Should the Skyscale map currency be reduced?

[Warlord.9082]

This is not an issue.

[Jokubas.4265]

I thought I'd chime in again now that I've unlocked the mount and finished all of the Masteries.

By the end, I felt a million miles away from wherever it started. The further I got, the weirder it all started to feel.

I was noticing things like Gorrik being one of the vendors that you can buy map currency from, that you need to purchase a saddle component from a vendor that's not even that far from him. Frankly I was starting to feel like the real story of the collection was Gorrik just pretending that he's having me work on the Skyscale while just having me run expensive and laborious errands for him.

Also, because I was pacing myself and I don't have a lot of alts to unlock rewards multiple times, I started to heavily rely on daily resets to earn more currency. In the end, I probably ended up waiting for more daily resets just for the saddle step than I would have for the entire rest of the collection before the time gate patch.

So for now, I think I'll end with a suggestion. It's too late to apply this here, but it's an idea that I think would have involved a lot of the same ideas and goals, but in a much smoother and engaging way.

Overall, the story would be more or less the same, but things would be moved around a bit. You still investigate what's happening to the Skyscales, and then collect eggs to preserve. Afterward, you have your mount. What's the rest of it for then? Other, more prestigious rewards. If you choose to continue, raising your Skyscale and bonding with it, you unlock other things. For example, imagine something like the Skyscale chair, once you've bonded with it enough.

The point is, the story is still there, but the effort scales differently. The main quality of life feature*, the mount, requires closer to what most other mounts in the game asked for. Then, if you really want to put in all the work and the daunting amounts of currency, you get the really fancy stuff. Another idea here would be that, in my version, the basic Skyscale is more juvenile, but going all the way, feeding it all that special stuff, making it a super special saddle, and helping it grow, could grant you a more elaborate skin unlock.

*I do sort of want to reiterate again how things like this are less optional in practice. It occurred to me while doing the bonus bosses in Dragonfall while working on the Skyscale, that most of us were following on griffons. It made me wonder what a newer player/someone who didn't know about or couldn't put in all the time and money to unlock a secret mount would do. To be fair in Dragonfall, the Skyscales you can borrow in the world would probably offset this, but it's not the only place things like this happen.

I think, it's easy to look at this as a small thing when you're already caught up on everything else. I was late to Heart of Thorns, only getting it with Path of Fire's reveal. I had a lot to catch up on and it was pretty daunting. I can't imagine what it would be like, trying to keep up with other players doing things in Central Tyria, as a new player. Even if you owned Heart of Thorns and Path of Fire, how many hours of game time you would have to invest before you could simply follow along.

I think that's maybe the main point I'm trying to make. I take huge breaks from this game, but when I play it, I feel like I play it a lot. But I know that what I do is still nothing compared to what the people who really talk about this game do. At the same time, history has shown me that I'm still more hardcore than the average player, so I can only imagine what something like comes across like to the players we aren't seeing or hearing from.

Anyway, I'm going to leave this alone for now. I'm totally burned out. I still like the game though, and I still appreciate the horizontal progression of rewards like this over obsoleting level cap raising. But even after finishing myself, I'm left with a concern and I can't help but voice that.

[Voltekka.2375]

@"SmirkDog.3160" said:Why is it unreasonable to expect communication? ANet people are lurking on these forums all the time, and often respond to long threads if they're active enough. A simple "no, shut up" would be nice. It would definitely get me to stop posting about it.

They didnt communicate on the failed nullification sigil collection (where those who burned through the collection requirements first were made absurdly rich), why should they communicate now, where the requirements are the same for everyone?

[SmirkDog.3160]

@Voltekka.2375 said:

@"SmirkDog.3160" said:Why is it unreasonable to expect communication? ANet people are lurking on these forums all the time, and often respond to long threads if they're active enough. A simple "no, shut up" would be nice. It would definitely get

me

to stop posting about it.

They didnt communicate on the failed nullification sigil collection (where those who burned through the collection requirements first were made absurdly rich), why should they communicate now, where the requirements are the same for everyone?

You're right, they should never communicate on anything ever again. Just shut down and be silent and never say anything to us about upcoming changes or potential changes. After all, it's not like it matters, right? People will still play even if ANet never made a single news post ever again, and we were just supposed to guess when new content was put out. The perfect PR -- you can't say the wrong thing if you never speak to begin with.

[Voltekka.2375]

@SmirkDog.3160 said:

@Voltekka.2375 said:

@SmirkDog.3160 said:Why is it unreasonable to expect communication? ANet people are lurking on these forums all the time, and often respond to long threads if they're active enough. A simple "no, shut up" would be nice. It would definitely get

me

to stop posting about it.

They didnt communicate on the failed nullification sigil collection (where those who burned through the collection requirements first were made absurdly rich), why should they communicate now, where the requirements are the same for everyone?

You're right, they should never communicate on anything ever again. Just shut down and be silent and never say anything to us about upcoming changes or

potential

changes. After all, it's not like it matters, right? People will still play even if ANet never made a single news post ever again, and we were just supposed to guess when new content was put out. The perfect PR -- you can't say the wrong thing if you never speak to begin with.

You derail the subject. For the record, after the layoffs, we HAVE been getting previews about balance updates before they go live. Moreover, why would devs say anything about the map currency? What IS there to say? On topic, I must remind you, people found the 250g of the griffon unfair, people will find anything unfair if it dosnt suit their point of view. The skyscale map currency required is even for EVERYONE. Some people hoard stuff, others spend whatever currency they have on volatile magic to get gold, others wont bother at all. I still fail to understand how this is an issue.

EDIT: I saw you complained on a previous post about the 20g cost of getting the Jackal being too high. Exaggerating didnt help you then, certainly will not help you now, either.

[SmirkDog.3160]

@Voltekka.2375 said:EDIT: I saw you complained on a previous post about the 20g cost of getting the Jackal being too high. Exaggerating didnt help you then, certainly will not help you now, either.

I don't recall saying that at all recently, so digging through my old posts from like 2 years ago is kind of pathetic, honestly. I'm not going to even defend that statement because now you're just trying to be right no matter what, saying I derailed but then derailing. I'll be ignoring you too now. Lmao.

[Derdzvero.7051]

I'm almost finished with gathering the currencies and here is my experience -> I've brought 2-3 characters and really tried to avoid brainless activities, which are apparently the most efficient way to gather those.

Domain of Istan: not an issue, favourite farming spot.

Dragonfall: not an issue, partially due to super- tedious first part of Skyscale collection. Nice map anyway-HoT feeling. Stay on map after meta and farm motes. Also join farmtrain.

Jahai Bluffs: interesting map! the activities on that map are very frequent and it's very nice for completing with multiple chars. 250 is..ok-ish.

Domain of Kourna: getting 250 means you will see many F-key bots.Everywhere. 2nd map completion doesn't give 25, but 5 (i think, not 100% sure) Tedious and brainless grind. Pathetic to ask for 250 here.

Thunderhead Peaks: same as above: F-key bots. This map can't be easily completed with multiple chars since 1 (ONE) viewpoint is locked behind RNG/activity/story.There is a thread about that with OP being upvoted a lot, but somehow Anet never did anything on that map. EDIT: thanks to Cyninja for pointint out you can actually hard-press the door and unlock the point, without entering the room! So above statement is wrong for 1 poi, but 1 is still locked behind RNG/story.It's a bit too much to ask for 250 here.

Sandswept Isles: almost no teleports, difficult to complete with multiple chars, difficult to follow activities around (locked rooms, lots of tricky areas). F-key bot is most efficient way. Pathetic to ask for 250 here.

So good things:-it's good to have a different goal, than simply getting gold-one is earning gold in the process. I'm sure Anet didn't plan it and will nerf that in next patch.-Lws4 maps have lots of activities and interesting content, worth spending time there-one can somehow use different strategies to get those needed resources-it's..love (Jahai,Dragonfall) & hate (Thunder../Kourna/Sandswept). ;) We love love&hate relationship, do we not? ;)

Bad things:Maps are extremely toxic (for gw2 standard) now, very few enjoy the work there. That's right-work. And we're not paying for work, Anet, we're getting paid to do it usually ;)

250 from all maps means one has to play as Fkey bot if he/she wants to finish in near future. Else be prepared to write those activities in your daily calendar, provided you have no better stuff to do with your time. Some will find it interesting however, since so far we've been farming gold mainly.. But my feeling is that a huge part of game now is just running around and pressing F (resources collection, tasks,hp, masteries, mounts,etc...)..too much of that IMHO.

Also : one cannot simply play the map content, one has to focus currency farm, if one doesn't want to grow old there. Which is turning you into a bot, as well as those around you. Simple as that.

From my experience 200 is a sweet spot, which doesn't bring frustration, while still requires a bit of thinking and planning.. But i guess it won't happen since we're playing Fkey bot a game now, gj Anet.

Idk, when you think that Borderlands Handsome collection is 6€ currently and Epic throws free titles with the speed of a Chak-acid blobs in TD.... I'll get that mount and will definitely avoid investing more time and money in GW2 since i believe this is the future, which Anet&Ncsoft are planning for the game- Fbots and calendar grinding activities. Neverr thought I'd say it... sad story, but this is no longer a game for me.

[Cyninja.2954]

@Derdzvero.7051 said:Thunderhead Peaks: same as above: F-key bots. This map can't be easily completed with multiple chars since 1 (ONE) viewpoint is locked behind RNG/activity/story. There is a thread about that with OP being upvoted a lot, but somehow Anet never did anything on that map. Except forcing us to be there, farming. Pathetic. It's too much to ask for 250 here. Way too much.

The vista in the north meta part can be acquired at any point in time, as long as you can make it there. As with all vistas which have enemies close by, log out, log back in and spam F. The short immunity time you have while you character loads in is enough to acquire the vista.

The PoI in the throne room can be acquired by running up against the gate. This was moved shortly after the map was added.

There is no point or map completion aspect which requires a specific state on this map. All it takes is a certain know-how.

As to grinding, again, no one requires you to grind at all. Simply accept it will take longer, get the daily free map resources and play the game how you want. If you want to rush content, expect grind to kick in. This has been consistent ever since ascended gear was added way back in 2013. If you wanted the gear immediately, you had to pay a significant premium. GW2 encourages planning ahead and not grinding, but gives players the option to grind if so desired, at vastly reduced efficiency in time spent.

Still, thank you for the summary. It is interesting to read how other approached this issue.

[Derdzvero.7051]

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Derdzvero.7051 said:Thunderhead Peaks: same as above: F-key bots. This map can't be easily completed with multiple chars since 1 (ONE) viewpoint is locked behind RNG/activity/story. There is a thread about that with OP being upvoted a lot, but somehow Anet never did anything on that map. Except forcing us to be there, farming. Pathetic. It's too much to ask for 250 here. Way too much.

The vista in the north meta part can be acquired at any point in time, as long as you can make it there. As with all vistas which have enemies close by, log out, log back in and spam F. The short immunity time you have while you character loads in is enough to acquire the vista.

The PoI in the throne room can be acquired by running up against the gate. This was moved shortly after the map was added.

There is no point or map completion aspect which requires a specific state on this map. All it takes is a certain know-how.

As to grinding, again, no one requires you to grind at all. Simply accept it will take longer, get the daily free map resources and play the game how you want. If you want to rush content, expect grind to kick in.

Oh, really? Didn't work for me yesterday, but I probably haven't pushed close enough to the door. Will test asap, thanks for the info!It works, for the one, but Consul's tomb poi is still locked behind RNG/event..or I don't hug the proper stone/wall/door/whatever crap.

[yann.1946]

@Rio.4259 said:The problem with a poll like this is that people who have already spent the 250 currency are obviously going to vote no. Since I haven't gotten to that part yet I'm obviously going to choose yes. But I don't see Anet doing it, since there would be an epic backlash, of people being mad that others dont have to work as hard as they did for it, and/or demanding 150 currency be refunded to them.

I still chose yes. >.>

I do think their are people who have the mount and don't mind it being reduced.

Also their are probably people who don't have it and don't mind.

[Rankomonaut.4708]

Didn't spend it yet - but I have no problem in doing so in the near future.At least it's a reason to revisit older maps and maybe complete achievements that were unfinished.Anyway, since the whole thing is your choice, there's no need to change it. Don't want to pay the stuff? Okay.

[WargreymonDGMN.8250]

Yes lower the requirement. I'm not going to grind out several maps on alts for 250 of each currency, that's tedium at its finest. 100 or 150 would've been fine, 250 is overkill.

[Taygus.4571]

@WargreymonDGMN.8250 said:Yes lower the requirement. I'm not going to grind out several maps on alts for 250 of each currency, that's tedium at its finest. 100 or 150 would've been fine, 250 is overkill.

You dont have to.

It really sucks..but you can do what I'm doing.. play only one character..do a heart or two do some events, then move to another map.. do the easiest hearts, mix in some events.

Its not so bad. Still have about 260 map currency to go, between 3 maps. But getting through it slowly.I want the skyscale too much to give up on the collections now!

[Ygdrasill.9135]

Having gotten mine a couple days ago (totally worth it), I gave it some thought. Now I had three level 80's to grind with and saved about half of that until the end. Thinking about it, it took me about 14 days with an hour or more of time to get it. Had I started farming the mats right at the start, one set hearts in each area a day, I'd have had enough by the time I needed them. I think maybe incorporating collecting those into the other collections would have made it less of a shock seeing the large number needed at the end. It wouldn't be any faster to do, but it wouldn't look so daunting.

[Kulvar.1239]

They're very easy to farm. Many of the hearts can be done without fighting any foe.Using the scrolls and mounts, you can do all the hearts several times with different ungeared characters.

[Lady Celtaine.3760]

@Lady Celtaine.3760 said:Yes to 150. (Read as yes to 200.) It was great it felt like a challenge and a real achievement so it shouldn't be too easy to get it, but if you start with the mats at zero or no higher than double digits going around the same map for more than the 5th time to farm on a single character across all required maps it is just not fun anymore.

I phrased this abysmally imo so I'll just put it another way, it's a fun challenge to get the collection done as a whole, but this bit was awful, not hard, running around a map to mine and do a few hearts is easy. It's just awful in that the most difficult thing was remembering there's a light at the end of the tunnel somewhere as you know eventually through attrition gameplay you will get the 250 stack just by sticking at it long enough, but holy moly it is dull and long winded.Also I changed my mind on voting to reduce. It's probably too late to reduce map currency requirement as it would be a slap in the face of everyone who grinded for the 250 but I hope the devs take this as constructive criticism as there are better and more fun things to rinse and repeat if they ever do another collection like this.

[Derdzvero.7051]

@Lady Celtaine.3760 said:

@Lady Celtaine.3760 said:Yes to 150. (Read as yes to 200.) It was great it felt like a challenge and a real achievement so it shouldn't be too easy to get it, but if you start with the mats at zero or no higher than double digits going around the same map for more than the 5th time to farm on a single character across all required maps it is just not fun anymore.

I'm on same opinion, but ..50 more or 50 less..I mean.. common, it's not going to change the world.. but it will make it more pleasant, for sure. Besides lws4 maps are great-never expected so many events and nice content. So go guys, do it. There are nice ascended goodies too, so farm a bit more then ;) (lol, don't kill me)

Before I forget - Apologies to Anet for being too harsh. Overall great collection and lws4 content. Thanks to the collection I actually discovered it (ashamed, I know).

Just maybe next time set expectations right and hide the grind behind some nice story/item WITH intermediate rewards to keep the interest. Remember, not everyone likes to make legendaries.

P.S. make map completion to reward 25 everywhere. ASAP please, no reason and excuse for exceptions.

[Selya.5039]

If you don't want to farm, you can just buy 5 currency per day from the vendor. Takes at most 50 days (less than 2 months) to do that. Most likely, it won't take more than a month if you just do some light farming along with buying currency from the vendor. Even less if you do WvW/Pvp dailies and get currency from the reward tracks.

1 full stack of currency only seems like too much if you want the Skyscale NOW and have barely farmed the living world maps at all. It really is not as daunting as it seems so long as you're willing to wait just a little bit. The Skyscale isn't going anywhere.

[Lady Celtaine.3760]

@Derdzvero.7051 said:

@Lady Celtaine.3760 said:

@Lady Celtaine.3760 said:Yes to 150. (Read as yes to 200.) It was great it felt like a challenge and a real achievement so it shouldn't be too easy to get it, but if you start with the mats at zero or no higher than double digits going around the same map for more than the 5th time to farm on a single character across all required maps it is just not fun anymore.

I'm on same opinion, but ..50 more or 50 less..I mean.. common, it's not going to change the world.. but it will make it more pleasant, for sure. Besides lws4 maps are great-never expected so many events and nice content. So go guys, do it. There are nice ascended goodies too, so farm a bit more then ;) (lol, don't kill me)

Before I forget - Apologies to Anet for being too harsh. Overall great collection and lws4 content. Thanks to the collection I actually discovered it (ashamed, I know).

Just maybe next time set expectations right and hide the grind behind some nice story/item WITH intermediate rewards to keep the interest. Remember, not everyone likes to make legendaries.

P.S. make map completion to reward 25 everywhere. ASAP please, no reason and excuse for exceptions.

Not trying to be rude, but I'd appreciate it if you quoted me in full so my words won't potentially get taken out of context.I agree the map completion rewards could be better, but I disagree with "lws4 maps are great-never expected so many events and nice content" not because you're not right for the first or second time you do them and they're still fresh, but because you're wrong after the novelty has worn off. Even the quick go-cheer-up-dredge one in THP was feeling mentally painful in the end as I must have done it 9, 10, or 11 times over by the time I got the stack of Branded mass. It was definitely an aspect of the collection that required more variety, and that's all I'm asking for really. ?‍♂️

[Derdzvero.7051]

@Lady Celtaine.3760 said:Not trying to be rude, but I'd appreciate it if you quoted me in full so my words won't potentially get taken out of context.

I'm sorry- you quoted yourself making 2 contradicting statements and I commented on numbers only. But that is my opinion and I'm not working for Anet so it doesn't matter what I think, Anet does what they like (or rather what Koreans like)..so what I quote or say makes zero difference at the end, hence no need to be rude.

[Lady Celtaine.3760]

@Derdzvero.7051 said:

@Lady Celtaine.3760 said:Not trying to be rude, but I'd appreciate it if you quoted me in full so my words won't potentially get taken out of context.

I'm sorry- you quoted yourself making 2 contradicting statements and I commented on numbers only. But that is my opinion and I'm not working for Anet so it doesn't matter what I think, Anet does what they like (or rather what Koreans like)..so what I quote or say makes zero difference at the end, hence no need to be rude.

I wasn't being rude, I was trying to point out I had to post a 2nd one addressing the 1st which is no longer relevant because for some reason the forum doesn't allow us to delete previous posts if we change our minds about what we said in them.If you disgree with my current point of view that's fine, you are entitled to do so, but focusing on a point of view I no longer hold away is unnecessary. Hope that clarifies the matter.

[Danikat.8537]

I'm in the middle of the Skyscale Saddle collection now (almost exactly, I estimate that I'm just under 1/2 way there) and I'm not sure how I feel about it. The requirements themselves don't bother me, it's not difficult to do, it just takes time and I'm in no hurry, I'm used to finishing things gradually in games, especially long RPGs. Although I've actually found I'm ahead of the schedule I set myself.

I decided I'd aim for 50 map currency per day (in total, not 50 per map) but today, when I should be up to 200 Difluorite Crystals I've got 223, meaning I'll be able to finish it quicker than expected tomorrow and I've gotten up to about 73 inscribed shards (I think I had 10 when I started this morning). I realise that probably seems like a very low bar to set for some people, so it's not surprising I was able to beat it, but this was based on how much time I typically have, how I like to play and how quickly I can normally get LS map currencies. I was actually expecting to get less than 50 some days and then to catch up on other days.

What does bother me is that it seems quite arbitrary to do all this for a skyscale saddle. I've already ridden skyscales - presumably either bareback (in spite of the saddle on the model) or with a saddle made from whatever was to hand at the time. So I don't understand why I need to go to so much effort to make one, and if it is necessary why can't someone who has crafted full sets of ascended armour and legendary weapons knock up a decent saddle?

So in a game mechanics sense I'm fine with the map currency requirement, but I don't like the justification used for it.

[VDAC.2137]

There are many generous people with full home instances — that’s three of each currency without having to do anything. You could meet the currency requirements in less than three months without ever visiting any of the maps. I would play the maps to whatever level you find fun and then take a few minutes to gather from home nodes daily and be patient. Just pointing out there are options to grinding if you’re starting from zero map currency as I was.

[Doctor.1384]

If they need to require a bunch of lws4 map currency for the purpose of bringing people back to those maps than the issue is that people dont want to play on those maps to begin with and not that they arnt playing on them.

[sumerius.7326]

REDUCE PLEASE!!! 100 OF EACH IS GOOD!