Instead of Asking for Pathfinder to be Removed, Ask for a Mounting Revamp

Community General Discussion
121

A long Sprint CD would be less frustrating. I’ve played a lot of Zelda, and carrot-boost mechanics are really annoying in practice. But I think the “going down is faster” mechanic would be all that is needed for flight.

But I think most of the interaction should be around AA defences. Raiding SW should be about more than flying straight into Anduin’s throne room. Net casters and ballistae should be all over that keep. And the “fly into the open field to kill the boss NPC” thing that Blizz used as an example of why flight was “bad” should NEVER be a thing that you can do. Even for low-level stuff, flying into an enemy fortress, even for NPC factions, should be suicidal, or at least very difficult.

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122

This is patently and demonstrably false:

If what you say is true then it follows that it would have been problematic from day one. I do not see anyone (excluding Werld Pee Vee Pee ganker types whose opinion is no longer relevant due to War Mode) complaining that flight was problematic from day one in TBC. Therefore it was NOT problematic during TBC nor in Wrath nor in Cataclysm nor in MoP. It only became problematic in Warlords of Draenor because the team that was put in charge of game design at that time lacked the imagination necessary to use flight as it was used in those prior expansions.

Contrarily if what you say is NOT true then flight was never problematic at all and it is you that have a problem with flight not the rest of us. As this is not your game to design nor even ideally to complain about with the expectation that your complaints would be taken seriously (you are but a small fish in a very large pond), therefore, it is you that has the problem and not the mechanic itself. Quod Erat Demonstandum.

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123

People seem to forget that announcing “nothing” immediately preceded a 50+% drop in subs, a reversal on that announcement 3 weeks later, and Blizzard changing the way they report on the financials of a sub-based game by no longer reporting subs to shareholders.

They already are revamping it. Stuff in the world can actually SEE you hovering just off the ground on your giant flaming dragon mount now. Flying aggro radii have been greatly increased recently, though they never said specifically when. And the wurm debuff, while so terrible in concept that they nerfed it from 100 yards to “nah, don’t worry about it”, is the first flying interaction they’ve added since… what, Blade’s Edge?

I am too, aside from the year-long wait for it. Not only does it affect my enjoyment to the point where I don’t even buy an expansion or subscribe until a month before PF2 comes out, but it also greatly limits design space because of all the ill-will it generates from the community.

If they had given us flight in BfA, since it’s part of Azeroth where we can already fly, they could have even said “no flying in Shadowlands” and I’d be fine with that. It would easily make as much sense there as it did on Argus. It’s an entirely different reality. They could even make the flightpoints wisp travel like Tortollan fp’s in BfA to cement the difference. But as it stands, the fanbase would riot if they did that because no one likes or trusts the Devs on this issue. If they just built up some more good will with fans and showed they were willing to give a little, it would afford them more room to take when it makes sense.

Similarly, Legion flying would have gone more smoothly if you could fly in 7.0 or even 7.1, but with a Mechagon-style debuff around the Broken Shore that would cause you to get swarmed by demons or shot down by a demon battlecruiser before you finished the 7.2 story arc. Their error was pushing flight back to 7.2 and then taking it away on Argus 77 days later.

Just like how Cata let us fly in its zones right from the word go, but then no one complained when you needed to hit max level in Pandaria and few complained about what we thought was a DELAY in WoD before the no-flight revelation.

“Isn’t it better for everyone to be a little annoyed?” Ion asked. No. It’s not. It’s better for your game design to be flexible to the needs of the story while still respectful to the fan base. It’s the rigidity of Pathfinder that makes it so hated.

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While i dont agree with OPs exact diction, i agree with the point.

All flying really does for me nowadays is make it more convenient for world quests.

Since pathfinder is here to stay, i would like flying to give us something else too. Like unlocking more quest hubs or something.

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So flying is a bandaid for boring gameplay?

Why is that a good thing?

I want a revamp. I don’t have to lay out a detailed and exhaustive plan just because I think the system is dated and shallow. I have ideas that would be cool that involve progression and other things, but they’re just ideas. The first thing to explore is whether not mounts could be better.

I do. But I also like the Warcraft universe a lot and I see an area with potential for dramatic improvement.

I don’t have to agree with this premise. The game has supported flying as either gameplay or a vehicle to gameplay restricted to ground mounts in ways that isn’t being done now. It currently has no gameplay value and it could have more. If they overhauled Battle Pets in a way that is (mostly) satisfying, they could do it to mounts.

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I am convinced “player interaction” is just a dog whistle for gankers and griefers. I rarely, if ever, hear these arguments from PvE people.

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127

or maybe Blizzard could stop with the constant attempts to convince players flight is bad

we get it the company HATES flight and anything connected to it yet its funny how they keep tossing out flying mounts as marketing leverage to entice players to shell out more $$

they constantly speak of pathfinder as a compromise yet it seems the only times Blizzard is willing to compromise involves their principles when it suits their profit margin

at this point all it proves is that Blizzard is determined to do what they want how they want no matter how much it annoys and drives players away they’ve gotten to the point where they believe themselves incapable of being wrong and all that shows how egotistical they are

the mere thought of being mistaken doesn’t even register to them and even if the entire game was to fall to zero active players theyd still pretend nothing is wrong

128

Wtf is this logic? I only do randoms and have well over 100k hks. Killing people in bgs is griefing now?

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129

That’s hilarious. I got a character to 60 and mostly experienced annoyance in the form of impediments the game threw at me to make playing inconvenient and unnecessarily time consuming.

Just because you find something a stimulating challenge - like for instance re-earning the most beloved feature in the game every expansion, being made to wait a year before actually being permitted to fly, and having airborne booby traps to make sure nobody’s actually having fun flying - doesn’t mean you can copy and paste your emotional frame of mind onto someone else and expect them to feel as you do.

I have strong, positive memories of leveling up on my own in classic, even if it meant skipping most of the horribly mistuned quests that required groups even though they used to be “easily soloable” in vanilla, thanks for forcing that change on us, blizz!

And getting tired of being invited into a group by every passing stranger who figured a higher level druid ought to be able to carry him through those elite red quests he was given and therefore thought he ought to be able to get done at that level.

Flight does not remove any voluntary player-to-player interactions. If you’re looking for the game to force ganking on all of us, you’re doing something horribly wrong. And should be stopped.

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This is a stretch.

Yes it does, and no one’s bringing up a defense for ganking.

It’s fine if you have positive memories about flying as is, that doesn’t mean it isn’t horridly dated and couldn’t be vastly improved.

131

  1. Pet battles are boring

  2. They tried to making flying more interesting in 8.3, people complained about it and it’s still boring.

  3. The game engine is too simple for the kind of physics needed for flight to be interesting.

Pathfinder is fine. It’s no one’s favorite, but it works to allow us to both and fly and have some time to enjoy the game without it.

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I find them boring. Some don’t. This isn’t about the validity or engagement of Battle Bets but the development of a system entirely unique to them, and gamifying something that wasn’t before.

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Absolutely not. There may be more “support” for removal of flight now than during wod, since 10 million players have left the game, many of them who supported flight and chafed over forced removal and then restrictions on it. But that’s relative. The fact that you are here trying to justify a decision that played a huge part in loss of profit to the game and its shrinking in content to the budget basement idiocy we have now is just laughable.

Flight removes no voluntary player-to-player interactions. We are all free to interact with anyone we wish, which is how human behavior actually works.

If other people uniformly refuse to interact with you, you are the common denominator.

They tried to make flight more “interesting” for people who sit in cities thinking evil thoughts about other people being inconvenienced, while making it more boring and less useful for those who actually get out into the world to do things.

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134

You’re under the impression that this is a thread about removing flying.

That’s not what this is.

This is a thread pointing out that flying (and ground mounts, don’t forget) are shallow, superficial, and exist purely as convenience when they used to have content that supported them, either in the way the world was designed, the way you completed quests, or otherwise.

This thread is also to point out that while players demand the removal of pathfinding and Blizzard insists upon it, maybe that’s not a question to keep revisiting. Maybe there’s a more productive and interesting conversation about how to make mounting and flight more worthwhile, and not be satisfied with something that hasn’t changed in ten years except for losing the things that made it interesting in the first place.

So, please. Check your preconceptions about what’s being argued here at the door and feel free to participate with what’s actually being discussed.

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135

Do you have any other band aid for boring and uninspired content?

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I agree; I honestly don’t see what the OP’s issue is. You want to make mounts “exciting”… why? They are a means to get from point A to point B. Making it anything more than that is an invitation for trouble. Enough things in this game have already been broken for the sake of “improvement”.

137

Put a time limit on flying, each week the timer gets longer per flight.

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Not at the moment, but this isn’t the thread for that. This thread is for a revamp to mounting.

Don’t innovate because you might not like the result?

Posting as a Mechagnome makes this ironic.

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Guild wars 2 is the only game I’ve played so far where mounts are more than just a speed boost. They are for obstacles and each mount serves a different purpose. Granted I dont think it would be able to incorporate all those mechanics into this game. Heck if you want truly fun and challenging jumping puzzles guild wars nails that as well. But it’s far from perfect or the leviathan this game is.

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I wouldn’t mind gating flying behind rep / quests if they didn’t gate the rep / quests by “dailies”. Let me mindlessly farm or spam dungeons / raids for it. Also, I’d really like account wide rep.

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