Blizzard needs a final decision on flight

Community General Discussion
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Now before people launch in and make this a typical flight thread, I don’t want it to be that. Read and consider before responding.

I think that Blizzard is doing the #1 thing that a company should always avoid when they have a live product, and that is hesitating.

They have made their stance clear that they (the current dev team) don’t really like or want flight in content moving forward. But it is a feature that is too prominent to really get rid of without severely impacting their current sub base.

Blizzard really needs to make the final call and either abandon flight moving forward, take the unavoidable and painful impact, then start building the game they truly want to see and hope it pays off,

OR

They need to accept that the majority of players like / don’t mind flying and embrace it. Take the game vertical. Reintroduce zones like Storm Peaks, or Terrokar Forest and make flight a more important feature than “gets there fast.”

If Blizzard is too nervous to truly kill flight (which is understandable, it would be a nightmare to transition into an immediately flightless future) then they need to use the feature to refresh the entire game. Experiment with it and just YOLO the hell out of an expansion with flying and see what happens. Take risks. Be Blizzard.

  1. Flight unlock quest per zone that is integrated into the leveling chain. Complete the chain, unlock flight for that zone, which enables:
  2. Flight-centric quest hubs like Netherwing / Cloud Serpents.
  3. Flight enabled combat against other players (wouldn’t work on the ground, mobs need a path, probably wouldn’t work well against other players, but it would be easier, like I said this is YOLO time)
  4. Zones with flight-exclusive areas and quests.
  5. ??? Who knows, try some stuff.

The reality is that Blizzard is stagnating and stuck with this “we don’t like flying but can’t get rid of it” stance, and honestly flight worked best in WoTLK, Cata, and MoP, when Blizzard was still trying to use it as a game play feature, instead of just acknowledging that it exists as a convenience.

I really, truly, from the bottom of my soul, do not care if flying exists. I use flying whenever possible but if they made a tweet saying it was cancelled in all future content, I would not even waste the energy to shrug my shoulders. However, I think that the damage from trying to remove it would not be worth the gain, unless they delivered flawless game design for years afterward.

But embracing it as a unique opportunity to bring new features into a 15 year old game could be a solid decision. Warcraft is aging, and despite the staying power, it needs something new to stay relevant. A renewed and expanded flight mechanic allows them to shake up almost every aspect of the game without having to actually do anything. They have all the ingredients in their kitchen, they just need to make us a different sandwich.

Elzar: “And maybe make things interesting with a blast from your spice weasel, BAM!”

“GET OUT OF HERE, ELZAR, YOUR SHOW ENDED YEARS AGO!”

All food-related metaphors and cameo appearances aside, here is the tl;dr-

I think that either way, Warcraft would benefit from a whole-hearted shift toward a future that either finally kills flight and focuses on the ground experience, or embraces flight and builds the game around it, but the choice needs to be made, and they need to be all-in.

24 Likes
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They made their decision… it’s called Pathfinder.

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Fly around all you want, when you land the game still sucks.

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Indecision is not a decision. What I’m saying is that we need a WoW that either uses flight to improve the game, or make the hard call and build a game without it. Tacking it on as an after thought really benefits neither party. I do like Pathfinder, but it is an inefficient band-aid to a complaint that will just come back in a cycle every time they release a new expansion.

They need to apply the same rule I use for home repair: If I complain about it consistently, it is time to find a solution.

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I don’t like the per zone unlock idea, because what happens when you fly from one zone to another? Instantly fall to your death? That sounds like it would stink, even if you got a chute and didn’t die that would be an inconvenience to get knocked out of the air.

I’d rather see it as a “Patch” unlock, so taking legion for example, pathfinder part 1 could have unlocked flying in all the zones when the expansion launched, then part 2 would unlock flying in the broken shore, and a part 3 could be added to unlock flight in argus, this way players can unlock flight as soon as they wanted, without being forced to wait a year(ish) while still keeping people grounded until they’ve “seen it all”.

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They’re happy with Pathfinder they plan to continue it. That’s a decision.

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They were wrong, and it cost them millions of subscriptions

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You’re crazy if you think everybody unsubbed because of lack of flying. I just…what…?

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It has become a carrot that they throw mid expansion to people who have grinded multiple reps.

It’s an awful, not fun, vindictive feeling design.

They need to rethink everything they have done to botch up this game during BfA. Continuing on with pathfinder is just a bad idea. People use to grind individual reps for special items… we don’t even get to do that anymore because it’s not special when everyone is forced to grind all the damn reps for flight.

Pathfinder just pisses me off. I can’t find the desire to grind these last two reps it just feels so tedious for something that honestly should be able to be purchased with gold at the launch of the expansion.

Lazy, Lazy, Lazy.

25 Likes
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Probably one of the reasons for the attempted removal, and now use of pathfinder to delay flight is a result of newly introduced land size. TBC was the intro of flight so it is hard to consider, and Northrend was very large. Cataclysm was part of the original continents (already large) so it is not a good starting point.

However, each expansion since has introduced new continental land masses that have gotten progressively smaller. They have also had many more obstructions that cannot be crossed or climbed on the ground. Because of this it might take you 5 minutes to get to a location where you could fly there in less than 30 seconds. This creates the illusion of a land mass that is much larger.

Simply put, it is not a matter of depriving us a feature of the game, but rather cutting back on the development and total area of play space.

6 Likes
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Of course its is…the developers hate flying…they tried to get rid of it WoD had to a 180 and put it back in…now they are using pathfinder to gate flying for over half the expansion…

Nothing more nothing less…
Now the only thing AND THE ONLY THINK THAT WILL CHANGE THERE MIND IS PEOPLE UNSUB OVER PATHFINDER…which the wont (majority of player base) which means pathfinder is there Decision and its here to stay…if they have pathfinder 2 (which they will)
My Decision will not buy the next expansion and cancellation of my sub…only thing i have thats in my power…

1 Like
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sure Blizzard merely back peddled on the no flight ever plan only 2 weeks AFTER saying it had nothing to do with people cancelling subs

they did it because the developers felt bad and had a change of heart but it wasn’t due to the millions of $$$ the company stood to lose huh?

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You not liking the decision doesn’t mean that it was indecision on the part of the developers. Deal with it.

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See, this is a good example of a response without reading a word of my original post. Not only did I emphasize that I do not care about flight either way, I also like pathfinder. And my post history almost contradicts my stance in this thread.

What I am saying is that Blizzard needs a vision for WoW. That is either a game that uses flight in new, interesting ways, or one that builds a game where it is not missed. I want a WOW that will hold up for another 15 years, and that means making some big-kid decisions.

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Troll… lol joking … yeah good points … guess what the people in charge want a different vision for this game. So it’s why I’ve really second-guessed being for the next expansion if the same practices happen. I’ll admit Pathfinder 1 structure is ok. I think that rep would only make sense when current. To unlock and fly. Making it a 1 yr wait is silly.

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Your OP is irrelevant… they have “a vision for WoW” it’s Pathfinder. It’s time to accept that.

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I think we mean less passive aggressive petty responses to the backlash they received for causing a non existing problem.

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Flying is important to me. So much so, it’s game breaking.

If they remove flying, then I’ll wander away like an unloved pet, taking my money with me.

That is all.

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All I’m saying is the OP wanted a final decision and all signs point to Pathfinder being that final decision.

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Blizzard did make their final decision on flight, people just don’t like it. The final decision on flight is pathfinder, they are just iterating on it to try and improve it. This time around they are planning to allow us to fly in all zones going forward into the expansion so we don’t have the Argus problem again.

2 Likes