But these mass amounts are not there for returning players. They nerfed the gold rewards tremendously.
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Nah, Pathfinder is a good solution. I’d actually go as far to say that it is an ideal solution.
The zones are, almost always (Catalcysm being the exception), designed to be experienced from the ground. It is perfectly legitimate to disable flying while the xpac is still fresh and people are still exploring.
One might say “iF yoU dOn’T LiKe fLyiNg, jUsT StAy oN tHe GrOuNd!”
But that creates unbalance. If flying is available, and I am an herbalist, I am actively hurting my herb making capacity if I chose to stay on the ground. If I am in warmode, and I choose to be on the ground, I am making myself a target. World content is such that flying is mandatory when it is enabled. I don’t usually like the “this is mandatory” argument, but this applies here.
Lastly, earning 5000 gold for each alt to get fast flying is annoying. Pathfinder, you do it once on your main, and your alts can even level up when flying. It just asks that you explore the world on the ground before you can take to the skies.
Pathfinder creates unbalance as well since it requires more then Loremaster/Explorer which would be reasonable imo. So you have about 50% of BfA players flying and the other half not.
And playing a tedious grind to get flying is not everyones idea of fun, so players quit.
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That unbalance is mitigated by the ever-so complained about time gate. Its not grindy. You have PLENTY of time, through doing content that you should be doing anyway, to essentially earn Pathfinder Part 1 automatically. And Part 2 has always been easy as hell to earn.
Pathfinder without a timegate would be awful. The time gate is important to be there.
For me this isn’t an issue of anything other than accessibility. I’m disabled from two chronic illnesses and I’ve had to forgo flying since Pandaria because I don’t have the time or physical energy needed to devote to both playing the game to enjoy it and all the grinding to unlock flying. I spent so much time in hospital and recovery during Warlords and Legion that I still haven’t caught up on all of the content, much less everything that’s needed to be able to fly for those expansions, and while I’ve been able to grind a bit for BfA because of some symptom improvement, it’s still exhausting and time-consuming to the point where it goes beyond a preference or having the luxury of not caring one way or the other. By the time I’m catching up to the very basic qualifications for an expac’s flight license, the next expac has already been announced or released. I used to be able to not miss out on aspects of gameplay and keep up with expansions back in the day, even when I was sick, and in-game flight helped me do that. I’m missing out on content I’m paying actual money for because the compromises reached for flying weren’t made for people like myself in mind.
What was so bad about paying for flying like before? It worked for Warcraft, Burning Crusade, Wrath, and Pandaria - why the change? What is the earth-shattering reason why we can’t bring it back? I’m not asking for the game to be easy, I’m asking for it to be made a little more accessible. I don’t mind a little grind for reputation if I want to pursue that, but my body physically can’t handle just sitting up in a chair some days, much less months of extra grinding for something that used to be purchasable with in-game currency. Being able to fly in-game would help me reach all of the content that I’m paying to see and help me play this game and do everything I want to do in the game…you know…like before, during the first three expansions when there was literally nothing wrong with it.
I get it, WoW is ‘just a game’, but WoW is also some of the only escapism still left to me at this point in my life where I can pretend I’m not sick for awhile and it sucks heavily that I pay the same amount as everyone else but become drained quickly in the process of too much grinding to access what everyone else can. 
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Unlikely to matter, they would likely expect those who still have gold to pay it and those who don’t to buy a token to pay for it.
There is no reason for the delay. Reps are time gated enough.
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And I think that’s a reasonable attitude. It’s the more extreme views in here that I’m mostly arguing against.
So my post is based on folks who say “Then just don’t fly.” I bring up an issue with how that would work out, and your solution is that I… fly (second hand fly as a passenger, but still fly). So we’re just reinforcing that not-flying in an environment where others are flying is not exactly a good solution for folks who don’t like flying in WoW. Because apparently the best solution is to just hitch a ride on someone else who is flying.
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I hate when they make me play the game to unlock bonus features in a game.
If that’s the case why time gate it?
No. Because it creates a situation where people will feel “forced” to rush through the reps to be competitive.
Pathfinder is designed so, if you regularly play and do normal content, you will eventually earn it. The Time Gate means you are not rushed to earn Pathfinder, but instead have a reasonably allotted time to complete the achievement before it opens up.
If Pathfinder was available from day 1 of the expac, to be earned once the achievement was fufiled, it would mean you are actively gimping yourself if you don’t do every single world quest, because you will earn flying slower than everyone else. The time gate allows the achievement to, for the first portion of the xpac, to not be a grind as much of a passive checklist you should try to complete.
The problem with WoD is they advertised flight would be in the game during presales and then told us after the game was launched and purchased it would not be in the game. It was on purpose or incompetence. Either way, blizzard is 100% the fault.
and the fact that they still sell new flying mounts tell me they can’t make up their mind and feel “gated pathfinder” is a bone they are throwing us. That attitude sucks and creates even more bad feelings and mistrust they know how to design and treat customers.
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That holds up if Pathfinder 2 wasn’t also a requirement. So now we’re playing regularly through normal content, then we’re rushing to grind a new rep at the launch of the patch Pathfinder 2 comes out. At the very least unlocking flying for the first zones with Pathfinder 1 at the right time is more reasonable. And this was certainly dragged out to a point where we’d all done that normal content at a regular pace long ago.
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Pathfinder 2 is much less all-encompasing. The Tanan, Broken shore and Nazjatar reps were all much easier to earn than Pathfinder 1’s requirements.
I must admit that the whole reason I am playing every day now is that I can do my World Quests with flying, as that’s motivated me to max level my alts.
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They changed their minds on flying because the entire forum base whined and moaned like spoiled children for months about the lack of flying. In WoD, they had to edit some of the world assets for flying to end up working. For better or for worse, Blizzard gave in to the vocal portion of the playerbase, and gave us pathfinder.
Its not throwing a bone or anything of that nature. Its a compromise that allows the benefit of no flying in a fresh xpac, while allowing flying once the content has become older.
The zones are, almost always (Catalcysm being the exception), designed to be experienced from the ground.
Quest design hasn’t evolved since Cataclysm just let you fly from the start of the xpac. It’s still the same “go to hub, click on everyone with ! over their head, kill X, collect Y, go back to hub once there’s a big cluster of ?s over it and nothing left to do nearby” gameplay from 2004.
Wintergrasp is designed for the ground, because you can use vehicles to traverse it and travel times are a strategic consideration. Isle of Thunder and Timeless Isle are designed for the ground, because they aren’t supposed to be easy to explore, and certain PvP objecties are meant to be carried back to your base without the convenience of flight.
Blizzard never took the Isle of Thunder or Wintergrasp concepts and applied them to PvE leveling content. If Gorgrond was a Wintergrasp zone where you leveled up by demolishing Iron Horde structures and building your own, it would be insane to suggest that you be able to just fly into Iron Horde structures to capture them. But no, WoD is just more bland 2004 questing content, deserving nothing more than to be sped through with a flying mount.
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Pathfinder should be an optional achievement that gives a nice title and mount.
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Sure, but it’s still a design of rushing players to grind the rep. Why is it needed? I could understand, like others, if that part was only for unlocking flying in the new zones. But even as a no-fly guy, I don’t think it is is intuitive to require those reps for the original expansion zones.
If you feel forced to do anything in a game maybe you should take a step back from said game and start playing something for fun.
If someone has more time to run M+ than me what should be done to correct this imbalance?
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