Gliding in PoF
The website states:
“You must purchase Heart of Thorns to unlock and use the gliding mastery, as well as all other masteries introduced in and exclusive to that expansion. You will be able to complete all of the content in Path of Fire without the use of any Heart of Thorns-exclusive masteries.”
There may, or may not, be optional avenues to access content. It may be there will be areas that include updrafts, ley-lines, etc., but will also include other means to access said content. Maybe not, since Mounts will replace many of those functions.
We won’t know until after the expansion releases, I guess.
The website states:
“You must purchase Heart of Thorns to unlock and use the gliding mastery, as well as all other masteries introduced in and exclusive to that expansion. You will be able to complete all of the content in Path of Fire without the use of any Heart of Thorns-exclusive masteries.”
Owww….
So goodbye updraft, leyline and everything else…
For now, at least….
Videos have shown updrafts in at least one location, so it’s going to be there. However, it will likely never be the only way to access an area, since not all players will have Gliding.
We can use gliding in core Tyria as well since it was introduced with HoT, so of course you will be able to glide in PoF. As for updrafts etc., no, they want you to use mounts, so those HoT specialties will be marginal at best.
Core Tyria has launch pads in many zones (including LA), giving you additional ways to gain altitude. For me, gliding (HoT only) plus autoloot (PoF or HoT) was worth the US$50 base price for HoT when it launched. It is a game-changing amount of fun. For example, I’m no fan of map completion (it’s a minor, time-consuming chore to get a legendary), however, with gliding, it can be fun at times, too.
tl;dr gliding alone is worth an extra US$20 in my strong opinion.
(oh and yeah, you get 9 elite specs, four huge new zones, a new story, and the opportunity of six more zones + a new story (with the optional LS3).
John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”
It’s interesting how you frame it with gliding that it has a “marginal role” in core Tyria. I myself see it as fundamental in core Tyria as it’s how I navigate and travel. I think the better distinction is around whether it gates content. In HoT gliding is a REQUIRED platforming tool that gates content—you can’t do the content without gliding. From what we’ve seen so far it looks like mounts will function in a similar manner, they will be required to access some content.
The distinction is useful, gating content, as you would never gate content behind an ability like gliding or mounts if you had an overarching philosophy of “play it your way”. You should be able to reach core game objectives any way you want and not have to pick up a required tool. But, as GW2 has ditched this element of design philosophy, play it your way, it really doesn’t matter that much now.
We can use gliding in core Tyria as well since it was introduced with HoT, so of course you will be able to glide in PoF. As for updrafts etc., no, they want you to use mounts, so those HoT specialties will be marginal at best.
“they want you to use mounts”
This really illustrates my point above. It’s descriptive of a heavy-handed design philosophy that needlessly discounts the way players may want to play. It’s like the WoW meme where a players asks whether they will ever have servers with previous expansions as they were and a dev informs the player that he doesn’t really want that: “you think you do, but you don’t”. It the meme that best describes the heavy-handed approach native to WoW.
So, I agree that they really do want us to use mounts and they’re going to design it such that you will really need them. I wish the “play it your way” meme had won the day with GW2. I can understand WoW dictating play but it really doesn’t fit somehow here.
(edited by Raine.1394)
‘Mounts’ will be new jumping skills that are gated behind mastery points- probably using a new type of mastery point only gained by grinding out ‘content’ in the new expansion (just like HoT forced you to do).
So you’ll be able to use gliding to get some places but guaranteed you will not be able to get to most place and progress without grinding out the exp and finding the ‘mastery’ points required.
My one hope is they don’t gate so many mastery points behind ‘mini-games’ or JPs or ‘achievements’ which require you to watch endless meaningless dribble (oop, sorry, ‘story’) over and over again without a skip button until you get the required ‘achievement’.
WvW player. Doing another world completion for my next Legendary. Hater of mini-games.
So POF IS really HOT in disguise. So instead of the mushroom hopping and gliding they gives us mounts to drool over. Mounts will need masteries which you will spend most of your time grinding so you can navigate the new zones just like you did in HOT.