[merged] About the Skyscale Timegate...

[JustTrogdor.7892]

As I said before I'm mostly neutral about the time gate issue. I have enjoyed the collections aside from a few. Saving Skycales was enjoyable going to various places I never paid much attention to during PoF and while doing map completion stuff. I even had to do the first part of 2 living world episodes to get to the maps because I never cared enough about the story or going to those maps to do them.

I finished that up yesterday and hit the feeding time gate wall. I'm not too bothered by it. However once you collect all the treats and toys the engaging content stops there. Now it's 3 more days of just going to Sun's Refuge and feeding it and doing nothing else related to the collection. So I don't think that part of the time gate really encourages more game play, exploring or whatever. It's basically just an added daily for a few days. I think it would have been more engaging and it would make the time gate slightly less pointless if each of the feeding days you had to do a mini, fairly quick collection around Tyria to get a specific food for that day. Instead you just craft/buy it, port to SR feed it and nothing else related to do.

I understand that part of the story is raising a Sky Scale so it makes sense that it takes time to grow. However, since they didn't add anything else to do but feed it for 3 more days I think it would have made more sense to base it on an in game timer instead of real life reset. Time moves much, much faster in game anyway. So maybe twice a day would have been less of an issue. Of course there are a lot of people that can't log in twice a day. So that would still anger some. Anyway I not stressing over it. I'll do my daily feeding and hopefully there will be something more engaging related to the collection to do on Tuesday.

I don't know if ANet is going to change any part of the collection based on complaints. I don't see them changing the parts people have gotten to so far. By Monday many people will be past the feeding time gate. If they change that part a whole slew of people that waited it out will be complaining that they had to wait and others don't. Of course that can easily be ignored if they think it is better for the majority of the community and can be explained by stating that is what a large group of people were asking for. If they change or changed anything based on complaints perhaps it is later parts of the collection people have not unlocked yet. I guess we will see.

Lastly, this is starting to look like one of those achievements that is going to be much harder for people just starting it a few months down the road. Once the initial rush is over with I think there are a few places in the collection that benefit from groups that won't get as much attention. Of course that is always solvable by working with a guild or finding others in LFG. But it is much easier right now with everyone doing it.

[Thundabolt.8541]

@Kidel.2057 said:

@Cerioth.7062 said:

@Thundabolt.8541 said:Another thing I feel is necessary to mention is that PoF had rentable griffons in all PoF maps.

Skyscale is only rentable in Dragonfall.

Well, that makes sense lore wise. It's a new species.

It's also probably tied to the mists.

Yes, but the griffons were otherwise invisible until after the collection was started.

[Jaffawer.4932]

@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.

Indeed... I'd love to do all this with Skyscale. Now I have to go through all this timegate in order to unlock it and what then? Grind XP to unlock the masteries for it and then have nothing to do in the game once again. Super glad I'll have the new mount and no things to do.

[Kidel.2057]

I prefer mounts such as Griffon and Skyscale to keep a bit of exclusivity.

The fact is that only the Griffon is worthwhile

[MetalGirl.2370]

Why don't you just let people do things at their own pace ?I enjoy the game more if I can just sit for hours and hours and do achievements and story than, just as I get into it, you hit me with a timegate...It's like a phone game now..... click,click,click... "oh sorry, you're out of moves, come back tomorrow for more!" ... seriously ... this is an MMO ... I understand you timegating some crafting because it could ruin the market, but what is the point in timegating the achievements ? You're literally just ruining fun for the people ...

ANDDDD.... above all ... a lot of the items required for collections are high up. So basically ..... I'm going to be doing all that with Skyscales I find around, my griffon, bunny and other mounts... and literally just as I finish those, you will reward me with a Skyscale, well what for? All I needed it for is done and it's now useless and slow. Plus, I had my "Skyscale hype" fed just by using the ones around the map. So not only do you give me it once all I needed it for is done but you also give me it once I'm absolutely bored of it. When I finally get it, the reaction is going to be "Pft, about time" rather than being excited about it. That is not something you should do when you want to have players play the game. Also it's kind of counter productive, if you want people to play then why do you timegate the thing, surely you'd just ... I don't know... let people play ?

I finished the story in just a bit over an hour, I only now need kills and metas in map for achievement (not counting timegated collections), so instead of adding actual things to do in the game, you add timegated achievements to keep people returning. You know people would be done with everything in just about 2-3 days, so you purposely put timegate in order to make people have to come back. Just like for Thunderhead Peaks, you added a huge grind because you know there is nothing else to it.

And for all of you people, before you tell me - "no one is making you do it."- Understand there are AP hunters (such as myself) and I have to have it all done.

[Kidel.2057]

It's not like there won't be more content in the future. I'm sure we will be able to use this mount for years

The fact remains that if the Skyscale is useless, we won't enjoy ot anyway. And the collection will just be completed by us completionists or people that really want to show off.

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

honestly? eliminate items that can only be acquired by timegate...eliminate the charged crystal requirements and make them regular quartz crystals or allow us to charge quartz crystals without a limit to the cap. this way, anyone can help other people with their skyscale...also make a food collection for the skyscale that doesnt require 3/4 days but rather special ingrediants to halt the issue the parent skyscales were having.

[Jaffawer.4932]

Is it true that you need charged quartz for this collection as well? Like.. what the hell Anet. Whats up with using this damn dead resource from season 1? Correct me if I am wrong but the only way to get this junk is through mining the resource node in your home instance (and map bonus reward one per week maybe?)... you need 25 per day to charge a single quartz... what the hell.

Edit: Do you guys need a tip how to fix this? Give us the mount right away, or after the first part of the collection and then use the other collections to unlock Skyscale's masteries. This way people can explore and collect all the stuff (without the charged quartz part) while enjoying the new mount.

[LucianDK.8615]

@Jaffawer.4932 said:Is it true that you need charged quartz for this collection as well? Like.. what the hell Anet. Whats up with using this kitten dead resource from season 1? Correct me if I am wrong but the only way to get this junk is through mining the resource node in your home instance (and map bonus reward one per week maybe?)... you need 25 per day to charge a single quartz... what the hell.

And you already have an alternative, buy the finished products on TP from those able to make it. Skyscale food and a grow lamp.

[Vision.7265]

@Faaris.8013 said:But what all this for? A dragon mount that cannot even fly and has no advantage over other mounts in combination. Unless there is some surprise that makes it a flying mount, I will prefer the griffon. And all the stuff that we do for the Skyscale is a bit overkill for a mediocre item. I did Aurora and think it was worth it. So far, I don't think the Skyscale is worth the effort.

In other News: Suicide rates in Divinity's Reach are exploding.

I agree.

The DR suicides are Dwayna's REAL agenda. She actually wants a blood sacrifice. Kek. Elizabeth Bathory is her Champion.

[LucianDK.8615]

@XYLO.7031 said:

@Faaris.8013 said:But what all this for? A dragon mount that cannot even fly and has no advantage over other mounts in combination. Unless there is some surprise that makes it a flying mount, I will prefer the griffon. And all the stuff that we do for the Skyscale is a bit overkill for a mediocre item. I did Aurora and think it was worth it. So far, I don't think the Skyscale is worth the effort.

In other News: Suicide rates in Divinity's Reach are exploding.

I agree.

The DR suicides are Dwayna's REAL agenda. She actually wants a blood sacrifice. Kek. Elizabeth Bathory is her Champion.

We were never meant to get unrestricted flying like WoW have it, as it would be bad for the game. And even in WoW the devs regrets adding it. Though they acted far too late in trying to regulate it and faced a major QQstorm when Warlords of Draenor at first wouldnt have flying at all. Then retreating and adding the pathfinder achs instead.And the Skyscale was never meant to replace the gryphon. But offering a situationally different way of moving around, before you might swap to another mount.

I imagine that the skyscale will be able to hop its way up super tall cliffsides that offers no ledges for the Springer to reach, with the third mastery. As the movement niche of the new mount.

[Hellcop.4981]

I won't be doing the Skyscale with the way it is right now. I guess on the plus side it will save me from spending gems on skins in the Gem Store. I also worry if this is going to be the trend for new content. If so, I know I'll be playing less and buying less gems. Other people have said it much better but this design choice is very bad in my opinion and definitely does not make me want to keep playing. If you find it fun, hey that is great! Go play and enjoy! Maybe it's time for the rest of us to look at other games?

[Cragga the Eighty Third.60]

@Jaffawer.4932 said:Correct me if I am wrong but the only way to get this junk is through mining the resource node in your home instance (and map bonus reward one per week >maybe?)... you need 25 per day to charge a single quartz... what the hell.

You can mine 19 in Dry Top daily (if you hit the rich node in Cragrock Palace, requires a Tier 4 map) and from 6-13 in Crystal Oasis. (The wiki isn't totally clear, but it sounds like there are either 2or 3 regular nodes and occasionally instead, a rich node plus one regular node.)

[Rukario.1695]

Honestly this thread is about Time-gating the Skyscale collections, not about what mounts are better than other mounts. That should be saved for another thread.

[CJtheBigBear.9610]

@Rukario.1695 said:Honestly this thread is about Time-gating, not about what mounts are better than other mounts. That should be saved for another thread.

Yeah, was about to say. Please keep on topic.

I get that the whole point of the conversation was to explain that the Skyscale wasn't enough of an upgrade to justify the time-gates, but it got a little derailed there.

So we can leave it at this; though sometimes very situational, all mounts have their place, and the Skyscale will too.

[LucianDK.8615]

Agreed, no more of the best mount discussion.I am quite curious to see the next collections. And if they have new stuff that needs to be crafted. It certainly will pay off to check the reddit thread come Monday, where the quickest will be able to see the next collection.I have to wait to tuesday to reach that spot.

[Rukario.1695]

There has been some information in regards for what to expect in the next collections.

Whereas it doesn't look horrible, it's questionable if we're going to require more time-restricted materials for anything such as the Saddle and other.

[Evil.1580]

Love the fact that this mount will be more uncommon than the Griffon.

[Rukario.1695]

@"bOTEB.1573" said:Love the fact that this mount will be more uncommon than the Griffon.

Exclusivity derived by overly meticulous requirements (which do not fair equally for all users,) is not something to strive for.

Additionally, exclusivity on something that is always available will be very temporary at best.

Do you see Griffons now? That will be Skyscales at some point.

It isn't a bad thing, but you shouldn't judge its worth on its temporarily less-common nature.

[Cragga the Eighty Third.60]

@Rukario.1695 said:There has been some datamined information in regards for what to expect in the next collections.Who knows what it really entails.

Maybe we have to teach it to fly. :)

[Kidel.2057]

@"bOTEB.1573" said:Love the fact that this mount will be more uncommon than the Griffon.

The Griffon is probably the best mount in the game. It has to be exclusive.

[Solion.9658]

@Rukario.1695 said:There has been some datamined information in regards for what to expect in the next collections.

I just got a warning and had my posts pulled for talking about datamined stuff, you may want to pull this

[Rukario.1695]

@Solion.9658 said:

@Rukario.1695 said:There has been some datamined information in regards for what to expect in the next collections.

I just got a warning and had my posts pulled for talking about datamined stuff, you may want to pull this

Alright, thanks.

[hostileskeleton.7364]

So to start I'd like to say that my opinion has changed a lot over the course of doing the skyscale collection. At first I thought it was pretty dumb to have us do so much collecting, even going back to places we've already been in Dragonfall to collect something that wasn't there when we ran through 30 mins prior. I still kind of hold this opinion but moving on to the egg/concentration of magic achieve, I was initially pretty deflated. I had foolishly thought that the collection ended after we collected all the eggs in Df and more unending collection achievements left me pretty bitter. I almost quit on the game after I saw the workload but I still love it and care about the story too much to let a simple collection chain beat me. I am happy to say I actually really enjoyed jumping back into old maps all over Tyria, felt really good to see maps populated again and everyone unified by a common goal. The collections themselves are also pretty lore heavy in that the majority of them take you back to old locations and npcs that have played large parts in the story. I really loved the Courage egg collection as it makes you consider how much you have really done in this game and does make me feel that they are trying to establish a bond with this creature. My real biggest complaint right now is that in this collection, that may I say is loved just as much as it is hated, there is an impassible bug on the Fear egg collection. If you've been to Vabbi you already know what I'm talking about. I can only imagine this is a pretty serious bug if they haven't fixed it yet (I know nothing of video game coding so take my opinion for what it is) especially in a time that Anet is unfortunately under a microscope because of the timegating issue(doesn't bug me so much anymore now that I've seen what its done to the maps). I'm stuck at the end of the Fear egg collection and I pray they get it fixed before reset so that I don't lose a day. My opinion overall may change when I see the next collection but right now, I'm having a lot of fun. It's nice to see people talking in the old maps again even if it's just to complain about Anet. My only hope going forward(aside from them fixing the Fear collection) is that they really drive the Skyscale home as a legendary mount. With the money and time invested it definitely feels like it but I want this thing to absolutely knock my socks off when I max it out. Base skyscale does feel heavily nerfed but I'm hoping it gets better. I also hope they actually provide more lore than the other mounts. I'd like to think that since we did exposed the eggs to elemental magic eventually some legendary skyscales will be what we use to replace the elder dragons in the end. (I'M ALSO DYING TO SEE MORE SKYSCALE MOBILITY MAPS. I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR A FULL-ON FLOATING ISLAND TYPE MAP AND THE SCALES WOULD BE PERFECT FOR THAT.)

[inaho.2046]

@"hostileskeleton.7364" said:So to start I'd like to say that my opinion has changed a lot over the course of doing the skyscale collection. At first I thought it was pretty dumb to have us do so much collecting, even going back to places we've already been in Dragonfall to collect something that wasn't there when we ran through 30 mins prior. I still kind of hold this opinion but moving on to the egg/concentration of magic achieve, I was initially pretty deflated. I had foolishly thought that the collection ended after we collected all the eggs in Df and more unending collection achievements left me pretty bitter. I almost quit on the game after I saw the workload but I still love it and care about the story too much to let a simple collection chain beat me. I am happy to say I actually really enjoyed jumping back into old maps all over Tyria, felt really good to see maps populated again and everyone unified by a common goal. The collections themselves are also pretty lore heavy in that the majority of them take you back to old locations and npcs that have played large parts in the story. I really loved the Courage egg collection as it makes you consider how much you have really done in this game and does make me feel that they are trying to establish a bond with this creature. My real biggest complaint right now is that in this collection, that may I say is loved just as much as it is hated, there is an impassible bug on the Fear egg collection. If you've been to Vabbi you already know what I'm talking about. I can only imagine this is a pretty serious bug if they haven't fixed it yet (I know nothing of video game coding so take my opinion for what it is) especially in a time that Anet is unfortunately under a microscope because of the timegating issue(doesn't bug me so much anymore now that I've seen what its done to the maps). I'm stuck at the end of the Fear egg collection and I pray they get it fixed before reset so that I don't lose a day. My opinion overall may change when I see the next collection but right now, I'm having a lot of fun. It's nice to see people talking in the old maps again even if it's just to complain about Anet. My only hope going forward(aside from them fixing the Fear collection) is that they really drive the Skyscale home as a legendary mount. With the money and time invested it definitely feels like it but I want this thing to absolutely knock my socks off when I max it out. Base skyscale does feel heavily nerfed but I'm hoping it gets better. I also hope they actually provide more lore than the other mounts. I'd like to think that since we did exposed the eggs to elemental magic eventually some legendary skyscales will be what we use to replace the elder dragons in the end. (I'M ALSO DYING TO SEE MORE SKYSCALE MOBILITY MAPS. I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR A FULL-ON FLOATING ISLAND TYPE MAP AND THE SCALES WOULD BE PERFECT FOR THAT.)

Look up this event "Speak from the lectern to lecture against Joko's brainwashing before the instructor arrives" on the wiki... Then check again whether the fear egg is achievement is bugged. I do think there are some trolls laughing their backsides off for peddling misinformation and costing people days in the timegate. However read the description carefully in the fear eggs clue and read the wiki for that event and I think something will click. It threw me for a loop too, initially.