You mean like the Water Strider mount?
I’m one of those players who uses their mount for RP/aesthetic reasons and I’m still advocating for things like passive/active abilities. I don’t like the Water Strider mount, even when it was the only mount with water walking, so I didn’t get it. Why do you suspect this would change?
Simple solution.
Leave Pathfinger as an option for those who want to do it and get the perks.
I tried. Hopefully your post will garner more support.
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/9-0-mount-equipment/355798
But Mists of Pandaria did.
Perhaps the vanilla crowd were long gone by then, but MoP got flying right. With, as I said earlier, quest areas that you couldn’t access without flying, and which made flying into an advantage with those quests (something that certain CMs tried to put ut as a reason to ban flying later on, once that weird dev attitude change happened in the second half of MoP).
That’s just completely wrong.
“I’m a vanilla/BC/Wrath dude so this one’s opinion is irrelevant”.
Thanks for telling us all which expansions you played in. How does it feel to be an actual cliche?
I find I like flying because blizzard makes their zones complex for no reason. Ignoring the time is takes to get to where you want to go, flying would serve no purpose in a zone like classic westfall.
What other interaction could you expect? Trade? Not with CRZ. Conversation or grouping? Again not with CRZ and quests that take no skill or effort to complete. No the only “player interaction” these fools look for is advantages that allow them to gank and grief.
OP – NO.
I’m asking for travel to be returned to its once inglorious status as merely being a means to transport players from A to B.
I want a return to the level cap/gold sink formula (which still applies to ground mounts) and leave Pathfinger as an alternative to those who like it. PF doers get the perks, the rest of us just get to enjoy flight once again.
PS. And get rid of the worms, they are there SOLELY to nerf flight.
We did ask for a mount revamp. And we got the god-awful mount equipment system.
That’s the thing about Blizzard, they’re completely disconnected from what player’s actually want. So no, I’d rather just ask for them to go back to a certain way that actually works rather than keep asking them to flesh out systems they break even further with each revision. Unless of course you want mounts to be in the same condition as azerite traits and corrupted gear.
As opposed to now, where it’s a… chocolate cake?
How would you describe flying as anything other than a literal vehicle?
Having played through MOP I don’t recall the access to flying being super important to that expansion. I’m not sure Order of the Cloud Serpent was much to speak about. If memory serves, two significant quest zones in Isle of Thunder and Timeless Isle were flight-restricted areas, weren’t they?
It’s not. Playing an expansion for the first time when it’s current is going to be different than playing it for the first time when it isn’t.
This is a strawman, and a bad one. I’m not dismissing your opinion because you began in Cataclysm, I’m saying that your BC and Wrath experience is different.
Players spent significant periods of time in BC without a flying mount because it was a huge investment at the time, and there was content you couldn’t access without it. By the time Cata was out, not only was it much easier to acquire a flying mount, those flying-only areas were much less relevant.
You don’t have context for why those zones and access to those zones were important. It’s not a slight against you, it’s something that affects the way and I see the relationship this game has with flying.
I never dismissed you. I simply explained why it made sense for you to arrive at your conclusions about flying. Your experience with the game’s treatment of flying is going to be different than others’, and this is a case where the expansions you played is absolutely a factor in that.
I meant that flying was the only vehicle to those hubs, which emphasized why it was important to have/get flying. There’s nothing in BfA that you can’t get to without flying.
The more Pathfinder is discussed, the less any improvements or revitalizations to mounts can be conceived, considered, or discussed.
I want to play Joust. Now that was a great video game back in the day.
I sucked at it, but it was a great game.
Some Tillers, and maybe some golden lotus (those that took place on the wall( quests took flight to get to the location for them, MSV was accessible only with flight, outside of summons, as far as I know. It as more or less a bit of the BC/Wrath style where a lot could be accessed without flight but to get to everything you needed flight.
People don’t like change. There are people who still want to be able to buy flying for 5k gold despite all the crazy inflation we had in WoD and Legion.
Any change from that they don’t like. Any suggestion that deviates from that they don’t like. Oh, and they usually want flying on day 1 of a new expansion too, so…
If flying is bad because it limits player interaction then ALL forms of fast movement do and should be removed also. No more teleports, portals, flight master whistles, and worst of all AFKable flight paths. Take those all away if you really want to “force player interaction”. Unless you’re willing to go all in then just remove pathfinder and leave flying alone. 
Naw.
Look at the vale and uldum. Start building worlds a with flight in mind again. Stop with the on rails maze maps.
Are you trying to censor the discussion?
Pathfinger needs to be an alternative to level cap/gold fee.
I don’t want to hear about any other changes. The “mount equipment” is a disaster, another fail and it deprived players who had earned water walking mounts of their mounts. I’m NOT ok with stuff being taken away which is why Pathfinger needs to be just an alternative means of gaining flight and not the only way.
Almost nothing was available exclusively via flying and when it was available exclusively via flying, NPCs would fly you there and a flightmaster lived on the other side.
You’re conflating re-worked BC and original BC. You didn’t actually get flying right away originally. You had to get from 60 to 68 with only a horse and you got flying after that. When you did get flying, it was slower than your horse but hey, it could fly.
Ogri’la and Skyguard were the first flying-only content and they were not added until later.
Now they basically hand it over for free before you even enter Outland.
I highly encourage you to play TBC Classic when it gets released, because you are wearing some extra-strength rose-colored glasses.
Except… no it didn’t.
I earned the waterwalking mount back in Pandaria. Despite the mount equipment system being added, I still have the water strider. They even gave me a free water walking equipment on all of my characters.
Even if they did take him away, he’s a weird bug who makes disgusting, wet flopping noises. Everyone hated that they were forced to use it because it was objectively better despite being ugly and gross.
The mount equipment thing is kind of lame, but it was never meant as anything other than a bandaid solution to being forced to use a mount model that you hated. It succeeds at what it was intended to do.
TL;DR - I still have the Water Strider, and now ALL of my mounts can water walk. Nothing was taken away. 342 mounts GAINED an ability.
What a foolish claim.
My mount specifically designed to water walk, which I earned btw through a rep grind, no longer walks on water without special perishable equipment that costs gold to replace.
Formerly I could just summon my water walker and use it for free, just as I bargained to do when I did the rep grind.
I gained nothing except an additional expense that I didn’t formerly have. What rubbish!
It’s not perishable. Equip it once and it lasts forever.
You are lying.