New poll on dragon flight...

[Fridlekh]

Seems you can't change vote on a poll that's been changed and reset... bah. new thread then!

After reading the feedback, changes to plans have been made to reflect the following:

All changes to functionality below are only seen when an option is set. The option is character specific, and defaults to off.
· Looking down at an angle of greater than 45º when starting to fall will prevent flight.
· Disks that prevent flight in general will prevent flying on falling. (no dropping of disks)
· Hitting the ground while tilted at an angle of greater than 45º while in flight will force a landing. Free look camera angle won't cause a landing, and skimming is easily accomplished so long as the fly tilt is kept reasonably level.
· Existing means of takeoff and landing are unchanged.
· Hatchlings can glide, but are forced down at 45º, and will falter and drop like a rock if not moving forward and keeping their heads up. (lore masters will say this more eloquently, I'm sure)

[Oakleif]

I really like the part about hatchlings being able to do the flying squirrel thing from high places! Very nice touch!

[Shian]

So is this including the clause "If camera is set to looking up or straight ahead, Dragon will auto-fly"? 'Cause if so, this would be a very nice change. Really would like that glide ability for hatchies too

[Fridlekh]

If your camera is looking higher than 45º below the horizon you'll start flying. ( you can look down to 70º below the horizon ) the 25º at the bottom triggers landing, and also prevents flying in the first place, should you wish to drop straight down off something.

General question: Should the option be off by default? or on? Right now I'm 'playing it safe' and leaving it off for the old players...

But a new player wouldn't have known other functionality, and would it be better for them as hatchlings to pop out their little wings before needing to know that there's an option you have to set first?

[Oakleif]

I would vote for putting this on as a default for all the new players, and putting in a pop-up message triggered the first time a dragon logs in after the patch (a new tutorial-type message) outlining the changes and where to go to turn it off if you don't want it.

[Hrough]

That sounds excellent. ^^ It'll make it easier for folks to get around, I'm sure. (I just want to be able to jump off of places and glide around until I get my rites. >3 )

[Vaz]

Way to make hatchies even cuter. xD

It all seems to be good and sensible functionality.

[Malaquion]

Sounds good to me, but I don't think that the 25 degrees at the bottom, looking down when you're flying, should trigger landing. It's very helpful to be able to see everything below you (and see the entire map if you fly high enough )

[Zexoin]

Sounds good to me, but I don't think that the 25 degrees at the bottom, looking down when you're flying, should trigger landing. It's very helpful to be able to see everything below you (and see the entire map if you fly high enough )

I agree with that. Especially when scouting, I look down to see potential preys, though I don't want to land.

[pevil2000]

It does say "Free look camera angle won't cause a landing, and skimming is easily accomplished so long as the fly tilt is kept reasonably level." so as long as you do as i do and use free look, you can remain flying at your same height whilst scanning for foes.

[Zexoin]

It does say "Free look camera angle won't cause a landing, and skimming is easily accomplished so long as the fly tilt is kept reasonably level." so as long as you do as i do and use free look, you can remain flying at your same height whilst scanning for foes.

Thank you. I need to read posts more carefully D:

[Malaquion]

Thank you. I need to read posts more carefully D:

Ditto

-st00pid-

[walkerglassmire]

General question: Should the option be off by default? or on? Right now I'm 'playing it safe' and leaving it off for the old players...

But a new player wouldn't have known other functionality, and would it be better for them as hatchlings to pop out their little wings before needing to know that there's an option you have to set first?

Personally, I would keep it to default off. Simply add some text explaining it in the tutorial.

I know the one thing I would have LOVED to know, when I first started playing, was more tutorial on the UI. How to use it, etc. Way back when, this was my first MMO, so really didn't know what I was missing out on. I'm STILL learning things about how to work the basic UI, and I've been here a couple years. heh

[Shur]

Yes but for 1 detail: down angle on hatchy glide should be 30 degrees, 45 is too steep to be more than a novelty and would look rather cartoonish when viewed from third-party perspective i believe

[pevil2000]

Thank you. I need to read posts more carefully D:

dont worry, i only read it so carefully coz it confused me at first lol

perhaps you would only need to look down at that angle but it would be a much gentler slope than that for them to glide down. I'm on the fence with this one; while it would be nice to see the lil hatchies gliding slowly down (imagine Gnomekindle, you could have hundreds of white hatchies jump off cliffs for 'snow'), their stubby little wings may not support them enough for a long, smooth glide, and merely be enough for them not to fall to earth like rocks as they do now!

[Spirit]

I agree with this, although one thing I'd like also to see added is camera tilt if you're flying/gliding forwards. i.e. tilt left/right if you're banking the respective direction. I've never seen the camera tilt at all ingame, ever, so I wonder how big a change that would be.

Oh and Fall damage if you fall a sustained distance while not flying... applies for all races. ... and swimming!!

Rakku

[tramsan]

And ponies!!

[Frith-Rae]

mm Idont know about the fall damage for swimming because the idea is you're suppose to be..floating..

Right now I don' teven realize I'm underwater since half/most of the time the water doesn't ever load...lol.

So I guess once this goes live I can't use the "just fall down the mtn" to make my disc travel faster huh?

[Fridlekh]

I should further clarify, that landing is only forced with the flytilt/non-freelook-camera in the bottom 25º when you're actually ON the ground... not when you're up in the sky, that'd just be silly. :P

I've been doing my tests jumping off a small rock formation and there's still a considerable distance able to be traveled in glide mode... the -45º flytilt gets blended with the forward movespeed I think, which lowers the effective angle of descent.

I use -45° because that's the max tilt and I wanted the tilt-based control and the the camera-based control (since the camera sets the flytilt when not in free look mode) to behave the same. So landing is really checking to see if flytilt EQUALS -45º, since anything greater will be capped to that anyway... but the camera does go to -70º, so I thought it'd be less confusing to explain it that way...

Maybe I was wrong. Then again, the above probably caused more confusion than clarification... soo...

Tutorial popups... probably possible, but I have no experience with those, and would want the pore people to handle ingame explanation of the new functionality... I think an easier way would be to release it off by default, that'll put the prefs out on everyone's computer, then the next patch put it out as default on, so new players will get it without looking for it.

-Frid
codekitty

P.S. Dryads have wings, shouldn't they glide too?

[Shian]

Oh and Fall damage if you fall a sustained distance while not flying... applies for all races.

Rakku

Err.. no. If that's the case there needs to be a TON more portals linked up as the only way from places like the top of Shepard's Mountain to the lower guild plots is falling down.