Pathfinder the Quest part is not really extending content it took me 2 days too complete all the zones.
Reputation gating is not Content,doing the same World quests over and over is not engaging .
The 2 new zones are the worst zone’s ever,timeless isle was far superior and more enjoyable than this rushed and poorly designed excuse for content.
Blizzard cant even design Quests for Factions in a even manner,you end up honored with one,but friendly with another despite doing all Area’s,this deliberate ploy to always make one faction take longer for rep is garbage.
Rep gains are a joke heavily nerfed,loss of tabards and medallions from previous Xpacs are needed.
This development team is terrible and while Flight isnt the sole loss of subs,the constant gating of everything is getting tiresome,yes we always had some gating but now it’s in every aspect of the game.
So, their fix for the “There is nothing left to do” was “There is nothing to do”?
They changed the system that allowed to players put in their time and effort into grinding what they want for this artificial time-gating that makes us feel like there is a content drought mid-expansion.
Not the greatest solution if you ask me, but to each their own.
That zone was very playable without flight. I never had any major issues transversing naz…and i emphasize the word major…to get where i wanted to go. Once i learned where to go to get things done…it was easy.
It wasn’t. One of the best ‘main story’ quests in the game was for the Onyxia key. That was never time gated, it was only limited by the player’s ability to get things done. Exactly how it should be today for everything without all of this “come back tomorrow” or “next week we will have more for you” bullcrap.
It’s designed to be right at the threshold of annoying to traverse. Make it too annoying and people will quit. That’s been the zone design philosophy since WoD. Zones aren’t designed to be fun anymore. They’re designed so you’ll spend the maximum amount of time doing things but not feel quite frustrated enough to quit.
That design is starting to wear really thin with a lot of people.
I like the concept of Pathfinder. I like the account wide aspect and I don’t think the requirements are extreme. What is extreme is the amount of time gate the devs put into the game. Pathfinder should be in the 1st major patch of an expansion. That is a good compromise.
As much as I want flying right at max level I’d be willing to wait until the .1 patch. That’s acceptable. Dragging it out for a year just feels spiteful and petty.
MoP was where they really started time gating and dailies, I suspect it was in response to a decline in subs after Cataclysm. The cloak required drops from raid bosses that you could only get once per week, running dailies for reps was required if you wanted to purchase gear with raid currency (justice points).
They tried to do the legendary quest thing in WoD as well but I suspect less people were running raids for the ring upgrades. But they found something else they could use to coerce it, flying. In fact, it’s so important for people that they didn’t need to make an interesting quest line to get people to run it. When people ubsubbed in mass numbers when they said they were going to remove flying, they saw an opportunity. A way to try to keep people subbed throughout an expansion, a way to make people run all of their content no matter how bad the design.
I think that’s the origin story for PF. Now pick up this feces or else you cannot fly.
How about this then, “nothing left to do” is subjective and there will always be a population with nothing left to do in a game with this many players. Hell, right now you can find a good amount of people who still manage to have nothing to do despite pound for pound there being the most actual things to do this year.
The issue is blizzard is historically pretty lazy with content design. The reason content feels garbage and like a chore is because blizzard only rewards you with power upgrades or something they have taken from you before. That design makes it so your not doing the content because the content is fun but you are doing the content because it is a pre-requisite for you to actually start having fun. I.E. a chore.
What about the grinds players liked in legion? Wheres mage tower events? Where’s a legion artifact-like XMog system? Why do the mounts you can grind in the world look like hot garbage? THAT’S how you give players something to do. Instead of locking something you stole or a direct power upgrade behind dull and boring content, you give us optional grinds that we do because it’s fun not to regain what was taken or to get power for raid.
We flew too close to the sun and our wings have melted away. We dared to look down upon his creation with disdain, and we have been smote for our hubris.
Sorry I guess I needed to specify, they did not have any impact on gameplay mechanics. Flying is a function, not just a cosmetic thing.
The Oracles and Frenzyheart thing was totally optional content that you could skip and not impact how your character functioned in the world.
A flying mount is a flying mount, so even without the Green Proto you could still fly in Northrend just fine on your stale gryphon or wyvern from TBC.
Just to clarify, by gameplay I mean something that alters the way your character interacts with the world mechanically, not just visually.
Now we have to grind reps to unlock the flying mechanic. We have to grind rep to unlock Allied races. You can’t do either of those things without grinding out world quests and Emissary rewards over time.
If you want those things you have to do it one way and one way only.
That is impacting their enjoyment of the game, not how they mechanically play the game, like flying and to a lesser extent allied races via racials.
I’m sure I’m not the only person who uses the term gameplay to refer to the mechanics of the game, even in this thread.
This is also known as time-gating which also increases Blizzard’s bottom line because the longer they keep you in game grinding on trivial things the better it looks to their stockholders. I really doubt it’s about policing player enjoyment or content consumption.
for lazy players yes. Its an MMO, everything should be earned. I don’t know why some of you don’t get this, MMO is a grind. get over it or move on. Nothing should be given too you, but the more and more of you that cry i’m sure they’ll adjust to keep your sensitive feelings happy.
Agreed. I’m there now. I’m so demotivated right now I have yet to get flight because I don’t really care for the new zones. The fatigue of the expansion and lack of interest in the new content are the reasons, but yes, Blizzard absolutely would claim it was lack of interest in FLYING if it suited them.