A lot of these races are really long, and include a lot of areas that get a lot of players hung up on them.
Why were these races designed to be so long? Was there extensive testing done to try to eliminate all of these hang up areas? *If not, why wasn’t the times needed for Gold/Silver adjusted to compensate for players having to avoid those areas? Why are these times designed with little to no leniency allowed?
Currently I’ve experienced more heartache trying to do these races than actual “fun”. A lot of players in the general chats have denoted the same feelings.
Can these races be adjusted/fixed? In the future can we have extensive testing around these new races to determine if there is going to be massive player heartache over them or not? Maybe try to eliminate getting hung up on a wire thin branch? Maybe, just maybe, not design them to be so long going thru so many small entrances/tunnels?
Edit: I’d really love to know how these times are generated. Do you do open testing on these to have random players worldwide attempt them and then aggregate the scores? Or is it all internal testing by people who do nothing but dragon riding and therefore are excellent at doing it?
Further Edits: Were these races and times needed for gold based around being able to fly at the max 830% flying before the nerf that was done to dragon riding in the old worlds? Currently I’m having a hard time just trying to beat some gold records when I’m seriously pushing it. *Additionally, can we stop measuring the times by the Miliseconds? Its a serious feels bad when you “loose” a gold race by .1th of a second. How am I ever supposed to get more than .1th of a second if I’m trying my hardest to do these?
Additional Edit: Why am I flying thru a door thats just barely the same size as my dragon riding mount? And one that’s not level to boot. looking at you shadowmoon slam
Due to the way these were designed, I have grown extremely frustrated trying to get these done. So much so, that I’m having to stop doing them tonight. It’s turned from being a “fun” activity of flying my dragon around to a “Ooop, you missed doing this one thing right here, or oop you didn’t turn quit just right right there.” type thing. This isn’t Mythic+ or Challenge Mode Dungeons. Why are these designed to be so difficult. I can’t even imagine how people who have disabilities trying to do these feel.
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A major part of the races that are a requirement for anyone looking to make gold on all of the races. Are quite simply to learn how to fly properly.
Utilizing gravity to build charges versus slamming dash. Understanding just how much more speed you get and maintain using the Skyward ascend versus spamming dash.
Learning the dolphin dip technique. Whatever it may be called by others.
Once you get good at all three of those. The races arent that difficult.
Truly the length of the races, the branches, wagons, spices overhanging in structures. These are most welcome. They add a level of difficulty that require the skill to surpass them. To think ahead and prepare.
I failed on races multiple times. It took me just under 1 hour and 30 minutes to get gold on all of them. That stems from knowing to maximize speed with practice, learning the courses and the snags, making sure I dont blink. Haha.
We have 2 weeks for this event. Plenty of time for even the most casual of players to achieve their goals.
I am of a mind to ask Blizzard to not drop the difficulty. More content needs to have a semblance of skill. Whats you have it, you get it all done.
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It’s fine and dandy that it only took you an hour and 30 minutes to “Get gold on all”. It took me nearly 3 hours to just get 6 of them to full gold, and on a 7th to two races at full gold. I got so aggravated and frustrated that I literally had to quit trying. That is never good within a game. A player should never feel aggravated or frustrated trying to do content. That’s a failure in design.
What is one persons “easy content” could be to another “difficult”. What’s easy to you, was not easy for me and many others. So should the content stay “difficult” for the many or “easy” for the few?
Again, If I’m having difficulties doing this, and even you stated you had difficulties on some… How does one who has disabilities fit in? I can’t even imagine someone who doesn’t have fast reflexes, or limited vision, or limited use of a limb feels trying to do these. But we should leave it fully “Difficult” for the “few”?
And why does me flying my flying mount have to require skill all the sudden? The Races were supposed to be a fun mini-game, not a challenge mode content. if they truly wanted that, then they truly need to remove it from common play and put it in its own little bubble I shouldn’t have to “Git Gud” at flying my flying mount to the point where I’m not “failing” races by 1-2 seconds or even milliseconds. That’s what we’re talking about here.
Edit: I do appreciate the tips, However I do know them. But they could be helpful to any others coming across this. - I still don’t believe you should have to literally do all of it perfectly well just to get gold while doing a what was supposed to be a fun mini-game. And It’s not even like the times are uniform. The Gold for the basic flight is sometimes drastically different from the “Advanced”. Even though both require you to utilize abilities and fly the course, with the major difference in the advanced is no automatic swirlies to launch you forward.
Additionally, I don’t think that many would agree with your statement of welcoming all of the “The length, Branches, wagons, and spices overhanging structures”. Again, I shouldn’t have to have ninja reflexes or fail at doing a “fun” mini-game race 40+ times just to get gold.
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These are precisely that though, a test of skill. They have built in timers to gauge your ability to fly these mounts well. I don’t believe this content was developed for every person on the planet to be able to clear. If you do have poor eyesight, limited mobility, impairments otherwise. That’s truly awful. Does that mean the difficulty should be brought to your level of play? I would certainly hope not.
This is a small modular game mode where the whole point is showcasing your prowess, skill, ability to finish it as it was designed. If you can’t do that for any mental or physical reason, is that so terrible? Why do any of these people need to complete it on gold if they can’t beat it by the predetemined definitions of the race?
This isn’t arrogance or cruel. It’s just fair play.
If the content is specifically designed (anything past, present or future), so every person can complete it. Then hell yea, fix bugs or errors.
This is not deserving of that attention.
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Some of the timers feel absolutely free to get gold on normal, reverse, and advanced while others made me go “???” with their timers. I don’t mind doing the races over and over to work on the flaws to improve, but it seems like people with more visual issues than me are not going to have as much fun. There’s a bit of a “push” to get this done for collectors since it’s a limited event as well.
I think my BIGGEST annoyance with the races the fact that they aren’t phased, and I constantly see other players flying by me or ahead/behind me. Other people might not mind but it’s very distracting for me and I have issues with my vision making these a little tedious already. This is a race against the set time for the challenge, not other people. I’d rather not see 5 people’s mounts and spell effects come out of left field while I’m trying to focus and not get clipped on a fraction of a pixel. Just my 2 cents, and I wish it was phased like the catalogue quests are.
Overall, I’ve enjoyed the challenges so far and will slowly chip away at the timers between work and other obligations. My hope for Northrend Cup is they scrap the unnecessarily long routes. phase the races so we don’t have other players obstructing our FOV, and also cut down on some of the weird pixel clipping to be more accessibility friendly.
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This is exactly how we’re going to end up having Dynamically flying become somehow an E-sport event. Because players like yourself are going to continously request that this side-mini-game content be made into something competitive. Not everything needs to be competitive. It’s fine to have a fun mini-game that allows players to have fun “racing” their dynamically flying mounts. It’s alright if the “Gold” for doing so is a little lax. Key note is LITTLE
A player shouldn’t have to do these courses like a rockstar just to get gold in a fun mini-game content thats advertised within the game as a Holiday Event. Incase you’ve forgotten, Holiday Events are for everyone.
This is even more of a slap in the face for making gold and silver hard to get as there is T-Mog and other things tied behind you having to get better than bronze on 36 races of the 39. If you only have 1 character or only wish to do it on one character
You currently need 155 of the racer emblem things to go purchase the new TMOG set and the ability to have a randomized dynamically flying mount. You only get 119 by completing all 39 races at just the bronze level and completing the quest given. If you complete 36 of the 39 races at silver and the quest given you will get exactly 155.
So, in other words, in your view. Don’t play the game? “Oh man, we got another holiday event coming up in game. Welp… if you can’t do it… Sorry charlie. Guess this one just isn’t for you. Enjoy watching all your friends/all the other players do it.”
It’s not like WoW already doesn’t have a population problem. Let’s just make it worse by actively stating “If you can’t do it. Too bad.” Cause that’ll help.
The predetermined definitions of the race should and need to be adjusted for the common player. The player that just came into Dragonflight. THe returning player thats never experienced dynamically flying. Right now, it’s “Be a veteran at flying these or bust”. Imagine being a new player to dynamically flying trying to do these races. Trying to get that gold because that’s awesome to do. Just to find out that “Welp, you need to learn this dolphin flipping technique, and then oh watch your gravity on the mount that doesn’t know how to flap it’s own wings, and then even if you do everything perfect in your eyes… you weren’t perfect enough.”
Again. Not everything needs to be competitive. If you wish to have a little circle of friends where you get competitive for your timings together, that’s cool. It shouldn’t be baked into the “for everyone” experience. There is nothing wrong with having a little leeway given to players for these types of general events within the game.
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There were a couple of frustrating courses but that was more due to the prickly terrain (the Ravager area in Hellfire Peninsula springs to mind) more so than tight timers. The vast majority were pretty easy and the races didn’t feel that much longer than normal. Some took a few more attempts than others but you shouldn’t just get gold for spamming 1, if you can’t get gold, that’s okay, either keep trying using the techniques afforded to you or just accept that you will have a silver medal.
The content is accessible to everyone, but the top rewards for having the best times are going to be limited on the basis of skill with the mechanic. That’s always been the case in video games and life in general. Should gold just be given out for spamming the ‘1’ key? If so, why do we have Bronze and Silver medals? Some things you might just not be good at, that’s okay, you can excel in other areas of the game or you can try to improve and get better at the mechanic.
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They literally have timers/medals. It’s a nod to racing games like Trackmania, of course it’s going to be somewhat competitive.
For my own feedback:
I just did them all on gold in maybe an hour and a half, mostly 1shots and the ones that weren’t were due to big misplays (crashing into stuff/stalling/missing checkpoints), never clean runs that just didn’t make the timer. The closest to missing gold I got most of the time was ~1.5 seconds, with some more like 5. So the timers feel better tuned than some of the previous races (Emerald Dream in particular comes to mind, those timers were incredibly free).
I think my 2 favorite races were Shattrath and the Biodomes. Shattrath especially felt like it was designed around you having much tighter turn radius due to the lower speed cap, which was cool to see. Overall the races felt quite good, none stood out as being actively bad/unfun/frustrating.
The races all being on the long side did feel quite strange though. I don’t think there was a single one with a gold timer under 50 seconds, most being 60-70. There’s nothing wrong with long races in and of themselves, but having some more variety in length would be nice (and the other “sets” did have more variety)
There’s also a lot of races that feel like they’re just… missing. As in, Hellfire Citadel not having one feels like an odd thing to do. Blade’s Edge only having a single race makes no sense, you could make like 5 races in that zone alone and have them feel distinct. Especially if you could include separate races tailored to the Algarian gryphon (which you can’t because it’s a preorder exclusive, I get it), that adds another potential set of races to each zone. Again this would be similar to how Trackmania is keeping things fresh by adding the snow car recently and planning to add more of the “old” cars.
Yes it should. They should add official leaderboards too. If you don’t want to be competitive, you don’t have to go for the highest times. Same as with raid difficulties or keys.
It is. All you need for the quests is completion/bronze, that’s for the common player.
There was 1 particular spike that tripped me up 3 times in a row here, but I don’t think the other races were particularly bad in that regard. The other race that took me way too many attempts was the Dark Portal one where I was apparently just allergic to avoiding fireballs.
I did not notice it being anymore difficult than the previous Kalimdor/EK races. There are a couple of annoying random branches/thorns but it actually seemed like less than this time but it did not seem that different. Most races I did in 1 go and a few I had to do a few tries to memorize the obstacle like a branch to maneuver around.
I’d have to disagree with the sentiment that gold needs to be tuned for everyone. The content itself should be available to everyone which it is. The mog rewards are obtainable for everyone even. If you are taking over 3 hours on it then it is definitely more time efficient just to do a quick run through on two alts and get the quest reward twice for the whopping 80 badges each time or as many as you’d like.
Not every achievement needs to be tuned to be obtainable by everyone. They only need to be not bugged.
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Not really related to the races themselves but I would love for there to be an option to disable dragonriding music in the same way that exists for pet battles. Part of the appeal, to me at least, of doing races in older zones is also listening to the music which helps to invoke those feelings of nostalgia. It’s a minor thing but it would be nice if this could be considered for future cups.
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