Pathfinder Achievements for Flying is STUPID

Community General Discussion
1

Back in the day, reputation grinding was a voluntary part of the game. You didn’t have to grind every reputation if you didn’t want to but simply focus on one or two to devote time in order to get something you wanted from them in particular.

It made sense and you could play the game at your own pace. Simple but effective as well as fun.

Now though? You HAVE to grind every, single, one to get what players used to just be able to buy once they hit max level.

Why? Because the developers are LAZY. This is so stupid on so many levels and has been brought up so many times by the playerbase only to keep being ignored by them and having this same pointless system implemented expansion after expansion because they don’t want to design the game around what we, their paying customers, want.

My wife and several of my friends used to love playing this game, but they just got utterly fed up with this pointless grind as they no longer have the time to spend months on reputations that don’t really give them anything for their effort.

They’ve repeatedly referenced the Pathfinder system as the main reason they’ve stopped playing, and I can’t blame them.

Remember when you were able to buy flying at max level? It felt like a well deserved reward at the end of a long road and made sense given you’ve seen the entire world back to front while you leveled.

Now? Now it feels like a PUNISHMENT.

‘Congratulations on maxing out! See those boulders over there? Yeah…we’re gonna need you to individually roll them up that mountainside till you get to the very top. THEN you can have flying, enjoy!’

Bottom line, flying has become needlessly complex and wasteful when it should be simple. Let flight masters sell the training at a reasonable price once you hit max level, boom problem solved.

Make reputation grinds great again by making them what they always should have been: voluntary. I guarantee you’d see a flood of old players start coming back to the game they used to love once they no longer need to waste months of effort on something that is patch gated anyways.

5 Likes
2

No thanks… I like Pathfinder plus it’s already going to be in Shadowlands.

4 Likes
3

I’m torn

On one hand when I get pathfinder I have flying for any character for that expansion at 0 cost. I just had to put in the effort once.

On the other hand, the mindless gating upon gating to get there. Yeah not so fun when the content is no longer current.

4

What is the fun in Pathfinding exactly?

Even if you go nose to the grindstone to max out all your reputations, flying is still gated behind multiple patches and there are usually two Pathfinder achievements to finally unlock it which means MORE reputation grinding even after finishing the initial achievement.

It feels like a grind specifically designed by the developers to waste time and keep you paying month after month.

2 Likes
5

Pathfinder is good because I’m a broke boi and can’t afford buying it on every alt. I’d much rather just need to run around the map and collect rep subconsciously since I’d be collecting most of it anyway through questing, only going out of my way on ONE toon to unlock flying for ALL of my characters than farm gold, but that’s just me.

The only bad part is that nasty time gate like wtf so unnecessary

1 Like
6

What if there was a compromise…no buying at max level but no more gating?

What if there was a reputation called the Flightmaster’s Guild for example that only becomes accessible at max level and would offer daily quests with exalted allowing you to unlock flying at no monetary cost?

That way while it would still be mandatory grinding, it would only be ONE mandatory grind and it would not only go faster but remove the overly tedious aspect of having to grind ALL the reputations.

And to sweeten the deal, the quests could involve training a young mount to be ready for the hardships of flying and would be a quest reward once you’ve hit exalted so you have an emotional connection to it the whole time.

What do you think?

4 Likes
7

I agree. Let’s just have Blizzard remove the floating instances and raids and put them on the ground whilst we all run at 100% speed.

8

I like Pathfinder because I get it just by doing the things I normally do anyway. I like having flying on alts while leveling and making gold getting it done instead of spending gold on flight. The only problem I have with it is the long wait for Part 2.

2 Likes
9

No…
Okay, slight elaboration…A compromise would be to both allow pathfinder and flight being purchasable at max rank.

10

As long as it included flight for all alts it’s a great idea.

11

Which would defeat the whole purpose of Pathfinder so that’s NOT going to happen.

1 Like
12

You don’t understand. The rep grinding is the part that’s fun.

13

Possibly for a casual player that’s true. But otherwise your very first statement is pretty debatable.

14

Pathfinder part 1 should unlock flight in launch areas, while part 2 unlocks it for areas that get patched in later.

2 Likes
15

I would be fine with that.

1 Like
16

With the way WoW’s economy is now, gold is no longer feasible as a method for unlocking flight.

Either you make the price such that it’s a significant investment for even long-time players (Like it used to be) and therefore completely shut out new or otherwise poor players from even having a chance of getting flying for just one character, or you make flying cost so little gold that everyone can afford it and immediately make the zones completely pointless to even existing for 95% of the expansion’s lifetime.

Having flying be tied to gold also allows another avenue of incentive for gold selling and would do nothing to combat the point of obtaining flying with gold to begin with: A gold sink.

Unlocking Pathfinder in BFA was completely trivial if you just did the content at a casual pace. The only sticking point was the length of time until you were able to fly, because you were already most of the way there by that point.

17

How would that defeat it and what is its purpose that you claim will be defeated? Pathfinder is still useful for those that have many alts and has an acheivement and mount associated with it…

18

The compromise was already made. They wanted no flying, we wanted flying, here comes pathfinder. It may not be the compromise you wanted but it is one nonetheless and it’s most likely here to stay.

In its current model, the player doing pathfinder would be terribly disadvantaged over the one just buying it at max level. Unless you could only buy it midway through the 2nd major patch, which is about when the pathfinder gets flying.

1 Like
19

You state that making pathfinder low cost would make the zones completely pointless to even exist for 95% of the expansions lifetime…and then later state that Unlocking pathfinder in BFA was “completely trivial if you just did the content at a casual pace”…hmmmm

20

Those two things aren’t related.

Pathfinder was trivial to unlock. The only reason why you couldn’t fly at max level was because you had to wait until part 2, which was also trivial to unlock.

If you could just buy flight at max level, the rich would be able to do so immediately upon hitting max level.

Pathfinder is still the preferable option regardless because it’s fair to everyone and all of your alts get the benefit as well.

1 Like