[merged] About the Skyscale Timegate...

[Urgi.3504]

If players spent as much time gathering the map currencies as they did complaining, they would have it unlocked already. I really have to wonder, if it is really that hard to get why are the sky's filled with them already?

Maybe that part of the game isn't fun, and people aren't going to spend their time on something that isn't fun. Games are made to be fun, not a chore. Especially for a simple thing as a saddle. This leather saddle is harder to get than jet engine star wars one for the rolling beetle.

[Moona.6327]

Its going to take me twelve weeks to farm 250x of each living world currency for the saddle portion, I work 50 hours a week, plus have two kids, its just not tenable for me to complete this portion in a decent amount of time. Couple more months before i'm able to even think about getting the Skyscale.

[eldrin.6471]

Overblown collections and grind is were the games at now.but as long as the grind is horizontal and not vertical its fine. Apparently the direction makes a big difference.

[Greymelken.1892]

As long as people voice their opinion about how OKAY this grind was, grinds like this will continue, and escalate into even longer and more tedious, thoughtless, and tasteless grinds.

In all these years since launch playing GW2 I have never found it harder to get the motivation to log in each day and face this tedious grind for this essential quality of life improvement. And it is essential, as long as anyone that has it while I do not enjoys an advantage with it. I have never played so many other games as I have since I realized how boring and tedious this grind is. I have never went this long not spending money on GW2 as I have since this grind has cast its dark clouds on my experience. Now, every single problem with the game is amplified, and I am beginning to wonder how much I really like GW2. This skyscale collection garbage has at least given me that perspective. I'm just one person, but if there are more like me who have closed their wallets and migrated to other games, and fewer people supporting this collection with dismissive posts, maybe we wont suffer collections like this in the future and we can actually play the game for the sake of playing the game.

[Josiah.2967]

I think I figured out why the Skyscale mount sums up what's wrong with the games current direction.

As a new player, I was convinced this is a CO-OP/help each other MMO. It was designed to be that way. As an example, mining nodes are shared with everyone. Instead of getting frustrated when you see someone hitting a node, you get excited because you can get it too. Same goes for group events. I was told this game was designed to be fun and not super grindy.

Que the Skyscale Mount.

This is a casual item behind unnecessary collections/grinding/time gating.

The clearest example of what's wrong with the game is the saddle. As a new player I only have one 80 that I really enjoy playing. Let's say you have only one level 80 the grind for the mats and you are a new player. To get 250 of each zone will take a long time. It will take you way longer than the hardcore players with 8, 80s.

That brings me to the biggest problem I have with this mount.The newer content (specifically this mount) shifted the fun shared nature of this game into a selfish mentality. You now have people running in front of you to kill things, clean things, squish things. Even mobs die to fast for you to tag them. If someone squishes say a rat right in front of you, then it's gone and you have to search for another.... "Frustrating".

The latest collections have turned the feeling of the game from the help each other MMO I was enjoying to the selfish steel kills/objective mentality I wanted to avoid.

On top of that, nobody else in the guild would want to do it a second time.... That says something. Now that they are done, they want to forget it.

Last you have the silly time gating that impacts some players an extreme amount more than others. There is no reason why a player with one 80 should be at an extreme disadvantage with something like the heart collection. All this mount did was fail to slow down the hardcore players, while adding an unnecessary long time-gate to the new players. This has caused me, my friend who joined with me, and my fiance to be frustrated with the game. All new players, all have the same outcome. If you want to make it slower for everyone, make it slow for everyone. Make it so you can only get a certain amount of items per account per day. Also make it so you can only start gathering the item when the thing is released.

I hope this is not a sign of where the game is going.

[minifost.5468]

I agree. I came here simply to say if there is another collection like this that revolves around a key item in the game such as a mount, where everything seems to be implemented ONLY to slow you down and piss you off, then I will definitely not be returning to Tyria. This is poor, lazy 'content' if you can call old farming an RNG currency content; and a damn kick in the balls to players.

[Obtena.7952]

@Josiah.2967 said:

@ShiningSquirrel.3751 said:People ranted and raved about the timegate, being forced to craft the crystals, damask, etc. It went on and on for weeks

@ShiningSquirrel.3751 said:While this collection was not "fun"

@ShiningSquirrel.3751 said:Most of the older players should have had stacks saved up already

@ShiningSquirrel.3751 said:Jumping puzzles? Yeah I hate them

Even the supporters (that already have the mount) are summing up what is wrong with this collection.

Slow Clap

Those aren't things that are wrong, it's just things they don't like.

[Buschkatze.8036]

@"Minax.3284" said:The way the Skyscale Collection was handled has me very worried for future content. If I wanted long grinds behind a boatload of RNG as well as a bunch of daily crafts and harvests I'd be playing other games instead of Guild Wars - This sort of grind has never been a cornerstone of Guild Wars 2 and I really hope this isn't suggestive of how future content will be handled. Why is this mount, which supposedly was designed to (unlike the griffon) not be a "prestige" mount and be accessible to "all" players (as long as they own PoF and all of LS4) more of a grind and headache than the mount that actually was supposed to be a sort of "prestige" mount?

I don't mind collections. In fact, doing collections is one of my favourite activities in Guild Wars, because they're usually fun and somewhat engaging and take you to a lot of different places. But the Sksycale ones are absurd. Where is the fun in making us tour the same map three times in a row? Some locations for the first three collections were even almost next to each other.

Nevermind the fact that we'll also be grinding mobs in Vabbi for up to 30 minutes each to get the djinn to spawn (and hope nobody who is unaware of the Skyscale collection talks to them or else they become hostile and you get to start over); we have to get frozen (with the only two real options being to go to Claw of Jormag and hope that one of his spawned mobs will randomly freeze you, or buy a specific LS3 episode); we have to get a certain event to spawn in Vabbi that shares spawns with other events and is completely random; we'll be grinding every single LS4 map for currencies; leveling up a profession skill; farm 250 quartz crystals from once-per-day mining nodes and converting them once-per-day into their charged versions -- or spend a bunch of gold bypassing the last two steps. Then we get to farm a boatload of mobs which will randomly drop skyscale treats; do some jumping puzzles to catch our skyscale rascals (or spend gold to bypass this step); craft skyscale food (which again uses once-per-day materials) or bypass this with gold as well. And the list goes on. I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels that this is absolutely mindless, unengaging, unfun content that is meant to be busy-work instead of something interesting to do.

On a different note: Why time-gate some things, and then pseudo time-gate other things that you can bypass with gold? Either you want to time-gate content to keep players busy longer (in which case none of these steps should be bypassable), or you want to push players to buy gems (in which case all the time-gates should be bypassable if you're willing to spend enough money).

To me, it feels like with the loss of such a huge amount of their dev team, they are scrambling to keep players busy (not engaged, busy.) with easy-to-make, low-cost content, excessive amounts of time-gating and a low-key push to get people to buy and convert gems to bypass some time-gated steps; and the thought of eventual future content updates being handled in a similar way is not encouraging at all. If this is the direction the game is progressing, I don't know if I want to keep engaging with it.

100times thumbs up!!!!!!!

[Ygdrasill.9135]

The 250 of each Currency looks a lot more daunting at the start of things than once you actually start doing it. One character grinding each of the heart quests in each of the areas needed could get enough in under 2 weeks. I did it with three characters and ground two per day plus gathering motes and it took me like 4 days, mostly during the growing up process. I also had to take time to gain karma a few times so I could buy the currencies at the vendor. Investing in level 3 karmic retribution in Kourna (though it could have been in any of the areas) made that pretty easy though.

I think the collections could have had about half as many in each and still gotten the same storyline across while being far less grindy. As it was, there was no story immersion at all, it was simply going down the list for each collection on the wiki or other guide, and checking them off. The last one (Learning to Fly) was especially pointless. I already knew how to fly the mount. I'd done enough of it in Dragonfall collecting motes and orbs after all. I guess to be fair that was second to the last since the final unlock was getting all the masteries. I'm very glad I didn't use my insights up on the Roller Beetle so all I had to do was grind some experience. That was about a day of playing.

So I have the mount and am very glad I have the mount. I don't want to do anything like what it took to get the mount for a good long time though.

[MDove.2391]

Josiah.2967 said:

1. As a new player, I was convinced this is a CO-OP/help each other MMO.It was designed to be that way. As an example, mining nodes are shared with everyone.Instead of getting frustrated when you see someone hitting a node,you get excited because you can get it too. Same goes for group events.I was told this game was designed to be fun and not super grindy.Que the Skyscale Mount.

2. The newer content (specifically this mount) shifted the fun shared nature of this gameinto a selfish mentality. You now have people running in front of you to kill things,clean things, squish things. Even mobs die to fast for you to tag them.If someone squishes say a rat right in front of you,then it's gone and you have to search for another.... "Frustrating".

3. On top of that, nobody else in the guild would want to do it a second time....That says something.Now that they are done, they want to forget it.

"Sharing & Helping" strikes at the Heart of this Game.I've seen in MapChat too, these statements. ^^

Reading what this Player says, concerns me greatly, as it should.

[DarkForcE.9210]

I don't understand why people want game in easy mode that much...

Otherwise, go premium and get gems converted to gold

[yann.1946]

@Greymelken.1892 said:As long as people voice their opinion about how OKAY this grind was, grinds like this will continue, and escalate into even longer and more tedious, thoughtless, and tasteless grinds.

In all these years since launch playing GW2 I have never found it harder to get the motivation to log in each day and face this tedious grind for this essential quality of life improvement. And it is essential, as long as anyone that has it while I do not enjoys an advantage with it. I have never played so many other games as I have since I realized how boring and tedious this grind is. I have never went this long not spending money on GW2 as I have since this grind has cast its dark clouds on my experience. Now, every single problem with the game is amplified, and I am beginning to wonder how much I really like GW2. This skyscale collection garbage has at least given me that perspective. I'm just one person, but if there are more like me who have closed their wallets and migrated to other games, and fewer people supporting this collection with dismissive posts, maybe we wont suffer collections like this in the future and we can actually play the game for the sake of playing the game.

Have you considered their are people who enjoyed the collection?

[ShiningSquirrel.3751]

@Obtena.7952 said:

@Josiah.2967 said:

@ShiningSquirrel.3751 said:People ranted and raved about the timegate, being forced to craft the crystals, damask, etc. It went on and on for weeks

@ShiningSquirrel.3751 said:While this collection was not "fun"

@ShiningSquirrel.3751 said:Most of the older players should have had stacks saved up already

@ShiningSquirrel.3751 said:Jumping puzzles? Yeah I hate them

Even the supporters (that already have the mount) are summing up what is wrong with this collection.

Slow Clap

Those aren't things that are wrong, it's just things they don't like.

No, they are actually things Josiah.2967 chose to pick and choose out of my post and quote out of context.

[Obtena.7952]

@Greymelken.1892 said:As long as people voice their opinion about how OKAY this grind was, grinds like this will continue, and escalate into even longer and more tedious, thoughtless, and tasteless grinds.

Actually, as long as players can complete content faster than devs can create it ... this kind of content will continue. Has nothing to do with Anet targeting tedious, thoughtless and tasteless ways to give you grind content (whatever you think that is) ... that's just ignorant to think that.

[Stephane Lo Presti.7258]

Hi!

After talking to the development team, we would like to wrap this feedback thread about the Skyscale acquisition methods. We’ve watched players continue acquiring their Skyscale and we are happy with the adjustments that we made, including readjusting the time gating and addressing a few specific blocking issues. As we said in the original forum announcement, we wanted the progression to rival that of the Griffon in terms of prestige and deliver a story that will bind you to your new mount.

Note that with yesterday’s Dragon Bash festival, we also introduced a way to get the Living World Season 4 currencies that are required for the Riding Scales achievement. Talk to the Dragon Bash Merchant [Weekly] in Hoelbrak during the festival for more details!

Thank you everyone for your feedback and for your support.