Flex Raiding Q&A, Blue Tweets, LoL Lead Content Designer on WoW, News Recap

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Flex Raiding Q&A
Ghostcrawler spent some of his weekend answering questions about Flex Raiding! Reading all of the tweets is worth it if you are interested in the feature, but here are some of the major points:

  • Flex difficulty support can be added to old raids in the future, but currently only raids from Patch 5.4 and beyond are planned to support it.
  • LFR is designed to clear the entire raid in one night, but flex raiding will be closer to normal raiding, getting one boss or so a week if you are the target audience.
  • A shared lockout with LFR or Normal doesn't work, as it would punish people who ran LFR or Normal and then want to do a Flex run with friends.
  • Scaling Normal or Heroic would be very challenging, as some bosses would be much easier on one group size than another.
  • Being able to use the regular loot system instead of Raid Finder style loot is an option for future patches, not Patch 5.4.
  • There is a chance the scaling may go down a little bit lower than 10, but that isn't a promise.

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Hey! flexible raids - people may say it's a disappointment , but for me it's a great news, congratulations on the new feature!
"I am not the audience for this feature, therefore it sucks," is a very old argument. It happens. (Source)

I don't know Morello, but I agree with a lot of what he says.
In Vanilla and BC, just leveling, making alts, profs etc. were entertaining enough for a lot of players. A very few raided. (Source)
In LK, largely from Naxx 25, many players discovered raiding, and it was fun for them. (Source)
In Cat, we made 10s harder so that 10 and 25 could deliver the same ilevel. But this pushed some out of raiding. (Source)
We offered LFR to provide raiding back to those players. It worked reasonably well. But it doesn't quite feel like raiding. (Source)
Our hope is that Flex mode does feel like raiding. (Source)

New Flex raids, what about boss mechanics? Low sense of accomplishment in LFR, they feel oversimplified or easily ignored.
LFR is designed with the intent that you will finish in one night. We want Flex to be more traditional raiding. (Source)
By which I mean that you might only get one new boss a week or so (assuming you're the target audience). (Source)

Will Flex Raiding be something we can use for Throne of Thunder?
No, at least not initially. It wasn't designed with that in mind, but retrofitting isn't totally out of the question. (Source)

lots of noise to see signal. Will Flex be an option for T14 and T15? Or T16 only?
Only the new 5.4 raid initially. We may add other raids over time, but it's not a simple change to convert. (Source)

how will flex raids handle healer ratios? is 15man with 1 healer going to be as viable as 10man with 3?
Bring as many healers as you think you need. I would get 2-3 if you have 10 total as a good start. Maybe 1 more for every 5 total. (Source)

I like the idea of flex raiding. Curious how will the number of battle res scale with group size?
We will probably just make it 3, as in the 25 raids. Maybe no limit. We haven't decided yet. (Source)

Can't the the normal difficulty be replaced by new the Flexible Raid? I didn't see the need for them to coexist...
They are just different audiences. Civilization and Halo support many difficulty levels. It's a common solution to difficulty. (Source)
In those games however I'm usually only playing one difficulty at a time. Do you expect people will do that?
I often play new game+ when I finish with a game. It just depends on the audience. (Source)

if you put in Flex raiding, disable LFR for 5.4 please, we don't need them both.
LFR serves a valuable purpose, but it's ideally a back up plan, not the only way you experience WoW. (Source)
You say 'backup plan', but LFR's presence has undermined so many aspects of the game. Teams, community, concept of journey.
So don't run it if you don't like it? For other players it gave them a chance to raid that didn't exist for them before. (Source)
There is this myth that most LFR raiders were former N raiders. By and large this is not true. Most of them were not prior raiders. (Source)

I have to disagree. I would rather do Flex raid than LFR, since I cannot commit to normal raids. Friends>strangers
We would rather you do Flex. We think you'll have more fun. But disabling LFR isn't the right motivation in our minds. (Source)

to me LFR is to see the content and lore. Normal modes are for challenges and gear
LFR is also good for alts or on weeks when you can't make your raid or when you're between guilds. (Source)
But I would submit that it's a lot more fun to joke around with your friends that with random strangers. (Source)

The seeing of the content is the real incentive to get people into raids. LFR accomplishes that at a far easier lvl
You can see the content on Youtube. Experiencing a challenge and getting loot are fun too. (Source)

thoughts on limiting lfr? Say 10/12 available bosses -> incentive to push normals, exclusivity for norm/hc.
Potentially. We all like exclusive content. You just can't let that come at the expense of content in general. (Source)

Now with FlexR getting implement, could you remove tier pieces from LFR? They should only be accessible in FlexR/N/H raids
We discussed that idea, but instead there will be items only available in F/N/H mode. (Source)
just tier or all items ?
We discussed limiting tier items but are more likely to limit some other kinds of items. (Source)
The concern is that LFR needs some rewards - we aren't trying to kill it or else we'd just disable it. (Source)

I know players complained about the game being hard, but the game was healthier back then. It was growing, it was exciting.
It was growing, but it's hard to point to raid difficulty as the reason why. (Source)
You could point to having fewer specs or no mass rez, but I don't think those are reasonable explanations. (Source)
Just because Y had characteristic X does not mean X caused Y. (Source)
But hopefully in your case, Flex will give you back some of what you're missing in LFR. (Source)

If you can see all the content without any effort, people opt for that. LFR is probably responsible for sub loss.
The fact is, WoW always lost lots of players. In the past, we tended to get as many or more new ones as we lost. Lately, less. (Source)
Also, an awful lot of players we lose never even make it to endgame content. (Source)
because your aiming your game at casual fans who join and leave. making same mistakes as nintendo
I don't know. Blizzard and Nintendo both seem to have models that work out pretty well for them.... (Source)
nintendo have had a massive sale flop of the WiiU, wouldn't say its worked out that well.
Sure, but overall their track record is great. I'm still a fan. (Source)
I feel like they want to offer a mainstream experience with a ton of depth. Sounds like an awesome philosophy. We use it too. (Source)
and yet the casual market put them out of the next-gen run. Microsoft announced the same with Xbox one - share prices dropped.
I'm an industry insider, and even I wouldn't predict who has lost or won the next gen game yet. (Source)
What is your plan for /flex raids in regards to past content and gear? How will it work with...let's say Firelands or Ulduar
Flex is only for the 5.4 raid initially. (Source)

Combining 10/25 lockouts so people didn't feel obligated to do both.. Now we'll have three lock outs? What changed your mind?
It's a lesser of two evils thing. We changed the ICC model, but in retrospect maybe that wasn't the right call. (Source)
In game design, there are rarely no brainers. Usually you are trading off pros vs cons. This is no exception. (Source)

Flex raid: why not a shared loot lockout with LfR, so people don't feel 'forced' to do 3 raid difficulties per week?
"Hey, GC can you join our flex raid?" "Oh, sorry dude, I ran LFR on Sunday." (Source)
Thats ridiculous. "Hey, GC can you join our Hc raid?" "Oh, sorry dude, I ran Normal on Sunday".
With a few exceptions, H in particular is designed for set rosters not grabbing random dudes. Flex is all about grabbing whoever. (Source)
Why not allow N/HC guilds to flex too so they can be sure they have a raid on raid day and don't need to bench backups
It would be almost impossible to balance N or H for a variable group of people. Flex mindset isn't about min-maxing. (Source)

With the Flex raids opening in wings, can you start with any wing? Attempt the last boss without having to kill the first?
Not sure yet. (Source)

Are you waiting to see how 5.4 flex raids go before deciding whether to give n/h some flex? Or have you already ruled out?
We can't realistically scale group size for N or H because there would be bosses much easier on one group size than another. (Source)
That risk exists for Flex too, but remember the target audience is raiders who don't min max things like group size. (Source)
H players in particular would probably do a lot of "need 12 for boss A and 22 for boss B." Think that is less likely in flex mode. (Source)

I'm afraid flex-raid will make it even less attractive to graduate to real raiding. What would be the incentive for normals?
Do they need an incentive? We have a lot of players (not millions, but a lot) still struggling on Horridon. Flex is for them. (Source)
flex raids are for us? Your teams made the mistake, not ours. Normals don't need to be horridon hard.
We think Normal is serving its audience. Why deny them that? We can rename it Elite if the name bothers you. (Source)
It's not serving its audience. You've said so yourself that many are stuck on horridon.
Some are stuck on Horridon (and those are the audience for Flex). The success rate for Horridon overall is good. (Source)

A better question would be in time do you see "'flex" raid just replacing normals?
No, we like normals. We have a huge and diverse audience. We want to provide fun challenges for as many folks as we can. (Source)
What are your teams thoughts on how this will effect normals, their numbers and recruitment?
We expect people still wiping on Horridon at 8 weeks will shift to Flex instead. But, we predict most of the shift from LFR. (Source)

Also if your intent is to remove valor gear because flex raid is available I would caution you people do not like RNG
Some people just don't like raiding (even flex). We want to provide pathways for them to advance too. (Source)

What kind of difficulty level are we looking are for Flexible Raids? LFR tank and spanks or nearer to Normal?
Closer to Normal. We don't want the expectation to be that you clear it immediately, but we do want you to make progress. (Source)

Flexible Raids: Any concerns of burn out with three tiers of the same content? Note: Awesome idea, excited about seeing it.
Just pick the difficulty / size that best suits your interests. We don't think it works out well when we try to play game nanny. (Source)
The concern is valid, but when we try to save players from themselves it often backfires as often as it works. (Source)

No offense, but this new 'flex-raid' doesn't help when your realm has difficulty gathering even ten players.
Agreed, but it isn't intended to fix that problem. (Though you can invite friends from other realms.) (Source)

LOVE Flexible RAID idea. Just, PLEASE, don't use LFR loot for it. Use Normal Loot, to share gear between players
We don't yet have a solution for scaling no. of drops. We don't want you to hesitate to bring dude 15 because it means less loot. (Source)

Flex will use Personal Loot to avoid PUG drama, is it possible to let raid lead pick to use real loot system if just friends?
Not for 5.4 but if there is demand, we can look into adding the more traditional raid loot systems. (Source)
We don't currently have a system that lets a boss drop more loot that scales with size other than personal loot. (Source)
The problem is the scaling size. We don't want any pressure to not invite someone for fear of less loot. (Source)
This came up on EU forums (a couple of other posters suggested the same); thoughts?
It's not an unsolvable problem by any stretch but it's not a trivially solvable problem so it will likely have to wait. (Source)

Flexible raiding ticks a number of boxes. However, what does a group size of 11 or 12 mean for PoH and group bound spells?
Probably another good reason to kill that functionality of PoH... but not for 5.4. (Source)

Ji-Kun mount drop on Normal and Heroic mode, as far as I know. What about the new "Flexi-Raid" mode?
In general we want Flex to reward more cool stuff than LFR, Normal more than that and Heroic more than that. (Ji-Kun himself !flex) (Source)

new raid system sounds redundant - non25s can queue LFR, waste dev-time, leads to further cutting down LFR ilvl to squeeze in
There are a non-trivial number of players in more casual 10 raiding guilds who don't want to raid with strangers. (Source)

With Flex raiding, have you considered removing faction restriction for instanced PvE via battlenet? Are there Tech hurdles?
Mostly design hurdles. We like red vs. blue. (Source)

really love the flexible raid plan! Wish it scaled down below 10. 8 players would be great.
We *might* let it go a little lower, just so a late player can join you in progress rather than being replaced. #nopromises (Source)

Blue Tweets
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Professions
What exactly is the Engineering "Sky Claw"? I've heard some blue talk about it not being released in 5.3 yet. Any explanation?
It was an Engineering mount that ended up having a lot of bugs. We're considering a different Engineering mount. (Source)

Game feels a bit sterile. Feel like focus is too much on metrics and not compelling gameplay. Balanced around rewards, My 2c
Does it feel like that when you're playing or when you interact with the community (and us) on the Internet? (Source)
I'd say in-game largely. Professions good example. Realized at the end they all mostly give 320 stat gain.
But that sounds like you are focused on the rewards for professions not the fantasy or fun of crafting. That's why I asked. (Source)
Not like BC where I could craft myself Primalstrike because it was really good for me, pre-raids. (Er... 3/2.)
We did have a problem in BC that certain crafted pieces were so good that many players felt like they had to re-learn professions. (Source)
Wasn't that mostly with Drums of Battle? Exhaustion-style debuff could've fixed that. Don't remember ppl changing early in exp
I meant like Stormherald and Frozen Shadoweave. (Source)
Ah, I see. On the other hand, those items sure made those professions compelling, didn't they?
Absolutely. Everyone always recalls it as the glory days of professions (at least for raiders). (Source)
But I can't help but think players would complain today if they felt "forced" to go Blacksmith for a tier. (Source)

If you could steamline 3 of WoW's systems with a magic wand, which ones would they be? (e.g Rotations, Gem Options, Profs)
Professions, end-game gearing direction, ability bloat. (Source)
What are your thoughts on removing power perks from professions? IMO perks harm the fantasy without adding much
My personal opinion is they are pretty lame and encourage players to choose professions for the wrong reasons. (Source)
nobody complained when you removed helm enchant
Are you serious? I was actually amazed at the outrage. We thought we were doing players a favor. (Source)

Why the +Cooking set bonus on "Tradition of Cooking" when it does nothing?
You mean because it doesn't help with the Ways? It was intended as an alt item, not really a shortcut to Cooking. (Source)

Lore
what exclusive is there then? Ra-den isn't story relevant. we've never seen him or heard of him
That you initially don't know who he is or how he fits in is WHY he is story relevant. (Source)
Mogu. Titan. Old god. Sha. Mantid. All these things are connected. (Source)

League of Legends Lead Content Designer on WoW
LoL's Lead Content Designer made some interesting posts about WoW. You can join the discussion on the forums and see Ghostcrawler's response in the Flex Raiding tweets.
Originally Posted by Morello (Source)
It's a tricky topic, because our job is to make decisions based on what players not only want, but need. Let me explain that a bit.

Determining what players want is actually pretty simple - your most invested users tend to be very vocal and will put effort into making sure they're heard (ie; most forumers!) This is a good metric of understanding what players want, at least for high-engagement folks.

What players need is where players don't proclaim a desire for something, but it helps provide something they say they want. Many times, this is more than a single solution - it requires several steps of implementation to reach a result, or takes time to bake in many cases. Let me provide two example of want vs need, and why want cannot be the only driver for developers;

At Riot, we nerf champions. Nerfs are rarely wanted (and many times, unwanted). But, players want to have a fair experience with a variety of options. Additionally, a game without power caps and heavy power creep (something still happening faster than I'd like...) can disrupt the core game design focused around choices, decision-making, and strategy. To accomplish this, we need to nerf champions, even if players don't explicitly want us to.

To use your example, in the pattern of Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King, the changes to easier raid content and more accessibility is actually informed by a want that a lot of players expressed - IE, raids were content that was exclusive from them and they wanted a piece. I respect the guys who make WoW (and its success is a testament), but this is a good example of where the developers should have recognized the core need of exclusivity and the right tuning of that, and steered away from players said they wanted. Personally, I think Burning Crusade is a sweet spot.

The above is a fantastic example of why we have to make tough choices and not always just do what players ask us to do - it's not always the right course of action.

The problem you're speaking to, in my opinion, is when developers think they always have that answer and that being a developer gives you divination into what that is. In my mind, game development isn't about having answers - it's the ways in which you find them.

Our interaction on here isn't just lip-service, it's so we can better optimize decisions around player wants - and explain what players need when they don't want it. This informs us a lot, but we make decisions based on a number of factors - player desires and feedback being one of them.

I hope this helps explain how I feel about this, and how the developer/player interaction looks to me.

One other thing to watch is "the game used to be good when the game was less mature, and it sucks now because of changes" thing. Many times, players just get tired of a game after 1000's of hours, and that's natural. I still think WoW is a cool game, I just can't wring any more enjoyment out of it.

World of Warcraft, nerfed it for exceptionally terrible players and ruined quality of the game in by doing so because players who were bad, refused to accept that and get better.
No, that's the lens of your personal values - you believe your values of game-playing (skill mastery) is the reason all players should play the game. Many people play the same games for different reasons.

Or, sometimes, the changes are just bad. WoW was fun when you could have casual 25 man raids in WotLK. It stopped being fun in Cata when 25 man raids disappeared.

In SC2, the change to larger maps and ever increasing rush distances ruined it for me. I didn't like that a second Nexus/Hatchery/Command Center became the first building after supply structure/unit.

You could bury your head in the sand and insist that people left because they got bored or you could consider that your changes aren't universally loved.
Some changes are bad - and they can disengage players. I found Wrath of the Lich King less fun to raid than BC, but the reason I think it was a harmful direction was more what I think engages players overall - many of the things that do not engage me personally. "I quit WoW because there's not 40-man raids and now people other than me and my 39 friends can raid" is one of those things that would have low value, conversely.

The big difference in players get to think about their own experiences (and should!), where developers need to discover what groups of players need, what drives them, engages them and makes them feel rewarded.

WoW was bad. It is bad and it will continue to be bad. WoW had the simple blind luck to be in the right place at the right time.

The original concept was little more than Everquest with a few modifications. Quests were easier to find, enemies were better balanced for your level, and waiting for your life to regenerate took a lot less time. Aside from that the game was an ugly sack of fail. The raids were broken, literally, almost every raid was released in an unfinished and unbeatable state. We found out in AQ40 that this was done purposefully because Blizzard wasn't able to meet deadlines. I do not like to raid, I occasionally enjoy partying but by and by I like doing solo content or hunting for rare materials. So pretty much WoW has nothing for me because Riadrz want their super op weapon drop and god forbid you have allow a plebeian solo player farm mats to craft a weapon even 1/10th the quality of that thing. No, the items that are only 1/10th as good as Raid loot have materials that drop in Raids.

I hate WoW. I hate Blizzard. They took a fantasy universe I found to be brilliantly designed and destroyed it.
You don't like WoW (clearly!), but this is the attitude I'm saying is flatly incorrect. WoW is a well-crafted game that you do not happen to like. Our own personal tastes do not equate to what is good and bad in game development, only what our potential engagement is. And, to be frank, if you're not the audience, it has little impact on anyone else.

I don't like playing Halo. Halo is an extremely good game.

How could you think burning crusade was the "Sweet Spot". A majority of the players couldn't even get to 3/4's of those raids. Hardly anyone ever see's end game content. I mean, christ. Your mindset works for League of Legends just fine. I can't argue with the results. But I sure as hell can tell you that your mindset would of made WoW a worse game by far, and I would of left it after BC instead of sticking around for MoP. Do not go into the MMO Business again, as I think you were with Guild Wars right?
I'm saying I don't think raids should be inclusive, as the exclusivity of content creates a psychological trick in your brain that makes the game feel endless. Basically, my direction would be (and maybe incorrectly - I haven't tried!) that all content is not for everyone. If anything, League proves core gaming has a big audience, and you don't have to make things easy.

That's a fair assessment. I stopped playing Blizzard games when it became clear to me that my tastes were very different from the majority of their player base. I liked BC but never got to raid there. I liked it because even dungeons had progression with the keys and the hard Heroics. WotLK lost that in many ways, but the raids everyone could do became what Heroics were in BC for me. In Cata, there was little to no dungeon progression (it was even easier than WotLK) but raids were out of reach for me too. I spent 3 months playing as part of a guild in the hope to get into a raid group with no success. I canceled shortly after.
As a player, it was sort of the same for me.

Raids HAVE to be inclusive for the most part. Because that's the only major content in a MMO at max level on the PvE aspect of it. That's the only way to really "progress". How could you miss that? That's why there's heroic raids, so people who want challenging content can go and do that and feel exclusive. And even the new thing where there's a uber secret hard boss that is only unlocked in heroic mode.

I'm actually really startled you could miss something like that. I'm glad league of legends is a game where everyone can participate at max level.
You sure? The game has massive numbers even without accessible raid content - it was in a big period of growth during this time - many players who do not raid have plenty to keep them busy.

Since not everyone plays for mastery, and many play for achievement, over-time reward structures (dailies, rep grinds) engage the majority of the players. The minority still raids, but now it's lost the exclusivity. Are you sure your views are representative?

They may be - I don't have access to their data which could prove me wrong. I'm just checking to see if you're thinking about it from a holistic perspective or a personal one.

Keep Them busy?........Such as Dailies? Do you know how awful those things are? Dailies for everything these days......But yes, recently there's a huge amount of content that is not raiding, that you can certainly do. There's actually a staggering amount of things you can do in WoW that isn't raiding.

Yes, I believe my views are Representative. A much greater part of the minority raids now, I believe ghostcrawler threw a quote out there saying that the size of players seeing end game content was "staggering" now that LFR was out.

And there IS Exclusivity still in the form of heroic raids.

No one really has access to that sort of data except blizzard, but i distinctly remember ghostcrawler saying something similar to "Barely anyone has seen end game content, so we're coming out with Looking For Raid".

I mean, you're putting the bulk over your story and endgame content into raids, something (as you've said yourself) the minority of players will ever get to experience. Why limit that to such a small portion of the community? And also why bother making that content if only a small portion of the community could ever play it?
I think that's the decision-making process that has driven Blizzard - and clearly it is successful. I just think I'd value different design aspects of WoW if it were my decision to play up engagement over the long-term - a bit of less-is-more design.

Can you please teach Ghostcrawler how to properly balance the game then? Instead of throwing Hunter's under the bus like the "Redheaded Step Children Who Lives Behind The Staircase" that we are made to be.
I have a ton of sympathy and respect for Ghostcrawler; he's the face of an entire design team also. I don't think their balancing is really bad, either, I'm not in agreement with their overall high level design philosophy - not that it's bad, I just have a different conclusion. Within that philosophy, though, I think their balance methodology is really appropriate.

Innovation drives the gaming industry in one way or another, and WoW never innovated anything.

The 2 sided conflict of characters with different classes available (initially) had been done before in MMOs. Battlegrounds and CTF style combat had been done in other MMOs, Raid style content had be done before in MMOs. Crafting with almost identical systems existed in other MMOs before WoW. Seamless worlds existed prior.

Nothing World of Warcraft did was particularly unique or innovative. The main reason it became such a huge smash hit was because it was made by Blizzard. Being set in the Warcraft world made it instantly desirable to everyone that had played a Blizzard game, which was a LOT of people. They recruited their friends to play with them who pulled in friends, etc. And we get the legacy that is World of Warcraft.

Was it polished at the time excluding graphics? Sure, hell yeah. But to someone who has been playing the genre of games since Everquest, it was incredibly bland and uninspiring. Especially at launch.

Do I respect World of Warcraft? Of course I do. It's made gaming normal in every day life and an acceptable pastime. It made more money than you can imagine and brought my first and favorite genre of computer games to the masses. But it wasn't special. It wasn't particularly well crafted. It was just -VERY- well marketed.
But WoW redefined what MMO's are for an entire generation of gamers by using well-known methods to deliver the first "doesn't kick you in the balls over and over" theme park experience. While maybe it didn't invent gas powered engines, it certainly built the Model-T.

Innovation is a powerful thing to have, but it's not the only thing that defines a well-crafted game.

It's funny to me, personally, that you use World of Warcraft as an example and say that it lost "a ton" of players. I know personally I couldn't even stomach playing WoW before Wrath of the Lich King (and I bought Original when it released) because of how incredibly exclusionary the gameplay was if you were not in that top 5% . It really had nothing to do with time playing (I played JRPGs most of my young life, so I knew what it took to spend hundreds of hours on a game). I had no interest in committing 40 hours a week to preparing to play a game for 20 more hours that weekend. I feel THAT is what has been addressed by Blizzard, and save the nostalgics and the elitists (who I feel are similar to those on these forums who gripe about special skins not being so very special), no one has much of an issue with needing to do less mindless grinding to experience the actual purposes of the game.
Hardcore players, this feedback is not valuable. We know what happens if developers are too swayed here - you get new versions of an old game that has just enough difference to not pull you over (CS:GO, really the AWP cost being the same was important? No.), but not actually advance the series or genre in a meaningful way. Doing this disallows you to actually give the game any meaning - why does it exist, who is it for?

Now, developers have a responsibility here too; deconstruct why they're saying what they're saying. Many times, your hardcore fans want to ensure the new game has depth and skill. If you're changing how that's done, explain this process to your hardcore dudes. Don't pander or cave, just be upfront. If you're removing burden of knowledge/etc (things that most extremely hardcore gamers will latch on to as meaningful skill), be honest with it and try to evaluate that you're adding real skill mastery to your new game as well.

Your hardcore guys are valuable, but be careful to not let them rail your new game into total conservatism.



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This article was originally published in forum thread: Flex Raiding Q&A, Blue Tweets, LoL Lead Content Designer on WoW, News Recap started by chaud View original post
Published on 2013-06-09 10:37 PM
71 Comments
Comments 71 Comments
  1. ZeroEdgeir's Avatar
    Raided, server-first progression, in Classic. I NEVER want to ever see something like that back again. It was a second job. That wasn't fun. Oh yay, shiny gear. When I had no spare time to utilize it, cause I was farming for mats for consumables or in-raid, what did it bloody-well matter (rest of my time was split generally between working and sleeping)?

    Didn't raid in TBC at all (had a small friends & family guild), had fun with what I did, which was Heroics, a couple alts, and not spending an extra 10+hrs a week PREPPING for raids, to do stuff not on WoW.

    Raided semi-hard in WotLK through Uld > ICC (10M, so say what you will, we couldn't field a 25M). We made progress, but suffered from attendance/performance issues when it came to Yogg-Saron, and most of ICC.

    Raided casually in 4.0, only left with the 3 final normal bosses unkilled. No raiding in 4.2, LFR since 4.3, and frankly, no complaints.

    Is LFR faceroll easy? Yes. Does it fit my schedule since I work graveyard and couldn't commit to a real guild because of that? Yes. Might Flex-Raid allow me a bit more challenge? Yeah, good chance, provided enough people are online.

    Flex Raid is also likely going to cause a huge boom on OpenRaid too, since it is RealID/BattleTag compliant too. And since the loot system is LFR-style (which frankly, is far better, no matter how much people say the Dragon Soul method was superior... it wasn't, you just liked being able to steal gear from others), it won't even cause loot-based drama in them.
  1. Alayea's Avatar
    Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
    Flex will use Personal Loot to avoid PUG drama, is it possible to let raid lead pick to use real loot system if just friends?
    Not for 5.4 but if there is demand, we can look into adding the more traditional raid loot systems. We don't currently have a system that lets a boss drop more loot that scales with size other than personal loot. The problem is the scaling size. We don't want any pressure to not invite someone for fear of less loot.
    The issue with loot drop scaling I can understand. However, I would still prefer not using the LFR loot system for Flex Raids unless you will have the loot be tradable to other players (unlike LFR).


    Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
    What exactly is the Engineering "Sky Claw"? I've heard some blue talk about it not being released in 5.3 yet. Any explanation?
    It was an Engineering mount that ended up having a lot of bugs. We're considering a different Engineering mount.
    -_- ... o_- ... o_o ... D=

    I'm still holding out hope for the Sky Claw mount.
  1. Kaleredar's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Alayea View Post
    Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
    What exactly is the Engineering "Sky Claw"? I've heard some blue talk about it not being released in 5.3 yet. Any explanation?
    It was an Engineering mount that ended up having a lot of bugs. We're considering a different Engineering mount.
    -_- ... o_- ... o_o ... D=

    I'm still holding out hope for the Sky Claw mount.
    As long as it doesn't require any living steel...
  1. Alayea's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Kaleredar View Post
    As long as it doesn't require any living steel...
    Uh, yeah... er, about that... Sky Claw
  1. subanark's Avatar
    The 3 lockout burning people out is a potential problem.

    What Blizzard needs to do is have flex and LFR have a shared lockout for loot, but make it so that flex has a chance to drop both LFR and Flex ilevel gear. If you already ran LFR and later do flex you only get a chance at flex ilevel gear, and if you do flex first you get no loot from LFR. Since the flex loot is already distributed in the LFR system, you don't have to hard lock players out of running flex multiple times either.

    Also, with the addition to flex:
    1. Make LFR idiot proof. I mean seriously, as in you can't die. If you take fatal damage you simply get a debuf that decreases damage and healing output. You could solo LFR, it would just take forever.
    2. Be able to queue for 1 boss at a time. Not everyone has time for a full clear.
    3. Allow players to enter LFR mid boss fight and don't lock players out if they aren't inside the gate. If people don't want to wait for that last dps, then let them start without them.
    4. Make all loot on LFR shared between all bosses. Make queues select a random boss (it prefers one you haven't killed). And limit the number of LFR bosses you can do a week for loot to say 3-4 (maybe always loot bags for additional bosses). Along with #1, even if people really hate one of the bosses, it won't be worth leaving and re queuing.
    5. Along with #4, make trash shorter, and balance boss fights to all run about the same time. Total time for doing trash + 1 boss should be 15-20 minutes, same as dungeon finder.
    6. Finally, make the ilevel for 5.4 LFR 520, so that players who grinded out normal, but didn't really do much HC, don't have much incentive to do LFR.
  1. MarkHighwind's Avatar
    Just what WoW needed, to heed advice from a company owned by chinese overlords, with a terrible carrot-on-a-stick Pay2Win model, and a toxic attitude towards e-sports (screwing the competition over and bribing their way to every big event).

    Morello is 100% cancer cells.
  1. Ferrouswheel's Avatar
    "Flex raid: why not a shared loot lockout with LfR, so people don't feel 'forced' to do 3 raid difficulties per week?
    "Hey, GC can you join our flex raid?" "Oh, sorry dude, I ran LFR on Sunday." (Source)
    Thats ridiculous. "Hey, GC can you join our Hc raid?" "Oh, sorry dude, I ran Normal on Sunday"."

    I love the sound of GC getting owned. What a jackass.
  1. Blur4stuff's Avatar
    If you don't want to raid every difficulty and your guild is making you then you need a new guild. Why would you stick around with people who force you to do something that isn't fun for you? There will be plenty of guilds that won't force that and still clear content.
  1. Riavan's Avatar
    Lol@ the league of legends jackoff talking about WoW. He did nothing but use the exact gametype of a popular mod then throw cash store items into it. Like he has anything to contribute at all, to anyone.
  1. Ferrouswheel's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Blur4stuff View Post
    If you don't want to raid every difficulty and your guild is making you then you need a new guild. Why would you stick around with people who force you to do something that isn't fun for you? There will be plenty of guilds that won't force that and still clear content.
    Make sure to read this everyone. Written by a raider who shows up in quest greens, ungemmed, unenchanted. I mean what's the point right? If your guild is making you use flasks and food and gems and all that why would you stick around? There are plenty of guilds that won't force you to waste time on stuff like that.
  1. isadorr's Avatar
    How could you think burning crusade was the "Sweet Spot". A majority of the players couldn't even get to 3/4's of those raids. Hardly anyone ever see's end game content. I mean, christ. Your mindset works for League of Legends just fine. I can't argue with the results. But I sure as hell can tell you that your mindset would of made WoW a worse game by far, and I would of left it after BC instead of sticking around for MoP. Do not go into the MMO Business again, as I think you were with Guild Wars right?

    I'm saying I don't think raids should be inclusive, as the exclusivity of content creates a psychological trick in your brain that makes the game feel endless. Basically, my direction would be (and maybe incorrectly - I haven't tried!) that all content is not for everyone. If anything, League proves core gaming has a big audience, and you don't have to make things easy.

    Exactly not all content is meant to be seen by everyone. Bads are at the back of the bus but they did their downs level of raiding. I am amazed they actually admitted to wanting a dumbed down version of Normal raiding that is just above LFR. I am guessing that once they complete tard mode their tier helmets will resemble bike helmets to help protect them from injury while playing.

    TBC: people werent rewarded for terrible. What a shocker.

    ---------- Post added 2013-06-10 at 04:24 AM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by subanark View Post
    The 3 lockout burning people out is a potential problem.

    What Blizzard needs to do is have flex and LFR have a shared lockout for loot, but make it so that flex has a chance to drop both LFR and Flex ilevel gear. If you already ran LFR and later do flex you only get a chance at flex ilevel gear, and if you do flex first you get no loot from LFR. Since the flex loot is already distributed in the LFR system, you don't have to hard lock players out of running flex multiple times either.

    Also, with the addition to flex:
    1. Make LFR idiot proof. I mean seriously, as in you can't die. If you take fatal damage you simply get a debuf that decreases damage and healing output. You could solo LFR, it would just take forever.
    2. Be able to queue for 1 boss at a time. Not everyone has time for a full clear.
    3. Allow players to enter LFR mid boss fight and don't lock players out if they aren't inside the gate. If people don't want to wait for that last dps, then let them start without them.
    4. Make all loot on LFR shared between all bosses. Make queues select a random boss (it prefers one you haven't killed). And limit the number of LFR bosses you can do a week for loot to say 3-4 (maybe always loot bags for additional bosses). Along with #1, even if people really hate one of the bosses, it won't be worth leaving and re queuing.
    5. Along with #4, make trash shorter, and balance boss fights to all run about the same time. Total time for doing trash + 1 boss should be 15-20 minutes, same as dungeon finder.
    6. Finally, make the ilevel for 5.4 LFR 520, so that players who grinded out normal, but didn't really do much HC, don't have much incentive to do LFR.
    Lockout at only 520 for Lfr? By the time that content comes out, if you dont have 520 then gear isnt a priority anyways nor raiding.
  1. VanishO2's Avatar
    A good question now is... Will Flex remove the "need" to nerf normal/heroic content? Except from QoL/Balance/Difficult adjusting/Bug fixes.
  1. mmoc7f7d906a02's Avatar
    All you see now is whiny forumers, people, if you don't like wow, start playing sonething else! Still a big wow fan myself
  1. Willias's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by MarkHighwind View Post
    Just what WoW needed, to heed advice from a company owned by chinese overlords, with a terrible carrot-on-a-stick Pay2Win model, and a toxic attitude towards e-sports (screwing the competition over and bribing their way to every big event).

    Morello is 100% cancer cells.
    Have you actually played LoL? The only thing you have to spend money on in the cash shop is skins and exp boosts. Everything else character and power related you can buy with currency you get for playing games.

    Actually, many people look at LoL as how a good F2P game manages its cash shop.
  1. Omega10's Avatar
    "so what I gathered from this blizz is going to do what ever it wants to and if you dont like it you can fuck off and go play some shitty F2P game"

    This is an accurate assessment of the current MMO market. There is only one, and that is WOW. Many other companies tried to compete with WOW, and, they got CRUSHED.

    As in... crushed beyond belief. Crushed as in beaten to a bloody pulp. Or even LESS than a bloody pulp.

    My Blizzard-fanboi beliefs do not prevent me from being kind of bummed that the other MMOs are doing as poorly as they are.
    At least WOW is still going strong. For now anyways. Enjoy it while it lasts!
  1. Schintus's Avatar
    It is very very true, that wow has been made exponentially easier. They gradually changed the difficulty of the game when some people (worse players) expressed that is was too hard.
  1. accosk8's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Leucippe View Post
    All you see now is whiny forumers, people, if you don't like wow, start playing sonething else! Still a big wow fan myself
    Indeed, I can't truly understand why these people have to ask for the removal of a game feature like LFR.
    I mean, does it bother you? Don't do it!
    Simple as that! No need to be childish and cry like mad : "Remove LFR! Remove LFR! Remove LFR!"
    I agree that GC sometimes talks crap but if I was in his shoes I wouldn't even reply to those trolls.
  1. Darkguyver2020's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Sacrifear View Post
    This is so wrong, in vanilla i raided. Love leveling my toon and getting more stuff. It was entertaining. Now it's just grind fest or "maybe i'll do couple of lfr and hope to get some loot". Back then it's was an accomplishement to get some loot. Novadays, you can get same loot but little difference in stats. So bring back old days and don't say that.
    Now it's just grind fest
    Are you joking? Vanilla was much more of a grind fest than WoW is today. There were 40 man raids back then. Can you imagine how long it took to gear 40 players so they could progress from Molten Core to Blackwing Lair? Also, you had attunements, which was mandatory for anyone wanting to even set foot in the raid. The vast amount of materials required to craft one piece of gear was insanely steep. Then if you needed to recruit a new raider, you had to trek through MC all over again to help gear them up.
    Seriously, take off those rose tinted goggles and think about what you are talking about before you post.
  1. mmoc3eb006e951's Avatar
    •A shared lockout with LFR or Normal doesn't work, as it would punish people who ran LFR or Normal and then want to do a Flex run with friends.

    So just remove the shared lockout and difficulty of 10 and 25 mans. Stop trying to bandaid past moronic decissions and just revert them. How hard can it be?
  1. mmoc8ee790e781's Avatar
    Wow, riot games guy seems to be better at coms!

    Read the blues, then read the red.... Red knows what he's talking about, blue is catering.

    Very smart move
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