Gating Flying Was Blizzards Worst Decision

Community General Discussion
83

No, I’d say the Real ID thing was probably the worst.

84

One of them. The game just feels drawn out more than anything. Player progression is a joke and classes are bland. You have 120 levels of slog now

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85

I think he is talking about; without flying less people are farming so the prices on the herbs are higher as a result.

86

Game fun and veteran rewards shouldn’t be going backwards IMO. If I was a new player and I saw travel time gated like this I would jump ship and go to ESO, GW2 or Final Fantasy.

3 Likes
87

Going back on removing flying was Blizzard’s worst decision. They should have just stuck it out.

88

So here’s a bad idea… how bout removing pathfinder and make flying cost 100k gold. That way it’s a win-win, blizzard get more money from their tokens and players finally get flying without pathfinder. Just think of all the inflation they’ll remove from WoW’s economy. :slight_smile:

89

I don’t disagree with pathfinder In theory. It makes sense to me. I do think the roll out takes too long. The intro zones should be unlocked before or at the time the second raid tier comes out. That’s about the time folks seem to become wary of that first zone and are looking to work on alts. I haven’t really played my alts so far.

90

Which is actually how it has been done all three times*. WoD’s second tier was Hellfire Citadel. Legion’s was Tomb of Sargeras. BfA’s will be the Palace of Azshara or whatever it is called.

* Note: WoD came slightly after Hellfire Citadel but this was advertised well in advance.

91

Their worst decisions are:

  1. designing game systems from a “systems first” logical or mathematical perspective, designing systems to “solve problems” they perceive rather than designing systems focused on improving the player experience.

  2. reducing, restricting, or removing player agency (preventing trade of Azerite armor within dungeon and raiding parties was a serious failure that has since been rectified, removing PvP vendors and putting PvP equipment on a static progression that may award players with useless equipment, removing portals in an effort to force players through specific travel points rather than allowing players the freedom to go everywhere we’ve gone before as quickly as we did before… the one change I initially perceived as restrictive that has improved player agency is making all party loot Personal Loot, allowing the individual player to decide whether they want to share an item or keep it for themselves is an improvement.)

  3. not testing new systems sufficiently both internally and on the PTR before implementing them in game.

  4. being defensive when players give negative feedback even when that feedback is presented constructively

Personally, I’m not bothered by Pathfinder. It was easy to complete in Legion and it felt good once I completed it to have flying unlocked account wide for Legion zones. That being said, I’m dragging my feet on Draenor Pathfinder because of the random assault dailies and the past expansion rep grind. If I had the option I would probably just buy a flying license for Draenor at this point… but here again is an area where Blizzard is trying to find one system that appeases most rather than allowing players a choice. There should be a choice between buying a flight license per character per expansion or doing Pathfinder to unlock it for all characters (and a mount reward is nice incentive too). I’d even go so far as to suggest giving players a choice to opt-out of flying all together and sandbox them separately from players who like flying, unless partied together where players with flying can give non-flying players a lift.

2 Likes
92

Wod had a substantial content drought on top of multiple disappointing raid tiers, and tons of scrapped content they decided not to implement.

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93

Oh look a fresh and new opinion on flying. So here is a new and fresh response. Flying is a convenience not a necessity. Pathfinder was a compromise, it was this or absolutely no flying.

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94

However, Blizzard didn’t add all that cut content back in or give us new content, to appease the masses they gave us flying. WoD was supposed to be a no-fly xpac.

95

Flying doesn’t make up for loss in content.

Flying let’s you do the content you don’t like faster, that’s all, it doesn’t suddenly make content good, or fun, it just makes it so you can do more things you don’t like in a shorter amount of time.

That’s how Wod was in the end, and that’s how BFA will work out if the new zones end up being rubbish.

If the new zones content is fun, then obviously it’s in for a good time, but that would be regardless of flying.

Then look at legion, outside of its initial AP grind issue, and legendary BiS issues, ended up being one of the better expansions, despite having pathfinder.

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96

I dont think you know what the word "compromise " means. We players didnt get a say in the decision

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97

All this has nothing to do with my point or Stonespin’s point. We’re saying what made people the most angry was no flying because Ion back tracked hard on his noflying stance.

If it was content and not flying, I think he would have dusted off one of those cut zones.

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98

We got to keep flying.

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99

Devs wanted flying gone.

We wanted to keep it.

A middle ground called pathfinder was formed, where we can fly if criteria is met over half the life of the expansion.

That is a compromise.

3 Likes
100

lol well I was going to respond but the other 2 nailed it on the head.

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101

Pathfinder is the result of Blizzard trying to appease the people who like flying after they tried to appease the people who hate flying. While I appreciate it there are many in the pro-flying camp who just want to fork over gold and be done with it, and there are many in the anti-flying crowd who won’t be happy unless nobody can fly.

I feel I’ve offered an elegant solution to addressing all concerns and much of the groundwork for it is clearly already in the game. In fact, it my observation of systems that currently exist in game that inspired my suggestion.

102

Oooh I was going to post something else but I forgot about RealID lol.