FIXING Pathfinder for World of Warcraft

[Maddof-illidan]

We already had to pay 10K gold per each toon to get to 310% and you want to pay more gold? No not gold! Not real dollars either. Just lower Revered to Honored.

[Megascope-echo-isles]

How I’d fix Pathfinder:

• Pathfinder only when restricting flying makes sense. In Legion, for example, the Demon presence, especially in the air, made not flying outside Dalaran reasonable for the beginning of the expansion. In Cata otoh, flying even during levelling also makes sense.

• If there is a Pathfinder, Part 1 should grant flying in the appropriate zones. Back to Legion, PF1 should have allowed flying in the levelling zones. PF2 should have opened the skies above Suramar, and PF3 should have opened up the Broken Shore. People flying into no-fly zones should have been zapped with demon space lasers until they either died or turned around. In BfA, Part 1 should have unlocked Zanda for Horde and KT for Allies. Part 2 should have unlocked the enemy zones, and Part 3 unlocked Nazj.

• If Blizz is honest, giving us flying from day 1 when it makes sense, and Pathfinder when it makes sense to need to unlock an area, I wouldn’t even mind a no-flying expansion, if that TRULY made sense from a story perspective. For instance, not flying on Argus made absolute sense. What would undercut the imposing, “hostile environment” feel more than afking on a huge dragon high in the Argus skies? If there’s a Shadowlands expac, I’d be ok if flying there wasn’t possible. Just so long as they’re willing to give back a little more if there’s a Cata 2.0 or if we revisit Northrend at some point.

[Inkwell-senjin]

SMH… these threads keep recurring. Why? I had flying in a couple of weeks. I do not get this. Spend less time in forums and more earning rep/requirements.

[Maddof-illidan]

Not everyone can play 15 hours per day. Plus, since you got it so fast in two weeks, what difference would it make if you got in one week instead?

[Inkwell-senjin]

Well, I have a demanding full time job and cannot spend more than 4 hours if that a night. The investment of time was a lot less to complete pathfinder, I even cheated and skipped days.

[Maddof-illidan]

You are a very focused and disciplined person.

[Fumbaji-wyrmrest-accord]

Pathfinder would be 100% fine if it unlocked for the initial expansion zones with part 1, then had a new part/achievement for every new zone that comes out that expansion.

Waiting 6-12 months for flying when you already have an achievement you know is geared towards eventually unlocking it feels really bad.

[Vertigineux-thrall (Vertigineux)]

PF3 should have opened up the Broken Shore

I already was iffy abt P2 unlocking Suramar, but you definitely lost me with a P3.

[anon98236733]

If Pathfinder is an absolute necessity because we as players are incapable of fully experiencing the content whilst being able to fly, then it should be unlocked with Part 1, and you should be able to get to work on it from the day the expansion is released.

[Antiman-thrall (Antiman)]

I already was iffy abt P2 unlocking Suramar, but you definitely lost me with a P3.

In this case, a P3 would have fallen into the “new zone, new rep, etc” argument. I.E. it would fall into the complete the zone once to unlock flying for all on the account. Continuing this farther, could have even had a part 4 for Argus flight. Ideally, the parts for these would just be: explore the area, finish the storyline outside of raid/dungeon and reach the appropriate reputation.

[Bulwinkle-feathermoon]

it doesn’t matter what the patch cycle is. pathfinder was wrong from it’s very inception, a bungled attempt at time-gating that was unnecessary and completely wasted a brilliant opportunity on blizzard’s part.

imagine that instead of an achievement like pathfinder, instead you had zone by zone quests.

you get to Boralus at the beginning of BfA, and you can’t fly because they have harpoon launchers and net-cannons all over the harbor. you gotta go do the proudmoore quests and play through the story of the zone before you earn a Proudmoore Flight Permit. this permit wouldn’t even need to be account bound if they paced the questing reasonably well.

then you go to Drustvar. Do the waycrest questline and open up the order of embers. the witches have worked a massive enchantment net over the entire zone, and various elite shades and spirits fly above the cursed lands. you have to do quests for the order of embers to clear out the focal points and nodes where the witches have placed their fetishes or dreamcatcher doohickeys or shrines, there’s dozens of possibilities there. once you break enough of their stuff, it becomes safe to fly again. same as with the proudmoore flight permit for boralus, proper pacing negates the need to make it account bound.

off to stormsong. the tentacle cultists have disturbed the natural order, and eldritch powers have brought unnatural storms over the region. disrupt their rituals and restore the natural balance between the shore and the sea, and the storm recedes, allowing you to fly in stormsong valley.

then when you get to mechagon, half the work for this one is already in game. there’s already anti-air patrols there that will shoot you down if you aren’t careful. i would have put in massive anti-air suppression batteries of various weapons all over the island. then i would have added a rustbolt questline to clear them out one by one. once you get them clear, have a questline to build friendly anti-air stations to fight off the aerial suppression units, and have the prince there award you a Mechagon IFF(Identify Friend or Foe) transponder, allowing you to fly over mechagon. thanks to the nature of gnomish engineering, they could have the emplacements break down and require occasional repeatable quests on the island to repair them and keep flight working.

for nazjatar i would have had the naga using enslaved rays doing anti-air patrols, and give you quests with the ankoan, to work your way through the zone retaking the skies. once you explore the zone and do all the quests taking out the naga patrols you’d then be able to fly through nazjatar.

for zandalar i would have it where as the alliance goes in they have to establish the outposts and then do quests in every zone to gain air supremacy. you establish a beachhead, fight your way into the respective zone and take out whatever anti-air mechanics are put in for that zone. then you can have world quests to keep your flight capability for those zones.

for warfronts like arathi basin and darkshore, you could have flying be a part of that. when one faction takes over the zone, they get flying. when there’s a faction population imbalance, throw in an underdog buff or reduce the resources required for your side to contribute to take the warfront back.

pathfinder had -so much- potential, and blizzard wiped their posterior with it and gave us an achievement grind instead.

So basically like how ffxiv handles flying. Which I love and agree 100%. Zone by zone flying locked behind the quest line if how it should be.

[Biolante-twisting-nether]

Wouldn’t that be weird though? I mean, I can see how it would work for FFXIV, but in WoW? The zones are too integrated together, at least in my opinion, for Blizz to be able to pull it off.

[Pallymcbeal-proudmoore]

Pathfinder Part 2

If there is a pathfinder 2 in next expansion its a no buy for me i am sick of it…

I can deal with pathfinder 1…but pathfinder 2 can go pound sand

[Pallymcbeal-proudmoore]

Wouldn’t that be weird though? I mean, I can see how it would work for FFXIV, but in WoW? The zones are too integrated together, at least in my opinion, for Blizz to be able to pull it off.

Yea, i dont think they could do like ffxiv plus my faith in blizzard of not fubar(ing) well

[Canadiana-gilneas (Canadiana)]

Pathfinder should be changed to a epic quest chain from starting leveling in the new zones to shortly after doing the quest chain in the last zone which you shouldve also hit max level and get to fly.

No part 2 or waiting till some other big patch to be able to finish the epic quest chain.

[Arradin-windrunner (Arradin)]

I play very casually and spend more time in Classic than Live and I was able to finish Pathfinder 2. I only really play one Character in Live though.

[Grävemind-exodar]

Part 2 wouldn’t be so bad if it was released sooner. The requirements are fairly easy

[Magellica-lightnings-blade]

Well said and this is a great scenario that would be ideal.

[Grävemind-exodar]

Thank you very much!

[Fayara-wyrmrest-accord]

FFXIV’s Aether Current system is better in every way. You have to explore a zone fully and complete all of its story and sidequests, then you get flying in that particular area. If you want flying in the whole continent? You gotta do all of the aether currents in every zone on that continent. Want faster flying in a zone? You gotta go get that too, each zone is its own separate quest for flying.

Nobody denies that exploring and doing content should be a thing, people are just sick of all the other crap. Nobody wants to do stupid rep grinds, its idiotic and just there to pad sub time. The funny thing is that if this game had more social elements, you wouldn’t need to pad it to keep people subbed, people would just show up to hang out in the game. But since this game entirely revolves around muh gear grind treadmill muh raids muh bigger numbers muh endgame muh newest patch muh tiny island then its actually making players less interested in the game overall.

But I guess you get the top 1% of raid tryhards who stay subbed for 1 week each patch, so congrats? Blizzard has no idea who even plays MMOs anymore, so they’ll never fix the most blatantly obvious bad design decisions. Executives, director, producers of this game need to be sacked and replaced with people who actually understand the audience, pathfinder is just more evidence that the current suits don’t and probably have never played this game, or any MMO, or any game at all in their lives.