I hope there is flying on Terminus. After slaving away for hours and hours on end, collecting things, running missions and gaining credibility with factions. The greatest reward would be to fly. And what better way is there to showcase their game. Lets face it, not a lot of games allow this. Now I agree that it shouldn't be used to bypass zones. But if you have done it on one toon, shouldn't we be rewarded for doing it again on others? Or are we expected to go through the entire process again without any advantages. For video games I like to feel powerful. After gaining gear and coming back to a zone that previously gave me trouble, and dominating it. It feels pretty good, so does coming back to a mountain or a pass and flying over it. It's hugely gratifying, for me anyways. I know this is a huge undertaking and won't occur too soon. But I sure hope the team is considering it eventually. It's 2018 let us fly! =D
To me, flying killed every perspective of size and danger in mmos.
Suddently paths are worthless, mountains are manageable and ennemies are avoidable. Once flying has been obtained, there is no way to remove it and full portions of the game's depth and sociability are gone.
I liked levitate because it had limitations, but flying ? Please no.
Depending on your definition of flying (like mounts), I disagree wholly. Flying is one of the reasons people don't know their way around games anymore. Same with markers and "follow me" paths. As a matter of fact, I don’t even want mounts because it just creates issues with where they should be allowed and if you can fight while still on them, etc. But I know I will not win the latter battle.
I’m not saying flying is bad. It works for some games. It just doesn’t work for all games and this is one I hope it doesn’t work. If flying is allowed it should be some type of high level spell that only last for a short period of time. That way by the time you get it you should already know your way around and the short duration won't allow you to cheat. Maybe have flying/levitate to get to a hard to access zone or something, but not as a travel method.
I agree with the no-flying club as reason stated already above. However the fixed path griffons in EQ2 I could deal with as the player didnt control the path, they could jump off so maybe fixed path flying animals for travel can be adapted in some areas where it was fitting. Or adding to that underwater zones and oceans, be cool to ride a dolphin or whale down into the great depths.
I think flying could absolutely have potential. However, it would have to be done right to protech the size and danger of the world. Any game that includes flying should be built with that in mind. There should be flying mobs who aggro, most intelligent ground mobs should have a ranged weapon of some type, even if it's only throwing a dagger or even a stone. Flying should be risky, if you get hit you should have the chance of crashing, which means taking damage depending on how high you are. I think the likely hood of a crash should be fairly high, given that even a small amount of damage to a wing can easily break it.
If it was implemented with dangers at all levels of play flying could be fantastic. That being said, I hope they don't do it here. The game has not already shown this included and taking the time to work in a whole flight system, AI, and mob population in a 3d area instead of 2d would surely extend development significantly, and I want this game sooner rather than later.
No thanks, flying is very much against the tenants of the game as far as I can see. Flying removes danger, make travel between locations trivial and means people can bypass content. There will most certainly not be flying mounts for launch and I would be very surprised if they were brought in down the road.
From the FAQ:
19.2 Will there be flying mounts?
While there will certainly be flying NPCs, whether or not players will have the ability to fly is undecided at this point. What we can say is that if we do offer flying mounts, either before or after launch, the goal will be to make travel more fun; not to allow players to avoid, bypass, or skip over large chunks of content.
Also, you may want to continue the discussion in this thread: https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/4393/flying-hazards
Flying is one of those aspects that need to be designed for from day one. Both from an artistic rendering perspective (boo unintended puns) and from a game immersion perspective.
True off the rails overland flight allows players to effectively slow speed teleport from one location to another as it is very hard to program AI to work in the Z direction as all abilities will then also need a Z component. The ability to design for true 3D is also heavily dependent on the game engine, I am assuming Unity is more than capable but it needs to be part of the design from day one.
I would be ok with free form flying from an immersion standpoint if the following were true:
1) No mounts in bags. If you want your flying mount then it needs to have a home that you pick it up from and need to return it to or you can call it from with an appropriate delay for it to travel from its home to you when you call.
2) All mounts have hit points and can be killed and cannot be easily or cheaply resurrected. You must take care of them or you will lose them.
3) Flight magic is mana EXPENSIVE. You are lifting yourself or someone else and the higher you go the more work is required. An example would be you can fly at 10ft off the ground for 100ft for one casting or 50ft at 20ft off the ground. The spell auto refreshes but each casting takes like 5% of the casters mana and no mana regeneration while flying. Bonus points if character plus equipment weight is also a function of the flight distance per casting equation.
4) Cities have no fly zone enforcement by powerful NPCs and spell formations.
5) Wild zones have flying Mobs that will pursue you into the sky where it is very difficult for you to fight. Bonus points once again if dragons have shifting hunting grounds that are hard to track and if you fly around in a dragons hunting ground it comes to eat you and show its dominance of the sky.
If these are in place I think a lot of the negatives of flying in a game decrease to a manageable level. Sometimes there are other ways to implement the desired mechanic without going full flight.
Alternatives to full flight:
1) Flight on Rails: WoW did, at the time, an innovative alternative to the travel system by putting in flight paths that let you travel backwards in a invulnerable manor while still letting you semi experience the world. Blimps and boats are really this as well with the added option of getting yourself killed.
2) Shadow walk: A method of shifting into and out of the shadow realm which lets you move at 10x normal speed in a greyed out, non-intractable world. Shadow Walk can be balanced by: limiting time in the shadow realm, restricted entrance and exit points, dangers in the shadow realm and some form of cost per use.
3) Wind walk: Similar to Shadow walk but you turn into wind that you can partially control but is effected by environmental conditions that may make it harder to control with most of the balance rules suggested for Shadow Walk added in.
I do not like saying that a fellow community member’s desire is a bad idea, all ideas are good ideas that just need refinement, but I do have reservations and a negative opinion of a WoW style flying mount system. I feel like it would have more negatives than positives.
My thoughts,
Trasak
You're certainly not alone with your opinion, Tyler :)
I also loved riding my wyvern in VG, and I absolutely loved gliding in Aion (characters had wings) or Archage (actual gliders). Levitation as in EQ1 is also great.
There certainly are ways to prevent to problems mentioned above, for example NPCs could have huge aggro range above (and ranged attacks with similar range). Or there could be NPC patrols on flying mounts over important areas. Or actual flying beasts.
But this would take additional developer resources to design and implement, so I'd rather have them focus on the ground at first! :)
Having flying would undercut all of our hopes to have an EQ/Vanguard style game.
Wait, Vanguard had flying, never mind.
The downsides to flying are quite legitimate however. Perhaps instead of "I love flying" or "Flying would wreck the game" the focus should be on whether there are any ways to have flying witn minimal disadvantages. By flying I mean player-controlled not a fixed route public transport system.
One option that comes to mind is limiting flying to something done for fun and to enjoy the scenerary, but that cannot be used to bypass content or give rapid transportation. Thus, a flying mount terminal in a zone that allows you to rent a mount, but the mount can only land back at the terminal, you cannot fight from the mount and you cannot jump off.
To give more utility, a flying mount that can only be used in any particular zone after you have completed the zone's content normally, or after you are at such a level that all of the mobs in the zone are well below your level. Major downside to this - it would be used by harvesters and make it much harder for characters at a level that actually *belong* in the zone to get to nodes before slumming high levels took them.
dorotea said:To give more utility, a flying mount that can only be used in any particular zone after you have completed the zone's content normally, or after you are at such a level that all of the mobs in the zone are well below your level. Major downside to this - it would be used by harvesters and make it much harder for characters at a level that actually *belong* in the zone to get to nodes before slumming high levels took them.
Talk about horizontal progression. What if you had to basically level each mount in some way in order to use it in special zones and overall level effected its survivability in the open world but the mount still had a limited number of times it can be resurrected. Now tie in a full mount breeding crafting school where you can create the appearance and different special abilities of your mounts. You end up having a whole mini game filled with luck and highly valuable trading commodities with individual uniqueness.
I am refering to flying being a reward and motivation tool. If we can fly after we achieved or did the Main part or parts of the game. If doing all this content on your main character, and I'm sure it would be quite significant, would enable your alts to fly and to skip some things to level an alt. Why not? Anyways, I guess I like to experience several aspects of the game. Playing different classes, doing many professions, why shouldn't we be given an advantage to play our alts and have them level faster. Through the content we worked so hard to achieve the first time on our main characters.
The problem with flying in MMORPGs is once players have it they expect to keep it. Flying trivializes content unless the devs design the game around it and I'm not sure Pantheon is going to be that kind of game. You would probably hate flying by the time VR got done with it because I am betting they would make it difficult and dangerous with all sorts of restrictions. In fact...I really liked the gliders concept in ArcheAge that was just enough airtime to be fun without letting players skip everything. The gliders needed high places to launch from, one shot and you fell, they had a time limit of 3 minutes or it failed, etc.
Vanguard had flying but it took quite a bit of work to get it. The problem was there weren't enough airborne threats and there was no limits on your flying so it trivialized travel in a huge way once you got it. WoW had the same issue except every expac they would strip players of flying as to not trivialize the new content and players would complain bitterly about losing flying. I never played AION but that was a game with flying as a focus it looked too much like WoW for me to bother with it but who knows maybe they implemented flying content better? Maybe someone with experience with AION can chime in.
I think the key is putting plenty of limitations on flying and making it difficult to perform. Make sure there are threats either from the environment (wind/rain) or plenty of flying mobs. Perhaps have areas only accessible by flying but make the flights trecherous. I think it's possible for VR to achieve a good balance and include the feature in some form.
Tyler said:I am refering to flying being a reward and motivation tool. If we can fly after we achieved or did the Main part or parts of the game. If doing all this content on your main character, and I'm sure it would be quite significant, would enable your alts to fly and to skip some things to level an alt. Why not? Anyways, I guess I like to experience several aspects of the game. Playing different classes, doing many professions, why shouldn't we be given an advantage to play our alts and have them level faster. Through the content we worked so hard to achieve the first time on our main characters.
I believe there will be some bonus to alts through the progeny system though little is known at this point. I do not think it will go as far as being able to skip content or level significantly faster though. I cannot see a system whereby if a flying mount is achieved on your main that it would be passed down to your alt in order to skip content and I do not think its something that the majority would want. The way the devs talk Pantheon is more about the journey than the destination and we will want to level another character to experience that journey again, not just rush it to max level because we have done it before...
Tyler said:enable your alts to fly and to skip some things to level an alt. Why not?
Because each class will feel and play very differently. You should have to go through the same types of difficulties at each level to learn how that particular class can overcome them. That way you don't end up with max level characters that you don't fully know how to play because you skipped a bunch of content. There will be plenty of other ways to make leveling alts more bearable, but not so much so that you can level up without getting the full, raw experience of a different class. And for most people, the alts will be a different race too which means there will be a whole new starting area that you probably haven't seen yet, so why would you want to essentially skip over that? So much of Pantheon is the little details and secrets hidden in the world that take a long time to fully discover. Flying over that negates the hundreds of hours devs put into creating it. The world is absolutely huge and full of depth. Maybe if you thoroughly explored every single nook and cranny in Terminus, you could earn the right to fly over it. But that's an unrealistically massive feat.
Tbh I don't think there's a way to implement flying without significant downsides. MMORPGs are utterly and completely content-driven. That's not a bad thing, but it puts almost the entire burden on the developers to keep the game interesting. If developers allow players to churn through content more quickly, they would be simply shooting themselves in the foot. Slower progression gives the team more time to release higher quality expansions before too many people get bored. The key is to slow down progression as much as possible without making it boring or frustrating. That way you can add more quality content to the game around the same time most of the players have experienced what the game already has to offer. Caving to impatient players and giving them shortcuts only hurts the game in the long run. Devs would be rushed to put out expansions faster to give players something new to do, but the quality of these expansions gradually declines due to lack of time, thus eventually decreasing overall player enjoyment. This has happened time and time again to other games.
Incentivizing the creation of alts is a great way to keep players occupied over longer periods of time. Making the process of leveling them significantly faster just undermines that goal. It's cool that you want to experience all the game has to offer. But I don't see why you should be able to do that more rapidly.
Eh, not a fan of flying mounts. Taming regular beasts like a horse is hard enough but finding some mythic creature with the strength to carry a fully armored person (or Ogre) that is docile enough to be domesticated?
Then of course all the above arguments with the downsides.
I've played 2 games with flying in them, Aion and Archeage. I have to say in both they trivialized PvE content (both games are mainly PvP though). I have yet to play a game where the ability to fly isn't just a way to bypass challenge or completely (or mostly) mitigate threat from PvE. The only way I can see it not trivializing is putting artificial limits on flight, either duration (so you can't just fly over everything), or altitude (so ground mobs could agro and shoot at you) or some other mechanics I can't think of, which then just makes it feel artificial.
I also played Vanguard: Sage of Heroes, but it wasn't built from the beginning with flying, and adding flying mounts greatly trivialized content.
