Guild Wars 2

kooscola.5897:

lol this tread is funny… who cares if they add mount would be funny.

That’s the whole point, it wouldn’t be funny.

It would ruin the game.

ecthelion.6794:

This is true, we have waypoints.

So……………………..?

Why can’t we have both?

Aside from it being redundant? Well, the game isn’t really designed to accommodate the idea.

Which isn’t to say it can’t be done… but such an addition would impact just about every aspect of the game, and would consequently require a lot of time and effort to implement. I’d think there would have to be a real, real compelling reason to go forward with it.

So, what’s the big benefit? What would mounts actually bring to the game experience?

Here are some of the things that would have to be considered:

- Movement. There are currently a host of skills and features that boost movement speed. If mounts facilitated expeditious travel, they would undermine the utility of many existing mechanics. How would that be addressed?

- Combat. Would mounted combat be possible? If so, how would that work? Keep in mind the long list of animations that would have to be added. And if mounts were a non-combat feature, how would that work? Would the mount just vanish when the rider was attacked? Wouldn’t that be quite disruptive to immersion?

- Economy. Waypoints are part of the game’s economic model. If mounts are to be an alternative to waypoints, how would the loss of that currency-sink be compensated for?

- Immersion. The current means of getting around—running—contributes to an impression of expansiveness, and thereby allows the world designers to do more with less. Being able to zip about on mounts would have the undesirable side effect of making the world seem smaller. This would be damaging to player immersion. Also, the zones are obviously designed to be explored on foot. How would mounts handle things like steep inclines, narrow ridges, bodies of water and other terrain obstacles?

- Aesthetics. What would these mounts be? Presumably, there would have to be some degree of variety and customization involved. After all, we don’t want everyone riding around on the same thing, because that would look ridiculous and cheap. But the more time the art team is spending designing mounts and barding, the less time they’re spending designing new armors, weapons, clothing, and so on. Is it really worth it?

Personally, I don’t think it is. I don’t see any substantial benefit to mounts that would justify all of this trouble. That said, I’m not steadfastly against the idea either. But I’d need to be convinced of the value of the addition.

So, convince me.

I would like mounts to be added for WvWvW. In WvWvW you may have to stay running and running and running just to get late to places where other players are, or you may not bother to rally to a point just because it is too far away, in my view mounts would be great also for some kinds of tactics and strategies.

As for World PvE I would say that traveling with waypoints is not free of charge but really expensive because it depends on the level of the character, so no, waypoints are not a substitution for mounts. Nevertheless, I do not have as much need of mounts in World PvE as in WvWvW. It is only when I have to travel all through a map to get to another map when I need them in World PvE; I save my hard earned gold because it takes to me more time to earn again that gold than to travel running all the map.

Now… I really don’t understand why the GW community is so against mounts.
When I ask their only arguments are the following:

@Hydrophidian

- Mounted Combat
Who says it has to be implemented? Back in the day when people rode horses to get around, they didn’t necessarily need to be warriors. If they weren’t they or their horse could be shot, resulting in either the rider to fall of the mount or the mount itself tumbling over. Simple, when you get attacked, your mount falls over and you fall off. This is IF you want to avoid mounted combat, instead of just attacking and the mount disappearing breaking the immersion.

Issue – Solved.

- Movement
The many skills and whatnot to get around only grant 20% to 33% speed increase at most, with a few exceptions that double running speed for a few seconds. Just add mounts that can run at 150% – 175% – 200% of the normal runspeed. HOW USEFUL! Now here comes the part about immersion breaking mentioned earlier…

HOW is a thief rolling around randomly in the street to get swiftness (Not to mention using their D/D slot 2 skill) to get around faster NOT immersion breaking? Same goes for engineer, is it natural to see a person put their gun away and pull out their flamethrower then put it away again to run faster?

The immersion breaking argument is invalid, because some of the swiftness inducing skills are immersion breaking to begin with. (With exception to Warhorns).

Argument – Invalid

- Economy
… Truth be told I don’t see the problem.
People who decide to skip out on waypoints to begin with are usually doing so for a reason, it’s not like they want to waste 30 minutes of their lives running from Mount Maelstrom to Dvinity’s Reach, usually it’s because they don’t have that much to spend and feel their money could be best used elsewhere than to dump them in an invisible hole and never get them back. Money isn’t circulated in this world, it’s dumped on NPC’s that have an infinite amount of money and could care less where the money you hand them go, which ends up sending them into the box of the infinite amount of forgotten in-game currency. If anything, waypoints have always been a choice in the game, adding mounts does not change that.

Argument – Invalid.

- Immersion
I’ll repeat myself, how is a thief dodge-rolling in the middle of the street to gain swiftness any less immersion breaking? Or an engie constantly swapping their flamethrowers magically appearing out of nowhere every 5th second? I’m sure there are more of these oddities, but nobody has seemed to care before.

As for the world seeming smaller, well… The current world we live in seems pretty small with the amount of transport vehicles we have to get around. What’s your point? The world is still big, despite how it feels.

Since the zones are designed to be explored on foot, make mounts limited. Don’t allow them to climb the same steep hills players on foot are, and make them more road transport. As for obstacles, they would treat them like we treat them. You see a steep incline, you try to walk a way around it if you can’t climb it. If you can’t access it (with the mount), you leave it behind. If you see a narrow ridge that won’t fit your mount, remove the mount? Or leave it behind if you absolutely need immersion? If we’re going to speak realism then most of these arguments are invalid anyway, since most animals react to obstacles just like we do. Find a path through it, or walk around it… Or give up… Such as water, HOW IS WATER AN OBSTACLE TO ANIMALS? I’m just asking! Since as far as I know lots of animals were far better swimmers before humans ever were. Horses in water who panic tend to react on instinct allowing them to fleet despite not having any kind of previous swimming experience, although not the most elegant or best swimmers out there, they still float! Of course I can understand if we’re speaking of a raging river, but what we’re speaking of here are very shallow slow-flowing rivers. The seas? Avoid them. I don’t think any mount enjoys taking a swim in the middle of a 3000 meters deep lake that contains more things to kill them than they can count, you wouldn’t force your mount with you if you were going there, you would leave it behind because it would be a nuisance more than an aid.

Humans in water with no swimming experience tend to panic, and in opposition to our friend the horse… THEY USUALLY SINK because of it. We humans may be good swimmers, but it has to be taught for us to even be able to float. (At least for some, I won’t speak for everyone)

Argument – Invalid.

- Aesthetics
The time they spend into designing mounts instead of armors, would it be worth it? To you no. But to some yes. It depends on the individual, and is not for one man to decide if it would be worth it. As for what these mounts would be?

Beats me. Glad it’s not my job to come up with that, and neither is it yours so you don’t have to worry about it. The devs came up with Guild Wars 2, they can probably come up with a few transport animals to match. They already got the pack bull, that’s a start, although it’s designed for cargo and not for people.

I already have one example for mounts.
Moa Birds. Perfectly sized Asura mounts if you ask me.

- End of argument

Truth be told, I could care less if they were to implemented or not. I just don’t see how they would make the game worse in any way. If anything it would make the game better, because those who want mounts could get their mounts. Those who disapprove of mounts would not be FORCED to get any mounts, and could stick to getting their feet in gear instead, living in their happily wide world.
It’s a win-win for both if you ask me. Don’t wanna get mounts? Don’t. DO wanna get mounts? Do. Simple as that.

lookitsandrea.8531:

So in other words… You are too lazy to run the map?

These mount threads are getting ridiculous. People who are against mounts are least trying to come up with some middle ground. People who are fans of mounts simply stick with their couple arguments without budging.

Actually it goes both ways. I’ve seen this “middle ground” you speak of and half the ones I read would make mounts to complex and a pain to use. It should simply be another cosmetic item with something between a 10%-20% speed increase (my thief can catch that without shadow stepping) and be rare drops/bought from the store.

Raine Akrune.8416:

lookitsandrea.8531:

So in other words… You are too lazy to run the map?

These mount threads are getting ridiculous. People who are against mounts are least trying to come up with some middle ground. People who are fans of mounts simply stick with their couple arguments without budging.

Actually it goes both ways. I’ve seen this “middle ground” you speak of and half the ones I read would make mounts to complex and a pain to use. It should simply be another cosmetic item with something between a 10%-20% speed increase (my thief can catch that without shadow stepping) and be rare drops/bought from the store.

Having them as cosmetic items could be a solution… But 10-20% speed increase? When the thief naturally runs at 25%? (Well, Shadow Signet infused, not naturally)
I would go for not less than 30% at least.

Mounts have never been correctly implemented in any MMO before and would be incorrectly implemented in GW2. And by the way, there’s already a thread for this somewhere in suggestions.

My points. Agree with them or don’t, let’s avoid ad-hominem arguments.

-Pointless waste of developer time while there are much larger issues around. Wouldn’t you want your devs to be fixing dynamic events and pvp exploits rather than making vanity speed increases?

-Will ‘shrink’ the world. Not literally, but scale and detail will be sacrificed for space. Without scale and detail, GW2 loses it’s epic identity.

-There are no horses, so everyone is going to be riding mounts that wouldn’t make much sense. The only truly domestic animals for riding I’ve seen are dolyaks(In the form of carts), and golems, because they can hold you in one of their massive hands and carry you around. To be frank, I think I could outrun both without swiftness.

-Waypoints can teleport you across ALL OF TYRIA in exchange for pocket change. If you can’t afford it, you really, really need to learn to manage money better.

I know I had a few others in the other thread, but I can’t remember them off the top of my head.

TwiceDead.1963:

Raine Akrune.8416:

lookitsandrea.8531:

So in other words… You are too lazy to run the map?

These mount threads are getting ridiculous. People who are against mounts are least trying to come up with some middle ground. People who are fans of mounts simply stick with their couple arguments without budging.

Actually it goes both ways. I’ve seen this “middle ground” you speak of and half the ones I read would make mounts to complex and a pain to use. It should simply be another cosmetic item with something between a 10%-20% speed increase (my thief can catch that without shadow stepping) and be rare drops/bought from the store.

Having them as cosmetic items could be a solution… But 10-20% speed increase? When the thief naturally runs at 25%? (Well, Shadow Signet infused, not naturally)
I would go for not less than 30% at least.

Just making some middle ground

Raffie.7865:

You got mass waypoints, no real need for mounts.

Waypoints are expensive for level 80s and take away immersion, Id like to be able to explore the scenery of Guildwars 2 casually whilst riding on the backs of some helpless animal bound to serve me as my artificial legs.

Having a passive permanent speedboost with a visual aesthetic that disapears when you get into combat does not ruin the game.

Its a lot easier than having to keep on swapping your utility skills from +10 – 20percent passive movement speed to something you actually use in combat since that boost is nullified the moment you enter combat.

Frosty and Frosty Law Firm.4981:

Mounts have never been correctly implemented in any MMO before and would be incorrectly implemented in GW2. And by the way, there’s already a thread for this somewhere in suggestions.

My points. Agree with them or don’t, let’s avoid ad-hominem arguments.

-Pointless waste of developer time while there are much larger issues around. Wouldn’t you want your devs to be fixing dynamic events and pvp exploits rather than making vanity speed increases?

-Will ‘shrink’ the world. Not literally, but scale and detail will be sacrificed for space. Without scale and detail, GW2 loses it’s epic identity.

- Pointless waste of developer time.
Now that’s not for you to decide, that’s just your opinion, and not everyones. Which I happen to agree with, since right now there are bigger issues that need attention, but that doesn’t say that after the issues are fixed this can be looked into.

- Shrink the world.
The world has already lost it’s epicness the time you run through it and don’t care for your surroundings at all and only care about your destination… Which tend to be when you have been in an area for so long you are sick of it, in which it would be nice to get away from there fast. The first time you’re in an area, you’re usually like “Whoaa this is awesome!” but when you have been spending time there for three days, your first impression of the place tends to have lost it’s edge and epicness and you just want to be done. A world never loses it’s epicness, the individual loses it’s epic impression of the place. And that’s never on the first impression. The first thing anyone does in a new area is to look around the place.

lookitsandrea.8531:

TwiceDead.1963:

Raine Akrune.8416:

lookitsandrea.8531:

So in other words… You are too lazy to run the map?

These mount threads are getting ridiculous. People who are against mounts are least trying to come up with some middle ground. People who are fans of mounts simply stick with their couple arguments without budging.

Actually it goes both ways. I’ve seen this “middle ground” you speak of and half the ones I read would make mounts to complex and a pain to use. It should simply be another cosmetic item with something between a 10%-20% speed increase (my thief can catch that without shadow stepping) and be rare drops/bought from the store.

Having them as cosmetic items could be a solution… But 10-20% speed increase? When the thief naturally runs at 25%? (Well, Shadow Signet infused, not naturally)
I would go for not less than 30% at least.

Just making some middle ground

That’s not a bad attitude at all! Need more people like you around, might make more people happy!

I’d be fine with no speed increase, I just want a horse for the looks and stuff to collect.

In response to the question about cash sinks… well you give certain vendors really expensive cultural barding ^^ (You could give the dungeon vendors barding as well, so your horse can match your armour.)

You could even give your horse repair costs – after you travel a certain distance it needs to be re-shoed. If you don’t replace your horses shoes then you can no longer ride it until you do.

I’d happily spend a fortune collecting Moa’s to ride, one in every colour. I’d buy every colour of horse as well, or Dolyak’s or whatever else they might see fit to put a saddle on. I wouldn’t be in favour of silly looking mounts though – some of the WoW mounts are so utterly over the top now that it looks ridiculous.

And yes, even if they have 0 speed increase I would buy them all. I just like mounts.

Edit: I’d also like some rare mounts around attached to difficult achievements.

This discussion has appeared countless times.

The majority of players agree that adjusting and scaling waypoint costs would be preferable over mounts.

Kana.6793:

I’d be fine with no speed increase, I just want a horse for the looks and stuff to collect.

In response to the question about cash sinks… well you give certain vendors really expensive cultural barding ^^ (You could give the dungeon vendors barding as well, so your horse can match your armour.)

You could even give your horse repair costs – after you travel a certain distance it needs to be re-shoed. If you don’t replace your horses shoes then you can no longer ride it until you do.

I’d happily spend a fortune collecting Moa’s to ride, one in every colour. I’d buy every colour of horse as well, or Dolyak’s or whatever else they might see fit to put a saddle on. I wouldn’t be in favour of silly looking mounts though – some of the WoW mounts are so utterly over the top now that it looks ridiculous.

And yes, even if they have 0 speed increase I would buy them all. I just like mounts.

Edit: I’d also like some rare mounts around attached to difficult achievements.

Black moa with purple trim on its feathers….yes please!

I would like to have a stable (in PvE and WvW) in which you could purchase or use your own mount. When you dismount your mount stays where it’s at. If it is killed, you lose it or it runs off, you have to go back to the stable and get another one.

That’s my compromise. I agree with many responses that mounts aren’t even needed. Although faster traveling in WvW or gathering PoI/Waypoints would be grand, I’d rather them to spend resources on other features.

ecthelion.6794:

Would you like the list of things that were not in GW1 but are now in GW2 cause Anet stole the idea from WOW?

I have it both in PDF and Excel format. You might need Excel 64 bit to open it though due the number of rows.

That list would be empty, because everything WoW has it stole from somewhere else.

make me the list so I can laugh at you for thinking anything in WoW is original.

Frosty and Frosty Law Firm.4981:

Mounts have never been correctly implemented in any MMO before and would be incorrectly implemented in GW2. .

What part of implementation does not work in LOTRO …?

And the mounted combat certainly does work well in the Riders of Rohan expansion ,enjoyed the beta a lot.

MithranArkanere.8957:

This discussion has appeared countless times.

The majority of players agree that adjusting and scaling waypoint costs would be preferable over mounts.

I’d like to see your Majority, those not roaming these forums please.

TwiceDead.1963:

MithranArkanere.8957:

This discussion has appeared countless times.

The majority of players agree that adjusting and scaling waypoint costs would be preferable over mounts.

I’d like to see your Majority, those not roaming these forums please.

Agreed
I’d personally like to see waypoint costs go down while still implementing mounts.

I agree with the guy in one of the other mount threads who said if mounts were added it would end up looking like Disneyland before long. Pink unicorns, neon polka-dotted dragons, “nightmare” horses (so overdone), wolves, it never ends.

In my opinion, it ruins the aesthetics of the world, adds more unneeded models to load for each and every player, adds clutter at banks, quest-givers, crafting stations, etc., and generally ruins the look and FPS of the game.

Mounts are not needed and add nothing positive to the game besides giving players something else to collect, which we have mini-pets for.

And WvW is designed so that it takes time for players to get back into the action. If that were not the case, battles would never end.

NO MOUNTS. There are plenty of WPs, besides they want to facilitate people to walk around the map and INTERACT with other players. Adding mounts would ruin that. This isn’t WOW.

Stop being lazy and walk. I do agree that WP costs could be reduced however. I understand they need money sinks, but at level 80 WP costs are quite high.

I’ve come across many posts regarding the implementation of mounts in to GW2. There are many arguments for and against mounts. I will outline some of the major arguments against mounts first and then methods to dealing with most if not all those problems.

Many players need to understand that in order to get the DEV team to implement mounts we need to figure out ways to counteract the problems that arise when we implement mounts in to the game. Some of these problems will affect the overall game-play itself. Until we manage to, as a community, solve these issues; mounts may never be implemented into the game. Simply asking for stuff will not get the community anywhere as well.

Please be courteous and keep personal feelings out of this thread. I have no problems with logical views and conflicts that may arise from implementing mounts but statements such as,” I just hate mounts in general” will only waste thread space and make it more tedious for other community members to scroll thru, read and reply.

This is a very HOT topic so remember to Like +1 if you do!

Current arguments against the implementation of mounts

A-Skipping content or going thru content the designer did not intend for you to skip by, for example, road blockades by npcs.

B-Having mounts with increased movement speed will undermine the use of waypoints.

C-Classes that utilize certain weapon mechanics and skills will be undermined by mounts that have increased movement speed. For example: The warrior class. Therefore, making weapons and certain skills a total waste.

D-Those that have mounts will have a clear advantage vs. those that don’t in WvWvW. For example: dying and then running back to large scale battles quicker or being able to reinforce troops to strategic locations faster.

E-Mounts in previous games have been produced to scale with players, therefore mounts for Char classes and Norns will be significantly large if they are implemented, possibly blocking key NPC’s such as Vendors.

F-Botters and farmers will use this amount to gather materials much faster, inflating the market and causing cascade of events on the Trading post.

G-Most have suggested that mounts should not have any movement speed and this has resulted in the argument that it would mean there would be no point in mounts in general.

I believe there is one way method to dealing with most of these problems if mounts were indeed implemented, specifically A, C, D, F and E.

That method would be putting HP on the mount. Yes, giving the mount life will solve a lot of these problems. On top of that, the mount can die, permanently, when HP hits zero. Players would then be forced to buy the mount again at 10g or with gems. The mount also must be soul-bound to avoid buying the mount for a certain amount of gems and then turning it around to market at 10 gold and down, since gems fluctuate in value.

Solutions to:

A-Most of the content are in off road regions where they are heavily populated with aggressive npcs. Charging thru these areas will result in the mount being killed. At 10 gold players will reconsider riding the mount thru these areas. Walking is definitely a better way in areas that are off road, therefore, forcing players thru content game designers would like them to see or play in. Mounts will be mainly for towns and on-road traveling and therefore actually having a use for roads in this game.

B-Waypoints in general are way much faster then the mount, by far. This argument also makes no sense but seems to appear rather often. If players are afraid that people will zerg to discovering waypoints or POI quicker, we have to remember that the mount can die and a lot of these waypoints are not always in safe-zones, sometimes, these zones are also under attack as well. Some players will say mounts will be much cheaper then waypoints. That is why the price of the mount is set fairly high but not ridiculous cause of the mount having HP and permanently dying.

C-It is very important that we don’t disrupt skills and weapons utilization by certain classes. This could upset the entire game in general and that is why mounts are looked down upon. Making everyone move at a certain speed will make classes that have a lot of abilities to move faster, worthless, when those abilities could be other types of skills, forcing Anet to remake the game and classes. Giving the mount HP will force players to using it in just towns and roads. Running off-road will require walking and movement speed increase skills and talents.

D-It is very evident that movement speed plays an essential role in WvWvW play. The faster troops can reinforce a strategic location will generally have better odds at winning key fights in the game. The WvWvW maps also have a lot of aggressive npcs scattered throughout and roadways are usually the only safe route. However, most of these road ways are being used by the opposing realms as well and many of them have guards on them at some point. Players may move from one point to another slightly quicker but risk the chance of getting 10 gold or possibly 10 dollars in gems flushed down the drain. Many players will say,” We can just dismount before we engage.” I recommend we put a 2 sec dismount timer. Yes, you need to actually get off the mount instead of it disappearing instantly as in WoW or so. In this time frame, your mount is still killable and we can add things like, if you are killed while being mounted, you will be thrown off 25 yards from the current location – removing you from the battle, making you useless, take a 2 sec stun and a loss of 25% hp. There is no blitzing in with mounts; the cons will outweigh the pros by a 3-1 ratio possibly even 4-1 if you consider losing 10 gold or real-money gems pretty phenomenal.

E-It shouldn’t be a problem in this game with mounts covering important NPC’s. With the “F” to interact function it removes the whole need to click on any important NPC. Sometimes, it is very annoying when there are multiple NPC’s around each other and you are trying to communicate with a specific one.

F- Botters will definitely try to use this as a key tool for gathering materials. However, as most of the community knows, its hard enough as is to run thru adds to get certain gathering materials, most if not all are pretty much guarded. However, we all know 33% movement speed is already good enough to get away from most mobs. We will need to add the feature of the horse slowing down when in combat and then more when struck. The mount will lose 50% of its movement speed when in combat and will lose all movement speed when struck again. By the time the botter makes it to the gathering material and tries to dismount, his mount will have been killed, making the botter lose 10g or 10 dollars in real currency. Although he may have reached and mined the orihalcum node, that is definitely not equal to the cost of what he lost. Great way to make these kids poor IMO.

G-Most of the people complaining that a mount will be useless, without movement speed increase, will be hard-pressed to realize that the mount probably has a higher aesthetic value then anything else. Yes, People look cool on cool mounts. People did not farm the turtle mounts in WoW for days to move at awesome speeds. They did it for the aesthetic value and same with every other mount and you always saw people in WoW, riding the cool and rare mounts. Whether we add or remove speed increase to mounts, I have already stated that HP on the mount will solve a lot of the issues with speed increase. If we choose to remove speed increase, players will still buy the mount for its aesthetic value, nullifying arguments A, B, C, D, E and F. People spent millions of dollars in matters of minutes for WoW mounts and pets, please remember that. The aesthetic value of a mount will be even higher in GW2 since GW2 has more customization than WoW by far.

Features I’ve seen suggested by others for mounts include:

-Customization on mounts.
I would definitely like to see this. I remember seeing a 200 page thread on WoW about people wanting to customize their mounts specifically color, adding accessories and etc. These accessories will be a great addition to the gem-market. Great increase in revenue and at the same time you don’t hurt your games design.

-Multi-passenger
I think a horse can handle two people but not two norns or two charr. To be fair we can’t make the norns and charr mounts able to handle two people but not the other races because no one would buy the 3 other races’ mounts. Why 10g or 10 dollars for a mount that can only carry one? It may look better on your class but most will pick the 2 seater over the 1. Instead, we can add the wagon (Soul-bound) feature into the gem-market as well. Sould-bound will avoid the Wagon from being sold for extraneous amounts of gold. At 3000+ gems, you can carry a load of players. The wagon feature will be indestructible compared to the horse and also the horse will lose 10% movement speed for the wagon and an additional 20% loss for each additional player sitting in the wagon max (4) players. Yeah, the horse dying…

-Many have suggested having Mounted battles.
Because of argument D, no. Having mounted battles means mounts need to live far much longer causing problems to arise in other aspects of the game. However, lets add a new feature with mounts. We can move siege equipment now. With the 10g mount a player has the option or risk of moving siege equipment (catapults, ballistas and arrow carts). Trebuchets are too big, sorry~ I’m sure most people know, siege equipment gets blitzed, so move equipment at your own RISK. Of course, the arrow carts are much lighter and will move at 50% less of normal movement speed. The ballistas and catapults will only move at 25% of normal movement speed to avoid running siege equipment everywhere. The movement speeds are not permanent; they may need to be adjusted accordingly to avoid a blitz siege. Many may say this is bad because it doesn’t matter how slow they move, you will sort of still have a blitz siege but many players forget that you are moving siege equipment from somewhere else. Yes, supplies are limited and so the creation and amount of siege engines are regulated fairly well in WvWvW. So the siege engines being moved are usually ones that were used as defense on previous keeps and etc. Therefore, by removing these, the keeps defenses have dropped making it more vulnerable to siege. This idea may need a few more tweaks but I haven’t had that much time to think it out yet. However, this opens WvWvW to whole new level of play.

If you have any suggestions, comments, feedback or foresee certain problems arising, please tell me so we can figure away around it.

Once we have solved all the problems arising from implementing mounts, GW2 will be more then willing to give us Mounts.

Also if Anet ever implements these ideas, it would be nice if I received some credit. This was a 4 page report before posting. A nice customized mount will do, that can die of course… I’m sure the world would love to see the only one of kind horse die sadly in a starting zone =d

Thanks!

I forgot to add that the mounts are squishy, taking only 4-5 hits and they will scale to all zones just as players. So a horse that takes 4-5 hits in cursed shore will take just as many in lower level zones. A hit is a hit!

TwiceDead.1963:

MithranArkanere.8957:

This discussion has appeared countless times.

The majority of players agree that adjusting and scaling waypoint costs would be preferable over mounts.

I’d like to see your Majority, those not roaming these forums please.

Just ask in-game. Ask them what they would rather have: Mounts or reasonable prices in waypoints.

Most of them will choose waypoints.

You can run around with a mount. But with reasonable prices in waypoints you can travel faster all over the world.

Dilann.1873:

I just quit WOW for this game> GW2 is 100% better but one thing i do miss is the mounts! i dont enjoy having to run every were i want to go! please add in some mounts asap

No. Just no.

You have waypoints, you are faster out of combat and you have abilities to make you even faster. That should be enough.

@TwiceDead,

Before I reply to your points, I’ll point out that you are not the arbiter of validity, nor the moderator of the discussion. I’d ask that, in future exchanges, you’d be less adversarial and dismissive of differing viewpoints. If for no other reason than the fact that it does nothing to win you support.

Also, preemptively, if you take issue with the dry, precise tone of the following, please remember that you established that tone by invoking ‘validity’ in a declarative, authoritative fashion.

TwiceDead.1963:

Now… I really don’t understand why the GW community is so against mounts.

How do you know the larger community is “so against mounts”? Please cite your source. To my knowledge, we don’t know how the larger community feels about it, for or against.

Be that as it may, any such opinion would have no immediate bearing on the value of mounts as an addition to the game. Popularity of the addition could certainly be an influence after it’s viability is assessed. But viability and its value in relation to the resources it’d monopolize must come first.

- Mounted Combat
Who says it has to be implemented?

Well, I didn’t. I asked, if it were implemented, how would it be handled?

If you’re advocating a non-combat addition, that’s fine. It does, however, make the suggestion much less compelling. Why bother? Again, there needs to be a good reason to do this. Where’s the added value? I don’t see it. If you’re presenting mounts as only a system of travel, the game already has one. Thus, you’ve not “solved” this issue.

The many skills and whatnot to get around only grant 20% to 33% speed increase at most, with a few exceptions that double running speed for a few seconds. Just add mounts that can run at 150% – 175% – 200% of the normal runspeed. HOW USEFUL!

No doubt, but this doesn’t address the concern. Again, such an addition would significantly diminish the utility of those skills. How do you re-balance those skills?

The immersion breaking argument is invalid, because some of the swiftness inducing skills are immersion breaking to begin with. (With exception to Warhorns). Argument – Invalid

No, I’m afraid not. You’ve actually engaged in a logical fallacy here, saying that because A is wrong, B can also be wrong. That is invalid. Your argument could be turned right around into: these existing things need to be less immersion-breaking, which would then directly undermine your position. Oops.

You’ve also failed to factor in the trade-off involved: immersion vs. the necessity of mechanics. The “immersion burp” of an Engineer switching kits is weighed against the appeal and value of the class feature. You’ve yet to indicate any game-enhancing value in the addition of mounts, so why add it as another burp?

- Economy … Truth be told I don’t see the problem.

Allow me to explain, then. Waypoints are a currency-sink. If you introduce a means to effectively bypass waypoints, which is what mounts would do, the loss of that currency-sink should be accounted for in some other fashion. You haven’t done that. You don’t need to understand the economic formula, you just need to recognize that it’s there, and arbitrary changes to it aren’t going to fly.

So, again, no, the argument is not invalid. In fact, it’s not even an argument. It’s something to be addressed, not countered.

As for the world seeming smaller, well… The current world we live in seems pretty small with the amount of transport vehicles we have to get around. What’s your point? The world is still big, despite how it feels.

We’re talking about a virtual environment, not the real world. Whether you like it or not, how the virtual world feels is an important design consideration. The developers don’t have the luxury of just hand-waving the impact mounts would have on the overall feel of the world, as you’ve done.

The virtual zones in the game aren’t actually all that big at all. Which isn’t surprising, because there are many downsides to having too big a space, such as population dilution, memory usage, greater demands on architecture. But you want it to feel big so that there’s still a valuable sense of exploration and discovery.

This is what the addition of mounts would damage. From a design perspective, it’s not a trivial thing, even if it might be from yours.

Since the zones are designed to be explored on foot, make mounts limited.

Okay. So, are we to envision a world in which people are constantly stowing and retrieving mounts? Or are they consigned to specific paths and left on them? Do we then have roads cluttered with mounts?

HOW IS WATER AN OBSTACLE TO ANIMALS? I’m just asking!

You shouldn’t be asking, you should be answering. The question was: how would it be handled?

Let me try it this way…

Example of mount addition that is not so disruptive to various game considerations:

- At waypoint markers, add saddled moas, horses, or other animals that are appropriate to the region. These would be your mounts.
- Activating a mount will bring up the world map. Waypoints that your mount is capable of traveling to will be indicated by a glow.
- When you click on a valid waypoint, you get a brief cutscene of your character riding through the terrain on the mount, then you’re dumped at the destination point.
- Mounts would not be able to leave the zone or perhaps the region (Krytan mounts stay in Kryta).
- You could buy a mount token (representing your ownership of a mount) that would lessen or remove any cost of traveling in this fashion. As such, it would be an up-front investment that would save you time and money in the long-term.
- Mounts could possibly access contested waypoints, which would give them a tactical use.

Now, I’m willing to bet that the above suggestion would not satisfy most of the people who want mounts in the game. So, what has to be determined is: what they actually want, how viable it is, and what it brings to the game. This was the whole point of my initial post, and your response misses it almost entirely.

The time they spend into designing mounts instead of armors, would it be worth it? To you no. But to some yes. It depends on the individual, and is not for one man to decide if it would be worth it.

Actually, it probably is ultimately for one person to decide: the lead designer. In any event, I’ve listed several concerns that the design team would no doubt have to consider. Rather than actually addressing them, you’ve treated them as arguments and have attempted to dismiss them as “invalid”. I’m pretty confident that approach isn’t going to help get mounts into the game.

The devs came up with Guild Wars 2, they can probably come up with a few transport animals to match.

Certainly, but they don’t appear to have a compelling reason to do so, and you haven’t provided one. “Because some people want it” is obviously not going to do the trick, otherwise it would’ve been there from the beginning. They decided not to have mounts in GW1 and decided not to have mounts in GW2. If you want mounts, it’s on you to provide suitable reason for them to reconsider their decision.

If you refuse to see the possible detriments of this addition even after they’ve been pointed out to you, refuse to thoughtfully address them, why should you be taken seriously at all?

This is not a “simple” thing to do. It’d be a major game-altering addition. I asked to be convinced that it was worth it. You’ve failed to convince me. If you can’t convince someone who’s not all that vested either way, it’s pretty certain your “argument” isn’t going to make much headway with the developers who have already decided against the addition in two different games.

People who want mounts are going to have to do better than this, or we won’t be seeing them anytime soon, if ever.

I want to ride a Charr as a Human.

There’s something that just seems proper about saddling up a giant sentient cat being and yelling, “Yah mule! Yah!” while they’re on ‘all fours’…

MithranArkanere.8957:

TwiceDead.1963:

MithranArkanere.8957:

This discussion has appeared countless times.

The majority of players agree that adjusting and scaling waypoint costs would be preferable over mounts.

I’d like to see your Majority, those not roaming these forums please.

Just ask in-game. Ask them what they would rather have: Mounts or reasonable prices in waypoints.

Most of them will choose waypoints.

You can run around with a mount. But with reasonable prices in waypoints you can travel faster all over the world.

Why are you limiting yourself to ‘Either’? Why not both?

Merging

Ground mounts I would love, flying no…

@ Hydrophidian

I wrote a lengthy reply to your post, but it was infracted(probably for a good reason), and I won’t bother writing it again. You will have to find someone else to provide your issues with answers.

@the person who said mounts where needed in WvW

Take a keep upgrade make a waypoint, FIXED

TwiceDead.1963:

I wrote a lengthy reply to your post, but it was infracted(probably for a good reason), and I won’t bother writing it again. You will have to find someone else to provide your issues with answers.

They aren’t my issues. They’re design issues. They’re some of the issues that the developers will assuredly be looking at if they (re)consider the implementation of mounts.

Thus, if you want mounts, it’d probably be a good idea to come up with interesting solutions and ideas that might get developers to stop and say, ‘hey… yeah, y’know… that might work.’

We can be pretty confident that this has been looked at and discussed by the design team twice, at least. Once for GW1, once for GW2. Clearly, the decision both times was to not bother with mounts. You can bet there were reasons for that. And it’s almost certain the concerns I’ve listed were among those reasons.

So, again: I’m not making an argument. I’m trying to provide a platform for mount-advocates to make substantive pitches, to turn the dialogue towards something constructive. I’m not responding to this topic as a player who wants X or doesn’t want X because, really, I don’t much care either way. I’m approaching it as a design issue.

You can take advantage of that or not, but I’m not interested in flame wars.

I made a very lengthy post, as to why GW2 does not have a mount implemented and ways to go around it.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Mounts-in-Detail-and-how-to-properly-get-DEV-support-on-it/first#post345385

It is more then just because GW1 didn’t have one that GW2 won’t. It has a lot to do with the game mechanics itself and how the mount can throw off everything. That is why I made very lengthy post pointing out features in which the mount would cause problems and how we should change the mount in order for it to be implemented and yet at the same time not change the game-mechanics, especially since many character classes depend on certain “Speed skills.”

However, most people aren’t willing to read a 4 page post, pointing out many major issues with implementing mounts. If people really did want mounts they would read my post and although they may or may not agree with my idea of how to implement mounts, they could atleast understand some of the main reasons why mounts have not or may not be implemented. Once they understand these things, atleast we can then start to huddle up and figure out ways to balance mounts and get them in game vs. sitting here and saying put mounts in.

I’m in the camp that wouldn’t mind seeing mounts in game, so long as they’re fairly mundane and ordinary and not these huge sparkling dragons or whatever. But I think you’d have to be mad to spend 10 gold on a mount if it can only take 5 hits – you wouldn’t even be able to ride it anywhere. Then again, maybe some people would like that.

ANet already likes to put in little fun things people can do besides the main game – maybe we could have the best of both worlds if they implemented mounted racing/jousting/etc? These would be instanced, would only allow you to have a mount inside the instance, and would count as another minigame or a lighthearted PvP option. If the system could handle it, I’d absolutely love playing minigames like these.

I’d like to remind you that GW1 had something alike to mounts:
- Siege devourers and Junundu.
They were ‘disguises’ or ‘forms’ that changed your appearance and skills, like the Siege Golem, but you get to ‘mount’ something.

Mounts that are like that:

• Limited in time or to a region, so you can’t use it outside the areas for which it has been balanced.
• Functional, changing your skills to those of the mount.
• Not something you bring with you and use anywhere.

With those I’ll be ok with.
And in fact, we already several some of those.

@Belcross,

You might want to read my posts in this thread. You’ve hit upon a lot of the issues, but I think I’ve pointed out a few others that you might want to consider.

Belcross.6127:

However, most people aren’t willing to read a 4 page post, pointing out many major issues with implementing mounts.

What matters is if developers are reading it, and they do seem to be paying attention to these forums.

If I were a designer on this game, I’d be more inclined to read thorough, thoughtful proposals such as yours, than the usual add this cuz i want it’ stuff.

@OP
Why don’t you just suggest they revamp the LOTRO mount system? Because that is essentially what your suggesting minus the permanent death.

I like your post, it is very well thought out and clearly identifies the main problems with both the mount wants and nots. Please don’t take this as a troll/flame but I’m going to point out a couple problems with the mount hp system.

The number 1 issue with giving mounts hp is taking conditions into account. In LOTRO the devs spent a lot of time trying to counter act stuns/dazes/etc to keep you from instantly being knocked off. They never fixed it when I left back in August so I can imagine ANet would have to dedicate some serious time and effort into making that work well. So with the thought of making them perma die, and buying one for 10g, you can see why people may just say screw it and not buy one.

The second problem is perma death. That to me implies only basic mounts in the game because who would ANet expect to go out and spend many hours, or gems, on a rare mount most players wont have just to have it killed off? Not I, or at least I’d only use it in towns or someplace safe for it. I love the old PK rules of you die and drop everything which sets a solid mood for pvp but for something like a mount it just urks me.

Now lets turn around and get positive, I’m going to throw out a few suggestions I’ve gathered from the MMOs I’ve played over the years.

The first major obstacle is how to handle someone entering combat while mounted. You can go conventional like WoW for example and just have the mount take 4-5 hits with the damage effecting your hp before being knocked off. The other is the LOTRO standard of adding hp to mounts, as mentioned there are significant issues which come with that.

I’m more for the conventional mount idea, being as I like to follow the tried and true KISS method. When you over complicate things your just looking at more work and less dev interest.

So now that I have my choice of a conventional, hp lacking, mount we move on to fantasy or reality in terms of what we’re riding. Given that GW2 is fantasy I’d think you could come across a couple different mounts.

Dolyak
Moa
Horse? (Have we ever seen one in GW1 or GW2?)
Perhaps a Charr scout vehicle (smaller version of one of their steam tanks?)

Now since I’m a bad little asuran I want that pretty moa bird to zip me through the jungle…Woah, I’m getting ahead of myself here. Did I say “zip”? Well lets talk speed buffs then.

I know we have WPs and they do rock for traveling. There’s enough of them to get anywhere quickly enough but in WvWvW specifically I find myself cussing at the fact I’ll be running the next 5-10 minutes someplace. Likewise we can’t speed them up so bad that we never use the WPs again (though really, are you honestly going to tell me you’d run your mount from one end of the zone to another rather than WP?)

I’d say give the mounts just…JUST…enough speed that they can gradually outrun anyone on foot. I’m talking a 5%-10% increase above what players can achieve so you can’t get away out right but with a few spare seconds you can run the gap to freedom. There’s enough “Get over here!” skills to stop them not to mention you pump a few arrows into the moa and I’m back on foot.

“Well now hang on. Your a thief so can’t you stealth, hide, and mount back up?” …Clever girl, but that’s why we have that nifty still in combat function to keep us from swapping skills and regening to full health just because we have a few seconds to breath after taking some hits.

So now that we’re passed the mount system, possible mounts, and the whole speed buff/WP issue lets move on to some cooler stuff.

First, I’m against the whole mounted combat idea. It’s to early in the game to make a drastic change like that and honestly I never liked it all that much. I tried LOTRO’s Rider of Rohan beta and I wasn’t impressed about riding around cutting down NPCs on warg back. Moving on…

Taxi Cabbing/Passengers: I made this suggestion a long time ago in Vanilla WoW before they added BGs. Those of you who remember running down to Crossroads or heading to Astranaar know what I mean, running was a serious pain in the butt. This would be a perfect solution to why you should add larger mounts. My moa example is to small to handle an asuran + one more unless it’s a sassy asuran lass keeping me company. A dolyak though, that tough mother of an ox will carry you, your charr buddy, and his three drunk friends home no problem.

Now the cooler part of my cool stuff section is armor. Everyone loves finding that cool armor to make their toon look like a boss. Your mount should get some love to. I have suggested it in every game I’ve played that supplies permanent mounts and I honestly think it would be one of the best mount features. It not only makes your mount look like a boss as well BUT it makes it your mount, your unique ride through Tyria and can take advantage of the dye system.

Now that we’ve covered all that I just want to end with a quick snip at skill use while mounted. Passives and only passives should be allowed and most of them limited. Their meant for transportation and without mounted combat there is no real reason to use your skills.

Lastly, for any would be posters in this topic. Do not use the excuse that mounts cause anti-social behavior because that is flat out untrue. I’ve seen enough people run by those in need or LOL at downed players as they get killed that there is no way mounts have any effect on this. It’s just trolls being trolls and you can’t fix that, just like FPS’s can’t ditch the obnoxious 12 year olds.

Some of you may agree and some will disagree but this is just my feelings on mounts. I think they always make a great addition to the game, and would in GW2. Even if their purely cosmetic it will make things more interesting.

The irony is..

Teleports are worse than Mounts when it comes to experincing the world.

How many times I’ve seen.. people just simply spoof and disappear. They teleported.

I usually go to a zone, then I teleport all over the place because the teleports make it so convenient when it comes to traveling. Far more effective than Mounts for covering terrain but costly.

Mounts on the other hand you still are inevitably exposed to the world as if though you were walking from point A to point B.

I don’t want them to be faster or anything, I just want to see a norn riding a mount meant for an asura. Poor little pony.

Waar Kijk Je Naar.8713:

kooscola.5897:

lol this tread is funny… who cares if they add mount would be funny.

That’s the whole point, it wouldn’t be funny.

It would ruin the game.

add very slow mounts

It seems that my replay about mounts has been lost in the process of merging threads on this topic. I write it again here:

In my view, mounts may be a great addition for WvWvW. In the current state of WvWvW players have to stay running most of the time, either to move to a given point or to follow other players or to fly away from foes. This sometimes means having to travel long distances that can not be covered other way than running. Also, adding mounts to WvWvW may bring new tactics or strategies.

In my view, mounts may have some interest for World PvE but in a lesser degree than for WvWvW. Waypoints are not free -they are rather expensive- and they are not as flexible as a mount is, so they can not be considered a substitution for mounts. Waypoints are more for respawn of death players. Nevertheless, in World PvE I miss having a mount only when I have to travel along a whole map to go to another map, I do not use Waypoints for this, because I think that it takes more time to earn again the gold expended in a waypoint than to go running.

P.S.: Actually, for WvWvW my character is an Elementalist that has 10 trait points in Air and the traits to boost speed, but my PvE Hypno does not have such definitive options to boost speed.

marianojc.2965:

In my view, mounts may have some interest for World PvE but in a lesser degree than for WvWvW.

This is a point that I can agree with. In general PvE, traveling methods and traveling times aren’t so bad that they’d require players to get a mount to make it more bearable. It’d just be… pretty, I suppose.

In WvW, having a mount to hop onto every now and then, would be quite nifty. The traveling times aren’t too bad as they are now, but arriving just a few seconds late, only so you get completely obliterated by the army up ahead… and then have to re-run the entire zone… well. Ouch.

If they ever introduce mounts for PvE situations though, I hope they won’t make it some humongous collection as other MMO’s (thinking of WoW, Aika Online, Perfect World etc.) but simply provide players with an option to get a fitting mount in the beginning of each zone for a small fee, to suit their needs whilst they spend time in there. A mount you give up on as you leave the area, but are perhaps free to reclaim once you return.
That’s to say, in the northern regions, you’d probably run around on a Dolyak. A rented one, one you got from a Norn innkeeper or some sort, to fit the actual lore of Tyria. If you headed to Kryta, you might end up with a horse of sorts, or a Golem vehicle for the Asura places. And again, not one you’d drag into cities to clot areas with whilst AFK’ing.
Naturally, that’d add a reason to travel to each region, to obtain the various mount “rights”… and for that, an achievement, a title, a nice goodie or two… well, who knows.

Anything to prevent me from having to roll around a hundred different drakes, mammoths and bear bottoms to try and click an NPC in a city.

^ That is a brilliant idea IMHO

Personally I don’t see there being any need for mounts. Can’t have flying ones because of vistas and would be stupid in WvWvW. Ground based ones…giving a speed boost would not be good – besides can already get speed boosts. So that leaves them just as aesthetics, so whats the point? we already have tonics and mini pets for that!

Waypoints work just fine – although are expensive. I’d rather they reduced the cost of waypoints rather than implement pointless mounts.