Can we get one thing straight about the introduction of pathfinder?

[Zalamander]

To me it's about getting to know the world. They are right in saying you don't experience the world they create through flying.
To this day I still don't know my way around on the ground in Hyjal or any Cata zone for example, while for any other I know the way/roads from memory.

It's sad that you feel that way. For me it's very much the opposite, I feel they are very wrong about the experiencing the world and they know they are too, it's just an excuse they use instead of the real reason of not wanting flying that is to cut development time. Just so sad that many are buying into this bullshit argument.
For me their messing with flying has just instead led to me not even playing at all, so their world gets very seen by me... NOT.

Flying was always my boon for leveling up a char to max level, having flying waiting for me there so I could start exploring the world for real was what mostly motivated me to level up. I never gave a damn about quests and lore, I hate that shit. I just want an open world for me to experience and explore in however way I feel like.

[Relapses]

It's sad that you feel that way. For me it's very much the opposite, I feel they are very wrong about the experiencing the world and they know they are too, it's just an excuse they use instead of the real reason of not wanting flying that is to cut development time.*

*citation needed

[rrayy]

*citation needed

He has none. It's the same BS anti=Pathfidner players spew and not conce has any actual evidence been shown to back that claim up.

- - - Updated - - -

You're effectively correct, OP, with a little deductive reasoning, it's pretty obvious that Blizzard would love to remove flying from the game due to the extra work it necessitates but because you were mean to my beloved Activision Blizzard, I'm going to act like you're wrong.

It's pretty obvious you are sticking to a narrative you want to believe despite their being no evidence to support it, so you are going to point to everyone who shares my opinion to try to claim your opinion as fact.

No, he is not correct because it is nothing but opinion and there are absolutely no facts to back it up. You agreeing with it doesn't make it fact either.

[SirCowdog]

He has none. It's the same BS anti=Pathfidner players spew and not conce has any actual evidence been shown to back that claim up.

That's not entirely true.

We have Ion's own words about how flying creates additional challenges for development, and we have the case of Tanaan Jungle being delayed in order to add flying to it. That points towards flying taking more developer time in order to implement, and that sticking to a design formula that doesn't have to worry about how flight might effect encounters makes things easier.

The thing is, easier doesn't always mean better. Avoiding challenges just leads to weakness.

Blizzard tried to remove flight in WoD. The player backlash made that too costly. So they instead shifted to just putting flight at a point where it wouldn't be able to effect how players interacted with encounters, thus effectively protecting the formulaic ground design that saves dev time.

It's pretty efficient. Pathfinder is actually an elegant solution, worthy of a high-end number cruncher like Hazzikostas. It only comes at the cost of what set WoW's open world apart from other MMOs, and robbed the game of a lot of its sense of wonder. Design by spreadsheet at its finest.

[D3athsting]

I remember falling through the floor in some zones during vanilla because there was no collision added to them just because you weren't supposed/allowed to go there (e.g. ironforge airport), so yes flying needs more development time

[rda]

I'm tired of reading that pathfinder was introduced to reinvigorate world PvP and exploration, because it wasn't. That's the corporate spiel trying to cover up the fact that disabling flight substantially reduces the amount of testing that needs to be done prior to launch.

I don't think the bolded is true. Don't get me wrong, I agree that not flying was not about "reinvigorating" world PVP or exploration - I doubt that was even the (real) intent - but it didn't happen because of reducing time to test either. This does not reduce time to test, all zones are de-facto built in full 3D for years now, you have to go out of your way to produce artifacts seen from above - at best we are talking about empty surfaces and they aren't difficult to fill. I think they removed flying mostly because not being able to fly slows you down and extends the time you stay subbed. No doubt some numbnuts on the dev team thought that this might be good for exploration / PVP / bla bla bla too, but I think the main reason is just slowing the pace down and plain making things take longer.

- - - Updated - - -

We have Ion's own words about how flying creates additional challenges for development, and we have the case of Tanaan Jungle being delayed in order to add flying to it. That points towards flying taking more developer time in order to implement, and that sticking to a design formula that doesn't have to worry about how flight might effect encounters makes things easier.

Nah, that's just Ion talking BS as usual. You give the man a viewpoint and he argues that viewpoint whatever it is. A year (or a week) later he might be arguing an opposite viewpoint just as well. I think he doesn't even know when he ends up not telling the truth mostly. The additional effort to test for issues like the ones they had in Tanaan is tiny, 99.9% of that is covered by automated tests.

[HoodKazekage]

Players: There no player interaction, the world feels small, we hate LFG and LFR because there is no community, fuck CRZ because there is no community!!!
Blizzard: Okay we'll introduce pathfinder so that flying is not out right away so there's more player interaction!

Whinners who complain about everything and don't like the game yet feel a need to go a website dedicated to WOW NEWS: NOOOO!!!! TIMEGATE!!!!! BLIZZARD IS GREEEEEEDDDDYYYYYYYY .....


-------____________---------

[irvaa]

Wrong. You see what you want to see. So, since you have an anti-Blizz agenda, what you see has to fit that. There is ZERO eviednce to back any of your accusations. Your interpretation does not = proof.

- - - Updated - - -

False. 5,000 gold was for fast flying. There was regular flying, which was much slower, that you could get for 800g.

correct, I was wrong after looking it up. It was 1000g, which was the same as Epic Riding. Which was still a lot back in the day and was still complained about since there was dungeons locked behind (800g for flying, 200g for mount but you could get a discount with rep for the mount).

Just since I had the price wrong doesn't discredit the fact that flying was still expensive and complained about in TBC due to the Tempest keep dungeons. Flying was a rare thing till a few months after 8.1. 8.1 basically made it more common by flooding the market with dailies that rewarded gold from Ogri'la and Skettis (the first daily quests!).

[Triceron]

While I quit since the end of Cata, I did come back to play MoP for a month (did all content), WoD for a week (maxed level off world quests and archaeology) and recently leveled up in Legion to its max cap (questing, rested EXP).

I have to say that I do miss flying, and I am not bothered to explore the world despite Blizzard wanting me to do that content.

Content should be optional. It always was. Vanilla didn't string you along to explore with achienvements. You did it if you wanted to. I don't think flying prevents exploring at all, and if I want to use it as a tool to explore rather than on ground mount, why not? It worked for TBC all up into MOP. I exploited flight when I could, I took time to explore when I wanted. Capping it seems arbitrary, and TBH I probably spent less time in the game in subsequent playthroughs than I did back then, not because I had nothing to do but because I felt trapped in a world that I didn't feel like grinding to open up.

Not like flight would have brought me back to the game, but for the purpose of enjoyment it would have been much more convenient to have to see the world. I don't care enough to grind to be able to fly, I'd rather just not play at all.

[cparle87]

I started out by firing right back at you with an angry reply. I deleted that post, and I'm going to take my own advice and step back a bit and try to understand with reasonable discussion.

Let's go ahead and discuss the WPVP issue in light of pathfinder. I'll start by pointing out that many Pro-flight players(myself included) feel that the best solution, where everyone gets what they want in regards to PVP, is to simply disable flight when War Mode is toggled on.

Do you see any flaws with that solution? Do you see any way in which Pathfinder, as it is now, improves WPVP? Or is there some other aspect of the topic we're missing?

And I feel I have to clarify that I don't want "to rush into an even more extreme version of that, basically point the way, numlock, alt tab". What I want is for flight to be fully integrated into the open world design. Which includes challenges for both ground and flying players. But barring that, I think that even going back to something more like Stormpeaks would be an improvement on what we got with BfA.

You made the point that people are already being stupid about how they approach existing ground content, using the example of your guildy. The point I would like you to consider is twofold:

• If people will gladly run straight through and past existing ground content, ignoring everything, on their way to their target(as we saw with @Lei's linked video earlier in the thread), how is that effectively different than with flying?
• If the problem of content being ignored is the same, whether on the ground or flying, then maybe the problem isn't with the mode of travel, but the content itself.

If you can understand that, then please understand that what Im advocating is not just dropping flight onto the same weak content, but using flight as a platform to push for better, more complex content design.

That's the overarching concept. But specifically I also don't believe that withholding flight for 9 months is actually benefiting the game, nor is it necessary to ensure players fully experience the grounded content. More importantly, I feel if the open world included and used flight in its design, sich delaying tactics as pathfinder wouldn't be necessary at all.

However, as long as we're stuck with it, Pathfinder could at least be implemented better. We can discuss ways to do that, if you're interested.

I just got back on for the day, so thank you for stopping for a moment and not firing back. Let me see...

I'd be down for no flight in war mode. Or maybe add something like a stamina bar to your mounts that you can't fly nonstop. You'd run out of stamina and your mount would slowfall to the ground. Just being able to sit on a mount way up high perfectly safe is counterintuitive.

What do you even mean by fully integrated? Do you mean things like town guards on flight mounts who would blow you off your mount if you approached their towns? Or enemy bases with cannons who would shoot you down like in Ogri'la? Or even flying challenges like the Dragonmaw races. What did Storm Peaks have that you consider an improvement over current, you're being vague?

If they run through stuff and get killed, that's on them. If they get through it and make it to their destination I'd still consider it an improvement over flying because they're actually being a part of the world instead of flying through it. In 8.2 you'll be able to get dazed through your azerite bubbles, which I feel is a step in the right direction. I remember in BC before I had fast flying the base flying speed was 60%. There would be times even after learning flying that I would stop to think and realize that running them on a ground mount was faster.

As for your content thing, here's the thing. Content gets old, it happens, it's unavoidable. Saying "people will skip it whether they can fly or not, so let them fly" sounds really illogical. Long story short, would I like to fly sooner than Blizzard is letting us, yes. Do I think it's worth it to attack Blizzard over a decision I can take or leave, no.

What would you consider more complex design? Areas you can't even get to without flying like we had in BC and Wrath? You're being deliberately vague and I feel it's dishonest. You're basically going "If we had flight now they could make the game better." Anyone just glancing over your statement without thinking on it would agree with you.

What do you feel would be needed to ensure they "experience the content"? Like I said in my statement above if you just mindlessly run through mobs to get from point A to point B, similarly to flying, you don't actually learn anything. You're not immersing yourself in it. I've found paths through even the most densely packed areas where I simply run through without trouble. I've found paths and cliffs and shortcuts. But that's because I WANT to learn these things. I WANT to know these places like the back of my hand. If players don't want to do that, then of course they'll look for the easiest way. Those kinds of players and me have different mindsets, and that's ok. But if you go on the forums and say that if things aren't changed to suit those with the other mindset then it's a bad choice, then that's not ok.

[SirCowdog]

I've seen you say this over a dozen times, but never back it up.

There's no sense of wonder in flying over everything and seeing nothing.

Cata revealed that the so-called 'wonderous' world we'd all gotten used to was just a bunch of treetops and mountain peaks with nothing on them that we couldn't get to before.

Want to know why it was wonderous? Because you couldn't get there.

You wondered what might be up there. You wondered if there was a glitch you could abuse to find a way there anyway. You wondered if maybe Blizzard hid an easter egg at the top of the mountain for people dedicated enough to go find it. (See: Players glitching into Hyjal) But because you knew these things weren't intended and your account was at risk, you didn't try (Or you did, and found the barricades Blizzard put up around certain areas) - Because you couldn't, rightfully, get there. That left what WAS there open to interpretation, aka: WONDER.

You never wondered about the tops of mountains in Wrath or Cata or MoP - You flew to the top, and realized it was a huge waste of your time. That killed the wonderous nature of the game - There's nothing left to wonder about, because everything is at your fingertips.

I get what you're trying to say, but you're not accounting for the fact that different people experience things differently. Flying is a core aspect of wonder for human beings since time immemorial. Just because you don't find it wondrous doesn't mean it isn't. You're making a very strong case for the way you want to play, but at the same time completely ignoring that just as many people get just as strong of a sense of enjoyment out of the sense of freedom and ability to look down at the world as you do being on the ground looking up.

THAT is the mistake Blizzard is making. They're only looking at one side and saying it's the only way, despite knowing at least half their players didn't want it(both from their own internal data, AND from the backlash of WoD).

And yet here we have pathfinder, a joke version of flying. Taking away everything that people enjoyed about flying and giving it back in a shriveled, diminished version. It's taking a part of the game, draining all the life out of it, wiping their asses with it, holding it for 9 months, then giving it back and saying we should be happy about it.

Take ANY part of the game you enjoy and give it the pathfinder treatment, then get back to me about how it's supposed to be good for the game.

[Triceron]

If they run through stuff and get killed, that's on them. If they get through it and make it to their destination I'd still consider it an improvement over flying because they're actually being a part of the world instead of flying through it.

I would disagree. Improvement implies it is better, but who it is better for is subjective. It's an improvement to Blizzard in terms of making travel and quests take more time, having the world challenge the player through terrain and overall keeping the player in the game for longer periods. This is a win for them. For the player though, this is absolutely subjective. I don't like spending more time on travel than I have to, and this is a very different game from the open exploration and open content of Vanilla and the like. The pacing of WoW is very different now. It's content is designed to be linear and repeated.

To me, this means any challenge of the open world is not for the sake of having challenge, but a hindrance to the goal of repeatable content. Things like world quests aren't open world exploration, it's repeating the same grind which your goal as a player is to complete in the quickest/most efficient way possible. So in terms of replay value, it is not an improvement. It's fluff.

As a loose example, I see this as adding more trash packs to dungeons for the sake of 'more challenge'. You could see it as an improvement to the dungeon by making it more challenging and taking longer, but trash is trash and having to do more is not always an improvement for the players. Especially if the dungeon is meant to be replayed constantly.

Let's put it this way - if there is skippable trash in a dungeon, then after your first playthrough, you're always going to try and skip those patrols rather than actually fight through them. So honestly it doesn't matter if you accidentally run into them or whatnot, you're going to find ways to skip them efficiently every time, to the point where aggroing them is not considered fun or challenging, but frustrating and time-consuming. With Dungeons, the 'Flight' method is simply out-gearing the content; as you gear up the content becomes easier and the trash is trivial. With travel, there is no longer a means of trivializing the terrain. At most, we have the new mount trinket things that help us a little bit.

[SirCowdog]

I'd be down for no flight in war mode. Or maybe add something like a stamina bar to your mounts that you can't fly nonstop. You'd run out of stamina and your mount would slowfall to the ground. Just being able to sit on a mount way up high perfectly safe is counterintuitive.

I think there are a lot of different ways that this issue can be approached. But the simplest first step would be to just disable flying while War Mode is enabled. It would cost Blizzard almost nothing to implement, and would address several issues all at once, while giving both PVP and PVE players what they're asking for.

BTW, that's a good compromise, unlike Pathfinder. All sides are getting something they want in fairly equitable fashion.

What do you even mean by fully integrated? Do you mean things like town guards on flight mounts who would blow you off your mount if you approached their towns? Or enemy bases with cannons who would shoot you down like in Ogri'la? Or even flying challenges like the Dragonmaw races. What did Storm Peaks have that you consider an improvement over current, you're being vague?

If they run through stuff and get killed, that's on them. If they get through it and make it to their destination I'd still consider it an improvement over flying because they're actually being a part of the world instead of flying through it. In 8.2 you'll be able to get dazed through your azerite bubbles, which I feel is a step in the right direction. I remember in BC before I had fast flying the base flying speed was 60%. There would be times even after learning flying that I would stop to think and realize that running them on a ground mount was faster.

Well, that's not a simple topic to tackle without becoming a super-wall-of-text manifesto. But I'll try to give you the short version.

Right now the open world is designed in a mostly flat manner. It's assumed that every encounter, every quest, every objective will be approached from the ground. The infamous "Boss in a tower" situation. Even using tricks with gliders and demon hunter double jumps, players can only get so high in the terrain(btw there are some amazing videos out there of people breaking content with demon hunters).

But if the design stops and says, "Ok, well how do we make this objective or encounter actually challenge a player that can come in from above" it's going to be designed completely differently. Things like having more ranged mobs, or anti-air canons in the area are the most simple ways to address this because it adds a threat to a flying player in the same way dazing mobs threaten grounded players.

So you have to expand from there. What else would present a challenge for a player moving in 3-dimensions?

Line of sight and terrain are things that could be used by forcing players in closer to mobs to see their objectives, or to limit the speed of a flying player. This can be done with buildings, trees, caves, undergrowth, or any number of other factors.

On that topic, the speed of a flying player is another major issue. This isn't something most pro-flight people talk about. But I think that flight should not be any faster than a ground mount. One of the reasons why dazing attacks work against grounded players is because the mobs can actually keep up, react, and attack a player before their zoom past. Just slowing flight down would go a long way to not only bridge the gap between flying and grounded players, but would let even current mob ai have time to be a credible threat.

Better mob AI is something that could help address flying players. Although technically more difficult to implement, we know it's now possible to do because of islands. Mobs that are smarter than just "run towards player and melee". But even using existing mob AI and abilities, it should be possible to create more intelligent encounters that a player can't just drop into from above then leave.

Then there's the terrain itself. Fleugen brought up an important point about exploration, and how just flying to the top of a mountain makes it not as interesting. So what would need to be done is to have terrain that isn't so easily accessible via flight. This goes back to the earlier point about line of sight. Cavern systems, jungles, cloud-covered mountains filled with dangerous skies, moving terrain such as floating islands or naxx-like fortresses.

And none of this means we can't also have traditional grounded content too! I'm perfectly ok with having some areas where flying is best, and some where ground mounts are best. WoW is big enough that there's room for both. Give context and reason for both to be used. Tie it into the story. Maybe some areas start out grounded, but when you complete the quest there it phases into new quests where you fly. Sometimes it's going to be flak canons, or birds, or grapples that pull you down. Sometimes it's going to be magic anti-flight dust like time less isle. Sometimes it's going to just be a bunch of indoor areas. And sometimes it's going to be ok to fly around the open air!

No one single formula should be used every time all of the time. That's a problem with current design in WoW, and it wouldn't stop being a problem in a WoW with flying. Variety is key.



All in all it takes more creativity. More attention to detail. Intelligent, creative use of the things I just described and more. But the TL : DR version is to just ask "How can we make this encounter so it doesn't break when a player flies to it?"

As for your content thing, here's the thing. Content gets old, it happens, it's unavoidable. Saying "people will skip it whether they can fly or not, so let them fly" sounds really illogical.

I say that only to point out the fallacy with the claim that it's ONLY flying that's causing players to skip. I'm not saying that because I think it's a good way to address the situation. It's only meant to poke holes in the logic and get people to think outside of the "Flying bad" box they're stuck in.

What would you consider more complex design? Areas you can't even get to without flying like we had in BC and Wrath? You're being deliberately vague and I feel it's dishonest.

I'm being vague because I've spent so much time typing and re-typing explanations for this issue. And because it's an old topic that I often assume people are familiar with. And also because it's not a simple thing that can just be summed up in a short, quick paragraph. See what I wrote above and understand that it's only the tip of the iceberg, then consider what would happen if I wrote even that much every time someone asks about it.

What do you feel would be needed to ensure they "experience the content"? Like I said in my statement above if you just mindlessly run through mobs to get from point A to point B, similarly to flying, you don't actually learn anything. You're not immersing yourself in it. I've found paths through even the most densely packed areas where I simply run through without trouble. I've found paths and cliffs and shortcuts. But that's because I WANT to learn these things. I WANT to know these places like the back of my hand. If players don't want to do that, then of course they'll look for the easiest way. Those kinds of players and me have different mindsets, and that's ok. But if you go on the forums and say that if things aren't changed to suit those with the other mindset then it's a bad choice, then that's not ok.

The mistake is in trying to FORCE people to experience anything. Are you familiar with the old saying "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't force it to drink"?

You have to create as good of an experience as you can, and then let players interact with it how they want. This is recreation for players. Is everyone forced to mythic raid? Is everyone forced to fish? Or do pet battles? Or read all the quests? No! So why is it such a sticking point that Blizzard feels they have to force players to experience every little thing in the open world whether they want to or not?

Some people like to explore. GREAT! Give them things to explore! Let them do it! But some people are focused on objectives. They don't care about what's between, they're going in a straight line to it. Let them do it! This idea that everyone has to be held back to the same pace as the slowest person is cancer for the game. Is Method required to sit on their hands while the LFR-heroes derp around and finally get to the first boss? Of course not! So why try to do the same thing for every player in the open world?

You can see this problem with the argument when players who want to fly tell grounded players that no one is forcing them to fly. Immediate rebellion. As though players on the ground can't choose to be on the ground and enjoy the game how they want. It's like everyone must be forced to play the exact same way or their experience is ruined, which is 99.9999% bullshit. I think those two styles of play can be brought closer together, but I don't think everyone has to play the same.

[Eggroll]

I can't find the article anymore but a higher up from Blizzard gave an interview about the process leading up to the decision to remove flying. He said they had been debating it for a long time and the main reason the designers wanted to take flying out is because they were pissed flying mounts allowed people to skip over all of the content they had put into the game. He also said the game content they designed was really fun and believed a lot of players who were bored with WoW would be reinvigorated if they'd just experience it. That's why the pathfinder achievement is a completionist achievement. I'm sure every department had its reasons for wanting to take flight out of the game but this interview had the biggest effect on me. I know what I think is fun and I didn't like knowing I was losing flying, something I enjoyed, to force me into content I had already rejected. If it was really that big a deal for them they should have worked to create better content which would attract my interest all on its own.

I linked it earlier in this post, it was on Polygon.
http://www.polygon.com/2015/5/22/864...mo-pc-blizzard

And here is an example of player reactions on the WoW forums... 511!! pages thread - yeah, seems like nobody really cared.. rofl
https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/...7939626#post-5

[SirCowdog]

And here is an example of player reactions on the WoW forums... 511!! pages thread - yeah, seems like nobody really cared.. rofl
https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/...7939626#post-5

That doesn't count all the threads that were capped and then deleted either.

There's no doubt that Blizzard forced this issue. This wasn't about making players happy, or giving a better experience. It was about forcing a single vision of how the game "should" be, regardless of player feedback, suggestions, complaints, or legitimate criticisms.

[Kataroku]

This does not reduce time to test, all zones are de-facto built in full 3D for years now

One would think, but sadly this isn't the case at all.

Did you know that Argus is built like Silvermoon City? Why would they do that if it weren't easier?

[cparle87]

Snip

I'm gonna snip you down since you made a lot of good points, and I'd like to apologize for my previous hostility towards you. Coming onto these forums and seeing the constant, neverending negativity is really quite depressing. There's been some times I've quit these forums because they were legit making me depressed.

As for the whole "give us cave structures, mountains, and other 3D things to explore" part, we actually had that before. We had Vashj'ir. Take away the water and pretend it's air. We had mobs, huge caves, even towns hidden inside of what would be mountains if they weren't underwater. And people HATED it.

Also baseline flying was originally slower at 60%. I made this statement in another post that there were times I would hop on my land mount and run because it would get me where I wanted more quickly. It was buffed to its current form of 150% in the ToC patch. I do think, though, that Blizzard agrees with you. Since they removed many of the mount speed increasing methods and nerfed the overall speed by having them stack additively not multiplicatively. I personally wish they'd give us a faster level of speed, since 310 hasn't been special since Cata, but that's unlikely.

As for the last four paragraphs. That's always been a weird dichotomy to me. People say over and over that choices are always good. Giving players more options is always good. If they want to fly let them immediately. They can choose not to if they want. But you have to acknowledge human nature. We instinctively seek the path of least resistance. The non-flyers feel that something important in the game would be missed if flying was enabled right from the getgo, while also acknowledging that if they could fly, they would even if they knew they were going to miss stuff. If I might use an analogy, it's like a little kid who's tempted to steal candy from a store. He knows it's bad, but he'll do it anyway if he can. But if a store clerk is there watching him making sure he can't do it, he'll grumble but go without.

[SirCowdog]

@Fleugen I've read your post and want to let you know I'm not just ignoring it. But I'm at work on my phone and many of the points you've brought up are too complex to articulate replies while on my shitty phone.

I'm gonna snip you down since you made a lot of good points, and I'd like to apologize for my previous hostility towards you.

I'm glad I decided to step back and write a more civil reply, then. Trust me when I say I know exactly what you mean about the negativity. I'm exposed to a LOT of it for standing my ground on the Pathfinder/Flight issue.

As for the whole "give us cave structures, mountains, and other 3D things to explore" part, we actually had that before. We had Vashj'ir. Take away the water and pretend it's air. We had mobs, huge caves, even towns hidden inside of what would be mountains if they weren't underwater. And people HATED it.

As you can imagine, Ive spent longer than most looking into the flight issue. Vashj'ir comes up a lot. I've talked about this with many people, and I don't think it's actually good comparison.

Mechanically speaking, trying to do combat in mid-air is definitely a problem, I freely admit. There are ways around that, but I think the real reason why people viewed Vashj'ir so negatively was actually more about presentation and atmosphere than mechanical difficulties.

It sounds very simple to say "just take away the water" and it's the same. But it isn't the same. Being underwater has an entirely different feeling. There are different enemies, different terrain, different lore. A common phobia about sharks had influence. That weird wavering blurry visual effect played a factor. The oppressive feeling of having all that water weighing down. Having to use the seahorse instead of a person's favorite mount. The initial quest introduction being too scripted. Not to mention Hyjal being faster and having both the Firelands dailies and raid entrance.

All of these little things and more contributed to the relative lack of popularity of the zone. Similar to the PVP issue, most of these reasons don't actually have flight as their source.

Also baseline flying was originally slower at 60%. I made this statement in another post that there were times I would hop on my land mount and run because it would get me where I wanted more quickly. It was buffed to its current form of 150% in the ToC patch. I do think, though, that Blizzard agrees with you. Since they removed many of the mount speed increasing methods and nerfed the overall speed by having them stack additively not multiplicatively. I personally wish they'd give us a faster level of speed, since 310 hasn't been special since Cata, but that's unlikely.

Raw speed is part of the problem, however. Both because of server response time, mob AI, and the difficulty of a players noticing details when moving that fast. One of the suggestions Ive seen recommends flight speed faster than 100 or 150 should probably be what's actually locked behind Pathfinder. I would accept that as an interim solution while a more comprehensive one was worked on.

As for the last four paragraphs. That's always been a weird dichotomy to me. People say over and over that choices are always good. Giving players more options is always good. If they want to fly let them immediately. They can choose not to if they want. But you have to acknowledge human nature. We instinctively seek the path of least resistance. The non-flyers feel that something important in the game would be missed if flying was enabled right from the getgo, while also acknowledging that if they could fly, they would even if they knew they were going to miss stuff. If I might use an analogy, it's like a little kid who's tempted to steal candy from a store. He knows it's bad, but he'll do it anyway if he can. But if a store clerk is there watching him making sure he can't do it, he'll grumble but go without.

You mitigate this by making the choices more equal. Again, this is a problem of dropping flight into a world that isn't designed for it. And It's why I always ultimately push for an open world that has a variety of zones; some where flight is better, some where ground mounts had the advantage.

This could be accomplished with things like making ground and flying mounts have equal speed. To counterbalance the advantage of 3d movement that flying has, maybe allow ground mounts to stay mounted in combat, or while gathering. Or what if flying before Pathfinder is only 60% speed? Or some other buff or advantage to using a ground mount.

This way it's not always the case that flying is automatically better. This way players actually HAVE a choice instead of having it imposed on them.

[WinningOne]

I linked it earlier in this post, it was on Polygon.
http://www.polygon.com/2015/5/22/864...mo-pc-blizzard

And here is an example of player reactions on the WoW forums... 511!! pages thread - yeah, seems like nobody really cared.. rofl
https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/...7939626#post-5

Thanks for reposting the link to that interview. It's funny how the explanations he gave as to why flight was bad for players were exactly the things I liked about it. It also reminded me how much I disliked playing through Tanaan Jungle. I don't usually like to just complain but the whole design of the area seemed to be a big middle finger to the players who were upset about losing flight.

[SirCowdog]

No, flight itself is not.

The wonder of what is beyond our own capabilities is. We can't fly. We have no way to. But we CAN make something that will, and what we could potentially experience due to it is where the wonder is.

Do you think a bird considers flying wonderous? They do so every day. They can see the perspective from the sky every day of their lives. It is wonderous because we can't do it ourselves.

Because 'enjoyment' and 'wonder' are two different things. I enjoy flying - It makes the game a lot easier. It does not, however, inspire wonder in me. It kills any wonder I have, because I simply go where my wonder takes me, and then it is satisfied, never to come back, because I have already found the answer my wonder would have me go find.

Wonder only exists when the unknown exists. You cannot 'wonder' about something you KNOW. You already know the answer.

Sigh...



This is the context I was using the word "wonder" in. It's a feeling of immense enjoyment when flying around a game world that is meant to be entertainment and recreation.

I understand that you're using the word in a different context, but again, just because you don't gain a sense of wonder from flying doesn't mean other people feel the same things as you. Nor is it grounds for removing something people enjoy. Some people might very well gain a much greater sense of immersion from being on the ground, poking their nose into every little thing. Other people get just as much enjoyment and immersion from soaring through the skies.

Then you should be able to argue in it's favor.

And here I thought that's what I was doing the entire time.

In fact, Pathfinder is the opposite of what you claim here.

Pathfinder WAS their solution when they took a look at both sides. One side was upset because flight fundamentally changed the way the game was played.

Sorry, I hate to cut the post up so much, but there are a lot of points to address.

When pathfinder was first introduced in WoD, flying had been a normal part of the game for 8 years. It did not, as you put it, "fundamentally change the way the game was played" because by the advent of Pathfinder, flight was already part of the fundamental formula of the game. To such an extent that not having flight was actually more alien to WoW, and more of a fundamental shift than having it.

This is largely why there was such a massive blowback from the announcement of removing it forever. Since Legion pulled a bait and switch with Argus, and BfA didn't budge on the issue, it's not hard to see why most people who wanted flight to be part of the game gave up and left.

The other side was upset because they didn't want to lose the ability they've had for a long time and enjoyed.

Blizzard took the middle ground. You cannot fly in the early stages of the game, so you can play the game the way it was designed from day 1 of the expansion, and then Pathfinder allows flight to be added at a later date.

Do I think Pathfinder could be changed to be better? Yes. Do I think it's bad? No, it is exactly what Blizzard wanted it to be - A middle ground between experiencing the game the way it is designed, and having flight, the two sides of the debate as presented.

You keep talking about Pathfinder as though it's a "middle ground", which is a gross misrepresentation. Flying used to be a meaningful part of the game for most of an expansion. Flying was obtained at max level, then usable throughout the expansion until new content was released, giving both pro-ground and pro-flight players a period of time where their chosen playstyle was usable in CURRENT content.

Pathfinder delays and withholds flight until it is virtually useless, making it only be available in non-current content or for alts(which is the same thing as being non-current). In the case of Legion, this was taken a step further with the release of Argus, a zone where you STILL can't use flying, despite the protestations of Blizzard about mastering the ground first then getting to fly above it.

Flight is being delayed, withheld, used as a carrot, lied about both in terms of calling it a reward, and with the given reasons for unlocking it not matching up with the execution.

To call Pathfinder a "middle ground" is such a blatant, gross misrepresentation of the situation that I'm finding it difficult to remain civil about it.


EDIT: I'm cutting it here. The rest of your post had a definite antagonistic and dismissive slant to it. If you don't want to make the attempt to understand other points of view than your own, then just don't post at all. There's no need to make posts claiming you don't have to understand or "Waste your time" not making the attempt. :/