Make mounts accessible without butchering the story immersion

Currently the only way to get mounts is to play through the story chapters. On many different groups, forums, and websites, I often see veteran players making the following recommendation to new players who are seeking guidance: "Go to PoF first and get the raptor, and then start the game."

Isn't this a but convoluted and immersion-breaking? If an account already has the expacs unlocked, there should just be an npc outside of the starting areas that allows players to unlock the raptor at the very least. Hell, this person should even offer rental raptors so people without them can try them out in that zone only. Just something I was thinking about. What are your thoughts.

@"Vulpes.1029" said:Currently the only way to get mounts is to play through the story chapters.

The raptor requires the player to be within the first story instance and complete the heart within the story mission. You technically don't need to complete the mission and nor do you need to be level 80 (you'll need to be carried). Skimmer, springer, and jackal do not require you to do the story although you'll need to have a level 80 character to get these as you need mastery progression. The griffon does require the full PoF story to be completed. The warclaw doesn't require the story at all and it's faster than a player with swiftness. The beetle requires two story instances and skyscale requires the entire episode's story to be completed.

So you can get half of them by doing barely half of a story episode. That doesn't seem all that unreasonable. I remember having the jackal an hour before the daily reset on the day PoF launched. Obtaining those particular mounts doesn't take all that much time.

On many different groups, forums, and websites, I often see veteran players making the following recommendation to new players who are seeking guidance: "Go to PoF first and get the raptor, and then start the game."

Isn't this a but convoluted and immersion-breaking? If an account already has the expacs unlocked, there should just be an npc outside of the starting areas that allows players to unlock the raptor at the very least. Hell, this person should even offer rental raptors so people without them can try them out in that zone only. Just something I was thinking about. What are your thoughts.

Mount are a QoL feature but not a necessity. They tell players to do this because it let's you get from place to place much quicker and not every class has access to permanent swiftness. Mounts should remain within the expansion areas until they are unlocked. What Anet could do is put an NPC at each of the races, if there isn't one already, that let's the player rent one. It would be in line with what they do for the festivals and the beetle races.

It sucks a lot out of immersion when you want to get that mount from the get go, but then realize that a certain character is around doing things when it is supposed to be a huge reveal in Season 3.

Just give players a default mount in the beginning.

Yes, it's why they should add a mount, probably a new one, in core, to avoid this problem.

No, mounts are absolutely not required for anything except POF-related content.I played through everything for a year on my bare feet. And all veterans did the same before POF release.No problems with that. And you can always rent mounts for festival / beetle races

I argue using mounts before PoF is immersion breaking. All previous maps were designed to be explored by foot and glider. Mounts make it possible to easily pass over a lot of that. So the "immersion breaking" argument is rather invalid and more of an argument for easier access to QoL provided by mounts.

But if you really don't want to know anything from the Raptor mission do the following.

1. Buy expansions.
2. Change game language and mute sound.
3. Start first PoF chapter either through level 80 boost or with a friend who is 80 with PoF who can carry you at a low level.
4. After completing the Heart and receiving the raptor, exit the instance, to avoid encounters with "old friends".

Otherwise play through the game as it was designed, immerse yourself, and test your ability to put off instant gratification.

Mounts are a big "selling point" for expansions. So even if a core Tyria mount was implemented for level 30+ players or something, it will likely still need the expansions.

If you want immersion> @"Vulpes.1029" said:

Currently the only way to get mounts is to play through the story chapters. On many different groups, forums, and websites, I often see veteran players making the following recommendation to new players who are seeking guidance: "Go to PoF first and get the raptor, and then start the game."

Just ignore the recommendations, and play though without mounts until PoF, like we did long, long ago, in the before times.

Just because some players might makes a recommendation is hardly sufficient cause to modify the game flow and structure.

I'd have to say "it depends." If I just started the game and was running around solo, I'd be in no hurry. Meanwhile, my daughter and brother started recently, and even though I stayed afoot when with them, I still used the glider and still used the mounts to catch up to them, jump up to a vista (my brother was really bad at jumping initially), and such. Enough for them to see them and want them.

Now that they have mounts and gliders, it is better playing together. Although last night my brother commented that it felt like cheating when we were bypassing mobs to explore the jungle.

I would second the idea to add some sort of default mount like we get a default glider. Something akin to the warbeast that gives a speed boost and not much else. And hey, then Anet can sell skins for it in the gem store!

[edit] And yes, we did jump ahead in the story to get mounts and gliders. I warned them ahead of time to just ignore the story since it wouldn't make any sense. We're not advancing further into the expansion stories yet, we'll keep working our way through the main story.

Those who want to experience the game in order, as intended, can. Those who want to skip ahead to get access to a glider and mounts also can at the tiny cost of revealing a little bit of story. There really isn't an issue here.

@"Vulpes.1029" said:Currently the only way to get mounts is to play through the story chapters. On many different groups, forums, and websites, I often see veteran players making the following recommendation to new players who are seeking guidance: "Go to PoF first and get the raptor, and then start the game."

Isn't this a but convoluted and immersion-breaking?

Not really. If you want PoF expansion related content, you have to at the very bare minimum participate in at least part of a single mission of PoF.

That's neither convoluted, nor really immersion-breaking (Since, for immersion reasons you wouldn't HAVE a mount until that point in the game. That's literally what the quest is about. You receiving a mount for the very first time)

All in all, the "Recommendation" for it is not a necessity. It is not required to have a mount until PoF (Even then, its level of actual requirement is minimal, being all of like 4 entire sections in all of PoF's story)

If someone wants to be immersed, they can go through the story as it goes. Then they will obtain their Glider at the appropriate time (Then later, forget it ever existed cough Sandswept Isles Story cough) and their Mount at the appropriate time.

Just like how there's also "Recommendations" of just doing HoT/PoF/IBS content while farming gold to purchase LW2, LW3 and LW4. Which is a financially optimal way of doing things but literally disjoints the story horribly as a result.

@"Vulpes.1029" said:If an account already has the expacs unlocked, there should just be an npc outside of the starting areas that allows players to unlock the raptor at the very least. Hell, this person should even offer rental raptors so people without them can try them out in that zone only.

This could be a thing. But also, an account literally needs you to do part of a single quest. Which can be acheived via using the level 80 boost you get with expansion purchases.

Beyond that, this would also be immersion breaking. Given that there's no reason for Raptors to exist beyond the Raptor breeding grounds in Crystal Oasis. The ranchers there have no reason to head to central Tyria. No-one else has gotten a plethora of Raptors to sell them to adventurers (The Raptor that players use is a borrowed one from the Ranch that we were allowed to keep).

The Beetle Races are already kind of bad for immersion given the whole "Time Bubble" thing in regards to central Tyria but at least has the excuse of them having been bred to be populous (For story related reasons that I won't spoil)

@Super Hayes.6890 said:Those who want to experience the game in order, as intended, can. Those who want to skip ahead to get access to a glider and mounts also can at the tiny cost of revealing a little bit of story. There really isn't an issue here.

The issue is players wanting free mounts.

@kharmin.7683 said:

@Super Hayes.6890 said:Those who want to experience the game in order, as intended, can. Those who want to skip ahead to get access to a glider and mounts also can at the tiny cost of revealing a little bit of story. There really isn't an issue here.

You're absolutely right. The title talks about butchering immersion but that is exactly what you do if you access and use gliders and mounts before intended in the story. I suppose and argument could be made about open world exploration but at that point you aren't really doing story anyway. Maybe we could edit the title to reflect this being a free mounts request thread.. To be clear, I would be on board for a basic horse mount but even then I would prefer it be a skin for a mount already in game.

If you want a mount you get spoilers, deal with it or play the stories without one until you actually get one. It's that simple.

If you want immersion, play the game in order and get your raptor when you reach PoF. If you want early/easy mounts, go to PoF, get your raptoer and then start the game.

If you want more arguments you might want to check out the other thread about the exact same topic on page one.

I didn't even notice the other thread on this topic. But that fact that multiple people are coming to the forums regarding this issue means that it's at least a discussion worth having

@Vulpes.1029 said:I didn't even notice the other thread on this topic. But that fact that multiple people are coming to the forums regarding this issue means that it's at least a discussion worth having

It's not an issue. If you do notwant to spoil the story then get your mounts when the story allows you to have them. If you want your mounts straight away then you choose to spoil the story by your own volition. If you want a mount without spoilers get the Warclaw from WvW.

It's not the mount that forces people to do this, it's the mastery unlock for Tyria.Until this gets unlocked at reaching 80, people will continue to whine about it.

Incidentally, I chose PoF rather than HoT because it was fewer chapters to complete, and ended up with the mount as a bonus.

As someone who played this game because of the story, I can confirm it was so annoying I had to do first step of PoF to get the raptor when I started playing two years ago. I was so upset about that, not gonna lie.

And peopel fail to see the intention here, everyone thinks we want free mounts, back then, I wanted my mount no matter what I had to do, I just wanted my mount because everrrryone was happy runnign around core maps with their mount and of course I wanted one, but I didn't want to play a story step that takes place long later after the point I was (about to give a good read to the lws1 summary article on the wiki).

Its not about giving the mount for free, its about avoiding new players to do one f the lattest parts of the story when they all want (including myself) to live the story in order as it got launched.

PD: Mounts are a commodity-necessity, sure you can play core tyria without mounts. but you can also play most PoF map without mounts too, I don't see the point of the argument here. Mounts are a big attraction for new players to buy the expansions. Imagine telling them "play for 150+ hours without the thing you bought the game for or until you reach PoF"

@maddoctor.2738 said:Yes, it's why they should add a mount, probably a new one, in core, to avoid this problem.

That's what Warclaw should have been. A Central Tyria mount that in PvE is, while upgradable, still less than Jackal or Raptor.

But then they locked it behind a WvW-centric collection even for PvE use, and non-upgradable in PvE making it utterly worthless there.

It doesn't bother me personally since I don't care much about the story, but I have had people in my guild asking how they can get mounts after buying the PoF expansion and being disappointed that they have to start the PoF story in order to get the raptor.

Not only the thing with getting a mount needs fixing, after you hit 80 in core tyria you get annoying popup that appears over chat that tells you to go to expansions to unlock masteries, this also butchers story immersion. I had to go to HoT and finish first mission when I haven't done even 75 percent of core story. You can't disable that popup, it reappears every time you gain exp, it forces you to unlock masteries.

In a way it's a good thing because if you wouldn't unlock them then you'd waste exp but why not just make masteries unlocked by default when someone owns expansions?

If you purchase POF the raptor should be given to you for free when you ding 80 on any character imo. It's really awkward to have to skip to POF story to get something that you absolutely want to have.

Same with gliding, I forget when you get gliding though, but it should be given for free upon dinging 80 on any character.

@"Shiyo.3578" said:If you purchase POF the raptor should be given to you for free when you ding 80 on any character imo. It's really awkward to have to skip to POF story to get something that you absolutely want to have.

Same with gliding, I forget when you get gliding though, but it should be given for free upon dinging 80 on any character.

Why not give all HoT, PoF and season 3-4 masteries for free to new players because it's too much effort to catch up to those that been playing for years to collect all the things they absolutely want to have.............We all had to wait and put effort into obtaining all these mounts and masteries. If you want a fair fix for this "issue" then they should remove mounts and glider use in the core zones instead. Let's see who will cry the loudest if they would choose to do that.............

@"Vulpes.1029" said:Currently the only way to get mounts is to play through the story chapters. On many different groups, forums, and websites, I often see veteran players making the following recommendation to new players who are seeking guidance: "Go to PoF first and get the raptor, and then start the game."

Isn't this a but convoluted and immersion-breaking? If an account already has the expacs unlocked, there should just be an npc outside of the starting areas that allows players to unlock the raptor at the very least. Hell, this person should even offer rental raptors so people without them can try them out in that zone only. Just something I was thinking about. What are your thoughts.

Mounts detract from immersion. They take you completely out of the well crafted environment in favor of quick movement.If immersion is what you want, play the core came in order all the way to PoF.As was intended.If you dont care about immersion, rush the first chapter of PoF.

Or is the issue that you like to pretend you want immersion while asking for greater convenience?In which case you are right.The forums are the best place for that.

@Vulpes.1029 said:there should just be an npc outside of the starting areas that allows players to unlock the raptor at the very least.

wouldnt that be.... immersion breaking?