I feel like we’re still being punished for WoW’s first major “failed” expansion - Cataclysm (please don’t get off topic with that statement - dropped zones and raids, resources spent heavily on an old world revamp that many people didn’t even play through, etc) where flying was controversially allowed from the very start, causing people to fly right over content and drastically diminish the amount of time it took to get to max level/end game.
My personal opinion? Flying should be available by the “end” of the first patch of an expansion. Maybe it’s behind a little content wall that takes a couple months, but frankly it would feel best to get it shortly after reaching max level, like in, you know, the best expansion ever - WOTLK.
Blizz holding out on giving us flying makes the inevitable grind (one of the current generation of devs favorite systems they mistake as content) we have to do just feel painful, especially for those veteran players who have adult lives and not limitless amounts of time. I want to log on every day and not feel like I’m being punished. And I understand that some zones can’t have flying (the Maw and Korthia and Argus), but the holding back of flying until a new patch just seems anti-fun.
Anyone got any thoughts?
3 Likes
Immediately on max level.
Since that’s apparently not an option, I am grudgingly, tooth-grindingly, resentfully okay with eating my vegetables before I can have dessert and doing a pathfinder/a rep grind, WITHIN the launch patch.
If it does get pushed to the next patch, and X.1 is going to be more than a few months out, no, I’m not okay with waiting and I will complain every chance I get.
First patch PLUS another rep grind, or new pathfinder, or renown levels is just nonsense.
32 Likes
a type of pathfinder that isn’t gated by a year.
if people can achieve that goal in a week of playing, let them. they have played the content, they ran everywhere they needed to, let them fly after that.
30 Likes
I say make it available after you finish a zone’s story-chain or all the zones’ stories, along with uncovering the whole map. Flying over Wintergrasp when was in-session back when WOTLK was current, dismounted you and had me understood doing it by zone is possible.
A certain other game does it this way, and I don’t see the point holding flying “hostage” when once you reach the level cap because the only time you’ll be going back to the zone is for the dungeons and mat farming.
4 Likes
When you max out your level.
Holding it hostage as a feature to be added in later patches isn’t friendly practice.
26 Likes
Burning crusade: Flight is introduced as a MAJOR EXPANSION FEATURE at max level for gold.
Wotlk: flight is available at (then) level 77 for gold.
Cata: flight is available at launch for gold.
MoP: flight is available at max level for gold.
WoD: Flight is now a “problem” that needs to be “fixed”
36 Likes
At level cap for a reasonable gold cost.
10 Likes
At the start. They should design the expac with flying in mind.
19 Likes
Immediately. Max level at the absolute latest.
Time gating flying is just another one of Blizzard’s methods of prolonging playtime at the expense of fun, and that design philosophy needs to go away.
20 Likes
WoW could learn from FFXIV in this regard. A lot of things actually, FF does about 95% of its game better than WoW does.
In this case, both games have the same goal, they want you to explore through the content on the ground until you’ve experienced it all, before you get to fly and skip over it all whenever you like. WoW does this by just not letting you fly for the first year or so, and then gating the flying behind a usually frustrating or long timegated achievement. Shadowlands has been better about the achievement part, getting flying is relatively painless compared to WoD, Legion, and BFA, but they still held it hostage for a long time.
FFXIV does it by restricting you to the ground until you collect a certain amount of aether currents on the zone you want to unlock flying in. Some are locked behind the story, others locked behind jumping puzzles or great views they want you to climb to. If you’ve completed the zone’s story and have all of the currents from that, you can just run around for 10-15 minutes, get all your currents, and start flying.
FFXIV’s way is just better here. It accomplishes the same goal, just with no sense of it being annoying. WoW should do something similar where you can knock it out in a short span of time that accomplishes what they’re after, rather than holding it hostage for a year. The idea of having it tied to forcing you to experience the zone on the ground is a good idea, they just execute it in about the worst possible way I can think of.
3 Likes
Max level + Loremaster (for main questline).
You’ve hit max level, you’ve done all the quests and seen the writers’ work … no Pathfinder necessary, no rep grind necessary, period. And it unlocks on all toons simultaneously regardless of alt progress.
Furthermore, all zones get flying. No Timeless Isle/Korthia.
5 Likes
Either immediately at max level or after exploration and loremaster achieves.
Anything later is petty and stupid.
8 Likes
As someone that personally doesn’t mind not flying for a bit… The end of the initial campaign would be a good spot.
It could be woven into the story even. Perhaps the skies are too dangerous for X reason and by the end of the campaign we have dealt with that threat, rendering the skies safe to fly in again.
Air superiority and all of that. It could make sense.
3 Likes
for free? or for like 5k gold from a trainer like it used to be? i think that, and making it available to purchase account-wide once your main unlocked it, was the best system. i’m okay if they also require a couple exploratory achievements like completing the leveling campaign and exploring all the zones on the ground. but nothing more than that, and certainly no artificial timegating.
1 Like
They created a problem where one didn’t exist just to force players into subbing for longer to get something that had been available for gold in multiple expansions. Greed is a powerful motivator for companies.
4 Likes
Honestly after the 1st month
1 Like
Immediately, upon attaining maximum level at the latest, for a pittance of gold.
4 Likes
They still haven’t unlocked burrowing.
2 Likes
Level 77, fast flying only. Also, I’m down with burrowing… get it? down?
2 Likes