What's wrong with designing zones around flying?

[Soeroah]

It's a bit odd to me calling Pathfinder "outdated" when it's newer than the concept of flying as soon as we hit level cap, or saying it's "far too late" when it has worked for three expansions.

I think they should open flying up sooner than they are, but I prefer the Pathfinder system to the Wrath system. It's a great reward for doing the world content (though after expansions are over they should DEFINITELY remove every requirement except the Explorer and storyline achievement portions, screw the rep). Plus the game gets smaller once flying is added, so it's best added when we at least get a bit more content in the form of a new zone. From what I understand we might be able to fly in Nyalotha and Mechagon, which would be great - the visual trickery on Argus was fantastic at conveying scale, but it got old fast not being able to fly, and I don't think no-fly zones should be added at the same time as flying.

But I think six months is enough to wait for flying. Any longer than that is too much. We should get it with the release of Dazar'alor, IMO, or slightly later.

[lappee]

If I remember, the Zeppelin has an intro quest that takes you there and every quest gives either a parachute and/or taxi style whistle to go back. I even remember one of the first quests had you drop down in a southern area of Icecrown and after finishing it I scrambled trying to find out how to get back up, simply to realize I was given an item to be taxi’d back.
The issue is that people say these zones were designed around flight, when clearly they weren’t. Having a taxi service from1 hub to another, akin to the chopper at K3, is not flight. That’s a taxi service. It’s like stating point A to point B via a flight path means the zone was designed with flight.
Even Dragonblight had quests that involved combat on the back of a dragon, but I wouldn’t say that zone was designed with the idea of unlimited flight potential.
Now, I will fully admit I might be wrong about the airship in Icecrown as it’s been years, but I’m pretty sure I had all these zones completed without flight and had to have a guild member loan me gold to get flight (yeah, fully admit Wrathbaby noob).

They're always gonna let people do the quests, whether or not they have flying purchased. Storm Peaks gives you the chopper to use in that zone specifically so its rather safe to say it was designed for flying. Flight paths or normal taxi services don't allow you to control your character like it did in Storm Peaks, its simply flying.

You could complete the zones without purchasing flying skill, but you couldn't complete Storm Peaks without actually flying

[Dhrizzle]

But the eagles picked them immediately after the content was done, not some arbitrary 6+ months later.

And in Icecrown we were flying before the content started, not sure what your point is trying to be there.

[Soon-TM]

And in Icecrown we were flying before the content started, not sure what your point is trying to be there.

Because otherwise questing in Icecrown would have been impossible. Your point?

[Dhrizzle]

Because otherwise questing in Icecrown would have been impossible. Your point?

You seem really confused, let's back up a bit...

I said;

Icecrown also needed flying and it totally ruined any sense of threat the Scourge were supposed to have. Imagine if the eagles had picked up Sam and Frodo just as they got to Mordor.

You replied;

But the eagles picked them immediately after the content was done, not some arbitrary 6+ months later.

Which totally came from nowhere, how does it have anything to do with getting flight for Icecrown? Which is why I said;

And in Icecrown we were flying before the content started, not sure what your point is trying to be there.

And then you completely forgot the earlier part of the conversation and said;

Because otherwise questing in Icecrown would have been impossible. Your point?

What I was asking is - what does your thing about eagles and 6 months have to do with my comment about flying in Icecrown?

[bufferunderrun]

It's a bit odd to me calling Pathfinder "outdated" when it's newer than the concept of flying as soon as we hit level cap, or saying it's "far too late" when it has worked for three expansions.

I think they should open flying up sooner than they are, but I prefer the Pathfinder system to the Wrath system. It's a great reward for doing the world content (though after expansions are over they should DEFINITELY remove every requirement except the Explorer and storyline achievement portions, screw the rep). Plus the game gets smaller once flying is added, so it's best added when we at least get a bit more content in the form of a new zone. From what I understand we might be able to fly in Nyalotha and Mechagon, which would be great - the visual trickery on Argus was fantastic at conveying scale, but it got old fast not being able to fly, and I don't think no-fly zones should be added at the same time as flying.

But I think six months is enough to wait for flying. Any longer than that is too much. We should get it with the release of Dazar'alor, IMO, or slightly later.

i don't understand that logic, world was bigger when flying was there from day 0 blizzard itself say so that zones where bigger to accommodate flying, so you prefer blizzard being lazy and do smaller zones?

[Darkeon]

Zones designed with Flying in mind can be amazing.
Wrath of the Lich King had some of the best and grand zones we ever saw.

Reality is, times have changed since then. WoW is in decline instead of growing.
No flying makes the players spend more time doing their activities. Which in turns is better for a business perspective. And, if this extra time can be camouflaged by an interesting setting and\or engaging gameplay, the player will really be no worst off without flying. (Shame Blizzard has yet to fully manage to achieve this though.)

[Maudib]

I wouldn't call it social interaction, pretend or otherwise. I just think it's nice to do some cooperative activities with people in a shared virtual space.

Maybe I'm getting my timelines muddled, wasn't the shared tags introduced because you could no longer easily fly to the other side of the area and pretend the other player didn't exist, which was the solution when flying was in the game?

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Stormpeaks needed flying and it really worked in terms of exploring and discovery. Icecrown also needed flying and it totally ruined any sense of threat the Scourge were supposed to have. Imagine if the eagles had picked up Sam and Frodo just as they got to Mordor.

Those people could just as easily be NPCs.. in fact... can you be sure they aren't?

Flying had nothing to do with tagging mobs, or social interaction. If so, they would have stuck to their guns and disallowed flying completely.

Flying was delayed for one reason only... slow down consumption of content allowing them to reduce how much content they needed to produce. If you recall, WoD was when they thought they could roll out content every year. Cut the crap out of it, try to remove flying, and STILL "dragged on" over 2 years.

Sam and Frodo had the invis cloaks and had content pass them by. They also followed Gollum who bypassed most of the content as well. If they had flying, but had a list of objectives... they would have likely encountered that content much more than they did.

Flying has NEVER bypassed content.... it may make it more convenient... but having to achieve max level first certainly has been more than enough of an opportunity to kill random mobs. Flying gave the game the perfect "speed" at which to travel through the game.

The game was better off with flying and having to GO to the instance entrances... than it has been without flying and being ale to queue for any and all instances from the main cities or your garrison, or your class hall.

I truly am surprised Blizzard has not allowed you to queue for instances while playing Hearthstone. Truly the devs coulld not care less about immersion or fantasy... it's all about $$ and slowing down progress through content. The game was more fun when an hours worth of play, gave you an hour's worth of progress.

[Soon-TM]

You seem really confused, let's back up a bit...

I said;



You replied;



Which totally came from nowhere, how does it have anything to do with getting flight for Icecrown? Which is why I said;



And then you completely forgot the earlier part of the conversation and said;



What I was asking is - what does your thing about eagles and 6 months have to do with my comment about flying in Icecrown?

I meant that your analogy

Icecrown also needed flying and it totally ruined any sense of threat the Scourge were supposed to have. Imagine if the eagles had picked up Sam and Frodo just as they got to Mordor.

makes no !@$#ing sense. It was YOU who brought Icecrown and LotR in the same sentence and I was pointing it out.

[SirCowdog]

For me, I preferred the WotLK method. I liked and disliked a lot about that expansion, but I think they fucking NAILED the physical continent and questing experience. And one of my favourite things about it was unlocking flying at 77 and soaring up to the massive pillars in Sholazar, and scaling the lofty heights in Storm Peaks, while still questing and "exploring".

This is exactly where I think the game needs to get back to. Flying or no flying needs to make sense within the context of the environment of each zone.

I think keeping flight as something to look forward to as you advance through the levels of an expansion has a decent amount of value. Flying could VERY easily be used as a mechanic to open up new areas once it's obtained, while still being used to make previously cleared areas more convenient. Once you have it, further zones would have a mix of areas within it where flight was needed to reach certain quests, while others would be indoors or underground without flying.

This kind of moderate, mixed approach to zone design could allow all types of players to get enjoyment out of the content without being overly restrictive or unnecessarily gated

- - - Updated - - -

So either have flying or NO convenience what so ever? 30000-D Chess logics.

That's my point: That the logic that flying being convenient is somehow an argument against it, especially given all the other conveniences in the game. :/

Of course something can be cool, but it could also make the game overall alot worse. Dual spec for instance, sure it is convenient to just being able to switch to another spec on the fly to do whatever you choose to do. But i think dual spec(and now "Free Spec") have made the game alot worse, because it destroys alot of the class/spec identity you had.

That's purely your opinion, and not one that's particularly well-founded. Dual spec and other spec-swapping abilities don't hurt class identity at all. They simply give access to different specs of each class....which is part of the class' identity. I fail to see how such access can diminish the class identity unless that identity is already weak to begin with.

Similarly, flying can do significant harm to content which is already weak and shallow to begin with. If the content between quest objectives is so weak that a player must be FORCED to interact with it, then it's not any good to begin with, and doesn't deserve such vehement defense.

Third point: Sure, flying itself doesn't make the world safe, but it's a very, very big contributor to the world feeling more safe. And aswell it's not even the world design at fault, it's the overall PvP system. The fact that it doesn't "realy" matter anymore(since tbc) because you either get nothing from killing another player or a very tiny amount of currency for buying specific items.

That is a deep, fundamental flaw with attempting to slap PVP into a PVE world without consideration, planning, or forethought. Furthermore, using WPVP as a reason for how flying makes the world too safe, when engaging in WPVP is completely optional, is a poor argument. Not to mention the simple fact that Blizzard has taken the most lazy, poorly considered, and halfassed approach to WPVP design by simply slapping a PVP mode onto what is otherwise a purely PVE world.

Flying has nothing to do with making the world less dangerous, especially considering that the very players who potentially pose a threat.....can also fly.

Fourth: Ofcourse, where there is bandwagon people, there are also people on the hate train for small reasons. For me, i dont give a flying fuck if theres flying or not. It sure is convenient if theres flying when you do world quest but for a raider the whole world quest system looses it's meaning before you even reach 345 itemlevel.
In Legion without flying you just used the Kite toy + Second wind(or whatever it was called) and it essentially was like flying and get wherever on broken isle.

That's just more weight to support my point of view.

Blizzard isn't even trying to make an interesting open world with depth or meaning. They're just following a simplistic formula with zero innovation. Why SHOULDN'T the open world have something useful for raiders? Why SHOULDN'T the open world have meaning or challenge for fliers?

The problem isn't with flying. It's with Blizzard's incredibly weak approach to open world design.

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makes no !@$#ing sense. It was YOU who brought Icecrown and LotR in the same sentence and I was pointing it out.

He's tried to use this argument before: That flying completely invalidated the threat of the scourge on the ground.

What he's failing to include is the fact that any ground-based attempt to fight the scourge would have been pointless. Wave after wave of limitless trash mobs with no loot, no experience points, no purpose but to kill you. They'd basically be target dummies. Gosh would that have been fun. /s

He's also forgetting all the undead flying enemies around Icecrown, such as the gargoyles and bone dragons, as well as the opposite faction's airship. Things which were far more interesting and thematic than a zombie horde that you literally couldn't overcome. Admittedly, Blizzard could have done a better job with creating credible threats to flying players in both Icecrown and Stormpeaks. I feel like they could have used the Airships more, and maybe had some anti-air towers with those all-seeing-eyes that you destroy in a quest.

But that's kind of the point, right? That Blizzard COULD be doing more than they are.

[rogueMatthias]

These threads baffle me.

Granted, it's slightly more convenient to get around with flying and I can understand it i you're a miner/herb gatherer. I can even understand if you want to avoid any other players or any kind of PVP (but still want an XP boost).

But I can't for the life of me understand how some people are so strongly passionate about it, or how anybody could unironically think that it's some huge game changer that will be causing big losses of subs. People planning to unsubscribe until flying is added just seems hilarious to me.

It's just a slightly easier way of getting around. Now with shorter hearths, whistles, more flight points and levelling quests grouped together it's barely even that much more convenient. If anything using your whistle and going AFK while flying for a few minutes is easier.

How is it game-changingly fun? I'm just imagining you guys sat at home in front of your computers going "WWEEEEEEE IM FLYINGGGG!!!!!!! " whilst flying in circles in the air for hours on end. wtf is so "fun" about it? There's not even any mini games or aerial combat (which both could be cool). Even exploration is far more fun when it takes a little more effort to get to places.

I still believe that under NO circumstances should flying be allowed in the new zones with Warmode on. There's no justification for wanting to be able to get all the benefits of Warmode but being able to totally avoid any contact with other players. Not to mention that it will make levelling in the new zones with Warmode on literally impossible.

[Dhrizzle]

Flying had nothing to do with tagging mobs, or social interaction. If so, they would have stuck to their guns and disallowed flying completely.

Back in WoD they did consider completely removing flying but it seems there was enough people who were happy waiting for flying but didn't want it to be ruled out altogether which is why we got the Pathfinder system which is pretty close to what they said would happen in the first place.

Flying was delayed for one reason only... slow down consumption of content allowing them to reduce how much content they needed to produce.

That's false and you know it is, Blizz can easily adjust how quickly content is consumed by adjusting the rewards and how many world quests they give you to do each day. If they thought the game was better with flying they could nerf what you get from world quests, make the emissary take 6 or 8 or whatever and people will advance at the same rate.

If you recall, WoD was when they thought they could roll out content every year. Cut the crap out of it, try to remove flying, and STILL "dragged on" over 2 years.

I think WoD's biggest problem was how reviled the garrison was due to overuse, from there they decided to shift people on to Legion to get it out quicker but still failed. I don't think any of that had anything to do with flying.

Sam and Frodo had the invis cloaks and had content pass them by. They also followed Gollum who bypassed most of the content as well. If they had flying, but had a list of objectives... they would have likely encountered that content much more than they did.

Sam and Frodo had one quest in Mordor - destroy the ring in mount doom. Without flight it involved traversing the terrain, stealth parts and a boss fight. Given free eagles it would have been a 2 minute job likely whilst they were watching Netflix.

Flying has NEVER bypassed content.... it may make it more convenient... but having to achieve max level first certainly has been more than enough of an opportunity to kill random mobs. Flying gave the game the perfect "speed" at which to travel through the game.

Unless you define content as the specific mobs Blizzard has asked you to kill for an objective and nothing else, then flying absolutely allows you to bypass content.

The game was better off with flying and having to GO to the instance entrances... than it has been without flying and being ale to queue for any and all instances from the main cities or your garrison, or your class hall.

So you only like TBC?

I truly am surprised Blizzard has not allowed you to queue for instances while playing Hearthstone. Truly the devs coulld not care less about immersion or fantasy... it's all about $$ and slowing down progress through content. The game was more fun when an hours worth of play, gave you an hour's worth of progress.

Make up your mind - before we had a queue system, especially before WotLK, an hours gameplay might mean 45 minutes spamming /2 for a group followed by 10 minutes travel followed by 5 minutes in a dungeon before the group falls apart. I'm not a massive fan of the insta-port through the LFG tool myself and would much rather ride to the dungeon, but there's no denying that a queue system has certainly made it easier to actually run dungeons in PUGs, especially if your class has fallen out of FotM.

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I meant that your analogy



makes no !@$#ing sense. It was YOU who brought Icecrown and LotR in the same sentence and I was pointing it out.

Apart form the fact Icecrown looks like Mordor in winter, the point of the analogy was to make you think how much less threat and tension there would have been in LotR if Sam and Frodo had flown over all the orcs and Shelob and just dumped the ring in Mount Doom after a hassle free flight. That's pretty much how Icecrown felt after having the Scourge built up as a huge threat over the course of the leveling process and then we get to just soar over them to pick out targets at our leisure. You're the one who started derping about the eagles not turning up until months later.

[SirCowdog]

These threads baffle me.

Granted, it's slightly more convenient to get around with flying and I can understand it i you're a miner/herb gatherer. I can even understand if you want to avoid any other players or any kind of PVP (but still want an XP boost).

But I can't for the life of me understand how some people are so strongly passionate about it, or how anybody could unironically think that it's some huge game changer that will be causing big losses of subs. People planning to unsubscribe until flying is added just seems hilarious to me.

It's just a slightly easier way of getting around. Now with shorter hearths, whistles, more flight points and levelling quests grouped together it's barely even that much more convenient. If anything using your whistle and going AFK while flying for a few minutes is easier.

How is it game-changingly fun? I'm just imagining you guys sat at home in front of your computers going "WWEEEEEEE IM FLYINGGGG!!!!!!! " whilst flying in circles in the air for hours on end. wtf is so "fun" about it? There's not even any mini games or aerial combat (which both could be cool). Even exploration is far more fun when it takes a little more effort to get to places.

I still believe that under NO circumstances should flying be allowed in the new zones with Warmode on. There's no justification for wanting to be able to get all the benefits of Warmode but being able to totally avoid any contact with other players. Not to mention that it will make levelling in the new zones with Warmode on literally impossible.

You don't understand because you're only thinking in terms of tacking flight onto existing zones without any further changes. But the point some of us are making is that including flight in the overall design would change how content is approached at a fundamental level.

Disregarding that, however, is the simple fact that delaying the unlock of flight for so long is serving no legitimate purpose. If we're going to be stuck with having to clear the content in order to get flying, then we should, at the very least, get it in a reasonable frame of time. Delaying until after part 2 is not reasonable.

[ArmatisUlv]

Flying saved WoW. It was not a mistake.

Yes, because WoW was dying by the time Burning Crusade was introduced. I bet you anything that WoW could've gotten till Wrath before adding flying.

[Soeroah]

i don't understand that logic, world was bigger when flying was there from day 0 blizzard itself say so that zones where bigger to accommodate flying, so you prefer blizzard being lazy and do smaller zones?

No, I'm saying the world becomes smaller when we can fly because everything is only a minute or two away, and then people start complaining about the expansion feeling smaller or having 'less to do' because they're allowed to skip standard padding like terrain or players or mobs. It turns the game into a series of 10-yard quest hubs instead of a world, however BS that world might be to navigate. It's like the old saying that plane travel and then the Internet made the world smaller; it used to take months to communicate with someone on the other side of the planet, but now it's instantaneous, and thus the distance between you and I feels smaller than if we were communicating via post. The zones don't literally get smaller, but they are practically smaller because of our ability to quickly navigate them and skip most obstacles.

I'm speaking from a dev's perspective here, though. They don't like when the world is smaller because flying lets you skip most of it, because it means you finish the content faster. From my own perspective, I'm ready to be able to fly to every world quest and get through five emissaries in the time it takes me to do two again. The Pathfinder system, where you get a little over half of the expansion with flying enabled and the first six to eight months with it disabled, is about the best compromise I can think of.

[Coulrophobia1989]

After seeing the majority of the comments roasting blizz for adding flying, I'd like to direct your attention to exhibit A: Final Fantasy XIV.

No one can say "it invalidates quests" or "it ruins the experience" because some of the quests straight up required flight. You couldn't finish the zones without it. Every zone since the beginning of 3.0 has had some form of flight involved. The zones were big before flight, and they became even more expansive when it was added. If you have an issue with flight, don't buy it? The only relative argument that I could see against the use of flight in newer zones is world PvP, and hindering an entire portion of the game so that latecomers don't get ganked from the skies is silly.

[Kul Tiras]

Because it requires creativity to make the world engaging with flying.

Creativity left blizzard with the release of mists of pandaria.

It's not like Firefall, Final Fantasy online, Guild Wars 2, Global Agenda, Destiny 2 are or were all fantastic MMOs which had flying and are/were simultaneously incredibly fun MMOs.

And out of those who failed, Firefall's finances were blown away by an egomanical CEO and Global Agenda was made by HiRez, who abandon all their games after 1-2 years and move on to the next trendy genre to make bucks out of it.

And I'm probably forgetting some fantastic MMOs with flying.

Wow's gameplay hasn't changed since pre-BC. It is literally the fucking same. Click on exclamation points, kill xyz with mundane rotations requiring lvl 10 IQ, click on question marks, level up to max level. You expect these people to make flying engaging with the content? Lol.

[SirCowdog]

No, I'm saying the world becomes smaller when we can fly because everything is only a minute or two away, and then people start complaining about the expansion feeling smaller or having 'less to do' because they're allowed to skip standard padding like terrain or players or mobs. It turns the game into a series of 10-yard quest hubs instead of a world, however BS that world might be to navigate. It's like the old saying that plane travel and then the Internet made the world smaller; it used to take months to communicate with someone on the other side of the planet, but now it's instantaneous, and thus the distance between you and I feels smaller than if we were communicating via post. The zones don't literally get smaller, but they are practically smaller because of our ability to quickly navigate them and skip most obstacles.

I'm speaking from a dev's perspective here, though. They don't like when the world is smaller because flying lets you skip most of it, because it means you finish the content faster. From my own perspective, I'm ready to be able to fly to every world quest and get through five emissaries in the time it takes me to do two again. The Pathfinder system, where you get a little over half of the expansion with flying enabled and the first six to eight months with it disabled, is about the best compromise I can think of.

The counter argument to that point of view is that if a person wants to spend more time on the ground and sticking their nose into every square inch of the world, then that option is still available to them. People can still correspond via hand-written letters. They can still take the train, or boat. That doesn't meam EVERYONE should have to.

The great fallacy of the entire No-flying argument is that what is between point A and point B is worthy of attention from EVERY player. Yes, the world is practically smaller. But that's only because we're not stopping to deal with speedbumps and irritating garbage that, given a choice, we would never even look at, much less interact with.

Feom a developer standpoint in a subscription-based game, I absolutely understand why they'd want to force every player to spend as much time as possible on every little piece of content. But taking away things players enjoy and locking them behind not only content they're not interested in, but time gates on top of that....uhg....it's too much.

[lappee]

The counter argument to that point of view is that if a person wants to spend more time on the ground and sticking their nose into every square inch of the world, then that option is still available to them. People can still correspond via hand-written letters. They can still take the train, or boat. That doesn't meam EVERYONE should have to.

That would work great AGAIN if the game wasn't so goal oriented. All you do awards stuff so the quicker you do it the more you get out of it (since you can actually farm 24/7). If there was a cap on things, such as AP, and lockouts on gear (Hello M+ infinite farm) then people could justify using time on ground compared to others flying. Sure if you're a playing all alone, no interaction of any kind with anyone then it doesn't matter what you do but when you're in a group and you're taking longer to do stuff then you're a detriment to the group.

The same argument, as I said in other thread, can be used on stuff like GCD change. Don't like movement abilities and such being on GCD? well don't use them, you have the option not to use them - it'll only take longer to do stuff.

Is that really a good argument? No, its not and yet people like you use it all the time because its all you can come up with. And then you go on and call no-flying arguments a fallacy, what a hypocrite in every thread.

If WoWs flying was to be changed to have consequences, difficulty, enemies etc. (or content solely made for flying) then it would be a different story but currently ground mounts and flying mounts can't compare to each other and.

[bufferunderrun]

No, I'm saying the world becomes smaller when we can fly because everything is only a minute or two away, and then people start complaining about the expansion feeling smaller or having 'less to do' because they're allowed to skip standard padding like terrain or players or mobs. It turns the game into a series of 10-yard quest hubs instead of a world, however BS that world might be to navigate. It's like the old saying that plane travel and then the Internet made the world smaller; it used to take months to communicate with someone on the other side of the planet, but now it's instantaneous, and thus the distance between you and I feels smaller than if we were communicating via post. The zones don't literally get smaller, but they are practically smaller because of our ability to quickly navigate them and skip most obstacles.

I'm speaking from a dev's perspective here, though. They don't like when the world is smaller because flying lets you skip most of it, because it means you finish the content faster. From my own perspective, I'm ready to be able to fly to every world quest and get through five emissaries in the time it takes me to do two again. The Pathfinder system, where you get a little over half of the expansion with flying enabled and the first six to eight months with it disabled, is about the best compromise I can think of.

that happen because blizzard refuse (cuz slacking) to make the world compatible with flying, zones are designed to be compatible only with ground mount is natural that once flying is enabled they feel small.

But that isn't because flying but because blizzard design is flawed or to be more precise to save time they made it that way, in real world you can't make it bigger in a virtual one you can and you can also employ lot of system to make flying less a commodity and more a mechanic, weather, altitude, fatigue, flying mobs and ton of other thing we have proposed time and time again.

There is no big reason behind flying being like that other than blizzard slacking.