When does dragon riding get fun?

[Stormdash]

I mean, it does eventually, or it looks like it does on YouTube, but gotta say when you first unlock it and you have two abilities and it takes approximately 44 days for vigor to recharge, it's actually the opposite of fun.

Blizzard is placing a really big bet on making their core expansion feature a mode of travel that you actually have to learn and get good at the way you did, y'know, combat and leveling... because mounted travel was always pure reward, there was no challenge to learning how to mount up and go places (realizing to zig zag mobs doesn't really count, you do that on foot too). Players returning to try it but not having watched a lot of videos of people doing dragon riding after its leveled up some, a lot of them are going to hit a wall before they're half way to 70 and think "this is dumb why did I buy this"

[DechCJC]

It takes 2-3 hours to fully max it if you focus on it; So somewhere in that ball park. I'd imagine most people will reasonably achieve it as they're hitting (or just after hitting) 70. Most people will have it in the first few days, though even getting a few upgrades can make a big difference to how it feels.

[Tommi]

44 days, lol...

At base, it takes 30 secs on ground to recharge one vigor.

[Relapses]

It takes 2-3 hours to fully max it if you focus on it; So somewhere in that ball park. I'd imagine most people will reasonably achieve it as they're hitting (or just after hitting) 70. Most people will have it in the first few days, though even getting a few upgrades can make a big difference to how it feels.

Have you actually done it on the beta to confirm the "2-3 hour" time frame? Just curious because I plan to level a few toons and having fully maxed DF'ing will be a huge boon.

[Goat7]

Even as Dragon riding increases further it is still shit. Sorry not sorry.

I have said this before, this entire expac outside of the new zones and new class are features or updates that you should find in a patch, hell the new zones are copy paste from Wrath of the Lich king zones, the new race is copy pasted demon form, the new class is rough and needs way more work still. New World is offering New zones, new dungeons, new weapons (class) and hundreds of updates and fixes in the brimstone update in less then two weeks and you dont have to pay for it, and they have no sub.

Blizzard sucks, WoW used to be the best MMORPG and one of the greatest games ever made, it is just a money grab now, that is what dragonflight is, wake up ppl

[DechCJC]

Have you actually done it on the beta to confirm the "2-3 hour" time frame? Just curious because I plan to level a few toons and having fully maxed DF'ing will be a huge boon.

Aye, I levelled to 70 and maxed it along the way. I'll admit, 2-3 hours is my estimate (since I achieved them passively while questing); But I can't see it taking much longer than that. This is assuming you make it your sole focus.

If there are addons on release that make locating them easier, it'll probably be even faster. Just finding them was the most time consuming part for me. I'm confident that you could collect them all in less than an hour if you knew where they were and how to reach them before-hand.

[Relapses]

Aye, I levelled to 70 and maxed it along the way. I'll admit, 2-3 hours is my estimate (since I achieved them passively while questing); But I can't see it taking much longer than that. This is assuming you make it your sole focus.

If there are addons on release that make locating them easier, it'll probably be even faster. Just finding them was the most time consuming part for me. I'm confident that you could collect them all in less than an hour if you knew where they were and how to reach them before-hand.

I'd gladly take a 2-3 hour detour if it can save me dozens of hours on my alts.

[Stormdash]

44 days, lol...

At base, it takes 30 secs on ground to recharge one vigor.

When surveyed, people placed on hold for 30 seconds estimate their hold time as longer than two minutes. When you are sitting on the ground and can't try again, it's eternal.

[LanToaster]

Have you actually done it on the beta to confirm the "2-3 hour" time frame? Just curious because I plan to level a few toons and having fully maxed DF'ing will be a huge boon.

Dunno if they Changed it, but when I done it, it was an Awfull Experience to Skill it, but depending on how well you Climb Mountains it can be done easily in 2-3 Hours. But its not something you can do while doing anything else.

You have to collect these Glyphs that are nowwhere near you would normally go, so its something you need to do without doing anything else. And theres a lot of waiting involved to refill your vigor. It was very very very not fun. But, doable in 2-3 Hours. ^^

[Nymrohd]

Have you actually done it on the beta to confirm the "2-3 hour" time frame? Just curious because I plan to level a few toons and having fully maxed DF'ing will be a huge boon.

Eh, if you know what you are doing it's less than an hour. A few glyphs should be left for last.

[Tommi]

When surveyed, people placed on hold for 30 seconds estimate their hold time as longer than two minutes. When you are sitting on the ground and can't try again, it's eternal.

I can litterally stream it for you on beta. Infact, I'll clip it, sec.



and at flying high speeds:



And here's base dragonriding. The 2 dragon glyphs I had were from when you first get your dragon.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1619531198

[Aucald]

Have you actually done it on the beta to confirm the "2-3 hour" time frame? Just curious because I plan to level a few toons and having fully maxed DF'ing will be a huge boon.

2-3 hours is pretty generous. I was able to fly and snag the majority of the Dragonriding glyphs in about 45 minutes all told (although I also had the benefit of having them on the map via the HandyNotes plug-in). But even without the add-in, any tower or high structure like a mountain peak is a likely candidate to house a glyph, and you can snag them as you go from hub to hub in the zones, as they appear as glowing yellow glyphs visible from some distance, and you get an emote from your mount that it senses one nearby as you draw near. A few of them are hidden, though; either inside ruined towers or underneath structures - but the majority are just out in the open.

As you acquire them, the process becomes quicker and quicker as you get more Vigor charges, and the perks allow you to regenerate Vigor in flight by angling down. Once you master how to gain acceleration and use the charge to keep yourself in a recharge state, the cycle of Vigor expenditure and the recharge rate becomes almost self-sustaining. Right now, with 90% of the perks acquired, I can fly myself across the entirety of the Dragon Isles at incredible speeds without stopping - just flap yourself up high and let the downward acceleration arc recharge you as you go, charging and/or boosting whenever needed.

[oldgeezer]

Welcome to the new feature for casual gamers. Which should answer your question. It will never become fun.

As someone who is proudly casual I'll be switching back to regular flight as soon as it becomes an option. I'll leave flappy dragon to the pros.

[Thes]

Even as Dragon riding increases further it is still shit. Sorry not sorry.

I have said this before, this entire expac outside of the new zones and new class are features or updates that you should find in a patch, hell the new zones are copy paste from Wrath of the Lich king zones, the new race is copy pasted demon form, the new class is rough and needs way more work still. New World is offering New zones, new dungeons, new weapons (class) and hundreds of updates and fixes in the brimstone update in less then two weeks and you dont have to pay for it, and they have no sub.

Blizzard sucks, WoW used to be the best MMORPG and one of the greatest games ever made, it is just a money grab now, that is what dragonflight is, wake up ppl

Yea but New World gameplay is ass

[Cyi]

2-3 hours is pretty generous. I was able to fly and snag the majority of the Dragonriding glyphs in about 45 minutes all told (although I also had the benefit of having them on the map via the HandyNotes plug-in). But even without the add-in, any tower or high structure like a mountain peak is a likely candidate to house a glyph, and you can snag them as you go from hub to hub in the zones, as they appear as glowing yellow glyphs visible from some distance, and you get an emote from your mount that it senses one nearby as you draw near. A few of them are hidden, though; either inside ruined towers or underneath structures - but the majority are just out in the open.

As you acquire them, the process becomes quicker and quicker as you get more Vigor charges, and the perks allow you to regenerate Vigor in flight by angling down. Once you master how to gain acceleration and use the charge to keep yourself in a recharge state, the cycle of Vigor expenditure and the recharge rate becomes almost self-sustaining. Right now, with 90% of the perks acquired, I can fly myself across the entirety of the Dragon Isles at incredible speeds without stopping - just flap yourself up high and let the downward acceleration arc recharge you as you go, charging and/or boosting whenever needed.

Odds that blizz nerfs this right before launch? My guess is high.

[Tommi]

they appear as glowing yellow glyphs visible from some distance, and you get an emote from your mount that it senses one nearby as you draw near. A few of them are hidden, though; either inside ruined towers or underneath structures - but the majority are just out in the open.

This. You can actually see that in the VOD i posted at 0:32.

[Aucald]

Odds that blizz nerfs this right before launch? My guess is high.

I'm not sure how they'd nerf it beyond gutting the perks system entirely, which would be a lot of work to just throw in the trash can solely to inconvenience people - it's possible they could do that, but seems doubtful. When you're cruising at around 930% mount speed, it's pretty easy to fly from point A to point B, even if point B is several zones away. 4 Vigor Charges can get you to the world's virtual ceiling, and from there it's all a downward high-speed arc with the occasional bump or charge as you recharge Vigor.

[Aucald]

As someone who is proudly casual I'll be switching back to regular flight as soon as it becomes an option. I'll leave flappy dragon to the pros.

It doesn't really take much effort to become proficient at Dragonriding - and the system in its current iteration is kind of fire-and-forget when it comes to getting the glyphs and buying perks. There is a trade-off in terms of convenience for traditional flying (in that you can't hover or fly eternally, etc.), but the exchange is in the speed of point-to-point travel with the much faster Dragonriding mounts. With Dragonriding, you can quite literally bound across the majority of a given zone in seconds.

[Goat7]

Yea but New World gameplay is ass

It can be fun in PVP, PVE not so much, its pretty much ass.

[Xosimos]

I went from knowing nothing about how Dragon Riding worked, to being damn good at it within an hour of just testing and trying different methods of using the two abilities that were available. At the end of the hour I had explored all the zones, and was nearly half way down the tree by just looking for high places that the glyphs seemed to appear at. It's not hard to get used to, and just gets more and more fun with each glyph.