What happened to Griffin races?

[Vancho.8750]

There hasn't been a new one since Korna was released. They were fun even though they need some map currency reward to be worth doing them after getting the achievement or high on the leader board. What happened, why were they deemed dead content one day?

[Omega.6801]

Kourna gave us the beetle, so beetles were the new thing and ANet never looks back. It's beetle races and Skyclaw whateveritistheycallthatthingwiththemagicthingies...

[Dante.1763]

@lokh.2695 said:Kourna gave us the beetle, so beetles were the new thing and ANet never looks back. It's beetle races and Skyclaw whateveritistheycallthatthingwiththemagicthingies...

That thing ill never accomplish because..30 seconds is reasonable somehow? lol....

i miss griffon races the control required is amazing.

[Vinceman.4572]

@Vancho.8750 said:What happened, why were they deemed dead content one day?

Layoffs happened.

[LucianDK.8615]

Griffons are so last year, its all skyscale now. Grothmar valley have a land race, skimmer race and a skyscale race. So no, races is still in.

[kratan.4619]

Tried to do a few griffon races, I won't even bother with them anymore. I don't normally use the griffon for anything anyway.

[Super Hayes.6890]

While cool, the griffon races require a level of skill that the other races don't. I may not be wording that right. It just seems like the griffon ones are more intimidating than the others when you try it for the first time. I think they may be focusing on race content that appeals to a wider audience. This is all just a guess btw.

[Leo.5829]

A griffon race in Lions Arch would be cool though. Even if you are not participating you get to see an armada of racing griffons in the sky.

[LucianDK.8615]

@Leo.5829 said:A griffon race in Lions Arch would be cool though. Even if you are not participating you get to see an armada of racing griffons in the sky.

Wouldnt work for the simple reason that griffons needs enough vertical space to dive from to gain momentum. Skyscale would fare much better.

[Leo.5829]

@LucianDK.8615 said:

@"Leo.5829" said:A griffon race in Lions Arch would be cool though. Even if you are not participating you get to see an armada of racing griffons in the sky.

Wouldnt work for the simple reason that griffons needs enough vertical space to dive from to gain momentum. Skyscale would fare much better.

You get loads of dive if you start at the top of the light tower next to the "Phoenix Roost" Point of Interest.

[Tyncale.1629]

/agree, was hoping for some new Griffon races in the new maps too.

Once I learned that the Griffon had a "Dive Boost" and Pull-up button (yup, that took a while) I have managed to get Gold on all of them and had a blast doing them. Before that I did not even manage the Bronze races. :) I also really suck at JP's that have some sort of Timing to them (Winter Wonderland, Clock) so I was surprised I managed to master these Griffon Gold runs. The fact that you can instantly re-start a race helps a lot though, so much easier to develop that muscle-memory if you try it 8 times in quick succession.

[Knighthonor.4061]

@lokh.2695 said:Kourna gave us the beetle, so beetles were the new thing and ANet never looks back. It's beetle races and Skyclaw whateveritistheycallthatthingwiththemagicthingies...

How dare you misnamed the legendary Skyscale!! You should be burned by a Berserker warrior's torch and left standing in a Scorge Shade to QQ in!!?

[Solvar.7953]

The problem with most all races is that once you do the content (get Gold), you don't do it again. At least that is what I've found. And they are basically solo content (time trial), which in some ways is nice, but doesn't add anything to the multiplayer aspect of the game.Plus side is they probably are not a lot of work to add (map has been pretty much created, so a matter of adding some gates and figuring out the correct time). But in all honesty, if the races had never gotten added (or all removed), it probably wouldn't affect my play experience much (presuming and masteries/collections that need them were refactored in some way).

[Vinceman.4572]

@Solvar.7953 said:The problem with most all races is that once you do the content (get Gold), you don't do it again.

Tbh this applies to story missions as well. You don't even get rewards after doing it the 2nd time with the same character.

[Shadowmoon.7986]

Griffin courses were significant more difficult than any other course, once you made a mistake you could not recover so you had to restart. Even the rollerbeatle courses, you can stop, remount, hit skill 6, and depending on the course, still get gold.Unfortunately, anet have shown themselves to be lawnmower developers, finding anything that can cause players to face adversity, struggle, or fail, and stop development of it.

[ProtoGunner.4953]

Griffon races were awesome. Pretty challenging but if you could pull off the gold medal it was a great feel of achievement. Love the speed and challenge. It reminded me of typical half-open world single player games side missions. I finished every single one with gold.

[Sirius.4510]

I do miss them. They did require a decent degree of mechanical skill but they were quick to restart and didn't generally run longer than 30 seconds so it wasn't much of a problem. Rollerbeetle races wound up being significantly longer and just as mistake-prone - sure things aren't whizzing by as fast but griffons are much, much more agile.

There were a couple problems though. First, as with most of the other races they kinda needed a better reason to do them... dailies or something might have helped, I dunno. They were a good way to quickly earn PoF experience to get masteries, but since there aren't any more PoF masteries, that's gone by the wayside. Now if the Icebrood Saga maps had griffon courses... but they don't...

Second, starting the race really should have reset your position and speed (to zero). That way you don't get incentivized to pull silly ninja-click shenanigans on the start dialog to optimize your time.