Flying and the Future of Ground Mounts - Let them fly!

Community General Discussion
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Since Dynamic Flying was introduced in Dragonflight, ground mounts have completely lost their use. Now that it seems Dynamic Flying at launch is the way forward, it makes me wonder. What about ground mounts?

It is great that older flying mounts like Invincible are being updated to Dynamic Flying so we can all use our favourite flying mounts again. But what if my favourite mount is Midnight? Or a Vicious Warsaber?

One thing that was a big complaint in Dragonflight was the Keystone Master mount. An Armoredon that didn’t fly, in an expansion all about flying, when all previous KSM mounts have been flying mounts. Getting ground mounts now, and in future expansions, is just going to be meaningless now. Useless.

What if we made them fly?

It’s not unheard of. Basically every mount in FFXIV can fly. Certain mount models already have flying animations from a different mount, including the two mounts I mentioned.

What if we made every mount that it would make sense for, fly?

It could roll out slowly. First mounts that already have flying animations.

  • Horses, Sabers, Ottuks, Mogu Hounds, Creeping Carpet, Foxes and Stags.
  • Aquatic mounts could fly in Nazjatar!
    Later in the expansion you could add a few more where it makes sense they could fly.
  • Hawkstriders, Cranes, Striders…
    And over time, more could be made flying when there is room and time to adjust them.

Maybe make it an Unlock for some?

Thinking back of how we unlocked flying Aquatic mounts in Nazjatar, imagine that instead of doing the questline there and only unlocking it for that zone, the denizens of Nazjatar actually teach you to use your aquatic mounts in the sky anywhere!
Maybe tailors can craft a special item to make the Creeping Carpet fly. Blacksmiths crafting special blessed horseshoes to make all your horse mounts fly. Or have the Iskaara tell you an ancient story of a flying Ottuk, follow the tale and end up finding a special fish that makes all your Ottuks fly too. Sabercats blessed by druids of the talon? Cranes blessed by Chi-Ji? Collecting flight feathers for your Tallstriders?

This way, unlike FFXIV, the sky is not going to be filled with flying cacti, giant beasts or other random stuff all the time, and most people will still only use actual flying mounts. But for the people that want to fly with Midnight, an Armoredon or their Vicious mounts, they could unlock it with a small side adventure.

I think this would boost the value of ground mounts in years to come, and not make them completely worthless. Plus, fun side adventures that can be used for story building or to add a bit more value to a profession is always a good thing. Hunters really liked collecting pet taming tomes as well to unlock Crawgs, Undeads etc, so I think something like this could really work.

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Ground mounts are not dead theres plenty of places where you use them I dont see a need to do anything to them

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I really don’t feel like my “Junkheap Drifter” should be able to fly

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I agree. Let ground mounts fly. We already have a bunch of mounts that run through the air. Just expand that to the rest.

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If there was no need for letting Ground Mounts fly then some of the Store Mounts wouldn’t have the option to fly by running through the air. Blizzard has acknowledged that Flying mounts have more value and are far more used than ground only mounts. Hence why the Gleaming Moonbeast, latest addition via 12 month sub, can fly instead of being ground only.

Do you honestly believe the Fire Kitty would have sold anywhere near it did if it couldn’t fly? The answer - No, it would have sold far less.

They’re expanding Dynamic Flying as well because players gave feedback that they want to dynamic fly on their other mounts, and not have to shelve them after dynamic flying expands to the rest of the world.

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Yes I do think that. Blizzard struck gold with store mounts because they are sought by both collectors who dont even need to like the mount and people who find those mounts cute like the cat.

Again ground mounts are still a thing and people use them inside dungeons raids arena bgs zones that dont allow flying. Store mounts being able to fly is just added value but I sure dont support making all ground mounts able to fly.

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No, people don’t use ground mounts.
Most people just have one mount button, which is a flying mount. In DF people had two, Dragonriding and regular flying. In WW that’ll go back to 1.

The amount of people that actually have ground mounts on their action bars, using “Summon Favorite” or using a macro that automatically picks ground mounts in non-flying zones is very little.

There’s plenty of wingless horses that can fly already, hell there is a flying wolf that used to doggy paddle through the sky and everybody loved that thing.

I for one would use Midnight all the time if it could fly. Or one of the Maw Charger mounts.

There’s no reason not to do this, especially when it is already a well liked feature of another popular MMO.

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