Why Exclusive Flying Mounts Will Destroy a PvP-Driven Game Long Term
I know this a long post, but I had made it much shorter then I had originally written, I wanted to make sure to get all my points across to reduce the back and forth needed.
In any PvP-focused game, balance is everything. It’s what makes competition fair, engaging, and worth investing time into. The moment one group of players is given a permanent advantage over others—like exclusive access to flying mounts—the game stops being about skill and strategy and starts being about who got lucky enough to be on the winning side first.
If history has taught us anything about PvP-driven games, it’s that when balance is ignored, players quit, economies crash, and the game dies.
1. PvP Balance is Like Chess—Everyone Needs a Fair Board
PvP games thrive when the playing field is level. Every battle, every war, every raid should be determined by skill, tactics, and teamwork. The moment you introduce an exclusive advantage—like flying mounts—you’ve essentially rigged the game before the fight even starts.
Imagine playing chess, but your opponent is allowed to use their queen and rooks while you can’t. Would you still want to play? Probably not. Because at that point, it’s not a game—it’s a guaranteed loss.
This is exactly what happens when only a few players or guilds gain access to flying mounts. The advantage isn’t minor—it completely rewrites how the game is played:
Faster travel – They can move across the map in a fraction of the time.
Resource control – They can farm materials without competition.
Unavoidable ambushes – They can drop from the sky at will, attacking players with no warning.
Exclusive access to key locations – They can bypass terrain barriers, forts, or dangerous zones.
Economic dominance – They can transport resources safely while ground players risk getting ganked.
In a PvP-driven game, where territory and power matter, mobility is king. Giving some players the ability to bypass everything that makes PvP challenging doesn’t just create an imbalance—it removes the entire point of fighting in the first place.
2. The Long-Term Impact: Guild Dictatorships & Player Exodus
When a select few can farm, fight, and control resources better than everyone else, you don’t get a competitive game—you get an unstoppable ruling class. Over time, this creates a dictatorship-like system where:
Smaller guilds can never catch up.
The “flying elite” monopolize major resources.
Warfare becomes pointless because the dominant guild can always outmaneuver everyone.
Eventually, regular players realize they have only two choices:
Submit and serve under the dominant guild (which is NOT fun in a game about competition).
Quit the game entirely.
And when players start quitting, the entire PvP ecosystem collapses. Wars become meaningless, the economy stagnates, and the only people left playing are the handful who were given unfair advantages in the first place.
This isn’t theoretical—it’s happened in countless MMOs and PvP games before. Imbalance always leads to server death.
3. The Power Creep of Flying Mounts
The issue with flying mounts isn’t just that they exist—it’s how they fundamentally change the game. These aren’t just “cool rewards for grinding.” They reshape every aspect of PvP:
Gathering & Farming Advantage – Flyers can freely collect resources while ground players fight for scraps.
Ganking & Unfair Engagements – Ground players are forced into fights they can’t avoid, while flyers pick and choose when to engage.
Unrestricted Mobility – They dictate when and where fights happen, while everyone else plays catch-up.
Trade & Market Control – They move materials safely while ground players risk ambushes, leading to economic monopolies.
What starts as a “cool reward” for a few turns into an unbeatable advantage that snowballs over time. No PvP game can survive when one group is always ahead.
4. The Alpha Test Paradox – The Azure Mines Comparison
Think back to New World’s closed alpha test, where guilds had to physically build walls around valuable resource nodes like the Azure Mines. They had to actively defend these locations and even pay a protection fee every 16 hours to keep control.
Now imagine trying to do that while another guild has flying mounts.
While your guild builds defenses, sets up patrols, and organizes 24/7 protection, the flying guild doesn’t have to do any of that. They can simply fly over, grab the resources, and leave without consequence. If there’s a server-wide limit on how many players can have flying mounts, and your guild isn’t one of them, you’re playing a completely different game—one you can never win.
That’s not strategy. That’s forced submission through game mechanics.
Balance or Bust
A PvP-driven game only survives when fights are fair and winnable by anyone with the right skill, strategy, and effort. The moment you give one group of players a permanent, exclusive advantage, you’ve broken that balance.
Flying mounts aren’t just a fun cosmetic or small perk—they are a game-breaking tool that allows a select few to dominate every aspect of gameplay. Over time, this leads to player frustration, server stagnation, and ultimately, a dying game.
If you want a PvP game to thrive, everyone must play by the same rules. Because once you start giving some players their queens and rooks while others are left with pawns, the game isn’t fun anymore—it’s already lost.
Bonus: Imagine Being a Streamer Trying to Cope with This
Now, let’s add another layer of suffering. Imagine being a PvP-focused streamer trying to play this game. It’s literally your job to entertain viewers, win fights, and showcase skill-based gameplay.
But instead, you’re stuck on the ground, trying to make content while some skyborne sweatlord flies in, steals your kills, ganks you from above, and disappears before you can do anything. Meanwhile, your chat is spamming “LOL SKILL ISSUE” as you try to explain that no, actually, this game is just broken.
At that point, what are you even grinding for? The entertainment factor disappears because every fight is predetermined by mount access. The content dries up because viewers only want to watch people with mounts dominating everyone else. And before long, even the streamers are forced to quit or cope harder than a Dark Souls player trying to parry a nuke.
PvP games live and die by balance. You can’t have competition without a fair battleground. Otherwise, it’s not a game anymore—it’s just one side flexing while the rest of us play NPCs in their power fantasy.
In closing.....
At the end of the day, we love this game. That’s why we care. That’s why we’re having this discussion in the first place. A great PvP game isn’t just about combat—it’s about the stories, rivalries, and moments that come from fair, hard-fought battles.
But for any game to thrive and last, it needs balance. Every legendary PvP game—whether it’s an MMO, an FPS, or a strategy game—survives because every player has an equal shot at victory.
Without balance, even the best-designed games lose their magic. If only a handful of players or guilds can ever truly compete, then what’s left for everyone else? The game stops being about PvP and starts being about waiting to get farmed. That’s when people leave, and that’s when the game dies.
The Bottom Line
We want this game to succeed. But for it to have true longevity, the competitive integrity has to be protected at all costs. Every major PvP game that has survived the test of time has done so because no single group of players is given an advantage so strong that others can never compete.
If flying mounts are introduced without serious balance considerations, limitations, or counterplay, then we won’t be looking at a thriving game years from now—we’ll be looking at another cautionary tale of how imbalance kills great games.
Please, I would love to hear others thoughts on this matter. Thanks for taking the time to read this.
