Flying is finally the way it SHOULD be: Got it right after 8 long years

[WowIsDead64]

Question is actually very simple. Do we really need so many raptoras everywhere in ZM? For what purpose? To make world more dangerous? But they don't make world more dangerous. They make world more annoying. This is common problem. Danger via annoyance - is just bad game design.

And where this misconception, that all players need world to be some sort of minefield, comes from? Some players on forums ask for it, yeah. But is it enough? For example asking for return flying on forums isn't enough for it to happen. Personally I don't like world to be some sort of danger zone, where player can't lose concentration even for a second. I don't like games with some sort of restrictions, where time plays against me. Such as "It's space, so you need to constantly find oxygen tanks". It actually kills all sense of exploration, because player needs to constantly run somewhere instead of exploring every corner.

[Elias1337]

Oh I recall. It had more then 1700 pages on this very forum and nearly 2 dozen people got permabanned from MMO-C. It was a long, drawn out, knock down fight between the pro-fliers and anti-fliers.

Edit: I stand corrected: 2231 pages

https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...-xpac/page2231

Problem is. Antiflyers understand importance of adversity in mmorpg game and fact how overcoming adversity leads to fun and memorable experiences while proflying crowd just sees covinience and ends up on forums wondering why is game so hollow and boring. Ufortunately as in most cases they always end up blaming some completly unrelated system rather then admiting that it was fault of adding covinient features what removed adversity and turned game into hollow husk.

[arkanon]

Problem is. Antiflyers understand importance of adversity in mmorpg game and fact how overcoming adversity leads to fun and memorable experiences while proflying crowd just sees covinience and ends up on forums wondering why is game so hollow and boring. Ufortunately as in most cases they always end up blaming some completly unrelated system rather then admiting that it was fault of adding covinient features what removed adversity and turned game into hollow husk.

How is taking a flight point, or portal, or just hitting auto run and running by or through packs of mobs any different to flying? You still have to stop and complete the same objectives as the groundies. Pro groundy people make it sound like getting from WQ to WQ requires planning and precision, and endless, challenging combat.

Even you talk about "adversity" - what bloody adversity? You just ride right through everything. If you somehow manage to get dismounted, you hit 3 buttons, everything dies, and you mount straight back up again and keep going.

[Grimbold21]

Here's the ideal flying system:

You've dinged max lvl.
Go to the flight master
Here's 5k gold.
Fly.

That was more or less BC flying.

And I'm not even going the Cata flying route where you'd get flying right away.

[Elias1337]

How is taking a flight point, or portal, or just hitting auto run and running by or through packs of mobs any different to flying? You still have to stop and complete the same objectives as the groundies. Pro groundy people make it sound like getting from WQ to WQ requires planning and precision, and endless, challenging combat.

Even you talk about "adversity" - what bloody adversity? You just ride right through everything. If you somehow manage to get dismounted, you hit 3 buttons, everything dies, and you mount straight back up again and keep going.

Yes ofc world mobs would have to again represent danger to player. Thats just another of many coviniences what has ruined wow. World content as it is now is utter joke without even slighest difficulty or challenge.

[OMGTwitchTV]

Problem is. Antiflyers understand importance of adversity in mmorpg game and fact how overcoming adversity leads to fun and memorable experiences while proflying crowd just sees covinience and ends up on forums wondering why is game so hollow and boring. Ufortunately as in most cases they always end up blaming some completly unrelated system rather then admiting that it was fault of adding covinient features what removed adversity and turned game into hollow husk.

Kind of a broad stroking generalization which is incorrect in a number of places. If you had read any of those 2200 pages, the proflyers position was, and I paraphrase, "We don't want to slog through the material just to get to all the things we want to do. We don't just sit in the city, polish our armor, and use LFD/LFG. We fly out and do things like treasure and rare hunting, pet battling, sight seeing, and more. We want to see the world from the skies, and not just sit inside instances every time we log in."

But now, with Dragonflight, we don't have those worries. Shadowlands was the first Expac since MoP to improve flight at endgame. I'm just happy they said "No more pathfinders." Now that the skies are dangerous once more, and actually require a smaller Meta achievement, this is the best of both worlds. It's not just handed to us, but we also don't have to choose between a 35 part achievement or unsubbing. Realy stoked to see what else 10.05 will bring us, and get flying as soon as possible. (likely 10.1)

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How is taking a flight point, or portal, or just hitting auto run and running by or through packs of mobs any different to flying? You still have to stop and complete the same objectives as the groundies. Pro groundy people make it sound like getting from WQ to WQ requires planning and precision, and endless, challenging combat.

Even you talk about "adversity" - what bloody adversity? You just ride right through everything. If you somehow manage to get dismounted, you hit 3 buttons, everything dies, and you mount straight back up again and keep going.

Tanks are immune to dismount and would survive either way. It's the slow mages and priests who suffer most

[arkanon]

Kind of a broad stroking generalization which is incorrect in a number of places. If you had read any of those 2200 pages, the proflyers position was, and I paraphrase, "We don't want to slog through the material just to get to all the things we want to do. We don't just sit in the city, polish our armor, and use LFD/LFG. We fly out and do things like treasure and rare hunting, pet battling, sight seeing, and more. We want to see the world from the skies, and not just sit inside instances every time we log in."

But now, with Dragonflight, we don't have those worries. Shadowlands was the first Expac since MoP to improve flight at endgame. I'm just happy they said "No more pathfinders." Now that the skies are dangerous once more, and actually require a smaller Meta achievement, this is the best of both worlds. It's not just handed to us, but we also don't have to choose between a 35 part achievement or unsubbing. Realy stoked to see what else 10.05 will bring us, and get flying as soon as possible. (likely 10.1)

Link some posts that say what you claim.

[Bisque]

Here's the ideal flying system:

You've dinged max lvl.
Go to the flight master
Here's 5k gold.
Fly.

That was more or less BC flying.

And I'm not even going the Cata flying route where you'd get flying right away.

Dear lord I miss this. And I get it the blizz artists where pissed off that we fly over all that hard work they put into designing the environment, the props, the foliage etc... But look I saw all that stuff when I was leveling up and couldn't fly, and lets be honest you don't really update the environments after the game launches, that shrub to the right of the shed, yeah that shrub ain't moving I saw it before max level and it will still be in the same spot once I hit level cap.

I really do miss the days when flying was "hit max level, buy the license" that's it, there you go that is all. If you design beautiful environments, players will take the time to walk, "enjoy" the environment. But if you design an environment where everything is so far apart, where "daze" is still a thing and god forbid we have stretches of land without mob then yeah... people are going to want to fly.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

Took a while, but I think the dragonriding thing is the way forward.
Making flying actually be an activity instead of just afk move past all the content on the ground.
Hoping it goes well, but I'm sure the typical pro-flying crowd will hate it and they will just end up making Blizzard give up on it after the first season.

[Otaka]

I always felt like the Gryphon masters should have a counterpart for faster options. Innkeepers. Everytime you discover a new Inn, in person, it is ADDED to your hearthstone. Then, when you get ready to hearth, it gives you a map of nearby inkeepers, but just like FPs, you can zoom out on the map. Only difference is, I can now Hearth to any Inn on any expac as long as I have met the InnKeeper in person and cleared the Green ! over his / her head.

Ah here we go again with more convenience for the sake of convenience... this is why retail is so bad, theres too much convenience everywhere...
Back in vanilla we wanted flying mounts, but we didnt know how it would affect our gameplay... and now we know and it made it worse, hence the population is so much lower. Alot of other convenience-systems were added since and the population just kept going lower and lower.

Contrary to your OP they still havent made flying anymore dangerous than before... its still easy as hell and nothing but convenience with no danger whatsoever.
Real life examples are stupid to use when death is permanent but in a game its not so... and we play games to escape reality and to have fun... and in many cases for the challenges because those challenges dont have risks, its a game.

People like you still havent realized you are playing a glorified menu screen with all the portals and teleports we have available... all you do is go from one small hub to another with the click of a button and then queue for dungeons or battlegrounds and/or travel a tiny bit with lightning fast flying mount with zero effort and do dailies that also take zero effort and relish in your success, all the while the biggest complaint you have is how mounting up takes too long.
Its bad... trust me, some of us have been at this for over a decade and not just 4 years.

Not every game should have every convenience mechanic from every other game... because some games are built with it in mind, like guild wars 2... that world is far more dangerous even with their flying mounts, and fast travel to almost anywhere, than WoW. WoW just isnt designed the same way...

I highly doubt dragon riding is gonna be anything other than a gimmick... the world will still be a glorified menu screen with nothing threatening your flying.
I would love to be wrong... but knowing past expansions im pretty sure we can predict the outcome... its gonna be ditched after the expansion and then we get new systems in the next.

Its not hypocricy if one uses the only mechanics available... the mount system is not fun or entertaining in the game, no matter which one you use atm... its only a method of transportation to the actual gameplay, but in games like GW2 the transportation IS a fun gameplay mechanic, so youre happy to use it and at the sametime it can be dangerous aswell because its designed that way.

Fun and dangerous vs boring and safe. Its a game... its not supposed to ever be boring and safe, we can take risks because our lives are infinite.

[arkanon]

Ah here we go again with more convenience for the sake of convenience... this is why retail is so bad, theres too much convenience everywhere...
Back in vanilla we wanted flying mounts, but we didnt know how it would affect our gameplay... and now we know and it made it worse, hence the population is so much lower. Alot of other convenience-systems were added since and the population just kept going lower and lower.

Contrary to your OP they still havent made flying anymore dangerous than before... its still easy as hell and nothing but convenience with no danger whatsoever.
Real life examples are stupid to use when death is permanent but in a game its not so... and we play games to escape reality and to have fun... and in many cases for the challenges because those challenges dont have risks, its a game.

People like you still havent realized you are playing a glorified menu screen with all the portals and teleports we have available... all you do is go from one small hub to another with the click of a button and then queue for dungeons or battlegrounds and/or travel a tiny bit with lightning fast flying mount with zero effort and do dailies that also take zero effort and relish in your success, all the while the biggest complaint you have is how mounting up takes too long.
Its bad... trust me, some of us have been at this for over a decade and not just 4 years.

Not every game should have every convenience mechanic from every other game... because some games are built with it in mind, like guild wars 2... that world is far more dangerous even with their flying mounts, and fast travel to almost anywhere, than WoW. WoW just isnt designed the same way...

I highly doubt dragon riding is gonna be anything other than a gimmick... the world will still be a glorified menu screen with nothing threatening your flying.
I would love to be wrong... but knowing past expansions im pretty sure we can predict the outcome... its gonna be ditched after the expansion and then we get new systems in the next.

Its not hypocricy if one uses the only mechanics available... the mount system is not fun or entertaining in the game, no matter which one you use atm... its only a method of transportation to the actual gameplay, but in games like GW2 the transportation IS a fun gameplay mechanic, so youre happy to use it and at the sametime it can be dangerous aswell because its designed that way.

Fun and dangerous vs boring and safe. Its a game... its not supposed to ever be boring and safe, we can take risks because our lives are infinite.

You cannot genuinely believe that adding flying is "why we have so fewer players". I have known many, many players who played wow, and then stopped. Not a single person has EVER said "I quit because of flying". I have never seen a single person genuinely claim they quit wow because of flying anywhere. Ever. Forums included.

I have no idea what claim you are making about gw2, could you elaborate? Because on the surface this makes no sense at all. Every expansion from TBC onwards was built for flying, so I honestly cannot understand what you are trying to say.

[VMSmith]

Took a while, but I think the dragonriding thing is the way forward.
Making flying actually be an activity instead of just afk move past all the content on the ground.
Hoping it goes well, but I'm sure the typical pro-flying crowd will hate it and they will just end up making Blizzard give up on it after the first season.

Personally, I'm all for the dragonriding design to be applied to all flying mounts going forward provided that it is done well and is actually fun. GW2 flying looks very fun and dynamic and fast, but the snippets of WoW dragonriding we've seen look slow and derpy, so I have little hope. The WoW designers seem unable to do anything beyond shit out half-assed "content" that could've used more attention and time in the oven.

Also, Blizzard themselves have already said that "normal" flying will be back before the end of the expac so you might want to slow that blaming the pro-flyers roll.

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Fun and dangerous vs boring and safe. Its a game... its not supposed to ever be boring and safe, we can take risks because our lives are infinite.

This is one thing I absolutely agree with. The most fun I ever had in an MMO was in Star Wars Galaxies as a Jedi where every decision I made was under the specter of, originally, permadeath, and later on skill loss. There was danger in everything I did and I had to weigh the consequences of my actions at all times. It was exciting. WoW death is way too toothless to matter as anything more than a minor inconvenience.

[Tentim]

Personally, I'm all for the dragonriding design to be applied to all flying mounts going forward provided that it is done well and is actually fun. GW2 flying looks very fun and dynamic and fast, but the snippets of WoW dragonriding we've seen look slow and derpy, so I have little hope. The WoW designers seem unable to do anything beyond shit out half-assed "content" that could've used more attention and time in the oven.

Also, Blizzard themselves have already said that "normal" flying will be back before the end of the expac so you might want to slow that blaming the pro-flyers roll.

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This is one thing I absolutely agree with. The most fun I ever had in an MMO was in Star Wars Galaxies as a Jedi where every decision I made was under the specter of, originally, permadeath, and later on skill loss. There was danger in everything I did and I had to weigh the consequences of my actions at all times. It was exciting. WoW death is way too toothless to matter as anything more than a minor inconvenience.

I find people who want hard perma death games rarely if ever want them as multiplayer games and the market kinda proves it.

No one wants to lose all their progress because some one insta killed them at 10% hp from stealth or gang banged them 10 to 1.
WoW is also an extremely toothless game outside of mythic and arguably heroic raids. I doubt it would garner much interest.

[tuxedobob]

I'm excited for the Dragonflight flying. That's how it always should have been. Not swimming through the air, like a noclip hack.

Riding a mount should be exciting. Groundmounts are good enough because you at least need to pay attention to obstacles and enemies. But the new flying looks sick.

Just look at this. It's so cool.

What's the point of this? To give us flying but not make it useful?

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When Blizz decided there would be no more flying at the start of WoD, a 1200 page megathread lit up the skies as people who both love and hate flying took to the thread and railed on it from both sides. In that thread years ago we said:

- Add faster methods of travel that flight paths. They did it.
- Make the skies dangerous again. They did that too.
- Restrict it to certain zones, but only after the Lore path was finished and not some REP requirements. Did it.
- Add more interesting transport systems. Done.
- Introduce new flight systems without so much looping. Mostly done.
- Add some ground mounts, but allow most mounts to fly. Did it.
- Remove Pathfinder and ease up with the rep requirements. Done again.

While I know the anti-flight group claims it "ruins the game", I would bet a month's salary they are using flight for dailies, world bosses, rare hunting, and more. So thanks Blizz for actually paying attention and making flight something worth having again, and slow rolling it so it didn't interfere with the initial passes through the zones.

What are your thoughts? Did they get it right? Did they do well enough leaving flight out of Oribos, The Maw, and Korthia? Since Zereth Mortis is essentially the new Timeless Isle, was this the better place to add flight, or should Korthia have been given flight and ZM left on the ground?

I mean, they're just going to make the zones bigger so that the content takes the same amount of time, and then there's going to be no point in the expansion that it actually gets any faster because you can already fly.

[Elim Garak]

When Blizz decided there would be no more flying at the start of WoD, a 1200 page megathread lit up the skies as people who both love and hate flying took to the thread and railed on it from both sides. In that thread years ago we said:

- Add faster methods of travel that flight paths. They did it.
- Make the skies dangerous again. They did that too.
- Restrict it to certain zones, but only after the Lore path was finished and not some REP requirements. Did it.
- Add more interesting transport systems. Done.
- Introduce new flight systems without so much looping. Mostly done.
- Add some ground mounts, but allow most mounts to fly. Did it.
- Remove Pathfinder and ease up with the rep requirements. Done again.

While I know the anti-flight group claims it "ruins the game", I would bet a month's salary they are using flight for dailies, world bosses, rare hunting, and more. So thanks Blizz for actually paying attention and making flight something worth having again, and slow rolling it so it didn't interfere with the initial passes through the zones.

What are your thoughts? Did they get it right? Did they do well enough leaving flight out of Oribos, The Maw, and Korthia? Since Zereth Mortis is essentially the new Timeless Isle, was this the better place to add flight, or should Korthia have been given flight and ZM left on the ground?

Create a problem
Remove a problem
Create a problem
Remove a problem
...
It's the Blizzard Pattern.

Flying was at it's peak in Cataclysm. Then it went downhill, and now they are bringing fly better.

[Athorha]

This.

Flying pretty much has always been:
Press spacebar> auto to the direction you want to go to> tab out/2nd monitor stuff/youtube or whatever> look from time to time if you've arrived or overshot your target.

I'm not anti flying, but with that as "gameplay experience" you could also just give me a official point and click teleport hack so I can get to do actual fun stuff faster.

Movement mechanics in the world are so boring and underutilized it's almost depressing.

Its even simpler if you turn on click to move for chore content.

[Drusin]

What are your thoughts? Did they get it right?

"Right" is subjective and in my subjective opinion right is how it used to be.

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What's the point of this? To give us flying but not make it useful?

I personally just want to fly to where I need to do my chores without all the extra bullshit.

[Amagh]

I love how the argument against flying is something along the lines of "Muh ViSuAl ExpERieNCe aND EnViroNMenT ApPrecIAtIOn"

What are you playing the game on? On a potato? Crank up the view distance and maybe stop holding space bar 'till you hit the invisible ceiling. I'd argue some places look better from the air... And admittedly some places look better from the ground.

And yeah... No one's forcing you to fly. I dont understand why this is even a topic people bitch about? Dont fly if you're not a fan lol. Unless in the past the moment Pathfinder/flying was released as an unlock someone from Blizz kicked in your door and held you at gunpoint like "Time to fly bitch"

[Mic_128]

One thing that caught my eye with the whole 'dragons doing barrel rolls' maneuverer, was I remember way back, before BC's release, Blizzard released a video (Or maybe it was a Blizcon video? I really don't remember) that had a couple of Gnomes explaining how flight worked, which included the netherdrake he was riding doing a barrel roll. Don't suppose anyone else remembers/has a link to it?

[VMSmith]

I find people who want hard perma death games rarely if ever want them as multiplayer games and the market kinda proves it.

No one wants to lose all their progress because some one insta killed them at 10% hp from stealth or gang banged them 10 to 1.
WoW is also an extremely toothless game outside of mythic and arguably heroic raids. I doubt it would garner much interest.

It has to be balanced with personal power, as it was in SWG. You could play as a normal person and never face permadeath or skill loss and have a wonderful time. But, if you wanted to play a Jedi, you had greatly increased personal power at the cost of a risk of danger. Getting caught at 10% health or ganged up on by a number of other players was something you could handle because the Jedi characters were that much more powerful than a normal character. But you could be beat so it kept you on your toes.

All of this made it a choice, and it was an appealing choice. I suppose it really can't be explained to someone who didn't experience it but it was the most thrilling MMO experience I've ever had. Death in WoW has never meant a single thing other than a little time lost no matter the difficulty level. If you can just keep throwing yourself at something with no consequence then how can it really feel like it mattered?