Is it healthy to gate flying behind "pathfinders"?

[Sondrelk]

Enable it without pathfinder, but make it much slower than it is now.

Flying: 200% speed (instead of 400%)
Ground: 300% speed (instead of 200%)

Also stop putting roots, fences and other obstacles everywhere (or let me ride over them).
All puzzles that get trivialized by flying should get designed to accomodate flying.

Flying is sadly too powerful a tool, working around it is impossible without removing it completely. What flying really needs is a complete rework so it doesn't completely undermine all other movement options. Ground mounts still need to be better than flying at some points, same with flight points.

It's unlikely this will happen though, but it's nice to dream.

[rrayy]

Then, by that definition, flying is the superior mode of transportation. In the past decade I haven't seen a single argument against flying thar holds up. If anyone doesn't like flying for themselves, that's fine, but some of these people feel the need to dictate how others must play the game for their own pleasure, and isn't about flying, so much as it is about a narcissistic power dynamic and enforcement of their vision, and valuing it over the needs and fun of others. To those people, I say F U. If someone wants to ride their ground mount everywhere, more power to you and I really hope you have fun, but do not presume anyone has the right to tell others how to have fun.

I haven't seen a single argument for flying other than what boils down to "I am lazy". And the pro flyers aren''t dictating? All fo them are demanding tyey be given flight immediately and basically hadned to them and that is how the game should be. They are dictating as much as anyone else. That is why Pathfinder is good. It gives the no flyers what they want for part of the expansion, then flyers get what they want for the last part. That has been enough for the noi flyers, yet pro-flyers continue to throw tantrums and continue to demand flying be given to them right away. No flyers compromised. Pro flyers have yet to.

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If a game is inconvenient to play, then I quit it. I play games first and foremost to enjoy myself, it can be challenging or hard, and I don't mind playing easy games. But games that are (intentionally or otherwise) obnoxious, disruptive or inconvenient are bad, when a game makes it hard to actually play it, then it doesn't make sense. WoW open world was never challenging from the moment you had a mount: just walk around it. Next to that, wow's open world has become far more cluttered and obnoxious to traverse, to the point that a large portion players wait until flying is unlocked to play it.

There are already more than enough zones and places in which flying is disabled for the convenience of the devs (design a zone without flying is easy as piss). If you want to enjoy the game from a different vantage point, that's great, but enforcing that on others is just toxic. Land travel at max level is not a crucial element of gameplay in any way.

There is exactly one zone that is disabled for flying. That is not nearly enough. What is also toxic is entitlement and demanding that you should have flying from day 1. You can live with out it for a couple of months. If you can't, you are lazy.

[Sondrelk]

Or you could stop using these absurd fallacious arguments that have nothing to do with the actual topic.

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Bwahahaha. Good one. You were joking, right?

And how exactly is the argument fallacious? The open world is a mode of game just the same as raids and dungeons, it has been maligned for years and only in Legion got actual content associated with it again.

Navigating the open world is the core gameplay, actually killing quest mobs is just one facet of it, just like how killing trash in raids is a facet of raids.

Flying is a tool that removes large chunks of the open world content and doesn't actually replace it with anything of substance. In essence the same as how an instakill button in raids would still leave the shell or the raid, but none of the substance: challenging and defeating the boss.


What pro flyers are arguing is that since the open world gameplay is so boring then they should have the option to just completely trivialize it. Not skip it like what you might with M+ by not doing it, but making it trivial so they can get all the benefits but with none of the actual effort.

[D3athsting]

Flying wouldn't be really needed if game still had safe roads like in vanilla were you can go with your ground mount without getting dazed every 5 secs and if maps weren't a nightmare to navigate with 16456 levels

[LordVargK]

Flying is sadly too powerful a tool, working around it is impossible without removing it completely. What flying really needs is a complete rework so it doesn't completely undermine all other movement options. Ground mounts still need to be better than flying at some points, same with flight points.

It's unlikely this will happen though, but it's nice to dream.

Exactly right. Flight master travel could use a speed buff. Maybe make that the new pathfinder? a +200% speed buff to public transport, sort of a highway in WoW which takes you to the general area you want to travel to fast, but to get to your actual destination you have to rely on slower, mounted travel.

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Flying wouldn't be really needed if game still had safe roads like in vanilla were you can go with your ground mount without getting dazed every 5 secs and if maps weren't a nightmare to navigate with 16456 levels

Also this.

[DarkAmbient]

And how exactly is the argument fallacious? The open world is a mode of game just the same as raids and dungeons, it has been maligned for years and only in Legion got actual content associated with it again.

Don't pretend you don't know what you're doing. This thread is about Pathfinder, you are making nonsense arguments about raids and free gear, and even bringing real life into it. Seems like you just want to argue for shits and giggles instead of actually having an honest point to make.

[Sondrelk]

Don't pretend you don't know what you're doing. This thread is about Pathfinder, you are making nonsense arguments about raids and free gear, and even bringing real life into it. Seems like you just want to argue for shits and giggles instead of actually having an honest point to make.

Pathfinder is literally about when to get flying and the arguments on either side. I argue pathfinder is a compromise solution that only serves to give players who don't care about open world content a chance to trivialize it for no better reason than them not wanting to engage with it.
I am of the idea that I quite enjoy open world content, and in that regard flying is a malignance on the same level as someone who enjoys raiding not wanting an instakill button.

[Scrogglez]

Only plebs will complain about flying and non-flying restrictions.

What they need to work on is the damn mobs that agroo for no reason other than to piss you off and waste a cd to break the chase.

It was cool being a mage AOE grinding in 2005 but what is this now? 2022??!!

[DarkAmbient]

Pathfinder is literally about when to get flying and the arguments on either side. I argue pathfinder is a compromise solution that only serves to give players who don't care about open world content a chance to trivialize it for no better reason than them not wanting to engage with it.
I am of the idea that I quite enjoy open world content, and in that regard flying is a malignance on the same level as someone who enjoys raiding not wanting an instakill button.

I like open world content (I liked it more in previous expansions, but still). I also like flying, because it's fun. Wanting to do away with needless timegate systems like Pathfinder does not mean I don't want to do any open world content. For me, it means that I want to access the content in a way that's fun, and which has already been in the game for 14 years.

Players did not ask for Pathfinder or anything like it, because the system was fine, more or less. From the players' point of view there was no problem that needed fixing. Blizzard cynically used Pathfinder as another timegate system to pad their new metrics, that's all. There is not one single benefit that Pathfinder gives me as someone who enjoys flying and wants it as soon as possible after I get to max level.

[Sondrelk]

I like open world content (I liked it more in previous expansions, but still). I also like flying, because it's fun. Wanting to do away with needless timegate systems like Pathfinder does not mean I don't want to do any open world content. For me, it means that I want to access the content in a way that's fun, and which has already been in the game for 14 years.

Players did not ask for Pathfinder or anything like it, because the system was fine, more or less. From the players' point of view there was no problem that needed fixing. Blizzard cynically used Pathfinder as another timegate system to pad their new metrics, that's all. There is not one single benefit that Pathfinder gives me as someone who enjoys flying and wants it as soon as possible after I get to max level.

I call absolute bullshit on players not having a problem with flying, there were constant threads on how flying was detrimental to the gaming experience, and how it collapsed all open-world decision making gameplay down to whether flying was available.

Also, I am going to go for the nuclear option here and flat out declare your definition of "fun" wrong, because unless that to you means seeing the zone from above with your character specifically sitting in the middle of the screen then the essential experience can be gained from looking at promotional pictures.

There is a tendency in games for the main source of entertainment stemming from gameplay, specifically how the player interracts with limitations set by the game to do interesting stuff.
Escaping the boundaries of a map isnt very interesting unless the game has ways to stop you from going there. The appeal of seeing Northeron or generally just the zones behind Stratholme in-game doesn't come from just seeing it, it comes from realizing that you are not supposed to go there, then finding a loophole that allows it regardless.


Regardless of all this I have to ask out of curiosity. When you say you want flying to get to the content faster, what content are you referring to? Do you quite literally mean the quest mobs, or is it some other gamemode like raids? Because when flying you don't interract with the open world much at all beyond a small circle around whatever resource node or quest mob you are aiming for. You don't get organic moments to utilize goblin gliders, or double jump/glide. You don't look at a treasure sitting on a high ledge or outside jumping distance and have to consider how to get to it.

I guess it might be something you dismiss out of hand, but usually a treasure is exciting because you have to find or get to it, not the part where you click on it.

[bloodkin]

I haven't seen a single argument for flying other than what boils down to "I am lazy". And the pro flyers aren''t dictating? All fo them are demanding tyey be given flight immediately and basically hadned to them and that is how the game should be. They are dictating as much as anyone else. That is why Pathfinder is good. It gives the no flyers what they want for part of the expansion, then flyers get what they want for the last part. That has been enough for the noi flyers, yet pro-flyers continue to throw tantrums and continue to demand flying be given to them right away. No flyers compromised. Pro flyers have yet to.

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There is exactly one zone that is disabled for flying. That is not nearly enough. What is also toxic is entitlement and demanding that you should have flying from day 1. You can live with out it for a couple of months. If you can't, you are lazy.

your first statement is entirely false and falls flat: flying has been a staple of wow since it's introduction in TBC, and was up to and including MoP a learned skill for max level players. Wanting it to be available at a (significant) cost at max level isn't entitlement, it's a basic movement mechanic that has no reason for delay other than to satisfy the crying of people who can't get their thrills with ganking anymore, or actually believe that land travel in wow is actually a hard skill to learn. The fact that the dev team made a 180 on flying during the worst expansion of the game is only more evidence to the fact that they were too lazy to take flying into account of the map design (which they had been doing for years by then).

I also find it particularly funny, that you'd claim that no fliers are fine with the pathfind system: I'd say you're toe odd one out as most of those people still moan and cry that other can still get flying, and want it gone from the game, while flyers find it abrasive and obtuse to have to wait for a shitty collection achievement to get a basic movement mechanic that should be available from the start, it's the worst of both worlds, everyone hates it with the exception of the few to who don't give a fuck either way.

The fact that you'd think that "I'm lazy' is even an argument against (or for) flying is somewhat hilarious, considering ground mount travel could be nice and fun up to MoP, which arguably made flying only better for time travel: you could still get somewhere without being held up by landscaping or overcluttering and clustering of the environment and enjoy the views. I, and many other found that when blizz decided that flying should be limited, the overall movement through the game became qualitatively worse and far less pleasurable than it could, and should be. If you want ground mounts to be more valuable and valid, than at least make the use of them fun and not a pain in the ass, there is no reason to punish players for wanting to traverse the landscape. I'd also argue that flying has be severely trivialized in SL as every single zone has been disconnected from each others and requires teleports of flight masters to move between each and every one of them.

Think of it this way: just be happy with the pandering blizz is giving you with flightless zones, hubs and fractured continent: you've successfully denied other player's ability to move through the zones in the way they wanted. In the end, wasn't that your goal all along? As said before: there are no valid arguments that I have seen against flying: it's now a basic mode of transportation in the game that players have come to expect, and flying mounts are not going anywhere. Blizz can still put in the effort to make it interesting, or could even make the choice between ground and air travel interesting with changes, but they consistently choose not to. It's funny, how people can still argue about mounts in wow, fully ignorant of the fact that GW2 outplayed every MMO in the mount department. The fact that people are still arguing for backwards ass pure land travel vs flying is a joke, when other games can implement flying without it being a problem people bitch about.

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Flying wouldn't be really needed if game still had safe roads like in vanilla were you can go with your ground mount without getting dazed every 5 secs and if maps weren't a nightmare to navigate with 16456 levels

here's the funny thing: this only became a problem when blizz decided to also implement the pathfinder system. people for some reason believed that wow's outdoor content was somehow difficult and hardcore and needed skill to traverse. WoW was intentionally designed to be traversed with ease with a mount, but like everything else, this flew over the heads of the anti fly crowd.

[Deadite]

There is exactly one zone that is disabled for flying. That is not nearly enough. What is also toxic is entitlement and demanding that you should have flying from day 1. You can live with out it for a couple of months. If you can't, you are lazy.

I love how people wanting to fly is toxic to you but you wanting no one to fly becuase you don't like it is fine. It is not our fault you lack the courage of your convictions. If you are too weak willed to stop flying if you hate it then that is a you problem. This is a video game. Play they way you want to play it. Get all your no flying pals to boycott flying. Just say no!! Hell i don't know why you are blubbing it. You have pretty much won. You can't fly for 6 month to a year and then you can't fly in the only relevant content most of the time. That i guess in not good enough for you lot.

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Regardless of all this I have to ask out of curiosity. When you say you want flying to get to the content faster, what content are you referring to? Do you quite literally mean the quest mobs, or is it some other gamemode like raids? Because when flying you don't interract with the open world much at all beyond a small circle around whatever resource node or quest mob you are aiming for. You don't get organic moments to utilize goblin gliders, or double jump/glide. You don't look at a treasure sitting on a high ledge or outside jumping distance and have to consider how to get to it.

I guess it might be something you dismiss out of hand, but usually a treasure is exciting because you have to find or get to it, not the part where you click on it.

We have all seen it. We got all the treasure and parkoured up all they shitty mountains more than once. No one but the masochistic wants to do all that yet again.

[Sondrelk]

I love how people wanting to fly is toxic to you but you wanting no one to fly becuase you don't like it is fine. It is not our fault you lack the courage of your convictions. If you are too weak willed to stop flying if you hate it then that is a you problem. This is a video game. Play they way you want to play it. Get all your no flying pals to boycott flying. Just say no!! Hell i don't know why you are blubbing it. You have pretty much won. You can't fly for 6 month to a year and then you can't fly in the only relevant content most of the time. That i guess in not good enough for you lot.

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We have all seen it. We got all the treasure and parkoured up all they shitty mountains more than once. No one but the masochistic wants to do all that yet again.

Noone but the masochistic want to play the game like it was intended more than once?
What I don't get is why you insist on playing it again except with none of the challenge.

Surely if the open world content is boring to you then don't play it. Sit around in Oribos or outside the raid entrance waiting for the "real" content to start while the rest of us insane people have fun with the game like it was intended.

I will never get you guys' obsession with insisting the game caters to your wants when you are outspoken in how much you hate it and would skip it if at all possible.

[bloodkin]

Noone but the masochistic want to play the game like it was intended more than once?
What I don't get is why you insist on playing it again except with none of the challenge.

Surely if the open world content is boring to you then don't play it. Sit around in Oribos or outside the raid entrance waiting for the "real" content to start while the rest of us insane people have fun with the game like it was intended.

I will never get you guys' obsession with insisting the game caters to your wants when you are outspoken in how much you hate it and would skip it if at all possible.

where's the challenge in open world content with the sole exceptions of jumping puzzles (which are pretty bad in this came by comparison)? where is this magical challenge? because as far as most people are considered, quality and fun of wow land travel tanked hard from WoD onwards.

"I will never get you guys' obsession with insisting the game caters to your wants when you are outspoken in how much you hate how other travel in game and would keep players from using flying mounts as much as possible". Here, fixed it for you, I'd say go protest something else people are allowed to do, but you feel that you need to take that away from them just because you don't like it or enjoy it, buzzkills are good at that.

[pahbi]

Pathfinder should have never been introduced.

If I was a dev, putting all kinds of effort into a zone, I'd want folks to at least ride through the zone a few times to see the work that is put into it.

Having said that, once you hit max level + some quests or a fee, you should get flying.

If I remember right, SWTOR never had flying, and it never bothered me because the game gives you so many teleports, taxis and other means to get around, and the zones were so easy to navigate, that I never really felt bad about no flying.

But ground zones in wow are just rediculous, insensitive, and tedious to navigate. If your going to take away flying, give folks alternative ways to get around without wasting their time for fuck sakes. Most folks have limited amounts of time to play, and they really don't want to spend what small amount of time they have trying to navigate some stupid zone.

Taking away the flight whistle in shadowlands was just a pointless, massive fuck you from the devs to the players.

[Sondrelk]

where's the challenge in open world content with the sole exceptions of jumping puzzles (which are pretty bad in this came by comparison)? where is this magical challenge? because as far as most people are considered, quality and fun of wow land travel tanked hard from WoD onwards.

"I will never get you guys' obsession with insisting the game caters to your wants when you are outspoken in how much you hate how other travel in game and would keep players from using flying mounts as much as possible". Here, fixed it for you, I'd say go protest something else people are allowed to do, but you feel that you need to take that away from them just because you don't like it or enjoy it, buzzkills are good at that.

The challenge is in how the game actually gives you reasons to use the tools it gives you. Stealth, glide, feign death, invisibility, soothe.
And that is just abilities, there are loads of unique items that get thrown in the bin as soon as flying is available to trump all of them. Avianas feather, Twigin treats, radinax, goblin gliders, rocket jumps.

Flying is the ultimate tool for pretty much every single open world situation that isn't exactly killing a mob. And when a game has an ultimate solution like that it tends to be called bad game design.
It doesn't stimulate gameplay, it smothers it. It removes gameplay from the game.


And open world gameplay has lowered in quality since WoD? Is this an opinion that is based on anything but the idea that more of the thing you hate is bad?
Last I checked Suramar was considered a marvel of zone design, and zones like that are not made for players that hate the open world, its made for players that want more of it.

[Deadite]

Noone but the masochistic want to play the game like it was intended more than once?
What I don't get is why you insist on playing it again except with none of the challenge.

Surely if the open world content is boring to you then don't play it. Sit around in Oribos or outside the raid entrance waiting for the "real" content to start while the rest of us insane people have fun with the game like it was intended.

I will never get you guys' obsession with insisting the game caters to your wants when you are outspoken in how much you hate it and would skip it if at all possible.

Once again they are called alts. All the looky-loo stuff is great when you first go through it. I have enjoyed the leveling in every expansion the first time and to be honest i don't mind it the second time. However when i open up my char screen and think 'Oh time to work on my Lock' I sure as shit don't want to go over every nook and cranny in the zones again. I don't want to fight past 50 mobs to walk to the top of a gothic castle in Revendreth to kill rare #69. I want to pop on the old flying mount and get that shit out of the way asap. I want to get my Wq's done asap to get the crafting recipes/tmog/mount.

If you don't want to do that sort of thing as fast and efficiently then i have no problem with that. If you find getting up places with this game horrible jumping enjoyable then right on. You play the way you want to play and let other do the same. Some other random stranger flying up to 'Click of the treasure chest' takes nothing away from you. You don't have to partake in such reprehensible activities. You do you as they say.

[bloodkin]

The challenge is in how the game actually gives you reasons to use the tools it gives you. Stealth, glide, feign death, invisibility, soothe.
And that is just abilities, there are loads of unique items that get thrown in the bin as soon as flying is available to trump all of them. Avianas feather, Twigin treats, radinax, goblin gliders, rocket jumps.

Flying is the ultimate tool for pretty much every single open world situation that isn't exactly killing a mob. And when a game has an ultimate solution like that it tends to be called bad game design.
It doesn't stimulate gameplay, it smothers it. It removes gameplay from the game.


And open world gameplay has lowered in quality since WoD? Is this an opinion that is based on anything but the idea that more of the thing you hate is bad?
Last I checked Suramar was considered a marvel of zone design, and zones like that are not made for players that hate the open world, its made for players that want more of it.

A summery of abilities and items a player needs to use just to move around the world, before actually getting to the zone or area in which you actually want to play: that right there is needless time wasting, even for an MMO. No single MMO will demand of a player to take 15+ mins or more just to get from one area to another, wow was never that level of a survival game: mounts wouldn't even work in such an environment.

Yes Suramar looked very nice, especially from above but could be absolute trash to move around. I've heard more than enough of"An illusion! What are you hiding?" for the rest of my life. Most zones are not even nearly as nice looking or as pleasurable to travel in than suramar in that regard.

[WowIsDead64]

The challenge is in how the game actually gives you reasons to use the tools it gives you. Stealth, glide, feign death, invisibility, soothe.
And that is just abilities, there are loads of unique items that get thrown in the bin as soon as flying is available to trump all of them. Avianas feather, Twigin treats, radinax, goblin gliders, rocket jumps.

Flying is the ultimate tool for pretty much every single open world situation that isn't exactly killing a mob. And when a game has an ultimate solution like that it tends to be called bad game design.
It doesn't stimulate gameplay, it smothers it. It removes gameplay from the game.


And open world gameplay has lowered in quality since WoD? Is this an opinion that is based on anything but the idea that more of the thing you hate is bad?
Last I checked Suramar was considered a marvel of zone design, and zones like that are not made for players that hate the open world, its made for players that want more of it.

I would want to be straight here, instead of just hinting. One simple thing. Why do you think, that, let's say, removal of LFR would force players into mythic raids? It wouldn't. It would just remove content from them. That's it. Opposite is also true. Implementation of LFR doesn't remove mythic raids from game. It would, if that statement about "path of least resistance" would be true. Situation with flying is EXACTLY THE SAME. No flying would never force me to do navigation puzzles, learn terrain or make me use some items. But no flying removes content from me. And funny thing is - same as in case of LFR, flying DOESN'T actually remove ground content. It's still there. You just need to use your ground mount instead of flying one. And if everybody picks path of least resistance, when flying is enabled - then it means, that nobody actually truly likes no flying in a first place. So, your arguments just sound the same way, as "remove LFR". What reasons are behind it? This reasons - are about being selfish. Something about deciding for other players, what is good or bad for them. Something like "I need more recruits for my Mythic raids, so players should be forced to do Mythic raids only, no matter if they like them or not - they shouldn't have any options". And these selfish arguments are simply hidden behind some "it's good for game" justifications.

I understand, that not flying doesn't give better rewards, as Mythic raids do, so players aren't motivated to do ground content the same way, they're motivated to do Mythic raids. But this problem can be solved. And it should be solved ASAP. Just removing flying - is the laziest solution possible. That's, why it's so bad.

[cparle87]

Pathfinder concept is cool “per se” but they should cut off the reputation part. Or you should get to revered or whatever level the PF requires by simply completing the story of the zones.

If it was for me, reputations would be completely reworked, it’s a totally outdated mechanic that is only based on stupid timegated grind with useless rewards unless you are a mog addicted.

They tried putting good things on reps. People complained about being "forced" to get the rep said good things.