Speculation: Jumping and gliding mechanics might actually be a big thing in Ashes

Nerror

I am basing this on the two guild skills currently in the alpha:

• Jump Training - Increases the jump strength of all guild members by: Rank 1 - 5%, Rank 2 - 10%, Rank 3 - probably 15%
• Glide Training - Increases the air control while falling & jumping of all guild members by: 10%, 20% and probably 30% for rank 3.

The other known guild skills are harvesting speed, health regen and mana regen, all likely to be at 5%, 10%, and 15% depending on rank. The benefits of these 3 skills, especially the health and mana regens, are immediately recognizable. I can see harvesting speed being very useful in some situations as well. But jumping or gliding skills?

I see two possibilities here.

1. The devs ran out of ideas for guild skills and just added those two as filler.
2. We are going to be getting a lot of content where these skills are useful, if they are to compete in viability with the other guild skills which are always useful.

The first option seems unlikely to me. If it turns out to be true anyway, I hope they change them before release.

Next we have the tier 2 mounts aka Gliding/Jumping mounts. I have no idea if the guild skill bonuses will be in effect while mounted, but I assume they will.

Steven wrote this in 2017:

True flight is restricted to dragons for mayors and kings. Other mounts will have wings and hover close to the ground.
Winged mounts will fly of course. But will only fly slightly above the ground

And said this in 2019 in a livestream:

Then there will be tier 2 types of mounts, which will have either some type of jump or glide feature that everybody can use

So my question is, why put all that effort into tier 2 mounts and guild skills if it won't be mechanically important in the game?

Here is where my imagination starts going wild. We've already seen small quest related jump puzzles in the game. I assume we'll be getting a lot more, and perhaps even some where a tier 2 mount is required. Perhaps with two paths to complete it, depending on if it's a jumping or gliding tier 2 mount.

If Glide Training affects gliding mounts, how exactly? Turn speed while gliding? Perhaps they are able to stay airborne for longer when they jump from high places, before they reach hover-status above the ground. Are we going to get special areas that are only accessible using tier 2+ mounts, with high level monsters and resources perhaps? Making it an endgame goal kinda thing to get one.

I can see some PvP siege uses as well. Like rolling a siege tower close to the outer wall, mounting up and jumping straight over it and into the courtyard. Learn this one trick Defenders hate! And vice versa really. Glide from the castle tower past the walls and the attacker's front line and hit their back lines.

These are the things I ponder, while the servers are down.