5 years later - Flying mounts and faster speeders

[Deewe]

I would support a speeder speed increase but I don't think this game necessarily needs flying.

The engine can't support spawning data as fast enough but I'd love that too.

 

I mean the speeders are slower than my bicycle.

[menofhorror]

I recall 2 bigger performance updates for this game. You haven't seen an increase in performance on your end after those patches?

 

Yes I did notice but that doesn't make the engine less ****** unfortunately.

[jimmorrisson]

I have wanted flying whale mount ever since I first saw it in Attack Of The Clones and the McQuarrie art for Alderaan.

The flying whale mount does not even have to "fly" just hover.

[YlliyaXor]

Can we have elves and orcs too?

 

This idea is almost as good as no rails space combat or whatever it was people trolled BWA with before GSF was inflicted on us.

[ivanhedgehog]

Can we have elves and orcs too?

 

This idea is almost as good as no rails space combat or whatever it was people trolled BWA with before GSF was inflicted on us.

 

Elven beer is good, so yes, they should add elves.

[dr_mike]

I want a pony!

 

Been asking for one for over a year now.

 

Seriously.

[MadDutchman]

Bollocks, the taxis are faster than mounts, they could at least let us go that fast. The only time I see a problem with travel speed is using Corellia's rocket trams.

 

Totally support a 'Turbo Booster', increasing a speeder's velocity to around that of a taxi for 6-12 seconds on a 60-120 second cooldown. They could even implement it on new CM speeders! C'mon BioWare, you know you want to!

 

speeders and taxis are very different systems under the hood. Putting one on rails makes a big difference.

 

A lot of the issue with stuff going fast (and why podracing/swoop racing isn't a thing) is the engine can't accurately manage positions very well. Going faster exasperates this. The thing with taxis though is because they are on rails at a set speed, the game only actually needs to send out one update to relevant clients of players getting on a taxi ("so and so is on taxi going here") and the entire flight can be simulated on the client with no further interaction with the server.

[masterceil]

speeders and taxis are very different systems under the hood. Putting one on rails makes a big difference.

 

A lot of the issue with stuff going fast (and why podracing/swoop racing isn't a thing) is the engine can't accurately manage positions very well. Going faster exasperates this. The thing with taxis though is because they are on rails at a set speed, the game only actually needs to send out one update to relevant clients of players getting on a taxi ("so and so is on taxi going here") and the entire flight can be simulated on the client with no further interaction with the server.

 

Force Speed is faster than mounts. Granted it only lasts a few seconds, but still. I totally think the engine can handle a 150% speeder in bursts of a few seconds at a time, at the very least.

[Mackdi]

Just no. lol no, no, no, hell no. We dont need people dive bombing enemies never to be seen again.

[Forren-Midosea]

Just no. lol no, no, no, hell no. We dont need people dive bombing enemies never to be seen again.

 

Please, speak for yourself. Im not part of your we.

[fushnchips]

Actually I can see my self flying around this was a fun aspect in 2 other MMOs I played having flying mounts but they should be special mounts that do it and none of the current ones should have the perk.

[firelizard]

Yeah I agree. We either need much faster mounts or flying mounts or at least jetpacks like boba Fett.... I mean... It's star wars... Also Jedis should be able to leap higher 😎

[Calarand]

You will never get flying mounts in SWTOR. That would require an extensive rework of ALL the outside environments to hide holes, complete buildings that have only the parts visible from the ground done, etc, etc. Best example is WoW which needed a lot of time and pretty much a complete revamp of most of the areas before they allowed flying mounts. With the current state of this dev team and the game engine itself, it's simply not happening for SWTOR.

[HuaRya]

I see no issue here. Datacron master = reward with flying speeders.

 

^ this

[cagthehack]

I see no issue here. Datacron master = reward with flying speeders.

 

Do you know what would be involved to introduce flying mounts?

 

It took WOW an entire DLC to do it They tested it in WOLTK then released it in the old world when Cata hit. Everything has to be redrawn. Right now SWTOR is centered around "ground mounts" and speeders.

 

I' rather the devs work on other more pressing issues.

[SourOrange]

As much as I would love flying mounts, I just don't think they're viable in SWTOR. Unlike a lot of other games, that are typically one big, consistent map (or multiple consistent big maps), this game is broken down into smaller maps that have a lot of "exhastion zones", invisible walls and insta-death areas that were clearly not meant to be explored.. Likely because the map itself was designed to be experienced from a certain field of view.

There are probably a lot of optical illusions that would be shattered if we could fly. Buildings and mountains missing a backside, or seams in the mesh where textures meet but don't match.

 

They could try to sort all of that out in order to instate flying- but I doubt that's viable (or even possible) with the team and budget they have now.

Edited July 19, 2017 by SourOrange

[toomanyluigis]

speeders and taxis are very different systems under the hood. Putting one on rails makes a big difference.

 

A lot of the issue with stuff going fast (and why podracing/swoop racing isn't a thing) is the engine can't accurately manage positions very well. Going faster exasperates this. The thing with taxis though is because they are on rails at a set speed, the game only actually needs to send out one update to relevant clients of players getting on a taxi ("so and so is on taxi going here") and the entire flight can be simulated on the client with no further interaction with the server.

 

Need I remind you all of Ziost?

[SteveTheCynic]

As much as I would love flying mounts, I just don't think they're viable in SWTOR. Unlike a lot of other games, that are typically one big, consistent map (or multiple consistent big maps), this game is broken down into smaller maps that have a lot of "exhastion zones", invisible walls and insta-death areas that were clearly not meant to be explored.. Likely because the map itself was designed to be experienced from a certain field of view.

There are probably a lot of optical illusions that would be shattered if we could fly. Buildings and mountains missing a backside, or seams in the mesh where textures meet but don't match.

 

They could try to sort all of that out in order to instate flying- but I doubt that's viable (or even possible) with the team and budget they have now.

My experiences in a couple of games with flying mounts (well, OK, gliders, but read on) might be relevant to the discussion.

 

ArcheAge

ArcheAge has gliders (and some other things that closely resemble gliders but for some technical reason aren't considered gliders) and fixed-track "airships". The airships are approximately SWTOR taxis, except they move around on *their* schedule. They go way up high, though, and you can move around on them and even jump off. Be sure to have a glider available, though, because the airships *do* go way up high. Way more than high enough to kill you.

 

Some gliders even have special "jump upwards" abilities that are on short enough cooldowns that you can use them to bounce up mountains. When you do this (it's loads of fun), you discover that the house-sized rocks at the top of the mountain only have about a dozen polygons and their textures have pixels bigger than your character. See, you're really only supposed to be able to look at the mountains from down below, and if you do that, they look just fine.

 

But gliding appears to have been baked into the game from quite early on (the "here's a glider" quest is for characters of about level 10), so ...

 

Guild Wars 2

At its initial release, GW2 did not have gliders. It *still* doesn't have ground mounts. When they released the Heart of Thorns expansion, it included, in the new HoT zones, gliders as an inherent mechanism. There are quests that tell you that you must glide to finish them. The final boss fight has a segment where you must glide, and if you do not, you die.

 

It took a while before they released an update to let you fly in "Central Tyria", that is, the original zones from release time. They needed to do work to restrict gliding in jumping-puzzle areas and the like. But now you can glide down into the depths of Rata Sum, where you discover some interesting stuff. There's a floor down there, and from up above, it looks like there are chunks of rock. When you get down there, you discover two interesting things. First, the visual rocks are just a texture on a flat floor. Second, there are *invisible* rocks that you have to climb over. Yes, there really are rocks down there, but you can't see them.

 

Conclusion

Don't underestimate the work required to build a flight system, especially the work required to address all the fussy details of the maps. And don't be surprised when there are imperfections that you can now see in those maps.

[Rasinator]

Well after patch 5.3 faster speed mounts have been granted and fixed from the 5.2 bug. In regards to flying mounts it would be beautiful for SWTOR to re-image its game engine. It's a fans dream to fly a Thranta or mount a Krayt Dragon across the Skies from Alderaan to Zakuul in SWTOR. Sadly, until the DEVS address this head on and grant our request, I do not see it happening.

[Quraswren]

SNIP... I do not see it happening.

 

Me either.

For one I don't think the game code itself is capable of actually supporting it. So thats a huge drawback because that means a lot of code would have to change, maps changed etc and thats just not something bw is capable of doing without screwing up the entire game/planets and travel somehow. To risky for bw.

 

At this point, we can barely get one ops a year, and even less for pvp so there is no way we will ever see flying in the hands of players. Disney would have to take swtor away from EA/bioware, pump huge amounts of time and resources into it and thats something bw/ea doesn't have big plans for given the current state of things. Might as well relaunch the game at that point.

[Thruine]

This game has too many areas that don't exist but are connected. When the speeder takes off then soon disappears only to reappear. If they added flying mounts, they'd have to add that trip in. They'd really have to do a lot of things unless they just go with invisible walls everywhere. I'd honestly rather have cut scenes of shuttles taking off and landing with our party boarding and departing. I mean, if they're going to be doing some pointless work, that's what I'd rather have

[Baith-Na]

Its funny to see all the amateur devs in this thread give reasons why faster speeders would never work lmao

 

Now if the game can last a few more years, we can come back and laugh at all the clowns shutting down the flying mount ideas.

 

Next impossible feat- Console expansion

[Foambreaker]

BIG NO

 

The maps are too small, the development cost too high, development team too small.

 

This is a team that can only do one new boss per content patch. Flying mounts are outside their scope and based on the results we have seen lately, their skills are well.

[Foambreaker]

Its funny to see all the amateur devs in this thread give reasons why faster speeders would never work lmao

 

Now if the game can last a few more years, we can come back and laugh at all the clowns shutting down the flying mount ideas.

 

Next impossible feat- Console expansion

 

Actually I have been a software developer since 1989, before many of you were born.

[HeatRacer]

Its funny to see all the amateur devs in this thread give reasons why faster speeders would never work lmao

 

Almost as funny as the amateur devs who think it's easy/practical to do.