Can we set the record straight about dragon riding?

Community General Discussion
101

Problem is that Blizzard themselves added a bunch of accessibility and stated that as a development goal.

There is an option for you but it’s not a convenient one. You can use the Ride Along option to hitchhike on another player’s dragonriding mount and you’ll turn into a whelp that flies with them. It is reliant on you having another person effectively drive, but at least it’s an option?

To enable the Dragonriding Ride Along feature in Dragonflight , you’ll need to visit Lithragosa near Rostrum of Transformation or any other Dragonriding trainer in the zone. Each zone typically has one Dragonriding trainer, so it won’t be a problem to find one. Once you’ve reached your Dragonriding trainer, ask them to enable the Ride Along feature. And just like that, anyone can tag along with you. If you want to tag along a friend, they’ll need to do the same. Once you get bored with the Ride Along feature or if you stop needing it, you can disable it by paying a visit to a Dragonriding trainer and repeating the process.

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102

Wha are some examples of this aside from the dragon riding glyphs? So far I haven’t encountered anything challenging me to get to a certain area besides these. If it’s only them then you could just award regular flying as the final unlock in the tree.

Personally I’m fine with dragon riding, but it seems really odd to me that they just don’t let the players who want it have it. Want to press 3 buttons for faster/more fun travel? Fine. Don’t? Press this button and it’s traditional flying. Seems so easy to me I feel like I must be missing something.

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103

The video game industry had a temporary reprieve (window) where they did not have to comply so that tech could be implemented to allow compliance. That window ended at the end of 2018. The specifics are from section 14.21 of the CVAA:

This is primarily why controller input got put into the client with the Shadowlands prepatch. Unfortunately it has taken two years to further refine the input setup and control mechanisms to a more usable state. There are still gaps however, which I’ll be discussing with the Accessibility team. One of those gaps, in my case, is that I can’t use the built in controller system because any time the controller is accessed the cursor disappears. Since I must also click my abilities while simultaneously moving, I’m forced to leave the in-game controller support disabled and use a third party utility such as USB Overdrive (macOS) or JoyToKey (Windows) to allow movement with the controller while retaining use of the cursor as well.

It wasn’t intended to be an ableist system. I have no doubts that the developers aren’t purposely trying to lock out users. I do, however, firmly believe that they failed to consult with a diverse enough group of disabled people or perhaps failed to consult with them at all and went on preconceptions when designing their control schema. This is backed up by the fact they literally mirrored the Overwatch controller defaults and non-remappable strafe assigned to the left analog stick in non-free roam mode (for reference, I could use forward, backstep, and turn left/right on left stick in Unreal Tournament back in 1999, twenty three years ago).

Dragonflight made some improvements, but also caused some pretty significant steps back, especially for those that needed the base UI not to change the way it did. I’m still gathering the info I created for feedback to go here so the devs and Accessibility team could see visually what is causing problems for myself and potentially others with the new layout.

That still requires controlling like you would a vehicle. Thankfully for full controller users accessibility options are in place to help with that. But that only covers part of the disability spectrum. For anyone that has issues with mouse based control of any kind due to motor issues such as myself with the deformed right arm with loss of fine motor control, dragonriding does pose an extra (and sometimes unwanted) impetus with regard to input.

FWIW I find dragonriding quite intriguing from a conceptual standpoint, especially the use of acceleration via powerdiving. I think it adds a lot of flavor to exploration. It’s just that the input method isn’t necessarily as accessible to everyone as people might think.

It isn’t about APM, it’s about input method. For the visually impaired, the depth of field effect can be extremely problematic as well, especially when it can’t be turned off like it can in say, Star Ocean 4 (it is really bad in that game if left on). Things like motion blur and depth of field make it difficult to see properly for some of us, hence asking for options to disable or alter some things like that.

It’s tangential at best. Unfortunately when you’re alone you can’t rely on that obviously. And having to rely on someone else’s control isn’t for everyone either, especially if they have motion sickness issues (I don’t) and purposely control things themselves to minimize those effects.

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104

That is not my experience at all. My ascents give the same boost each time. Perhaps slightly different after the second.

And I wasn’t talking about the trailing visuals which you are correct about, but the glow on the wings which only occurs when you are gaining vigor. Watching that is a great way of learning the correct angles to fly at.

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eh… for 90% of it, I’d agree. For just getting from A to B, it’s VERY hard for me to believe there’s an issue. As someone said in another post “it’s falling with style.” It’s a goblin glider with a “whoosh” effect THAT YOU CAN TURN OFF.

HOWEVER… there are 2 exceptions I’ve found.

1> If you BURST multiple times in a row, the screen does a REALLY weird warping effect and has lots of parallax effects to make the recurring use of vigor REALLY feel dynamic. As someone without motion issues… all I can say is “COOL!” And although I don’t understand how it could affect someone/keep them from playing, I can at least admit my ignorance: I DON’T … UNDERSTAND. But I’m willing to listen.

2> If you’re gathering, getting to EXACT locations I can DEFINITELY see someone with arthritis or whatever other issues could have a problem. You can’t just go up and down. It’s like navigating on a spiral staircase. It’s tricky. And, again… it does this parallax effect with the background to make it seem DRAMATIC … but if you have some sort of issue with motion, etc I can see how this might bug you out.

I’m trying to be understanding and all… but these are EXCEPTIONS. To just PLAY Dragonflight? To just GLIDE from point A to point B? I’m having a real hard time seeing how that’s a problem.

We went from WoW’s demographic being from someone in their mid-to-late 30-early-40s with a family … to suddenly everyone is late 60s with arthritis and a seemingly endless list of physical maladies that prevent them from playing this game. As much as I want to be empathetic, you have to admit how oddly suspicious all of this is.

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106

So you give DR a higher ceiling. Problem solved.

107

With Blizzard’s questionable scripting capabilities, adding a smart/dumb system of guided flying for dragonriding might not have been possible on their deadlines and the Ride Along with the best they could do with the time. Unfortunate, but at least someone thought of it.

I don’t see why people should have to wait six months for regular flying, when dragonriding is the superior experience already for a large amount of people and the zones are large enough already to penalise usage of regular flying mount speed. Why not both?

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108

For everyone complaining “Well I have a physical disability, Dragonriding is too hard to manipulate, too many key binds, or a quick time event!!” I literally just got on my DR dragon, hit space bar 3 times and let go of the keyboard and mouse. I flew forward towards my destination with NO INPUT from me. When I neared my destination, I slightly rotated my mount towards my target (with LESS input then i’d use with normal flying!!!) and bam landed just fine. 3 pushes of the space bar. 1 mouse redirection. That was literally the WHOLE apm needed. There was no “quick time event” there was no “several hard key binds” needed. Guess what, I’m an Army vet with an actual VA rated disability and an injury to my hand that makes using that hand difficult. And I did just fine. My wife has severe, severe, arthritis in both her hand. She did just fine. If you can play this game, and manipulate you character in game, use your spells and abilities, raid, do pvp , dungeons. You can Dragonride. There are literally 4 buttons at max needed, and 3 of them are wholly optional to press. You hit space bar to get aloft, direct your facing with the mouse, and off you go. I have flown across the entire island with minimal input. If you are incapable of doing that I really wonder how you are using a normal flying mount, or even playing this game.

People who get motion sick, yeah I can empathize with that. You folks saying you cant do DR because you have a physical disability? Please, please stop.

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109

It’s because Blizzard doesn’t like the old style of flying for new content. They specifically dislike the helicopter aspects of it – endless instant takeoff get out of jail, and endless risk free hover. Blizzard couldn’t care less about people AFKing on long flights, which is what the WoW forums are obsessed with. Blizzard hates vertical takeoff and hover, because it permits players to play through content much, MUCH faster and more surgically – you basically bypass content at your leisure with it, which they don’t want players doing with new content.

They really don’t care about fast movement from A to B, as we can see from DR. But with DR you can’t just take off vertically in an instant to get out of dodge and go invuln, and you can’t hover forever risk-free.

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110

All you have to do is have a gathering profession for more than 15mins to understand the massive, Massive, MASSIVE difference between DR and flying.

With DR you have to fly all the way up. herb/mine your way down. And then WAIT. WAIT… WAIT… ok NOW you can fly back up, herb/mine your way down. And then WAIT.

This waiting aspect is the tradeoff for being able to “fly early.” But it is a HUGE difference from flying when it comes to taking advantage of the terrain. The “helicopter” aspect.

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Then adjust your sensitivity so that you aren’t using your hand/wrist? You shouldn’t be doing that with a mouse anyway. You should be using your whole arm with your main pivot being at the elbow.

I would also suggest an ergonomic mouse that stands on its side as that will prevent you from using your wrist and hand in ways that are going to continue hurting you.

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112

But all the folks saying that with everything unlocked there’s almost no wait for vigor would indicate that this really isn’t much of an issue.

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Yep, I agree. But Blizzard doesn’t like players having that ability for new content. Which is why we haven’t been able to use our flying mounts to gather like that in new content for several expacs now, either.

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114

yeah…we needed yet another thread about this… lmao

115

Could have sworn you blocked me yesterday. Nice to see that that lasted long.

116

It’s not excluded. The Devs made it clear in the beginning that Regular Flying will eventually be added.

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I’ve said it in other posts but - I gravitate towards Low APM classes specifically because it causes me moderate to significant pain if I do not (Marks hunter, Arcane mage, Feral druid etc). Dragon riding as anything but a fancy glider with a few rocket boosts causes me similar pain, so that’s how I’m choosing to interact with the system.

I still hate it, but at least it’s not causing me pain now.

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And you will still probably need to progress dragonriding to some degree to use it.

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Thank you for your reply, it was very informative.

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120

you keep saying quicktime, its just pressing 2 buttons.

your rotation isn’t quicktime, neither is this.

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