At least it’s not as kittenW:tOR, where the game pops up a notice periodically reminding you how much more fun you’d be having if you upgraded to a subscription account.
Now, do you WANT broken content in the game? NO?
If ArenaNet removed everything in GW2 that they haven’t got around to fixing yet, the game would resemble Swiss cheese.
I think people really don’t understand how Guild Wars 2 is supposed to be played, given how much they’re treating it like other MMOs.
To be fair, I think that’s as much to do with ArenaNet forgetting it as the players.
Shortly after launch, when we were constantly getting “I’ve done everything and I’m too underleveled for the next zone” threads, I made your argument repeatedly. I thought the game was beautifully designed so that if you tried to barrel through and power-level you actually got less experience and other rewards than if you took time and really soaked in the game.
Unfortunately, post-launch ArenaNet has made a lot of design decisions that focus more on extrinsic rather than intrinsic rewards. For some reason they’ve chosen to reward farm-type play (repeating the same dungeon, champ trains, world bosses on timers, daily checklist) rather than immersing oneself in the world.
I speak as someone who, at the start, played like you describe. Doing things for the fun of it. Over time, I slowly started to get caught up in the carrot-chase, to the point where I had to take a break from the game to get my head clear, so to speak. Now I’m back and playing that way again, ignoring the reward structure that wants me to repeat content and check off to-do lists.
It’s only partly player habit from other MMORPGs that gets GW2 players focused on rewards rather than play. You can definitely play this game in a “smell the roses” type fashion, but you have to ignore that ArenaNet keeps trying to entice you not to.
How to casual:
If you’re on a guardian, camp the living daylights out of that staff and equip 3 shouts at all times no exceptions.
Is that really casual play? Guardians staff-spam to maximize tagging, which is for farmers, not casual players.
How I casual?
Spend time in the 90% of the game that ArenaNet thinks isn’t worth rewarding with level 80 rewards.
I loved “Play how you want” as one of the design philosophies of this game. It was so true at launch. I could follow my bliss through the game, doing whatever facet caught my attention, completely without goal, and still get rewarded.
Over time, ArenaNet abandoned “Play how you want” in favor of "Rewards should pull people into certain parts of the game. I slowly became less casual. I started farming for the first time in my gaming life. I did the crafting grind to 500. I TP flipped since that was the most efficient way to get cash, even though I find it tedious an dull.
I finally realized I wasn’t enjoying the game any more. I took a several month break.
Now I’m back to playing casual again. The trick is to ignore what ArenaNet wants you to do in game, and do what you want to do.
That’s pretty close to how I felt playing in the Beta Weekend Events and for about two months after launch.
Although I’d never had the WoW spam and crackers.
Ok mister wiseguy. What exactly is the purpose of password protecting a thing that only one person has access to? Who are you protecting it from? Yourself?
It’ for when the syrum kicks in. Mr. Hyde likes to spend all of my money on Norn Ale and Quaggan call girls.
Thread is still going.
“pro-mount” side still hasn’t given a
realreason I agree with why the game should be ruined with mounts.19 pages… with nothing but “I want it, and a speed boost”. and discussion about balance, toggle options, lore, cosmetic restrictions, acquisition methods
Fixed for you.
As much as you want to delegitimize those that disagree with you, we’re still managing to get in some actual conversation in between your posts.
Still, that doesn’t provide a good foundation for showing that it will happen with mounts, and that a 33% speed boost mount will inevitably slide down the slippery slope to flying mounts.
Says a person who already within few posts “slipped” from purely cosmetic mounts to 33% buff speed as a given.
No. I started off at a 60% boost, and have, for the sake of discussion, been working my way back up the slope to 33%, and most recently, cosmetic.
I started at 60% speed boost mount years ago, when the GW2 community was discussing it before these fora even existed, though I don’t expect that you would be aware of that.
Here’s a post of mine from Guru in 2012.
I’d find some posts from here on this forum, but as we all know, the search function here is barely functional.
(edited by Gibson.4036)
As to speed boost mounts, you still have not addressed the most important problem. If you have any speed boost NOT balanced with pre-existing speed boost, then EVERYONE has to buy and use them…Not just the ones that want them, since that will make Speed boost mounts overpowered.
And they will be demanded even if out of combat. Since someone joining a group for a dungeon, then has to get to the dungeon ASAP. If they say " I can’t get there faster.." " hey don’t you have a Mount??" What should they do…Lie? or tell the truth? if they tell the truth they get kicked out of the group.
Well, in your dungeon scenario, there are always waypoints. And if the mounts are as costly or more costly to maintain, wp would be the better option.
But going with your balance point, I started pondering what I would think of mounts if I could at least keep up swiftness while mounted through conventional means. The problem here is that for some professions weapon skills are required, and we’ve talked about mounts disabling skills.
The idea being that I could get on board with purely cosmetic mounts if they didn’t kitten me by taking away swiftness.
If mounts worked like some bundles in game and got rid of weapon skills but kept utilities, I could still use kit swapping on my Engi to keep swiftness up. It’d still kitten my Ele, Guardian, and Mesmer, though, because they require weapon skills.
So what you could still access weapon skills while on your cosmetic mount, but second you enter combat, you dismount? That way I can have my cosmetic-only mount but not have my speed kitten in the process.
Alternately, what do you think of the idea presented earlier that mounts take up the elite skill slot as a method of balance?
3. Not be Lore Breaking. That means NO live creatures as mounts, they must all be constructs.
You and I still disagree on this. I think it’s been amply shown that people ride animals in Tyria. I’m completely with you on non-lore breaking, non-ridiculous animals. Dolyaks, small Treants, Devourers and Golems would make my list of easily lore-friendly, because there are examples of each of them as domesticated beasts of burden in game. I think there’s a good case that Horses could be included as well, but I know that’s a major bone of contention.
Here is a thought. Since they must be constructs…turn that into an independant quest all it’s own. You need someone to build it for you, an NPC in Mount Maelstrom that you need to get to, that then tells you the components you need.
I love this idea. I bet other mount advocates would as well. We need more of this kind of earned-in-game activity.
I wouldn’t hold my breath, though, based on ArenaNet’s track record so far. It’s more likely that we’d see them as LS rewards, gem-store items, achievement rewards, or reward for content that’s already there (zone complete Blazeridge Steppes, woohoo). Just based on what’s happened (or not) with the precursor scavenger hunt and recently trait acquisition.
Still, it’d be great to really earn your mount in a way that is story-driven and lore-compatible. It’d make collecting them much more meaningful.
Seeing a player NOT mounted zipping along at even 125 % speed boost is ridiculous. As such a speed boost mount Now crawls ( see what I did there?) from a " Mount I can hide and Not see " to " a mount I HAVE to see."
At least since this thread reappeared on the front page, the highest I’ve seen anyone suggest is 60%, which was me.
Like yours, my thoughts have evolved, and recently I’ve been mostly talking about 33%. If that were the case, the people around you who are on mounts that you can’t see would only be travelling as fast as any other character with swiftness activated.
it also has to be balanced against all other speed even out of combat. The devs decided that speed is to be balanced across classes at all times…not just combat.
I’m not sure they have decided anything of the sort. As far as I can tell from our current system, I’d say they worked to balance speed with combat, and didn’t really think about the fact that players use speed for two seperate things. One is mobility in combat, the other for simply crossing distance.
It’s possible they simply shrugged their shoulders and said, “Oh well, some professions got screwed out of combat… let them use waypoints.”
While I myself do not Understand that reasoning the only thing I can suggest is… identifying that moment when combat takes place and then switching one rule set " Non combat speed boosts." from the other." combat speed boosts." may not be worth it for most players… they see no distinction.
it seems that only if you are trying to Put a speed boost mount in the game that ONLY derives the speed boost while OUT of combat would you need to Introduce the " In combat speed boost" rule set..( without mounts)…from the " Out of combat speed boost " ruleselt..( includes mounts)
I think you’re overcomplicating it.
It’s as simple as automatic dismount in combat. There, mounts and their speed boosts don’t affect combat. Players can decide to trait and gear for speed if they still need it in combat, or choose to just use mounts for crossing distances and live with standard run speed in combat.
There’s really no need to talk about IC and OOC rulesets, except in a meta-discussion about whether non-combat mounts would affect game balance.
The devs have better things to do than this.
And that’s where we agree at this time. I like to imagine that some of the glaring problems in the game will be fixed at some point. At that point, I’d like them to reconsider adding mounts.
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
At this point, you might want to go ahead and add that to your sig, so you don’t have to waste time retyping it on every post.
What about the nightmare that will ensue to balance your speed boost mount against all the Speed boost skills, traits, runes and sigils? Just so you can " feel the experience of riding a Mount?"
I’ve addressed this higher up. I don’t think it will be a balance nightmare. With a careful wall of mechanics between mounts and combat, it corrects the imbalance that is already there between professions when it comes to out-of-combat speed boosts, while not affecting the balance the developers are trying to achieve between in-combat speed and other combat abilities.
Or the fact that someone else… playing on a slower, older machine has to pay the price by having a worse experience, just so you can go " yippy – kai-yay" on your Dolyak?
Interestingly enough, ArenaNet has already made this choice. For example, if I set my machine to render only default character models so that I can get a better framerate, the game still renders specialty items like achievement skins and legendaries.
Nevertheless, nobody seems to be against the idea of giving you the ability to toggle off mounts so you don’t have to see them and your computer doesn’t have to render them.
It does and as an example you can look at Rift. In the first 6 months Trion so discombobulated Rift, because players kept asking for more, the game was totally out of balance and still is.
Yes, developers can lose their vision in trying to satisfy the players. I would argue ArenaNet did this with GW2 shortly after launch.
Still, that doesn’t provide a good foundation for showing that it will happen with mounts, and that a 33% speed boost mount will inevitably slide down the slippery slope to flying mounts.
(On a side note, it still makes me a little sad to this day when I think about how, during beta, Trion pulled all of the teeth from invasions during because players complained they couldn’t keep questing as usual while one was occurring.)
(edited by Gibson.4036)
What flumoxxes me is, how there are some…not all… but some proponents that either do not see the balancing nightmare that would ensue from a speed boost mount. Or simply do not care. They Just want their speed boost mount.
As I wrote a little earlier, I don’t believe this game is balanced when it comes to out-of-combat speed. There are some professions who have a far smaller cost to their combat builds in order to get it than others.
In-combat speed, I get. Come professions are built around the idea of zipping around while in combat. Putting a careful wall between mounts and combat, along the line of many suggestions that have been made in this thread, would protect combat balance while fixing the imbalance that currently exists in out-of-combat speed.
The balancing alone is a bar to entry. Then add on top of that the fact that it will slow down the game even more for those on slower computers. Anet doesn’t want even More things that keep people from playing the game.
We have at least one post indicating that the option to turn off all mounts would not be a problem, and would work like our current system to see the default models of every profession. If that’s the case, I’d be very happy if people with slow computers and those who hate mounts can simply toggle them off.
This is all while discounting completely the objections from people that simply do not want mounts in any way, shape , or form.
Since your remark was generalized, I don’t know who you consider to be discounting the arguments completely.
I would hope, however, that you can see taking time to address those objections with counter-arguments is not discounting at all. It is treating them with the respect that is due to someone who disagrees.
Will other “pro-mount” proponents now come out demanding higher speed boost, perma-speed boost?
[some things deleted to keep salient point]
I have seen it here. There is a distinct difference bettwen a cosmetics only mount that can be " hide mounts" on log in…. and a speed boost mount.
Except you’d have to show that the people who are asking for a speed boost mount didn’t want one or ask until a cosmetic-only was accepted.
I’ve talked about a 60% speed boost mount since we first started discussing the possibility of mounts in game on Guru back in 2010. I didn’t need acceptance of cosmetic-only to ask for it. And if I ever get it, I won’t start asking for flying mounts.
You can argue that having a speed-boost mount is going to lead down a slippery slope to request for flying mounts, but we’ve already had requests for flying mounts on these forums without even having any land-based mounts in game.
I can buy Nike’s slippery slope. If cosmetic horses and dolyaks get added to game, and people with swiftness buffs are blowing past mounted riders left and right because riders are restricted to standard running speed, I expect there would be a vocal request that mounts at least get the 33% buff.
Which is why I keep talking about how a speed boost mount might work in game. I’m one of those people who wouldn’t want a standard-running-speed only mount. And the reason is not because I have a burning desire to get around the tediousness of swapping kits every ten seconds or maintaining my Air/Water/Fire rotation as I cross zones, or equipping and unequipping Focus on my Mesmer in between combats.
It’s primarily because I want the feel of riding a mount, which definitely wouldn’t happen no matter how epic I look on the back of a horse if I’m traveling at this game’s slow standard run speed.
However, I don’t buy 33% speed boost will start the slide down to 120% speed boost which will inevitably lead to flying mounts. There are significant differences of degree there, and a flying mount will do the opposite of moderate speed boost mount, taking people back out of traveling across the world like the waypoint system.
Great post. These look like restrictions that even most mount supporters want.
2. Mounts should have a speed restriction that caps the fastest mounts at the normal running speed for a player. This removes the potential negative impact on the waypoint system as well as the advantage of having a mount over not having a mount.
I’m not sure how a speed boost mount would impact the waypoint system. Can you elaborate?
The only thing I can anticipate is skipping the goldsink involved in waypoints. Most people think of it as negligible, but if you are concerned about keeping it, a feed system could be implemented so that mounts require a constant upkeep cost. If you don’t feed your mount regularly, they end up going slower than standard character run speed.
4. Keep the types of mounts limited, (dolyaks, moas, etc.) but allow for the customization of the mounts to flourish. Different armors (cosmetic) or costumes for your mounts could be available in the Black Lion Trading Post. Mount Makeover kits could be available to customize your mounts appearance (horns, head shape, eyes, beaks, etc.)
I expect, if they ever got implemented, the number of mounts would steadily increase over time to generate fresh interest.
I would, however, expect them to be much like you describe for quite a while. Aesthetics aside, this provides for the greatest return on investment for ArenaNet as the hard work of designing and animating unique creatures can be minimized while providing enough minor cosmetic tweaks to entice players to keep investing in them.
They’ve certainly shown that this is their approach in the past, with reskins of older armor or variations on a theme (like different plushy backpacks).
6. When mounted, skills are changed to mount skills. They’d be simple, Walk, Run (both of which are at the same speed as unmounted), Dismount, maybe something else. No combat skills would be usable when mounted.
Most mount advocates I’ve seen have suggested they be purely non-combat, though it occurs to me they could have skills like many of the bundles or transforms in the game. Namely, so frustratingly inferior to weapons skills that you don’t want to use them anyway.
Just musing, not actually advocating that.
THANK YOU!!!! someone else besides me gets it.
Please don’t mistake not agreeing with you as not understanding you. We can “get it” but not agree that it is true.
It’s easy to dismiss anything with the idea that it begins a slippery slope into some tragic conclusion. There’s no reason why a 33% (equivalent to current swiftness) would automatically lead to a 120% speed boost mount, and no reason why it would lead beyond to flying mounts.
Plenty of games have land mounts without ever including flying mounts.
(Nike, I realize you only said that cosmetic would lead people to demand mounts with speed boosts. My reference to higher speeds an flying is in regards to Nerelith’s comment earlier on this page)
(edited by Gibson.4036)
I’m not a programmer, but wouldn’t the option to hide all mounts for some players add to the complexity of what the game has to handle?
I’m just wondering if there’s someone with enough tech savvy who can speak to whether the game having to render and animate people completely differently depending on the viewer would be overly burdensome on either the servers or people’s computers (no idea where that kind of thing is handled).
I know we already have the system where the game can render some people as the weird, grey default profession model, so something like it already exists. But that’s just the model. All the animations stay consistent.
…Other than that mounts BREAK certain cost/benefit options already in the game. Speed buffs without cost is pure power creep. Doubly so in a game where speed is already available and priced pretty high on the utility/benefit scale.
Depends on the profession, really. As has been posted earlier, one of the things introducing mounts could do would be to introduce non-combat speed buff parity to the professions.
Mesmers give up rune slots to get permaswiftness, while a Guardian only needs to keep staff in one weapon set and a utility to do so. A D/D ele gets permaswiftness on an aura build without going out of his way.
Some professions have a significantly greater cost for the same benefit.
While I agree completely that in-combat speed boosts need to be this way, because some professions are designed to be more mobile in combat, it’s out-of-combat that doesn’t make much sense. Why should there be trade-off between in-combat effectiveness and out-of-combat speed?
If I could make a wish, I’d have a hidden camera and microphone to access all of ArenaNet’s design meetings.
Creepy, but there it is.
Basically you have to win over Anet and the player base. I would suggest making a poll to tally mounts vs. no mounts. From this thread, no mounts is winning.
But see, that’s the point I’m trying to make. I don’t have to win over the player base. The anti-mount crowd doesn’t decide whether mounts get in or not, just like the pro-mount crowd doesn’t decide. Neither has a superior authority in the argument, in spite of this appeal to the status quo that keeps being presented.
It’s all up to ArenaNet. And that’s true of any change. It’d be pointless for me to go into the “We want player housing” thread and start telling them they have the burden of proof because it will take time to develop so they have to convince people who don’t want player housing that it would be worth it. It’d be pointless in the “revert the new trait system” thread or the “we want new professions” thread. It goes without saying that the point of a suggestion thread is to provide arguments for the implementation of that suggestion.
Opponents can say they don’t find the arguments compelling, and offer counter-arguments illustrating how the suggestion would be a good idea, but repeatedly saying that it’s up to the pro-suggestion side to provide proof is only a way of trying to make the two sides of the discussion unequal, setting up supporters of the status quo as “those who have to be convinced” and the people who want change as “those who have to convince them”. It’s not true, because ArenaNet is the one who decides.
And from what we have been told, ArenaNet is at least sympathetic with the idea of mounts (they spent time considering how to put them in the game) even if they decided there was not a great enough return on investment at the time. That tells me that no matter how much the anti-mount side tries to convince everyone that the argument is weighted toward them, it’s not.
As for polls. I believe (correct me if I’m wrong) that poll threads are against the forum rules. I’ve also been around this forum long enough (and others) to know that they don’t really matter. Polls are easily discredited with things like selection bias.
I also don’t see the numbers of people posting in this thread as a great indication of whether mounts would be enjoyed by the player base or not. It’s probably a pretty good indication of people who are passionately for or against, but what about people who’d be happy to buy a mount in-game but aren’t eager enough about the idea to join in a discussion advocating for them? Or people who’d rather not have mounts in the game, but if they did get implemented wouldn’t be terribly bothered, and would probably get one anyway?
For the record, I’m not as passionate about mounts as my recent posting volume might indicate. I’d enjoy mounts in game, but they certainly aren’t at the top of my list of changes I’d like. I do, however, get bugged by things that people repeat without really thinking through (I’m that guy that’s always linking Snopes articles under people’s FB reposts of untruths that have gone viral) such as the lore argument against mounts.
A couple posts above there is a good link to a thread in which someone lists a difficult-to-discount number of horse references in GW1 and GW2, which doesn’t even get into the various non-horse mounts. It’s pretty clear we don’t see a lot of horses in Tyria because they didn’t give us mounts, not that they didn’t give us mounts because horses don’t belong in Tyria.
And yet, no matter how rationally it’s laid out, the ’No mounts because Lore!" keeps getting endlessly recycled.
People have legitimate reasons for not wanting mounts, and legitimate reasons for wanting them. Unfortunately, those legitimate reasons get buried under a lot of logical fallacies, blind repetition of talking points, rage posts, and attempts to deligitimise the other side. Responding to that is what usually gets me active in mount threads when they pop back up after being dormant for a while.
Just as you are passionate about mounts, you have a decent amount of people that wants the idea to burn in the flames of Primordus. That’s why this is going on for 17 pages+ of pure back and forth vs. a discussion on the best way to implement mounts in game~
Yes. It’s hard to miss that people are passionately against it after only a little time in this thread. If people weren’t against them, I would have simply posted “I’d like mounts, too” and moved on. The fact that it is controversial is what makes room for a discussion, and I’m glad that there has been some real discussion here on various elements of what would make mounts more or less palatable.
Especially useful are the times when an anti-mount poster concedes that a particular way of implementing them might not make them so bad, or when a pro-mount poster acknowledges a way the could be implemented that would make them not good. That means someone is seeing the other sides point of view, if only in a small way.
Continued next post….
Yea I know this is a suggestion thread and it got turned into a word war…
There’s certainly been a lot of vitriol and dismissiveness, but in all these pages there has also been some decent give and take conversation as well, for which I am grateful.
The issue isn’t when mounts could be added but that people don’t want it at all. I think we can all agree that mounts are low priority. But people are arguing their heads off because they are completely against the idea of mounts.
I get that, and try to answer specfic objections with specific rebuttals. But “they’re too busy now” and “there are other, more important things” have been repeatedly offered as reasons not to include mounts. Those are valid reasons to not include mounts right now, but not to say there should never be mounts in game.
I respect people not wanting mounts, and their right to reason against them. But “it’s not going to happen now” does not lead to “it will never happen”.
Continued next post….
Turn of right click to target has been implemented half a year ago. Still a year to late but it’s there.
That’s great to hear. I must have missed it in the patch notes over the time I stopped playing.
You’re not only asking for Anet to do this but you are also going against a group of people who don’t want it vs when someone suggest something (precursor crafting) and a majority of people agree.
Yes. There are things that are more universal to the community than mounts. Even on my personal list of things I want Arena Net to do in the game, mounts are pretty low in priority.
But I don’t think anyone here is saying “implement mounts next week”, even though we’ve had at least one post inform us that ArenaNet is too busy with the launch in China to implement mounts.
And I haven’t heard anyone say that mounts should be added before precursor crafting, or the option to turn off right-click targeting, or making pets useful in large scale fights, or first person view, or even player housing.
It’s just a “we’d like mounts in the game” thread, not “mounts are the most important thing this game needs”.
I also don’t get this whole “burden of proof” talking point that keeps getting hit.
“Since mounts aren’t currently in the game, people who want them have to prove that they should be included and I don’t find the reasons you’ve posted convincing” is a lot of extra wordage to basically say, ‘I don’t find the reasons you’ve posted for mounts convincing."
It just seems to be a way to try and set up one side as the judge and jury who doesn’t have to engage in the conversation, but can just keep coming back with “Nope.” as the total of their argument.
An no one in this thread has authority to be the judge and jury on this issue. It’s up to ArenaNet.
How do we Know Anet won’;t do it for that reason? because since release there have only been 2 Mounts in the store…purely cosmetic. Ok, there you see that they know how to make them, and Know how to sell them…so…why haven’t Mounts deluged the gem shop? If their ONLY Motive is " Money!" ?
Perhaps because they’ve had bigger fish to fry? Or lower hanging fruit?
Hm, now I’m hungry.
Basically, the changes they’ve made so far have appeared to them to have a greater return to investment ratio than adding mounts. Just like adding a significant new zone.
That doesn’t mean they’ve decided the possible return won’t be worth the investment at some point in the future.
Are people honestly willing to argue that everything that will ever be in game is currently in game? That we’ll only ever get reworks of things they’ve already put in game, because if it was going to be added, it would have by now?
No. This isn’t WoW. Stop trying to turn it into that.
Because WoW invented the idea of mounts, amirite?
For the record, I’ve never played Wow. And don’t intend to start.
And again we get to the point where you need to make a convincing argument why those resources should be allocated to this project, that would outweight arguments why they shouldn’t.
No. I don’t need to do that any more than you need to make a convincing argument as to why they shouldn’t.
Arguments “because i like them” do not outweight “and we do not”.
And the converse is equally true.
The only thing that really has weight is whether ArenaNet could get a reasonable return on investment from implementing them in game.
I imagine about 2/3rds of all waypoints removed.
And now you see why i don’t want mounts in the game.
I don’t want 2/3rds of all waypoints removed from the game so there can be mounts. I would like them removed because it would make people have to cross the open world more rather than simply porting to their destination as even timers dictate and porting back out for the next item on their farming checklist.
So to be against mounts because I, and others, would like the game to have fewer waypoints doesn’t make much sense.
the number of people wanting mounts is not greater than people that do not want them
Where is your evidence for this?
Log in and creating the fattest norn in the bulkiest clothes to prove my point.
Challenge accepted. Well, I didn’t search out bulky clothes, because there’s only so much time I want to spend on this, but I did create the tallest, bulkiest Norn I could.
Looks like she could easily serve as a mount.
Now that we have free respecs, this is the next obvious step. I’m hoping that ArenaNet gave us free respecs partly because templates are in the works.
Except for those of us that hate EoTM and zerging there in. i might go in there for jollies on one of my level 80s to mess with people every now and then, but actually playing in there? Nope. Not fun at all. Still doesn’t address the issue with not really getting to play with all the traits on new characters or alts either.
Its sort of like buying a sports car then after getting used to driving it around a track, they take half the wheels off and make it only go 30 miles an hour, but they balanced it to drive on those 2 wheels. Well, that’s nice of them, but that’s not how I wanted to drive the thing.
I think he’s agreeing with you. I’m pretty sure “play eotm until 80 before you get to have fun” isn’t something he’s saying is good.
Mounts have to not obsolete the effort/expense people have put in to get permanent speed bonuses within the game that exists now.
Always a tricky area. How much do you let previous investment limit what you can do going forward? It’s certainly an issue that has come up many times so far in the relatively short life of GW2. I was a condition Mesmer player who had invested a significant amount of gold (to me) in exotic and ascended condi gear shortly before the big confusion nerf.
At the same time, have people invested that much to get swiftness access? On guardian it’s a matter of keeping a staff in one weapon set and a few utilities. Mesmer can tote around a focus, but permaswiftness does entail an investment in some runes. Eles can get it pretty easily with a few traits, though maintaining the constant rotation as you travel can be tedious. Engies can get it pretty easily with a trait.
I’d think most people who have built for speed would be glad to free up some trait points or be able to slot some combat oriented runes, in spite of previous investment.
Of course, that would mean giving up in-combat swiftness gained because mounts would only be able to be used out of combat.
My usual suggestion is IF mounts were introduced they should occupy the Elite Skill slot. So that having the advantage of mounted travel comes at a commiserate cost.
Interesting suggestion, though it’d take some thinking about the repercussions. Some professions tend to value their elites more than others. Would this help or just increase profession disparity when it comes to speed boosts?
None of the Ele elites are so wonderful that I wouldn’t mind. In fact, many Eles already use their elite slot for mobility with Conjure Fiery Greatsword.
None of the Mesmer elites are all that valuable for general open world, so no loss there.
Supply crate can be useful for general open world use, but I could definitely live without it on my Engi.
Renewed Focus is handy, but far from necessary for Guardian in general PvE.
Those are the professions I’m most familiar with. Not sure if Thief, Ranger, or Necro would feel shortchanged.
On the whole, I expect giving up an elite to get ooc perma-swiftness but freeing up utilities, traits and gear for other things would be a net gain.
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No no no, why add something to then destroy >50% of the fun of it?. Because that’s the way they do it now? Thats not a good reason to me.
I stay at.. Release an expansion and use the mounts as one of the eye catches for the expansions. The you can put everything really ingame, where it belongs. Not in a cash-shop and no more temporary available “do it now or lose out forever” stuff anymore please.
Yeah, I know. I’d rather it come with an expansion, too, but I just can’t help feel it’s out of the scope of this thread to suggest reworking the financial model along with adding mounts.
I understand why you present them hand-in-hand. I agree with it. But I feel the need to personally stick with how mounts might be implemented without reworking other major areas of the game.
And imagine an Asura on a Treant ?
Will they scale it down depending on race (like weapons) and face the cries of players unsatisfied that their mount is tiny when compared to a Norn ?
Good question. I know Asura players already complain that their cosmetic clothes and weapons are largely lost due to scaling. And locking particular mounts to particular races would also cause an uproar, but I personally like the idea of more differentiation between the races other than the toons appearance.
And don’t forget the clipping or how they will try to get around it. Like a Female norn wearing the masquerade skirt sitting on a treant. Where’s the skirt going to go ? And the treant’s body ?
Definitely haven’t forgotten. It’s not that big of a deal to me, though I know it bugs some people that there is already a lot of clipping in the game. Some mounts would definitely be more suited to a palanquin style of riding rather than astride their back like you would ride a horse. Dolyak Riders for example, don’t sit astride a saddle, and wouldn’t have problems with skirts clipping.
Rift had its share of skirts and robes, and I don’t remember a great hue and cry about how terrible they looked on mounts. I also don’t, however, remember how they dealt with the issue visually, either.
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Drop a few waypoints and add mounts. Because you really don’t need 20 – 30 waypoints in a zone.
I imagine about 2/3rds of all waypoints removed.
That seems sensible. Except in cities. Keep the city waypoints as they are. The maze that is the Black Citadel and the labyrinth that is the Grove tend to be quite confusing at times.
Good point.
Find things that people need that have a spread between buy and sell orders on the TP.
Drop a few waypoints and add mounts. Because you really don’t need 20 – 30 waypoints in a zone.
I imagine about 2/3rds of all waypoints removed.
Griefers would not care about hearts. they would care about the temples, perferably Balthazar. So if they add mounts and griefers start messing up balthazar, we know who to blame.
If we ever get mounts, I’ll make sure to stand in LA repeatedly saying, “Hey guys, it’s my fault.” ;-)
But yeah, it shouldn’t be too hard to identify the prime grief locations and make them auto-dismount zones. Temples would be great candidates for that.
Not to mention, at least recently, we’ve been talking non-combat mounts, so you wouldn’t be able to grief temple events with them. The big concern would be blocking the karma vendor when the temple is peaceful.
Plus it would be a waste of resources which could be used elsewhere.
It’s only a waste if you don’t want them. For people who do, it would be appropriately used resources.
Strong logic about mounts in other games so we should have them in gw2.
This is largely a strawman used to try and discredit the pro-mount position. People who want mounts don’t want them “because WoW”. On the other hand, we’ve had at least one person who doesn’t want them claim that one of the reasons people don’t want them is “because WoW”.
Oh and can you imagine how ridiculous a norn would look ingame on a horse?
Can you imagine how epic a Norn could look ingame on a Riverdrake Broodmother? Or a Treant?
You think it’s hard to target the bank person because some jerk put a box of fun under him…how bad do you think it’s going to be when there are 20+ people all standing on top of the NPC you want to talk to and they AND the mounts are all stacked on top…AND some jerk put a box of fun down there too.
Then there will be people coming to the forums requesting that mounts go away, that you can’t be on a mount in a city or within 20 feet of an NPC or near any interactable object…
Rift had griefers like this at the start. Then they made cities auto-dismount you.
I expect most mount advocates would agree with auto-dismount in cities, towns and interior spaces. Sure, you couldn’t cover every interactable object in Tyria with a no-mount zone, but I doubt a griefer is going to find much satisfaction blocking a random heart npc in a corner of Brisban Wildlands.
Many games have mounts and have had this problem, and some have found ways to deal with it.
Y’all forgot swimming – how would mounts do that?
Y’all keep questioning and coming up with more issues as to why it is hard to put mounts in a game that does not have them already. That is probably why it hasn’t been done and won’t be done.
Isn’t the standard in games with mounts that you simply dismount upon entering water? The game already recognizes that state change and unequips your weapons. There’s even a transitional phase where you are on top of the water and haven’t yet equipped your underwater weapon.
There’s also the potential to include underwater mounts, similar to the way Rangers switch between terrestrial and aquatic pets. It could be pretty sweet being pulled along by a shark with a harness to grip.
If one was trying to solve Thaooo’s problem with vanishing mounts by animating mounting and dismounting, it’d be more problematic.
No, what Colin said was, ‘Mounts would be terribly hard to do right and that is the only way they would do them so they decided not to have mounts’. That includes skills, etc. They would be hard to add now and with China also on the forefront (May 15), I doubt mounts are important anymore. Most people want to see new content not fluff.
Things change. I don’t think anyone expects or is asking that they be implemented by the end of May. But that doesn’t mean people who want mounts shouldn’t ask that they be implemented and hope for 2015 or 2016.
It took a year to get LFG. Over a year and a half to get account bound dyes. Account wide WXP.
They said no mounts at launch. They said they don’t have plans to implement mounts at this time. They’ve said that they considered adding mounts, but want to do them right if they do them.
Which all adds up to the fact that mounts are still a possibility at some time in the lifetime of GW2. So why shouldn’t a person ask?
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In this post, you definitely stepped up your game.
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Same goes for quip/dreamer as a precedent of how stupid the mount designs will be. And just because these exist, it does not mean they should add more toy theme park candy crap.
I would prefer a more immersive world, myself. I’m not fond of plushie backpacks and boom-boxes.
Unfortunately, I don’t want them to stop adding anything to the game because there will be Theme-Park Candy Crap® in the mix.
There will undoubtedly be TPCC weapons and armor added in the future. Would you argue that no new weapons and armor should be added to the game to avoid this?
There will definitely be TPCC living story rewards added in the future. Should we put a moratorium on all LS rewards to avoid that?
You have a problem with non-immersive designs in game. I don’t like them either. If I felt like paying a sub I’d be playing a more consistent game right now. But your problem here is not with mounts. It’s with the TPCC, so this isn’t a useful argument against mounts.
As for the ‘mount’ standing on completely broken angles, even upside down, on certain slopes and ledges and objects, I don’t even have to point out which other games these problems exist in, because I can just point out that these problems exist with tonic transformations in GW2 already. Feel free to try.
And if mounts were restricted to flat, open areas? I’ve already brought up the idea that they might only be used on roads.
And a third one from ‘immersion breaking’. As for mounts appearing out of thin air, and disappearing instantly like a fart in a strong breeze, this one will certainly happen.
This doesn’t really bother me. My weapons appear from thin air every time I switch them. Characters disappear around me when they log off or WP. Mobs suddenly appear when their respawn timer comes up. There are plenty of things we disregard in game because it’s a game.
However, since it does bother you, what if mounts had an arrival animation? You whistle for your horse and it comes galloping from the distance. You drop a small thumper device and your devour burrows up from the earth. This could even be part of a balancing mechanic, as you would have a second or two of arrival animation before actually being mounted. A trade-off for the speed boost you get from the mount, and a discouragement from constantly mounting and dismounting for short travel distances.
As for doing instant 90 degree turns and 180 degree turns, the mechanics already exist like this for players, as well as siege golems. They would not change this for mounts, and it will look highly ridiculous and lower the aesthetic quality of the game significantly. It already looks broken when golems do it.
I know people have had a problem with the “floaty” movement animations and abrupt turns of GW2. This is another function trumps form choice. Turn animations and momentum trade off control for aesthetics. They chose to give us the ability to abruptly turn.
Again, you are applying a problem you have with an overall design choice to mounts. It’s not a mount problem. It’s a game-wide problem. I can’t see how having mounts do exactly what other creatures do in game lowers the aesthetic quality. The aesthetic quality is already at that level. How can it be lowered by keeping it consistent?
Not being able to agree with all of these points taking place, just points to ignorance and naivety.
You were doing so well. Then you had to revert to “if you don’t agree with me your stupid”.
I’ll finish with a question, so the ‘pro mount’ side can add something a bit more substantial to the debate.
I would be forced to see mounts.
As we are forced not to have them currently.
I would be forced to see their massive flaws, poor designs etc etc all my points from before.
If those flaws and poor designs actually came about. Most of which you acknowledge are already in the game in other forms.
It would burn my retinas.
The lack of mounts burns my retinas.
It’s no less true than your statement, and keeps the conversation symmetrical.
What do you suggest could happen so I and others do not have to bear witness to this apocalyptic tragedy?
Nothing.
Like everyone, if it ever got implemented, you would have to decide if it was gamebreaking enough to make you seek out another game or not. Just like every change they make, we decide whether it impacts our enjoyment either for the better or worse, and we decide if we want to continue to support ArenaNet by paying and/or playing.
You seem to have survived disco llamas and gravity defying ruminant players. You’d have to decide if the most hideously designed and implemented mounts in the history of MMORPGs would be the straw that broke the dolyak’s back.
What is GW2 missing?
A clear design vision.
Before launch, I think a lot of people got excited about this game because ArenaNet presented a passionate, bold vision for the game with clarity and energy. That’s why, four years later, people still bring up “the Manifesto” when talking about the game.
Sadly, that kind of solid direction has given way to vague statements and the sense that GW2 is lurching about between opposing design goals.
Even if they decided to go in a direction I oppose, I would welcome it if presented with the conviction and confidence that they presented the original vision for the game.
As someone whom ports often, We’re all providing a service to our fellow players as an act of kindness. If another Mesmer wants to share the burden and take some of the workload, I’m more than happy to see it. No need to say anything at all, just start porting!
I agree. I portal regularly when I’m on my Mesmer. If another Mesmer comes along, that means we get to split the cooldown in half so people don’t have to wait as long. It also often means I don’t feel the need to stick around quite as long as the waves of people arrive.
Tips are appreciated, but not the reason I do it, so they’re not necessary. A simple “thanks!” is great.
Guys, just get to end-game.
This should send a chill down ArenaNet’s spine.
One more way they’ve fallen into the same old MMORPG traps.
They originally touted their vision that there wouldn’t be a divide between “leveling” and “endgame”. GW2 was going to be different. They didn’t want the classic “just get to endgame where the game really starts”. They wanted to create a game that smoothly increases challenge from level 1 on up through to level 80 and the time beyond.
But so many changes since launch have drifted away from that philosophy, and now we have people advising other people on the forums to just push through and get to 80.
It’s been a truly sad thing to see the original vision for the game get dismantled, patch by patch.