alright ik this is gonna be a weird idea, but flying mounts to make the game feel real open, but ik it will take a really long time to get into the game and the problem with restricted area's, I feel it would feel really nice to be in a ship that is in the sky instead of on the ground.

Factoring in the sizes of some of the planets and number of planets, this is not going to happen. There are really only a handful of planets that flying mounts would even be useful. Alderaan, Hoth, Tatooine and maybe Voss. Planets that may be big enough, but wouldn't really work are Nar Shadaa, Corellia, Taris(?). With the ability to get Quick Travel CD down to 0 min, most everywhere on a planet you want to go is within an easy ride of a QT point.

 

Edit: Now if you rally want to make areas more accessible or quicker to get to, reduce the cost of the Speeder Piloting IV and V skill by 75%+. 600k and 1.2M respectively per toon is more than most people are willing to spend despite the current flow of credits. If they were global unlocks, that would be much more doable.

Edited August 12, 2018 by Aberd
Ammended

Just my two cents. I really love this idea. Even suggested it once, a long time ago, specifically for Thrantas. Personally, I've wanted my own Thranta for my toons to ride for a long time. I don't know if it's even practical for the devs to create. But it would be an awesome mount to have, especially now that we have a stronghold as large as Rishi. Imagine riding your very own Thranta around your Rishi stronghold, or even on Alderaan. Again, I'm not even going to try and justify having a Thranta or any flying mount in the name of travel speed or accessibility. I just simply think it would be very cool to have if they can and will make it happen.

Flying mounts are good, but require more care in map design. Look at the example of GW2. Since Heart of Thorns, it has had gliders (and by golly there are places on especially Balmorra where I'd like to be able to use one), and Path of Fire introduced a near-flying mount. OK, yes, Griffy isn't a flying mount (it's only a glider), but it has an initial-boost method that allows it to gain altitude if the terrain cooperates. (A cliff with perchable ledges is ideal for this.)

 

It does strange things to map traversal, since it's obviously capable of flying at altitudes that are way too high for enemies to reach you.

 

However, what I'd like is a *faster* mount, like Petey, the Roller Beetle. I'm not sure of the exact speeds in SWTOR, but it's reasonable to say that +0% is no-sprint running, and that sprint (documented as +35%) is about 10 m/s (top sprinting performance in high-level competition on Earth), making "+0%" equivalent to 7.5 metres per second.

 

Based on that, Petey's top speed, in SWTOR terms, is +700%, since he's capable of about 60 metres per second, slightly over 130 miles per hour, apparently. At that speed he is marginally controllable, but would be immense fun on Hoth or Tatooine.

I also wonder if some of the zones just aren't .... I guess "finished" is a good description. I remember when they were talking about putting flying mounts into EQ2 and how they would have to redo zones because what you saw when you were in game was all there was ... mountains often didn't have, even graphically, another side because to save time when they created a zone they would often just not make the other side of the mountain as no one would ever see it. There's also the question of Makeb. I'm not sure there's anything actually between the various islands because when you get in a speeder and fly a certain distance you just "zone" to the place you were going to. I don't know if this is the case for SWTOR but it's possible.

 

It would also make a lot of the holocrons pretty trivial unless they put in some rather arbitrary restrictions.

It would also make a lot of the holocrons pretty trivial unless they put in some rather arbitrary restrictions.

Many of GW2s jumping puzzles (equivalent for the purposes of the discussion to *data*crons) have exactly that kind of restriction in place. They are in no-mount areas, since Griffy isn't the only mount that would help you manoeuvre around them. There are places where Mr Buns's super-high jump would be useful, or where a brief Raptoriffic long-jump would help, and they are *all* blocked in those JPs.

 

But yes, the tops and backs of mountains are the most problematic areas when you add flying mounts to a game. There are lots of high-up places in GW2 where the terrain is clearly meant to be viewed from far away and far below, but can now be reached by players, so you see low-res textures and low polygon-count terrain that looked just fine from the ground below. The worst is a couple of high mountains in ArcheAge, where I found a house-sized rock that was nevertheless only about ten polygons, and where the texels (TEXture pixELs) were about the size of my character's face, or even bigger.

I don't think flying mounts will ever happen, as all planets are not designed for it: They are two-dimensional and the actual landscape is risen from the floor, meaning if you cross the boundries there will be a sudden drop down with nothing down there.

 

However if Bioware decides to create a new planet or area which are three-dimensional and designed around flying mounts so that there is no drop, it could be considered.

I don't think flying mounts will ever happen, as all planets are not designed for it: They are two-dimensional and the actual landscape is risen from the floor, meaning if you cross the boundries there will be a sudden drop down with nothing down there.

 

However if Bioware decides to create a new planet or area which are three-dimensional and designed around flying mounts so that there is no drop, it could be considered.

 

^This, at best we'll continue to get the hovering mounts. But flying mounts would likely mean the areas would have to be reworked in some way.

I don't think flying mounts will ever happen, as all planets are not designed for it: They are two-dimensional and the actual landscape is risen from the floor, meaning if you cross the boundries there will be a sudden drop down with nothing down there.

The landscape may have *weak* three-dimensionality(1), but there *are* places where you can cross a natural rock bridge over a place that you just drove under (example: Tatooine in the big canyon west of Jundland - there's a bridge over it(2)), and there are natural tunnels that just go through from one place to another.

 

What happens at the edges of maps that *aren't* surrounded by cliffs is a separate question. In GW2, all such places are open water, so you just get "currents" that push you back, whether you're swimming, cruising with the Skimmer, or flapping hard with Griffy. In SWTOR, the equivalent areas (e.g. all around the island on Ord Mantell) are universally "exhaustion zones" that dismount you (and would presumably lead to your sudden death if you were up high on a flying mount).

 

When a GW2 zone has cliffs at its edge (everywhere except the open-water edges and the actual portals between maps), those cliffs universally have "invisible walls" that block you from advancing further over the cliff.

 

(1) There's certainly nowhere with as many intertwined layers and tunnels and stuff as GW2's notoriously fiddly Tangled Depths map.

 

(2) I remember that bridge fondly because the first time I ever drove a speeder over it, my character levelled up.