Blizzard have effectively gotten rid of flying

[SirCowdog]

Well at least you guys are spending your time protecting all that non-challenging content instead of something worthwhile like picking your nose. Lets see today I had some daily quest to kill 8 moths and collect 10 manawyrms, I used flight point to get from Dalaran to the Flightpoint in Suramar just north of the daily. I mounted up and ran through every single aggressive mob in my path. Eventually they rubber banded back to where they usually are. I ran to the city and didn't bother to put on my costume, I just dragged everything to the Manaworms, then I aoe'd down everything that didn't rubberband with 4 casts, never took more than 10% damage. (warlock), then I collected my worms. Then I ran without costume to the moths, tagged and killed 4 moths at a time. Then I whistled back to my flight point.

Thank God you anti-Flight guys are here to preserve that amazing and complicated open world content. *rolls eyes*

There is no challenge in open world content, if you think there is then you shouldn't try anything like normal dungeons.

Can't tell if serious. Was this post targeted at me, or more of a generalized statement?

You're right, not everyone whines, I suppose. Perhaps I've just seen more than my fair share of "not playing til flying is in the game, gg blizz" which, to me, doesn't warrant much discussion. You, on the other hand, have made articulated, reasonable assertions that it doesn't truly have a negative impact. I personally enjoy the immersion of the nuance of ground travel. Call me crazy, but I relish in the feeling that I am in another world. It makes the world feel less accessible, and as a result, more of an actual world. That feeling is what I love about MMOs -- the vastness of the world and all the things to do within it. I believe flying takes away from that, but that is just MY stance.

Well, to be completely fair, the way Blizzard has handled the response to no-flying, a lot of players really do feel like the only way to make their voice heard is to speak with their wallet.

But you're right in that I'm trying to push for content design which will give players a real choice. If they want to enjoy the grounded experience, then the decision to do so should be rewarding and enjoyable. But likewise, if a player chooses to go with flying, it shouldn't just skip past everything, and should ALSO be rewarding and enjoyable. The current unlock doesn't accomplish that.

Pathfinder only gives grounded players what they want, and forces people who want to fly to suffer through gameplay that they don't enjoy in order to get a "reward" that doesn't actually let them play how they wanted. And when flying is finally introduced with pathfinder, the grounded players lose their enjoyment as well(supposedly).

There has to be a better way.

[Foj]

--Blizzard,[/b] just before they unzip their collective pants and piss all over everyone who's ever paid them for any of their games

Is this a reply to a comment? It seems more like an inflamed synapse exploding.

[DeadmanWalking]

There is no ground content, you just flight path to it, mount up, run past all of it and when you get to your target you just spam AOE, collect your prize and pop out the whistle. The open world content is intended to be so easy a child can do it. "Oh they don't want you to skip the stuff around the boss!" Well I do anyways, so if they want me to not skip it they better start making it a requirement to complete the quest.

You guys are trying to protect your sisters virginity after she banged every dude in town.

[CaptainV]

Only thing I can remember about these zones is flying through them to get to the raids, Icecrown as a zone was the worst for leveling and just boring other than the LotR reference quest with the eye which I found amusing, both these zones had great raids but that's all they brought to the table so I definitely wouldn't rate them high, especially not in WotLK.

You know what was a zone that [almost] everyone loved? Grizzly Hills, now that was a dope zone. I still remember riding my ground mount through that place loving questing there which was followed by dinging 77 buying my Northrend Flying and deleting the rest of the content.

I love flying getting it later in an expansion as by then it just makes leveling alts easier and just s small quality of life change for my main, also makes you appreciate it a bit more - Atleast for me anyway.

While flying was around early in BC it didn't feel that way because it was rare I bothered using the neat 60% movement speed mount, only used to to reach an area after using my ground mount for, farming the gold to buy your epic flying was actually practically gating as well since it wasn't just pocket change nor was it meant to - Still remember farming Fel Armaments and Marks of Sarg saving for that thing :P

Grizzly hills wasnt that great, it was only immersive for its huge woodlands and open pvp area to be quite honest, its questing was forgettable rather easily so, and most of its memorable experience was overshadowed by the fact it was actually fairly small compared to the rest of WOTLK content.

[namecraft]

muhhh god damned gold sink!

[Logwyn]

Ask Blizzard. This is their opinion, not mine. Source.

So it boils down to Blizzard not getting "IT" again then?

[Aaronioslo]

Yeah and you'll get the ability to fly after hitting exalted with the new faction. Guess how long that will take? Do you really think you will still want to do tons of these world quests once you're done with that achievement?

It's like hiding 840 shoulders behind nightfallen exalted rep. By the time you've fulfilled the requirement, you don't need it anymore.

oh, that shoulder is great design by the eyes of fanboys, wtf are you talking about. they might as well gate the order hall set behind mythic raiding, fanboys would still be clapping

- - - Updated - - -

excess gating coz of lack of content. if they are confident enough, they could just as well do some flying enabled severs in addition to non flying severs, and let players choose.

As much as the fanboys here saying they enjoy no flying, let the reality teach them a lesson and once for all stop this meaningless discussion.

[Spl4sh3r]

So you're admitting that it's ok to skip content after the first time we set foot in it? Great! Now....why don't we have flying right now in Legion content after criss-crossing and repeating the content hundreds of times?

That isn't what I am saying. I was explaining why flightpaths doesn't skip content. Flightpaths lets you go from A to B without hinderance once you have been at A and at B. Flying lets you just go to C and ignore A and B completely. Meaning with flightpaths you still have to go from A to B (paying for the gryphon) then from B you have to run to C to do your thing. This is assuming you get a quest and your hearthstone might be at A. The thing that makes us skip content the most in Legion, which is probably a thing put in just to ease the transition based on feedback from Warlords is the flightmaster whistle.

[SirCowdog]

That isn't what I am saying. I was explaining why flightpaths doesn't skip content. Flightpaths lets you go from A to B without hinderance once you have been at A and at B. Flying lets you just go to C and ignore A and B completely. Meaning with flightpaths you still have to go from A to B (paying for the gryphon) then from B you have to run to C to do your thing. This is assuming you get a quest and your hearthstone might be at A. The thing that makes us skip content the most in Legion, which is probably a thing put in just to ease the transition based on feedback from Warlords is the flightmaster whistle.

The flaw with this specific example is that you're assuming that A and B are places I have any interest in going to in the first place. Flight lets me explore and go where I want, when I want. Maybe I'll get around to going to A or B eventually. Your example also implies that B is somehow relevant to my business at C, which it almost certainly is not. This isn't a dungeon, I don't have to do everything in the exact same order every single time. Hell, even a lot of raids these days let your group choose which order to do the bosses in.

I really do understand that Blizzard wants people to explore as much of their world as possible(for a couple of different reasons). I simply don't agree that they need to be forced to crawl through every square inch of that world on the ground, or that the ground is the only way that exploration can happen. Dungeons and raids already provide the targeted on-rails experience where Blizzard can control almost every single aspect of the presentation. Dungeons and raids also cover the lion's share of end-game progression. The open world is SUPPOSED to be open and more free-form, and allow people more freedom to choose how they want to move around.

[Sett]

I've never understood the logic of people who hate flying wanting to enforce their beliefs on those that enjoy it. Want to waste ten extra minutes going from point A to point B? Fine. It ruins your immersion? Fine. Just don't expect others to have the same thoughts towards it.

[Dormie]

Which is why I've been constantly arguing for the CHOICE to fly or not.

FFS....do people even read?

yes they do, you just keep acting as if there's a real choice.

[DarthMonk79]

See here's the thing though... lets say flying came out right at the beginning on the expansion. People that zerg level or even casual level all of sudden level quicker because the chance of death or the time it take to complete quests goes the way of the Dodo. Then very same people turn around and complain that it was too quick to level and that they now have nothing to do but fly around on their mounts. When they chose to zerg through the content, they chose to fly over all the mobs directly to their quest target, camp above it till it respawned, drop down, kill it and take right back off. Now all of sudden a quest that was supposed to be a little difficult or a little time consuming is beyond stupid simple take little to no time. Yes people want it because they like to fly around and see the world from that viewpoint, but its also used to trivialize the game to even a lower level than it already is. SOOOOO... flying come late so that most of their content is explored and played the way they designed it to be played, if you don't like it either leave or un-sub until they allow it in.

[bloodmoth13]

They really have. By only enabling it when it doesn't matter anymore.

7.2 will enable flying, but it will be done after people have spent months on the Broken Isles doing their quests while not flying. After we unlock it, that will probably be it in terms of content, before they release the Argus patch. At that point we won't need to fly on the Broken Isles, because we'll be on Argus, which will probably be not flyable either.

It's just like with WoD, where we were only able to fly once nobody needed to anymore anyway. Because the expansion was over. When the flying patch came out, I had 2 days of gametime left. And I didn't renew my sub at that point and went on a 1-year break, because the expansion was over anyway.

This will be the standard now. Flying is gone.

good.

the worst questing in this game (ignoring the actual quest content in pandaria) was cata, just flying overtop of everything and skipping all the obstacles was braindead, and no, gimping myself by walking everywhere for content designed with flying in mind isnt an option.

This will be fine for alts and finishing off zones, dont see an issue with this, current content should never have flying enabled, waste of resources (having to design larger, more vacant zones to accomodate for flying).

Zones are much better when designed without flying, and are much more enjoyable when you dont skip over top of them.

[Halyon]

Good. Maybe they make the rubbish legendary system disappear too now.

[bloodmoth13]

The flaw with this specific example is that you're assuming that A and B are places I have any interest in going to in the first place. Flight lets me explore and go where I want, when I want. Maybe I'll get around to going to A or B eventually. Your example also implies that B is somehow relevant to my business at C, which it almost certainly is not. This isn't a dungeon, I don't have to do everything in the exact same order every single time. Hell, even a lot of raids these days let your group choose which order to do the bosses in.

I really do understand that Blizzard wants people to explore as much of their world as possible(for a couple of different reasons). I simply don't agree that they need to be forced to crawl through every square inch of that world on the ground, or that the ground is the only way that exploration can happen. Dungeons and raids already provide the targeted on-rails experience where Blizzard can control almost every single aspect of the presentation. Dungeons and raids also cover the lion's share of end-game progression. The open world is SUPPOSED to be open and more free-form, and allow people more freedom to choose how they want to move around.

If you just want to have everything brought to you, perhaps you chould try out a browser click game where you just click to win, i think you would like it more.

As for rewards, usually you have to go through some degree of challenge, whether thats obstacles or taking out lackeys or cleverly pathing past enemies.
Flying takes all of that out of the game, you fly over obstacles, there is no gameplay around avoiding enemies since flying just default grants it and you skip all the guards and take their treasure, if you really hate that, then you probably wont like dungeons because you have to kill trash and progress through the dungeons, you probably wont like raids either, or the game world of warcraft for that matter.

The gameplay of this game is using abilities to kill bad guys and traveling around the world, not just taking rewards.

[Spl4sh3r]

The flaw with this specific example is that you're assuming that A and B are places I have any interest in going to in the first place. Flight lets me explore and go where I want, when I want. Maybe I'll get around to going to A or B eventually. Your example also implies that B is somehow relevant to my business at C, which it almost certainly is not. This isn't a dungeon, I don't have to do everything in the exact same order every single time. Hell, even a lot of raids these days let your group choose which order to do the bosses in.

I really do understand that Blizzard wants people to explore as much of their world as possible(for a couple of different reasons). I simply don't agree that they need to be forced to crawl through every square inch of that world on the ground, or that the ground is the only way that exploration can happen. Dungeons and raids already provide the targeted on-rails experience where Blizzard can control almost every single aspect of the presentation. Dungeons and raids also cover the lion's share of end-game progression. The open world is SUPPOSED to be open and more free-form, and allow people more freedom to choose how they want to move around.

I am mostly mentioning the quickest path when I say A, B and C. So with flying going directly to C is quickest. While using flightpaths/hearthstone the quickest would be to hearth to A, flightpath to B and mount up and run to C. A relevant example is if you are in Suramar and need to go to someplace in northern Azsuna. With flying you could easily just fly there directly. Otherwise you might hearthstone to Dalaran and take the flightpath to closest location and run the rest of the way. That doesn't mean you can't do other things. Like Warriors having their order hall jump thing. Druids might rather go to their class hall and fly from there and similar things. You can also choose to run all the way from Suramar on the ground if you so choose. That doesn't mean anything about A or B being relevant to your destination, it is about a general path to get there. Meaning you have options to choose from, you aren't forced to take only one of them. You will also receive flying as an option down the line.

[fengosa]

Perfectly happy with the way Blizzard has handled flying. There's a vertical elemental to the Broken Isle that adds depth to the open world. Planning out your WQs and using your gliders/whistle/FP/hearthstones to move from place to place is enjoyable. Also, love Suramar City. That entire experience would be gone if we had flight. I have no problem with them opening up flight later on but perfectly happy with how they handled flying in wod/legion.

[nekobaka]

They just need to encourage playing alts more, problem solved.

Not everyone wants to play alts to make up for the lack of sufficient content lengths for individual characters of which was gutted so heavily for OCD altohalics.

[Thoughtful Trolli]

Sorry/not sorry you feel that way.

Blizzard went to enormous trouble to create interesting terrain for Legion. By "interesting" I mean sometimes terribly frustrating (where's that goddamn world quest miniboss?!?) but Suramar, for example, is incredibly intricate and worth learning.

I like flying but I am happy to go without it for half the expansion.

If you want to play the expansion with flying, all you have to do is not play until flying is available. Simple really.

The only honestly shitty place is northern Val'sharah.

But honestly, it wasn't as bad as Draenor, and that was nice. Draenor put your objective 10 yards away from your start point, but with a 5 minute run around fence, through three other 5 minute run around fences, so it took 20 minutes to get there. A fibonacci sequence of landgating, if you will.

[SirCowdog]

If you just want to have everything brought to you, perhaps you chould try out a browser click game where you just click to win, i think you would like it more.

Let me quote myself again, because apparently you didn't read it: "I simply don't agree that...the ground is the only way that exploration can happen." Going by the examples of previous expansions from TBC to MoP, this is clearly something that can and DID happen. I'm not asking for everything to be brought to me. I just want the freedom to move around and explore the world from the air like I was able to for nearly EIGHT YEARS of the game.

As for rewards, usually you have to go through some degree of challenge, whether thats obstacles or taking out lackeys or cleverly pathing past enemies.

Cleverly pathing past enemies....really? Have you played WoW at all? You don't cleverly do anything, you just run past them on your mount. Any of them that don't leash can be dealt with using AoE. And if Blizzard wants me to take out lackeys, then maybe they should make that one of the quest objectives, hmmm?

Flying takes all of that out of the game, you fly over obstacles, there is no gameplay around avoiding enemies since flying just default grants it and you skip all the guards and take their treasure, if you really hate that, then you probably wont like dungeons because you have to kill trash and progress through the dungeons, you probably wont like raids either, or the game world of warcraft for that matter.

No, flying doesn't take all that out of the game. I still have to land to click objectives, kill enemies, or explore caves and other indoor areas. The only thing that flying actually skips are certain parts of the outdoor terrain that very VERY rarely actually impact the completion of quest objectives, and that's largely due to how unable monster AI and pathing are able to handle terrain that isn't mostly flat. And in the rare cases where terrain DOES matter it would be a simple case of applying a debuff to prevent flying(Timeless Isle), make it an indoor area that prohibits mounts, or cover the area with actually dangerous enemies with the ability to dismount or ground players, making them relevant instead of fodder to be ignored.

As for dungeons and raids, the trash in those places really doesn't do much to improve the experience unless they're part of an encounter mechanic. Fights such as Nitrogg Thundertower in Grimrail depot for example, where killing trash gives you ammo that allows you to better deal with the boss and its minions. Another good example is the Mythic+ timed mechanics, where not only do enemies get different modifiers the higher you go on the difficulty, but killing them actually has a reward for doing so quickly and efficiently.

To contrast, simply filling a long hallway with trash mobs that, literally, don't serve any purpose but to BE trash doesn't have any value past the first time you complete the dungeon. The open world is full of this kind of nonsense. Countless trash mobs that serve no purpose and have insignificant rewards and no relevance. If that's the kind of design you want to defend, then I humbly submit that your vision is lacking.

The gameplay of this game is using abilities to kill bad guys and traveling around the world, not just taking rewards.

It's funny, because mounts don't actually kill bad guys, nor do they allow players to "just take rewards". I'm not really sure where you got the idea that they did.

I am mostly mentioning the quickest path when I say A, B and C. So with flying going directly to C is quickest. While using flightpaths/hearthstone the quickest would be to hearth to A, flightpath to B and mount up and run to C. A relevant example is if you are in Suramar and need to go to someplace in northern Azsuna. With flying you could easily just fly there directly. Otherwise you might hearthstone to Dalaran and take the flightpath to closest location and run the rest of the way. That doesn't mean you can't do other things. Like Warriors having their order hall jump thing. Druids might rather go to their class hall and fly from there and similar things. You can also choose to run all the way from Suramar on the ground if you so choose. That doesn't mean anything about A or B being relevant to your destination, it is about a general path to get there. Meaning you have options to choose from, you aren't forced to take only one of them. You will also receive flying as an option down the line.

Except that in Suramar I just take the nearest portal to a high spot on the map and glide in, using emerald winds if necessary. That accomplishes exactly the same thing as flying. And, as I mentioned above, if certain objectives are far too valuable to allow players to fly in then there are other ways to protect it from a flying player. Completely removing flight and the freedom it presents in order to preserve the 1 in 10 quests where navigating the terrain actually matters is a poor solution. Doing that then turning around and giving tools like gliding and emerald winds that allow you to accomplish the same thing that flying would have resulted in makes even less sense.

And all of that is completely irrelevant in light of the simple fact that not everyone wants to stick their face into every single corner of the world.