Suggestion for Beetle endurance (Endurance decay)

[Raysson.2079]

Probably the worst thing about the endurance of the beetle is that it also resets to 0 every time you dismount to gather from a node, loot a chest, talk to an NPC etc.

Wouldn't it be nice if the beetle endurance wouldn't instantly reset to 0 but slowly decay in the background while you're not on the beetle? So that after gathering from an ore or wood node for example you would start at 70% endurance or something instead of 0%. I think this would be more realistic and player-friendly, as well as more consistent with the other mounts' endurance mechanics, since their endurance replenishes in the background when you are not on the mount. In short the beetle could be a much more well balanced mount after it.

Thanks for the attention and if you support the idea, don't forget to vote it up so it can be seen :)

[Vavume.8065]

I think it would probably just be better if the beetle started with 50% endurance, which would reduce the waiting time by half.

[Raysson.2079]

50% is too much for gathering or opening caches. Many people would just skip out on the nodes when exploring maps with the beetle which I think isn't intended.

[Umut.5471]

It should start with 50% or higher endurance for sure.

[Raysson.2079]

Starting on 50% doesn't fix the problem with harvesting one plant and losing 50% endurance in the matter of a few seconds. No other mount gets penalised for actually playing the map.

[Pirindolo.9427]

Forget all that. Beetle is a niche, specialized mount for races. Other than that, it has no practical use. And this is intended.

[Orion Templar.4589]

Agreed something needs to change. The current build-up of endurance feels so slow. Losing it all when popping off to harvest something feels like a heavy penalty.

[Zoid.2568]

Yeah the beetle is not needed except for breaking through walls.

[Raysson.2079]

By the same logic the raptor is also a niche mount for the rare long distances of even terrain in Tyria. A city car so to speak. But that's not how people choose which mount to use. If they like the feeling of dashing forward 10 meters at a time instead of using the actual fastest mount for most scenarios (cough Jackal cough), they'll use the Raptor. And when a cool skin comes out for a mount (Shrine Guardian Jackal) they use that mount instead. Balancing mounts only for certain areas of the game is a bit disconnected from reality in my opinion.

[Quarktastic.1027]

@Raysson.2079 said:By the same logic the raptor is also a niche mount for the rare long distances of even terrain in Tyria. A city car so to speak. But that's not how people choose which mount to use. If they like the feeling of dashing forward 10 meters at a time instead of using the actual fastest mount for most scenarios (cough Jackal cough), they'll use the Raptor. And when a cool skin comes out for a mount (Shrine Guardian Jackal) they use that mount instead. Balancing mounts only for certain areas of the game is a bit disconnected from reality in my opinion.

The beetle is now the niche mount for rare long distances of even terrain. The raptor is for bouncing from one gathering node to another in rapid succession. Also, The raptor is faster than the jackal over flat terrain (though not by much). The jackal only outpaces the raptor when running up inclines.

[Rayti.6531]

This particular mount is intened for covering long distances in short time - it makes up for the long endurance build-up by reaching and maintaining high speed over long distances - same as the Griffon makes up for having to start from higher points by reaching and maintaining high speed over longer distances and providing high maneuverability mid air.

If you want a mount for hopping between gathering nodes, Jackal and Raptor (depending on terrain) are your mounts. If you want to get from A to B as fast as possible without stopping, Griffon and Beetle (also depending on terrain) are your mounts of choice. The crossing bodies of water (Skimmer) and reaching high places (Springer) should go without saying. To me this looks like rather solid balancing of roles between mounts without devaluing any of them.

The Beetle mount is still young compared to the other mounts, so people are still getting the hang of its controls and are still in the process of finding uses for it. I am also a player who usually stops for every gathering node -> the Beetle is not meant for that so I will continue to use my Raptor and Jackal when I'm gathering. My Beetle currently is mostly in use for getting to events fast when I'm cutting it close to event start, or e.g. for getting from lane to lane between gerent kills (or getting back to a lane from WP). And then there is, of course, racing around on it for fun and discovering natural race courses on old maps... You'll find a use for this mount as soon as you stop trying to make it into something that it's not.

I think the Beetle mount will be perfect for its intended purposes as soon as Anet adds the "breaking through walls skill" to the engage skill (as they already mentioned they intend to, since waiting for endurance buildup just to break a wall is clunky). Any further changes could create an imbalance between mounts if they are not careful about it - but maybe slightly tweaking the endurance build-up speed rather than giving a flat amount of endurance on mount up (as suggested in this thread) could still be possible/help addressing some players' concerns..? The endurance decay is also a good idea, but I doubt it could be implemented that easily.

[Plautze.6290]

Suggestion for beetle endurance:Leave it as it is, use raptor instead. Problem solved.

I don't understand why players want everything to feel, control and behave pretty much the same, robbing it of its identity.If ANet had wanted the beetle to be a second raptor but only with the ability to crush walls (on one map this far, yay), they wouldn't have put that much work into it.

It's like trying to use a hammer for tightening a screw and then asking the manufacturer of the hammer to add a screwdriver. But seeing the amount of people asking for the endurance thing, I'm happy not to be a hammer manufacturer right now. "We don't want diversity, we want every mount to do everything everywhere equally good."

[Raysson.2079]

I'm not asking for it to be better than the other mounts or to remove every weakness from it. In my opinion it should be equally useful in the game content, which it isn't, considering racing and other prolonged mount activities are not an important part of the game right now. If it's only a mount for specific content then I think the content is currently lacking.

I can see that it's designed for longer distances but losing all the endurance when you mount off for even 1 second just feels cruel and uncalled-for.

[Rayti.6531]

@Raysson.2079 said:I'm not asking for it to be better than the other mounts or to remove every weakness from it.

As a matter of fact, that's exactly what you are asking for - even if not on purpose. The slow endurance ramp-up is its only weakness besides going up-hills (which is counteracted by a full endurance bar). So once you make it easier to gain or maintain endurance, it mitigates those weaknesses to the point they are non-existent.

This mount is simply not meant for hopping off and on again, and then instantly boosting off into the sunset. To make this possible without making other mounts irrelevant, they would probably have to significantly reduce the Beetle mount's speed or tone it down in some other way or form. I'd rather have a unique mount with the ramp-up and full speed potential than a mount which feels like a reskinned Raptor - but that's just my opinion.

@Raysson.2079 said:In my opinion it should be equally useful in the game content, which it isn't, considering racing and other prolonged mount activities are not an important part of the game right now. If it's only a mount for specific content then I think the content is currently lacking.

One could say the same about the Skimmer, which is also only used for traversing larger bodies of water, which by no stretch could be considered to be an "important part of the game".

Also, both the Springer and the Skimmer are not even close to equally used to Raptor and Jackal (at least based on ANets mount-usage statistics). Yet, those mounts exist and are enjoyed by many for their unique appearences, handling and niche uses.

You should also keep in mind that which content is "important" and which isn't is highly subjective to begin with. There could be 100 uses for the Beetle mount and it could still be irrelevant to many people just because they don't play the content where the uses are relevant.

I generally don't see a lack of content for the Beetle mount - especially given the fact it only exists for a few weeks now. There is one adventure, several breakable walls and a map designed entirely around the Beetle. Future maps will presumably also have several short cuts for Beetle owners. Even the old maps, which were not designed with the Beetle in mind, offer enough tracks for fast travel via Beetle...

@Raysson.2079 said:I can see that it's designed for longer distances but losing all the endurance when you mount off for even 1 second just feels cruel and uncalled-for.

The Griffon acts very similar to the Beetle in that regard:Once you land with your Griffon (be it on purpose or accidentally) you also have to stop and look for a new starting point and climb up there before going "full speed" again.

It seems to me like ANet tried to achieve the same thing for those two mounts-> creating a huge trade-off for the high speed those mounts can achieve by making them incapable of regaining that speed for a short while once you stop/dismount...

What alternative trade-off would you suggest for a mount that reaches the same speeds as a Griffon, if they removed the ramp-up on remount? I'm not saying there is no way to improve the Beetle in some way or the other - but I strongly believe there needs to be a trade-off in order to keep other mounts relevant.

[Devildoc.6721]

using the beetle is obnoxious even when its intended to be used like a breakable wall or crystal you see the wall, you mount up, you TWIDDLE YOUR F'ING THUMBS WAITING FOR ENDURANCE for what seems like an obnoxiously long time when all you want to do is bust through the wall and then you can finally boost. I Almost never use the beetle because of this . The amount of time makes it even more niche than Jackal. When we come to maps that don't have breakable walls or crystals, which probably means next map, I will never use the beetle again. Maps just don't have enough uninterrupted riding time to make it worth it.

[Plautze.6290]

The funny thing is, that it could be much much MUCH worse: Imagine the beetle rolling up a portion of the hill and when the momentum is used up, uncurls and starts to waddle up the rest of the hill =)