Gliding Downwards

[Pache.9406]

Probably mentioned/requested a million times before, but why was gliding downward removed from the game? In the original Guild Halls trailer you can clearly see gliding downward was a feature. Glide downward, gain speed, you can regain some altitude, you know, like real gliders work. Specially now with all sorts of mounts, the gliding feature becomes more and more obsolete, and not really that much fun. Why not add this feature, which was already implemented and even showcased in trailers, to give gliding some of it's charm back. Think of gliding in the Arkham series of games, but toned down of course. You could make the argument "diving" and going back up is already a feature for the Griffon, but then again, Griffon made the entire gliding feature near pointless. So adding something like this will at least give gliding a purpose in places a Griffon isn't optimal, and of course it'll never be as fast or gain as much altitude. At this point, it's really more of a QoL thing, that is almost necessary to help freshen out what was once a major feature in the game. Besides, this feature is already part of the game, just not unlocked for the players. All they'd have to do is make it available via a new mastery, brand it as a new mechanic (though it's been there for 4 years already), and everyone can enjoy some new gliding techniques. Make it worth it for people to keep spending money on backpack/glider combos even though they're currently not really useful. Anyways, I'm probably wasting my time since ANet are the masters of adding features that will inevitably become obsolete at one point or another: racial skills, everything underwater, dungeons, activities, adventures, current events, the one dog some people bought for no reason... Gliding is soon to join the long list.

[VDAC.2137]

I would love to have such a feature added, in part because it has never felt right to have to just go into free fall with occasional breaks if one wants to descend. I still love gliding, especially in HoT maps with updrafts! :)

[Ashantara.8731]

@Pache.9406 said:Probably mentioned/requested a million times before, but why was gliding downward removed from the game? In the original Guild Halls trailer you can clearly see gliding downward was a feature. Glide downward, gain speed, you can regain some altitude, you know, like real gliders work.

Perhaps, at the time, they had already started working on PoF and knew that mounts would be released with it, so they decided to leave this feature for mounts instead and removed it from gliding?

[zerorogue.9410]

Guessing you mean this.

From what it looks like in the video it was just an pre-rendered animation they played to hype the guild hall.

As for gliding place in the game. I would argue it is as strong as ever. Gliding has settled into a short range combat transport. Unlike mounts you can use the glider in combat. This allows you to sidestep alot of issues that mounts would not be able to solve. For example if you find yourself in a losing battle a glider can allow you to break away unlike a mount that would require you to escape combat first. Additionally For precision landings a glider is a must have.

In fact the latest Living story used gliders to allow players to escape combat after breaking the weak points in the meta. When you break the weak points a leyline appears that allows you to ascend with a glider and get out of combat.

Mounts are not a use-all tool, and neither are gliders. Both are designed to allow you options for various situations.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

I didn't see any altitude gain in the video. Just some 'diving', which as far as I am concerned, can be had with freefall. /shrug

[Zoid.2568]

Griphon covers that. I don't really see much use of a glider now that we have skyscale and griphon.

[Tinker.6924]

As another guy mentioned, you can glide in combat.

I've actually used it in combat hop/gliding between two spots that were two far to jump normally but with the extra glide I could make the "jump" and kite a champ that hammering the hell out of me.

There are also open world places that don't allow mounts but most allow gliding.