Flying really does make the world lose any sense of danger

[arkanon]

But i want to EXPLORE this 15 year old game - sure, i have done it all before, there are no surprises left, and flying doesnt let me skip any combat, but still, flying ruined the game!

The whole "but you can skip content!" argument (and i use that term lightly) is not based in reality - over a days play, flying vs horse might help me avoid MAYBE one combat encounter - MAYBE one. Anyone with 1/10 of a brain just rides around things anyway. People relying on this argument present a scenario where without flying, players are slowly trudging through hordes of enemies in engaging souls-like combat, turning corners to shocking surprises and wondrous discoveries, and slogging their way through an epic adventure. The reality is everyone just hits auto-run and starts scrolling through the forums or watching TV, throwing the odd adjustment in here and there to stay on coarse.

To be fair, im not a big fan of the counter argument of "if you dont like flying, dont use it!" which i think is equally as soft. But flying didnt "ruin"Wpvp - the wpvp system ruined wpvp, because people didnt want to engage in it very much. And those who DO want to? they still do. Players typically class ganking as wpvp, and frequently jump people who are in combat - flying doesnt change that. Otherwise, its the famed SS vs TM type battles, and again, anyone who wants to partake in that still can.

Flying is awesome, epic flying is epicly awesome, and should remain unchanged.

[WowIsDead64]

Flying is my #1 in list of "Major problems, that need radical solution in order to stop conflicts about it forever". What radical solution? If some players just can't make themselves not use flying, if flying is available, as they see other players flying, so they think, that they somehow "fall behind" them, then dedicate flying servers/mode, similar to PVP servers/WarMode, is needed.

[arkanon]

Flying is my #1 in list of "Major problems, that need radical solution in order to stop conflicts about it forever". What radical solution? If some players just can't make themselves not use flying, if flying is available, as they see other players flying, so they think, that they somehow "fall behind" them, then dedicate flying servers/mode, similar to PVP servers/WarMode, is needed.

Never seen a person complain in game - its one of those "forum only" problems that just isnt a problem.

[WowIsDead64]

Never seen a person complain in game - its one of those "forum only" problems that just isnt a problem.

The biggest mistake here - is that you count current players only, not potential players, that are unsubbed due to this problem, but would resub, if it would be fixed. As I've already said, there is some feedback between what Blizzard do and what their current playerbase wants, because their current playerbase changes according to what they do. It's like boss on your job, who decided, that everybody needs to work 12 hours a day and who disagrees - should be fired. At some point only those, who agree to work for 12 hours, will remain and of course 100% of them will agree to do it. So using such metric to determine, what employees want - is complete nonsense.

According to some metrics, both Wow versions have already dropped below FF14 playerbase and are around just 2M. But all of a sudden playerbase rises to ~7M and may be even 10M, when new patch is released. But fades pretty quick after that. This 5-8M - are potential players. I'm one of such players. And I clearly say, WHY I drop so quick after xpack/patch releases. But Blizzard don't listen to me. They still think, that this game doesn't have enough endless grinds. They still don't make any difference between "not enough content" and "not enough GOOD content".

[Tsarez]

I always thought that the small flying was enough. That would make us use ground mounts for short distance quick travel, and flying 60% mounts to reach areas that we couldn't reach otherwise. Long distances would be traversed using the flight NPC.

This enables world PvP again a bit more and people wouldn't be able to rush farm things as they do now.

But that's coming from someone who rushed for the 280% mount so take me with a grain of salt.

[scubi666stacy]

MMO isn't single-time single-player game, where whole game is about exploring, navigating, solving puzzles, finding secrets. It's long term game. You play it for weeks, months and years. When you do the same quest/WQ for 100500th time - artificial obstacles become annoying and drive you away from game.

The best example - compare it with riding to your work through rush hour traffic jams. What would you prefer?

This?


Or this?


Your job - is what matters. Your route from home to your job and back doesn't. Because you do it every day, so you suffer from "cookie cutter" effect - you no longer notice, what's around you. You just want to get to place, that matter to you, as fast, as possible. That's it.

What bugs me, is that many players, who play MMO, are people without imagination. What they do in fantasy world - is the same, they do in real life. We are so limited in our real life. We want to have more opportunities. But all of a sudden when fantasy world allows us to do it - we reject it. We want difficulties, like if our real world wouldn't provide enough of them. I just can't understand it.

100% this. Also, TBC had flying, so TBC Classic should have it as well. It was a core feature of the game, it still is in retail. If you don't want to fly, go play LOTRO or Classic WoW. Games without flying.

[Rageonit]

WEH I HATE FLYING
*gets on 280% flyer*
IT RUINS MY IMMERSION!
*zips to the next Fire Elemental mob*
THERE'S NO SENSE OF DANGER
*mounts up*

What do you propose in a game where one wants to stay competitive?
So my small guild is already ready to raid and I kiiiinda have an important role in it, but I should go liek: "Nah guys sorry, I want to feel the immersion now, and the sense of danger - you just gotta wait!"
It's bad already that the game forces you to make this choice: have fun and lag behind or give up the fun element you enjoy to stay competitive. Many people will do the latter, for many different reasons (and mostly good reasons too).

So yeah, there's absolutely nothing surprising in the fact that people who like to be competitive, will do things they don't enjoy just to stay competitive. All the advices "so just don't fly" are... well, dumb at best.

[Zaqwert]

Flying is the best thing to save time and avoid frustration. Don't fly if you don't like it.

This argument doesn't work in MMO's.

If WoW were a single player game, the retort "Well if you don't like it, don't use it" would be logically sound.

However in a multiplayer game, every single feature added effects everyone and the game as a whole, whether you personally use it or not. Even if people chose not to fly, their gameplay experience is dramatically different because flying exists and others will use it.

Human nature will always gravitate towards the path of less resistance. It's up to the game developers to be good stewards of the game and make sure they don't introduce things that foul up the game.

Everything introduced in an MMO effects everyone. You can't ignore features you don't like because they will dramatically impact you anyway.

[WowIsDead64]

Overall Blizzards' problem - is that they constantly misinterpret feedback and then blame players for not enjoying, what they asked for. For example: Covenants - is result of players' feedback, asking for making game more RPish. But what players actually meant - is that rep grinds with factions shouldn't be about just numbers and filling bars. They should give meaningful rewards and experience, related to theme of that factions. Something on a par with Class Halls. And what is Blizzards' interpretation of RPish? Yeah. So called "meaningful" choice, i.e. permanent choice, that means potentially infinite grind to get all rewards. And that means potentially infinite amount of time, needed to get them, making them completely pointless. And then Blizzard wonder, why players don't like Covenants.

[Couchpotato2013]

Not reading all of these posts, but for anyone trying to make the appeal that flying killed wpvp (or the world in general), you are being inane. Look at classic phase 2 and then when BGs opened Dec 10, the zones got depleted pretty much there after because honor gains was better from instanced pvp.

And what happens in tbc alongside flying? Arena, that requires visiting specific npcs in cities, away from hotspots (or having guards to enforce peace) in order to get points to then buy gear while you grind rating. Meanwhile pvp world objectives fail to scale or provide worthwhile rewards for people seeking pvp.

Like just looking now on retail, the achievement (supplying the assassins) needed for the rank 4 essence (but also giving achievement points), only has 3% (on wowhead) and 1% (dataforazeroth) completion. The achievement below that for the rank 2 essence has 14 and 12% respectively for both sites. And this almost 24 months after the content was made available in 8.2.

And then for the conqueror of azeroth title. Only 4% have it on wowhead. Just recent trends to show how little people care about wpvp, even when that title can be cheesed by using alts.

People want gear and gear only comes from instances.

In short,
1) world means nothing cause the difficulties of it are so low because it is needed to be consumed by everyone
2) You reach a point of doing everything in the zone and thus have absolutely no reason to waste time in said zone.
3) The content in the zone doesn’t at all keep pace with instanced content.

Flying is a boogieman/scapegoat for people unable to recognize those three things.

[McNeil]

My only issue with flying is that it came too soon. I would have loved to have at least 1 or 2 more expansions after Classic where we were still grounded.

[uncl55]

then dont fly assholes, nobody is forcing you!

[khazmodan]

I think an argument can be made for flying after loremaster on the continent, but Burning Crusade was designed for flying. Can you imagine trying to make it across Icecrown without flying, and Blades edge mountains is annoying as hell without flying, quests in Storm Peaks are designed with flying in mind to show a level of epic size that could only be done with flying. Like somebody else said, tedious time wasting is not immersion, its just annoying.

[spalernTJ]

I really don't get the argument that "Flying takes away from RPG elements." Better means of transportation is one of the most basic RPG elements. Most modern RPGs have ways of transportation that are way faster than regular horse riding, like flying and teleportation. Going fast and flying, I would believe, is also something many human beings IRL likes to fantasize about.

I would suspect the reason why some people feel like it takes away from the game is essentially because there aren't many anti air mechanics put in, but even then, people would just complain about that too.

[mmocfd1b0ab5a3]

I'm sure I have seen this thread 14 years ago.

[Heathy]

I think flying was a good way of having exploration at level cap and having portions of the world you just couldn't get to without flight, its organic in the sense that you decide to go explore it. you can achieve the same thing with portals that lead to areas, but it was interesting to have some areas you just couldn't get to till max. this seems to have been the goal of it originally, have areas of the game that you can't access until you can fly. then you're able to save some content until a certain point. a new way to travel was always going to happen, there is no reality where wow didn't get flying mounts. in that same reality it was over shadowed by shitter mmos that did get flying mounts.

[NineSpine]

MMO isn't single-time single-player game, where whole game is about exploring, navigating, solving puzzles, finding secrets. It's long term game. You play it for weeks, months and years. When you do the same quest/WQ for 100500th time - artificial obstacles become annoying and drive you away from game.

The best example - compare it with riding to your work through rush hour traffic jams. What would you prefer?

This?


Or this?


Your job - is what matters. Your route from home to your job and back doesn't. Because you do it every day, so you suffer from "cookie cutter" effect - you no longer notice, what's around you. You just want to get to place, that matter to you, as fast, as possible. That's it.

What bugs me, is that many players, who play MMO, are people without imagination. What they do in fantasy world - is the same, they do in real life. We are so limited in our real life. We want to have more opportunities. But all of a sudden when fantasy world allows us to do it - we reject it. We want difficulties, like if our real world wouldn't provide enough of them. I just can't understand it.

There's already a problem if you are being pushed to do an activity so many times in a short period that you feel the need you are describing.

- - - Updated - - -

I really don't get the argument that "Flying takes away from RPG elements." Better means of transportation is one of the most basic RPG elements. Most modern RPGs have ways of transportation that are way faster than regular horse riding, like flying and teleportation. Going fast and flying, I would believe, is also something many human beings IRL likes to fantasize about.

I would suspect the reason why some people feel like it takes away from the game is essentially because there aren't many anti air mechanics put in, but even then, people would just complain about that too.

People think it takes away from the RPG elements because it allows you to skip navigating the world. It breaks immersion and makes the world feel very, very, very small.

[klaps_05]

the current system is perfect - release content allows you to experience that danger, learn the ins and outs. after the 1st patch however that danger is merely just annoyance which is why getting flying with 9.1 patches is perfect.

[Dread Pirate Phayde]

Maybe just play the song Danger Zone by Kenny Loggins every time you start to fly.

[Rendark]

Nah flying was and still is great.