Loss of exploration.
You cover ground so quickly you don’t have time to take it in. If it doesn’t pop up with an icon on the mini map or you don’t have any coordinates set, you likely don’t know it is there. Up until yesterday, I was certain there weren’t enough neat little caves and nooks to explore. That’s because I was zooming past the terrain too quickly to be able to notice them. I then set out, not towards a quest marker or rare/event icon, to explore more slowly on ground mounts and without zoom zooming my way across the terrain. The game very much encourages zoom zoom though.
Trivialization of travel.
This used to be an issue brought up about normal flying. But with Dragon Riding it is worse than I would have believed. Instead of mindlessly flapping past things you now mindlessly zoom past things. Any amount of time spent upgrading your DR skills allows for easily performed exceedingly fast travel. I can’t believe I am starting to see the sense in Pathfinder nonsense… Flight from the start, especially Dragon Riding, utterly trivializes going from point A to point B.
Loss of encounters.
With Dragon Riding in place from the start, you much less frequently encounter mobs, NPCs in the wild, or really anything not next to a mini-map indicated point of interest. My potato PC can’t even phase in mobs that aren’t huge, elite rares, or targets of a quest as I zoom past at 800%+ speed. The only time you can even encounter other players in the wild is typically in situations I have already mentioned. Map indicated points of interest, quest hubs, and the like are the only real time you see other players. (mind you I may be biased and on a dead server, so experience will of course vary)
I’m thinking that Dragon Riding is like regular flying from the start but 10x worse. I’ve been a vocal advocate of adding regular flying to supplement flying options, but only due to DR already being a thing. Now that I’ve experienced flight from the get-go, I see the reason the devs added a timegate/achievement requirement for flight in an expansion. I hate it, but now I understand it. Now lets get to the positives before I’m too heavily flamed.
People enjoy the mini-game.
It may cause a minor hiccup or inconvenience to botters. (already starting to see potential workarounds, reported one last night)
Honestly can’t think of any besides that. INB4 “You’re just lazy!” “lol its a skill issue” “You’re a botter!” and of course the ever present, “I think its fine I have the complete opposite experience as you.”
I have seen more of the terrain in DF than I did in BFA and SL. The last time I felt this connected to the world was Legion. I basically am always flying somewhere and doing something. Whether you see the world or not is entirely up to you.
Flightpaths are the ultimate form of this, at least DR keeps you connected to the game and has you paying attention to your surroundings.
DF is designed to be less mob dense on purpose, to further show off the scope of the size of the landmass. You’re not missing out on immersion by not wading through packs of mobs.
It’s not too late to delete these garbage takes btw.
Flying is bad. Walk everywhere you’ll like the game better.
Sorry bub, I love the new system and will not stop using it.
Not sure how it increases your enjoyment of the game to see me walking around in the world. It’s not like you were going to group up or even say hello.
Nothing’s stopping you from hopping on a ground mount and exploring every nook and cranny that way. I know a good chunk through Waking Shores I still used my ground mount because I wasn’t used to the dragonriding system and at the starting 3 vigor you can’t fly too fast or too long anyway. It’s only when you fully upgrade your tree that you’re zooming across the map at mach 800.
I expected these forms of responses from people like you lot. But not once in my OP did I ask for anything from you. You participate if you want, but I didn’t ask.
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