How Many Players Are Flying in Draenor

    Now that I have the Pathfinder achievement, I understand what it takes to get it, the frustration players felt trying to achieve it, and I have ideas on how to improve it for the next expansion.
    • BySynnistry
    • Published: September 16, 2015 / Modified: December 1, 2015

    Well, I finally did. Achievement unlocked: Draenor Pathfinder. Ironically, MMO-Champion released player stats on the achievement. How many people have unlocked flying in Draenor? Let’s look at some stats – first: some ground rules.

    1. The sample size is 1.8 million players not the total amount of players logging in the game.
    2. They did not say the location of these players.
    3. A significant number of people who were upset about flying aren’t in the game anymore.
    4. There is an Assault daily on the Horde side that hasn’t spawned. This needs to be fixed. This is stopping some people from completing it and I admit, if I was one of those people, I would be pissed!
    5. This was an off time because it’s when people are going back to school, there was a holiday in the US and families are adjusting to new schedules.
    6. Would be nice to see stats for the reputations achievements for Diplomat.

    Now that I have flying, I feel I am objectively talk about it. I did the work, I have it. I am on a high population server and I see quite a few people flying in the jungle. So many in fact I wondered why they were there in the bonus objective areas. It will be awhile before I go back to the jungle. Blizzard wanted players to play through their content and I did. Everything has a repercussion and mine if that I detest that zone right now. I’m sick of it. I didn’t have that feeling about Timeless Isle. Anyway, expecting more people to have it by now? Why? Let’s think about this and why I hope this is greatly improved for Legion.

    1. They released the requirements on how to fly long after many people were max level. In Legion, people should know at the start of the expansion (Day 1) what the requirements are to fly so they can work on them at their own pace. For example, complete Loremaster and the treasures while doing questing. Having to go back, especially for virtually no reward (loot was worthless at max level) isn’t worth it for many.
    2. Garrisons have made many feel flying isn’t even worth it, considering the amount it takes to get it. Why bother? The garrison has spoiled many players. This won’t exist in Legion so players will be “forced” to go out in the world more, making it easier to complete the achievements.
    3. Let’s just say it – some of the requirements are tedious. Can you imagine being all done except waiting for RNG gods to bless you with the missing assault mission you need? Can you imagine what that is like to login everyday hoping and being disappointed over something you have no control of? That’s messed up but let’s consider the other problems. The reputation requirements are horribly slow and tedious. Saberwalkers is a weekly quest unless the tooth one drops. Now it is possible to farm the mobs but realistically, because of The Order of the Awakened grind, it makes sense to do them together. You see, Order of the Awakened requires you to find ornaments daily. No other way to progress.
    4. I spent way too much time searching for ornaments for Order of the Awakened and waiting for mobs to respawn in bonus objectives. I ended up adjusting my schedule to complete it, logging in when less players were on (middle of the night or early in the morning). I have that luxury because I am self-employed. Those that aren’t have jobs and responsibilities. It wasn’t fun and it felt drawn out. Not surprising because this content has to last us until Legion, doesn’t it? They knew a good amount of people would take forever to unlock flying. And this grind isn’t the most important thing to them. I saw in chat many people are slowing working at it. It’s not that they don’t care, they don’t have time.
    5. A large amount of people have no idea how to complete all the achievements needed to fly. When I told the few people I decided to inform about it, they did not like the time invested needed for a quality of life ability. MMO Champion asked the same question. More the half of the people who responded (24K+) said there were people in their guilds that had no clue how to unlock flying.

    What should Blizzard do? Well, nerfing the requirements isn’t an option in this expansion. The requirements are doable they are just time consuming. I would suggest working on unlocking flying as we do not know, at this time, if Pathfinder will be required to unlock flying in Legion for those that have the expansion. I suggest increasing spawn rates to make it less time consuming. All this phasing technology I shouldn’t be waiting 10m for normal mobs to respawn. Another possibility: add something to the jungle to make it more worth while to go there.

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