[SUGGESTION] The griffon needs to be a full fly mount

The griffon needs to be a full fly mount, not just a glider. You have created maps which are works of art and yet there is no way to see the landscape from the air.Or if you feel like adding more mounts, please add dragons that can remain in mid air flying with their wings. OR a hummingbird type of mount.

EDIT: Those who don't want full fly mounts are most likely new players to the game, but a veteran like me who has played this game for 5 years, I just feel that adding a full fly mount will make me go back to the old maps. Currently there is no reason for me to go back and explore the old maps! Zero reason!Maybe a full fly mount should be unlocked at 20000+ achievement points.

The griffon is great fun and I've been loving it, but even so, I think it's borderline too much mobility. Giving it the full flying ability would be well over that line for me.

Enough is enough

I disagree and hope they never add flying mounts to this game. Flying changes a game, in many ways for the worse. Even WoW, a game where flying was added years ago, is trying to scale flight back.

WoW Devs regret adding flying to the game

"Having looked at how flying has played out in the old world in the last couple of expansions, we realized that while we were doing it out of this ingrained habit after we introduced flying in The Burning Crusade, it actually detracted from gameplay in a whole lot of ways,” Hazzikostas said. “While there was certainly convenience in being able to completely explore the world in three dimensions, that also came at the expense of gameplay like targeted exploration, like trying to figure out what’s in that cave on top of a hill and how do I get up there."

Originally, Blizzard took out flying in Warlords of Draenor as an experiment, and Hazzikostas says he would have bet “slightly better than even money at the time” that they were going to bring it back eventually. But as they played the expansion and watched others play it, they discovered that they liked the game better without flying.

“The world feels larger, feels more dangerous,” he says. “There’s more room for exploration, for secrets, for discovery and overall immersion in the world. At this point, we feel that outdoor gameplay in World of Warcraft is ultimately better without flying. We’re not going to be reintroducing the ability to fly in Draenor, and that’s kind of where we’re at going forward.”

Disagree. Having the Griffon be an alternative form of Gliding is just fine.

@"Just a flesh wound.3589" said:I disagree and hope they never add flying mounts to this game. Flying changes a game, in many ways for the worse. Even WoW, a game where flying was added years ago, is trying to scale flight back.

They never really scaled flying back though. They made that comment, and the backlash was swift and severe. They can regret adding the ability to fly outside of Burning Crusade areas all they want, but there was no going back. They've withheld flight at the beginning of the last two expansion packs, and added the ability to fly later on. Which was a pretty good compromise in regards to WoW.

Additionally, and specific to WoW, the lack of flight didn't really make the world and more dangerous outside of when you were learning how to get around. In Legion specifically, once you were at the point you were doing world quests, it was easy to just blow past anything on the ground when ground mounted. There's also gliders that engineers (crafting profession) can make as consumables in addition to the engineer can "enchant" their cloak with a glider on a 3 min cooldown.

That being said.

As much as I love all of my flying mounts in WoW. I don't really feel the ability to "fly" has it's place in GW2. There's plenty of waypoints, plenty of ways to glide over long distances, plenty of ways to travel quickly via mounts now, in addition to the ability to still stack swiftness. Flight, specifically in GW2, would be overkill.

Disagree. Please dont.

Why it needs to be a full fly mount? Only if you wanna skip whole game: every terrain obstacles, every mobs on the ground, water/lava biomes, climbing up mountains, forts etc. It will also ruin travel mechanic in HoT maps. This idea will never come true because we have so much world on/underground. It is obvious isn't it?

I'm always sad or even angry when people don't think more than 2s about what they ask.Consequences of flying mounts :

• every one will have to do the griffon "quest"
• terrestrial mounts will never be used (on WoW they are only used in PvP, and in Gw2 mounts arent allowed in PvP)
• the game will become too easy ... very easy
• region "walls" will have to be remake. I suspect that if you try to cross the frontier between 2 regions you will trapped in the void, like on WoW before Cata when you tried to do "wall jumping" between 2 regions.

One advise : use your brain before your tongue/fingers.

Do you really have to post another thread on a topic that has been posted many times before since PoF launch? You could just find one of those to continue conversation there instead of starting another rather pointless thread.

'Just a flesh wound' above makes a really good point. As for why I consider threads on this topic pointless is:

"A flying griffon would make other mounts obsolete as well, and the other mounts should retain some viability and shouldn't be instantly negated just because you can afford the most expensive mount in the game. Unlike other mounts griffon can glide, it has it's own niche of expertise and lets keep it like that to keep all mounts relevant.

Besides, if they make four mounts "almost" obsolete for travel they will never be able to implement skins for them in the gem store (if they are planning it), or no one would want to waste money on any mounts that will be replaced by a single one later down the line. I mean, even with griffon, gliders still have a use given they can use updrafts and ley-lines on maps that use feature those, to stay airborne nigh-permanently.

Well done Anet I say. Can you imagine the outcry of all the people that would have essentially wasted their money buying glider skins too? People are already crying about refund for PoF because first two days of release were bugged (ridiculous idea in my opinion)."

That is my response to every thread of this nature, which there are several of (and thus I just copy pasted it from one of those previous threads).

I like all the mounts just how they are. No need to change anything(aside from new skins of course).

How about a tunneling Mount? A big Molerat(Wurm, Skelk, Sandshark, Devourer) swallows you whole and then you tunnel up right in the middle of a pack of mobs. It would be slow but very stealthy. Nice way to surprise all those nasty ranged mobs. The dismount attack could be an AOE spit. ;)

@Tyncale.1629 said:How about a tunneling Mount? A big Molerat(Wurm, Skelk, Sandshark, Devourer) swallows you whole and then you tunnel up right in the middle of a pack of mobs. It would be slow but very stealthy. Nice way to surprise all those nasty ranged mobs.

I am glad you are suggesting this. I thought about this too but wasn't sure how we could mount such a creature. But being carried in the mouth/swallowed sounds fun xD

I made it into a thread, see what others think. Tunneling is a thing in GW2, just look at the dredge and several other mobs. Gross stuff like being swallowed whole by mobs is also a thing in GW2 so.... :)

@Tyncale.1629 said:How about a tunneling Mount? A big Molerat(Wurm, Skelk, Sandshark, Devourer) swallows you whole and then you tunnel up right in the middle of a pack of mobs. It would be slow but very stealthy. Nice way to surprise all those nasty ranged mobs. The dismount attack could be an AOE spit. ;)

That's probably next expansion, the underground cavern cities of the Dwarves/Asura/Dredge, so they can force us into using new mounts while rendering gliders and previous mounts next to obsolete. ;D

There's also the technical issues to consider.

All video game maps are build inside a Skybox - a cube or rectangle of space with an image/animation of the sky and distant terrain on the inside to create the illusion that the world carries on beyond it's borders. But it is utterly impossible to walk, fly, swim or otherwise move across that border because there is nothing beyond it. The only way to leave the box is to be teleported to the inside of another box. (This is what zone portals do, they're basically asura gates.)

As with everything in games the more there is the more resources are required to run it, so typically the box is only slightly bigger than the map it holds and the terrain is designed to stop players hitting the actual edge. That applies to height as well as width. If you can reach the highest point in a map chances are the top of the skybox is only slightly above your characters head. And flying mounts are subject to the exact same limitations as players.

So sure, in a map with a lot of vertical space like Lornar's Pass or Verdant Brink you might be able to get a lot of use from flying mounts. In a lot of others I suspect you'd find yourself flying just above the top of the buildings or hills and having to go around the highest ones. Which I doubt is what most people think of when they think about flying mounts.

(And in case you're wondering no they can't just increase the size of the skybox. That's like asking someone to transfer a drawing to a bigger piece of paper, the skybox is the 'surface' the map is created on. You could recreate it, taking just as much time and effort as it did the first time, or do a bodge job - sticking extra bits on the side so it sort-of looks ok, but you can't just make it bigger.)

No it doesn't. It's perfectly balanced as it is. All mounts are.

NO balance will go out the window if that was done. It is supposed to just give the same freedom HoT people have by bringing the glider into PoF. You do not need HoT to play PoF however the glider does give certain advantages even if its not required. Just as the griffin gives the same advantages but is not required.

I hope they never add full flying mounts to the game, Blizzard have been regretting that since they did it. Gliders and glider style mounts are enough.

Any free flying mount should be limited to specific maps designed for it, maybe though the LS.

No, it doesn't.

As a hardcore WoW player of over 8 years i can say i actually disagree. So, I like the feel of flapping the wings and actually gaining some height. It's a heavy animal and it feels much better to have the freedom of almost flight while still having a vulnerability. I think WoW lost something when everyone was flying everywhere and I feel this game, a less populated one, would be more divided if full flying functionality were to be added.

Back to WoW with you.

Flying mounts? Just say no. Or, in my case, yes, so I can complete a JP without trying or reach that vista without having to think about it too much. Oh, and getting that MP in VB I just can't get to otherwise. It's a QoL thing.

And if anyone is sense-of-humour impaired, I'll remove my tongue from my cheek right now.

I have to admit I am hoping we get to ride Aurene at some point, when she's bigger of course.

But that would only be within a story instance or maybe one specially designed map.

@Myrdreth.6829 said:I like all the mounts just how they are. No need to change anything(aside from new skins of course).

Also more dye channels

Thumbs down. By adding the griffon they are already bordering on making it 2 games in PVE .... someone with it or without it. Or making it SOP if you want to look at it that way. I think anet will come to regret this decision later. It also brings them close to what masteries can they add in the future (not counting zone-specific ones) and real flying would completely shatter the last opening for that. If they were to add a flying mount it should be REASONABLY attainable by everyone, not behind so many walls (all of the story, jumping puzzles, 250 gold, 12 more MPs, etc) ... any one of which prevents the entire thing from succeeding.