Water Strider Discussion

It was pointed out earlier that it seems like Ion was saying ‘around 1k’ was what he expected the crafted versions to sell for… the implication is that the rep-boots would be at a steep discount from that. So, who knows… 29g to 517g or some other weirdly specific amount.

At the end of the day, though, the specific price isn’t the issue. It’s the design philosophy that removes permanent traits and allows us to earn or buy them back that’s the problem. It was the problem when they pruned classes to the bone in order to put our abilities on artifact weapons instead, and then removed those abilities to let us re-earn them on azerite armor. It was the problem when flying became something we endlessly re-earn via pathfinder. It was the problem when races became something we earn rather than a core element of the game.

This is just the latest step in a design philosophy that says “today’s much loved feature is tomorrow’s carrot”.

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The cost is not even the worst problem.

Once Blizzard removes the innate functionality of the strider by introducing this system, they are free to introduce any changes they wish.

They could make the equipment cost more next expansion, they could make rival equipment vital next expansion so you had to either do without water walking or continually buy and carry in your backs substitutes to change between. They could remove the equipment system altogether.

If Ion genuinely didn’t want so many striders around we could have been given options, such as boats that float, or a more usable version of the surf board currently available for Island Expedition currency. Perhaps a special made-in-Dalaran hover-board for mages. :wink:

It really wouldn’t kill Blizzard to add things we like without removing things we depend on.

Thanks, btw, for the hat complement. Equipping this hat was the sole purpose of this toon. I noticed on Undermine Journal it was on the Hyjal AH for 50 gold, so quickly made a new toon there, boosted him - still had an unused boost on each account, not keen on paying to avoid playing a game I’m paying for - and did dailies and pet battles to raise the gold.

However I grow fond of my toons, so I couldn’t stop at leveling him to 120, - been questing for gear and gathering skills and he’s now well able to take on Azeroth. :wink:

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Do we all get to pick a mount we think is ugly and get it removed? And how are you forced to use the water strider, there are still water walking potions in the game, any mount can walk on water.

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Um, no, I didn’t. I enjoy fishing. I didn’t do it for the mount (though I was happy to get one). Now, just because Blizz decided to take away the water walking, I’m going to go back to WoD and fish my heart out. I’ll enjoy myself tremendously. I won’t be playing BfA while I’m doing it. And I’ll get a “worthless” strider just because I can.

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That’s one of the goals here. There are a lot of mounts out there and it’s strange to have a “wrong choice” when out running around. You’ll easily be able to keep the ability just as you have it now but there will be other options that you (the player) can make if you prefer something else. How you about the world, where you often go, and how fast you like to escape from things could all contribute to what works best for your playstyle.

There are a few extra notes so like Death Knights can do waterwalking via Path of Frost (and Shaman with Water Walking). That should help empower these classes a bit and help make them feel a bit more unique.

I’m not sure what the price of the waterwalking shoes will be offhand, but it should be pretty affordable on the Anglers vendor. We’ll have the PTR up soon™ and look forward to hearing your feedback on that.

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I guess my primary question is: Why not make the Water Strider work like the Sky Golem? Where it just has waterwalking, but won’t benefit from other mount equipment. This opens up the option to use the waterwalking equipment if you don’t want to use the strider, it keeps the strider as a reward for people who actually did those dreaded grinds to obtain them(lets be honest both of them were awful to do), and it allows you to use other equipment if you want to without feeling like you’re making a bad choice.

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While water walking potions are in the game, it was a cost many were willing to pay. However, introduction of the strider made it so we could do it for free. So those that had the mount would rather use it instead of buying the pots. Then onto the part of feeling forced to use the mount is the fact of not wanting to spend the gold on the potions, or going back and fourth between questing and AH to make sure they have enough of them.

Back onto main topic. I will say, I kind of like the idea behind mount equipment for the fact I can now use any mount I want with a single pittance purchase. Especially when I usually did anyway, until I was stuck mid-lake in which I used the thing.
Plus, as being the case, this will not make mounts non-unique as their uniqueness was because of appearance only barring a few with special abilities.

But…there never was a “wrong choice.” There have been water walking potions in the game practically forever. And you get free ones just for doing the city fishing dailies.

I honestly, truly don’t understand the need to remove the strider’s ability just so other mounts can also walk on water if player’s prefer. It makes so little sense that I don’t blame players for coming up with conspiracy-theory type explanations for this move. It’s hard not to imagine we’ll next have to buy an item to let our flying mounts fly.

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What are the other goals? Why could they not be achieved without nerfing the water strider’s innate ability?

Why should we be satisfied with having an ability we worked for removed and sold back to us, just because it’s “pretty affordable”? And once you’ve decided this is an acceptable thing to do, what else can we look forward to losing and repurchasing for a “pretty affordable” price?

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I have 50 toons.

I have 1 toon with Exalted Anglers.

Today I can use all 50 toons and water walk on my strider as required.

When the change hits, i will need to purchase 49 tokens for 800 gold each, to enable my water walking. In addition, if I ever use anti-daze, I will need to purchase that and then re-purchase water walking.

I get the ability to not use the water strider for water walking. I have to pay far more than I would like to for a temporary benefit.

If I could use my strider as is, and then pay to make another mount have a permanent water walking ability (say the Dreadwake), then this would be a welcome change.

As it is, it is a change that will help many people, whilst annoying the crap out of anyone that has many toons and has played for years.

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Water Strider need keep it water walking it was a perk for getting the mount Its not like Mechanized Lumber Extractor is losing its Herbing use… so why water walking mount? all this rehash old stuff that dosen’t need rehashed.

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I have 100 toons, and I’m betting the equipment made this expansion won’t work for next expansion.

We cannot trust Blizzard’s motives when we know they value token sales more than subs - going by what a green said in a post earlier today. The expense of buying and swapping over this equipment is obviously aimed at further increasing token sales, as more players need more gold.

If the desire was to give more choices other mounts could have been produced with water-walking, the recent boat for example. A lot of players were puzzled as to why that boat did not float, and now we know.

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And now we will waste gold on These water walking shoes, anti daze and parachute items that will have to be changed for each condition. So instead of using 1 potion or just the strider to go from anti daze to water walking and back to anti daze, it will cost us 3 of these items, just to use a different mount.

It was already stated on wowhead that blizzard expects these to be 1000g, even if it just 10 gold each that still costs us gold every time we switch for something we have free now. and yes you can get free walking walking potions form the shatt fishing daily, or at least you could

And getting stuck in the middle of water and having to use a specific mount to run to the shore or running across a large body of water is not that bad, Have to use 1 mount for 30 sec and then be free to use any mount what so ever is not using the water strider for every thing.

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I would be pretty interested if you had any way of determining how many players are joining WoW as a result of the changes this year VS. the number of players not playing any more.

If you did things like:

  1. Add a new portal room without touching the others;

  2. Add a new mount system and leave the Sky-golem and Water strider (etc) alone;

  3. Increase the overall limit to 50 + number of Allied Races as Allied Races are introduced;

If you always look to improve the game, without any downsides, or as you tend to call them “interesting choices”, then you may find that there wouldn’t be any backlash. People often do tend to complain about just about everything, but that is the nature of paying for a service and wanting the best service without paying any more.

The changes you have made this year all appear to give with one hand and take with the other. And my view is that the subs are suffering as a result. Are they?

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*No idea who or what I’m replying to, due to this god awful forum update

That said, making every mount able to walk on water has to be one the dumbest things Blizzard has ever done.

I’ve heard of the water strider “problem” before, and I didn’t understand it then, and I still don’t understand it now. I can’t believe for the life of me, that players would be so dumb to ONLY use a water strider, even if they don’t like it. Or that they feel forced to use a water strider.

There isn’t a problem here that needs a solution. You come to water > use strider. Back on dry land? Use the mount of your choice. It’s what I have been doing since MoP. Am I missing something here?

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Would it be possible to have the water strider be like the sky golem. It can have innate water walking but is not effected by mount equipment?

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Uh, how about responding to the people asking why the water strider isn’t being treated like the Sky Golem instead of just promoting a post that already agrees with you?

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Flying for one thing. Why not have that gated behind buying an equipment item? I mean they could get rid of needing to do achievements and just have it so you have to stock up on flying passes from the flightmaster to fly on your mounts (on all your toons).

the CM speaks of classes being more “unique” that touch wast lost after we lost our artifacts or when the insane prunning of classes started to reach to a sad status like BFA classes… a water walking skill doesnt make a class “special” because only that… seems I finally found the reasoning behind why class design has been so bad for BFA.

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