How do you make flying good? Can it be done?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

As we found out from WoW and its clones, flying often damages the fundamental RPG experience. One of the core parts of an RPG is walking/riding across the world, navigating around or across treacherous mountain ranges, ravines, rivers, etc. Stopping by towns and outposts along the way. Discovering neat places in the wilderness. And the all pervasive threat of running into enemies (and sometimes, enemy players!). And then you finally reach the quest destination. Presumably this quest is relevant to your character level range, which means the mobs there will be threatening and you will have to carefully navigate your way through that mini area. Holistically this experience simulates an engaging adventure through a fantasy world.

The usual issue with flying is that it shortcuts all that. You are flying over all obstacles, so you are not being challenged to look for a way forward. You do not get the fun of accidentally discovering new things, either because everything is exposed to you from high above or because you are zipping straight to the destination. You are not taking in the sights of thd fantasy world from the angles usually intended by the artists. The actual act of flying in a straight line while so high above the ground that it appears the world is slowly moving below you, with no clouds to fly through and under an unchamging skybox, is unenjoyable. Lastly, flying usually removes danger, as hardly anything can intercept you, and you can pick and choose when to land/engage at will, when it is most advantageous to you. You wait for the mob to turn around, land, do tge quest thing, then fly away. It is effectively teleporting.

There have been attempts to tackle some of these issues. GW2 and WoW have enemy areas where a flying player will get sniped within a few seconds if they don't take evasive action or turn around. GW2 makes it almost impossible to gain more altitude than you started with, so you usually can't soar far high over a map, instead having to fly closer to the ground with stuff whizzing past you and having to navigate terrain, which is fun. However, some fundamental issues remain.

Finally, there is the production issue where if people are flying around at high speed, then did the artists waste all of the time spent meticulously positioning small doodads like rocks or gopher hills or little items on the ground? At what point does it become more practicable to just use procedural generation for the vast tracts of land that presumably most players will fly over, and never land midway to inspect the details of the environments?

If 98% of the forest you are flying over is juat set dressing, then perhaps it would be more economical to just have a loading screen/cutscene saying "and then the heroes went to the plot location deep in the woods". At this point we are nearing something like having a JRPG overworld where you can pilot an airship over a 98% empty world, and disembark to walk into handcrafted towns and plot relevant locations.

[logincrash]

Flying is OP IRL so it should be OP in games. Just make it extremely difficult and expensive to obtain the ability to fly and make it hard to master.

[Tadeusz]

Games with flying should be designed with it in mind. Morrowind comes to my mind where flying doesn't break the game and it's actually required in some places.

The usual issue with flying is that it shortcuts all that. You are flying over all obstacles, so you are not being challenged to look for a way forward.

Perhaps the sky can have unique obstacles (winds, whirlwinds, monsters) to make it more challenging to traverse so the ground can be seen as a viable alternative?

[TKVNC]

As we found out from WoW and its clones, flying often damages the fundamental RPG experience. One of the core parts of an RPG is walking/riding across the world, navigating around or across treacherous mountain ranges, ravines, rivers, etc. Stopping by towns and outposts along the way. Discovering neat places in the wilderness. And the all pervasive threat of running into enemies (and sometimes, enemy players!). And then you finally reach the quest destination. Presumably this quest is relevant to your character level range, which means the mobs there will be threatening and you will have to carefully navigate your way through that mini area. Holistically this experience simulates an engaging adventure through a fantasy world.

The usual issue with flying is that it shortcuts all that. You are flying over all obstacles, so you are not being challenged to look for a way forward. You do not get the fun of accidentally discovering new things, either because everything is exposed to you from high above or because you are zipping straight to the destination. You are not taking in the sights of thd fantasy world from the angles usually intended by the artists. The actual act of flying in a straight line while so high above the ground that it appears the world is slowly moving below you, with no clouds to fly through and under an unchamging skybox, is unenjoyable. Lastly, flying usually removes danger, as hardly anything can intercept you, and you can pick and choose when to land/engage at will, when it is most advantageous to you. You wait for the mob to turn around, land, do tge quest thing, then fly away. It is effectively teleporting.

There have been attempts to tackle some of these issues. GW2 and WoW have enemy areas where a flying player will get sniped within a few seconds if they don't take evasive action or turn around. GW2 makes it almost impossible to gain more altitude than you started with, so you usually can't soar far high over a map, instead having to fly closer to the ground with stuff whizzing past you and having to navigate terrain, which is fun. However, some fundamental issues remain.

Finally, there is the production issue where if people are flying around at high speed, then did the artists waste all of the time spent meticulously positioning small doodads like rocks or gopher hills or little items on the ground? At what point does it become more practicable to just use procedural generation for the vast tracts of land that presumably most players will fly over, and never land midway to inspect the details of the environments?

If 98% of the forest you are flying over is juat set dressing, then perhaps it would be more economical to just have a loading screen/cutscene saying "and then the heroes went to the plot location deep in the woods". At this point we are nearing something like having a JRPG overworld where you can pilot an airship over a 98% empty world, and disembark to walk into handcrafted towns and plot relevant locations.

Like Logincrash said, flying is OP in real life. The US Army is so busted because of fighters and combat support aircraft.

There isn't a real way to balance flying, but in a fantasy setting, you could viably add flying enemies that could intercept and pursue you. The issue with this in MMO type settings is that there is a limt on aggro range. But it would only be enjoyable and not autistic and cringe if you could also attack them.

Outside of games where enemies can pursue you effectively infinitely, and can fly or attack you with ranged, flying will always be OP.

The problem is, flying enemies are also OP if you're on foot. It's the same as cavalry vs infantry, they're just more mobile and thus more dangerous.

Realistically, only dragons should fly in fantasy MMO's / games, and you should never be able to fly as a player, because it is too difficult to balance in that medium. I really don't see it being possible to balance outside of single player games.

[Oyster Sauce]

Would have been interesting if the ban on flight/levitation in Oblivion didn't remove it as a mechanic, but would have repercussions such as fines, getting kicked out of the mages guild, having reputable magic vendors refuse to do business with you, etc.

[DemoGraph]

Flying in WoW is a cutscened teleportation.

Flying could be balanced by making it more "realistic". That is, it should have cost. You shouldn't be able to store your pet in your pocket. The pet should be expensive to maintain on background and even more expensive to fly directly. It should be vulnerable (flying to the elven forest or poison orc hills is a death sentence).
Also, the pet can carry only one person (okay, maybe a few). If combat requires groups of folks, you can fly anywhere, but can't accomplish anything. But this's more of a criticism of a combat system in general. If you can carry a barn in your backpack and solo legions, flying will always be unbalanced.

And yeah, also flying enemies.

Games with flying should be designed with it in mind. Morrowind comes to my mind where flying doesn't break the game and it's actually required in some places.

But it does. I've tried to complete Red Mountain without levitation once, and it was a completely different experience.
In vanilla you levitate from the Ghostgate directly into Dagoth Ur. 2 minutes and you're there.
Without levitation, you're forced to go via road all around the mountain, getting lost in the process, gathering aggro and stumbling upon other bases of the 6th house.
Ideally, both TP, levitation and uberacrobatics should be banned inside the Ghostfence.

[TKVNC]

But it does. I've tried to complete Red Mountain without levitation once, and it was a completely different experience.
In vanilla you levitate from the Ghostgate directly into Dagoth Ur. 2 minutes and you're there.
Without levitation, you're forced to go via road all around the mountain, getting lost in the process, gathering aggro and stumbling upon other bases of the 6th house.
Ideally, both TP, levitation and uberacrobatics should be banned inside the Ghostfence.

This is very true, levitation in Morrowind is quite ridiculous. But I think it's also because I don't know if -any- NPC's at all use levitation, Cliff Racers sort of do, but I don't recall anyone else using it.

As I recall when I beat Umbra the first time I just levitated above him a few feet and stabbed him with my spear, he wasn't able to do anything to stop me.

[Tadeusz]

Ideally, both TP, levitation and uberacrobatics should be banned inside the Ghostfence.

Ghostfence is a special location and I can agree that levitation can break it. Maybe instead of banning these mechanics completely it can have some flying Dagoth abominations that can dispel your levitation.

[1998]

Not really flying, but jetpacks in ELEX and Outcast are pretty cool.

[Shillitron]

WoW has made some great changes to Aerial travel over the years. (Since Burning Crusade)

Example:
Instead of flying around infinitely at a set speed which is boring and ruins exploration of the world, it was a lot of fun to try and get on a high cliff then use those kite kits to soar / glide through the air, your constantly falling so there's a limit how far you can go but the fun is trying to aim / prolong your air time.

This encourages you to explore for certain routes / locations that make the best candidates for abusing the mechanic and has skill expression in how well you can do it.

It's fun to explore the world in this way.

My understanding is WOW has continued this trend with flying mounts where they can gain skills and improve over time but I quit the game years ago and only play old content on private servers.

[Tweed]

As we found out from WoW and its clones, flying often damages the fundamental RPG experience

Doesn't in EQ. Any time you're not hovering over solid ground you're slowly descending which can be a very bad thing depending on the zone. Levitation is used either to avoid hazards or monsters, not to fly. It was games like WoW that let people actually fly.

[logincrash]

WoW has made some great changes to Aerial travel over the years. (Since Burning Crusade)

Example:
Instead of flying around infinitely at a set speed which is boring and ruins exploration of the world, it was a lot of fun to try and get on a high cliff then use those kite kits to soar / glide through the air, your constantly falling so there's a limit how far you can go but the fun is trying to aim / prolong your air time.

This encourages you to explore for certain routes / locations that make the best candidates for abusing the mechanic and has skill expression in how well you can do it.

It's fun to explore the world in this way.

My understanding is WOW has continued this trend with flying mounts where they can gain skills and improve over time but I quit the game years ago and only play old content on private servers.

That's how GW2 handles flying mounts too. At least the gryphon or whatever it's called there. The player's encouraged to scout the terrain to find the highest perch to jump off of. It's also very fun to combine it with the rabbit's jump to get more air. I haven't gotten the dragon or drake or whatever it was that behaves more like a VTOL, so I couldn't speak on that.
It all seems to boil down to the fact that gliding is more fun since it's more involved on the player side. Just Cause 3, Far Cry 5, the Batman Arkham games are great examples of "flying" feeling amazing. It's kinda like how Spider-Man's web swinging is only good in two games (PS2 Spider-Man 2 and Web of Shadows) because it required you to master a physics-based swinging system. And it's **** in literally every other game, where it ranges from basically cutscenes in Amazing Spider-Man (based on Andrew Garfield movies) to just serviceable canned animation pack like in Insomniac Spider-Man.

[rusty_shackleford]

EQ2 leaping mounts were the best mounts
They also had gliding mounts years before GW2/WoW did, EQ2 pioneered a lot of MMO game mechanics that other MMOs cannibalized tbh

[Vergil]

Would have been interesting if the ban on flight/levitation in Oblivion didn't remove it as a mechanic, but would have repercussions such as fines, getting kicked out of the mages guild, having reputable magic vendors refuse to do business with you, etc.

It still would have been completely ******** though. The fact Oblivion's Mage's Guild has a plot about a rogue faction of mages mad about the ban of one magical practice while nobody comments or cares about levitation is pretty hilarious.

[Dorateen]

Might & Magic VI flying was fun. Also, Demise: Ascension with its intricately designed dungeon levels made flight useful and sometimes necessary to access hard to reach places.

[Norfleet]

Would have been interesting if the ban on flight/levitation in Oblivion didn't remove it as a mechanic, but would have repercussions such as fines, getting kicked out of the mages guild, having reputable magic vendors refuse to do business with you, etc.

You mean like having to get a flight license, being required to obey the relevant aviation authorities, and soforth?

[Norfleet]

The usual issue with flying is that it shortcuts all that. You are flying over all obstacles, so you are not being challenged to look for a way forward. You do not get the fun of accidentally discovering new things, either because everything is exposed to you from high above or because you are zipping straight to the destination. You are not taking in the sights of thd fantasy world from the angles usually intended by the artists. The actual act of flying in a straight line while so high above the ground that it appears the world is slowly moving below you, with no clouds to fly through and under an unchamging skybox, is unenjoyable. Lastly, flying usually removes danger, as hardly anything can intercept you, and you can pick and choose when to land/engage at will, when it is most advantageous to you. You wait for the mob to turn around, land, do tge quest thing, then fly away. It is effectively teleporting.

Not necessarily. Sure, while you can fly high over the terrain, you are getting a very different perspective from boots on the ground. You can't easily spot what is happening under tree cover, for instance. And you can't necessarily land or engage at will, either: If there is not enough of a runway or clearing for you to land or take off, you won't be able to land there, and attempting to do so will result in you crashing and burning in a fireball of flames.

Furthermore, flying carries its own limitations: You won't be able to transport any heavy materiel easily, so you will have to operate without the benefits this could provide. A ground assault would let you use artillery or vehicle support: An airborne assault would have to be conducted with mostly infantry. The number of units you can transport this way is likely similarly much more limited: You can fit way more guys into something like a bus than a helicopter.

So you're not "waiting for the mob to turn around, landing, doing the quest thing, and then flying away". You have to land in the nearest clearing, otherwise you crash into the trees, or the mountain, or whatever, then you have to advance on foot to your destination, do the quest thing, and then retreat back to the extraction site. And, of course, how stealthy is your ride? Can the enemy see or hear the SOI SOI SOI SOI or equivalent coming from miles away? Will you be facing any anti-air fire as a result? Flying is not a magic "I Win" button by any means.

[Vaako]

AION mmorpg only lets you fly for a certain amount and in certain areas depending on the wings you obtained which gave you more flyspeed once the time is over you could only glide, gliding was possible everywhere.

Star Wars Shadows of the Empire had a jetpack with recharging fuel which only let you fly for like 20secs maybe. Nowadays they could also add a hover mode who uses less fuel.

One of the divinity games where you could turn into a dragon and fly arround everywhere was also pretty nice but the game was designed arround that.

Morrowind levitation was op and gamebreaking with ****** AI it had but with good AI even that wouldnt be too op.

Flying was kinda fine in all of these.

[Valter]

AION mmorpg only lets you fly for a certain amount and in certain areas depending on the wings you obtained which gave you more flyspeed once the time is over you could only glide, gliding was possible everywhere.

Star Wars Shadows of the Empire had a jetpack with recharging fuel which only let you fly for like 20secs maybe. Nowadays they could also add a hover mode who uses less fuel.

One of the divinity games where you could turn into a dragon and fly arround everywhere was also pretty nice but the game was designed arround that.

Morrowind levitation was op and gamebreaking with ****** AI it had but with good AI even that wouldnt be too op.

Flying was kinda fine in all of these.

Aion was probably the first game I played that featured player flying, it was a real novelty at the time and definitely one of its selling points as seen in the cover

[NotAI]

Flying requires several layers of content, so the real question might be how to reduce the cost of that, is it not?

Zelda had sky and underground levels but underground was pretty empty. Suppose you have five heights where things can be: how do you fill that space, in a good way?

[Norfleet]

You don't need to fill the sky with things. In fact, filling the sky would be a detraction, because the lack of any view obstructions in the sky would make it very clear just how ridiculously cluttered it was. The only time the sky is filled with things is when you've annoyed the flak gunners.

[WaterMage]

Have enemies develop anti air measures. No, I don't mean using a bow against a flying enemy with higher ground. I mean they using "buckshot" style spells, weather magic, artillery with Shrapnel shells and etc.

[maidenhaver]

Have enemies develop anti air measures. No, I don't mean using a bow against a flying enemy with higher ground. I mean they using "buckshot" style spells, weather magic, artillery with Shrapnel shells and etc.

I hate magic projectiles. Cast immolation and cook the sonuvabitch. Cast flying traps. Cast a big ward that causes wizards to fall out of the sky like birds against glass. Projectiles are gay, unless the point is to blow through a column of enemies.

[Vaako]

AION mmorpg only lets you fly for a certain amount and in certain areas depending on the wings you obtained which gave you more flyspeed once the time is over you could only glide, gliding was possible everywhere.

Star Wars Shadows of the Empire had a jetpack with recharging fuel which only let you fly for like 20secs maybe. Nowadays they could also add a hover mode who uses less fuel.

One of the divinity games where you could turn into a dragon and fly arround everywhere was also pretty nice but the game was designed arround that.

Morrowind levitation was op and gamebreaking with ****** AI it had but with good AI even that wouldnt be too op.

Flying was kinda fine in all of these.

Aion was probably the first game I played that featured player flying, it was a real novelty at the time and definitely one of its selling points as seen in the cover

Yeah except for the ridiculous grind and rng for item plusing at high level it could have been a game I could have played a lot more. But shortly after release when I hit almost max level many accounts got hacked and mine aswell and I only played it a little on a freeshard after that (and since then NCsoft is on my shitlist since they had compromised these accounts). It also has a great soundtrack.

[Norfleet]

Have enemies develop anti air measures. No, I don't mean using a bow against a flying enemy with higher ground. I mean they using "buckshot" style spells, weather magic, artillery with Shrapnel shells and etc.

Magic Surface-to-Air Heat Seeking Missile.

[Vergil]

It's good in Morrowind more or less. Wish they would have taken advantage of it with more floating locations like the asteroid above Vivec.

[rusty_shackleford]

Hate any game that adds flying then has a bunch of **** that just knocks you out of flying.
Pick one and stick to it, you fucks

[maidenhaver]

There should be air ports so flying wizards don't need to mingle with non fliers.

[DrSneed]

Walking and exploring everything is mundane and lame
It should be something you eventually conquer and don't have to worry about anymore
If I am on the way to kill a world ending threat a cliff shouldn't be something that should challenge me anymore

[J1M]

In real life you have to store your plane at and take off from an airport. Have to land at one too. Or share the ride with others like some kind of poor bus-rider.