Skyscale mount mechanics (not about timegate)

[Kidel.2057]

@LucianDK.8615 said:Sounds like people here is trying to make the skyscale a replacement for the griffon, which its not. Its just a situational mount. From my experiences and what I understand of the mechanics, it will mainly be useful for ascending flat horizontal surfaces that is far too high for the springer to jump.

It doesn't have to replace the Griffon lol. It just doesn't have to suck.I'd be fine with it replacing at least the Springer however, so that the rabbit can be the fast clinb, but the dragon can be at least on par (if not superior) in climbing potential.

And it should be at least a replacement for gliding. I think we can all agree on that. At the moment it's inferior to both gliding and the Springer, especially including all the masteries (such as stealth and updraft).

[Xanadrine.4352]

@Tails.9372 said:

@"Kidel.2057" said:I think that would break everything, not only old maps.

Define "break everything". Sure "it sounds bad" to those who are concerned about balance but if you actually think about it you would realise that it wouldn't break anything that isn't already "broken" because of the other mounts. For starters you can only use it in OW PvE maps so it wouldn't break WvW and instanced content. JPs are already engulfed in "no mount zones" so the only thing left to break is map completion, problem is griffon + springer already completely "breaks" this part of the game. Even with unrestricted flight there's nothing left to break here.

I agree it would not break anything. We already have mounts that get us pretty much anywhere. And yeah there is no overworld pvp that people will swoop down and attack other players from the mount, jumping puzzles are restricted but mesmer portal negates them anyway. This new mount is really a bad mount, its far too restrictive and its movements are klutzy and slow. Im not in any hurry to get it, even the warclaw was better i spammed wvw to get that. Im barely doing the collections for this mount. I think people saying it will break the game are not looking at the big picture, griffon+springer broke the game a long time ago. For all the trouble this mount is it should just be able to fly, this antiquated idea that flying will break the game is nonsense. There is nothing to break in the game from flight.

[Bast.7253]

@LucianDK.8615 said:Sounds like people here is trying to make the skyscale a replacement for the griffon, which its not. Its just a situational mount. From my experiences and what I understand of the mechanics, it will mainly be useful for ascending flat horizontal surfaces that is far too high for the springer to jump.

That’s what it seems like it should be, but it isn’t. Springer is still better. Because the Skyscale may be an inch away form the top of something, but even with the pretty much one time use adrenaline jump boost may not make it, and then you’re stuck and having to glide back down to a lower ledge and start over. It’s basically the exact same way the springer functions currently except the springer has the advantage of standing on very narrow corners where as the Skyscale will just stick itself to the first non-horizontal terrain it can find and then you’re stuck.

I also don’t think the current ascend height is really that much of an advantage over the springer.

If you think the masteries will make this mount completely different, just watch the livestream. Even the developer demonstrating the mount gets stuck on a cliff and has to constantly find ways to go back down and start over and that’s with him demonstrating the masteries. Lol

It’s just clunky and arbitrarily restricted to the point of being so niche that it’s main purpose at this time will be the aesthetics of riding a dragon. In terms of actually fitting its own niche the only real niche it has and does well at the moment is that someone can hop on it and hover in the sky away from mob attacks giving the player a safe place to afk. Which honestly isn’t a terrible thing to have, but it deserves more. Especially with the effort involved in obtaining it.

And I don’t think a lot of these opinions will change with masteries unlocked.

I really don’t get the decision to have something cling to a wall and punish it for clinging to a wall by freezing it’s adrenaline gain or bond of vigor, and I really really really don’t understand why you would make a mount that for some reason can cling onto a wall all day long, but not actually climb when it needs to.... especially if any form of gaining adrenaline to use the propelling mastery is essentially shut down during the process.

If it clung to the wall, kept adrenaline gain, and was able to propel its way up an entire cliff without having to glide down to a lower ledge, it would still be so slow at ascending the cliff that it would merely be a slower alternative to the springer and not a replacement.

[Kidel.2057]

Well said. I'd also remark the fact that Skyscale gliding is objectively worse compared to mount-less gliding (maybe with the exception of the dash, but you really want to seve your stamina for wall jump).

[Mewcifer.5198]

About descending: the default keybind to just go down is C

And the "green bar" it's not an energy meter like endurance bars. It is a height indicator. It tells you how close you are to the "ceiling" you currently have. It can't "regenerate" because it is not a resource.Imagine an invisible glass dome appears over you when you start flying. You can fly up a certain height and the more you fly horizontally the slower that height becomes. You can land and reset this dome to a new location, allowing you to fly higher than you might have been able to before by having a higher starting point. The green bar just tells you how much room you have before you hit that dome ceiling.

Some of you may have noticed a bit of your bar turns brown at times. This means you have temporarily gone past the ceiling you were given and will drop back down into the ceiling quickly. This goes along with the red glowing orbs, those orbs give you a temporary boost to your height, allowing you to use them as sort of mini updrafts to climb higher into the air. They also will have your bar turning brown, which means you will drop back down below your ceiling after you are no longer flying into them.

I can't remember if the wall jumps moved the ceiling slightly or just allowed you to get past the ceiling a short ways and I don't feel like going back and rewatching the video where the devs talked about it. It was probably the latter though.

[Kidel.2057]

@"Mewcifer.5198" said:About descending: the default keybind to just go down is C

And the "green bar" it's not an energy meter like endurance bars. It is a height indicator. It tells you how close you are to the "ceiling" you currently have. It can't "regenerate" because it is not a resource.Imagine an invisible glass dome appears over you when you start flying. You can fly up a certain height and the more you fly horizontally the slower that height becomes. You can land and reset this dome to a new location, allowing you to fly higher than you might have been able to before by having a higher starting point. The green bar just tells you how much room you have before you hit that dome ceiling.

Some of you may have noticed a bit of your bar turns brown at times. This means you have temporarily gone past the ceiling you were given and will drop back down into the ceiling quickly. This goes along with the red glowing orbs, those orbs give you a temporary boost to your height, allowing you to use them as sort of mini updrafts to climb higher into the air. They also will have your bar turning brown, which means you will drop back down below your ceiling after you are no longer flying into them.

I can't remember if the wall jumps moved the ceiling slightly or just allowed you to get past the ceiling a short ways and I don't feel like going back and rewatching the video where the devs talked about it. It was probably the latter though.

Wall jump doesn't move the red/brown part, but gives you 66% of the green one (that does not override the red one) in exchange for 1 stamina segment.Again, it basically increases the max ceiling a bit (and also increases the red gauge), but doesn't solve any issue. It may be even worse, since if you are unable to land on a ledge with [C] you're going to descend even more (the red part will empty the green one).

[Starfall Leyline.2481]

Oh hay, another thread!

Popping over to this one so I can get out of the time-gate discussion. For what it's worth, I support the concept of this thread and I think the devs need to let go of the idea of making "every mount unique" just a bit. Let the mounts compete, and let people use the ones they're most comfortable with. Changes I'd like to see:

• Higher stamina (that's what I call the "flight juice" bar) to increase the flight ceiling
• Lower horizontal stamina consumption
• Giving the Skyscale an additional endurance bar.
• Glide/Run speed equal to Griffon (if it isn't already - I haven't tested). And to be clear, I'm not referring to the "boosted" glide speed of the Griffon.

In the Livestream they mention freezing all of the endurance and Bond of Vigor so that you couldn't "scale things indefinitely." I somewhat understand that, but I think it's still too limited as is. Giving it a third endurance bar would increase the ability to climb without making it limitless. However, since I'm being nitpicky, the thing that bothers me most about the Skyscale is that fact that any ascension feels like you're fighting to get off the ground. By the time you reach your flight ceiling, you have no stamina left to move around other than gliding down. I love the Skyscale and I still intend on using it a lot, but if those changes were made, that would really solidify the 'worthiness' of the mount for me.

Edit: My 'asks' are quality-of-life changes. If there are bugs with the mount's handling on ledges or branches when trying to land to recover stamina, obviously I'd like those fixed too. I just haven't had too many issues with it myself just yet.

[Kidel.2057]

While I agree with some of your suggestions and the general message, I find that your last suggestion may be a bit too strong.I think that both the Griffon and the Skyscale should be the best in their respective flying fields under every point of view (also because the Griffon requires a collection and a gold sink, unlike the Springer or gliding).

I also think that the Skyscale should be better than a Springer+gliding combo, not a Springer+Griffon combo.

About your second and third suggestion, I'd be happy with just one of them (and maybe happier with both if they manage to balance it).

The first suggestion may be replaced entirely by a better wall clinging mechanism that doesn't require pressing W. My main issue with that is that if you release W you bounce off the wall, so it's impossible to land on small ledges even using C.

[Starfall Leyline.2481]

@Kidel.2057 said:While I agree with some of your suggestions and the general message, I find that your last suggestion may be a bit too strong.I think that both the Griffon and the Skyscale should be the best in their respective flying fields under every point of view (also because the Griffon requires a collection and a gold sink, unlike the Springer or gliding).I also think that the Skyscale should be better than a Springer+gliding combo, not a Springer+Griffon combo.

I'm not sure we're on the same page there. I specifically said I was not referring to the boosted glide speed, just the baseline glide speed of the griffon mount. In my mind, the speed boost and the acrobatics the griffon can perform are what make it special. My recommendation on the speed of the mount is just the normal movement speed without any dashing or diving. If you still feel that's too strong, I'm not sure where we're disagreeing. I see it more as making the mounts an equal base speed, but one has the potential to move much faster, and the other has the ability to scale higher.

About your second and third suggestion, I'd be happy with just one of them (and maybe happier with both if they manage to balance it).The first suggestion may be replaced entirely by a better wall clinging mechanism that doesn't require pressing W. My main issue with that is that if you release W you bounce off the wall, so it's impossible to land on small ledges even using C.

I think I have a different control setup than you do. W for me is the [bond of Life] and C is just normal landing. I'd still like to see the stamina increased for an additional feel of freedom, but if they gave it the ability to land on ledges more easily that could be resolved. My thinking is that with the extra stamina, you could make better use of the wall-cling and jump (and potential extra endurance bar) to reach ledges to use to reset your flight ceiling.

[Kidel.2057]

I'm referring to the default setup, so W is "forward" (as in WASD).You can refer to the movement section here: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Skyscale#Movement.2FControls

[Starfall Leyline.2481]

@"Kidel.2057" said:I'm referring to the default setup, so W is "forward" (as in WASD).You can refer to the movement section here: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Skyscale#Movement.2FControls

Ah, I see. I don't use WASD, I just use the mouse for forward, and I sometimes use X to go backward, so that's just quirks of my own setup. A nice aspect of it is that I can toggle autorun and cling indefinitely without having to push any buttons, heh. Anyway...

I'd still like to see the baseline speed made equal with that of the griffon on ground and glide. However, if that wasn't equal, then an alternative would be giving the Skyscale more HP to make it more survivable against mob shots, since it can't as easily avoid them. And it would make sense anyway since it's a heftier creature than the griffon to begin with.

[Kumouta.4985]

i like how it is right now. A superb version of the springer, that can go really far and high enough to go anywhere if you have the skill to operate it. Just wish it didn't use the griffon skeleton; that's incredibly lazy and looks bad.alsoif you go afk for a minute and press 7 again you can go up more, rinse and repeat to fly foreveryou're welcome

[Kidel.2057]

@"Kumouta.4985" said:i like how it is right now. A superb version of the springer, that can go really far and high enough to go anywhere if you have the skill to operate it.Superb? Maybe that's what they wanted conceptually, but currently it's not.

if you go afk for a minute and press 7 again you can go up more, rinse and repeat to fly foreverLol, no you can't. Using the flight juice obtained with bond of vigor (or any mastery active or passive skill) fills a red gauge. The red gauge will quickly decrease your altitude and eat away any green gauge you may have. Way before a second bond of vigor can be used.

So you can't use "7" twice from a higher altitude.

you're welcomeI appreciate your politeness. :)

[Kumouta.4985]

oh? no 7 exploit then, geuss i should've actually tried it out for longer before getting too stressed & bored with the collection homework.Nonetheless, i don't see how it's not just a better springer. Ledges, horizontal distance, these are issues that can be fixed with player skill. just descending and sparingly using W can let you drop onto a ledge and you can, if i'm not horribly mistaken somehow, go further than a glider horizontally if you just angle the beast right. Also you can, despite bond of vigor not being completely broken, still go higher than a springer and move precisely with more ease, probably especially if you have the skyscale masteries. I will, untill it is proven that skyscale, with masteries and a good rider, has far less range & speed than springer+glide, stand by it being alright as it is. With a good player using it it should prove to be worth the collection (nothing is worth a timegate though)

although i will never forgive its skeleton

[SnowHawk.3615]

It needs a fast descent. a yaw right and left, a mastery locked skill that allows them to regain flight meter when they latch onto something.

[Lexi.1398]

My only issue with the skyscale is descent speed; i think that if descending or looking straight down with action cam after a short time (10 seconds maybe), it should speed up- just get you from a to b faster, i don't mind a slower mount but the descent speed is mind numbingly slow. all i want is a faster descent. Currently faster just to throw yourself off witht he bond of faith and mount griffon immediately and let the griffon naturally fall even without diving. GRiffon diving is fast but hard to control, i don't want a horitzontal speed boost after or whatever, anything that makes the skyscale actually viable for accessing stuff from the air; when I started in the new map and played around with the skyscale, it's descent speed made me drop in on events way late. Was often quicker to waypoint and raptor to them even.

[Kidel.2057]

@Kumouta.4985 said:Nonetheless, i don't see how it's not just a better springer.Read the previous messages. It's even explained with screenshots in the first post. Since you can't fly up forever (even with bond of vigor and masteries), you need ledges to regain stamina and green flight meter. The skyscale can't access the same ledges of the Springer because of the stupid auto-grab.

[Kidel.2057]

So the requirements for achievement 4 are out. You have to find 20 skyscales (by completing JPs or paying about 160g to skip) and plau with your adolescent one a bit (kind of what we did with Aurene).

At this point I think it's safe to say that this mount will be more exclusive than the Griffon.

The problem is once again, and even more, that it doesn't feel as impactful and useful.

[Ophelie.2653]

Skyscale should be MUCH better for how much effort it takes, griffon can be done in a few hours and the other mounts in even less time, the amount of effort this mount requires DOES NOT justify what it offers, It needs to ascend faster and have a larger flight bar and be about 30% faster to match the amount of C R A P you have to deal with to acquire it.

[Ygdrasill.9135]

I'm looking forward to being able to use the Skyscale in HoT since I'm not very far into that yet. The main issue I see is the second mastery skill seems pretty much useless Since they didn't add a general mastery chain in addition to the one for the mount, when would I ever come back to use that? It's very definitely a mount for specialized uses, but I'll likely be using it a lot more than the Jackal or Roller Beetle.

[Adrianna.3092]

@Ygdrasill.9135 said:I'm looking forward to being able to use the Skyscale in HoT since I'm not very far into that yet. The main issue I see is the second mastery skill seems pretty much useless Since they didn't add a general mastery chain in addition to the one for the mount, when would I ever come back to use that? It's very definitely a mount for specialized uses, but I'll likely be using it a lot more than the Jackal or Roller Beetle.

if your referring to the opening flight paths ability... they added these flight paths to many of the core maps as well... and the final collection will be using these flight paths im going to guess so it wont be useless outside of the new map... that of course doesn't mean the mount is good... you were just incorrect on that one detail.

[Bast.7253]

@Kidel.2057 said:

@"Kumouta.4985" said:Nonetheless, i don't see how it's not just a better springer.Read the previous messages. It's even explained with screenshots in the first post. Since you can't fly up forever (even with bond of vigor and masteries), you need ledges to regain stamina and green flight meter. The skyscale can't access the same ledges of the Springer because of the stupid auto-grab.

Not only that, but I'm not convinced the height gain from this mount is higher than the springer. I tried using the mount earlier on a cliff and got all the way to the top, but couldn't quite push my way up 3 centimeters without using my adrenaline to give me a boost of "flight juice." But I know if I had gotten it on my springer I could have made it. Something seems off and it needs a higher canopy in general.

Bond of vigor for all other mounts works as an enhancement, but bond of vigor for Skyscale seems like a necessity and a crutch. Why design a mount that REQUIRES a mastery like that to perform at its full potential, when none of the other mounts require that? Is it just to incorporate the mastery into something so that people have to get that earlier episode to have full use of the mount? I mean they're going to most likely have them anyway, but I didn't really think about it until now.

No other mount REQUIRES bond of vigor for full use except for this one. And even with it, it's still subpar to all of the others with the exception of infinite hovering. And infinite hovering is literally just useful for afk'ing because you still descend if you move in any direction from that point. Obviously the beetle is the only thing designed after bond of vigor was added, but even it doesn't require the mastery.

I'm torn between thinking, 'man, the mechanics for this mount must have taken a lot of time and work' and... 'man, they just copy and pasted as many mechanics of the other mounts and probably the scrapped spider mount.. and created this clunky underperforming mount for the sake of generating hype and skin sales.' Then, they make the mount such a nuisance to get due to timegates that they wind up dwindling interest in players that could potentially buy said skins, as well as killing all of the hype they generated before the episode launched. lol

As of Tuesday they will have had a week to take feedback from all of the people using the story version of the mount and about the timegates, so I sincerely hope they take a second look at what they can do to not only improve the collection process but the general design of the mount's mechanics.

I was kind of hoping the livestream was holding back on the possibilities of this mount, but it's looking like the livestream was in fact the absolute peak of its performance. Which is odd, because the gryphon even if a hidden mount, had so much potential that took awhile for people to discover and truly master. And the masteries for it were really well integrated.

[makagoto.1204]

@Kidel.2057 said:

@Kumouta.4985 said:Nonetheless, i don't see how it's not just a better springer.Read the previous messages. It's even explained with screenshots in the first post. Since you can't fly up forever (even with bond of vigor and masteries), you need ledges to regain stamina and green flight meter. The skyscale can't access the same ledges of the Springer because of the stupid auto-grab.

I disagree, because i tested this on a ledge my springer couldn't reach, which on the contrary could easily be reached with a skyscale. I didn't even use bond of vigor, which can catapult the skyscale even higher. After that you can still switch to the griffon on the fly. To me the springer is dead once i fully obtain the skyscale. You are trying to prove a point here, that simply isn't valid to me. The grabbing takes time to get used to it, but jumping in gw2 was always about getting used to it.

[Kidel.2057]

@makagoto.1204 said:

@Kidel.2057 said:

@Kumouta.4985 said:Nonetheless, i don't see how it's not just a better springer.Read the previous messages. It's even explained with screenshots in the first post. Since you can't fly up forever (even with bond of vigor and masteries), you need ledges to regain stamina and green flight meter. The skyscale can't access the same ledges of the Springer because of the stupid auto-grab.

I disagree, because i tested this on a ledge my springer couldn't reach, which on the contrary could easily be reached with a skyscale. I didn't even use bond of vigor, which can catapult the skyscale even higher. After that you can still switch to the griffon on the fly. To me the springer is dead once i fully obtain the skyscale. You are trying to prove a point here, that simply isn't valid to me. The grabbing takes time to get used to it, but jumping in gw2 was always about getting used to it.

I'd like to see that ledge/cliff, to check if it's something situational or something that may occur more often. The canopy of this mount is pretty low, so I find it hard to believe that the Springer couldn't make it without some disadvantage (like for example if you started from another cliff using the skyscale and procedeed diagonally).

I'd be pretty happy to have my mind changed. Still, I think it's obviously a common opinion that the mount is not rewarding enough, despite some minor use cases over the springer.

check @"cptaylor.2670" 's post before yours.

[makagoto.1204]

@Kidel.2057 said:

@makagoto.1204 said:

@Kidel.2057 said:

@Kumouta.4985 said:Nonetheless, i don't see how it's not just a better springer.Read the previous messages. It's even explained with screenshots in the first post. Since you can't fly up forever (even with bond of vigor and masteries), you need ledges to regain stamina and green flight meter. The skyscale can't access the same ledges of the Springer because of the stupid auto-grab.

I disagree, because i tested this on a ledge my springer couldn't reach, which on the contrary could easily be reached with a skyscale. I didn't even use bond of vigor, which can catapult the skyscale even higher. After that you can still switch to the griffon on the fly. To me the springer is dead once i fully obtain the skyscale. You are trying to prove a point here, that simply isn't valid to me. The grabbing takes time to get used to it, but jumping in gw2 was always about getting used to it.

I'd like to see that ledge/cliff, to check if it's something situational or something that may occur more often. The canopy of this mount is pretty low, so I find it hard to believe that the Springer couldn't make it without some disadvantage (like for example if you started from another cliff using the skyscale and procedeed diagonally).

I'd be pretty happy to have my mind changed. Still, I think it's obviously a common opinion that the mount is not rewarding enough, despite some minor use cases over the springer.

check @"cptaylor.2670" 's post before yours.

@"cptaylor.2670" 's post is wrong though, because he just believed instead of testing it. You don't need to take my word for it or any screenshots. Just try it out for yourself with the borrowed skyscale at the northern crystal wing part. There is a ledge above that you can barely reach with the springer, but you reach it easily with the skyscale.