I want to discuss flying mounts (Griffon/Skyscale) and their inability to stay high in the air while going forward

[Vain.3805]

Guild Wars 2 has true flight.  World of Warcraft has swimming in the air.  In fact, if you lag briefly when taking a flight path in WoW your character will even start swimming.

 

Birds don't stay up forever.  They can't fly up forever.  How is this less realistic than WoW's air swimming where they rely entirely on invisible walls, punish you for finding ways around those walls, and will even ban you if they find you somewhere past those walls.  It's much more immersive and less restricting to have a developer encourage exploration and innovation with movement the way Guild Wars 2 does.  It's so successful that Blizztivision is straight up copying it as best they can with cheap animations.  You don't copy failure.

[Tuna Bandit.3786]

You're kidding right?

First of all, Guild Wars 2 mounts are often mentioned in many respectable gaming media as the best mount system in any MMO. They do not trivialize each other and they are more than just fast travelers.

They take skill, specially the might Griffon.

I oppose against making the Griffon easier to fly. It is already in EVERY sense of the word a true flying mount. Even without Jade Bot Boosters you can stay, maintain and GAIN altitude if you practise enough.

I love the fact that it took me hours to learn how to properly fly, and if that is taken away from the game by a simple fast travel mount, I would be extremely dissapointed in ArenaNet. That would mean dropping the entire mount mechanic phylosophy of this game.

We have entire Guilds in this game that are solely dedicated to the higher skill level mounts, Griffon Guilds, Beetle Guilds... You have people that build race tracks specifically for these mounts ingame - through challenges in Guild Halls, up to events using an overlay to try to fly a specific course as fast as possible (or race, in case of the Beetle.)

The ONLY dissapointment I had last year, after first visiting Cantha and noticing how all maps (Including the extremely challenging and fun Echovald Wilds) are designed for perfect Griffon Flight, there was not a single Griffon Challenge implemented. THAT is the only thing that ArenaNet truely missed.

For those that still don't know all the mechanics for the Griffon, and how to remain airborn and use the mount to it's full potential, look at this video. 

(and before I end... let put something else straight... The TRUE ORIGINAL Dragonflight is the instance we hop on Aurene's back... appropiatly named Dragonflight. Sounds farmilliar right?

 

[AliamRationem.5172]

On 12/30/2022 at 3:28 PM, Benie.9312 said:

Now I'm all for fairness and balance, when used correctly (aka, things making sense). But the flying mounts of GW2.. do not make sense. And I'm talking about their inability to stay in the air (while moving horizontally) for an extended period of time.
This should be explained with some lore, such as "they're young, so they don't know how to properly fly yet" or "the air in Tyria is thinner, and they can't breathe at higher altitudes. Aka why they can't fly high". The only one that actually makes sense is the first one.. IF it wasn't for the Skyscale's flight range bar. Because it defies other logical reasons like "the air is thinner, and with them being young they don't have the air capacity in their lungs to stay high up".
Nor does it explain the biggest offense I've seen yet: the Skyscale's Wall Grab mastery causing cooldowns and its Endurance bar to pause until you let go, which was never documented in the wiki. 😑 (If it was, I guess I overlooked it and that would've been my fault for not squinting trying to read the fine print?)
And no, I don't wish to join the wiki's editor team to make changes like that.

I get it, ANet. It's 'balance'. Probably their attempt to separate them from WoW's flying mounts. My problem is I'm too spoiled by those mounts, that I just can't believe all flying mounts in every game weren't like that. And the fact they enforce their BS in the worst ways possible (the aforementioned Wall Grab mastery).
But again, I'm all for balance.. if it's used right. But this isn't! And I wouldn't care if they never added flying mounts. I was actually shocked they even have mounts at all, as the last time I've been playing was 7 years ago (and we had to walk everywhere). Just came back 3 months ago.
...Or have they explained this back then in an article anywhere?

Now I am aware of the Griffon's swoop ability, but to me that isn't a true replacement for normal flying.
All I really ask for, is a dev to respond to this (why I'm posting here instead of the unofficial GW2 Discord server) with a reasonable response of why they did flying mounts the way they did. And that would end this discussion.

That's a lot of words wasted on saying "I wish I could just fly!"  If they got on here and gave you a justification you would just continue to insist that it doesn't make sense. 

So, you "get it", right?  Balance and all that?  They didn't want unrestricted flight because it would make the other mounts useless.  So they gave us restricted flight instead.  Wall jump is the same deal.  If you could just endlessly wall jump people would instead be asking why we can't just fly straight up unrestricted and skip all the jumpy bits, which brings us back to the first point.

So, if this is as you say just a matter of the justification.  Okay, here it is.  The skyscale evolved in a place where size/strength/weight trumped the ability to fly long distances.  So, it's in the process of getting heavier and losing its flight capabilities.  Satisfied?  No, of course you aren't.  Because what you want is a flying mount that just flies wherever it wants to go and for balance reasons that isn't what they gave you.  Deal with it.

[Taclism.2406]

Do you need more reasons than the fact its just more fun to fly with things to actively do as you fly, rather than pressing autorun in the sky?

[Cuks.8241]

In my (unpopular) opinion Skyscale is actually too good and too versatile for a DLC mount. I would change it so bond of vigor doesn't replenish the blue bar and maybe nerf the barrel roll speed boost a bit. I know it wont happen.

[kharmin.7683]

4 hours ago, Cuks.8241 said:

In my (unpopular) opinion Skyscale is actually too good and too versatile for a DLC mount. I would change it so bond of vigor doesn't replenish the blue bar and maybe nerf the barrel roll speed boost a bit. I know it wont happen.

Nothing says that you have to use the Bond of Vigor or barrel rolls.  You're free to fly around without them.

[Baddxian.3851]

I have to say that I was somewhat disappointed when I got my Griffon and it could not take advantage of updrafts like any normal bird (hell, even vultures can ride those currents for hours), but then I got my Skyscale and all that was forgotten.  I don't expect my fat, lazy, fish-eating dragon mount to fly across the map without stopping; he's not built for that...

[Ray Koopa.2354]

There's still a glitch with the griffon allowing you to gain infinite height, working more or less like what OP is asking for, which is what makes it superior to Skyskale if mastered. Since ANET tried to patch it several years ago (but incompletely did so) I won't go into details here (already reported it long ago).

Edited January 3, 2023 by Ray Koopa.2354

[mythical.6315]

3 hours ago, Ray Koopa.2354 said:

There's still a glitch with the griffon allowing you to gain infinite height, working more or less like what OP is asking for, which is what makes it superior to Skyskale if mastered. Since ANET tried to patch it several years ago (but incompletely did so) I won't go into details here (already reported it long ago).

But then consider what it would take to pull off and how would you even realistically take advantage from it. 

[AliamRationem.5172]

4 hours ago, Ray Koopa.2354 said:

There's still a glitch with the griffon allowing you to gain infinite height, working more or less like what OP is asking for, which is what makes it superior to Skyskale if mastered. Since ANET tried to patch it several years ago (but incompletely did so) I won't go into details here (already reported it long ago).

Bugs/glitches aside, I like the way the various mounts and mount-related skills can be used in combination.  For instance, high jumping on the springer into glider and using the jade bot lift to gain altitude before swapping into the griffon and diving to gain speed.  I find this system a lot more fun to use than just hopping on a go-anywhere flying mount like I did back in my WoW days.

[Ray Koopa.2354]

13 hours ago, mythical.6315 said:

But then consider what it would take to pull off and how would you even realistically take advantage from it. 

Not much different compared to dodge jumping

[mythical.6315]

6 hours ago, Ray Koopa.2354 said:

Not much different compared to dodge jumping

There's a large difference between the two as one only requires the pressing of two keys simultaneously while the other requires much more.

In order to use the infinite flight trick on griffon, you need to get yourself up to a certain height first which isn't necessarily easy/effortless on a lot of maps.  Let's say someone does the infinite flight trick, for what purpose are they using it for?  Joyride around the map?  Anytime that they land, they'd have to go through the process to set it up all over again. 

That is significantly different from simultaneously pressing two keys whenever.

Edited January 4, 2023 by mythical.6315

[Larynkir.6130]

The entire logic of this is that the game relies heavily on interacting with things on the ground, scenery, events, vistas, climbing and jumping. Having mounts able to fly indefinitely would remove a lot of need to be interacting, and therefore content from the game. I assume this is why waypoints still have a monetary fee so it's a little more nessisary for new players to find ways around. 

Flying everywhere you please would be convenient and great but you'll miss out on exploring stuff if you haven't explored a map 100% and gotten all the achievements there. 

[Sindust.7059]

1 hour ago, Larynkir.6130 said:

Having mounts able to fly indefinitely would remove a lot of need to be interacting

This actually cuts both ways. Recently there was a dungeon daily in a zone that the char I wanted to do it on hadn't been to. If I had a proper flying mount, I would have stopped for vistas, HPs and waypoints. But because I can't get back up and fly with the same speed after landing, and opening waypoints is risky lest I hit some branch and slow to a crawl, I just zoomed across the map to my destination on my griffon. 0 interactions happened where there would otherwise be about 5 if not more on just the shortest path to my destination.

 

On 1/4/2023 at 12:21 AM, Ray Koopa.2354 said:

There's still a glitch with the griffon allowing you to gain infinite height, working more or less like what OP is asking for, which is what makes it superior to Skyskale if mastered. Since ANET tried to patch it several years ago (but incompletely did so) I won't go into details here (already reported it long ago).

It isn't even a glitch. Bond of faith to glider, gliding boost (the EoD mastery, in my case with the t3 upgrade for the jade bot), remount, and keep boost diving and pulling up to maintain altitude until bond of faith cool down finishes, then rinse and repeat. When I figured this out, I tried it near the griffon sanctuary (there are pretty high rocks right next to it, and I could teleport there for free, which is why I picked the place), and it took me only 3-5 repeats to get high enough to be killed for being out of boundaries.

 

So yeah, balance is hardly an argument against free flight, because literally everything that you could accomplish with it can be done with legitimate in-game tools already. It only takes longer.

 

All things considered I think they should just remove the limitation of the griffon where you can't ever pull up more than a few meters above where you mounted it, and just make the pull up mechanic work the same regardless of your altitude. That way we would keep all of the fun flying mechanics. They would in fact feel more natural when there are no invisible ceilings set arbitrarily at whichever hight you mounted at. And working up that altitude wouldn't be as much of a chore.

 

On 1/1/2023 at 5:42 PM, Vain.3805 said:

How is this less realistic than WoW's air swimming where they rely entirely on invisible walls, punish you for finding ways around those walls, and will even ban you if they find you somewhere past those walls

I don't know if anything has changed since I played WoW, but from TBC to MoP when I played it, there were waaaaaaaaay fewer issues with invisible walls than in GW2. In GW2 there are literally invisible walls in the middle of a zone for no kitten reason at all. Dry Top or Desolation are sometimes very annoying when I try to fly across the entire map with the griffon, but hit an invisible wall, lose all my speed, and then don't even get a chance to find a route around it, because my griffon lost all of its speed, and I don't have enough altitude for a second dive boost. And even just using skyscale I get confronted with invisible walls that I can't even grab on to constantly.

 

So yeah, saying that invisible walls are bad and therefore GW2>WoW triggers me, because GW2 is literally invisible wall central compared to WoW. And these walls also have a bigger impact, because they come suddenly where you wouldn't expect them and they destroy your fun fighter jet experience because you can't recover from hitting them without landing.

[Rogue.8235]

20 hours ago, Sindust.7059 said:

This actually cuts both ways. Recently there was a dungeon daily in a zone that the char I wanted to do it on hadn't been to. If I had a proper flying mount, I would have stopped for vistas, HPs and waypoints. But because I can't get back up and fly with the same speed after landing, and opening waypoints is risky lest I hit some branch and slow to a crawl, I just zoomed across the map to my destination on my griffon. 0 interactions happened where there would otherwise be about 5 if not more on just the shortest path to my destination.

 

So, rather than flying there, you flew there?

Your point seems to be that if you had unlimited, unrestricted flight, you'd be able to quickly get a PoI or vista with minimal engagement with the game and continue zooming towards your destination.  Instead, with the griffon, stopping to interact with the game requires interacting with the game, so you still zoomed through the air towards your destination.  Spending 1-2 seconds, at most, at a map objective is not really interacting with the game, it's merely making a slight deviation in your flight plan.

I'd rather have mounts that actually interact with the game than have a noclip mod.

20 hours ago, Sindust.7059 said:

high enough to be killed for being out of boundaries.

 

Does the character free fall upon death?  If so, what's the air time for that fall?  Asking for an Asuran friend.  Seriously though, sounds like something I may try to do someday just to see how it happens.

20 hours ago, Sindust.7059 said:

So yeah, balance is hardly an argument against free flight, because literally everything that you could accomplish with it can be done with legitimate in-game tools already. It only takes longer.

 

All things considered I think they should just remove the limitation of the griffon where you can't ever pull up more than a few meters above where you mounted it, and just make the pull up mechanic work the same regardless of your altitude. That way we would keep all of the fun flying mechanics. They would in fact feel more natural when there are no invisible ceilings set arbitrarily at whichever hight you mounted at. And working up that altitude wouldn't be as much of a chore.

 

Still not convinced that removing game mechanic interactions merely for the sake of fast traveling at all times without restriction is a good thing.  I'd rather have game mechanics that interact with the game, not disregard it.  Part of using flying mounts is the skill required to use them to maximum effectiveness, and I prefer mechanics that require player skill.  At the same time, I'd prefer almost every skill in GW2 to be a skill shot rather than auto-target and auto-hit, but I'm at the extreme here.  

I think what makes the GW2 mounts fun to use is there game mechanic interaction.  To create an unrestricted mount is merely a waypoint by a different name.

Just my opinion.

 

Don't really have much to say about the last part of your post.  Those things can be frustrating, or at the very least mildly annoying (still never good).  I do understand that they're required to prevent scripts from breaking and bugging out, so I accept them.

 

[Sindust.7059]

21 minutes ago, Rogue.8235 said:

Does the character free fall upon death?  If so, what's the air time for that fall? 

1. Yes.

2. I wasn't sitting there with a stopwatch, so I can't really tell. But it felt like the same terminal speed that you have from any fall while alive, and it was a very long way down...

24 minutes ago, Rogue.8235 said:

Spending 1-2 seconds, at most, at a map objective is not really interacting with the game

Doing a HP boss takes quite a bit longer than that. And literal combat can hardly be called "not interacting with the game".

27 minutes ago, Rogue.8235 said:

So, rather than flying there, you flew there?

Rather than flying there with multiple stops to interact with the game, I flew there directly with no other game interaction.

[Sobx.1758]

On 1/5/2023 at 2:40 AM, Sindust.7059 said:

This actually cuts both ways. Recently there was a dungeon daily in a zone that the char I wanted to do it on hadn't been to. If I had a proper flying mount, I would have stopped for vistas, HPs and waypoints. But because I can't get back up and fly with the same speed after landing, and opening waypoints is risky lest I hit some branch and slow to a crawl, I just zoomed across the map to my destination on my griffon. 0 interactions happened where there would otherwise be about 5 if not more on just the shortest path to my destination.

So you're not bothering with map exploration which you wouldn't bother with either way, unless you were allowed to infinitely trivialize the task of map completion? By saying that, you just keep me convinced the infinite flight is awful.

Don't feel the need to get those wps/vistas/pois? Then don't. The fact you're apparently complaining about map discovery/completion not being a mere afterthought of you going for a daily dungeon just makes it that much more ridiculous to me.

Edited January 6, 2023 by Sobx.1758

[maxwelgm.4315]

Map exploration is an absolute blast and I've made like 8 gifts of exploration (4 full completions of core maps) after unlocking Griffon and Skyscale. It's the perfect balance of being super quick and still requiring you to actively engage with mechanics such as finding higher ground to fly or choosing to rush through with a beetle (you can bounce through a whole map in 20 mins and unfortunately have to do the hearts up to 15 mins but oh well...). Map completion was my most hated activity by far before mounts but it was truly a game changer to have them. And I would probably skip completion as well if the mounts were like Perfect World/World of Warcraft where it's just "your char, but flying/faster" - the added mechanics are absolutely part of why it's fun.

[Vain.3805]

On 1/4/2023 at 6:40 PM, Sindust.7059 said:

 So yeah, saying that invisible walls are bad and therefore GW2>WoW triggers me, because GW2 is literally invisible wall central compared to WoW. And these walls also have a bigger impact, because they come suddenly where you wouldn't expect them and they destroy your fun fighter jet experience because you can't recover from hitting them without landing.

Not that they don't exist, but they are not the exclusive tool and also used to ban players if it bugs.  Those walls irritate you so much BECAUSE they are used so rarely in GW2.  And nobody gets banned if they get stuck on the other side (happens to me a lot).

[Sindust.7059]

33 minutes ago, Vain.3805 said:

Those walls irritate you so much BECAUSE they are used so rarely in GW2

I think we're playing different games. In WoW you can fly across the entire continent uninhibited. In GW2 you have to take specific routes within a zone to avoid the invisible walls.

[Ray Koopa.2354]

On 1/5/2023 at 2:40 AM, Sindust.7059 said:

It isn't even a glitch. Bond of faith to glider, gliding boost (the EoD mastery, in my case with the t3 upgrade for the jade bot), remount, and keep boost diving and pulling up to maintain altitude until bond of faith cool down finishes, then rinse and repeat. When I figured this out, I tried it near the griffon sanctuary (there are pretty high rocks right next to it, and I could teleport there for free, which is why I picked the place), and it took me only 3-5 repeats to get high enough to be killed for being out of boundaries.

That's not what I meant. What I mean is an actual glitch that allows you to very quickly reach the maximum map height.

[yotengodormir.9867]

I just unlocked the flying mount in the new expansion. I was pretty excited because I've only heard good things about the flying mounts in GW2 and have enjoyed the land mounts I've unlocked so far.

The skyscale has been a complete and utter disappointment. I can't believe people have been praising this thing. Traveling across this first map has been tedious and aggravating. I hope this expansion gets better on the next map.

[costepj.5120]

3 hours ago, yotengodormir.9867 said:

I just unlocked the flying mount in the new expansion.

You need to complete the mastery line before you can fully exploit your new mount.

I'm one of the people who praises the skyscale; it's the perfect compromise between utility and invalidating content. I use it almost exclusively to get around, but I don't try and bypass anything on the map (I don't use waypoints for the same reason).

[DanAlcedo.3281]

3 hours ago, yotengodormir.9867 said:

I just unlocked the flying mount in the new expansion. I was pretty excited because I've only heard good things about the flying mounts in GW2 and have enjoyed the land mounts I've unlocked so far.

The skyscale has been a complete and utter disappointment. I can't believe people have been praising this thing. Traveling across this first map has been tedious and aggravating. I hope this expansion gets better on the next map.

You probably know flying mounts from wow. 

Problem is that these are overpowered and make exploration worthless. 

Gw2's version is kind of a balance version. 

You can do alot when the Masteries are done but you still have limits.