My suggestions to fix LFR

[Giscoicus]

But that's an individual mistake. If the guy assigned to kill the engineer fails then everyone gets the Ironstar. That's why they had to implement it like that.


For the most part the stuff they nerf is something that individuals fail on. Nazgrim's defensive stance, for example.

When one Ironstar, and only one, rolls over 8 people and they don't die that means it ha been nerfed to remove any expectation from the group. What they should have done is have only one engineer spawn, rotating which side it spawns on, and have the star kill people. Then there is no personal requirement for anybody, like whoever is assigned to do engineer, an am actual group requirement of moving.

Naz's stance was poorly implemented on any difficulty IMO, but it is still a mechanic that applies to everybody. Same with the shockwave which also shouldn't have been nerfed so low.

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Right. So once your group has killed Heroic Garrosh you have no further need for loot. What I'm seeing here is that Heroic Garrosh shouldn't drop any loot because it's strictly for progressing to the next level and there is no next level.


I think "a lot" is being generous. It is the actual goal for most players.

Actually
More heirlooms for alts. Plus getting the mount as a reward without suffering through hundreds of pulls each time. If the heroic mount was tied to the FoS and you earn all heirlooms instantly then you may have a point.

[MoanaLisa]

I don't think you understand why tanks and to some extent healers don't want to play with random people. Giving them extra perks wouldn't solve anything, and would be unfair to everyone else to boot.

A lot of the criticism of Raid Finder misses the point really. Most--not all but most--of the issues are social; not so much competence. It's been that way from the start and honestly Blizzard has only recently been getting their collective heads around the massive social problems in the game. Still a long way to go and I'm not certain that they understand what to do about it. For myself, while most of my Raid Finder runs have been relatively drama-free, I'm out of all of that until I see what they do with it in WoD. I've seen everything I need to see and can flex whenever I'm in the mood. Ghostcrawler dropped some hints at Blizzcon that some changes were coming to it so I'm content to wait and see what, if anything, they have in mind.

Having a little test or something to get in at this point would solve nothing. Many of the players there to troll could pass that test easily enough (judging by the gear I've seen on some people committing suicide in the first 20 seconds or doing mostly nothing and being AFK) so that won't stop that. There has been an intention on some people's part to ruin Raid Finder since it was first launched. Again, that's all social and I think is a bigger problem than someone in SoO doing 60K damage.

[Traveler Voltin]

Flex is amazing, best addition to the game since transmog.

LFR on the other hand can die in a fire. People keep saying Blizzard should fix it... except Blizzard didn't create the problem with LFR, players are the problem. Blizz can't fix AFKers, trollers, idiots who facepull bosses and bitch about how bad the group is despite the fact that they pull half (or less) the dps that they should be.

Only reason I'll do LFR now is if I want a 'LFR color' piece of gear, like the purple bubble mace from Immerseus. And even then, I'll queue as a dps. I'd rather pour lemon juice in my eyes than tank for a bunch of random douchebags.

flex still requires a premade group, which one fix why people que up for LFR

[Psychokwak]

This discussion is graviting too much around the planet gear imho.

[britishbubba]

This discussion is graviting too much around the planet gear imho.

It's because any time you suggest making LFR easier, people feel the need to go on a ramble about free gear.

don't get why people care if someone else has purple that are similar to theirs.

[Giscoicus]

It's because any time you suggest making LFR, people feel the need to go on a ramble about free gear.

don't get why people care if someone else has purple that are similar to theirs.

Or the fact that anytime somebody mentions LFR people spout the see the intent excuse.

And I believe the LFR legendary cloak is exactly the same as mine.

[Granyala]

LFR is facing issues because flex has finally separated actual casuals from shitters.

Casuals run flex because it is quick, interesting and offers better rewards.

Shitters do LFR because 50k dps isn't tolerated in flex groups.

While the choice of language is quite rough, now that we have Flex, there is 0 incentive for even slightly skilled people to go into LFR.
LFR is pretty much beyond saving.
Even if my guild were to collapse and I unable to raid I'd rather do flex with randoms than ever setting foot into LFR again.

I very much hope that Blizzard doesn't go back to placing "must have" incentives in LFR, like they did in the beginning of MoP.

A lot of the criticism of Raid Finder misses the point really. Most--not all but most--of the issues are social; not so much competence.

Sorry, but I disagree.
There is only drama in LFR if people fail.
That is directly related to skill / willingness to prepare for group content.

If no one fails, LFR runs are as silent as a graveyard.

ofc there are assholes that troll and try to wipe the raid, but:
1) It's rare that they succeed
2) If they do, they are kicked and the group moves on

I'd rather pour lemon juice in my eyes than tank for a bunch of random douchebags in a 25man raiding environment.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

[Deleted]

No. As of right now, LFR is only the way you go to faster be able to do flex raids.

I will avoid LFR as much as possible on future characters until I can do flex, and as soon as I can do flex I will go 90% less to LFR raids, doesn't matter which role.

It sucks because people can be afk/slack with whatever role and not get kicked in most cases, and people just blame the poor tanks. And when I actually appreciate the tanks and tell them a thanks, people start cussing at me in style with "lololo dicksucker!" etc. I'm ignoring it and I don't bother thinking about it, but it's not a good place to be in.

[Deleted]

While the choice of language is quite rough, now that we have Flex, there is 0 incentive for even slightly skilled people to go into LFR.
LFR is pretty much beyond saving.
Even if my guild were to collapse and I unable to raid I'd rather do flex with randoms than ever setting foot into LFR again.

I very much hope that Blizzard doesn't go back to placing "must have" incentives in LFR, like they did in the beginning of MoP.

well there is 1 incentive, that damn shamans trinket.

[Granyala]

well there is 1 incentive, that damn shamans trinket.

Let me guess: Moonkin, hated by loot-RNG? :<

[thunderdragon2]

As long as we acknowledge that there are a couple of types of bad players I agree with this:

1. New players who are trying. They should be encouraged not abused.

2. Inexperienced players trying out raiding or the instance for the first couple of times. May be a bit confused but can actually be seen casting spells. Leave them alone and let them figure it out unless they ask for help.

3. Ungeared alts. Leave them alone if they're busy doing useful things. Their numbers will suck for a while but that will solve itself.

4. Bad players who aren't trying. Kick them.

5. Good players in great gear who aren't trying. Kick them.

Arguably the first two aren't bad players but we're all new and bad at some point. The inexcusable stuff and the things I'd like to see gone are the last two. Most often people don't even bother to distinguish though.

i like this alot and i can agree with it also, people need to beable to learn but if they arent gona try just get rid of them imo.

i almost gopt kicked for soo lfr at blackfuse on my dk for doing 30k, but as soon as i said "ok i wont do the bet again" after wiping coz a tank kept dieing and left, the qq'r shut up

[Granyala]

1. New players who are trying. They should be encouraged not abused.

2. Inexperienced players trying out raiding or the instance for the first couple of times. May be a bit confused but can actually be seen casting spells. Leave them alone and let them figure it out unless they ask for help.

3. Ungeared alts. Leave them alone if they're busy doing useful things. Their numbers will suck for a while but that will solve itself.

I'd never accept a vote kick to throw one of those out of the group. I check their gear and numbers first.
We all have alts, we all know how much they suck in low level gear.

However, if the tank is 1 or 2, I expect him to say something, so I can briefly explain the mechanics to him.
I also agree to kick players that wear more than 3 items unsuited for their role.

[Kelathos]

A friend of mine suggests that once Flex dominates the raiding scene - that LFR may be scaled back and reduced to filling in slots with AI companions. Removes the queue, and the harassment.

[Normie]

honestly Blizzard has only recently been getting their collective heads around the massive social problems in the game. Still a long way to go and I'm not certain that they understand what to do about it.

The only fix for the social problems in WoW is to shut the game down and start up a different MMO in a different genre with a different enough playstyle that the "problems" from WoW will shun it.

The behaviors have become so ingrained and people have become so self-righteous about being assholes to strangers that I can't see any way back out of it.

But, good work folks, you trolled WoW, and you have wounded the game fatally.

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Except that many people are ignoring the elephant in the room, which is that grindy stuff (usually called "work" in RPGs, obviously not related to RL definition of work) weeds out a lot of immaturity. Most kids (and immature people in general) thrive on instant gratification and rewards with little effort. Increasing the difficulty (and the slow-build RPG aspect) would solve some of the behavior problems.

Grindy content just makes the evildoers run in packs because the game makes grinding in groups more efficient. If anything it makes the trolls worse.

Individual grindy content that was required for the holy heroic raiders to do their thing, hah, we'll never see that in the game again.

[Thimagryn]

Well beyond the social problems, WoW isn't a game that is very good at teaching you how to play. Everything from gearing correctly to getting down the right rotation all comes from outside sources that aren't provided in the game. You need to go outside the game to play well.

LFR is an easy-mode raiding system, but the game that doesn't exactly tell you how to raid. It doesn't provide any features that help players improve.

Casual players do not use damage meters. They have no gauge for how they're doing. It's perfectly fine to play that way, but they will continue to do it without any reason to change or improve.

I know that Blizzard wants to let people play how they want, but there has to be a point where I feel the game needs to tell you 'you should be doing this if you want to try raiding'. Something like figuring out what your stats mean for your spec, how a basic rotation leads into a more advanced one. This includes something to ease people into the roles they don't normally take, such as tanking and healing.

I think they should incorporate a tutorial segment that eases players unfamiliar with raiding into how to raid, and furthermore, how to play their class. It wouldn't be a Raid attunement, but a Class attunement that gives you access to LFR.

[worstpvperus]

LFR is not used by lots and lots anymore. The completion rates have plummeted and queue times skyrocketed. The mode is losing players and fast. Many only use it to see the kill and unsub afterwards, which means maybe one week of heavy usage.

Retards is a good description. If you cannot process simple commands like face the assassin or dont stand in front of the angry dinosaur then you have a mental deficiency, and are an accurate description of 87% of LFR.

Blizzard can't spend more time developing raid bosses for higher content because they have to worry about how they can adjust it for LFRetards. Imagine if we had some bosses from raids prior to dragon soul in LFR. Could you imaging doing Rynolith LFR? No they have to start with the lowest mode and build up, stripping away mechanics is harder than adding on. LFG has crippled the devs because they need to develop everything so that it can be done by completely horrible players.

Do you have numbers to back that up? The reason Lfr came into exist was to justify spending so much time and effort on raids. Most of the player base doesn't even raid so spending all that time on raid bosses was wasted. Lfr gave them a reason to stick with that model.

[corebit]

I have close to 100 LFR runs on all my characters combined, and out of those encounters, I have had bad experiences (meaning wiping constantly and the group dissolving) about three times. All the rest were pretty smooth and people were cordial. There are several wipes here and there especially on the later Bosses, but the groups usually end up succeeding the second/third try.

Most of the time I breeze through the 4 SOO Wings in under 2 hours.

I don't know if it's people with an anti-LFR agenda trying to exaggerate or just focusing on their bad experiences, trying to make it look as if every single LFR group was crap. They aren't.

There is really nothing to fix in LFR, it's basically a PUG for Christ's sakes. If you have bad luck and get a bad group, just leave and requeue again. It's not like BGs you don't get a deserter debuff last I checked. If you introduce too many mechanics to vote/kick people , those mechanics WILL BE ABUSED. If you have such hate towards LFR, don't run it simple as that. There are three other difficulty modes to choose from.

[Granyala]

Well beyond the social problems, WoW isn't a game that is very good at teaching you how to play. Everything from gearing correctly to getting down the right rotation all comes from outside sources that aren't provided in the game. You need to go outside the game to play well.

LFR is an easy-mode raiding system, but the game that doesn't exactly tell you how to raid. It doesn't provide any features that help players improve.

Blizzard always left it up to the community to teach each other.
This always was one of the biggest flaws of WoW.

[Normie]

I have close to 100 LFR runs on all my characters combined, and out of those encounters, I have had bad experiences (meaning wiping constantly and the group dissolving) about three times. All the rest were pretty smooth and people were cordial. There are several wipes here and there especially on the later Bosses, but the groups usually end up succeeding the second/third try.

Most of the time I breeze through the 4 SOO Wings in under 2 hours.

I don't know what region or datacenter or time of week/day whatever you play, but 4 wings of LFR SoO in 2 hours is not possible under the most benign conditions I've experienced.

I'm not saying that all LFR runs are terrible and full of trolls, but even the good ones are pretty slow-moving.

EDITED TO ADD: Just took me exactly 1 hr to do a clean (no wipes) complete run of Gates of Retribution. Not sure how it could be done in much less time without lots more gear. Definitely unclear how 10 more bosses are going down in the remaining 60 minutes.

I guess if you did just the end bosses, that could be done in two hours. With luck.

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Blizzard always left it up to the community to teach each other.
This always was one of the biggest flaws of WoW.

Blizzard has continued to say that the in-game experience is created and managed by the players, but I don't think their hands-off approach is going to last beyond this expansion.

[Beet]

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.

Hrm weird though that when the game was 'all about 5 percenters' is when it hit it's peak of players. And ever since they've brought things like LFR to the game they've been bleeding subs. It really is funny though when you think about it. In vanilla not many people got to do Naxx40, but not many people really cared. They had a blast doing other things. That's also when if you got an alt to the level cap at 60 it was quite a feat. Not many casuals managed to get four characters to level 60 for example. And back then every class felt very different so alts were great fun.

I just cannot help but laugh when I see people trash the 'old days' of WoW and talk about how terrible it was and what not yet that was when WoW had more growth than ever and was when it had the majority of players. I think it's time Blizzard decides to stop going in the same direction they've been going in and turn things around and try making some difficult content again, and better yet some content that requires you to find groups on your own to do. We've been going down this path for a long time and it's given us things like LFR, and along with it we've gotten millions of sub losses.