Flight.

I've seen that some effort has been put into flight mechanics for the game, specifically the flying mounts that are super rare.

I'm curious if flight will be a thing in other ways, and how might the mounts retain their superior quality in spite of other methods of flight being used?

Ideas I had were magical items and abilities of some spell casters (mages and clerics granting the power of flight with a buff, summoners summoning a flying mount, bards poly-morphing into small flying creatures like ravens, and magical items that grant the power to non-magical classes). Travel speeds for flight would be roughly the same as running speed, maybe a bit faster, but far slower than flying mounts.

These powers/items would be higher end, obviously, and should have unique benefits and drawbacks (poly-morphing into a bird means you can be 1 shot killed, but also means you are less noticeable and possibly benefit from stealth).

It also raises the question of aerial combat and air born threats, such as large birds of prey, bats, dragons, and other things. Maybe a key benefit to the flying mount is that they can bypass these threats, maybe a fear aura or something in addition to being faster than traditional flight.

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Grihm

As far as i understood it, only specific ranks will be able to fly. Kings, queens, Mayors etc. I may be wrong, but that´s how i understood it.

WizardTim

Grihm wrote: »

As far as i understood it, only specific ranks will be able to fly. Kings, queens, Mayors etc. I may be wrong, but that´s how i understood it.

Yes, they will be the ones granted access to the flying mounts, as well as rare loot drops from high end raids, as far as I understand it.

Grihm

wolfwood82 wrote: »

Grihm wrote: »

As far as i understood it, only specific ranks will be able to fly. Kings, queens, Mayors etc. I may be wrong, but that´s how i understood it.

Yes, they will be the ones granted access to the flying mounts, as well as rare loot drops from high end raids, as far as I understand it.

Noted * thumbs up *
That mounts could affect groups sounds really intriguing. I like the bards transformation part. I can see many benefits to it, and interesting additions to fights.

George_Black

Flying makes the world less interesting and less daunting.
I am against all flying ideas except for the 20 lord types per server.

Since I havent played w0w, I only experienced flying in ff14 and a tiny bit back in l2. I was bored with both of them.

Why would I fly when I choose to play an adventure game and go through thick forests, caves, or climb mountains.

Dygz

Flying through thick forests is fun as is flying over mountains. Especially when polymorphed.
Climbing in caves and mountains is also fun.

Maezriel

Flying will be extremely limited in the game w/ at most only 20 flying mounts on a server at any one time and see all them would be very rare as you'd need to collect rare mob drops and all the castles will need to be occupied

George_Black

Dygz wrote: »

Flying through thick forests is fun as is flying over mountains. Especially when polymorphed.
Climbing in caves and mountains is also fun.

Says you.

Marcet

Polymorphing into a raven to gain intel while camouflaged as a normal bird on an enemy castle sounds so fun, but it should be very hard to obtain that kind of magic, so not everyone has it and it's rarely seen.
Hot-air ballons could be nice, only for 4 players and expensive to buy, just for one use.

WizardTim

sguise as anything other than me (a rug, a bird, a bunny) than suddenly transforming and attacking

George Black wrote: »

Flying makes the world less interesting and less daunting.
I am against all flying ideas except for the 20 lord types per server.

Since I havent played w0w, I only experienced flying in ff14 and a tiny bit back in l2. I was bored with both of them.

Why would I fly when I choose to play an adventure game and go through thick forests, caves, or climb mountains.

The point of discussion isn't "how fun is this", it's "how can this be *made* fun".

I'm well aware that flight tends to shrink the world size. Which is why I specified that flight speeds be limited to maybe a touch faster than normal run speeds. These speeds might vary depending on the methods used to attain flight (the polymorph might go a bit faster than running speed, buffs a bit faster than that, summoner mounts being a bit faster still, and items being roughly equal to running speed, or highly variable depending on the quality and nature of said items). The reason for that is to try and maintain the world size and keep travel as a logistical concern.

I'd also be very opposed to flight abilities for caravans and trade animals. I like that travel time is a real thing to factor into this world's game play, and flight SHOULD be a fairly rare or costly thing to invest in. Mages and Clerics who invest in flight buffs should be sought for that investment, and it should require a significant sacrifice of skill points to be able to obtain those buffs. Conversely, mages and clerics who do not take those buffs should be sought for other things of equal value. Likewise for bards and their proposed polymorph spell, it should require a significant investment of skill points to get up to that point. One that really only works for bards who want to go down a play style path that favors deceptive utility over combat.

The other thing meant to keep flight as an interesting aspect of the game world is both tactical advantages/disadvantages in warfare, and aerial combat as well as air born threats. Adding elements of risk and danger to flight, particularly within the domain of major flying beasts, potentially adds more to the world experience.

Maezriel

wolfwood82 wrote: »

sguise as anything other than me (a rug, a bird, a bunny) than suddenly transforming and attacking

George Black wrote: »

Flying makes the world less interesting and less daunting.
I am against all flying ideas except for the 20 lord types per server.

Since I havent played w0w, I only experienced flying in ff14 and a tiny bit back in l2. I was bored with both of them.

Why would I fly when I choose to play an adventure game and go through thick forests, caves, or climb mountains.

The point of discussion isn't "how fun is this", it's "how can this be *made* fun".

I'm well aware that flight tends to shrink the world size. Which is why I specified that flight speeds be limited to maybe a touch faster than normal run speeds. These speeds might vary depending on the methods used to attain flight (the polymorph might go a bit faster than running speed, buffs a bit faster than that, summoner mounts being a bit faster still, and items being roughly equal to running speed, or highly variable depending on the quality and nature of said items). The reason for that is to try and maintain the world size and keep travel as a logistical concern.

I'd also be very opposed to flight abilities for caravans and trade animals. I like that travel time is a real thing to factor into this world's game play, and flight SHOULD be a fairly rare or costly thing to invest in. Mages and Clerics who invest in flight buffs should be sought for that investment, and it should require a significant sacrifice of skill points to be able to obtain those buffs. Conversely, mages and clerics who do not take those buffs should be sought for other things of equal value. Likewise for bards and their proposed polymorph spell, it should require a significant investment of skill points to get up to that point. One that really only works for bards who want to go down a play style path that favors deceptive utility over combat.

The other thing meant to keep flight as an interesting aspect of the game world is both tactical advantages/disadvantages in warfare, and aerial combat as well as air born threats. Adding elements of risk and danger to flight, particularly within the domain of major flying beasts, potentially adds more to the world experience.

This entire comment is why I'd actually prefer Intrepid didn't have any form of flying at all. Same w/ Family Summon, Arena Ladders, etc.

Seems like all it will do is lead to people to ask for more of these systems which just degrades the spirit of the game.

George_Black

Then you didnt listen to the dev update that there wont be aerial fights or any content to make flying a gameplay system.

Which means that as soon you lift up above all the agro mobs, that are there to block your way and make zones challenging you have, guess what, a less interesting and less daunting world. It doesnt matter if your speed is slow.

So no flying, except for the castle owners and a few mayors. Rare and prestigious. Leave it to them to use their mounts for tactical advantage.

You want some extra flying?
Science node zeppelin. A bunch of players boarding the thing, no cutsceens, boring travel from node to node. Slow as.
Benefit? You dont risk dying.
Cons? You carry only what you have on you and it will boring just being up there. Maybe do some rp to kill the time.

Merek

I think the ability to fly is really cool, just not in this game. It provides an unfair advantage as is. Restricting it to only those with titles (Mayor, etc.) feels like a bandage for wound, a wound that will start to fester. How long until they allow non-finite mounts to fly? We know Griffin mounts are in the game, so, when will they drop an update that lets them fly because, "Why not?".

George_Black

Merek wrote: »

I think the ability to fly is really cool, just not in this game. It provides an unfair advantage as is. Restricting it to only those with titles (Mayor, etc.) feels like a bandage for wound, a wound that will start to fester. How long until they allow non-finite mounts to fly? We know Griffin mounts are in the game, so, when will they drop an update that lets them fly because, "Why not?".

Flying mount skins make me nervous as well.
Dragons for lords isnt anything new. They are so few that it doesnt impact the world and gameplay of the game.

FuryBladeborne

OP,
The methods of flying are:

5 Mayors of Metropolis's
5 Kings or Queens
about 10 temporary flying mounts on a server at any given time from loot. A server can have 10,000 accounts logged in and 50,000 accounts registered to the server. These mounts have a timer to prevent a group of players from building up a supply of them and having more than about 10 on the server.
During castle sieges, certain officers will get flying mounts for the battle (5 available if I remember correctly)

The powers available to non-flying mounts are specific to the mount and are not used as attack. The flying mounts are PVP mounts and can attack in ways such as breathing fire.

Aside from flying mounts, there will be many gliding mounts to give players access to the speed of flight without trivializing content too much or making travel time too short. Remember that that economy is heavily dependent upon areas of the map being separate from others making items more valuable in specific regions than in others. If travel becomes too easy, then the prices in different regions becomes more uniform.

One of the early videos on mages showed the mage surrounded by a blue sphere and floating across a small chasm. So, it appears that at least some classes will have access to some kind of gliding or levitation without a mount required.

Noaani

I have a different take on flight in MMOs than most.

I dont see any reason why the pitfalls many of us have seen need to remain true as a general rule. These pitfalls only really exist in games that aren't designed for flight, yet have it.

If you design your game with flight in mind, these pitfalls can be peeled away one at a time.

Dont want flight used as a means to bypass content? Give that content aerial or anti-aerial mobs. Problem 100% solved.

Ashes isnt being made with this in mind, and so adding general flight to everyone in the game would be a mistake here. However, that doesnt mean it has to be the case in every game, it just needs to be a part of the games design.

FuryBladeborne

I agree.

Dreoh

I am of the opinion that unrestricted flight (ie: WoW or FF14) is inherently game and immersion breaking (unless the game is designed specifically with it as a core concept)

It completely and totally removes all danger in the world and any possible unique scenarios that could happen through organic rudimentary and restricted travel. Unrestricted flight is nothing more than a "content skip" with extra steps.
In AoC this is even more critical than most other games because travel and the dangers therein IS the major draw of the game.

I was overjoyed to hear that the unrestricted flight mounts would be exceptionally rare, and also temporary.

If you're wondering why I keep using the word "unrestricted" when referencing flight, it's because I do believe flight can have it's uses, as long as it's made to have drawbacks. A game that does restricted flight mostly well enough is Guild Wars 2, a game with a mount system that is commonly praised. Though I have many complaints about the power of the Skyscale mount, which has too powerful of flight capabilities and is far too good at what it does, I feel the Griffon mount is pretty much the best version of a flying mount I've seen.

The Skyscale mount has full-direction flight control like WoW or FF14, but you can only ascend a certain altitude above where you took off, attempting to go higher causes your mount to enter a "tired" state where it descends slowly and inevitably. However you can float in midair indefinitely as long as you don't try to go above that threshold, meaning if you start on the highest point of a map, you can fly straight towards any destination without worry. To ascend higher, you can scale mountains (as it's name implies) by hopping up footholds on terrain to "reset" the liftoff altitude.

The GW2 griffon requires you to manage your altitude actively by "flapping" and can never reach higher than the altitude you lifted off from. It could also just be considered a "gliding" mount, which I honestly think is just an inherently better concept for general gaming than a "flying" mount.

Tl;Dr: Free-flying bad

Dygz

Hmmn. Flying is very immersive - especially when polymorphed as an animal with flight.
WoW flying is restricted - you typically have to have played enough of the content to earn flight in any new expansion, so, you aren't really skipping new content, rather you are skipping previously played-through content.

But...the design for flight in Ashes seems like it should be fine.
We have to keep in mind that in Ashes we should not have static content, like we do in WoW, so...
We would be skipping new content if flying mounts were common, rather than rare.

Dreoh

Dygz wrote: »

WoW flying is restricted - you typically have to have played enough of the content to earn flight in any new expansion, so, you aren't really skipping new content, rather you are skipping previously played-through content.

If that's in response to my post that's not what I mean by restricted/unrestricted flying
That's just delayed unrestricted flying.

The way I was defining it is

Unrestricted flight is the ability to fly in any direction or even hover at will forever as if you were swimming but in the air. As if you just simply turned off gravity. It's boring, it's simple, it's too easy and is just a way to content skip in a pretty package.
Restricted flight is having to maintain your flight actively with skill. This is engaging, complex, and forces you to plan out your routes still so that you don't end up landing in a danger zone still.

Dygz

"Delay" is a restriction... but more specifically, you aren't "skipping content".
In WoW, flight is restricted until after content is completed.
Just because you define something, doesn't mean it's accurate.
"Boring" is subjective.

("Unrestrained" might be closer to what you're trying to convey.)

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