[merged] About the Skyscale Timegate...

[RizelStar.3724]

@DreamySkullz.8203 said:It's not that I don't appreciate going through harder loops to get an item that's worth it; the collection itself is fine. I don't even mind the time gates for like an hour or so. Something to make people slow down. But a whole day feels like over kill. Especially for those of us who have full time jobs and irl commitments. There's nothing wrong with appealing to a casual crowd, which is why so many people love GW2.

No one is saying they don't want to work for their items. It DOES feel like an accomplishment when you work hard for something and get it. The only thing I feel needs to be nerfed is the time gating, to perhaps a few hours at most if it's a mechanic that must stay.

I'm just hoping when it's over we'll get something worth while.

I agree about the few hours. Especially when it comes to feeding it, I wouldn’t be oppose to that rather than 3 times every daily reset(still not sure if it’s tied to a whole 24hrs rl).

[Aetheldrake.6395]

@eldrin.6471 said:

@Aetheldrake.6395 said:

@eldrin.6471 said:you do not see the difference between legendary weapons that are meant to be totally optional and a bog standard mount that they will be selling skins for very soon.

it does everything that every other mount does AND MORE. it doesnt do it quite as well as each other one, but it does them all without switching which means even if you get attacked by random mobs and have to switch, YOU DONT NEED TO, and can continue on. also it's just fancier and this is fashion wars 2. this is like Aurenes Legacy to us. save this race and itll save us

so will this gift from Aurene have more than one dye slot or just the one like any other bog standard mount we need buy skins for

is that all you're seeing? get a grip.

btw you can look for yourself. yes it's only one. but it's more like 1 and a half because it has some shaders

[Aetheldrake.6395]

@CJtheBigBear.9610 said:

@Aetheldrake.6395 said:

@"eldrin.6471" said:you do not see the difference between legendary weapons that are meant to be totally optional and a bog standard mount that they will be selling skins for very soon.

it does everything that every other mount does AND MORE. it doesnt do it quite as well as each other one, but it does them all without switching which means even if you get attacked by random mobs and have to switch, YOU DONT NEED TO, and can continue on. also it's just fancier and this is fashion wars 2. this is like Aurenes Legacy to us. save this race and itll save us

Eh... gonna have to disagree with that statement. The Skyscale doesn't have the evasion or speed of the Raptor or Jackal, the Skimmer is still the only option for getting across large water bodies, and the Beetle is outclassed by none in it's sheer speed on the ground.

The only two mounts that are comparable are the Springer and Griffon, since it's essentially a hybrid of the two. And while it does have its specific uses, I'd personally say that those uses aren't that drastic enough to explain why it requires so much time to get, since it's outclassed in its two own core abilities by it's comparable brothers.

you can do a barrel roll with skyscale. there's the evasion and arguable speed cuz it's a pretty far dodge and pretty fast. the skyscale can hover INDEFINITELY as long as you dont go too high, thus replacing skimmer because it can just hover slightly above ground. yes the beetle and griffon are faster, but it still does travel faster than walking on foot. i said it does them all, but not as well.

as for the springer and griffon, assuming the masteries let you recover the resource bar while clinging to a wall, it essentially lets you pause you escalation and rethink how you want to continue going up. the springer is either a hit or miss. if you miss you restart. dont have to restart this way.

and again, copied from my own comment "it doesnt do it quite as well as each other one, but it does them all without switching " and frequently the benefit of NOT having to switch mounts because combat prevents you from doing so can mean all the difference

[CJtheBigBear.9610]

@Ototo.3214 said:Just look, the new GS was crafted within hours of the release cause it's not randomly time gated. But people still had to put in effort to earn it.

Well to be fair, legendary stuff is time-gated, some people just had everything else they needed ready before they got the precursor.

But that still reinforces the fact that they knew what to expect, and were able to prepare accordingly, something we couldn't have done because we had no way of knowing until launch or later.

I can guarantee that Grow Lamps and Skyscale Food wouldn't be as wallet-busting as they are now, if people knew about this ahead of time, and could've spent the time leading up to the episode farming the Charged Quartz, just like how people working for the legendary were able to farm the necessary components.

[CJtheBigBear.9610]

@"Aetheldrake.6395" said:

you can do a barrel roll with skyscale. there's the evasion and arguable speed cuz it's a pretty far dodge and pretty fast. the skyscale can hover INDEFINITELY as long as you dont go too high, thus replacing skimmer because it can just hover slightly above ground. yes the beetle and griffon are faster, but it still does travel faster than walking on foot. i said it does them all, but not as well.

as for the springer and griffon, assuming the masteries let you recover the resource bar while clinging to a wall, it essentially lets you pause you escalation and rethink how you want to continue going up. the springer is either a hit or miss. if you miss you restart. dont have to restart this way.

and again, copied from my own comment "it doesnt do it quite as well as each other one, but it does them all without switching " and frequently the benefit of NOT having to switch mounts because combat prevents you from doing so can mean all the difference

The Raptor still has a higher ground-coverage capability with its long jump, as well as the Beetle and its speed. The Jackal can dodge 3 times, and has a higher endurance regeneration, making it still superior in dodging. I'm fairly certain the Skyscale's glide is just very slowly descending, not indefinite, as far as I've noticed. But even if it is, you wouldn't be getting the speed boost over water or quicksand, making it an alternative, but much slower.

I understand that it doesn't do them as well, that's the point I'm trying to make. It doesn't make sense to put something like a side-grade behind such a harsh time barrier, when all of its alternatives are easier to obtain.

[Kidel.2057]

I'm at the feeding part of this meta-collection. At this point I can say that the "quest" has some good parts and some bad parts.

The goodThe fact that you get your own egg and you can see it grow is my favourite part at the moment. The small skyscale is cute and feels personal.Going around to get snacks and toys from all over the world, as well as training the pet even when it's just an egg was a nice touch.

The badOf course, time gating. I'm ok with waiting for your egg to hatch or your pet to grow, but it shouldn't wait for the reset. Instead it should wait a fixed amount of time, or in-game time. The game has its own night/day cycle after all. Also if I complete a collection 1 minute before midnight, I only have to wait 1 minute to go on. If I do it 1 minute after midnight, I have to wait 24 hours. That's simply unfair.The other bad part is everything related to Quartz. I don't have enough words for that. It's not needed, meta-timegated and based on luck and on random material stockpiling.

The super badThe mount is basically useless. Just for completionists and posers. The collection feels "ascended", if not legendary, while the mount is only useful to hover in LA (and with a skin from TP). It has 0 practical use if you already have Springer and Gryffon, while I'd expect a legendary mount to be almost able to replace all of them, or at least bring something unique to the table.

You want a semi-useless mount? Fine, make it easy. You want a hard, tedious and timegated collection? Fine, make the result useful.

[Ototo.3214]

@DigiQWill.6378 said:

@Ototo.3214 said:

@DigiQWill.6378 said:

@Ototo.3214 said:

@DigiQWill.6378 said:My own two cents on the whole "We have a full-time job and can't play much" argument...

If you

are

working full-time and can only play 1 hour, up to 2 hours, the time-gate should be way, way less punishing. (Jee my fingers are freezing, typing's hard)In fact, if, like were given examples higher up, it takes you 6 hours to do the first collection (which it took me, yes, 6 hours to do), that means that you can do the first collection in a minimum, already of 3 to 6 days. Thus, making the whole point of "Argh the daily reset freaks me over because I can't play enough to finish the collection before the first day's reset!" (which I didn't achieve, either) invalid because you wouldn't be able to without the time gate anyways

because you work

.

For the bingers like me, the time gate actually is a good thing. It forces you to take a break and do some other stuff. It's annoying yes. Should it be reworked? No. It adds gradual value to something that is "end game" in most cases, especially if you already did do a legendary. They take way more time than a week to complete and you know it.

Tldr: if your argument is to whine about the fact your work schedules make it impossible for you to complete the collection in the set daily reset frame, it is invalid. Simply put, you wouldn't have time to do it otherwise anyway. I quote someone from above:> @CJtheBigBear.9610 said:

@"Ayrilana.1396" said:You're grossly exaggerating how long it takes to do the collections.

For one, it took me six hours to do the entire first day collection without a guide so you can easily do it in a fraction of the time. It really shouldn't take someone more than three hours to do this with a guide.

It took me two hours to do the second day's collection. No guide needed as the hints were very straightforward compared to the previous day's collections.

It took a total of an hour to do the third day's collection and that's counting the next two days of feeding the mount.

It took me 6 to do the first day's with a guide.It took me 5 to do the second's.It took me 2 to do the third's before the time-gated feeding.

Everyone does things at a different pace. Some people did it quick enough to already been on Day 2 of the feeding already. We already knew this.

Again, just because you could do it in a certain time even with the restrictions, it doesn't mean everyone does/can.

If you have only one to two hours to spend on the game, in the end, you still won't be able to do it in the time you have specified, thus making the time-gated achievements actually be more rewarding for you because you won't be forced to wait out a whole day to unlock the new achievement collection since you'll be working. Cutting out on your gaming time, if it happens that you complete the collection right after reset, is also beneficial for you overall for obvious reasons that I won't state because they don't need to be said. (To the one I quoted: I don't mean you work (I have no idea if you work or not, I simply used your numbers to demonstrate my point because I saw similar ones higher up, I didn't read the 17 pages of thread, sorry!)

Tldrr (I don't know how to resume briefly lol) Time gating only punishes bingers. Those who say that because they work they can't complete stuff before the reset occurs, you wouldn't be able to take much advantage out of the collections not being time-gated anyways because you don't have much time to play :frown:

Except imagine spending all those days completing it only to be locked out another 24 hours because you missed the reset right before you finished in the 4th day or whatever. It's honestly pointless. The charged quartz at least doesn't eat all your play time but still makes it take a while to earn.

In which case you can play other game modes to earn some gold before the next day. It's a strategic move from ANet too. And it's only a day, it's frustrating yes, but (without being impolite) it's on [hypothetical] you for not completing it in time in the first place - be it because you were working or something else. Also - try bying the food off the TP as well as the grow lamp ^^ You can easily make that amount of gold if you do some minor Pvp (dying on the last first round in PvP tournament earns you 5 gold - a Skyscale food!).

I was slow to edit my last post so please refer to that.Also, I already have gold and already have charged quartz cause I saved it from wintersday. I am not complaining about the food time gate

And to blatantly say "it's on you" for not completing the bloated 6 to 8 hour collection in the 2 hours you have before reset when you get home is quite rude. The only reset I missed was the first one, because I was unaware I should be speeding through the story and I intentionally turned off all chats to avoid spoilers. But I certainly had to spend way too many hours after reset working on just that collection before going to sleep late, just so I wouldn't be locked out the next day when I got home.

I'm sorry for being rude. I don't know how to exactly word my thoughts to remain polite since English isn't my first laguage.It is annoying yes, but refer to my just sent response to CJ. It may be annoying, frustrating, but the reward at the end is a rather good mount, one that even the griffon or gliding can really be compared to. That's at least my opinion, you may have a different one ^^

At least for me, the main issue is that they have large collections that take 6+ hours to complete, even with a guide, that also has what essentially becomes a deadline to complete: daily reset. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't mind the collection itself being time consuming, they are interesting and kinda fun. But, when you have daily reset that starts at, for me, 8pm...It can cause issues.

Take the 2nd collection for example, with the elements and stuff. I get home from work at 5pm most days, but I couldn't start working on that collection until 8pm due to reset. 8pm finally rolls around and I'm now presented with a massive collection to complete, with some steps requiring specific events to be active. I have to go to work again the next day at 8am so I shouldn't be staying up really late. But if I don't finish the collection that night I have at most 3 hours to finish it when I get home at 5pm again (assuming I don't hit traffic). I didn't want to bank on that, so I instead had to spend all of my playtime that night doing literally nothing except the collection, which took me until like....12:30am. I finished it, but I had to rush and couldn't do daily fractals with friends. If there was no daily reset gate, I could have worked in the collection, stopped to do things with friends, go to sleep a bit earlier, come back the next day and finish that collection after that reset and moved onto the next with the food time gate.

The food time gate I'm fine with. I mean sure, no time gates would be awesome, but at least with the food it doesn't take 6 hours to craft, you just make it, feed it 3 times and done. Have to wait to feed more but at least I can go do something else. And if you're really impatient you can just buy the food you can't make. That's still an option.

This is why I've never really complained about other time gates like the iggy collection in sandswept, the henge backpiece in draconis mons, or daily ascended crafting materials. Sure I may think "ew a time gate" at first, but the daily tasks they ask for take maybe 20 to 30 minutes max.

Either have a big time consuming collection without a time gate or a time gate with simple daily tasks. Not both.

Thankfully for me I dont have kids or anything, so I can just come home and play. But for many others, the scenario I just described is even worse due to more irl obligations. Hopefully this helps better illustrate my point ;P

[ZDragon.3046]

@Aetheldrake.6395 said:

@CJtheBigBear.9610 said:

@Aetheldrake.6395 said:

@"eldrin.6471" said:you do not see the difference between legendary weapons that are meant to be totally optional and a bog standard mount that they will be selling skins for very soon.

it does everything that every other mount does AND MORE. it doesnt do it quite as well as each other one, but it does them all without switching which means even if you get attacked by random mobs and have to switch, YOU DONT NEED TO, and can continue on. also it's just fancier and this is fashion wars 2. this is like Aurenes Legacy to us. save this race and itll save us

Eh... gonna have to disagree with that statement. The Skyscale doesn't have the evasion or speed of the Raptor or Jackal, the Skimmer is still the only option for getting across large water bodies, and the Beetle is outclassed by none in it's sheer speed on the ground.

The only two mounts that are comparable are the Springer and Griffon, since it's essentially a hybrid of the two. And while it does have its specific uses, I'd personally say that those uses aren't that drastic enough to explain why it requires so much time to get, since it's outclassed in its two own core abilities by it's comparable brothers.

you can do a barrel roll with skyscale. there's the evasion and arguable speed cuz it's a pretty far dodge and pretty fast. the skyscale can hover INDEFINITELY as long as you dont go too high, thus replacing skimmer because it can just hover slightly above ground. yes the beetle and griffon are faster, but it still does travel faster than walking on foot. i said it does them all, but not as well.

Not true if you have ridden on the skyscale closely its actually very hard to go in a straight line without gaining or losing altitude if your stamina runs out you will continuously drop slowly over time no matter how dead even you are trying to remain. if you mess up by some chance and crash into the water you will now have to switch anyways.

The skimmer moves faster over water than the skyscale does flying thus its not really replacing the skimmer either. You have the option to use the sky scale to move over water but skimmer will still move 3x-4x faster over water than the skyscale will at its current speed.

as for the springer and griffon, assuming the masteries let you recover the resource bar while clinging to a wall, it essentially lets you pause you escalation and rethink how you want to continue going up. the springer is either a hit or miss. if you miss you restart. dont have to restart this way.

Once again this still does not replace the springer. As the springer will get you higher faster regardless of if you hit your miss your landing mark that can be argued possibly down to player skill vs places anet wants to allow you to go to and does not want you to go to. Its not a replacement imo now that ive gotten my hands on it even with the masteries i dont see it replacing springer for quick jumps.(we dont know how fast the stamina will recover or if there is a maximum amount you can recover while clinging so it also might be to early to claim that skyscale is better) even if it is it still does not justify what players were expecting vs the reality of what it is when it comes to unlocking it.

and again, copied from my own comment "it doesnt do it quite as well as each other one, but it does them all without switching " and frequently the benefit of NOT having to switch mounts because combat prevents you from doing so can mean all the difference

It can mean all the difference but generally if you want to do something quick i dont see this mount replacing any other mount. If you want to traverse by air quickly you still use griffon, if you want to do it by land you use roller, if you want to climb quickly you use springer, Ideally by not switching you are opting to do it slower and thats your free righto choose but even so the idea of "You wont have to switch" does not justify imo the amount of work require to gain the base mount.

At this point i would say raptor is probably my least used mount but there are some land areas where it excels better than other mounts and I still will use it even if the other mounts can still handle those areas alright some times.

[Kidel.2057]

In comparison the Griffon collection takes 3 hours and 250g (not far compared to skyscale) and it also gives you an item to convert trash into minis.

And the Griffon is the single most useful mount in the game, period.

[thehipone.6812]

@LucianDK.8615 said:

@thehipone.6812 said:

I had ran up to my local Dollar General and bought a bunch of beef jerky, doritos, cheese dip, and mountain dew just for the occasion. But when I returned to Gorrik, he reluctantly told me to put down the beef jerky, to seal up my bag of doritos, to put my chees dip & mountain back in the fridge, because now _

____

.

This has copypasta potential.

My main reaction was a bit of disappointment that there was this new map, obviously designed for the new mount, and here I am playing a bunch on the new map WITHOUT being able to take advantage of the new mount. That is, once I finally get the thing, I'm likely to be ready to go back to some other parts of the game and take a break from grinding on new map.

You get access to borrowable skyscales in the map.

Yeah, the borrow ones are ok but the wall jump skill doesn't really work. And if you hop off to fight or gather or whatever you need to go find another borrowing location to get back on, at which point you are usually just better heading off to where you want to go on your other mounts.

[Ototo.3214]

@CJtheBigBear.9610 said:

@Ototo.3214 said:Just look, the new GS was crafted within hours of the release cause it's not randomly time gated. But people still had to put in effort to earn it.

Well to be fair, legendary stuff

is

time-gated, some people just had everything else they needed ready before they got the precursor.

But that still reinforces the fact that they knew what to expect, and were able to prepare accordingly, something we couldn't have done because we had no way of knowing until launch or later.

I can guarantee that Grow Lamps and Skyscale Food wouldn't be as wallet-busting as they are now, if people knew about this ahead of time, and could've spent the time leading up to the episode farming the Charged Quartz, just like how people working for the legendary were able to farm the necessary components.

I can't think of anything in the legend's crafting that has a time gate without some sort of bypass like buying it off the tp. If you have enough gold to throw at it, you can make it. Could be wrong, but the only legend I remember having a time gate was like....astralaria? I wanna say? One of the collection legends I made did but the new legends don't have collections.

Edit: unless you count things like HoT metas as a time gate for the currency. I dont really, but there's a point to be made there.

[Kidel.2057]

You can't really compare a Legendary item and the Skyscale.

A legendary armor/weapon/accessory is the best gear you can have, forever, with the possibility of swapping stats and upgrades. They are the equivalent of 20+ ascended sets. Not to mention that the PvE ones look better then most TP skins, if you care about fashion wars.

The skyscale bring nothing new or better to the plate if you already have the other mounts. I'd do a legendary collection to get the skyscale if it was indeed a legendary mount that could be at least better then a free springer.

In comparison the Griffon is much easier to get (I'd argue even less expensive, since you could use the extra time to farm the 100g difference) and FAR more useful. Probably the best mount in the game (and without making the other ones useless).

Again, I'm fine with the skyscale being useless, who cares. I just think that it's not proportionate to its quest.

[LucianDK.8615]

You have to craft all gen2 legendaries yourself as the precursors cannot be bought.

[Kidel.2057]

@LucianDK.8615 said:You have to craft all gen2 legendaries yourself as the precursors cannot be bought.

Are you seriously comparing a legendary weapon to the skyscale? In terms of utility and real value.

[CJtheBigBear.9610]

@Ototo.3214 said:

@CJtheBigBear.9610 said:

I can't think of anything in the legend's crafting that has a time gate without some sort of bypass like buying it off the tp. If you have enough gold to throw at it, you can make it. Could be wrong, but the only legend I remember having a time gate was like....astralaria? I wanna say? One of the collection legends I made did but the new legends don't have collections.

Edit: unless you count things like HoT metas as a time gate for the currency. I dont really, but there's a point to be made there.

Ah, right. Well, assuming they didn't have the gold to buy through it or want to do that, it's a time-gate I suppose. xD

But then you get the same comparison of everyone buying through the lamps and food instead of waiting for the gated crafting, so once again it's a full circle. :joy:

[Aerlen.5326]

@"bOTEB.1573" said:I see all of you are acting like the real problem is the time gate. When in fact the real problem is that you are upset of not getting the "toy" as fast as you want because you want it sooooo bad.There are time gates all over Tyria, let's remove all of them? After all you all said that time gating is bad design.If ANET remove this time gate, I want the WvW time gate to be removed too, the PvP too, the HoT meta events rewards too, the eaters too, the crafting too and anything else. After all, it is what you want, righ? Remove the time gate, coz it is a bad design, right guys?

Did you even read what I wrote?

Timegate? Annoying but that's all it is. Managable so long as the entire quest can be soloed at one's own pace.

The problem? Collections that cannot be soloed in a game where the playerbase moves on quickly and can make some collections near impossible to complete - IE once the people really excited for this mount who started at Day One are done with the entire collection chain then good luck getting the non-soloable parts done if you lagged behind or started late. We've seen this with Wayfarer's Henge and Griffon already.

The bad design? Relying on the completion of any content that takes a large group or an entire map to fetch a single item, especially if it's multiple events or a meta.

Removing the timegate won't fix that.

[LucianDK.8615]

@Aerlen.5326 said:

@"bOTEB.1573" said:I see all of you are acting like the real problem is the time gate. When in fact the real problem is that you are upset of not getting the "toy" as fast as you want because you want it sooooo bad.There are time gates all over Tyria, let's remove all of them? After all you all said that time gating is bad design.If ANET remove this time gate, I want the WvW time gate to be removed too, the PvP too, the HoT meta events rewards too, the eaters too, the crafting too and anything else. After all, it is what you want, righ? Remove the time gate, coz it is a bad design, right guys?

Did you even read what I wrote?

Timegate? Annoying but that's all it is. Managable so long as the entire quest can be soloed at one's own pace.

The problem? Collections that cannot be soloed in a game where the playerbase moves on quickly and can make some collections near impossible to complete - IE once the people really excited for this mount who started at Day One are done with the entire collection chain then good luck getting the non-soloable parts done if you lagged behind or started late. We've seen this with Wayfarer's Henge and Griffon already.

The bad design? Relying on the completion of any content that takes a large group or an entire map to fetch a single item, especially if it's multiple events or a meta.

Removing the timegate won't fix that.

Utter hyperbole. I finished wayfarers henge not long ago with ease. All it took was calling out the bosses with a com tag and people came flocking. And I had plenty for killing the big legendaries at the bottom. Draconis Mons is still full of players.

And I know of plenty whom is working on the gryph and its easy to get people to join events as long you announce it and have a tag to let them see where you are. com or mentor.

[Kidel.2057]

@Aerlen.5326 said:

@"bOTEB.1573" said:I see all of you are acting like the real problem is the time gate. When in fact the real problem is that you are upset of not getting the "toy" as fast as you want because you want it sooooo bad.There are time gates all over Tyria, let's remove all of them? After all you all said that time gating is bad design.If ANET remove this time gate, I want the WvW time gate to be removed too, the PvP too, the HoT meta events rewards too, the eaters too, the crafting too and anything else. After all, it is what you want, righ? Remove the time gate, coz it is a bad design, right guys?

Did you even read what I wrote?

Timegate? Annoying but that's all it is. Managable so long as the entire quest can be soloed at one's own pace.

The problem? Collections that cannot be soloed in a game where the playerbase moves on quickly and can make some collections near impossible to complete - IE once the people really excited for this mount who started at Day One are done with the entire collection chain then good luck getting the non-soloable parts done if you lagged behind or started late. We've seen this with Wayfarer's Henge and Griffon already.

The bad design? Relying on the completion of any content that takes a large group or an entire map to fetch a single item, especially if it's multiple events or a meta.

Removing the timegate won't fix that.

If you're having trouble getting the skyscale 1 year from now, simply ask your guild to help you defeat a champion, or put a mentor tag. No biggie. The only part that requires other players is the doppleganger fight. You don't even need other people to complete the quests in dragon falls.

Also I'm against timegate and the skyscale gameplay, but pretending a MMORPG to design more solo content is nonsense to me.

Being "forced" to play with others is NOT the issue here. I'm pretty sure you're the only one lamenting that.The problem here is having to wait 4 real-life days to feed the skyscale 4 times and having to spend 12+ hours and 150g for a useless mount.

And we don't even know the final step yet. It could ask you to use SKIRMISH TICKETS for what we know.

[Kidel.2057]

The solution is simple: make the skyscale great again (?) and change the time gate to actual in-game time instead of daily reset.

Also merging the first 3 collections so that you can do them in parallel may be a good idea.

[Neeja.4579]

@Kidel.2057 said:The solution is simple: make the skyscale great again (?) and change the time gate to actual in-game time instead of daily reset.

Also merging the first 3 collections so that you can do them in parallel may be a good idea.

This, this, this. 1000 times this. Please upvote this.

[Vision.7265]

I would like to take a step back and look at PVE mounts (not Warclaw) since the release of POF for comparison's sake looking at the cost, reward, and overall practicality of each mount.

All mounts require the collection of mastery points so I won't go into that. So for one thing, nothing mount-related is free: PoF must be purchased so there is a minimum monetary cost to be a part of the mount riding population. After doing a little story, you get the raptor, a basic mount that can canyon jump after leveling it up. Cheapest one, minimal cost. Not a mount I use all the time from a practical standpoint nor for fun at least for me. Worth it? Yes. Need it to get bunny.

Bunny, by far, is the most practical mount: I use it for collections to the present day. It gamebreaks the previous expansion and even enables you to skip and shortcut around some core game PVE content. Cost? Leveling up Raptor and one heart. Total steal.

Skimmer and Jackal similarly just need the previous mounts leveled up and one heart mission completed. However, I would argue that both of these mounts were gimmicky and only useful in maps that used their specific abilities so they were purely PoF mounts. You can use them elsewhere but they're not as gamebreaking as the bunny.

Beetle for me is the most detailed in gameplay design since you can drive it grip or drift and it completely changed the experience of the game itself. I tip my hat to the beetle design team because they brought back racing and Tony Hawk into one mount. Racing was implemented throughout the game just for this mount. I just go into my own world hopping ramps and drifting circles around the Crimson Wurm area of Bloodtide coast before TT for the pure pleasure of it. It is not a practical mount and has it's own gimmicky wall break barriers in PoF but it has all the fun factor points above all mounts at least for me. It's the only mount that immerses me in this game. Cost was the completion of some story and three sets of collections. It was worth it.

Griffon, I would argue, had a fair cost at 250 gold and a series of collections which were quite enjoyable. Nothing matches bunny in terms of bang for buck, however. The Griffon was a game breaking mount that made you rule the skies anywhere. It has an excellent fun factor and like the beetle, it lets you re-experience the world in a new way. The bunny still beats it out in terms of vertical ascent since advancing upwards from the ground up a mountain is not griffon specialty, air speed dominance is. Griffon is fun but not as frugal in terms of cost. With the griffon, you truly get what you pay for.

So what is the Skyscale in this spectrum of mounts? I like that it can hover and can stick to walls; if anything, it's unique. However, it has the highest cost of all mounts in terms of time, collections, and mats (I don't know the exact mat cost because I only just hatched my baby skyscale Suction Cup). Is it the most game breaking and most practical and most fun of all mounts? No. If it requires the most effort, it should be the best mount hands down, no question, even replacing something of the previous mounts since it is the largest time investment and collection investment. I've used the temporary one and was not impressed. I primarily used my bunny and griffon, which is a testament to their practicality, for collections and could only find one mastery point and one story point to justify a mid-air helicopter hover trademarked by the skyscale.

I can't say about the future but this skyscale is too gimmicky and not as practical as bunny or griffon to the game itself to justify a cost in time and collection that is greater than all mounts in the game so far. If this is a legendary mount with a legendary level of cost over all other mounts, it should have a legendary gameplay experience, and it plainly does not. There will be no races on this thing like they introduced for the beetle because it is too slow and doesn't even hold a candle to griffon.

This is the biggest miss of all the mounts because what you put into it doesn't give you something better than the mounts you already have. I will get the mount, but I'll be honest: I'm only doing it to use mastery points I saved up for it. The low value of the mount for the game in terms of practicality/fun and what you have to do to get it is absurd; It does not justify it. I only see it being used as an afk hovermount, nothing more.

[Rukario.1695]

I'd have to agree that the collection is fine as-is. It's so far very solo-manageable. Did Griffon on my own and I'm also doing this on my own, with the exception of the Doppleganger. If you have problems with that part then you just need to Mentor up and call out the pre-event; people will come, even if they do not you can get guild help. I'm not a big guild person but I'm in a few just for these instances, there is nothing wrong with that. You can do the Djinn part without fighting the champions, it simply doesn't state that in the flavor text of the achievement hint.

To specify, no I do not agree with the time-gates. Only the collection is fine thus far.

@XYLO.7031 - Please use paragraphs. :/

[Kidel.2057]

@"XYLO.7031" said:I would like to take a step back and look at PVE mounts (not Warclaw) since the release of POF for comparison's sake looking at the cost, reward, and overall practicality of each mount. All mounts require the collection of mastery points so I won't go into that. So for one thing, nothing mount-related is free: PoF must be purchased so there is a minimum monetary cost to be a part of the mount riding population. After doing a little story, you get the raptor, a basic mount that can canyon jump after leveling it up. Cheapest one, minimal cost. Not a mount I use all the time from a practical standpoint nor for fun at least for me. Worth it? Yes. Need it to get bunny. Bunny, by far, is the most practical mount: I use it for collections to the present day. It gamebreaks the previous expansion and even enables you to skip and shortcut around some core game PVE content. Cost? Leveling up Raptor and one heart. Total steal. Skimmer and Jackal similarly just need the previous mounts leveled up and one heart mission completed. However, I would argue that both of these mounts were gimmicky and only useful in maps that used their specific abilities so they were purely PoF mounts. You can use them elsewhere but they're not as gamebreaking as the bunny. Beetle for me is the most detailed in gameplay design since you can drive it grip or drift and it completely changed the experience of the game itself. I tip my hat to the beetle design team because they brought back racing and Tony Hawk into one mount. Racing was implemented throughout the game just for this mount. I just go into my own world hopping ramps and drifting circles around the Crimson Wurm area of Bloodtide coast before TT for the pure pleasure of it. It is not a practical mount and has it's own gimmicky wall break barriers in PoF but it has all the fun factor points above all mounts at least for me. It's the only mount that immerses me in this game. Cost was the completion of some story and three sets of collections. It was worth it. Griffon, I would argue, had a fair cost at 250 gold and a series of collections which were quite enjoyable. Nothing matches bunny in terms of bang for buck, however. Like bunny, Griffon was a game breaking mount that made you rule the skies anywhere. It has an excellent fun factor and like the beetle, it lets you re-experience the world in a new way. The bunny still beats it out in terms of practicality since advancing upwards from the ground up a mountain is not griffon specialty, air speed dominance is. Griffon is fun but not as practical. So what is the Skyscale in this spectrum of mounts? I like that it can hover and can stick to walls; if anything, it's unique. However, it has the highest cost of all mounts in terms of time, collections, and mats (I don't know the exact mat cost because I only just hatched my baby skyscale Suction Cup). Is it the most game breaking and most practical and most fun of all mounts? No. If it requires the most effort, it should be the best mount hands down, no question, even replacing something of the previous mounts since it is the largest time investment and collection investment. I've used the temporary one and was not impressed. I primarily used my bunny and griffon, which is a testament to their practicality, for collections and could only find one mastery point and one story point to justify a mid-air helicopter hover trademarked by the skyscale. I can't say about the future but this skyscale is too gimmicky and not as practical as bunny or griffon to the game itself to justify a cost in time and collection that is greater than all mounts in the game so far. If this is a legendary mount with a legendary level of cost over all other mounts, it should have a legendary gameplay experience and it plainly does not. This is the biggest miss of all the mounts because what you put into it doesn't give you something better than the mounts you already have. I will get the mount by next month, earliest, but I'll be honest: I'm only doing it to use mastery points I saved up for it. The low value of the mount for the game in terms of practicality/fun and what you have to do to get it is absurd; It does not justify it. I only see it being used as an afk hovermount, nothing more.

A very good analysis of the same concept I've been repeating for 3 pages now. Thumbs up, thanks for the great recap on the mount cost/gain.

"afk hovermount" is my new favourite description.

I just don't agree on the Griffon, that I generally use more compared to springer since I don't like to swap mount all the time. The Gryppon can usually gain enough altitude, while being able to fly horizontally. Of course it's generally more usefun in the expansion maps to move from a high part to another one.It's also often the second fastest mount if you have enough space to dive.

And we can all agree it's among the 2 funniest mounts to use.

[Boogiepop Void.6473]

The timegate is not really the most egregious part of all this. It's the Day 1 collections. 3 collections that involve 20+ items spread across the map with many in near identical locations is long, tedious, and not at all fun, and rather then making you explore the map. it just makes you sick of it by the end. A single collection would have been fine, but this huge stacked and repetitive collections are tedious and boring.

[Kidel.2057]

@Boogiepop Void.6473 said:The timegate is not really the most egregious part of all this. It's the Day 1 collections. 3 collections that involve 20+ items spread across the map with many in near identical locations is long, tedious, and not at all fun, and rather then making you explore the map. it just makes you sick of it by the end. A single collection would have been fine, but this huge stacked and repetitive collections are tedious and boring.

Agreed, 2 were already 1 too much. By the time that the first egg pops right under the first Sick Skyscale location you're already questioning your life choices.

Could have been 3 collections that you could do in parallel. I mean, I can live with getting 50+ items if I don't have to go to the same locations 3 times.