Replace LFR with 5-mans

[morislayer]

This is a perfect idea.

It solves Blizzard's excuse for not creating more 5 mans: Not enough staffing (which is complete bullshit for a multi-million dollar corporation)

It solves the toxic 25 man LFR which I will not participate in.

It's basically the 3 5-mans at end of Wrath and Cata. Sub par gear from normal mode (Flex) and gets you ready to actually raid.

They would have to tune the raid to basically have other abilities / tricks for 5-man versus 10-25 flex versus 10-25 Mythic. Three scaling options for your choice of participation. LFR que time for dps would drop as many more people will run to see content and tanks wont be as afraid to try 5 mans to get used to the encounter for larger scale raiding.

5-mans in MOP are worthless. This would keep 5 man content fresh each patch and give casuals a more casual friendly enviroment

[sandbenders]

Casuals didn't run dungeons back in the day. They did not like it.

No one likes dungeons now. Maybe the first couple times, but then it becomes a burdensome faceroll. At least, that's the impression I get on the internets.

I was a casual back in the day. I remember standing in ORG trying to get a 5-man run together for Scholo or Strat, or 10 for UBRS. We ran 5-mans all the time, and it was satisfying. It was not satisfying when we couldn't get a run together because there were no healers, but running 5-mans with friends (or friends-of-friends) *was* end game for casuals.

When BC came along, we continued to run 5-Mans and the occasional guild run of KZ. This is where we started (at least in our guild) to see major stratification of causals and hardcore players, because the casuals were still doing 5-mans, but the hard core people were focusing on heroics and gearing up much faster. Back then, heroic 5-mans were serious business, especially before we had people with full sets of gear from KZ, Gruul, Mags, and later raids. Those hard core heroic-geared players became the core of our KZ and Gruul teams, and then we filled the empty spots with casuals like me.

I do intensely miss the challenge of pretty hard 5-mans that you're running with people you know. Scholo and Strat were tough, back in the day, especially when one or two people were undergeared (like me) and our mage would run away from the tank when he got aggro, not toward him. I still see that mage once a week for lunch, and still mock him for that. But when I started playing, those 5-mans were fun. I wish 5-mans weren't such an afterthought now. I'm just not sure how we would get back to that situation.

-SB

[Ham on Rye]

Casuals didn't run dungeons back in the day. They did not like it.

Yes, they ran them, and yes, they liked it. There are lots of stories of people just going into one of the long instances in Blackrock Spire and doing a good old fashioned Dungeon Crawl for no other reason than to have a good time.

That would be a welcome reintroduction. A couple of 5-mans not in the random queue with 8-14 bosses and a convoluted map with different things to do and different paths to take.

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I was a casual back in the day. I remember standing in ORG trying to get a 5-man run together for Scholo or Strat, or 10 for UBRS. We ran 5-mans all the time, and it was satisfying. It was not satisfying when we couldn't get a run together because there were no healers, but running 5-mans with friends (or friends-of-friends) *was* end game for casuals.

When BC came along, we continued to run 5-Mans and the occasional guild run of KZ. This is where we started (at least in our guild) to see major stratification of causals and hardcore players, because the casuals were still doing 5-mans, but the hard core people were focusing on heroics and gearing up much faster. Back then, heroic 5-mans were serious business, especially before we had people with full sets of gear from KZ, Gruul, Mags, and later raids. Those hard core heroic-geared players became the core of our KZ and Gruul teams, and then we filled the empty spots with casuals like me.

I do intensely miss the challenge of pretty hard 5-mans that you're running with people you know. Scholo and Strat were tough, back in the day, especially when one or two people were undergeared (like me) and our mage would run away from the tank when he got aggro, not toward him. I still see that mage once a week for lunch, and still mock him for that. But when I started playing, those 5-mans were fun. I wish 5-mans weren't such an afterthought now. I'm just not sure how we would get back to that situation.

-SB

I couldn't agree more. This is a major part of what made WoW skyrocket in popularity when it was young, and it's part of the reason many of the newer players don't have any emotional investment anymore. It's just queue queue queue instead of trying to find players to do things with.

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Years ago when I was playing Everquest 1, people used to always complain about the death penalty but there was hardly a complaint about gear progression. Now in WoW, no one complains about the death penalty but people can't stop complaining about gear progression.

In EQ1 new content patches came out about every 6 months. In those patches, you had hard mode raid content and some 6 mans. The progression raiders hung out in the new raid content. The casual/family guild raiders got gear from the new 6 mans that made the old raid content about as difficult as WoW's flex raids. And the non-raiders hung out in the 6 mans. As far as I could tell, everyone seemed happy enough. I'm not sure why Blizzard felt the need to change this formula. It seemed to work out psychologically. No one was charged with getting welfare epics, and the community wasn't at each others' throats. /shrug

From what I remember, they decided that it was silly that they spent so much time and money designing the raid content only to have such a small percentage of the player base actually raid and see that content. They figured that the expansion is about saving the world from and killing Deathwing, so everyone should be able to see Deathwing die or else there's no conclusion to the story for those people.

[Ronduwil]

Becouse this is a mmo ?, not a single player game ...

if you dont like making friends to play a game with then why play this game ? go play cod or w/e

Why do the multi-player options have to be limited to "tie yourself to the same group of nine people for the next year" and "GTFO?" Last time I checked LFR still involved 25 people and 5-man dungeons involved five people. Neither is a solo activity. Where do you come up with the idea that less than 9 people means solo play? Also, since when did you have to be friends with people to play with them? Your reasoning doesn't make any sense.

[Giscoicus]

Why do the multi-player options have to be limited to "tie yourself to the same group of nine people for the next year" and "GTFO?" Last time I checked LFR still involved 25 people and 5-man dungeons involved five people. Neither is a solo activity. Where do you come up with the idea that less than 9 people means solo play? Also, since when did you have to be friends with people to play with them? Your reasoning doesn't make any sense.

Maybe if you actually interacted with the other people in LFR you could claim that. They are warm bodies that you have no care for and couple be replaced with NPCs without anybody noticing. Meanwhile if the other members of your raid team were suddenly NPCs you would notice right away.

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I would't mind this and Dom's idea of making it a 1 player scenario wouldn't be bad either. Just as long as I get to at least experience the raid while also getting some upgradable gear out of it. But knowing this community, people will still complain about how casuals are still getting good gear by doing easy content because of how big their epeen is, so it won't solve that, I don't think anything can.

Experience the raid AND get loot. Dont even bring in the "experience" part because even devs felt LFR doesnt have the raiding experience, and if you cared about the experience gear wouldnt be on your radar. You want gear, and couldn't care less about how you got it

[Demsi]

The reason they cant is because the lore is happening in the raid, not everyone can raid, but they want to see what is going on in the story and they want to see the content, as long as it is like that you wont see LFR gone

[Giscoicus]

The reason they cant is because the lore is happening in the raid, not everyone can raid, but they want to see what is going on in the story and they want to see the content, as long as it is like that you wont see LFR gone

Pretty sure everybody can join a group, especially with flexible scaling for both normal and heroic, and actually do the raid, not go sightseeing for tier drops.

[lawow74]

Nah, LFR would be better served to become a 25-man scenario version of the raid. Still got that feel of whaling on some big gribblie with a bunch of people, but no need for tanks and healers, so queue times drop dramatically and you don't have to sweat mechanics nearly as much. Flex still fills the hole of casual raid experiences in the trinity aspect.

Combine that with segregating normal 5-mans as scenarios and random-queue from Heroic 5-mans as pre-form and more difficult as people have been crying for over and over and you neatly divide content up into random/faceroll and pre-form/skill needed.

But they'll never do it cos it just makes too much sense.

[Ham on Rye]

Maybe if you actually interacted with the other people in LFR you could claim that. They are warm bodies that you have no care for and couple be replaced with NPCs without anybody noticing. Meanwhile if the other members of your raid team were suddenly NPCs you would notice right away.

They only place I'd notice the other 24 people in LFR being replaced with NPC's is on Durumu, since less people would die to the Beam of Stupid... in which case it would be an improvement.

[Flower Milk]

Why replace something? Why can't we have both 5 mans and LFR? I will never understand the notion of actually removing things from the game. Choice is a marvelous thing.

Because sadly it's part of the path to gear progression. The day they add a "this OR LFR" option is the day I never complain about LFR ever again. But sadly they won't, because then people would just run whatever the other feature is and LFR and gear too quickly.

Thus the solution of removing it, I guess.

[Cafua]

I just think they should add more 5 mans. I hate getting Gate of the setting sun EVERYTIME I do my daily heroic for valor.

[Edmerlin]

I enjoyed the 5 man badge of justice earning way of getting decent gear over the current LFR any day.

[Thelxi]

I'm over LFR too. At least it used to have some decent gear for alts to make it worth it. Now it is a "serious" wipefest with gear most alts don't even care for. I'd so much rather grind out 5mans for a weekend and get preraid bis gear on my alts again, like it used to be. This LFR circus that by the way is on a weekly lockout, has completely lost my interest. If anything I dislike the whole thing now. Bleh.

[Krazzorx]

They only place I'd notice the other 24 people in LFR being replaced with NPC's is on Durumu, since less people would die to the Beam of Stupid... in which case it would be an improvement.

I still insist Durumu LFR is proof 1/2 the people bot in LFR. How you can die to that when the maze does 0 damage is amazing.

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Because sadly it's part of the path to gear progression. The day they add a "this OR LFR" option is the day I never complain about LFR ever again. But sadly they won't, because then people would just run whatever the other feature is and LFR and gear too quickly.

Thus the solution of removing it, I guess.

Not necessarily. If they had a legendary chain (which I believe in WoD will require 0 raid content) then how fast you'd gear up in other methods is inconsequential. The content extender is the legendary.

Reason for that belief is their recent comments on heroic 5 mans in WoD and their current views on LFR.

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I enjoyed the 5 man badge of justice earning way of getting decent gear over the current LFR any day.

Blizzard doesn't, or at least didn't in MoP, maybe they'll change back, like non-RNG gearing as being optimal. They consider it the least compelling form of gearing.

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I just think they should add more 5 mans. I hate getting Gate of the setting sun EVERYTIME I do my daily heroic for valor.

They are bringing that back at least.

From Blizz's site: "We’re also planning our content schedule to include additional max-level Heroic dungeons beyond the initial expansion release. One thing we heard from players during Mists of Pandaria was that they missed having new dungeon content later in the expansion, and our plan is to get back to that and adding new dungeon content beyond the initial expansion release."

[gibbie99]

Blizzard’s time invested in tuning raids for LFR should be reallocated into tuning them for 5-man versions of the instances instead.

Back in the day, casuals ran 5-mans, and we liked it. Instead of giving us a drama filled LFR snooze fests, give us a challenge with 5-man versions of the high-end raids.

TLDR: Remove LFR. Enable 5-man raids. Enable optional raid scaling.

I agree 100%. I don't want to do LFR as my only end game content. As it is, I downed Garrosh last night in LFR and consider myself basically done with raiding. Would far prefer 5 mans. But there is no reward for them, so meh.

[Gnomorepuns]

One thing that I will say, obviously this is not fact so keep that in mind. In my eyes, I initially saw raiding as nothing but content that was made for the dedicated; thats what blizzard was aiming and striving to bring. Nowadays that has changed with the angle of content for everybody. While I agree with the thought of trying to please all of their subscribors and maintain good customer service levels, there are a new group of those complaining. But I will say now that people have started to get somewhat toxic about those who complain to make the game harder, commonly saying "The game has changed in X fashion, just deal with it and be on your way." I personally see that those who say that to hardcore players that want the content to be more exclusive are in a lot of ways the same people that were initially complaining to see the content because they were either not quite the required skill level or had the proper amount of time to do so. It is just a vicious cycle and now those who got their way are now saying that the changes are permanent so people stop crying. Granted like I said, I also have seen many ppl say that who were there during vanilla who like this format better but i digress. I agree with OP, I think this would allow those who want to pay and see their content actually see it for the enjoyment. They can then fight alongside a bunch of other NPCs and see bosses fall while people who really want their challenging raid get their real hardcore content. Of course people will object as they always do, but I think that could be somewhat of a medium between those who want see it get their little enjoyment while the big boys get their TK/BT/Naxx 40 level of hardcore raiding. Also not that I used to be hardcore back in BC up till first tier in MOP and am note able to now due to time, hence for the time being being a casual.

[ComputerNerd]

To be honest I think taking out LFR and giving casuals more 5 mans makes a lot more sense. I really don't get how people are having fun doing weak ass versions of raids that are actually require skill if you try them on normal. 5 mans from the past simply had way more communication, required more strategy than the LFR stuff of today, but I don't think they were overly hard either. Does LFR really resemble a game at this point? It's more like a computer program you go into to give your toon items that have their titles listed in purple lol.

It is not about having fun.
Still this stupid assumption that people are in LFR because they choose to be.
Flex still has a core organised requirement, where nobody can hop in or out without the full co-operation of a raid leader and others in the raid.
Flex on its own in the current form is not solving anything inherently, but requires that players to see the potential it offers in the flexible sizing.
LFR will remain necessary as long as the players make it so.

[Krazzorx]

LFR will remain necessary as long as the players make it so.

What point are you trying to make? That people are "forced" to do LFR to enter Flex? (Forced in quotes because I don't feel like arguing over semantics of the word forced, everyone should get what I am trying to say)

Or that LFR is the only method for non-organized raiders to get good gear?

[Calaba]

LFR will remain necessary as long as the players make it so.

LFR stopped being necessary for tanks the day flex came out. Noone seems to ask for gear score for some reason, maybe because the damage done by every mob is nerfed 40% from normal. Don't know where you've got this "can't hop in or out" notion from - if you want to leave, then leave, PUGs cannot make you stay. It's one of the hazards of PUGing anything.

Hardly anybody is being forced to run LFR at this stage. The only time they're really forced, is when it's a guild requirement to get trinket x or set bonus y because it'll boost their DPS by 20%. Which, i'll agree, is STUPID DESIGN, mostly fixable by removing set bonuses, procs etc from loot tables in LFR. As it stands, you can quite easily do Flex with your entire raid in timeless isle gear, especially the first couple of bosses.

[ComputerNerd]

LFR stopped being necessary for tanks the day flex came out. Noone seems to ask for gear score for some reason, maybe because the damage done by every mob is nerfed 40% from normal. Don't know where you've got this "can't hop in or out" notion from - if you want to leave, then leave, PUGs cannot make you stay. It's one of the hazards of PUGing anything.

Hardly anybody is being forced to run LFR at this stage. The only time they're really forced, is when it's a guild requirement to get trinket x or set bonus y because it'll boost their DPS by 20%. Which, i'll agree, is STUPID DESIGN, mostly fixable by removing set bonuses, procs etc from loot tables in LFR. As it stands, you can quite easily do Flex with your entire raid in timeless isle gear, especially the first couple of bosses.

My point is that Flex still isn't accessible to drop in and out of without the co-operation of the raid.
Why do you think some people are flocking to the likes of oQueue ?
Because that adds the LFR convenience into willing Flex groups.

Flex is not a "better LFR" but a fundamentally different format due to that requirement.

If guilds are dictating that LFR is necessary, then that is not an issue blizzard created.
But one that the community did.
And that is why LFR exists, why LFD exists.
Because of the community, one which pretty often sucks.