So everyone should just sit on their hands because it hasn’t happened yet? You don’t need to be a rocket scientist or have a crystal ball to know what will happen down the road. All you have to do is look at the past.
It is better to speak out now and hope to influence them from making this change than to take a wait and see attitude and then be disappointed when it happens in the future.
That explains your satisfaction with the game a bit, I think. An awful lot of folks can’t say the same. My experience is probably also tainted by the fact that I tend to play solo, so I don’t have the benefit of a social outlet to bolster my fun in game; I’m relying on the game itself.
Have a good evening. 
Because there’s more than just one instance where a similar thing has occurred, and it’s far more difficult to get The Powers That Be to change a system once it’s been implemented than it is to bring up potential issues in advance and hope to head Blizzard off at the pass.
Only fixing half the problem right now, but if the system is actually successful, I have little doubt that they will expand on it in the future. That is why this is a good change - it opens many doors, and really doesn’t close any.
If peeps actually talk about how much they enjoy the system, we could see equipment that let’s you mine while mounted, or perhaps another piece of equipment that increases mount speed, or maybe a piece of equipment that lets you fight while mounted for a short time on a CD.
Like everything they do for WoW lately, they’re creating a foundation system that could be expanded upon later.
People have asked for account-wide access to things for over a decade. This is nothing new. There is a reason the mount journal exists. There is a reason the pet journal exists. There is a reason the toy box exists.
Now, if our water striders retain the ability to walk on water, but not benefit from equipment, people with water striders should have to get water walking gear just the same as anyone else. We should not get a discount, period.
Now, if you guys actually go through with this, and actually ignore the massive community feedback telling you otherwise and strip the water striders of their passive ability, those water walking boots need to be free. Period.
We worked for that rep. I sat in Pandaria for months of those dailies before you added the Grand Commendation to make easily. I fished for MONTHS getting Lunkers in Draenor for Nat Pagle rep for my Crimson Water Strider. I will not have you strip that ability away later, then tell me, “Nope, you have to buy the ability back for all 20 of your alts” later.
When the zone has a lot of water in it before flying mounts are available/aren’t available, I used the water strider a lot. Because you made me. For instance: Timeless Isle? I didn’t have another option. I couldn’t fly, you didn’t give me an easy way to navigate the island. I used that mount religiously there. Yes, there was the hozen helmet, but they didn’t spawn often, and only in a single part of the island. The rest of the island I needed the strider.
Broken Shore? If you needed to get to the imp island? You used the strider. Stormheim? If you needed to get to Kings Rest the first time? You used the strider. Etc. When you design the game to either take you 10+ minutes to swim because swimming is slow, or a few minutes to water walk across, you water walk.
Maybe you should re-evaluate why your swimming mounts go so slow, rather than why people opt to water walk across? Most of us would gladly use our underwater mounts if we had the option. But they go slower than if we simply had water walking cast on us and ran across on our feet.
I feel like I only have to options towards my opinion of this. ![:confused:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/confused.png?v=6" ":confused:")
Either: a) Blizzard’s left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing and they coded the system all up and then realized too late that there was no reasonable method of injecting an exception (water strider with no equip slot - walks on water)
or b) Like flying they realize how hard (ie: $$) it is to design content that cannot be circumvented by a mount.
Neither makes them look good in my eyes. ![:frowning:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/frowning.png?v=6" ":frowning:")
However, what does effect me is yet another thing that breaks the continuity and internal reality of the world you have created. A Water Strider that can’t water walk is the same as a boat that can’t float, and there is no Azerothian reason what-so-ever to that.
People begin to not care about the world when you break it so continually. There is the suspension of belief and then there is pure disbelief in the world you’ve created. This falls under the latter.
Please reconsider your decision.
Except the systems aren’t ever expanded upon. They’re ditched at the end of the expansion. Or revamped from the ground up in the middle of the expansion, as with azerite armor, and then ditched at the end of the expansion.
There is a massive difference between saying, “With the implementation of the Mount Equipment, are we going to see things like Goblin Gliders or Bardings vanish from the game?” and “OMFG DOOOOMMMMMM they’re removing everything!!! The world is ending!” My responses have been directly related to posts of the second variety.
One of those is useful feedback - the other is baseless assumption and isn’t doing anyone any good.
Having a concern and asking a question about that concern is a good idea - coming on the forums and spouting out that you just know they’re removing things before the patch is even on the PTR is silly and useless.
But that’s just it. With portals & striders, Blizzard is basically saying “Nothing is sacred. Anything can be unexpectedly redacted at anytime because we feel like it, no matter how pointless it seems or unpopular it is with you all.” Enchants go stale every expansion… augments get disabled… legendaries turn off… we’re used to COMBAT stuff evolving/changing and stuff falling away because of that…
but now they’re targetting NON combat stuff which had been left alone previously, and the expectation was that they would REMAIN left alone, unless another Cataclysm shook things up.
If that isn’t clear by now, you’re not paying attention.
Ion “how 2 mine 4 fish?” has a grievance with the striders
This is BFA Blizzard and You in a Nutshell >
The Man tease Dog with food
The Man feeds Dog
The Man tease Dog again with food
The Man gets Bit for being Moron
Dog runs away…
Your kidding right?
Is it April fools joke?
So after people made the effort to farm another boring rep grind, the team have had an out of body experience and decided to change the way something works on a whim.
Do you not realize you are alienating your customer base by this silly idea, you put a road block in to get it by a rep grind and now want to change it?
It seems your team is more interested in sucking blood from a stone to get what players are left to farm again or put their hands in their pockets.
I just bought a boxed collectors in OZ for $50 and i can now see why it was that price when you come out and promote silly ideas by ignoring the work that was done once to extort more money or time from the player base.
I don’t believe this is a baseless assumption. I think that blizzard will most likely remove the old bardings and replace them with mount equipment. My reasoning is that Blizzard would think it would be too overpowered to waterwalk, increased move speed, anti daze, and interact while moving.
It is not useless to think they are removing bardings etc before it is even on the patch because it allows you to react earlier. For instance changing your herbing professions to tank classes. So that you can herb without being dazed and then choose the water walking mount equipment. Reacting earlier allows you to max out herbing before the changes which could slow down lvling it.
they wont remove it until people start stacking. Then in less then 15 minutes it’s labled an “exploit” bans are given out and they become mutually exclusive.
All this done, unannounced on Friday arvo before a long weekend. There will be no refunds given and blacksmiths will have the item removed from their known patterns
Is Anyone here glad Blizzard isn’t a Pharmaceutical Company?
I don’t like the water strider. Its feet on solid ground makes a noise that hits the back of my brain in a way I don’t like, and I haven’t yet found the right sound files to mute it. I don’t like the way it moves when someone is riding it. I don’t think it’s a particularly pretty mount, in either of its variations. It’s why every single non-DK alt has a [modifier:ctrl] portion of their mount macro, so that I only get on the water strider when I need to. The water walking is something I’ve wished for other options on for a long time.
But I hate the Sky Golem more. I hate that non-druid herbalists rely on this big giant mount that makes me physically sick to watch when flying, that can’t fit through doorways, that you can’t see your character on unless you turn your camera around to face it (and are standing still at the time). The argument against the striders seems to be “people are riding it everywhere when they might not want to” but I know when I’m coming up on an area where I’ll need to walk across water. Herbs are everywhere. The only place that my herbalists don’t need to ride the Sky Golem are in instances and islands.
It’s the same problem for both mounts: water striders are a sometimes-ride on all characters; the sky golem is an always-ride on some characters. The strider, at least, gives me the choice of red or blue (and whether I want to re-mount or am willing to swim across that river or whatever).
I don’t understand why you’re specifically solving one problem but not the other. I don’t understand why the Sky Golem will keep its niche and the Water Striders won’t. I can understand having to choose between water walking and collecting things while mounted, and I can even understand (though I don’t agree with) having that choice cost something every time you change your mind.
I think the Water Striders and the Sky Golem should get the same treatment. Whether that treatment is “they keep their existing ability but aren’t affected by mount equipment” or “they lose their existing ability but are affected by mount equipment” is almost irrelevant to me (I prefer the former for practical reasons, obviously), but I think all three mounts should be treated in an equal and consistent manner, even if that equal and consistent manner is that they lose their abilities and you have to re-purchase the ability to gain it back.
And, for what it’s worth, I don’t think mount equipment should have to be re-purchased for each character. Mount equipment being BoA is the same rigamarole that mailing heirlooms to each character in turn was back in the day (after they became BoA but before they became a collection). It’s an inconvenience that doesn’t deserve to become part of the regular routine of creating a new alt.
Let’s use logic for a moment. You brought up Portals - Blizzard decided to make a change. That change went live on PTR. People left negative feedback. Following the feedback, Blizz actually DID change quite a bit of it back including bringing the Cata portals back and in 8.2 bringing Caverns of Time back. I’m willing to bet that if we continue to give feedback - like say, Mist of Pandaria portal going to the two cities in the vale instead of Jade Forest, we may even get that changed down the line.
Let’s follow that sequence of events though - Change showed up on PTR, change was negative, feedback was given, change was improved to a more acceptable level.
Now let’s compare that to this discussion. First and foremost - the strider is not being nerfed, it is being expanded. Insert water walking into your Equipment slot and you have exactly what you have now - only now it works on all mounts.
The strider is not a special/difficult to get mount that deserves any kind of special treatment. It is a rep mount - the same as 100 others, and it is far easier to get than most due to timewalking.
The only problem I’ve seen w/ the strider issue thus far is that they are only giving one free water walking equipment to one character, which means that they are actually taking something away. The item should be BOA and free (or close to it) from the Anglers vendor if you have them at Exalted (say 1-10 gold).
So, what does that all mean? Well it means 1) until it’s actually on the PTR and we see that cost, there’s no point in assuming it will be 10000 gold, like quite a few posts on here have already done. 2) If it is some outrageous price, then we should give feedback on why we feel its outrageous, and it will likely change, just like the Portals.
As far as arguments that the strider should be treated like the golem. I personally disagree in full. The entire purpose of the mount equipment is to set a foundation for a system that could be expanded into the future to offer more gameplay and more fun ways to use mounts. Leaving water walking on the strider will directly break this purpose, as it means that the strider is still “required” for optimal gameplay.
That isn’t to say your feedback isn’t valid - but it does mean that the feedback should be constrained to what we actually know is true, instead of assuming that things are being removed that thus far, there is no evidence of like the bardings and goblin gliders. Doing so only muddles up the forums and spreads misinformation, which is counterintuitive to what you are actually trying to accomplish - giving feedback to ensure the system goes live in a state that is amicable for all.
The game evolving is not a bad thing, and like I said before - this change has potential to be a very good change if they choose to expand upon it. Think about an equipment slot item that will turn non-flying mounts into flying mounts. Or perhaps one that will give all mounts underwater speed boost. Or perhaps one that allows you to mine or herb while mounted (at which point the golem would lose it’s special as well), etc. etc. etc.
as somebody who capped characters on his account then deleted some to make allied races i use the water strider so much the first thing i do on every toon is put it into a keybind next to my personal choice of mount for the toon and a random mount selection.
I’ve posted afew times but the solution is very simple a re-usable item for those who already have water walking so re-applying water walking doesn’t cost anything changing it to daze/parachutte will cost however, and when the mount equipment is upgraded from green to blue/purp the free water walking item wont be very helpful, its a good short term pr move.
but lately Blizzard hasn’t known what pr stands for.
Cata portals were never removed. As for CoT, they removed about a dozen portals from two major hubs and brought back one. If they’re listening to feedback, they’re not listening carefully enough.
Except plenty of folks complained when it was on PTR, but Blizz didn’t acknowledge or make a change until it went live and people really started complaining.
The actual sequence of events is - change showed up on PTR, change was negative, feedback was given, feedback was ignored and ignore and ignored. Change was implemented as planned despite feedback, louder and more numerous feedback in the form of vehement complaints ensued, change was every so slightly improved.
My take away from that is that if Blizzard is planning to implement something you don’t like, speak up loudly and often and sooner rather than later, because later it may be too late.
These go agaisnt one another. If I have to get something new to regain something that was naturally there on that mount before then the Water Strider was indeed nerfed. A core function was removed, that is a nerf by definition. The fact all mounts can use equipment is a separate matter after the fact.
Is Anyone here glad Blizzard isn’t a Pharmaceutical Company? Think about all nasty pills they want us to swallowing every single patch. If BFA is like a virus and Patchs are the Cure we’re all pretty ook in the dooker