Blizzard countering flying, your opinion.

[Schizoide]

They aren't scared at all, they have a vision for the game and they hold to it. They are simply not interested in player feedback as pertains to design.

[WowIsDead64]

Lol, I've got my Timereaver today. I've invested ~600 tries into it. And after that Blizzard think, that they can just take flying away from me, when flying - is my major motivation to play this game?

[Dch48]

Myth? I’ve been doing it since wrath and know my friends use auto run/fly as well. Why in the world would any one not use it when just flying from point A to B.

I have never done it. Only when on a flight path and not very often even then.

[Relapses]

They aren't scared at all, they have a vision for the game and they hold to it. They are simply not interested in player feedback as pertains to design.

And that's why Classic is a totally different game from retail, right? I'm very much in favor of devs having the ability to make unpopular decisions but I'm not so cynical to believe every decision they've ever made has been completely devoid of player influence.

[Martymark]

Something I hated in BFA was the trash levelling with you to max, so it's always chasing you 9999 miles trying to dismount you and it's annoying to travel anywhere.

Now the trash fills the sky too I guess. Fun.

[Schizoide]

I'm very much in favor of devs having the ability to make unpopular decisions but I'm not so cynical to believe every decision they've ever made has been completely devoid of player influence.

Not devoid at all, players have influence through our actions. They know Island Adventures and Warfronts are failures and Mythic+ a success because their metrics tell them that. Metrics inform design for the next expansion.

The devs aren't interested in player feedback, specifically. They see it as noise.

[Relapses]

The devs aren't interested in player feedback, specifically. They see it as noise.

Even though this goes against my original statement, I actually agree with you here... to an extent. Feedback on these forums (and elsewhere) is mostly noise. And feedback in general is suspectable to emotion. But I don't think ALL player feedback is noise. I think this community, in general, could stand to learn a bit about constructive criticism and how to properly communicate distaste with a design decision. "Blizz sux" and "they only care about MAUs" are hollow accusations which do little to move the conversation in a direction where actionable feedback is possible. If people were more willing to consider both the developers' viewpoints as well as the players and work towards common middle grounds I think the illusion that Blizzard is insulated from feedback would diminish.

The best example I can think of this is how Riot communicates with its players on reddit.

[Pony Soldier]

I kind of like the idea to be honest. Makes flying around a bit more interesting and dangerous for once.

[FelPlague]

The mechagon hovercrafts are completely ignorable. This looks a bit more hazardous, but I'd assume worst case scenario I can dismount and glider kit by them, or do they 1-shot you regardless of if you're in flight mode or not?

no, glider is not slown by it, so if one aggros you, you can use glider to get away, sadly the legendary cloak cant be upgraded with glider since it has an on use so...

[Schizoide]

The best example I can think of this is how Riot communicates with its players on reddit.

And why does Riot do that? Because Greg Street works there, and he values player communication and feedback. He used to be known as Ghostcrawler when he had Ion's job on WoW, and he was a great communicator then also.

Not to imply I always agreed with GC's design decisions, but he would defend them and actually engage with players. It was vastly better than the current crop of WoW designers who are so blinded by their own perceived brilliance that they will arrogantly say things like "We don't want you to play Demonology right now" and not realize how unforgivable a statement like that is to people that have been playing their character for (at the time) eleven years.

I mean, if you're going to say patently offensive shit like that, it may be better not to communicate, after all.

[Relapses]

And why does Riot do that? Because Greg Street works there, and he values player communication and feedback. He used to be known as Ghostcrawler when he had Ion's job on WoW, and he was a great communicator then also.

Not to imply I always agreed with GC's design decisions, but he would defend them and actually engage with players. It was vastly better than the current crop of WoW designers who are so blinded by their own perceived brilliance that they will arrogantly say things like "We don't want you to play Demonology right now" and not realize how unforgivable a statement like that is to people that have been playing their character for (at the time) eleven years.

I mean, if you're going to say patently offensive shit like that, it may be better not to communicate, after all.

To be fair, Riot was communicating with its community before GC showed up. I am a little bit of a GC fanboy, though, so you might be onto something there. Different strokes, I guess.

edit: Since it's kind of relevant, here's a recent post from GC's blog about this: https://askghostcrawler.tumblr.com/p...st-differences

[bullseyed]

Not a fan on of it.

The only mechanic that i've found remotely interesting in regards to flying were those Kaliris in Skettis and those Anti Air cannons at Ogri'la, because it felt like a bit of a gimmick related to the Sha'tari skyguard, which obviously were related to the concept of flying.

Blizzards attempts at somehow putting the genie back into its bottle doesn't really work.

I liked it best when Blizzard simply embraced flying like in Wotlk.
I simply don't buy this "experience the zones from the ground nonsense", Northrend remains the most visually appealing continent to me, with Storm Peaks still being my favorite zone in WoW.

And that zone embraced flying, because the zone was designed around it and thus super massive, not like those small, crammed up zones filled with (world)quest areas to the brim they've been doing since WoD.

Remember when Blizzard designed content around flying like the Netherwing + Dragonmaw race?
Not claiming it was the holy grail of content, but better than Blizzard treating flying like some sort of leper.

In TBC and WotLK zones were much larger and often pretty flat (TBC). It was designed "for flying" in that regard, because it took just as long to get somewhere flying then as it does on the ground today. Most of the players "hated" that because it took forever to get anywhere and it was largely an empty experience. Larger zones like that are also a bigger load on the servers, harder to shard, and harder to run on low end PCs.

In an effort to make the game run faster and require less compute power, and also to align better with sharding, smaller zones were desired and more use was made of the up/down axis to provide "depth" to the zone design. A smaller zone also makes flying "more powerful" because you can fly over a pit instead of spending 4x as long climbing up and down it.

The limits they place on flying are primarily to offset this gap in zone design. We won't go back to giant zones, because it was a waste of everything from development time to server time to player time. It is foundational now to the game to have smaller zones with higher density. Which means they need a foundational change to how mounts work, but also doesn't 'take away' stuff people already have (like 310% flying).

It isn't an easy problem to solve. Compromises like pathfinder and flying oneshot machines are liveable.

[oplawlz]

I'm all for this type of mechanic in place of pathfinder. The combination just feels punitive.

[Kralljin]

In TBC and WotLK zones were much larger and often pretty flat (TBC). It was designed "for flying" in that regard, because it took just as long to get somewhere flying then as it does on the ground today.

Hardly.
In TBC, no zone but Netherstorm and Shadowmoon Valley were designed with flying in mind.
By 2019 standards perhaps, but coming out of Vanilla, those zones were not tedious to traverse, anyone who has played Vanilla was more than used to these travel times.

Same goes for Wotlk, it wasn't a huge problem, especially in the light of the fact that you unlocked flying rather easily, you leveled up, bought flying / cold weather flight, you got it.
How much time did you spent without flying?
A few hours, depending on your level speed.

I'd buy that argument if TBC / Wotlk had the Pathfinder requirement of WoD-BfA, but they didn't have that.

In an effort to make the game run faster and require less compute power

I was playing on an absolute potato computer during TBC / Wotlk and the only time i've had issues were:
1. In Shattrath / Dalaran during prime time
2. In AV if you got a massive zerg

That aside, hardware improved over the years, i doubt TBC / Wotlk have higher requirements than BfA.

Sorry, but most of your reasons don't hold up.

[Flutterguy]

Good. I suggested they be creative with discouraging flying and this is a creative solution.

[sam86]

-snip-

link not working?

- - - Updated - - -

Right, a more appropriate and compelling use of anti-flying mechanics would be to only situate them around specific quest/WQ areas, rather than covering the entire zone, and have each one different. So above a corrupted Silithid area they would be flying bugs shooting poison, around a Sha area they would be a lattice of shadowy energy you need to navigate through, over a kobold WQ they'd have catapults throwing exploding candles, and so on.

Problem is, implementing all that stuff would be a lot more work for the devs and they don't want players flying in the first place, so they'd prefer to just flip the flying switch or, when reusing zones like in 8.3, add annoyances.

ppl who don't want to fly, simply don't fly
i have friends who never unlocked flying in WoD, and they can play completely fine
MoP was designed around no flying, having no fly will affect u totally zero for raiding or dungeon, u can do every quest with no need to fly
Ppl who are against fly wants to deny others from flying, not themselves, the game since now 3 exps is designed around ppl not have fly in first place, and they still complain, heck even now ppl complain about it even after blizz made pvp server idea absolute
Can u tell me what exactly happens if u don't unlock flying in BFA? nothing, the game works for u same for me, just for u 0.3 slower than me, want to be that slow enjoy, i suffered that for months and i'm done with it

[FelPlague]

link not working?

Yes.... yes it is working...

Already had a fair few veiws, it might have been blocked in your country.

[SirCowdog]

That is based on the supposition that stuff like this will replace Pathfinding, but we all know in our heart of hearts it will be in addition to Pathfinding in Shadowlands, not replacing it. The WoW devs do not compromise unless forced with a gun to their heads-- that's how we got Pathfinding in the first place.

Sadly I also think this is the case. History has shown us that Blizzard tends to not fix things until it becomes a problem in the live version of the game, rather than listening to feedback before hand. This isn't explicitly ALWAYS the case, but with flying in think it's 99% accurate.

- - - Updated - - -

I was playing on an absolute potato computer during TBC / Wotlk and the only time i've had issues were:
1. In Shattrath / Dalaran during prime time
2. In AV if you got a massive zerg

That aside, hardware improved over the years, i doubt TBC / Wotlk have higher requirements than BfA.

Sorry, but most of your reasons don't hold up.

I'd also add that current day servers and networks are much more advanced than they were in 2004, and could probably more easily handle larger zones.

I think the resistance from the devs on this topic has much more to do with what @Schizoide said earlier: They just have the idea stuck in their heads that flying is bad. It's like a mental block. And that a certain portion of the playerbase has jumped on board with that isn't helping.

- - - Updated - - -

Yes.... yes it is working...

Already had a fair few veiws, it might have been blocked in your country.

Can confirm that last night the vid wasn't working(USA west coast). This new link is.

To be fair, Youtube has been doing some very strange stuff lately, across the board. So who knows? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[FelPlague]

Can confirm that last night the vid wasn't working(USA west coast). This new link is.

To be fair, Youtube has been doing some very strange stuff lately, across the board. So who knows? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Thats odd, alright then.

[sam86]

Yes.... yes it is working...

Already had a fair few veiws, it might have been blocked in your country.

i can't talk about BFA since i played it for a single month

if only i didn't mention specifically no bfa zones since i'm not familiar with them
also i wonder how exactly is that flight consider the normal u do every time u fly anywhere (well bfa is full of sh8t i guess just fly ignore it?)
- - - Updated - - -

I think the resistance from the devs on this topic has much more to do with what @Schizoide said earlier: They just have the idea stuck in their heads that flying is bad. It's like a mental block. And that a certain portion of the playerbase has jumped on board with that isn't helping.

Also i didn't raid since ages, ppl who raid complain about how in chaotic fights the game still lags even today, so i don't think hardware upgrade has anything with the bottleneck of data that happens in a raid