really.
I don’t mind the time gate aspect. i do mind the insane amount of hoops you have to jump through.
after all said and done, is there any proof that it is even producing the results in terms of maintaining subscription numbers??
as I have said earlier, this whole PF drama sounds more like “insecure girlfriend” situation.
Peace.
Don’t have to spend mountains of gold on my alts. It would be a much better system if it wasn’t time gated. As is they are reducing the actual amount of time it takes to get the achievement each expac.
maybe you are right… but to me it felt like its only getting worse. perhaps its because I had become super casual.
either way tho… it is annoying af and I didnt enjoy logging into the game one bit having to grind for PF.
Not really sure.
They used to design zones around flying and also hid some stuff which could be reached only through flying.
Now comparing that to Pathfinder, I think Pathfinder is detrimental and gives them an excuse to put in as low of an effort as possible and cover it.
pathfinder is beneficial because i don’t have to pay 50k just so all of my alts can fly once they hit max level, and that i can fly while leveling my alts after getting pathfinder.
It’s been pushing me away for a while now. SL will be the first expansion I’m not buying at launch. Mainly because the devs insist on gating flying. I’m 100% done supporting the garbage that isn’t fun.
The proof is that PF participation has been nose diving. I don’t think that is beneficial to the game long term IMO.
I am in the same boat. I am super unenthused… thinking about having to undergo the goddang grind AGAIN. hangs self
Considering that they wanted to remove flying in the first place, I doubt that they care about the participation because as long as they get our subs they’re happy.
Almost all the of the stuff you need to complete for the pathfinder achievement you would do thru normal game play anyways. The only real issues should be with how long it takes for part 2 to kick in and having pathfinder still required in older content.
Has it? Mind giving me a source on that?
And that doing most of those things would be more fun with flying. Keep us on the ground while leveling but let us fly at max level.
They do care about participation that is why they removed PVP templates. Participation metrics is how they design their game and why LFR exists for example. LFR exists to justify the tiny participation of heroic and mythic + raiding to the bean counters when spending money on elaborate raid content.
Technically you can, once you complete pathfinder at max level 
Why assume that the express purpose of PF is to maintain subscription numbers? Did you read that somewhere in a dev interview, or are you just making it up?
See first sentence:
I think they would be happy with the subs. It was after all their idea to remove flying and randomly introduce Pathfinder
Pathfinder wasn’t randomly added. They tried to remove flight entirely in WoD and after community outrage over it, they gated it behind pathfinder. This way they could ensure we spent a long enough period of time exploring ground content before we trivialized most of it with flight.
You used to be able to do that before pathfinder as well. Back in Wrath and iirc in Mists as well, at some point later in the xpac you could buy a BoA book on any toon that had flight that you could send to a fresh 70/85 that would teach them flight.
I think it’s mainly casual players that have nothing else to do that complain about pathfinder.