Blizzard answered some community questions about Dragonriding and explained how they approach the feature without crowding out flying. Some testers requested a reduced cooldown on Soar (Evoker Racial Ability) for testing purposes, but that won’t happen because Blizzard is “getting great bug reports” even with the 5 minute cooldown.
(Source)
Mostly related is the ease of moving short distances. Hopping on my mount to fly like 50 feet is something I, and I imagine most players, have become accustomed to over time. With this system in place as it is, it’s almost an ‘investment’ to do this, seeing as jumping requires Vigor.
I’d suggest some way to cross small distances without consuming energy. It doesn’t have to be fast or particularly effective, just a way to cross terrain faster than you would normally on foot. I think a good way to do this would be to add a “mini jump” to allow the dragon to jump just high enough to gain a small amount of speed to cross a small obstacle or something.
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.
Something I miss is the ability to just fly up into the air and AFK in safety. An ability you could use when in the air to “hover” indefinitely would be nice. Cancels upon movement or damage, but otherwise allows you to just hang in the air while you’re AFK?
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.
And finally, I’d suggest stealing an idea from Elden Ring to help remedy the problem of crossing common mountains, or going uphill in a widely travelled area. Add some little updraft areas that, when you activate your jump in them, sends you flying maybe 1.5x to 2x higher up than you would normally. I do feel this should probably be limited in scope however, to avoid trivializing the system as a whole.
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.
