Flying compromise

[SirCowdog]

Why can you not unlock flying for previous expansions? I never played WoD, and I can never unlock flying there without wasting a bunch of time playing solo instead of doing MMO stuff with actual people at max level. Pathfinder is just dumb. Period. It only exists to waste your time; some people see through the bullshit and just quit.

Money. All about that money.

The worst part about old expansion unlocks is the people who support it with asinine proclomations like: "Well I had to grind it, so you do too! Stop being lazy!" As though anything someone did 2 expansions ago has any relevance.

[WowIsDead64]

Money. All about that money.

The worst part about old expansion unlocks is the people who support it with asinine proclomations like: "Well I had to grind it, so you do too! Stop being lazy!" As though anything someone did 2 expansions ago has any relevance.

Several factors here:
1) If there wouldn't be Pathfinder, many players would just wait till flying would be enabled. Some would even skip whole xpack and get it for free. Blizzard don't want it to happen. But I still do it. No fly - no buy.
2) They want new players, who will buy xpack after 8.2, to still experience it "as intended", even if they don't want to.
3) Carrot on a stick. Players are forced to do whole content, no matter if they like some parts of it or not. Many players would skip rep grind for example, as it's completely pointless. Some players can't bear Pathfinders, but want flying in old xpack just for convenience of their alts so much, that have to farm irrelevant content on their mains to do it. Example - many 110s doing Tanaan to unlock flying on Draenor.
4) Anti-bot measure. Yeah, I haven't seen this before, but after doing some fishing on Draenor, I realized, how badly designed it is. Fishing pools, barely reachable from ground, crowds of mobs on a ground, crowds of mobs in air, crowds of mobs in water, I can use only 2 abilities, that barely do any damage, when I have fishing rod in my hands, so any aggro puts me into bad situation. Such design just can't exist for humans - it's obvious anti-bot design. And it just shows, how serious bot problem was in the past. May be that was the reason, why sub numbers started to drop in WOD. Half of playerbase were bots. And of course Pathfinder prevents botters from getting flying on their newly created characters. Did you hear about any bot ban waves recently? I didn't. But this is exact moment, when anti-bot measures has done much more damage, than bots themselves. I've never seen bots and I've never bothered about them.

And this all on a top of stretching content. Only pros for Blizzard and they don't care, that there are cons for their players.

[cozzri]

Money. All about that money.

The worst part about old expansion unlocks is the people who support it with asinine proclomations like: "Well I had to grind it, so you do too! Stop being lazy!" As though anything someone did 2 expansions ago has any relevance.

If it's all about the money, why can't I buy flying unlock in Blizzard store; I would honestly do that than jump for hoops to get something that use to be simple.

It's like they have mobile game mentality of "forced inconvenience/time gate" but offer no alternative to boost in the cash shop; it's ridiculous.

[WowIsDead64]

And for guys, who claim, that PVP isn't possible with WarMode off. I've just tested it. Yeah, I can't attack other faction's mobs, but they can attack me and can easily PVP-flag me. And again. You aren't attacked with PVP flag on not because other players can't attack you. That's because they don't want to. They can type /pvp to their chat at any moment, PVP-flag themselves and kill you. And I see "yellow" nicks, i.e. players with PVP flag on, very often.

[SirCowdog]

If it's all about the money, why can't I buy flying unlock in Blizzard store; I would honestly do that than jump for hoops to get something that use to be simple.

It's like they have mobile game mentality of "forced inconvenience/time gate" but offer no alternative to boost in the cash shop; it's ridiculous.

BFA launched: Aug 14th, 2018.
Current date: Mar 10th, 2019.
8.2 patch: ???

Right now that's 7 months of subscriptions for some people. 7 x $15 = $105. If they were going to sell flying for $100 or more, no one would buy it(well...maybe a few whales). By not selling it in the store, they not only avoid the bad press of putting yet one more thing in the cash shop, and being accused of selling P2W, they get more money in the long term this way. Additionally they get people to play more of the game, making activity figures look better, and potentially increasing player investment in the game.

It's all around a better business move for them to not sell it in the store. Money doesn't always mean direct sales. Why do you think so many game companies are doing the "games as a service" thing?

[huth]

BFA launched: Aug 14th, 2018.
Current date: Mar 10th, 2019.
8.2 patch: ???

Right now that's 7 months of subscriptions for some people. 7 x $15 = $105. If they were going to sell flying for $100 or more, no one would buy it(well...maybe a few whales). By not selling it in the store, they not only avoid the bad press of putting yet one more thing in the cash shop, and being accused of selling P2W, they get more money in the long term this way. Additionally they get people to play more of the game, making activity figures look better, and potentially increasing player investment in the game.

It's all around a better business move for them to not sell it in the store. Money doesn't always mean direct sales. Why do you think so many game companies are doing the "games as a service" thing?

Why do you assume they stay subbed?

[WowIsDead64]

BFA launched: Aug 14th, 2018.
Current date: Mar 10th, 2019.
8.2 patch: ???

Right now that's 7 months of subscriptions for some people. 7 x $15 = $105. If they were going to sell flying for $100 or more, no one would buy it(well...maybe a few whales). By not selling it in the store, they not only avoid the bad press of putting yet one more thing in the cash shop, and being accused of selling P2W, they get more money in the long term this way. Additionally they get people to play more of the game, making activity figures look better, and potentially increasing player investment in the game.

It's all around a better business move for them to not sell it in the store. Money doesn't always mean direct sales. Why do you think so many game companies are doing the "games as a service" thing?

Why do you think, that no-flying = +100% of game time? For some hardcore players, who do 100% anyway, it's +0%. For me it's -100%, cuz I don't play content without flying at all. 30-60$ would be fair price for it. It's price of 2-4 months of sub. Lesser amount of money is always better, than no money at all.

[SirCowdog]

Why do you assume they stay subbed?

Because that's what Blizzard would do. It's a cost/benefit analysis. Or risk vs reward. They know that the core playerbase who's still into wow isn't going to unsub for almost anything. So that's what I based my original post on.

But lets look at it from a minimum scenario: Player buys the expansion, plays for a month, then quits. Comes back for 8.2 pathfinder part 2 completion. That's still another $15 plus whatever time spent clearing all the objectives(MAU and activity figures get a boost). I suppose Blizzard could sell the flying unlock for $30 in that case(first month plus last month) and make a little bit of money that way up front.

But what's more likely would be to take the average number of months the entire playerbase stays subbed between launch of an expansion and the release of Pathfinder part 2. For the sake of argument lets call it 3 or 4 months. $50, the same as many other paid services. Even THEN they'd still be missing out on the activity of a player having to slog through the unlock requirements.

From what I can tell(and trust me, I'm not a professional analyst, so take it how you want), it simply seems more advantageous to leave a paid option off the table.

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Why do you think, that no-flying = +100% of game time? For some hardcore players, who do 100% anyway, it's +0%. For me it's -100%, cuz I don't play content without flying at all. 30-60$ would be fair price for it. It's price of 2-4 months of sub. Lesser amount of money is always better, than no money at all.

Yes, some people are going to just not sub at all. But MOST people won't. Just like how casinos bank on the odds because there's enough people to make it predictable, so too does Blizzard. The risk of missing a few people staying unsubbed is worth it for them.

[huth]

Because that's what Blizzard would do.

Based on what? They themselves said that player activity is cyclic, based on content release schedules.

Besides, those that want flying immediately are also those most likely to not play when it isn't available. So if anything, you should assume the opposite.

[WowIsDead64]

Because that's what Blizzard would do. It's a cost/benefit analysis. Or risk vs reward. They know that the core playerbase who's still into wow isn't going to unsub for almost anything. So that's what I based my original post on.

But lets look at it from a minimum scenario: Player buys the expansion, plays for a month, then quits. Comes back for 8.2 pathfinder part 2 completion. That's still another $15 plus whatever time spent clearing all the objectives(MAU and activity figures get a boost). I suppose Blizzard could sell the flying unlock for $30 in that case(first month plus last month) and make a little bit of money that way up front.

But what's more likely would be to take the average number of months the entire playerbase stays subbed between launch of an expansion and the release of Pathfinder part 2. For the sake of argument lets call it 3 or 4 months. $50, the same as many other paid services. Even THEN they'd still be missing out on the activity of a player having to slog through the unlock requirements.

From what I can tell(and trust me, I'm not a professional analyst, so take it how you want), it simply seems more advantageous to leave a paid option off the table.

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Yes, some people are going to just not sub at all. But MOST people won't. Just like how casinos bank on the odds because there's enough people to make it predictable, so too does Blizzard. The risk of missing a few people staying unsubbed is worth it for them.

You just provide worst case scenario. Players, who would unsub after just 1 months of playing - aren't Blizzard target auditory anyway. MMO isn't even for them. They're single-player kind of players. Or they're adults/burned out so much, that they no longer want to play this game. They wouldn't play this game, no matter what. And therefore no matter, how much effort Blizzard would put into trying to keep them subbed - this resources would be wasted, cuz this players wouldn't play anyway. I.e., dunno, it's way to pessimistic to assume, that all players, Blizzard are left with - just cyclic guys, who come to see new content only and then quit immediately.

And I'm true MMO player. I'm ready to play the same content FOR MONTHS AND YEARS. WotLK and Cataclysm - are still my favorite leveling content. MOP - is still my favorite old-style endgame content (except "isles" - only original content, fixed by future patches). Draenor - is my favorite casual-friendly content. I still do this content. I'm doing MOP dailies on one character, level Garrison on another and level third character through WotLK-Cata now. But at the same time I haven't bought BFA and not going to till 8.2. As simple, as that.

And if we won't take this black'n'white example into account and will look at players, who actually want to play this game, then what's we're left with? Effectiveness of no-flying = % of content, played without flying - % of content, played with flying. And for majority of playerbase this value is very low. 10% max may be. It's +1-2 months of sub max. Or 15-30$.

[WowIsDead64]

I have some bad news for you

Saying "Pro-flyers = cyclic players, who would quit after just a months of playing" - is just a strawman argument. First you need to prove, that this two are equal. So, where is your prove?

I can say exactly the same. There are no anti-flyers. Players, who play this game without flying = players, who are so addicted, that they will play it, no matter what. So return of flying won't hurt this game.

[WowIsDead64]

First off, i didnt said a such thing. Second off, you were the first one to make reverse claim without any evidence, so you are strawmanning just fine yourself.

The whole game is designed for atleast a couple of expansions now (legion was a clearly outlier) for people that dont want to play the game and/or want to only play 20 minutes a day and want still there dopamin paycheck.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnAPimOaZUI&t=130s
thats your majority of the playerbase buddy. From your lfr raider to the myhtic world first people that literarly uninstall the game after they finished raidlogging

What are that bad news for me then? And, if you haven't noticed, I haven't said, that those cyclic players are anti-flyers, either. You assumed it.

[Kumorii]

You are naive if you think it is only changing a flag. Very naive.

Curious how you think they have solved it. Remember that they have a system for pathfinder which is basically a boolean flag checking for X to fly in Y zone. If they were clever, which I think blizzards system developers are, they would make it so it works like that.

[WowIsDead64]

The majority of the playerbase is cyclic.

Again. Prove may be? How can you distinguish "cyclic" from "badly designed content, so players burn out way too fast"?

[WowIsDead64]

Because every instance of content that is in the game is designed to be burned thorugh and is time gated or invalidated by retarded level of catch up.
If you cant see that you need to resort your prioritys and check the game you playing instead of making essays of flying posts that blizzard is not gonna read. Might be healthier for you

I don't think, that such discussion is productive. Cuz currently I see assumptions only and there is simple rule about assumptions - your assumptions aren't any better, than my assumptions.

[FLANOFETT]

best compromise make it part of game play.. worried about people just landing in a camp, killing a name mob without fighting into the camp? Give the camp NPC's ability to shoot people out of the air. worried about people flying to high, add fatigue to extreme heights....

I like the fatigue for flying high, just not sure how that would work to actually deter people from flying out of range of the average ranged attack. Maybe in the future their will be some cavernous type zones like deepholm where you can put a lower ceiling on areas so people can get hit. I think flying of used properly actually makes the world a lot bigger if they had sky cities etc.

How about next expansion after hitting max level it opens a quest line/scenario to earn flying. Make it so it is something you have to do solo like mage tower and make it really hard. If you finish the main story of each zone you get a buff in the scenario for each zone completed to make it easier. Have the difficulty otherwise scale with your gear though so the only benefit to make it easier is from completing the zones. That way really skilled players will unlock it quickly maybe even skipping a zone or two and the average player has some cool solo content to work towards that helps them master their class as well.

[huth]

Because blizzard is thinking, or they interpret their data that flying hurts the game, simple as that. I dont get why this is so hard to grasp for some people? Doesnt mean u need to agree but its not that hard.

Its like saying why did blizzard removed 10 man raiding, the people that wanted 10 main raids dont play now at all!

Did you quote the wrong post or something?

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

Saying "Pro-flyers = cyclic players, who would quit after just a months of playing" - is just a strawman argument. First you need to prove, that this two are equal. So, where is your prove?

I can say exactly the same. There are no anti-flyers. Players, who play this game without flying = players, who are so addicted, that they will play it, no matter what. So return of flying won't hurt this game.

Shouldn't you worry about your own addiction before generalizing people who like something you don't?

[WowIsDead64]

No
https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...ostas-Is-Right
Was looking for this
The lead game designer of this current game literarly says the game sub playerbase is cyclic

It's appeal to authority, not actual proof.

[Jastall]

Are you trolling here? You twisted the meaning of my words then are brazen enough to accuse me of the fallacy of changing meaning. GTFO.

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Which would be a valid argument.....if you actually got flying after doing the work. But that's not how pathfinder works. You clear everything then have to wait around for 6+ months only to have to do some more work because it was timegated.

Pathfinder without timegates would be a real middle ground. Pathfinder as it is now is garbage.

Yeah, I'm fine with the Pathfinder model, it being account wide and not trivializing all ground content and ground months on the day or week following the xpack's launch is better than rushing to max level and throwing gold at a vendor on every alt to call it a day.

But it needs to be available sooner, is all. 1-2 months is enough for everyone to have enough of the ground content and want to skip things.