Guild Wars 2

Naus the Gobbo.5172:

Aren’t gliders, the witch broom and the flying carpet mounts?

Yes, they are. But they do not give the feeling of “riding a horse” (not even a dead one) which for some people (not me) is important.

Good day fellow Tyrians,
Anything written in this post is completely and solely based on my opinion.

There aren’t many things to complain about when it comes to this game; it’s beautiful, complex and offers tons of re-playability thanks to it’s dynamic, ever-changing world. I’ve played Guild Wars 2 for a good year now. I recently got my world completion along with my first legendary weapon. During my lengthy adventure through the world of Tyria, the following issue is one that I felt needed to be addressed:

- I found that getting around the world was far too quick and far too easy, especially in the late-game.
- Loading screens between zones

For me, this ruins immersion. It makes me feel as though I’m trapped in an enclosed area, like an animal in captivity.
Although we use these subconsciously at this point, teleporting around via Waypoints makes the player miss a lot of content; skipping a potentially interesting/exciting/profitable journey, not to mention the beautiful scenery this game has to offer.

My Proposal:

- Drastically reduce the amount of Waypoints available in each zone
- Greatly increase the price of using said Waypoints
- Add mounts, or some kind of alternate form of transportation that doesn’t ruin immersion
- Remove loading screens when changing zones (except when using a Waypoint)

Goal of Proposal:

- This would make the world feel much, much larger
- No loading screens between zones would allow for a smooth atmospheric transition between one environment to the next
- Greater immersion
- Increased player interaction
- Travelling from one place to the next would feel like much more of an adventure

Now, I’m aware that it’s impossible to please everybody and that some will still prefer to teleport everywhere and anywhere at the click of a button.
I’m sure this has been suggested in the past but I felt like bringing up the concept, simply because it’s the one big thing that erks me about the game.
Regardless, I do believe this would be a substantial improvement over the current system.

Thoughts? Share your opinions

You could have titled this thread “Mounts” instead so people wouldn’t have been confused into thinking it had to do with something else.

No mounts plz! We have gliders instead and a ton of movement skills. Or just use a thief to get around.

nice try OP, I almost read your post. fortunately I read Zohane’s post first

This is not a suggestion I agree with. It’s nice to slow down and walk places, but if I have a waypoint, that means I’ve already walked somewhere, on foot, on that character. There are times I’d rather just get where I’m going, whether that’s an event or someplace unexplored, without having to retread a well-beaten path.

I like retreading paths. I have my favorite places that I like to revisit, and it’s part of the fun of a new character, for me, to see the land with fresh eyes. If you want to walk places and feel “immersed,” go for it. Write your own rules about waypoints. Sometimes, however, I just want to get where I’m going.

We don’t need mounts at all, the way it is is perfectly fine, cause the waypoints are asuran technology and part of this world.

Why do people have to keep digging up this horse to beat it again?

We buried it once already.

Even if waypoints were to be reduced, the actual distance between point A and point B would still be the same, and fast mounts could potentially travel between them as quickly as a slow-loading waypoint. I’m not sure if this will fix how you feel about being trapped in a small world.

I run around without using waypoints sometimes. The world doesn’t feel big, but I think it’s because the mountains are so low and the oceans so shallow. There is an area in I think northern Norn (Koda?) area where the islands are relatively big and the ocean deep—I felt like that area was really spacious and had fun swimming a few laps around the island. So maybe the game could use a bit more vertical depth.

(The only HoT area I’ve explored is Verdant Brink, though, and I heard that the outer area is supposed to be really vertically-in-depth. But in my opinion, that Norn area felt larger than Verdant Brink).

Sorry OP, but I completely disagree with you.

Did you ever play vanilla DAoC (or even vanilla LotRO)? You’d spend 5-10 min staring at a horse’s kitten any time you wanted to travel any amount of distance.

Speedy waypoint travel might be immersion-breaking for you, but for me it’s immersion-enhancing. I’m in a world where the magic and technology is being utilized in order to help tame very dangerous lands. That’s as it should be.

Also, my time adventuring is limited, and I want to spend as much of that time being the hero as possible; instead of spending an inordinate amount of time gazing at a horse’s kitten.

~EW

Alec B.8905:

No mounts plz! We have gliders instead and a ton of movement skills. Or just use a thief to get around.

You are missing the point!

I can definitely appreciate gliders; they are incredibly useful for reaching certain areas otherwise inaccessible by foot but they don’t really serve as a true method of transportation since they only last as long as you can glide, which isn’t very long if you’re anywhere outside of the Maguuma area. It’s true that some classes can move around very quickly but that doesn’t change the fact that loading screens and Waypoints hinder the overall feel/experience of travelling in general.

I don’t care if mounts are added or not. I don’t want one and wouldn’t use it. Just leave the waypoints alone!

We don’t need mounts in this game not do we need existing travel methods to be redesigned just because you want mounts.

Mounts are just screen clutter.

Fair enough! Even though I feel like they could add a lot to the game, I can see that mounts aren’t a very popular opinion within the community.

And guys I do apologize for beating a dead horse, but this my first time posting on these forums so I didn’t really know what to expect when it came to this.
Even so, mounts really aren’t the focus here; my main issues were simply the over-abundant amount of Waypoints and the loading screens between zones.

Funny…I swear I’ve heard this suggestion before….

…like a billion frickin times.

Funnily enough, we just had someone bring up the mount suggestion and complain we didn’t have enough waypoints in HoT.

lmao

Lucky Strike.2674:

Fair enough! Even though I feel like they could add a lot to the game, I can see that mounts aren’t a very popular opinion within the community.

And guys I do apologize for beating a dead horse, but this my first time posting on these forums so I didn’t really know what to expect when it came to this.
Even so, mounts really aren’t the focus here; my main issues were simply the over-abundant amount of Waypoints and the loading screens between zones.

It’s okay. Many of us see these posts come up often and now easily get annoyed by them.

Welcome to the forums!

my loading screens only last a second..maybe to problem is your connection or computer..just an idea.

Huh, I must have skimmed over the line about mounts. I don’t care either way about them.

Anyway, I still think reducing waypoints would hurt more than it helps. If people want to walk everywhere, they certainly can, and it’s fun to do so sometimes. That’s not always what I want to do, however, and I think trading that option away would be sacrificing mechanical fun for an artistic ideal.

I feel the same way about games that include currency in the weight my character can carry. Yeah, it’s realistic, but “realistic” and “immersive” aren’t necessarily enjoyable.

Lucky Strike.2674:

Fair enough! Even though I feel like they could add a lot to the game, I can see that mounts aren’t a very popular opinion within the community.

And guys I do apologize for beating a dead horse, but this my first time posting on these forums so I didn’t really know what to expect when it came to this.
Even so, mounts really aren’t the focus here; my main issues were simply the over-abundant amount of Waypoints and the loading screens between zones.

Welcome to the forums.

I am sorry you picked this topic to be your first post here. I really am. It isn’t a popular one at all.

O. You know what I just remembered?
I need a sound option just for waypoints. That high-buzzing sound you hear whenever you’re close to one really annoys me =.= Makes me park my characters away from them. That may be the only thing about waypoints that bothers me.

I can definitely appreciate the honesty.
And yes you’re right, perhaps I may be looking at it from a purely artistic ideal, as is my nature with most things.

Either way, thanks for the input fellas

For what it’s worth, the fact that it comes up so often means that a lot of people have the same idea. I still like the way things are, but a good number of other people have asked for the same thing.

I like the idea and made a similar suggestion a long time ago, WPs are seriously immersion breaking, especially since they are canon as of LWS2, whereas they were just fancy fast-travel UI prior to that point and no one really had any problem with them.

The destinys edge novels, for example, never mentioned WPs, only gates.

At the beginning of the story the Charr are just ending decades of isolationism and warfare, it makes no sense whatsoever that they would already have asuran waypoints. Not to mention, the Charr don’t exactly hide their opinion that asuran alchemy and magitech are inefficient and largely inferior to charr engineering and chemistry. It would be significantly more immersive for them to have a system of transportation spread throughout their lands that they made themselves.

And there are loads of other places; warfronts, trade routes, racial and cultural divides, and other areas that are inhospitable or otherwise have some clear reason why there shouldn’t have a WP where they clearly do.

That said, I wouldn’t majorly change the functionality of the system, just maybe the icons and WP ‘stations’ to be a little more immersive depending on the area.
__________________________________________________________________

As for some of you, the report I just sent to the mods about several posts in this thread which serve no purpose but to mock, cajole, and spread vitriol. This is not imgur or reddit, this is a board for discussing ideas and none of us are here to sell ourselves and jump on bandwagons for nonexistent internet points. If you have nothing to contribute, and most of all, to the people who have blatantly admitted they never even read the OP before making assumptions and levying attacks, do your duty as a forumite by not derailing the discussion if that is the most contributive you are capable of being.

There is no reason to mock the OP, it is against the rules and adds nothing to the discussion. For one, if they had actually read the OP, which several have admitted they haven’t before spamming sarcastic remarks, this isn’t a mount thread.

Please review this thread and clean up the posts which are nothing but vitriol for the sake of popularity and upvotes. This is not imgur.

Conncept.7638:

The report I just sent to the mods about several posts in this tread which serve no purpose but to mock, cajole, and spread vitriol. This is not imgur or reddit, this is a board for discussing ideas and none of us are here to sell ourselves and jump on bandwagons for nonexistent internet points. If you have nothing to contribute, and most of all, to the people who have blatantly admitted they never even read the OP before making assumptions, do your duty as a forumite by staying silent when you have nothing worthwhile to say.

There is no reason to mock the OP, it is against the rules and adds nothing to the discussion. For one, if they had actually read the OP, which several have admitted they haven’t before spamming sarcastic remarks, this isn’t a mount thread.

Please review this thread and clean up the posts which are nothing but vitriol for the sake of popularity and upvotes. This is not imgur.

As for the OPs suggestion. I like it and made a similar suggestion a long time ago, WPs are seriously immersion breaking, especially since they are canon as of LWS2, whereas they were just fancy fast-travel UI prior to that point and no one really had any problem with them.

The destinys edge novels, for example, never mentioned WPs, only gates.

At the beginning of the story the Charr are just ending decades of isolationism and warfare, it makes no sense whatsoever that they would already have asuran waypoints. Not to mention, the Charr don’t exactly hide their opinion that asuran alchemy and magitech are inefficient and largely inferior to charr engineering and chemistry. It would be significantly more immersive for them to have a system of transportation spread throughout their lands that they made themselves.

And there are loads of other places; warfronts, trade routes, racial and cultural divides, and other areas that are inhospitable or otherwise have some clear reason why there shouldn’t have a WP where they clearly do.

That said, I wouldn’t majorly change the functionality of the system, just maybe the icons and WP ‘stations’ to be a little more immersive depending on the area.

lol, yeah.

You can get off your high horse, we don’t have mounts in this game. We have something to contribute. The fact that we don’t like want or need mounds. End of story. That is all we need to say to be part of a discussion.

Lucky Strike.2674:

Although we use these subconsciously at this point, teleporting around via Waypoints makes the player miss a lot of content; skipping a potentially interesting/exciting/profitable journey, not to mention the beautiful scenery this game has to offer.

Please do not presume to speak for all of us.

You may use waypoints subconsciously, but I know from personal experience and from posts of the numerous other mount topics that there are plenty of people who are quite capable of choosing each time whether they want to use them or not.

I love having waypoints there as an option but I rarely use them. Unless I’m really short of time, or it’s a journey I’ve done a lot recently, I’ll use a combination of asura gates and running across the map for exactly the reasons you gave. One of my favourite things in RPGs is when I set out with a clear destination a relatively short way away and have to stop playing before I get there because along the way I find so many other interesting things to see/do/kill that I run out of time and have to complete my journey another day.

But part of what makes that enjoyable is knowing it’s my choice to take the time to explore. If waypoints were removed and I was forced to run across the map every time I want to get somewhere I think I’d actually be more likely to point my character in the right direction, turn on auto-run and read the forum or Facebook or something until I need to stop or turn. I can’t imagine a slightly different movement animation (which is basically what mounts are) would change that.

I hate taking several years to travel somewhere. It makes me bored and log off. It also greatly interferes with playing with friends easily so it reduces player interaction and generally makes everyone anti-social. I’m already extremely bored of BDO because I basically spend most of my time afk auto traveling on mount for 30-60+mins at a time to get somewhere I need to go. Good thing it’s a trial account.

As I’ve said before in another of these threads~ mounts ironically slow down movement thoughout games and make travel a lot worse.

Mounts would only have cosmetic value in this game, no speed increase.

And that would just give ArenaNet more things to put in the gemstore.

One of the transportation things we have gotten in the game, gliders, barely got any skin earned in the game at all.

- Drastically reduce the amount of Waypoints available in each zone
- Greatly increase the price of using said Waypoints

So, this is actually a “I hate Asuran technology that benefits everyone” thread.

No to mounts, there are millions of threads about mounts and all of them have more people that disagree than the ones that agree… This thread will be merged with long forgotten “mounts” thread soon anyway…

There are a lot of other games that have mounts so go there…

I’d rather have them rework WvW while im alive, than work months on animations for mounts and what not…and dont even get me started on clipping that you’d get while riding one.
And also, did you even consider how much time they’d have to spend to make skills and every weapon work with mounts (unless you want just a tonic that you cant attack with-but if you meant like so-its not really much of an adventure that you said it would be)…so yea, id rather use that money on bug fixes rather than something thats not needed at all.

Lucky Strike.2674:

There aren’t many things to complain about when it comes to this game; it’s beautiful, complex and offers tons of re-playability thanks to it’s dynamic, ever-changing world. I’ve played Guild Wars 2 for a good year now.

I don’t know what game you are playing if you think there aren’t many things to criticize. I, too, love the game. I just think it’s got plenty of issues already, without making mountains out of skritt-hills.

Lucky Strike.2674:

I recently got my world completion along with my first legendary weapon.

Congratulations on both accomplishments.

Lucky Strike.2674:

During my lengthy adventure through the world of Tyria, the following issue is one that I felt needed to be addressed:
- I found that getting around the world was far too quick and far too easy, especially in the late-game.
- Loading screens between zones

For me, this ruins immersion. It makes me feel as though I’m trapped in an enclosed area, like an animal in captivity.

Your experience is completely different from mine. I feel that getting around the world takes forever, especially in the late game.

• Loading screens are required due to the game’s technology. Fixing that would require a completely different architecture. If you want to reduce the load times, get a solid-state drive (much, much faster).
• I’m sorry that your “immersion” is so easily spoiled. Frankly, I think it’s far more “immersion breaking” that all the zones have neatly defined rectangular edges, that there are only tiny numbers of portals between zones, and that we can’t go to the zones implied by those edges.

Regardless, it’s easy enough to accept those restrictions as explained by the game’s lore and focus on all the other things going on in the game.

Accordingly, I can’t support any suggestions based upon problems that I don’t think exist.

Lucky Strike.2674:

- Drastically reduce the amount of Waypoints available in each zone
- Greatly increase the price of using said Waypoints
- Add mounts, or some kind of alternate form of transportation that doesn’t ruin immersion
- Remove loading screens when changing zones (except when using a Waypoint)

-The fact that waypoints can become contested during dymanic events already drastically reduces the waypoints available in each zone, especially when you need them most (like when trying to get to those very events that have blocked them).
-The waypoint system is supposed to aid the player, not be a punishment. I strongly disagree with increasing costs here.
-I don’t know about you but if I’m running through a zone I’m usually getting hit by mobs here and there. If the mount allows you to just run through mobs, I think that goes against the design Anet wants. However if you still get hit/slowed/stunned while mounted, I see little point in using a mount in the first place.
-While removing the zone portals and accompanying loading screens would help immersion I don’t think that’s something they can implement at this point due to coding restraints. It’s a design decision that’s embedded in the structure of the game and you’d have to rework the entire world from the ground up to change it.

Players still have the option to run from point A to B and find all the events and content along the way if they want, but in an MMO a fast traveling system is mandatory so it doesn’t take forever for everyone to travel to meet up for group content. Immediate travel is a necessity to increase playability and smooth out player logistics. To facilitate player interaction, especially among pick-up-groups, fast travel has to be an option, not a barrier.

We don’t need mounts but I would pay $20 for a horse/dinosaur to ride on even if there is way points every 5 second away from each other.

The game doesn’t need mounts and Anet has said many times that there will never be mounts. However, in the extremely unlikely event that mounts ever do get added at some point, there better be unicorns.

Sigh, not another change this game into every other mmo cliche out there thread. Waypoints are there for the people who dont want to waste hours of travelling to the locations they have visited before. This is why i love guildwars, it plays like an accessible game. If the waypoints where removed, i would quit instantly. And you dont have to use them, theres a choice. And theres the balance between waypoints and masteries with new content/maps now, who needs those old dated mounts anyway.

Blockhead Magee.3092:

I don’t care if mounts are added or not. I don’t want one and wouldn’t use it. Just leave the waypoints alone!

agreed , no mounts and leave the waypoints alone please !!!!

Lucky Strike.2674:

Good day fellow Tyrians,

- I found that getting around the world was far too quick and far too easy, especially in the late-game.

Just because the waypoints are there doesn’t mean you have to use them. Sometimes I prefer running or walking to a far away location, especially during my guild’s RP nights. But let’s not be hasty and take away waypoints for people who do want to use them, eh?

It’d be especially a bummer for those of us who have multiple 100% characters if the waypoints we worked hard at getting were taken away!

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

• I’m sorry that your “immersion” is so easily spoiled. Frankly, I think it’s far more “immersion breaking” that all the zones have neatly defined rectangular edges, that there are only tiny numbers of portals between zones, and that we can’t go to the zones implied by those edges.

Regardless, it’s easy enough to accept those restrictions as explained by the game’s lore and focus on all the other things going on in the game.

Accordingly, I can’t support any suggestions based upon problems that I don’t think exist.

Also extremely shallow “oceans” with invisible walls.

Someone has been playing Black Desert lol

It will purely be based on ones opinions, but I’ve come to realise how valuable non-porting environments are.

Not only does it make the world feel larger, but I do feel a part of it. Unfortunately there is no open world here, nor is there a day night cycle for it, sometimes you can move from night to day in a second.

Complete removal of waypoints could of been done as a story telling narrative as the growth spread, something I suggested before the expansion and we saw some of them destroyed / temporarily disabled. Mounts could be added to this, but they won’t be. There is far too much work Anet would have to do to mount every race and they’ve tried desperately to stop having to make so many unique things for each race which may result in clipping.

I could only then suggest if it’s starting to become a deal breaker, there are alternatives which you could jump in and out of as you please.

Lucky Strike.2674:

Good day fellow Tyrians,
Anything written in this post is completely and solely based on my opinion.

- I found that getting around the world was far too quick and far too easy, especially in the late-game.
- Loading screens between zones

For me, this ruins immersion. It makes me feel as though I’m trapped in an enclosed area, like an animal in captivity.
Although we use these subconsciously at this point, teleporting around via Waypoints makes the player miss a lot of content; skipping a potentially interesting/exciting/profitable journey, not to mention the beautiful scenery this game has to offer.

My Proposal:

- Drastically reduce the amount of Waypoints available in each zone
- Greatly increase the price of using said Waypoints

I have a counter-proposal. One which does not require anet to do any extra development, doesn’t affect anyone else’s enjoyment of the game yet provides you with the immersion you seek. I think you’ll like it. Here it is:

You should walk everywhere and never use waypoints ever again.

Enjoy!

Back on the subject of mounts.. I’d like to be one. I’d like to transform into a dolyak and give people rides around major cities. Don’t know how to get to a vista? Hop on and I’ll take you there. Tired of running around Black Citadel trying to find everything? Sit back. Relax. Enjoy the tour. Donations welcome. Satisfaction guaranteed.