Flying Mounts in Expansion

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"From the lowest valleys to the highest floating islands, no terrain will be beyond your reach."

If that right there is true I will be one happy fellow. I love flying in games and exploring, but in most of the few and rare MMORPGs with flying mounts there's always invisible walls I find myself bumping into and it sort of kills the immersion (I know, I know, "immersion" is that word that lots of people hate when it's brought up, but I enjoy RP and exploration in my MMORPGs, so to me it's important!).

For the three months of playing FFXIV, one of the things I have loved most about the game's design is how it constantly finds ways for you to go back to old zones, something that most (if not all) MMORPGs fail to do. I love how varied and detailed each zone is (although admittedly the graphics don't really make use of my beastly gaming rig, but hopefully the DirectX 11 update in the expansion improves upon this though), and my only real complaint about zones would be that they still feel a bit maze-like, but it's a vast improvement over 1.0, that is for sure!

tdlr: Can't wait for expansion to explore more with flying mounts! (Notice how I didn't tell you peeps at the beginning that there was a tdlr for the lazy? I made you read. I did that. I made you a little bit smarter today. I deserve some cake. Excuse me while I go get some.)

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Originally Posted by Heavensward

http://i935.photobucket.com/albums/a...psx8jz4ucq.png

"From the lowest valleys to the highest floating islands, no terrain will be beyond your reach."

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Except 2.0 zones like corathas which is part of ishgards >:P

but yea i cannot wait for flying mounts tho i wished from what they showed when you ran off a flying contanant on a flying mount it dropped a little :c rather then instant flying D:

The cake is a lie, but for DX11 you might still not use your PC's powers for a while lol. The switch from 9 to 11 will likely get you some resources back, to then spend on some sexier shadows and reflections.

Not my image but, love that ambient occlusion, lighting changes and the polished marble rock reflections:

http://i.imgur.com/w7KX8oY.gif

Ready for that tessellation too.. <3

I'm also not a huge fan of invisible walls and there are a few walls in the 2.0 zones that drive me crazy, because they don't look like they should be and feel like they have no purpose but to be there.. I keep getting caught on one in particular XD.

Personally, I wonder how zone changes will work in Heavensward, we've seen there is a ceiling and assuming a floor to levels something that doesn't automatically load a zone changing map to fly to nearby sky zones.. So are there particular wind tunnels or your only way in and out is by an Aetheryte? Just curious.

Rather than invisible walls that you run into while flying, there should be a bunch of random dragons to tackle you like you were about to make the game winning field-goal.

I would expect the devs to have taken inspiration from WoW with regards to flying mounts. If you flew too far out of bounds of the map you would get a stamina bar counting down until you returned within the border of the region. If the bar fully depleted your mount would be exhausted and auto-dismount you, causing you to die. It's a much less intrusive way of keeping the player within the boundaries of the map and would actually be much easier to implement than invisible walls everywhere in 3D space. Hopefully we'll have a similar system here.

One thing I am curious about though is what would happen if you dismounted over a deep pool of water like in the Dravanian Hinterlands... since we have no swimming yet I assume you just automatically die but I'm curious to see how they handle it nonetheless.

It looks like they're going with the invisible walls model, judging by their demonstration during the XX Live Letter, which you can see after the 1:16 mark.

Also, I rather doubt they're going to let you dismount in mid air; more likely you won't be able to dismount unless you've landed, though since we can't see the hotbars at all during the video, there's no way to say one way or the other yet.

There will be a visible wall if you fly too high

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B00X-tzngoA

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Originally Posted by Alberel

One thing I am curious about though is what would happen if you dismounted over a deep pool of water like in the Dravanian Hinterlands... since we have no swimming yet I assume you just automatically die but I'm curious to see how they handle it nonetheless.

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I assume that we simply can't dismount while not being on solid ground.

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Originally Posted by Tam_Hawkins

I assume that we simply can't dismount while not being on solid ground.

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I hope you can, I would find nothing funnier than just sittiing there, crafting, then all of a sudden someone falls to there death infront of me LOL. The 'say', "accidently dismounted, F my life" hahaaha

I am extremely excited for mounts though :>

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Originally Posted by DracotheDragon

Except 2.0 zones like corathas which is part of ishgards >:P

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Of course, there is nothing stopping them from remaking the Coerthas highlands we have now, to enable flight. I'm not suggesting flight in all zones, but it would be nice to be able to fly in all of Coerthas since it is so intrinsically linked to Ishgard.

Perhaps we should all make ourselves a nuisance and request this?

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Originally Posted by Tam_Hawkins

I assume that we simply can't dismount while not being on solid ground.

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Miqo'te would be OK, after all we always land on our feet...

Hmm, we don't have fall damage unless in combat currently. If we can dismount in air, wonder if they will change anything.

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Originally Posted by Cerick

Hmm, we don't have fall damage unless in combat currently. If we can dismount in air, wonder if they will change anything.

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Yeah we do, try jumping off a tall tower in Coerthas, or off the top of Matron's Lethe while not in combat, you take huge damage - but do not die, unless you have a poison status, then you might, not sure.

Fall damage will always stop at 1 unless in combat.
DoTs can still hurt you even if you arent in combat tho...

Why can't our chars get stuck head first into the ground like Hildy :|??