November 4 - Even More LFR Nerfs

[Zantos]

So because I'm in LFR I'm not doing my best? Nice tar brush.

No. People in lfr can easily get away with not trying and slacking a lot easier then they can in any other mode.

Players go AFK on every boss in every difficulty, it's just that it goes relatively unpunished in LFR. Also, it's a very small minority that does this that are making the majority look bad. Another nice tar brush.

No, a ton of players do that in LFR. And no, they don't go afk on every difficulty because in any other difficulty there is vent or mumble or some chat program being used to organize it. If you go afk in any other mode, you WILL be replaced. In LFR, you may not even be noticed. Auto attacking =/= not being afk

Heroic raiders can slack in Flex.

So? They wont because they will be kicked. Why? Because you can notice who slacks in flex. In LFR, most of them slack.

Fallacious argument that 13 people in every LFR are AFK.

Ok? I never once mentioned a number. Just that you can easily get away with it in lfr.

Fallacious argument that personal experience can be extrapolated on to every LFR run ever.

Most LFR runs do fail. Did I say every lfr was like that? No. But there are usually one or two people that Do not care and wont try or will just afk.

Then where is this requirement in the list of requirements to enter LFR? I don't see it anywhere.

Oh I don't know, the fact that the boss has HP!! And a berserk timer! That is where its listed. The fact that the boss Can enrage if he is not killed fast enough. Then what happens, he wipes.

There is a poll somewhere on these forums about tanks and the leading cause for the lack of tanks in LFR is the poor attitude they recieve from DPS, not the poor quality of players in LFR.

Im a tank. The leading cause of me not joining LFR is the poor attitude of players, and the amount of players that will not try and just afk.

They do not have any respect for you if they are being shouted at, so it's not surprising if they don't listen to you.

Typing in all caps so they will see =/= shouting at them. It means they are not paying attention or seeing it otherwise.

Players can do what they like in LFR. Players don't need to be told that fire is bad, that's a waste of time typing into chat. Fire is usually ignorable in LFR anyway.

Yes, they can and that is why LFR fails more often then not. That is why I won't do LFR. Because they have the same attitude as you and then fail miserably.

Incentives for tanks in LFR will come, I'm sure of it.

Hope so. Because at the moment, there is none.

The mechanics should be intuitive in LFR. If they're required reading material then either the mechanics aren't intuitive or they can be ignored.

A boss has mechanics that has to be done?! What madness is this? Welcome to the world of raiding, where bosses have mechancis and you have to follow them or fail. Which is what happens.

Look it up yourself.

..poor quality Firelands/DS style raids with few bosses and re-used content, yes.

...where the participation of raids had hit an all time low, as well as the boss count for the tier, because Blizzard couldn't justify spending resources on content hardly anyone saw. Hence why LFR was rushed in to try to save raiding.

That because Ulduar had an easy quarter that everyone could see, and Naxx was relatively easy, so that justified spending lots of resources on raids.

Had no-one seen ICC, say, because it was too difficult, it would have incentivised LFR earlier.

However, the quality of the raid entirely depends on how many people saw the previous raid. LFR is here to stay because it justifies a large resource percentage on raids. It's a cyclic argument.

LFR is here to stay because removing it would mean that they admit it is bad. If raids are not good, players will not stay. This isn't up for discussion. If they do not make end game content, or good end game content, then people WILL and do quit. LFR will not change the fact that it has to be done if they want players to stay. I can see you wont listen. You are the type of people that has ruined LFR. "Its easiy, why should I care?" Because if you don't care the good players won't continue to carry you.

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No, there won't be any more large tiers accessible to only 5% of the player base, not again, ever. Raids are tremendously expensive to design and test, and they are simply always going to be either "for everyone" or nonexistent, from here out. Everyone who has ever killed a current heroic boss could quit the game and Blizzard wouldn't even notice something happened.

No raids = no players because people would get to max level then go "no what?". If there isn't anything, people quit. Heroic raid or not, raids must be around in order for them to keep players.

[nekobaka]

No, there won't be any more large tiers accessible to only 5% of the player base, not again, ever. Raids are tremendously expensive to design and test, and they are simply always going to be either "for everyone" or nonexistent, from here out. Everyone who has ever killed a current heroic boss could quit the game and Blizzard wouldn't even notice something happened.

So GC along with other developers wouldnt notice that they quit WoW?

Ion Hazzikostas:
LFR justifies the creation of more raid content when millions of players are able to see content. Only a few thousand people actually saw Kel'thuzad, but millions saw Deathwing. The reason Mists of Pandaria is starting with 18 bosses and adding larger raid tiers than we have had previously is because many players are going to see the raids through LFR.

Unfortunately, the Blizzard's Lead Encounter Designer tells us that casuals do pay for the content of anyone raiding the higher tiers, and it will now halt without them.

Everyone pays for content including that of which they do not participate. PVEers pay for PVP content just as PVPers pay for PVE content. Increased participation justified the shifting of non-raid resources like five mans into raids. KT was three expansions ago and no raid since then has seen such a low participation rate.

Let me state this again, just because you dont raid doesnt mean you are a casual just like raiding doesnt make you a hardcore. So get over your need to segregate the community into who is more deserving. If you have a problem with players paying for content they dont participate in then push for an a la cart model.

[KBWarriors]

As I said in another thread:

What do you expect?

A raid difficulty that's catered to people who are too lazy to learn the mechanics, gem their char, enchant their gear, learn their rotations, etc, will have people who bot or AFK. I've said it from the beginning.. LFR isn't so people can "see the content", everyone only cares about loot.

Remove the gear from LFR, then see how many of them still want to see the content.

When you cater to the people I mentioned above and continue to make it easier on them, all you're showing them is they're doing the right thing. I don't know why Blizzard feels that when the going gets tough, well, nerf it so the going gets easier.

Blizzard needs to pull their heads out of their asses and stop handing bad/lazy players nerfs/gear just because they refuse to learn the game.

[Deleted]

Why do people who don't participate in LFR care what happens to it?

If its too easy and too tempting with its loot drops, it doesn't lead to players wanting to get better at the game and to join raiding guilds.

[DeeTwelve]

The game is dependent on both the casual players AND the hardcore players coexisting. Casuals make up the bulk of the sub money while hardcore players provide consistent income, game knowledge (the guides, addons, theorycrafting, etc people depend on,) and a community cornerstone. If one side falls, the entire game suffers for it.

Negative. Hardcores do nothing that anyone except them cares about. Theorycrafting? LOL, yeah lots of casuals would totally miss that.

Bs. Even If all those players leave, they will continue to make raids. They did all up until the final tier of Cata when LFR was introduced. Ulduar had a ton of bosses, but it didn't have a LFR mode at all. Raids will continue to be around even if they removed LFR. Period. That is the end game. No end game, no players. Simple as that. So as long as they plan on actually making money, they will make raids that only a few thousand will see. Why? Because the other millions will still want to work towards seeing it.

Yes, and they'll have like four bosses each. Enjoy.

[Normie]

So GC along with other developers wouldnt notice that they quit WoW?

Well, it's true, they would notice a huge reduction in the number of complaints and exploits.

[Deleted]

Negative. Hardcores do nothing anyone except them cares about. Theorycrafting, LOL, yeah lots of casuals would miss that, right?

They make some sweet boss guides and kill videos. I knew who Nihilum were even well before stepping into Karazhan.

[Manhands]

Nerf it all you want, it's not going to teach players the core fundamentals of raiding or having to actually... God forbid, learn strategy to earn potential loot. I thought that an MMO revolved around hard work, grinding and team work.. apparently Blizzard is trying to re-invent what a MMO means.

I'm really, really tired of this attitude. You do not understand the purpose of LFR. You are not the target audience. Do not high-horse about raiding and strategy.

[Deleted]

I'm really, really tired of this attitude. You do not understand the purpose of LFR. You are not the target audience.

So the target audience is bots and bad players?

[Snorkles]

So the target audience is bots and bad players?

There is no target audience - that's the idea, it's for everyone. As a result, it is at a level where the lowest common denominator can gain something from it.

It's like a professional footballer moaning that some random 5 a side is playing their sport in the local park. The park is there for everyone, not just 'the top'.

[Ronduwil]

Blizzard needs to pull their heads out of their asses and stop handing bad/lazy players nerfs/gear just because they refuse to learn the game.

The thing is that WoW isn't a game that you just learn. It requires constant study to keep up to date. Stat priorities and rotations don't remain steady for the duration of the expansion; they even change from patch to patch. Each raid boss is unique with its own set of mechanics. For enthusiasts that's no big deal. For a casual player who just wants to log in and kill a few bosses before heading off to bed, it's just not worth it. I don't think that players who refuse to min-max are lazy; they just have better things to study than mechanics for a game. If you honestly think that anyone is being handed gear then you should actually give LFR a try. Yes, you can be carried through fights, but you can be carried through heroic fights as well. That doesn't change the fact that someone had to put in significant effort to get that boss to drop their loot. Saying that Blizzard is "handing bad/lazy players nerfs/gear just because they refuse to learn the game" does a disservice to the majority of people in LFR who actually do their best and power through those fights. Maybe you should pay more attention to your own head's whereabouts and less to Blizzard's.

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There is no target audience - that's the idea, it's for everyone. As a result, it is at a level where the lowest common denominator can gain something from it.

There has always been a target audience, and Blizzard stated it outright before LFR was even released in their Raid Finder Q&A:

Q.Who is Raid Finder for?
A. Raid Finder is primarily intended for players who don’t already raid consistently. These are players who may not have had the opportunity to take part in raid content due to scheduling conflicts, playtime constraints, limited access to other raid-capable players, or a lack of experience with higher-end content. These players may want to experience World of Warcraft’s raid content and storyline without being able to commit to the additional time investment of a raiding guild. The Raid Finder is also a great way to quickly and easily gear up alternate characters without having to worry about raid lockouts.

Non-raiders and alts. If you're not one of those then you weren't the target audience.

[Deleted]

There is no target audience - that's the idea, it's for everyone. As a result, it is at a level where the lowest common denominator can gain something from it.

It's like a professional footballer moaning that some random 5 a side is playing their sport in the local park. The park is there for everyone, not just 'the top'.

False analogy. Nerfing LFR is like making the goalposts at the local playing pitch four times further apart because "casual footballers can't score goals otherwise". Or removing the net from tennis, or adding cushions to all but one of the bowling alley lanes, and so on. Now the people who actually enjoyed playing something a tiny bit like real football can't do it anymore.

And designing a feature for everyone is a great way to get everybody to hate it in slightly different ways.

[Ronduwil]

False analogy. Nerfing LFR is like making the goalposts at the local playing pitch four times further apart because "casual footballers can't score goals otherwise". Or removing the net from tennis, or adding cushions to all but one of the bowling alley lanes, and so on. Now the people who actually enjoyed playing something a tiny bit like real football can't do it anymore.

Remove the net from tennis, and you get racquetball. Have you been to a bowling alley lately? Every single lane has grid guards that they will raise for you upon request. Just like WoW has this Raid Finder tool that you have to manually bring up and queue for. If you don't like it don't do it. Flex, Normal, and Heroic raids are still available to you. They aren't nerfed as often as they used to be.

[Deleted]

Have you been to a bowling alley lately? Every single lane has grid guards that they will raise for you upon request.

Woah, technology! That's quite useful.

[Pyromelter]

The last 2 tiers (t15 and t16) of LFR have been way more difficult as a gearing catchup mechanism versus the Wrath and Cataclysm 5-man heroic models.

LFR is meant to be as faceroll as End-Time, Well of Eternity, Pit of Saron, Trial of the Champion, etc. etc. Yes, if you badly screwed up while undergeared in those dungeons, you would wipe. But generally it was faceroll.

That's what LFR is supposed to be. Blizz didn't release new heroic dungeons as a catchup mechanism this time around.

If you want to argue that they should have put in more 5mans, and get rid of LFR as a catchup mechanism, I'd agree.

But ezmode gearing at the end of an expansion is what has worked for the previous expansions, and worked rather well to get alts and new players quickly geared enough to contribute in normal modes. If anything, LFR has failed because it is frankly too time consuming as a gearing mechanism.

Personally I think they should scrap LFR, and funnel people into Flex, while giving free epics in 5man heroics ala wrath and cata. It worked superbly then, no reason why it wouldn't work again.

But don't be all like "lol free loot diz game too lolezmode" - it's been like that for many, many years now. If you wanted a game with hard-to-get loot, plenty of other super grindy tough games out there for you to choose from.

[Normie]

Personally I think they should scrap LFR, and funnel people into Flex, while giving free epics in 5man heroics ala wrath and cata. It worked superbly then, no reason why it wouldn't work again.

The problem is, organized participation will never be more than a few percent of the player base, Flex pugs have gear and achieve requirements exceeding what you can get in Flex, and random match made groups in Flex is ... just glorified LFR.

So you can have no LFR and no raiding content at all because there is not going to be massive amounts of inaccessible content any longer, or you can have LFR and huge raiding tiers where thoroughly nerfed gear is handed out to anyone who wants to participate.

[Snorkles]

False analogy. Nerfing LFR is like making the goalposts at the local playing pitch four times further apart because "casual footballers can't score goals otherwise".

I was talking about my local park really. Which has no goal posts, we just use our T-shirts. We can make the goal posts as wide (or narrow) as we want. But still, you're suggesting that there is only one pitch. Which there isn't, there's actually 4 - a field (LFR), a local playing pitch (Flex), a small towns local team pitch (Normal) or a city Stadium (Heroic).

If the City Stadium make the goals super wide, sure, complain away (or professionals anyway). If some lads dumped their T-Shirts a mile apart so they can score from anywhere in the park, who cares? That, to me, is what LFR is.

Well, kinda, it's more 'pick 9 random strangers in the park' and try and make a 5 aside with them than 10 mates but ye, point remains.

[Nerraw]

If its too easy and too tempting with its loot drops, it doesn't lead to players wanting to get better at the game and to join raiding guilds.

Cataclysm showed that without the easier access to loot that Wrath's heroic dungeons, and now LFR, delivered, people simply quit the game.

[nekobaka]

Well, it's true, they would notice a huge reduction in the number of complaints and exploits.

Perhaps I should have been more clear. GC would not have noticed that he himself quit WoW along with the other developers who raid heroics? Exploits is a good point as it is more likely for a hardcore oriented player to use such for PVP as well, so you would still have those players along with the other hardcores of their gameplay types. Complaints will shift in topic and right now we have casuals types arguing among each other just getting louder. We have "casuals" complaining about having to be reliant on other players for trading. The community went from PVP vs PVE being the main complaints for six years to it to move on to PVE "casuals" vs PVE "hardcores" and now we got PVE LFR vs PVE non-raiding.

Cataclysm showed that without the easier access to loot that Wrath's heroic dungeons, and now LFR, delivered, people simply quit the game.

Cata also showed that for those who can complete them while being given reduced grinds leads to players having nothing to do. Those who did WotLK heroics alone took far more months to exhaust a badge vendor while requiring the task of logging in and completing a heroic everyday which was a far more involved task prior to the introduction of LFD. Difficulty wasnt the only factor for Cata while in MoP the lack of engagement is given the leading cause. Players have been quitting the game from launch and Cata was no different in that regard. What changed was a slowdown of new subs in WotLK and Blizzards 1-60 revamp was their attempt to counter that and miss management of resources resulted in a downhill spiral from there. While the revamp might have been necessary it did have its down sides.

[Flutterguy]

If its too easy and too tempting with its loot drops, it doesn't lead to players wanting to get better at the game and to join raiding guilds.

So? Maybe those guilds should advertise more or try their own incentive plans to get new raiders if they're so desperate that they're looking to the LFR crowd for recruits.