Gliding and mounts did break a lot of jumping puzzles, but for the most part, being able to cheese a JP doesn't really affect the overall game all that much. That is, the rewards are not worth writing home about.
And I'll disagree that mounts made gliding obsolete. At least, not the mounts that came out with PoF expac itself. Even the griffin didn't obsolete gliding, because the griffin is for long range and doesn't have a gain height mechanic, whereas gliding is more precise and had the updraft mechanic which was still present in some living story maps.
It was the skyscale that really obsoleted gliding, because it can do almost everything gliding does, but better. The skyscale also overlapped a lot with the jumper and griffin as well. The only caveat there is that you have to have the living world chapter and go through the involved quest chain to get it.
Tangled Depths -- I guess they want to retry it given all the advancements with mounts. I mean, original TD was hated because nobody had mounts back then. I haven't gone back there much, but I presume it wouldn't have been as painful if everyone had mounts (including skycale) at the time it came out.
Pof Metas -- I dunno, I have never played them. Because I could never find a group doing them. Or the small ad hoc groups I've seen doing them while I was in those maps doing something else, most failed (or gave up). That was how unpopular they were. I am guessing part of the issue is the gimmicky/annoying environmental effects stuff. The desolation meta had the sulfur sands environment to deal with. The Vabbi meta had the brand environmental effects.
Story -- I doubt they'll return to the branching missions structure of the core storyline. From a dev perspective, it's not worth the resources. You're basically creating content where some of it doesn't get played during any one playthrough. It's probably easier to just do dialogue options which result in various different ambient dialogue (like we saw in PoF). Presumably that's also in play in this expac. I just haven't been paying too much attention to ambient dialogue this playthough (mostly b/c I was playing my ZS playlist as BGM instead of the built in music, so I keep getting distracted aurally.)
Jade Bots - Not sure what you mean retroactively? I mean, characters who haven't done the story can also use it. Just have to buy the parts from the TP. Not sure if you can slot the item even if you haven't bought the expac. I'll check your account when I get a chance and see what it looks like.
Specs - Engi is a bit down my list of classes to play through. Not sure if my interest will keep long enough to fill out the spec. We'll see.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2022-03-07 06:28 pm (UTC)And I'll disagree that mounts made gliding obsolete. At least, not the mounts that came out with PoF expac itself. Even the griffin didn't obsolete gliding, because the griffin is for long range and doesn't have a gain height mechanic, whereas gliding is more precise and had the updraft mechanic which was still present in some living story maps.
It was the skyscale that really obsoleted gliding, because it can do almost everything gliding does, but better. The skyscale also overlapped a lot with the jumper and griffin as well. The only caveat there is that you have to have the living world chapter and go through the involved quest chain to get it.
Tangled Depths -- I guess they want to retry it given all the advancements with mounts. I mean, original TD was hated because nobody had mounts back then. I haven't gone back there much, but I presume it wouldn't have been as painful if everyone had mounts (including skycale) at the time it came out.
Pof Metas -- I dunno, I have never played them. Because I could never find a group doing them. Or the small ad hoc groups I've seen doing them while I was in those maps doing something else, most failed (or gave up). That was how unpopular they were. I am guessing part of the issue is the gimmicky/annoying environmental effects stuff. The desolation meta had the sulfur sands environment to deal with. The Vabbi meta had the brand environmental effects.
Story -- I doubt they'll return to the branching missions structure of the core storyline. From a dev perspective, it's not worth the resources. You're basically creating content where some of it doesn't get played during any one playthrough. It's probably easier to just do dialogue options which result in various different ambient dialogue (like we saw in PoF). Presumably that's also in play in this expac. I just haven't been paying too much attention to ambient dialogue this playthough (mostly b/c I was playing my ZS playlist as BGM instead of the built in music, so I keep getting distracted aurally.)
Jade Bots - Not sure what you mean retroactively? I mean, characters who haven't done the story can also use it. Just have to buy the parts from the TP. Not sure if you can slot the item even if you haven't bought the expac. I'll check your account when I get a chance and see what it looks like.
Specs - Engi is a bit down my list of classes to play through. Not sure if my interest will keep long enough to fill out the spec. We'll see.