Pathfinder returns for Shadowlands

[Danvash]

This game can be pretty unbearable without flying depending on the whims of the developers. Nazjatar is a prime example. You can't go anywhere on the ground without being dazed off your mount and forced to fight several enemies that pull several more enemies. And the developers overloaded those enemies with annoying mechanics like rooting you for 8 seconds, or constantly interrupting your casts with a 4 second lockout.

On the other hand, Argus was great. The first trip I made through Krokuun was incredible and memorable. Being able to fly there would have cheapened it. And the devs were considerate to add teleporters around the zones so flying needn't be missed.

I'm fine with Pathfinder and timegating as long as they make the ground gameplay more enjoyable than flying over it.

[SirCowdog]

This isnt about complainers,the blizzard art team has started doing some amazing zones in these last expansions,and they simply want us to experience the world from a grounded design,simple as that,unless the zone philosophy changes,like it was in wrath where it was made for flying,and most of it was just big empty spaces,we wont be seeing it go away

If you have to force someone to "appreciate" your work, then your work isn't worth appreciating.

The problem with the concept of trying to ensure that everyone spends time "appreciating" the art or devs' work by arbitrarily limiting gameplay and player enjoyment is....there's not a kind word for it. Short-sighted, arrogant, narcissistic, etc.

I have serious doubts that this is the reason why Blizzard is limiting flight. It's far more likely to do with MAUs or other engagement figures, and psychological manipulation by increasing time played, and thus emotional and financial investment. On top of that, of course, is of course, streamlining the development process by using a more simplistic open world formula.

Well, we'll see what happens. I suspect that it will go down pretty similar to previous expansions. There will be an initial spike of sales at launch, based on hype, followed by a steep decline, and a steady drop off. People are sick of the same ol same ol. No matter how much Blizzard changes the class design and game mechanics to supposedly boost player agency, if all there is to use it on is the same garbage, fatigue sets in and they unsub.

If I had to guess, this played a MASSIVE role in how many people went to Classic; if only just to get something different from retail.

[Xilurm]

Then they should make better content!

Sorry, I just don't buy this line about the devs getting sore about players not appreciating their genius. If you have to force someone to have their face rubbed in your work, then your work is shit.

It's not though, compared to other MMO games the zones of WoW are quite nice.

I've been playing FFXIV for 4 years now and I have to say the zones are the least interesting to me. Bland looking without much color and most look the sameish.

No matter how amazing the zones look, people would just choose flying anyday because people are just lazy. I'd be up for removing pathfinder, as long as they make sure you don't need flying to traverse the zones. I wanna have the option to go anywhere I want on foot/mount.

[Frosteye]

That is untrue.

A lot of players hated the implementation of flying from the get go, as it had a huge impact on World PvP and overall immersion, especially coming out of Vanilla where meeting up at Kargath and moving as a guild towards Blackrock Mountain was a thing, with huge battles and rivalries between guilds (which is a big thing on Classic again, go figure), to a... "fly straight inside the raid" setting that completely destroyed that aspect of the game.

Flying sucks. It's convenient and speeds up people's activities, but it's horrendous to the game, and has been since day 1 of its implementation, so again, its untrue that you state that it wasn't a 'thing' back then.

Either you were ignorant about the fact... and i don't understand why you'd mention it, or you're straight up being deceitful in order to fool people that probably don't know better. Both suck.

World PVP was dead after battlegrounds came out in vanilla.

Blizzard tried to "save" it by releasing the Towers in EPL and sand turn-ins in Silithus but they were mostly a flop and no one did them. This was all back in vanilla pre-flying.

So yeah, flying didn't really hurt WPVP much.

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The video has been removed. Did you download it?


They already do this!

Also, how about just give us flying like it was from BC to Pandaria? Pay gold at max level, there, done.

Nope didn't DL

summary: Blizzard says "lol get ready for pathfinder". massive boos erupt from the crowd

[Frosteye]

Actually, it might be much better if they make flying mounts only work as a reward for having warmode on.

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Not really. There were just as many people cheering it on.

Such as I.

Keep pathfinder as it is. Thanks.

People (including Ion) who thought there was actually cheering are delusional. There was no "cheering". There were loud boos, and some frustrated groans underneath that.

[Kumorii]

Actually, it might be much better if they make flying mounts only work as a reward for having warmode on.

A tool to circumvent PvP can only be used in PvP mode? Seems backwards..

[MasterOfNone]

Kinda disappointed. the game is much more fun when you camp a horde corpse and they can't fly away.

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Source about that BS 1%?

Just because you don't world PVP doesn't mean everyone is like you.

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great idea. thumbs up.

if world pvp was fixed a la pathfinder, explain war mode and bfa. clearly it wasnt the problem.

[bloodykiller86]

Looks like I won't be preordering.

I'm sick of this garbage. Literally nobody complained before WOD about flying except like 1% of World PVPers, and another 1% of avid roleplayers who claimed "Muh immersion!"

Even Blizzard's most avid fanbase in attendance at Blizzcon was largely unimpressed by this announcement

such a crybaby. WHO CARES! Pathfinder is the best compromise. quit crying already

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Lol, every expansion we get your lot crawling out of their holes to cry about flying and how much you deserve it.
When you say you won't be pre ordering or won't be playing due to something as stupid as pathfinder and not being able to fly, you sound like an entitled child who needed more beatings growing up.
Good riddance, got play fortnite

100% facts lol

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People (including Ion) who thought there was actually cheering are delusional. There was no "cheering". There were loud boos, and some frustrated groans underneath that.

wrong there was definite cheering along with Boos. I personally would never want it to go away. stop being a lazy f*** and do the requirements

[Katchii]

Over a year? Jesus, how slow do you rep farm.. If you start now, you can have it rather fast.

The ability to fly in Battle for Azeroth didn't come out until over a year after it released, that's what they meant.

If you start now "rather fast" is not really an accurate descriptor. It takes 2 weeks at least, for the rep grind for Nazjatar and Mechagon, and those are just part of the pieces needed for Part 2 of Pathfinder...you would still need to get Part 1 of Pathfinder which would take a while. It's not THAT long, but I wouldn't call it fast either.

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Flying should unlock instantly when you hit max level. This way immersion is not ruined and its not too late so people are not pissed.

But it wont happen since flying achievements are made to force people to resub and lower the pace at which people consume content.

I see what you're trying to say, but there's still a huge amount of content to consume once you hit max level, and there's also no guarantee that you've seen all of the content just by hitting max level.

Pathfinder as a concept I think is fine, but they should split it up and remove the rep grinds. Keep the multiple parts, so that as new zones get introduced you can be grounded, but also allow the zones you've already seen and experienced to be unlocked via Pathfinder and not be artificially time gated behind a rep grind.

[therealbowser]

My issue with Pathfinder is not its existence, but the time-gating.

Both the reputation (which is locked behind dailies) and the fact that it's unlocked several patches into the expansion... but I could tolerate the former if the latter wasn't an issue.

Personally I'd rather it just not exist, but I could tolerate it if it were at least not a "feature" given later in the expansion.

That said, did anyone actually think it was going to go away? Nah, it's Blizzard's favorite thing now. They love locking quality of life features behind tedious achievements and arbitrary time-gates. It forces you to grind for weeks and that makes them think that they can hold onto subs longer... and somehow not burn out players. But, I digress.

It is what it is. If they removed the time-gating I'd be okay with it. But they probably won't, and I'll just have to deal with it. Again. Hopefully the reputation isn't a pain in the ass this time. Or even better, the zones be designed with running on the ground in mind. No more "Highmountains", no more "Stormheims", no more "Nagrands", and sure as hell no more "Naz'jatars". Why can't we have zones like the Jade Forest if Blizzard is going to insist on forcing us to use ground mounts? Sorry, I can't really discuss Blizzard's stance on flying without it pissing me off to some degree.

[cuafpr]

yeah its a terrible system... but the current wow leadership would prefer to remove it so this is what we get until they move on..

[MasterOfNone]

Just because you don’t enjoy wpvp doesn’t mean it’s bad.

I am an alliance and i have had countless nights where i went ape shit on horde groups with friends and i enjoyed the heck out of it.

And guess what, we no longer can do that because flying was unlocked and everyone can fly a way

oh bullshit. if you had a good group, you would know two things:
first, you can dismount people
seocnd, if you keep them in combat they cant mount up. that means using slows and speed boosts to attack them and keep them engaged and in combat
finally, flying was unlocked by most about the same time as classic launch. flying didnt kill retail, classic did. the burnout in bfa was severe WEEKS before flying was enabled. try to sell your nonsense to someone else.

[rebecca191]

I'd be fine with either the removal or making it completable at launch. The one year delay makes world content unplayable for me.

[Erolian]

I really have no problem with fully exploring the world on foot, grinding rep, looting treasures and getting lore master to unlock flying. That part is fine in whatever combination they pick for shadowlands. Its the part where I do all of that then wait months on end to unlock flying. I'm so fucking done with the world content and discovery a few weeks to maybe a month and a half after an expansion releases. If I were determined the amount of content they put into pathfinder is the work of a couple days at best if you subtract time gating. They don't actually release that much content to explore or participate in to justify the time gating. We're out here doing the same WQ for the 40th time or more by the time they let us fly lol

[Strawberry]

Yeah, screw pathfinder!

[Xeones]

When the company still has to punish players for a bad decision they made years ago to lie to us in WoD and us not putting up with it I'm at a loss.

Shadowlands looks good, but so did BFA.

[Usagi Senshi]

Just because you don’t enjoy wpvp doesn’t mean it’s bad.

I am an alliance and i have had countless nights where i went ape shit on horde groups with friends and i enjoyed the heck out of it.

And guess what, we no longer can do that because flying was unlocked and everyone can fly a way

I got ape shat on by a group of four Alliance while I was doing Voldun/Tort rep on my hunter yesterday. Least I killed their monk twice before they flew away.

I then started killing a prest/warrior combo and after two three deaths they flew away.

Flying didn't ruin shit in that regard. Someone is always going to get away if they don't want to retaliate.

[Erolian]

When the company still has to punish players for a bad decision they made years ago to lie to us in WoD and us not putting up with it I'm at a loss.

Shadowlands looks good, but so did BFA.

Not really. If you played the beta and actually thought about the content they promised realistically you knew you were getting a shitty pve warfront, scenarios called island expeditions, and legion classes with less. At least in shadowlands they appear to be moving in the right direction with gearing and classes and their tower feature at least sounds like it will be more interesting until proven otherwise in beta. A really big tip when listening to game reveals is to totally ignore or call bullshit the second a developer starts to hype their AI or talk about technology instead of actual gameplay because its never half as cool as they make it sound. IMO its just a sign that there isn't any interesting gameplay to talk about and they needed something to fill time with or maybe they're just so far gone with working on games that they don't realize that none of that matters and it doesn't automatically translate into a fun game to play. At best they're out there bragging about tools before you get to see how they used them

[hulkgor]

Blizzard tried to "save" it by releasing the Towers in EPL

Oh boy, towers in EPL... lol, off by nearly a decade in that remark.

[SirCowdog]

Not really. There were just as many people cheering it on.

Such as I.

Keep pathfinder as it is. Thanks.

Nobody in that video cheered when pathfinder was announced by Ion.

Some people laughed at his embarrassed reaction to the boo's. But there were no cheers. And if you say there was, at best you're trying to twist the situation to make Blizzard not look as bad...and at worst a liar.

Regardless, lets look at the theoretical situation that a handful of people did "cheer". This is Blizzcon. The most dedicated and loyal fans who are willing to not only buy their products, but travel and pay exhorbitant fees to sit in what amounts to a glorified advertisement. If those people boo'd your idea, you should consider it as a strong representation of the rest of your customers, and re-think your approach.