No flying in 5.0: Would it be better?

[Reinha]

The problem is that for some reason the developers think they need to make large maps that are equally annoying (or more) without flying to make flying afterwards more attractive. That's the problem here. What's wrong with a small map having flying? What's wrong with an easy to travel map having flying? Nothing. It's all in the developers (and some players) heads. Majority of players won't even care whether it takes just a few seconds to move through the map if they fly. They get from point A to point B as they wanted, and doing that faster is just a bonus.

Exactly. Maps can be just as immersive and detailed as the devs want to make it, flying has no effect on that. If the devs think we shouldn't cross the map very quickly then there is no need for flying to be as fast as it is now in a small map. They can make it go the same speed as ground mounts and some players will still fly because it's fun to soar in the sky and look at the world from a different perspective. If Eureka had flying like that, I would fly instead of riding on the ground. It has nothing to do with avoiding mobs because I can already avoid most of them just by being level 20.

[Vulcwen]

Exactly. Maps can be just as immersive and detailed as the devs want to make it, flying has no effect on that.

Flight removes navigational challenge, which is an important aspect of making maps immersive. But you can make a good compromise by severely limiting the height at which someone can fly. Something I think works better than straight up flight are gliders, they include a challenge-reward structure as you navigate a map, but since we have flight, implementing that is pointless, and it also has an impact on map design (you need a lot of climbable elements in the game for it to work).

[kikix12]

Navigational challenge is something to be made on street/dirt illegal racing games, flight simulators or naval simulators. Alternatively on puzzles in action or outright puzzle games. This is neither of these, not even close.

As for immersion...how does that suffer?! I mean, do people stop being immersed in their real life if they get onto their personal little planes or helicopters and fly to the neighboring town instead of going there by foot? Of course not. If anything, it's the exact opposite. Why would it be any different in the game so long as the mounts that fly are properly designed. A griffin, giant bird (Yol) or dragon does not interfere with world immersion. An oversized elephant that runs on air no different than it does on ground does.

Immersion depends on the believability of the world and its general esthetics. It is broken by developers by introducing ridiculous glamour options, crappy flight animations for mounts that have no place being in the air and foolish quest designs choices that completely ignore in-world conveniences just to make the player go out of their way to do something. All those cases where players are supposed to escort an NPC and then they go all "I'll go ahead and meet you there." are ruining immersion as well, because how is that escorting? These things ruin immersion and they are in the game since day 1, constantly repeated time and again.