My suggestions to fix LFR

[Giscoicus]

Target a slightly different audience, especially as a lot of casual players don't use OQueue

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Why don't you just not use it and let the people who enjoy it keep playing it rather than removing it for them entirely? I don't like BGs anymore and the community in them is just as bad, but I don't ask Blizz to remove it

Stop using the word casual like that. Casual players are the players who cannot turn this game into a formal hobby such as having an organized raiding team. Casuals can do flex, because it is not a major time commitment. What you are talking about are scrubs.

Second, whether or not I use LFR is irrelevent because it still takes up just as much of the devs time. Pumping out hotfixes/nerfs to LFR right after a patch as other stuff is missed, having the patch take longer because they need to fly in some monkeys from Africa to make sure LFR is easy enough, stuff like that. Everything that exists takes dev time, and I would rather them not waste it making Raiding for Retards. Also, because of the requirement of 25 people, Blizzard is pushing it into as many parts of the gearing path as possible. They know that the moment they have dungeons give even close to LFR gear the place will be dead. See the content is a load of crap for 95% of the LFR playerbase. As long as LFR exists, I also know I am not playing optimally if I am missing possible upgrades from the mode. Lastly it just contributes to inflation, one of the reasons pug requirements right now seem high is because the legendary cloak was earn able by every brain dead LFR Hero, and it has a ridiculously high item level. LFR also causes far more gear to be disenchanted into crystals, which messes up sales.

I can ignore LFR all I want, but it still has an impact on the game.

[Traveler Voltin]

The issue with kicking is you can't do it in combat or during loot rolls so lots of the time people can't be arsed to wait like 45 secs to kick some asshole

well if they removed those restrictions i could see it badly abused

[Giscoicus]

can we remove all forms of raids then too? >_>

Why? Organized raid teams tend to be tightknit groups of friends. LFR is people stepping on others to get their purples to afk in shrine again

[Normie]

Blizzard will have their own version of Oqueue in WoD, so that argument goes out the window more than likely.(what they added is just a tiny bandaid, not indicative of what they are going to make).

They've also strongly hinted its rewards will be nerfed. Recently GC tweeted that LFR should be for seeing content and "some gear". They don't like that everyone is forced into LFR for end game progression, even though most probably don't care for the style of play raiding is.

Well, if Blizzard makes the game all about the 5 percenters again, that will be a chance for another game to finally maybe not crash and burn.

[Prag]

Why don't you just not use it and let the people who enjoy it keep playing it rather than removing it for them entirely? I don't like BGs anymore and the community in them is just as bad, but I don't ask Blizz to remove it

The difficulty serves a purpose. The lack of any reasonable consequences only works against the entire point of it. It makes it so unappealing to spend 16 hours a week in LFR because of a mix of bad play and intentional wiping. The bad play I can live with because even the modest gear upgrades will improve it naturally. The latter is just damning. Especially as a subscription based game.

[wych]

Stop using the word casual like that. Casual players are the players who cannot turn this game into a formal hobby such as having an organized raiding team. Casuals can do flex, because it is not a major time commitment. What you are talking about are scrubs.

Second, whether or not I use LFR is irrelevent because it still takes up just as much of the devs time. Pumping out hotfixes/nerfs to LFR right after a patch as other stuff is missed, having the patch take longer because they need to fly in some monkeys from Africa to make sure LFR is easy enough, stuff like that. Everything that exists takes dev time, and I would rather them not waste it making Raiding for Retards. Also, because of the requirement of 25 people, Blizzard is pushing it into as many parts of the gearing path as possible. They know that the moment they have dungeons give even close to LFR gear the place will be dead. See the content is a load of crap for 95% of the LFR playerbase. As long as LFR exists, I also know I am not playing optimally if I am missing possible upgrades from the mode. Lastly it just contributes to inflation, one of the reasons pug requirements right now seem high is because the legendary cloak was earn able by every brain dead LFR Hero, and it has a ridiculously high item level. LFR also causes far more gear to be disenchanted into crystals, which messes up sales.

I can ignore LFR all I want, but it still has an impact on the game.

For starters my point was that a lot of casual players don't use 3rd party addons, not that casual players don't do flex.

Firstly using words like "retards" really doesn't help your point it makes you look immature.

You don't like LFR and it taking dev time? Tough. Lots of players do, not everything in this game is aimed at you, and it now means that Blizzard can justify spending a lot more time on raids because more players see them.

[Normie]

I am not playing optimally

Found your problem right there.

[wych]

The difficulty serves a purpose. The lack of any reasonable consequences only works against the entire point of it. It makes it so unappealing to spend 16 hours a week in LFR because of a mix of bad play and intentional wiping. The bad play I can live with because even the modest gear upgrades will improve it naturally. The latter is just damning. Especially as a subscription based game.

Agreed that assholes are bad, but intentional wiping is a bannable offence (it's a form of griefing) so just report them and eventually the community will be rid of them, or they'll be scared enough that they won't do it anymore.

[Kaykay]

There is no control over LFR, you can be stuck for hours wiping on a hellokitty version of a boss you've been doing on heroic for months. Just because of the people you join with.

No amount of incentive short of gold cap or blizzbucks will get me to tank that shit.
They should just have npcs kill the bosses for you, takes 2 hours every wednesday and you clear the entire thing. That would get me to que for LFR again.

My biggest gripe is that even if you spend godawful amounts of hours trying to steer the LFR train to victory. Once you're done. There is no consistent progression, people have forgotten tacs and you'll be doing the same progression next week.

On flex/normal/heroic your team doesn't suddenly forget base mechanics every reset, and that is exactly the reason guilds were made in the first place. And why the "real" raid experience has not changed since vanilla. LFR is doomed by its users.

[Giscoicus]

For starters my point was that a lot of casual players don't use 3rd party addons, not that casual players don't do flex.

Firstly using words like "retards" really doesn't help your point it makes you look immature.

You don't like LFR and it taking dev time? Tough. Lots of players do, not everything in this game is aimed at you, and it now means that Blizzard can justify spending a lot more time on raids because more players see them.

I realize not everything is catered to me, but saying that I can just ignore it is ridiculous. Its part of the game and it impacts everybody in some way.

Second, Retards is a really good description of the playerbase in LFR. Ultraxion's ONE mechanic kills half a group, Durumu's beam continues to one shot people months after release, they don't learn and their skill level is so ridiculously low that it is like they have a mental handicap.

Again, why does casual, play time and all that, have any connection to addon usage? It takes half a minute to download an addon. The people who don't use addons are (in most cases) new/bad players.

[Prag]

Agreed that assholes are bad, but intentional wiping is a bannable offence (it's a form of griefing) so just report them and eventually the community will be rid of them, or they'll be scared enough that they won't do it anymore.

I have never seen a player get banned for this. Griefing is such a grey line anyway. He could be RP'ing as a suicidal maniac?

[maxalyss]

I think LFR is a good service to the game by allowing people to see extremely watered down versions of fights and of course seeing the Lore.

The biggest issues I have with lfr are
1. People have basically 0 accountability
2. Que times are horrendous

my suggestions
1. Offer tanks and healers some incentive to que, no the satchel is horrible. One idea is for every wing of lfr you tank or heal you can be placed in the front of the line as a dps toon.

You tank Vale of Eternal on your warrior
you then que for Vale of Eternal on your druid dps and skip the line

or give an increased loot drop for healers and tanks nothing major

or double valor for tanks/healers



As for accountability, the vote kick rule basically ensures every group will have trolls or afkers. People should be able to vote kick whenever they want. The dps in the SOO tier has been 20k-40k lower than it was last patch. If someone wants to roll in and do 20k dps than the group should be able to kick them.

My suggestion is to stop being such a little biotch, complaining on the forums, and just man up, tough it out knowing that it's optional and there is nothing you can do to change it.

[Traveler Voltin]

Why? Organized raid teams tend to be tightknit groups of friends. LFR is people stepping on others to get their purples to afk in shrine again

the person said remove the douche bags by removing LFR when he fails to realize those very douche bags are mostly normal and heroic raiders.

[Draknalor186]

Because Flex still requires a third party addon, ever-escalating gear requirements (530 a few weeks ago, 540 now), and about 2-3 hours to organize. I queue for 5 LFR instances at once, run dailies and/or dungeons, and knock out two or three LFRs at one time in 2-3 hours. While I got my dailies done and collected my Secrets of the Empire you were still waiting for your oqueue group to get going. What's casual and fun about your way?

and about 2-3 hours to organize

dono what you have been smokeing but.. how does flex take 2 hours too get up and running? i usally just pop up my OQfind some grp, wait list me and usally grp is going within 15 min

[pastar]

I have a better idea for the op.....take lfr out of the game. It is a cancer of toxic douches and bads. It single handily killed wow, and will continue untill it is taken out. They introduced flex and that is what lfr should have been from the start. Keep flex take out lfr and stop killing the game.....Either way i could really care less going to wildstar once it drops XD

[maxalyss]

I have a better idea for the op.....take lfr out of the game. It is a cancer of toxic douches and bads. It single handily killed wow, and will continue untill it is taken out. They introduced flex and that is what lfr should have been from the start. Keep flex take out lfr and stop killing the game.....Either way i could really care less going to wildstar once it drops XD

This is illogical. It just doesn't make sense.

[Giscoicus]

I have never seen a player get banned for this. Griefing is such a grey line anyway. He could be RP'ing as a suicidal maniac?

Griefing is very hard to define or punish, since the player could just be new or something. I think Blizzard counts griefing like harassment, it has to be repeated to a serious extent

[wych]

I realize not everything is catered to me, but saying that I can just ignore it is ridiculous. Its part of the game and it impacts everybody in some way.

Second, Retards is a really good description of the playerbase in LFR. Ultraxion's ONE mechanic kills half a group, Durumu's beam continues to one shot people months after release, they don't learn and their skill level is so ridiculously low that it is like they have a mental handicap.

Again, why does casual, play time and all that, have any connection to addon usage? It takes half a minute to download an addon. The people who don't use addons are (in most cases) new/bad players.

Casual players on the whole spend a lot less time playing, discussing and thinking about the game, it's highly likely that lots of them don't even know about the addon.

Retards isn't a good description, I know some very intelligent people who absolutely suck at gaming.

The impact of LFR on you is lowering the price of shards and perhaps if you're a min max cutting edge raider being forced into it to get tier set bonuses and a trinket.

The fact is that LFR is used by lots and lots of people that enjoy it who previously lacked an end game in WoW to look forward to, and as I said it means Blizzard can spend more time developing raid concepts and bosses now because of the increased user base using them

[Giscoicus]

the person said remove the douche bags by removing LFR when he fails to realize those very douche bags are mostly normal and heroic raiders.

Yea the guy without gems and enchants half afk in the corner is a heroic raider...

No, raiders carry the groups. Raiders are those healers and dps doing twice what the next highest one is doing. Raiders are the ones who actually handle mechanics. Expecting you to contribute to the group and not slack off is not a douchebag move, but slacking off is.

[Prag]

Easy fix would be to change LFR to a much smaller scale instance. They've got the scale-by-raid-size figured out, so now make the LFR groups more intimate, offer great rewards for leading them and more control over kicking.

Basically, take it down to 10 players, offer a shit ton of gold to Tank and Heal it and remove the In Combat restrictions on kicking troublemakers. Also put anyone successfully vote kicked on an auto-ignore for all players in that group for X days so that every time you act like a douche, there's 9 other players you won't get to be matched up with again. With continued abuse it will make for a longer queue and voila, personal responsibility.

This system couldn't be "abused" because anyone is free to put whomever they wish on ignore. Inversely, people are really only kicked for:
- AFK. People have gotten GKicked for this. Sorry - a simple "gotta go" and leaving is better.
- Douchebaggery.
- Poor play, ignoring mechanics.
- Terrible attitude, insulting people or again, douchebaggery in a non-group-wiping form.