Blizzard needs to EMBRACE flying...

[Tabrotar]

Imagine Lord of the Rings with flying, 'uh?

Straight to Mount Doom in 30 secs! GREAT STORY!

You mean they would have done the best thing with the least deads and destreuction like really heros?

[rohoz]

Since this is an opinion post and as you quite rightly pointed out that this is all subjective, I am of the opposite school of thought - Blizzard needs to eliminate flying altogether.

Here are my counter arguments:
1. Zones designed around flying are always poorly designed. In your example from WOTLK, only Storm Peaks and Icecrown were zones designed for flying exclusively. Blizzard hasn't developed a good way to do 3D maps, so questing (without secondary addons) and trying to find out where the quest objective is in the x,y,z axis was nuts in both those zones.
2. Vashjir had the same problem. Vashjir was the same - it is just "flying" under water. Zone sucked because 3D mapping sucked.
3. Flying negates the need to interact with the world. You can just fly over crap to avoid combat. This is bad for world PvP as well as game immersion. The thrill of not knowing when you are going to get ganked. The way to counter this to have Mechagon like sentry ships flying and nuking people down randomly. Or cover the skies with elite dragons who agros and kills fliers.
4. The flight-master whistle is an excellent addition to the game. Use it and use flight paths.

Vashj'ir is disliked because it's basically flying but without immunity to mobs

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You mean they would have done the best thing with the least deads and destreuction like really heros?

and miss out the entirety of the world

which is the exact point he's making.

[Tabrotar]

Vashj'ir is disliked because it's basically flying but without immunity to mobs

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and miss out the entirety of the world

which is the exact point he's making.

You mean the WORL they tried to save and which was destructed in many many battles which would have ben avoided by just fly to the vulkan?

Hm i wonder what choice the heroes would have choosen if they would have been able to choose, just get it over with with almost nobody dying or the long road where a shittone of people died and the world was destroyed in many places, i really wonder...

[Teetster]

As I said - making two sets of content is an insane idea... imagine how long between expansions.

It is not two sets of content, clearly. It is a set of content, that you ground lovers stay on your ground mounts for, and the rest of us can fly if we choose.

WoTLK did this brilliantly.

The only reason Blizzard does this pathfinder bullshit is to time gate everyone and keep us subscribed longer. Spoiler alert - I don't stay subscribed. I buy the expansion, play a month or two, and cancel til I can earn flying. If getting around wasn't such a fucking chore because for some reason my Ashes of A'lar forgot how to fly every expac then I would stay subbed. I NEVER cancelled my sub until WoD and that was the start of this bullshit.

[Tabrotar]

It's funny because the reasons people give for no flying, like "player interaction" or "world pvp" don't change in frequency whether flying is allowed or not. People still wait until you've pulled a mob before attempting to gank you. People never talk to each other outside of rp severs and trade chat. People don't even ask for an invite if they're doing the same quest as you. They'll either keep doing their own thing or attempt to invite you without even asking.

Not allowing flying hasn't fixed any of the issues it supposedly should. Ever. And if you as a developer want people to see the new zones and really take in the beauty or whatever, try making engaging content that makes you want to enjoy the area and play there while and after doing whatever it is you went there to do.

No stop, speaking with the voice of reason here will only anger the faying haters bcs it reminds them of their stupidity to ignore others when making a choice.

[Sluvs]

I'm almost certain that this has been talked about before... but.

To take away flying would ruin the game at this point. So the only option left is for Blizzard to embrace flying and make zones, islands, questing areas etc; only available through it. This was done in Wrath I believe and I remember it being a really enjoyable experience having to fly to the top of Storm Peaks or wherever it was; as it was the only way to get there.

Embrace this mechanic and make it a true character of the game's design. Don't just have it as an ease of access tool to get around the zones. Having that as Flying's only benefit is ~ B O R I N G ~.

It's a subjective topic I suppose but, am I wrong?

I see this reasoning a lot, but there only so many times that you can make something out of reach and use flying to get it.

While there is some design space with flying, I don't think it is as deep as some people make it out to be.

[Tabrotar]

Flying from the get go, but with Flying Fatigue.

With Mount equipment you could improve the fatigue. So you still have to use regular mounts. Devs should split the mounts to flyers and non-flyers, so for instance, on a non-flyer I can use Anglers equipment on a flyer some other one. It should be like that at least for new content, until the next expansion. For older content, flying has to stay as it is now.

With this type of flying, Warmode would prosper. No more jumping in the fights and flying away.

Oh wow look another wannabe pvp player trying to force his shitty pvp concept on non pvp players...

[Sluvs]

No stop, speaking with the voice of reason here will only anger the faying haters bcs it reminds them of their stupidity to ignore others when making a choice.

A choice is not a choice when the other option is that much more efficient.

[Kheldin]

Flying is one of the things that make classic/vanilla better then the rest of WoW.

It totally annihilates the atmosphere and danger of certain zones.

Wish they never implemented it.

[Tabrotar]

A choice is not a choice when the other option is that much more efficient.

So you´re saying that it´s a you thing and not a others thing bcs YOU are to weak to CHOOSE to do the stuff with a ground mount...

nice that we got that out of the way, now why is flying really a problem hm Mr. weak mind?

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Except that people feel obliged to enter war mode due to extra rewards. The speed is irrelevant if you plan on doing the WQ's in one area for the day it doesn't matter if it takes 1h for one person and 2h for the other.

Lets say there is 5 WQ's you can do for the day... that means you can get 5 WQ's worth of rewards for the day, doesn't matter if it takes 3 hours or 30 minutes, that's the max you can get... adding 10% means people will go for the 10%. Even pro-fly people would go ground mount and pour on the forums how blizzard forces you to go on a ground mount.

Same as people complained about being forced into world PvP due to the Warmode bonuses.
There is NO perfect solution to anything anywhere.

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I'm saying they should rework flying... it's been my needs since the get go from when it was added in TBC... or at least relatively short afterwards. I don't mind them changing it and it might go to shit and become even worse, because as you say it's better to try instead of stagnate. I however understand WHY they don't, because people will complain.

People tend to have bigger issues with things taken away from them rather than having plenty of limits which later gets removed. Which is how blizzard started the flying thing. The only way to go forward with it is to put in restrictions and I understand that any company have to weigh in if the backlash is worth it for the long term effects yadda yadda. I don't know the answer to this if it is or not.. .I wish they rework flying, but I can understand why it's done the way it is done currently as a compromise.

To the verticality thing you mention, afaik plenty of people still dislike Nazjatar even with flying due to the verticality and the way terrain works. Much of my experiences and speculations on flying is based on that people just want a tool to get from point a to point b quick and with as little interaction as possible. I'm cynical in that regard.
I can understand why you would enjoy verticality, or rather I accept that that's how you feel about it. For me flying horizontally and vertically is the exact same thing so to me it doesn't matter and wouldn't be a step in either direction.

Sorry i would never ever do warmode no matte rwhat reward they will put in there, which means i´m ok with having a mind on my own and make my own desicions instead of being a braindead "but it gives more so i need to do it" lemming.

And pvp in general is a stupid idea for making desicions bcs lo and behold always nobody is doing wpvp bcs it sucks and sucked since vanilla but they did it bcxs they had no othe roptions.

[Gratlim]

Yeah they also need to revert the numbers of Priests' Renew to what it did in Wrath. It's never been as high since, only logical explanation why the game is less popular now.

Nevermind the fact that Cataclysm was the expansion with the most available flying and was the start of the steep decline. But I wouldn't be stupid enough to imply that the decline is because of flying being so available, so why would I do the reverse?

Tbh Cataclysm was the start of a steepe decline for 3 reasons (imo):
- HC crowd asked for harder dungeons and their prenerf versions were destroying pugs with tanks being one shot on trash pulls. We went from super casual friendly / easy Wotlk to back to BC difficulty but even higher tuned. Total 180° from Blizz.
- Azeroth revamp was not that popular
- The aquatic zone was a negative experience for most

[Kumorii]

Sorry i would never ever do warmode no matte rwhat reward they will put in there, which means i´m ok with having a mind on my own and make my own desicions instead of being a braindead "but it gives more so i need to do it" lemming.

And pvp in general is a stupid idea for making desicions bcs lo and behold always nobody is doing wpvp bcs it sucks and sucked since vanilla but they did it bcxs they had no othe roptions.

Agreed... but also besides the point, since I'm not talking about what I would do nor what a specific individual would do. Rather than what some will do based on previous experiences. Such as warmode.

[LuminaL]

Kinda impressive to get the explore zone achievements needed to unlock flying with only seeing 20% of a zone with how spread out the locations are.

do you really consider that ONE time you passed thro one point of map and explored 1/6 of it without ever going back ? I go the shortest usual route to reduce my dismount and time spent on awful ground moving to minimum and Im pretty sure most of the players do the same, whereas I go and see a lot of places that are hard to reach and or I normally dont go with my flying mount to enjoy the view and see if there are any eggs there. so if you go anywhere after that ONE time you go there for the sole reason to explore it, congratz, you are possibly the only one who does that.

[Shiza]

Tbh Cataclysm was the start of a steepe decline for 3 reasons (imo):
- HC crowd asked for harder dungeons and their prenerf versions were destroying pugs with tanks being one shot on trash pulls. We went from super casual friendly / easy Wotlk to back to BC difficulty but even higher tuned. Total 180° from Blizz.
- Azeroth revamp was not that popular
- The aquatic zone was a negative experience for most

The leveling zone was also highly disconnected and Deathwing was not a relatable villain, especially since he was the first main villain not from WC3. Dragon Villains also traditionally worked out best, when they acted out in their humanoid form for the story and their dragon form was basically their one winged angel boss form, as they are more relatable as Villains when they look humanoid. I would also say, the tone of the revamped world was by far more whimsical, comedical and lighthearted than that of the classic world, which is exactly the opposite of what you should aim for if you make a postapocalyptic world of ruin rewamp. It never felt like a broken down world, due to the brighter tone of the story overall. We shouldn't forget, Classic was really dark in its world building and especially zones like the plague lands offered a high level of immersion which was ruined with the rewamp, as the questchains there tended to be comedical for the most part.

[Tiwack]

For me it adds to the atmosphere and allows for a different perspective that you would otherwise only find to some extent on board the flightpaths.

[Jujudrood]

Random nuicances don't add fun to a game. You really need to think about this. Getting shot off your mount doesn't make someone go "Golly gee! I love this new system!" It will make them exit game after the first few times. It's not that hard to understand, no sane dev adds that kind of shit because it doesn't add anything meaningful to gameplay. You fall into the group of assholes I mentioned above, not surprising.

Says the pot.

[Dhrizzle]

The main reason for restricting flying is so that it takes longer to do things which helps Blizzard's shareholder meetings with the "Player Engagement" metric.

Blizz are more than capable of tweaking how long things take regardless of flight. See MoP (with flying) and it's horrible wall-of-dailies and WoD (no flying) where there was little to do and barely any of it worth doing.

[Dch48]

I totally agree with this thread. I hate when I can't fly. It really makes no sense. What really ticks me off is when they promote an expansion by giving flying mounts in the Collector's Editions and then not allowing them to be used for months. Selling mounts in the Store and then grounding them also makes no sense and is infuriating. Flying is one of the things that most sets WoW apart from other games in the genre and should be fully embraced as such. I personally refuse to use any mount with wings as a ground mount.

Just as a thought, maybe the flying ability is technically tied in some way to being able to swim underwater. Most other games don't have that either. Maybe it's the programming required to produce the spacial effect. I may be in the minority but I loved the underwater zone in Cataclysm.

[crakerjack]

I enjoy flying, but I would say you're catastrophizing if you think the game is ruined without it.

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I totally agree with this thread. I hate when I can't fly. It really makes no sense. What really ticks me off is when they promote an expansion by giving flying mounts in the Collector's Editions and then not allowing them to be used for months. Selling mounts in the Store and then grounding them also makes no sense and is infuriating. Flying is one of the things that most sets WoW apart from other games in the genre and should be fully embraced as such. I personally refuse to use any mount with wings as a ground mount.

Just as a thought, maybe the flying ability is technically tied in some way to being able to swim underwater. Most other games don't have that either. Maybe it's the programming required to produce the spacial effect.

Correction: You can use your flying mounts that you get with collector editions.

[Dch48]

I enjoy flying, but I would say you're catastrophizing if you think the game is ruined without it.

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Correction: You can use your flying mounts that you get with collector editions.

Not when flying is not available. Using them on the ground is not enough.