About getting the Skyscale

[jaman25]

Let me start by saying there is so much I love about this game. I wouldn't bother saying anything if I didn't. Also, not looking for fight or flame war. I genuinely hope to get a real answer to this.
Could there not be a more reasonable way to acquire skyscale and/or griffon? I realize everyone is paranoid, not entirely unwarranted, about the pay to win trap. I'm not saying you should be able to buy mount, though I admittedly wouldn't say no after how I've dropped more than I care to admit. But missions requiring time gates? Large scale fetch quests and back track? RNG? Worse, all of the above!?!?
The skimmer and jackal were unlocked via optional missions. Said missions forced you to try out and learn them and earn them from the various areas. It essentially ticks off boxes for learning and earning I would need in a game. I don't feel they are any less valuable than griffon or SS for lacking the above mentioned gimmicks or time sinks.
Look at the springer and raptor. Of all the mounts I'v unlocked, I would rank them toward bottom 2 ingame but top outside of it. They can unlock with purchase of associated expansion but are extremely limited without finishing mastery or heart missions. My springer was unlocked but I never unlocked the masteries from heart mission it came from. Yet, I absolutely love the little guy as it feels more honest as I have it available for certain segments needing high jump, yet don't have all the won't have the full perks without putting out the effort. It feels like the best middle ground between newbies and vets.
Now before anyone shouts 'foul' over speaking for the 'filthy casuals' I'd like to point out that some of us can't afford to be more than somewhat casual. Between work and personal problems not everyone can put in the grueling time for these collection missions. Does that mean they should barred from best, or any, part of the game? I play this game for fantasy fun to get away from the work grind and daily frustrations. Is it too much just want to fly around on a dragon without dedicating myself to a second career? One that's entirely voluntary and possibly about to end with release of Guildwars 3? Heck, part of the draw is you don't have to go on grand adventures if you don't feel the mood. You can just fish, race, or work on tradecraft and see how you fare in TadePost negotiating. Yet, I see the requirement list in wiki and walkthroughs and it makes me want to cry before I ever start.
Now as for the question I have for devs and community. Is there not some way to appeal directly to devs for this or start petition, anything, to consider some of the changes I mentioned? Preferably without fear of being ignored, flamed into the void, or banned. Even the 250 gold price, I could live with as I can grind that easily enough as I play through story and multiple characters.
Failing that, how hard would it be to find a group willing to work with you to help with the grind. I know most, if not all, of the required resources can't be traded. I still feel it would help to have someone willing to work with, show you what you need to do. Even just removing some of the frustration with teleport to friend while checking different nest locations for eggs with help from more experienced, travel skilled players would help take some of the sting of the RNG wasting time.

EDIT: Well finally found an egg and managed most of the infusions. Mostly looking for someone to help tele me to spot for air infusion. I noticed some accusing laziness for asking help on the nests. To be clear, I wasn't doing this to skip the work. My problem with it was the frustration from skipping across the map for a handful of RNG nests that only replenished once a week. Just wanted someone to help take the sting out of failed attempts by helping me save some time on search and maybe providing some friendly convo. And before someone criticizes asking about infusion, even the guides encouraged saving time this way, just maybe tip some gold as thanks. Now I just need to know how to do that as I haven't done a lot of parties on this game.

Some of these replies have been understanding and patient. Enough so that I believe it shouldn't be too hard to find someone to help and even enjoy joining parties a bit more. Thank you.

To those of you who only had time to criticize and snark, I sincerely hope everyone you meet from this day forward is as helpful to you as you have been.

[dunnothisguy]

引用自 SinisterSlay：

Giving everyone Raptor was pretty mean too. That probably cost them players.

Raptor is not that bad, it's just a faster horizontal movement, that's it. It won't allow you to skip everything as easy as flying mounts do, actually many maps (PoF speifically) have contraptions designed to dismount your from ground mounts (those damned spikes you never see coming).

引用自 SinisterSlay：

Skyscale would still be easy to fix. Just have it "Scared" to fly in any location you haven't 100% completed. Once you have completed a zone once, the skyscale unlocks for your alt characters.

Don't think that's enough. It should be both this and some steep grind wall. I would go even further and limit mount usage on pre-mount era maps too. Like, to use mounts freely in HoT you would need to develop some additional masteries or clear certain percentage of the maps there using the native mechanics. Until then you would be only allowed a limited mount usage, like, 10 minutes per day, so you could still use them in a pinch, but that's about it.

[Little Strawberry]

引用自 SinisterSlay：

Skyscale would still be easy to fix. Just have it "Scared" to fly in any location you haven't 100% completed. Once you have completed a zone once, the skyscale unlocks for your alt characters.

Please for the sake of everyone's sanity, "game designers" need to stop doing that "solution". It wasn't good in WoW and it wasn't good in FFXIV either. It even made those games worse because maps then were designed to be as inconvenient as possible, because you are expected to unlock flying. As much as I hated the original Skyscale grind, it at least gave you a permanent unlock that isn't map specific and isn't deprecated in this way where you constantly have to grind back to 100% whenever a new map releases. This is extremely masochistic.

The problem with boring maps isn't that the Skyscale exists, in fact the other mounts are usually better for traversal at the downside of having to switch. The problem is that all the maps after LS1 are extremely formulaic reskins of each other. Gather/Walk through/Do X to get map currency Y to buy Z. Amazing gameplay. At least LS5 has map masteries... that are reskins of each other. This is the problem with maps being boring, not the environment they're in. There could be a map that is just a flat plane with a grass texture, where all the metas, jp puzzles and events are randomly fired in quick succession with the most ugliest models and textures, and it would instantly be the best map in the game. I'd rather play improved old content than another reskinned map with the same reskinned systems, because that's what makes a map boring.

引用自 jaman25：

Now before anyone shouts 'foul' over speaking for the 'filthy casuals' I'd like to point out that some of us can't afford to be more than somewhat casual. Between work and personal problems not everyone can put in the grueling time for these collection missions.

Even the non-soto Skyscale grind is basically very friendly in that regard, because it frequently timegates you. Just do one thing every day or whenever you have the time. Really, the only annoying factors are the map currencies nowadays for the saddle. The treats drop almost instantly now and while some collections look like much, like the eggs, they're completed relatively fast if you have the wiki open to copy the waypoints. I had done the flight collection in like 25 minutes.

[Equinox_01]

The other thing to remember about the mounts in GW2, they are account unlock, you do it once and never again for any character. Thats huge, dont know how wow is these days but i played wow when you had to grind to get mounts for EACH toon. I would gladly do the grind for the skyscale and griffon any day than have to do it on multiple characters. Thats part of the reason it seems like so much. Like others have said, do a little at a time, no need to rush it. Its not difficult, just takes time.

[RKS]

I obtained the skyscale through the old method and it was a tedious, pointless timesink. ANet clearly realized how bad it was by offering a quicker method, but they still missed the point by keeping any grind for such an important player mechanic like flight.

One of the stellar features of GW2 is that you might stop playing but you can return and *immediately* start playing with your friends again. There is no power creep and the gear you have from years ago is still good enough to let you play with your friends that have been logging in every day while you were gone.

In this regard, the skyscale is NOT optional. If you return to this game and you don't have a skyscale and all your friends do, you will be constantly left behind. Even if they try to be nice and constantly wait, you will be continually holding everyone back and they cannot be blamed if they forget and leave you behind. This is what I experienced when I returned to GW2 and it was complete garbage. I got to experience the same BS as if I stopped playing WoW, missed an entire expansion of power creep and tried to return and play with my friends.

GW2 stands out as a MMO where this doesn't happen with gear, but they failed when it came to the flight mechanic offered by the skyscale. Also flight with a skyscale is just incredibly fun, and it's idiotic to bury that behind the out-dated attitude of "You have to kill 10,000 rats before you can have fun in the game" that used to be the mantra of MMOs.

And to all of the posters telling the OP they should quit GW2 or find another game, that's basically telling ANet they should give the middle finger to customers. If you care about GW2 and want to keep its servers running, we all should support ways that keep more people playing, not telling they to quit.

Because it makes absolutely NO difference to your hardcore gameplay experiences if GW2 supports a range of players including casuals - there are plenty of timesinks and grinds to let people earn weapon and armor skins, titles, pets, infusions etc. to show off how much time they've spend playing, but mechanics that are important to gameplay should be readily available to every single player, especially when they are incredibly fun mechanics like flight that draw in new people to try the game, keep its populations healthy, and keep ANet's servers running.

[dunnothisguy]

引用自 RKS：

One of the stellar features of GW2 is that you might stop playing but you can return and *immediately* start playing with your friends again. There is no power creep and the gear you have from years ago is still good enough to let you play with your friends that have been logging in every day while you were gone.

That still leaves a question why a bunch of people need skyscale that badly they would resort to painful waiting for their friend lagging behind, instead of just all getting on any ground mount and travel together in a jolly flock unanswered. Almost none maps, except may be for the couple most hardcore HoT maps, really require skyscale to move around (and in SoTo you have it for free). A combination of waypoints and any ground mount will move your anywhere there. Imagine people somehow doing all this traveling before skyscale became a thing lol.

Sorry, but that's stinks like made up reason. That and may be not so considerate friends of yours too, who can't trade a bit of convenience for a joy of being together in one group.

[RotherHans]

Akshually very often the Skyscale is the SLOWEST way to get across the map.
I routinely overhaul all the Skyscale andies on my trusty lizard.
The Warclaw is pretty much on par, but more versatile also more annoying because of the many mini-jumps.