Dragonriding is destroying exploration

[Apatrida]

I don't care about story and exploration and am glad they put something in like dragonflying. I hate riding through large zones for hours, does not add to my gameplay experience, sorry.

[Syegfryed]

Gonna give you the same tip when people said flying was destroying exploration: Don't dragonride, don't fly

You don't have to feel bad if its destroying exploration for people who use it, that is not your problem.

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A little off-topic, but the reason Blizzard isn't doing housing isn't design, it's technical limitations. The game is too old for the kind of technology that would be needed to do housing well, and rather than doing it poorly they choose not to do it at all.

Blizzard's failures are more macro than micro most of the time anyway. They have conceptual issues, not execution issues.

Come on now, Garrison is basically housing, they could have done.

But in fact, th game is so fucked atm that they would not have money, time or enough people to work on it

[Dalinos]

Been saying this for weeks. Nice to get confirmation the masses love it just as expected

I've said this in another thread, I'll say it here too.

Take a wild guess as to which sort of achievement was popping up most frequently in guild chat on day of release. Was it leveling? Was it dungeons? Was it Exploration achievements? Was it questing achievements?

Nope. None of the above. It was the "Get Gold timing on all races in the zone" achievements.

[Biomega]

Come on now, Garrison is basically housing, they could have done.

But in fact, th game is so fucked atm that they would not have money, time or enough people to work on it

And we all know how well Garrisons worked in terms of customization, i.e. it was a complete travesty.

Also, EVERYTHING is a function of time/money. Of course it's not literally impossible for them to do housing; it would simply cost so much in new tech it would never ever be worth it. And them not doing that is not unreasonable at all.

[Syegfryed]

And we all know how well Garrisons worked in terms of customization, i.e. it was a complete travesty.

Yeah, because they abandon half-way, not because it couldn't have been done, hell, WoD was an expansion who was cut in half, obviously that would be as well.

Also, EVERYTHING is a function of time/money. Of course it's not literally impossible for them to do housing; it would simply cost so much in new tech it would never ever be worth it. And them not doing that is not unreasonable at all.

Well, now, for sure they can't with how in shambles blizzard wow is. But before? sure they could.


In fct, i think today tech it would make much easier to do something small and simple, Garrison was they trying to bite too much.

[Geckoo]

Exploring on a MMORPG is up to the player. It doesn't matter if you have to walk or you can fly... it's all about having enough curiosity to climb up to the top of a volcano. So if you are using dragonriding to go from quest giver to quest objective, well... maybe you don't really want to explore.

[Biomega]

Well, now, for sure they can't with how in shambles blizzard wow is. But before? sure they could.

Pressing X to doubt. I'm not sure you understand just how much of a tech problem this is.

[Nyel]

I really have to agree with this. I don't understand their criticism for usual flying when Dragonriding is basically that just 10x worse. You get it early on and from that moment on you completely ignore your surroundings and the zones, you're just flying from point A to B.

Honestly, this is worse than ever before in regards of exploration. Dragon Isles are beautiful, yet you see nothing of it due to Dragonriding.

[Jamais]

Dragonriding is probably the best new feature in years.

It is really fun and it does not detract from exploration one bit. In fact, it encourages it, due to sheer vastness of the zones.

With questing being cool and everything feeling more "wowesque", expansion has been really good so far.

[Hobbidaggy]

Granted.

They probably should have just given it to dragonriding as well

It’s a profession talent. So not just druids can get it everyone can skill into mounted gathering now

[Biomega]

I really have to agree with this. I don't understand their criticism for usual flying when Dragonriding is basically that just 10x worse. You get it early on and from that moment on you completely ignore your surroundings and the zones, you're just flying from point A to B.

Honestly, this is worse than ever before in regards of exploration. Dragon Isles are beautiful, yet you see nothing of it due to Dragonriding.

To be fair, I never bought the "flying bad because no exploration" argument in the first place. It seems Blizzard agrees. If you like exploring things on foot, that's awesome. You have an entire continent to explore. If you don't, then you can skip it. If you'd rather skip than explore, that means you like whatever you're skipping to more than you like exploring - in which case you should be happy you get to do more of the thing you like better, instead of being forced to do more of the thing you like less. It would take a truly malicious soul to go "I like exploring, but I don't want others who don't like exploring to be able to skip it! I WANT TO FORCE THEM TO DO THE THING I LIKE!".

[DavidoDoobidoo]

Seriously would you quit the whining, you see ALL of it thanks to dragonriding. Just swoop to the top of a mountain and look at the scenery. Do you want to explore more closer to the ground? Just take your dragon to the ground and start running, it's all up to YOU. Don't come here and complain when you yourself are flying from point A to B while I on the other hand can use the dragon for more exploration if I want to.

[kosajk]

looks like matter of perception for me its grate addition when i dont have to waste rather limited time i have for playing to get into places where the fun is (actuall combat)

[Nyel]

Dragonriding is probably the best new feature in years.

It is really fun and it does not detract from exploration one bit. In fact, it encourages it, due to sheer vastness of the zones.

Why was flying restricted back in WoD days and was in Legion, BfA and SL when it "encourages" exploration? With Dragonriding you're just rushing from place to place, on full speed you really cannot exlore anything on your Dragon mid-air, especially when you're forced to fly fast to stay flying. The zones are really not that big overall and they for sure are not specifically created with Dragonflying in the dev's mind. What's the difference of e.g. Bastion or Frostfire Ridge compared to Azure Span? Those zones were vast and open, too. I really don't see any difference in zone design.

[Jamais]

Why was flying restricted back in WoD days and was in Legion, BfA and SL when it "encourages" exploration? With Dragonriding you're just rushing from place to place, on full speed you really cannot exlore anything on your Dragon mid-air, especially when you're forced to fly fast to stay flying. The zones are really not that big overall and they for sure are not specifically created with Dragonflying in the dev's mind. What's the difference of e.g. Bastion or Frostfire Ridge compared to Azure Span? Those zones were vast and open, too. I really don't see any difference in zone design.

No, the zones are actually that big, but Dragonriding is 3x the normal flying mount speed so you traverse a lot faster.

Sorry, but that is objective.

There are other means of exploring the world, and Blizzard has made sure to encourage it.

Besides many dragon races and rune locations, a lot of the nodes and treasures are scattered around the zones. There is A LOT of side quests which encourage moving around the zones.

And zones were absolutely designed with Dragonriding in mind, have you not noticed how the verticallity is dominating.

I have explored a lot in 2 first zones, i am taking my time and trying to immerse. I have set distance view to max and taken dozens of amazing screenshots.

We can just agree to disagree.

[Zoura]

Destroying?! It makes it even more fun.

[Nyel]

No, the zones are actually that big, but Dragonriding is 3x the normal flying mount speed so you traverse a lot faster.

Sorry, but that is objective.

There are other means of exploring the world, and Blizzard has made sure to encourage it.

Besides many dragon races and rune locations, a lot of the nodes and treasures are scattered around the zones. There is A LOT of side quests which encourage moving around the zones.

And zones were absolutely designed with Dragonriding in mind, have you not noticed how the verticallity is dominating.

I have explored a lot in 2 first zones, i am taking my time and trying to immerse. I have set distance view to max and taken dozens of amazing screenshots.

We can just agree to disagree.

The zones are "what" big? The size of Northrend zones? Yes, but how does it matter? There's only 4 of them. What I am saying is that Dragonriding could work basically on any continent, let it be Kul'Tiras, Northrend, Pandaria or Draenor - the Dragon Isles are not different to the usual continents in that regard. Every expansion had vast zones with lots of open spaces and zones where this is less the case - it's not different for Dragon Isles. That's why I fail to see how the Dragon Isles were designed with Dragonriding in mind, because they are really not. Verticality is dominating because we can fly from day 1. This could have worked exactly like this in every expansion since WoD if flying would have been enabled from day 1 - there's just no difference here. There's nothing "agree to disagree" when I'm stating the obvious. I don't say you might not enjoy or like it - but all of this could have worked with the usual flying enabled, we really didn't need Dragonriding for it.

[Dread13]

Dragonriding is the best thing that has happened to WoW for years and years. Followed by talent trees and professions overhaul. If you dislike using the dragon to explore, just go walking or using a non dragon mount. Easy.

[Sableye]

And flying at patch x.0 is, or flying at patch x.2 is.

There will always be people who dislike a system.

But i do agree with the speed of it. I think they should have gated it a bit more. Its freaking to fast. It takes away some of the exploring. But its a choice not to use it.
I would say next time they use this. Make it so you need to get a achievement or finnish the main story quest of the zone before getting to fly there. or something like that.

there's parts of zones you can't get to without using flying its not some optional time saver, its the way you're supposed to navagate, and places where you're not supposed to go they have gates already

[Syegfryed]

Pressing X to doubt. I'm not sure you understand just how much of a tech problem this is.

Again, if they did Garrisson, they could have done. If others mmo did, i can't fathom how wow could have not

The problem with Garrison is that they started too big and wanted to do too much, in an expansion that failed and was cut in half