I'd really like to know if and how flight will be implemented in PFO. The fly spell as written in pathfinder is a world of fun: A fly speed of 60, or 40 with an encumbrance or medium/heavy armor. Will there be any intact variant of this in the final game? I can just imagine the chaos: squads of characters flying around and dealing death from above! Surely there are spells out there that might be hard to implement in an MMO (I'm looking at you, time stop) but I hope fly makes the final cut.
Interesting point. Of course, you could TRY to hover but unless you're pretty well trained in the fly skill you're probably gonna fall on your ass.
Goblin Squad Member
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Flight?! Um...
My short answer: No, it shouldn't be ingame.
Longer answer:
This is me being a carebear again, but my first thought is how to stop griefers, or even regular PvP'ers, from using flight to render anyone who can't fly completely helpless. Anyone who's played WoW on a PvP server knows the pain of constantly scanning the skies, making sure that some level 85 isn't about to drop onto your head, one-shot you, and fly away again, all in the space of 5 seconds.
However, I know that some people would want to have flight, so here's a few ideas:
1) Nihimon had a nice idea:
If there is flight, I really, really hope it has the element from old-school D&D flight, in that you generally have to maintain forward progress, and can't just hover there unless you have a very high level of flight ability.
That would be hilarious. Make flight more like a flight simulator (aka more realistic), instead of "It's like running but in three dimensions". Add in maximum turn speed and maximum rate of acceleration/deceleration, and I'm imagining some hilarious crash landings. Plus, there would be some player skill to flying, not just character skill. That's both good and bad: Good, because players can feel like they're actually learning something, and Bad, because they're not learning anything terribly useful, and players with poor motor skills would be left out.
2) Require frightening amounts of skill training to even start to use flying mounts, or cast flight spells. This would mean a lot of skill training that wouldn't be going into crafting or combat, so a player who learned to fly wouldn't be able to do much else... until they trained combat skills, and then we're back to the whole "All of Golarion turns into the Battle for Britain" problem.
3) Only NPC's can fly. This would definitely damage roleplaying and immersion, but it's one quick-and-easy solution. If only NPC's can fly, then the developers can very easily control what is flying.
4) Make flying mounts/flight spells very, very expensive. Especially combined with a more challenging flight system, this would make any griefer think twice about getting a flying gryphon to gank anyone as they please. Only people with a lot of spare gold would bother getting flying mounts, and it would make seeing one on the battlefield a rarity, as well as being a symbol of wealth and power for the guild/player who had one.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think any attempts to make flight "rare" are unlikely to be effective. If it's in the game, and it's reasonably possible for anyone to have it, then it's only a matter of time before everyone has it. If it's a question of massive Skill Training, then people will do it once they've "maxed out" their character according to the vision in their head. I suppose it's possible to make it really rare if you make it so expensive that literally only the leader of an uber-guild would have a chance of affording it.
Is there room for a compromise where it's possible, but there's a stiff enough cost per time unit actually spent flying that people only use it very sparingly? Maybe the cost even accelerates the longer you fly, with the counter only gradually going back to zero as you stay grounded. This would certainly alleviate the concern of the skies being constantly full of flying characters, and of griefers with nothing else to do trolling for victims below.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think any attempts to make flight "rare" are unlikely to be effective. If it's in the game, and it's reasonably possible for anyone to have it, then it's only a matter of time before everyone has it. If it's a question of massive Skill Training, then people will do it once they've "maxed out" their character according to the vision in their head. I suppose it's possible to make it really rare if you make it so expensive that literally only the leader of an uber-guild would have a chance of affording it.
Is there room for a compromise where it's possible, but there's a stiff enough cost per time unit actually spent flying that people only use it very sparingly? Maybe the cost even accelerates the longer you fly, with the counter only gradually going back to zero as you stay grounded. This would certainly alleviate the concern of the skies being constantly full of flying characters, and of griefers with nothing else to do trolling for victims below.
I agree that making it rare will be imposible, but making it limited could be pretty simple. Say you can fly, but only for 2 minutes every half hour. etc... fly spell should have a short duration, flying mounts can get tired when carrying the weight of a humanoid creature and it's gear. Making things rare by making them hard to obtain never works, that is an absolute fact. No matter how hard to get something is, if it is drastically better, people will work their tails off for it, and worse of all the first ones to get it will be the ones most likely to abuse it.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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I prefer the solution of making flight trebly expensive. Expensive in capital costs: researching fly as a spell, or building the buildings needed to train and raise griffons. Expensive as an opportunity cost: there are some things which are incompatible with flight, like heavy armor or loads. And expensive as an operating cost: Flight spells have rare material components, and griffons require lots of food to support operations.
The most important part is the operating expenses, because capital expenses can be distributed over a large group, and tend to be either attainable or unattainable, rather than a sliding scale of costs versus requirements.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I prefer the solution of making flight trebly expensive. Expensive in capital costs: researching fly as a spell, or building the buildings needed to train and raise griffons. Expensive as an opportunity cost: there are some things which are incompatible with flight, like heavy armor or loads. And expensive as an operating cost: Flight spells have rare material components, and griffons require lots of food to support operations.
The most important part is the operating expenses, because capital expenses can be distributed over a large group, and tend to be either attainable or unattainable, rather than a sliding scale of costs versus requirements.
The problem with high maintinence cost, is as guilds get more powerful, what used to be expensive, starts seeming cheap, as more automated systems start going into place, supply routes are streamlined etc...
There are a few things that could keep flight relatively balanced:
1) As mentioned earlier if the spell's duration is short, that's great. The amount of time wings last on the tabletop won't translate well to the game.
2) The description of fly in the pathfinder SRD mentions that characters wearing anything heavier than light armor don't fly as fast.
3) If the fly skill is implemented in game and implemented well, this could make flying a skill that requires great investment. Consider the following:
You made your character and you want to fly around frequently. Do you cast spells while flying? (pretty distracting!, roll concentration) Do you want to take full attacks while flying? Well then you'd better stop moving, but hovering in place requires a certain fly DC. These problems would be so harsh that you'd probably have to waste skills, feats (or the PFO equivalent of them) if you want to be a powerful flying character. In the end, you're putting a LOT into a characters ability to fly in combat. You're sacrificing other potential skills/feats/etc. for flight purposes.
4) There has to be a risk to being in the air. The fly spell as written in the SRD lets you fall slowly if the spell expires or is dispelled. If PFO changes this and allows dispelled flying characters to fall from the sky and take massive damage, we have one solid check on the power of flyers. Another good solution would be to make taking damage during flight come with a risk of falling from the sky or being otherwise physically disrupted.
5) Be warned, this is a profoundly gritty solution. Grappling in mid air should be extremely dangerous, leaving both the grappler and the grapplee falling painfully towards earth. If arial attack is a common problem, it may have a common solution: designated anti-flyer grapplers.
EDIT:
TO PUT IT SIMPLY I think that gaining the ability to fly (magically or otherwise really) should not be viewed as much of a "buff" unless your character is specifically tailored for the challenge of flight. The extra speed and ability to fly will help anyone outside of battle (and in getting away from battle), but being in the air in a fight should be efficient and deadly for unskilled flyers. If this is the design philosophy for flight then not everyone will fly. Air combat will be more of a niche style, and rather than seeing it everywhere you will see it in a few unique players.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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The problem with high maintinence cost, is as guilds get more powerful, what used to be expensive, starts seeming cheap, as more automated systems start going into place, supply routes are streamlined etc...
The question of "how do we keep things expensive?" is different. If a griffin costs thee horses a week to feed, the cost of a guild having a griffon is not having three horses each week. My mounted cavalry outnumbers the equal cost in griffons, and doubles as a food source in a siege. Scrolls of flight are mass-produced at the opprotunity cost of Stunning Accurate Arrows, so the force you sent to fly over the moat drowns in it instead.
If a group has so much everything that there is nothing more useful for them to get, then the game has been won. Or lost.
Flight just makes for a head ache for both players and developers.
Either you end up with invisible walls everywhere, or game breaking through flight, as developers try to take flight into account when designing perilous areas and such.
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I'm all for making it cost lots of mana and requireing check every time you act or take dmg etc, though a fail would result in falling a ways but not need to end spell it just prevents you from acting for a sec like a stun. Of course if the ground hits you before you recover well that hurts, and spell ends.
Definetly fall if spell wears out, and
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Not 'mana' in the sense of a rapidly renewing personal resource. Expensive components, in the sense of a -finite- resource that costs time both directly and indirectly to produce, and has competing uses. Casting flight should have a cost similar to feeding a griffon, (a horse) and researching flight should have a cost similar to rearing a griffon (a specialized building (requiring a player association to control the territory containing the building...), lots of resources, time, and possibly some luck).
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fly is a spell and as such it should cost like a spell which means needing to go find it or spend lots of money to learn it but once learned it should be like any other spell, limit speed duration and require checks if you want but its cost should be the same type as any other spell.
griffon fly as much as you want, costs upkeep and need to get to griffion to use it
fly spell, fly as long as you expend your LIMITED amount of magic, no upkeep costs beyond protecting your spellbook if you use one.
griffon costs money but otherwise limitless
spell costs a resource that limits your defensive and offensive power. if you cast the fly spell then that just cost you a spell that might save your life 5 min later.