Pathfinder needs more options

Ammathostus-zuljin · November 17, 2018, 2:55am

Alright, so a good chunk of people agree on the time-gating being bad.

Agnohm-moon-guard · November 17, 2018, 3:07am

Hmm. What if - and hear me out now - you had to reach max level and purchase the ability to fly at the end of the expansion? I know this is a crazy, radical idea that’s never been tried before, but it’s just crazy enough to work.

Velara-gilneas · November 17, 2018, 4:01am

Ammathostus-zuljin:

Earning Pathfinder for free is nice, but some people want more options to fly straight away without having to wait an insidiously long time-gate.

As someone who earned Pathfinder up to now, I propose some solutions to the dilemma. Namely buying it.

1. Add a shop option for real money. If it came with (a) mount(s) or increased run speed, give those on purchase.

2. Add a buy-per-character option for gold. No mounts or movement speed, though.

3. (Experimental) Have world content in Tanaan, Broken Shore, 8.2’s new zone, and whatever else moving foward drop Flight Licenses per character around the time Part 2’s normally come out, to get people caught up on flying. I’d imagine with people farming this, it’d have to be valuable, so it’s a really rare drop chance. People can determine if it’s cheaper to farm or cheaper to buy from an NPC per character or from the shop for real money.

I will add more ideas, but these three should suffice for now. Feel free to add ideas of your own regarding the matter.

Also first thread under the new system.

I would be happy with a max level/gold purchase per character option.

Pathfinder should be an option. It should only be one part, and offer the player a variety of “sub” achievements to choose from, including activities a lot of players prefer to do other than questing and rep grinds.

Ammathostus-zuljin · November 17, 2018, 4:19pm

That does sound like a good set of ideas.

Lillyann-llane · November 17, 2018, 4:26pm

Yeah I’d have to say my only gripe is time gating. I got pathfinder 1 over a month ago. Waiting for a pathfinder 2 is annoying. It’s part of the reason I hardly play now. I’m done riding through mobs to get places.

Catalyst-gorefiend · November 17, 2018, 5:17pm

Most of you seem to have forgotten/missed that Blizz REALLY regrets flying as a whole. They tried to remove it in WoD, and the community backlash is how we got Pathfinder in the first place. It was Blizz’s was of giving us flying back, while also (kinda) giving us the finger. They would prefer we couldn’t fly, there isn’t really anything else to it, and since they know they cant really get rid of it, they are just going to make it time consuming to get.

Ammathostus-zuljin · November 17, 2018, 5:19pm

The reason I proposed Blizzard add value-added content to flying is because Blizzard could stand to give more options, not take options away.

Hizami-dentarg · November 17, 2018, 5:21pm

Involving real money will never happen when it comes to being able to fly.

Catalyst-gorefiend · November 17, 2018, 5:27pm

I guess I’m missing where there is value added there, yes, flying is very QoL, but as an MMO it is a bit of a negative, as it makes the world SEEM much more empty.
If your value comes from buying it, I don’t see how it adds value and wouldn’t just cause more trouble for Blizz, yes, I’m sure people would buy it, however, I’m sure you saw the Diablo player base response to Immortal, and one of the biggest issues that I’ve seen related to it is that mobile games are known to be riddled with microtransactions, that take the place of playing the game (ex. buy X boost so that you don’t need to do Y)
Personally I don’t see how it could bring a positive to the game. lack of pathfinder actually enables you to see people while you are travelling around the world, not just in hotspots.

Pushead-hyjal · November 17, 2018, 6:08pm

Timewalking tokens to buy old expansion pathfinder unlocks seems like a reasonable option.

Ammathostus-zuljin · November 17, 2018, 6:17pm

Timewarped Badges for WOD/Legion/Old Content Pathfinders? Yes.

Chetal-wyrmrest-accord · November 17, 2018, 6:29pm

Or they could just not time gate it and then pathfinder would be perfectly acceptable.

I’m okay with the minor rep grind requirements and the rest of it, but arbitrarily leaving out “Part 2” for roughly 8 months is just poor design.

Catalyst-gorefiend · November 17, 2018, 6:40pm

Honestly I have no issue with them making someone able to buy the OLD pathfinder achieves for gold/TW tokens or whatever, as having them does make the process easier for new players to get into the game.
I still disagree with the idea of being able to buy the current version of pathfinder however, and don’t have an issue with waiting to get part 2 until the expansion is older, especially with BFA, as there have been a plethora of issues, and letting Blizz focus on those rather than making sure that the textures look right from above seems like a fair tradeoff

Candybarzyum-azgalor · November 17, 2018, 6:42pm

Pathfinder needs to not exist. Or stop being gated by rep

Waidmann-gilneas · November 17, 2018, 6:49pm

What they need to do is make it so you can start Pathfinder as soon as the expansion drops .
Then make the requirements 1: Expansion Lore Master 2: Expansion Explorer and finally reaching max level .

THen open flying in the already explored \quested zones.

If they want to do a 2nd part then do it for new zones that are opened in the expansion at a later date but with the same requirements as above.

What doesn’t need to be a part of it are dungeons , rep grinds and looking for chests or other little shiny objects.

Ammathostus-zuljin · November 18, 2018, 1:08pm

I think Waidmann hit it right on the head.

Tyränt-exodar · November 19, 2018, 12:06am

Have to agree with Macallan.

I completed Draenor Pathfinder last month and am about 6000 rep away from unlocking Legion Pathfinder. It always seems like a steep mountain to climb before you begin, but once you’ve completed Loremaster, it’s pretty much downhill from there. The only annoying part is the rep grind, but even then (post-Draenor) you earn most of it while you’re doing Loremaster.

I’ve completed a sizable portion of BfA Pathfinder P1 just by leveling. It’s not difficult. It just takes a bit of extra effort… like farming for gold to pay for it at max level for every character you have as opposed to unlocking flying account-wide for one mega-achievement that you need to obtain.

Felicite-cenarion-circle · November 19, 2018, 2:05am

I think this is a great idea. Pathfinder in current content–and I’ve done them all, is acceptable. But having it be backward compatible would make leveling for returning players alts so much better.

Aeviree-khadgar · November 19, 2018, 2:16am

Getting flight never took so much work. It took me almost 6 months to do legion pathfinder. Getting 5k gold to fly at max was maybe a couple weeks of work if that. Pathfinder is a garbage time sink.

Twibiju-staghelm · November 19, 2018, 3:43am

Absolutely not. This should never be an idea that Bliz should ponder. We already have way too many folks that think flying is cheating (I kid you not, I have seen this argument before).

Besides, we should never have to pay real life money to (re)acquire something that has been in the game since BC.

If Bliz is going to insist on this PF type stuff, then they need to vary it up every expac. How about instead of a laundry list on top of making us wait 2 patches in to get it, we have three requirements:

Rep to honored (since they seem to want to force this upon us regardless)
Exploration complete.
A series of quests in each zone that explains why we can’t fly in those zones. Once we complete those quests, we can fly in those areas.

Heck, they can make it to where I have to do it on every character for all I care. I just want some danged thought put into this PF business.

Heck, if we want it account wide then require us to get our rep to exalted on the character that did the original questline.

HOWEVER, for individual characters it only has to be honored. And it needs to be available from day one to complete and be able to fly (meaning you still have to be at max level to do it).

I just am tired of feeling like I’m doing chores. It doesn’t make the game fun for me and makes me want to not spend as much time in game.