Why flying being gated behind rep grind makes no sense

[Relapses]

Jesus Christ.

This thread reminded me why I hate this fucking community again. Pagr after page of people claiming that "massive unsubs" are what caused Pathfinder to happen in the first place. Is it really so fucking hard to believe the devs aren't always working to antagonize their playerbase? There's zero fucking proof an influx of unsubscribing happened (sorry, angry posts on forums aren't proof of anything) and even less proof that Pathfinder was implemented to somehow stop this subscriber bleed. It's just revisionist history from angry pro-flying players who can't fathom the possibility that many players simply don't give a single fuck about whether they can fly. No, they have to paint the devs as the villains because Big Bad Blizzard "never listens" and only changes its mind because it started to effect the bottom line.

You ever wonder why the fuck there's so much radio silence from the devs sometimes? This thread is a perfect fucking example.

[SirCowdog]

How do you propose to make it better? faster? or limited time flying? Both sucks donkey balls.

I thought you weren't debating me any more?

Anyway, there are a lot of ways to make flying better. The assumption that any change will "suck donkey balls" while simultaneously claiming that the current form is so bad it should be removed shows a hypocritical and selfish stance that doesn't allow for improvement.

We get it. You want flying out of the game completely and aren't willing to be open to anything else. Otherwise you'd have seen the various different suggestions across the threads on this topic. Some are, of course, not reasonable. But a LOT are.

this is the problem with flying. either have flying or don't, there is no middle solution.

Again, you're trying too hard to make this a black and white situation because it better supports your position of no flying.

You want to claim there's no middle solution, and yet we have 4 expansions that show that very thing.

[Kragragh]

It should be like FFXIV...do the main quest, explore the whole area, boom flying

[rrayy]

Jesus Christ.

This thread reminded me why I hate this fucking community again. Pagr after page of people claiming that "massive unsubs" are what caused Pathfinder to happen in the first place. Is it really so fucking hard to believe the devs aren't always working to antagonize their playerbase? There's zero fucking proof an influx of unsubscribing happened (sorry, angry posts on forums aren't proof of anything) and even less proof that Pathfinder was implemented to somehow stop this subscriber bleed. It's just revisionist history from angry pro-flying players who can't fathom the possibility that many players simply don't give a single fuck about whether they can fly. No, they have to paint the devs as the villains because Big Bad Blizzard "never listens" and only changes its mind because it started to effect the bottom line.

You ever wonder why the fuck there's so much radio silence from the devs sometimes? This thread is a perfect fucking example.

I would say that the massive blow back on Twitter and other social media is what caused the devs to rethink things and ultimately come up with pathfinder.

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Bought in TBC at 68, in Wrath at 77, in Cata at the start.

You obviously were a druid. They were the only ones who could fly at 68 when that expansion was current.

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Well, you bought flying 3 levels before cap in Wrath. And had it from the beginning from 60+ in all zones in Cata.

I already explained that Cata was the exception because of the fact that the zones were in the middle of continents that were already allowing flying.

[SirCowdog]

WotLK got a NO-FLY ZONE and lots of dismount patrols in the open world.

WotLK had it issues with flying, just as much as in TBC. The only thing that softened in WotLK was the PRICE for (faster)-flying. 150% flyspeed was not game braking and you had to use normal flightpaths to get somewhere faster.

And are not these scenarios a more reasonable compromise than No-flying everywhere(even when it makes no sense)? A more granular approach which disallows or discourages flight in specifical places where it makes sense, and allows flying where it does?

So yes WotLK had a working timegating for casual flying, because gold was limited, you had to pay for every character (alt fleets) and the ICC-flying achievement was in the second half of the expansion, just as pathfinder is right now.

I think you're confusing a timegate(which is a hard limit which can not be bypassed by any form of player effort) and a soft barrier like gold acquisition. Pathfinder literally can not be completed in any way until Blizzard says so. Whereas Cold-weather flight training is 100% up to the player how fast they earn it.

As for the ICC-flying achievement, you'll need to be more specific. Are you referring to Glory of the Icecrown Raider?

Did you even play WotLK to any extend? Players were extremly frustrated with the AFK parking of characters outside of the normal gaming world. Even players who never participated in PvP activitys used everything they got (slowfall, immunitys, etc) to kill AFK flying players in the air.

WotLK had its pro's but flying was not one of it.

I think you're stretching to try and find negatives where there weren't actually any. Which "players" were extremely frustrated? And you contradicted yourself. How can players "never participate in pvp" also kill AFK players, since killing players is a PVP activity. As @Dugna rightly pointed out below your post, the only real problem was in how OP and rule-breaking Nelf druids were due to the combination of Shadowmeld and instant flight.

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Before when you bought flying for gold, you never had flying during leveling.

I would also point out that there was more open world content than what was required to reach level cap. Every character I leveled in TBC, WotLK, and MoP hit level cap long before finishing all the open world content. This meant that there were sometimes several zones available to flying in while completing content after reaching level cap.

This probably colors my perception somewhat, as I viewed flight as something which was the natural progression of both the character and the content. You level up, you get flying, you use flying on the remaining content as a reward for putting in the work of leveling.

Which is an interesting contrast with Pathfinder. Because it's basically the same concept, only with a hard time-lock slapped on it. Do the work, get the reward. Imagine if Blizzard put hard time-locks on leveling the same way they did with pathfinder. Shadowlands! New level cap 60! But you can only level to 58 in Shadowlands part 1! All the rewards of level 60 coming Soon(tm) in Shadowlands part 2!

It's not a perfect comparison, but I'm exaggerating for effect to make the point obvious to the haters.

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It's just revisionist history from angry pro-flying players who can't fathom the possibility that many players simply don't give a single fuck about whether they can fly. No, they have to paint the devs as the villains because Big Bad Blizzard "never listens" and only changes its mind because it started to effect the bottom line.

It's because Blizzard has a history of ignoring feedback that extends to MANY issues, not just flying, and not just WoW.

The only language a player has to effect real change is money. It's a logical(and the most likely) conclusion that the only reason WoD changed such a fundamental design direction was because of money.

As I've pointed out several times, it very likely wasn't JUST because of flying, however. That might have been the poster child, but it was the entire design philosophy of WoD that pissed people off. And yes, I do believe that was changed due to an unprecedented number of unsubs. Which is why Blizzard stopped reporting subs at the very same window of time that all these events were happening in WoD.

[Sansnom]

All you have to do in order to unlock flying is to play the game as intended, do all quests in the zones, and 1-3 hours of playtime per day doing WQs for 2-3 weeks.. And the shortest/cheapest sub time for the game is 30 days, plenty of time to get it.

Of all the things to whine about the game, this should not be one of them...

If it only were that simple. Firstly not everyone plays 1 - 3 hrs per day.

Secondly, the grind is not always quick and easy. I remember the Tanaan Jungle grind was one of the most frustrating ones I experienced.

[SirCowdog]

If it only were that simple. Firstly not everyone plays 1 - 3 hrs per day.

Secondly, the grind is not always quick and easy. I remember the Tanaan Jungle grind was one of the most frustrating ones I experienced.

Third...which he conveniently forgot to mention: Either stay subbed 8-10 months between part 1 and part 2, or unsub until part 2 is released.

[Ragedaug]

Jesus Christ.

This thread reminded me why I hate this fucking community again. Pagr after page of people claiming that "massive unsubs" are what caused Pathfinder to happen in the first place. Is it really so fucking hard to believe the devs aren't always working to antagonize their playerbase? There's zero fucking proof an influx of unsubscribing happened (sorry, angry posts on forums aren't proof of anything) and even less proof that Pathfinder was implemented to somehow stop this subscriber bleed. It's just revisionist history from angry pro-flying players who can't fathom the possibility that many players simply don't give a single fuck about whether they can fly. No, they have to paint the devs as the villains because Big Bad Blizzard "never listens" and only changes its mind because it started to effect the bottom line.

You ever wonder why the fuck there's so much radio silence from the devs sometimes? This thread is a perfect fucking example.

You seem really upset. I didn't create this thread, but I feel bad for you that you are this affected, so for what it's worth I'm sorry this thread got you down.

Many people who really enjoy WoW also really enjoy the ability to fly in game. So they are passionate when they ask for something they really enjoy in the game to remain and that passion can be mistaken as anger and sometimes is manifest as anger. You may be equally passionate that no one should be able to fly, I don't know, but just keep in mind there are folks who disagree with you who are just as passionate as you in their beliefs.

You made the statement that there is no evidence that the no-flying-going-forward rule caused massive unsubs. I would split hairs just so much as to say, there is evidence of what caused Blizzard to quickly reverse their position, Blizzard just hasn't made it public.

Anecdotally, I can tell you that I unsubbed when they announced no-flying-going-forward. So sure, that doesn't mean anything, but I've never seen Blizzard 180 themselves as quickly as they did on any other policy or position statement; so it made sense to me that not only was I not the only one who did that, but likely there were many. You may believe the change was solely due to the massive QQ on the forums that caused Blizzard to change their minds, and I'm sure that played some role, but I've seen massive QQ on the forums for other things where they did not change their minds.

One thing I'm sure of, that would change their minds, is impact to their bottom line. Impact to quarterly earnings means something and that's the only thing that makes sense to me for what would have 'caused Blizzard to immediately 180 their position to say, "we were wrong, we will allow flying going forward". So to your point, I would say, it's not proof. You are right. But it is evidence...and that's all we have to use for speculation.

[Relapses]

And are not these scenarios a more reasonable compromise than No-flying everywhere(even when it makes no sense)? A more granular approach which disallows or discourages flight in specifical places where it makes sense, and allows flying where it does?



I think you're confusing a timegate(which is a hard limit which can not be bypassed by any form of player effort) and a soft barrier like gold acquisition. Pathfinder literally can not be completed in any way until Blizzard says so. Whereas Cold-weather flight training is 100% up to the player how fast they earn it.

As for the ICC-flying achievement, you'll need to be more specific. Are you referring to Glory of the Icecrown Raider?



I think you're stretching to try and find negatives where there weren't actually any. Which "players" were extremely frustrated? And you contradicted yourself. How can players "never participate in pvp" also kill AFK players, since killing players is a PVP activity. As @Dugna rightly pointed out below your post, the only real problem was in how OP and rule-breaking Nelf druids were due to the combination of Shadowmeld and instant flight.

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I would also point out that there was more open world content than what was required to reach level cap. Every character I leveled in TBC, WotLK, and MoP hit level cap long before finishing all the open world content. This meant that there were sometimes several zones available to flying in while completing content after reaching level cap.

This probably colors my perception somewhat, as I viewed flight as something which was the natural progression of both the character and the content. You level up, you get flying, you use flying on the remaining content as a reward for putting in the work of leveling.

Which is an interesting contrast with Pathfinder. Because it's basically the same concept, only with a hard time-lock slapped on it. Do the work, get the reward. Imagine if Blizzard put hard time-locks on leveling the same way they did with pathfinder. Shadowlands! New level cap 60! But you can only level to 58 in Shadowlands part 1! All the rewards of level 60 coming Soon(tm) in Shadowlands part 2!

It's not a perfect comparison, but I'm exaggerating for effect to make the point obvious to the haters.

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It's because Blizzard has a history of ignoring feedback that extends to MANY issues, not just flying, and not just WoW.

The only language a player has to effect real change is money. It's a logical(and the most likely) conclusion that the only reason WoD changed such a fundamental design direction was because of money.

As I've pointed out several times, it very likely wasn't JUST because of flying, however. That might have been the poster child, but it was the entire design philosophy of WoD that pissed people off. And yes, I do believe that was changed due to an unprecedented number of unsubs. Which is why Blizzard stopped reporting subs at the very same window of time that all these events were happening in WoD.

No. Subs stopped being reported because they stopped being relevant. Post-WoD, Blizzard had enough individual streams of income that WoW's sub count was no longer as important to show the company's overall success. In fact, they were never relevant to players and they were never reported for the benefit of players in the first place. Please stop inventing narratives where Blizzard tries to hide shit from players because "they're embarrassed." It's stupid.

Further, I posit something completely different yet entirely possible happened with Pathfinder. Pathfinder was the direction Blizzard intended to take flying from the beginning. They tried out no flying to see how it went and decided, nah. We don't want to. They announce it. People complain because complaining on the internet is cool. They look at information and change their mind to do what they intended to do from the beginning. Not precisely because of backlash but because they made a decision then walked it back. Shit like this happens internally all the time, I'm sure. This simply represents a singular situation where Blizzard said they weren't going to do something then decided against it. Not because flying is this all-important issue that means literally fucking anything to anybody but because they have the right, as a developer, to decide what is or isn't best for the overall health of the game.

Of course, that doesn't make for very exciting headlines because it's much easier to just say "EVERYBODY FUCKING QUITTED CUZ NO FLYING AND THEY UNDID IT CUZ FLYING IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE UNIVERSE." Like most hot-button issues on this forum, I simply don't buy it. It only seems to matter to very vocal minority which loves to use Blizzard introducing Pathfinder as some kind of proof that their strong opinions about flying are somehow representative of a larger group of players than actuality.

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One thing I'm sure of, that would change their minds, is impact to their bottom line. Impact to quarterly earnings means something and that's the only thing that makes sense to me for what would have 'caused Blizzard to immediately 180 their position to say, "we were wrong, we will allow flying going forward". So to your point, I would say, it's not proof. You are right. But it is evidence...and that's all we have to use for speculation.

It's possible for developers to change their minds without the bottom line being affected. This possibility seems to completely alien to many people participating in this discussion. That's what's frustrating.

[Daffan]

The hardcore no-lifed it in a record time anyway, so gating didn't stop them from zooming through it. The losers are the casuals who support this game, yet they get treated with repetitive boring chores every day leaving them no time to really enjoy the game. It makes absolutely no sense.

I quit several times and even when I reactivated, I played once, or twice max per week, no longer than 1 hour a day and couldn't stand looking at the same zone anymore.

Who thought of this anyway? What's wrong with simply just not giving flying to anyone until a certain time has passed rather than make people hate your own game. This is beyond ridiculous.

Without time gating content, casuals quit the game too fast. The excessive welfare and catchup systems in this game force Blizzard's hand.

LFR wings = time gated
Flying Pathfinder achievements = time gated
Weekly chests/big rewards = light time gated

KEEP LOGGING ON PLEB!

[Darkeon]

Makes sense from a monetary and corporative standpoint.

Other than that there is absolutely no reason why it should only be a reward that is unlocked as soon as the expansion's last sprint starts.
Blizzard could easily gate it for the first patch, make everyone see the main narrative from a grounded view, a more controlled environment for whatever criative experience they'd prefer to show.

Unlocking it at the last sprint and once nearly every other activity in the game has been exhausted and experienced is an obvious play on stretching the available content for as long as possible, to increase the amount of time the playerbase is engaged, without having to actually provide more content.

[luciano]

Actually, you did. In Cata.

And lich king. The zone with ICC and the one with Ulduar both had flying, as did the giant circle jungle zone (with Hemet).

[Ihsan997]

Anecdotally, I can tell you that I unsubbed when they announced no-flying-going-forward. So sure, that doesn't mean anything, but I've never seen Blizzard 180 themselves as quickly as they did on any other policy or position statement; so it made sense to me that not only was I not the only one who did that, but likely there were many. You may believe the change was solely due to the massive QQ on the forums that caused Blizzard to change their minds, and I'm sure that played some role, but I've seen massive QQ on the forums for other things where they did not change their minds.

One thing I'm sure of, that would change their minds, is impact to their bottom line. Impact to quarterly earnings means something and that's the only thing that makes sense to me for what would have 'caused Blizzard to immediately 180 their position to say, "we were wrong, we will allow flying going forward". So to your point, I would say, it's not proof. You are right. But it is evidence...and that's all we have to use for speculation.

This isn’t hard to understand. We see social media campaigns and negative reactions force companies to adjust their policies all the time. People can get angry and flame threads with F-word laden posts all they want, but logic is logic, and I don’t think anybody taking an objective look at this would understand Blizzard’s u-turn any other way.

[Aggrophobic]

That is the exception to the rule and done because of where the zones were, particularly Hyjal, Uldum and Twilight Highlands. Blizzard didn't want to have another Wintergrasp situation with people being demounted over those zones when flying so, they gave it right way.

It was good though. The game is simply more fun with flying.

[SirCowdog]

.

Of course, that doesn't make for very exciting headlines because it's much easier to just say "EVERYBODY FUCKING QUITTED CUZ NO FLYING AND THEY UNDID IT CUZ FLYING IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE UNIVERSE."

If you actually read what I posted you'd see that I didn't say any such thing.

You want very much to get angry at people for misrepresenting what you think the developers reasoning was, but then go on to be guilty of exactly the same thing when quoting me.

.
It's possible for developers to change their minds without the bottom line being affected. This possibility seems to completely alien to many people participating in this discussion. That's what's frustrating.

I'm sure developers do change their minds. But you're acting as though they operate in a vacuum devoid of both corporate and financial influence. And one thing is for certain in the AAA gaming industry: ActivisionBlizzard is motovated primarily by chasing the money as much as possible, to the detriment and at the cost of all other considerations. We see this left and right and all throughout their actions.

So when we see a change as dramatic as what happened in WoD, and there's a question about what the reasons for it was: I'm betting that it was decided by the money.

[Relapses]

If you actually read what I posted you'd see that I didn't say any such thing.

You want very much to get angry at people for misrepresenting what you think the developers reasoning was, but then go on to be guilty of exactly the same thing when quoting me.

I never said that you said this. Or that anybody said this. But it's the common rationale that I see here: No flying = hurted Blizzard in the "real" fee-fees, their pockets. I don't discount that people were mad. I don't even discount that some people might've decided to unsub in protest. I just firmly believe the change in direction wasn't implicitly due to the negative backlash.

I'm sure developers do change their minds. But you're acting as though they operate in a vacuum devoid of both corporate and financial influence. And one thing is for certain in the AAA gaming industry: ActivisionBlizzard is motovated primarily by chasing the money as much as possible, to the detriment and at the cost of all other considerations. We see this left and right and all throughout their actions.

So when we see a change as dramatic as what happened in WoD, and there's a question about what the reasons for it was: I'm betting that it was decided by the money.

And I'm betting that you have no fucking idea why. Because you don't. Because I don't. Because nobody fucking does. And nobody ever will. You can use the argument "it's about money" to justify a position for or against any feature that's ever existed. (LFR exists "because money." AP is grindy "because money." World quests are endless "because money.") In this case there simply isn't enough evidence for me to believe that monetary factors were the only driving force involved with walking back no flying. A factor? Possibly. But I refuse to drink the forum circlejerk Kool-Aid and "We did it, Reddit!" bullshit mentality I see around here which correlates mass unsubbing with the reason for the change.

More importantly, as a developer Blizzard has the right to enforce unpopular design choices because -- once more as this thread has proven unequivocally -- after backtracking the community will see it as proof that if they bitch loud enough "they will listen." It sets a poor tone for discussions between players and developers which is why such a right needs to be absolute, imo. Game design by democracy is a terrible idea and I will always be on the side of developers standing behind their vision.

[gd8]

They already presented the best possible middle solution where half the expansion with no flying.

and frankly, I don't give a shit. you want flying because it's convenient and fast.

I want it removed because it made the world feel empty.

Who got the better argument here?

not you lol

[Raelbo]

Just because you disagree with them doesn’t mean they are wrong.

You're correct. It's not just because I disagree that they're wrong. It's the reasoning behind my disagreement that mean they're wrong.

I and many others think flying is also cancer to the game.

Yeah, whatever. The highly vocal anti-flying community is fantastic about shouting that flying is a cancer. What you're not good at is backing up this assertion with a solid argument.

There are basically 2 arguments against flying:

1) Flying breaks immersion/allows players to bypass "content":

I am not going to disagree with this assertion. However the fallacy of this argument is that the value of said immersion diminishes significantly as content ages. In short - restrictions on flying make sense for new content. They become senseless for well established content.

2) Flying wrecks WPvP:

This is an asinine and poorly thought out assertion. Simply put, if people are choosing to fly away rather than engage in WPvP, the problem is that they don't want to engage in WPvP. Fix that and no amount of access to flying can touch WPvP.

I mean just last night I was doing a WQ. I ran into an Alliance player who was in the process of mounting up as I started firing an Aimed Shot at him. The shot hit just as he mounted up and I got in another 2 hits before he flew out of range. Now tell me, what was stopping him from stopping flying off and fighting me? Having access to flight doesn't force him to disengage from the fight. It doesn't prevent him from attacking me. It simply gives him the means to do what he actually wants to do, which clearly is not to engage in WPvP.

Only a very simplistic mode of thinking blames flying for the problem.

[Dhrizzle]

I'm sure developers do change their minds. But you're acting as though they operate in a vacuum devoid of both corporate and financial influence. And one thing is for certain in the AAA gaming industry: ActivisionBlizzard is motovated primarily by chasing the money as much as possible, to the detriment and at the cost of all other considerations. We see this left and right and all throughout their actions.

So when we see a change as dramatic as what happened in WoD, and there's a question about what the reasons for it was: I'm betting that it was decided by the money.

When you say Blizz did something "because money" doesn't it just mean it's something that will keep people playing the game, i.e. something players want that incentivises them to do content? Basically that's a positive.

[SirCowdog]

They already presented the best possible middle solution where half the expansion with no flying.

and frankly, I don't give a shit. you want flying because it's convenient and fast.

I want it removed because it made the world feel empty.

Who got the better argument here?

I do. Because I don't lie and misrepresent the opposition. You keep saying all I want is to skip content. Or just want convenience.

Which. Is. False.

Im fact my position is to give both ground and flying players what they want. Mixed content where flying is not always the better option.

But you wouldn't know that because you keep ignoring what's actually being said in favor of hate directed at something you don't like for no better reason than it disagrees with you.