The zone is so drab and really feels like nothing more than broken shore 2.0…same atmosphere/scenery just with too much mob density.

We spent months earning pathfinder just to have flying removed yet again.

This is going way too far blizzard, especially with the terrible terrain design on Argus. I hope blizzard will rethink their once again “no flying” debacle before they lose another drove of subscriptions in order to get their attention.

I think plenty of folks disagree with you on the first point, and Argus has been one of the best parts of Legion to me personally, but just to clarify on the second:

This is nothing new, and we don’t have any plans to change this going forward. New zones added in patch content have never to my knowledge had flying allowed. Even when flying was introduced in 2.0, flying was not available on the Isle of Quel’danas when it released in 2.4. The same is true of Isle of Thunder and Timeless Isle from 5.2 and 5.4. These zones have always been about exploration, with a bit of danger, and Argus fits quite nicely into that theme.

I can understand that you may have recently earned Pathfinder and want to fly, but no one is stopping you from flying anywhere you want over the Broken Isles – but this is Argus.

If you’re having trouble getting around Argus, you’re probably not paying attention to the landscape. If you’re dying in Fel flows, you’re probably charging head first into them instead of leaping across the rocks floating about. If you’re constantly being tagged by mobs, you’re probably missing an easier way around the groups.

Argus isn’t supposed to be a friendly and hospitable place, and I wouldn’t bet my gold on a demon sitting down for tea with me any time soon. If you’re having trouble and finding it difficult to get around and avoid pitfalls, then Argus is working as intended.

With all due respect you guys arent understanding the issue

Before when new patch content was released without flying…. We had had flying since the moment we hit max level. so we actually got to enjoy is for quite awhile before ti was taken away.

Now, it’s taken away very shortly after most people have earned it…. DOESN’T FEEL NEARLY AS GOOD’

I do understand the “issue” but we don’t see it as an “issue”. You’re not on the Broken Isles anymore. 

I think we’d probably try to avoid things like this being so close together in the future, but its just a symptom of timing as far as I’m aware.

Well, perhaps it’s time for the development team to acknowledge that flight is actually part of the game and develop content with the idea that we can fly rather than take the mindset of “we don’t like flight, so we’re going to restrict it–even after making people jump through hoops and holding them back for nearly a year without it.”

The genie is out of the bottle. The development team needs to open their minds to that idea rather than constantly look for ways to pull back from it.

I remember Lich King and the idea that we could fly early. And we flew. And we had fun. It was OK, really.

Why exactly do the developers feel that only by restricting flight can they give us new things?

We can say buzz phrases like “the genie is out of the bottle” all day, but it doesn’t get us anywhere. I think it’s been well acknowledged that we are still open to the idea of flight or we wouldn’t have flight in any content at all, no? We’ve moved to meet the community in the middle – that’s what Pathfinder has been about. Earn your wings: show you’ve achieved completion of the content overall and you can fly.

There’s not really an attitude of ‘close mindedness’ on the topic from the development team, we’ve had plenty of positive discussions on the direction of flying overall. I do think, however, that there are folks in the community who are ‘close minded’ to entertaining an idea of “maybe you shouldn’t be able to fly around and skip all the content when new areas are released”. 

I think these conversations need to be a two-way street, and the more we have everyone in the community calling the development team closed minded or pointing fingers, the further we get away from amicable understanding within the community. Of course I’ve always been happy to have those conversations, but whenever they start they very quickly dive into arguing instead of a discussion on the merits of each approach and that’s really not something I want to be apart of.

I also don’t think asking pointed, rhetorical questions is going to get us anywhere.

Tanaan. Wonder why you forgot about Tanaan.
Tanaan. The patch zone that allowed flying.
Tanaan, the MOST RECENT patch zone before Legion.
Tanaan, the patch zone from the only other expansion that made you earn Pathfinder to fly before this one.
Tanaan allowed flying because after you’ve waited over half a year to earn something, what you want is for it to be useful going forwards.

Tanaan was technically a part of the original overworld of Draenor. It wasn’t added in a patch – a door was just opened via your shipyard in patch. 

I don’t think they’re quite equitable for a number of reasons from how they are accessed, the number of zones, how invasions and world quests function, etc.

Uh, I hope you’re saying with timing and not rolling back on content releasing faster.

Yeah, timing wise. I don’t have answers in front of me, and it’s just my personal opinion, but I think in terms of spacing the fact that flight landed really close to the launch of 7.3 was unfortunate timing. 

I get why people are upset to have “just earned flying” and now its “taken away”.

And how much of the terrain in Isle of Quel Denas was made to intentionally impede you? in Timeless Isle?

Well, Quel’Danas was pretty much an experiment of its time, but it did have a good bit of terrain to get around, especially for the dailies on the east side of the islands with the naga and such. Argus is massive compared to Quel’Danas, so most points comparing them are pretty moot.

I don’t think the terrain was made to intentionally impede you by way of making you frustrated, as you can easily teleport to any subzone of all three zones, but rather it wants you to not charge head first into everything and actually explore. If that’s how we wanted the game to be played, we’d probably just have a flat plane with a couple of trees here and there. 

The most frustrating part of Argus for me has been the area between The Spirit Crucible and the entrance to Antorus in the Antoran Wastes with the demon camps, bridges, and Fel flows, but I found that I was always looking for a shortcut and jumping off ledges instead of taking the route that was laid in front of me. Once I stopped doing that and learned other paths to the areas, I was having a much better time.

Establishing a history of bad decisions doesn’t make it right.

Your one-liner is nice and all, but I’d appreciate it if you could explain to me why those were “bad decisions” retrospectively.

Yet its not a core game feature, its a convenient feature that saves time daily on an MMO. I never thought of it as a core feature, as the game doesnt REQUIRE us to have flying to progress anywhere. You can easily play the full game without flying, and you can play it with flying, that does not make it a core feature if you don’t require it to finish the game.

This is semantics really but I’d agree that flying is not a core game feature. The community sees it as one for convenience, but in terms of design the game plays the same with and without, so it’s pretty far from what I’d consider core.

So Valley of the Four Winds/Tanaris/The Barrens/Desolace/Jade Forest?
Can we have those back? Please? I’ll trade a raid tier for well-designed zones again.

Can you adequately explain why pruning game features, making players earn them back, and then pruning them again before the expansion is over is considered a good decision?

In fact, should we start calling expansions contractions if they continually remove content?

I think I remember classic Desolace and Jade Forest very different from you.

Some of us respect you Ornyx. Just because this isn’t even worth your time with how ‘stupid’ some of these people are. I could’ve used a meaner word but its not worth it. I dont even understand how people seem to think flying is so important. Someone even said its a core feature, when 0% of the game require us to fly to complete it.

Anyways, I just think we need to meet in the middle and be civil and not throw threats around and we can have good conversations to take to the development team.

You’re a Blizzard employee. You have to agree with everything they do, at least publicly here on the forums.

I don’t have to agree with everything we do. I have a personal opinion that I’ve expressed many times about content throughout Legion and beyond.