To people whom want LFR removed: What endgame do you propose for the casual players?

[Deleted]

I disagree, I feel that Flex was one of the best things added for casuals in recent times - there are even "Flex Guilds" which just clear Wing 1-4 in a couple hours each week. LFR is not a place for "casuals", LFR is a place for people that just don't seem to give a shit. I have run LFR one time this patch and that was just to see how bad it was....it was pretty bad. People just afk and autoattack bosses, that isn't casual, that is being shit at the game and being a lazy prick. Casual and not caring are 2 complete different thing. I personally hope to see LFR get removed in whatever the next expansion just because LFR has turned into a boiling pot of shit in my opinion.

Flex is as good as the people making them. Again the vicious circle of show achivement emerged greatly, and when nobody takes in people that don't have it they are left to do LFR.

[kunah]

You won't get good answers, because anyone saying that LFR should be removed simply hasn't thought the issue all the way through, or hasn't been playing long enough to realize that when the game DID have more dungeons, folks got utterly sick of running them, and you had just as many complaints flying around. (just about different topics).

While the game should certainly have more dungeons, and hopefully good ones next time around, LFR isn't, and shouldn't, be going anywhere.

As a casual,,I agree with this. Looking back,, the most fun I had in the game was running 5 man BC heroics with some friends in a small guild. It's was hard. My computer can handle it. Easy to organize. And then everyone got all serious in WOTLK and the fun ended.

[threads]

Well first they could learn how to play the game. It's not that difficult to read a guide and gem/enchant your gear. LFR is 90% full of people who don't seem to have any idea what they're doing. Atleast back pre-lfr people wouldn't be able to even get into a pug raid or guild like that.

[Wildtree]

Fine. All heroic raiding guilds quit vs all non-raiders (excluding those who PvP) quit. See what then? See who blizzard tries to bring back with promises of content made for them.

Every player 13/13 ToT vs every player 0/12 ToT

Which would Blizzard actually worry about?

The 98% of the player base, that hasn't set foot into SoO last wing, until it was released for LFR...
This is one of the key issues at hand.
Some heroic raiders completely overestimate their position. What one prefers the next one doesn't. Everyone is equally welcome as player and customer. The ultimate decision doesn't come from the best raiders. The ultimate decision comes from the activities that are done by the vast majority.
If saving the game would mean to scratch heroic raiding, you can bet your ass on it, that this is what Blizzard would do. The path and fate of the game was always and will always be determined by what the absolute majority likes the most.
And from there.... in fact, every serious raider should be thankful for the lower difficulties, and the success Blizzard has with it, in regard of player base taking part of it. Without LFR, and the now in between step of Flex, without that, raiding would have long been done. The costs to develop the content wouldn't be justified by those 2% who raid rather serious. If you are a heroic raider, you have to face the hard truth. You are not profitable for the company.

[gr4vitas]

Except you need a raiding guild to do normal mode raids. (PuGs were never and have never been plentiful for current raiding content)

Not everyone has the time commitment to be in a raiding guild.

Then you don't do normal raids? Just like in real life, if you don't have the time to do something, you don't get to do it.

[LTCrystallite]

LFR COULD be good, but that's not the case. It isn't a teaching tool or tuned for casual play, it rewards complete incompetence.

[Azrile]

The BC model was fine imo... heroics were somewhat of a challenge (until you out geared it) Kara was pug-able (i actually ran kara pugs often spamming trade) ZA and Gruul's Lair too although they could be abit more of a challenge. And at the end, when Sunwell was launched, you had the gear vendor to farm... you got really good gear, but not better then the people raiding sunwell.

I was on a low to median pop server... maybe some people other high pop with top raiding guilds were able to run more.

Also.. i highly enjoyed ICC in wrath... the one and only time my server actually had GDKP runs.

You also are posting on a MMO fan website.

Your problem is you do not realize that we are the vast vast minority of players.

[Mormolyce]

I think the current setup is pretty much the best it's ever been - if you can commit the time to raid, you can do NM and HM, if you can commit enough time to pug there's Flexi (which is brilliant), and if you're only ever online at odd hours etc there's always LFR for you. And outside of raiding there's fuckloads more to do than ever before.

I don't think this'll work either, as without something to do at the endgame, these people are likely to get bored even faster than they are already, and quit in even bigger droves.

If you refuse to raid then what the hell is LFR if not an endgame? Non-raiders HAVE an endgame now, which they've never had before, thanks to LFR.

- - - Updated - - -

Casual players don't all agree on what's good content. This is the fallacy here.

Pet Battles was casual friendly but who is staying subbed to play Pet Battles? I doubt very many.

I would :P

[Kaleredar]

Then you don't do normal raids? Just like in real life, if you don't have the time to do something, you don't get to do it.

In which case without LFR, you get to do absolutely nothing that's 1) challenging or 2) awards meaningful gear progression

In which case people then quit the game.

You honestly shouldn't "assume yourself" in a position to say "Oh you like doing X? Well, I think only I deserve to do X... but you should totally have fun doing Y instead! If you don't, then this game obviously isn't for you."

[Otimus]

Casual players don't all agree on what's good content. This is the fallacy here.

Pet Battles was casual friendly but who is staying subbed to play Pet Battles? I doubt very many.

I truly feel that if you're going to cater to this new "majority" of gamers then your strategy of retaining players for months at a time is going to prove almost impossible for you.

I pretty much agree with this.

[Deleted]

Then you don't do normal raids? Just like in real life, if you don't have the time to do something, you don't get to do it.

But Blizzard did make LFR to change that, so the question was what could substitute for LFR. Do nothing or unsubscribe?

[MoanaLisa]

flex mode.
it does what LFR was meant to do, be a easier relaxed version of the actual raid.

No, this is wrong. Flex is pre-made groups where qualifications to join the group are usually set quite high and exclude many players since it's up to the group leader. Whether or not you stay once you do join is much the same. This is fine and completely OK.

LFR is for anyone who can meet the minimal requirements. Granted it's not ideal but it's not as terrible as people make it out to be either. If you go in, keep your mouth shut and go about your business to the best of your abilities and gear, chances are you will be fine and not have any problems getting tossed out. And if you mess up and get tossed out, fine. Queue up again. You'll have to wait but you will get back in again.

To say that Flex does what LFR was meant to do is to completely disregard the different requirements to join a group and stay there.

More on topic: I agree with those who think we need more group content of every size and difficulty at end game: dungeons, scenarios, whatever. There's no denying that while this can be OK for a while, all of that will get old if that's the only PVE end game. So LFR, which isn't going anywhere and will not be replaced by Flex.

[Glurp]

It's called Normal and Heroic raids. If your casual you can still do them, just don't use casual as an excuse for being bad. If on the other hand you are actually just terrible at the game and can't do Normal or Heroic then that's a problem with you, not the game.

[Deleted]

I pretty much agree with this.

It deffinatly is the biggest challenge MMOs have ahead of them. Gaming changed a lot the last 5-10 years, grinding and long uninspired content is a far bigger no no now.

[Chain Chungus]

Difficult, heroic 5 man dungeons that tie into the main raid of that expac. Ones that drop exactly one epic from the final boss.

[Wildtree]

But Blizzard did make LFR to change that, so the question was what could substitute for LFR. Do nothing or unsubscribe?

It doesn't have to be just raiding.

For TBC there was a very good balance in my opinion.
You could have raided, you could have run dungeons, you could have worked on reputations which didn't fly in like a joke, they took time actually, and you could have focused on professions, and of course pvp. Every aspect had some rewarding feature and one could keep themselves pretty busy with them.

The problem I see is one term... TIME...
it doesn't really matter what one does in the game... From Hardcore to Casual, from Raider to Farmer. From PVPer to PVEer. Everyone bitches and moans about how everything needs to be faster, or easier. That reputation? That's a horrendous grind. That dungeon, that goes too long. That Battleground, can't win it often enough.
What ever it is, every group of players claims to get ideally the entirety of the content presented with maybe 5 - 7 hours playtime weekly.
And Blizzard fell for that tendency... I think it is too late now, to turn back the time to what the game once was and what kept people busy.

[Klingers]

The 98% of the player base, that hasn't set foot into SoO last wing, until it was released for LFR...
This is one of the key issues at hand.
Some heroic raiders completely overestimate their position. What one prefers the next one doesn't. Everyone is equally welcome as player and customer. The ultimate decision doesn't come from the best raiders. The ultimate decision comes from the activities that are done by the vast majority.
If saving the game would mean to scratch heroic raiding, you can bet your ass on it, that this is what Blizzard would do. The path and fate of the game was always and will always be determined by what the absolute majority likes the most.
And from there.... in fact, every serious raider should be thankful for the lower difficulties, and the success Blizzard has with it, in regard of player base taking part of it. Without LFR, and the now in between step of Flex, without that, raiding would have long been done. The costs to develop the content wouldn't be justified by those 2% who raid rather serious. If you are a heroic raider, you have to face the hard truth. You are not profitable for the company.

I think it goes even further than that. Heroic raiders vastly, vastly overestimate how much of even the tiniest shit casual player give about their very existence.

A guy I know is the best person I know at making his eyeballs vibrate. It's something he's good at, but nobody gives a shit about him either.

We're not obligated to either cross-subsidize content for heroic raiders or show any care factor when they clear internet dragons faster than us. Good for them. They shouldn't simultaneously be looking for outside validation from the same people they expect to pay for their content generation and. disparage them having access to

[inkberry]

I'm afraid that if I start pointing out flaws in your words I'll get infracted to say the least.
I'll say this much though. There are people with full time jobs in this world, that actually like playing this game.
Some of these people undoubtedly would like to raid, yet can't because of their stressful work-free time balance.
According to you having other commitments means you aren't allowed to experience aspects of a game you pay for and enjoy.
How exactly is a model -where not only paying for but also spending all of your free time in a game required to see all it has to offer- viable?
You don't have the time to be raiding every night or whatever guilds require = you don't get to see lore thats an essential part of the game?
Good luck selling that.

Ever consider that a game like this just isn't for people that, you know, don't have time for it? Who'da thought!
I was able to commit to a raid schedule, WITH a full time job (36/hrs/week minimum), while at the same time being a FULL TIME student at a University. 2 1/2 hour raid, 2 days a week. Never even came close to failing a class or losing my job either. Cleared all normal t11 content, even killed some heroic bosses, too! Even had enough spare time to dabble in a relationship (didn't go well, but hey).
If you can't commit to it then you should find a better way to spend your time.

Good luck selling that.

Sold better than Cata or MoP did, IIRC.

[MoanaLisa]

Ever consider that a game like this just isn't for people that, you know, don't have time for it?

That's why the designers have launched features that allow others with less time to enjoy it. It's not rocket science.

[Deleted]

It doesn't have to be just raiding.

For TBC there was a very good balance in my opinion.
You could have raided, you could have run dungeons, you could have worked on reputations which didn't fly in like a joke, they took time actually, and you could have focused on professions, and of course pvp. Every aspect had some rewarding feature and one could keep themselves pretty busy with them.

The problem I see is one term... TIME...
it doesn't really matter what one does in the game... From Hardcore to Casual, from Raider to Farmer. From PVPer to PVEer. Everyone bitches and moans about how everything needs to be faster, or easier. That reputation? That's a horrendous grind. That dungeon, that goes too long. That Battleground, can't win it often enough.
What ever it is, every group of players claims to get ideally the entirety of the content presented with maybe 5 - 7 hours playtime weekly.
And Blizzard fell for that tendency... I think it is too late now, to turn back the time to what the game once was and what kept people busy.

I think a lot of MMOs fell for that tendency. As stated above gaming changed, if MMOs stay behind they'll dwindle to a far smaller market.

Example: Boring grinding rep by killing 10.000 boars, fuck it I'll go play LoL or CoD, instant action and enjoyment.