and artist. I have multiple customers and artwork to produce in during normal business hours, and even work at night and on weekends just to keep up. I do not have enough hours in a day/week/month to devote to collecting the items needed for this collection.Time is not a resource I can afford to give to ArenaNet. Gems and/or gold would be a decent option with which to purchase collection items. Or reduce the amount of materials required for the Skyscale Saddle.250 of each of six materials is a lot for likely any player.

I am very disappointed in the Skyscale Saddle collection now equally disappointed in GW2 itself.

Now, a bit of background: I began playing GW2 in October 2018, my sister kept urging me to try it. And I did. I found it so enjoyable, I left World Of Warcraft in favour of GW2.Now, I find myself on the edge of leaving GW2 for similar reasons.

I must get back to work now.I wish all a fine rest-of-the-day/night.

~Lacy

I am at similar state right now, you can buy 5 map currency, thats 50 days if you buy it with volatile magic. 10 days if you farm each 5 hearts in those areas (you need 2,3 hours per a map). its just too much grind for mount that you will sell 30euro skins soon. This is worse than legendary weapon/armor grind.

250 map currency is just too much, 100 would be appropriate. If you think that you will populate ls4 maps again, you are doing something very wrong. I will never touch those maps again after this.

I just cant farm anymore I am exhausted. If I ever finish this i will never do anything in your game again...

[Witch of Doom.5739]

@sevenDEADLY.5281 said:If something that will take no more than two weeks tops for you to achieve is causing you depression and negatively affecting your life, you really need to take a step back from video games all together and evaluate life on a deeper level. People are acting like they simply can't go on any more in life because of something takes some minor effort in a video game. Imagine if you had to face some ACTUAL hardships in life.

Not me personally, but some of my guildmates have severe depression issues and play games, especially GW2, to alleviate stress and distract themselves. I would never be so insensitive as to tell them they have a shallow life.

[MokahTGS.7850]

so still timegated...punishing people with life schedules.

[Blur.3465]

The 250 requirement has to go.50-100 or even 150 would've been fine, but this is insanity.I wrote in previous posts that I have farmed my tail off on these maps because I went after achivements, pets and gold in general, always consuming these items after getting all I needed and wanted.This is a huge slap in the face for me, as I practically lived in these maps for days and farmed so much of their currencies, only to come across this again and realize I have to grind hearts and events ... AGAIN!I've done them so many times that I feel on the brink of insanity, repetition!!! It's hell x_x

[pinguadoido.6581]

Easy fix: turn off the account bound of the map currencies and let those be traded off the BLTC. Let the commerce be free. Let people choose. A liberal form of government to Tyria!

What do we want? Free commerce!When do we want? Now!

What do we want? Free commerce!When do we want? Now!

[hostileskeleton.7364]

My only qualm with the collection at this point is the quartz feeding, I just ended day 2(or more accurately day 6 of 12 as i am now out of quartz), but it seems to just favor those that already had a large stockpile of charged quartz. I've never crafted any legendaries or anything so I'm not even sure what they're used in but it just seems like an unfair requirement. I know it's not much of a complaint but it has ground my feeling of progress to a halt. I'm sure I'll feel different after it's over but from what I'm reading there's even more to collect/do before you can even ride the thing. I can only imagine Anet wants us to get in the habit of stockpiling charged quartz in the future and this is how they're implementing it. All speculation but I'm just trying to find a reason to justify it. Would have preferred we be required to feed it drops from world bosses or something like that to keep their timegating in place but also making it a little more forgiving. Just my opinion tho. If you didn't have any quartz handy my heart goes out to you.

[Pullin.5091]

My only real issue with the Time Gate is how they executed it, if you can't complete the part before reset you have to wait a day for the next part, maybe an idea is to time gate to the initiation of the collection? The benefits are that if something comes up and you can't finish a part in time, life gets in the way and you can't get back to the game for the next reset (happened to me with eggs) you are not additional days behind. I get that you want to fuel a sense of accomplishment, however, I feel more than 7 days is a bit excessive and grindy. Considering each RL Day is 12 Tyrian Days, I get that time gate fits for progression in a natural point of view, but it is a dragon, I think the rules of nature can be bent.

Also, locking the Mastery exp behind the mount acquisition also hurts us as all that exp you grant for the story is now, for many of us, wasted. Maybe in this sense, we could make the mastery exp an item rather than instant application, similar to the Karmic Retribution items we get in the LS4 maps? I feel like I am wasting time because the time it takes to get it will eat up the exp to cap out the masteries once or maybe even twice, with my game play. Especially since I need to grind up some LS:4 currencies as I eat them for VM for other things I do in the game (Home nodes, Portal scrolls, other chievos behind VM costs).

It kinda Cheeses me a bit TBH, that by the time the patch rolls through to reduce the time gate I should have the mount, I may not, but to incentivize people to not dead stop the mount progression for a week, maybe offer a carrot on a stick? Possibly a title, an egg backpiece skin, a reduced cost 4 channel Skyscale skin, only available if you have the mount unlocked on the day of the time gate change, a PoF exclusive Mastery exp booster?

All the criticism here aside, I do love going and visiting the baby Skyscale, it is super cute!!! I probably waste more time doing that than being mad I do not have the mount yet.

[AmadeoKristoff.5493]

My current issue on this take, is not the 2 hour wait time. I actually appreciate that.My issue is that why are we being forced to wait for another week? This is like ANet stalling, when Anet has been able to release "hotfixes" within hours of a launch in the past. If we are just tweaking the timer from 24 to 2 hours, why is it taking an entire week? This just comes off as a tactic of stalling to see how many people get through with their collection before they implement the fix, and does not come as genuine "we understand your frustration and will fix it" attitude. :(

[reapex.8546]

@"AmadeoKristoff.5493" said:My current issue on this take, is not the 2 hour wait time. I actually appreciate that.My issue is that why are we being forced to wait for another week? This is like ANet stalling, when Anet has been able to release "hotfixes" within hours of a launch in the past. If we are just tweaking the timer from 24 to 2 hours, why is it taking an entire week? This just comes off as a tactic of stalling to see how many people get through with their collection before they implement the fix, and does not come as genuine "we understand your frustration and will fix it" attitude. :(

Changing the time on multiple collections needs more testing than you may realize. Looking at the past whenever there was change on how something would normally would, there was always some adverse side effect. So, I would rather have them test things out fully that rush to do the change. I'm glad we're even getting a change to be honest. 1 more week, is a lot better than players dealing with 24 hour time gate for years on end.

[SleepyDrift.7215]

Well the time gate changes don't apply to me since I'm pretty much done, but I'm happy for the players that it does affect. I like the current implementation of time restraints better. I am surprised though no one called this incident timegate. I was sure in a post pizzagate society that timegate would've been a popular name for this topic.

[IndigoSundown.5419]

@SleepyDrift.7215 said:Well the time gate changes don't apply to me since I'm pretty much done, but I'm happy for the players that it does affect. I like the current implementation of time restraints better. I am surprised though no one called this incident timegate. I was sure in a post pizzagate society that timegate would've been a popular name for this topic.

It would have to be time-gate-gate. ;)

[tekhiun.8653]

Sorry about the long comment, I am posting it here as I think a new one about the subject would just get merged anyway.Anet could just have given the mount at the first 10 minutes of story and we could still have the same collection (or a better one) + do that with a shinny new mount. I know some people may cringe at the idea but let me explain:

I think the whole issue is not timegated content or whether people should "work" for something or have instant gratification. The issue is mainly twofold, breaking a pattern about how mount acquisition works, putting on par with legendary gear (at least many in this thread have made the comparison). People act on patterns and create expectations based on these. There is a reason that old office layout where menu items would change position based on how often was they were used was abolished, it's just a well known design guidelide, patterns = good. The second issue was the total lack of forewarning and communication about this change. Not only during the marketing phase, with the streams and all, but also in game. Since GW2 still wants to pretend that it's a game without quests, they cram them into a "achievement collection" form factor, to add to that, the locked achievements get buried on the bottom of the interface after all on going achievements and the completed ones. So it is pretty unlikely that anyone will see those locked achievements at the bottom. This imo was the recipe for the small disaster that this aspect of the episode was.

Now for the question of timegating and having to "work" to get things. Timegates are not by definition bad design, hard time gates (timegates that reset on daily reset for example) make sense on group content like raids,fractals and ofc daily activities. However if the purpose is story telling then this sort of timegate doesn't work at all. Like for example a player having to wait 2 minutes for Gorrik to find a place and another player having to wait 23+ hours, another issue here is that let's say a group of players decide to work on the collection together and because of a pause of 5 min of one player he may be locked from doing the collection together with the rest of his friends. Designs that leave margin to things like these are bad design. So in some cases timegating makes sense and even in those cases it has to be right kind of time gate for the type of content. Fortunately Anet heard the feedback they got and put a better system in place although there are still some cases that could be improved imo.

With regards to players having to "work" for it. I agree that players should go through something to get a reward, but the something is really important, as it is the actual content of the game. The first part of the collection is basically 3 fetch quests that must be done sequentially, which will make the player come back to the same place on the map 2 or even 3 times and press F, there is a total of 56 items you must do this, and counting the ones unlocked by the 3x10 event on each lane achievement we have a total of 61 items. Now that could definitely be improved just by removing those repeated spots and making sure that the reamining spots on places where events spawn. That way it it would be a more organic flow to the content and the "work" we put into it. There is a lot of room for improvement on other steps too, but I will keep to this one so keep it short.

With that said Anet could just have given the mount early in the story or after the first collection and keep the players engaged by making the rest of the collection about things that already have a pattern to be timegated, like ascended gear and skins. A cool suggestion I heard was to have the skyscale we train at the end to fly to us daily and gives us an item it found during it's own adventure in Tyria. There is no reason for keeping a mount behind such a grindy and long time gate. The feeding may be fun and can help the player create a bond with the mount, but such a bond could have easily been established in the story without removing the part of us feeding a newborn timescale. Imagine having it going into kralk with us and helping us get to some place while aurene was fighting on another side of the map for example.

Anyway I think the whole thing could have been done in a much better way, ofc course not everyone would enjoy this, but better communication and design patterns would have come a long way. Even some small tweak to the story could have been made to give us the mount during it and I really hope Anet takes this release as a lesson on how to to do things for future content.

[Zerito.9328]

Well, the last collection for the skyscale... 250x of the six materials in all maps of LS4, thanks for all :) but i will not do the last one, and i dont want the skyscale anymore, this is just ridiculous.Anet, keep doing this things, you're on the right way :D

[crepuscular.9047]

@CJtheBigBear.9610 said:

@"crepuscular.9047" said:wow!!! the number of msgs on this topic, 1.4kstill on Skyscale of [Elements] part after all these days, i'm seem so far behind the pack, cant see how people could sit in front of computer all day rushing through contents

which is the dilemma for Anet and any other game developers, if you don't put some sort of limit to block players rushing through contents, players are going to complaint about no content

if there is a limit put in place, players are going to complaint about the existence of the limit

If you're going to come on and talk about how many comments there are, please take the time to actually skim/read them before commenting, so you can actually know what our criticisms are before considering them "baseless complaints."

what the kittent you going on about, I was commented on the number of comments on the topic after merging of multiple threads, and I was one of the earlier commentor on the negativity of having timegateshttps://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/919098#Comment_919098

what my latest comment is to address the difficulties of finding the balance for the dev to ensure player can stay engaged with the new content for as long as possible

 

 

This is the interesting part, the golem backpack from Sandswept Isles have timegate too, yet where are hoards of the complaints? I think this pretty much streamed from player's expectations of !!!bam!!! Skyscale day 1

yet Anet pretty much said, no no no, Skyscale is a prestige mount, like the griffon, so you will need to put in some effort

WP does have a pretty good point on Teapot's stream,

INKS also have a pretty good counterpoint, that

 

 

just think about when ascended weapons and armors just came out, well, even to this day, how long it will take to craft them with the ascended crafting material timegate without purchasing from TP