Can we get one thing straight about the introduction of pathfinder?

[Gatto]

Else just add a button "complete quest". What's the point of having to fly to a target mob, click on three buttons, then fly again to the quest giver?

That would be definitely the best deal.

[Kataroku]

OP, there's a common trend - especially on these forums - of Blizzard spewing out completely pants-on-head stupid, thinly veiled bullshit and people using it as an arguing point for years on end.

Want a perfect example? The appear offline or option to turn battle.net off without completely deleting your friends list. This was an arguing point for literal years because of some idiotic shit spewed from a developer once about how they feared it would create some kind of awkward social situation where everyone would appear offline and you'd never know who was around and who wasn't, or some such nonsense.
Spoiler: It didn't do that.
But you'd be shocked how many idiots parroted this argument on these forums for as long as the conversation about it continued.

There will be people who will gobble up their bullshit for years upon end all the way until it changes. Always has, and always will be. You could argue from any angle at how poorly thought out and half-assed the idea of Pathfinder is, or how it actually drives many people away from rejoining the game, knowing they have weeks if not months of grinding to do before they're allowed to actually move about like other players. There will still be people who agree with it because it's what Blizzard wants to do.

You're 100% correct; and I'm seeing it on the official forums and on reddit more and more often.

Blizzard does something which makes complete sense from a business / time / cost-saving perspective, but there's always that one guy who turns it into an intended, gameplay-enhancing decision which everyone else takes and runs with.

[Nattwenny]

Opinions arent facts, just another whine post.. nothing constructive here move along.

I love you.

[FelPlague]

i don't care how easy it is to make? that's the other person you're talking to.

i'm talking about what's funner. zones catering to it are more fun.

instead, corporatist cost cutting has been enabled by these pathetic idiots talking about world pvp.

no you very much said or atyleast implied making zones around flying somehow took more development then one without dflying in mind.

also explain please how these are funner? being unable to get somewhere unless you pay gold is funner?

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OP, there's a common trend - especially on these forums - of Blizzard spewing out completely pants-on-head stupid, thinly veiled bullshit and people using it as an arguing point for years on end.

Want a perfect example? The appear offline or option to turn battle.net off without completely deleting your friends list. This was an arguing point for literal years because of some idiotic shit spewed from a developer once about how they feared it would create some kind of awkward social situation where everyone would appear offline and you'd never know who was around and who wasn't, or some such nonsense.
Spoiler: It didn't do that.
But you'd be shocked how many idiots parroted this argument on these forums for as long as the conversation about it continued.

There will be people who will gobble up their bullshit for years upon end all the way until it changes. Always has, and always will be. You could argue from any angle at how poorly thought out and half-assed the idea of Pathfinder is, or how it actually drives many people away from rejoining the game, knowing they have weeks if not months of grinding to do before they're allowed to actually move about like other players. There will still be people who agree with it because it's what Blizzard wants to do.

except it has, it really has, but of course that is not a problem AEVERY SINGLE PERSON runs into, but it still happens. i know any people who got kicked from their guild after skipping out on things by appearing offline but tyhen being caught when they were skipping out. before that kind of playstyle was not able/encourged/possible

[Sparklelord]

I personally believe WoW should introduce a 'premium' subscription. $25 a month and you get:

Access to all existing Allied races.
Ability to quest any any zone (dynamic scaling).
A 25% boost to your heirlooms (exp bonus, stats, damage, size, etc).
A unique daily Blingatron quest that rewards one (1) reroll token as well as 1k gold, resources and/or a rare chance at mounts/pet.
Max enlistment bonus at all times. Even when not in War mode.
Access to the dance studio, create your own dances and share with your premium friends!
Player/Guild housing with fully functional and flushed out pet sim where if you don't care for and love your pet it will run away and/or worse [DIE] (Fish, Cat, Dog, any non-exotic hunter pets and rocks).
Access to guild chat at all times, even when not in a major city.
Free transmogrification, haircuts, repairs and mail system. Still have to pay for Auctions and Flight Masters.
Dual talent specialization (finally).
Roller-skates for your sub level 20 characters. 20% movement speed and only works indoors. Upgraded to (light-up) Heelys at level 20, 30% movement speed, works as usual indoors but when outdoors 50% of the time they work every time.
Flying at all times, even at the start of xpacs and in dungeons/BGs. Obviously the level requirements still remain, could you imagine a 19 twink flying across WSG carrying the flag riding Invisible? No thank you.

***Worth noting that if you ever switch back to a regular sub, you lose all these benefits (unless unlocked of course)***

[Kataroku]

Every single fucking exapnsion has a near year long drought, even tbc had a 10 month drought

Which is why they had to cut so much from WoD. They couldn't afford to put another 2+ months of work in before launch.

flying was disabled during wod because THEY DID NOT WANT IT and had no plan to add it till the playerbase got mad.

I would counter that they did intend on making flight available early on in WoD; maybe not immediately, but certainly much sooner than we got it. But given that corners were cut during development, and that the team had since moved on to Legion (leaving content designers in charge of WoD), there was no one available to fix what flying would break.

Blizzard then decided to play it off as an intended design decision, which obviously didn't go down well. They introduced pathfinder as a means to quell the backlash and to buy time for one of the Legion devs to come over and begin the grueling task of making WoD flight operable. PTR servers came up shortly after.

EDIT: This blue post repeats what Blizzard had been saying since the launch of WoD, that "flying [would] become available again in the first major patch for Warlords of Draenor", which many thought to be patch 6.1.

[Darththeo]

Incorrect.

Tbc obtained early in leveling, but also a stronger version at max level

wotlk it was obtainable at near end of leveling, but there was also a book to then send to alts to get flying right away there was also mounts with special speed

cataclysm then had flying right away, and unlocked flying even in zones not for that expansion

mop then was the first expansion to not allow flying till max level.

then wod had pathfinder which unlocked in final patch

legion in the second major patch


bfa and legion are actuallty the first expansions to have flying the same way.

Calling someone incorrect while being incorrect yourself ... great.

BC you could ONLY obtain flying at level 70. They later dropped base flying to 60.

Cold weather flying originally unlocked at 77 so you are right there.

[FelPlague]

Calling someone incorrect while being incorrect yourself ... great.

BC you could ONLY obtain flying at level 70. They later dropped base flying to 60.

Cold weather flying originally unlocked at 77 so you are right there.

wow yeah my memory is bad, thanks for correcting me.

[Lochton]

If you can recall, flying was disabled in WoD because it would break phasing as well as some quest and cinematic triggers. Remember the PTR servers where flight was enabled and how painfully obvious it was that WoD wasn't designed with flight in mind at all?

Player feedback - regarding how great MoP's Timeless Isle content was - simply gave Blizzard a convenient excuse to keep everyone grounded in order to cut corners and push the already-delayed expansion out sooner.

To add to this, Tanaan Jungle was so vastly incomplete at launch, that they placed an impenetrable dome over it and people still found ways of getting inside.

Given how time-poor the development team were at getting content out the door - as Legion's development was already underway - Blizzard had initially decided to disable flight for the entire expansion rather than test and fix everything that flying broke.

I'm tired of reading that pathfinder was introduced to reinvigorate world PvP and exploration, because it wasn't. That's the corporate spiel trying to cover up the fact that disabling flight substantially reduces the amount of testing that needs to be done prior to launch.

Any praise of the pathfinder achievement only emboldens Blizzard's decision to cut corners, which could partially explain why the game is where it's at today.

EDIT: This isn't a thread about pro / anti flight. Too many people repeat the rhetoric that Blizzard did this for the player's benefit, which isn't true, and I'm setting the record straight.

I disagree with you, really. I like that we have Pathfinder - if we could just limit it to 1 stage.

[SirBeef]

OP can be as cynical as he wants to but he is wrong. They added pathfinder becasue people would fly over stuff, drop in on the objective, complete it and fly off to the next without engaging everything devs wanted you to engage with on the way there. This does two things, it allows players to ignore a lot of what was created, and it allows them to move through content much faster.

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Pretty much this. Almost all of the game is designed in ways to get you to play longer, so you pay longer.
They just got much more blatant and brazen about the last three or so expansions. They can sit there and do it right in front of your face, and why would they care? People are going to pay them anyways. They know it.

And then if they didn't people would be up in arms becasue they blew through content too fast. There needs to be a balance becasue content cannot be mde faster than layers can consume. Built in slowdown has to be there somehow.

[FuxieDK]

Calling someone incorrect while being incorrect yourself ... great.

BC you could ONLY obtain flying at level 70. They later dropped base flying to 60.

Cold weather flying originally unlocked at 77 so you are right there.

Druids could fly at 68 in TBC.
At level 80 you could buy BoA tomes that level 70 alts could get Cold Weather Flying

[derpkitteh]

no you very much said or atyleast implied making zones around flying somehow took more development then one without dflying in mind.

also explain please how these are funner? being unable to get somewhere unless you pay gold is funner?

yep, it's funner. more immersive, i should find that old "immersion" post that got that draenei banned.

https://imgur.com/a/KGAvS there we go. see? that's immersion.

and that's not saying easier, that's saying cheaper. it's cheaper to make a mountain with only one side than with both sides.

[Darththeo]

Druids could fly at 68 in TBC.
At level 80 you could buy BoA tomes that level 70 alts could get Cold Weather Flying

No one cares about Druids.

[FuxieDK]

No one cares about Druids.

Druids is one of the most played classes, I say your statement is BS.

[spalernTJ]

The way Pathfinder works at the moment, in my opinion, is kinda bonkers. Final Fantasy XIV has a system that is much more.. Engaging? Instead of having to do all the achievements, rep grinds, and content, which in some cases, has nothing to do with flying at all, I think the Final Fantasy approach would be much better, as it ties gameplay and world building together when it comes to flying. When you reach a new zone, you cannot fly in it, until you have attuned to the areas air currents. This is done with a mix of quests and exploration. When you've completed the zone's quests, and explored all the air currents, you can fly in that zone.

Now I know FF XIV is different to WoW in many ways, especially in the world PvP department, which is one of the features that dies with flying, so I could see it not happening, unless they make it so War Mode unables flying, but bumps up the bonus rewards a lot, letting casual gameplay have flying earlier.

[Kataroku]

They added pathfinder becasue people would fly over stuff, drop in on the objective, complete it and fly off to the next without engaging everything devs wanted you to engage with on the way there.

Incorrect.

Pathfinder was originally added in WoD to buy time for Blizzard to fix the systems which would otherwise break with flight enabled.

Pathfinder was then reintroduced in Legion and BFA (which this discussion is NOT about).

[Tarba]

Druids could fly at 68 in TBC.
At level 80 you could buy BoA tomes that level 70 alts could get Cold Weather Flying

In wotlk, You could not buy the tome until patch 3.2.
And in bc, the base flying form was 60%. You would not overuse it. You were way faster on ground. The 280% was freaking expensive and needed months of farm.

[Alex86el]

I'm tired of reading that pathfinder was introduced to reinvigorate world PvP and exploration, because it wasn't.

What moron said that? It makes zero sense.
Flying hinders world pvp very much.
And any feeling of a grand world, worthy of exploring.

[Sanguinerd]

Pathfinder was introduced to reinvigorate world PvP and exploration.

[SirBeef]

Incorrect.

Pathfinder was originally added in WoD to buy time for Blizzard to fix the systems which would otherwise break with flight enabled.

Pathfinder was then reintroduced in Legion and BFA (which this discussion is NOT about).

Show your proof. You are the one claiming something I and others don't recall every hearing or reading. Whit I posted is what devs have been saing since the discussion of removing flying came up.

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What moron said that? It makes zero sense.
Flying hinders world pvp very much.
And any feeling of a grand world, worthy of exploring.

Meaning pathhfinder required you to interact withteh world and other players would lead to more PvP interactions.

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Druids could fly at 68 in TBC.
At level 80 you could buy BoA tomes that level 70 alts could get Cold Weather Flying

The TBC comment is still correct. Druids had flight form, not flying.