Ground mounts yes, for sure. Beasts of burden are a thing in almost all cultures. I'd love to see differences between races and continents. Ogres on rhinos, humans on horses, skar on giant lizards, etc.
From a lore/immersion perspective - I could see flying mounts but they should be exceedingly rare. The reason for this is that we know the Six were hit hard in the war with the Revenant, and have been rebuilding and slowly expanding back out. If they had easy access to flying mounts, they would have expanded much faster - the lands would be much more "civilized" by now.
From a gameplay perspective I support ground mounts but not flying mounts. But as mentioned in the OP, this is mean to be a discussion from a lore/immersion point of view, and that debate has been hashed out elsewhere.
It depends on the implementation.
If the mounts are only provided by NPC's and are temporary and leave once you dismount. Then i would be ok with a high level griffin tamer or giant eagle trainer (if lore permits) as well as horses or ground only mounts that allows you to travel within the same zone or until you dismount. So say you hire a griffin to travel from point A to B in the same zone as a form of quick travel similar to caravans. Then yes...
If you summon a persistant flying mount and you have an option of using 80000 different skinned mounts ala WOW and can cross zonelines and use in battle then i am against the idea of flying mounts. And barely ok with ground mounts.
I feel like mounts should be NPC controlled with limited flight paths or range of use or come with a very high cost to upkeep and not usable in combat or do not directly impact combat (meditate while casting and sitting on horse)
No mounts, not immersive as mounts tend to be purely for increaed movement speed.
If however, mounts became an integral part of the game, with mounted combat being a thing and part of some classes kits with mounted fighters and/or archers making the mount an actual pet of sort. The entire game would need to be a mounted combat game, as it would make sense no to engage in any outdoor without mounts when a player could have one available.
Otherwise its just some stupid "cosmetic" speed buff and that is NOT immersive at all, and can become a bit stupid with isome mmersion breaking mounts.
In EQ you can move and cast from the back of your horse, but still enjoy the meditation effect of sitting. That's one thing I hope won't be in Pantheon, since it makes mounts practically mandatory for casters. Otherwise I'm fairly neutral towards ground based mounts. I'd prefer if they were higher level only however. It just goes against the "newbie feeling" if I can ride around on a mount early on!
I guess flying mounts can be problematic by allowing to avoid content, but really...I just enjoy flying in MMOs. On my wyvern in VG, with wings in Aion, or by glider in Archeage...flying around gave me some of my most enjoyable memories in those games. I'd love to see some form of that in the game.
I dont mind ground mounts, but only outside, please.
Inside they get bulky and cumbersome.
I would also like to see mounts being skill based, disposable and varietal based on zone, with a cost for maintenence.
So I could go to a hard zone, get an exotic mount and ride/maintain it back to wherever for oohs and ahhs, then when I got bored with it I could let it go and get another mount of a different kind from another zone with different small benefits, etc etc.
I like flying, but mount-less flying please, with decay.
I liked the timing of zoning into burning woods with lev high at the tree tops and running to chardok. By the time I got to the ramparts I was a foot above the ground just as lev wore off falling harmlessly to the ground. Had it wore off any sooner I would have died from the fall- that timing was delicious.
For now I would say : ground mounts.
Flying has proven to be very detrimential for every aspect of the game (travel, patience, danger and economy), and I still await to see an iteration that would be balanced and interesting instead of beeing "the biggest shortcut to the game".
To me, there are two components of mounts: cosmetic and tactical advantage.
For cosmetic use (meaning the mount so provide no meaningful advantage whether you have one or not), I'm fine with them so long as they fit with the lore.
For tactical advantage, it comes down to risk / reward just like any piece of gear to me. If the advantage is significant, then it should require significant investment to earn.
As an aside, I think there is oppoprtunity to use mounts as a money sink that require some amount of ongoing care and feeding to sustain.
Just ground mounts for me, hopefully fully implemented as something more deep than just getting a mount and that is it.
I'd love if movespeed buffs would stack with mounts such that having both would keep the buffs entirely desired/valuable (Say a mount is +50% and it would stack with +50% player buff (additive or multiplicative)). They could be a recurring gold/plat sink, a means of prestige, and prefereably an entire means of alternate progression where getting a mount is expensive and challenging but also just the beginning/baseline where afterward the player would need to find a multitude of equipment sets throughout the world to allow use of their mount in different climates/regions.
Additionally I kind of hope mount(s) are locally stabled. If you dismount for a certain period of time or enter a dungeon then the mount would return to the nearest friendly stable and remain there until retreived. This would make travel decisions a little more involved: do you take a TP and save time in the short term or do you make the trek on your mount and potentially save more time in the future by having access to the extra speed while in whichever part of the world you end up.
No mounts of any kind, I enjoyed the Vanguard mounts but they did take away from player interaction in general, they are convenient yes but not a necessity specially if it takes away from the player interaction and the resources that would be allocated to the overall mechanics of it, testing etc. would be better spent on content.
No flying mounts ever. Very destructive to social cohesion and the joy of exploring.
I'd prefer no mounts at all. But ground mounts wouldn't be too bad if they didn't give speed buffs but had other purposes. Perhaps the ability to carry burden, as was mentioned in a previous reply. As a cosmetic gold-sink (as long as it doesn't break immersion by offering dozens of unlikely species to ride). If ground mounts are included, please restrict them to out of doors and outside of city limits.
No mounts till the first or second expansion. No flying mounts ever please.
Slightl tilt to no mounts at all, but pretty close to neutral on em.
There is nothing immersion breaking about mounts to me if they fit the region or if a race has a tradition of taming certain creatures. I do hope that any mounts in game are hard to come by. Though it would also be cool if there was a skill to catch and tame different creatures throughout Terminus. As with gear, there can be a certain wow factor when coming across someone riding an exotic mount.
If you want this game to be like Zelda, no flying mounts. Abilities like levitate, ports, increased run speed, and ground mounts are perfectly acceptable forms of travel. Remember, you want classes to carry weight to them. Relying on other players that have abilities of travel is very weighty. Relying on other players to return your lost experience is weighty. Everything that makes the game "easier" should be done only by certain classes. Ask for help. Make friends. Be a community.
Avaen said:If you want this game to be like Zelda, no flying mounts. Abilities like levitate, ports, increased run speed, and ground mounts are perfectly acceptable forms of travel. Remember, you want classes to carry weight to them. Relying on other players that have abilities of travel is very weighty. Relying on other players to return your lost experience is weighty. Everything that makes the game "easier" should be done only by certain classes. Ask for help. Make friends. Be a community.
x2
this game shouldt have any mount at all just like the classic eq
everyone need to rely on each other or have buff inable to survive ( still remember everyone need to stay close to the bard for the speed songs in emerald jungle / kithicor forest / skyfire mountain or you are dead )
Ground mounts at launch where they are tiered with a tied in experience system. Dizzic Durerks level 1 Warrior shouldn't be able to ride the most elite horse in the game. It takes experience to learn how to ride a horse. Expanding on that other types of mounts could take their own experience laddar.
Flying mounts could be introduced in the 3rd or 4th expansion pack.
I'm good with no mounts at all or just ground mounts. As stated before - the easier it is to travel and the faster it is the more content we skip and more"random encounters" slips by. I think that even ground mounts are bit to much - classes with movement speed buffs and portals should be more than enough. I would rather see beasts of burden as i'm not big fan of hugely limited bag and encumbrance.
Fundamentally, I can't say that it is something that overly bothers me. However, it is certainly true that mounts do tend to make the world smaller and (especially in the case of flying mounts) can trivialise content. From what I have seen so far, I believe that some form of climbing is going to be the game - if so, then flying mounts are going to be unlikely, as it would kind of make all the work put into climbing somewhat pointless.
IF there will be flying mounts I would make them heavily limited - ie. for devs, 3,000+ pledges and guild leaders only. I won't be any of these, so it won't affect me directly, but seeing "VIPs" on epic mounts wouldn't be bad - especially for guild leaders for their hard work (not to mention devs).
Hegenox said:IF there will be flying mounts I would make them heavily limited - ie. for devs, 3,000+ pledges and guild leaders only. I won't be any of these, so it won't affect me directly, but seeing "VIPs" on epic mounts wouldn't be bad - especially for guild leaders for their hard work (not to mention devs).
That does sound like pay to win to some extent.
Hegenox said:IF there will be flying mounts I would make them heavily limited - ie. for devs, 3,000+ pledges and guild leaders only. I won't be any of these, so it won't affect me directly, but seeing "VIPs" on epic mounts wouldn't be bad - especially for guild leaders for their hard work (not to mention devs).
Guild Leaders....lol.