wow No Plans to Allow Flying on Argus

[Stan 5,018]

Ornyx has been active on the official forums recently, answering questions about flying on Argus. While some players have a feeling of flying "being taken away from them", Blizzard doesn't have any plans to allow it in the new zone.

No flight paths, just Lightforged Beacons, and on top of that, Krokul Flute upgrades your Flight Master's Whistle to summon a krokul tunneler to take you to the nearest Lightforged Beacon while on Argus. The item is gated behind Revered reputation with Argussian Reach. Getting around on Argus doesn't seem to be much of an issue, but we'd still like to hear your thoughts in the comments!

Here's a quick summary of what Blizzard had to say about Argus flying:

• People are upset to have "just earned flying" and now it's "taken away".
• New zones added in Patch content have never had flying allowed. (except Tanaan, but the zone was only a part of the original overworld of Draenor. It wasn't added in a patch)
• Argus is not supposed to be a friendly and hospitable place. If you're having trouble getting around Argus, you are probably not paying attention to the landscape.
• There are no plans to allow flying on Argus. 
• Flying is not a game's core feature and the community sees it as one for convenience.
• Isle of Quel'Danas didn't have good terrain to get around, especially for the dailies with the naga (on the east side), so they didn't allow flying in the zone.

Blizzard (Source)

The zone is so drab and really feels like nothing more than broken shore 2.0...same atmosphere/scenery just with too much mob density.

We spent months earning pathfinder just to have flying removed yet again.

This is going way too far blizzard, especially with the terrible terrain design on Argus. I hope blizzard will rethink their once again "no flying" debacle before they lose another drove of subscriptions in order to get their attention.

I think plenty of folks disagree with you on the first point, and Argus has been one of the best parts of Legion to me personally, but just to clarify on the second:

This is nothing new, and we don't have any plans to change this going forward. New zones added in patch content have never to my knowledge had flying allowed. Even when flying was introduced in 2.0, flying was not available on the Isle of Quel'danas when it released in 2.4. The same is true of Isle of Thunder and Timeless Isle from 5.2 and 5.4. These zones have always been about exploration, with a bit of danger, and Argus fits quite nicely into that theme.

I can understand that you may have recently earned Pathfinder and want to fly, but no one is stopping you from flying anywhere you want over the Broken Isles - but this is Argus.

If you're having trouble getting around Argus, you're probably not paying attention to the landscape. If you're dying in Fel flows, you're probably charging head first into them instead of leaping across the rocks floating about. If you're constantly being tagged by mobs, you're probably missing an easier way around the groups.

Argus isn't supposed to be a friendly and hospitable place, and I wouldn't bet my gold on a demon sitting down for tea with me any time soon. If you're having trouble and finding it difficult to get around and avoid pitfalls, then Argus is working as intended.

With all due respect you guys arent understanding the issue 

Before when new patch content was released without flying.... We had had flying since the moment we hit max level. so we actually got to enjoy is for quite awhile before ti was taken away.

Now, it's taken away very shortly after most people have earned it.... DOESN'T FEEL NEARLY AS GOOD'

I do understand the "issue" but we don't see it as an "issue". You're not on the Broken Isles anymore. 

I think we'd probably try to avoid things like this being so close together in the future, but its just a symptom of timing as far as I'm aware.

Well, perhaps it's time for the development team to acknowledge that flight is actually part of the game and develop content with the idea that we can fly rather than take the mindset of "we don't like flight, so we're going to restrict it--even after making people jump through hoops and holding them back for nearly a year without it."

The genie is out of the bottle. The development team needs to open their minds to that idea rather than constantly look for ways to pull back from it. 

I remember Lich King and the idea that we could fly early. And we flew. And we had fun. It was OK, really. 

Why exactly do the developers feel that only by restricting flight can they give us new things?

We can say buzz phrases like "the genie is out of the bottle" all day, but it doesn't get us anywhere. I think it's been well acknowledged that we are still open to the idea of flight or we wouldn't have flight in any content at all, no? We've moved to meet the community in the middle - that's what Pathfinder has been about. Earn your wings: show you've achieved completion of the content overall and you can fly.

There's not really an attitude of 'close mindedness' on the topic from the development team, we've had plenty of positive discussions on the direction of flying overall. I do think, however, that there are folks in the community who are 'close minded' to entertaining an idea of "maybe you shouldn't be able to fly around and skip all the content when new areas are released". 

I think these conversations need to be a two-way street, and the more we have everyone in the community calling the development team closed minded or pointing fingers, the further we get away from amicable understanding within the community. Of course I've always been happy to have those conversations, but whenever they start they very quickly dive into arguing instead of a discussion on the merits of each approach and that's really not something I want to be apart of.

I also don't think asking pointed, rhetorical questions is going to get us anywhere.

Tanaan. Wonder why you forgot about Tanaan. 
Tanaan. The patch zone that allowed flying. 
Tanaan, the MOST RECENT patch zone before Legion. 
Tanaan, the patch zone from the only other expansion that made you earn Pathfinder to fly before this one. 
Tanaan allowed flying because after you've waited over half a year to earn something, what you want is for it to be useful going forwards.

Tanaan was technically a part of the original overworld of Draenor. It wasn't added in a patch - a door was just opened via your shipyard in patch. 

I don't think they're quite equitable for a number of reasons from how they are accessed, the number of zones, how invasions and world quests function, etc.

Uh, I hope you're saying with timing and not rolling back on content releasing faster.

Yeah, timing wise. I don't have answers in front of me, and it's just my personal opinion, but I think in terms of spacing the fact that flight landed really close to the launch of 7.3 was unfortunate timing. 

I get why people are upset to have "just earned flying" and now its "taken away".

And how much of the terrain in Isle of Quel Denas was made to intentionally impede you? in Timeless Isle?

Well, Quel'Danas was pretty much an experiment of its time, but it did have a good bit of terrain to get around, especially for the dailies on the east side of the islands with the naga and such. Argus is massive compared to Quel'Danas, so most points comparing them are pretty moot.

I don't think the terrain was made to intentionally impede you by way of making you frustrated, as you can easily teleport to any subzone of all three zones, but rather it wants you to not charge head first into everything and actually explore. If that's how we wanted the game to be played, we'd probably just have a flat plane with a couple of trees here and there. 

The most frustrating part of Argus for me has been the area between The Spirit Crucible and the entrance to Antorus in the Antoran Wastes with the demon camps, bridges, and Fel flows, but I found that I was always looking for a shortcut and jumping off ledges instead of taking the route that was laid in front of me. Once I stopped doing that and learned other paths to the areas, I was having a much better time.

Establishing a history of bad decisions doesn't make it right.

Your one-liner is nice and all, but I'd appreciate it if you could explain to me why those were "bad decisions" retrospectively.

Yet its not a core game feature, its a convenient feature that saves time daily on an MMO. I never thought of it as a core feature, as the game doesnt REQUIRE us to have flying to progress anywhere. You can easily play the full game without flying, and you can play it with flying, that does not make it a core feature if you don't require it to finish the game.

This is semantics really but I'd agree that flying is not a core game feature. The community sees it as one for convenience, but in terms of design the game plays the same with and without, so it's pretty far from what I'd consider core.

So Valley of the Four Winds/Tanaris/The Barrens/Desolace/Jade Forest?
Can we have those back? Please? I'll trade a raid tier for well-designed zones again.

Can you adequately explain why pruning game features, making players earn them back, and then pruning them again before the expansion is over is considered a good decision?

In fact, should we start calling expansions contractions if they continually remove content?

I think I remember classic Desolace and Jade Forest very different from you.

Some of us respect you Ornyx. Just because this isn't even worth your time with how 'stupid' some of these people are. I could've used a meaner word but its not worth it. I dont even understand how people seem to think flying is so important. Someone even said its a core feature, when 0% of the game require us to fly to complete it.

I don't think I'd go quite that far. There is a point to be made for flying, and I think it's become a huge part of the game for the community, so it is an important conversation for me. For example, I do think the timing here is what has made this stick out even more, with a lot of folks earning flying just a few weeks before heading to Argus. 

Anyways, I just think we need to meet in the middle and be civil and not throw threats around and we can have good conversations to take to the development team. :)

You're a Blizzard employee. You have to agree with everything they do, at least publicly here on the forums.

I don't have to agree with everything we do. I have a personal opinion that I've expressed many times about content throughout Legion and beyond.

[Tri 138]

I think this is certainly open up to honest debate.

Who in the world actually enjoyed desolace?

[Migol 425]

The thing Onyx seems to hedge the hell around is how flying in this expansion required way way too many hoops.    He remarks on the "unfortunate timing" several times but the fact is we should have had access to flying much earlier in the expansion; IMO it should have been a reward after killing Xavius and reaching revered with all factions in the legion zones.   At that point you've clearly quested everywhere, the "puzzle artifacts" and other things flying trivializes are either done or irrelevant anyway, etc.   

Again, the hoops made to get flying this expansion just got way too convoluted, and that's not even counting their original intent of doing an invasion in each territory and whatnot.

[honeyblade 8]

Flying in Argus is unnecessary. Yes the mobs are hard and scary but it's the Legion's base of operations for goodness sake!! You go 20 feet up on your Ashes of Alar and see how long it takes them to shoot you down!!
I would like it if they actually had that happening in the game though, like when you fly over the druid or hunter order halls and get kicked out.
Or even just some flimsy justification that someone mentions somewhere.

On the topic of Pathfinder generally, I love the mechanic. It means you are more immersed in the world the first time you run through the content (and it really really is more immersive) and then later in the expansion, when there is more to get done regularly or you want to start on alts, you have the magic of flight to make it faster and easier.
That said, I agree with Migol and Ornyx about the difficulty and timing of it this expansion. One of my friends quit because he looked at Pathfinder, Part 2 (before they nerfed it) and realised he just couldn't do the grind anymore.

[DeathsDesign 92]

I find it interesting how the point that is consistently brought up is that flying is "taken away" as if Blizzard said here you go you can fly now, and then decided nope... no more flying until next time.  You can still fly in the Broken Isles, you can still fly in Kalimdor, you can still fly in Eastern Kingdoms, and Northrend, and Draenor as well.  You just don't have the ability on Argus, I mean it kind of makes sense.  Argus, the Eredar homeworld, headquarters for the Burning Legion, an overinfested landscape with nothing but demonic beings and corrupted entities, and the shell of A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT TITAN SOUL... I mean who knows It could be the demonic energies that dampen our mounts and their abilities to fly (yes I'm reaching but it makes sense in my head).

The point is that flying has not been taken away in any form.  It was just not made available in the Argus zones.

 

My only gripe (albeit a small one) is that I can't use my new class hall mount on Argus as a Druid... This is unacceptable!  but meh... I'll live to world quest another day.

[honeyblade 8]

Quote

My only gripe (albeit a small one) is that I can't use my new class hall mount on Argus as a Druid

I have the same problem just before the Kil'jaeden fight in ToS. My guildies were all showing off their class mounts just after they got them and there's me as a stag :(

[Ancalagon 35]

I enjoy the fact that flying is disabled in Argus.  It makes the zone feel larger and more dangerous (as intended).  This is enemy territory; flying would be quite hazardous, if not impossible (or maybe you should watch the cinematic again, for reference).

 

Pathfinder flying is meant to make the Broken Isles feel less threatening and less intimidating because we are now taking the fight to them (the isles are no longer a threat).

[Yridaa 490]

14 minutes ago, DeathsDesign said:

(yes I'm reaching but it makes sense in my head)

This is pretty much what I'm getting from Blizzard too. "It makes sense to us so deal with it".

 

Draenor, anyone? This is just a repeat.

[Valks 2,373]

17 minutes ago, Ancalagon said:

I enjoy the fact that flying is disabled in Argus.  It makes the zone feel larger and more dangerous (as intended).  This is enemy territory; flying would be quite hazardous, if not impossible (or maybe you should watch the cinematic again, for reference).

I kind of agree and disagree at the same time, and it's heavily dependent on what I am playing. As a Blood DK, I couldn't care less. Honestly, not in the slightest. I can pull an entire zone and survive, no questions asked. As an Arcane Mage, navigating the zones to try grab an elite at the end is hell. I guess it's all part of class fantasy, one is a walking corpse in armour and one is wearing a dress, but yeah.

[Bjorn 2]

Idk I don't mind not being able to fly, it adds the risk of dying. It does give a better sense of danger for sure. My only gripe is I can't Heroic leap anywhere I want.

[Ancalagon 35]

2 minutes ago, Blainie said:

I kind of agree and disagree at the same time, and it's heavily dependent on what I am playing. As a Blood DK, I couldn't care less. Honestly, not in the slightest. I can pull an entire zone and survive, no questions asked. As an Arcane Mage, navigating the zones to try grab an elite at the end is hell. I guess it's all part of class fantasy, one is a walking corpse in armour and one is wearing a dress, but yeah.

Hahaha, yeah, I suppose that's true.  As a prot pally, I can survive anything; but as soon as I switch to Ret... I need to use strategy or group with friends.  But I still don't mind it, even on my squishy alts.  If nothing else, it encourages people to work together, or think outside of the box.  This is an invasion after all, running through enemy ranks the same way that you do back home isn't going to cut it.

[Dejo93 984]

>Announced that the new zone won't have flying

>People complain about not being able to fly

Fucking idiots

[Valks 2,373]

16 minutes ago, Bjorn said:

Idk I don't mind not being able to fly, it adds the risk of dying. It does give a better sense of danger for sure. My only gripe is I can't Heroic leap anywhere I want.

They actually fixed/broke the hook for Outlaw so they can't use it to grab easy chests.

[Valks 2,373]

12 minutes ago, Ancalagon said:

Hahaha, yeah, I suppose that's true.  As a prot pally, I can survive anything; but as soon as I switch to Ret... I need to use strategy or group with friends.  But I still don't mind it, even on my squishy alts.  If nothing else, it encourages people to work together, or think outside of the box.  This is an invasion after all, running through enemy ranks the same way that you do back home isn't going to cut it.

Definitely a fair point, it wouldn't make much sense to run in and yolo my way through swathes of demons. The new buffs available do make it better though, with the tank for 45 seconds. Makes things far, far easier on my Mage and the damage buff is great for my tank.

[hDszzT 103]

I think it would be pretty cool if they allowed flight BUT had Legion troops in the sky everywhere ready to shoot you down.

That way you still have to pay attention to where you're going, and you really can't just fly from objective to objective safely. If anything, make flying more dangerous than ground travel, to make up for the ability to skip terrain. Make them dismount you while you're flying. Make them do more damage. Make them maintain aggro much longer/farther than regular mobs. Lots of ways to do it.

It makes sense that we wouldn't be able to just safely fly around, but at the same time it doesn't mean it should prevent us from trying. The game doesn't prevent us from running through every pack of mobs even though we generally aren't able to safely do so, either.

[SMOrcMan 76]

The truth is, nobody would give a shit about this if they hadn't given flying so late in Broken Isles. No, I don't need flying to get around Argus, but don't make me waste my fucking time on pathfinder 2 for this BS

[Valks 2,373]

5 minutes ago, Ammako said:

I think it would be pretty cool if they allowed flight BUT had Legion troops in the sky everywhere ready to shoot you down.

That way you still have to pay attention to where you're going, and you really can't just fly from objective to objective safely. If anything, make flying more dangerous than ground travel, to make up for the ability to skip terrain. Make them dismount you while you're flying. Make them do more damage. Make them maintain aggro much longer/farther than regular mobs. Lots of ways to do it.

It makes sense that we wouldn't be able to just safely fly around, but at the same time it doesn't mean it should prevent us from trying. The game doesn't prevent us from running through every pack of mobs even though we generally aren't able to safely do so, either.

I wonder if they could have done something like this with the light tank we get. It could have been on a certain cooldown, two minutes or so and it has an HP bar. There are mobs in the air shooting you, etc., and with smart flying you can fly wherever you need to go. If you are careless though, you will take damage, it will be destroyed and you then have to wait for the cooldown to come off. Would have been a brilliant skill over the current tank form.

[VictorVakaras 80]

Personally I don't care about flying one way or another, the problem I with Argus is the mob density.  Just too many trash mobs around. It wouldn't be so bad if Blizzard had given us a reason to fight them outside of the occasional world quests.  I just see players running past after being dismounted dragging 10-15 mobs behind them.  Super fun and immersive etc.

[Plergoth 277]

Like others have said, the problem lies with mob density and respawn times. Some classes and specs don't care whatever happens, but when you're working on rep on a third or fourth alt and it's taking you two or even three times as long to get to A to B or to finish a quest because everything just keeps piling onto you then the zone loses the threatening and this is the end game vibe and just becomes an even more tedious grind that your big scary main didn't have to deal with. Switching specs is easier than ever before though thankfully, and we have things such as bodyguards to take the rest of the pressure off, but I'm more concerned about the implications for the future; this kind of design implementation is fine by me if it makes sense, but this already does feel like Broken Shore 2.0 or Tanaan Jungle Nightmare Mode Unlocked, but they eventually allowed for flying to be opened up in the future. I mean, from short term (alting) to long term (going back for achievement and so forth), it's quite a poor attitude to just tell us they won't do it at all when we already pretty much know better than them at this point. 

They could also do themselves and us a huge favour and make more of an effort to make zones feel more three dimensional. They control the skies? Then fucking show us. Give us world bosses that provide a flying buff for an hour or two. Make us fight for things instead of  causing a shitstorm on the forums over it. 

[Ancalagon 35]

23 minutes ago, Plergoth said:

Give us world bosses that provide a flying buff for an hour or two. Make us fight for things... 

I could get on-board with that.  I think it would build a better game to have world objectives that both factions can work toward achieving, that would offer a temporary reward, making the invasion a little easier for a short duration.  This would feel and act a lot like the old Hellfire Peninsula buffs, for taking control of towers; only rather than making it a PvP objective, there is more emphasis on PvE cross-faction cooperation.

 

It would also give the player a sense of ebb and flow, as the battle for control over invasion points swings in favor of the invaders and then swings back in favor of the legion.

Edited September 6, 2017 by Ancalagon
additional thought.

[Cali 2]

To start with, I LOVE flying. Everywhere and anywhere. So I find the decision to not have flying in Argus slightly disappointing, because flying is fun. I'm not particularly surprised, as I was warned by long term players that it's likely to be like Timeless Isle and Isle of Thunder. I don't much care for those zones. But oh well. However, I kind of take issue with the statement that if you're having trouble getting around in Argus you aren't paying attention to the terrain. I'm paying attention, trust me. MacAree isn't too bad, but the Antoran Wastes are so layered that it's difficult to find the path to things. The arrow to the objective says, "Go that way." but how to get there is not very clear at all. The paths could be more clearly defined on the map.

[breck 29]

What really frustrates me is where mobs are placed. They seem to place rares where you see them while questing but you cant get there directly from the quest area. You have to ride around a quarter of the zone and up or down a mountain to get to a mob thats right next to you. Chests which have a long wait and appear for short times are only adding to the frustration. I play to ease the stress of everyday life, not add to it. Warcraft is a game, it should be fun, not frustrating.

[ChaosDecides 30]

3 hours ago, munchkin said:

Flying in Argus is unnecessary. Yes the mobs are hard and scary but it's the Legion's base of operations for goodness sake!! You go 20 feet up on your Ashes of Alar and see how long it takes them to shoot you down!!
I would like it if they actually had that happening in the game though, like when you fly over the druid or hunter order halls and get kicked out.
Or even just some flimsy justification that someone mentions somewhere.

On the topic of Pathfinder generally, I love the mechanic. It means you are more immersed in the world the first time you run through the content (and it really really is more immersive) and then later in the expansion, when there is more to get done regularly or you want to start on alts, you have the magic of flight to make it faster and easier.
That said, I agree with Migol and Ornyx about the difficulty and timing of it this expansion. One of my friends quit because he looked at Pathfinder, Part 2 (before they nerfed it) and realised he just couldn't do the grind anymore.

The enemy in Legion has had anti-aircraft/flying weaponry in zones we have already had flying permitted in so that argument doesn't really make much sense. Using logic with WOW is typically a big mistake, lol. Don't forget that according to Blizz "flying breaks immersion".

I don't mind traveling on a ground mount at the moment. If they decide to add flying in a couple months that would be fine. The upgraded flight whistle should suffice for the meanwhile.

[Boothyp 48]

1 hour ago, ChaosDecides said:

"flying breaks immersion".

Loading screens also break immersion, and that would be my biggest complaint about Argus.

It doesn't feel like a world, just a few isolated zones on their own, which it is to be fair.

They are never going to allow flying, because it would suck hitting the invisible wall around each zone, then having to use the beacons to switch zones as they aren't connected in any way.

[Granis 12]

I just find it funny that for seven years flying wasn't an issue yet for some reason now it is. The only reasons I can see them not wanting to allow flying is: it is easier for them to make zones (in other words be lazy) and to artificially make content last longer. Now if this was any other expansion I could see reason number two being somewhat justified however (and this is a complement) this expansion has so much to do already. On top of that, if you manage to get to a point in which you have done everything then good chance you would like to do it again on an alt. Also could some one describe to me what exactly "immersion" is? It a buzz word thrown around a lot and doesn't seem to match up with it's actual definition. Actually let me rephrase that last question. Why is don't they tell us the real reason instead of just using it as a blanket defense?

Edited September 6, 2017 by Granis
Rephrasing