Is argus no flying?

[Goradan]

watch the first 7.3 cinematic.

[FuxieDK]

Flying skill and a mount cost around 1k in TBC.

Nope.. 60% flying was dirt cheap..... And free for Druids..

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Normal flight was at least 225g, which was a lot back then. I think it was even higher before that, but maybe I am wrong.

It was LESS than 100g, and that was not a lot.. Average income from levelling 60-70 was around 4-5000g, add 1-2000 extra, if you vendor education old gear and greys..

[Hctaz]

Unless the game play and level design take flying into account. You know, like it did in Icecrown, the zone we keep beating you over the head with and you keep ignoring?

That was the worst and most forgettable zone in the entire expansion. It was Cataclysm levels of awful because it was designed around flying. That's the whole point. Zones designed entirely to be flown in 100% are forgettable, huge masses with random bullshit thrown in to make ground travel impossible while still remaining empty. Look at Icecrown. Look at how much completely wasted space they put in that zone just to make it impassable via ground travel. Why do people want that? The world stops being a world when you just soar over it. The zone isn't even much bigger than other zones which means you just have a lot of wasted space and potential. This zone took the word "Quest Hub" and make actual quest hubs where you'd park your flying mount outside to gather the quests and then go complete them all in a tiny ass area. It was awful and it makes me think you didn't actually play back in Wrath.

[rda]

That was the worst and most forgettable zone in the entire expansion. It was Cataclysm levels of awful because it was designed around flying. That's the whole point. Zones designed entirely to be flown in 100% are forgettable, huge masses with random bullshit thrown in to make ground travel impossible while still remaining empty. Look at Icecrown. Look at how much completely wasted space they put in that zone just to make it impassable via ground travel. Why do people want that? The world stops being a world when you just soar over it. The zone isn't even much bigger than other zones which means you just have a lot of wasted space and potential. This zone took the word "Quest Hub" and make actual quest hubs where you'd park your flying mount outside to gather the quests and then go complete them all in a tiny ass area. It was awful and it makes me think you didn't actually play back in Wrath.

That's so completely subjective that I am not sure how you could have posted it without realizing that it doesn't prove anything except that you don't think much of Icecrown.

I enjoy Icecrown. I like Sholazar Basin much less, I like Zul'drak more. The wasted space in Icecrown you are talking about is not wasted, whatever is not used by leveling quests is used by dailies. The big towers are all different, in many there are valuable mobs, rogues used to go there to pickpocket stuff. The mountain in the middle contains both leveling quests, many on the main story line, and daily quests, it contains caves and even a PVP mini-game (were you even aware of that?). The only places in Icecrown I would like more use of are the vrykul castles on the west. There are some quests there, but there could be many more. The zone faction is my favorite faction in the entire WotLK. There are fucking ships flying in the sky, the first moving quest hubs in the game, they were just super-great and they stay great to this day. The zone got additions in the north, I am not big on jousting, but there are many other dailies to do there, including a theme instance, and many valuable rewards. See?

[Nurvus]

It was LESS than 100g

Eventually, but definitely not from the beginning.
Flying Mounts alone were 50g.
There wasn't even reputation discount back then.
It seems to me you're talking about WotLK prices.

[Lahis]

The zone got additions in the north, I am not big on jousting, but there are many other dailies to do there, including a theme instance, and many valuable rewards. See?

Granted, Argent Tournament's location is just an engineering accident. Servers couldn't handle Dalaran, putting a major patch content area under it into Crystalsong Forest (like originally planned) would have been a really bad idea.

[rda]

Granted, Argent Tournament's location is just an engineering accident. Servers couldn't handle Dalaran, putting a major patch content area under it into Crystalsong Forest (like originally planned) would have been a really bad idea.

Agree, but where they put it flows organically into the zone (in my opinion) and is part of why I like it.

[Hctaz]

That's so completely subjective that I am not sure how you could have posted it without realizing that it doesn't prove anything except that you don't think much of Icecrown.

I enjoy Icecrown. I like Sholazar Basin much less, I like Zul'drak more. The wasted space in Icecrown you are talking about is not wasted, whatever is not used by leveling quests is used by dailies. The big towers are all different, in many there are valuable mobs, rogues used to go there to pickpocket stuff. The mountain in the middle contains both leveling quests, many on the main story line, and daily quests, it contains caves and even a PVP mini-game (were you even aware of that?). The only places in Icecrown I would like more use of are the vrykul castles on the west. There are some quests there, but there could be many more. The zone faction is my favorite faction in the entire WotLK. There are fucking ships flying in the sky, the first moving quest hubs in the game, they were just super-great and they stay great to this day. The zone got additions in the north, I am not big on jousting, but there are many other dailies to do there, including a theme instance, and many valuable rewards. See?

I'm talking about the giant path leading to Icecrown full of elite enemies that you couldn't pass through? Yes I know about all of the things that Icecrown has in it, but that's only because the zone is massive so that the wasted space doesn't eat up too much of it. The problem is that the whole thing feels extremely disconnected because the entire middle section is not traversable via ground at all but not because it shouldn't be. Like Storm Peaks doesn't have this problem because it's mountainous and makes sense. You can't traverse that part of the map because that part of the map is a 50 foot cliff like no shit. But Icecrown is a flat ass glacier. The only reasons you needed flying were entirely artificial and felt extremely lame aside from the quest hubs that flew around.

Why is there so much shit in Icecrown you can only get to via flying? Nobody would build this huge ass citadel with walls you can't get to except for flight. The zone would have been perfectly doable on the ground if they removed the elite mobs surrounding the valley and made more stairs.

But the point is that the problem that flying creates are little pockets of content that you have to fly to and from. It's no different than requiring a flight master to get from point A to point B except that you can control which straight line you fly in. That was the entire problem with Cataclysm. The zones felt disconnected both from the fact that they were so far apart from each other and how they had vast spaces of nothing that were simply there because everything was designed with flight in mind. Designing the game with flying in mind takes away from the feeling of the world just like in Icecrown and just like in Cataclysm. The only time it works is when you make a bunch of mountains like Storm Peaks or Deepholm but we can't just do that in every single zone forever.

And those pockets of content extend to individual quests. Quests are supposed to be about going to an area and finding the right mobs while killing or avoiding the ones that don't matter, but that's a lot easier to do with flying. I'm pretty sure some of the devs posted a picture of why they hated flying for questing. It was that it became very linear and they don't want a linear solution to their game. They want the game to involve more thinking than "Where can I land so that I only kill this one mob and can mount up again?"

[Stellan]

There are plenty of places to fly in the game. Sometimes a no-fly zone is needed to keep people from just swooping in, grabbing stuff, and flying off. As a Druid, and a MAJOR offender of clicking things while IN FLIGHT FORM, I am ok with a Timeless Isle style zone. I can fly everywhere else and usually avoid no-fly zones until the next expac. If you are not enjoying the game, maybe you need to find a new game.

Considering how ugly Argus is ( a rehash of Legionfall), Argus should be fly over so we don't have to spend much time there.

[Nurvus]

@SirCowdog

If playing the way you like requires you to gimp yourself, then the game can improve. And I think that's what this discussion is all about.

I made a suggestion for flying once, called "The Future of Mounts" or something.

Flying as it exists right now will never cease to be detrimental unless the content is designed specifically for it.

And there aren't 2 types of content where flying is concerned, but 3:
1 - Content designed for ground travel - pretends flying doesn't exist.
2 - Content that requires flying to be reached, but is still designed for ground travel.
3 - Content made with constant flying in mind.

Pretending like Ground and Flying Mounts - as they currently function - are both relevant (as in not gimping yourself) in the content where flying is enabled is simply delusional.

It's the same thing with specs and builds.
I want my favorite build/spec to be competitive.
I can still enjoy other specs and builds, sure, but I'd prefer to not feel gimped for playing my favorite build.
I'm not asking for a 0.1% margin, but not by 20% margin either.

Likewise, I dislike when content pretends like Flying and Ground Travel are both relevant. They never are - not the way mounts function right now.

Can it be made fair? Absolutely! And it can be done exclusively using mechanics already existant in the game.

[Hctaz]

3 - Content made with constant flying in mind.

Is there even content like this that exists and isn't universally hated by everybody?

Vash'jir was basically flying combat due to the swimming mechanics and it seemed everybody and their mother hated the combat in that zone. So much so that they scrapped the entire raid because it was supposed to be underwater (as well as being a rehash of old artwork and not very unique). And then you could have like... the constant threat of being dismounted but who would that be fun for?

I think people are confusing content that is only accessible via flying as flying content when it really has always fallen into category 2. Category two content is just as bad as category 1 content, except it floats somewhere or is up on a cliff you can't access without flying.

[Deleted]

Considering how ugly Argus is ( a rehash of Legionfall), Argus should be fly over so we don't have to spend much time there.

[Source Needed]

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Is there even content like this that exists and isn't universally hated by everybody?

Vash'jir was basically flying combat due to the swimming mechanics and it seemed everybody and their mother hated the combat in that zone. So much so that they scrapped the entire raid because it was supposed to be underwater (as well as being a rehash of old artwork and not very unique). And then you could have like... the constant threat of being dismounted but who would that be fun for?

I think people are confusing content that is only accessible via flying as flying content when it really has always fallen into category 2. Category two content is just as bad as category 1 content, except it floats somewhere or is up on a cliff you can't access without flying.

THIS.


/10

[Nurvus]

Is there even content like this that exists and isn't universally hated by everybody?

Vash'jir was basically flying combat due to the swimming mechanics and it seemed everybody and their mother hated the combat in that zone.

That's not what I meant.
I'm not talking about "while flying" content.

Icecrown, Storm Peaks and Deepholme were designed expecting you to travel everywhere by air, all the time - distances, layout, points of interest, etc.

Certain zones of Nagrand, Shadowmoon Valley, Netherstorm, were reachable only through flying, but were pretty much designed as "unlock at max level" areas, but once there, they were designed for ground travel (then again, normal flying was slower than ground mounts back then).

[Deleted]

Normal flight was at least 225g, which was a lot back then. I think it was even higher before that, but maybe I am wrong.
Normal flight was 60% speed bonus, not 150%, so flight vs ground travel was actually a choice until you got Epic flight.

My point being that you didn't have 90% of the players flying all the time, there were actually lots of people on the ground to interact with and do stuff - not even talking about PvP.
With WotLK it was still pretty fine because the later areas were designed specifically for flight within the area (not merely as a tool to get to the area).
Furthermore, it was in WotLK that the Dungeon Queue system was introduced.

So Flying only really started showing the damage it could do - specially alongside Dungeon Queue - from Cataclysm onwards, mostly because even though the areas were done with flight in mind, they weren't made FOR flight like Icecrown or Storm Peaks, except maybe Deepholme.

I don't remember the costs of that time, but they have buffed basic flight speed to 160% quite fast, because they have recognised that the speed bonus would not hurt the game.

Now please try to understand this: You can design areas and take speed of flying mounts into account, or you don't take it into account and have a mess afterwards. The first approach is a holistic one, the other is more of "I close my eyes, put hands over my ears and chant "LALALA" so I don't see the obvious mess I am doing".

How comes that in earlier expansions the devs were able to design zones which have been perfectly fine with flying, and stopped at some point - although they had already figured out how to design quest hubs, so the distance between quest hubs would not have been a problem.

They have a huge problem with spacial design for some expansions. This is why the world feels less and less "natural", and more and more like a stage. Without flying, I don't see any difference between instanced content and the open world anymore. One of the reasons is of course, that you cannot fly in instanced content, which makes flying in the open world that special.

[tehdef]

Without flying, I don't see any difference between instanced content and the open world anymore

This takes the cake for the dumbest thing I've read all week.

[Dhrizzle]

Yeah, it's all about skipping mobs. Example: mob grants 1% progress, quest item grants 3%, rare grants 5% progress. Who would need mobs, if killing them - is very ineffective way of completing quest? Another example: you have to kill 10 mobs and then to kill boss, standing on the other side of zone. You kill 10 mobs, but there is still half of zone to get to boss. Who would need killing another 10 mobs, if this is just pointless waste of time? This is Blizzard's logic: if you want to get that rare on the top of tower - you need to kill all pointless mobs on your way, cuz they're - implicit part of quest. What's the problem with including them to quest explicitly - I don't know. I guess, it's the same crap, as RNG - Blizzard just want to make some psychological illusion, that quest isn't that hard, long, boring and tedious, as it really is.

What you're describing is what makes open-world PVE actually interesting. Without flight you have to examine your surroundings, figure out the most efficient way to tackle the quest then try to implement it by killing/dodging mobs as applicable whilst you complete your objective. Allowing you to simply bunny-hop between the most efficient objectives takes away any impact of the environment and level design. It takes the gameplay of "push button to make dead" and adds an element of simple environmental "puzzle" (for want of a better word.) Without it you might as well just mash buttons at a target dummy.

You don't realize, how casual PVE works. It's about having checklist of things to do every day. If you can't handle this list - you just throw something out of it. And if game developer fills content from this list with water, i.e. implicit factors, that artificially stretch this content - you have to simply throw useful parts of content, you would enjoy and do otherwise, from your todo list. If this list shrinks too much, that it's no longer worth your time/money - you just unsub and quit game. That's how it works.

Exactly, and with or without flying the devs will have some idea of how big a checklist they want the average player to complete in a certain time. If they had flight in the game they could lower the rewards or increase the number of things you need to do so that the reward/time ratio is the same and still not worth your time/money. That's what happened to me during MoP so I played other games until WoW got back to a state I enjoy.

Yeah, what I actually wanted to say - is that I have some daily goal, such as for example earning 10K Appexis crystals. I want to do things, that grant some progression towards this goal. And if I need to kill 10 mobs and boss to achieve this goal - I want to do exactly this, nothing more. What Blizzard want me to do - to just kill mobs on my way from point A to point B. Just because it's so called "game mechanic". I just don't want to do it. It's ok to do it while leveling - for so called "immersion purposes", but it's not ok in endgame content. If I've already completed 100% quest zone progress and just need several more Corrupted Appexis Fragments from rares - I don't want to waste my time on killing mobs, that no longer grant any rewards or progression. I just want to kill this rare and go away.

The "pointless" obstacles are just as much a part of the game as the targets you have for your quest. However by making them optional Blizz adds variety, and it's something that takes into account your class/spec/role. Rogues might want to stealth through, Hunters might rush in and Feign Death, Tanky characters can charge through on their mount and kill everything, squishier character might want to slink around the side and snipe the occasional threat.

It appears that you're assuming that what many other people are using to argue for flying is what I'm saying. I'll go ahead and disabuse that notion right now by explaining why so much of what you just said it based on some pretty bad assumptions:

And I'm going to post the replies that I've used umpteen times before.

Flight as a cheat code:

This is a pretty common misconception that's really just the "flying skips content" argument with different wording. The problem is that flying only ruins or skips content when it's dropped into a design that pretends or ignores that flying doesn't exist. I'm going to keep going back to the examples of Icecrown and Stormpeaks where flying was used to enhance the overall experience, and had a fairly neutral impact on the zone. It didn't spoil anything because the zone was designed with the expectation that players can and WOULD be flying.

This idea that flying automatically ruins the experience ONLY applies in an open world design that pretends flying doesn't exist. This problem of flying didn't exist until WoD and Legion, the two expansions where Blizzard is trying their best to ignore flight. In other words: Flying wasn't a problem until blizzard made it into one by trying to force the ground-only design.

Storm Peaks was good as flying added a nice element of aerial exploration, Icecrown sucked as flying drained any sense of threat the Scourge might have had. It also encouraged the "bunny-hop" gameplay that makes flying content so much less interesting than ground content.

Flying was a problem because WoW is, and always has been, principally about your character stood on the ground fighting enemies who are also on the ground. It's what almost all raids, dungeons and leveling content is based on, it's what the engine is built for and it's what the vast majority of open-world RPGs and adventure games use because it enables the devs to do more interesting things with the environment.

The "If you don't like flight then don't use it" argument:

This is one of the worst arguing points of the entire discussion. The simple truth is that ground mounts generally can be used in almost any situation where a flying mount can also be used. The main point that people tend to gloss over or ignore is that the player has the option to CHOOSE to use their ground or air mount, even if one option is objectively slower(although maybe subjectively equal).

Before WoD, the disparity between ground and air mounts was balanced by the existence of end-game "No-fly Islands". The types of content(ground and air-based) were varied, and players got a healthy dose of both styles of play. But since WoD, in the era of no-flying all the time everywhere, players don't even have any options to choose their preferred playstyle. There's no mix of content types. It's just fuck you ground all the time whether you like it or not.

This is why people keep bringing up the point of using your ground mount if you don't like flying. Even if it's slower, you have the option to choose to play the fully grounded experience if that's what you want. By players who want to have the flying experience that they enjoyed for nearly a decade get a giant middle finger, or are effectively told 'If you don't like playing the same way that I do, then leave the game'.

First up the disparity between ground and air mounts was not balanced by the "no-fly islands." They typically came in at the end of an expansion, prior to that flying mounts were needed due to areas having no paths or simply for expediency. Then when the "no-fly islands" came in they typically offered superior enough rewards that they rendered the previous areas obsolete. The thing is the "no-fly islands" were usually very well received, and it seems that Blizz preferred the design options when making them which is how we find ourselves getting "no-fly" endgame content for most of the expansions now.

This is not how (multiplayer) games work.

This is exactly how WoW worked from TBC to MoP. This is also the period of time when WoW was at the height of it's popularity. I do not understand how anyone can sit here and type with a straight face that flying is hurting the experience in light of that simple fact.

Nice spin there but it's very well known that WoW hit peak popularity during WotLK and has been losing subs ever since. Personally I don't attribute the losses to any one factor other than maybe age, but if you insist you might notice that WoW's overall sub number started dropping when they introduced an expansion that allowed you to fly from the start (which had a lot of complaints about the quality of the leveling experience) and continued to drop during MoP (which had a lot of complaints about the open-world end-game despite having flight available,) funnily enough MoP saw the first and only mid-expansion sub rise (which we know of) since the end of WotLK, and that came about when they introduced the first of its "no-fly islands."

Nope.. 60% flying was dirt cheap..... And free for Druids..

The 60% flying skill was 800g and the mount cost 100g. Don't forget some players might also have to buy their 100% riding skill first.

You might be getting confused with the Druid's flight form which cost whatever spells cost from the trainer back then (probably less than 100g but more than free.)

[TOM_RUS]

Argus is a worst zone ever created by Blizzard. It takes ages to navigate. It is filled with tons of elites. You get dazed, dazed, dazed... Random one shots when running around the zone. Overtuned mobs that you can't one shot even with 940+ ilvl... How about you, fucking Blizzard, try this shit yourself first? This is unplayable without flying.

Indeed but without flying you'll spend way more time on a mount or fighting mobs you had no intrest in playe but they were able to daze you.
Argus and all the zones there are a bloody mess and frustrating as heck to do anything in without flying.

7.3 is litteraly one of the worst content patches ever.

This is exactly my feelings about Argus.

[Moozart]

Indeed but without flying you'll spend way more time on a mount or fighting mobs you had no intrest in playe but they were able to daze you.
Argus and all the zones there are a bloody mess and frustrating as heck to do anything in without flying.

7.3 is litteraly one of the worst content patches ever.

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Sure but they refuse to comment on it like they did in WoD.

/facepalm

That is the POINT!! Blizz wants us in game as much as possible killing time. They want the content to last as long as possible. If we could just zip around on a flying mount and do it we would finishing in a fraction of the time.

I have a hard time understanding how dense some of you can be.

If you feel that way about not being able to fly then this game is apparently not for you. Maybe consider subbing as others have mentioned?
many of us are enjoying all the time they spent with the details of these new areas, finding way to run or sneak by danger ect.

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Argus is a worst zone ever created by Blizzard. It takes ages to navigate. It is filled with tons of elites. You get dazed, dazed, dazed... Random one shots when running around the zone. Overtuned mobs that you can't one shot even with 940+ ilvl... How about you, fucking Blizzard, try this shit yourself first? This is unplayable without flying.

Then unsub, I have had zero issues, the elites are fine and I burn through them well. Even 90% of the rares I have had no issues soloing. The only people i have seen having issues are the under-gearedand/or bads.

Sound like you are just a bad =/

[Hctaz]

I don't remember the costs of that time, but they have buffed basic flight speed to 160% quite fast, because they have recognised that the speed bonus would not hurt the game.

They didn't change it to 160% until mid-Wrath. And it was extremely costly in TBC to get even 60% flying. Almost a thousand gold which you did NOT get while questing. You got around 500g which was HUGE compared to Vanilla. In Vanilla, 100 gold was expensive as all hell. Getting 5x that amount just from questing was nuts. Now, you could reasonably obtain flying while only questing but that is because quests at max level gave extra gold instead of experience and there were a lot of max level quest lines that you had to do in order to get attuned for the dungeons and raids since most of the them required reputation as well.

[Moozart]

Is there even content like this that exists and isn't universally hated by everybody?

Vash'jir was basically flying combat due to the swimming mechanics and it seemed everybody and their mother hated the combat in that zone. So much so that they scrapped the entire raid because it was supposed to be underwater (as well as being a rehash of old artwork and not very unique). And then you could have like... the constant threat of being dismounted but who would that be fun for?

I think people are confusing content that is only accessible via flying as flying content when it really has always fallen into category 2. Category two content is just as bad as category 1 content, except it floats somewhere or is up on a cliff you can't access without flying.

That raid was scrapped BEFORE people had a chance to do the zone, so it had nothing to do with people "hating it"