So is regular flying dead now?

[Lucetia]

remember Aviana's feather? That was a cool, skill based form of vertical travel, much more engaging and dynamic than simple swimming throught 3D space like flying is.

You aren't serious right? You are trying to say that being launched straight into the air and then slow falling down with limited distance you can move is better than being able to fly and freely move around to where you want to go?

At this point I'm pretty sure the people who are so against flying will just use whatever as an excuse to get rid of it.

Not enough information if they are limited to the isles, or if flight is closed on the isles.

They mentioned in one of the interviews that:

Normal mounts will be useable on the ground, but not for flying at the start.

and then they also said:

Flying in the Dragon Isles will not require a Pathfinder achievement.

So we'll get flying still in Dragon Isles, but not at the start with our normal mounts nor will we need a pathfinder achievement. I'd speculate that it will be gated after X months (like in a X.0.5 patch) or they'll wait until X.1 to launch it. Though we'll have the dragons to use until then.

[Fistfighter]

You aren't serious right? You are trying to say that being launched straight into the air and then slow falling down with limited distance you can move is better than being able to fly and freely move around to where you want to go?

Better at what? convenience and effectivity? no
being an engaging game mechanic? yeah, deffinitely


You know what would be really good and effective? if there was a button that would instantly kill the raid boss for you so you could get the loot quicker and progress onto another boss.
Is that an engaging and fun game mechanic? well no, but it's really convenient

[Lucetia]

Better at what? convenience and effectivity? no
being an engaging game mechanic? yeah, deffinitely


You know what would be really good and effective? if there was a button that would instantly kill the raid boss for you so you could get the loot quicker and progress onto another boss.
Is that an engaging and fun game mechanic? well no, but it's really convenient

I'm confused by your arguments. One you are saying being launched into the air and slowly falling is an engaging game mechanic? How exactly is it engaging. You make very little progress from where you are and only advantage you have is getting slightly higher. You could literally slowfall back down and be fine (hence no interaction).

Secondly, your argument about a raid boss doesn't even fit this nor does it matter since you are so far out in left field with the comment that it just shows you are trying to come up with things to to say in order to say "flying sucks" without actually providing any reasons.

Here's a question, how often do you use ground mount instead of flying (where available)? Very likely you don't at all, but​ you'll claim you use it all the time.

How is a ground mount more engaging than a flying mount? Because you might have to fight mobs?

[Sugani]

You know what would be really good and effective? if there was a button that would instantly kill the raid boss for you so you could get the loot quicker and progress onto another boss.
Is that an engaging and fun game mechanic? well no, but it's really convenient

You're 100% right, the only reason I play this game is to get loot and having to kill the same boss over and over again to get that loot is really inconvenient. But if there was a way to just auto-kill the boss instantly, I can make my gameplay more efficient.

[rhorle]

No it isn't. Just because something is scuffed doesn't mean its broken.

What is it scuffing? Exactly. You are just using as a way to call stealth broken, because you can do the same things flying allows, with out having to say it is broken.

[Playintrafic]

Well, the new flying mounts look highly customizable, so if they turn out to be good, then I doubt players will be using the old ones.

I spent years grinding to get the specific mount I wanted, why would I use some generic ass dragon.

[RayenDark]

As a druid main, Flying is heavily in our Lore ranging from the Flight form Quest in TBC to Current and baked into the class with special forms. They won't remove normal flying. Otherwise they'd have to give us a hell change and buff to our land form to compensate.

If you don't like flying- don't fly. It's apart of my class fantasy-I'm going to use it.

[Kumorii]

I spent years grinding to get the specific mount I wanted, why would I use some generic ass dragon.

It allows you to fly.

[rhorle]

If you don't like flying- don't fly. It's apart of my class fantasy-I'm going to use it.

Not in Dragonflight. Blizzard has stated that druid flight form is not compatible with Dragon Riding so they will have to use a dragon in their "normal" form.

- - - Updated - - -

I spent years grinding to get the specific mount I wanted, why would I use some generic ass dragon.

Blizzard is using "millions of customization combos" as marketing so it will be possible to at least customize it beyond a generic dragon. It isn't clear yet if there will be more dragon options added in or if the four they have on the expansion site are the only base forms you can get. There will even be customization options locked behind different things. So a Mythic Raider could have access to different stuff.

And normal flying will eventually be unlocked so you can go back to your favorite mount at some point. Depending on how they do it some of the perks, like flight masters whistle, might be usable on any mount as well. So it might not be that big of a deal once old/normal flying is available.

[unbound]

I would imagine it will still be debated for years to come.

Remember that flying was supposed to go away in WoD. The real reason was so that Blizz could avoid having to finish designing the zones to account for flying, but corporate PR puts out various reasons (most of which have been parroted in this thread by various players). That goal (not having to finish designing the zones to account for flying) remains high on Blizz's priority list to keep reducing value to the players.

Part of the problem is that getting rid of flying is diametrically opposed to their zone design philosophy (i.e. overly tight zones jamming things together using steep hills as separators to save on space / calculations on their servers) from the player's perspective. Blizz could probably get rid of flying if they stopped designing zones like BC thru Cata where flying was integrated into the design. Stop making travel a zig-zag mess trying to get from A to B, and more players would likely accept the lack of flying.
Until they can figure out that getting rid of one requires a change in the other, Blizz will continue to make up BS excuses why flying shouldn't happen.

Alternatively, Blizz could go back to the BC thru Cata days where they actually designed the expansion to account for flying and, hold your hat, even improve flying to account for things like aerial combat, etc. Of course, since that would require more work, Blizz won't seriously consider that approach.

[Sugani]

Alternatively, Blizz could go back to the BC thru Cata days where they actually designed the expansion to account for flying and, hold your hat, even improve flying to account for things like aerial combat, etc. Of course, since that would require more work, Blizz won't seriously consider that approach.

This feels what they're doing with Dragonflight. Accepting that flying is a thing and designing zones around it, creating much larger zones with wider spaces to account for the faster travel all while updating the dated flying mechanics at the same time.

[Craaazyyy]

i really dont want any fucking "high" effort flying in the game, i dont give a shit if its fun, it's not not what i want from wow, i never even wanted regular flying, but at least it doesn't require me to put any effort

flying/mounts etc. is supposed to be working as transport to move you from point A to point B.. that's it

if they're gonna focus on integrating dragonriding more into gameplay and make it important then it will suck

[Fistfighter]

I'm confused by your arguments. One you are saying being launched into the air and slowly falling is an engaging game mechanic? How exactly is it engaging. You make very little progress from where you are and only advantage you have is getting slightly higher. You could literally slowfall back down and be fine (hence no interaction).

It is, because piloting the slowfall is more skillful than just Gmod hovering anywhere you want. I mean, it's not the pinnacle of game mechanic design, but it's a good start. It makes you think about your vertical traversal, it takes some practise, it's an actual mechanic.

Secondly, your argument about a raid boss doesn't even fit this nor does it matter since you are so far out in left field with the comment that it just shows you are trying to come up with things to to say in order to say "flying sucks" without actually providing any reasons.

I'v provided several. It's a crutch that fixes the fact that the world is not fun to traverse. Players just want to quickly and efficiently move from grinding boring stuff in one point to grinding boring stuff in another point.

Here's a question, how often do you use ground mount instead of flying (where available)? Very likely you don't at all, but​ you'll claim you use it all the time.

Honestly? I didn't get the original WoD Pathfinder for atleast a month after it was unlocked, because I didn't care about flying in a zone that was designed well enough for ground movement.

How is a ground mount more engaging than a flying mount? Because you might have to fight mobs?

Unironically, yes.
Mobs, players, traversing the terrain. Even just having to jump over a creak is infinitely more engaging than flying to a high elevation and then autopilot flying in a straight line for 5min straight.

I am not saying ground movement is some stellar game mechanic, I don't want to remove flying because I hate when other people are having fun.
But flying in WoW is NOT fun, at all. It's just a crutch to get people from one point to another FASTER, because god forbid they have to spend more time in the game they are playing.

That's why I was praising Aviana's feather. It was a really unique way for blizzard to allow people to fly without using the boring flying mechanic. If Dragonridding turns out being not only efficient at traversing, but also fun? that would be the best of the both worlds.

But I understand fun has no place in videogames.

[oldgeezer]

There are a lot of tears being shed here over the fact that 'flying isn't fun'. I don't get that. It's not just about convenient travel (although that's the major sell, clearly), it's also fun for those of us who like to see and experience the world from the air at our leisure. That, boys and girls, is also content. Now, if flappy dragon mode allows us to do that without idiotic mini-game mechanics getting in the way, fine.

[Xilurm]

There's a reason ESO doesn't have traditional flying, and that GW2 only has their interactive flying. Infact there's only two mounts in GW2 that can fly, both a bit different and neither like the ones in WoW/FFXIV.

FFXIV on the other hand, wanted to be more like WoW when they rebuilt it. And tbh FF's zones are well, bland, compared to most MMO's. There's only a few zones in FF that can be called amazing.

I reckon the former two games really don't wanna ruin the immersion of their world and the fact that their spend so much time working on these zones, only to be completely ignored by players.

I imagine Blizzard feels the same, but there's little they can do now that flying has been in the game for 15 years. It's not like they hate the players or anything. They just don't want free flying in their game, plain and simple.

In most games, the way WoW's flying looks is pretty much like hacking the console and adding godmode, where you can just move freely around.

[huth]

So does stealth. There isn't even a movement speed penalty anymore. Ride mount to near location, stealth to drop combat, kill your target, mount up and move on.

Ride to location, get knocked off your mount three times, then stay in combat because you can't actually stealth during combat...

Vanish isn't stealth. It's a longer CD that only Rogues have.

[FelPlague]

I spent years grinding to get the specific mount I wanted, why would I use some generic ass dragon.

"generic ass dragon"
This feels like the subway meme

[rhorle]

Ride to location, get knocked off your mount three times, then stay in combat because you can't actually stealth during combat

Vanish puts you into stealth though after its "improved" buff ends so it is still applicable. Shadowmeld is usable in combat still, right? So Night Elves can do it as well. A NE druid has the bonus of having prowl so they can move around rather then just drop combat. Which just shows how broken things are for a few classes when compared to the rest.

As for getting knocked off your mount you can use the mount equipment to remove daze which drastically lowers (or removes) chance to get dismounted. Tanks don't have to though, right? Because they get passives that stop them from getting dazed.

Yet again evidence that it isn't flying that is broken but the way the game has been designed when flying isn't even available. Flying just makes it more convenient and is not restricted to class. The only broken thing about flying is from Druids being able to do everything in flight form where as others can't interact and fly away.

[dwarven]

I hope so.

Flying has been one of the worst aspects of the game since TBC, if they finally found a way to get rid of it, without actually getting rid of it, that would be really great.

WoW without flying would be about as fun as swirling a stick around in mud. The core gameplay is already monotonous enough.

[FelPlague]

Ride to location, get knocked off your mount three times, then stay in combat because you can't actually stealth during combat...

Vanish isn't stealth. It's a longer CD that only Rogues have.

Put on anti-daze mount equipment
use any tank spec
play any class with a talent that gives you a passive shield
or use an item like a legendary that does the same thing prydaz for example.

there is tons of ways you can avoid getting dismounted if it really bothers you that much.