Time for no flight servers?

[Kul Tiras]

Wouldn't this finally get rid of all of the anti-flight crowd's complaining?

You play on an even keel on no flight servers, the majority of the population goes play on flying servers.

You can even have a special pet, special achievement, special title and free gold and epics in mail every month for all I fucking care.

Fuck I'll even pay 1$ extra/month. Just let me play the game, not the grind. There's only so much "appreciation" of the artists' hard work I can do before I get sick of this shit.

Christ, GW2 and ESO have teleportation systems that allow you to skip entire swaths of "content" alltogether, and yet, its group content has groups running around all day long larger than WoW ever had, even with Timeless Isle.

[Kul Tiras]

Pathfinder is a fine solution.

How the hell is it a fine solution?
It requires me to explore. Fine. I explore everything on ground.

What the hell does reputation have to do with appreciating the ground content?
"I'm killing this enemy on the ground for the 500th time! Wow, I never realized that grass here was a slightly less green shade of green!"

[Kul Tiras]

So once again...what does Pathfinder supposed to achieve oher than gated drudgery of shittier travel?

[Oerba Yun Fang]

I honestly really wish they'd adopt a gating method like the one that FFXIV uses. For those unfamiliar with FFXIV, in a new expansion area you must attune with a number of objects called Aether Currents. Some are awarded via quests, with the rest being scattered throughout the zone. Generally the "exploration" ones are in areas somewhat off the beaten path, but still fairly close by to a path you'd take just doing normal questing anyway. By the time you've finished questing in a zone you generally have attuned to all the currents in that zone, and you unlock flight in that zone. This process repeats for every new zone.

I feel like it's a great balance of "explore your first time through" and "get stuff done fast after that". You still see and experience the zone from the ground on your first time through, but you don't have to go through a grind at max level just to be able to fly again. When it's done right, it feels like something that's just part of the questing experience, but still accomplishes the task of making you have to go through a zone without just flying over everything right off the bat.

[americandavey]

OP, you should take out "Pre-BC" in your Signature with "the introduction of Flying"

Sums about up.

[AlmightyGerkin]

Pathfinder is meant for you guys to do work and get rewarded by flying not sitting in a major capital city and buying for 400g. Don't be lazy its not hard to acquire pathfinder.

[tripleh]

If there wasnt a 6+month delay there wouldnt be an issue.

[Elim Garak]

Pathfinder is meant for you guys to do work and get rewarded by flying not sitting in a major capital city and buying for 400g. Don't be lazy its not hard to acquire pathfinder.

It doesn't give flight, a patch does.

[AlmightyGerkin]

It doesn't give flight, a patch does.

Pathfinder which at the end gives flight. People are just lazy and do not want to do the work to be able to fly.

[Elim Garak]

Pathfinder which at the end gives flight. People are just lazy and do not want to do the work to be able to fly.

That's just nonsense. People want flight to do the content and enjoy doing it while they are at it. Why else do you think they want it? Just to float above the capital? Pathfinder forces them to do content in a less enjoyable way (much less), and then it doesn't give flight, just a speed boost. A patch later will give flight with even more stupid strings attached.

[In Ogres We Trust]

That's just nonsense. People want flight to do the content and enjoy doing it while they are at it. Why else do you think they want it? Just to float above the capital? Pathfinder forces them to do content in a less enjoyable way (much less), and then it doesn't give flight, just a speed boost. A patch later will give flight with even more stupid strings attached.

Then they should play a different game.

[AlmightyGerkin]

That's just nonsense. People want flight to do the content and enjoy doing it while they are at it. Why else do you think they want it? Just to float above the capital? Pathfinder forces them to do content in a less enjoyable way (much less), and then it doesn't give flight, just a speed boost. A patch later will give flight with even more stupid strings attached.

Can do the content without flight. Did it Vanilla, Burning Crusade for awhile, Legion. Working for it is a lot more rewarding than just giving it to you.

[Nefarious Tea]

Instead of no-flight servers, they should make all servers flight-only. You can't be on the ground at all.

[Moxal]

I'd be okay with non-warmode having flight like the old days (at max level with moderate gold cost) and warmode having no flying possible.

[MoanaLisa]

Pathfinder is good. Flight is a major reward in the game and it should only be available as a result of playing.

Here's an idea: Choose not to fly if that's what you want.

[SirCowdog]

Pathfinder is good. Flight is a major reward in the game and it should only be available as a result of playing.

Here's an idea: Choose not to fly if that's what you want.

Pathfinder is...adequate. We've been around this block a few times, and it could definitely be improved. Inclusion in the lore and context for losing/regaining flight, etc.

But the most egregious part of Pathfinder is the delay between part one and part two. Especially when part two likely is just an entirely new island that we couldn't access during part one anyway(Broken Shore says hi).

Working for the reward is fine. Waiting for Blizzard to flip a switch after months of pointless, needless delay is not.

[Kaleredar]

All of these proposed solutions are wrong.


The answer? They should design zones around flying and have flying immediately available at max level or near to max level upon launch.

Like they did in BC. And WotLK. And Cataclysm. You know, the most prosperous times in WoW's existence; the two former expansions were hailed as WoW's greatest and flying was integral to them. You weren't getting your fancy nether drakes or traveling to Tempest Keep without flying in BC. You weren't even able to level in storm peaks or Icecrown glacier in WotLK without flying. All of the max level zones in cata required flying to traverse.


Flying has existed in WoW for longer than WoW existed without flying; claims that it "ruins" WoW are entirely disingenuous. No one had a problem with flying in BC. No one had a problem with flying in WotLK. When they announced old world flying in Cataclysm at blizzcon, the crowd went nuts.

Flying didn't become some hot-button issue until pretty much the end of MoP when a small but vocal minority got it up their ass that it was the scapegoat for everything wrong and bad in WoW.

No one wants to do world PvP because battlegrounds are way more rewarding? Must be flying's fault. Nobody wants to have to wade through dozens of inconsequential enemies for the 40th time while doing their golden lotus dailies for the 40th day in a row? Must be flying's fault. Nobody wants to spend an inordinate amount of time traveling to and completing their umpteenth "kill bear, collect its ass" quest? Must be flying's fault!

Yeah, no. None of those things have anything to do with flying. Flying gets blamed for problems that aren't due to it and, subsequently, the underlying issues of things like world PvP not being rewarding, dailies being repetitive, and many forms of questing being stale will not be solved by removing it. All that does is make all that shit more tedious and time consuming.

All of this pathfinder nonsense is a crutch to bait players along. I'm generally in good step with what blizzard does design-wise, but I consider gating flying behind arbitrary achievements, rep grinds and, most importantly, patch delays as perhaps their worst design choice.


Flying exists. This is a game using flying. Players need to get over it and Blizzard needs to figure out ways to integrate it BACK into the experience. Not make it an issue of pulling teeth.

[Icoblablubb]

OP's comment about GW2 and more players than ever compared to timeless isles .. just lol dude stop smoking crack

[bufferunderrun]

this as already discussed to death blizzard want to slow down players and thus flying was gated, the fact that pathfinder is divided into 2 part and blizzard hold the power to decide when the second one is released, mean that even if you work your ass of to grind it no matter what you can't have it.

Blizzard now view flying as a cheap catch up mechanic for altholics you work it out to lessen the pain of levelling 13 alts to max level.

[Deleted]

So once again...what does Pathfinder supposed to achieve oher than gated drudgery of shittier travel?

Meh, there are already good options for travelling in KT and Zandalar. Flight paths are everywhere and the whistle is only 5 min CD. Of course flying mounts would still be faster but travelling is not as bad today.