Quote Originally Posted by ryouma17 View Post
ff14's flying gets the job done no need to change it
I absolutely adore GW2's mount system and would consider it the best I've personally experienced. Each mount comes with its own particular set of skills and traits, and they're used for different reasons. The raptor is pretty quick and can leap over large distances. The skimmer lets you travel on water and is immune to most ground hazards. The griffon lets you glide. The rollerbeetle is incredibly fast, can knock down enemies, and can break open secret walls. There is more to each mount, but that at least gives an idea. There are 9 mounts in total.

One thing that I really appreciate is that there is no true-flying mount. You have a griffon for gliding (and you CAN go pretty far if you're skilled with it), and you have a skyscale which can gain height, but both require using the terrain to take advantage of their skills, and both will eventually need to come back to ground. You're not able to simply bypass entire zones by flying straight over them.

Another thing is that the animations and physics of the mounts themselves are great and just feel more real. They lean into turns, they look behind them when you're walking backwards, they don't instantly come to a grinding halt when you stop moving forward. Little details can add A LOT of flavor.

In comparison, XIV's mounts and flying feels.....cheap. Oh hey! You, elephant! You can fly! Adorable fat cat? Up in the air you go! It doesn't make any sense, although in XIV I suppose there's little reason why you shouldn't fly everywhere due to a lack of overworld activities (that's a rant for another day). But yeah, when everything can do everything, it can feel boring.

As far as XIV's mount animations, I'd say they're OK, but nothing great. They are totally lacking on physics though, and they feel stiff when moving around. You're basically just tilting on an axis, and it doesn't feel or look great.



With all that said, I don't think you're wrong with your statement. Yes, the flying and mount system accomplishes what XIV is going for. However, that doesn't mean its fantastic, and there are definitely better mount systems out there which put it to shame (IMO). But again, it gets the job done for what XIV wants. It is what it is. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯