(Spoiler) "Hidden" mount was a mistake and mounts in general need to be toned down.

[mXz.4512]

If I wanted to by pass everything in a map that I've never been to, I can simply ask someone to party and use teleport to friend. That's another tool that does exactly what you describe, yet you're targeting mounts only. Also as mentioned, mounts cannot stay airborne without the use of updrafts. And WoW mounts don't need drafts yet are able to maintain elevation, so they're not the same infact.

[setdog.1592]

I dont have the griffon, but i dont see how it ruins anything at all for my experience if someone else skips over stuff. how do i even know the guy skipping stuff is skipping stuff

[iAimToPlease.7304]

Lol dude... the reason why flying mounts are bad for WoW is because you can bypass pkers like that, you remove the risk of being ganked in a game with open world faction PvP, in other words it's detrimental to interaction between factions and players, that's why it's bad there and the Griffon mount in this game can't even do anything near what WoW's flying mounts do, I'm not impressed, OP.

It's not like you can't completely bypass mobs and other hazards with the jackal who can dodge attacks while also rapidly regenerating its energy or just sneak past some of the content using the combined abilities of multiple mounts.

[Shirlias.8104]

@setdog.1592 said:I dont have the griffon, but i dont see how it ruins anything at all for my experience if someone else skips over stuff. how do i even know the guy skipping stuff is skipping stuff

Let's say that we won't see mounts in pvp, and let's hope nor in wvw.So we have to talk about pve.

Here's the current situation:

1. Very large maps
2. Low number of WP
3. Mount Change Mechanics
4. Quite a aggro from monsters ( not that i dislike it, but it's good to remember what could currently be an issue ).

A griffon mount consents to:

1. Avoid fights
2. Fastest way
3. Avoid Change Mounts Mechanics, once you have reached a high spot to start ( Spring, Spring, Spring, Grif! )
4. Improve the QoL, and so it is going to be a MUST for everybody who likes PvE.
5. Ruin exploration

And i have to say that i am REALLY SCARED that someday we'll get our SPvP and WvW maps with mounts.

[Gendou.9620]

I think the real problem with this post is not everyone's opinion on the griffon or mount movement., but is the very simple fact that the OP claims the griffon, or even some mounts in general, will kill content..? Let's be realistic here- first off you don't own a gaming company, specifically ArenaNet's company, what drives it, or the dynamics that kill it. Games that are successful sometimes die, some games that are plain crap somehow are successful. The real truth is you DO NOT KNOW what kills content, or ruins this game in the long run other than your own subjective view; mounts are too new to make any assumptions. You only speak for yourself, and can't ever speak for the entire population of the game or future players. However, we do know what was successful in the past for guild wars, and that definitely has been their passion to always make players happy-- EVEN if they fail a few times along the way. To make an assumption based on what you see not even a week after the game is out, is just plain foolish and ignorant. I'm no fan boy, but it is clear their intentions are to make a great game, and it is a long bumpy road. Props to Anet for exceeding my expectations for this expansion, and I hope they continue to do so.

P.S. - Don't compare this to WoW, it isn't WoW, it was never meant to be WoW, I've played both, unique in their own respects.

[Ashen.2907]

Ive seen it said that if one were to use the Springer or the Jackal to reach great heights before jumping on your Griffon that it could then outperform any of the other mounts.

Duh.

If you are relying on two mounts to achieve the result then of course the result will be superior to using just one. Is it worth complaining about that two character working together might be able to out DPS one character alone?

[Evolute.6239]

@Neural.1824 said:This thread is an excellent example of why the thumbs down option needs to be reactivated.

Pretty opposite, a lot of opinions here would be thumb downed into oblivion for having the gall to say that they think the griffon was a mistake.

@Gendou.9620 said:P.S. - Don't compare this to WoW, it isn't WoW, it was never meant to be WoW, I've played both, unique in their own respects.

People can compare it to WoW because, while no where near the extreme as WoW's flying mounts, there are some comparisons to be made regarding mounts and invalidating older content, making the world feel smaller, etc etc. This has been (and continues to be!) discussed to death on the WoW forums.

[Ashen.2907]

@Evolute.6239 said:

@Neural.1824 said:This thread is an excellent example of why the thumbs down option needs to be reactivated.

Pretty opposite, a lot of opinions here would be thumb downed into oblivion for having the gall to say that they think the griffon was a mistake.

Thumbs down didnt affect the post's placement.

[Zoltar MacRoth.7146]

@Haishao.6851 said:

@Aurelian Omenkind.2470 said:It occurs to me that the raptor’s speed jump readily also lets a player skip content with well timed boosts. Perhaps they should also be removed. And the Springer allows players to jump to great heights where HoT players can glide for great distances avoiding content. They should probably be removed. And the skimmer allows us to skip underwater battles entirely. They’ve gotta go too.

We won’t even talk about the jackal.

Don't forget swiftness, block, blink, stealth, rush, leap, dodge

And don't forget .... just running outside a mob's aggro range! See that bunch of mini-raptors ahead? Just swerve a couple of metres to the right and they won't notice you. It's killing the game, I tell you. They should completely remove any ability to change direction. Once a player has decided to run in a direction, they should be forced to run in that direction until they hit a mob.

In fact, once a player has aggroed a mob, they should be rooted on the spot until the fight is resolved one way or the other. That'll teach people to skip content.

[sephiroth.4217]

The only reason I'm bothering with PvE content is to get that mount.

[GamerOnline.3650]

Has anyone tried flying a griffon into an updraft? Does it have any effect?

[Tekey.7946]

The way Anet implemented mounts in GW2 will change how people play the game drastically. Some are talking about making players happy, but here's a thing to consider: I guess most people already tried out cheating in a game once - being invisible, invulnerable, twice as strong, and the like. It's fun for a certain amount of time. But soon you realize that it wears off pretty quickly, and the game itself isn't fun anymore if you've got too much power.

Gliding already gave us the opportunity to skip some parts of the world. If you climbed up somewhere, you didn't have to care about how you got back down anymore without dying. You could always just jump and glide away.

But mounts are the ultimate tool to skip content of any sort. Before they were introduced, the overall view on mounts was: I'm okay with mounts as long as they're purely cosmetic. Where are we now? The speed and range of the raptor is INSANE. You can jump twice and get from one side of a city to the other side. The springer jumps like a rocket and gives people access to higher places that were hard to reach earlier within seconds.

But seeing all of the mounts combined is what's really terrifying.

I've never been against mounts, I had nothing against cosmetic mounts (or a common 25%/33% speed buff). But as they are now, it looks like Anet just activated a god mode cheat for PoF players. Personally, I think it's a short term action that tries to refresh the game and also gather new players and money - selling the expansion/mount skins might counter the decreasing earning reports. Some will still like them in the end, some will realize they're too much later on and some already know they dislike the mounts as they are right now. I would just suggest everyone to start a f2p account without gliders and mounts and compare how the game has changed. A game has rules and restrictions. If you remove them, it might expand your possibilities, but parts of the game will also become meaningless.

[Vladish.3940]

@Shirlias.8104 said:

@Aurelian Omenkind.2470 said:OP’s argument is semantics at this point. The cat’s already out of the bag now. Or rather the griffon is out of the nest. There’s pretty much 0% chance Arenanet is gonna say to everyone who currently has the mount, “all that work you did and price you paid to get that shiny (“feathery”?) new mount? Yeah, our bad. They’re going away now. Sorry ‘bout that, mate.

Would be appreciated.When People do it wrong and then Fix and Say ''we are sorry for the inconvinience'', there's nothing wrong.

And after have read things like ''Cause i paid 250g then i have the right to skip things'' i do really hope they are going to nerf it to the ground.

But Since the game is getting year after year more casual, i really doubt they'll do something which could cost em additional earnings.

And really it's a Shame.

Skip what things? Mobs? What is the difference between me flying over bunch of mobs and me just blatantly ignore them while running past them? The Danger of interaction? There are very few mobs that I can't get past with ease on my foot already. The amount of dodges, heals and defensive utilities we have, I chuckle to myself at any 80 dying to mobs. It makes your travel faster? So what, please relate to my previous post on that.

And it isn't gold they spent on the Griffon that gives them right to use it. Not even work they've put into obtaining it. It is an item that is their property, that doesn't affect other players (unless you are talking about those poor players' envy, jealousy, hate). What gives them the right is that they WANT TO use it, as it is an option available to them.

I am a casual player, sometimes I can't play for days, so it will be months before I personally can afford it. Does it look cool when people soar over me on griffons? Yes. Does it make me little jelly? Yes. But seeing those players gives me something to look forward to as well (if I choose to buy it in the end anyway), and if I continue to like how they look, etc., it gives me something to strive for. It's just a goal for some, it's not necessary for story progression (which was always the main selling point of GW2, because quite frankly events/farming/dungeons/raids/mounts... all that stuff is just standard now across the board for almost all MMOrpgs on the market. We play it because we like the world, griffons are part of it).

Sorry you are jaded because you are dirt poor. So am I, but I don't take out that little frustration on others. I play at my own pace and WORK for that gold, just like they did. It's not like Anet came and just gave them mountains of gold or the mount itself. They worked for it (be it from time investment and in-game farming or real life work and gem conversion.

Give me more gold or nerf the griffon... ridiculous.

[Vladish.3940]

@Menadena.7482 said:

@Nafets.1238 said:Can't hear you over my 20 seconds fly over Verdant Brink, Lion's Arch or Lornar's Pass. Can you repeat?

Thanks for giving all of us an example of why the griffon is way too powerful. The other mounts overpower some old content but also have their problems to compensate. The griffon? Just no. It is either now SOP or PVE is being broken into people who have it and people who do not as you will have a tougher time designing content that is equally challenging to both groups. Given the number of gates to get one and fully train it it is not reasonably achievable for a majority of the population.

I can fly from one end of the map to the other never touching ground for hours on my glider using leylines and updrafts. How is griffon more op than that? How is griffon invalidating content by doing something worse, than a glider that the content came with? You are just trolling now, aren't you?

[Alchofas.8243]

The devs can always create the new maps that have debuffs like "weather is too strong, griffon can't fly like this" or something. That way, griffons can only be used in the existing maps now.

[Vladish.3940]

@"Manimarco Devil.1790" said:It appears people are under the impression that I cannot afford it so I am jealous. Let me clarify: I have more than enough money to afford the griffon. I am simply disagreeing that it is a healthy addition to the game. Perhaps I am wrong, but there are already issues where mounted players complete events before on foot or slower mounted players can arrive. People keep comparing it to a glider but as stated before; it is much faster and falls slower aka not a glider. It skips content in the sense that there are obstacles; terrain, enemies, traps added to the game to challenge the player. It allows players to bypass all of that. If that sort of thing doesn't interest you they should simply add a instant waypoint to where you would like to be since you do not want to deal with the actual game itself.

It severely diverges from GW1 game design where even small maps felt vast. GW2 is already scaled smaller, these mounts make it even more so. The game world for GW2 was not made with mounts in mind. It should have been if they were going to be added. A gate blocking your path makes sense. Now the game is only limited by invisible walls.

I was able to "skip" all that content since gliders were implemented. Just because their base airborn speed/flight length isn't as long by default, doesn't mean I wasn't "skipping" all that content already fro past three years. You point is moot.

GW1 game design? This is GW2, and the games are vastly different. Comparing the two is a joke.PoF maps are huge. Old maps are smaller? So what. Vets played those maps for up to five years now, many are bored of them and rarely even do them for map completion. At lest that may motivate them to go back to these maps periodically on their alts and make them feel less like a ghost town.

[Substance E.4852]

@"Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497" said:As for skipping content? Anet can just get creative with how they can stop you. Tie Griffons into "No Fly zones". Or place special legendary units that are designed to shoot players out of the air.

And then people bitch because they can;t just fly over obstacles and their flying mount they spent so much time on is "useless".

Anet's forcing themselves to pull a WoW "you have to relearn how to use flying mounts in all new content so as to not invalidate said content".

Also, is anyone going to seriously care about future mounts that can't also fly? No one does in other games and they won't here either.

[Vladish.3940]

@nosleepdemon.1368 said:What people don't understand when they say "if you don't like feature x, then don't use it" is the principle of an object changing its enviornment simply through its existence. The very obvious example of this are the maps in PoF which are larger to accomodate mounts. You can clearly see that Arena Net are aware of this, as they have limited the functionality of the Gryphon, which is something Blizzard failed to do. Adding a large cost doesn't change this problem as given enough time, a majority of players will acquire the gold for the mount.

Blizzard realised how mounts utterly destroyed open world content, despite their attempts to design maps with flying in mind. If I recall, flying in Legion was simply not possible for some time after launch.

Arena Net clearly think the Gryphon is appropriately "nerfed", and its use is situational enough to warrant the mounts inclusion. However now that mounts are available, it is very difficult to undo. Thus, the OP's post is pretty valid, and I hope this does not come back to bite the developers in the kitten.

I can't agree with you here. Yes, mounts affect content, but I don't think that ws the case with mounts here. If PoF had smaller maps, I would totally not get the feeling of a "vast desert," not only as a GW1 vet, but also as a map design itself. They could have easily split PoF maps and try to sell them as "We implemented 20 maps", but that would completely kill immersion for me. I love that they are ACTUALLY vast desert maps, and only cringe I have is lack of dynamic events which to me makes them feel dead. I think mounts were designed around the maps, and not other way around, or in very least WITH the maps.

Another point is that I LOVE is that I don't have to change zones every 5 minutes when I am traveling, so I would love to see more and more vast maps implemented (just maybe not so damn boring - personal opinion). Having mounts now allows them to go in that direction. I think mounts are great feature that in the future, will allow them to explore new approaches to map design. Will it be more work for them? Well, yes, but I think maps will only get that much better thanks to it.

Also, it's not like you didn't have Waypoints for like what... five years? You mean I can get to my destination by ENTIRELY skipping content whatsoever? How is that new? On the contrary, like how few WPs we have on these maps so we actually have to explore the content.

Griffon is a glider of sorts, and even that mount doesn't invalidate actual gliders. Personally I think it's a fresh new approach to gliding while yeah, if I go to old content, unable to use all those leylines and updrafts, it will feel sufficiently nerfed. As for vanilla maps, they are boring and void of people anyway. I even stopped doing map completion on my alt because it was so damn boring. Thanks to mounts, now I actually might do it.

Yes, Blizzard made their lives more difficult, because they failed to think sufficiently ahead, but they did not destroy their content with it. It just put more pressure on them to design content around the feature, and personally, I think it made their content way better developed in the end. It was new feature so they struggled adjusting to it a bit at the start, but that's normal. I love they implemented it, because it allowed me to explore their world and appreciate it that much more, as well all the work they had to put in its design. And as for Blizzard approach, they always disabled flight in the early stages of content, in order to allow people to explore it traditionally, and once few months have passed (vets stayed, many casuals moved on), they enable that feature so people can fully explore and appreciate the content. Personally, I don't see it as a method of rectifying "shit, we effed up," but as an excellent marriage of two approaches to game exploration.

On the same not I agree that flight would not work for GW2 content, because game is designed differently. While Wow is a huge open world, GW2 has zones. Flight wouldn't work, but imho gliding is fine, even with a faster, less efficient "glider" in form of a griffon. Anet knew what they were doing, and they did pretty decent job at it.

And I am not defending Griffon because I have one. I won't be able to afford one for months. But I appreciate the feature, and I think it was a great, healthy addition to the game, and I look forward to possibly one day using it. Even if I don't, I am not gonna try to rain on other people's fun just because I can't partake.

[Vladish.3940]

@ONko.7460 said:

@Aurelian Omenkind.2470 said:It occurs to me that the raptor’s speed jump readily also lets a player skip content with well timed boosts. Perhaps they should also be removed. And the Springer allows players to jump to great heights where HoT players can glide for great distances avoiding content. They should probably be removed. And the skimmer allows us to skip underwater battles entirely. They’ve gotta go too.

We won’t even talk about the jackal.

Thanks for naming all the specific situations where every transport has its specific purpose. It underlined the main point that the Griffon combines all the above and makes them obsolete.

No, Griffon makes nothing obsolete. Its ground speed is shit. It cannot jump anywhere near as high as Skipper, meaning most of the content is still locked for it vertically. It often needs skipper or a long climb the hard way, to find places of altitude. Jackal is great for rough terrain travel and Raptor for more flat surfaces. Without gliding spot griffon isn't good at all. It can glide over SOME Skimmer content IF it can find place high enough (which I can do with a glider anyway already). It still doesn't use leylines and updrafts to stay airborne permanently (like gliders can)... no, Griffon doesn't combine all of the above and makes no mount/content obsolete. The only thing that mounts did for me is that I won't have to always go out of my way to implement perma swiftness in my open world builds.

If you want Anet to reduce travel modes that make content obsolete, tell them to take away 75% of waypoints that over-saturate vanilla and HoT content.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

@Vladish.3940 said:And I am not defending Griffon because I have one. I won't be able to afford one for months. But I appreciate the feature, and I think it was a great, healthy addition to the game, and I look forward to possibly one day using it. Even if I don't, I am not gonna try to rain on other people's fun just because I can't partake.

A refreshing sentiment (and well phrased to boot). :+1:(Besides that, the CatBird is already in the game; even if ANet agreed with the OP, it's going to be months and months before they could do anything.)

[Vladish.3940]

@Evolute.6239 said:

@Neural.1824 said:This thread is an excellent example of why the thumbs down option needs to be reactivated.

Pretty opposite, a lot of opinions here would be thumb downed into oblivion for having the gall to say that they think the griffon was a mistake.

@Gendou.9620 said:P.S. - Don't compare this to WoW, it isn't WoW, it was never meant to be WoW, I've played both, unique in their own respects.

People can compare it to WoW because, while no where near the extreme as WoW's flying mounts, there are some comparisons to be made regarding mounts and invalidating older content, making the world feel smaller, etc etc. This has been (and continues to be!) discussed to death on the WoW forums.

in GW2 zones and overabundance of WPs makes older content look smaller, not the mounts. After initial unlock of a WP, good luck trying to see me actually run anywhere. Doesn't help that there is a WP (what it feels like) every 5 feet, either. As a vet, all my open world builds included a way of getting perma-swiftness already anyway, so should they remove that boon now too let alone any other fast travel skills classes may have?

[Vladish.3940]

@Zoltar MacRoth.7146 said:

@Haishao.6851 said:

@Aurelian Omenkind.2470 said:It occurs to me that the raptor’s speed jump readily also lets a player skip content with well timed boosts. Perhaps they should also be removed. And the Springer allows players to jump to great heights where HoT players can glide for great distances avoiding content. They should probably be removed. And the skimmer allows us to skip underwater battles entirely. They’ve gotta go too.

We won’t even talk about the jackal.

Don't forget swiftness, block, blink, stealth, rush, leap, dodge

And don't forget .... just running outside a mob's aggro range! See that bunch of mini-raptors ahead? Just swerve a couple of metres to the right and they won't notice you. It's killing the game, I tell you. They should completely remove any ability to change direction. Once a player has decided to run in a direction, they should be forced to run in that direction until they hit a mob.

In fact, once a player has aggroed a mob, they should be rooted on the spot until the fight is resolved one way or the other. That'll teach people to skip content.

Oh god that made me laugh hard, Thank you!

[Vladish.3940]

@Tekey.7946 said:The way Anet implemented mounts in GW2 will change how people play the game drastically. Some are talking about making players happy, but here's a thing to consider: I guess most people already tried out cheating in a game once - being invisible, invulnerable, twice as strong, and the like. It's fun for a certain amount of time. But soon you realize that it wears off pretty quickly, and the game itself isn't fun anymore if you've got too much power.

Gliding already gave us the opportunity to skip some parts of the world. If you climbed up somewhere, you didn't have to care about how you got back down anymore without dying. You could always just jump and glide away.

But mounts are the ultimate tool to skip content of any sort. Before they were introduced, the overall view on mounts was: I'm okay with mounts as long as they're purely cosmetic. Where are we now? The speed and range of the raptor is INSANE. You can jump twice and get from one side of a city to the other side. The springer jumps like a rocket and gives people access to higher places that were hard to reach earlier within seconds.

But seeing all of the mounts combined is what's really terrifying.

I've never been against mounts, I had nothing against cosmetic mounts (or a common 25%/33% speed buff). But as they are now, it looks like Anet just activated a god mode cheat for PoF players. Personally, I think it's a short term action that tries to refresh the game and also gather new players and money - selling the expansion/mount skins might counter the decreasing earning reports. Some will still like them in the end, some will realize they're too much later on and some already know they dislike the mounts as they are right now. I would just suggest everyone to start a f2p account without gliders and mounts and compare how the game has changed. A game has rules and restrictions. If you remove them, it might expand your possibilities, but parts of the game will also become meaningless.

WPs are ultimate skip content tool, not mounts. They are just buffed swiftness boon as far as my experience goes with them.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

@Vladish.3940 said:As a vet, all my open world builds included a way of getting perma-swiftness already anyway, so should they remove that boon now too let alone any other fast travel skills classes may have?

https://redd.it/71ytepAs it turns out, T3 Raptor & T3 Jackal are only 10% faster than on-foot Revenant using the gem shop's Executioner Axe (from the Halloween-themed outfit) and pulsing SuperSpeed (about 700 units per second). A thief going all out (E-Axe plus skills/traits and a raptor) can reach a consistent ground speed of 1000 units/sec. In contrast, a T1 Griffon can hit 1132 u/s and T2 will be nearly double a thief's best at over 1900 u/s.

That compares with a base ground speed of 400 u/s under sustained swiftness and 300 u/s without.

In other words, Vladish is absolutely correct that the pre-PoF game included several ways to run twice as quickly as a base mesmer. To be fair, the critics are also correct that an optimized Griffon can go a lot faster then the best a thief can do.

The question is whether that extra speed is going to break anything or not. In Classic Tyria, almost certainly not, since (as @Vladish.3940 pointed out above) we can already go faster than Griffons by using Waypoints.

[Emperor Palpatine.5329]

@Nokomis.5076 said:In my opinion, the devs should never have allowed gliding in the rest of Tyria. We already can see, that it's used for exploiting maps, either in PvE or WvW.

Same with the mounts. They should only be usable in PoF. Otherwise it's giving unfair advantages to those having bought PoF over those who haven't."Look an event just spawned! Oh wait, it's already over because few people were there in 5secs and killed everything..."

LOL OK, how about NO! If you decide not to buy POF or HOT do not enforce your decisions on the rest of the player base. I know it sucks that you travel the map in 2 hours and I do it faster, but on the other hand my staff leaves a rainbow behind and yours does not. Gotta get with the progress ma man and start making those special achievements. Players must have the option to differentiate themselves via special features: legendary armor, weapons, HOT masteries and so on. If you don;t like it, join the club and be part of the "elits" or just stop bitching :)