Siege of Orgrimmar Raid Schedule

[Azrile]

You will also see people with thousands upon thousands of posts state they dont have time to get better at the game or raid yet if you look at their posts will see that at times they will post all day long.

It really isn´t about ´getting better´. For a large portion of us ´non-raiding´ people who play and post a lot, it is more just about scheduling. I know next week that I will play 10 hours.. But I cannot tell you that from 8-11pm on wednesday and thursday I will be available to raid.

that really is the issue that kids cannot understand. As an adult, if my wife makes dinner 30 minutes late, I don´t want to log in to find that I was removed from my raid guild for poor attendance. I also don´t want that feeling of disappointed people if their main tank suddenly doesn´t show up. I don´t want to get invited to someone´s house for dinner and think ´wow, can´t go, have to raid on wednesday´.. Simply put, there are MANY people who enjoy WOW as one of our biggest hobbies, but it will never be anything we want to schedule our real lives around. If you are in middle-school or high school.. yeah..not such a big deal.

LFR is not about people being too bad to raid, it is about ´ok, I have an hour free, let´s clear a wing´..

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Why would LFR raiders need these upgrades?

because the game is built around gear upgrades. I don´t want to throw back the curtain and show the wizard.. but Blizzard knows it and anyone with half a brain knows it. In a game like wow, that is based on gear, if you stop allowing gear upgrades to people, they unsubscribe. Blizzard learned this in 2005, yet you are still asking about it?

Or in more gameplay terms. It makes killing X tomorrow easier than killing X today. The same can be said with raiders. Why would someone raid after they killed heroic Garrosh? The only thing it does is making killing stuff they already killed a little bit easier. Yet entire guilds of dozens of players will end up killing heroic Garrosh dozens of times, simply so that next week, they can kill him a little easier.

Also, to more exactly answer your question. Flex is broken up into small wings. If an LFR player gets his LFR gear, and gets his Timeless island gear, it makes it easier for him to do some wings of Flex in a pug. In the first month, nobody is going to want to PUG flex with people in 505 ilvl gear. It really is one of the real genius parts to what Blizzard is doing ( That flex is in wings and has personalized loot). it makes it perfect for pugs. That player that has done LFR for 8 weeks, and has all the Timeles island gear to 543 ilvl.. will be more than able to jump in and do some wings of Flex from a /2 pug.

[Arkenaw]

Gating is stupid. It's the reason Blizzard missed out on a 15 bucks from me when I quit during 5.2 and came back a month later. Hopefully this patch will be more interesting than 5.2 was.

[Osmeric]

because the game is built around gear upgrades. I don´t want to throw back the curtain and show the wizard.. but Blizzard knows it and anyone with half a brain knows it. In a game like wow, that is based on gear, if you stop allowing gear upgrades to people, they unsubscribe. Blizzard learned this in 2005, yet you are still asking about it?

Yes, I understand the design intent. I am wondering why I, as a player, should think I need these upgrades. If I'm not planning to go beyond LFR, what exactly do they get me in terms of value for my time spent?

[Ebonwraith]

Gating is stupid. It's the reason Blizzard missed out on a 15 bucks from me when I quit during 5.2 and came back a month later. Hopefully this patch will be more interesting than 5.2 was.

God, your reasoning is impeccable. Let's all get Blizzard to remove the gating because Ark here has $15 burning a hole in his wallet. Who cares if there are actual, sound reasons behind the gating?

[BobAwesome]

My link to Bashiok's post had nothing to do with any perceived respect you think I have for him, or any CM/Dev in general. It was to make a point that LFR is not gated because of players that run normal/heroic bitching and wanting to be "special", it never has been. LFR, and now flex, are gated to simulate the time guilds spend on normal and heroic. You may want to see all of a tier's content in 1 sitting, the first day of the patch, but Blizzard is completely against that, and it won't ever be that way. They didn't design this raid, or any raid for that matter, to be seen once by someone in lfr and then have them unsub.

Also take into consideration this. If you full clear lfr in 1 week, see every boss, what is there left for you to do until next patch/expansion? If lfr is all you do, the answer is nothing, and do you know how many asinine threads have been made by people saying " WTF blizzard, no new content for HOW MANY MONTHS? I'm done with the raid, now what do I do? Release content faster like you promised you liars!"

You need to accept that the gating is there for good reason, and not some personal agenda by Blizzard to cater to the 1% heroic bleeding edge guilds.

But that's the problem. It should be up to the player to decide if they want to see all the content at once or not. If they feel like they deserve more content, then they should step up from LFR. I'd be fine with seeing all of SoO in one night. I can't speak for the rest of the playerbase, as we both know they're incredibly bitchy, but if I want more content I know exactly where to go to get it. But that's pretty much a mute point, because the real reason for gated content is for sub retention, I really don't see much debate about that. It's not the wrong thing to do either, it just sucks. Unfortunately if they focused on making the game more enjoyable, they wouldn't need to gate content to retain subs as the overall enjoyable experience would do that in itself.

[Dextar]

It really isn´t about ´getting better´. For a large portion of us ´non-raiding´ people who play and post a lot, it is more just about scheduling. I know next week that I will play 10 hours.. But I cannot tell you that from 8-11pm on wednesday and thursday I will be available to raid.

that really is the issue that kids cannot understand. As an adult, if my wife makes dinner 30 minutes late, I don´t want to log in to find that I was removed from my raid guild for poor attendance. I also don´t want that feeling of disappointed people if their main tank suddenly doesn´t show up. I don´t want to get invited to someone´s house for dinner and think ´wow, can´t go, have to raid on wednesday´.. Simply put, there are MANY people who enjoy WOW as one of our biggest hobbies, but it will never be anything we want to schedule our real lives around. If you are in middle-school or high school.. yeah..not such a big deal.

LFR is not about people being too bad to raid, it is about ´ok, I have an hour free, let´s clear a wing´..

It seems to me like you're just terrible at managing your time properly. I'm married, I have two small children and I'm a full time student (with a 3.8 GPA) and I'm in a US #64 ranked guild. I still go out to the movies with my wife, hang out with friends, spend time with my children, and raid on a high end level all because I manage my time well. If your wife making dinner 30 minutes late causes you to miss raid, then find a guild with a later start time for raids (my raid group starts at 8:30pm my time and runs until 11:30pm) or make dinner yourself so it won't be late.

Being a hardcore raider doesn't require a ton of time anymore, there are plenty of high end raiding guilds that raid 9-12 hours a week you just need to have the skill to be part of their team. While I will say LFR is nice for the people who really don't have the time or want to commit to raiding but it's also about skill, 90% of the players in LFR wouldn't last in high end raiding guilds but it's just due to being lazy and not applying themselves. There are plenty of resources out there for people to learn but they just want to be handed gear and carried along, LFR has been like that since it launched.

[Azrile]

GC tweeted that the server's will not be connected on patch day which makes sense since there is already a lot going on that day but that they will be joined in the very near future after 5.4 launches. This effects cross realm raiding in Flex as they seem to be connected which is what the tweet was originally about was when the servers would be joined. I don't care either way as I won't be running it but that was the reasoning behind it. It will happen in 5.4 but not on launch date.

hahaha.. yes, they said realms won´t be connected on day one.. but that has nothing to do with cross-realm Flex pugs.

By your argument.. than Openraid could not exist right now. Right? By your argument ( since connected realms aren´t in game yet) it is impossible that I did a Firelands25heroic last week with people from 24 different servers?

The inability right now to do cross-realm current tier raids is an artificial limitation programmed into the game. It has NOTHING to do with the actual process of connecting realms that is going to happen after 5.4 Flex raids will be cross-realm on day 1 and is not, nor will be limited to which servers you happen to get connected to.

well, this lack of knowledge explains most of your other posts as well.

[Ebonwraith]

But that's the problem. It should be up to the player to decide if they want to see all the content at once or not. If they feel like they deserve more content, then they should step up from LFR. I'd be fine with seeing all of SoO in one night. I can't speak for the rest of the playerbase, as we both know they're incredibly bitchy, but if I want more content I know exactly where to go to get it. But that's pretty much a mute point, because the real reason for gated content is for sub retention, I really don't see much debate about that. It's not the wrong thing to do either, it just sucks. Unfortunately if they focused on making the game more enjoyable, they wouldn't need to gate content to retain subs as the overall enjoyable experience would do that in itself.

But it's not about holding on to subs. That is and always has been a tinfoil hat conspiracy that people throw around like its confirmed by blizzard in flashing lights. And no, it shouldn't be "up to the player" to decide what you suggest we should be able to decide. I've never seen Ra-den, does that mean Blizzard doesn't treat me like a valued player? No, it has nothing to do with that. Like I said, you may want to be able to log on once on the 10th then unsub after an hour, but that isn't what Blizzard wants, mainly because that's unhealthy for the game. If all you care about is seeing the story play out, why can't you watch a stream on twitch, or watch youtube videos? If you are of the opinion that doing lfr to see content is in any way more in-depth than watching a vid/stream, you're only kidding yourself.

[Azrile]

Did I miss something? What does Flex have to do with the Virtual Realms? I was under the impression Flex was cross-realm by default as in I could invite RealID/BattleTag people on other realms to join a raid and do Flex.

You are correct. he was wrong. Flex will be openraidable from day 1 and has nothing to do with actual connected realms.

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Blue post today contradicts GC's Tweet.

http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/2...-a-lfr-raider/

Actually, be careful, you just fell into a classic forum trap.

GC never said that flex raid would not be cross realm. Just a very uninformed players assumed that, and then attributed it to GC.

It is funny, GC gets blamed a lot for things he never actually said, but people ´quote´him on forums and then people argue against him for something he never even said.

The secret is ( and two of us did it in this thread)... whenever someone ´quotes´ a dev.. ask them to provide a link.

[But I Hate You All]

Gating is dumb and used as away to falsely extend the life of content. The only thing $15 bucks a mo gets you is access to the servers but if we did not have stuff like lfr and the majority of the player base (Casuals) could not do the raids than we would have alot less subs. Bottom line is this, The people who complain about Casuals do not realize Casuals are the ones that keep this game running and are the vast majority of the player base. Hardcore raiders are a small %

[Clockwork Pinkie]

So many difficulties, I mean more to do is good but, more of the same... ><

[Azrile]

to say the fights were easier would be correct. to say they didn't have any mechanics is simply not correct.

They had tank mechanisms mostly. At the most, you had to kill adds as a dps, usually without having to move.

Honestly, my opinion only, but raiding in vanilla was very very similar to LFR now. Tanks had to be on their game, dps have maybe one or two things they have to do during the boss fight. whether it be killing adds, not standing in crap etc etc. Lie Shen was harder on LFR dps than any boss up until Naxx 1.0 as far as mechanisms. In vanilla, there were fights that needed a handful of good dps to do something special, but no different than something like kiting Galaron or the egg team, or stuff like that that you need for LFR also. Every 40 man raid had a dozen guys who could afk auto-shoot on every boss.

[Ebonwraith]

Gating is dumb and used as away to falsely extend the life of content. The only thing $15 bucks a mo gets you is access to the servers but if we did not have stuff like lfr and the majority of the player base (Casuals) could not do the raids than we would have alot less subs. Bottom line is this, The people who complain about Casuals do not realize Casuals are the ones that keep this game running and are the vast majority of the player base. Hardcore raiders are a small %

And people like you don't understand that lfr is not keeping WoW alive, and that is NOT the reason it was implemented in 4.3.

WoW flourished for over 6 years without lfr, and it would not die if it was removed. There is no reason to remove it however, and that isn't a point to argue anyway. Gating of lfr and flex is not done to extend content lifespan, like I said in an earlier post, that's utter bullshit tinfoil conspiracy that people parrot all over forums, even though its completely false. Gating is done to mimic the progression of the guilds that do normal and heroic, so that the people who run lfr EXCLUSIVELY don't burn out in a week and demand that Blizzard stop fucking them over and release new content.

You also have no idea what the term "casual" means, because the context you're using it in, ala players that only run lfr, is wrong. I am a casual player, and I full cleared normal throne in March. 6 hours a week, 2 nights a week. Casual =/= LFR hero.

[Ogemaniac]

The order should be:

Week 1: Heroic

Week 3: Normal

Week 5: Flex

Week 9: LFR

Heroic should go first, not third. Let the top guilds have the honor of seeing the new content first, and throw themselves at heroic without any normal gear. This would actually have the advantage of allowing heroic to be tuned down a notch, because the leading guilds would be hitting it with lesser gear. This would make heroic more accessible to more average but still hardcore guilds later on.

I have no problem with making LRF-only casuals wait a while to see new content. It's not like they aren't going to get bored in the four month's or more that they will still have remaining.

[But I Hate You All]

OH Also to the people saying lfr is not raiding. It is raiding, easy mode but still raiding

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The order should be:

Week 1: Heroic

Week 3: Normal

Week 5: Flex

Week 9: LFR

Heroic should go first, not third. Let the top guilds have the honor of seeing the new content first, and throw themselves at heroic without any normal gear. This would actually have the advantage of allowing heroic to be tuned down a notch, because the leading guilds would be hitting it with lesser gear. This would make heroic more accessible to more average but still hardcore guilds later on.

I have no problem with making LRF-only casuals wait a while to see new content. It's not like they aren't going to get bored in the four month's or more that they will still have remaining.

That does not really make sense. How they should do it is have Normal, Flex all wings, LFR all wings, open week 1. Heroic open once you beat normal

[BobAwesome]

But it's not about holding on to subs. That is and always has been a tinfoil hat conspiracy that people throw around like its confirmed by blizzard in flashing lights. And no, it shouldn't be "up to the player" to decide what you suggest we should be able to decide. I've never seen Ra-den, does that mean Blizzard doesn't treat me like a valued player? No, it has nothing to do with that. Like I said, you may want to be able to log on once on the 10th then unsub after an hour, but that isn't what Blizzard wants, mainly because that's unhealthy for the game. If all you care about is seeing the story play out, why can't you watch a stream on twitch, or watch youtube videos? If you are of the opinion that doing lfr to see content is in any way more in-depth than watching a vid/stream, you're only kidding yourself.

But it isn't MY Shadow Priest melting Garrosh and gang face when I watch a stream/vid.

[Ebonwraith]

OH Also to the people saying lfr is not raiding. It is raiding, easy mode but still raiding

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That does not really make sense. How they should do it is have Normal, Flex all wings, LFR all wings, open week 1. Heroic open once you beat normal

How about no? See my reply to you above outlining why your reasoning/belief is flawed .

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But it isn't MY Shadow Priest melting Garrosh and gang face when I watch a stream/vid.

But that isn't seeing the story. That's raiding, and you never said that you wanted to experience raid fights, just that you want to see the lore and story pan out.

If what you want were to happen, then guess what becomes a reality? If normal/heroic raiders want to see the story as soon as you do, guess what? They actually ARE forced into doing lfr.

[Kazuchika]

Gating is dumb and used as away to falsely extend the life of content. The only thing $15 bucks a mo gets you is access to the servers but if we did not have stuff like lfr and the majority of the player base (Casuals) could not do the raids than we would have alot less subs. Bottom line is this, The people who complain about Casuals do not realize Casuals are the ones that keep this game running and are the vast majority of the player base. Hardcore raiders are a small %

So how do you explain the first six years of this game where arguably raiding was at its peak and had even less players? You're so delusional the scary part is that you're actually believing what you're saying. You seriously think that if all the whiny LFR heroes just packed up and left that would be it? Blizz would go "oh noes we only have 3 million people playing and we're still wildly successful but we're nothing without little jimmy and his 15 dollars a month! Pull the plug!"?

Nope.

[Azrile]

Well... I will admit I may have blown all CD's on the bloods on the way to Primordeus while hitting a defense to stay alive while watching others drop like flies...

Even so, my memories go back to when T15 LFR was first release the success rate was only good when regular raiders were present in all roles and shared their knowledge on how to kill the boss. Now they won't even be there anymore to share their knowledge. Many LFR's since have proven that nonraiders will almost never research the bosses themselves. So with no one there to say how to kill the boss you'll no doubt see stacks well greater than 5 of the failbuff and people still unable to kill the boss.

Trust me... the fail train is coming.

So wiping 5 times on a boss makes it a fail-train? Didn´t I read somewhere that Paragon wiped 200 times on lie shen?

You see, this is the real disconnect. LFR players ( myself included) don´t really hate to wipe. What we hated was the hardcore raiders going off on a rant and calling everyone bad before dropping group anyway. Aside from Galaron for two weeks, I don´t recall there ever being a feeling of ´this is hopeless´ after a wipe... You wiped, a few people commented on what happened, what went wrong.. etc etc. There is nothing wrong with wiping in LFR.. but what made LFR so terrible is the raiders who start crying, never say anything useful, just try to make themselves feel better about themselves ( ha, similar to this forum). You don´t even see many people drop group anymore after a wipe.

[But I Hate You All]

How about no? See my reply to you above outlining why your reasoning/belief is flawed .

Nothing is flawed I gave my opinion. The game Evolved from what it once was in 2004 and to be honest if they launched World of Warcraft today just like it once was it would utterly fail.