[Suggestion] Spider/Chak Mount revisited

https://imgur.com/a/DBAxBwP

Remember this picture? It was abandoned maybe because of the devs not having any mechanics associated with it. What if the spider used its web spray to pull us towards a certain area (like in Draconis Mons where we used grappling vines). The wind gust would play a certain role as windy areas knocked or pushed back other mounts but not the spider. And the spider mount could web wind tunnels to stop wind gusts. So it may not necessarily be a climbing mount but an underground one. Or maybe have a chak mount to spray acid or sticky globs that glow in the dark subterrain. Or maybe even a firefly mount to light the dark.

So what do you think? I know it has been brought up before but maybe with these types of mechanics to play with the devs would reconsider.

I never really bought the arachnophobia bit form them to be honest. I've seen way scarier things in this game and we've had a spider in a fractal, a giant spider that carries us around with them in a story mission when unlocking sun's refuge, and countless spider bosses throughout Tyria. They have no problem implementing them as enemy designs but all of a sudden don't want to release them for mounts because people would be creeped out by them?

That makes zero sense.

I think they decided to save it for a later release, personally. Whether that's the "surprise" mount left for this season or not I have no clue, and I'm not sure how they would tie it in unless we went to a zone that would have a lot of spiders/cliffs or some indigenous population that relied on them for travel. I could certainly see us going back to the blood legion homelands and discovering some pit from where Kralk was sleeping all those years. Perhaps we go sprelunking into that area in search of something to help us in a fight against him and that's what leads us to needing this spider mount. People may not buy this theory but in Guild Wars 1 all we saw was his back, and in guild wars 2 he's the size of a mountain. So he had to have been at least somewhat burrowed into the ground leaving a chasm in his wake.

But anyway, another possibility is the Rhino, but outside of carrying additional people I fail to see what benefit the mount would have. It would be a great addition, but I wonder how they would even make the functionality of that mount considering all of the masteries involved like sharing health and the new one that ejects us.

Another possibility is Aurene or some way that she brands us or bonds with us and we can use her as a super griffon?

Underwater mount is needed, but at this point in the game it wouldn't be extremely necessary and what would cause us to suddenly wind up in a zone with so much underwater content after this latest episode?

To the point: I think a spider is highly likely at some point. I'm not sure if that's the next mount that will be released, but I certainly don't think it's as off the table as they implied.... especially due to the Arachnophobia bit. Who knows, perhaps Draconis Mons oakheart reach tech came as a result of the work that went into this "scrapped" spider mount?

I'd personally still love to see some more mounts branch away from their original concept. They haven't taken them as far as I thought they would. We have the gecko, the lion griffon, the 9 tailed fox, the armadillo, and I guess you could say the orca skimmer but other than those nothing has really deviated that much from their original. Nothing crazy like springers as golemn suits or wyverns (though a different skeleton) for griffons, or panthers/tigers for jackal, or vinetooth modrem creatures for raptors or roller beetle.

Still holding out hope for a lot of this. And the video they had a long long time ago of them playtesting on an actual firebreathing fighting wyvern gave me hope that someday we could actually reach that point. Was hoping we could reach that point with Aurene, at least in a story instance, but at this point who knows what their plans are in the long run. By this time next year we could literally be riding flying sharks with rockets on their backs and rainbows for wings and it wouldn't be any crazier than a mists devouring time-space altering megachin dragon.

Both the spider andthe chak eould be really cool mounts i think. Moreso the chak mount imo since it sorta works as a callback to hot and them being the mysterious creatures they are we couls see some really cool mechanics assosiated with them.

@zealex.9410 said:Both the spider andthe chak eould be really cool mounts i think. Moreso the chak mount imo since it sorta works as a callback to hot and them being the mysterious creatures they are we couls see some really cool mechanics assosiated with them.

Well speaking from a gameplay perspective - the special ability of throwing acid to dissolve paths wouldn't be all that different from having a roller beetle knock down a wall. And they have been pretty good at reusing those mechanics since they introduced these mounts as its one of the things they've done really well with path of fire.

But it would be pretty lackluster.

They could however burrow as their special movement ability, but then how would that work from a player standpoint. We just let them eat us like a Junundu worm and all's well? It could be a nice little evade window that we don't really have but then how would the movement when not burrowed really differ all that much from the other mounts? Why would we use it?

It's highly possible that, if for some reason we find ourselves back towards the Sulfurus Wastelands, we could wind up actually getting a junundu worm mount. Now that joko is gone and we've kind of moved on from Elona-specific plot we wouldn't have all that much reason to go this direction but...

Junundu could have not only a burrowing mechanic, but also a burrowing long distance mechanic. Sort of like a Mesmer blink or thief shadowstep. We point the area we want to go to, whether it's up on a cliff somewhere or really far in the distance, and our Junundu burrows and then pops back up at that location? It would give us a more controlled version of a jackal teleport but not make the movement so overpowered that we would use it over other mounts - i.e. we can't burrow to something that a junundu wurm wouldn't logically be able to burrow to. Problems with this would be - if allowed to burrow ontop of a cliff would defeat the purpose of a springer - and if needing to burrow across some long inhabitable stretch of toxic wasteland we already have the skimmer to just glide over it.

So, honestly, the only thing that really makes sense for another land mount to me is the spider. As much as I would love to be able to crawl up walls like an actual spider, just having the ability to web yourself to a point on a wall or even on a ceiling would be completely unique. Further on this point -

What if:

The spider mount gets the ability to crawl/web itself to ceilings and we are upside down with the camera following suit giving us an upside down perspective? I'm not sure if that's a technical possibility and it may not be because I can't honestly say that I remember playing a game in which that happened... and sadly don't remember enough from my crappy associates degree in game design to think about the problems that could arise. It would be pretty awesome though. A deep dark cave somewhere crawling on the ceiling looking upside down at everything below you. lol

Spider is the most logical addition outside of underwater for sure though. As much as I would love an Aurene or dragon mount, and as great a job as they've done with the mounts in this expansion and the innovation that they've put into the concept as a whole, I doubt we would ever get a full flight mount as it would devalue pretty much all the other mounts unless there was a huge speed reduction to counter. (More likely if we did it would be a more combat enhanced griffon and perhaps a slightly more enhanced version controls i.e. flaps up like the Griffon but goes much higher per wing flap, more velocity, or more endurance bars.)

Actually, sorry to rant - but here's an idea for an Aurene/dragon mount and one that ties into the masteries and mount theme this season -

We have a dragon mount that can:

Wing flap like the griffon to the same height as a springer - flies across water like the skimmer glides, teleports through the mists similar to the jackal (bit of a stretch to make this one fit), leaps long distances and charges (like the raptor and a bit of a stretch here as well), and is able to break down barriers with fire breath or some other combat ability (like the beetle and a bit of a stretch on this one too so maybe this wasn't as cohesive as I thought lulz). Again, all of these would technically make the other mounts pretty pointless, but it would sort of pay homage to the theme of bonding with Aurene this entire story. Anyway. I'm seriously done now. Spending more time on the forums these days than playing the game. >_>

Then again i kinda excited for mostly the multiperson rhino mount.

Instead of a mount I'd rather have a multi person vehicle like a charr tank or something. Totally on board with the ideas for a spider though.

Why not spider yeah with its web-by skills.But would really enjoy more an underwater mount, it's the only domain left, we have 4 terrestrial mounts, 1 aerian, 1 floating on water (but that'd the only thing it does sadly), instead of gaining 30cm of altitude the action bar should have added diving, that way you can move how you want underwater with skimmer. But since we don't have it, I want a mount for that. (Nah swim infusions are the worst solution I've ever seen)