Guild Wars 2

I am quite a casual Guild Wars 2 player, so my perspective comes from being a player that engages mostly in the story content as well as playing with friends.

Being also a World of Warcraft player, there seems to be a worrying trend in the progression of Guild Wars 2 that many features are being “taken” from WoW, when in my opinion GW2 needs to stick to a different identity altogether. For instance, we had the addition of Ascended gear grind (for the sake of just gear progression) and Raids, both of which seem to cater towards a hardcore playerbase, when imo Guild Wars 2 with its business model should really be about casual players.

Now we get Mounts. To me, apart from being a cosmetic that people can chase, I don’t see the point of it, especially not in a game built on adventure and exploration such as Guild Wars 2. It is not as objective driven as WoW, where you get a quest at one location, do the quest at a second location and then return the quest. I feel that Guild Wars 2 should build mechanics that encourage wanderlust, since the dynamic design of the outdoor world content is built around the idea of players engaging with the encounters in a spur-of-the-moment kind of way. Mounts seem to rather give the option to dash past the world altogether towards wherever you want to go, much like in WoW.

I could understand the addition of mounts if they wanted to truly make the Crystal Desert “vast” and give you some means to traverse across it. But the fact that this, much like Gliders, will be available in other places is worrisome. While Gliders are a more fun version of WoW’s flying mounts that made the maps more vertically interesting, this just seems to function the exact same way as WoW’s equivalent.

You could argue that the ability to “dash past” content is already in the game, and these Mounts really change nothing. The Silverwaste Chest trains is kind of a testament to this (which I never participated in). At the same time, giving players a certain mechanic will encourage certain behaviour. Say your personal story objective is over a Y, and in between are random objectives X and Z. At the moment, it’s really up to the player to do X and Z, but since he is trudging on foot, he might as well engage in them. Give the character the option to mount and it becomes much easier to merely skip X and Z and rush straight to Y.

As I said, it’s not impossible to just skip through stuff atm. Zerg trains seem to always be a thing in this game. But why are Mounts necessary? What do they add to the game? If they are absolutely needed because otherwise it would take too long to move around to do quests altogether, then that seems to be more a deeper issue regarding density of content in zones.

I don’t know how it will affect gameplay, and my concerns may prove wrong. I am still hyped for the expansion, but as of now Mounts only makes me more worried that it will foster a “mount up” and skip everything on your path attitude in the playerbase, an option which I don’t get why it’s needed in Guild Wars 2.

Zaraj.8792:

Mounts seem to rather give the option to dash past the world altogether towards wherever you want to go, much like in WoW.

You literally just described Waypoints perfectly.

WoW isn’t the only thing they’re “copying”. But in your defense, WoW set the standard for mediocrity in the MMO industry, and what consumers expect when it comes to wasting their time.

I was skeptical of mounts too until I saw some twitch streamers test them out after the announcement.

From the looks of it mounts are implemented rather well. At least in the upcoming expansion they seem to be core to the spirit of adventure and exploration that makes Guild Wars great. Think of how gliding was core to the adventure/exploration of HOT, it’s exactly like that it seems. There are a few mounts (4 I think) and each one is tied to a mastery system. Each mount has a unique purpose beyond a speed boost. Each mount aids in adventure/discovery. Also, the new maps seem to be huge with few waypoints, so mounts make sense to me in that sense. I think Wooden Potatoes (one of the streamers showing things off) was told by a developer that the new maps are just as large as the 4 HOT maps AND the 6 maps from season 3. If true, that is massive.

To address your main concerns about people just skipping content because they can quickly get to where they need to go, well… they already do that. Some players already skip random events X and Z, and others like you enjoy stopping to help spontaneous events. The only difference after the expansion will probably be that the first group will still ride by on their way to objective Y, and the second group will charge their mounts into events X and Z (entering combat with your mount looks fun btw). People are going to play their game as they wish.

I’m going to throw this out there and say that it might even be quicker to skip content on foot rather than on mounts. As far as I know there is no dodge mechanic for mounts, and when you get hit you get knocked off the mount. If true, that would make it hard to go from one side of the map to the other in core Tyria where enemies are thick, vs. now where I can use movement skills, blocks, and dodges to travel without ever having to slow down from combat.

I’m sorry but a majority of people still skip content by running a map for all the waypoints and teleporting to them when theres an event.

If you’re playing WoW then I’m sure you’ve noticed the addition of world bosses and world quests, which were directly taken and inspired by guild wars 2. People take things from other all the time because imitation is the best form of flattery. But GW2 always put their own twist and spin on things that people end up taking after.

Mounts in GW2 do not serve the same purpose they do in WoW, to travel fasters, although can be used as such, but as a tool for further exploration just like Gliding/Bouncy shrooms/or any other map mastery for getting around. Mounts in WoW are vanity, mounts in GW2 are tools.

Kinda tired of this argument that mounts will take away from exploration of the game when there have been waypoints since the start of GW2 but people don’t mind those.

Use the mount to get to X objective, dismount and proceed however you wish.

Using the mounts PCs will be to access places that a normal PC couldn’t survive (e.g. Sulfurous Wastes in GW1). Or Drytop movement through quicksand, up cliffsides, and across expanses.

Not another X game took this from Y game post.

The way I see it, mounts in GW2 are well innovated.
- they have mobility skills
- they have pve skills

In GW2, there’s map completion. Not everything is accessible by way points, and mounts would tremendously help in that. And when they are, they can be “contested” by events.

It’s not a simple +movespeed +aesthetic.

The concern on “X Y Z” in story quests is already outright bypassed if you have waypoints.

Now that there are mounts, I might just even ignore the waypoints and enjoy trotting around.

and i tough soulbeasts would be the mounts o.O

its fine guys u ill able to use the pve dragon in some mission later on the game….
Every one will die their air white.. for that mission….