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Alpha Two Phase II testing is currently taking place five days each week. More information about testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Why Exclusive Flying Mounts Will Destroy a PvP-Driven Game Long Term
zbitango
Member, Alpha Two
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.
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.
3
Comments
As for Ashes of Creation, flying mounts are already highly restricted, and I recall Intrepid mentioning they were still considering further limitations—for example, allowing only mayors to fly exclusively within their own territory.
On one hand, allowing a mayor to have a flying mount adds a nice heroic fantasy touch. On the other hand, limiting these mounts to their specific territories or better balancing their use would be ideal.
I do, however, have a fond memory from Phase 2 when our caravan was attacked by bandits, and the mayor came to our aid from the skies along with reinforcements. It created a memorable and enjoyable moment.
Overall though, I share your opinion: flying mounts absolutely shouldn't become commonplace, as this would risk severely unbalancing numerous core features of the game.
Thanks for all this Investment and Time you put into this Opening Comment.
This is exactly actually why i am so excited and eagerly waiting to see what Sir Steven and his mighty Crew will all put into the Content known as " Node Wars/Sieges ".
We haven't even seen it yet, have we ? And that also means,
-> We haven't seen SIEGE Weapons/Vehicles/Towers/etc.
-> We haven't seen FLYING MOUNTS which either the Attackers or Defenders can hopefully apply, to launch Attacks from above onto the Enemy Forces.
-> We haven't seen Nodes around Level Four or above -> with functioning Walls to defend a Node with and from which Defenders can hopefully use Mechanics to attack back at the attacking Forces sieging their Node.
Actually there is still so much cool Content and Stuff that is not even yet in the Alpha. We have only seen a few Mechanics and Contents and only the Mayors have Access to flying Mounts right now - right ?
Not yet seen a cool Castle. Not yet seen a cool "King" or a "Queen" which also hopefully has a cool flying Mount. Until now we have seen only the Majors ... ...
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Maybe i look after a Guild sometime soon
Should be used to manage you vassals easier and call shots on your boarders in PvP no to do cross country across the map
Flying in Sieges=not bad/interesting gameplay that allows players to focus on leading the groups around to objectives
Flying literally anywhere else is garbage for the game. It allows for massive advantages in Open World PVP, and even huge advantages for getting around to different resources to gather quickly.
Gliding down from elevation can be fine within reason.
My understanding was that only guild or node leaders had access to flying mounts. So I fail to understand how anything you have said is applicable in any any.
You are speaking as if there will be squadrons of these flyers in a single group. From what I understand there will only be 1.
I’m confident that Intrepid will hit the nail on the head with this and monitor how things unfold and apply the necessary measures. It's fine, nobody should worry.
I would hope for solutions like this:
If a leader stays hovering above for unlimited time is not what I expect, just watching people for hours, I wouldn’t like that. I’d prefer to see him land eventually land so we can engage with him.
Ok?
You bring up a very well-thought-out argument, and I can tell you care deeply about the long-term health of the game. I respect that a lot. That said, I think it’s important to clarify how Ashes of Creation is handling flying mounts—because it’s not the usual MMO approach.
Flying mounts in Ashes are extremely limited by design.
They’re not widespread rewards, shop items, or progression perks. From what Intrepid has communicated over and over again:
Only mayors of metropolises and certain legendary event rewards will grant flying mounts.
Even then, the total number of flying mounts on a server will be incredibly small (think a dozen or less active at any time).
These mounts are tied to politics, prestige, and timed windows—not a permanent advantage anyone can just hold onto forever.
So the scenario you're describing—where a handful of players permanently dominate the map, gank from above, and ruin progression for others—doesn't really match the vision Intrepid is building toward.
This isn’t New World. It’s not BDO. Ashes is trying to do things differently, and part of that includes carefully managing power. The devs are very aware of how fragile PvP balance can be, and that’s why they’ve said flying will be a tool for prestige, not for combat superiority or farming advantage.
And hey, if something turns out broken in Alpha 2 or Beta, the community will make noise (like we always do) and they will adjust. That’s been the pattern so far.
At the end of the day, I think we're all on the same page:
We want Ashes to succeed.
We want a competitive, fair PvP experience.
And we want a world where effort and strategy matter—not just mount access.
Appreciate, zbitango.
Who are you?
And in group play specifically, having a flying mount guiding a fight from above in open world pvp is a massive advantage. As well as for scouting for caravans or for hostile groups hunting your caravans.
That’s true, I remember in AA players used dragon mounts in different ways too. Not just for travel or combat, but for scouting enemy movements, bomb diving into fights, etc.
A timed flight system like 5 minutes of flight followed by a 10-minute grounded rest period, could be a great way to preserve the prestige and utility of flying mounts without letting them dominate every aspect of PvP or scouting.
Edit: Wait, never mind, I've already done it for you, above.
You implied that everything I am referring to regarding the negative effects of a player having a flying mount is irrelevant because it somehow isnt related to group play, and I gave you examples of how it directly imbalances group play.
If they absolutely have to have them outside of siege events, I would say to make them unable to fly while being a combatant.
which get to ride smaller Mounts. The King or Mayor gets to ride a huge Dragon -> their Officers get something like five smaller Dragons, or Gryphons or so,
which have lesser Health and lesser Attacks to trouble Enemy Armies from above who either attack or defend a Node.
Imagine something like the Naz'gul at the Battle for Minas Tirith - but lesser destructive of Course as in that single Players on flying Mounts can not lay completely as much waste to whole Groups of Defenders or Attackers like the Nazgul flying Mounts could to the Defenders of Minas Tirith.
The only thing that i personally am always a bit afraid of -> is that there won't be enough flying Mounts so that in such epic Scenarios like for Example a Node Siege there will not be this epic as heck Battlefield where Enemies can even attack You from above.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Maybe i look after a Guild sometime soon
Spot on, I've ALWAYS enjoyed this and throughout all of the MMO's I've played over the years I prefer to explore thoroughly with my feet on the ground no matter how long it takes