How will flight be handled the next expac?

[caervek]

Logically speaking they have to realise the correlation they are seeing between flying and subs/activity, however this is Blizzard we are talking about and admitting they are wrong and doing something about it is almost unthinkable for them.

The truly Bizarre thing is, the devs play the game, they must have witnessed how WoD/Legion became better overnight with the enabling of flying, hell in the case of WoD the improvement was so pronounced that if it had been available at launch then it would probably never have been called the worst expan by so many as with flying enabled it's single player content was better than Cata.

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Must of us aren't anti-flyers, we're just sick and tired of the constant whine from those who think the game is not playable without flying.

I doubt anyone really thinks the game is unplayable without flying, it's just simply not as good. Withholding one of the games best and most important features makes it simply less fun, especially when zones in post TBC WoW are designed for flying and that makes traversing them on ground mounts tedious to horrific.

[Danner]

This is a burning question on my mind. Although I really enjoyed Legion I enjoyed it so much more once I had flight, but damn if it wasn't one hell of a wait.

Pre no flight I only had one toon I played, and very little. Post flight being enabled I have 9 toons at max level and play a considerable amount more (this applies for both me and my wife).

So what are they going to do

1. Double down on stupid put flight behind some BS achievement and it won't be available till the last half of the expac.
2. Go full dumb ass and not have flight in the expac (like they intended with WoD)
3. Have the achievement able to be completed at launch
4. Flight enabled with the first content patch
5. Flight being able to be purchased at max level
6. Flight purchasable at the in game store for 50 bucks.

Unless the next expansion is 100% underground in tiny cramped corridors where flight isn't a thing at all, it will be option #1. Why change the formula?

Flight trivializes content. Flying allows you to skip obstacles, pass over challenges, and get to your destination faster. It is convenient, but it also eliminates any challenge and all forms of exploration. Imagine a raid where you could fly. You'd just skip all the trash and land at the end boss and kill him for loot. It doesn't work.

Blizzard would not want you to fly right away. It is a carrot that you can unlock eventually, but not until you're "completed" the content and is bored of it.

Option #6 would lead to a shitshow of incredible proportions.

[caervek]

Flight trivializes content. Flying allows you to skip obstacles, pass over challenges, and get to your destination faster.

Not really, flying makes it easier to travel to the content, it doesn't really make the content itself easier. Of course there are some that complain it lets you ignore the mobs on the ground between you and the content, but mounts always did that, back in Vanilla/TBC you would get off the FP and ride to your destination aggroing half the zone, the difference is that post-flying Blizzard raised the mob density as you didn't have to do this anymore, and now you have too again it's total aids.

[Darththeo]

Umm, to be perfectly honest with you: WoWs open world design could not be more trivial, even if Blizzard tried.
Mobs have 0 abilities that demand any sort of player skill. World Elites, just the same, they are either zerged by many a man or just facerolled via ERMAGAAAWD OP ARMOR!

Sorry, there is 0 challenge to player skill out there, so the "trivial" argument doesn't fly.

Unless you wanted to say "flying makes things less tedious and time consuming" then I would agree.

Tedium != challenge.
Tedium != entertainment.

Your argument against mind is the one that doesn't fly. I didn't find Stormhiem or Highmountain to be tedious ... it was actually better without flying in those zones. Honestly, only Azsuna did I find slightly improved by flying. Yes, Argus is mob filled, but it is kinda the home of the burning legion so it makes sense.

I don't find not flying to be tedious in anyway.

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Warframe trivializes Rares and elites. Should we remove it as well? Or any Vindicaar ability for that matter? And maybe gear as well. Because it just makes killing stuff so much easier.

The Vindicaar abilities have long cool downs, you can't spam them ... you can only reset the cooldown by returning to the Vindicaar and choosing a new ability.

Gear is meant to make it easier, because you work toward better gear. Flying basically allows you to zerg rush elites ... avoid mobs and makes the world feel smaller.

[Deleted]

It's good the way its unlocked now, both parties cries a lot but are still somewhat satisfied.

[Maneo]

It's good the way its unlocked now, both parties cries a lot but are still somewhat satisfied.

again it was a non issue till blizzard made it one in WoD.

True every so often you would read a WPVP type crying about how flight "broke mah WPVP" but even those were far and few between.

[Deleted]

This is a burning question on my mind.

You're asking it on the wrong forum. Folks around here are terribly worried: you might have something cool. Like flight. You obviously shouldn't have it.

[Deleted]

again it was a non issue till blizzard made it one in WoD.

True every so often you would read a WPVP type crying about how flight "broke mah WPVP" but even those were far and few between.

This is an issue when you have more than one option. people have always been crying and always will. the only reason why it wasn't the case before Wod was because no second option of flying "unlocks" was present.

i will give you two scenarios:

person A loves flying and wants it all expansion And person B hates flying and doesn't want it all all.

Gets Flying at the start: Person B cries
Doesnt get flying at the start: Person A cries
Meets half way and gets achieve after unlock: Both persons cries since their preference wasn't met.

We are in the current state of wow in a endless vortex of crying and no one will stop since they have their own preference, so what is the solution? meet in the middle and let them both cry. They both might cry but they still won't cry as much as they would if the other option is chosen instead of theirs.

[Deleted]

Unless the next expansion is 100% underground in tiny cramped corridors where flight isn't a thing at all, it will be option #1. Why change the formula?

hmmmmm because it doesn't work out? We don't know but i would bet that overall player activity raised when flight was enabled. And i am not Talking about minorities like hardcore mythic raider or professional arena players. The overall player activity.

Flight trivializes content. Flying allows you to skip obstacles, pass over challenges, and get to your destination faster. It is convenient, but it also eliminates any challenge and all forms of exploration. Imagine a raid where you could fly. You'd just skip all the trash and land at the end boss and kill him for loot. It doesn't work.

Flight does NOT trivialize content. That it does is only the opinion of the developers who can't or don't want to make better compelling content and people mindlessly repeating this because they somehow don't like flying. Most open world content is already trivial, once you have reached max level. Mobs, ledges, ditches are neither "hard" nor challenging and a annoyance at best. Fighting still has to be done on the ground. So instead of getting rid of flight you could work on making fighting more of a challenge. There are hundreds of ideas like "if you fly right in the middle of and enemy NPC camp to kill the boss without killing key figures like alarm units you'll pull the WHOLE camp". And many many many more.

Blizzard would not want you to fly right away. It is a carrot that you can unlock eventually, but not until you're "completed" the content and is bored of it.

Don't you think most people have seen the very thin stick already? They KNOW that when you'll just wait longer into the expansion you'll get everything way easier and in shorter time. The amount of people that always "have to be the first and see everything from start to finish right when it comes out" is pretty small, you would shiver if you would know.

Take me for example: dropped out before the first patch of WOD. Flight has been one reason for it. As off flight has been a reason for not buying Legion. I just wait to see if the next expansion is any better, with flight at the start and less (to none) grindy daily cool downs (it should be up to me to log in every day if i want or the game is that good, not because i am missing out on stuff). With the next expansion, i'll get a 110 boost for free as well as Legion for free. So tell me, why should i buy and play a game that just doesn't look fun for me. A good answer please, not this nonsense bullshit "if haven't played it you can't judge". To play it i have to pay for it first. And though i have enough money i have nothing to burn for something i don't like.

This carrot doesn't work on me, only on the "donkeys" that like to be led around. ;-) I know what i define fun.

[Deleted]

Gear is meant to make it easier, because you work toward better gear. Flying basically allows you to zerg rush elites ... avoid mobs and makes the world feel smaller.

I worked toward flying as well. I did Explorer, I did Loremaster, I did reputations, dungeons, raids. Why did I have to wait 8 month to get the reward? Do we get raid loot 8 month later by mail?

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Meets half way and gets achieve after unlock: Both persons cries since their preference wasn't met.

That's the thing though. It's not halfway. It's very towards no flying. If it was halfway we could get it at x.0 with a Pathfinder that includes everything to be done in every zone. That is clearly not the case though.

[DechCJC]

Make flying obtainable through pathfinder and not have it behind any time gates; I don't care how hefty a grind is but I fucking hate having to wait a week to do a 10 minute quest 10 weeks in a row.

Personally I don't mind being grounded, I think I could live with it for an entire expansion without being irked loads; But I still enjoy it and dislike how we're forced to wait rather than just work towards it.

I'd rather have a "Do 1,000,000" world quests achievement (not literally a million) than just wait for months and months.

[Lillyth]

they are getting rid of all mounts and run speed boost, you have to rp walk everywhere.

May only start sprinting if PVP is engaged or mobs are running after you.

Please bring Pepe along for everything so Pepe may document your travels.

[Deleted]

Have flight since the start.

Make the slow flying easy to get and the fast flying mount hard to get. Like it was in TBC. You had to spend 5k to get the epic flying which was the equivalent for 1m gold today.

Having no flying at all is just absurd, on a game that has gone through too many iterations. And legion wasn't fine, did people say it was alright without flying, sure. Is it better with flying? Yes.

Just make sure you distinguish those 2, normal flying and epic flying, nowadays normal flying is nowhere.

Or buying the basic permission to fly at max level with about 200% speed for about 1K per character, and unlock faster flying (up to the current maximum) via achievement.

[KayRule]

If it adds a new continent, do it how they did in Legion.

If it's another Catacylsm style revamp which is looking more and more and more likely every day with the information getting found, then available from the start is the only way.

[Deleted]

Pathfinder duh. It's the balance they struck between the the pro and anti flying camps. People forget for every player that what's flying there's a player who doesn't. It's easy to fool once self into belive they hold a majority opinion when we seem to live in online echo chambers

[Deleted]

Pathfinder duh. It's the balance they struck between the the pro and anti flying camps. People forget for every player that what's flying there's a player who doesn't. It's easy to fool once self into belive they hold a majority opinion when we seem to live in online echo chambers

Yes. But it's also easy to see how noone had any problems with flying until Blizz told people they shouldn't like flying.

[Deleted]

I doubt anyone really thinks the game is unplayable without flying, it's just simply not as good. Withholding one of the games best and most important features makes it simply less fun, especially when zones in post TBC WoW are designed for flying and that makes traversing them on ground mounts tedious to horrific.

RPG PvE is coming from the classic notion of dungeon crawls and monster slaying. This is the focus of RPG games (later, character play and social play were added, also immersion/simulation topics, but the core remains monster slaying). Travel is usually not relevant in such games and is left out completely via downtime, or you only add scenes where something interesting happens and player characters have to prove themselves in a perilous situation (surviving extreme weather conditions etc.). We don't really simulate such things in WoW, except in some gimmick quests, so it all boils down to slaying monsters and collecting things. Thus, travel loses all meaning besides being a time investment / time sink topic.

Now, WoW already has many time sinks, like quest items not dropping 100% off mobs and limited drop rates of items, sometimes inflated numbers of things we have to farm, often multiple times, to get a desired reward, and let's not forget lockouts (daily / weekly / monthly / yearly availability of things). Technically, we don't need tedious travel in this game. And exploration only works once, when you enter a zone where you have not been before. As soon as repetition comes into play, which is basically true for any endgame activity after the introductory phase, there is no exploration involved anymore. At this point - documented by achievements and statistics - there is actually no need for grounding players and increasing tediousness in travel. But Blizzard is extremely inclined to keep it, because it artificially prolongs the lifetime of their content.

And let's not forget that the most important endgame happens in instanced content, where you cannot fly in any case.

[Geckoo]

I like the pathfinder concept.
I don't like how they timed it in legion.

In my opinion flying on the broken islands should've been unlocked with the Suramar patch since that's when we finished the broken islands content in terms of history and exploration. So looking into the future if they plan to do something similar i think the moment to allow flying on any single piece of content is when we are able to finish it, not months later because we did some stuff on a different place.

[KayRule]

Yes. But it's also easy to see how noone had any problems with flying until Blizz told people they shouldn't like flying.

There was dozens of threads complaining about flying ruining world design and exploration in Cataclysm at such high volumes it's the only reason flying in Pandaria was locked to endgame like it was in WotLK.

[Deleted]

There was dozens of threads complaining about flying ruining world design and exploration in Cataclysm at such high volumes it's the only reason flying in Pandaria was locked to endgame like it was in WotLK.

Okay. That was Cata. I can get that. So did anyone have any problems with flying at max level? Ever? Because noone very few are asking for flying from the get go.

We just want to be able to finish Pathfinder within a reasonable time.