No Flying in 8.0 Confirmed

[Zagden]

in other news water is wet and blizzard still hsan't learned how to make flying actually be part of game play vs using it to skip over badly designed terrain. sigh. Makes me wish i was the type that could un-sub and re-sub but after 13 years of being subbed just can't break the tradition.

How do you design content around flying? Flying is inherently limiting in gameplay possibility. Other than flying through hoops in the air, there's no trick to it. You mount, fly to the mob you need, divebomb it, mount again, repeat. Without flying you can even design a quest to just enter a fortress and get to the other side of it while fighting your way through or avoiding mobs without having to have a quota for how many mobs you need to kill on the way. Removing flying opens up so many possibilities and adding flying adds none.

[mmochump]

after 10+ years of playing, here's a bitter vets thoughts on flying:

Flying is absolutely integral to my playing experience, easily in the top 5 things I couldn't live without. Given the Legion extended wait period for flying, I'm considering buying the next expac the day they announce flying is coming in a patch if this is their new treatment of flying.

New Expac = Ok, no flying for few months so we can see all the Monies that blizzard put into the game (" Look at all the Shinies we made POKE POKE POKE "). But after 3 months I realllyyy start to get annoyed that it's not in yet. New areas, plz don't do the Argus thing where there's no flying ever.

"But I don't like flying waaaaaaaa" Ok, then don't fly. I'm really confused as to why people who hate flying end up using it as soon as it becomes available. "I don't like Chocolate Ice Cream" Ok, then don't eat it.

[Wildberry]

"Flying trivializes content"
t. People who routinely defend LFG, LFR, and just about every other "ease of access" change Blizzard has made.

You know though, it's nice to see nobody's claiming it's "really helping out WPvP."

[quras]

It's good to know flying is removed for a while up front.

That way I know to not buy it till it's all in. Fuck that rat maze world design. I'm way past running that crap over and over not very long after max level is reached and blizz thinking it helps the gaming experiences is some amazing delusional BS.

[Shiekyerbooty]

I like flying.

I think forcing us through terrain chasms and canyons like rats in a maze is tedious and bore-some. If they were more clever they could design the game around the flying mounts we've spent hours and sometimes years to accumulate.

[In Ogres We Trust]

Great and welcome news. Ian confirmed during a Blizzcon interview that flying will not be available in Battle for Azeroth at launch. Furthermore, Blizzard will continue with this approach for the foreseeable future in subsequent expansions.

https://youtu.be/DkdTS_8Y61Q?t=37m

Paraphrase of Ion's quote from the link above:




Its great to see Blizzard continue to acknowledge / listen to the community - and not cave in to a small minority of outspoken and melodramatic players who wouldnt know whats good for the game if it hit them in the face - in agreeing that World of Warcraft is a game best played and experienced on the ground. Its as simple as that.

Thankyou, Blizzard.

I think the biggest Flying lesson learnt from Legion is: the better the content, the lesser we need flying and ppl even care about it. The weaker the content (Warlords of Draenor) the more people will be frustrated and bored and grasp at things to complain about andor ways to skip content.

If Battle for Legions content is as strong as Legions (or better) - we can hopefully get away with having no flying for even longer this time round.

Yes, this was confirmed at... wait for it... BlizzCon. Anything else?

[Polybius]

This thread makes me giggle

[SirCowdog]

It's good to know flying is removed for a while up front.

That way I know to not buy it till it's all in. Fuck that rat maze world design. I'm way past running that crap over and over not very long after max level is reached and blizz thinking it helps the gaming experiences is some amazing delusional BS.

The sad part is that even if you wait til 8.3 or whenever flying is available, you'll still have to run the ratmaze and do the rep grind to unlock it. That's the entire purpose of Pathfinder: to waste your time chasing a bunch of bullshit to get what you want.

- - - Updated - - -

I'm settled man. I get your frustration though I do, but with no evidence and you claiming that the pro flying side doesn't say anything anymore is hardly anything to go on. It's a dead argument and can't go anywhere.

In all honesty though, I personally think most people don't care about flying. And the majority from what I've seen are anti flying. But like I said previously, that doesn't make me oblivious or a brown noser just because I don't see people getting this upset over flying.

The problem is that the pro flying guys have been trying to talk reasonably to Blizzard for literally years. It all gets ignored. People like me who have stuck with it this long are the exception. Most people gave up after Blizzard took everything that was said over the course of WoD and blatantly ignored it.

[Hiricine]

Gated flying makes perfect sense--- make it a reward, make people explore the world, and when they've basically explored 100% of it and its a chore, then let the players fly.

Of course, timewalling it is a really dumb idea as they have in the past.

[Witchblade77]

Very soon we can see the same people who threatened to unsub last two xpacs threaten to unsub again.

I did unsub. and i will unsub again (well techincaly I'm already unsubbed), and not buy expac until flying patch is announced. like I did with legion. and WoD. the only way the ONLY way no flying is tolerable is when they design the terrain not to be so bloody annoying. legion on the ground was awful. argus is a piece of crap with possible exception of Mac'Aree. but only barely. yes even with teleports

I play other games with no flying and i don't miss it there nearly as much aside from occasionally wishing to have a better vantage point for some sigh seeing. why? because travel and terrain is not an ass like it is in WoW.

Blizzard has a problem in that they think that its totally cool to artificially extend content by making you go half around the mountain just to reach a point that was just on the other side of a waist high wall you were just facing. they think grinding your way through mobs that lets face it are NOT actualy dangerous, they are tedious at best - is content.

I guess we'll see if they genuinely learned their lesson and will not delay flying patch for long.

and btw. i have no problem with earning flight even if I have to groan my way through incredibly awfully designed terrain (its a compromise that I'm willing to accept). what I DO have a problem with is the time gate. add your bloody achievement. but make actual flight accessible the moment you finish the damn thing. not half a year later.

[rda]

... but personally, I've seen a lot less complaints about Legion Pathfinder. It's just better, as was the timing of introducing flying to Legion itself. I genuinely don't believe it's as much of a problem as people believe, that's all.

The whole issue with the Legion Pathfinder is that you are forced to go without it for almost a year because Blizzard say so (they just don't allow completing it before then, they are holding off part of the achievement). If it wasn't for that, it would have been fine.

Blizzard tell stories about how they want you to complete the content on the ground first, but their actions show plentifully that they care not about that at all, they care about something else - they plainly want you to stay on the ground for something like a year, period, no matter what of their content you have experienced and no matter how many times you praised them for that glorious experience. They merely allow you to fly in places when they aren't relevant to the end game any longer.

I guess you might be seeing less complaints about the Legion Pathfinder because people are just tired seeing Blizzard constantly play tricks pretending that they "listen" while in reality forcing their way, and also simply because every year there are less people than before. Legion didn't overturn anything on that latter front, it seems to be the same as WoD - it had a peak (significantly lower than WoD's), that peak faded fast (as with WoD), and then the game turned back to bleeding people (in rates not much less than with WoD). /shrug

[Blamblam41]

Do it like FFXIV where I'm unlocking flying by finishing the story in each zone.

Arbitrarily locking it behind a time gate that takes 6 months is -not- acceptable and never will be.

- - - Updated - - -

Gated flying makes perfect sense--- make it a reward, make people explore the world, and when they've basically explored 100% of it and its a chore, then let the players fly.

Of course, timewalling it is a really dumb idea as they have in the past.

No, not 100% of the content. Just 100% of the story content. You don't need to know every nook, cranny and shortcut of the land for months and months on end before it becomes trivial. You do enough shortcut searching going back and forth between quest hub and quest zone while leveling through the story.

Timewalling is just the shit they do to piss players off. The problem is how the 'reward' is structured vs. how useful the reward actually is after 100% of the content you would use it on is complete. There is 0 reason for players to have not had flying during 7.0-7.1. Nothing about level cap gameplay would have changed if flying were available from day 1 and/or if it was unlocked through story alone. The gameplay of running to and from WQ's between dungeon queues would. not. have. changed.

Frankly, there was nothing inherently wrong with buying it for a large sum of gold upon reaching level cap. Guess that shit is harder to balance now that you can just drop 20$ for a few hundred thou.

[Felfaadaern Darkterror]

I did unsub. and i will unsub again (well techincaly I'm already unsubbed), and not buy expac until flying patch is announced. like I did with legion. and WoD. the only way the ONLY way no flying is tolerable is when they design the terrain not to be so bloody annoying. legion on the ground was awful. argus is a piece of crap with possible exception of Mac'Aree. but only barely. yes even with teleports

I play other games with no flying and i don't miss it there nearly as much aside from occasionally wishing to have a better vantage point for some sigh seeing. why? because travel and terrain is not an ass like it is in WoW.

Blizzard has a problem in that they think that its totally cool to artificially extend content by making you go half around the mountain just to reach a point that was just on the other side of a waist high wall you were just facing. they think grinding your way through mobs that lets face it are NOT actualy dangerous, they are tedious at best - is content.

I guess we'll see if they genuinely learned their lesson and will not delay flying patch for long.

and btw. i have no problem with earning flight even if I have to groan my way through incredibly awfully designed terrain (its a compromise that I'm willing to accept). what I DO have a problem with is the time gate. add your bloody achievement. but make actual flight accessible the moment you finish the damn thing. not half a year later.

So you unsubbed for WoD and Legion, but you know what it was like to navigate on Argus? And I'm sorry you struggled with something that was no big deal to most of us. Yeah the terrain in Antorun Wastes could be a bit tricky until you got the hang of it, but easy enough once you learned your way around. Maybe you should only play games set in Kansas?

[Drekmar]

They really need to rework the whole flying and make it part of the game, not only a means of travel.

[Felfaadaern Darkterror]

I like flying.

I think forcing us through terrain chasms and canyons like rats in a maze is tedious and bore-some. If they were more clever they could design the game around the flying mounts we've spent hours and sometimes years to accumulate.

Until they add in mounted combat, so we can realistically fight in the air, I don't expect "design the game around the flying mounts" to happen.

[SirCowdog]

Lets be real though, they ignored a lot of stuff during WoD. Nor were flyers the only ones getting shafted, PvPers were with Ashran, PvErs were with the content. Hell, out of the three, Flying was the one I saw least of.They know what works and what doesn't, and the main complaint for Draenor was Garrisons. Flying wouldn't have been remotely as close to how damaging Garrisons were for the game. But they learned from it as they did with Pathfinder.

I think everyone can admit Draenor pathfinder was a mess,..but personally, I've seen a lot less complaints about Legion Pathfinder. It's just better, as was the timing of introducing flying to Legion itself. I genuinely don't believe it's as much of a problem as people believe, that's all.

You see a lot less complaints about Legion Pathfinder because people quit after seeing how flight wouldn't be in 7.0, or 7.1. A few came back for 7.2, but by then the damage had been done. People had quit and broke their sunk cost investment.

Those that remained either didn't care in the first place, or are too invested to speak with their wallets even though they don't like how things are going.

As for not knowing if it's a problem, or how much it really matters: We won't know until blizz creates a new zone or two that actually uses flying for current content. And that won't happen as long as Hazzicostas is at the wheel.

[Hiricine]

Do it like FFXIV where I'm unlocking flying by finishing the story in each zone.

Arbitrarily locking it behind a time gate that takes 6 months is -not- acceptable and never will be.

- - - Updated - - -



No, not 100% of the content. Just 100% of the story content. You don't need to know every nook, cranny and shortcut of the land for months and months on end before it becomes trivial. You do enough shortcut searching going back and forth between quest hub and quest zone while leveling through the story.

Timewalling is just the shit they do to piss players off. The problem is how the 'reward' is structured vs. how useful the reward actually is after 100% of the content you would use it on is complete. There is 0 reason for players to have not had flying during 7.0-7.1. Nothing about level cap gameplay would have changed if flying were available from day 1 and/or if it was unlocked through story alone. The gameplay of running to and from WQ's between dungeon queues would. not. have. changed.

Frankly, there was nothing inherently wrong with buying it for a large sum of gold upon reaching level cap. Guess that shit is harder to balance now that you can just drop 20$ for a few hundred thou.

I think theres a compelling reason for blizz to leave players grounded until they've explored the area and done a good chunk of the post level cap content, it gives players pride and makes flying a little more special. That being said, the difference between what I think would be ideal and what you suggest is worlds apart from what actually happens, where blizz gates the content by a patch for 4-6 months.

Though you see their timewalling as far more malicious than I do. I think they don't want to go to the effort of "flight proofing" things, and implementing flying, and that they're just too lazy to put it in (or not making it a priority).

[WinningOne]

I always read through these threads just to see the insanity. There was only ever one good reason for removing flying and it's that it leads to longer subscription times because it's slows players down. That garbage about it being more fun to run and "experience the content" is the biggest load of narcissistic crap I've ever heard. I mean, imagine the balls it takes for developers who looked at the players zooming past their meticulously crafted landscapes and decided the solution was not to get better at their job but to complain to their boss until he/she agreed to force players into checking it out. Not to mention the Jedi mind trick Blizzard managed to pull off when they convinced the players to see the "compromise" of a gated achievement as a fair middle ground which gives them the "opportunity to earn" flying, lol. The bottom line is Blizzard decided to check and see how addicted their player base was and it turns out the addiction was strong. The players who protested and claimed to be ready to cancel their membership were all talk and no cancellation. Seriously, it's a little pathetic but the players who actually bought into the BS and parrot it out is even more pathetic. This could be the gaming version of Stockholm Syndrome.

[Deleted]

I always read through these threads just to see the insanity. There was only ever one good reason for removing flying and it's that it leads to longer subscription times because it's slows players down. That garbage about it being more fun to run and "experience the content" is the biggest load of narcissistic crap I've ever heard. I mean, imagine the balls it takes for developers who looked at the players zooming past their meticulously crafted landscapes and decided the solution was not to get better at their job but to complain to their boss until he/she agreed to force players into checking it out. Not to mention the Jedi mind trick Blizzard managed to pull off when they convinced the players to see the "compromise" of a gated achievement as a fair middle ground which gives them the "opportunity to earn" flying, lol. The bottom line is Blizzard decided to check and see how addicted their player base was and it turns out the addiction was strong. The players who protested and claimed to be ready to cancel their membership were all talk and no cancellation. Seriously, it's a little pathetic but the players who actually bought into the BS and parrot it out is even more pathetic. This could be the gaming version of Stockholm Syndrome.

Well I never threatened to quit just because of flying. But I changed my gaming behaviour, and postponed the use of my 2nd account for better times, since so much no-flying does not leave me the time to use both accounts. Regarding pathfinder - I am not that much affected than other people, because I would do these achievements anyway. I don't like the connection of some achievements to pathfinder though, because it puts additional stress on getting things done. And I heavily sympathise with people who don't like collecting achievements, don't care about reputations, or loremaster, but are forced to do these things so they can unlock flying. Especially with the heavy time gating shit.

Honestly, I was done with Pathfinder I quite early. But I had to wait til Pathfinder II was unlocked and done. They could have just make a time gated unlock and stop with this achievement bullshit. Because achievements should have the reward right away after getting them done, not some months later.

I have a small social guild, and including myself, only 2 members have unlocked flying. 2 are gone until the next expansion launches, and will probably not return at all, one is leveling and does not have much fun playing characters above 100, and 2 still don't have Pathfinder I finished due to several reasons, which also reduces their motivation to play. If it was only a matter of gold, I could easily lend some to my guildies so they can buy flying and repay me later. But I cannot do their achievements, and can only occasionally help serving as a flying taxi. This is so incredibly anti-social.

No flying is extremely bad for casuals, and does not much to alter the gaming style of hardcore players. It's totally useless and only serves for some bullshit ideas of devs and wasting our gaming time. If I could, I would fire all devs / managers who support no flying.

[Witchblade77]

So you unsubbed for WoD and Legion, but you know what it was like to navigate on Argus? And I'm sorry you struggled with something that was no big deal to most of us. Yeah the terrain in Antorun Wastes could be a bit tricky until you got the hang of it, but easy enough once you learned your way around. Maybe you should only play games set in Kansas?

reading comprehension for the win! I unsubbed until flying patch was announced. at which point i bought expansion and did the pathfinder and played for a while, even did argus becasue of all the "its not that bad" and i kinda wanted to see if the story was worth the bother. it wasn't. this is my plan for the next expansion as well. there is no point in buying it until just before flight is available for me. because being on the ground in WoW hasn't been fan since Cataclysm. and... becasue I've been spoiled by games that while keeping me grounded, don't force me into 20 minute afks, while on a taxi that is taking the scenic route.

and more reading comprehension - the problem with terrain is not that its hard. its that its bloody annoying and tedious and arbitrarily takes longer to navigate. having to go around in circles to get to where you are going is not challenge. its time sink. before i unsubscribed, i didn't even bother to fight things. i just rode through them, trailing mobs behind me, unless someone else came through just before so they gathered all the mobs behind them . since pretty much everyone does it that way.

there is a middle ground between kansas and rat maze. ironically enough pre cataclysm zones? were that middle ground. with exception of blade edge mountains which apparently Blizzard decided to base their entire expansions on >_>

and to be perfectly honest.. the only reason I even come back is 50% nostalgia and 50% ability to play without spending a dime of my own money. yes i am aware that someone else paid Blizzard. I don't have some moral qualms about giving blizzard money, regardless of how I feel about developers choices, they do work pretty hard and deserve to get paid for it. however... their choices since WoD make it not worth it for me to spend MY money on this game. and chances are, soon enough when I run through my stash of gold... nostalgia won't be enough either. flying is not the only reason, but its one of the big ones.