Feedback: Dragonriding

#1 - July 14, 2022, 6:17 p.m.

In this thread, please post your feedback about Dragonriding, after you’ve tested it in the Dragonflight Alpha.

WoW Developer Greyton has a full introduction to this feature for you here.

#20 - July 18, 2022, 10:04 p.m.

This is a very good call-out. We’re working on improving the dragonriding gap detection to fix issues like this. We’ve noticed that dragonriding won’t kick in with some slope types, so we’ll be addressing those in a future build.

#22 - July 18, 2022, 10:21 p.m.

This is a great call-out of a few distinctions between “flying” and “dragonriding.” We’d like to slot dragonriding into its own unique space without crowding out flying, so it feeling like an investment is in the desired ballpark. How much of an investment is definitely something we’d love to hear continued feedback on, especially as progression comes online and as players get more used to the feature.

We’ve found that this is a big part of the appeal of WoW’s flying, so pulling that into dragonriding would encroach on that space too much.

Oh I think you might like the progression then! (And good note about that balance.)

Also, we’ve also seen a request or two from testers to drop the cooldown on Soar for testing purposes, and we don’t think that will be necessary to get the whole system well-tested. We’re getting great bug reports, and we thank you very much for them.

#39 - July 26, 2022, 7:03 p.m.

Hey all,

In this next build, you’ll notice some new functionality!

• Dragonriding now features advanced turning tech that helps the drakes feel more weighty and turning more of a decision
• While boosted to very fast speeds, new tech will adjust the camera’s FOV (this can be disabled with the “Reduce Camera Motion” option inside the “Motion Sickness” section of the “Accessibility” menu)
• Dragon Glyphs are hidden throughout the skies over The Waking Shores! Fly through them to unlock achievements (and points for the Dragonriding Skill Track)
• The Dragonriding Skill Track is now accessible at the dragonriding trainer at Skytop Observatory (Lithragosa)
  • Not all skills are displayed or implemented, but the player may earn points by collecting Dragon Glyphs and spend them for progression
• The Renewed Proto-Drake is now customizable in the Rostrum of Transformation

Thank you again for continuing to give feedback and suggestions as we continue to make our way through alpha.

#49 - July 27, 2022, 10:10 p.m.

We’ve just rolled out a hotfix to remedy this, which should be active in current builds. While existing characters might have trouble with this, new characters selecting these traits should no longer experience this issue.

Dragon Glyphs are account-wide. Right now, selecting traits doesn’t make selections for every character, but the amount of points available should be consistent across characters as any character claims a new Dragon Glyph.

Thank you very much for trying this out in courses and comparing your experience before/after. We’d like to make the “when” of turning matter a little bit more, but not overmuch. More feedback will help a ton as we move forward. We’re keeping an eye on feedback as we continue to iterate.

Thanks again!

#71 - July 29, 2022, 9:01 p.m.

Greetings Dragonriders and Dracthyr!

With the next alpha build, we’re making a change to Soar for Dracthyr that reduces their maximum speed from (roughly) 930% to 640%. The maximum speed for Dragon Isles Drakes is unchanged. This only applies to the Dracthyr Soar racial ability.

In the Dragon Isles, all characters of all races are on similar footing in regards to their ability to traverse the terrain because everyone can summon a Dragon Isles Drake. However, this isn’t the case in other areas of the game where flying mounts are the mainstay of travel. In Eastern Kingdoms, Soar is currently over twice as fast as Epic Flying which travels at 410% speed. The result is that Dracthyr have a drastic efficiency advantage over characters of other races when doing non-Dragon Isles content, whether that’s Chromie Time quests, clearing old raids for transmog, pet battling, etc.

Soar is important to the identity of Dracthyr. From the outset of the design process we knew that Dracthyr had to be able to fly in some form, even if we didn’t know the specifics until later. But, Soar is also a Racial ability, and was never intended to be a massive efficiency or performance improvement over other races. These two goals are somewhat in conflict: Make Soar fun and fulfill the fantasy of being a flying creature, but don’t give one race an outsized advantage across large swathes of the game.

What we’ve found while playtesting these changes internally is that the speed change didn’t diminish the fun of the locomotion mechanics. The engaging control system, gameplay of conserving momentum, and challenge of navigating obstacles, are all still present, while also rewarding skillful use of Soar with being able to travel faster than Epic flying mounts. This hits both of the goals nicely – Dracthyr can engage in the dynamic, immersive locomotion of dragonriding, but aren’t able to blitz across a continent in half the time as other characters.

The Alpha period is time for experimentation, testing, and learning, and that often leads to change. Due to Soar being an evergreen feature of the Dracthyr race, we feel that reducing the top speed is necessary for the long-term health of the game. Thank you for your passion, feedback, and understanding. See you in Azeroth!

#173 - Aug. 9, 2022, 10:04 p.m.

Here again with a few updates that went live with this build:

When we introduced turn rate tech, we wanted to make sure the when of a turn mattered. However, we might have been too heavy-handed with those values. Now that we’ve found the outer limits, we’ve re-tuned turn rate to lessen its impact. We continue to iterate on the balance here and welcome your feedback. Please give it a try, in questing, time trials, or both, and share your experience with us.

In addition, we’ve improved the hotbars for dragonriding, allowing players to customize their hotbars through drag-and-drop as normal, much like a druid’s bar when in bear form (or other cool forms). This also resolves some issues like not being able to use abilities to dismount and not being able to interact with quest items while mounted. (If you lose your dragonriding abilities, check your spellbook. Characters from previous alpha builds may not have these skills, but new characters in this build should see them there.)

• Fixed issues include:
  • Rostrum settings now won’t reset when switching dragons, and “Accept” purchases all selections made.
  • Dragonriding visual effects should no longer persist when getting kicked off a mount.
  • Dragonriding visual effects should no longer display on other players in unexpected situations.
  • Players that aren’t Dracthyr or Demon Hunters can no longer double jump after dismounting a dragonriding mount.
• New known issues include:
  • Occasionally, a character attempting to progress down the skill track will be unable to take new traits, even though they have enough currency. A relog should solve this in most cases.

#214 - Aug. 17, 2022, 11:44 p.m.

While a better clean up will be present in future builds, existing characters might be missing these skills, unfortunately. New characters should not run into this issue. Please try creating a new character. Thank you for your patience during alpha!

#220 - Aug. 18, 2022, 9:04 p.m.

We’ve hotfixed in a better solution that should catch this case. Creating a new max level template character should return any mounts or spells lost. Afterwards, characters below level 70 can log out and back in to see mounts and spells returned. At this stage, Dragonriding spells can be dragged out of the spellbook, under the General tab.

#227 - Aug. 19, 2022, 3:34 a.m.

Thank you for the report! We’ve discovered an issue with these wherein not all of them are counting for points, and there will be a fix available in the next build.

#238 - Aug. 24, 2022, 11:33 p.m.

Hello Dragonriders! With today’s update to the alpha, we’ve made a few changes that deserve their own callouts.

• We’ve updated the double jump Launch and Skyward Ascent to both be more reliable in their directionality and movement.
• We’ve re-tuned the turn rate for dragon isle drakes to be more lenient, including a feature wherein the player’s turn rate scales with speed - lower speeds feature quicker turns, while top speeds still come with a need for slightly more planning.
• We’ve made some updates to the Dragonriding trait window, bringing the zone unlocks and basic skills into the same pane as the unlockable traits for Dragonriding.

We discovered early in Alpha that we’d need a solution for players who rely on /follow or similar features to engage with World of Warcraft, as following wasn’t immediately compatible with Dragonriding. To address this, we’ve added “Ride Along”. Dragonriders can speak with Lithragosa (the Dragonriding Trainer) to opt into this new functionality. With Ride Along on, a player in your party may interact with your Dragon Isle Drake to transform into a whelp that will follow alongside your drake. If you are someone who has relied on /follow or have other players help guide you around Azeroth (or find Ride Along to be an interesting accessibility option for other reasons), please try this feature out and share your feedback with us!

Thank you all for your continued feedback and discussion.

#244 - Aug. 25, 2022, 9:34 p.m.

Thank you for asking! We currently plan for Ride Along to function in The Nokhud Offensive.

#264 - Sept. 1, 2022, 11:53 p.m.

Thank you for the reports! Regarding talent training - are you able to train a trait after logging out and back in? Or is it a consistent issue you’re seeing, wherein you cannot learn new traits even while having enough glyphs?

We’ve got a hotfix on the way for this. Thank you again for reporting!

#289 - Sept. 3, 2022, 12:58 a.m.

Thank you for the updated reports. Skyward Ascent’s effectiveness was unintentionally affected by other dragonriding fixes, and we’re deploying a hotfix soon to address this issue.

#345 - Sept. 6, 2022, 5:52 p.m.

Hello dragonriders!

A couple updates coming in an upcoming build that warranted pointing out:

• The text in the tooltips for dragon isle drakes have been corrected to state more accurate values. NOTE: Actual maximum speed values have not changed from the previous build.
• For those that need or want a quieter full screen effect for max speed, the accessibility option “Alternate Full Screen Effects” now lessens the dragonriding max speed effect. Please try this out and share your feedback.
• Surge Forward’s effectiveness has been increased by 20%.

#347 - Sept. 6, 2022, 6:27 p.m.

Thank you for the report! Drake hats are indeed not intended. This will be addressed in an upcoming build.

#515 - Sept. 14, 2022, 1:33 a.m.

We’d like to mention a new known issue:

• Using the “Copy Account Data” tool will replace account-level achievements, including those that unlock dragonriding. This may result in you having to re-earn dragonriding mounts.
• In the future, we’ll be implementing a warning to make this more obvious.

#521 - Sept. 15, 2022, 12:14 a.m.

Hello Dragonriders!

With the most recent build, we’d like to mention a few additions:

• Fixed an issue wherein non-dragonriding flying mounts wouldn’t bank as expected.
• A Bronze Timekeeper Assistant is now present at all time trials, ready to remind you of your fastest times for the nearby time trial and give directions to any others

#619 - Sept. 21, 2022, 11:55 p.m.

Good day Dragonriders!
We’ve noticed a lot of feedback around tutorials, dragon glyphs, and dragonriding skills and abilities, and are excited to provide these updates in today’s build.

Skills and abilities have seen some updates, including:

• With today’s update, we fixed a bug that allowed Skyward Ascent to accelerate you much more than intended when pitched upward
• Skyward Ascent’s boost has increased by 10% and grants increased forward velocity. This should result in a faster experience when moving forward and reaching higher heights
• An additional trait has been added to the beginning of the skill track:
  • Redirection - While moving at low speeds, Surge Forward’s effectiveness is increased by up to 122%, decreasing as speed increases.
• More Winds of the Isles have been added to Thaldraszus, near Tyrhold and the Cascades
• Skill track costs have been adjusted, to account for additional glyphs and decrease the cost of the earlier traits
• The vigor bar art has been updated toward a dragonrider’s aesthetic

Many of the changes in this build are to improve onramping to the system, including:

• The tutorial now includes a guided path from the Ruby Life Pools
  • This path includes rings and boosts like those found in time trials, protection from leaving the course, and highlighting Skyward Ascent for ascending
  • The tutorial now includes steps to open up the new menus that are key to dragonriding (the skill track and Rostrum of Transformation)
• 8 new Dragon Glyphs have been added to the Dragon Isles (including one experienced during the new tutorial steps)
  • These are intended to be more easily accessible and more easily seen while campaign questing
• The Rostrum of Transformation now sports an icon on the minimap

Bug fix highlights include:

• Pets will now resummon after dismounting from dragon isles drakes
• Summoning random favorite mount will no longer attempt to summon dragon isles drakes outside of the Dragon Isles and will prioritize dragon isles drakes while in the Dragon Isles

New Known Issue:

• Selecting grayed-out options can generally result in a degraded experience until leaving the Rostrum (for instance, not displaying changes and not saving valid changes)

#710 - Sept. 29, 2022, 5:14 p.m.

Hello Dragonriders!

With the latest build, we wanted to call out a few things:

• We’ve adjusted the default sensitivity of the pitch up/down keys while Dragonriding.
  • For those wanting to customize this further, you can now adjust the sensitivity of the pitch keys during Dragonriding by typing “/console dragonRidingPitchSensitivity 1” in the chat window. DragonRidingPitchSensitivity scales from 1 to 10 and supports decimals
• When uncollected, glyphs shine much more brightly
• You can now shift click dragonriding mounts in the Mount Journal and share your dragon with customizations via chat link.

#716 - Sept. 29, 2022, 11:14 p.m.

Hello again Dragonriders!

Another dragon glyph improvement worth mentioning:

• When near an uncollected dragon glyph and on a Dragon Isles drake, you’ll gain a buff called “Dragon Glyph Resonance”, displaying the distance to the relevant uncollected dragon glyph

#756 - Oct. 6, 2022, 12:22 a.m.

Hello Dragonriders!

With the next build, we wanted to note a few things:

• Players who unlock new customizations can now see them marked with a “NEW” tag when visiting the Rostrum of Transformation
• We’ve made improvements to the Vigor bar to better indicate when the player is charging
• Additional Winds of the Isles have been added to Thaldraszus for smoother navigation to Tyrhold
• Winds of the Isles now provides a slight boost forward to better enable travel post-boost
• Drake and Rider Training has swapped places with Redirection on the Dragonriding Skill Track
  • This provides players with an additional point of maximum Vigor as part of the tutorial

#832 - Oct. 12, 2022, 8:58 p.m.

Hello Dragonriders,

With today’s update, we’d like to share a couple notes:

• When Dragonriding Racing, the next ring now emanates a sound to help players triangulate its position
• We’ve fixed a bug wherein the forward boost of the double jump launch would occur earlier in the launch
• New tour side quests have been added, inviting players to complete all of a zone’s time trials for additional experience
  • Once a player completes all tours, they unlock advanced races and a new set of tour sidequests to complete those

New Known Issue:

• While recharging, the Vigor UI shows a repeating texture. Apologies for the inconvenience here.

#887 - Oct. 18, 2022, 11:04 p.m.

Hello Dragonriders AND Dracthyr!

We’ve been hearing lots of feedback from players that Soar feels never worth using, especially as they progress through the Dragonriding Skill Track. While we don’t want them to feel identical, we do want to bring them closer together. We want players to feel like Soaring in the Dragon Isles is a powerful option that embodies the fantasy of flying as a Dracthyr. All the while, we also want Dragonriding to have unique benefits. We’re making some changes with the next build that are aimed toward these goals.

The Dragonriding Skill Track will now confer some benefits to Dracthyr Soar while the Dracthyr player is inside the Dragon Isles

• Drake and Rider Training has been renamed to Take to the Skies and also increases Soar’s max speed to match that of Dragon Isles Drakes
• Dynamic Stretching, Restorative Travels, Yearning for the Sky each reduce the cooldown of Soar by 40 sec, reducing it to 2 min with all of these traits
  • Together with Dracthyr’s Familiar Skies, this results in a possible 1 minute cooldown
• Winds of the Isles, once unlocked, also affects Soar

Thank you all for soaring with us on this journey!

Also, in Dragonriding racing updates, we have the following callouts:

• Gold and silver times have been updated for advanced courses
• You can now change mounts during race start countdowns and not fail the race
• Being a passenger and jumping quickly between different riders using Ride along should no longer remove your whelp visual
• You can now use all your dragonriding abilities during races

#938 - Oct. 20, 2022, 8:14 p.m.

The “Reduce Camera Motion” and “Keep Camera Centered and Reduce Camera Motion” Motion Sickness options should remove the boost FOV. If you find those do not work, please report that as a bug.

#966 - Oct. 25, 2022, 4:47 p.m.

Adding a new Known Issue here - The FOV effects on high boosts have been affected by an unrelated camera fix, causing them to be far more intense than intended. A future build will have a fix to restore these back to the levels seen before this build. Thank you for the reports!