Mounts and invisible barriers

[misterman.1530]

I am enjoying the mounts - though trying to simply turn any of them in the direction you want while standing still is frustrating. However, one of the things I was worried about when I heard about them being added in POF was the introduction (well, greater introduction) of invisible walls/ceilings/floors.

 

For instance, trying to get a griffon egg in the Maculate Fringe and hated the way both Dulfy and Aynmaiden showed how. Thought I would "spring" to the top of some rocks and try to glide over to the broken, float-y, pyramid thingie. Yeah...can't do that...invisible walls.

 

Same with the Mastery Point in the Tomb of the Primeval Kings. I know you need the griffon mount (which I don't have - see above - plus I don't have 250g to spend), but found a way by jumping up top since I noticed it is open to the sky. However, even though you can see the Mastery point you can't glide down to it due to another invisible barrier (though there is still a small gap you can get through, so was able to get there).

 

Invisible barriers are just lazy programming/design. If someone can make it some place in a way you didn't foresee, so what? Don't stick barriers up - they only make the game seem very artificial.

[Zedek.8932]

Excelsior.

 

I think everyone who either mapped or played games on limited hardware thought about such things - and so far, not a real solution has been found.

When I map for Vanilla DooM (or play classic DooM) the first things I draw is an outer area - the walls. Then I cut the player's move off to it, either by high walls or some sort of inacessible lake. That was 1993. In Tomb Raider 1-5, the same happened. That was up to 2000. In Hogs of War, when you reach the limit of the map, you either vanish when you hit the very edge of the map (insta-death!) or your character moves into the map boundaries by itself. The only game that made it "okay" not to be stuck in invisible walls was Halo, where you could drive deep into the ocean with your Warthog. That was 2002 IIRC.

 

Not sure how the GW2 engine works, especially in the Z-axis (the ceiling), but else, I think invisible walls are happening often. If you'd open a modern game's map in an editor, you will see so many lines and stuff for all different kinds of things, lighting properties, sound effect origins, ambient sound origins, markes that say "No mounts here", several status changes (quicksand, damage, fire, poison, ...) I would not be surprised if simple invisible walls "just happen" and even if aNet revises every map and check them to be "mount-proof" glitches can and will still happen, like "Hall of Mirrors" glitches and stuff. Map editing is a b***. I've seen things in any game that looked like solid surfaces just to drop trough it - the designers simply overlooked to mark it as solid. But how to patch a PS1 game?

 

In short: While I agree some things are stupid, especially when in plain sight (tried to glide down to a certain place but was "shoved away" 90° by some invisible wall mid-air), but also, it's way more complicated than it is. Increasing the Z-axis ("ceiling") might just pull invisible barrios with them up in the air, depending on how their software actually works, so you would run into a wall still, no matter if at Z-5000 or Z-10,000. In Metrica Province, you can get stuck in those Golem Chess fiels if you drop in there - and you will drop in there, because the "walls" that prevented you from entering those play fields are basically reaching high up in the air - even though they are invisible.

 

 

[mercury ranique.2170]

First to understand invisible walls. A game last like gw2 (and others) are designed to represent a real world. It is not. What you see are pixels forming textures folded around 3D invisible frames. All are on default open space and you can run through it. So everything you can not cross is put there on a purpose. The entire game is made out of invisible walls. It is technically the place to not cross or to stand on, it is called collision. Everything that you move on, jump on or blocks you is an invisible collision. The textures are just there to make you feel and imagine it is a real world. So am invisible wall is just a collision that wasn’t made visible for our comfort, that can be cause we where never allowed there. Or that they never expected us there, but knew we might (they true to enclose the playable world with collision just to make it solid). Whit vanilla we had invisible wall encounters. With mounts and gliding we encountered more. In vanilla this is enhanced as it was never made with mounts and gliding in place.

I know that invisible walls are bad for immersion. But so does. Sticking to originally vanilla mechanics. Everything adding movement will add to this lack of immersion, but also adds immersion on the other end. It always requires our imagination to feel real. If you dislike invisible walls, stay out of what you should not be able to reach.

[Egrimm Van Horstmann.7921]

I think you misunderstand how playable graphics work. Negative space is still something they have to create. Instead of just an image they also have to create the open space. There are a few maps I've hit ceiling when there's nothing but sky above me. One area I discovered this was over Tequatle area in Sparkfly Fen. It's a lot more graphics and impact on systems the more playable area you have. Given they at launch of GW2 had no need to worry about areas like this they opted to reduce the impact on your system for areas that weren't initially planned as open space.

[misterman.1530]

But I'm talking about PoF maps - designed with mounts in mind. I am not trying to reach inaccessible areas (i.e the edge of the map). Just trying to climb/jump up some rocks. There it is, a perfectly reachable ledge, yet I cannot jump forwards There's an invisible wall...for no other reason than to force you to do it in only one way. The better design would have been not to have a reachable ledge in the graphics. Issue solved.

[Offair.2563]

To turn your mount properly without falling off, hold down ur left mouse key and turn with wasd keys, that way you turn around your own axis.

[Ashabhi.1365]

In the instance cited by the OP, I think the invisible barrier is there on purpose. Otherwise, a challenging (somewhat) point might as well be put on flat ground with no mobs so one could just walk up to it.

 

So, although it might be an unpopular opinion, I think that some invisible walls should be there to prevent just such a thing as mentioned in the OP's post.

[Blude.6812]

Yep, can't have you taking a short cut.

 

[Kal Spiro.9745]

> @"misterman.1530" said:

> I am enjoying the mounts - though trying to simply turn any of them in the direction you want while standing still is frustrating. However, one of the things I was worried about when I heard about them being added in POF was the introduction (well, greater introduction) of invisible walls/ceilings/floors.

>

> For instance, trying to get a griffon egg in the Maculate Fringe and hated the way both Dulfy and Aynmaiden showed how. Thought I would "spring" to the top of some rocks and try to glide over to the broken, float-y, pyramid thingie. Yeah...can't do that...invisible walls.

>

> Same with the Mastery Point in the Tomb of the Primeval Kings. I know you need the griffon mount (which I don't have - see above - plus I don't have 250g to spend), but found a way by jumping up top since I noticed it is open to the sky. However, even though you can see the Mastery point you can't glide down to it due to another invisible barrier (though there is still a small gap you can get through, so was able to get there).

>

> Invisible barriers are just lazy programming/design. If someone can make it some place in a way you didn't foresee, so what? Don't stick barriers up - they only make the game seem very artificial.

 

If you're currently on the Griffon collections you can pick up a temp mount at any nest. Once you dismount it's gone, but that should be long enough to reach the mastery in the tomb.

Not related to the invisible walls, I know, but might be helpful

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

I hate invisible walls. Hate them. Hate them. Hate hate hate them.

I mean to say, I really dislike running into what appears to be free space, whether up, down, right, left, over or under and being blocked without 'seeing' an actual barrier.

 

However, I'm also sympathetic to ANet's situation. An invisible barrier is a lot cheaper to put up than something that fits the environment. It's somewhat cheaper than putting up a generic wall that doesn't fit the environment. And it's better than leaving holes in the world in which people can slip out of the main map (whether intentionally or not). There are even bigger problems that go along with not plugging the leaks.

 

So given the choice among: suffering invisible walls, waiting longer for content, or getting less content (because it takes longer to make nicer walls), I'll take the invisible ones.

 

Don't get me wrong: I still hate them. I just hate them less than the alternatives.

 

I do wish, however, that ANet would admit that they've chosen expediency over elegance and maintain a public list of invisible barriers that they will work on prettifying, if they ever have time. It would be like the ~~Known Issue Tracker~~ [Curated List of Some of the Interesting Issues We'd Like You to Know About](https://help.guildwars2.com/hc/en-us/articles/231272908-Known-Issue-Tracker), — it would be only a short list, not all the barriers. And it would acknowledge the possibility that they might never get around to addressing them. It might not change anything in the long run; I'd just feel better if they were upfront about how they decided to handle things.

[Solvar.7953]

I find invisible walls really annoying also. I can understand them in certain places (edge of the maps to contain the players, as the edges are arbitrary, and in cases where they were open, like water, you'd get a message saying you are pushed back).

But often, they are in places where there is no obvious reason for them. So I think "I can just hop over this hill to get to the other side", and then find I can't due to invisible walls.

I'd almost rather them be visible - perhaps mostly transparent. Call them magic residue fields or something. Just let me know they are there, so I don't try getting to someplace to find out it is blocked.

But really, IMO, all invisible walls (and no fly areas) within the designed playable map area should really just get removed. Who cares if something that was hard to get to is now easy? As long as teleport to a friend and mesmer portals are allowed, they are going to be easy to get to. The inconsistency here is actually really annoying. Today, the daily jumping puzzle was Dark Reverie jumping puzzle. With a mount, from outside, you could just jump to the final chest. But even within the puzzle, mounts were allowed, but gliding was not. So if you missed a jump and were not on a mount, you tended to fall to your death.

It would probably be easier for Anet to not put all those invisible walls in/no glide areas vs trying to figure them all out. There are other jumping puzzles which have no mount areas, but with a mount, you can get to a high point sort of near the puzzle (still outside the area), and then glide to the final chest.

The system as it is now is really just broken.

[Etterwyn.5263]

I've said it before... if I spent real money (can't get HOT or POF with gems or gold) to buy an xpac, I don't want to be limited by how I use its perks. Who cares if I can bunny-jump to the top of a 5-year old jumping puzzle? Anet can put new JP's in new maps that disallow mounts... or are made to use mounts in specific ways. That's fine.

 

But screw invisible walls in core Tyria maps.

[CharterforGw.3149]

Invisble barriers are a fast and easy way to block people from exploiting. Which is good. However. It can also be overdone. Which is the case with some of the barriers right now.