No Flying in 8.0 Confirmed

[Melius]

im not happy but im not unsubs for that it would be silly but it would be a good idea to keep it like it was in legion.

[Phyon]

I always liked not having flying at least for a little while when you find little easter egg type stuff around the world. Like few days ago I stumbled across a picnic basket and blanket out in val'sharah had no treasure had nothing to it was just there tucked away in a corner. Only found it because I was trying to cut across the zone to a wq.

[beanman12345]

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.

Nah I ignore vast majority of mobs on my ground mount. Even if I get dazed i run till the mob resets, mount up and slightly annoyed by the daze, I just continue on. Flying just removed the daze annoyance, and makes things a bit more convenient.

[WinningOne]

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.

Actually, designing content around flying would literally add a new dimension of game play. For example, letting flying players use their abilities, creating weather patterns which could do things like speed you up or slow you down or knock you off your mount or limit visibility or cause Damage over Time, flying mobs which attack you the same way mobs on the ground do, fortresses which have actually effective anti-air which players would have to fly through to get in, being able to remount while in the air, adding stamina drain when flying above a certain altitude, allow mid-air collisions, Huge cliffs and massive valleys which can only be accessed through flight, giving characters special mounts which are similar to artifact weapons from Legion which you have to quest for and use to buy abilities for, more Raid Bosses like Malygos, getting your mount stolen from you by NPC poachers and having quests to get it back, allowing flight capable mounts to climb walls and hang from ceilings etc. etc. There's plenty of things Blizz could do with flying. They just decided not too.

[Totes]

Did people actually think there would be flying at launch? lmao

[SirCowdog]

Well, to be fair, it slows down the player, forces them to interact with the world as designed, increases the length of the subscription - and by extension, increases their gross profits, allows for the implementation of 2D design over 3D design - and by extension, increases their gross profits, and above all else, it allows for a faster, production schedule - which, in turn, increases their profits via box sales.

I just wanted to say how gratifying it is to see someone who actually understands the real reason why flying was removed. It wasn't done to "make the game better", or to help some dev's artistic vision. It's 100% motivated by increasing profits.

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Lets see.... maybe because people that always "whine" but still keep on playing have NO impact on the game, the games popularity, and most important the games revenue. While people that quit actually cost them money. Would you listen to a few (forum, 15%) that give feedback or whine without let actions follow their words or would you react to occasions that actually effect your finacials? Before you ask, try to think as a business man/woman.

I am sure Blizzard is always on that side to make as many people happy as possible. Positive side effect: more people liking and playing their game the more money they make.

@The Black Widow:

Keep in mind here that WoW alone is making multiple millions of dollars EVERY MONTH. Of course Blizzard is going to look at the money first before some armchair designer/player suggestions. And also taking into account the context of how unprecedentedly successful WoW has been in the past, yes, absolutely they're going to be making design decisions based on money. Approval rating by the customers is always welcome, of course, but it's a secondary consideration.

I always makes me think..... if you want to "enjoy" ground life, why don't you just stay on the ground? Flight being more effective is out of the window since farm nodes are personal and special NPCs and monsters are tagable by everyone. So in the end it actually is a self control issue. It is not like you would lose a week of progress for every hour in game you do not chose to fly.

So you like to be forced, that is ok for me. I don't, but i don't have a problem to unsub if certain things are in the game the impact my enjoyment of the game.
And to be perfectly clear: i even take longer to get to places on my flying mount than i would on my ground mount when i have time on my hand. Simply because on the ground i just want this slow riding to be over quick, while flying i enjoy taking detours. You know: looking around, discovering places i have not seen from the ground because i focused on getting though mobs and stuff, AND seeing more of the beautiful art from every angle, way more than i would ever from the ground.

Well, to be completely fair, the world that's designed for a flying player is going to look a lot different than one designed for a grounded player. I fully agree with and understand some of the points that Blizzard makes about that topic. If they want to account for a flying player, then they have to design encounters differently, and that will also effect how a grounded player can approach a situation.

It's really not just a simple case of "if you don't want to fly, then just don't." But that's why I always push for changes to the way in which flying works, so that the disparity between what a grounded player and a flying players can do is less of an issue.

The first, and easiest, change would be to set flying and ground mount speed to exactly the same. Raw speed is the biggest mark against flying past parts of the open world. Think about how many times No-Flying people have talked about how when you're flying you miss out on all that "cool stuff(tm)" that's supposedly on the ground because you're just zipping past it in the sky. Well then...that argument tends to lose a lot of impact if you're going at the same speed as a grounded player.

The second thing: Add obstacles in the air, the same way it's being done on the ground. Flak canons work the same as water or walls. Kaliri birds work the same as packs of dazing enemies. Ranged enemies work the same way as grounded melee enemies with larger aggro radius.

Third: Make zones with more vertical design, like we saw in Icecrown or Stormpeaks.


Granted, these types of changes wouldn't completely and totally fix the flying issue, but they would be a hell of a lot better and more interesting than: "LOL U NO FLY FOR REASONS!"

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Then that kind of makes your point about flying irrelevant though? If flying was such a huge thing, surely they would have not done things the way they are continuing to to, since it would make less money?

Unless it was counter-balanced by some other factor that made them more money. Like...I don't know...a system that got players to spend months chasing down every piece of content in order to unlock a carrot that they really wanted? Enter Pathfinder.

What some players want. If you have any intention of being fair and having an intelligent conversation, you have to accept that some people just honestly disagree with you. We can have an honest disagreement without either of us being a bad person. I've yet to see a forum thread where everyone agreed on this subject.

This is why I quantified my statement with "in regards to flying". I don't care if people disagree with me, or think they're a bad person for doing so. What I care about is getting them to recognize that Flying being harmful for the game is purely a construct of Blizzard to justify changing their world design to one that values profit over enjoy-ability. The simple fact of the matter is that if Flying was so god damn bad(as people keep repeating) then why didn't its removal catapult WoD and Legion back to the levels of popularity and activity as expansions that had it(TBC/WotLK).

It's perfectly ok for individuals to say "Well I don't like to fly." I have ZERO problems with that! Play how you want to. Where I take issue is with the people who say, "I don't like to fly, and seeing YOU fly makes the game worse. So you shouldn't be able to fly." THAT is pure, unadulterated horse shit.

So yes, people who take the stance of agreeing with Blizzard's reasoning for removing flight are making bad decisions. Not because they disagree with me, but because they aren't using their minds. They aren't thinking about it, and are just blinding accepting because the idea was introduced to them in blue text. And it's hard to have "an intelligent discussion" with someone who operates that way.

EDIT: I should point out that every time I've had a discussion with someone who's actually thinking, it usually results in very civil and interesting discussion where we both end up agreeing about some things, but not others, and overall have an enjoyable time.

[papajohn4]

Like they did with Classic? Dumb motherfuckers.

except that classic is not minority... minority is your empty servers... wait until classic is released and you ll see who is the minority... also this picture is from official wow reddit on day 1 Blizzcon after they announced both classic and BfA



open your eyes... 80% servers are empty.. blizzard have announced more merges.. think again who is the minority..

[TyrianFC]

Its amusing that people asking for Vanilla, are also asking for a noflying experience. I wonder how many of them consider themselves pro-flyers.

[Felfaadaern Darkterror]

except that classic is not minority... minority is your empty servers... wait until classic is released and you ll see who is the minority... also this picture is from official wow reddit on day 1 Blizzcon after they announced both classic and BfA



open your eyes... 80% servers are empty.. blizzard have announced more merges.. think again who is the minority..

I expect Classic to be bigger than current game... for 1 month, and maybe keep it close for a 2nd. Most will try it out. Some will leave due to game play issues - class balance, mana, having to grind levels because not enough quests... - and others will stay until they've smashed through all the content. The raids weren't hard enough to last long, and without new content, most players will feel like "ok, that's done, now back to something new". There will be a few hardcore players who are happy playing the same content over and over, but I expect that to be very much a minority.

[ElitistNoob]

Zero fucks given, I enjoy the game with and without flying.

[Ragedaug]

Did people actually think there would be flying at launch? lmao

Nope, no one did. lmao

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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.

You nailed it. The better the content, the more we like AFK'ing on our flight paths while we alt-tab out waiting to get to wherever the content is. Nothing like great content to make you want to wait longer to do it.

"This content is so great, I hope Blizzard makes my flight path loop around the entire zone TWICE! before dropping me down on the opposite side of the zone from where the content is!"

[WowIsDead64]

Well, to be completely fair, the world that's designed for a flying player is going to look a lot different than one designed for a grounded player. I fully agree with and understand some of the points that Blizzard makes about that topic. If they want to account for a flying player, then they have to design encounters differently, and that will also effect how a grounded player can approach a situation.

It's really not just a simple case of "if you don't want to fly, then just don't." But that's why I always push for changes to the way in which flying works, so that the disparity between what a grounded player and a flying players can do is less of an issue.

The first, and easiest, change would be to set flying and ground mount speed to exactly the same. Raw speed is the biggest mark against flying past parts of the open world. Think about how many times No-Flying people have talked about how when you're flying you miss out on all that "cool stuff(tm)" that's supposedly on the ground because you're just zipping past it in the sky. Well then...that argument tends to lose a lot of impact if you're going at the same speed as a grounded player.

The second thing: Add obstacles in the air, the same way it's being done on the ground. Flak canons work the same as water or walls. Kaliri birds work the same as packs of dazing enemies. Ranged enemies work the same way as grounded melee enemies with larger aggro radius.

Third: Make zones with more vertical design, like we saw in Icecrown or Stormpeaks.


Granted, these types of changes wouldn't completely and totally fix the flying issue, but they would be a hell of a lot better and more interesting than: "LOL U NO FLY FOR REASONS!"

Flying vs no-flying problem is exactly the same, as PVE vs PVP. And as in case of PVE vs PVP the only 100% solution here - to have two types of content: ground and flying one. There is no compromise, that would fix flying vs no-flying problem.

In case of PVE vs PVP biggest problem for Blizzard - that they can't design content 100% around one of them. They can't implement lots of PVP-related content, cuz half of their playerbase plays on PVE servers, where this content would be completely pointless or even harm health of their game, as in case of Dalaran sewers. And many PVE players, who don't actually like PVP, play on PVP servers due to various reasons, such as friends, better PVE progress, etc. That's why so many single-factioned PVP servers appeared recently. And Blizzard can't do anything about them. See? Holinka has been trying to force players into PVP for 2 xpacks in a row (via CRZ, via FFA zones, via PVE quests in PVP zones, etc), but it doesn't work. For example too bottlenecked ground content - is part of a reason, why PVE players need flying so much. But Blizzard also don't want to design world around PVE only and hope, that PVP will happen by itself. PVP - is one of those things, that have to be forced. That's why they've decided to remove PVP servers and make separate PVP rules and content for PVP players.

Some with flying. But in this case... Blizzard just don't want to design world around flying. Principally. They just can't give up and get rid of this stupid idea, that content should be stretched via slowing players down somehow. Cuz the only way to stretch flying content - make big locations, where everything is very far away from each other. Where you need to fly for 5 minutes to get to your quest objective. And they just don't want to make such locations, cuz such locations would be completely useless for ground players. Same, as lots of PVP content, that would be completely pointless for PVEers.

But they also just can't get rid of this stupid mob grind/navigation/treasure hunting/jump puzzles content, pro-flyers, like me, hate so much. This content is forced and it's as bad, as forced PVP for PVE player. But in case of ground content - Blizzard don't respect their pro-flying players.

[Deleted]

It's really not just a simple case of "if you don't want to fly, then just don't." But that's why I always push for changes to the way in which flying works, so that the disparity between what a grounded player and a flying players can do is less of an issue.

Except that it is that simple. One argument is that people complain about flight being to safe, and they want to feel the danger in the world. For those people there would be nothing easier in case of feeling the danger in the world to simply not use flight. It is a personal choice. And it is simply non of their business if or how other people want their play experience to feel. The speed "advantage" is there but not as dramatic as people want to make it here. And gameplay wise there is no difference, simply because all things except travel need to be done on the ground. But i am not against any adjustments by default. Speed can be lowered on flying mounts and raised at ground mounts so that both meet at 150%. And no i don't see the need to make ground mounts superior in terms of speed and nerf flying mounts into oblivion. That is just a move to be a dickhead, nothing more.

Further there doesn't need to be separated content for flying and ground mount gameplay. It is a plus but it is not necessary to balance out the issue. All it needs is a little thought put into world design and additional mechanics to NPCs and monsters. You don't have to tuck away every quest mob deep into a cave or a fortess. Just a few examples:

- The cave/fortress method, just to get it out of the way first is very efficient in terms of preventing people from swooping in on a questobjective
- Guardmodes - every mob has a range within it can recognize players and approaching them, how about they have different ranges: a normal one for ground approaching players and a larger one the covers the sky. They don't need to shoot them out of the skies, but they can follow those aerial threads and the longer they follow the more allied NPCs they gather. So when the player lands he might see himself being surrounded by 10 or more NPCs
- Killorder - how about (and they did it already in the past) you have to kill certain minor NPCs in order to make the main objective appear? Or collecting keys to open/activate something. Outrageous right? What a brand new concept..... not really, it's in since classic and always needed players to be TADAAAA on the ground.
- Ring the alarmbell - just another classic concept: if you attack certain mobs and they get to be low on health, they run away and alarm others, that would make it way safer to just clear the area while progressing instead of just swooping in.
- Treasure-hunts randomness - why do crates have to have one certain place? They don't if it doesn't need to from a codewise perspective. But having an area where one crate could appear on different places makes it hard to just fly around look on your addon map where the crate should be and more possible to stumble upon one while traveling on the ground.

Those are just a few of many many many many ideas to balance out flying vs ground mounts without having to develop different content for flying and ground mounts. Besides that this is a nice addition i can tell you that a group of people will whine that THIS content is something Blizz takes away from them: the very same group that irrationally insist that flying is something bad.

But after all, as it stands as a fact: being tied to the ground makes the world dangerous for only a very very very short time. After the first few months (sometimes even just weeks) the world loses its danger and is more of a time waste and annoyance. So flight NEVER made people skip over RELEVANT content. All activities have to be done on the ground, it is only the way to get there that gets more comfortable. NOT less dangerous since there is no danger in mobs that are not relevant at a certain player progression.

And it kills world PvP.... well if you believe all those doomsayers that did not understand the upcoming mechanic in the slightest there will be no W-PvP left that could be influenced by flight. So what is left? Immersion! Other than some people might believe, immersion is nothing someone else can determine for others, not even Blizzard can tell you what is immersive to you. So immersion is pretty subjective. And Artwork? Oh come on, i have appreciated way more waterfalls, cliffs, woods and every nooks and crannies from every angle than other could possibly ever do while being stuck to the ground. In fact, i even take detours after detours just to "appreciate" the beautiful artwork of those level designers.

So all in all.... it doesn't need to take much to solve so many issues some people (even developers) have, just a little thought. Only "preventing flight for x amount of time" takes even less effort. Flight is less of a problem than some want to make it believe. And for someone that simply doesn't like flying, not using it is a very viable option.

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except that classic is not minority... minority is your empty servers... wait until classic is released and you ll see who is the minority... also this picture is from official wow reddit on day 1 Blizzcon after they announced both classic and BfA



open your eyes... 80% servers are empty.. blizzard have announced more merges.. think again who is the minority..

Well that is a tiny fraction of people concidering WoW has over 100,000,000 created accounts. Minority doesn't mean "only 50 people". In case of classic servers there could be 1 mio. players on classic servers, and still be the minority if there are 3 mio. players on the retail servers.

There are quiet a few "classic enthusiasts", but i highly doubt they are "the majority of players". I am so excited to see how this plays out but we simply don't know. There is no reliable source to show exact numbers YET. I have played WoW since classic. Will i play on the classic servers.... maybe. Will i play exclusively on the classic servers? not very likely, since to many things in classic have been a "well at least i have been through it once, no need to do it again, ever" type of thing. I actually enjoy many parts of modern WOW and prefer them over old classic mechanics/content.

[last1214]

While we are on the topic... No flying in 9.0 is also confirmed.

[Nnyco]

the wod/legion flying model was pretty successful, so makes sense they keep using it

[SirCowdog]

the wod/legion flying model was pretty successful, so makes sense they keep using it

Define "successful".

Certainly it worked perfectly for Blizzard. They didn't have to change their design at all, and continued to be able to convince players that everything was fine for flying, while at the same time getting those same players to play more of the content than they'd otherwise bother with.

But from the perspective of someone who wants flying to actually be part of the game, the WoD/Legion model is still unadulterated garbage. The content and story still pretends that flying players don't exist. You have to wait 8+ months to get access to it, and jump through a bunch of tasks that have NOTHING to do with flying. And then when you finally get to fly again, Blizzard drops open world progression content where flying isn't enabled at all.

Oh, but lets not forget how useful flying is for alts, right? In the expansion that is the least alt-friendly to ever exist so far.

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Except that it is that simple. One argument is that people complain about flight being to safe, and they want to feel the danger in the world. For those people there would be nothing easier in case of feeling the danger in the world to simply not use flight. It is a personal choice. And it is simply non of their business if or how other people want their play experience to feel.

I think we might be talking about two different things. I completely agree that if people want to get their feet into the mud in order to fully experience every single nuance and detail of the world, then it's up to them to choose to do so. From a player perspective, telling people "if you don't like flying then don't fly" makes perfect sense.

However, from a world design perspective it's not so simple. Icecrown, for example, was clearly designed to be experienced by players with flying mounts. If you tried to traverse it from the ground, there were many parts that you simply wouldn't be able to access, both due to terrain and because of enemy density. The same goes for Stormpeaks, and later Deepholme, which had plenty of areas that literally could not be reached from the ground.

In those types of zone designs, a player who absolutely refuses to use a flying mount wouldn't be able to complete that part of the game. I suppose it's possible to get around this problem by better locations of flight paths and such, but what it boils down to is that when you're designing a zone for use by flying players, you're going to lay things out differently than you would for players who don't fly.

All this other nonsense about people saying their experience is ruined by seeing other people flying is, quite honestly, a giant pile of bullshit. The same as making players wait 8 months to unlock flying only in areas they've already cleared. Forcing players into experiences they have no interest in before getting to play the way they enjoyed for the previous 8 years is, likewise, a giant pile of bullshit.

I fully agree that there is nothing in the current open world of Legion or WoD that would have been significantly harmed by allowing players to fly(Argus' stupid artistic bubble backdrop nonsense aside). And those parts that WOULD have been harmed by flying would only have done so because the player CHOSE to ruin it for themselves.

[Xires]

Or you might start wondering why the world feels a bit more empty, and why you don't see anyone threatening to unsub

That's never happened. The point was that people always threaten to unsub and yet never do...happens every x-pac. They threaten to unsub...they don't....the world has tons of people in it and millions still playing. /the end

[Miralynn]

I love flying in WoW.

I'm also OK with not having it at the beginning, provided we do get it eventually. I enjoy exploring and finding things the hard way. I had a love/hate relationship with Suramar until I finall finished my Nightfallen rep and the quest chain.

Not having flying will not be the end of the world. Getting it later on in the expansion will not be the end of the world. But who am I kidding, this is WoW and literally everything is the worst thing that Blizzard has ever done in the entire history of video games, ever.

[Deleted]

I'm not an antiflyer but pathfinder is a compromise I can live wth

[Deleted]

I think we might be talking about two different things. I completely agree that if people want to get their feet into the mud in order to fully experience every single nuance and detail of the world, then it's up to them to choose to do so. From a player perspective, telling people "if you don't like flying then don't fly" makes perfect sense.

However, from a world design perspective it's not so simple. Icecrown, for example, was clearly designed to be experienced by players with flying mounts. If you tried to traverse it from the ground, there were many parts that you simply wouldn't be able to access, both due to terrain and because of enemy density. The same goes for Stormpeaks, and later Deepholme, which had plenty of areas that literally could not be reached from the ground.

In those types of zone designs, a player who absolutely refuses to use a flying mount wouldn't be able to complete that part of the game. I suppose it's possible to get around this problem by better locations of flight paths and such, but what it boils down to is that when you're designing a zone for use by flying players, you're going to lay things out differently than you would for players who don't fly.

Well by that time that argument came up there have been no "only fly areas" in the game for 2 whole addons. So by the time the discussion came up there was not even an gameplay reason why you can't play the game without flying. And even in Warth... those people arguing against flight often say that it hinders player interaction, while they also said that flying takes part of the world and makes them inaccessible for them. Well for those who want more player interaction and oppose flight the perfect solution to traverse those flight areas is... TADAAAA player interaction. Play in a group with a warlock and two others that don't mind flight or ask in chat for a port. So not flying actually enables for more player interaction. BUT only for those who want it. To make it mandatory it would actually make the experience worse for those who want flight and on't really want to deal with others.

Oh and before anyone makes stupid nonsense arguments "hurrrdurrr it is an MMO you know": MMO means that many many many players play in a world and you can meet all of them on your journey, it is NOT defined as "you always have to work with others to get somewhere". And especially for WoW one of the lead devs back then Jeff Kaplan stated "if you want to play solo in World of Warcraft we want you to absolutely be able to, without being forced to interact with others."Just for the "smartasses that think multiplayer means forced interaction between players while WoWs intended design concept was exactly that you don not have to.

All this other nonsense about people saying their experience is ruined by seeing other people flying is, quite honestly, a giant pile of bullshit. The same as making players wait 8 months to unlock flying only in areas they've already cleared. Forcing players into experiences they have no interest in before getting to play the way they enjoyed for the previous 8 years is, likewise, a giant pile of bullshit.

I fully agree that there is nothing in the current open world of Legion or WoD that would have been significantly harmed by allowing players to fly(Argus' stupid artistic bubble backdrop nonsense aside). And those parts that WOULD have been harmed by flying would only have done so because the player CHOSE to ruin it for themselves.

This i can only agree to.