What could top Mounts? (The future of the next story)

[TheJmandude.1548]

Skimmer upgrade. You'll now be able to use them underwater.

[Tarlonniel.6534]

What I'd like to see, though I know it's a pipe dream, is companions. NPCs who follow you around and make comments on stuff and provide some kind of minor buff or ability - like a combination of a mini and a ranger pet. But I doubt my dream of blowing up stuff with Canach in the open world will ever come true ;)

[Warlord.9082]

To one up from mounts there's only one thing: Heroes like in GW1.

[Ryukai.6524]

Some sort of multi-seater airship/ground craft, maybe have weapons (turrets/cannons/guns etc) that could be attached and used by the passengers, the weapon attachments could be destroyable maybe with a blind spot around the vehicle (so they can't completely dominate) with the vehicle also being kind of destroyable, with it being placed on a 15 min cd (30 mins for the bigger vehicles) to re-summon if that happens. Also you can make it more 'realistic' by having various speed/type of vehicles determining what type of weapons could be attached.

For Example

Small vehicles would only carry 1 extra person who could control a single light weapon, like pistols/flame throwers, these would have low hit points but be fairly fast (think roller beetle basic speed).

Medium vehicles would be about basic raptor speed, seat 2 extra people and carry 2 light weapon slots, have a melee range dead zone (where they can't attack things next to the vehicle with the onboard weapons) and have hit points somewhere between a small and large vehicle.

Large vehicles would be much slower (skimmer land speed), could seat 3 people would have 2 weapon slots (1 light and 1 heavy) and could equip all weapons including cannons/rockets (heavy weapon) that could do ranged AoE splash damage. High hit points but these would have a very large 'dead' zone around them making them very vulnerable to melee combat damage.

EDIT: Just thought, instead of weapon slots they could be called upgrade slots which could include defensive type upgrades, like armour/shield or a speed boost, but you'd only then be able to equip one weapon, (or none where the small vehicle is concerned)

[TheGrimm.5624]

@TheJmandude.1548 said:Skimmer upgrade. You'll now be able to use them underwater.

Honestly considering they introduced swim speed infusions I was already expecting a full set of underwater mounts. Sharks, dolphins and etc. Even more so if we go underwaters for an LS or Expac.

[Trise.2865]

@Balsa.3951 said:Airships will not work as personal improvementsthey would become more like something as a new map

or does everyone get his own ship and cruises thru the sky? slowly like star ship Enterprise with guns attached?shooting air targets it would become a mini game like the adventure box in itself and would not add anything to old content.

Naval combat the same issue -if it becomes a team effort what job does each person get press 1? while the commander control the direction of the boat that will get old super fast.

individuality is the only way to top mounts

You've obviously never played Guns of Icarus. or Sea of Thieves. or Bridge Commander. or SpaceTeam. or Warframe... or finished Victory or Death with a proper team...

[MithranArkanere.8957]

Playable Tengu, of course.

Gathering revamp that gives more value to having access to more content and regularly visiting more of it:

Gathering becomes fully account-wide, with its own panel for the gathering tools.

There would also be bonuses that increase with every character slot added to the account, to compensate those who got more characters to gather more.

Unlimited gathering tools become an account upgrade that is unlocked with the first unlimited tool of a type rather than an item that is equipped. After unlocking the upgrade for a gathering tool, it'll be possible to gather even if that tool slot is empty. Gemstore tools will be discounted if you already have unlocked the Unlimited bonus for that type of tool.

Each character will also be able to select skins in the Wardrobe separately. The skins selected would to cover the tools equipped in the panel (like how outfits cover armor), instead having to transmute them every time you switch characters.

It would also be possible to unlock Glyphs for the account, allowing to apply them in slots under the tools. Having a glyph selected overrides whatever glyph or properties in the tool in the slot.

Lower tier tools like copper and iron tools would no longer produce ruined materials when used by higher level character on higher level nodes, they will instead consume more uses per gathering, to match the same value per use of a higher tier tool. When used by characters under the level of the node they will still produce ruined materials.

Giving emphasis on finding new nodes and harvesting defeated enemies.

Nodes would now build up materials over time as you login daily, so finding new nodes and revisiting nodes in locations you haven't visited in a long time will be more efficient than going for the same nodes on the same spot every day.

Corpses or pieces of defeated world bosses will stay for a while, allowing players to harvest pieces of them, like corrupted robs from the claw of jorma, or crystal orbs from a piece of the shatterer.

Stationary chests hidden across the world will also become account bound, but they will have a 1-time bonus per character, guaranteeing 1 rare drop the first time each character uses them in core maps, and 2 in living world and expansion maps.

The API will now get info on the locations of nodes, chests discovered, and gathering progress (e.g.: how much of a weekly iron cap you've gathered), remembering for you so you don't have to.

Introduce fishing and trapping.

Fishing would be a full minigame, not an AFK activity. It will require masteries and crafting rods with the Huntsman discipline and bait in the Cook discipline, including very rare bait recipes with level 500 cooking, required to catch legendary fish. Your masteries will give you access to extra fishing skills and recipes to craft baits and tools to fish, and you will have to show your catches to fishing masters across the world to earn recipes and craft better rods and special baits. There would also be fishing rod skins, and gemstore skins too.

Once a fishing rod is equipped in the gathering panel, you'd use a Novelty to fish. This novelty will appear in a new category of novelties: tools. Tools are novelties that are not toys or just for fun, like the Position Rewinder, the white mantle portal device, the brandstone multitool, the enchanted lodestone, etc.

Entering fishing mode will be done with a novelty like that to allow using it from anywhere without having to place nodes, even while mounted like you can do with Kite toys, which allows you to fish in the middle of a lake on a skimmer.

There will be no indication on where you can fish other than an error message when trying to use the Fishing novelty. There will be designated fishing areas that will be hidden, and the only way to know you can fish on a spot is trying to use the rod. For example, you could walk to a well and use the rod, and if it works, you just found out you can fish in that well. Thanks to how this would work, there could even fish you can fish in quicksand and lava!

Fishing itself will be a mini-game with 5 skills for the fishing rod and 5 skills for 'fishing aids' with charges. You can craft the aids in Hunstman and keep in your inventory. The charges of the skills will correspond to your stacks of the item.

There will be collections that list all the fish in each region (Kryta, Ascalon, Shiverpeaks, etc), and the collections will also keep track of your biggest catch for each type of fish, shown when hovering the mouse over the icon of the fish in the collection. Each expansion and living world season would get their own collections too. There would be an average of 20 different fish per region, about half of them pretty common, and at least 3 of them extremely hard to find, and requiring special baits.

For trapping, there will be designated trapping areas in maps across the world, 1-5 depending on the size of the map and the space for it. You'd be able to place up to 5 traps daily anywhere you want, but only 1 per trapping area area.

Like with fishing, there will be collections for the possible catches in different regions.

In both trapping and fishing, on top of the usual materials you'd get from the minigame, there will also be events that can trigger when playing them. For example, you could get an angry krait or a disgruntled quaggan when fishing; and you could get an enraged sand lion when recovering materials from a trap you are checking. This would sometimes start an event to fight an enemy that can be of any NPC rank. Normal, veteran, champion or even a legendary boss. If you are going to go around killing creatures, it's only fair you may get attacked back.

Both trapping and fiishing would require Bait to work. Bait will be crafting with cooking, with level 500 cooking giving access to unique bait recipes required to catch the rarest fish and trapping targets. The basic core component of every bait recipe will be "Food Crumbs", which can be obtained by salvaging any food. This will give an use to all the useless food in the trading post, making it all salvageable.

Housing, GW2 style.

Instead having your house stuck in one place, you get a pocket dimension that you can upgrade and expand over time, and you can enter it from anywhere, anytime.

You will be able to select one of several skyboxes, weather, music playlist between the tracks of all the content you own, etc. It'd be basically a customizable fractal.

You'd be able to place old and new decorations with Scribing, but the housing versions will be several times cheaper to craft than the guild hall decorations.

You would be able to capture non-sentient creatures and place them as neutral NPCs as well as hiring NPC to populate your pocket dimension.

To keep lodge passes relevant, they will also unlock services, NPCs and decoration styles you can use in your home instance, as well as an asura gate you can place anywhere you like in your housing instance, and use to visit any lodge you've purchased. Nest to the gate an NPC will offer passes you've acquired before for free, allowing you to get them again if you lost them for whatever reason.

Node space. You'd be able to place your nodes freely anywhere in this section of your pocket dimension.

Farming minigame in which you can plant seeds you can obtain across the world. Unlike the BL garden plots, the seeds grow slowly and they can only be gathered a number of times before having to replant them. They will also be seasonal, so for example, you'd only be able to get strawberries in summer. You'd be able to hire an NPC that will tell you what is in season and when to plant it.

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

Aerial combat locked into skills based on weapon and class...same as weapon skills on ground. Permanent flight in specific areas with constant air uplifts.

[NanoEliteSixSixSix.8935]

Wait, I've got it. I thought on it some more, and came to the conclusion that there's logically only one thing that can top mounts for the next expansion.

Their riders.

[Puma.3645]

………………………….

[Ygdrasill.9135]

A mount for use underwater would be cool. It would also open up a lot of possible new content area since most players avoid going underwater unless absolutely necessary.

[Taygus.4571]

I do not envy the game designers here, topping mounts seems a really difficult task.

Heroes eally seems to be the only thing that would top or at least be equal to, mount versatility a dc usefulness.
Other features like housing, tho interesting, wouldn't top mounts.

And airship battles, that's like turning gw2 into a completely different game, no thank you.