How many of you would like to see pathfinder removed or changed?

[Eosia]

The point I was trying to make was not WHY they did classic, but rather to show the Blizzard is not some all-seeing god. They're fallible. They often make mistakes. And that sometimes players do know what they're talking about. Players clearly wanted Classic, and Blizzard(mainly Brack) claimed we didn't.

That's because people were looking at Vanilla through rose-colored glasses. They were ignoring all the crap that came with Vanilla too. I saw a post during the BfA beta / 8.0 PTR testing on the WoW forums complaining about the GCD and how horrible it was and how Blizzard ruined the game. Then they said they could not wait for Classic.... where everything was on the GCD and Haste did not exist to mitigate it as that stat was introduced in 2.0/BC. So they literally said they hated something in Retail and could not wait for it to be worse in Classic.

Also, since there were to be no changes beyond Patch 1.12, Naxxramas is going to be the last piece of content Classic gets. Then it will just sit there.

One other thing I forgot to mention is that the financial situation at Blizzard is vastly different. Back when people first were asking for it, World of Warcraft was subsidizing the company. Starcraft II and Diablo III were in development and even then they were one-and-done purchases whereas WoW was monthly income guaranteed. Now Overwatch, Hearthstone, and HotS came onto the scene and they quickly dwarfed WoW. Not to mention the fact Activision Blizzard also has a few of the top-grossing games on Android/iOS too to funnel money in. So now they could hire a team to develop WoW Classic as well.

I cite the booing at the Pathfinder announcement for Shadowlands as further evidence.

No one disputes the fact that Pathfinder is not the most popular thing Blizzard has ever done to the game. But the booing only shows dislike. But there is one thing you do not keep in mind... liking something is not relevant to this discussion. Blizzard is not asking us to like it. It's telling us to accept it and deal with it. Which the majority have done.

I am not a real fan of Pathfinder but I accept it as the compromise that lets us keep flight all together. I also like how they sweetened the deal by making it account wide rather than having to buy it on every character so I can level alts in the air.

Look at this thread. How many people do you see who are ok with pathfinder in principle, but dislike the exceedingly and unnecessarily long 8 month gap between part 1 and part 2? Even I have stated in several points that while I don't think it's my ideal solution, I would be willing to accept Pathfinder if it was fully complete-able in the launch patch or x.1, so long as the unlock also had some actual presence within the lore/story to explain it.

The problem here is one of misunderstanding. Pathfinder in its current state is not meeting players halfway. It's exploiting their emotional and financial investment to get them to chase a carrot. Almost every player I've talked to is ok with the concept of working for rewards, and agrees that by doing so it creates a larger feeling of accomplishment and reward. What they're generally not ok with is Blizzard padding engagement figures and delaying access to flight at the expense of player enjoyment, such as what they're doing with treadmill rep grinds and laundry lists of disassociated achievements.[/quote]

The carrot-on-a-stick argument is totally overblown. If you play the game with any consistency, you can easily get the achievements and rep done in two months. So no, they are not "dragging it out" for money reasons.

And how is Blizzard "padding engagement figures"? People are free to choose to play or not. Ion isn't there holding a gun to their head making them do it. They have free will.

You claim it's not a time gate, but then what do you call the delay between launch and the x.2 patch?

Easy. It's called the time it takes to actually develop, test, and release the content. I thought that would be obvious. When was Legion Pathfinder Part II put into the game? Patch 7.2. When was BfA Pathfinder II put into the game? Patch 8.2. So in terms of the patch schedule, it is the same for both expansions.

To claim that Pathfinder is not being used as a time delay is....disingenuous. And from what I just described, I have to wonder what it is that the delay is meant to preserve beyond the time it takes to grind the reps and explore the content. Because the stated official reasons don't add up.

No, it is accurate. Because there is no preprogrammed time delay. The Broken Shore campaign was time-gated. It would release a new "quest" (and I use that term loosely) each week with the reset. It was designed so that this "campaign" would take place over eleven weeks (and you will note that Blizzard removed that requirement for Legion Pathfinder II while Patch 8.2 was still on the PTR.

If you stop assuming every criticism of Blizzard is a screaming temper tantrum, and start actually reading what concerns and suggestions people have, I think you'll see that it's not all that unreasonable. And it's my opinion that not immediately dismissing reasonable feedback actually leads to a better game.

I don't. I just the same arguments hashed out over and over and over again. And it all boils down to "I want flight. Give it to me NOW!!!!!!!!" Saw the same thing from the people who wanted flight removed to. Their arguments boiled down to "I don't like it, so no one can have it!" You rarely see well written, well reasoned, well presented feedback these days.

[Raelbo]

Yes, it is. It is a statement made out of facts while the other analysis (whichever they may be) are "better" in your opinion because they share your view while being based purely on opinions.

What you're claiming as fact (flying is bad for the game) is not fact. It's your opinion formed on your own interpretation/analysis of a set of facts as you perceive them. My opinion is also formed on my interpretation/analysis of the facts as I perceive them. The difference is I am not trying to claim some kind of monopoly on facts.

Oh I do understand that my hatred for it comes from my choices, but it also becomes a flaw in the game for me because the game didn't have it previously.

Before AP the game followed the philosophy of trying to limit how much time one could invest in powering up your character. It did so by placing hard caps on just about everything (eg weekly VP, number of daily quests, raid lockouts etc etc). The problem is that competitive players are never going to be constrained. They find ways around those limits (eg split raiding), generally in ways that are unhealthy for the game and for the players. The philosophy of the infinite grind is to give players a legitimate way to convert more effort into an advantage without having to jump through hoops in order to get around artificial barriers.

The real problem here isn't the AP system, rather players who just can't self moderate.

When you're bypassing content, that means you're bypassing content regardless of whether you consider it as meaningful.

Whether or not the content is meaningful is pertinent to the question of whether flying is harmful (or beneficial) to the game experience, which is what you're talking about. Bypassing meaningless, tedious content makes flying beneficial to the game. But if the content was meaningful, then it would make flying detrimental to the game.

The question of how meaningful the content being bypassed is, is absolutely critical to this discussion.

I do think that ground travel adds to the experience, however if I decided to go with it while others flew then I'd only detriment myself with it in comparison to others. If I were a casual player then I wouldn't mind it at all, but sadly that's not the case. But hey, glad you managed to almost make a compelling argument, oh yeah it wasn't.

Sorry, but that's just a cop-out. Also, the fact that you don't understand my argument doesn't necessarily mean that my argument is inadequate, and given how strongly you've demonstrated your unwillingness to try and understand other people's points of view in general, I think it's pretty clear where the problem actually lies...

Look, maybe you're being honest and sincere that you do actually, legimately, still enjoy being restricted to ground travel even a year into the expansion (just not enough to keep you from giving in to flying). But I am going to find that hard to believe because it just doesn't make any rational sense.

What I suspect is actually the case (because it actually makes rational sense) is that you enjoyed your initial experience of the content more than the flying experience of the content. And I think a great many anti-flyers confuse this with the former.

I'm not telling people what their motives are, they are actually telling me. Just like you are right now, the motives are still the same.

Well then I suggest you listen instead of trying to twist our words in order to try and prove your argument. It doesn't impress anyone when they tell you what their motives are and someone like you insists on misinterpretting it.

And there you go again deciding what meaningful content is for people. I'd suggest you stop patronising and telling people what their meaningful content is because you clearly have no clue. Oh yes, thats a nice argument right? Don't you love it.

I was actually just trying to explain how it is that content that starts off being fun loses its appeal. I was not trying to tell you personally how you feel or what your motives are (although I can understand that for someone whose first language is not English my repeated use of the word "you" might come across that way).

Either way, I wasn't condescending or insulting like you were with your insinuation that people only like flying because they're essentially lazy and entitled so your attempt at equating our arguments is disingenuous.

In reality if whatever you do outdoors wasn't meaningful then you wouldn't be there in the first place, so that content you want to bypass is actually meaningful.

There are many things one can do outdoors, not all of which are equally meaningful to everyone. For me, WQs, getting to instances, hunting/farming/gathering certain things are all meaningful. For me, at this point in the expansion, the process of travelling, fighting my way through random trash mobs over circuitous terrain has pretty much lost all of it's appeal several months ago.

The "content" that I am keen to bypass has little or bearing on the meaningfullness of the content that I am keen to engage with and there is zero logical basis for you trying to conflate the two.

Flying does actually hurt WPvP, its not an opinion it is a simple fact.

Nope. It doesn't. I explained why.

If people don't like WPvP they could (previously transfer to PvE realm) turn Warmode off, that simple.

Unless there is an alternative explanation for persisting. Which I already provided.

Players are given a +10% bonus to all rewards in WM. There are a number of mounts, pets, xmogs, achievements, titles etc locked behind WM. Those are more than sufficient motive to get players to participate in WM. It's why I do WM, as is the case with pretty much every friend of mine who also plays with WM even though I and them don't care one iota for WPvP.

If Blizzard removed the +10% and made all the other rewards not WM-exclusive, then you'd be able to see if people actually like WPvP. But all the evidence we have at this stage suggests this is not the case.

People use flying because it speeds their other activities, that too is just that simple.

And I say you're condescendingly oversimplifying/misrepresenting motives.

Yes, it speeds up the process of completing activities but it doesn't actually speed up the activities themselves. Think of a WQ. Without flying, in order to complete a WQ you needed to waste a bunch of time getting there. Then you do the activity. Then you waste more time travelling to the next activity.

The main "activity" that flying actually speeds up is travel. It doesn't speed up doing a dungeon. It doesn't speed up completing quest requirements. It doesn't speed up farming for Kua'fon's egg.

You see, what you described would be what the people you claim that don't like WPvP would do. Those who actually do like WPvP would initiate combat whether or not they're feeling like a sure winner.

What I am saying that is those who actually do like WPvP make up only a tiny fraction of the people using WM. The rest are basically tourists.

WM extra rewards are there to compensate for the time it takes to battle with one and another. Its a flawed system that needs to be there because of how the game has these rather endless grinds. If you were to take those grinds, like AP, completely away then people who enjoy WPvP would be the ones that keep it on.

Which would be almost no one....

And as you said, flying helps avoiding PvP so that means flying hurts WPvP.

As I said, the fact that flying helps people who don't want to PvP to avoid PvP doesn't mean that flying hurts WPvP. Not sure how you missed that really..

Rewards that are tied to WPvP should only be available from WPvP, just like arena mounts are from arena and raid mounts are from raids.

I don't disagree. But if that's the case it becomes impossible to know whether people are participating in WPvP because they enjoy it or because they're after the rewards. Which in turn speaks to the assertion that flying is bad for WPvP. Because it speaks to whether people are choosing to use flying to evade WPvP in spite of the fact that they do enjoy WPvP (which would indeed demonstrate that flying is bad for WPvP) or whether they're using flying to evade WPvP because they don't actually like WPvP and just want those sweet rewards (which would demonstrate that WPvP is bad).

If flying was removed from WM then it should be removed from non-WM as well.

Not really. WM has exclusive rewards, so it's entirely possible to provide adequate alternative compensation for not being able to fly.

Saying that we'd see how much people like WPvP by taking flying away from WM is as idiotic as saying we'd see how much people like Flying if we took every WQ, ore, herb, mob, instance portal, basically everything but terrain away from "Flying mode". But hey lets do that and see how much people like it!

How about paying attention to what I actually said instead of trying to twist my words around to mean something different, so that you can call me idiotic?

I NEVER said that "we'd see how much people like WPvP by taking flying away from WM". I said:

• "Blizzard should remove the extra rewards from WM" (ie that 10% bonus)
• "They should also make any exclusive rewards available without WM"
• "if flying really was reducing WPvP, then they should remove flying from WM"

Also, since you're on the topic of what is idiotic, I'd say that comparing taking flying away from WM with taking away all the content from the world qualifies.

[SirCowdog]

That's because people were looking at Vanilla through rose-colored glasses. They were ignoring all the crap that came with Vanilla too. I saw a post during the BfA beta / 8.0 PTR testing on the WoW forums complaining about the GCD and how horrible it was and how Blizzard ruined the game. Then they said they could not wait for Classic.... where everything was on the GCD and Haste did not exist to mitigate it as that stat was introduced in 2.0/BC. So they literally said they hated something in Retail and could not wait for it to be worse in Classic.

Where something might be enjoyable in Classic/Vanilla due to the entire surrounding design and environment, that same thing - in this case GCD - would feel terrible in a modern environment. Consider carefully that the entire flavor and experience of Vanilla is MEANT to be generally slower. Whereas retail is often meant to be a faster-paced more QoL-fueled experience.

So while a person might dislike the slower GCD in retail, it would actually feel perfect in Vanilla.

But I think all of that is beside the point. Just looking at the quarterly reports and conference call numbers, Classic is doing VERY well for Blizzard. While I'm certain any of us could track down individual posts disliking this or that, again I have to stress that you need to look at the median line. What is the general response, not the extreme.

This is how I view Pathfinder and flying in general: The average response. The median. Obviously my own personal views are at one end of the spectrum. The WPVP haters are on the other. In between that is a general response expressing dislike for the CURRENT state of pathfinder. And based on that, I think Blizzard should be looking at changing the "compromise" to better fit the overall playerbase.

Now Overwatch, Hearthstone, and HotS came onto the scene and they quickly dwarfed WoW. Not to mention the fact Activision Blizzard also has a few of the top-grossing games on Android/iOS too to funnel money in. So now they could hire a team to develop WoW Classic as well.

I'm going to disagree on OW/HS/HotS "dwarfing" WoW. Maybe all of their revenues combined, if that's what you meant?

Regardless, again I have to say that this is beside the point. My argument is that Players DO sometimes know what they want, and what they're talking about. No matter what the financial situation was before Classic, the point is that Blizzard initially thought it was a bad idea. Players persisted, and eventually Blizzard recognized the value(even if it wasn't until after Classic launched and players were vindicated).

I'm not using this to completely justify the push for Pathfinder to change. But I do want people to consider that just because Blizzard wants something a certain way, doesn't necessarily mean that it's the only way it can be done, or that it can't change for the better. And maybe it's my own bias speaking, but from what I've seen since the launch of BfA, people are generally getting tired of the massive delay between parts 1 and 2 of pathfinder.

No one disputes the fact that Pathfinder is not the most popular thing Blizzard has ever done to the game. But the booing only shows dislike. But there is one thing you do not keep in mind... liking something is not relevant to this discussion. Blizzard is not asking us to like it. It's telling us to accept it and deal with it. Which the majority have done.

I am not a real fan of Pathfinder but I accept it as the compromise that lets us keep flight all together. I also like how they sweetened the deal by making it account wide rather than having to buy it on every character so I can level alts in the air.

This just goes to what I've been saying about the overall response. Yes, Blizzard is saying "deal with it". But that's very similar to "You think you do but you don't".

And as I've said a bunch of times over the course of many threads: "If we absolutely have to have pathfinder, at the very least Blizzard can make it NOT the worst possible version". How much work would it really take to spice it up a bit and make it more palatable? Leave the underlying structure of the unlock as it is, parts 1 and 2 entirely. Include reasoning for the restriction of flight in the story. Have a series of quests outlining how and what we have to do in order to re-gain the skies. Maybe have a few NPC comment on our progress.

Would that REALLY be so egregious?

The carrot-on-a-stick argument is totally overblown. If you play the game with any consistency, you can easily get the achievements and rep done in two months. So no, they are not "dragging it out" for money reasons.

And how is Blizzard "padding engagement figures"? People are free to choose to play or not. Ion isn't there holding a gun to their head making them do it. They have free will.

"If you play the game with any consistency". Do you not get that you just described the very goal of a carrot-on-a-stick? Pathfinder rep grinds and long delays between part 1 and 2 are one arrow in an entire quiver of methods Blizzard uses to keep you subbed and logging in each day. This is basic live-service psychology.

As to how Blizzard pads engagement figures: What do you think having to log in each day and do an emissary from the ground is? What do you think dazing mobs are for? What do you think winding nonsensical paths are for? What do you think the plethora of overly simplistic Kill-X quests, or "collect-X" quests with bad droprates do?

Taken individually it might not be obvious. You can't see the forest for the trees. But when you do even the lightest research into methods and techniques games like WoW use to keep players logging in and staying subbed, it becomes pretty fucking obvious.

Easy. It's called the time it takes to actually develop, test, and release the content. I thought that would be obvious. When was Legion Pathfinder Part II put into the game? Patch 7.2. When was BfA Pathfinder II put into the game? Patch 8.2. So in terms of the patch schedule, it is the same for both expansions.

You're comparing two different things.

If a player has completed all the achievements and rep grinds and quests for Part 1. Why is it still necessary to restrict them from flying in the content which is already available? The 8+ months might be the time it takes to develop NEW content. But why does content in development have anything to do with players flying through content which is already out?

Blizzard has explained that it can be troublesome to deal with a player who has flight entering into a zone which they don't want flying, when those two zones are connected. But as I explained in my previous post, this is not nearly as difficult as Blizzard makes it out to be. And in the live game, it was almost certainly not even necessary to connect the zones released in 7.2 and 8.2.

So again, if a player has already spent the time and done the work in EXISTING release content, why do they need to still have flight restricted for the sake of content which is still in development, which could VERY EASILY have its own pathfinder unlock?

No, it is accurate. Because there is no preprogrammed time delay. The Broken Shore campaign was time-gated. It would release a new "quest" (and I use that term loosely) each week with the reset. It was designed so that this "campaign" would take place over eleven weeks (and you will note that Blizzard removed that requirement for Legion Pathfinder II while Patch 8.2 was still on the PTR.

I think you meant 7.2?

But again that would have been completely fine had Pathfinder part 1 awarded flight in the initial launch zones of Legion. My point is to question why flight in those initial zones had to be restricted for 8 months. What experience was being preserved? Keep in mind that any player who completed Part 1 would have already crisscrossed the zones ad-nauseam chasing the reps and completing the quests and exploration requirements. By the time a player had met those requirements, what more was there for No-Flying to protect?

I'll play devil's advocate here and point out that maybe Blizzard wanted to preserve the experience of other players who had not yet completed pathfinder? But that seems very thin. It would be like not giving raiders their gear that they earned from defeating the boss because other players hadn't done it yet. If there's another explanation, I'd like to hear it.

I don't. I just the same arguments hashed out over and over and over again. And it all boils down to "I want flight. Give it to me NOW!!!!!!!!" Saw the same thing from the people who wanted flight removed to. Their arguments boiled down to "I don't like it, so no one can have it!" You rarely see well written, well reasoned, well presented feedback these days.

I think you should carefully consider how long this argument has been going on. There were LOTS of well-written posts arguing against No-Flying, and all across the length of WoD. And again when Pathfinder was re-introduced in Legion...then again when it was announced it wouldn't be complete in 7.1. People are tired of being ignored. People got sick of having their concerns blown off by Blizzard after being constantly attacked by trolls.

The fact that I'm even still able to calmly write posts like this should serve as an indication of my passion for the game. But even I'm just about sick and tired of it, especially in light of all the other shitty things Blizzard has done in recent history. (I won't go into those, because it's off topic and this is already a threadnaut)

[Spotnick]

Is there anyone who actually think PathFinder is fun?

It's a compromise of course, but at some point it's just ridiculous.. let us fly or remove it completely.

I don't mind my slow mount in classic, and I have to plan my traveling.. the biggest issue with flying is that it's not designed to work with WoW.. there are no flying npcs or barely, you can afk and you know you'll be fine and alive, there is no weather effect to slow you down and your mounts never get tired.

If you introduce flying, embrace it and design your game with it.

[Eosia]

As to how Blizzard pads engagement figures: What do you think having to log in each day and do an emissary from the ground is? What do you think dazing mobs are for? What do you think winding nonsensical paths are for? What do you think the plethora of overly simplistic Kill-X quests, or "collect-X" quests with bad droprates do?

You must be new to WoW then. See the unit of measurement they use is monthly active users... MONTHLY. So it does not matter how many days a month or when during that month they log it. They log in, they're counted. So saying this is to pump up MAUs is a bullcrap argument.

Blizzard has explained that it can be troublesome to deal with a player who has flight entering into a zone which they don't want flying, when those two zones are connected. But as I explained in my previous post, this is not nearly as difficult as Blizzard makes it out to be. And in the live game, it was almost certainly not even necessary to connect the zones released in 7.2 and 8.2.

You obviously never played during Wrath of the Lich King.

I think you should carefully consider how long this argument has been going on. There were LOTS of well-written posts arguing against No-Flying, and all across the length of WoD. And again when Pathfinder was re-introduced in Legion...then again when it was announced it wouldn't be complete in 7.1. People are tired of being ignored. People got sick of having their concerns blown off by Blizzard after being constantly attacked by trolls.

They're free to quit. Their $15-20/mo does not make them any more special than anyone else paying $15-20/mo.

[Nzx]

Yes, I'd love to see it removed, if it meant that you weren't able to fly in any new content at all. Flying is lame as fuck and kills the entire concept of a "world". If flying had anywhere near the same restrictions as ground mounts do (i.e any semblance of danger whatsoever, as they should) then no one would care about pathfinder. The problem is that flyers are 3x as fast as ground mounts AND have absolutely zero drawbacks, so people whinge when they're forced to actually experience the game world on the ground.

[Project 501D13R]

I don't particularly mind Pathfinder, I just think that flying should come with the part 1 of pathfinder, and with part 2 would come flying in the new area they add in.

[SirCowdog]

You must be new to WoW then.

You obviously never played during Wrath of the Lich King.

Sigh....and here I thought we were beginning to have a mutually respectful conversation.

No I am not new. To clarify(even though I doubt you'll care after dismissing all the points in that post in favor of firing off two ad-hominems) I've been playing since halfway through vanilla. Do you think a new player would be this determined and passionate about this topic?

I'm assuming your WotLK comment was referring to Wintergrasp. Which, by all rights, should have been a Battleground and not an open world pvp zone.

You can see how that's what they turned it into eventually, and copied the format onto Tol Barad and Ashran. Which only serves to reinforce my point about separating such content into its own instance if blizzard doesn't want players to fly there, or wants to add separate pathfinder locks on a zone by zone basis.

See the unit of measurement they use is monthly active users... MONTHLY. So it does not matter how many days a month or when during that month they log it. They log in, they're counted. So saying this is to pump up MAUs is a bullcrap argument.

I'm familiar with the definition of what an MAU is. Which is why I used the phrase "engagement figures". It's something that Blizzard refers to as a separate metric, I'm assuming as a measure of how well a particular piece of content is doing, or more likely, how much time players are actually spending in game on a more granular basis than MAUs represent.

They're free to quit. Their $15-20/mo does not make them any more special than anyone else paying $15-20/mo.

I didn't mean to suggest any such thing. But the "Accept it or quit" response isn't going to be sustainable for very much longer considering the way the community has been declining. If not for classic(a strong case for why blizzard SHOULD listen more to their players) then WoW would be at critically low numbers, or switched entirely into maintenance mode.

As it stands, if Shadowlands doesn't deliver a superior experience, Then I suspect that's also what will happen, classic or not. Activision-Blizzard can't afford too many more blunders.

[Keristrasza]

No. If anything delay it until the final patch before the next expac. You can get around just fine without flying. I am right now as I still haven't unlocked it.

Then flight isnt your thing, fine. Stop trying to deny it for people who want it just because you are "Fine without it" the game wasnt made only for people who dislike flight. Others like and want it. It should be there for people who want and before the halfway point of the expansions life so its useful. If anything some zones should be designed with it in mind but in such a way that people who still dont like it can get around just fine.

[Silakka]

MoP was the last expansion to do it right. Ding max, go to vendor, buy flight.

[korijenkins]

I despise Pathfinder probably more so than anything I've hated in any game before. For me it's two major pain points:

1) The rep grind
2) The timegating.

I don't mind there being a quest/achievement you have to work towards, but I really wish the rep was removed entirely and I'd strongly prefer if you were able to start completing it as soon as you reach max level. Maybe in patch X.1

Not even in a patch. It should be available immediately. Finish pathfinder and fly.

Some requirements? Complete every mythic dungeon, every quest storyline, explore every zone, etc.

To the crybabies who think it will make initial WQs too easy, that's the fucking point. 90% of the WQs are just copy/paste quests we already did while leveling anyway. They should be fucking easy.

[Eosia]

Sigh....and here I thought we were beginning to have a mutually respectful conversation.

No I am not new. To clarify(even though I doubt you'll care after dismissing all the points in that post in favor of firing off two ad-hominems) I've been playing since halfway through vanilla. Do you think a new player would be this determined and passionate about this topic?

No, I was giving you the benefit of the doubt that you were simply not aware of things rather than being disingenuous or simply ignoring facts that ran counter to your arguments.

I'm assuming your WotLK comment was referring to Wintergrasp. Which, by all rights, should have been a Battleground and not an open world pvp zone.

You can see how that's what they turned it into eventually, and copied the format onto Tol Barad and Ashran. Which only serves to reinforce my point about separating such content into its own instance if blizzard doesn't want players to fly there, or wants to add separate pathfinder locks on a zone by zone basis.

WIntergrasp worked after they made the simple adjustment of enabling flight except for when it flipped over to preparation for the battle which was 10-15 minutes prior to its launch and they turned the dismount into a graveyard port if I remember correctly. They simply saved themselves a hassle with Tol Barad and Ashran.

I'm familiar with the definition of what an MAU is. Which is why I used the phrase "engagement figures". It's something that Blizzard refers to as a separate metric, I'm assuming as a measure of how well a particular piece of content is doing, or more likely, how much time players are actually spending in game on a more granular basis than MAUs represent.

Except that is not what gets reported to investors and the SEC. Take a look at the 8-K filing Blizzard made last Wednesday:

Blizzard
· In the third quarter of 2019:
o Blizzard had 33 million MAUsD.
o World of Warcraft® Classic drove the biggest quarterly increase to subscription plans2 in franchise history, in both the West and East.
o The Overwatch LeagueTM concluded with a sell-out crowd of over 11,000 fans watching the San Francisco Shock defeat the Vancouver Titans in the Grand Finals at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia in September. Season Two average minute audience grew 18% year-over-year.3

The only engagement measure made official was that Blizzard had 33,000,000 MAUs in the previous quarter. That means that 33,000,000 unique account logins occurred for any Blizzard game. It could have been 1 person playing WoW and 32,999,999 people playing Diablo III for all we know.

The only other figure reported was viewership of Overwatch League.

Blizzard may use internal metrics to see what people are doing to guide design decisions but they are not going to do anything that biases the data.

I didn't mean to suggest any such thing. But the "Accept it or quit" response isn't going to be sustainable for very much longer considering the way the community has been declining. If not for classic(a strong case for why blizzard SHOULD listen more to their players) then WoW would be at critically low numbers, or switched entirely into maintenance mode.

This is where you lose credibility by making up numbers. You have absolutely NO idea what WoW's numbers are. No one does outside of Blizzard. They stopped reporting them four years ago with the Q3 2015 earnings release.

Before you bring them up too, no, those Weak Auras numbers are not accurate as Blizzard has publicly stated. And I will head you off before you accuse them of lying. If they did, they would get into trouble with the SEC as Elon Musk did when he lied on Twitter about Tesla.

And no, the community is not the ultimate arbiter of all design decisions. Do yourself a favor and google "Star Wars Galaxies NGE" and learn some history. Sony Online Excrement allowed itself to be steamrolled by a vocal minority, reportedly existing on the Bria server, and created the "New Game Enhancements". Right after it was announced SOE was forced to refund players for the Trials of Obi-wan expansion that released two days before the announcement and when Publish 25, the NGE, went live they reportedly lost 50% of the players in under a month. I played for a little bit after the NGE rolled but I got tired of playing a badly written WoW clone with a Star Wars skin.

Fun little fact, Mike Morheim gave an interview in 2005-2006 where he admitted they were terrified of Star Wars Galaxies. It was a stronger IP than Warcraft was and it had been released for almost 18 months when WoW arrived. But fortunately for WoW, SOE and LucasArts crapped their pants about WoW and ruined SWG.

Blizzard's mistake with flight was not communicating properly what the discussions were yielding, mixed messages such as Bashiokk's infamous post where he said flight was coming in Patch 6.1, adding a new flying mount to the store, and then just dropping the fact flight was gone from here on out over Memorial Day weekend in 2015. They did not repeat a mistake like SOE by backtracking and compromising with Pathfinder.

[Zuben]

I used to think it was a good compromise to have their cake and eat it too. But nowadays I play so rarely that it's a real chore to go through it all. It's the end of the expansion, I would like to fly through this shit rather than pick up where I left my grinds a year ago.

[HugsForFree]

Yeh, remove flying then there is no need for path finding

[Ihsan997]

Then flight isnt your thing, fine. Stop trying to deny it for people who want it just because you are "Fine without it" the game wasnt made only for people who dislike flight. Others like and want it. It should be there for people who want and before the halfway point of the expansions life so its useful. If anything some zones should be designed with it in mind but in such a way that people who still dont like it can get around just fine.

Once again, another well-written, logical summary that should really end the thread. I don’t get why the anti-flight crowd - a group which, even their more level headed members must confess, is a minority among the player base - seems unable to get beyond this point. The issue at hand is about consumer demand and allowing players more options. Some people don’t like flying through beautifully designed zones? Then they can walk and enjoy the scenery. Other people exercising other options doesn’t impinge on their freedom in the least.

[SirCowdog]

No, I was giving you the benefit of the doubt that you were simply not aware of things rather than being disingenuous or simply ignoring facts that ran counter to your arguments.

I would believe that if not for the dismissive tone of the rest of your post. You clearly made an attempt to discredit my arguments by portraying me as a new or inexperienced player.

You then go on to continue in that tone, arguing against things which I never claimed. Such as saying the community is not the ultimate arbiter of all design decisions. Something I NEVER even implied. In fact I specifically said that what Blizzard wants must be balanced against what players want, while admitting that it's not an even balance.

I'm sorry, but it appears that we're done here. Clearly we have a fundamental disagreement that won't be resolved, and I've had my fill of people who argue against things I never said.

[Eosia]

I'm sorry, but it appears that we're done here. Clearly we have a fundamental disagreement that won't be resolved, and I've had my fill of people who argue against things I never said.

You just want to be right and you're not. So now you're going to pull a Cartman.

[SirCowdog]

You just want to be right and you're not. So now you're going to pull a Cartman.

No, I just want to have a civil discussion without being talked down to, misrepresented, and constantly straw manned. Something apparently very few opponents of progress on the Pathfinder situation are capable of.

[Beet]

Then flight isnt your thing, fine. Stop trying to deny it for people who want it just because you are "Fine without it" the game wasnt made only for people who dislike flight. Others like and want it. It should be there for people who want and before the halfway point of the expansions life so its useful. If anything some zones should be designed with it in mind but in such a way that people who still dont like it can get around just fine.

No that’s wrong. It’s there before the halfway point already. You get more of the game with flying than we do without it. Stop being so greedy. Blizzard already reversed their first decision when they they were going to remove it entirely in WoD. So as you said stop thinking the game is only for you, people who like it. You’ve got more time with it than without.

[bufferunderrun]

Once again, another well-written, logical summary that should really end the thread. I don’t get why the anti-flight crowd - a group which, even their more level headed members must confess, is a minority among the player base - seems unable to get beyond this point. The issue at hand is about consumer demand and allowing players more options. Some people don’t like flying through beautifully designed zones? Then they can walk and enjoy the scenery. Other people exercising other options doesn’t impinge on their freedom in the least.

do yo really think blizz make those kind of choice because some random dude think flying is bad? blizzard make a choice based on their interest they don't want to spend that extra time designing a zone for flying and so 90% of the zones now are empty mountains if they can they would go back to 2d ; the pathfinder is designed to make flying an alt catch up mechanic.

There is 0 chance to go back the way it was before.