Adding flying mounts was the worst thing Blizzard ever did with WoW

[YouWillAllAnswerToSithis]

I've always been quite neutral when it comes to flying. I like being on the ground, yet I also like to fly, especially if I need to use it for quicker transportation. I don't think flying should be in every zone however.

[Planetdune]

Restricting flying was close to the worst thing they did to the game. If anything boost fly speed and add it to zones as Ghostlands, Argus or Azurmyst Isle.

[Ailyana]

I do like how they dont allow flying for the first bit of the expansion and then also make us work for it by an achievement. I would say that was a fair comprimise to those that didn't want flying.

[rda]

I do like how they dont allow flying for the first bit of the expansion and then also make us work for it by an achievement. I would say that was a fair comprimise to those that didn't want flying.

They mostly make players wait, not work. If they were interested in players working towards the achievement, the achievement would be unlockable in the first patch. But they are mostly interested in players waiting for 8 months. That's all there is to it.

[Ailyana]

They mostly make players wait, not work. If they were interested in players working towards the achievement, the achievement would be unlockable in the first patch. But they are mostly interested in players waiting for 8 months. That's all there is to it.

*shrug* I thought it was fine. Let me use ground mounts i dont use again. Of course i collect mounts anyway.

[Deleted]

I think flying was a bad idea.

The worst thing IMO is the new expension makes the previous content almost if not completely irrelevant. A new continent and next to no reason to go back on previous lands. And later, the "new patch+catchup mechanics" cycle.
I wish BC never happened and blizz focused adding stuff on Azeroth

[SirCowdog]

So you would be happy with say, using LK as a map basis. Northrend you can fly in Storm Peaks and Ice Crown but no where else? So 2 out of 9 zones in LK are flyable but the rest aren't and you think majority of the flying fans would be subdued ?

Sure, if the two out of nine zones were level-capped areas with progression content that was built to use flying instead of restrict it. We're talking the moment the zone is available to players they can fly there, and the zone itself is built with quests, missions, story, and whatever else to give flying context.

The rest of the leveling zones would continue to use Pathfinder to unlock flying in them once their content was no longer relevant, and with a similar number(one or two zones) of purely No-Flying areas to balance the flying content.

However i still think would be complaints and even funnier would be when you flying and go across a boundary to another zone and get insta de-mounted

And why would you assume that there would be such a clunky, stupid, poorly designed transition between flying and no-flying zones? That's just one more aspect of Blizzard mishandling flying. The zones where flying is available could be through a portal ala Firelands. Or you could get a warning similar to Wintergrasp, with slowfall after the dismount. Or simply be teleported out of non-flying zones like when you try to fly over Ashran.

There are plenty of ways to handle the situation without it being instant death/dismount the second you cross an invisible line.

[Deleted]

I wish BC never happened and blizz focused adding stuff on Azeroth

WoW Classic

[Spookysheep]

Flying was the best feature ever added to the game.

Flying was never an issue until this current development team made it an issue. Blizzard had no problem at all developing compelling and fun flying content in TBC, WOTLK, Cata, and MOP... then, all of the sudden, flying became an "issue".

WOD and Legion were just extremely lazy development and a cash grab by blizzard.

[Deleted]

WoW Classic

That's not what I meant. To make the previous content outdated or trivial with the new Xpac, and then adding ways to skip entire parts of the game to reach xpac level content was the worst choices blizzard made IMO. It made the game smaller, not bigger. Since Ulduar, it's every patch makes the previous one trivial if not useless.

I'm not a vanilla fanatics who spits on QoL and HD graphics. Vanilla had gamebreaking flaws. BC improved a lot of stuff, itemisation is a good exemple. But even if it feels great to fly, IMO it did more harm than good to the game when I think about it.

[Yorimar]

i dont see the problem with flying at all... simply dont mount a flying mount if you hate it. and let people who enjoy flying do so

[Daffan]

I disagree.

Flying is a personal, slow teleport to anywhere, turning all zones to a 2D map, and where you can avoid interaction with the world, npcs and other players until you place your feet on the ground. Increasing ground mount speed should have been enough, flying is just too fast, agile and convenient. No immersion.

On the other hand, catch up mechanics are necessary unless you want to play the same toon all the time. You experience the story and quests on your main, and you spend less time doing the same thing over and over for your alts, so you can focus on doing the end game content with a different class. I don't think anyone would like to farm heroic dungeons, and have to start raid progression all over with the emerald nightmare on their alts at this point in the expansion.

There is another solution to this.

Give the pervasive catchup to alts only. Therefore alts don't get screwed, nor does content for mains.

[corebit]

If WoW Classic becomes very popular for whatever reason, Blizzard could use that to kill off flying completely in the future.

[Spookysheep]

If WoW Classic becomes very popular for whatever reason, Blizzard could use that to kill off flying completely in the future.

LOL, neither of those things are going to happen.

[Deleted]

LOL, neither of those things are going to happen.

BFA servers will be empty 2 weeks after release, classic servers will be full in the meantime

[Deleted]

BFA servers will be empty 2 weeks after release, classic servers will be full in the meantime

[FuxieDK]

Classic servers will be empty 2 weeks after release, BfA servers will be full in the meantime

Fixed your mix-up..

[Twinkelle]

Disagree completely.

[tankbug]

Only as long as the content is designed to ignore the existence of flying. The primary reason why flying turns the game into a "2D map" is because flying is simply being tacked onto content which was designed only to be interacted from the ground. This is a glaring flaw in the argument against flight, primarily because it doesn't account for content design which not only acknowledges that flying exists, but INCLUDES it as part of the experience.

You'll notice that older zones like Skettis, Ogri'la, Stormpeaks, and Icecrown had hazards for flying players. There were also many areas in Cata that had mixed indoor and outdoor transitions, some where you could fly, some not. Unfortunately we don't have any such zones in recent expansions to compare. The most recent expansion that had zone design that actually sort of included flying was MoP, and even that wasn't really all that hot. Legion and WoD have flying available, but the design is clearly built only for grounded players(which is why it feels like flying breaks it).

I'd be VERY interested to see what a zone, using current tech and design capabilities, looked like if Blizzard pulled the stick out and actually used flying as part of its experience.

However, maps that are designed with 3d movement in mind are often confusing, annoying and not popular. That's one of the reasons why most players hate underwater levels. But yes, Blizzard could always give mobs ranged attacks and aggro towards flying players, but I still think makes people too fast and find little incentive to group up on the ground instead

[SirCowdog]

If WoW Classic becomes very popular for whatever reason, Blizzard could use that to kill off flying completely in the future.

Or they might take the lessons learned from community building on "Classic" servers, and apply them to current content. I'll be interested to see if they just drop vanilla servers, or if they mod them and learn from them.

Although given Ion's pattern of behavior, it's likely he'd blame flying for poor communities.

- - - Updated - - -

However, maps that are designed with 3d movement in mind are often confusing, annoying and not popular. That's one of the reasons why most players hate underwater levels.

That's absolutely not the reason why Vash'jr or other underwater zones are unpopular. There's a fundamentally different psychological feeling to being buried under such a massive and oppressive weight of water, with fear of sharks, kelp and weird blurry effects to screw with vision, etc. This is entirely different from the sense of wonder and freedom that comes along with the ability to fly through the open air.

I'd also add that Vash'jr had terrible zone layout, and bad itemization, as well as stealing people's mounted ability for the first few areas. The 3D environment did have an impact on its reception, but it wasn't the primary factor, nor was it even a significant one.

But yes, Blizzard could always give mobs ranged attacks and aggro towards flying players, but I still think makes people too fast and find little incentive to group up on the ground instead

People have incentive to group on the ground because they don't have any other choice. I need only reference the invasion events prior to the launch of Legion to prove that grouping can and DOES happen when players are given the option to fly to content which is actually interesting. The entire concept that flight hurts grouping or community is based on incredibly bad logic.

Good content will attract players to group up and complete it, regardless of how they get there or interact with it. Flying CAN be an amazing addition to the game again. All Blizzard has to do is pull the stick out of their collective assess and stop refusing to use it.