Considering that one being ‘locked behind pathfinder’ is literally design oversight, the differences are not really relevant. The implementation is critical, awful, and why we are here talking about it.
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And by oversight you mean a decision explicitly and intentionally made that you disagree with?
Okay, so let me get this straight you would put ground mounts and skyriding in the same bucket with no PF, but steady flight is so different than skyriding so it makes sense to put it behind PF. That doesn’t match up to your skill expression example.
You need to watch some Sesame Street.
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They’re not doing anything.
Blizzard is.
Blizzard did.
It’s done.
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Cool.
You’re asking me to explain why you’re bad at Dragonriding. Not my job.
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Those aren’t the same either, but they share similarities in requiring more active engagement, skyriding to keep airborne, ground mounts to navigate obstacles, terrain, and mobs. Steady flight doesn’t require the same interactivity that either of those provide. Steady flight is primarily a tool for convenience, it allows one to hover or fly without even the faintest bit of attention or effort to get places.
As for skill expression, skyriding requires managing vigor and the affects of gravity and acceleration and is also featured in several boss fights and races, which test one’s ability to navigate obstacles, manage speed and vigor and get to their destination quickly. None of which would be replicatable with steady flight where you point and go in straight lines.
By ‘oversight’ I mean they ‘genuinely put no effort into looking at pathfinder in a meaningful way, particularly with game longevity in mind.’
If you call Pizza Hut and order a pizza, and the guy shows up with a pizza, out of the box, and just hands it to you, hot pie no box, that’s clearly an oversight on someone’s part during the pie making/delivery process.
That’s not a ‘design choice’ by the cook Nor is it a faithful execution of pizza delivery, by the dude handing me a pizza without a box.
It’s just bad customer service, and the way you approach this conversation, is the same way the pizza delivery guy would hand me a boxless pizza.
Do you understand? Basic game design is: Don’t have two competing features share the same design space. Basic game design is: don’t let glaring problems make it into your final product. Basic game design is: make it make sense. Make it logical. Sound.
Is anything about getting skyriding at level 10, logical? Nope, it’s an arbitrary design choice. Is anything about pathfinder logical? Nope, it’s a feature debuted nearly a decade ago and became the defacto method of unlocking expansion flight.
OVERSIGHT let it stay in the game through DF. OVERSIGHT keeps it from being addressed and fixed in any meaningful capacity. OVERSIGHT -or- the lack of any, led them to release skyriding at level 10 with steady flight later on, locked behind pathfinder.
Deliberate game design would have recognized the overlap, addressed it, and Pathfinder would have been removed completely, since nothing in the game actually benefits from it now.
We are in the realm of whatever blizzard throws at a wall, is what makes it live. That’s why this is the way it is. Not because some designers put thought into it and arrived at this as the logical follow thru. Logical follow through would look a lot different.
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I mean… You are calling it an oversight because you don’t like it, not because you have any evidence about there being an oversight.
No, that isn’t basic game design and these two features are still very different
Yeah, you get the modern flying mechanic at the level you exit the tutorial which isn’t built to allow flight in.
Uh… No, we aren’t. Just because you disagree with something doesn’t make it an oversight or not thought through.
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You are assuming I don’t like it. I can both talk about it and not have feelings about it, simultaneously. It’s an oversight because:
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Better game design is within easy reach of this feature.
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The feature was patched/updated last week, into a worse state.
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Many aspects of this feature have existed in the game long enough to become irrelevant as game features. Pathfinder on a new character… can you imagine unlocking that? Going through all of TBC content to be able to fly in TBC with steady flight? WOD to fly in those zones?
The value of flight there is so low, the value of any feature restricting it is also so low. That’s the rub. The facts. There is no debate on any of that.
Conclusion time: Oversight has let things turn out this way. WTB an update with competence, addressing this feature. Hence, the 1145 post thread here about it.
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So, your evidence is you making assumptions and saying it could be better, while making up requirements that don’t exist and calling the dev team incompetent? Well, good luck with… Whatever you are on about mate.
Example time:
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Dragonriding at 10 with steady flight locked behind pathfinder @ level 30.
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Dragonriding at 10 with pathfinder requirement removed from game, and steady flight at level 10.
Which one is an improvement? It’s obvious, and objective. There is a wrong answer. The worse option is the one the devs went with. I’m at least giving benefit of the doubt by saying they didn’t do enough to develop this part of the patch.
That gives them the opportunity to own it, and do better, in the future. If it’s just bad game design and they double down on it, well bad game design IS the result of oversight.
In your mental space, this conversation shouldn’t happen. That should probably be something you spend time with, personally.
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You are saying it is worse because you personally would prefer it the other way. That doesn’t make it objectively better, and I’m not surprised that they choose to make the main flight method they want players to use be the one that is available earlier. If you put a bit of thought into that, you will also see why they guide players towards their preferred method. But you seem unwilling to consider anything beyond the fact you think it’d be better if it behaved in a certain manner.
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Nope. One is objectively a worse option. Let’s start there. Try again.
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Incorrect. If you want to have a conversation that is based around taking a false statement to be true, it isn’t worthwhile.
Assume I’m a new player presented with those two options, in some fictional Blizzard thought experiment. I’ll relist them so they are fresh in our minds:
- Dragonriding at 10 with steady flight locked behind pathfinder @ level 30.
- Dragonriding at 10 with pathfinder requirement removed from game, and steady flight at level 10.
Again, I am brand new. I don’t even know what these two options mean. Based on math alone, limited knowledge of leveling in a video game, guessing and picking option 2 would be objectively the best pick for me.
That’s why you’re not getting anywhere in this discussion. You aren’t willing to even acknowledge the objective nature of changes like this, falling flat and panning against a larger update.
Again, your attitude is of the pizza delivery guy handing me a pizza in my doorway, without a box.
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You don’t understand objective and subjective and are trying to pass your subjective feeling as objective fact, which is the reason this isn’t going anywhere. Until you manage to move past pretending your opinion is objective this is not worth continuing.
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What are my feelings, again?
I recall offering two clear examples, one being the actual way the game is handling flying features moving forward, while the other is a slightly improved version of that.
Those improvements are demonstrable, easily verifiable by any 3rd parties. Meaning: the differences in the two examples provided are of numerical value, not of opinionated difference.
Subjectivity would be ‘I don’t like these features because they are different.’ I’ve never even said that. (before you accuse me of strawmanning) I’ve in fact stated I am perfectly fine with the changes to flight. I am ‘unbothered’ by the aspect of flying around.
What I’ve been discussing, what I’ve continued to focus on: the qualities and traits of the game that change through arbitrary design choices, leading to inconsistent and unappealing game design for at least a segment of the power players posting here in this 1150 post thread (there are others, too, same or adjecent topic).
It’s not me. It’s not a figment of anyone’s imagination. Or a matter of opinion. Facts are: game change. Facts are; Changes specifically to when characters (particularly new players) get skyriding and how they can upgrade it, are objectively worse than prior to this patch.
This objectivity is demonstrable through simple acts such as highlighting the presence of a 5 sec spell that ‘switches’ you between skyriding and steady flight. This ability didn’t exist before, yet dragonriding + steady flight seemed to work together without spawning a bunch of threads like this or needing such a delay spell added.
Again, all objective, verifiable data you can easily check yourself. Going back to the system of ‘individual mount determines your riding mode,’ the system that was in place prior to TWW patch, is objectively superior to the one we have now. Which can also be demonstrated through the fact that now player has to choose to go between manually, with a 5 second delay, vs just mounting the thing you want when you want to fly the way you want.
There isn’t a realm of reality where one can objectively determine the new system’s handling of skyriding vs steady flight, is superior to the old way. One can only insert that the new way includes a wider array of mount options for both forms of flight, which was intuitively handled by the game, prior to the patch (again, superior game design, objectively).
It’s not about liking it more. It was just better. Period. You can replace ‘better’ with other words like intuitive, functional, ect, to help demonstrate objectivity of the claim.
My opinion hasn’t even been stated yet. You have all your work ahead of you to do more than make accusations in bad faith. The feature is cooked, the devs have time to fix it, we shall see how the final feature fleshes out and what they do.
My guess (based on 20 years of playing this game) pathfinder gets removed completely, Steady flight gets lowered or skyriding gets it’s level requirement increased. I don’t see them locking both behind pathfinder, but Blizzard has proven me wrong before and done worse.
‘Worse’ is an objective way to distinguish between two things representing differing levels of quality, with one clearly having better qualities. Today, I hope you learned that objectivity and subjectivity aren’t really up for debate. They aren’t ‘matters of opinion.’
I’ve clearly demonstrated my objectivity. You have not.
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There’s right now nothing that even makes me feel any sort of attachment to my characters. Every single expansion since MOP, they’re doing a complete overhaul on class spells. We get survival hunter… come another expansion, now it’s melee. Combat Rogue, gone. Locks get spells that you can cast with movement, now you can’t anymore. Druids get instant flight, now it’s locked behind a 5 second cast.
Every single expansion, we feel like a complete noob having to re-learn how to play all over again. We were champions on Monday, come Tuesday… bars are empty, macros nulled, game Lua is completely overhauled, spells you enjoyed and used are gone, talent tree completely redone because “reasons”.
I think there’s one thing Remix got right is that the gear you get from the start can grow with you up to max level and your cloak is all that matters in making you stronger. More gaming, more threads, more strength and this makes your fights easier. This is why Remix was a success. You didn’t keep getting disposable gear. You scrapped what you didn’t need, got bronze and bought stuff with the bronze or upgraded your gear, bought gems, consumables, etc…
I played some classic today and I loved not having to RUN RUN RUN to end game. I enjoyed taking my time to read quests, take my time to do the quests, felt nice to get upgrades even if they were white items.
I just really miss the game. Up to Monday, I was a happy player.
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One tends to wonder when they are going to stop putting players through this. One also tends to wonder when players are going to stop defending it. At that point, I will happily become a committed subscriber again and we can talk about expectations for expansion content.
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400 out of several million is not really saying all that much.
What does me playing regularly prior to Legion have to do whether or not DF was a popular expansion?
Also, what about my other characters, what do they tell you about whether or not I played before Legion?