Guild Wars 2

I’ve haven’t played BWE 1, but from BWE 2 to 3 I haven’t found a noticeable difference or improvement with the gliding mechanics. IMO I think gliding is a bit too slow and clunky with you spamming the space bar in order to deploy the glider. There should be a 25-30% speed increase when your gliding vs when your running OOC. I haven’t unlocked the leaning technique mastery yet so I can’t really comment on that, but from what I’ve read on the forum and on Reddit about the mechanics says that it could use some bit of work.

Furthermore during the beta I got bored with the events and did some calculations on the glide ratio of the hang gliders. Turns out, there not really hang gliders at all. There more like wing suits with a glide ratio of ~2.47 which is very close to a wing suit’s glide ratio IRL. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gliding_flight) This kinda makes sense considering which the description on the mastery track when you first unlock the glider states “Gain access to the glider so that you can glide like a squirrel across the highest points of the Heart of Maguuma.” Flying squirrels can glide short distances using their patagium which deploy in flight just like the gliders in HoT.

Anyway going back to gliding, it would be better if you just press a key to equip your glider and have it automatically deploy once you start falling or by jumping off a cliff. Other than that I have no real problems with the gliding mechanics. Some people are mad about the stamina bar in PvE but that’s not too bad. If you really like gliding and want to 100% everything then go for the advance gliding mastery where the stamina is not consumed in normal flight, just when your leaning. The xp required for the masteries may need a little work but this is beta, what do you expect.

The screenshot was be trying to find the glide ratio.
I used my calipers to measure the distances marked by the black lines. I assumed wing tip vortices is the path the hang gliders makes while in flight so I used that as my reference. From there I did some simple trig and found the glide ratio and and angle which is approx 22 degrees.

I have no problem with the glider’s base speed. It feels a little slow because you’re farther from the ground, but it’s actually a decent clip, and would be hard to control if the base speed were any higher. This beta I was only able to get Glider 1 and Bouncing Mushrooms,* but last beta I had up to Leaning. Leaning is fine, it basically speeds you up to maybe Swiftness speed or so?

*Bouncing Mushrooms did change, you used to have to stand next to one and hit “f” to jump, now you hop onto them and after a pause it launches you. Didn’t get a huge time to test that, but it seems a bit flakier.

Glide leaning mastery will solve your glide too slow problem.