Druid Travel Form Changes

[Redith]

Well from looking at some comments you CAN still turn into stag form. You just need to click a button.

This ^

Also why would they remove it and then have these two new glyphs?

• Glyph of Travel: Travel Form grants an additional 60% movement speed, but can no longer be used while in combat.This effect is disabled in battlegrounds and arenas and cannot be combined with other temporary speed bonuses.
• Stag Form: Grants an alternate version of stag form which other players can ride as a mount.

I get that it's not disappearing, but from the way I'm understanding it, you might not be able to turn into the Stag form at will depending on your location? (you'll be forced into flight form if the area has flying enabled), and it just seems like an unnecessary change.

^^^^

[SpiritBinder]

I get that it's not disappearing, but from the way I'm understanding it, you might not be able to turn into the Stag form at will depending on your location? (you'll be forced into flight form if the area has flying enabled), and it just seems like an unnecessary change.

Arh I see, I was just going off the... "OMFG travel forms being removed?!?!"

It does look like may cut out the extra buttons of standard choice in preference of perceived convenience by blizzard. Hopefully it's just an over site and something they will re look at, it is Beta after all. If they don't I'm sure some clever person will write an addon or macro to given back these button options, though less than ideal if blizzard could revert.

[Lisaara]

This ^

Also why would they remove it and then have these two new glyphs?

• Glyph of Travel: Travel Form grants an additional 60% movement speed, but can no longer be used while in combat.This effect is disabled in battlegrounds and arenas and cannot be combined with other temporary speed bonuses.
• Stag Form: Grants an alternate version of stag form which other players can ride as a mount.

I get that it's not disappearing, but from the way I'm understanding it, you might not be able to turn into the Stag form at will depending on your location? (you'll be forced into flight form if the area has flying enabled), and it just seems like an unnecessary change.

^^^^

That's still not a removal, thus making the title false.

[Xella]

But you're a cow, how can you have goats to get? :P

As it stands right now in beta, Travel form works like this macro (which I use a more complicated version of on live):

/cast [swimming] Aquatic Form; [flyable] Swift Flight Form; Travel Form

So basically if you're swimming, you'll go into ugly seacowform; if you're not swimming and are in an area in which you can fly, you'll swap into bird-or-batform, and if you're not swimming and aren't in an area marked flyable, you'll go into stag/cheetah. This is independent of whether a zone is actually marked as [flyable] within the macro conditional system, which is both really surprising and really great—I'm sure I'm not the only one who's tried for thirty seconds or more to jump out of the water and hit flight form but the game still thinks I'm in the water so it just changes me in and out of aquatic form... or going to northrend or pandaria before unlocking the appropriate flying skill and had my mount button just completely break because it thinks I'm in an area where I can fly, but I can't actually cast flight form because I really can't fly. There's still that bit of lag where you have to stutterstep when you go from indoors to outdoors to get the server to recognize that you're able to actually fly, but right now the [flyable] conditional for the instanced version of Tanaan is turned on, despite not being able to fly there (in SMV too I think, but I stopped using my live mount macro because I was getting tired of getting on the wrong mount). Druid's travel form actually puts you in stag form despite the area being incorrectly marked as flyable for macros. That's pretty freakin' great imo.

The major areas this change will effect will be the major hubs and Pandaria, because you can't fly in Draenor anyway so any RP you want to do with stag form won't be affected there. I admit I'll miss stag form for 6.0 and any RP encounters in SW/Org but I'm not huge into RPing anyway so I'm afraid I'm not super affected by the loss (though I do use it occasionally for commission reference so there's that :x).

Worth mentioning, neither of the glyphs affecting travel form appear to be "live" right now so we can't really test how they'll work (not that I could do that anyway; they broke the eclipse graphic in the most recent patch and its flickering was hitting my eyes/brain just right to induce the start of a migraine when I was logged in last :\) but I wonder if they might not just roll in the ability to "extrude" stag form onto its own button in with the "you can now be used as a mount by other players" glyph, since I don't see them necessarily being thrilled with flight form being a passenger mount, and I doubt they can get the glyph working to just work with stag if they're all one ability now.

[cowmuflage]

But you're a cow, how can you have goats to get?

Shhhhsshhhh don't tell people that! ;0

[Chimera]

I'm having a hard time trying to understand what's happening, but by my understanding we're losing the ability to decide what form we want to be in? If that goes to live, I'll be shelving my druids until it's changed so I can decide for myself what form I want to be in at a given time. I would prefer to keep the bar as it is, as it's always been a blessing to have so I can keep my action bars free of the buttons (I loathe the shaman totem change and have hardly played my shamans while my sub was running because of the change and I doubt I'll ever go back to them as regularly as I do other classes despite loving them).

I'm a person that loves action bars. I like a lot of them. I want more on my screen, not that button that flips between bars at the bottom. I have all action bars visible and the slots are usually full in every bar that's showing on the screen at any point in time (except the one that you need to flip to if you want to access it). To keep seeing action bars removed or changed which affects buttons that honestly don't need reconfiguring, it's extremely annoying and really bothers me. I really don't like that they're screwing around with systems that don't need to be touched :/

[Xella]

To clarify, your action bars won't be changing; you'll have two fewer buttons on your stance/form bar but neither of those missing buttons generates a new action bar (bear form and cat form and moonkin form do; aquatic form and travel form and flight/swift flight form do not).

Live druid form bar:


Beta druid form bar:


I believe that the druid "non-combat form" system absolutely needed to be changed; it's bulky and unwieldy the way it is and requires you to either know how to write macros or know someone who can do it for you in order to put all the abilities that should be on one button, on one button. For the record, here's my live macro for my druid:

Code: Select all

#showtooltip
/castrandom [modifier:Shift] Winged Guardian; [button:2] Traveler's Tundra Mammoth; [modifier:ctrl]Azure Water Strider;[swimming]Aquatic Form; [combat] Travel Form;[flyable] Swift Flight Form; Winterspring Frostsaber, Swift Zulian Tiger

250/255 characters used and I get to choose between whether to let me dismount with the same macro or be able to call a second ground mount at random (right now I'm opting for the second mount, usually I don't tho). That's a lot of macro for someone who just wants to push a button and be on her way.

I mean, unless I'm misunderstanding what you're objecting to here—totally possible, I misunderstand stuff constantly! With hunters, we're losing our aspect/stance/form bar (it's called a "stance bar" regardless of what actually goes on it, thanks warriors :P) but keeping two of our three aspects, which means that we've got to put Aspect of the Cheetah and Aspect of the Pack somewhere on one of our normal action bars (that change also makes our pet bar stop being above the bottom-right action bar and start being above the bottom-left one, after ten years of it being on the right). THAT'S stupid, and I will rail against that to the end of time (and write polite but firmly-worded suggestions about changing it back or adding the ability to open up a stance bar to EVERY class). Druids aren't losing any of these forms or any of their button space, they're just losing immediate access to them in situations where the game doesn't consider them "ideal." Yes, I don't think it's the right change for everybody and I'm sure some sort of compromise can be reached, but you aren't losing button space like we did when they changed shaman totems (and believe me, I hated—and still hate—that change, too :/)

[Chimera]

A bit hard to understand, but looking at the pictures and reading the explanation, this means our non-combat shifting forms (although this is a little confusing as travel form I thought is considered non-combat?) are disappearing from our stance bar (thank you for telling me what that bar is, been soooo long since I've played, I forgot what it was called!) and we need to place them on main action bars to be able to toggle them? And that stance bars are just sorta being culled to ones that are used frequently in combat/fleeing from said combat situations?

[cowmuflage]

Yeah that's kind of the jist of it. The travel form changes to what you can use in the area but if you want to be the other forms you have to press a button. Seeing as WoD is non flying at luanch you will be using ground form.

[Xella]

No no, they're not disappearing—they're being consolidated. Instead of having three forms of non-combat travel (one for swimming, one for running on the ground, and one for flying in the air) each having their own button (so if you're in the water, you hit aquatic form, if you wanna fly you hit flight form, and if you're in an area you can't fly or you're in combat you hit travel form), all three forms are being merged into one spell. If you're swimming, you hit your travel form button, and you're a seal. If you wanna fly, you hit your travel form button and you become a bird/bat. And if you're in combat or you're in an area where you can't fly, you hit your travel form button and you turn into a stag/cheetah. Instead of having to manually press (or hotkey, if you've bound them) the right one depending on the situation you're in, you only have to press one button and the game will choose the proper type of non-combat form for your situation. In essence, it boils your three travel options down into one easy-to-use button so that you don't HAVE to put it on a separate button. With the macro I listed above, you need to use an action button space because you can't put it on the stance bar, but it lets you use all your non-combat forms with one button press. In 6.0/Warlords, I won't NEED a macro.

I get the feeling I'm making this even more complicated than it needs to be, haha.

[Chimera]

No no, they're not disappearing—they're being consolidated. Instead of having three forms of non-combat travel (one for swimming, one for running on the ground, and one for flying in the air) each having their own button (so if you're in the water, you hit aquatic form, if you wanna fly you hit flight form, and if you're in an area you can't fly or you're in combat you hit travel form), all three forms are being merged into one spell. If you're swimming, you hit your travel form button, and you're a seal. If you wanna fly, you hit your travel form button and you become a bird/bat. And if you're in combat or you're in an area where you can't fly, you hit your travel form button and you turn into a stag/cheetah. Instead of having to manually press (or hotkey, if you've bound them) the right one depending on the situation you're in, you only have to press one button and the game will choose the proper type of non-combat form for your situation. In essence, it boils your three travel options down into one easy-to-use button so that you don't HAVE to put it on a separate button. With the macro I listed above, you need to use an action button space because you can't put it on the stance bar, but it lets you use all your non-combat forms with one button press. In 6.0/Warlords, I won't NEED a macro.

I get the feeling I'm making this even more complicated than it needs to be, haha.

OH! Okay, I get it now!

Mmmmmm, that macro of yours you posted earlier, will that allow me to decide what form I use if it was made to activate certain travel forms? I don't really want to be forced to fly if I actually want to run around on the ground in my Stag/Cheetah form but I technically can fly in that area. :X

[Lupis]

Yeah, that's the thing for me, Chimera. I understand that, for some people, this IS convenient, but there's a large player base that really needs to be able to choose. If they could just make it so there was still a way to force choose Stag form instead of Flight, I'd be okay with it- but at the moment there isn't, and that's not cool at all.

For me, there isn't any situation I can think of where I absolutely NEED to have travel form (except roleplay, where it can be completely vital to some characters)- but I don't want to only have it when I NEED it. It's one of my favorite druid forms, having it barred from use in certain zones is just... really frustrating.

(plus if you, say, don't have a two-person mount and want to carry a lowbie around- good luck, you're going to be forced into flight form instead of travel form.)

[Lisaara]

Yeah, that's the thing for me, Chimera. I understand that, for some people, this IS convenient, but there's a large player base that really needs to be able to choose. If they could just make it so there was still a way to force choose Stag form instead of Flight, I'd be okay with it- but at the moment there isn't, and that's not cool at all.

For me, there isn't any situation I can think of where I absolutely NEED to have travel form (except roleplay, where it can be completely vital to some characters)- but I don't want to only have it when I NEED it. It's one of my favorite druid forms, having it barred from use in certain zones is just... really frustrating.

(plus if you, say, don't have a two-person mount and want to carry a lowbie around- good luck, you're going to be forced into flight form instead of travel form.)

So much this. I like my choice. This didn't need to be revamped.

[Bowno]

I am not pleased by any of this. Leave my forms alone. I don't need to hassle with a stupid drop down like for call pet or have to remember what to do in order to get into what form.

I know people say this all the time, but I'm pretty darn serious when I say this change will most likely have me switching to Wildstar or something. I know it doesn't seem like the biggest change in the world, but to me it matters.

[Lisaara]

This won't make me leave WoW. It'd take a lot more than this to make me just toss my hands up and storm out. But I'll still grump about it.

[Qraljar]

Whatever the case, it's a stupid change if intentional. It's overzealous to try to reduce button bloat to the extent that you'll actually remove the choice of what form to be in, or hinder/stunt that choice.



Don't fix what isn't broken. They're much more likely to hurt Druid players with this than help them.

[PorrasouxRex]

Whatever the case, it's a stupid change if intentional. It's overzealous to try to reduce button bloat to the extent that you'll actually remove the choice of what form to be in, or hinder/stunt that choice.



Don't fix what isn't broken. They're much more likely to hurt Druid players with this than help them.

Exactly how I feel.

[Myrrmi]

Maybe if would change, like, birdform when you fly, stag when you get low enough to run on ground, seal if you fall into the water? Although I see problems when I'm in a flight-enabled zone, carrying a friend as a stag, and press the spacebar to jump over a log or something... I hope they'd block the auto-transformation for when you have someone on your back.

...but then, that would disable the old, good "ok, so you think you can ride me just because I'm a stag... just wait... where's the nearest cliff...?"

Edit: nevermind, it wouldn't just shift out of the travelform for a sec, then get back in, during the freefall, and the insolent rider still gets what he deserved XD

[cowmuflage]

I'd still play my druid even with this change. Shes the only Alliance toon I really play XD As long as my Boomkin has it's badass dance I don't mind. God knows the Alliance story bores me to tears

[Redith]

still a pain from what they say