But it was changed. Whether it needed it or not is… inconsequential. It doesn’t matter. Pathfinder is (BFA), Pathfinder has been (WoD/Legion), and Pathfinder will be (Shadowlands). That’s just… the way it is, and it probably won’t be changing.
Yup. Exactly like that. The people raging on about it are decidedly in the minority when it comes to the total number of WoW players. Because, again, those who post on forums about WoW are not in the majority of players. Most players just… play.
If they had it their way then it would be nothing. They’ve actually stated they dislike flying, but it’s something extremely demanded by the player base. Rather than just hand over flying through gold they want you to play the game, experience the world that they created for us to go through, and get flying as a sort of bonus for us since ‘we’ the playerbase are ultimately the ones that wanted flying to begin with.
I personally don’t care for pathfinder, I didn’t get it in legion when I came in late to the game and I didn’t care to grind it out because I didn’t feel it was extremely necessary to my gameplay. I have it now but it was more something I did passively while doing content. 
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I am fine with pathfinder as long as there is NO REP GRIND. Seriously screw that. I’m fine having to do story quests, maybe some dungeons or bgs whatever, but the rep grind is ridiculous and annoying af.
This is what blizz is doing to themselves and the game with Pathfinder. I admit, I was dumb and burned a bunch of tokens on game time and couldn’t unsub, but I’m not making that mistake again. I have a few alts and in BfA and Legion both I didn’t level any of them until they could fly. Did absolutely nothing to enhance my enjoyment of the game or my immersion. This time I’ll be immersed all right, but in FF14, not Shadowlands. They’ll get my money 6 weeks before flight is fully available, no sub, no pre-purchase.
While the customers that use the forums will always be in the minority of the whole customer base, I wonder how many that buy the product would like a grind and 9 months of time gating and then more grinding to get flying back or would they like it at max level?
Those that praise a company as well as take the time to complain, will always be in the minority but should give a very good pulse of the companies product and the customer’s response. All of that falls on deaf ears since time and time again we are told developers don’t read the forums. That is simply proof there needs to be a massive change in leadership.
I disagree with the “nothing to do” part. I for one have 10 alts to level and gear, and I sure as frakk wont do that without flight. I’ve worked since the end of July when I completed PF2 and I’ve only got half of them done, and nowhere near geared. Pathfinder is giving me something to do this time, but its finally trying out FF14 and I don’t really think that’s what blizz wants. 
This is why I’m going to back to FFXIV permanently. It’s just so excessive at this point that it distracts from the parts of the game I wanted to genuinely enjoy, such as raiding and challenging dungeons. Also, the class design leaves a lot to be desired, with tanks essentially feeling like AoE spam bots. Especially the warrior.
Also no attempt at getting people to connect with one another at low level and now we have multiple parallel leveling paths. It was already pretty empty with us all going through cata content from 1-60. Now its going to be a ghost town.
No more pathfinding timegating crap. Just stop flying for the first 2 months or until the first raid is released. This idiotic long grind in reps+quests is boring as hell and not fun. If your objective is just to time gate then just freaking time gate flying for 2 months or so and be done with it.
I get you want people to not cheese everything by being able to fly when the expansion launches. Fine…but don t force that crap grind when what you want is simply to time gate flying. Just provide it for gold after 2 or 4 months
None of your examples make flying mandatory. It’s only about your feels. You prefer to farm as fast as others might so you choose to keep up. You prefer to PvP so you choose to turn on Warmode. Blizzard isn’t disabling your ground mounts and reversing gravity, that would be mandatory, it’s your choice to fly. During the Pathfinder spite-gate, Blizzard does disable my flying mounts. Not flying isn’t my choice, it is actually mandatory.
Behold the worst argument ever.
I’m sticking around for the anniversary and I am unwilling I will be spending my money on other games. I’m burned out on pathfinder as well. I’ll probably be back when flying is unlocked, if I still care by then
Blizzard wants us to forget about flight fine then give a full refund of gold or Real world money to EVERY player that bought any ingame or store sold flier as well as remove any flying mounts from every aspect of WoW and no longer use flying as a marketing tool in any capacity
Since were on the subject of compromise its amazing how Blizzard claims they hate flight yet they have no problem compromising their own plan for it when theres a way to milk cash for them
So since many people don’t raid all gear should be capped at LFR level until a “reasonable time period” so casuals dont feel “gimped” compared to all the raiders??
What about those people who want to level slowly, should leveling be capped at one level a week for the first couple months, so those people don’t feel forced to play a way they dont enjoy?? That’s exactly the same as your statement about Pathfinder. Just because you don’t like flying doesn’t mean we should all be grounded. And just because you perceive an imbalance, doesn’t mean you are forced to do something.
From what I understand, FFXIV gates flying behind the main questlines and exploration. Seems to work pretty well.
There is value to not just letting people fly over everything from the start, but making them do it for a whole year for no reason but to mask how thin the content is is just dumb.
I don’t get why they do this. There are better ways they can get us to see the content like making it more engaging or increase our rep gains or have a great mount pet transmog locked behind it. I used to do all the quests in each zone or at least hit max level when flying was unlocked at max level I still have most of my characters in their nineties I have three level 120s one of them was my boost from Bfa or she wouldn’t have been past 90 either.
Well i do have to admit Blizzard has compromised in the truest sense of the word
They give us excuses and take their time giving us explanations
I want blizzard to remove Pathfinder. Me not pre-purchasing SL, unsubbing until 6 weeks before flight is available and spending that $200 (assuming the same 9 month spite-gate length as BfA) on FF14 will be my comprise with blizz. I know blizz cares nothing about me but if even 1% of the widely assumed 1 million subs left that’s a couple million $ and they might notice that.
Every expansion from BC to MoP had flying at max and no Pathfinder. THEY CANGED IT ONCE, THEY COULD CHANGE IT AGAIN.
Correct. You have to go over almost all of the zone looking for the aether currents to “better understand the currents and topography of the zone”, and you have to complete the main quest line for the zone, with several aether currents being given as quest rewards, with the final current usually given on the last main scenario quest of the zone.
Then you can fly in the zone, and complete side quests, exploration, etc.
I dont want nothing im fine with path finder you dont speak for the community.