Dragonflight "Pathfinder" issue

Community General Discussion
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The flaw in this logic is that you presume that everyone does the same things you do, plays how you play and enjoys the same activities you enjoy.

Your healing rotation? For what, a dungeon, a mythic? You know a lot of people don’t even do dungeons, let alone mythics. Same with raiding in fact.

One thing I continually keep finding myself failing to understand is why does this matter so strongly to some people? What does accessibility do to diminish the gameplay for you? You did a 45 minute quest to get dragonriding, so why are you so upset that people that want greater accessibility want access to an easier flying method with the same amount (low to none) effort?

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One of the coolest things about WoW I noticed when I first started playing back in BC is how much the devs seemed to really care about their players.

I also met and played with a surprising amount of people who had accessability issues in the real world, and so being able to RP as characters who run and jump and even fly was incredibly cathartic, liberating and just plain fun for them. It also enabled people who couldn’t get out of their house much for whatever reason to hang out a large friend group anyway - super cool!

Although the game has significantly evolved over the years, I think this beautiful paradigm still exists for many people. In fact it may be even more strong than ever. In dragonflight the development team took care to include a deaf character, and even the Taivan storyline illustrated how we all have a place and something to contribute here. As the mother of a child with special needs, this was so reassuring and wonderful to see!

With that said however, and with genuinely believing Blizz means well and isn’t excluding anyone on purpose, I really think regular flight should have been an option from the start, alongside dragonriding for those who needed it.

I think perhaps slowing down bots and preventing sky AFK and stopping people from skipping too many mobs, was not worth excluding people. A welcoming community is worth so much more than all that.

Thats my 2 cents for what it’s worth. :upside_down_face:

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You smack upward ascent 3-4x a few seconds apart then just glide down at an angle with your hands sitting in your lap. But it won’t matter soon just do the pathfinder and go back to air swimming so everyone is happy.

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I’m a woman and a couple years shy of sixty while I don’t have RA my hands go numb sometimes when I hold the keyboard buttons down too long. I have been enjoying the hell out of dragon riding it’s faster than regular flying. I’ve even been getting gold on some of the races.
When I go back into old zones I miss dragonriding, I wish all my mounts had this capability. I honestly hope it continues forward into all expansions. If people want regular flying fine, but using the age card won’t garner any sympathy from me lol.

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Because you can bet, Ion and crew, doesn’t care.

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Same, I love dragonriding and I really hope it’s the new normal going forward.

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It isn’t, really. Fuzzy, I mean.

With every new expansion we go through this again…the Pathfinder grind. The defense for it has always been to ‘see the new scenery up close, encourage exploration, and to experience everything offered’. That has some merit, but only to a point…and given how standard/normal flight used to be obtained compared to now, the effort they require of us now to get it is simply ridiculous. So what changed, some may ask?

In WoD, they tried to take flight away from us. Completely, and in perpetuity. And yikes, did that ever turn out to be a stupidly short-sighted decision…and most likely, just to try to save some development costs. Though, some think they were also resentful that we weren’t paying enough attention to their development efforts.

The results were amazing. They were inundated with complaints in every conceivable form; on social media, blogs, email, and in particular these forums, the player base let them have, and hard. Then players started leaving the game, where it REALLY hurt them…$mack in the bottom line.

They had no choice but to reverse the decision, and had to put in a lot of effort to redesign the Draenor map to permit flying again. They didn’t appreciate having their financial derrières handed to them though, and got vindictive.

If we weren’t going to willingly spend all our waking hours doing every possible story-line quest and getting exalted with every single new faction, they were darn well going to make us. Along came pathfinder, and a seriously long time gate…which honestly, can hardly be seen in any way other than punishment for daring to resent their heavy-handedness.

With the introduction of Dragonflight, it seemed like they were finally realizing what made players happy. PF is coming back, though…so I guess we’re about to so if they’ve really learned anything after all.

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because they never ever give anything without taking something. for example: by simply adding the pathfinder would be too obvious, they make it a bit annoying for the player-base who dislike dragonriding.

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Listen I don’t care what YOU want to call it yourself, the game has constantly changed over time since it was originally introduced. Either you change with it or go find something that entertains you better and your feel more happy with. You seem to hold a great deal of hate and anger about one simple change that happen way back in WoD. Clearly they are not going to change it back and the players they lost are not going to come back if they was going to, they could have come back to play Classic when flight was introduced in it.

Point being there is no shame to say a game has changed and its no longer as fun as it once was for what ever reason. It is impractical to think by stomping ones feet over 10 years now and screaming one lead game designers name over and over again with haltered its going to be changed back.

You don’t personally have to accept that there is such a thing as pathfinder in the game at the half way point of an xpac to use all old style flying mounts. But at this point of time, you should come to expect it since it been the standard of the game since WoD which now has been a pretty long time, more than half the life span of flight in the game itself.

So call it oranges and I call it apples how the game design has changed over the years, it doesn’t matter come the end of the day. It has changed, either live with it or don’t. Most other players wont care one way or the other.

The fact the introduction of Dragonriding was a major part of this xpac, one that the majority of players find to be just fine and have no problems with it. And from what I heard and seen myself. Most want it carried on and expanded into the old world as a part of the new standard of flying. However everyone pretty much agrees that it needs further development to help those who have disabilities to find it more friendly to them. Which Blizzard is working on and some of that will be released come 10.2, it just has not been named exactly what.

Pathfinder however is the simplest thing at this point to earn, its been very watered down from its 1st conception back in WoD. If a person just simply does the bare bone basic game play, they automatically earn it. Only those who really skip most the xpac or refuse world content find themselves hard pressured when it is released half way through an xpac to suddenly catch up with everyone else. But that is that persons personal choice.

I hope you can truly find something that keeps you happy and entertained and someday let go of your anger of a change that happen over 10 years ago in a game, that when the day comes that it ends, it will mean very little in the ways of things in real life. All this energy you pour into hating Ion over a game change choice which he was not the only one that made it. Is so wasted and better spent on real life things that matter forever.

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Those don’t help some of us females though…my hands are like the size of a 6 yr old child…very damn small…matter fact when I use to motorcycle years ago I had to have my gloves special made cause none of the adult ones would fit properly…

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So I can PvP and earn it, right? Or I can raid, do M+ and earn it, right? Or is it a specific type of gameplay only gets it.

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Most changes like this could’ve been done from the start but they always wait to make it ‘patch content’ instead of hotfixing it in. Which speaks volumes of the current era of the company, actually.

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I love the Tartarus I wouldn’t play WoW without it. I’ve used a gamepad almost since I started in 2011 first with the Razer Orbweaver now the Tartarus so much better than just using a keyboard.

But that won’t fix everyone’s problems.

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If you only play limited parts of the game you miss out on some things. I’ve never touched M+ so missed out on rewards but I accept that as part of not doing something I hate.

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i’m with you. my time is much better spent freaking out about datamined information!

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Agree 100%.

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I find it so freakin bizarre that we barely ever heard about all these supposed crippling issues with dragonriding until the pathfinder reqs came out and suddenly everyone knows so many people who quit the game over how intensely difficult dragonriding is and gating pathfinder behind some renown is blizzard actively hating disabled people.

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TBH, at this point in the expansion and with the existence of Dragonriding, I don’t really understand why normal flying is gated behind Pathfinder. I would think that most people will just continue to use Dragonriding even after they earn Pathfinder, if they enjoy it, as it’s fun and faster. They should just go back to the way it was in Mists of Pandaria when you could unlock it with gold once you got max level. It would open up the game for people who find Dragonriding difficult or just don’t like it.

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Are there any plans to add anything with regards to people with vision issues? The sudden accelerations kill me.

:cookie:

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Oh wow, this thread really blew up, huh? Are people still mad at me? Eh, I don’t care.

I think it’s great that you were able to get so much attention towards this issue, OP. I haven’t read all these responses, but I hope a discourse was created about how disabled people are still normal and can do anything an abled person can do. For those who can’t, to retain a spirit to keep trying and to live their best life is always admirable.

While I don’t believe Blizzard will ever change their content release to cater to people with disabilities, I think they, as well as I and hopefully many other people, still encourage anyone and everyone to participate in said content. I think Blizz has done great things for ease of access for some key game features and I hope they continue to do so.

I hope you, your friend and all the rest of you enjoy season 3 and all the content coming with it!