In the livestream the senior game designer said there is “an ever present problem where there is one mount that is incredibly powerful” that mount, obviously, being the water strider and it’s innate water-walking abilities. He goes on the highlight why this is the case considering many zones(including ones in BFA) have stream and puddles.
But why is this a problem? Why is the water strider being a powerful mount a bad thing? You remove flying and add in a time-gated pathfinder system. You don’t want us flying. You don’t want us using water walking mounts? Then don’t design zones with streams and puddles. Delete oceans from the game entirely! Design zones with flying in mind. Make other mounts more useful and more accessible without diminishing useful mounts in any way, this a problem of blizzard’s own making. Don’t give us a paper cut and then put a band aid over it and expect us to be thankful.
That’s rather the point: they want you to foot slog through this game now because 1) the current devs much like the current group at Lucasfilm who ruined Star Wars think that this is now “their game” and everything that went before it can be flushed down the toilet as long as they get what they want/like and 2) because footslogging increases /played which is all Activision cares about now. All conveniences like flying and water walking and cough portals cough are net decreases to /played and that’s bad for them.
I still don’t really understand the “incredibly powerful” part of the comment. The strider is not incredibly powerful. It only walks on water, and if there are enemy things in the water it sinks. If you’re in combat when you go into the water it sinks.
I think that these designers use these buzz phrases as a way to manipulate their customers. People hear the phrase incredibly powerful and think, “we can’t have that! It’s not fair”, and do not complain about whatever change is taking place.
It’s not a problem as I see it, or a “debacle”. The problem here is players are unnecessarily angry that the mount is potentially changing, with a trade off that all mounts can do what it does. It’s a silly reason to be angry, and it’s not all that bad I think.
Dumb blizz devs can only make things equal or nerf the one that isn’t “normal”.
Chad GW2 devs use the “make every mount feel special” approach instead.
This is what Blizzard always do, copy what other game does, but make the worse version of it.
The whole thing is “Blizzard speak” for “we added something to the game, now regret it immensely”. It’s like all the lawyer speak you get from Ion about flying.
But Blizzard says there is a problem with the water strider. Their words. Not mine. That’s why this change is happening. I’m mostly excited for 8.2, it mostly looks great, and I’m not the kind of player who just jumps on the i hate blizzard and everything ion does bandwagon, but these changes both vex and worry me.
Well, call me an eternal optimist but I’m sure it’ll work out. I mean worrying about things isn’t going to change the fact that these changes will probably happen anyways, and that we’ll have little decision on the matter. Might as well give them the benefit of the doubt. I’m sure they’ll get the specifics worked out somehow.
It might. I’m happy to give them the benefit of the doubt but what I’m most worried about is these mount items being legacy items that may not work or be available for future expansions above level 120. We may not see the full effects of these changes for years to come. Apparently these mount items are also not permanent and may be required by the player to replace them on a regular basis. I really hope I’m wrong, but I find it hard to be optimistic. I think 8.2 will be a really good patch, but I think this has the potential to impede that to a significant degree.
If past behavior is used to gauge what they will do in the future, we should be concerned. We know they don’t like mounts water walking, so at some point in the future, that ability will be removed. They also made it so mobs daze a lot more often, so at some point this piece of equipment will be removed. Plus we need to be concerned about what they add and take away in the future. Transmog, AH, 2 seater. All could disappear into equipment slots.
It irks me that the Only mountaffected by this change is the water strider.
Not any other mount tha has a special uniqueness tied to it; passenger, vendor, Herbing.
Considering they wanted water walking gone back in legion, says a bit about this change… And the fact it’s coming in with the flying patch me think they want the player base to quickly forget about it.
Why should I care if it matters to you? I didn’t even respond to you. Also the mount is not being removed. Get the water walking gear for it and it is the exact same as it is now.
![:roll_eyes:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/roll_eyes.png?v=6" ":roll_eyes:")
