Less than 60% have Pathfinder Part 1, and less than 50% PF2

[Darsithis]

You would have unlocked flying simply doing the content that's in the game. That's Blizzard's intent. It seems to me like you skipped part of that content, most likely the questing. So isn't it fair to say that you don't like doing that content as opposed to you don't care about flying? I never went out of my way to unlock flying, I just did the content.

I did the content...to an extent. I just didn't do every single questing story in every zone, so I didn't get Loremaster (though I got it for almost all of the zones). I also didn't get Explorer, either, since I missed the upper-left corner of Azuna and haven't been back.

I like the quests, I enjoy world quests, raiding, dungeons, etc, but I don't care about flying so rather than stretch a little longer to make sure I did every quest and explored every zone I stopped when I was ready to do something else.

[SirCowdog]

I am not sure why the snark when I didn't say anything of the sort.

It's because I'm a naturally snarky person. Don't read too much into it.

I am sure there are plenty of people who aren't getting flying because they don't like the way it is acquired or the effort involved. I'm not talking about those people. I'm talking about the people who genuinely do not care about being able to fly. Anyone who has ever read a flying discussion thread here or elsewhere knows that plenty of those people exist, otherwise there would be no controversy over the issue.

Oh, I agree there are people who don't care one way or another. They consist mostly of hardcore raiders, if I had to guess.

But lets be clear: Blizzard didn't attempt to remove flying because people didn't care about it. They did it because it supposedly would allow them to deliver a better open world experience. Where is this better open world they spoke of? All I saw when I played was just more of the same "Kill X", "Collect X", and "Click X" quests, but with even more annoying terrain and dazing mobs than any previous expansion. Do you have any idea how many people I've seen who expressed RELIEF at not having to deal with Legion's terrible terrain after getting flight?

And the stuff that actually IS better? Like the artifact challenge missions, Raids, and Mythic+ ....aren't outdoor content where flight would be used anyway.

The only "controversy" is with how badly Blizzard has handled the entire situation. The people defending their actions aren't the players who don't care about flight. It's the rabid fanboys. And the'd accept literally anything that Blizzard does.

[Echocho]

I don't need flying to get from Dalaran to the raids. Pathfinder is pointless

[Healing Rain]

It's a terrible achievement that was made on false premises.

[Tziva]

But that wasn't the qualifier. You stated the game doesn't give any indication of flying being a reward from pathfinder. People that don't look at wowhead/mmo, don't look at the battle.net launcher, don't look at achievements in-game likely won't look at anything else that could inform them of the reward. So it seems you are just looking for the answer of "no one will look at X so blizzard is bad" answer and nothing else.

I wasn't looking for any kind of answer. Nor was I making any kind of positive or negative statement about Blizzard's design choices. I'm saying that it is possible that some of the people who don't have flying don't have it because they don't realise it's available or how to get it. Is that really controversial as a statement?

[rhorle]

I wasn't looking for any kind of answer. Nor was I making any kind of positive or negative statement about Blizzard's design choices. I'm saying that it is possible that some of the people who don't have flying don't have it because they don't realise it's available or how to get it. Is that really controversial as a statement?

No it isn't. But when your response is "Who digs through achievements" when some one corrects you that it is actually stated in-game that it is a reward of an achievement it turns from a simple comment to making a statement about Blizzard design choice. Because now it isn't about it being in game or not but about how it is in-game and how X people don't look at Y thing. So you were looking for some kind of answer to dismiss a simple "it is in game" with "but not everyone will see that".

[Tziva]

No it isn't. But when your response is "Who digs through achievements" when some one corrects you that it is actually stated in-game that it is a reward of an achievement it turns from a simple comment to making a statement about Blizzard design choice. Because now it isn't about it being in game or not but about how it is in-game and how X people don't look at Y thing. So you were looking for some kind of answer to dismiss a simple "it is in game" with "but not everyone will see that".

You're just being nitpicky about the phrasing of my statement and looking for some kind of argument where there is none. I think it's pretty clear from my original post that the point I'm making is that it's not obvious in-game how flying is obtained and that there are probably people who don't have it for that reason. I even said "I don't think it tells you" to indicate lack of confidence in the absolutism of the statement since it's entirely possible that I could have missed something.

But yes, if we're going to play semantics about the precise phrasing, then yes, correct. There is a place in the game that it shows you. However, it is not a place that most people are going to easily see it, and therefore I still think it's a totally valid explanation for why some people might not have completed the achievement which is why I replied with as much.

[analmoose]

I decided I wasn't going to do a bunch of content I don't like. Even if i want to fly.

So much this. If it wasn't such a shit convoluted process to get flying back I would have resubbed. Not interested, not in any way shape or form, of completing suramar. Walking across the entire map just to "discover" the areas.

[SirCowdog]

Another thing: there was no flight controversy before they disabled it. There were a few people on forums saying they wished it was gone but it was largely viewed the same way as people who wished raids still had attunements and whatever.

Blizz's decision to disable it totally fractured the community. We've been arguing about it for 3 years. On that basis alone it was a terrible mistake, introducing huge negativity into the game where it didn't need to be there.

On that basis alone I'd say the decision to remove flight was an enormous mistake.

Exactly! And what's worse is that the wow dev team is supposedly happy with how it turned out. That part makes me really wonder what numbers they're looking at, or where they're getting their feedback from.

[Maudib]

Still doesn't make it necessary. So no, it is factual what he said.

For me it was necessary. If I didn;t have flying, I would not have come back because it is absolutely necessary for me to enjoy the game.

Absolutely necessary.

[rhorle]

But yes, if we're going to play semantics about the precise phrasing, then yes, correct. There is a place in the game that it shows you. However, it is not a place that most people are going to easily see it, and therefore I still think it's a totally valid explanation for why some people might not have completed the achievement which is why I replied with as much.

But it isn't semantics. It entirely changes what you are saying. It isn't anything about precise phrasing or not. It is about you making a statement about the way they tell you in-game is not adequate. I know you said you might have missed where it says in-game and that is my point. Instead of you saying "Oh I guess it does tell you in-game" you made a commentary about the way it tells you in game not being good enough because people will still miss it.

That is far from semantics, nit picking, or precise phrasing. And if there is no argument you wouldn't even have added the last paragraph where you clearly state that you are making an argument for the poor way of notifying people about the reward of flying. You can't have it both ways. Either stick to claiming you aren't making a statement about it or that you are. But of course you won't admit to being wrong and instead create a new way of how I'm in the wrong. Please don't repeat nit picking, precise phrasing, or semantics however. Use a new one.

[purebalance]

For me it was necessary. If I didn;t have flying, I would not have come back because it is absolutely necessary for me to enjoy the game.

Absolutely necessary.

No it wasn't. You seem to not understand the word. Necessary is not a subjective term.

[rhorle]

No it wasn't. You seem to not understand the word. Necessary is not a subjective term.

Sure it is. A rock doesn't need water to survive, but a badger does. Water being necessary is subjective to the object of the need.

[SirCowdog]

I'm saying that it is possible that some of the people who don't have flying don't have it because they don't realise it's available or how to get it. Is that really controversial as a statement?

Well, to be utterly and completely fair, the 7.2 banner did have a giant sign that said flight was going to be available. IIRC it was on the Blizzard launcher. Not that it explained how to get it. That, to my mind, is just one more aspect of Blizzard trying every tiny little thing to discourage flying.

I really wish they'd just have done what they described way back before the launch of WoD: Making the flight unlock and epic quest. Give it some context. Put it in the lore and explain why we don't have air superiority or something. Don't just lock it up and try to forget about it.

[rhorle]

Well, to be utterly and completely fair, the 7.2 banner did have a giant sign that said flight was going to be available. IIRC it was on the Blizzard launcher. Not that it explained how to get it. That, to my mind, is just one more aspect of Blizzard trying every tiny little thing to discourage flying.

https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/news/20565047

This blog post about Flying was made on April 6th. So I'm sure its been on the launcher since around then (as thats where I found it). They had a blog post about doing part one on January 26th. They do explain how to do the achievements.

[amishjello]

Suramar is a bitch, That's why.

[Daara]

I came back after not playing for months and got flying in a week. I really don't see what the problem is. People who don't have it are either just super casual or lazy.

[Tziva]

Well, to be utterly and completely fair, the 7.2 banner did have a giant sign that said flight was going to be available. IIRC it was on the Blizzard launcher. Not that it explained how to get it. That, to my mind, is just one more aspect of Blizzard trying every tiny little thing to discourage flying.

I missed it on the launcher but that's good if it was there.

I doubt there is malicious intend to discourage with it. If Blizzard really didn't want flying, they wouldn't have implemented it in Legion at all. I think they know they've already opened pandoras box with implementing it to begin, and they can't go back now that they know that it is an issue many people care strongly about.

Historically, I feel like Blizzard has never been particularly good at making things obvious in-game. I don't think it's nefarious on their part; I think they just haven't come up with a good way to do things (or it didn't occur to them). I have told the story here a few times about how I bought my father WoW to play in classic and after an exhaustive rundown of everything I thought he'd need to know, I checked back with him later when he was around level 40 and (a) he had selected no talents because he was not aware that talents were a thing (b) he was wearing white vendor gear rather than magic stuff with stats because "it had more armor" which he thought was the most important thing since it kept him alive. I've always been a person who read shit outside of the game, so I don't think it really occurred to me until that moment how big the divide is between the players I interact with (who read third party sites and research the game) and casual folks like him whose relationship with WoW exists entirely between opening and closing the client.

Anyway, what I'm getting at is that I think Blizzard being not particularly clear in this area is just because they've never been able to find a good way to be clear. Some things are hard to display or state in an obvious fashion without it disrupting the fantasy of the game (maybe it is worth that, but that's a debate for another time I suppose). I highly doubt there's some guy there cackling and tenting his fingers and saying, "let's put it on the launcher but be vague so less people figure out how to fly!"

[Witchblade77]

No it wasn't. You seem to not understand the word. Necessary is not a subjective term.

it is when it comes to personal enjoyment. think of it like that. some people like their coffee black. some people don't like coffee at all. and some people NEED to have sugar and/or milk in their coffee or they do not enjoy the taste.

oh... here's an in game example. imagine, for a moment that your favorite activity in game is.. lets say ranked arenas. this is the activity you play the game for. now.. imagine that blizzard removes ranked arenas from their new expansion. would you buy it? would you play it? its kinda like that with flying for a LOT of people.

[chaud]

Yeah, figured that might be the case. Can you tell if someone logged in once vs 10 times etc?

Probably not, we only update character data weekly. We just use the lastModified time, which is the last time their profile was updated. This is usually triggered by the character logging in and out.