Flying in Warmode is horrendous for actual WPvP

[Shalaator]

First, before I commence with the main body of this thread, I've been very active in the generation and execution of Alliance WPvP events, with and without Cryptids leauge.


Here was my 120 Alliance vs 200 horde thread MMO champ several months ago:
https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...after-19-hours!

I mention the above because I I wish for the readers to know that I enable WM for the sake of WPvP. WPvP was the original "end-game" of WoW back in the early Vanilla (and thus I am very excited for Classic!)


Finally, I had two extremely active WPvP communities. They've been active for many months, but with reintroduction of flying...both communities are dead.

Now for the main thread:

Flying in Warmode removes the following aspects of WPvP raids:

1: Scouting/Information
2: Terrain Chokes
3: Logistics
4: Tactics
5: Mobility

Part I: Intelligence
Scouting: Knowing the location of the enemy raid is a crucial aspect of WPvP. Stealth classes would be deployed to the outskirts of our vision and non-raid members also posted crucial information in General/Local Defense. Chat Channels and direct surveillance, scouting are a fun and crucial element of WPvP.

Spells: As a priest I would hop from mob to mob with Mind Vision, always preferring a flying mob if possible. Eye of Kilrogg also see's common use.

Concealing your location from the enemy raid is an artform. How many times did I have my raid wait underground 2 levels deep in a cave to conceal our position? How many times did I keep half the raid visible and hide the other half nearby on a tree limb (Deliberate Misinformation) to bait a 40 man horde raid?

Information is a vital part of WPvP, both the gathering, concealing and obfuscation of it.

How does flying remove this part of WPvP? Simple...we have no idea HOW many horde are present or WHERE they are present or WHICH direction they are in, WHAT their comp is, WHO is leading them (this matters) and WHEN they will attack.

Also, it's very difficult to get 30-40 pugs to stay grounded and hide in a cave...half of them simply ignore you and stay in flight anyway. In other words...flying actually undermines leadership in WPvP and the ability to maintain raid discipline with pugs. Raid discipline was already a chore with WPvP pug raids, but now it's like eating glass.
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Terrain:

Have chokes and funnels and highground against overwhelming horde numbers is absolutely crucial. This is no longer possible unless you bait them into a cave with bounties (and of course they'll organize an 80-man dual dive bomb raid to get you and they'll be inside the cave before they even become visible in game LOL).

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Logistics:

Having to defend and retrieve stragglers and summon players is actually fun. Sometimes I had everyone dismount and run on foot so the raid could stay together, since people to could easily scatter on ground mounts and lose sight of each other. In fact, my only truly successful retreats from larger horde raids have only ever been done with the entire raid on foot (success as in mostly everyone survived and most of the horde was picked off one by one chasing us).

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Tactics:

Tactics no longer exist with flying. Often we knew where the horde was and which direction they'd be coming from. We'd set up a pincer in a choke with melee + heals holding the main line to throttle the horde. Often times I had a raid of 25-30 alliance keep over 200 horde locked up inside the Great Seal using the three-prong split around the door, while using MC/knocks on anyone that attempted to come from behind (via the stairs). These things are no longer possible.


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Mobilty:

Mobility was something we used in coordination, such as gliders and flight paths, and it was primarily used when we knew our opponent raid was either stuck in combat or lacking mobility for some other reason.

Mobility advantages no longer exist with flying.
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In other words, all the critical strategic elements of WPvP groups/raids has been eliminated with flying.

gg

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Let me give you an example of all of these things in a single WPvP raid on the Great Seal:


Our rogues constantly checking ahead, around and behind us as we start our march from the third waterfall bridge towards the Great Seal. I am spamming mind vision on npcs along our path, dropping raid marks on the ground for our raid to move to with each raid warning (once I know it's safe).

Several players got killed or knocked off the bridge upon our initial rush across the bridge. Horde skeletons are everywhere and may rez at any moment. We set up a cordon around our warlock as he summons people who fell of the bridge and to protect our healers rezzing the dead.

My rogue informs me that many horde are waiting around the corner, I use mind vision on the rogue and see they have no healers and are dismounted inside a building, I place a raid mark on the ground near the enemy group and we MOUNT up (mobility) and charge them down. They die. The raid is unmounted from charging inside the building. We remain unmounted and continue our march up the great staircases leading to the Great Seal.

As horde players engage us, we place our backs the walls so we can't be knocked (since they have highground), ready ot use lifegrip (leap of faith) and other means of negating any fatal knocks (heroic leap, etc). All priests are using MC and throwing horde off the steps.

We finally reach the top of summit and split into three groups and position each group slightly outside the cone of vision emanating from the interior of the Great Seal (so we can't be deathgripped inside) and focus fire or aoe any horde that attempts to leave the Great Seal.

Eventually horde forms a raid that is organized enough to fight back and threaten us. Due to the information we've been collecting (watching them gather inside the Great Seal), we know that their mighty push is comming....so we pop time warp and run inside the Great Seal and kill them all before they can react, we rush the elevators and start playing the elevator games at the highest point of Dazar'alor, since it's the only way a 40 man alliance raid can even the odds against 80-120 angry horde players.

However, the elevator hold (there's two elevators btw) begins to crumble as more and more horde begin to trickle in. Their healers establish a foothold on either elevator. We tell our mage to go to the very back of the roof, behind the throne, and open a portal to Boralus. We do everything in our power to keep any horde from harassing our mage.

The portal goes up and we teleport out.

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And then flying is introduced to War mode.

Now we mount up 40 people and land in front of the great seal.

Horde gets mad and dive bombs us with 80.

gg

[Adlian]

Flying and sharding makes warmode usless. More like an annoyance.

[Lochton]

Not really. I love my Net-gun.

[Shalaator]

Not really. I love my Net-gun.

You obviously didn't read the thread. This isn't about solo WPvP encounters.

- - - Updated - - -

Flying and sharding makes warmode usless. More like an annoyance.

Sharding was bad enough, as it turned Alliance vs Horde WPvP raids into "Submarine Warfare," with the weaker raid "submerging" into a shard, and the stronger raid trying to "detect" which shard they changed to and then trying to "emerge" on top of them.

[Lochton]

You obviously didn't read the thread. This isn't about solo WPvP encounters.

I wasn't talking solo, then again, I wasn't talking zerging either. I was talking tactical attack of 5-10 people. Then again, the world is not meant to be easy for you to traverse, threats should not be easy to counter in a world where chaos is a majority of a player action (chaos being, you don't know what they'll do).

[Unlimited Power]

Here's the alternative where flying is disallowed in warmode:

Literally nobody plays with warmode enabled because playing without flying will always be less efficient.

[Lochton]

Here's the alternative where flying is disallowed in warmode:

Literally nobody plays with warmode enabled because playing without flying will always be less efficient.

And to be honest, if there was no flight, you would remove some of the dangers of world PvP. I like the idea of swooping down on people, or people trying to counter from the air.

Would reaction like this make the OP dislike world PvP in Vashj'ir?

[Shalaator]

And to be honest, if there was no flight, you would remove some of the dangers of world PvP. I like the idea of swooping down on people, or people trying to counter from the air.

How do you counter someone who can swoop down and engage you before the game engine even renders them? This isn't danger, it's absolute insanity. It removes all strategy from WPvP raid encounters.

I just did Battle of Nazjatar. I barely saw any alliance (in my own raid!) or horde except for one big fight in the middle of the map. And that was it. Battle of Naz would definitely be more thrilling with flying off.

Actually WHY is flying allowed in Naz/Mech at all? It was just released!

- - - Updated - - -

I wasn't talking solo, then again, I wasn't talking zerging either. I was talking tactical attack of 5-10 people. Then again, the world is not meant to be easy for you to traverse, threats should not be easy to counter in a world where chaos is a majority of a player action (chaos being, you don't know what they'll do).

???

You contradicted yourself. The world is very easy to traverse with flying.

Also, there's a difference between chaos and hopelessness. It was already very difficult to maintain a defensive advantage with an Alliance WPvP raid vs the unlimited Horde raid(s), now it's impossible.

A 40 man Alliance raid will eventually be dive bombed by 2-3 40 an horde raids, with no warning other than screen freeze from the initial lag. We know use lag-indicators to detect and prepare for imminent attacks...thanks to flying!

[Dracullus]

I wasn't a big fan of flying in War Mode, but it turn out alright for me. Some positives:

- things like Battle for Nazjatar are more dynamic, people can travel between posts very fast (but it's rare to see even battle)
- when you get bounty, you know they're coming for you and they're coming FAST - but again, we don't have any rewards for having bounty, so it's better just to log off->log on

What game needs, is some flat small isle like TI or Mechagon without flying and with more PVP objectives. And of course better reward structure for WM ON.

[Shalaator]

Here's the alternative where flying is disallowed in warmode:

Literally nobody plays with warmode enabled because playing without flying will always be less efficient.

Here's an alternative:

Removing flying from the latest content, period (in Peace Mode and War mode).

[Khaza-R]

Here's the alternative where flying is disallowed in warmode:

Literally nobody plays with warmode enabled because playing without flying will always be less efficient.

Pretty sure WPvP isn't meant to be efficient to begin with.

[Shalaator]

I wasn't a big fan of flying in War Mode, but it turn out alright for me. Some positives:

- things like Battle for Nazjatar are more dynamic, people can travel between posts very fast (but it's rare to see even battle)

It because everyone can disengage so rapidly that there are no battles. There only tends to be a single fight in the middle. One fight, and half the losing side escapes anyway.

[potis]

Which is why flying is delayed for the last 3 expansions cause of people and their pointless, irrelevant World PvP.

They really need to get some balls and do big changes but they would never do that.

War mode is a good idea done wrong, just get creating 100v100 areas or something similar, but "developer time" and all that stupid excuses they can give.

Instanced PvP is the only PvP that makes sense cause its not insanely shit, they should have the balls to create instanced areas with extra PvP objectives etc, and let people battle it out ala warmode style.

Flying disabled, rez at Spirit Healer areas with like a 40 yard immunity to avoid camping etc, it aint even hard.

[Starscream101]

Flying in warmode lets me find the guy who jumped me to find him and get payback. Flying has improved PvP imo can hunt people down more .

[Shalaator]

Which is why flying is delayed for the last 3 expansions cause of people and their pointless, irrelevant World PvP.

They really need to get some balls and do big changes but they would never do that.

War mode is a good idea done wrong, just get creating 100v100 areas or something similar, but "developer time" and all that stupid excuses they can give.

Instanced PvP is the only PvP that makes sense cause its not insanely shit, they should have the balls to create instanced areas with extra PvP objectives etc, and let people battle it out ala warmode style.

It's also immersion breaking on the PvE level. I know every rock, nook, cranny, cave, ledge, bush/tree in Drustvar and Nazmir, because of my WPvP events. I know what every npc-mob is capable of (Mind controling them for different abilites/raidbuffs/debuffs), I know where every mob is (for mind vision hoping) and their patrol paths.

I don't know very much of all about Nazj/Mech, cuz I'm flying!

Anyway, I've turned off Warmode and retired from WPvP for now. It's boring. And I'm not interested in Alliance Swoop Down gangs in LFG, that's also boring.

I'll turn Warmode back on when they release non-flying content.

[Unholyground]

We will be getting Unity Mode soon and we can all be friends

[Lochton]

How do you counter someone who can swoop down and engage you before the game engine even renders them? This isn't danger, it's absolute insanity. It removes all strategy from WPvP raid encounters.

Chaos can ruin your strategy. World PvP was never constructed fort he strategic mind. You are in an open space, you'll be a feeding trough for the ones who can swoop on you. You have a counter if you keep check on your directions.

I just did Battle of Nazjatar. I barely saw any alliance (in my own raid!) or horde except for one big fight in the middle of the map. And that was it. Battle of Naz would definitely be more thrilling with flying off.

That is because Battle of Nazjatar is a dull invention that either have you all circling around for easy flags, or easy kills. Nothing more. More kills, faster win. Flight just brought people to the fray faster. Last I did Nazjatar PvP event, we were tactical, one group flew the opposite to slow down the Horde, while other took the flags - after that, we reinforced where we needed it.

Actually WHY is flying allowed in Naz/Mech at all? It was just released!

Because it was unlocked? I mean, both zones benefit from travel on ground, as well as flight - honestly, I have flight and I still use the jetpack - much faster.

???

You contradicted yourself. The world is very easy to traverse with flying.

Okay, let me write it differently. You have flight, they have flight - use it. What I wrote is, if you chose to be land bound, then are to expect the threat to come to

Also, there's a difference between chaos and hopelessness. It was already very difficult to maintain a defensive advantage with an Alliance WPvP raid vs the unlimited Horde raid(s), now it's impossible.

You are trying to apply actual strategy to world PvP where EVERYONE can join the fray in the chaotic build up of players calling for support and inviting more in.

A 40 man Alliance raid will eventually be dive bombed by 2-3 40 an horde raids, with no warning other than screen freeze from the initial lag. We know use lag-indicators to detect and prepare for imminent attacks...thanks to flying!

This section is down to the fact that you are coming in on enemy territory. World PvP has hardly been about fairness since forever. If it is not flight, then it is AoE steath, if it is not AoE stealth, then it is general Stealth, if it is not stealth, then it is push backs, blinds, stuns, smokebombs..

[Shalaator]

Flying in warmode lets me find the guy who jumped me to find him and get payback. Flying has improved PvP imo can hunt people down more .

How do you get the guy that hovers at max ceiling height afk between his ganks?

How do you even know where he is? It difficult enough to find enemy players on a 2D plane with restricted movement, how do you find people in a 3D-open space with no movement restrictions? Can you find a needle in a bale of hay being blown up a shaft by a high powered fan?

[Lochton]

We will be getting Unity Mode soon and we can all be friends

Only good thing that would bring would be for PvE. Heh.

[Foolicious]

It because everyone can disengage so rapidly that there are no battles. There only tends to be a single fight in the middle. One fight, and half the losing side escapes anyway.

But thats not a problem of flying. If you want to escape you can simply join another server. Thats what makes warmode bad in the first place.