How the hell do I make dragonriding not suck?

[Aucald]

that brings an interesting larger philosophical pondering, IMO... why does everything have to be a trade off? why does there always need to be a negative inherent in any kind of convenience or quality of life?

Not really *any* form of convenience or quality of life adjustment, but the majority of those that either reward or promote lazy engagement/non-engagement, certainly. Rewarding non-engagement promotes non-engagement, and that's bad for any game in the aggregate sense as concerns the cultivation of dominant strategies. I also wouldn't really consider it a "negative" on the convenience of unattended flight insofar as much as I would a converse "positive" on the attended model. Now cynically one might say that's a distinction without a difference, but I wouldn't agree - unattended flight speed has been the status quo for a long time now, and Dragonriding offers vastly increased speed for the price of limited endurance in the form of Vigor and the requirement of player engagement to keep at it. So you're being rewarded for your engagement, not really punished for opting to hit autorun and minimize your game for X minutes (or you would be in the context of both being readily available options).

[Mastacow]

It doesn't suck as bad when you get all your glyphs. However, they could have just increased flying mount speed. This was just what their B team spent time on as a marketing filler when their A team quit or got fired during covid. The "this is fun" narrative is because no one is forced to do anything anymore. The game is at an all time content low, but I guess the majority like to grind rep, fly on dragons, and gear alts.

[Jastall]

but that's a solution in search of a problem - dragon riding didn't exist for almost 20 years and then was introduced apropos of nothing, and the entirety of the arguments in bleating about how amazing dragon riding is come down to "it's engaging and fun to have to push extra buttons to do the same thing that didn't require extra button pushes 5 months ago".
so the only way that point is valid is if dragon riding is so fun entirely on its own terms that the speed is irrelevant, since if the speed is actually the real reason that dragon riding is praised then having traditional flying at 800% speed would be an unqualified better system.

No, because regular flying at 800% means I'd just alt-tab out of the game for half the time without anything else in the way of change. Dragonriding means I'm involved and actually have to somewhat think about what I'm doing; the extra speed is great and serves as a reward for doing so but the system is also more engaging on its own merits. Good traversal systems make me want to go around the place for their own sake, and while dragonriding isn't as good as the one in say Spider-Man (ps4), which was so good I never fast traveled in that game even when it was magnitudes more convenient, it's still pretty decent and miles better than noclipping through the air. Running rings around Vald while waiting on M+ groups is something I just do, whereas I never did with normal flight.

Now I don't have any problem with Blizzard bringing back normal flying, hell speed it up some even so it doesn't take ages to get somewhere in the Dragon Isles. If someone likes it better more power to them. But in terms of engagement the difference between the two is night and day as far as I'm concerned. And I play this game to be engaged in it, not just to complete tasks and be done with them.

[Tiwack]

You're encouraged to explore, experiment and interact with the world and fellow players, there are some tricks to dragonriding and the game does everything short of telling you them for these exact reasons.

[Lolites]

people will also take "more fun" over "less fun"

what are you new here? no they wont, we seen that, they will take whatever is most efficient and screw fun...
we seen it, with people farming maw of souls or island expedition, and swarming forums with why they HAVE TO do that, when in fact they didnt, this were just fastest ways to farm AP...

"it's engaging and fun to have to push extra buttons to do the same thing that didn't require extra button pushes 5 months ago".

if you think its the same thing i can only assume you havent even try dragonriding...
is riding public transport as fun as driving F1? bcs thats basicaly the difference, and even if the bus was going the same speed as F1 it wouldnt be as engaging or as fun if you dont drive, and on the other hand if you could only go 50kmh in F1 it also wouldnt be as fun and engaging as it is at max speed...

having traditional flying at 800% speed would be an unqualified better system.

and here is the problem - "better" is ENTIRELY subjective...
would it be more convenient to have "normal" flying at 800% than dragonriding? yes
would it be more engaging? no
would it be more fun? well, thats subjective, for me 100% no
so what is "better" for you? if convenience is better for you then yes, normal flying at 800% would be better FOR YOU, for me dragonriding would still be much better bcs its a lot more fun to me to actualy PLAY THE GAME than just press a button and look at my mount go or even tab out of game...

[Zardas]

so wait... is dragon riding good because it's engaging and interactive and it keeps you involved in the world, or is dragon riding good because it's fast and all the other bullshit about it is completely irrelevant and superfluous?

i would think that by the arguments most people use to try and champion dragon riding that if traditional mounts were equally fast, you people would still use dragon riding because it's *just so cool*, right?

or, are you saying that all the endless fellatio about how amazing of a system dragon riding is on its own merits is in fact a load of complete horse shit?

People will always try to maximise everything, I don't like it but that's the case. The benefit and merit of the new dragonriding is not only to go fast and be fun, it's the fact that it makes the experience more realistic, which in turn makes the game as a whole more realistic, it's a good thing even if people can see it as an inconvenience (as another guy said, having to run instances to gain items can be seen as an inconvenience, and yet it's an important thing for the game).

Knowledge of the lore and stories isn't really required - all that's required is the knowledge that a new system named Dragonriding is being added, and that said system is leveled up through the acquisition of floating glyphs littered across the various zones of the new continent.

The vast majority of players don't go to forums, don't have add-ons, don't watch wow-related videos or streams. The vast majority of the players just play casually, they are mouse clickers who don't know anything about wow except from "Orc, Lich-King, Elves, Dragons" and don't have any idea of what half of their spells do. It's easy to forget for us who spend hours immersed in this universe, but for most people it's just a game that they play a few hours in the week-end for a few week before switching to another game. Not saying that it's a wrong thing, honestly it's probably a way healthier approach to the game.

I'd also argue that the group of players who "avoid any forms of spoilers" is at this point in WoW's lifetime a perishingly tiny niche group.

Oh most definitely, and this group is anyway not the one who just casually play, they generally are pretty immersed in the world if they choose to actually avoid spoilers.

Full knowledge of Dragonriding as well as the location of glyphs (up to and including add-ons to literally lead you to them by the nose) were available on day 1 of the expansion's release.

Indeed but again, most people don't go search for said informations. We do, but we are absolutely not representative of the average player.

The vast majority of current WoW players are committed lifers who play either because of the perception of sunk cost or a generalized and abiding love of the game.

The majority of the players playing in this very day, four month after the release of an expansion, yeah most definitely. But far from the majority of the players that were here at the beginning of the expansion. There is now more than ever a tonne of games easily available, even if you like only mmorpgs., which make it that the high and lows of population between release periods and intermediate periods only gets bigger. So yes, those who still play wow, the 24th of March 2023 are only the most hardcore and dedicated players, those that are absolutely not representative of the average player.

I can only speak anecdotally, of course; but I've not encountered an actual green and truly new WoW player for years, much less someone who didn't come into a new expansion fully prepared for the maximal run to max-level and the end game. If those players still exist, they definitely seem to be vanishingly rare.

Well, I switched to alliance at the start of the expansion to follow a friend, and I joined a relatively big guild a few days after the launch of DF. 4 month after, more than half of them don't play anymore. And that's players who joined a guild, which is a pretty big investment in the game, relative to the average player. And that number is not even that bad considering that DF seems to have a pretty good retention rate.

And if you want a player made zero preparation for any min-maxing, just take me (and yet I'm pretty invested in the game).

As a last point, I don't have the same information for wow, but in other mmorpgs I played, devs said that not even 50% of the players make it to max level. I guess the number is less drastic with wow with the thing that boost you directly to max level, but I don't see why it would be that different.

[Amnaught]

"How the hell do I make my class' gameplay not suck?

Started playing Mage earlier and it is by far the worst combat I've experienced in any MMORPG. People say it's good, but is that only after you reach max level? Spamming Frostbolt is boring. I much prefer the Classic Warrior where I could just right click an enemy and then afk autoattack till it dies."

[Tiwack]

First impression is usually right one. Yeah, I usually learn to cut some corners with time. But it's usually bad sign anyway.

Group up if you find something hard and idk why you wouldn't play for a month and get your moneys worth rather than quit a week in without making it out of the starter zone. Every new expansion comes with new systems to adapt to for the better or worse. Evaluating them requires exploring them and giving them the benefit of the doubt til you're done experimenting with them at the very least.

- - - Updated - - -

"How the hell do I make my class' gameplay not suck?

Started playing Mage earlier and it is by far the worst combat I've experienced in any MMORPG. People say it's good, but is that only after you reach max level? Spamming Frostbolt is boring. I much prefer the Classic Warrior where I could just right click an enemy and then afk autoattack till it dies."

Seems very off-topic but if you fancy playing melee you're gonna have a bad time leveling a caster. Remember there's more than one spec to a class as well, frost is boring but safe option more often than not.

[Aucald]

The vast majority of players don't go to forums, don't have add-ons, don't watch wow-related videos or streams. The vast majority of the players just play casually, they are mouse clickers who don't know anything about wow except from "Orc, Lich-King, Elves, Dragons" and don't have any idea of what half of their spells do. It's easy to forget for us who spend hours immersed in this universe, but for most people it's just a game that they play a few hours in the week-end for a few week before switching to another game. Not saying that it's a wrong thing, honestly it's probably a way healthier approach to the game.

Not really required to go to forums, use add-ons, or routinely watch streams devoted to WoW. You'd need only one video, the official Dragonflight features trailer, and perhaps an additional scintilla of curiosity about said features. And considering said video was advertised almost everywhere and seen by millions, I'd wager almost every presumptive player in Dragonflight saw it and knew about Dragonriding well ahead of time.

The majority of the players playing in this very day, four month after the release of an expansion, yeah most definitely. But far from the majority of the players that were here at the beginning of the expansion. There is now more than ever a tonne of games easily available, even if you like only mmorpgs., which make it that the high and lows of population between release periods and intermediate periods only gets bigger. So yes, those who still play wow, the 24th of March 2023 are only the most hardcore and dedicated players, those that are absolutely not representative of the average player.

There's a pretty vast chasm between people going for world-first achievements and casual players of the level you're referring to. I consider myself pretty casual in that I don't raid, run perhaps a weekly M+ with my guildmates, and generally don't participate in any competitive style of play. I take my ease doing all the quests, taking in the overworld content, reading quests, and generally taking in the world. I would imagine the lion's share of players are somewhere on my level - neither pro nor noob, proficient in the game and more than competent with its systems after years of play, but limited in terms of engagement by real-world concerns and commitments.

Well, I switched to alliance at the start of the expansion to follow a friend, and I joined a relatively big guild a few days after the launch of DF. 4 month after, more than half of them don't play anymore. And that's players who joined a guild, which is a pretty big investment in the game, relative to the average player. And that number is not even that bad considering that DF seems to have a pretty good retention rate.

And if you want a player made zero preparation for any min-maxing, just take me (and yet I'm pretty invested in the game).

As a last point, I don't have the same information for wow, but in other mmorpgs I played, devs said that not even 50% of the players make it to max level. I guess the number is less drastic with wow with the thing that boost you directly to max level, but I don't see why it would be that different.

I'd say having a "zero spoiler" philosophy automatically puts you into a tiny niche, as (again anecdotally) that's pretty far from my general experience with the vast majority of players, and I've been playing WoW since the '04 Beta. WoW, as an IP and franchise, is practically a dinosaur at this point - and its player base is correspondingly geriatric in terms of their general length of subscription. We're old hat at this by now, and even if you didn't pointedly set out to know how to min/max Dragonriding at speed, it's not as if the knowledge is hidden by any means. Your Dragonriding mount vocally and textually clues you into the existence of glyphs, the Dragonriding glyph UI is as in-your-face as it could be, and any proficient or veteran player could easily put 2 and 2 together to find all the needed glyphs to maximize the system in relatively short order (or, having made 4 in their heads, done the quick jaunt to WoWHead to take in a preexisting guide with all the locations) at release.

[Amnaught]

Seems very off-topic but if you fancy playing melee you're gonna have a bad time leveling a caster. Remember there's more than one spec to a class as well, frost is boring but safe option more often than not.

Sarcasm

It's a dig at the thread's premise that Dragonriding is bad because level-1 Dragonriding is bad. Mages literally only have Frostbolt at level 1. The answer for how to make it "not suck" is to level up.

[Zardas]

Not really required to go to forums, use add-ons, or routinely watch streams devoted to WoW. You'd need only one video, the official Dragonflight features trailer, and perhaps an additional scintilla of curiosity about said features. And considering said video was advertised almost everywhere and seen by millions, I'd wager almost every presumptive player in Dragonflight saw it and knew about Dragonriding well ahead of time.

Considering the amount of views, I would say that it's indeed pretty safe to say that the majority of players have seen it and know about the dragonriding, and maybe the glyphes. But anyway they kknow it because it's explained ingame. However, I would thinnk that the vast majority of players don't have the reflex to go search for informations online on where to find said dracoglyphe. It seems pretty easy to us, but for many it's too much of a committment for a game that they will just play for a few hours, then go play something else.

There's a pretty vast chasm between people going for world-first achievements and casual players of the level you're referring to.

indeed, and that's one of the reason for wow success : that it offers things for a huge variety of gamers.

I consider myself pretty casual in that I don't raid, run perhaps a weekly M+ with my guildmates, and generally don't participate in any competitive style of play. I take my ease doing all the quests, taking in the overworld content, reading quests, and generally taking in the world. I would imagine the lion's share of players are somewhere on my level - neither pro nor noob, proficient in the game and more than competent with its systems after years of play, but limited in terms of engagement by real-world concerns and commitments.

We are in 2023 in a weekday and we are speaking about wow on a dedicated web forum. I don't think that it's something that the average player is doing. Heck, from what I see you're a moderator, that's not a time investment that the average player is willing to do. According to many scales, you are pretty hardcore.

I'd say having a "zero spoiler" philosophy automatically puts you into a tiny niche, as (again anecdotally) that's pretty far from my general experience with the vast majority of players, and I've been playing WoW since the '04 Beta. WoW, as an IP and franchise, is practically a dinosaur at this point - and its player base is correspondingly geriatric in terms of their general length of subscription. We're old hat at this by now, and even if you didn't pointedly set out to know how to min/max Dragonriding at speed, it's not as if the knowledge is hidden by any means. Your Dragonriding mount vocally and textually clues you into the existence of glyphs, the Dragonriding glyph UI is as in-your-face as it could be, and any proficient or veteran player could easily put 2 and 2 together to find all the needed glyphs to maximize the system in relatively short order (or, having made 4 in their heads, done the quick jaunt to WoWHead to take in a preexisting guide with all the locations) at release.

I think that you missjudge the power of a name. Yes, wow is an old game, but it's also the most well-known mmorpg on the planet. I don't know if it's still the mmorpg with the biggest playerbase, but even if ff14 has more player, I wouldn't be surprised that more people know wow than ff14. Now, many of the new players who want to get into mmorpgs will choose wow simply because that's the only one they know, or the one they have heard about the most. There are plenty of new players, but gaming practices have changed and most of them don't stick because that's simply not how people play games anymore. And I see those players pretty much daily on reddit, asking for advices on how to start, or if wow is a game for them. Of course you don't really see them on mmoc, because web forums are not really the big thing anymore.

Of course, all of what we can say is mostly based on personnal experience and interpretation, I would love for Blizzard to publish significant data to have an idea of the amount of new players, the average level they manage to reach before quitting. I've pretty much understand that it won't happen, but a man can dream I guess.

[Aucald]

Considering the amount of views, I would say that it's indeed pretty safe to say that the majority of players have seen it and know about the dragonriding, and maybe the glyphes. But anyway they kknow it because it's explained ingame. However, I would thinnk that the vast majority of players don't have the reflex to go search for informations online on where to find said dracoglyphe. It seems pretty easy to us, but for many it's too much of a committment for a game that they will just play for a few hours, then go play something else.

Too much of a commitment for a simple Google search? You'd have to be extremely casual, or profoundly lazy, to the point of indolence. I would have a hard time imagining such a player could be moved to care that their Dragonriding was slow and busted under such conditions. It'd be at the intersection of being really angry something doesn't work right, but being completely unwilling to expend even the most minimal effort required to fix it.

But perversely, that does sum up some people, doesn't it? Nothing to be done there, though.

We are in 2023 in a weekday and we are speaking about wow on a dedicated web forum. I don't think that it's something that the average player is doing. Heck, from what I see you're a moderator, that's not a time investment that the average player is willing to do. According to many scales, you are pretty hardcore.

I've been hardcore, but that was a long time ago - I stopped raiding competitively at the end of Cata, which was 11 years ago now. My real-life and work commitments prevent me from being able to volunteer committed blocks of my time to a video game anymore. I play when I can, but that's sporadic and often at times when my old compatriots are offline.

I think that you missjudge the power of a name. Yes, wow is an old game, but it's also the most well-known mmorpg on the planet. I don't know if it's still the mmorpg with the biggest playerbase, but even if ff14 has more player, I wouldn't be surprised that more people know wow than ff14. Now, many of the new players who want to get into mmorpgs will choose wow simply because that's the only one they know, or the one they have heard about the most. There are plenty of new players, but gaming practices have changed and most of them don't stick because that's simply not how people play games anymore. And I see those players pretty much daily on reddit, asking for advices on how to start, or if wow is a game for them. Of course you don't really see them on mmoc, because web forums are not really the big thing anymore.

Nothing to misjudge, really. I'm not saying WoW is currently the greatest or most populated MMO out there, simply that relative to its classification as a game it is ancient, approaching 20 years now. Newer MMOs have come and gone in its lengthy shadow, and older MMOs have joined them in the great graveyard where MMOs go to die. I don't think WoW really sees plenty of new players, and I'm also active enough on Reddit (which is really just a web forum itself, albeit one segregated and curated into an infinity of topics) to perceive that pretty readily. Oh, they exist, but they're a tiny minority of the playerbase which is largely comprised of veteran players who've been at it off and on since WoW's early days. Perhaps they got their start in Classic, TBC, or WotLK - I even know someone who actually started playing mid-MoP, but finding truly new players post-WoD seems super rare.

Of course, all of what we can say is mostly based on personnal experience and interpretation, I would love for Blizzard to publish significant data to have an idea of the amount of new players, the average level they manage to reach before quitting. I've pretty much understand that it won't happen, but a man can dream I guess.

True enough, anecdotes are really the best we can do. But on the topic of Dragonriding, I'd be hard-pressed to be convinced that anyone was truly flummoxed by Dragonriding as a game system.

[trapmaster]

How to make dragonriding not suck?

Wait for next xpac to play..... No I'm serious, Do you actually think dragonriding will continue in next xpac?

[Sparklelord]

I'm sure it's somewhere in here but you can also have a friend or guildie fly you through all the glyphs or even pay someone to. Way faster/easier since you can just afk on their mount

[ONCHEhap]

Ingame? For previous difficult topics like sylvannas, BFA gearing and whatnot there was a constant thread of people complaining about it in the general chat.
Dragonflying is never mentioned.

In fact, whenever we go back to the old dungeons for m+, you often have someone complaining that old flying feels bad and they wish they could use their dragon (and sometimes that includes an evoker gloating about their Soar ability)

[schwank05]

I doubt that most people have much prior knowledge of the lore, locations, pnjs and various stories of the expansion before its launch. Alongside the people who purposefully avoid any forms of spoilers, I wouldn't be surprised that the vast majority of players just play for one week after having learned about the expansion two days prior.

As to adress the comment you responded to, it should be noted that for those who want to avoid spoilers as much as possible, there is only three times where you have to fly when doing the base quests of the expansion (aka the four zones) :
- During the quest where Selistra brings you to the Ruby life Pool. That's a automated flight so you can turn off your monitor
- During the quest where the green dragons bring you to their main base in the Onahara plains. That's an automated flight so you can turn off your monitor
- In order to reach Taldrazus. The only bridge is broken so you indeed have to fly unfortunately.

- - - Updated - - -



But that's precisely the point of the system : to make player more involved and not just mindlessly placing their mount in the direction of their quest marker, activating automating flying and going afk. I'm sorry that it doesn't suit what you want and it's arguably a good thing in order to make the game feels more involved. If they added 800% speed classic flying mounts, what would be the point of dragonriding ?

That is the point it gets rid of a system that is cool for like a day then you are over it and want to go back to afking in flight again.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

How to make dragonriding not suck?

Wait for next xpac to play..... No I'm serious, Do you actually think dragonriding will continue in next xpac?

They have talked about it being a success, There expanding the system with more ability’s, keeping it relevant in future patches, and it’s already been data mined that they are adding animations to older mounts.

Literally every thing points to it going forward.

[Dalinos]

First impression is usually right one. Yeah, I usually learn to cut some corners with time. But it's usually bad sign anyway.

Behold everyone, the biggest doom-sayer MMO-C has to offer, with his trademark name, "Wow is dead". Why you're still allowed to post here, the gods know.

[kosajk]

the only good thing about dragonriding is the top speed. otherwise is a downgrade in everyway

well thats most improtant part in mounts i would say

people will also take "more fun" over "less fun", and i would posit that dragon riding is "less fun" in every conceivable sense.
if you're arguing from convenience then you're admitting that dragon riding is less convenient, which then begs the question why the hell it was introduced in the first place.

well thats actually comming with 2 things
first of its small price to use 2 extra buttons while flying every couple sec for first 10-30sec from lift off (depending on start point) to get ~3x faster from point A to B in comparision

second it made flying avalible from day one of expansion
which somehow ppls tend to forget convinently in here and thats alone is freaking huge QOL change

[Lightbourne94]

The experience without glyphs is miserable, the experience with glyphs is the best wows movement has been ever imo. the last few things you unlcok with the glyphs (the bottom of the tree) are very powerful. Spen ten mins looking up where all the glyphs are or use an addon and it will save you so much time. GLHF