Blizzard needs to EMBRACE flying...

[Aliven]

Indeed - that's why Classic is so popular, because of flying.

No - Blizzard needs to DITCH flying completely, or at worst make it for old content only.

Then they need to make the ground more interesting.

Problems need to be solved, not avoided OP.

Or they can embrace it like in Tbc, WotLK and create even entire zone, factions, new daily areas, dungeons even that are not accessible without using flying mount. Like they already done. You know, before the "fuck the player fun" part of their design.

[Noxina]

The main reason for restricting flying is so that it takes longer to do things which helps Blizzard's shareholder meetings with the "Player Engagement" metric.

I never really understood people who have this thought.

People don't sub for an extra month because they have to spend 30 minutes extra each day to do their daily quests, or spend 5 minutes longer to get to the raid instance. They sub an extra month because there is shit to do ingame, i.e pathfinder.
Pathfinder is amazing. It's a long achievement with a huge price at the end. It's actually what people have been asking for for a long time - something to aim towards. Not all the titanforge endless grind crap.

Take Classic as an example, people play it a shit ton to farm pre-bis raiding gear. They know exactly what dungeon to go to, and who drops their item. There is no lottery at the end "will this finally titanforge and/or give me a socket this time!".
People love goals. Pathfinder is the best goal in retail at the moment for almost the whole playerbase.

[Exystredofar]

Here's one thing to think about - developers release and design content around the way and speed of how players consume it, with rapid-flying available, developers have to make rewards smaller, thanks to how fast you can consume world-content due to being able to fly with 310% speed, so literally anyone who doesn't use 310% speed flying gets the same rewards for more effort and more time.

I can see your point, but world quest and daily quest rewards were shit long before pathfinder became a thing, and they continue to be shit to this day, often not being worth the time and effort to go do them.

[Ihsan997]

I mean, I definitely was the most active in expansions that had flying from the start. Once pathfinder was introduced, I saw it as more of a chore than interesting and interactive gameplay. Still, I've gone through all 3 pathfinder grinds so far, and I can honestly say that once I got flying, I pretty much lost interest in the expansion because pathfinder was the only real long term goal any of them had. That's not an issue caused by flying, that's an issue caused by a lack of compelling end game world content.

Let's be honest anyway, who actually stops to fight things that they pull while running? I just run right through them. You can say that flying causes people to interact less with the world, and that developers restricting it is an attempt to get people to engage more with it, but honestly, it just makes me skip everything I can until I can fly, and then I start to actually explore and interact more.

All the more reason why gating flying is ridiculous. That seems to be the general consensus among fans, but I don’t think Blizzard is willing to budge on this pet issue of theirs.

[Charge me Doctor]

I mean, I definitely was the most active in expansions that had flying from the start. Once pathfinder was introduced, I saw it as more of a chore than interesting and interactive gameplay. Still, I've gone through all 3 pathfinder grinds so far, and I can honestly say that once I got flying, I pretty much lost interest in the expansion because pathfinder was the only real long term goal any of them had. That's not an issue caused by flying, that's an issue caused by a lack of compelling end game world content.

Well, with no flying developers would have more freedom to make world content, because it would be munched through like by a cloud of cicadas.

Let's be honest anyway, who actually stops to fight things that they pull while running? I just run right through them. You can say that flying causes people to interact less with the world, and that developers restricting it is an attempt to get people to engage more with it, but honestly, it just makes me skip everything I can until I can fly, and then I start to actually explore and interact more.

Running through is always dicy unless you playing a tank spec; You have options to improve your chances, like certain azerite perks that give you a shield, class abilities and stuff like that, but it still doesn't give you a guarantee to avoid dismount + daze. You also have an option to look for a shortest path, maybe risk taking some fall damage. Running through a location on ground mount makes you engage with the game, instead of avoiding literally anything by flying upwards.
We don't know at this point how the game could look like without flying, because flying is always a concern in wow, developers have to consider how much faster it makes us, players, and how it impact our completion speeds.

[nonameelf]

Well, with no flying developers would have more freedom to make world content, because it would be munched through like by a cloud of cicadas.

WoD says this is bullshit.

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We don't know at this point how the game could look like without flying, because flying is always a concern in wow, developers have to consider how much faster it makes us, players, and how it impact our completion speeds.

It would look like WoD, which sucked.

[Aliven]

I mean, if you like to think about it this way - good for you, but you should consider moving away from those discussions if you are not willing to understand the issues with flying. Here's one thing to think about - developers release and design content around the way and speed of how players consume it, with rapid-flying available, developers have to make rewards smaller, thanks to how fast you can consume world-content due to being able to fly with 310% speed, so literally anyone who doesn't use 310% speed flying gets the same rewards for more effort and more time. Without 310% speed flying developers would have to tune their rewards up, because nobody in their right damn mind would want to spend time to travel to a WQ 15 minutes away from a closest flight point to get 20 gold.

Flying is not "just an option" in this game, it's a mechanic (and the most boring implementation of flying in videogames, even flappy bird has better flying that wow does) that you have to use if you want to get anything done in this game, denying that is just ridiculous;
Liking it or not is completely different thing - i don't like it and want it to be removed, you like it and want it to stay, but saying ridiculous things like "flying is optional and doesn't affect the game" is just stupid.

But it is optional. You can choose not to do this but you wont because the optimization thingy.

And sure, devs are so inclined with the time, especially when "player time spend playing" that they gona stretch is as much as humanly possible and then some. They also know this is fucked up and created flight master whistles, the fucking aviana feather in wod because IT IS TEDIOUS AND THEY KNOW IT. They create a problem and then solution or a little workaround of said problem.

Also, they dont have problem with player flying and saving some time for the players. They created pathfinder (again, problem and solution) so you can earn after you spend x times doing quests. You dont need to engage with other players. You need to spend x amount of time doing quests. And after that i suppose they are cool with you not engaging in their precious design

That same filosophy can be seen in prices in realm transfer. They are high to discourage abuse of it. Unless you pay us. Then it is ok to abuse it. Because we love money

They are so full of bullshit it is amazing, they create entire systems to stretch the "player engagement", (time gating like fucking EVERYWHERE now) and people still defend them because they swallow those stupid PR talks. And they do that in this way because they can, because it is easier and generate therefore more money, even IF in long stretch creating experience the players WANT to engage in because it is FUN and not because the rewards and qol are hidden behinds MONTHS of grinding would give them more money and better player retention.

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Well, with no flying developers would have more freedom to make world content, because it would be munched through like by a cloud of cicadas.



Running through is always dicy unless you playing a tank spec; You have options to improve your chances, like certain azerite perks that give you a shield, class abilities and stuff like that, but it still doesn't give you a guarantee to avoid dismount + daze. You also have an option to look for a shortest path, maybe risk taking some fall damage. Running through a location on ground mount makes you engage with the game, instead of avoiding literally anything by flying upwards.
We don't know at this point how the game could look like without flying, because flying is always a concern in wow, developers have to consider how much faster it makes us, players, and how it impact our completion speeds.

Or buy shitty item created by leatherworkes which prevent dismount...

[Exystredofar]

Running through is always dicy unless you playing a tank spec; You have options to improve your chances, like certain azerite perks that give you a shield, class abilities and stuff like that, but it still doesn't give you a guarantee to avoid dismount + daze. You also have an option to look for a shortest path, maybe risk taking some fall damage. Running through a location on ground mount makes you engage with the game, instead of avoiding literally anything by flying upwards.

I play a windwalker monk. If I pull something and it dazes me, I just flying serpent kick, roll and roll again and then I've likely dropped aggro because I'm already around 60 yards away from it within 3 seconds of being dazed. The main thing flying does for me is allow me to explore the world and play the game the way I actually enjoy it. I spent years farming many of my mounts, and most of them fly.

Imagine being given a project at work that will take you years to complete, but at the end of it you get a free car. You work and work, and then finally get your car, only to discover that cars have been made illegal because of concerns from people who thought it was unfair that some people can drive while they can't afford a car, or just prefer walking, but you can still take a bus instead if you want. The people complaining about the cars are just as ridiculous as the people complaining about flying in my book, because even without it, there are ways to completely negate the world and just get your business done in an efficient manner. Flying doesn't break the game, it just makes it easier to do what we already do.

[Nobar]

The real problem with flying is alts. Once you have your main able to fly, why wouldn't you use flying for your alts?

Going through the leveling experience one is fine, but the more times you do it, the more you want to skip what you've done before. If blizzard wanted to abolish flying, they should just accept a much smaller character limit.

[Charge me Doctor]

I play a windwalker monk. If I pull something and it dazes me, I just flying serpent kick, roll and roll again and then I've likely dropped aggro because I'm already around 60 yards away from it within 3 seconds of being dazed. The main thing flying does for me is allow me to explore the world and play the game the way I actually enjoy it. I spent years farming many of my mounts, and most of them fly.

Wow, you have to use tools unique to your class to avoid obstacles in a video game, what a weird concept kappa.

You are allowed to explore the world, flying simply makes it trivially easier

Most of mounts being flying mounts if a direct effect of flying being in the game, what you are speaking about is sunken cost fallacy.

Imagine being given a project at work that will take you years to complete, but at the end of it you get a free car. You work and work, and then finally get your car, only to discover that cars have been made illegal because of concerns from people who thought it was unfair that some people can drive while they can't afford a car, or just prefer walking, but you can still take a bus instead if you want. The people complaining about the cars are just as ridiculous as the people complaining about flying in my book, because even without it, there are ways to completely negate the world and just get your business done in an efficient manner. Flying doesn't break the game, it just makes it easier to do what we already do.

It's more like a car hurts environment everyone lives in, requiring more and more infrastructure, forcing people to use it, because infrastructure required by convenient cars eat more and more money, leaving nothing to public transportation... you know, that whole thing that most developed countries worked through dozen years ago.

[Doomchicken]

WoD says this is bullshit.

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It would look like WoD, which sucked.

Tbf WoD would of been exactly zero percent better with flying though.

[nonameelf]

Tbf WoD would of been exactly zero percent better with flying though.

The point is that planning an expansion with no flying in mind does not make the expansion magically better.

[Kumorii]

Flying makes terrain irrelevant. Doesn't matter if it's up, down, forward, backwards you name. It all becomes a linear path.
To make flying interact with terrain in a manner that makes it engaging beyond "I just wanna get everything done asap" requires a rework of how flying works. I don't think players would be susceptible to that.

[Raelbo]

Main reason for restriction of flying is that it never was good for the game but by the time Blizz realized it was too late to take it out. So they gave us pathfinder as middle ground solution.

Main reason for restriction of flying is that Blizzard think is bad for the game. But they're wrong on that count and so are the vocal minority who keep validating this fallacy.

Their issue stems from the fact that flying changes the way we explore and discover the world and detracts from that experience. Their error in thinking is their failure to understand that once we've gotten over exploring and discovering the world, there is nothing further to be gained from restrictions on flying.

[Santti]

WoD would have been better with flying. Maybe you didn't like WoD. Feel free to move along.

Honestly, if there is something WoD did really well, was the treasure hunting and the like. It was content designed for not being able to fly. Nagrand was chock-full of treasures that were hidden all over the place, and it was genuinely fun to figure how to get them.

[Exystredofar]

Wow, you have to use tools unique to your class to avoid obstacles in a video game, what a weird concept kappa.

You are allowed to explore the world, flying simply makes it trivially easier

Most of mounts being flying mounts if a direct effect of flying being in the game, what you are speaking about is sunken cost fallacy.

I was just giving an example. It doesn't have to be tools unique to your class, it could be invisibility potions, engineering nitro boosts, Falling Flame, etc. Anyone can escape from any situation at any time, as long as they know what they're doing. And sunken cost fallacy only applies if you're trying to justify your losses in an attempt to keep gambling, which technically would be literally everyone who is currently farming for any mount. I'm not gambling, I've already won my mounts, I don't have to gamble anything. Taking them away from me would just turn me off the game, so it just means I'd have $15 a month extra to do whatever with.

It's more like a car hurts environment everyone lives in, requiring more and more infrastructure, forcing people to use it, because infrastructure required by convenient cars eat more and more money, leaving nothing to public transportation... you know, that whole thing that most developed countries worked through dozen years ago.

I'm not really sure how to respond to this. The way you've worded the second part sounds almost like you're actually agreeing with me in a way, but I don't think you are. That first part though... I hate to break it to you, but no one is forced to drive a car, and in fact some people should be forced *not* to drive a car IMO.

[Doomchicken]

WoD would have been better with flying. Maybe you didn't like WoD. Feel free to move along.

Dude. Almost no one liked WoD. This isn't a vocal minority thing considering how almost no one ever has anything nice to say about the expansion. And what exactly would have been better with flying then? Flying around your garrison all on your lonesome NOT doing the near on non existent world content?

[Flarelaine]

I'm almost certain that this has been talked about before...

Yes. Exhaustively. In numerous threads.

[Krille]

Flying is one of the worst things that have happened to this game. If you never experienced it you wouldnt know what you're missing and wouldnt complain. But at the moment World PvP and the perceived size of the world is instantly ruined as soon as you unlock flying.

[Biske]

It's funny because the reasons people give for no flying, like "player interaction" or "world pvp" don't change in frequency whether flying is allowed or not. People still wait until you've pulled a mob before attempting to gank you. People never talk to each other outside of rp severs and trade chat. People don't even ask for an invite if they're doing the same quest as you. They'll either keep doing their own thing or attempt to invite you without even asking.

Not allowing flying hasn't fixed any of the issues it supposedly should. Ever. And if you as a developer want people to see the new zones and really take in the beauty or whatever, try making engaging content that makes you want to enjoy the area and play there while and after doing whatever it is you went there to do.