Pathfinder returns for Shadowlands

[CyanCobraXS]

Never have been a fan of pathfinder, and I've never completed the achievements for it either, I refuse. Guess I'll just have to wait for a few expansions for them to lift the restrictions.

It's like an insurance company denying you coverage until you complete a serious of complicated tasks to deem yourself worthy.

[Unholyground]

All they need is to make a happy medium and do away with archaic flight paths on future expansions, use waypoints like GW2, there is literally no reason we have flight paths when portal/teleportation magics exist.

[Raelbo]

They understand it just fine. Pathfinder is the way that allows those that don't want flying in the game at all to have their time where it is not.

That is not how they explained their philosophy. Blizzard have been quite unequivocal in that they believe flying breaks immersion, and that they believe their game is better played without flying. Were it up to them, there would be no flying anymore (as they initially stated in WoD). However they then had to change their stance due to massive backlash.

So when Ion announced Pathfinder, he explained that the requirements of Pathfinder would ensure that players got to at least experience the content that the devs were worried we'd be missing out - hence the loremaster, exploration and reputation requirements that would indicate that players had experienced sufficient content that the need to withhold flying was no longer that important.

My issue here is that I do not believe that a number of their subsequent design choices are consistent with that philosophy. Pathfinder, to me, makes a lot of sense and I think whomever came up with it had a good vision of what they were trying to achieve. What I am saying is that there is plenty of evidence to suggest that the people now tasked with implementing this philosophy do not understand it the way it was originally intended.

And if, as you suggest, they are simply going with the idea that half the playerbase likes flying and the other half doesn't, so they just hold back flying for half the expansion, then yeah, they have lost sight of their original philosophy.

This is simply untrue. There are devs on both sides of the issue. Alex Afrasiabi is on the anti-flight side while Ion is actually on the pro-flight side. This was a compromise between both sides.

I have never seen Ion come out as pro-flight. I think he is likely someone who sees the pros and the cons. But the official party is, very clearly, that they are anti-flight. Were that not the case, there is no way in hell that they would ever have made that ill-fated "no flight in WoD (and possibly ever again)" statement.

All you are saying here is "I think flying is good for the game and if the devs just simply admitted I am right, the game would be better".

Dude, what the actual fuck? I took the time and effort to write a fucking essay to explain my viewpoint, so I take this comment by you as particularly offensive. The least you could do is bother to try and see what I am saying, and if you did, you would not be able to condense it down to such an asinine one-liner.

You miss the point of what they are doing entirely. The time gate is to allow for a significant amount of time for those that hate flying to play the game without it.

Then why bother with Pathfinder at all? Or explaining their philosophy behind Pathfinder?

Not what they are trying to do at all. This isn't about immersion. It's about game play and having both a non-flying experience and then a flying one. They spent a ton of time creating these worlds and people immediately skipping over them makes it seem like it was a waste of time to create.

You're contradicting yourself. If you had followed the numerous comments, starting with Ghostcrawler several years back, it's very clearly all about immersion. It's why they care about people "skipping the content"

They aren't shooting themselves int he foot. This is nothing more than you making stuff up to claim they should just get rid of Pathfinder.

Again, that's not my objective. I have been pretty clear in that I have no desire to remove Pathfinder. In fact I am rather in favour of Pathfinder, according to their originally stated philosophy of ensuring that players got to experience the content as intended.

But I suspect you may be right in that Blizzard simply decided to make half the xpac non-flying then half have flying. Which would mean that they have lost sight of their initial philosophy and are now following a lazy - and frankly retarded philosophy that shows zero insight or thought into what would be best for the players and for the game.

Pathfinder gives them what they want which is spending time on the ground first, then being able to fly over. Bering able to skip over content immediately is never good for the game.

And I have agreed with this. So I don't understand why you feel the need to tell me this.

What you seem to miss is that Pathfinder gives them a mechanism for ensuring that we spend an appropriate amount of time on the ground. The requirements they set for Pathfinder are their way of saying we've done enough from the ground to ensure that there is no longer any harm in letting us fly. And setting a time gate ensures that people don't just rush the content, and ruin the experience in doing so.

Putting in a year's wait though is just plain asinine. There is no good reason to do it, and as far as I am concerned, the fact that they do indicates a failure on their part to properly understand what they initially set out to do.

What they need to do is add more content to the zones with each patch instead of one thing if they are going to wait intil the .2 patch to unlock flying. That means more than just adding some assaults and calling it good. You could add an Argent Tournament like hub(without stuff like the jousting of course) for example. There needs to be a steady addition of content between release and unlock so it doesn't become irrelevant.

Well there are limits to how much content they can churn out, and there are players who are always going to be able to consume it faster than they can make it. What you also need to realise is that not all players are going to consume content equally fast. So even if they could make enough content to keep everyone permanently busy, that would actually be too much for most of the playerbase.

So the idea of making existing content last longer through repetition always has value.

[Baneto]

Did they give us any more information on how they intend to handle "Pathfinder" in SL?

Saying "it will use the same system as in legion & bfa" is just alarming considering how tedious boring and time-gated that ended up being.

[Xilurm]

All they need is to make a happy medium and do away with archaic flight paths on future expansions, use waypoints like GW2, there is literally no reason we have flight paths when portal/teleportation magics exist.

Yes, kill immersion even more.

[chiddie]

Just do it as it was in TBC: at max level as soon as you complete all the regions chains and explorations (this is an addition but doable in no time) you can buy immediately the 150% speed flying. If you want the 310% you grind for rep, chain quests or whatever crappy time gating blizzard invents.

Having to grind reps and wait one year to fly makes no sense, it should have never been changed in the first place.

[SirCowdog]

All of this is shit you made up, and it's why I rarely bother with responding to you.

I said "You're underestimating how much work that would be for WoW."

They started in TBC with anti-flying cannons. Which weren't hard to avoid, and were just an annoyance at best, so they were eventually removed. Wrath showed us they could do it poorly. None of the flight content in Wrath is worth bragging about, ESPECIALLY not the cancelled Wintergrasp concept that they could not get working. Cata continued that sentiment, and they stopped doing it, because people complained about it every time they tried.

Your complaints about BfA's open world have nothing to do with my argument, and in fact, reinforce the idea that Blizzard cannot be trusted with this undertaking, because they can't even get the ground design right. How, exactly, do you expect them to do it in 3 dimensions if they can't do it in 2?

All of your points, in fact, reinforce my own statement instead of working against it. And you show how ignorant you are all in one fell swoop by insisting you know what I'm going to say before I say it, making yourself look silly.

It's why you stay on ignore.

So rather than continue to test your position based on real arguments, you throw out insults and claims of "shit you made up" and take your ball and go home?



"Wrath showed us they could do it poorly."

You're judging things by the standards of today, not by when it was current. TBC and WotLk were very good when placed in the context of the technology and design theory they had available to them at the time. My point was not, and has never been, that TODAY'S Blizzard should just copy/paste the design of TBC and WotLK. It's always been that they were able to do that then, so they should be able to do much better now.

It's not that Blizzard can't create detailed and intricate environments. As much as people like me like to decry how annoying it is to navigate zones in BfA from the ground, there's no disputing that those environments have had a lot of care and work put into them to make them that way. The only difference I'm suggesting is that they take that ability and apply it to creating open world zones that don't try to pretend that flying doesn't exist.

The entire problem with modern WoW design is not one of a lack of ability, it's one of leadership directing obviously skilled devs to follow a specific design philosophy. Or maybe you're one of those people who thinks Blizzard hires unskilled idiots who are actually incompetent? No one at Blizzard's WoW development team is incompetent. We often just dislike the decisions they make.

But you won't read this, because you'd rather stick your head in the sand and ignore valid arguments than consider changing your point of view. So....have a great life I guess. :/

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Did they give us any more information on how they intend to handle "Pathfinder" in SL?

Saying "it will use the same system as in legion & bfa" is just alarming considering how tedious boring and time-gated that ended up being.

Given how much emphasis has been put on Covenants and the renown system, I'd guess Pathfinder will likely be tied to that somehow, probably in a heavy timegate that prevents completion until a second-half major content patch. Either that or another rep grind + loremaster.

Do the details really matter? We all know you won't get access to flight until a year in, regardless of the specifics of the Pathfinder achievement.

[SirCowdog]

Yes.

Because we've been through this before, it doesn't end well for either of us, and neither of us are going to budge on our positions. There is not a point in the world that you could pull out that would make you worth listening to.

There's no 'test' when you know the answer.

And you DID make shit up. Literally not a word of what you said was what I claimed. Which is why this discussion is over before it starts - Because you haven't learned a damn thing, clearly.

You made several points that weren't really substantiated by anything.

1) You used the changed wintergrasp area as an example. Presumably you were referring to flying combat, which is something I've always maintained is a bad idea to attempt. My points have never revolved around using flight IN COMBAT. I have always leaned towards flight as being an environmental tool, which is why I consistently refer to zones like Storm Peaks and the overall WotLK expansion, and NOT a half-baked pre-alpha idea involving flying combat. I actually agree that flying combat is not a good idea with the current state of the flight mechanics. Maybe it's possible if flight was overhauled, but that's not something I've ever argued for.

2) You say people complained. What people? It's well known that only a handful of people actually complained, mostly world PVP players who got ganked. And being ganked isn't something uniquely caused by flying. The only serious threads created by anti-flight posters were made AFTER WoD pushed the idea strongly, and people let their psychology get taken over by tribal thinking instead of considering for themselves if it was actually good or not. And that resulted in massive backlash from the rest of the community who actually gave a WoW without flight a chance and saw that it was crap. Which has only continued into today due to overly excessive restrictions involving pathfinder.

The only reason you seem to think my points aren't valid is because you're not thinking objectively about them. You're too intent on replying and proving me wrong somehow to actually consider reasonably what's being said. And because of that you've constantly misunderstood the arguments I've actually been making, and choosing instead to argue against things I've never said.

So yeah, please put me on ignore. I get enough grief from people who use the same tired strawman points over and over.

[Nubpwn]

I've never heard legitimate complaints about flying, only about pathfinder. You can even see this in the forum posts, flying was NEVER a big deal for a majority of players, especially compared to how much people complain about pathfinder.

Level design - The worst excuse that I hate hearing to excuse getting rid of flying. Oh we'll appreciate the zones more? Really? That is EXACTLY the same reason why the added flying in BC to begin with!!! And it is completely true. I have such a greater appreciation for EVERY SINGLE PATHFINDER ZONE now that I do have flying and can actually SEE it. I missed so much in WoD/Legion due to not having flying, you simply can't see shit from the ground looking up. I've even seen more in classic/cata zones due to flying than I ever did riding around on the ground.

PVP - Don't give a shit like the majority of the playerbase, why tf do pvpers think they're so important to actually influence major game design decisions like flying? Sorry but raiding is and always will be the cornerstone of WoWs success, PvP is a novelty. They could remove PvP entirely and that would only improve the experience for the vast majority of players by freeing up resources to use on raiding rather than PvP.

[Unholyground]

Yes, kill immersion even more.

You could simply have on a reasonable cooldown like 15 mins.

[SirCowdog]

you are a massive hypocrit.

You not liking what I say, and constantly misrepresenting my points, doesn't make me a hypocrite. It just means you would rather insult someone than consider actually changing your point of view.

Funny how you said I was on ignore, btw, but you keep responding. Here, I'll be the not-hypocrite and actually do it to you. Have a great life.

[Dhrizzle]

All they need is to make a happy medium and do away with archaic flight paths on future expansions, use waypoints like GW2, there is literally no reason we have flight paths when portal/teleportation magics exist.

Flight paths are one of the things that make WoW stand out from other open worlds, it's nice to actually get a sense of the size of the place instead of hitting loading screens and suddenly appearing somewhere that could be the next zone over, the other side of the world or a whole different planet.

[Unholyground]

Flight paths are one of the things that make WoW stand out from other open worlds, it's nice to actually get a sense of the size of the place instead of hitting loading screens and suddenly appearing somewhere that could be the next zone over, the other side of the world or a whole different planet.

If you read my least reply I found a happy middle ground, put it on a cooldown and problem solved, then keep some form of flight path for when it is on cooldown.

[Dhrizzle]

If you read my least reply I found a happy middle ground, put it on a cooldown and problem solved, then keep some form of flight path for when it is on cooldown.

We kinda have that between the 3 hearthstones and flightmaster's whistle (that I really wish actually flew you to the flightpath and didn't fade out.) I wouldn't be totally averse to the idea of the HS allowing you to choose your destination rather than being set to one particular inn.

[Unholyground]

We kinda have that between the 3 hearthstones and flightmaster's whistle (that I really wish actually flew you to the flightpath and didn't fade out.) I wouldn't be totally averse to the idea of the HS allowing you to choose your destination rather than being set to one particular inn.

Ya exactly my thoughts, kind of like a teleportation crystal/stone that takes time to recharge but lets you teleport to any location that has a flight path. I don't want flight paths completely gone just alternative ways to travel.

[Clermont]

anyone who says "flying ruins the game" has a legit mental illness.
lets call a spade a spade: pathfinder is just a way for them to extend subscription time. they're constantly finding ways of dragging out content to milk everyone's subscription time. even an extra month is a win for them. if you don't see that, you're a corporate cultist.

[Dhrizzle]

anyone who says "flying ruins the game" has a legit mental illness.
lets call a spade a spade: pathfinder is just a way for them to extend subscription time. they're constantly finding ways of dragging out content to milk everyone's subscription time. even an extra month is a win for them. if you don't see that, you're a corporate cultist.

Blizz have lots of nobs they can turn to keep players in longer sessions over longer periods. Look at MoP and WoD. Pandaria was initially stacked with daily quests and grinding them was a requirement for a lot of gear. In Draenor you could log in for about an hour and get everything done, and really there wasn't much in the way of substantial awards. The expansion with flying was designed around getting players logged in for extended sessiosn to grind over a longer period, when players were stuck to the ground they were complaining there was nothing to do.

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Ya exactly my thoughts, kind of like a teleportation crystal/stone that takes time to recharge but lets you teleport to any location that has a flight path. I don't want flight paths completely gone just alternative ways to travel.

I'm probably a bit more spoiled than the average player as my main has been an engineer since Vanilla so I can teleport to any expansion, though the cooldown is very restrictive and realistically I can only them once each per session.