What Would a WvW Mount Look Like?

[Sviel.7493]

Youtuber TheLazyPeon put out a video in 2018 where he got into GW2 for the first time. His favorite part about the game were the newly released mounts. He said that it felt like everything in the new expansion had been designed with them in mind--the seamlessness of their implementation caught him off guard. Each mount had a different feel to it and a unique skill that could be further strengthened through masteries. Several times, he mentioned how much he loved that mounts had their own health bar instead of disappearing instantly upon getting attacked.

As a non-PoF player, my only experience with mounts has been other people using them in WvW. Still, I think I can objectively say that WvW was not designed for mounts based on the numerous exploits in the initial release and that persist several years later. It's probably fair to say that mounts were not designed for WvW either.

But what if they were?

If you had a chance to come up with an entire mount designed specifically for WvW, what would you do with it? It should be useful, but not so ground-breaking as to invalidate all non-mount play. Hopefully, it comes across as a unique entity like what Peon loved so much about he PoF mounts.

[DeceiverX.8361]

Shares evades with the character.Has 500 health and dazes for 1s when dismounted.Movespeed is the same as OOC + Swiftness.

Skill 1: 15s AoE(5 target) swiftness (15s cooldown)Skill 2: 5s 1x stack of Stability (15s cooldown)

Everything else removed.Glorified swiftness bot like it should be to keep up with people. No BS outnumbered chasing or stomp cheese or a safe anti-burst mechanism for free 10k hp. Roaming/Havoc is actually doable without getting run over by a blob that can cross the map in half a minute.Dying and having to respawn means something.

[Hyper Cutter.9376]

@DeceiverX.8361 said:Shares evades with the character.Has 500 health and dazes for 1s when dismounted.Movespeed is the same as OOC + Swiftness.

Skill 1: 15s AoE(5 target) swiftness (15s cooldown)Skill 2: 5s 1x stack of Stability (15s cooldown)

Everything else removed.Glorified swiftness bot like it should be to keep up with people. No BS outnumbered chasing or stomp cheese or a safe anti-burst mechanism for free 10k hp. Roaming/Havoc is actually doable without getting run over by a blob that can cross the map in half a minute.Dying and having to respawn means something.That's literally worthless and you know it.

[DemonSeed.3528]

@DeceiverX.8361 said:Shares evades with the character.Has 500 health and dazes for 1s when dismounted.Movespeed is the same as OOC + Swiftness.

Skill 1: 15s AoE(5 target) swiftness (15s cooldown)Skill 2: 5s 1x stack of Stability (15s cooldown)

Everything else removed.Glorified swiftness bot like it should be to keep up with people. No BS outnumbered chasing or stomp cheese or a safe anti-burst mechanism for free 10k hp. Roaming/Havoc is actually doable without getting run over by a blob that can cross the map in half a minute.Dying and having to respawn means something.

No sharing boon of any kind trasnferred from player, not affected by runes & sigils procs & bonuses

[Sviel.7493]

@DeceiverX.8361While I would prefer that to what we have, that's pretty close to just removing mounts outright. That's not going to happen. Mounts have changed things and they will continue to change things--but what kind of change could be beneficial?

@Hyper Cutter.9376What would you do?

[Solanum.6983]

It's tricky when it comes to WvW because every little thing has to be taken into account.Personally my least favorite thing about WvW is traversing the maps, Warclaw helps but I wouldn't mind a faster mount. It'd have to have a very low healthbar so it's riskier then warclaw to use and can't be used to escape fights so easily.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

grub mount for commanders.

[DeceiverX.8361]

@Hyper Cutter.9376 said:

@DeceiverX.8361 said:Shares evades with the character.Has 500 health and dazes for 1s when dismounted.Movespeed is the same as OOC + Swiftness.

Skill 1: 15s AoE(5 target) swiftness (15s cooldown)Skill 2: 5s 1x stack of Stability (15s cooldown)

Everything else removed.Glorified swiftness bot like it should be to keep up with people. No BS outnumbered chasing or stomp cheese or a safe anti-burst mechanism for free 10k hp. Roaming/Havoc is actually doable without getting run over by a blob that can cross the map in half a minute.Dying and having to respawn means something.That's literally worthless and you know it.

No, it's permaswiftness and a swiftness buff when entering combat pre-engage while providing the player the ability to get CC comboed during its unmount animation with the stability. It's slightly better than what we did and liked doing for years and why some classes were better at roaming than others.

Anyone who needs 8k free HP while running around and lacks basic situational awareness is unskilled.Anyone who needs auto-stomps or thinks it's fair is just a ganker.Anyone who wants to be able to respond to any and all map threats with a blob due to their asinine mobility is unfamiliar with the depth of gameplay WvW can offer.Anyone who thinks mounts aren't a massive problems for these reasons clearly is unfamiliar with the huge droves of people who quit because of them.

The maps were not designed to handle mounts, primarily from their mobility.The combat was not designed to handle mounts, primarily from their sustain and group synergy.

You might think the suggested idea is worthless, but mounts would still subsequently provide a significant power increase compared to before they were implemented on the classes which needed it, and would encourage people to get better and play smarter instead of throwing more bodies at any given problem as they arise.

@Sviel.7493 said:@DeceiverX.8361While I would prefer that to what we have, that's pretty close to just removing mounts outright. That's not going to happen. Mounts have changed things and they will continue to change things--but what kind of change could be beneficial?

See above. I think they actively hurt the game for more than one reason. This solution makes classes that need the mobility (no swiftness, runes, signets, etc.) have it, and punishes people who use it as a crutch.

The bonus health in today's low damage metas need to go, and the fact they can't be CC'ed or slowed down at all defeats the purpose of taking outnumbered fights or fighting outnumbered into a slightly larger number of players (1v2/1v3) while promoting gank playstyles.

The entire existence of mount is unhealthy and nothing will change that except coming close to removing them.

[Whiteout.1975]

I think that mounts should exist for situational purposes; however, mounts should not prevent/neglect Player versus Player opportunities for engagement. For example, if anyone can easily fly away on their Eagle Pokemon, then Player versus Player engagement drops drastically along with the risk of death. If "the risk of death" lowers, then this becomes a game of musical keeps with little to no chance of being rewarded for killing a player (emotionally, loot, PPK, etc.). Therefore, whatever Mount/Pokemon exists should do so in a manner that assists the player environmentally without being at the expense of Player versus Player engagement.

Initially, without further context, I would say a WvW Turtle. As I come to think of it now, there is a Pokemon like this lol. None the less, I am serious; a War Turtle.

The War Turtle would be slow but maybe have particular abilities to help make up for the moderate movement. The War Turtle could taunt 3 - 5 targets for 1 second in a 450 - 600 radius (because it is slow). The War Turtle could carry mini siege on top if its big shell. The mini siege could include an arrow cart, catapult, and ballista. The siege would be less effective than the normal versions of siege. Yet, what should happen is too hard to say. Even with production capabilities, there is no guarantee ideas turn out exactly the way we expect them to be. If that were the case balance would have been fixed a long time ago.

Anyways, I hope my ideas were at least of interest. Anyone may expand upon them if they wish to. Take care :)

P.S. There is also https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Turtle_Banner. Perhaps some inspiration for the turtle's functionality can be taken from here, in a very cautious sense. Best not to undermine the PvP aspect of WvW ultimately, but a "slow" turtle helps keep this in check initially.

[Justine.6351]

Auto-targeting laserbeam cannons bolted to the side of its head that burns down anyone that looks at me funny.

[Captain Kuro.8937]

@"Justine.6351" said:Auto-targeting laserbeam cannons bolted to the side of its head that burns down anyone that looks at me funny.

http://www.parentgalactique.fr/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/wall31.jpg

Mount that can absorb the Power of the Elements .Staying on Ground areas/roads and moving through that , increases the ''Element Meter'' making is bulkier (nothing is changed from the current version) .

Traveling on Water (through the middle of the map) , reduces its Hit Points (from 8k > 3k) but as long you are alive on your mount you can terraform 1/5 of the map , raising a slight of hint of water where the enemy cannot place Aoes on the ground (an invisible extra layer above ground) . This effect is activated if the ''PvP Swords'' is enabled (huge amount of ppl are fighting) , or hitting the Doors with meele weapons . So it doesn't effect 1v1 .

Traveling through Sand , creates mini random Wirlwinds (like the Elementalist Spell ) between the 2 enemies Commander . that deflects projectiles for 2 sec and knock back any target touch . If more than 30 people are near the commander in that area , you cannot see from afar very well (your mounts raise up dirt)

Traveling though Snow .... makes a Blizzard/wind that changes direction and slow down/speed up the movement speed , based on the direction you are traveling ...or random changes helping the lesser Commander

Traveling thought the corpses of your enemies (if you are victorious or huge zerg) , unleashes dark spirits/dark Blizzard , attacking random any player/Building . So if you are a lesser server and you know you will loose , atleast lure and die in a area , where the enemy controls the majority of the Stractures . If you dont have a zerg big enought , or don't mount up for 5 min (lingering effect) , the mechanic is not enabled

PPl with Sand/Snow/Water Mounts can ''feel'' the presence of other mount users (except of ground)

[Junkpile.7439]

Rhino

Skill: Rhinos chargePhysical: Charge, remove boons and knockback foes. Foes take fall damage if they hit structures after knockback.

Damage: 5000 (3.0)Knockback: 4000Number of Targets: 100Radius: 900Range: 2500Evade: 5 secondsBoons Removed: 12Combo Finisher: Blast

[BunjiKugashira.9754]

I only enter WvW to do my PvE dailies, since the "WvW" dailies often involve more PvE than the PvE dailies themselves.

• Kill a few guards
• Kill one NPC and stand in a circle
• Just stand in a circle
• Kill a camp full of NPCs and stand in a circle, then do the same for another camp
• Wait for one Veteran NPC to spawn and kill it

Also the potion I get from the dailies prevent me from having to play WvW when I want to have something from a new reward track.So make the mount extra fast and sturdy, so I can get away from the gankers that camp around the enemy base and feel like they're the greatest, toughest guys around when they kill a PvE player that didn't even fight back.

Or improve the PvE dailies and remove the need to enter WvW for certain things.

[GDchiaScrub.3241]

WvW mount should look like it belongs to WvW. Duh. So the dune roller skin, keke.

D:

[L A T I O N.8923]

@Junkpile.7439 said:Rhino

Skill: Rhinos chargePhysical: Charge, remove boons and knockback foes. Foes take fall damage if they hit structures after knockback.

Damage: 5000 (3.0)Knockback: 4000Number of Targets: 100Radius: 900Range: 2500Evade: 5 secondsBoons Removed: 12Combo Finisher: Blast

You forgot the siege damage part

[Shroud.2307]

As much as I dislike mounts being a part of WvW, I think in it's current state it's not so bad anymore.

• Remove damage from engage skill
• Further reduce HP to 5k
• Add a 10 second recharge before you can re-mount after finishing a player with Battle Maul

That would be perfect IMO.

I really like what they did with the Mount Blessing buff that gives people extra movement speed if they're not mounted. That was a very nice addition.

[Andy.5981]

It should have been an armoured Dolyiak.

It should move at twice the normal unbuffed speed of a player in enemy or friendly territory.

It should have a 1 Skill that rams gates and does half the damage of a Ram. If used against players it knocks them over for 2 seconds (maximum number of targets 5). No other damage to players

It should have the ability to pick up 15 supplies from a supply camp and drop them off at any Tower/Citadel/Stonemist Supply dump. The supplies carried by the mount do not transfer to a players supplies and therefore cannot be used to build siege whilst out in the open.

It should not be able to receive any form of buffs from any class or player either mounted on it or nearby

5K hp.

Being dismounted does no damage at all to the rider. Any supplies carried by the Dolyiak (see above suggestion) are lost.

Time locked remount of 30 seconds if you are dismounted or are in combat and manage to get out of combat.

[L A T I O N.8923]

@Andy.5981 said:It should have been an armoured Dolyiak.

It should move at twice the normal unbuffed speed of a player in enemy or friendly territory.

It should have a 1 Skill that rams gates and does half the damage of a Ram. If used against players it knocks them over for 2 seconds (maximum number of targets 5). No other damage to players

It should have the ability to pick up 15 supplies from a supply camp and drop them off at any Tower/Citadel/Stonemist Supply dump. The supplies carried by the mount do not transfer to a players supplies and therefore cannot be used to build siege whilst out in the open.

It should not be able to receive any form of buffs from any class or player either mounted on it or nearby

5K hp.

Being dismounted does no damage at all to the rider. Any supplies carried by the Dolyiak (see above suggestion) are lost.

Time locked remount of 30 seconds if you are dismounted or are in combat and manage to get out of combat.

Half the damage of a ram?A ram hits like what? 8,3kA regular gate had 450hp....making 50 people Just use the skills once...drop the gate instantly?

[Andy.5981]

@L A T I O N.8923 said:

@Andy.5981 said:It should have been an armoured Dolyiak.

It should move at twice the normal unbuffed speed of a player in enemy or friendly territory.

It should have a 1 Skill that rams gates and does half the damage of a Ram. If used against players it knocks them over for 2 seconds (maximum number of targets 5). No other damage to players

It should have the ability to pick up 15 supplies from a supply camp and drop them off at any Tower/Citadel/Stonemist Supply dump. The supplies carried by the mount do not transfer to a players supplies and therefore cannot be used to build siege whilst out in the open.

It should not be able to receive any form of buffs from any class or player either mounted on it or nearby

5K hp.

Being dismounted does no damage at all to the rider. Any supplies carried by the Dolyiak (see above suggestion) are lost.

Time locked remount of 30 seconds if you are dismounted or are in combat and manage to get out of combat.

Half the damage of a ram?A ram hits like what? 8,3kA regular gate had 450hp....making 50 people Just use the skills once...drop the gate instantly?

Well if that's your only complaint about my suggestion then I didn't do too badly. Ok drop it to say 10%.

TBH it really doesnt matter what damage they do, some servers out of prime time will struggle to get 50 coordinated people together. Anything that makes this stale game mode quicker and make people have to react all over the map would in my opinion be a blessing.

[Klypto.1703]

The first thing to remember which majority of people fail to realize is that mounts existed in wvw long before the ones from PoF/PvE based ones game into the game. The golem and charr car were among the first mounts. To say that mounts break the game mode and that they were never intended to have mounts is completely false. It is the way they are implemented that is the key to how they should operate. Essentially all mounts should be siege based or tactics(which tactics need some heavy anti trolling measures on top of this) As well like that newest strike mission where multiple players can enter the tank mount that it should have something like that but all mounts requiring what the above mentioned do is time upgrading or supply being used to make them. Plus so many elements already in the game that just do not have player versions like airships, charr helicopters, and any others I haven't really thought of at the moment. So it really needs to fit in the game mode like golems and charr cars do to even really be something viable otherwise you have all these problems people complain about. Not to mention they would be great additions when dealing with siege humpers.

[Sviel.7493]

@DeceiverX.8361 said:See above. I think they actively hurt the game for more than one reason. This solution makes classes that need the mobility (no swiftness, runes, signets, etc.) have it, and punishes people who use it as a crutch.

The bonus health in today's low damage metas need to go, and the fact they can't be CC'ed or slowed down at all defeats the purpose of taking outnumbered fights or fighting outnumbered into a slightly larger number of players (1v2/1v3) while promoting gank playstyles.

The entire existence of mount is unhealthy and nothing will change that except coming close to removing them.

I don't disagree with your take on mounts. I'm saying that no matter how right you are, Anet is not about to remove mounts from the game. This is like we've all woken up with an obscene Tweety Bird tattoo on our left cheek. There's no going back--we just have to figure out a way to not let it ruin our lives.

Generally speaking, toning down the bonus health and allowing CC should be baseline, imo. If a mount comes with those things it shouldn't also be a speedbot.

@Whiteout.1975 said:The War Turtle would be slow but maybe have particular abilities to help make up for the moderate movement. The War Turtle could taunt 3 - 5 targets for 1 second in a 450 - 600 radius (because it is slow). The War Turtle could carry mini siege on top if its big shell. The mini siege could include an arrow cart, catapult, and ballista. The siege would be less effective than the normal versions of siege. Yet, what should happen is too hard to say. Even with production capabilities, there is no guarantee ideas turn out exactly the way we expect them to be. If that were the case balance would have been fixed a long time ago.

Anytime siege damage is being done, it needs to be tied to some sort of limiter. Warclaw ties it to supply while Dune Rollers tie it to upgraded objectives and have a cooldown. If this Wartortle War Turtle also ties siege damage to supply, it sounds alright. Would probably remove the catapult, though.

@Andy.5981That Armoured Dolyak seems like a good design. But when you say it can drop supplies off at Citadels...did you mean keeps? It might be a bad idea to have hoards of supply that enemies can't possibly steal or destroy.

[DeceiverX.8361]

@Sviel.7493 said:

@DeceiverX.8361 said:See above. I think they actively hurt the game for more than one reason. This solution makes classes that need the mobility (no swiftness, runes, signets, etc.) have it, and punishes people who use it as a crutch.

The bonus health in today's low damage metas need to go, and the fact they can't be CC'ed or slowed down at all defeats the purpose of taking outnumbered fights or fighting outnumbered into a slightly larger number of players (1v2/1v3) while promoting gank playstyles.

The entire existence of mount is unhealthy and nothing will change that except coming close to removing them.

I don't disagree with your take on mounts. I'm saying that no matter how right you are, Anet is not about to remove mounts from the game. This is like we've all woken up with an obscene Tweety Bird tattoo on our left cheek. There's no going back--we just have to figure out a way to not let it ruin our lives.

Generally speaking, toning down the bonus health and allowing CC should be baseline, imo. If a mount comes with those things it shouldn't also be a speedbot.

Sure, but without all of those measures, the crux of the problems with mounts are not resolved. Mounts did a lot more damage than a lot of people are willing to admit, and there's very little to be done except making them act as a slight mobility counterbalance towards highly-mobile roaming builds that would fix the problems that came with them.

Their combat stats, gank-favoring abilities, and unparalleled mobility do not hold up well with the maps designed as they are, and there aren't really a lot of ways to fix that short of totally redesigning the WvW maps which are either less fun to unmounted play, difficult to newcomers, or not totally offset by other features like gliders and such.

ANet needs to learn to tackle their problems head-on. There's no intermediary solution for this content that doesn't leave pretty blatant issues. It's not that mounts broke some things in small ways, but rather they broke multiple things in nearly every possible way. We can see multiple examples in the software world where releasing an unwanted, poorly-perceived and generally pointless feature is best-solved by just going back to what was there before until it can get re-evaluated. I think the most obvious example of this is the start screen and start menu from Windows 8. 8.1 was created to fix it and return it basically back to how it's always been, and the rather time-tested design from a UX perspective was kept for 10 with nearly no complaints and a lot of praise for doing what the customers wanted.

Undoing a bad decision isn't a bad thing. I think mounts as a whole are still a bad thing from a visual clutter perspective, but I understand that issue is not enough to remove them. As such, the actual major issues they bring to combat and gameplay itself should be brought back in line. Respawning blobbers need the mobility since their builds usually don't even have swiftness outside of a few sources. Roamers need the map movement slowed down as to actually be able to do anything, and the damage, health, and lack of impairment needs to be stripped to prevent gank squads from taking over the fringes of blobs and the roaming scene and solo play, too.

I died earlier in a duel because I took a 4700 damage mount attack. That's an asinine amount of free damage to give someone who's just walking up to a fight, and forcing a dodge on something you can't escape while the person is not threatened is rather ridiculous.

[Sovereign.1093]

Siege can only be pulled by mounts to the respective enemy walls Rams etc. I'd love that. Like cart pulling

[Mokk.2397]

@Justine.6351 said:Auto-targeting laserbeam cannons bolted to the side of its head that burns down anyone that looks at me funny.

Shark mounts with frickin' laserbeam cannons attached to their heads

[Sovereign.1093]

I want a char cycle as mount because besides the golem, it is the second mount design.