It’s not a zero sum thing.
What you and the devs fail to understand is that “flying” is not content. All WoW content is on the ground. So flying is just a means to get you from ground content A to ground content B.
There is nothing inherently wrong with dragonriding. It is just seems like a massive effort for something no one was really asking for, or really needed to change.
And this is coming from someone who asked for “mount families” when they introduced mount equipment which was a flop. Imagine if horses were 350% ground speed, sabers maybe gave you a short stealth like hunter camo ability, water striders could walk on water, etc. Stuff that already exists within the context of the game and likely wouldn’t require a ton of dev work.
Dragon riding is a ton of effort. Unclear how it will work in old continents if at all. Restricted to 1 mount as far as I can tell (and not your entire dragon fleet on mount tab). It is just a giant design around feature that frankly feels unnecessary.
Once the novelty wears off, I bet most folks will just go back to normal flying mount - unless 950% speed makes sense (i.e. traversing zone/map from end to end) - at which point I’d probably prefer the AFK flightpath or whatever other portal system makes it into the game.
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You mean “pro-Dragonriders.” I have no problem with the system existing, but they should have allowed regular flying as well, along with Flight Masters and ground paths.
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Have you played Guild Wars 2 at all? They have a mount system similar to Dragonriding and the mount families idea you shared. Where each mount type has special abilities that make it easier to traverse different types of terrain and environmental obstacles. Raptors are fast and great for jumping across large chasms. Skimmers can hover and get you over bodies of water. Springers can jump really high, etc.
That system has been pretty successful, and it is definitely “content” considering that you can earn dyes and customizations for your mounts, train them in new abilities through the mastery system, and participate in races and other activities throughout the game world (including in older zones). It’s a different way of looking at mounts, zone design, and open world content vs. mounts just being a very static way to get you from point A to point B.
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I’ve heard nothing but the opposite, actually. “Old flying feels awful after getting used to Dragonriding.”
I’m inclined to agree, just from looking at it.
No, it’s actually as fun as all of the previews have been saying about it.I have had a chance to play around with it for hours on the Alpha and it is an absolute blast.
Regular flying will be enabled at some point during Dragonflight. This has already been confirmed by Ion, there will no longer be a Pathfinder achievement process to unlock it, they will just enable it through the expansion at some point.
I don’t have a crystal ball and can’t see the future, but I think you’ll find yourself pleasantly surprised when you try out the new Dragonriding feature for your own self.
You also have to remember, I have not even gotten to test out the fully unlocked and upgraded version of Dragonriding. I enjoyed it as much as I did on a level 65 character, I can only imagine how much more satisfying it will feel as unlock more upgrades and abilities at max level and beyond.
With the way the zones are designed, you will see why that this new feature works as well as it does, it will absolutely take your breath away, I’m sure of it.
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But: you don’t know, do you?
Thats still people saying dragonriding is good. In fact its so good it makes old flying seem bad.
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Yup. Dragonriding looks to be an objective upgrade over the crappy no-clip flying we’ve had since 2007.
Neither do ground mounts. And traveling doesn’t need to be a skill challenge.
You can adk on the ground in a safe spot and wpvp can be turned off completely.
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This all sounds better as it is more additive.
The thing with dragon riding is that it seems excessive and also requires you to be on the new dragon (or dragonkin), which you better hope you like since it is all you will be using.
Now if they introduced it and said it will be added to all dragons going forward (and they will attempt to implement retroactively), or there is more to come with other mounts (GW2 or my suggestion), then cool.
But right now, it just sounds like another throw away feature with 10.x. It just feels like the time would’ve been better spent elsewhere.
Won’t someone PLEASE get this man his dopamine?
You can sit in the back of Hemet’s wagon while the rest of us fly at 900% speed.
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Can you use regular flying mounts in Dragonflight? Seems like the appropriate thing to use if you want to gather, then Dragon Flying for everything else?
At some point after launch, probably in the first content patch. But you can’t use them immediately. Just ground mounts or dragonriding.
That said, having played pretty extensively with the version of dragonriding we had on alpha last week, it blows regular flying out of the water. Herbing and mining probably would be worse because of vigor limiting your takeoffs, but who knows what the fully leveled system looks like, how much vigor you have or how fast it recharges when maxed out. We had a non-leveled base version on alpha and it felt ridiculously good.
The only thing I’d miss is using my older mounts, but cosmetics for customizing your dragon could make up for that.
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Well, when I play games I want to have fun, if flying makes going from point A to B more entertaining than watching a tv show or twitch on my second monitor while my character just noclips through the air then I am all for it.
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They are assuming here, and we all know what happens when someone assumes something. Here again, they are showing their hubris. If they insist on not allowing normal flight, and I have to admit that I don’t know if they are going to or not. They refusing to learn from their mistakes. Their narcissism hubris prevent them from learning from or even admitting their mistakes.
Semper Fi! 
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Yes they are, just not right away.
Simply, we will have varying levels of Dragon Flying pretty much from the get go, that gets more capable as we level, etc. Some areas will require us to use that capability to reach them, to the point that early on, even though we have low level Dragon Flying, we won’t be able to reach some areas until we have improved it.
After all of that, after we’ve leveled up Dragon Flying, and deeper in the expansion, we’ll be able to use regular flying mounts.
Some have mentioned that Dragon Flying won’t be very good for things like harvesting, etc. We also can’t simply hover in the sky with Dragon Flying. So, for local flitting about, perhaps it will be better to use normal WoW flying in the Dragon Isles, but if you want to actually travel, Dragon Flight will likely be the preferred mechanic.
Interestingly - wasn’t this part of the problem with the water striders? What happened?
How is DR not going to be an OP mount that we are all forced to use?
Oh everyone gets one? They could’ve introduced a new water strider that wasn’t time-gated behind some old annoying rep.
These devs are all over the place on their design philosophies and can’t seem to pick on that applies for longer than an xpac.
So, another pathfinder. Figures, but at least they will allow regular flight for those that can’t get the hang of dragon flying.
Semper Fi!