In shock, Ion said NO FLYING, and PATHFINDER AGAIN

Community General Discussion
266

Love this one…

" I don’t know what motivates his decisions — perhaps the team he oversees is a mere skeleton crew compared to the team of developers of Warcraft’s heyday during Wrath of the Lich King expansion — but what characterizes his tenure as Game Director is transparent attempts to make progress as time-consuming as possible. The more speed bumps he can place in the way of the players, the more time they spend on it. Consequently, the less content his team needs to create.

And once you realize his motivations, the stumbling blocks become obvious, running from the relatively trivial details to the major aspects of the game. His favorite tactic appears to be making travel a much more demanding task. Compare the exploration of Arathi Highlands, for instance, to trying to navigate Argus.
Flying is a mechanic that seems particularly vexing to Ion. During the Warlords of Draenor expansion, Ion famously announced that there would be no flying on Draenor. However, the player base informed him otherwise.

Faced with the threat of a mass exodus of players (many of whom had quested extensively to collect their flying mounts), Ion had no choice but to allow flying. However, in a move that could only be explained as pure spitefulness on Ion’s part, Ion decided to implement a new achievement for the players to obtain flying. This would not simply be attaining max level and paying 5K gold at the flight trainer. No, Ion introduced the most elaborate achievement in the history of WoW, known as Pathfinder. Pathfinder had an extensive list of requirements, which seems to be added to with every expansion. In Warlords of Draenor, you would have travel (on the ground of course) to every single location in the expansion. Moreover, you would also have to uncover every treasure chest in every zone on Draenor. These treasure chests would often be hidden, and require some coordinated jumps and tricky maneuvering to obtain.

Evidently, Ion believes that the player base signed on to play Super Mario World.

"Paradoxically, it seems that Ion works hardest to avoid working. Inflicting stalling tactics on the players seems to be the MO."

medium. com/@patrickjcolliano/blizzard-needs-to-fire-ion-hazzikostas-604796d3762

6 Likes
267

Saying “I refuse to buy if xxxx doesn’t happen” is a threat. If you (general you) are going to say that, you need to follow up, otherwise it holds no substance and will not result in what you want.

1 Like
268

On what premise or assumption that made you think “I refuse to buy if xxxx doesn’t happen”.

Did I make any death threats or made a valid complaint that seems reasonable to “some”?

269

As much as I am annoyed by Pathfinder, I have yet to find a reason it breaks game play completely and causes people to unsub. I agree it shouldn’t be gated, but in the realm of an expansion, there are WAY worse things to happen. Like BFA’s version of AP where they murdered a legion feature that was actually decent.

1 Like
270

You mean doing the bare minimum of basic gameplay which is exploring, quests, and revered with the factions is stupid stuff?

Im the most casual and lazy player youll ever meet and even I have flying. It really is not hard at all.

But what ever.

1 Like
271

What made you think I was referring to you? I wasn’t. I even said “I am specifically talking about those who…” if you are not one who says that then I was not speaking about you.

272

You literally directed a post towards me and I assumed you THINK i’m not going to buy the expansion, if xxxx doesn’t happen.

To clarify i’m not here to go out threatening Blizzard. I suggest one valid opinion without the remarks i’m not going to buy said game.

273

And THIS is what I wish more anti-flyers would understand, flying is something I REALLY enjoy.

Again most of us aren’t complaining about the difficulty but the tedium, having to wait several months to unlock the second part so I can fly is extremely irksome!

1 Like
274

Lots of people have quit WoW over the years, because something they liked was removed or altered. They’ve also left because new things are added they didn’t like.

Fans of the games posting on forums they don’t like something, and they are quitting because of it, has been going on since the internet was born. Calling it a threat is negating true concerns for what fans of a game or company look for in their enjoyment in a game.

2 Likes
275

You are right, I did… based on your negative portrayal of anyone who does not agree that Pathfinder is awful.

Maybe don’t toss insults to begin with.

edit: And even at that I didn’t direct you at you personally any more than your comment was directed personally at me. The only “direction” was in that you were the one that said it so you were the one that got the reply.

276

You can’t be serious! I think just about everyone who knew what went on during the WoD expansion regarding flying expected him to give that answer. Does it suck? Yes, but I, for one, am very glad we still have flying at all.

277

You know what’s really cool? We can screenshot/link this post eight months from now with your armory and all those shadowlands leveling greens.

Don’t tauren-crap this community.
I’m autistic, I will do it.

278

Yes and like all opinions, they don’t oblige from disagreement.

No one is forced to respect or agree with your opinions and mine. That’s my opinion.

279

Yeah, when I decided not to buy the Cata expansion it was totally because of flying and had nothing to do with class changes or anything. (/s - just in case).

280

I absolutely can’t stand Pathfinder - the wait before we can actually fly, the pointless rep grinds, the complete lack of realistic lore justifications for my dragons suddenly forgetting how their wings work. At least the Timeless Isle handwaved it with “blah blah weird timey air grounds your mounts”. They haven’t even bothered since.

That being said, classic reminded me that if the terrain isn’t trash you don’t really NEED flight. Lack of flight hurts so much recently because the terrain is awful - small, cramped, mobs hidden in hard to find caves, and MOBS. EVERYWHERE. Two cardinal rules that vanilla (and most MMOs TO THIS DAY follow):

  1. Paths are generally safe.
  2. If a cave is indicated on a map, the player should be able to go to that exact spot on the map and find the cave.

Legion and BFA (to a lesser degree) broke these two rules repeatedly so much that ground travel very quickly became an empty slog of hack n’ slash. If they stop designing zones like horrible little labyrinths crammed with more mobs than a Diablo 2 boss room, then the griping about flying would likely go way down.

6 Likes
281

Don’t hate the idea of Pathfinder but think that the gating needs to go. I think it’s bad that the game stops people mid progression and makes them wait to resume the grind

3 Likes
282

I think they want to gate it and in their minds there are only 2 ways to do that - gold or pathfinder. To me it speaks of a lack of originality in zone development. They could let everyone fly and then just make quests where you have to fly to complete them - which would also annoy people I’m sure.

283

Pathfinder is worth it just for the amount of people that cry over it. make the grind longer Blizzard!

1 Like
284

Ya the time-gating needs to go. They lost my pre-sale and more than likely 8 to 10 months of my sub money. Oh well their loss. I’ll go back to FFXIV where they don’t treat flying like a terror attack.

3 Likes
285

My guess is Shadowlands will be playable by 9.2

Yet again they have learned nothing from the rage of Pathfinder and the Covenant system is a train wreck.

I will watch the train wreck slowly come and then watch Ion get humbled again as people rage after less then a month of the expansion being out.

Why can you people not learn lessons from failures? It takes a special level of being hard headed to just ignore what people are screaming at you on the way out the door.

I am sitting over here in Eorzea looking for any reason to pick up WoW again as another MMO to play because it offers things that FF14 just does not have and is not designed to have but all Blizzard does is make me rage.

3 Likes