Blizzard countering flying, your opinion.

[Xath]

It's also a part of the game.
Would you be as willing to accept all timesavers in the game? What if the PTR gear vendor was available in the live version as well? You could just ignore it if it bothered you.


"A lot of us don't want that crap, we like the free gear because it allows us to kill bosses quicker, we don't want another form of slow gearing, and the M+ cache is not content, it is a disguised timewaster."

Not equivalent in the slightest and you know it. FFXIV has both flight and fast travel and people on there don't cry that they can't just get gear without killing encounters. The antiflight crowd is an absolute cancer on this game that wants to force other people to play the way they feel the game should be played. If it was just about them they could simply use ground mounts but they want to control others.

[Witchblade77]

What has never reliably worked for you? Turning on autorun while flying? Okay, sorry you don’t know how to properly afk.
My point of the Mechagon adds was made because people do complain about them and how annoying they are, like they are some challenging concept to maneuver around when you can simply fly thru them and out distance them.
You let me know how well you traverse terrain in WoW on a ground mount while moving at 280/310% movement speed (flying mounts) when they have winding paths that you will constantly run into unless you pay extra attention and mouse turn. People already complain about getting stuck on rocks on current ground.
There is no “maze like” component of WoW. That’s why I put it in quotes. Sure, it’s a strange area the first few times you go there, but it’s no more a maze than going to a new town in real life and learning the area. That’s not arbitrary slow down, that’s the world. It also happens to be something in Classic that those players swear by.

ok, master of afk, if you say so. I have to mouse steer whether I'm on the ground or in the air, there IS no afk for me. and given how quickly i move on the ground in ESO? I'm pretty certain i'll do JUST fine moving that quickly in WoW.

and funny story about classic. classic terrain is nowhere NEAR the ridiculousness that latest expansions have been and yes they ARE arbitrary mazes. you know... where in order to get to the point B that is literally few feet away from point A, you have to circle around the demented roads and arbitrary walls and hills that are barely there, but that you cannot go up for some reason. for the most part classic on the other hand - is pretty flat and the roads tend to have much smoother curves. not to mention, concentration of mobs it not nearly as thick.

as for time savers and slippery slopes people keep bringing up. there is a HELL of a difference between slowing down player travel, and slowing down players being able to farm gear etc. and the irony here is that there are far more timesavers when it comes to gear than there are to travel. priorities amirite? sigh.

[SirCowdog]

As the person who got #skyfucked, I disagree. Here're my thoughts.

Not everything needs to have a payoff; I lump travel into this. What I learned from the multiple deaths is the payoff - awareness and engagement with the game I'm playing. The experience would be cheapened if a successful "near miss" gave me some sort of speed boost or bonus. I don't need to game travel, too. I just want to get there without dying.

That's why I suggested maybe adding in some component to the WQ or invasion that involves a timer or travel. If You're just going somewhere, it's basically a pointless speed bump. But if it's an element integrated into the quest it becomes gameplay.

[SoulSoBreezy]

That's why I suggested maybe adding in some component to the WQ or invasion that involves a timer or travel. If You're just going somewhere, it's basically a pointless speed bump. But if it's an element integrated into the quest it becomes gameplay.

It kind of goes without saying, "complete the objectives in the area without dying due to lack of self awareness."

[Eapoe]

ok, master of afk, if you say so. I have to mouse steer whether I'm on the ground or in the air, there IS no afk for me. and given how quickly i move on the ground in ESO? I'm pretty certain i'll do JUST fine moving that quickly in WoW.

and funny story about classic. classic terrain is nowhere NEAR the ridiculousness that latest expansions have been and yes they ARE arbitrary mazes. you know... where in order to get to the point B that is literally few feet away from point A, you have to circle around the demented roads and arbitrary walls and hills that are barely there, but that you cannot go up for some reason. for the most part classic on the other hand - is pretty flat and the roads tend to have much smoother curves. not to mention, concentration of mobs it not nearly as thick.

as for time savers and slippery slopes people keep bringing up. there is a HELL of a difference between slowing down player travel, and slowing down players being able to farm gear etc. and the irony here is that there are far more timesavers when it comes to gear than there are to travel. priorities amirite? sigh.

You having to mouse steer in the air makes no sense unless you are purposely staying low to the ground and trying to maneuver thru trees and terrain. To avoid mouse steering you literally fly above the terrain. This argument is becoming dumb.
I think you also need to look up arbitrary definition. There is nothing arbitrary about placement of world terrain. That mountain you’re running around or following a path up has a purpose and isn’t random.
Classic terrain also has mountains and trees and wreckage and mobs. It also has safe paths to follow.
As for your last point, I’m not sure how that relates to anything I have stated. I have spoken about gearing. I have stated topics about flight and travel and afk autorun/flight.

[exochaft]

Not really, when you stop and think about it. Vanilla has a very different design philosophy than modern WoW. It's got a comoletely different combination of game design and gamepmay elements. Vanilla without flight isn't the same flavor as retail without flight.

I think that has more of an impact on how flying works within certain expansions, exactly because the design philosophy is very different. Vanilla, for example, was never designed for flying, which is pretty evident when one flies over the world and sees how coarse it is (since they assumed everyone would view the world from the ground and designed around that perspective). It was fairly easy to guide and determine how players would enter areas or how they would likely interact with the world because it was mostly 2D movement.

Once flying is in the game, Blizz started designing expansions around its existence, and that requires more work than if the game did not. Not only does one have to make the world look nice from high up in the air, there's considerations to be made for intended pathing and how players will advance or tackle content. Can't remember if it was specifically a Blizz video for zone design or not, but players likely are being lead to take certain paths without them even thinking about it, but the tools used for 2D controlling of player direction don't work well in 3D or are much harder to implement. What they found out was that flying was in the game, people almost always took the path of least resistance by going directly from point A to point B and skipping everything in between, which kind of trivializes or makes anything in between point A and B pointless. There's also that the world shrinks quite a bit since flying lets you fly as the crow flies, as well as much faster than ground mounts. The result is that Blizz designed earlier expansion areas around having flying immediately, but the time/effort to do so was likely way too high while keeping the experience for players up to par.

Without getting into the weeds too much, Blizz ran into an issue because of the existence of flying and has had to adjust content to account for many of the issues (Pathfinder being one of the solutions). Basically, the solutions Blizz implements are trade-off solutions to appease everyone. To counter how small the world gets when you add flying, they'd have to massively expand zones to make the world still feel big, but there's a substantive investment cost in blowing up zones while keeping the detail at the same level we've expected. If we reverted to vanilla or early expansion area detail, the time investment would be much less. To put a finer point on things, if we had flying immediately, Blizz could just make the world less detailed and bland as most of that effort is ignored, and there's probably a larger population within WoW that would hate seeing the detail/quality of the zones drop versus those wanting flying immediately. So the solution is a compromise: we get a smaller, detailed world to enjoy at ground level from the start, followed by flying eventually where people can ignore the world (albeit a relatively much smaller one time-wise).

More specifically to the OP and how they're handling such flying things... I imagine it's akin to hard mode in Ulduar. Being able to activate hard mode versions of encounter was pretty popular, but in terms of being able to constantly keep it fresh and relevant to the content, it turns out the task was pretty hard. Even the iconic big red button for Mimiron was jokingly thrown about as an activation method for hard mode because they couldn't come up with another idea, yet ended up implemented. Similar process probably comes with anti-flying, either from an RP perspective and/or methodology. In BC, the flame cannon turrets made sense in the area due to the presence of the Legion. On Mechagon, having machines flying around shooting you down makes sense, as well. If we tried to implement something like that for Stormsong Valley... now things start to get a little more complicated, as there's not really an RP reason to have something to keep you from flying. Maybe some giant killer bees flying around at this point, that would make me chuckle a bit, but anti-flying mechanics only really make sense in specific areas. This is probably why purchasable flying skills in certain areas were referred to as licenses, as there's no threat in the air to keep you from flying... but if you don't get your license from your faction, you're breaking the law as an unauthorized flyer!

[WowIsDead64]

I think that has more of an impact on how flying works within certain expansions, exactly because the design philosophy is very different. Vanilla, for example, was never designed for flying, which is pretty evident when one flies over the world and sees how coarse it is (since they assumed everyone would view the world from the ground and designed around that perspective). It was fairly easy to guide and determine how players would enter areas or how they would likely interact with the world because it was mostly 2D movement.

Once flying is in the game, Blizz started designing expansions around its existence, and that requires more work than if the game did not. Not only does one have to make the world look nice from high up in the air, there's considerations to be made for intended pathing and how players will advance or tackle content. Can't remember if it was specifically a Blizz video for zone design or not, but players likely are being lead to take certain paths without them even thinking about it, but the tools used for 2D controlling of player direction don't work well in 3D or are much harder to implement. What they found out was that flying was in the game, people almost always took the path of least resistance by going directly from point A to point B and skipping everything in between, which kind of trivializes or makes anything in between point A and B pointless. There's also that the world shrinks quite a bit since flying lets you fly as the crow flies, as well as much faster than ground mounts. The result is that Blizz designed earlier expansion areas around having flying immediately, but the time/effort to do so was likely way too high while keeping the experience for players up to par.

Without getting into the weeds too much, Blizz ran into an issue because of the existence of flying and has had to adjust content to account for many of the issues (Pathfinder being one of the solutions). Basically, the solutions Blizz implements are trade-off solutions to appease everyone. To counter how small the world gets when you add flying, they'd have to massively expand zones to make the world still feel big, but there's a substantive investment cost in blowing up zones while keeping the detail at the same level we've expected. If we reverted to vanilla or early expansion area detail, the time investment would be much less. To put a finer point on things, if we had flying immediately, Blizz could just make the world less detailed and bland as most of that effort is ignored, and there's probably a larger population within WoW that would hate seeing the detail/quality of the zones drop versus those wanting flying immediately. So the solution is a compromise: we get a smaller, detailed world to enjoy at ground level from the start, followed by flying eventually where people can ignore the world (albeit a relatively much smaller one time-wise).

More specifically to the OP and how they're handling such flying things... I imagine it's akin to hard mode in Ulduar. Being able to activate hard mode versions of encounter was pretty popular, but in terms of being able to constantly keep it fresh and relevant to the content, it turns out the task was pretty hard. Even the iconic big red button for Mimiron was jokingly thrown about as an activation method for hard mode because they couldn't come up with another idea, yet ended up implemented. Similar process probably comes with anti-flying, either from an RP perspective and/or methodology. In BC, the flame cannon turrets made sense in the area due to the presence of the Legion. On Mechagon, having machines flying around shooting you down makes sense, as well. If we tried to implement something like that for Stormsong Valley... now things start to get a little more complicated, as there's not really an RP reason to have something to keep you from flying. Maybe some giant killer bees flying around at this point, that would make me chuckle a bit, but anti-flying mechanics only really make sense in specific areas. This is probably why purchasable flying skills in certain areas were referred to as licenses, as there's no threat in the air to keep you from flying... but if you don't get your license from your faction, you're breaking the law as an unauthorized flyer!

Simple thing. I want flying, because content with flying simply works for me as is. There are no changes needed. Initial idea is flawed. Idea, that content should be stretched or players should be slowed down somehow to match some time investment mark. Or that some challenge or threat are needed. They are needed in Mythic Raids. They are needed in Mythic+20. But not in open world. Whole reason to have flying - is exactly to counter them. And you just play wrong content.

[SirCowdog]

It kind of goes without saying, "complete the objectives in the area without dying due to lack of self awareness."

Certainly that's the basics. I was suggesting an additional element to reward more skillful execution.

Fir example, in M+ you can get some reward just for finishing, even if the timer expires. But if you beat the timer you get a bonus. Apply the same basic theme to open world objectives.

[SoulSoBreezy]

Certainly that's the basics. I was suggesting an additional element to reward more skillful execution.

Fir example, in M+ you can get some reward just for finishing, even if the timer expires. But if you beat the timer you get a bonus. Apply the same basic theme to open world objectives.

Noted. I feel that in this context though, nothing more than the basics is needed and there's way too much overthinking in this thread.

One could also argue that adding an incentive for "skillful gameplay" in the open world environment is another way of dumbing down gameplay, as if players won't feel engaged with content unless there's a reward attached to it.

[SirCowdog]

I think that has more of an impact on how flying works within certain expansions, exactly because the design philosophy is very different. Vanilla, for example, was never designed for flying, which is pretty evident when one flies over the world and sees how coarse it is (since they assumed everyone would view the world from the ground and designed around that perspective). It was fairly easy to guide and determine how players would enter areas or how they would likely interact with the world because it was mostly 2D movement.

Once flying is in the game, Blizz started designing expansions around its existence, and that requires more work than if the game did not. Not only does one have to make the world look nice from high up in the air, there's considerations to be made for intended pathing and how players will advance or tackle content. Can't remember if it was specifically a Blizz video for zone design or not, but players likely are being lead to take certain paths without them even thinking about it, but the tools used for 2D controlling of player direction don't work well in 3D or are much harder to implement. What they found out was that flying was in the game, people almost always took the path of least resistance by going directly from point A to point B and skipping everything in between, which kind of trivializes or makes anything in between point A and B pointless. There's also that the world shrinks quite a bit since flying lets you fly as the crow flies, as well as much faster than ground mounts. The result is that Blizz designed earlier expansion areas around having flying immediately, but the time/effort to do so was likely way too high while keeping the experience for players up to par.

Without getting into the weeds too much, Blizz ran into an issue because of the existence of flying and has had to adjust content to account for many of the issues (Pathfinder being one of the solutions). Basically, the solutions Blizz implements are trade-off solutions to appease everyone. To counter how small the world gets when you add flying, they'd have to massively expand zones to make the world still feel big, but there's a substantive investment cost in blowing up zones while keeping the detail at the same level we've expected. If we reverted to vanilla or early expansion area detail, the time investment would be much less. To put a finer point on things, if we had flying immediately, Blizz could just make the world less detailed and bland as most of that effort is ignored, and there's probably a larger population within WoW that would hate seeing the detail/quality of the zones drop versus those wanting flying immediately. So the solution is a compromise: we get a smaller, detailed world to enjoy at ground level from the start, followed by flying eventually where people can ignore the world (albeit a relatively much smaller one time-wise).

More specifically to the OP and how they're handling such flying things... I imagine it's akin to hard mode in Ulduar. Being able to activate hard mode versions of encounter was pretty popular, but in terms of being able to constantly keep it fresh and relevant to the content, it turns out the task was pretty hard. Even the iconic big red button for Mimiron was jokingly thrown about as an activation method for hard mode because they couldn't come up with another idea, yet ended up implemented. Similar process probably comes with anti-flying, either from an RP perspective and/or methodology. In BC, the flame cannon turrets made sense in the area due to the presence of the Legion. On Mechagon, having machines flying around shooting you down makes sense, as well. If we tried to implement something like that for Stormsong Valley... now things start to get a little more complicated, as there's not really an RP reason to have something to keep you from flying. Maybe some giant killer bees flying around at this point, that would make me chuckle a bit, but anti-flying mechanics only really make sense in specific areas. This is probably why purchasable flying skills in certain areas were referred to as licenses, as there's no threat in the air to keep you from flying... but if you don't get your license from your faction, you're breaking the law as an unauthorized flyer!

The problem I have with the pathfinder "compromise" is that I don't think that what they're delivering with the open world is really all that good. I point to classic as an example of how many players prefer that style of grounded content, and point to TBC and WotLK for examples of players preferring flight implemented into the world in that style. And later on, MoP.

The open world since WoD has been fairly dull, with a higher proportion of generic treadmill content. Say what you want about daily quests, at least they were contextual to the patch. WQs are so generic and forgettable that I can't remember a single one of any merit.

Invasions are marginally better, but really just limited access WQs on a timer. Nightmares in 8.3 might be different, but that remains to be seen.

And we also have to remember how long it's been since the reasons were given for changing the design of the open world away from flight. We've had three full expansions for them to get practiced at the new techniques and technology.

So I no longer believe the excuse that it's too difficult to build larger areas. And quite frankly I'd rather have some large open areas instead of the cramped ratmazes we see everywhere.

Not to mention that the larger areas are only needed when flying is so god damned fast. I know a lot of people like that speed, but they have to admit that it's the real source of the problem when combined with the no-physics nature of flying mounts. If we want zones designed with flying in mind, some concessions have to be made bring balance and parity to modes of traversing the world. The all or nothing stance just results in more pathfinder.

- - - Updated - - -

Noted. I feel that in this context though, nothing more than the basics is needed and there's way too much overthinking in this thread.

I agree for the current iteration of the game. But as always, we have to consider that Blizzard is designing months in advance. And so I think it's worrh discussing future versions of the game based on what we see now.

One could also argue that adding an incentive for "skillful gameplay" in the open world environment is another way of dumbing down gameplay, as if players won't feel engaged with content unless there's a reward attached to it.

Isn't that the entire premise of rep grinds and WQs, though? Would anyone really do those if there wasn't a reward attached?

Games without challenge of some kind are boring. If we're not going to encourage players to fave challenges, WoW might as well go back to the garrison facebook style of design. Rewarding people for just logging in.

Blizzard has to start somewhere. Maybe these worms are a sign of that. We'll see.

[Raelbo]

I am seeing a lot of talk in the thread about a requirement to make flying more engaging. And while I have no problem with the idea of flying being engaging where appropriate, what doesn't make sense to me is this idea that flying has to be engaging all the time. The idea that you can't just point yourself in a direction, hit autorun and then disengage from the game for a few minutes. The idea that the only possible way to interact with the game is that you have to be fully immersed 100% of the time, or somehow your gameplay experience is going to suffer.

Yes, the game does need to allow players to fully immerse themselves. Yes, there is scope to make flight in the game more immersive to that end. But there is a difference between allowing that kind of experience and forcing it all the time. The former is good, the latter is bad. And that is a fundamental problem with the anti-flyer brigade, that they want to insist on playing mr Plod to every other player in the game. How about just letting people have options instead of trying to dictate a specific playstyle on everyone?

I am sorry to have to break it to you guys, but travel in this game doesn't need to be immersive in order to preserve the fun of the game. In fact I, and many others, think that travel in the game is just not that interesting once you've done it enough times. Simply put, if people feel the need to fly up, point in the right direction and press autorun, that doesn't tell us there is a problem with flying, what it actually tells us is that travelling from point A to point B in the game simply isn't something that is particularly interesting. If the emmisary is in Vol'dun, the journey from the Great Seal to Vol'dun is little more than a waste of time, and trying to make gimmicks to spice up the journey isn't going to fix anything. All it accomplishes is making it more tedious. I want to get to Vol'dun so that I can focus on doing the quests (or any other objectives in the area that catch my interest). I don't want to waste time having to contend with arbitrary barriers futilely intended to make the trip more interesting.

It's like travelling in real life. Sure, when you're a kid who's just got their driving permit, driving a car is a fun and engaging activity. But when you've been driving for 25 years, even though it's still possible to enjoy it every now and again, by and large it's just a tedious waste of time that we do out of necessity. Making the daily commute to work more exciting by placing obstacles in the road to force us to engage isn't going to magically solve the problem. In fact all it's going to do is make it even more annoying. The best solutions therefore are about how to make the travel as unobtrusive as possible. Autodriving cars - bring em on. Teleporters - even better!

The real appeal of flying in the game is simply that it offers the best compromise between keeping you actually immersed in the game while minimising the tedium of travel, so any ideas which would result in more tedium just don't make any real sense. The only time that they should be trying to make flight more immersive is when it relates directly to the content you're doing, not add tedious shit to every journey you need to make in order to get to the content you are interested in.

[Spiral Mage]

This isn't the first time something like this has been put in the game.

[SirCowdog]

I am seeing a lot of talk in the thread about a requirement to make flying more engaging. And while I have no problem with the idea of flying being engaging where appropriate, what doesn't make sense to me is this idea that flying has to be engaging all the time.

The idea that you can't just point yourself in a direction, hit autorun and then disengage from the game for a few minutes. The idea that the only possible way to interact with the game is that you have to be fully immersed 100% of the time, or somehow your gameplay experience is going to suffer.

Yes, the game does need to allow players to fully immerse themselves. Yes, there is scope to make flight in the game more immersive to that end. But there is a difference between allowing that kind of experience and forcing it all the time. The former is good, the latter is bad. And that is a fundamental problem with the anti-flyer brigade, that they want to insist on playing mr Plod to every other player in the game. How about just letting people have options instead of trying to dictate a specific playstyle on everyone?

I am sorry to have to break it to you guys, but travel in this game doesn't need to be immersive in order to preserve the fun of the game. In fact I, and many others, think that travel in the game is just not that interesting once you've done it enough times. Simply put, if people feel the need to fly up, point in the right direction and press autorun, that doesn't tell us there is a problem with flying, what it actually tells us is that travelling from point A to point B in the game simply isn't something that is particularly interesting. If the emmisary is in Vol'dun, the journey from the Great Seal to Vol'dun is little more than a waste of time, and trying to make gimmicks to spice up the journey isn't going to fix anything. All it accomplishes is making it more tedious. I want to get to Vol'dun so that I can focus on doing the quests (or any other objectives in the area that catch my interest). I don't want to waste time having to contend with arbitrary barriers futilely intended to make the trip more interesting.

It's like travelling in real life. Sure, when you're a kid who's just got their driving permit, driving a car is a fun and engaging activity. But when you've been driving for 25 years, even though it's still possible to enjoy it every now and again, by and large it's just a tedious waste of time that we do out of necessity. Making the daily commute to work more exciting by placing obstacles in the road to force us to engage isn't going to magically solve the problem. In fact all it's going to do is make it even more annoying. The best solutions therefore are about how to make the travel as unobtrusive as possible. Autodriving cars - bring em on. Teleporters - even better!

The real appeal of flying in the game is simply that it offers the best compromise between keeping you actually immersed in the game while minimising the tedium of travel, so any ideas which would result in more tedium just don't make any real sense. The only time that they should be trying to make flight more immersive is when it relates directly to the content you're doing, not add tedious shit to every journey you need to make in order to get to the content you are interested in.

I actually agree with this, and should probably be more careful about making sure that this is the context of my argument. I often repeat some form of the phrase: Blanket solutions are bad. So, for instance, when I say something like I did in the recent discussion about how dodging the worms should maybe have an additional component that rewards skillfully avoiding them, that's meant to be within the context of completing a specific objective, such as a world quest.

Spamming anti-flight worms everywhere is bad. Locking flight away completely until pathfinder is finished a year after launch is bad. Dumping flight into zones not designed for them is bad.

Blizzard REALLY needs to stop taking these kinds of overly-simplistic "solutions" to their open world design. It needs to be more granular. Some ares have free-flying with no dangers, other areas do not. Just like in real life, some places you just don't fly to because it's too dangerous. This could be a crazy remote location with no place to land, or it could be an inner-city heavy metropolitan environment with power-lines everywhere. But other places it's no problem at all.


Is this going to take more work from Blizzard? Yes. But that's going to be true no matter what if the goal is to have a better open world. Even a ground-only open world is going to take Blizzard working harder and smarter.

[Witchblade77]

You having to mouse steer in the air makes no sense unless you are purposely staying low to the ground and trying to maneuver thru trees and terrain. To avoid mouse steering you literally fly above the terrain. This argument is becoming dumb.
I think you also need to look up arbitrary definition. There is nothing arbitrary about placement of world terrain. That mountain you’re running around or following a path up has a purpose and isn’t random.
Classic terrain also has mountains and trees and wreckage and mobs. It also has safe paths to follow.
As for your last point, I’m not sure how that relates to anything I have stated. I have spoken about gearing. I have stated topics about flight and travel and afk autorun/flight.

1. the only purpose winding terrain in most recent WoW expansions has - is to slow players down. those paths do not need to look like squiggles, and those walls do not need to exist there
2. I'm starting to see the problem. you see, when i fly, I'm still engaged with a game, i like flying close enough to see things because seeing things is what lets me stop, fly down, engage on the ground - but that also means that because terrain changes through the zones - something that is very high above the zone is flying into the trees in a zone right next to it. if I'm flying so high as to not engage with anything, I see no point in using a flying mount. taxi is faster and i don't have to worry about checking on whether i got stuck in the air somewhere, or flew into exhaustion zone. my character lands safely exactly where i need her yo.

classic terrain has safe paths and mountains and mobs, but concentration is not anywhere near live. its more spread out. its less squiggly. it makes a difference

as to my last point, its why I specifically said people, rather then you. didn't feel like making a separate reply.

[Pandragon]

Either that or give us back items like Avianas Feather. Don't need permanent flying at the start, but a small boost every so often would be nice.

[Schizoide]

I am seeing a lot of talk in the thread about a requirement to make flying more engaging. And while I have no problem with the idea of flying being engaging where appropriate, what doesn't make sense to me is this idea that flying has to be engaging all the time.

Right, a more appropriate and compelling use of anti-flying mechanics would be to only situate them around specific quest/WQ areas, rather than covering the entire zone, and have each one different. So above a corrupted Silithid area they would be flying bugs shooting poison, around a Sha area they would be a lattice of shadowy energy you need to navigate through, over a kobold WQ they'd have catapults throwing exploding candles, and so on.

Problem is, implementing all that stuff would be a lot more work for the devs and they don't want players flying in the first place, so they'd prefer to just flip the flying switch or, when reusing zones like in 8.3, add annoyances.

[Raelbo]

Right, a more appropriate and compelling use of anti-flying mechanics would be to only situate them around specific quest/WQ areas, rather than covering the entire zone, and have each one different. So above a corrupted Silithid area they would be flying bugs shooting poison, around a Sha area they would be a lattice of shadowy energy you need to navigate through, over a kobold WQ they'd have catapults throwing exploding candles, and so on.

Stuff like all this would be pretty cool, yeah. Provided of course that it serves an actual purpose of enhancing the game play rather than just arbitrarily trying to discourage flying for the sake of discouraging flying.

Problem is, implementing all that stuff would be a lot more work for the devs and they don't want players flying in the first place, so they'd prefer to just flip the flying switch or, when reusing zones like in 8.3, add annoyances.

I really don't think that the devs are afraid of work. The real question is whether the required amount of work/effort is warranted by how much it actually adds to the game and whether there aren't more productive ways for them to spend their resources.

I agree that the devs don't want players flying in the first place. That's the real issue that needs to be addressed here. I am firmly of the opinion that, unfortunately, their prejudice against flying is based on flawed thinking. They have identified where flying is a problem for the game, but they've never bothered to consider how, under different contexts, it might actually be a positive. At some point it's almost like flying became the scapegoat for a number of problems in the game, even where it is absolutely not to blame (eg the bullshit "flying hurts WPvP" argument). But since they've concluded (erroneously) that flying is bad for the game, they have no desire to re-interogate that assumption, or test its validity under different contexts.

It's annoying because in the end, in their zealous desire to make the game better by without flying (the feature that we think we want, but really don't) they're actually making the game worse - and they adamantly refuse to see it.

[Relapses]

Right, a more appropriate and compelling use of anti-flying mechanics would be to only situate them around specific quest/WQ areas, rather than covering the entire zone, and have each one different. So above a corrupted Silithid area they would be flying bugs shooting poison, around a Sha area they would be a lattice of shadowy energy you need to navigate through, over a kobold WQ they'd have catapults throwing exploding candles, and so on.

Problem is, implementing all that stuff would be a lot more work for the devs and they don't want players flying in the first place, so they'd prefer to just flip the flying switch or, when reusing zones like in 8.3, add annoyances.

Honestly, progressive things like what they're doing in 8.3 seem to indicate to me that the devs are willing to try compromises. As in, they understand flying is popular enough to warrant another look at from the status quo we've had with Pathfinding for the last three expansions. They've already confirmed it's still in for SL but we don't know the timeframe yet and it's possible that obstacles like this may help the dev team bring flying earlier in the expansion. This, of course, would mean that they'd be designing the game with flying in mind.

[Schizoide]

Honestly, progressive things like what they're doing in 8.3 seem to indicate to me that the devs are willing to try compromises.

That is based on the supposition that stuff like this will replace Pathfinding, but we all know in our heart of hearts it will be in addition to Pathfinding in Shadowlands, not replacing it. The WoW devs do not compromise unless forced with a gun to their heads-- that's how we got Pathfinding in the first place.

[Relapses]

That is based on the supposition that stuff like this will replace Pathfinding, but we all know in our heart of hearts it will be in addition to Pathfinding in Shadowlands, not replacing it. The WoW devs do not compromise unless forced with a gun to their heads-- that's how we got Pathfinding in the first place.

I really don't think it's nearly that dramatic. It's only on forums that players exaggerate things to the point where it seems WoW devs are stubbornly immune to any and all forms of criticism and are therefore scared shitless to try anything new. The truth is nobody knows for sure but I personally don't see the harm in giving them the benefit of the doubt.