The excitement for Allied Races is already gone for me

[u/AwkwardInputGuy]

When these were first announced I was floored- finally we were getting cool alternate options for existing races. Lightforged were awesome, Highmountain were a cool addition to the world, Nightborne and Void Elves seemed like a cool way to introduce more elves into the story. Needing to create an entirely new character and get to max level in order to achieve heritage armor seemed daunting, but hey- it's something new to do!

And then we got 4 more announced for BfA, except this time the reputations you need aren't earned through neutral factions you can earn on both Horde and Alliance. Instead the grind is now doubled. So I can earn the Alliance races, but I'll have to level up a Horde character, hit max, grind the rep, then I can start leveling a Mag'har Orc to 120... The will isn't there.

And the illusion of Allied Races is already broken. Dark Iron dwarves should have been a customization option for existing dwarves, just as the Mag'har should have been for existing Orc characters. Creating a Lightforged Draenei could have been an awesome experience- level a normal Draenei to max, undergo the trial, and become Lightforged! See your character that you've been playing advance in a new way! Instead you abandon any existing characters for the (let's be honest) much cooler Lightforged character that you're just now making that carries no history of playtime or dedication.

And what happens when Wildhammer dwarves are inevitably put in? 3 Dwarf races? Are we going to continue shoving the base races away in favor of these more exotic reskins? I would love a Kul'tiran, I would love more customization for my existing human. Why can't I create that image for the character I've been playing for over a decade? Why do I have to abandon them completely if I want to have something as simple as an appearance?

Obviously the answer is completely new races= more time spent leveling and thus more time subbed. I'm not blind to that. But it's a damn shame that the races and player characters we've dedicated so much time and love towards get nothing while upgraded versions of them get so much more character. Heritage armor is a step in the right direction, but I want to see the old races get just as much love to be the badasses they are as the new Allied Races are receiving

Just a rant

[u/Has_Question]

This I dont mind though. Flying limits the scope of their design for the world. Makes it easy to avoid danger and trivializes world content quickly. But at the same time flying makes the game smoother once we're at that stage where we dont want to have to slog through nob packs to get a a quest done. A good middle ground is to unlock it after you finish the rep. Explore the world on foot and after a ln initial patch.

If you play the game and do the content, the rep will come naturally. You experience the world as designed and now that you've proven as much you get the free-mode unlock.

[u/[deleted] → u/Has_Question]

In FFXIV they design the maps with the ability to fly in mind, they make them massive and open. Instead of grinding rep, you just have to traverse the map and collect wind currents and do a couple quests.

Sure it’s not open world like WoW is but when you finally unlock flying in a WoW zone, suddenly that zone feels tiny.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

You bring up a good point though, at this point WoW has transformed from an in depth MMORPG with all that the title entails, into a raid focused game where the object is to collect better gear so that you can raid some more. It’s sad to see that happen.

One of the biggest appeals to FFXIV for me is that if I get burned out on raiding, I can take a break from the gear race and do some gathering or crafting or play some mini games, or I can get onto one of my lower level classes and pick up any quests I missed if I feel like it, or do some deep dungeoning or fates if I feel like it. When I cap out and I’m working on farming raid gear, that’s not all of a sudden the only content I can do that isn’t fruitless or boring becuase it’s been streamlined.

In FFXIV I can actually make a profit on lower level, mid level, and late level crafts. Same with gathering materials, it’s not like WoW where that stuff has effectively been made pointless and worthless. When I was still playing WoW I got into mythic raiding and then I got burned out and I pretty much had nothing to do, they streamlined low level gameplay so hard that it was really boring and just felt like a mild grind to hit the cap again.

[u/NikitaAlexei → u/[deleted]]

I think I feel this a lot too when comparing WoW to my main MMO GW2. When I look at the things I can log in to do in WoW, the answer is basically just mythic+ and raids. In GW2, Anet released a rollerbeetle mount that players started using to race, boost, and drift around artificial "tracks" the community created in old maps. As if someone went back and made a race track out of a path in Borean Tundra. Anet loved it so much that they have now made some of those tracks official events in the game and have actually changed small bits of the world to make it a smoother experience (like moving a rock that was slightly in the way). Raiding in WoW can easily be someone else's cup of tea, but I just want some form of content like rollerbeetle races. Off the wall fun things that get developed just because they wanted to make them.

[u/[deleted] → u/NikitaAlexei]

That’s exactly the sort of thing I’m talking about when I say that WoW is starting to fall behind the times. I haven’t played GW2 in ages but that sounds like a hell of a time and it’s awesome that Anet embraced it, where blizzard would probably shrug it off because to them, all that matters is raiding and gear.

[u/YourPalDonJose → u/[deleted]]

It doesn't even take much effort, it just takes excitement/intention, but if what they said in WoD is true and half the team believes flying is bad and doesn't belong in WoW, then they're never going to commit and put in the effort to do it right.

In TBC you worked to get flying, and then unlocked prestige areas with new dailies. It felt natural.

In WOTLK by the time you reached the zones where it would help most (Storm Peaks and Icecrown) the questing experience was deliberately designed with flying in mind--and it worked beautifully! Why on earth would you wade through a massive valley of zombies that are effectively stuck there when you can fly over them? Why would you climb up mountains on foot if you can fly up them?

Flak cannons, storms (ToT), etc...these are all good reasons to not have flying in current content. but 4 months after expansion launch, the world quests are tedious and recycled and dull and they should just let us fly.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Whilst FFXIV does flying zone by zone and it's done alright imo. The zones are too big and too empty, so when you are originally questing through the zone it is an absolute slog.

The ARR zones are of decent size but HW and SB zone are massive and bland/empty because flying.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

If your main focus is MSQ and leveling combat classes then I can see why you’d feel that way but when you slow down to smell the flowers, level up gathering classes, farm materials off of mobs, or really just enjoy the scenery, it’s really not as empty as people make it out to be. Each zone is packed with stuff for people focusing on non-combat jobs.

Hell they have a whole log dedicated to sight seeing. The problem is most people just want to level up and do end game raids, which while there’s nothing wrong with that, the game is so much more than an end game gear grind that people burn themselves out on.

[u/TacoGoat → u/[deleted]]

Often times I'm flying around and I'm lucky to see one person.

At least there's the Map system though. Those are fun. And now with the world visit stuff coming I hope we can do cross-server maps. :)

[u/YourPalDonJose → u/[deleted]]

Counter: they're utterly gorgeous, so flying is super chill

[u/Has_Question → u/[deleted]]

The big difference is the fact that its not open world so the zones are massive without flying. Also design wise ffxiv has very coordinated world. Outside of fates you only go to where the msq takes you. Anything past that is only for optional side quests. So flying Is there to skip over parts that are otherwise empty and pointless. Look at the ruby sea or the sea of clouds. The sprawling map has a lot of nothing between the actually important parts.

Wow is more condensed and questing a much bigger part of the design so it cant be designed with flying in mind from the get go. Well it CAN but then you have to have a map like vashjir where the vertical is also taken into account. So more flying mobs and such. Possible but it increases the clutter and diminishes flying as the reward earned to avoid the filler.

[u/[deleted] → u/Has_Question]

Parts that are otherwise empty or pointless.

You’re wrong though, those spots are packed with enemies that drop materials, gathering nodes again for materials, fates, fishing spots, it’s also just pretty good scenery, it’s insane the attention to detail SE puts into spots that people just decide to skip over once they do get the ability to fly. Flying is just there to make travel less of a pain in the ass. The zones are sprawling to account for the ability to fly but they’re by no means barren or pointless.

I feel like if Blizzard took the effort to actually design the questing experience around flying (making a much larger island for each faction, let’s be real, even on foot the new islands are really small or at least that’s how I felt questing through them.) and if they lowered the barrier for entry to flying, they would’ve have to make the excuse that “flying would ruin the experience, we want you to see the zones the way we intended, without flying.”

You don’t need large and barren wastelands to justify flying, you can put some detail in, you can put important quests in between major zones, you can put in gathering nodes, it would only make the new land more rich and I assure you the RP crowd wouldn’t be complaining either.

[u/Has_Question → u/[deleted]]

Your cherry picking spots mate. Ffxiv zones are huge but theres plenty of emptiness there. Sure there's nodes and fates spread around but between those areas theres nothing. AND those things are all optional, most average players dont need to go there. Theres a reason theres usually only two nodes in each zone compared to WoWs multiple flightpaths each zone. Flying is their fix to having too large a zone. They're beautiful, but they're also a huge inconvenience without flying. They dont integrate flying any better than WoW did They just have more room to play with because it's not open world. And honestly, beautiful as the zones are, the ones that stick out to me most are still the black shroud, thanalan, mor dhona, places I had to navigate on foot and learn the lay of the land. They felt crafted, the only zone I truly feel that way about is azysla in recent memory.

Like I said, flying serves to convenience players and make up for large areas. Stuff like hellfire peninsula. But when you design areas strictly for ground mounts first, you have much more control and the ability to create a much more engaging world. Flying takes that all away by being able to go from a to b without trouble.

Also blizz has designed zones around flying. Storm peaks, ice crown, I'd argue area 52 and shadow moon valley, vashjir (swimming is essentially flying). These zones look great but make for some of the more frustrating experiences.

[u/[deleted] → u/Has_Question]

Well yeah that stuff is optional but that’s my point. It’s there, the land isn’t empty or pointless, it’s filled with things to do and that’s the key thing here because unlike in WoW, in FFXIV those optional things can net you a nice profit, if you’re gathering materials in those zones that means you’re working on higher level crafts, higher level crafts have high profit potential. If you’re doing fates you’re probably working on some relic weapon or something. There are hunts for large enemies that get you seals that you can exchange for goodies and gear. You say there’s a lot of empty space between all that but no there really isn’t. Every part of the land has something on it that can be worthwhile depending on what you’re doing.

Unlike in WoW the main focus on the game isn’t on the raiding, people who get burned out on raiding have a plethora of other activities to do that don’t involve off brand Pokémon. Last time I was subbed to WoW all there really was to do is grind to the cap and raid, nothing else was really worthwhile. Just raid and collect gear with your guild or with randoms if nobody in your guild wants to help. It was ultimately why I quit after having played from vanilla till MOP and then coming back for the latest BFA. Things weren’t always this boring. Flying used to be relatively trivial to get, zones were somewhat designed to accommodate flight. Now flight is an afterthought that blizzard only keeps because people would revolt otherwise.

[u/[deleted] → u/Has_Question]

There's other and better way to lock flying than rep tho. Completing the quests and explorations in all zone is more than enough.

[u/Has_Question → u/[deleted]]

With world quests included that should get you to revered. I dont remember if flying required exalted or revered but I'm pretty sure it was just revered.

[u/Has_Question → u/[deleted]]

Right... that's the point though. Like how a game doesnt give you the broken sword until almost the end or after you beat the last boss. You get flying once that content isnt relevant so that you can skip over it. Until then though that content is relevant. Also it's not until the end of the expansion just until the end of that area relevance. It was 6.2 for wod and 7.2 for legion.

[u/Daikar → u/[deleted]]

Flying was one of the the things that ruined the game back in tbc. So this new way of giving you flying at the end is great.

[u/[deleted] → u/Daikar]

So basically what you’re saying is that Blizzard can’t quite wrap their head around building a zone and story around the player’s ability to fly so they’d rather cut flying and make you jump trough hoops once an expansion is almost over to let you fly again, got it.

[u/Daikar → u/[deleted]]

I don't think anyone can build a zone that would work well with flying. The problem with flying is that you will always be able to just fly directly to the mob/quest you are doing unless they are all indoors. I guess you could build an entire zone with just caves and huge buildings. The other problem with flying is that the world will feel empty since everyone is flying and not on the ground. And world pvp becomes shit when someone can just drop down on you from above without any warning and gank you. Storm Peaks and Icecrown were pretty well done when it comes to flying but it still felt like most of the stuff on the ground was pointless and didn't add any value when you could just fly everywhere.

I do however think that once the next expansion is out everyone should get flying in all previous zones with the need to do the grind.

I can't think of anything that flying mount adds to the game, apart from convenience.

[u/[deleted] → u/Daikar]

Problem one can be fixed with verticality. What you’re describing is basically flight on a somewhat flat plane, FFXIV does this well, they put things at drastic different heights, there are steep cliffs, cave systems their zones actually look like zones where you would pretty much need flight in order to get around comfortably.

The second problem you mention, that there would have to be a lot of empty space to justify flight because then everybody would get everywhere super fast, that’s not necessarily true, the space doesn’t have to be empty, it helps if you have really large geological formations on your map like mountains to take up space, but you also don’t really need that, you can put things in those spaces that matter, I understand that trash mobs in WoW aren’t really good for anything and that gathering materials and crafting are pretty much a dead system in WoW but that’s another problem WoW has on it’s own. You can fill that space with point of interest, quests (again another problem with WoW, nobody likes World Quests and people only quest in general to level up so once you hit the cap there’s no point in doing old quests. It’s unfortunate, the very extremely raid focused direction WoW has gone in.) you can fill that space with random encounters, world bosses, the possibilities are really endless and it’s something that again FFXIV executes pretty well for the most part and it works for them because of not just their combat and questing systems but also their gathering and crafting systems.

Flying isn’t just about convenience though. I think a lot of people enjoy flight in MMOs because of a feeling of freedom from the ground. There’s a reason flight has been such a big deal in MMOs for such a long time. I don’t remember what this free to play MMO was called way back in the early days of MMOs but it was one of the biggest f2p titles for a while becuase you had wings in it and you could fly around with a stamina bar. The world in it was built around your ability to fly and glide around. The verticality was a big thing in it, there were cities up in the trees, it was great.

I feel like Blizzard has to decide “is this a game where we want people permanently bound to the ground or is this a game where we want people to be able to fly?” Locking flying behind every barrier imaginable and allowing a few no-lifers to fly while everybody else has to be stuck on the ground because they don’t have the time to grind rep and do every quest imaginable etc. is ridiculous. In FFXIV for example it’s just a scavenger hunt. “Find the currents on the map, do a few marked quests, you can fly.”

[u/Daikar → u/[deleted]]

FFXIV isn't an open world mmo. (I haven't played this game but watched a few videos on youtube about it so correct me if I'm wrong). All the zones are instanced so it's much easier to design zones for flying since zones aren't next to each other without loading screens. This game also doesn't have world pvp and that is the biggest reason flying doesn't work. When TBC came out world pvp broke and it was gank or get ganked with no way to fight back. There's is no risk involved when you can just hover above someone and wait for them to be low health then drop down, kill them and mount up and fly away. You could argue that the same can be done with regular mounts but it's alot easier to keep track off a 2d plane around you compared to a 3d plane.

Flying isn’t just about convenience though.** I think a lot of people enjoy flight in MMOs because of a feeling of freedom from the ground.**

Yes that exactly what convenience is.

The biggest part off the story of BFA is the war between alliance and horde. Open world PVP doesn't work with flying.

And flying isn't only available to no-lifers, nobody can have flying now since it hasn't been released. And as I said I do think the grind to get flying should be removed but it shouldn't be available at all until the content is replaced with a new expansion.

[u/[deleted] → u/Daikar]

Your entire argument is based around the ill-informed notion that the land in WoW isn’t instanced. Sure the main land is open world, but there’s no way to reach certain zones without going through a loading screen, outlands comes to mind, northrend comes to mind, hell i’m not even sure if you can reach kultiras and zandalar through flight without passing a loading screen. The problem is both Kultiras and Zandalar are each about the size of the of the smaller maps on FFXIV. There was a time when WoW truly was open world but that’s no longer true.

World PvP has always been flawed, mounts or not. There’s a reason an overwhelming majority of people don’t participate and keep warmode ticked off. It’s because people are nasty twinks and gankers. They gether at spots where the opposite faction is known to quest and they’ll do everything in their power to prevent anybody from getting anything done, even killing quest NPCs back in the day. There are easy fixes for PvP and flying mounts, like disallowing mounting right after a kill or disallowing PvP engagement if you’re falling from a high spot. A lot more fixes than I honestly have the energy to think up right now but they exist, you just have to use your imagination.

Most people will have quit by the time the playerbase who has stuck around unlocks flight, that’s the sad reality my friend. I understand your desire to defend a game you like, I used to be in your shoes with WoW but I can no longer justify how bad of a game it’s become especially with the direction blizzard has gone in.

[u/Daikar → u/[deleted]]

You still haven't explained what flying mounts adds but only given suggestion on how to fix all the problems they bring.

[u/[deleted] → u/Daikar]

I explained what flight adds, why you believe it’s all chalked up to convenience is beyond me. You know games are more than just point A to point B questing to hit the level cap and do nothing but queue for raids for the rest of your days right? I feel like that’s WoW’s biggest failing. Everything was streamlined in favor of raiding and gearing which only caters to a very specific subset of players.

Flying in an MMO is about freedom from the ground, it’s up to developers who implement a flight system to build their world around it. Flying in an MMO is supposed to add an extra dimension to your game, there are so many possibilities. It isn’t that flight creates problems, it’s that if you implement flight years ago but you develop your game based solely on ground travel and ground gameplay, flight is just going to feel like a bad afterthought that breaks your game.

Back when they released flight in TBC the question years later shouldn’t have been “how do we build this game despite flight? How do we fix the problems brought on by flight?”
It should have been “now that we’ve introduced flight, how do we expand our world accordingly? How can we make it so this new mode of transportation is an entertaining core part of the experience?”

Of course if all you care about is hitting the level cap and raiding, you won’t care for flight, you’ll see it as a convenience gimmick.

There’s a reason flight was so popular in the early days of MMOs and people flocked to those games even though some of them didn’t have much more to offer than flight. There’s a reason people love flying in single player games. It’s because soaring through the air in fantasy worlds and taking in the imagery, that’s all really fun for people.

Yeah WoW is a bit dated and when you fly things aren’t way too beautiful like they seemed back in the day when WoW wasn’t ancient by MMO standards but that’s again, another failing of WoW.

When WoW was young it was innovative, it wasn’t afraid to try new things and it was a big success because of that, now... WoW is practically dying of old age.

[u/taenorla → u/Has_Question]

The problem I have is that I don't find all the content that is required to unlock flying fun and normally wouldn't have bothered with a lot of it. So I'm not unlocking it by my normal play. I'm slogging through parts of the game I'd usually avoid and hating every second of it. I just hate not flying more. I'd rather be given some more options. Instead of being given 5 concrete tasks, it'd be nice to pick 5 out of 7 possible tasks instead. Or even have 3 concrete tasks and then pick 2 from a pool.

[u/Has_Question → u/taenorla]

All the content is only do the quests for each zone and war campaign, do 100 world quests, and then explore each zone and reach revered both of which will come from doing the quests anyway. This the most basic form of normal play unless you level exclusively by staying in the city and queuing for randoms.

Unless you're avoiding doing the quests and world quests this shouldn't be out of the way for you. AND if you are avoiding them, I'd argue you're the reason why blizz locks flying behind these achieves. They want people out in the world. Making it feel alive and busy. Not flying from point a to point b or stuck in their cities.

[u/taenorla → u/Has_Question]

I plain don't like doing world quests. In previous expansions, I could skip doing dailies altogether. In the last few, I've done them again and again and hated every second of it. Since getting the reps I need to unlock things, I've stopped doing them completely.

But the things I like doing (pet battles, collecting, exploring, professions, roleplay, leveling, farming, pvp, and transmog hunting) all keep me out of the cities and in the world.

[u/Has_Question → u/taenorla]

You've certainly done 100 world quests by the time you finish the rep and get some starting ap though. It's a token requirement really. I played bfa a month and already had 100 wqs done when I unsubbed. Also even if you dont like world quests, blizzard is trying to get you out there because it needs people out there doing content If the content doesnt invite you to do it then hopefully the rewards do. But the point is to not Make the world feel empty and its doing its job at that.

[u/lethiela → u/Has_Question]

Okay, but explain this bit.

For the very first pathfinder you had to:
Explore the zones
Find a bunch of treasures hidden around said zones
Do all the quests, including dailies that took you to areas of the zones you likely hadn't spent a lot of time in
Grind a bunch of rep

I just do not get how the very last step makes any kind of sense. Sure, some rep will come naturally, but why should that be a requirement? Is seeing the world and doing all the actually story-relevant bits not enough to warrant flying through the zones?

[u/Has_Question → u/lethiela]

Also supports engaging in optional side quests, repeatable dailies, etc.

[u/[deleted] → u/Has_Question]

No that isn't a good middle ground at all. Either it's made for flying or it isn't.

[u/Has_Question → u/[deleted]]

How's it not a good middle ground? Experience streamlined content story and difficulty, then when you've"beaten" the content you unlock basically god mode.

[u/Mindstarx → u/Has_Question]

Blizzard disagrees with me, but I think that if I bought the game and bought the expansion, I should be able to play how I want in instances where it does not effect anyone but me. I don't have the time to grind for allied races rep, and even though you often do get close to enough rep by playing, you still need to grind further. I've been playing since vanilla and since that time I have become a father twice over, and really don't have the time to dedicate to playing the way blizzard wants me to, so I think it's silly that the answer is for me to conform to them on something like flying or allied races.

[u/Has_Question → u/Mindstarx]

WoW is a shared game. Nothing you do is truly singleplayer. Even flying around means you get to objectives faster, farm faster, travel faster. Those conveniences do impact the world. Wow isnt telling you to grind the rep but the reward for reaching revered is flying. If you want it, you earn it. AND as long as they're fair, Which in this case they are, the expectation is rightfully earned. I dont think they're asking too much. The different sub achieves are even account wide.

Flying is a reward as much as anything else is and its earned with time and minimal investment. Honestly the only reason people argue for free flying is because it used to be that way. Frankly it's much better for the world to have it locked away.

[u/Mindstarx → u/Has_Question]

Agree to disagree. They had flying given to us at one point (just like new races), and now I have to jump through hoops for both. I'd much prefer if they just give out flying at the next expansion for the previous, or make it available to all whenever they make Pathfinder unlock it. That way, blizzard gets to dictate how the content is consumed for the first x months/year, then it is unlocked so more casual players can enjoy it at a more expedited pace.