The same people that whine about not having flying are the same people they whine there is nothing to do when they burn through the content so fast.
3 Likes
I’m still waiting for that “engaging” gameplay that only restricted flying can bring I keep hearing about.
How long ago was WoD released…?
11 Likes
Am not. Not even when I bought flying at max level did I burn through content. Course, a lot of it now is uninteresting.
4 Likes
Then maybe they should make zones less of an obvious obstacle course that’s so unfun to travel at ground level. I used to love riding across open expanses in Azeroth. Now it couldn’t be more obvious that they’re trying to slow us down. It’s why I stayed out of Revendreth until 9.1.
18 Likes
It’s actually because zones are designed around being done on foot, and would look unrecognizable if designed for instant flying.
I’m not one for timegating flying but it should be gated. If it were me I’d gate it behind the expansions initial campaign, then each zones new campaign in following patches.
1 Like
Pandaria is unrecognizable? It’s actually quite easy to foot around, though without flying you have to know exactly where the paths are.
We just need a whole campaing at day 1, every player will complete it in their own pase, then fly unlock. That campaing will show u the zone in the ground and then you can do any grind content flying from point a to b.
1 Like
It’s really not.
For me personally, I find the design of most new zones to be an exercise is frustration and tedium then engaging or fun while on the ground. If places like Korthia were actually bigger than a postage stamp and had rest areas or points of interest free from hostile mobs and paths that didn’t aggro everything within a 100km radius I might enjoy them more.
34 Likes
Engaging…… because fighting trash from a to b is so fun right ? Not everyone plays the same way or thinks the same you can’t force ground mounting mentality on flying mount people they will sit in the main city for ques to pop over exploring
8 Likes
Exactly.
Right now it’s just a way to increase playing time artificially. Tight cramped maps with mobs at every turn are tedious. Unless you are somewhat geared, have good aoe control, or are a tank. Than it’s kind of fun to pull the whole area.
At least there should be some variety.
The dev’s failure to create engaging maps and quests shouldn’t be a reason to gate flying beyond something simple like finishing the zone.
6 Likes
Pathfinder is still mandatory in old content? That makes no sense
1 Like
Yep.
I actually fly longer routes in legion to see some nice views from the air. Stormheim is beautiful to me. I never rush there. That gets scenic routes I can’t see that from the ground. well you can but its best scene from a nice wide angle from the air.
even ardenweald doesn’t have that for me. Hated it on the ground (mob density, mob chokepoints, dead end paths). and not uncommon for me to alt tab numb lock auto fly now.
3 Likes
Once Opon A Time…
From January 16th, 2007 through Wrath, Blizzard Devs used to make so much content they never felt the need to have to throw up walls, lay down speed bumps, and every other time gate they could come up with, to slow the players’ rate of content consumption so they wouldn’t get bored, unsub, and find another game until the next content patch/expansion was released.
Then came Cataclysm and because so much went into remaking the old world not only for flying, but most of the quest-lines were new, and they added Archeology which was fairly popular, that expansion’s leveling only consisted of FIVE levels: 80 - 85.
So it didn’t matter how great everything was because once you hit 60 you could fly everywhere in the game (except BC starting zones because they literally ran out of time and it was the lowest priority because the only players that had priority in those zones couldn’t fly anyway), once you hit cap, there wasn’t much to do except raid and run dungeons.
However, because ICC had been so popular and most everyone had BIS gear for the last 6 months of Wrath so they’d been one-shotting nearly everything in the game and had taken to the forums to complain about how face-roll everything was… the Devs overtuned all of Cata’s instances to the point it almost broke the game.
So not only was there not much to do, because what there was at endgame was so impossible it broke most guilds and many people quit.
This was before:
- Battle Pets
- Account-wide Mounts and Pets
- World Quests
They released Transmogging early in 4.3 instead of 5.0 to try to lure people back, but that was a year too late to matter.
Then Mists launched and while it had a ton of content, there were only 5 levels again. 85 - 90.
The first content consumption slowing effect they made was gating flying in Pandaria so it wasn’t available until level 90, which was a huge shock to the system since flying had been available in Cata the moment it launched and all you had do was buy it from the trainer for all your characters 60 and over.
Battle Pets we’re huge. It was an excellent expansion. But having only five levels wasn’t enough content for people to stay, so for WoD they decided to go back to 10 levels, postpone (kill) flying, and make the ground terrain as punishing and hard to traverse as possible, with even less content.
That caused The Great Wexodus which forced Blizzard to create Pathfinder.
And that’s why we have to keep relearning Flying, Charlie Brown.
9 Likes
Because they can and they know they can get away with it.
1 Like
The apex of WoW content was when flying was at its maximum. Content drought expacs became more common with flying removed. Flying doesn’t make Blizz make less raid tiers, that’s just absurd. And for that matter, flying during Northrend and Outland took longer than what ground mounts currently do in their respective zones.
If Blizz is that worried then make zones big again. Ditch the overpacked mob density meta and go back to Northrend levels.
19 Likes
This. You wouldn’t believe how many people don’t even see learning the zones are a valid part of playing the game. There was a guy a while back complaining about how allegedly difficult it was to navigate Revendreth. He posted a ms-paint altered route he claimed you’d have to take to get from one end of the zone to the other, marking spots like “wall here” or “can’t pass have to go around.” And everyone one of those notes were wrong. There was no wall there or there was a way through, even an obvious one. In his case I don’t think he even visited the zone in person and was just going off the zone map. I copied the Revendreth map from wowpedia, did my own ms-paint alteration showing the near straight line from his point A to point B you were able to take. He never responded.
I doubt it, but possibly.
This didn’t happen. Only a tiny minority of players ever visit the forums. And the people who complained that dungeons were no longer a constant challenge weren’t the ones who were happy with them and later unhappy enough to quit. And it’s also true that the “I want everything to be brutally hard at all times” crowd only thinks they want that.
1 Like
Yeah, it was definitely the flying that caused mass unsubbing, not the lack of content.
/s
1 Like
Control.
Just like everything in real life right now! 
They said it was so you had to totally “smell the roses”, moving about on a land mount and exploring the zones first. The zones are often laid out in a kind of “linear” way they want you to discover them, while flying would let you skip that.
I don’t mind it, as long as Pathfinder doesn’t involve group content. I can grind away on reps/solo content all day.
I actually forgot, after all that time doing it, that in both Legion and BFA my alts could just fly because my main got it So that was refreshing, “Hey, my priest can just fly!”
1 Like
Neat theory, now do Wrath to MoP.