What's the point of flying half a year away from now?

[Dhrizzle]

Actually, he's making a very logical comparison in order to point out the flaws in your argument. The claim is that flying skips content. The point being made is that there are other things which also skip content. Why is one thing that skips content ok, but other things which skip content not ok?

If your stance is that it's acceptable practice to prevent players from skipping or bypassing content, then why allow any form of skipping at all?

I'm tired of explaining this but flight-paths and gliders function very differently to flying mounts. You also need to learn how to not just think of extremes. If Blizzard say a certain level of convenience is too much that is different to saying that all forms of convenience ever are bad.

I think most players would agree that an ability which could one-shot any raid boss would be a bad idea, but that doesn't mean that all damage causing abilities are bad. The former is merely an example of too much damage, which is what makes it bad. That is not saying that any damage is bad.

[clevin]

I think it's the pro-flying being whiny little children. Just stop playing or stop complaining, for the love of all things, just shut up about it already.

No. Or rather, if it bothers you get the fuck out of this thread. See how that works? We each have the right to talk about issues from our own points of view. Neither of us really has the right to tell someone else what they should do.

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Incidentally for all of you who hate flight and have been saying how you'll quit if it comes back? Bye. Because it's back in 7.2 and I fully expect you all to man up and quit. You will, right? RIGHT??

[Dormie]

You realize that I've been pushing for 'Restrict flight, not remove it' this entire time right?

Me too. I don't have a problem with the mechanic of flying. I just think the idea of lifting off from anywhere is ridiculous. Our toons do not have wings on their back yet we play like they do.

There's a difference between skipping content and making it more efficient. You shouldn't be able to skip the world in WORLD of warcraft. Flying from Dal to Highmountain you already skip 95% of what you pass. I would think that, in addition to flight whistle, hearths, and gliders would be enough.

We both know that it IS enough. But people can't stop there. Flying is too OP and that's why people want it. There's no comparison.

Flying essentially makes you non-local.

[clevin]

Me too. I don't have a problem with the mechanic of flying. I just think the idea of lifting off from anywhere is ridiculous. Our toons do not have wings on their back yet we play like they do.

There's a difference between skipping content and making it more efficient. You shouldn't be able to skip the world in WORLD of warcraft. Flying from Dal to Highmountain you already skip 95% of what you pass. I would think that, in addition to flight whistle, hearths, and gliders would be enough.

We both know that it IS enough. But people can't stop there. Flying is too OP and that's why people want it. There's no comparison.

Flying essentially makes you non-local.

AND YET... the game was fine during the almost 8 years we could fly. It had the highest number of subs it ever has so it's very unlikely that flight kept anyone from playing. All of the BS around restrictions is just that. We had flight for much of the life of the game. We've gotten nothing unique during WoD or Legion so far, nothing that makes me go "Wow, that's cool and I can see how they could only do that if we couldn't fly."

Bottom line, the team can of course do what they want but they'll always get flack for it because they don't have any good reason aside from 'the team likes it' for removing or delaying flight. They're even too lazy for Pathfinder to be related to the reason we can't fly - the reps etc have no connection to an in game explanation for why we can't fly.

Dont want to fly? Don't. Feel you have to for gathering etc? Well then your anti-flight stance isn't as strong as your "but I want to mine" desire, is it?

[Thimagryn]

TL~DR theories along the lines of "They're only doing it because [nefarious scheme to save or make more money]" don't hold up when you look at what is actually happening in the game

If you think it's a nefarious scheme, you're jumping conclusions in what is an absolutely objective view that I'm pushing. If a surgeon has to cut off your leg because it's gangrene, then that's what has to be done. You call the act of 'cutting off your leg' nefarious, but that's not how I see it. Flight is being removed out of necessity of design. But you know what? We have alternatives to having to amputate that are left unexplored; it's just easier for Blizzard to cut the infected limb rather than spend resources to improving the conditions and prevent it from being a problem. I think that if that leg can be saved, then all options should be explored before. It's surprising to me that so many people are pro-removal without looking for any alternative solutions.

This is especially the case when Blizzard is intentionally designing pants with only one leg and making it seem like having two legs is problematic to their design, when every previous expansion has been pants with two legs. But hey, if the new pants fit better and are made of higher quality material, who cares if you're losing a leg!

It's not like we can't have two-legged pants that also fit better and are made of high quality material.....

I think the main reason to not speed up progression is the overall negative response to WoD

Valid opinion.

All I'll say is WoD had its own host of problems that were not improved nor impacted by flight. IMO its flaws were completely centered around its glaring lack of content. Flight didn't change how WoD performed whatsoever. The content remains the same reputation grind/resource farming quests that we've always had. Garrisons added to that problem and destroyed a lot of reason to be out in the world. Flight neither harmed nor solved anything. We even have clear data that only a fraction of the player base even completed Pathfinder.

I sincerely doubt you spend 90% of your play time on flight paths, you can get from anywhere to anywhere else in a few minutes on the Broken Isles.

I said travel, not playtime. 90% of your travel is spend on flight paths because the content is usually situated in one area that you complete on foot. If your intention is to do a world quest, you're going to take fastest routes into the world. Flight Paths skip all the mobs between your starting point and the questing area. Using your argument of 'travel is content', should we remove flight paths too because 'you can get from anywhere to anywhere else in a few minutes'?

Well I do consider traveling (i.e. "The World" in "World of Warcraft") to be part of the content, otherwise they might as well just give us a target dummy that dispenses rewards as you do damage to it.

Which is an excuse for bad content and bad design. In regards to that example, two wrongs don't make a right.

[Dormie]

AND YET... the game was fine during the almost 8 years we could fly.

The game has been "fine" during every phase of WoW. It doesn't mean everything was working.

As for an in game reason why we can't fly...meh. There's 100s of things in WoW like that, don't cherrypick.

[SirCowdog]

It's a terrible argument which should be apparent to anyone taking 5 seconds to think about it. When people say skipping content is bad they're referring to flying mounts and assuming everyone knows the way one would skip content with a flying mount.

I made this a while ago. Red is the world you interact with with flying mounts, blue is with a flight path:

There really isn't anything else to say. Flying mounts only take you part of the way to fixed locations, not anywhere you want for an indefinite time. Gliders only let you skip downhill parts only AFTER you've made your way to a good takeoff place, and they have cooldowns.

Flying mounts let you lift off from anywhere for any amount of time and drop anywhere. It's completely OP. I will say the flight path whistle on a 5 min CD is a bit OP as well.

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"skipping content" isn't a big deal. Skipping all the content with no restrictions is. With something like a glider you're actually earning the right to skip that bit of content by being in a good place to use it in addition to actually using the glider well (not hitting mountains or anything).

So your entire argument boils down to a personal determination of when(or not) skipping content is personally acceptable. Skipping content on the way to a quest area is ok by you because the area between flight path points isn't relevant to you, personally. But suddenly, when you think content is relevant, skipping it isn't ok any more.

You personally find it acceptable to skip content with a glider because there happened to be a high-point where you can take off from. Again, completely arbitrary.

You personally find it acceptable to skip content when there's a cooldown on the tool that allows you to skip. All that's doing is making skipping content tedious. It doesn't actually prevent it. If I so chose, I could simply sit around and wait for my cooldown to expire and proceed.

And you're overstating the power of flight, which can not actually be used in any situation(indoor areas, in-combat), nor can you actually complete objectives while mounted. You have to dismount first. Mounts do not kill quest mobs, click objects, or gather items for you. There are also plenty of quests which require a player to use a vehicle, or go indoors, or operate in a phase/instance, or some other tool which precludes the use of a flying mount. And the quests which do not have such restrictions can often by circumvented by other non-flight means.

This all boils down to your personal dislike for flying. That's fine. You can play how you want. But don't sit here and try to tell me that the way I want to play is invalid because of YOUR personal preferences.

[Dormie]

So your entire argument boils down to a personal determination of when(or not) skipping content is personally acceptable. Skipping content on the way to a quest area is ok by you because the area between flight path points isn't relevant to you, personally. But suddenly, when you think content is relevant, skipping it isn't ok any more.

You personally find it acceptable to skip content with a glider because there happened to be a high-point where you can take off from. Again, completely arbitrary.

You personally find it acceptable to skip content when there's a cooldown on the tool that allows you to skip. All that's doing is making skipping content tedious. It doesn't actually prevent it. If I so chose, I could simply sit around and wait for my cooldown to expire and proceed.

And you're overstating the power of flight, which can not actually be used in any situation(indoor areas, in-combat), nor can you actually complete objectives while mounted. You have to dismount first. Mounts do not kill quest mobs, click objects, or gather items for you. There are also plenty of quests which require a player to use a vehicle, or go indoors, or operate in a phase/instance, or some other tool which precludes the use of a flying mount. And the quests which do not have such restrictions can often by circumvented by other non-flight means.

This all boils down to your personal dislike for flying. That's fine. You can play how you want. But don't sit here and try to tell me that the way I want to play is invalid because of YOUR personal preferences.

Aww, good try. I'm talking about game balance not personal preference.
I always feel bad when people type a lot at me. Unless you insist, keep it to a few sentences, I'll read it but I won't match 2-3 paragraphs.
When I get a second breath of care I'll respond.

[Daffan]

If World Content wasn't such trivial netflix-level garbage, I'd be against flying mounts.

But because it is trivial garbage, I don't care if they are added or not.

[SirCowdog]

Aww, good try. I'm talking about game balance not personal preference.
I always feel bad when people type a lot at me. Unless you insist, keep it to a few sentences, I'll read it but I won't match 2-3 paragraphs.
When I get a second breath of care I'll respond.

WHAT game balance? As has already been established, the open world can already be unbalanced and/or bypassed by multiple different methods even without flying. If your entire argument is based on game balance when game balance already doesn't exist, then it's no wonder you don't have anything to say.

[Thimagryn]

Aww, good try. I'm talking about game balance not personal preference.
I always feel bad when people type a lot at me. Unless you insist, keep it to a few sentences, I'll read it but I won't match 2-3 paragraphs.
When I get a second breath of care I'll respond.

Talking about the balance of distance/travel methods between flight paths and intended goals is splitting hairs. It's such an insignificant factor that you might as well be talking about the balance between having 5 more haste or 5 more crit.

Here we are talking about the grand fate of flight, and you're worried about flight being too effective compared to goblin gliders as a reason to keep flight out of the game. Good job.

[Deleted]

There's a difference between skipping content and making it more efficient. You shouldn't be able to skip the world in WORLD of warcraft. Flying from Dal to Highmountain you already skip 95% of what you pass. I would think that, in addition to flight whistle, hearths, and gliders would be enough.

Except ALL of the things you named are less interactive and more skipping often including loading screens. Whistle is the most "skip" mechanic there is alongside breaking immersion far more than flying does. Flight paths are effectively automated flying that people can't interact with and tab out for and so on. Flying makes things more efficient, the other mechanics you named let you outright skip stuff with no interaction on your part.

We both know that it IS enough. But people can't stop there. Flying is too OP and that's why people want it. There's no comparison.

4 claims in a single sentence all of whom are based on nothing but your personal opinion yet presented as facts. No, just no.

Flying essentially makes you non-local.

And this, doesn't even make sense as an argument.

[Thimagryn]

Flying is too OP and that's why people want it. There's no comparison.

There is a comparison. Raid gear and its affect on all other content.

The game is all about becoming OP. I don't know why you're so adamant in thinking there is some sort of balance that needs to be maintained when all the challenge of world content is made irrelevant the moment you obtain your first few pieces of epic gear. If we're talking about world content, then there's no problem with being OP.

[Dalistar]

Yeah the problem is world/daily quests are an outdated boring concept. Flying would just make it more bearable but the real problem is the concept of doing the same set of quests every day/week.

Fun fact : there were no daily quests in vanilla.

There was no flying in vanilla for that matter.

[Lane]

The bigger issue is that "content" (used loosely) is not meaningful in WoW. Travel is not meaningful, killing trash (especially in open world) is not meaningful, therefore "skipping" things that have no meaning doesn't seem like a big deal (and ultimately isn't). Unfortunately, that's a much bigger problem to solve than simply enabling flying.

I would love for the world of WoW to not be completely dead outside of questing or for there to actually be things I'd miss if I flew over them, but that's not how the game is designed. Flying moderately reduces the amount of time players waste getting to actual content.

[WowIsDead64]

7.2 PTR is here and there is a chance, that flying will be here very soon. What do you think? Is it worth buying Legion to return in 7.2? I don't know. First of all, I don't want to do it, cuz in this case Blizzard will get my money anyway, despite of delaying flying - they should be punished for doing it. I think it's better to get Legion for free, when next xpack will be released. Second thing - currently we don't know anything about design of outdoor content. Will it have right design or design will be the same crap, as it's now? Pet Battle crowd gets it's own solo dungeon. Crap... Why can't quest-driven RPers finally get their own solo dungeon, so they will be able to finally escape from forced pseudo-PVP competition crap? Such dungeon - is one of these things, I would give flying up for.

[Sencha]

There was no flying in vanilla for that matter.

Thank you captain obvious.

[rda]

7.2 PTR is here and there is a chance, that flying will be here very soon. What do you think? Is it worth buying Legion to return in 7.2? I don't know.

Regardless of flying, a bit of personal experience: I returned to WoW just after Blizzcon on the wings of seemingly good news. I wish I didn't return. Little content, again (well, tons of rehashed difficulties). My mainstay, PVP is ruined worse than it ever was. Now, you might not be into PVP, but just pick the thing you care about the most and, chances are, you are going to see it being pretty meh and quite possibly ruined in some patch, maybe even in 7.2.

Sum total, if you do return, don't think about that as returning for real. Think about it as visiting in order to stay a month or maybe several months. Don't invest too much.

[tyrs ankle]

I kind of agree. Same with the queable kara/CoS/arcway. Why not just put it in 7.1.5 so we actually have some more content to do via alts etc? Everyone seems to be getting tired with current content it would've been nice to add little QoL things to 7.1.5 even flying.

Who is "everyone?"

There are M 0 arc/cos groups up basically 24/7.

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Regardless of flying, a bit of personal experience: I returned to WoW just after Blizzcon on the wings of seemingly good news. I wish I didn't return. Little content, again (well, tons of rehashed difficulties). My mainstay, PVP is ruined worse than it ever was. Now, you might not be into PVP, but just pick the thing you care about the most and, chances are, you are going to see it being pretty meh and quite possibly ruined in some patch, maybe even in 7.2.

Sum total, if you do return, don't think about that as returning for real. Think about it as visiting in order to stay a month or maybe several months. Don't invest too much.

"Little content"

[tyrs ankle]

Everyone i've seen =)

Are you truly not "burned out" with content?

No, because I know how to pace myself and I'm not dumb about it.

I haven't done nighthold yet, but I do 5+ 7 or higher keys a day, and I do wqs on my current toon/alts whenever they have 3 satchels up. If I don't feel like playing for a day, I don't. Burnout comes from "obligations" and doing things you don't want to do, more than anything.