Why flying being gated behind rep grind makes no sense

[Dugna]

WotLK got a NO-FLY ZONE and lots of dismount patrols in the open world.

WotLK had it issues with flying, just as much as in TBC. The only thing that softened in WotLK was the PRICE for (faster)-flying. 150% flyspeed was not game braking and you had to use normal flightpaths to get somewhere faster.

The pre-WoD era could utilize gold as additional time gating but this door is closed forever with the amount of gold casual players could get over time with just garrisons and a fleet of alts.

So yes WotLK had a working timegating for casual flying, because gold was limited, you had to pay for every character (alt fleets) and the ICC-flying achievement was in the second half of the expansion, just as pathfinder is right now.

Did you even play WotLK to any extend? Players were extremly frustrated with the AFK parking of characters outside of the normal gaming world. Even players who never participated in PvP activitys used everything they got (slowfall, immunitys, etc) to kill AFK flying players in the air.

WotLK had its pro's but flying was not one of it.

People killed afkers in the air not because of frustration but more for free honor points and hks, if you flew high enough most people never noticed you or cared. Taken from somebody who played the majority of WTLK. Flying was definitely a must and many people enjoyed it, the only bullshit about flying involved not even flying as much as NE Druids being able to shadowmeld flight form away from fights but thats a mix of racial problems not flights issue, kinda like how some people complained about bubble hearthing.

[Snowbatt]

I always wondered why you simply couldn't get flying by finishing your factions main campaign.
The grind I had to do in that city of Suramar back in Legion frustrated me so bloody hard I wanted to level the whole damn place using a 7 kiloton nuclear bomb.

[tripleh]

The main issue is the 6+ month wait to get part 2 to start working towards unlocking flying. I have no real issue with pathfinder, just the wait. If they got rid of the delay that requires a patch in order to enable flying. You would see less people complaining about it. Flying is a part of the game, without it. Selling flying mounts would be a waste of time in the store. They refuse to go back to the original design at max level from a trainer. Patherfinder could be viewed as a compromise if there was no wait. The wait makes it more of a dev retailiation against the players that want flying.

[Lodreh]

...But can anyone tell me what part of the game you cant enjoy without flying?

Leveling Alts... farming mats... avoiding packs of mobs that drop nothing of value on the way to do WQ/ Invasions/ etc.

Flying from point A to point B to do activity X... feels rewarding and I can do/ play the game at my pace... playing for my enjoyment the way I want to.

Running from point A to point B to do activity X... takes longer... will most likely have to fight mobs that drop nothing while burning more time doing things I am not enjoying.

TL;DR ~ One of these is being as expeditious as possible while the other is unnecessarily frustrating.

The main issue is the 6+ month wait to get part 2 to start working towards unlocking flying. I have no real issue with pathfinder, just the wait. If they got rid of the delay that requires a patch in order to enable flying. You would see less people complaining about it. Flying is a part of the game, without it. Selling flying mounts would be a waste of time in the store. They refuse to go back to the original design at max level from a trainer. Pathfinder could be viewed as a compromise if there was no wait. The wait makes it more of a dev retaliation against the players that want flying.

This is accurate.

[tmamass]

Before when you bought flying for gold, you never had flying during leveling.

WRONG! in CATA flying was there from START and not taken away from you!

[Cyranis]

The main issue is the 6+ month wait to get part 2 to start working towards unlocking flying. I have no real issue with pathfinder, just the wait. If they got rid of the delay that requires a patch in order to enable flying. You would see less people complaining about it. Flying is a part of the game, without it. Selling flying mounts would be a waste of time in the store. They refuse to go back to the original design at max level from a trainer. Patherfinder could be viewed as a compromise if there was no wait. The wait makes it more of a dev retailiation against the players that want flying.

Pathfinder is the compromise. The devs wanted to completely remove flying.
The choice is No flying at all, or Pathfinder. There is no always flying option.

[rrayy]

Actually, you did. In Cata.

That is the exception to the rule and done because of where the zones were, particularly Hyjal, Uldum and Twilight Highlands. Blizzard didn't want to have another Wintergrasp situation with people being demounted over those zones when flying so, they gave it right way.

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The underlying idea of your post is a contradiction. Moreover, he can be the arbiter of player enjoyment in so far that it is a strong assumption to make that there is a great number of players who enjoy flying.

Are there players who enjoy the current status quo? Good for them, they can keep themselves grounded.

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Your pvp point is nullified by the existence of War Mode.

And yes, flying for me is important because I enjoy farming. Personal annecdote: I recall back in vanilla lvling up herbalism a few months prior to TBC and thinking to myself "wouldn't be great to do this while flying?", and it is, every single time.

Plus, I enjoy the the freedom that it gives to move around how I want and at the speed I want.

As for the rep, personally that is not a flying issue, but the way rep farming works in BFA. If players a diversity of ways of acquiring rep - say rep tabards - rep grinding would be better. But that would pose Blizzard the same issue that flying would: we'd be done with farming quickly.

I now see the old pro flying argument: why don't you just use your ground mount then? Nothing is stopping you. Oh but it gives you an unfair advantage over me? What do you care how I play the game? At least I'm not forcing you to fly

It has been shown time and time again why your argument is a failure. People are not going to intentionally gimp themselves by staying grouded when flying is available. But you have already established all you care about is you being catered to and everyone should play your way. BLizzard decids hwo things are going to go, not you. They have decided. You have to deal with it.,

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I always wondered why you simply couldn't get flying by finishing your factions main campaign.
The grind I had to do in that city of Suramar back in Legion frustrated me so bloody hard I wanted to level the whole damn place using a 7 kiloton nuclear bomb.

Notice that they didn't have any grind like that this time around.

[Grimbold21]

That is the exception to the rule and done because of where the zones were, particularly Hyjal, Uldum and Twilight Highlands. Blizzard didn't want to have another Wintergrasp situation with people being demounted over those zones when flying so, they gave it right way.

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It has been shown time and time again why your argument is a failure. People are not going to intentionally gimp themselves by staying grouded when flying is available. But you have already established all you care about is you being catered to and everyone should play your way. BLizzard decids hwo things are going to go, not you. They have decided. You have to deal with it.,

That's not a failure of my response, but rather of their respective conviction and consequential weakness.

The irony of your "criticism". I want the game catered to me? The implementation of flying does not remove the use of ground mounts from the game. It is the fervent no-flying crowd that wants the game played by their own tastes, and that indeed removes or limits an element of the game enjoyed by other people.

Moreover, one could easily argue that the implementation of Pathfinder like measures is catering to the no flying crowd, because, you know, after vanilla we had 4 game iterations where flying was easily accessible.

[rrayy]

That's not a failure of my response, but rather of their respective conviction and consequential weakness.

No it is a failed argument. You trying to simply declare yourself right doesn't change it.

[Grimbold21]

No it is a failed argument. You trying to simply declare yourself right doesn't change it.

A no-flying player succumbing to the temptation of using a flying mount is not a rebuttal of my argument.

[Benedictu]

My biggest problem with flight is that pathfinder makes absolutely no sense from an in-game standpoint. How do our mounts just suddenly forget how to fly? How does doing rep grinds suddenly make them learn how to fly? Makes no literal sense.

[Granyala]

I think its part of the reason why vanilla/classic works and flight doesn't feel like its missing so much. its BECAUSE the zones are more flat and less dense to the point where you are constantly distracted by all the clutter, whether its terrain, or enemies or both.

Yup, it started sometime in Pandaria (Isle of Thunder me thinks) that Blizzard designed maps that felt totally claustrophobic and made you aggro some shit every 2 steps.

It's a super annoying design choice that definitely made the open world a lot less fun for me when glued to the ground. It took ages for me to get epic flight in BC but I never had that much trouble avoiding mobs b/c outside of enemy hotspots (that's ok) mob density was far lower.

Don't even get me started on all them annoying little "decoration doodads" my character constantly gets stuck on. >.<

[RWQ]

Pathfinder is the compromise. The devs wanted to completely remove flying.
The choice is No flying at all, or Pathfinder. There is no always flying option.

It is a compromise. I don't think it's the best one.

The fact that in order to do pathfinder you have to grind the same content over and over is not great, and the fact that they FORCE you to draw that content out doesn't help. It completely fucks players that can't play daily. Other games I can just grind hard on the weekend (FFXIV leves style). In WoW, pathfinder is basically "once you fucking despise the content, then you can do it in a way that won't make you despise it. Of course, it'll be too late to change your hatred by then."

I have the same problem with pathfinder that I did with allied races. Here's my fucking crazy request for your game Blizzard... let me actually fucking play the parts I want.

Had time I could play a lot and wanted to level a DI dwarf. NOPE, had to wait around behind some time gated rep grinds. By the time I could actually play what I wanted, I didn't have the time anymore.

Pathfinder is a compromise. It's a compromise that could easily be improved in several ways. Including just an ability to grind 1 rep/mob mobs.

[Granyala]

WRONG! in CATA flying was there from START and not taken away from you!

And, to be blunt: that was a huge mistake. Cata felt soo forgettable and disconnected.

Even as a pro flyer I thought that flight was handled better in Pandaria.

[RWQ]

Yup, it started sometime in Pandaria (Isle of Thunder me thinks) that Blizzard designed maps that felt totally claustrophobic and made you aggro some shit every 2 steps.

It's a super annoying design choice that definitely made the open world a lot less fun for me when glued to the ground. It took ages for me to get epic flight in BC but I never had that much trouble avoiding mobs b/c outside of enemy hotspots (that's ok) mob density was far lower.

Don't even get me started on all them annoying little "decoration doodads" my character constantly gets stuck on. >.<

Just started playing classic again and this is something that jumped out at me. I could still run between mobs. There was distance between things. Clear paths.

Feeling like if I so much as look the wrong way while fighting ANY mob in nazjatar is just irritating.

[Granyala]

It is a compromise. I don't think it's the best one.

I think it takes far too long to get flight. By the time you get it in WoW you are basically done with the content.
FF-XIV does it best: finish the main story of a zone and explore it to some extent -> you get the ability to fly for all sidequests.

So you get flight and there is actually still stuff you haven't seen to explore with it.

[Megitsune]

I'm okay with the whole pathfinder thing, I just really wish it wasn't gated behind rep. A quest chain, even if it's super long, would be so much better. Or just anything other than rep. Having it gated behind any sort of rep grind is just so lazy and boring to me.

[tripleh]

Pathfinder is the compromise. The devs wanted to completely remove flying.
The choice is No flying at all, or Pathfinder. There is no always flying option.

Pathfinder is retailiation not a compromise. It was fine the way it always was, at max level from a trainer. We know this because of the massive unsub when they had announced no flying in wod. That prompted a customer service window pop up when you went to cancel your sub. Blizzards hand was forced to add flying when player numbers were high cancelling there subs. https://www.inquisitr.com/2161392/fl...ost-6-2-patch/. If unsub numbers weren't high, then why else would they go back on what they said and re-add flying ? Pathfinder could only be a compromise if there wasnt a 6+month wait to get flying. Course they added in a part 2 to complete as well. Instead of just leaving it with one part only. This is one reason why I hope blizzard has more layoffs, just a way to teach the devs a lesson. When they see there fellow coworkers/friends get there jobs taken.

[cparle87]

Before when you bought flying for gold, you never had flying during leveling.

Well, you bought flying 3 levels before cap in Wrath. And had it from the beginning from 60+ in all zones in Cata.

[Nightstalker]

Before when you bought flying for gold, you never had flying during leveling.

Bought in TBC at 68, in Wrath at 77, in Cata at the start.