Golden age is coming as TBC normal flying will be liberated from the evil grasps of patchfinder.
1 Like
Even if we agree with your hyperbolic assessment of anything, the devs have actually advertised this particular expansion, and the two after it as âthe reason to come back to wow.â
They âwill be focusing on adding evergreen featuresâ and âreworking major game features to be in line with evergreen game designâ
âNow, is time to come home.â
So like, that sounds pretty âgolden ageâ to me. The Developers: are trying to deliver on that, even if WE agree with YOU in your assessment of âthere will never be another golden age again.â
It seems as though you picked the wrong time to police what others do here.
Even if we agree with you.
1 Like
TBC normal flying is a popular evergreen feature and it is not going anywhere!
4 Likes
So not even when you do short distance flights? Like when you fly around to like collect something in the air or doing anything other then long distance flight and you canât maximize Vigor gain?
Interesting, I probably just suck hard. But then again, I didnât expect Dragonflying or Skyriding to have a mechanic that I can only describe as the Dark Souls of Flying where you have to git gud or you just canât beat it and have to give up.
Wasnât WoW supposed to be a game for fun⌠with a broad appeal for everyone? This doesnât sound like it and locking Steady Flying behind a Pathfinder that requires you to do all the quests when you probably need to fly to do them doesnât feel good.
5 Likes
Is there any mount that uses stable flying on its own even if you have dragonriding selected? I hate to use dragonriding for quests where i need to move few yards to collect something.
True, but I also look at the idea of locking both behind Pathfinder, while I can somewhat support it, to enable Ionâs monkey paw in the worst possible way. One reason they thought they could get away with removing flight in WoD is because they made everything accessible from the ground. While the year long wait was stupid (again, couldd see it in WoD due to having to to that about face/heel-face-turn on flight) pathfinder in and of itself likley would have not been given a 2nd thought if it was in the form it will be in TWW.
Ion, however, is a lawyer type, he sees people wanting both locked behind pathfinder, what is to keep him from trying again with his desire of removing flight altogether, if he really does have such anymore? As long as some form of flight is available from the start, content likely can, and will, be developed with flight in mind, lock all flight behind anything but a gold cost or possibly a quest chain, and what will keep them from being like âyou donât care for content accessible from the sky, so why do you need flight at all?â.
Wow, this is so hyperbolic it must be intended as a joke. No rational person would call âliterally any mechanic that requires attentionâ to be âDark Soulsâ of anything.
1 Like
They also said they were listening to us butâŚ
roflmao they sure as heck are not.
2 Likes
There are two scenarios I support locking both behind pathfinder (and keeping pathfinder as a mechanic at all):
-
If the game had never had flight to begin with, and WoD was another expansion without flight.
-
If the game had flight only during TBC (experiment) and then decided to move away from it in WoTLK, at a time in the gameâs development cycle when there was room for larger scale changes without sacrificing consistency.
As it stands, they added it in the 1st expansion, had it for the 2nd expansion, had it in the 3rd expansion, while also adding it to all the parts of the old world that never had flying before, and the 4th expansion had it.
Expansion number 5 not having flight, or changing the way flight is obtained, or the time frame not being nearly as soon, locking it behind some achievement, or some larger design goal to not have flying moving forward⌠All clear indicators of poor game design.
Which should be avoided out of hand. Youâre a game designer - the intentional force behind the production of a game. Youâre not some guy off the street putting together a video game from stuff he found in the garbage.
The game should not resemble a trashfire.
I donât think they were trying âto get away withâ anything, so much as trying to shape the direction of future content to better align with original design goals. WoD being designed without flying FITS thematically with the original design of vanilla.
The issue again, becomes the sudden paradigm shift in design, breaking precedent and ruining something that was otherwise sound game design, people obviously enjoyed and appreciated.
When a designer then says âno, I am the designer, I know what is best for my game, I will ruin it for everyone if thatâs the way I feel the direction should go,â Thatâs when I stop giving them my money.
If that ever were to happen, if they decided to stop having flight in future content (I mean, TWW and 2 more probably wonât do that, but ya never know), on the level of just not allowing flight, removing pathfinder, ect, they would have to commit to not putting flight in any future content, ever, and then retroactively remove flight from past content, including the new Skyriding.
They would have to do this and suffer the natural consequences in hopes their vision attracts a Pheonix Rising type of player resurgence, after the mass exodus that would ensue.
Years down the road, I am 100% positive this game would grow organically to where it peaked in 2010, if Blizzard did stop developing it actively. Even if one of their last major changes was to completely remove flying from the game and redesign the âflying onlyâ parts to have a Ferry NPC or something.
Was wow not fun for the past 20 years? Every expansion for the 18 years before Dragonflight had us leveling on the ground, with the exception of cataclysm.
For the 10 years from WoD through Dragonflight, you could not fly at all, or specific to Dragonflight, you could fly but just not specifically steady flight until a nearly year long pathfinder was completed.
I donât believe people who say wow was not fun, or didnât had broad appeal due to no flying periods.
Prior to cataclysm, every player had to level the entire way to 70 on the ground, and had to be grounded when visiting the old world zones, even during the supposed most popular period in wows history: Wrath of the Lich King.
The vast majority of the games history saw us leveling on the ground.
I donât buy that all of a sudden the game is not fun, doesnât have broad appeal etc, because youâre being asked to level on the ground for 8 hours.
The only issue here is people are jealous that others will be skyriding from the jump.
Blizzard should just lock that behind the campaign as well to stop the complaining, because itâs not a big deal.
Please letâs not pretend that the game itself is terribly unfun if you canât fly while leveling, because history proves this is not true.
2 Likes
But one thing this ignores is that, while flight was in those expansions, so was content, at least at high/max level, that required flight to access:
TBC: had the reps for skyguard and Orgriâla, Tempest Keep, some world bosses and the farming location of Elemental Plateau
Wrath: Storm Peaks and Icecrown were built around flight so much that, if you were unable to afford flight by the level you would be doing them, you got a loaner mount to use to fly around
Cata: Had BWD, BoT, Vortex Pinnacle, Throne of the 4 winds, Firelands raid, not to mention zones like Hyjal, Deepholm, and Uldum being designed for flight
MoP: Had MSV, the Cloud serpent rep, some end game daily areas, like for Halfhill,
If the only content that requires flight is end game/high/max level, then sure, lock both behind pathfinder, that at least returns the game to what it was like in BC, Wrath and MoP.
This is not happening. They just reduced the pathfinder time gate from nearly a year to zero. You can complete it day 1 and steady fly with zero artificial waiting for a patch or a switch to turn on.
They added dynamic flight in DF, and converted legacy flying mounts to use the system after it was shown to be a popular change.
They have added flying mount accessibility options in the UI to assist with motion sickness et cetera.
By their actions and all indications, they are doubling down on flying in world of Warcraft.
It is unnecessarily âdoom and gloomingâ to say they are going to turn around and remove flying.
You guys need to stop letting Ion live rent free in your heads.
2 Likes
I also had âif such still existsâ at the end of that, more as a bit of a jab at the ones that think Ion is the reason for everything they donât like.
Most of the time if I am talking about Ion, it is meant to be more the tongue in cheek, like âif you really think he is so bad, what will stop him from doing worseâ deals.
1 Like
Iâm not seeing that, but if I missed that sentiment, my apologies.
No problem, such things can be hard to catch in text, if it helps, try reading it as if I was a comedian on stage or in a workplace meeting making jokes about the boss.
Iâm not sure that was the issue, but Iâd also rather not get into a whole long side bar discussion about it. Cheers.
locking either of them is stupid. we all know this
5 Likes
Was in the last part of my post:
have a Ferry NPC or something.
Of course theyâd have to substitute flight in those expansions with something equivalent, if they wanted to avoid breaking those areas.
Yeah, thatâs kinda what I was getting at, if Pathfinder stays in game, and both get locked behind it, would make sense to be for latest content only, this way would be in line with the way itâs been before. Would also make sense to remove PF for past content as a general rule, since it gets rolled into base game anyway. Why keep it after the content is no longer relevant?
Blizzard obviously has no problem outright breaking features and removing content.
I love this, thank you for that. I only really consider Ion when I wonder if a successor has taken over yet. Same with Bobby and the lady they have working on Classic.
These 3 people are following the same development design philosophy, two are still at Blizzard.
1 Like
Itâs like a cult of personality, only instead of being fans, itâs people obsessively hating, and letting everyone know about it at every single possible opportunity.
2 Likes
I donât think itâs healthy to be a fan of people. I also donât itâs healthy to obssess or harbor hate.
But if people arenât aware of the people more or less directly responsible for a lot of these pain points⌠can name them xD