Nope, people are complaining that retail has meaningless grinds, because instead of a grind which the end is always in sight (such as knowing the pure BIS gear in each and every slot), players are now thrown onto the hamster wheel for pretty much every single aspect of the game.
The game has evolved into something monstrous, where players are forced to commit hours and hours of time, unnecessarily. It is a sucky feeling to log in, spend so much time and effort to achieve some small objective, only to log out and think “sigh, how many times do I have to do that unenjoyable {insert chore here} again?”
I think transmogrification should have its own pathfinder achievement. Also pet battles. As well as bank and auction house access.
These things are hardly vital to your ability to play the game and are really just there for convenience. I should have to complete pathfinder part 2 IRL just to log in to the game.
Completely agree. People keep harping how much easier the game is compared to previous expansions. That may be true, but the time it takes now to get things like flying has actually increased. Since Legion I have found myself having to log on way more to get even the basic stuff done now.
This was not the case pre-Legion. You had clearly defined goals that actually required less time, as a casual player at least. Now? I think I have been doing world quests since BFA released and I still have not gotten flying. Thats almost a year of non-stop dailies. I do not recall doing this at release.
I don’t see anyone at any time every in the history of things ask for portals to everywhere. This is a common anti-flying strawman. Use real examples instead of ridiculous hypotheticals.
You’re probably right, I don’t mind the gating at the beginning, but continuously jumping through hoops after having put in a lot of time and effort on Pt 1. and then just having to do it again, pretty much killed my motivation to log in.
They need to make Pathfinder more organic to the game play and less like a checklist.
I literally have zero desire to do more of the same, even in the slightest bit after having grinded out Tortollan rep. That was a grind, most of the Tortollan WQ are just irritating.
It’s not that they want us to hate it; here’s my thoughts…
…Blizzard said in Legion they were not doing Flying. Period. No ways around it. The rumors that circulated before that were true; they wanted a full-on immersive experience. However…
…there was SO MUCH backlash and tears and anger and pure vile hatred that Blizzard straight up caved. Their backbone broke. They went back on their word, and offered flying…for a price. You want it? Go do this, but wait, THERES MORE!! (literally and figuratively - part 2 was timegated) While Part one a lot of people more or less had, part two was more or less put in to make us all wait longer; my opinion is that they did that to satisfy their no-flying urge and make that last as long as they could without REALLY losing numbers.
Now that we’re at the next expansion, they reintroduced Pathfinder, acting like it was their plan all along. It wasn’t. It was a panic button. It worked, and we now know how it works, so it’s now just their way of holding off flying until they see fit to allow us the option of getting it.
I’d rather just pay gold for my flying like back in MoP, tbh.
How can it be “immersive” to remove something that isn’t just a game mechanic, but a canonical in-universe travel option (as proved by rep factions such as the cloud serpent racers)?
I think the rub was that they promised flying in 6.2, then right before 6.2 dropped on a holiday weekend on a third party site they announced there would be no flight in 6.2 or any future xpac.
I would say it also makes it easier for them to funnel people through content in a specific manner and increases their /played metric. That’s why they don’t want flying, and since they had to give us flying or lose a significant portion of their player base they needed a way to compensate for the lost /played so pathfinder was invented.
But that’s not to say that some amount of spite didn’t go into their design.