XYLO.7031

I like everything except for the PvP system behind it. The current PvE system should just be modified. If it has a PvP system, I want beetle (vehicle) collision like in actual racing and the ability to attack others in PvP like Rock n Roll Racing (think Mario Kart or CTR). If I can't play in a PvP style, it should just be PvE as it is now so it saves them extra work.

I'm just glad to get a second chance at kite farming. I didn't know that boss rush helped speed it along.

Paired with Armchair Commander and I am set. I know after Skyscale I said I didn't need chairs but this is a chair that MOVES. Seriously, thanks devs and designers.

I'm not too picky about skins. Just the shimmer scale head and I'm content. BTW, if the new sets of skyscale skins had a single skin with the shimmer scale head, I would have bought them.

As it stands, someone else said it best:

I don't want a dragon mount with a pug face. Lol.

Cool. Thanks gais.

> @"jediwolf.8724" said:

> I just wish the ground attack dismount had better targeting.

> I also think it is awesome to see a flock of players on them soaring in to attack a boss.

I agree with these two items. I would like to see a coordinated attack using them. However, some people see it as a a flapping eyesore.

> @"Starfall Leyline.2481" said:

> When it comes down to it, honestly, I think the amount of overlap the mounts have is healthy. It's not necessarily a bad thing for there to be overlap. Some people will simply play the mount that they enjoy the most regardless if it is "the best" at a particular thing. For example, I see a lot of people riding their springer babbits. They love them to death and use them all the time.

>

> I hate the springer babbits, so much so that the very first skin I got was the goataroo **just** so I wouldn't be riding a big rabbit. I hate them. I hate them I hate them *_I hate them_*. So I use other mounts I like! Not everything in mount play is going to be "this is the best mount so everyone is going to use it." Sometimes it's just preference, and thus overlap in utility gives players more, rather than less, freedom, and actually ensures that no particular mount will be left behind. (Unfortunately. ***shakesfist at Babbits***)

Bunnies cute tho. :(

Everyone on the Skyscale wagon, but in the end, it is the freedom in preference that I respect. As long as people don't tell/force others to use or not use a mount for whatever reason, I'm fine with it.

I like this idea. Splat rescue they can call it. If you don't have a flying mount, it would be a Godsend.

It's quick, but not fast so it definitely has some uses. It's best at short bursts because you'll eventually have to cling on something when the bar runs out or hit land (which reminds me of when I had asthma as a kid and had to break a bit to recover my bars). Best at ascending those narrow plank Krait towers. I've used it at TT and the short burst of double barrel roll is good at filling extractors at Crimson wurm but terrible when you have to go back to the ground and crawl around to get more color clouds. The pro Griffey users just dive down to retrieve clouds and deposit at the extractor without touching the ground. Only a few who mastered that and it looks really fun if you can pull it off consistently.

If you're doing that slow exploration thing, it really is good. I can take breaks at berry farming in between some nodes. Whenever I try to engage the huge mobs, the decent is of course so slow that they will ice cube me down and wreck my ungeared berry farmers so I tend to use the other mounts for battle transition or just to get out of there lol.

I only truly enjoy the speed mounts of griffey and beetle, however. If you master them (I have seen few who have) you will play them to play them without any need for exploration. Both speed mounts have races designed for them and the roller beetle has custom guild track pieces you can earn to design your own. That in and of itself means they cared a whole lot about its implementation into the game.

I have a ton of toons that have all or most of the waypoints because of the 2 speed mounts alone. I had full map comp for a handful of toons before mounts even existed so I don't have need for the exploration hover skills of the skyscale.

Overall, all the mounts have their place. I will still use Mr. Bun Bun whenever I can because he's the cutest of all the mounts. Totally the floofiest.

> @"EremiteAngel.9765" said:

> However with every elite spec, these distinctions get more and more blur.

> There are a lot more overlapping roles and at times, their more efficient build is totally opposite to the roles they were generally designed for.

>

> Everyone can DPS, Support and Control.

> Everyone can back-line, mid-line or front-line effectively.

> Every class can be built to fill almost any role.

>

> Many weapons and categories of utilities overlap across all the classes.

> There isn't much uniqueness separating each class.

>

> Should there be a sharper contrast in terms of role and identity for each class, or are things fine as they are now?

What you are criticizing is the very structure of the game design. It has always been flexible save for closed content which actually falls back on the "Holy Trinity" in builds, not classes per se.

You will need a healer build, a tank build, and a dps/condi damage build for specific content. Because of this need, there are classes that cover these roles better than others.

With that said, I think there should be more options for flexibility, not less. That's just one of the many things we lost from the pre-expac days: flexibility. Now everyone must have a Mesmer for something. That's the dev's favorite class. It is arguably the most flexible of all classes.

What we need is for all the classes to be as flexible as that class. Long story short, you want a Holy Trinity of classes, you picked the wrong game.

Arah? Lupi? Guards own that so quick. Reflect is your friend. Veteran guards even know some shortcuts with gs3. I brought a pure healer there once and after a full set of runs down each path, I decided to make my own guard. I was just running to catch up with them, and as I made it to big things like Lupi, I was only in time to see it die.

> @"Tekoneiric.6817" said:

> > @"XYLO.7031" said:

>

> > This is an interesting idea because we do things in the world that a Commander shouldn't have time to do at all. The serious tone of the storyline puts the Commander in save the world mode 24/7 so things like exploration do not fit the Commander's role save for the times danger strikes an unexplored area.

> >

> > An Explorer or Adventurer or even a Pirate going after booty makes more sense to have an actual excuse to find all these POIs, Vistas, and the like.

>

> My thought is more of a member of the PACT. The early story could be a streamlined initiation into the game along with rapid acquisition of mounts for the new player and afterwards the story track for the non-commander character would be a support PACT member taking part of the most current story. That character would see ANets placeholder commander as center while they deal with action on the side. They could give current event missions for the non-commander in between main story releases that involve history of the game.

>

I like that idea. If you're just a member of the PACT, then there would be more opportunities. I envision something like Final Fantasy 8 where you're a member of SEED and receive incremental pay and missions here and there but can do your own thing in-between missions like become a Triple Triad Card master lol.

I chose other. The current characters around the commander aren't appealing enough. Braham just needs to go. Rytlock, though an awesome Charr, seems as if he's more connected to Logan than anything. The novels with him and Logan really built up story between them and added more layers to their relationship into gw2. As far as the commander is concerned, he saw through balthazar's and kralk's demise so he should be off the hook. Other than wanting action because he is who he is, he doesn't have a bond with the commander as strong as Logan. I love the lesbian couple of Kasmeer and Marjory but clearly people like Marjory better so we don't need them both. Kasmeer can just hang out in DR in the service of the queen. Rox has found her home with the Olmakhan.

To me, Canach is the most interesting simply because of his history. I know it would be difficult to implement, but Canach has every right to backstab an Asuran commander after what they did to him early on. He may even hold some sort of grudge against a human commander since he was under Anise's thumb for a while. But despite all of that, he seems to be both useful (bombs expert) as well as entertaining. He could really make the story interesting if he outright goes against the commander because of something that happened in his past, but I doubt they will do such a thing.

I would like for Sayeh al' Rajihd to make a comeback since we're in the ocean. And my long-shot choice would be Livia. I know her journey was technically over, but I don't think they did such a good character justice from gw1 into gw2.

Going back to Tengu, I think there would be more work to do in terms of lore and story continuity both past and present. In short, the people who want it will have standards for Tengu that the devs would have to honor and uphold to some degree. Largos is the mysterious race where they can really just show off their creativity since there isn't much about them. Also, they just splashed Kralk in the middle of the endless ocean. Isn't that where the Largos live?

I don't care for them either. We have furries (Charr), bookahs big and smol, salads, and brainies for PC as well as pointies (Choya), cute splashies (Quaggan), featheries (Tengu), ninja splashies (Largos) and others as NPC. Why play all of them?

Maxed but I don't really use it. All but one guild gives me permission to make stuff and decorate anyways but I'm not a decorator by any measure.

> @"Tekoneiric.6817" said:

> My reason for starting this thread is that I recently started an alt account and purchased the expansions for it. It made me curious at what the new player experience is like for the game. As a veteran player I know how to and where to skip through the story to quickly unlock features.

>

> From posts in other forums I've wondered if new players feel obligated to play the content straight through from personal story? I know many will either discover shortcuts or have help at navigating through shortcuts but in that process there is much lore to the game they won't absorb skipping around which may keep them from skipping forward.

>

> Plus part of the experience of GW2 is with major releases of new content and how the community participates at it. New players jumping in really won't be able to participate in the new content release experience until they are caught up.

>

> It's gotten me to thinking about a couple of things that might improve things for the long run for new players. One is that ANet could occasionally have people new to the game do experience testing and give direct feedback to them behind the scenes. That might help them shape the experience to bring more people into the game.

>

> Another idea is that they could create a non-commander personal (PACT researcher maybe) story track that allows new and old players alike to create a non-commander character that is strictly a character that exists in the current time frame. It's story wouldn't have anything that locks it down to a specific time frame starting out. Acquisition of things like mounts could take a different path without all that skipping around to try to catch up with the current happenings. Players could still create commander characters but a non-commander would be an express route to get caught up to enjoy new content in the moment of release without having to skip their commanders around.

>

> Of course they would need a second path to acquire things like mounts to go along with it.

This is an interesting idea because we do things in the world that a Commander shouldn't have time to do at all. The serious tone of the storyline puts the Commander in save the world mode 24/7 so things like exploration do not fit the Commander's role save for the times danger strikes an unexplored area.

An Explorer or Adventurer or even a Pirate going after booty makes more sense to have an actual excuse to find all these POIs, Vistas, and the like.

> @"dace.8019" said:

> Is this some ground dweller problem I'm too airborne to understand?

> @"Metasynaptic.1093" said:

> Ground peasants are disquiet again!

I immediately thought about Winglies from the Legend of Dragoon. Humans, in that game, were enslaved by Winglies who were winged humanoids with special powers. The humans could only fight back through human heroes who were recognized by dragon spirits and combined with them to become Dragoons.

Lol.

On topic: I'm not a fan of skyscales at all even after maxing it out on the same day I got it and mastering how it moves. But I will use it AFK like everyone else is and will find even louder color combinations because I can. Since it is my AFK hovermount, I have no reason to buy or go after a chair. My chair equivalent is the skyscale hovering low.

TL:DR

They see me flying. They hating.

I can see the use for someone who has a tough time typing. However, I don't want people to be robots either.

Then there are people like me who will abuse such a feature. I could easily see myself in town compliment spamming like I laugh spam in town already.

I agree. I would like to gift the starter package that doesn't appear in my account gemstore because I already have it. The basic bank tab and bag slots are hardly enough as you progress through the game. That package would be a pretty sweet gift to a couple buddies I have.

> @"Tarlonniel.6534" said:

> I guess I qualify, then, since I started playing about two weeks after PoF released. And though it has occasionally been frustrating, for the most part it's been enjoyable - or I wouldn't still be here ;) This is one of the few MMORPGs I've stuck with for more than a few months.

>

> I don't think I'm very representative of new players, though. In fact, according to the guy who recommended the game to me, I don't even play it! I don't do raids, fractals, dungeons, WvW, or PvP. Very rarely do I even participate in a meta. But believe it or not, I've done _way_ more group content in this game than in any other MMO I've played. That's because of the nature of GW2's map events. I don't need to find and join a group; I can just pop in as I'm meandering across the map, heal a little, rez a little, _maybe_ do some damage (but man, I suck at combat), and then drift away after a few minutes when I get bored or real life interferes. It's perfect for my playstyle.

>

> Most of the cool, shiny, legendary-type stuff is out of my reach, but whatever. There are enough pretty things available to keep me happy, and lots to explore, and some decent stories. That's all I need.

I have a similar playstyle, been at it for years now. Don't let these hardcore types force you out of your way. I would add shenanigans and AFKing in Divinity's Reach at Minister's waypoint. Lol.

After a long day of real life challenges and accomplishments, I use this game to wind down, not shift into work mode part two.

It is kind of sad knowing that much of these difficulties are a result of the expansions in some form. The core tyria world and community BEFORE the expansions was much better overall. A handful of my friends left as a result of the need for grinding in some form brought only by newer content. There is just a handful of us left from my very first guild which was carved out during a purely Core Tyria, pre-expac experience.

I'd like to thank OP for starting this thread because things HAVE changed for new players that are irrevocably different than the pre-expansion GW2 that nurtured my experience in this game. To new players, we're like monstrous bullies on huge mounts in their starter maps whenever the dailies bring us older Tyrians into their level specific maps. We melt things so fast, how do they even tag something for an event?

One point that someone brought up is that the game now is structured to be selfish, and I couldn't agree more. These map specific currencies are untradeable (Dungeon currencies are too but at least you actually needed others back then to complete a dungeon). I guess they don't want us taking advantage of people through the trading post but hey I get that. How about giving me the shot to mail it to my buddy who's disabled so that she doesn't have to grind these things out? I can't be charitable out of choice because I have no choice.

I tell you all: if I had the chance to farm something for someone else who couldn't do it on their own, I would. I most certainly have the alts, willpower, beetle delivery experience, and Eurobeat playlists to fuel it.

Griffon will help you get Skyscale as you scramble around Dragonfall for eggs and sick skyscales collections. Additionally, Griffon will also make the Dragonfall Meta easier so you can get all the bosses after Kralk. Doing the meta is a part of the process to get skyscale since it helps you get the 250 currency of that map.

I posted the following on a different thread but it totally works here too:

This is the heart of this game: open world content. Whether we're rushing metas, events, bosses, as long as the content is OPEN, you'll get good reviews overall. Closed content makes for a game that serves a few. This game was meant to be open. Core Tyria was structured to be that way. Go back to your roots, devs. Open world is your bread and butter.

My Skyscale is Suction Cup.