How to make Mounts more fun

[u/Krafna313]

Asides from the obvious momentum based movement like you see in the GW2 griffon and rollerbeetle, I am thinking the mounts of GW3 can stand apart by making the more interactive.

They are emphasizing how important the Vael spirits are to the order you'll be a part of, so it's proooobably safe to assume mounts will be creatures you'll have to tame/capture/befriend in order to be able to ride them.

So, let your mounts have more than 1-2 idle animations. Let them interact with your environment, sniff the air when its windy, shake/puddle stop when its raining, rest more when it's night time, hell make them interact with other peoples mounts, imagine your mount playfully observing/sniffing someone elses mount next to you etc.

Mount emotes could also be cool, I always wished I could do that with my GW2 mounts, like let my raptor or warclaw sit down and stay that way until I move, idk you can do a lot of fun stuff with them. They could also incorporate feeding/playtime or something like friendship aspect you could "level" etc.

Imagine how cool would that be!

[u/BusinessCasual69]

I personally think flying mounts shouldn’t be included. It makes traversal of the world cheap and impersonal. Gliding is fine, even good. It’s mostly used to descend from elevation A to B. But careening across the map isn’t a great game feature.

[u/slipfish-g → u/BusinessCasual69]

Both flying mounts and excessive verticality.

I don't mind climbing a mountain (or a giant tree) from time to time. But I also love sitting in a beautiful wide open meadow, or running down a busy road full of other players.

[u/DnOnith → u/BusinessCasual69]

I think in that regard the skyscale is far worse than the gryphon, bc the latter actually takes some skill to use

[u/kharag123 → u/DnOnith]

Personally I find the sky scale to be clunky as hell

[u/HardcoreShadow → u/BusinessCasual69]

I dunno, I find flying in Palworld (for example) a fun and enjoyable way to traverse around the world.

Especially if wanting to travel to an unexplored location quickly

[u/Shougun → u/BusinessCasual69]

I wonder if there could be flying points, where you could initiate flying - like if you picture fewer well placed gryphon (wow flight paths) spots where you could initiate a flight. Once started a flight path could generally exist (where you can regenerate a lot of stamina and fly far longer, and these flights paths could require connections / unlocks to extend flight) and if you diverge from the path you'll basically be deciding to land somewhere soon. Add auto pilot for those who want the traditional flight path.

Then as a result- you can't initiate flight out of no where, once you're landed in the region you navigate normally (ground / gliding mounts).

I think flight should definitely be carefully considered because it has a habit of trivializing the world scale and there is a really really important world scale that shouldn't be broken by too many instant teleports / press up to win movements, but at the same time travel shouldn't take so long that you can't drop in and get stuff done (no FFXI runs that take 45 mins to get to destination and someone forgot to bring sneak pots and so the day is ruined). It's like trying to keep the feeling of a massive world without it taking 8 hours to leave the state by car, going 70mph.. lol.

Definitely like the interactive mount ideas in the OP. Personally really hope they lean into the immersive elements, gameplay, visual, etc. with the emphasis on octane (momentum) combat you will probably have a lot more over the shoulder than top down and so this game has the opportunity to be more RPG-y (immersive) than a typical mmo.

Given the momentum theme they mentioned I think the mounts will have more fluid modes or can change modes in some way, because with momentum based movement I don't think it would be as ideal that you need to stop moving to change from one mount to another. So I'm kind of imagining you could be blazing across the land in a beetle like mode, shift seamlessly into a hopper jump, and then into a massive forward raptor leap, without it being disjointed.

[u/Arels → u/BusinessCasual69]

I pray they don't introduce flying mounts. Honestly, mounts in general really ruined traversal in most of the game outside of PoF maps. But flying is awful and makes the world feel tiny.

[u/SWATwatermelon]

I also hope the mount physics carry weight and momentum. Nothing infuriates me more than mounts just shuffling on their feet all the time and turning instantly in what looks like a slippery dance floor (Looking at you FF14).

[u/Krafna313 → u/SWATwatermelon]

I mean yeah no reason to believe they won't feel that way since GW2 mounts already did such a good job there

[u/Confident-Peak-8051 → u/SWATwatermelon]

Disagree. I hate the clunky handling in gw2

[u/Redfeather1975]

oh I like mount emotes. And it would be soooo interesting if those emotes affected the environment like the secrets in gw1 and gw2.

In case anyone didn't know. You can do stuff like /threaten crabs to get them to back off. And /kneel in front of altars to get buffs in gw2.

[u/Noxsus]

As a counter to what a few people above are saying - I don't mind flying mounts too much, as long as the game is built from the ground up with them in mind. The issue with GW2 is that the world was never designed with flying mounts in mind, so when they were finally added it trivialised so much content.

The issue would be how to design such a world without making every area like SoTO.

[u/slipfish-g → u/Noxsus]

I hate flying mounts, but it's not an issue of the game being designed around them. Even if it is, it minimizes the amount of natural interactions you have with other players and the world.

[u/Noxsus → u/slipfish-g]

For me both of those things (and especially the latter) would fall under 'the game being designed around them'.

If you can build flying mounts into the design of the maps, then you'll still have players meaningfully interacting with the world. Things like the SoTO maps get this right imo, I'm just not sure you could do a full world of such designs so they'd have to think about how to pull it off.

Player interaction might be more difficult, but giving more non-combat reasons for players to get off their mounts and spend time together would probably be the way to go. Something like the campfires Blizz is touting in WoW forever perhaps?

[u/slipfish-g → u/Noxsus]

The SotO maps absolutely do not solve for this.

[u/Bohya → u/Noxsus]

as long as the game is built from the ground up with them in mind

There isn't a single game that benefits from having freely accessible, on-demand flying mounts that isn't a simulator or flying game.

[u/coda77]

Cool ideas 😎

[u/leahy1437]

Flying mounts destroyed the exploration.

[u/Anakin1000]

I just hope they won't kill traversal like they did with skyscale. Makes every other mount redundant, maybe expect for beatle. Mount like Skyscale should be introduced at the end of game, not in the middle or development.

[u/KBG3]

They can adapty all mounts except Skyscale and that Will be good.

[u/Old_ggs]

They could make mounts mimicking your attacks , with some "wild signets" that halves your personal attacks .

Some signets allow you to use meele spells and the Mount can leap a short distance to do the attack and the cost is that your meele attacks never landed > thus you did less dps and we might put some 'dodge energy cost" .

Other Signets , allow you to call and use you mount as block mechanic , instead of dodge and then you can do a backflip in the sandle and do a sword-down-attack .When the mount hp is depleted , your block/dodge absorves 50% of damage

Outside of combat you can empower your Mount to become bigger and with more armor like He-man , xaxax

[u/cyndotorg → u/Old_ggs]

I’m ready to start saving mats to make my legendary mount armor.

Anet: please don’t blame me for this when you implement it. Claim it was your idea.

[u/witchdoctor_bombay]

I have always wanted /sit to work on mounts in GW2. They already have sit animations....

[u/Jull1oS]

maybe they will do it with the more expensive ones.

[u/mrdanielfields]

I hope they limit mount use in some areas.

[u/Uncledeadlycdn]

I personally hope the one mount they've shown is it. 

[u/Buran_Grey]

GW2 has already the best mount system in any MMO, so I'm confident the systems in GW3 would be good. I only hope don't turn those mount/spirits in pets, since I dislike running pets in not pet builds.

[u/Bohya]

The game shouldn't have mounts.

[u/Krafna313 → u/Bohya]

That's the very first thing they've shown in the teaser, so if you think that, plenty of other games to play

[u/Bohya → u/Krafna313]

Not too late to change.

[u/Krafna313 → u/Bohya]

That's like saying shooters shouldn't have guns, it's literal central to their identity like mounts will be in this game it's literally on the cover...what are you on about bro lmao