No flying in 7.0 confirmed

[Connll]

WoD's failings were not due to flight alone.

Absolutely true.

The most common outlier to WoD's failings are lack of content and fatigue over existing content. The addition of flight to WoD did not save it either.

Also true, but incomplete. As you are a relative newcomer to this thread, I believe that a bit of clarification is in order:
When pro-fliers in general complain about WoD and flight, it isn´t only flight, but the collective problems that made WoD what it is: (lack of content, developer attitude, etc,etc).

I have even coined a term for all of the things that made WoD... WoD. The "WoD Doctrine"

It's also not logical to say the game will be better if they don't repeat WoD's formula, when the obvious factors contributing to WoD's downfall had less to do with the formula and more to do with the execution.

Wrong and wrong.

Their execution went exactly as they planned to. The reception of the public... not so much.

[Lei]

Cataclysm completely redid the 1-60 leveling experience.

That may be good or bad but gentle? No.

Maybe I didn't express myself the right way. By gentle I meant that their decisions were logical, and consequent. Cataclysm revamp has had both lore reason and game design reason.
The quests in vanilla were all over the place. You were done with Westfall, but Redridge had these red mobs, and most of the zones had only a few quests. Either you did dungeons, or you grinded. The quest flow was terrible.

[Dhrizzle]

How many times have anyone offered anything that you would not a) ignore, b) make a strawman out of it, or c) leave for a few days and then bring the exact same questions as before like nothing happened? Like you are doing now?

Here's what tends to happen. Someone will make an outrageous claim like "Blizz had to revert their stance because millions left citing no-flying." I point out that we have no way of knowing that and there were a lot of factors that went into people leaving during WoD. The someone then makes some sort of insult to my intelligence because them and their friends all left for that reason so it must be true. A few days later either the same or a different someone makes the same point, I give the same reply and we go 'round the circle again.

Extremely unlikely: The most probable option is that the many players who don´t frequent forums were still believing the lie (Flight is coming! With an epic questline!)

So like I said, people were happy to wait for flight to be unlocked later in the expansion through some sort of activity and only complained when the policy changed to "no flight ever." Like I keep pointing out, those are the people who Pathfinder works for and who usually get called "anti-fliers" for being happy having ground-based content at the start of the expansion.

Lets ignore for a moment the number of times the current devs were bullshitting about this issue. Lets pretend they are sincerely, honestly, trying to make the game better for the greatest number of players possible.

Their experiment failed. WoD failed. Somehow, WoD managed to not only dethrone Cata as the worst expansion, but has actually done something remarkable: it got players to reach a consensus about it being the worst expack.

Were the devs tryign to make the game better, they would not repeat WoD´s formula.

This is not what is happening, and, as such, making all arguments "Blizzard wants/intends/predicts/whatever" invalid.

For the most part they aren't repeating WoD's formula. WoD's biggest issue was the lack of incentive to complete any of the content more than a couple of times (if that.) Apexis zones felt largely pointless and you got everything you needed from heroics after a couple of runs each.

They are keeping LFR and they are keeping no-flight, two things that get complained a lot on the forums and decried as "failures," but apparently from Blizz's position they are successful enough to keep in the game.

[Thimagryn]

I have even coined a term for all of the things that made WoD... WoD. The "WoD Doctrine"

Does the WoD doctrine include the continued hatred for LFR, pandarens, paid transmogs and crossrealm issues?

I generally avoid taking 'collective problems born out of forum echochambers' seriously. Issues need to be addressed on a per-problem basis.

Their execution went exactly as they planned to. The reception of the public... not so much.

Well, I was thinking in terms of content release and pacing. WoD was supposed to be a 1 year expansion, and the fact that everything was so drawn out lead to an easy fatigue of current features and a yearning for more content which simply didn't exist. Like many complaints about the world were made, there was simply nothing to do after you found all the treasures or did all the quests. That's a far cry from their original pitch of making Draenor more like an open-world version of Timeless Isles. To me, that was what they communicated as their vision. I don't think they executed it the way they wanted to.

[Dhrizzle]

Ahem, to be fair, Blizz was always very gentle to the game till... I would say MoP. But with and after WoD, jeez, abilities being ripped out from the game after just one expansion, brutal changes to the game being handled like it was number tuning. Remember when GC (I think) said that even things like fuckign Pet Battles took them months and months to think about? Because once they implement it, and it fails, it's their responsibility and it will let people down. They had to be be ABSOLUTELY SURE that they will continue on with Pet Battles before putting it in. Nowadays? JUST RIP EVERYTHING OUT! Here goes stormlash, cascade, aspect of the fox, which we just put in 3-4 months ago, etc. Wow...
So this "we change everything radically from monday to tuesday " is a new thing, and I don't like it at all. I just hope this is not a trend now, but seemingly this is how the devs think these days... :=/

Where is the dev responsibility nowadays? Where is the empathy, knowing that sudden and radical changes like I mentioned above alienate the players? The game can have the most content, the most raids, if the players are losing touch with the game. And flying is in the same bucket.

Blizz have not been gentle. Raids saw massive changes between Vanilla and TBC as the standard sizes were changed from 20/40 to 15/25, then WotLK made it so instead of separate sized raids all of them will have 10 and 25 modes. The philosophy of heroic 5-mans changed drastically between TBC, WotLK and Cata before reverting to the Wrath model in MoP. Cata absolutely gutted talent trees before MoP removed them altogether. The changes to tanking are a particular sore point for me as I never enjoyed it as much after we went to AoE tanking in WotLK. There's also been a lot of upheaval with the roles the various specs fit into, starting with TBC deciding everyone should fit into tank, heals or DPS roles and continuing with the various tweaks to utility and "hybrid taxes."

[-Joker-]

Ashran was an end game world PVP zone......
How can you forget that? It wasn't even a year ago.

I haven't forgotten, but you are obviously not recalling what your statement was. So allow me:

Ive played plenty of druid in the past. And flight form cant be used in combat. Maybe you're mis-remembering that part.

So, again, did you have a list of those questing mechanics exploited by flying or what? You're starting to sound as bad as the "Flying ruined world PvP" guys.

Flight didn't ruin PvP. In fact, for one class, it was ADDED to PvP. I happen to be pro-flight, but I am also pro-common sense and anti-complaints.

[Dhrizzle]

The thing is, I kind of understand where they're coming from. Subs had been slowly declining over the years, and they felt something was needed in order to prop the game up again. One radical change was the attempt to crank out expansions every year. As a result of that they were forced to cut corner after corner. What better way to do that than to attempt to streamline and simplify everything? Removing abilities was one side effect of that. Simplifying their quest formula and encounter design was another. Without flight their quest design could be sped up because they wouldn't have to consider the air component at all.

I think it was a horrible mistake. But for some reason they're sticking to it despite the negative reaction to it in WoD, and continuing to a lesser degree, in Legion. Unfortunately, if players don't like no-flying they're still giving implied approval of it if they don't unsub because that's the only feedback blizzard appears to actually consider. They might like other parts of the game enough to keep playing, but by doing so they're assumed to endorse the entire package because, once again, the only effective feedback is to unsub.

I still think you've got this backwards. Very few daily quests seemed to pay much mind to the flight component, instead it seemed to allow the devs to get away with just plopping a bunch of mobs down as players would be able to hop between them. Some areas in MoP didn't even have paths leading up to them.

WoD's Apexis zones, whilst unpopular, showed a lot more attention to detail than any of the flight-allowed daily zones as they worked like mini-puzzles that encouraged the player to find the most efficient way to kill/collect/use things to complete the objective. For the most part in previous expansions I've stopped doing daily quests once I've got what I want from them (with MoP I quit before.) With WoD's Apexis zones I'd do them despite them offering no rewards I wanted.

[-Joker-]

Which is why I've suggested several times that both the core mechanics of flying needs to be updated for the first time since its introduction in TBC, as well as using mechanics such as have been discussed(canons, flying enemies, harpoons, weather effects, etc.).

Nothing is going to stop a player who is determined to find a way to avoid some mechanics. Singling out one single game mechanic as the scapegoat for all the problems in the game is just being willfully ignorant and stupid, however. Part of the problem is that flight is too powerful relative to other abilities. So either change flight to bring it in line, or change the environment which flight is used in.

Blizz said on more than one occasion they won't add in any mechanics, existing or otherwise.

Bashiok's Response to Surface to Air mechanics

We've tried that quite a few times, it's really just a symptom of how the game mechanics function that most of our forays into dangerous flight just feel really bad. On one hand they feel unnecessarily harsh because there's only a few things you can really do to someone while they're flying and they generally deal with stuns/slows/dismounts, and on the other hand there's just no fun gameplay that can really be had there. The best gameplay is at ground level because that's the basis for the design of our game's combat systems. We'd toyed with mounted/flying combat in the past but that could almost be a totally separate game on its own, and probably gets us too far away from what WoW is.

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That's how I geared full PVP gear as soon as I hit max level. That book is amazing, and I didn't get killed once in the entire zone for a good 3 hour run. It was the best way to do the elephant race too, you could literally disengage if the other faction was swarming in for a fight.

I also used it to get to some of the bosses as soon as they spawned. Fly up to their area and divebomb in bear form. Tag, tank and kill.

Sounds like something I did as well. Never thought I would see the day when flight was permitted during PvP

[Dhrizzle]

Well, I was thinking in terms of content release and pacing. WoD was supposed to be a 1 year expansion, and the fact that everything was so drawn out lead to an easy fatigue of current features and a yearning for more content which simply didn't exist. Like many complaints about the world were made, there was simply nothing to do after you found all the treasures or did all the quests. That's a far cry from their original pitch of making Draenor more like an open-world version of Timeless Isles. To me, that was what they communicated as their vision. I don't think they executed it the way they wanted to.

Personally I think one of WoD's biggest problems was underusing the content that was there (probably overcompensating for complaints about MoP.) The dozen or so Apexis zones would easily give any other expansion's dailies a run for their money, but Blizz restricted them to one a day with crappy rewards. Similarly the heroic dungeons were a lot more interesting than MoP's, but with no system like Valour players could run them a couple of times and have no reason to go back.

[Connll]

Here's what tends to happen. Someone will make an outrageous claim like "Blizz had to revert their stance because millions left citing no-flying." I point out that we have no way of knowing that and there were a lot of factors that went into people leaving during WoD. The someone then makes some sort of insult to my intelligence because them and their friends all left for that reason so it must be true. A few days later either the same or a different someone makes the same point, I give the same reply and we go 'round the circle again.

See? You went straight to option b)

So like I said, people were happy to wait for flight to be unlocked later in the expansion through some sort of activity and only complained when the policy changed to "no flight ever."

Giving the devs the benefit of the doubt is not the same as being happy

Like I keep pointing out, those are the people who Pathfinder works for and who usually get called "anti-fliers" for being happy having ground-based content at the start of the expansion.

Yep. they´re so happy having ground-based content, but SO HAPPY, that they need to be forced to be on the ground.

They also want everyone to be forced to be in the ground as well, because misery loves company

For the most part they aren't repeating WoD's formula.

They are.

WoD's biggest issue was the lack of incentive to complete any of the content more than a couple of times (if that.) Apexis zones felt largely pointless and you got everything you needed from heroics after a couple of runs each.

One of the many issues, yes. The biggest? Hardly.

They are keeping LFR and they are keeping no-flight, two things that get complained a lot on the forums and decried as "failures," but apparently from Blizz's position they are successful enough to keep in the game.

Yet LFR helped bring a lot more casual players.
No-flight helped to drive them out.
Try again.

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Does the WoD doctrine include the continued hatred for LFR, pandarens, paid transmogs and crossrealm issues?

And what any of those had to do with WoD?

I generally avoid taking 'collective problems born out of forum echochambers' seriously. Issues need to be addressed on a per-problem basis.

When those problems are isolated, yes. When they are interlocked in a vicous cycle, giving each other reinforcing feedback, no.

Well, I was thinking in terms of content release and pacing. WoD was supposed to be a 1 year expansion, and the fact that everything was so drawn out lead to an easy fatigue of current features and a yearning for more content which simply didn't exist. Like many complaints about the world were made, there was simply nothing to do after you found all the treasures or did all the quests. That's a far cry from their original pitch of making Draenor more like an open-world version of Timeless Isles. To me, that was what they communicated as their vision. I don't think they executed it the way they wanted to.

Lets pretend that it was exactly what the devs tried to do.

They failed so hard on this, delivered so little, and tried so hard to implement gimmicks in order to make the world not look so small, and the content so little, that it cannot be blamed on execution.

Its is always a good idea to NOT attribute malice to issues that can be adequately described by stupidity. WoD, however, can´t be explained by stupidity alone. That, and the behavior of the devs towards the community before, during, and after WoD´s development, is a very strong evidence that what happened, happened as they wanted it to happen. With a few exceptions, of course. (Flight, for isntance)

[MoanaLisa]

But that's fine, he wanted to give it a shot anyway, and it went so poorly into the trainwreck of WoD that we'll never be able to tell how players really felt about it on the large scale. And now we're still not being given a choice in the matter.

Warlords was a trainwreck. I'm OK with that. Was it because of flying? Maybe for you. By the time I quit there was nothing to fly to.

I wouldn't be nearly so against No-flying if pathfinder wasn't such a steaming pile of shit covered by a thin layer of silk surrounded by fanatics making excuses for it.

Ranting never wins arguments.

[Deleted]

See? You went straight to option b)

Lets make this simple.

Do you have any proof that it was people unsubbiing that caused Blizz to revert to "flight eventually in WoD" or not?

[rebecca191]

We all have real life responsibilities in one way or another. I am simply stating, if having flight is your preferred playstyle, you are better off not buying or subbing until it is added. At this point, you are not adding anything constructive, but simply repeating the same tired excuses of why you can't do it, and 7M other people can. I love flight too, but not enough to ruin my experience.

Well, I'm not subbed, have not purchased Legion, only played beta (because it was free). And I have the right to express my disappointment that content that would otherwise be fun to me is so ruined by the lack of flight that I can't even stand to play the game.

[Connll]

Lets make this simple.

Do you have any proof that it was people unsubbiing that caused Blizz to revert to "flight eventually in WoD" or not?

Nothing the likes of you would accept as proof or even evidence.

[SirCowdog]

What makes Pathfinder a "steaming pile of shit" to you?

Its a list of objectives to complete, meaning you have to actually play the game and complete content in order to open it up. To me, thats a pretty good deal.

---> Blizz provides content

---> Blizz rewards you for doing said content

---> Everybody wins.

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, even knowing that this question has been answered a million times already.

Pathfinder is bad because it locks flight behind virtually everything you would use flight on. In terms of rewards, it's probably one of the worst returns on time invested outside of something like the title of "The Insane".

Even in its current form under pathfinder flight manages to have less value than it did in WoD. Its primary utility of leveling alts is greatly mitigated by the least alt-friendly environment of any expansion to date.

Everybody wins? Hardly. The only people winning here is Blizzard because they've managed to get people to chase a carrot with almost no practical value, while accomplishing all the goals of removing flight entirely.

[Thimagryn]

And what any of those had to do with WoD?

Nothing to do with WoD, everything to illustrate what a 'collective of problems' really is. Collective issues are anecdotal at best, and can't be addressed legitimately, even if substantiated by many people experiencing the same thing. It's simply one of the consistent problems of discussing problems in an enthusiast forum like this - issues are amplified and disproportionate to their actual impact.

Is LFR a problem that needs to be avoided to bring WoW back into glory? Or paid transmogs?

Lets pretend that it was exactly what the devs tried to do.

They failed so hard on this, delivered so little, and tried so hard to implement gimmicks in order to make the world not look so small, and the content so little, that it cannot be blamed on execution.

Its is always a good idea to NOT attribute malice to issues that can be adequately described by stupidity. WoD, however, can´t be explained by stupidity alone. That, and the behavior of the devs towards the community before, during, and after WoD´s development, is a very strong evidence that what happened, happened as they wanted it to happen. With a few exceptions, of course. (Flight, for isntance)

In the broadstrokes of that statement, I agree. I still think that they were, for whatever reasons they had, were unable to provide content that was necessary to sustain WoD's initial momentum. I still don't believe that is a failing of the formula or their intended direction (aside from permanent no-flight).

[SirCowdog]

WoD's failings were not due to flight alone. The most common outlier to WoD's failings are lack of content and fatigue over existing content.

Fatigue which flight helps to mitigate via convenience. While Legion has better execution, the fatigue of repeating WQs is already setting in for some players. What will it be like if we go more than a month or two without new content to keep people distracted?

In this regard flight is beneficial to the game.

[Deleted]

Nothing the likes of you would accept as proof or even evidence.

If its proof I'm man enough to accept it, its sounds fascinating so please, lets see the insider information you have.

[-Joker-]

Well, I'm not subbed, have not purchased Legion, only played beta (because it was free). And I have the right to express my disappointment that content that would otherwise be fun to me is so ruined by the lack of flight that I can't even stand to play the game.

Sorry to hear about your disappointment, but if you don't vote you can't complain about the election. Same thing with WoW. Would be like me complaining about how fun Camaros used to be, when I don't even own a Chevy, but recently took a test drive.

[MoanaLisa]

Fatigue which flight helps to mitigate via convenience. While Legion has better execution, the fatigue of repeating WQs is already setting in for some players. What will it be like if we go more than a month or two without new content to keep people distracted?

In this regard flight is beneficial to the game.

It cannot be beneficial to the game and a mechanism to extend the life of content at the same time, both of which you've claimed repeatedly.

If the primary impact of flight is to allow people to do more world quests faster and thus burn out more quickly or to finish up and unsubscribe more quickly it's difficult to see how that's beneficial to the game.