How many of you would like to see pathfinder removed or changed?

[Aucald]

One thing to remember, this is how flying was ORIGINALLY implemented in this game. Flying enabled access to special locations and additional content in TBC, and content that was in flying only areas also included appropriate hazards. Fly over BEM? Cannons that could kill you the moment you stopped flying forward. Kaliri Owls flying all over the place, faster than you and easily dismounting you. Hostile faction NPCs locking on you the moment you fly over an enemy faction outpost. That's how flying was introduced. So they DID think about what flying meant and how to make it engaging when they introduced it, they just abandoned the concept later.

Well yes, back in TBC flying was an expansion concept so of course it had game systems that supported it like Ogri'la, the Skettis subzone, and the Netherwing subzone and mount acquisition. But all those things were wrapped around the functionality like features the same way Order Halls were wrapped around the Artifact system, it was the expansion's "gimmick" as I like to think of them, back in the day before WoW had really made the gimmick system truly discrete. But even still I don't think they meant flying to be a thing they'd carry forward into new expansions like WotLK or Cata, it was just going to be a thing for TBC and Outland, a context where it made some sense with Outland being a broken world with lots of floating islands and disconnected areas.

[GhostShaman]

As title suggests. I have a certain love-hate for pathfinder. I love having some challenge to fly, but i hate having too much time to wait until i have it. Would you like for blizzard for example, change pathfinder in a way that wouldn't take a whole grind rep but instead, just quest chains, that you can complete anytime you want and once that pathfinder part 1 is done, pathfinder 2 would then give you a rep to grind? Or the opposite, or just remove PART 2? What are your thoughts?

Edit 05/11: The hate part for it, it's about how long Pathfinder PART II takes to come out. Just want to clarify this for someone that reads this the first time.
The love part is that i actually like having challenge to unlock flying. It's a satisfaction sensation that you get.

Also, forgot to add a poll. but still type about it. thanks.

Edit 06/11: After some hours of answers and discussions, the majority of people on this forum and this thread, would like for pathfinder part 2 to come sooner and for pathfinder to be required while you're leveling and doing quests and explore the whole zones/Loremaster linked to it exclusively without a timegated part 2. And for pvp related systems, i think and one just more person that there could be some area restrictions on flying, if it's considered a battlefield. Where you get instantly dismounted. It can either be a full zone, or just a place. I gave the example of Wintergrasp, Northrend is a flying continent yet, once you fly over wintergrasp, you get dismounted. More like this could be added to the game and new expansions.

Patfhfinder needs part 2 completely removed. It should not be gated. If this is the case for shadowlands, Im just not going to play, I am sick and tired of being gated in this game. Its ridiculous.

As for pvp, flying doesnt kill pvp. Keep warmode and all the bonuses, add the flying restriction. Done and Done. Arenas, battlegrounds, and the push for e-sports killed wpvp. period.

[SirCowdog]

I think what really matters is the Challenge. I want to fly not because I am in any danger from the mobs I pull on the ground but because fighting them is TEDIOUS. They are no danger to me and I have almost nothing to earn from fighting them.
This is why I believe we need a heroic mode for the overworld. Yes, there are people who are not up for any challenge. But there are also many people who do not want to be be bored. The best engagement the game can offer is not via additional systems layered on top; it's back to basic gameplay. And what we need on top of that is for engaging in challenging gameplay to be rewarding (possibly by tying it to profession crafting materials and strong professions)
We will see what happens with World Quests 2.0 but I think the real issue is challenge. The outcry when they even considered to make things scale to ilvl is imo not because of lost progression; it's because gameplay fighting weak and non-threatening mobs is tedius and making those fights last longer doesn't solve anything.
An alternative of course is either AI for mobs (especially if they can run away and grab friends) or mob design akin to Timeless Isle (were many mobs had ways to kill even high ilvl players).

I've been advocating the inclusion of a World+ system for awhile now. Other games have done it.

There are also good and bad ways to do this. Having everything scale with iLVL, for instance, is a bad idea since it devalues the feeling of progression. But having set difficulty increases, or tiers of the open world, that you can progress through....that tends to feel more meaningful. Blizzard even already possesses the technology to make this happen RIGHT NOW via layering.

But even if they're not willing to do that because they feel it splits the playerbase, or something like that, they could still create areas of the game which are distinctly dangerous. Patrolling elites. Special encounters akin to the invasions, but with actual danger instead of the joke difficulty they are now. Puzzles or special sequences of progressive events that players could trigger to give themselves more challenge.

Basically they need to do something....ANYTHING...to spice things up.

- - - Updated - - -

Well yes, back in TBC flying was an expansion concept so of course it had game systems that supported it like Ogri'la, the Skettis subzone, and the Netherwing subzone and mount acquisition. But all those things were wrapped around the functionality like features the same way Order Halls were wrapped around the Artifact system, it was the expansion's "gimmick" as I like to think of them, back in the day before WoW had really made the gimmick system truly discrete. But even still I don't think they meant flying to be a thing they'd carry forward into new expansions like WotLK or Cata, it was just going to be a thing for TBC and Outland, a context where it made some sense with Outland being a broken world with lots of floating islands and disconnected areas.

Do you have any proof to back up that claim? I don't mean to be confrontational, but that doesn't sound right at all. You don't just keep a feature in the game for that long because it's a gimmick. And you certainly don't overhaul the ENTIRE original content of the game to fit that "gimmick" if you meant to be trying to figure out ways to get rid of it.

That logic just doesn't add up. And considering how poorly and halfassed WoD was, it looks to me like the attempt to move to a design philosophy without flying did more harm than good.

They gave us 7 straight years and 4 expansions worth of content that had both mixed flying and non-flying content. That formula wasn't broken. And I really truly think at this point that Pathfinder is more of a gimmick than original flight EVER was. They're not even trying to improve it. They barely even acknowledge flying unless pressed. We wouldn't even have that much without "overwhelming feedback"(remember that from WoD?) asking for flight back.

In addition, TBC was one of the most popular times in the history of the game. Even if flying was only ever meant to be a gimmick for that expansion, I think that the level of popularity and engagement players had for it bears repeating and revisiting instead of being shoved to the side because a handful of developers in positions of authority are too stubborn to admit they were wrong about removing flight.

They were wrong about azerite armor. They were wrong about Classic. They pay lip service to the idea of player agency in the upcoming expansion. They're returning removed abilities with the great un-pruning.

I REALLY think it's time for Blizzard to reconsider their stance on flight.

[Aucald]

Do you have any proof to back up that claim? I don't mean to be confrontational, but that doesn't sound right at all. You don't just keep a feature in the game for that long because it's a gimmick. And you certainly don't overhaul the ENTIRE original content of the game to fit that "gimmick" if you meant to be trying to figure out ways to get rid of it.

That logic just doesn't add up. And considering how poorly and halfassed WoD was, it looks to me like the attempt to move to a design philosophy without flying did more harm than good.

They gave us 7 straight years and 4 expansions worth of content that had both mixed flying and non-flying content. That formula wasn't broken. And I really truly think at this point that Pathfinder is more of a gimmick than original flight EVER was. They're not even trying to improve it. They barely even acknowledge flying unless pressed. We wouldn't even have that much without "overwhelming feedback"(remember that from WoD?) asking for flight back.

I mean I don't have the statement of a developer that outright says that, no; it's a theory I've long maintained that feels supported by the evidence and precedence of what we know about WoW as a game. Flying was kept in the game because it was wildly popular - and don't forget, WotLK's original advertising actually had content that was planned to support it, though it was scrapped early on, as shown here:



With the fan furor around flying in WotLK, and one of the first questions at the announcement of the new expansion being "will we still be able to fly" it was definitely something they had a vested interest in keeping around. But creating novel content for flying or iterating on it seemed a daunting task at the time, hence the last of that advertised content. Flying also opened up a number of issues as concerns mechanic abuse and the like, but they still tried to both support it and iterate on it (as the Storm Peaks and Icecrown Glacier zones of WotLK require flying to successfully navigate).

The long and the short of it is that the game systems, primarily speaking, aren't made to support flying as a long-term concept. The game, at the foundational level, was never meant for it. The inability of the developers to make content for it isn't a product of laziness or lack of ambition, it's mostly because it can't really be done in a way that's fun or workable in the game-engine of WoW. The content back in TBC kind of proves this - while I talked about it with a lot of nostalgia above, people *hated* the giant kaliri of Skettis or the cannons in BEM, they detested being knocked off their mounts or stymied from their goals. Especially true of the contingent of people for whom flying was only a means to an end (e.g. getting from A to B as fast as humanly possible) and not really a game-system in its own right.

The popularity of flight isn't a product of it being a super-fun game-system as likely originally envisioned - it's popular because it's efficient to a very high degree. But efficiency can't really be the end-all and be-all of what is, at its root, supposed to be a fun diversion in the first place. "Dark Souls" wouldn't be improved by the reduction of its content to one level or stage and the removal of all obstacles between the character and the final boss. It'd be more efficient, definitely, but decidedly less fun.

[Linri]

I like pathfinder, a lot. I used to dislike it cause I was used to getting flying at max level however...

Pathfinder makes you play the game as intended for a while, although sometimes too long
Pathfinder makes your flying mount more unique, to players who don't seek it out
Pathfinder gives achievement
Pathfinder is a good way to make you, the player, play the game longer
Pathfinder is totally optional

[Galathir]

Keep the rep grinds and exploration but remove the timegating.
Have part one give flying in the zones that the expansion adds after you've done everything there and part two additionally grant flight for the new zones added by the patch.


For example: BfA 8.0 Pathfinder part 1, grind reps with the new factions, explore, collect treasures, get flying in Kul'Tiras and Zandalar
8.2 Pathfinder part 2, do the same things in Nazjatar and Mechagon, get flight there.

I absolutely despise being chained to the ground for another year for no reason at all after having earned Pathfinder 1.

[Mad_Murdock]

I like pathfinder, a lot. I used to dislike it cause I was used to getting flying at max level however...

Pathfinder makes you play the game as intended for a while, although sometimes too long
Pathfinder makes your flying mount more unique, to players who don't seek it out
Pathfinder gives achievement
Pathfinder is a good way to make you, the player, play the game longer
Pathfinder is totally optional

Why is "make you play the game longer" listed as a plus? How is that a good design decision for the game and not just a money decision? And really you list "gives achievement" has a plus? You Pro list for pathfinder seems pretty shallow, and that is because it is. Anytime you get into the realm of "make the player" you're showing that the content can't stand on it's on

I'm OK with Pathfinder part 1, the part 2 is pretty garbage. If the Blizzard devs who hate flying were honest, they would just admit they purposefully make getting flying as slow as possible and drag it out because they really don't want people to have it to begin with. Nazjatar is prime example of a zone done out of spite, could that make that place any more of a pain to navigate? Just like Dazar'alor, I don't think I've ever hated a capitol city as much as that place

[liberaet]

I would like flying to be removed from the game. If Pathfinder goes with it, then so be it.

[Shakana]

Why is "make you play the game longer" listed as a plus? How is that a good design decision for the game and not just a money decision? And really you list "gives achievement" has a plus? You Pro list for pathfinder seems pretty shallow, and that is because it is. Anytime you get into the realm of "make the player" you're showing that the content can't stand on it's on

I'm OK with Pathfinder part 1, the part 2 is pretty garbage. If the Blizzard devs who hate flying were honest, they would just admit they purposefully make getting flying as slow as possible and drag it out because they really don't want people to have it to begin with. Nazjatar is prime example of a zone done out of spite, could that make that place any more of a pain to navigate? Just like Dazar'alor, I don't think I've ever hated a capitol city as much as that place

I have to agree with dazar alor lol

- - - Updated - - -

Why is "make you play the game longer" listed as a plus? How is that a good design decision for the game and not just a money decision? And really you list "gives achievement" has a plus? You Pro list for pathfinder seems pretty shallow, and that is because it is. Anytime you get into the realm of "make the player" you're showing that the content can't stand on it's on

I'm OK with Pathfinder part 1, the part 2 is pretty garbage. If the Blizzard devs who hate flying were honest, they would just admit they purposefully make getting flying as slow as possible and drag it out because they really don't want people to have it to begin with. Nazjatar is prime example of a zone done out of spite, could that make that place any more of a pain to navigate? Just like Dazar'alor, I don't think I've ever hated a capitol city as much as that place

I have to agree with dazar alor lol

[Blackmist]

I don't mind not flying at the start of an expansion.

But to lock it behind the most mind-numbing content imaginable? Fuck that. Just enable flying mid expansion and be done with it.

[Krewshi]

Pathfinder part 2 is cancer
Part 1 is fine

[Pony Soldier]

It's pretty damn annoying to be honest. I thought it was much better when you just had to get to max level and buy the license. Forcing people to grind rep for a month is not fun. Maybe if the dailies consisted of more than just the same collect this and kill that it wouldn't be so bad. Mechagon has the right idea where the dailies are actually somewhat fun to do and while they're still essentially kill/collect quests they at least have flavor to them unlike Nazjatar where they just tell you to collect seashells and clams because you're their little bitch errand boy.

What also makes it annoying is having them reward you with such minimal rep and time gating them. So you can only gain a certain amount of rep each day which further makes it feel like a daily chore. I'd feel different about pathfinder if you could just grind as much rep as you wanted like how it was back in WotLK where you could just wear a tabard and grind dungeons for rep. What was so wrong about that system that they had to change it into what it is now? They went from having optional content that you can do whenever you want and for as long as you want to "ok, that's enough come back tomorrow". How is that making anything better?

I get that they want people to fully play through the content before they go and fly over everything but the pathfinder system just feels like a chore. The fact that they have to force people to do their content says a lot about the depth and quality of their content. If the content actually felt meaningful and was fun to do they wouldn't need pathfinder achievements.

[Tradu]

I'd much rather just get flying when I hit max level. Being stuck on the ground just wastes so much time, and it's not like it makes me "explore" places. I learn the fastest paths to do my WQs or whatever, then just repeat those. The requirements for pathfinder don't really bother me, though, it's more the fact that you just aren't allowed to complete it until halfway through the expansion.

[Linri]

Why is "make you play the game longer" listed as a plus? How is that a good design decision for the game and not just a money decision? And really you list "gives achievement" has a plus? You Pro list for pathfinder seems pretty shallow, and that is because it is. Anytime you get into the realm of "make the player" you're showing that the content can't stand on it's on

I'm OK with Pathfinder part 1, the part 2 is pretty garbage. If the Blizzard devs who hate flying were honest, they would just admit they purposefully make getting flying as slow as possible and drag it out because they really don't want people to have it to begin with. Nazjatar is prime example of a zone done out of spite, could that make that place any more of a pain to navigate? Just like Dazar'alor, I don't think I've ever hated a capitol city as much as that place

Oh, I am not advocating that I like this system.. I am just speaking from a point that it has to be earned not given. It's an incentive for a lot of players.. Excluding myself cause I for one don't care much for flying anymore

[Powerogue]

I think it should be nerfed for subsequent old expansions significantly to such a point that playing through the expansion, through what will now be level 10-50, should be enough to unlock it. The overall mechanic should stay exactly as is.

If you're working for it now, last I checked the darkmoon faire is up, you get 15% rep boost until January from the anniversary, AND it's the world quest event right now. There is literally no better time.

[SirCowdog]

But creating novel content for flying or iterating on it seemed a daunting task at the time, hence the last of that advertised content. Flying also opened up a number of issues as concerns mechanic abuse and the like, but they still tried to both support it and iterate on it (as the Storm Peaks and Icecrown Glacier zones of WotLK require flying to successfully navigate).

I think that you're mostly correct. But when WoD hit the philosophy of trying to iterate, of trying to improve the mechanic and move it forward, clearly hit an fundamental shift. Someone made an arbitrary decision to just cut it out. And this is where my main complaint stems from. If you want your game to improve, you have to keep trying to do that. You don't just remove something you KNOW players enjoy simply because it's difficult.

What's truly baffling to me is that Blizzard has a history of working around difficult design barriers. Cross Realm tech, phasing, matchmaking, and a host of other things that were supposedly not possible at the time. But which they eventually overcame by continuing to work at it. Imagine where the game would be if every single time Blizzard encountered a difficulty in the design process, they just tried to remove it or shunt it to a place in the game where it largely didn't matter?

The long and the short of it is that the game systems, primarily speaking, aren't made to support flying as a long-term concept. The game, at the foundational level, was never meant for it. The inability of the developers to make content for it isn't a product of laziness or lack of ambition, it's mostly because it can't really be done in a way that's fun or workable in the game-engine of WoW. The content back in TBC kind of proves this - while I talked about it with a lot of nostalgia above, people *hated* the giant kaliri of Skettis or the cannons in BEM, they detested being knocked off their mounts or stymied from their goals. Especially true of the contingent of people for whom flying was only a means to an end (e.g. getting from A to B as fast as humanly possible) and not really a game-system in its own right.

I recognize this. However, that doesn't explain the way in which flying is being mishandled with Pathfinder. I think I described earlier in the thread how Pathfinder is basically the worst possible version of how to keep flying in the game. It would not take completely altering the content design at a fundamental level in order to make flying something that's still a significant part of the game.

And it's not even so much that Blizzard is simply trying to ignore that flight exists. It's that they're using the enjoyment of flying(for whatever reason) as a carrot to justify the stick of the No-Flying philosophy. The problem with this approach is that the carrot doesn't actually have all that much value. It's not included in the story to ANY degree(even WotLk had a nod to the explanation via cold-weather training). By the time you get it you've already exhausted virtually all of the relevant content. And the amount of raw time and effort required to unlock it is more than almost any other area of the game.

As I said earlier in the thread: I get that we're likely stuck with Pathfinder as long as the current design team and leadership is in place. But that doesn't mean that Pathfinder has to be as ridiculously bad as it is, nor does it mean that Flight can't still be included in the game in a meaningful way. It wouldn't even take that much work for Blizzard to do. And I REALLY think they should do something other than intentionally exploiting and pissing off the portion of the playerbase that enjoys flying.

The popularity of flight isn't a product of it being a super-fun game-system as likely originally envisioned - it's popular because it's efficient to a very high degree. But efficiency can't really be the end-all and be-all of what is, at its root, supposed to be a fun diversion in the first place. "Dark Souls" wouldn't be improved by the reduction of its content to one level or stage and the removal of all obstacles between the character and the final boss. It'd be more efficient, definitely, but decidedly less fun.

WoW is not Dark Souls. The two games are based on entirely different premises. WoW is a casual themepark designed around basically letting the player enjoy a power fantasy. In that context it's actually GOOD to give players more powerful abilities and ways to dominate. Souls games are designed specifically on the premise of failing repeatedly, and overcoming adversity despite not having those powerful tools.

But more importantly, there's a clear and obvious disconnect between what players enjoy and what Blizzard thinks they enjoy. Personally I think it is a terrible mistake to try to force the game into being something that players don't want. Or put another way, it's a mistake to remove something that they KNOW players want, just because the devs want to try and force a completely different direction for the game.

I'm probably not articulating this very well because I'm crunched for time before work. But there are many other better ways to handle the challenges that flying represents than sticking a giant middle finger in the face of everyone who likes it. Pathfinder should be improving the game, not removing enjoyment. Getting flight should add to the game, not be invalidated by another no-fly island right after it's obtained.

Blizzard needs to take a more player-friendly and moderate approach. They really should rethink their handling of the entire situation.

[chiddie]

I mean 3 actual weeks of playing roughly a hour each day. That's just grinding the reps themselves. Did it literally on a second account right as 8.2 launched. The main thing to note is you get to roughly honored alone just doing story line quests in each zone. I think each were at about ~4-6k rep each so that was 13-16k out of the 21k rep knocked out alone. Even better if you plot it with DMF bonuses and then go at it. That's the base rep / story which honestly you have roughly 6 months to do before part 2 even thinks about coming out.

So that leaves the new reps which is basically just completing all the WQ's in each which still takes about a hour maybe two tops if you are slow at solo'ing. The WQ's go by drastically faster if you group with friends or something and you can cut the time down a lot. If you come into the patch late then you have the option of getting the contracts too.

You are “a little” too hoptimistic my friend.

Go in wow head search char and search for Sumira in the EU realm Zendear. I dinged 120 some days ago, I’ve completed the story of all the zones (leveled following Azeroth autopilot), just have a look at the reps There’s no way you can bring them to revered in 30 hours of /played after you ding 120.

I know this very well because with my first char after dinging 120 I basically logged only about 1h per day to do the daily emissaries, it took me almost 7 weeks (Tortollans and CoA were the worst because they have only WQ).

[Lucetia]

You are “a little” too hoptimistic my friend.

Go in wow head search char and search for Sumira in the EU realm Zendear. I dinged 120 some days ago, I’ve completed the story of soon the zones (leveled following Azeroth autopilot), just have a look at the reps There’s no way you can bring them to revered in 30 hours of /played after you ding 120.

I know this very well because with my first char after dinging 120 I basically logged only about 1h per day to do the daily emissaries, it took me almost 7 weeks (Tortollans and CoA were the worst because they have only WQ).

Definitely doable. Especially right now with the buffs. Tortollan is the only tricky one really and even then it's not bad now. Get a contract for Tortollan so it makes that a bit easier.

You also have all these Tortollan quests (excluding WQ ones) - https://www.wowhead.com/battle-for-a...;2163;0#0+2+12

Champions of Azeroth is similar. Go open up Nazjatar and get your heart to 35 then grind out some Azerite and those quests give nice chunks of rep. There's also the mission table giving ~250+ rep (depending on if you 200% it).

Either way it's definitely doable. It's just a matter of actually doing the quests and stuff.

[dragnipur]

I want it changed.When there is a 3 expansions gap remove the Path finder and make it buyable.

[Kyranna]

I'd happily live without flying, anyway removing the rep grind would be enough to stop hating the whole pathfinder crap.
Alongside removing rep grind from story advancement, of course.