It completely sucks all the fun out of the game for me. Pathfinder has changed the way I play this game. I rush through the story instead of taking my time and enjoying it because I want to unlock flying faster. I spend all my time doing timegated rep grinds that I hate because I want to unlock flying faster. Seriously last expansion I didn’t even know how amazing Suramar was as a zone until after I unlocked flying, because I spent the vast majority of my time there being frustrated while trying to unlock flying. It really is a beautiful zone with lots of fun Easter eggs and stuff sprinkled around it, but I quite literally never knew anything about that the first time I went through it because of having to unlock flying.
Pathfinder is completely killing off my enjoyment for this game. The things I used to love about this game like playing through the game’s story and going through the beautiful zones and enjoying them is completely gone now because I spend the vast majority of my time playing this game now just being annoyed while trying to unlock flying. I did that for the past 2 expansions (WoD and Legion), and with BfA I just said enough is enough, it’s just not worth it anymore. I’d rather go and play a different game where I can just enjoy the content it has to offer without being frustrated or annoyed. And that’s exactly what I’m doing now.
Seems like the flying unlock is working as intended. You ground-pound your way through for rep and stuffs to wear/eat/play with. Then with flying, you can zoom to the map marker directly. I was fine with Nazatar on the ground but with flying, you can see the extraordinary water walls in their amazing graphics glory.
You’ll probably be in here complaining about the aerial mobs in Naz and Mechagon that’s stifling your flying.
See ya around when you realize the game is the game, whether you don’t like this or that. They’re not going to accommodate your likes and dislikes. It’s just the way the game IS. Play or don’t.
I mean…don’t act like anything in wow is set in stone. Pathfinder CAN change at any given time if they cared. It’s obvious they don’t but it can change.
Personally I think pathfinder is fine but flying needs to unlock as soon as you complete part 1.
So you miss all the ground level effects of the two new zones they put in with 8.2? You’ll just fly around avoiding all mobs, without doing half of the quests and events they put in (which is what fills most of the year long wait - they worked on the big huge patch).
Easy to say “let us fly right away!” but you know what happened in Cata? There was nothing to work towards, we all flew around and sucked up all the available content way WAY before the xpac ended. At least I did. I was off playing other games for months (while still subbed) waiting for Mists.
That’s what flying right away entails. Blizzard knows exactly how that worked out. They couldn’t avoid it since Cata was built within Azeroth but it took awhile for full Azeroth flying and we had lots of “uh oh invisible border - dismount/fall down” incidents then.
Pathfinder lets them make smaller new world zones since you’re going to go thru it twice. They don’t care that your alts can fly from the beginning, they got your main to hoof it thru and consume all that they worked on. It’s understandable that they want to maximize their efforts and give you a reason to keep playing.
Pathfinder is totally fine. This game is not built around our impatience and underlying gamer perspective to “beat the game fast”. Just slow down and enjoy the journey.
How else are they going to keep us here? Yeah, yeah - make new content that’s FUN. Anything new will get old the second you do it. Anything fun will become un-fun after awhile. That’s how life works.
I forgot, most of you are little boys who can watch the same movie 349604364 times in a row and laugh at the same jokes.
For the adult gamers, of course we want new stuff but we know that “oooh, new shiny!!” feeling don’t last. Having a steady “gotta do this today” reason keeps us playing. We need the “k, get to next town, go to the cave/dungeon, look for a nicer looking axe” type of content flow.
If you don’t know how to play within this metric, you’re not a true RPGamer.
I’m 36 and have been playing RPGs including DnD and Vampire the Masquerade since middle school. I’ve been playing wow since 07. I know what I like so don’t act like you’re talking to a kid.
It’s been a trend with me that I play MORE when flying is available not less. I never started taking long breaks from this game until WoD and the devs stupid war on flying. Since WoD I’ve taken an 8 month break, three 3 month breaks, and a 6 month break. Before WoD I’d take a month break AT MOST. Why? Flying is fun for me. I’d rather be in this world when I can fly. I’m sure I’m not alone but I won’t speak for anyone but myself.
Also remember players FLIPPED OUT over the no flying going forward announcement. It was such a backlash Blizzard had to quickly reverse that decision.
It was All brand new. We didn’t know anything. I never played an online game of this scale before (Kingdom of Loathing doesn’t count). We learned as we played. The game sucked lagballs, sometimes all I could do was go fish. But I played everyday cuz it was all new and amazing regardless. Plus the people on my realm, the realm forum, the guilds.
After 15 years, they can’t bring that feeling of innocent awe-struck wonder back again. I try with every xpac - refuse to beta, refuse PTR so I can start of day one of Live with new eyes.
What keeps me here - and prevented me from quitting this never-ending grindy game mid-TBC is the achievement system.
Gimme stuffs to do and I’m a happy gamer.
But you’re a boy. We see things differently, you know.
Of course flying is great and makes the whole game “easier” to play. But if we got flying right away, we won’t do the groundwork (hehe get it?). There are reasons why this game is this way. And it’s all Blizzard’s decision. We just play or don’t.
For the most part I can agree… for Part 1. However, Part 1 should have unlocked flying for Kul Tiras and Zandalar. Part 2 should just be separate for the Mechagon and Nazjatar. Locking them all together, was just plain stupid.
I still firmly believe pathfinder shouldn’t exist at all though. It makes no sense to lose flying because we travel somewhere new. Pretty sure my mounts would still know how to fly.
What I’m saying is it worked great for 8 years and many people consider that the best and most fun times of wow. I’m not delusional enough to think it was because of flying but during those years flying was embraced by the devs and community. Why can’t the devs embrace it again?
Edit - flying doesn’t make the game easier. Flying eliminates the tedium.
It is crazy how small minded a lot of the player base has become. If you need a model for an amazing MMO that knows how to make a good RPG, ESO is your guy.
I feel that brand new title wears off after a year or two. Especially when they create a new expansion with new territory for people to conquer. And I absolutely disagree that it’s impossible to create that level of awe struck wonder like they did back in the day. They’re just not utilizing the systems that made the game successful before. They’re too wrapped up in trying to be the “New Generation” and forgetting the past.
The biggest props I will always give is the art and music team. They’ve knocked it out of the park each expansion. But where they fall short every time is in gameplay.
Like for instance, the World Quest and AP system was new in Legion. Therefore while there were complaints, it was something that people had accepted for a while just to test it out and see how it would all pan out. The AP system was not well received. What did they do? They brought it back. The World Quest system was bland with kind of meh dailies for people to do. How did they grow the system in BFA? They didn’t.
Uh, make something new? Add more fun cosmetic things to create in professions or that drop in world. Add player housing. Add group fishing adventures or boating adventures. Revamp old questing zones that makes it worth while for us to go back there at 120. Let players be part of creating armor sets by holding art concept contests. Add back reputation tabards, and things worth while to queue dungeons for again - not just azerite. Ask players for ideas. There’s tons of stuff they can do, but they rather us re-earn old content. Awful.
Took me about 10 days of about 1.5 to 2hrs a day to get revered with both factions. This meant i just went to nazj and mechagon and did all the quests there every day. Not a big deal and i got to know the zones well and the quests before i unlocked flying.
The Nazatar bodyguard system is new. It’s a consolidation of Warlords bodyguard system and Legion champions. That we rank them up doing specific quests for them and get set rewards from them is different.
With millions of players, there will be (already are) millions of ideas. They have implemented a lot of player ideas over the years - the addons that were incorporated into the game (LFG, saving mog sets, etc.) Are player ideas.
Your character there has 440 achievement points - there’s tons of things for you to do from older content. Don’t ask for new ice cream when you haven’t finished what they’ve already given you.
Getting an NPC to level up like you just pointed out isn’t really new because they just put 2 already existing things together. If that’s the best thing you can put forward that’s new content for World Quests you’re kind of proving my point.