Why flying being gated behind rep grind makes no sense

[Socialhealer]

For me i want faster flying like 750%, why?

because when im doing WQ's and travelling takes 95% of the time and nuking down a 200k hp rare takes 6 seconds, why the fuck does it take so long to travel? its just a crappy version of flight simulator.

Who wants to travel on their ground mount for 4 minutes to kill a rare in 6 seconds to complete a quest, then travel another 6 minutes to your next quest only to do that in 30 seconds etc.

That is the issue i have with no flying, im just sitting on my mount travelling for ages to complete no brainer faceroll quests, the hardest part being can you be assed to travel that far for some ap/gold/war resources?!

[Hottage]

OK, Mr. 1% of the playerbase. I am not worried about you not being able to no-life this content. Obviously, you love this BS.

I've hardly played this expansion. I do a few Mythic Keystones every few weeks, and the weekly event if I care enough (timewalking is kinda fun).

Still only took about 5 weeks of barely playing to get Pathfinder Part 2, it's really not that hard to get.

It's certainly less of a chore than (for example) the old way of unlocking free epic flying via What a Long, Strange Trip it's Been.

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For me i want faster flying like 750%, why?

because when im doing WQ's and travelling takes 95% of the time and nuking down a 200k hp rare takes 6 seconds, why the fuck does it take so long to travel? its just a crappy version of flight simulator.

Who wants to travel on their ground mount for 4 minutes to kill a rare in 6 seconds to complete a quest, then travel another 6 minutes to your next quest only to do that in 30 seconds etc.

That is the issue i have with no flying, im just sitting on my mount travelling for ages to complete no brainer faceroll quests, the hardest part being can you be assed to travel that far for some ap/gold/war resources?!

An MMO is supposed to feel like a large, open world. Flying already condenses that world into feeling like a smaller map.

Sounds more like a problem with power creep/outgearing low-tier content than with flying specifically.

The fact you can delete outgeared NPCs in 6 seconds isn't a valid justification for making the world feel even smaller.

[nonameelf]

Flying should just require completing the story quests in each zone and fully exploring each zone. And Pathfinder Part 1 should give flying for all zones available at launch. Pathfinder Part 2 would be for flying in any zones after launch.

The arbitrary wait between Part 1 and Part 2 is fucking stupid.

[Loveliest]

a valid justification for making the world feel even smaller.

This is one of those arguments that sounds like it makes sense so people overuse it.

Taking forever to reach something is not a fun activity. It's nice the first time when you quest, because you have things to do on the way.
You open up a zone and while doing stuff you get to appreciate how it's laid out, how it's built, how big it is and so on. Then you open another zone, which looks totally different and is again new and exciting and big and has all those little details that catch your eyes. And eventually you see everything.

At one point, you run out of cohesive stuff to do. You still get some world quests or dailies, but getting there and interacting with the world on the way is minimal. Because of this, the activity of getting there is not fun - you'll take the closest FP and then run through whatever's in your way to get to the objective. There's no exploration and no need for the world to feel big when you do this.
The world can be as big as they want, we still focus on that one objective at the end. This taking longer doesn't make the world feel anything. The human brain is capable of recognizing that it's been here before, it's seen it before and doesn't get any excitement the 5th time you're there. So boredom sets in if it takes too long to get to your objective - it slips into tedium and inconvenience.

This is why flying enabled after you're done with all the questing and campaigns does make the most sense. Unless they can dish out sprawling campaigns every week that would take advantage of this world, the world can't feel small.
How should I put this - when you go to work or school and take an hour to get there, do you appreciate the views you see on the way? You'll say RL is not like this because this world is fantasy and it's beautiful but it doesn't really matter - if you've seen it many times, you'll still get bored of it eventually and you won't appreciate taking so long in getting where you want. Show me one person in this world who wouldn't like to take a flying mount to work / school.
It's a game, after all, doing stuff is more important that not doing and just seeing.

[FuxieDK]

Blizzard decided that flying was bad, so they tried to get rid of it. However, it was clear they couldn't just get rid of it, so they decided to make it very hard to get so you'll stay subbed and that you had to "prove" you played the expansion in order to earn the privilege of flying.

The biggest problem with this is, virtually no one levels alts, until flying is unlocked, and it usually (empirically evidense of three expansions) takes about a year (of an expansion's two year life span).

This means, you are virtually barred from playing anything but your main half of the time, and thus many unsub in shorter or longer periods at a time.

Cataclysm had it right; Pay 250g as the first thing you did when expansion launched and you could fly.
WotLK: You got a Loaner Mount at 77 and then you could fly for real at 80.
TBC: Druids gained flying at 68 (for free) when they bought Flight Form from Class Trainer; Other classes could buy (slow) flying at level 70.
MoP: You could fly at level 90.

It's not a coincidense that almost everybody have one of these expansions as their favorite..

[Mirishka]

While this is true, the bolded part is the point, I think. It's not about providing a satisfying unlock, or challenge, or reward. It's all about getting you to log in every day.

Which is crap. I don't need Blizzard to dictate my playing habits, and warping the gameplay and quality in order to manipulate players results in a worse overall game.

Except you don't have to log in every day. A couple I'm friends with, who didn't play BFA at the start at all, came back in the summer (2019 to be clear) and a few weeks later they had flight. The only part they adamantly hated was Nazjatar, so I helped them through the last stretch of that.

So the idea that we're forced to log in every single day and grind rep for hours on end is nonsense.

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The biggest problem with this is, virtually no one levels alts, until flying is unlocked, and it usually (empirically evidense of three expansions) takes about a year (of an expansion's two year life span).

This means, you are virtually barred from playing anything but your main half of the time, and thus many unsub in shorter or longer periods at a time.

Oh you silly people and your 'no one/everyone' arguments, I swear. You have no idea, literally none, what % of players decide they're not leveling alts until they have flying. People here bitch and moan that Blizz doesn't listen to their feedback, hyperbole like this ^ is a great example why. Because no one here, me included, has any idea what most/all/no players do and feedback based on that kind of presumption is useless.

To be clear I've grown to hate the current system (Pathfinder 1 and 2 being spaced so far apart), and feel like we should be able to fly in zones we've finished when we finish them. But a bunch of exaggerated, hyperbolic bullshit from angry gamers with an axe to grind isn't going to convince Blizz to rethink it.

[Bryci]

Flying is not even gated to reputation for those that actively play the expansion more like the 2nd big patch. Only reputation that matters is the one that comes out let's say 8.2 because every base expansion reputation will be exalted 10 times by the time 2nd big patch hits the game. So all of those essentially rendered useless. You have an achievement to get them exalted for what? 20% more mount speed? Come on people don't need that. No matter what you do flying is not unlockable until x.2 patch.

[Kalontas]

My biggest issue with the Pathfinder system is that the rep element just takes so much longer than everything else. It's not even that it's takes too long (it does, for me, but I can bear that). It's that it does not work out in tandem with the other parts of the achievement. You'll be done with everything... except the reputations. Which will take a few *weeks* more. Why is there that much of a gap? Shouldn't it all work together?

And truly, I do not know why we always have to wait for part 2. Their stated goal is "so that we see the content before flying over it". By the time part 2 comes out, I've seen the content a thousand times over. Just... let us fly in the X.0 content with part 1, would you?

[dewd]

player retention

[SirCowdog]

Except you don't have to log in every day. .

Please read the context of the reply. I never said you MUST log in every day. That was in response to the post saying "It's easy if you play casually every day".

[Blackmist]

As Pathfinder stands, it's a bit crap. Letting us fly after a certain amount of time has passed makes sense. The game always feels more alive and dangerous on the ground, even if it's nowhere near as much as classic (although after all this time Classic currently feels dangerous but not alive in many places). I can deal with that. The old way of "rush to level cap, get flying, ninja herbs and rares from in front of everyone" was tedious for anybody who took their time to level.

Putting it behind a rep grind just puts new or part time players off.

Just giving it out feels like it would be not much fun either.

How about a "war effort" type thing. Everyone does quests, contributions, hand-ins, all counting towards a region wide flying unlock. Actually have the amount required based on player counts for that region, so it doesn't just feel like it's ticking up on its own. Award players with titles for being in the top 20% of contributors or whatever.

[Mirishka]

Please read the context of the reply. I never said you MUST log in every day. That was in response to the post saying "It's easy if you play casually every day".

We can argue 'but context!' until we're blue in the face, but "its all about getting you to log in every day" implies that the current design of unlocking flying benefits from doing that, which it doesn't. Even if you log in for 45 days nonstop at the start of <name expansion> and burn through Pathfinder part 1, there's still going to be 7-8 months of nothing before you can advance part 2. So you could literally do like... 2 or 3 emissaries a week and still be ready for part 2 by the time it arrives.

So I vehemently disagree that Pathfinder is about getting people to log in every day. Nothing about it 'dictates your playing habits'. You could burn through part 1 or 2 by playing nonstop or you can work on it in bits and pieces when you feel like it, or you can ignore it altogether.

As fucking stupid as I think the window between part 1 and part 2 is, its nice that we can basically take our time with part 1 to minimize burnout. I didn't finish mine until... 3 months or so into BFA because I didn't give a shit about finishing it, knowing that part 2 was still 5-6 months away.

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As Pathfinder stands, it's a bit crap. Letting us fly after a certain amount of time has passed makes sense. The game always feels more alive and dangerous on the ground, even if it's nowhere near as much as classic (although after all this time Classic currently feels dangerous but not alive in many places). I can deal with that. The old way of "rush to level cap, get flying, ninja herbs and rares from in front of everyone" was tedious for anybody who took their time to level.

Putting it behind a rep grind just puts new or part time players off.

Just giving it out feels like it would be not much fun either.

How about a "war effort" type thing. Everyone does quests, contributions, hand-ins, all counting towards a region wide flying unlock. Actually have the amount required based on player counts for that region, so it doesn't just feel like it's ticking up on its own. Award players with titles for being in the top 20% of contributors or whatever.

I'll pass on my flying being tethered to the efforts of other people, thanks.

In my opinion flying should be a zone by zone thing. Once we finish a zone (explore it, do the quests, etc)... you can fly there. If you fly into a zone where you haven't unlocked it, you get dismounted and parachuted to the ground.

[baskev]

To be fair "just leveling" does not give you enough rep for pathfinder. You are still required to do loads of WQ's.

PF2 is straight up retarded and shouldn't exist.

I agree with pathfinder 2.
But the rep could be grinded. And that is not what people like him are talking about.
They want myst of pandaria flying. Aka...you ding max level, here is your flying.

And people are blind. Because blizzard is adding a more stupid way to counter it. The mechagon way. Aka big ultra strong flying mobs that shoot you out of the sky. Better said flying will suck the whole expansion now...

[Darththeo]

Honestly, I don't mind gating flying behind something. For example, let's go back to Mists.

I think it would have been cool if Flying was gated behind the rep with Order of the Cloud Serpent. Say you need to get Exalted, then you got a quest that allowed you to fly in Pandaria. It would make could make some lore sense.

Or Warlords. Us not flying at first made sense as we were a small group and well, if you are flying places you may be easily spotted. But, it would have been cool if there was a quest line where we get additional troops of at a point we have pushed the Iron Horde back enough.

Essentially, rather than achievement gated ... I wish it was questline gated. And once the quest line is completed, you unlocked it for all characters.

[Laqweeta]

Time played metrics

[Evangeliste]

I'm surprised this is still going.

They gave valid reasons as to why. Issue is, people didn't quite understand the context they were coming from.

Analogy would be, you've spent months creating a painting and instead of enjoying the planning, time, material cost, skill, your execution... The observers start complaining about the colour of the wall its hanging on as it clashes with your colour palette.

Blizzard spend millions of money, time and effort to build the environment. To populate it. To carve it into its own kind of character. And every RPG game has a gated travel system. Blizzard just reset it between each separate expansion because its a new batch of content to appreciate. The game doesn't pause.

[baskev]

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.

why making 1001 post ( not all yours) about how you want flying also makes no sense.

Its a game. With rep. Its a mmo with gear grind etc. Things should not be handed free of charge.

but going to ask them to close this thread. we do not need a other one of these.

[Softbottom]

I'm surprised this is still going.

They gave valid reasons as to why. Issue is, people didn't quite understand the context they were coming from.

Analogy would be, you've spent months creating a painting and instead of enjoying the planning, time, material cost, skill, your execution... The observers start complaining about the colour of the wall its hanging on as it clashes with your colour palette.

Blizzard spend millions of money, time and effort to build the environment. To populate it. To carve it into its own kind of character. And every RPG game has a gated travel system. Blizzard just reset it between each separate expansion because its a new batch of content to appreciate. The game doesn't pause.

FFXIV has a gated travel system also; but it functions much better than an artificial timegate that is PF2. Blizzard's issue now is that players can't enjoy the environment if they aren't subbed lol.

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why making 1001 post ( not all yours) about how you want flying also makes no sense.

Its a game. With rep. Its a mmo with gear grind etc. Things should not be handed free of charge.

but going to ask them to close this thread. we do not need a other one of these.

Flying didn't have a rep grind associated with it for the first 10 years of it's existence.

[Rhidana]

I'm surprised this is still going.

They gave valid reasons as to why. Issue is, people didn't quite understand the context they were coming from.

Analogy would be, you've spent months creating a painting and instead of enjoying the planning, time, material cost, skill, your execution... The observers start complaining about the colour of the wall its hanging on as it clashes with your colour palette.

Blizzard spend millions of money, time and effort to build the environment. To populate it. To carve it into its own kind of character. And every RPG game has a gated travel system. Blizzard just reset it between each separate expansion because its a new batch of content to appreciate. The game doesn't pause.

They are doing a bad job at it and there is nobody to blame but the designers themselves. If their environment was actually designed well, people would care more about enjoying it. But instead of reacting to the desinterest of the community and improving their mediocre skillsets, the devs force the open world upon us.

[oplawlz]

I agree with pathfinder 2.
But the rep could be grinded. And that is not what people like him are talking about.
They want myst of pandaria flying. Aka...you ding max level, here is your flying.

And people are blind. Because blizzard is adding a more stupid way to counter it. The mechagon way. Aka big ultra strong flying mobs that shoot you out of the sky. Better said flying will suck the whole expansion now...

Having some threats while flying is a good thing. We had that in tbc and to a lesser extent wotlk, and it was great. The problem is that bliz decided to double dip it with the nearly universally hated pathfinder part 2.