[merged] About the Skyscale Timegate...

[Syktek.7912]

@Traveller.7496 said:This timegate & tedious collecting is just disappointing. And who knows if it's even the end?

Once the U.S. bans lootboxes for T rated games and under, it's going to get worse. You just wait.

[CJtheBigBear.9610]

@ProtoGunner.4953 said:

On the other hand, I also have a grudge towards the ideology of getting everything as fast as possible (yes mobile gaming generation...).

This implies that what needs to be done isn't time consuming already though. Parts 1 and 2 [out of 5 total] have already taken 12 or more hours from myself and others, and even more for the people who managed to beat the first daily reset and are on Part 3 now. Implying that they would remove the time-gates, that's still 30+ hours worth of content through the collections. 30 hours definitely isn't much time compared to grinding for legendary gear, but it's still the most amount of time required for a mount so far, including the griffon, which is arguably comparable in function. So it's not like no time-gates would immediately equate fast, seeing as how even the most hardcore grinders would still take 2 or three days, which is a lot more since you get the beetle in less than 1 without breaking a sweat.

And it's actually ironic to equate this to mobile gaming, seeing as how mobile games like Tiny Tower and Clash of Clans use the same model of making you wait days at a time just to keep playing.

[FuguZombie.2938]

I do hope that anet take a look at what has worked and what hasn't with mounts. The roller beetle, warclaw, and even gryphon acquisition were perfectly fine and enjoyable without needing to push time gates. I love the idea of doing these collections and scavenger hunts that send you all over the place and let you go through the process of growing the mount, but the time gate will always feel irritating.

Even if I personally don't like it everyone is entitle to their opinions and I hope people are enjoying the content! :)

[Faaris.8013]

@FuguZombie.2938 said:

@Faaris.8013 said:Time gates are not new and they have always bothered some people. I actually like that a game can teach something else than instant gratification. You want something, you work for it, save up day after day (like ascended crafting mats and quartz) with the goal to get what you want. It's an important ethics that many people lack.

Whenever I see people making this argument it's always in regards to cosmetics. This is different, it's a functional item, one that the new map is meant to feature. Gating off this type of thing that does have function in the game other than cosmetics is not the same as gating off a skin. This is the big point that people are making, that making things difficult is find and make people play through the content and even some old content is great, but time gating especially for a functional item is not a good method of keeping people going and actually making an enjoyable experience for the player. This is not how you keep a playerbase enjoying your game, this is the type of thing that drives people away.

Well, I feel like that mount is kind of cosmetics. It is not necessary to do anything in the game. I combines the functions of already existing mounts, with tiny exceptions like recharging through magic balls. You can reach any spot in the world with the other mounts, the new one doesn't give you access to something you couldn't reach before. The few exceptions like that floating mastery point are all in that map, where you can borrow the mount. I actually don't even like the Skyscale, I find it lacking in any useful functionality. By now, they could even give us real flying mounts. I only do it because of completion of masteries, but I'll probably never use it, just like the roller beetle or the raptor.

And no, I don't like running around collecting stuff. While the time gating doesn't bother me much, the whole experience of getting the mount is no fun for me. It feels like doing quests to get from level 1 to level 10 in an MMO. It lacks inspiration, challenge difficulty and brain.

[BrotherBelial.3094]

@Gop.8713 said:It's like they want us to play the game or something . . .

It's like they want us to play the game at the pace they want us to. Why should I have to play the game at there pace ANet feels I should? why do I have to complete everything with in the time scale of a single day, or lose my progression? The way it currently is, I don't want to play the game at all. I wanted to get the skyscale, now I can't be bothered, too much hassle for no good reason other than there is probably going to be a long content drought, and they need something to fill the time, they thought this would be a good idea, it's not. I really don't see why there is a time gate and a gold sink on this mount.

@Ashantara.8731 said:By the time this gets decided, we will already have our mount. ;)You might I will not. I'll be playing something else until ANet desides what game Guild wars 2 is, a time gated play on our terms, or play what you want how you want like it was always supposed to be.

[whoeverxwins.1279]

@Zok.4956 said:I too want(ed) to have the skyscale as fast as possible and I would have burned through the content as fast as possible for getting it.

But the collections that your have to do, are quite a lot. Especially for players that have to do parts of the content for this collections, that they have not yet done before.

So it is possible that (a lot of) players could burn out themselve as a result of burning through the content, which would not be healthy.

Maybe Anet is just doing this to stretch the content, maybe there a other (better) reasons.

But as a result I see this time gating now as a friendly reminder to not play too much at one day and to do other stuff (in-game and in RL).

Wasn't in GW1 a message / warning or something like that, which informs the player at days when he/she is playing for too long?

If so, it's working opposite of what was intended because instead, people are feeling obligated to hurry and finish before reset. I took a few weeks on griffon. Did a bit and moved on to something else. But with this, if I finish a few minutes after reset and can't move on if I want. So I feel rushed. Not that I'm able to complete any faster with my time restraints, but now it feels frustrating and a lot less fun.

[Ragnarox.9601]

@"Zushada.6108" said:Do you go to work for free? Do you go to a restaurant and demand free food? No. The game is giving you the OPTION of obtaining a FREE mount under their terms. With Griffon it was 250 Gold and Collections. This one is free and you have to put in a bit more work at a predetermined pace. These collections are not arduous; they are really easy and they encourage you go to different maps, complete events and work towards something fun yet OPTIONAL.

I really wish everyone would stop complaining about this and move on and enjoy the game. In LW3 we got Aurene and it required full story achieves to complete plus a bunch of wasted Xunlei Ingots. I literally just finished that collection bc I could not get the 2 achieves from the story in Bitterfrost (stay unfrosty and under 5 mins) so I put it aside for a while and did something else until I had everything I needed to craft it and the achieves done. Those who did not bother with LW3 map and story achievements had to do a lot more work on maps with low population at times; plus they had to complete the second collection and get the required T6 mats.

Understanding that LW3 was a Leg Trinket, this is really no different in principle. For those who use the argument "I only play an hour a night" the good news is that we do not need to get it all done in one night so the argument is irrelevant in this case. Right now, we have 7 mounts in this game and we really did not need another one and if ppl think they cannot get on in this game without the Skyscale, then they really need to reconsider if this is the right game for them. Everyone please, stop complaining about the timegate and realise that you are upset over a couple of collections that apply to an optional part of the game -- and it is just a game.

Dude comparing work and this is just wrong, and its not free you need items worth 200-300g to get it, so its not free. (plus we dont know 4 and 5th day timegated grind)

[ChronoPinoyX.7923]

Everyone saying no who textwall this thread. Literally nothing is stopping you from taking your time on this mount if it wasn't time gated. NOTHING.

All this talk about how people should take time playing content is such a non argument because of one fact:

No one is forcing you to rush the content.

I can take a whole year to get the mount if I really wanted to, doesn't mean others should take a year to get theirs as well. All this is doing is forcing those who actually want to play and get the mount asap to just sit there and do nothing if their current goal is to get the mount. Arguing that they can do other things is no excuse either. Yes they can do other things, doesn't mean they would do other things.

If they say they finally got bored since they got what they wanted too quickly, that's on them. That has no effect on those who take their time to play the game. Time gating was a terrible choice of design because it's a forced lock on those who actually wanna focus on working towards that goal. They are being constantly stopped midway because of system they can't do anything about it. Hitting a wall in a game is one thing, being forced to stop progression altogether is another.

[BrotherBelial.3094]

@miraude.2107 said:Arenanet, you might as well just start putting any new mounts here on out in the cash shop the way ESO does so you can at least get some revenue for your work if people want something as special as this to be instant gratification.The community is getting a new, shiny mount for FREE because all we have to do is log in to get the episode and all we have to do is actually play the game to get it. At least show some respect to the devs and actually play the game? I mean this isn't the griffon, you can actually stay in the air with this mount. Anyone notice that the endurance bar fills when you descend and you can fly back up (I think a lot of you didn't notice that judging from the yes votes)? I spent at least 45 minutes in the air messing around with that alone and never touched the ground in Dragonfall! Getting this mount means that I can easily avoid nearly everything in Tyria/HoT/PoF because there are few to no aerial threats to speak of in game. It makes sense that a mount like this can and should be time-gated, to make it worth the effort of getting it. So no, there is nothing wrong with this being time-gated as I can easily see this becoming a WvW/PvP nightmare and hearing the complaints on that end the moment it does start appearing.

We have paid for the mount when we bought PoF, You need PoF to play the LW that comes after PoF. Not a single person is complaining about having to do stuff to get it, all they want is the time gates removed so they can get it as fast or as slow as they want. But I get it, it's cool to be edgy

[casualkenny.9817]

My personal requests to anet

1) hide the skyscale mastery till we obtain it and can pump it - so we can continue getting shards while slowly doing the collections. As many ppl have requested for here2) create a 'rental' npc that works like in ur recent race update, that allows remounting while in the same map, but for free. You can require ppl to complete stage 1 or 2 or whatever before using this.3) allow players to start gaining/lvling the mastery upon completion of the 1st collection.

[FuguZombie.2938]

@Faaris.8013 said:

Well, I feel like that mount is kind of cosmetics. It is not necessary to do anything in the game. I combines the functions of already existing mounts, with tiny exceptions like recharging through magic balls. You can reach any spot in the world with the other mounts, the new one doesn't give you access to something you couldn't reach before.

So this is also a point that people bring up, why is this mount in particular so difficult to get? With the gryphon the process made sense since it was so different but why did they decide to treat this mount like a legendary?Also the rental system is all well and good but it's annoying not be able to use any masteries the mount offers and having to constantly back track to grab one if you choose to interact with anything.

And no, I don't like running around collecting stuff. While the time gating doesn't bother me much, the whole experience of getting the mount is no fun for me. It feels like doing quests to get from level 1 to level 10 in an MMO. It lacks inspiration, challenge difficulty and brain.

I kind of feel the opposite, the time gating feels like a lazy way to extending content but I find some of the collections fun when they send you all over to explore for things. Yeah some of it feels really uninspired but a lot of it's good. Just feels bad that this whole situation tarnishes it.That's fine that you don't like the mount or the process, but there are people that do and really want the mount, which is why they're annoyed at this whole situation.Either way the system's got some problems.

[Opal.9324]

I love most of this update, but the timegate really killed the mount hype for me. Funny how so many people who don't mind the timegate keep saying "oh, you just want the mount for free hurr hurr durr". No, I want to work towards getting the mount instead of WAITING to work towards getting the mount. The timegate doesn't add to the challenge, it doesn't add to the amount of work you put towards getting the mount, and it most certainly does not make me play the game more. It does nothing but add annoyance and make me WAIT to play the game more. Why is that so hard to understand for some people?

[ProtoGunner.4953]

@CJtheBigBear.9610 said:

@ProtoGunner.4953 said:

On the other hand, I also have a grudge towards the ideology of getting everything as fast as possible (yes mobile gaming generation...).

And it's actually ironic to equate this to mobile gaming, seeing as how mobile games like Tiny Tower and Clash of Clans use the same model of making you wait days at a time just to keep playing.

I forgot to add that you can pay money to circumvent this grind.

I admit I only started the story and haven't finished it (I quit playing pretty much, but I come back for the story). So, I didn't know it takes this much time - so much to saying something before knowing it. Lesson learned. I really assumed it is similar to the Mount Maelstrom backpack, where you have to do stuff for about 10mins every day for 16 days. So, my apologies, if you really need 30h for this collection ignoring the time gate then this is pretty much not what I expected.

[tekhiun.8653]

@"casualkenny.9817" said:My personal requests to anet

1) hide the skyscale mastery till we obtain it and can pump it - so we can continue getting shards while slowly doing the collections. As many ppl have requested for here2) create a 'rental' npc that works like in ur recent race update, that allows remounting while in the same map, but for free. You can require ppl to complete stage 1 or 2 or whatever before using this.3) allow players to start gaining/lvling the mastery upon completion of the 1st collection.

Or just give us the mount after the first step of the collection, the one with the 61 items fetch quest. The rest of the collection can be an ascended gear piece or even a unique skin for the skygated i mean skyscale, that would have a matching set for the other mounts on the gem store. Even if they delay the final reward while they are working at it.

Anyway, all I know, is at this point is not even worth doing the collection anymore, I just stopped playing the game completely and had a terrible experience with this whole debacle, including with toxic players that insist in calling an opinion "crying". Congratulations on making something that actually makes you wanna stop playing the game Anet, /gg.

[CJtheBigBear.9610]

@"Faaris.8013" said:

Well, I feel like that mount is kind of cosmetics. It is not necessary to do anything in the game. It combines the functions of already existing mounts, with tiny exceptions like recharging through magic balls. You can reach any spot in the world with the other mounts, the new one doesn't give you access to something you couldn't reach before. The few exceptions like that floating mastery point are all in that map, where you can borrow the mount. I actually don't even like the Skyscale, I find it lacking in any useful functionality. By now, they could even give us real flying mounts. I only do it because of completion of masteries, but I'll probably never use it, just like the roller beetle or the raptor.

I've seen plenty of other people think this way about the Skyscale, and I agree with you on this.

But what I've never really seen people talk about is that the follow-up question should not be "Well then why do people care about something so trivial being behind a time-gate?", but instead "Why does something so with such little bearing on play experience need to be locked behind a time-gate?"

Stuff like legendary gear being behind time-gates makes sense, because they're literally the best you can get, being the same as ascended gear, but with the bonus of having on-the-fly stat switching, prevent you from needing to have a whole second gear set just to switch up your playstyle. That's why it's so easy for people with legendary gear to essentially dual-class with elite specs; they can easily change their gear to fit their needs.

Whereas the Skyscale only does a couple things similar to existing mounts. I'm sure once it's fully unlocked and fully trained, it could even outshine the griffon and springer in some aspects. But because the Skyscale is locked behind almost a month of time-gated collections and materials [provided you can't afford to buy the Grow Lamp and Skyscale Food, which bumps it down to at the very least ; a week as far as we know.], when you stack it up against what exists, it seems like a huge loss on time compared to the pay off you'd get.

And for reference, I'm not talking about the collections on their own. 1 was a bit tedious yeah, but I genuinely enjoyed Collection 2. This is solely a criticism of the time-gate unnecessarily inflating the effort required to get the payoff.

[CJtheBigBear.9610]

@ProtoGunner.4953 said:

I forgot to add that you can pay money to circumvent this grind.

I admit I only started the story and haven't finished it (I quit playing pretty much, but I come back for the story). So, I didn't know it takes this much time - so much to saying something before knowing it. Lesson learned. I really assumed it is similar to the Mount Maelstrom backpack, where you have to do stuff for about 10mins every day for 16 days. So, my apologies, if you really need 30h for this collection ignoring the time gate then this is pretty much not what I expected.

Hey, it's no problem! Misunderstandings happen, and I don't blame you for not knowing. Literally nobody knew about anything about Collection 3 until the reset earlier today, so a lot of info hasn't had the time to spread out yet. Still, glad I could help you understand our frustration better. :smiley:

[casualkenny.9817]

@tekhiun.8653 said:

@"casualkenny.9817" said:My personal requests to anet

1) hide the skyscale mastery till we obtain it and can pump it - so we can continue getting shards while slowly doing the collections. As many ppl have requested for here2) create a 'rental' npc that works like in ur recent race update, that allows remounting while in the same map, but for free. You can require ppl to complete stage 1 or 2 or whatever before using this.3) allow players to start gaining/lvling the mastery upon completion of the 1st collection.

Or just give us the mount after the first step of the collection, the one with the 61 items fetch quest. The rest of the collection can be an ascended gear piece or even a unique skin for the skygated i mean skyscale, that would have a matching set for the other mounts on the gem store. Even if they delay the final reward while they are working at it.

Anyway, all I know, is at this point is not even worth doing the collection anymore, I just stopped playing the game completely and had a terrible experience with this whole debacle, including with toxic players that insist in calling an opinion "crying". Congratulations on making something that actually makes you wanna stop playing the game Anet, /gg.

It's not that I disagree with you (I am just as miffed as almost-everyone), I just know that, pragmatically speaking, that kind of change will not happen. Hence, I am suggesting workarounds/compromises that require minimal (I am guessing) modifications on their part, that can be rushed out easily as a hotfix(es) based on pre-existing mechanics in-game. IF Anet is willing to change it at this stage to give us the basic mount after 1-2 collections, by all means, I'd be 4 times as happy as you.

The key thing is that, Anet previously had grindy optional stuff, and casual stuff, so different groups of players with differing needs did not have competing interests. But now, multiple different groups of players are impacted by this. That's the rationale behind my suggestions, to mitigate/nullify the side-effects without impacting on those who like it, and without negating anet staff 's efforts.

In contrast, I have the combined sentient thingy, and the henge, and I got that totally at my own pace, whenever I felt like it. BUT I would have been damned pissed if I were required to complete it before getting shards from hot content - tho I don't really use shards.

[CJtheBigBear.9610]

Alright, it's time for me to sleep. So here's a few notes to people looking at this thread while I'm away;

1.) If you have any questions, please look through [or at the very least skim] the rest of the this thread first, as there's a good chance myself or someone else has already answered it in the many replies. Please don't get angry and post without knowing the whole side of our argument.

2.) Please be nice to one another. I know things are tense and the way the time-gates make information come out slowly leads to misunderstandings, but be civil. No insulting other people's intelligence or hyper passive-aggressiveness. I ain't trying to get this thread locked, mmkay?

3.) I swear on the Khan-Ur, if I wake up and see one more person use the phrase "instant gratification" after blatantly skipping over every single thing people have said thus far again, I will /actually/ slam my head through my desk.

G'night everybody.

Sidenote: If you see someone doing any of the 3 things I said not to do, do me a favor and reply to their comment with this comment, since they clearly didn't see it. Thanks a bunch.

[tekhiun.8653]

@casualkenny.9817 said:

@tekhiun.8653 said:

@casualkenny.9817 said:My personal requests to anet

1) hide the skyscale mastery till we obtain it and can pump it - so we can continue getting shards while slowly doing the collections. As many ppl have requested for here2) create a 'rental' npc that works like in ur recent race update, that allows remounting while in the same map, but for free. You can require ppl to complete stage 1 or 2 or whatever before using this.3) allow players to start gaining/lvling the mastery upon completion of the 1st collection.

Or just give us the mount after the first step of the collection, the one with the 61 items fetch quest. The rest of the collection can be an ascended gear piece or even a unique skin for the skygated i mean skyscale, that would have a matching set for the other mounts on the gem store. Even if they delay the final reward while they are working at it.

Anyway, all I know, is at this point is not even worth doing the collection anymore, I just stopped playing the game completely and had a terrible experience with this whole debacle, including with toxic players that insist in calling an opinion "crying". Congratulations on making something that actually makes you wanna stop playing the game Anet, /gg.

It's not that I disagree with you (I am just as miffed as almost-everyone), I just know that, pragmatically speaking, that kind of change will not happen. Hence, I am suggesting workarounds/compromises that require minimal (I am guessing) modifications on their part, that can be rushed out easily as a hotfix(es) based on pre-existing mechanics in-game. IF Anet is willing to change it at this stage to give us the basic mount after 1-2 collections, by all means, I'd be 4 times as happy as you.

The key thing is that, Anet previously had grindy optional stuff, and casual stuff, so different groups of players with differing needs did not have competing interests. But now, multiple different groups of players are impacted by this. That's the rationale behind my suggestions, to mitigate/nullify the side-effects without impacting on those who like it, and without negating anet staff 's efforts.

In contrast, I have the combined sentient thingy, and the henge, and I got that totally at my own pace, whenever I felt like it. BUT I would have been damned pissed if I were required to complete it before getting shards from hot content - tho I don't really use shards.

Yeah , i get you. But lets be sincere people have compared a mount with legendary and ascended items. I think this alone shows how flawed the whole thing is. A backpack or a trinket are not unique in their function, you can get everything you need for the function they serve in several different ways, which is to give stats the only unique thing are the cosmetics. So this is why i think the best thing would to give a skin as a reward for this collection and the mount for completing the story or the first step of the collection.

The whole thing was a terrible experience for me, I lost one of the day offs I took from work on this mount, because I was 10 minutes too late to finish the first collection (reset in my timezone is 2 am) , I had to wait 24h for content that I cleared in 3 hours. This is not fun, this is not rewarding and with the complete lack of communication from the dev team , it just crushed all the expectations I had.

If they had come clean and told us it was going to be this way, I would have been disappointed, but not to the point I am now, at least I would know that on day X i would had the mount and would be able to schedule my freetime to work on it properly. By not doing so me and other players just got a sour taste from this game, with this terrible experience. I hope they fix this for the sake of other players, but I'm done with this game.

[Klowdy.3126]

@MrRuin.9740 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:Then the design of the map is successful ... because Anet want people to do some, come back, etc ... that's why time gating exists. And that's not unreasonable ... because it's not designed so that you get everything done in one day then wonder why we don't have new content more often. It's all related and it's how any MMO works ... somehow you pay. And that somehow is what keeps you coming back and playing.The design is terrible. When you have to lock content behind a time gate to get them to come back, you're doing something wrong.People should be coming back to the map because it has fun, rewarding content. HoT is years old, yet years later and people still go back to those maps. I can do those metas far easier and frequently than the abandoned PoF ones.

There's so many other ways they could have done this to extend the time it took to get or level the Skyscale and they chose the laziest one by just sticking a time gate on it rather than fun content. That's all time gating is - a lazy way to get people to do content rather than making it enjoyable enough they do it anyway of their own volition.

Experiences may vary, but when I do the HoT metas, there is a group (small or large) on the map talking about how they are tired of said map, or the meta we are working on about 70% of the time. People do HoT stuff because its rewarding, even if they hate it. I would call that bad design, as well.

[RizelStar.3724]

That’s what I’m saying, like to the people saying no, what is it you’re actually against?

Literally and correct me if I’m wrong there is someone who voted no but in the same vein said that Timegates are not good like...WTH?!?!?

We have people comparing timegating to wanting food for free, like What.The.Hell?!?!?

I think sometimes we get so use to defending a company we love that we refuse to see any wrong in what they do. Even if it’s to throw all logic/common sense out the window. Wouldn’t it make sense to want the game you love to not only be perceived well by others but to still be healthy or enjoyable?

There is literally a step in the game(3rd day) timegating you to 22 days at most and at least 8 I think(correct me if I’m wrong). Then you got to hope you hit before reset else that’s another day possibly. Why would a person think that this is healthy or anything good for the player base, is BEYYYYOONNNDDD ME. Out of all the things baby skyscales it, it’s charged quartz...really? Then events not even working properly, not counting for some people(like me) and not even starting in some instances(vabbi). Y’all can’t be serious.

So for the “no’s” what are you really fighting against or for? We both know the answer at this point, because as I asked someone else, if it wasn’t there in the first place would you have wanted it? What you tell yourself at this moment is exactly why people who don’t like timegates(not timegates geared towards cosmetics) to begin with are frustrated because it’s not a [needed] thing in this collection. It has no [real] purpose(no to keep you playing is not a real point that’s artificial). All it does(I’ll take this to the grave with me) is annoy people who don’t like it and bring others up here to say they don’t care for it. That’s most likely not what ANET intended, but that’s really what happened so far. Nothing actually [positive](I can’t stress this enough).

[elrin.4750]

There is no way Anet can justify time-gating, there is just no way. I don't think there is any explanation from them that will make players say "Oh, that makes sense.". NEVER.

Players will always rush content. Time gating does prevent them from rushing the content (they will still finish it in the least amount of time), it's just an annoyance!

I myself try to rush the first few days, because I know if I don't then it will be harder and longer than necessary since the map is going to be empty in a few days. So I try as much as possobile to finish everything in the first day (when it is the most fun) rather than later.

[derd.6413]

i think it should be improved but not removed

[zealex.9410]

@tekhiun.8653 said:

@Trise.2865 said:How many times do we have to tell people not to blast through content in 10 minutes? to take their time and enjoy it? They never learn...

I would be enjoying the content if I had the mount that I was told was going to be out today. Some people have more fun doing things at their own pace instead of having to deal with a gimmick to actually takes away the enjoyment of the map, i.e. going around pressing F and even going to the same place several times.

The collection it self is fine, the tike gate is questionable but if they remove the timegate i hope they keep the collection intact.

[Amineo.8951]

Timegate in a timegate in a timegate... It's like bags into bags into bags, what a meme dude.

The mount is looking to be expensive to get on top of it aswell, we're talking more than a hundred of gold in addition to the timegates... The Griffon was 250g but was nowhere near as bad to obtain, it takes like an afternoon without a guide.