"Dragonriding should be distinguished from flying"

[Toby451]

The attempted removal of flying was the single biggest mistake Blizzard ever made. Gating it was the second biggest mistake they ever made. Taking a cornerstone function out of the game that had been there for close to a decade is absolute garbage.

The biggest mistake they ever made was creating flying mounts to begin with.

[micwini]

My take: Flying should be more engaging and fun than it is now. Yes it is nice to have regular flying so you can auto-fly while going for a pee, but it sucks if you're just waiting to get somewhere. This is also the reason why I think they can perfectly co-exist. Dragonriding for the more engaging travel, while normal flying is more for the 2nd monitor stream watching and omg I have to pee moments. I think dragonriding looks amazing and it seems like after some upgrades you can traverse the zones at really fast paces.

[deenman]

There are plenty of safe places to park yourself out in the world if need to step away and not be engaged in playing the game for a few minutes. And with the way dragon riding works and the way the zones are designed, you can get yourself to those safe places in an instant.

also whats with the fear of dying?res points are everywhere takes less than a minute to res,what is this?1998 where death gives xp/loot loss or something

- - - Updated - - -

The biggest mistake they ever made was creating flying mounts to begin with.

I wish this site had a thumbs up

[Skildar]

while normal flying is more for the 2nd monitor stream watching and omg I have to pee moments.

Aren't fly masters for this though?

If people feel like there indeed is a need to have flying in the form we currently have on retail, blizzard should deal with what's causing this need rather than forcing a change elsewhere. I've been asking for a feature like dragon riding for a long time so I'm really happy to see it implemented. But I don't want it to get hate because it doesn't feel interesting or feels like a chore and not a game to others.

[Naiattavain]

on release day flying should be allowed. making stuff challenging is just stupid. we all ready have flying in azeroth. don't know what blizzard is doing with the dragon flying to be honest.

one feature is missing from the game and the dracthyr are similar to kyrian and they should have flying too with beautiful angelic wings.

[Kehego]

Aren't fly masters for this though?

If people feel like there indeed is a need to have flying in the form we currently have on retail, blizzard should deal with what's causing this need rather than forcing a change elsewhere. I've been asking for a feature like dragon riding for a long time so I'm really happy to see it implemented. But I don't want it to get hate because it doesn't feel interesting or feels like a chore and not a game to others.

flying, how it was implemented, was the easiest way out
even if its bad, people will always prefer the easiest way

I'd have no problem with noclip flying if they made every zone like blade's edge with cannons and skettis with the angry birds.
go to a town and afk, idgaf

[Jastall]

Blizzard already said regular flying is coming later on. For now dragonriding is not considered a replacement.

Personally I'll take any half decent traversal system over the noclip flying we have, which is most convenient but also as dull and uninteresting as a traversal mechanic possibly gets. Might as well allow us to instantly travel to any area of the map for all the interaction it has. I hope Blizzard's experiment succeeds and dragonriding is fun enough to be a feature for expansions to come.

[Khaza-R]

Blizzard already said regular flying is coming later on. For now dragonriding is not considered a replacement.

Personally I'll take any half decent traversal system over the noclip flying we have, which is most convenient but also as dull and uninteresting as a traversal mechanic possibly gets. Might as well allow us to instantly travel to any area of the map for all the interaction it has. I hope Blizzard's experiment succeeds and dragonriding is fun enough to be a feature for expansions to come.

Agree 100%. Also I would contest that any system that makes you want to alt + tab and afk is problematically designed to begin with.

[Oneirophobia]

Can someone explain to me, why it's considered to be so bad to be AFK out in a world? Constant aggro/combat puts psychological pressure on me. It's annoying. It turns world into place, where I don't want to be. And even more. Some classes rely on getting out of combat due to their class mechanics.

Why Blizzard are so obsessed by idea, that every inch of location should be filled by aggressive mobs, so there shouldn't be a second without combat with mobs? If they want combat 100% of time, then may be they should create special optional location with permanent combat? Maw for example? But why should I be forced to play such content?

There's literally towns, outposts and otherwise safe areas to AFK in everywhere. Most have flight paths, and occasionally you can warp to them with a whistle. You're literally never more than a 3 minute (at most!) walk to one.

[Gigantique]

Ding ding ding, we have a selfish a**hole of the day winner here. There’s plenty of other ways to implement this other than just blanket disabling inflight AFK, but no, let’s screw everyone, who wants to do something ingame while not effectively putting IRL on pause over so that you can have your fun. Classic no flight crowd member.

You... do understand I will as much as anyone else lose the 'perks' of not having permaflying? I just personally consider it worth the tradeoff. Having a preference is considered selfish now everyone pack it up!

Also it's not like this is anything but an improvement over the norm since WoD where we were grounded until patch X.1 or so before unlocking flying. Now you can just dragonride up on a hill and stay there, ez pez.

Also I sure don't remember playing 6.0, 7.0, 8.0 or 9.0 and finding AFK corpses left right and centre it's almost like people manage just fine to AFK and it's a problem manufactured. Almost.

[ohwell]

Blizzard should allow both kinds of flying in the game and let the people decide which one they prefer.

People are acting as if someone is forcing them at gunpoint to use the regular/old flying... If you don't like the old flying, use only the new feature, it's that easy.

The funny thing is, some of the people who advocate for the removing of the old flying altogether, will probably get bored/annoyed by the new system in few months.

Bad tired old overused argument is bad tired old and overused. If multiple methods are available you'd be a fool to not use the easier one. I mean you might as well be one of those people "I always thought of myself as handicapped inside so I want to chop off my leg" if you choose to fly the "harder" way or not fly. Even better if you're offered an ice pick or a loaded fully functional gun in a 1 on 1 fight to the death why would you EVER choose the ice pick under normal circumstances? So just stop offering that argument that's been destroyed many times over.

[Defend]

There are just too many absolutely BRAINDEAD takes in here to even begin replying to them all. (and I really do not use this lightly as I try to respect different people's perspectives and opinions on how they play the game.)

The fact that there are 5 pages and counting in this thread actually blows my mind.

[h4rr0d]

You... do understand I will as much as anyone else lose the 'perks' of not having permaflying? I just personally consider it worth the tradeoff. Having a preference is considered selfish now everyone pack it up!

Also it's not like this is anything but an improvement over the norm since WoD where we were grounded until patch X.1 or so before unlocking flying. Now you can just dragonride up on a hill and stay there, ez pez.

Also I sure don't remember playing 6.0, 7.0, 8.0 or 9.0 and finding AFK corpses left right and centre it's almost like people manage just fine to AFK and it's a problem manufactured. Almost.

Having a preference is not considered selfish. Saying you are willing to inconvenience others so that you can have what you consider to be fun (I for one don't think wow movement system lends itself to quality movement based puzzles anyway) however, is. Especially, since there are other ways of implementing this. Eg: no "normal flight" zones around such puzzles.

I agree that in the grand scheme of things, not being able to AFK hover after flying is enabled is not that big of a deal. The entire argument is, that while the no-AFK-hover people do not lose anything by this being possible, people who like it lose major convenience if it's disabled. You might the first one to bring a point of how getting rid of unlimited flight would improve the game I could support. Usually it's just stuff like, I like to play the game like this and everyone else is having their fun wrong.

[WowIsDead64]

My guess - Blizzard hate flying due to quests like this. They think, that there should be group quests, that should be ineffective for solo players and should "encourage" them to find groups. I.e. they want to put some quest items to elite zone and then make "Requires 3 players" quest, where players would have to clear their way through all that elite mobs. Yeah, solo player can handle 1-2 elites, so it's ok for him to just fly to quest item, kill mobs around it and collect it. But trying to get to it on a ground would mean big problems. So, it's ok for Blizzard to mix solo-friendly content with group one.

Problem is - such content shouldn't exist in a first place. If devs want players to play content, filled with elite mobs, where flying isn't available, so skipping isn't possible - they should send them to dungeons and raids. Because they exist exactly for this purpose. And outdoor content should: 1) Be solo friendly 2) Should have freedom of choice, how to approach this content.

[Gigantique]

Having a preference is not considered selfish. Saying you are willing to inconvenience others so that you can have what you consider to be fun (I for one don't think wow movement system lends itself to quality movement based puzzles anyway) however, is. Especially, since there are other ways of implementing this. Eg: no "normal flight" zones around such puzzles.

I agree that in the grand scheme of things, not being able to AFK hover after flying is enabled is not that big of a deal. The entire argument is, that while the no-AFK-hover people do not lose anything by this being possible, people who like it lose major convenience if it's disabled. You might the first one to bring a point of how getting rid of unlimited flight would improve the game I could support. Usually it's just stuff like, I like to play the game like this and everyone else is having their fun wrong.

I'd argue that in a situation where each option is exclusive preferring one isn't selfish. By that logic people that want permaflying are selfish for wanting to inconvenience me by making traversal challenges near-impossible to implement.

Think of those Kirin Tor WQs they added in Legion. I found those fine enough, they were different and quickest bar the "kill named NPC" ones. As soon as flying got introduced those were nuked from orbit because why would I waste the time when I could just fly?

Ofc the Kirin Tor WQs are super simple, repetitive and boring compared to what dragonriding looks like it is but I would much rather they do it the way they've planned; Release content with only dragonriding so they can add challenges/hidden secrets in the overworld for skilled people to get. Less skilled players can get it later when they upgrade the dragons and after permanent flying is unlocked the secrets are old news and it doesn't matter if anyone can get it "without effort". Repeat for each new patch zone added.

[Soeroah]

Ideally for me, long term, post-Dragonflight, the dragon riding capable mounts get to be used for dragon riding in all expansions while the non-dragon riding capable mounts get used as normal flying mounts in all expansions.

[axetofall]

Dragonriding is the only thing so far that's made me go "woah I wanna play that"

[Lodreh]

The way dragonriding is looking now I want it to replace flying all together every where so we no longer just have people floating about and instead have to actually put in gameplay to get around.

I prefer to float/ hover around. Flying as it exist is fine and doesn't need to be tinkered with or timegated.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

I prefer to float/ hover around. Flying as it exist is fine and doesn't need to be tinkered with or timegated.

I agree something as small as a tinkering wouldn’t be enough, it should be reworked all together like dragon riding or removed all together.

[Lodreh]

I agree something as small as a tinkering wouldn’t be enough, it should be reworked all together like dragon riding or removed all together.

Love how you skipped over the 'Fine as is..." part. But glad we can agree dragon riding should be removed all together (*see how that works*).