Flex groups getting worse

[Deleted]

The problem is the boosted 90's. It came at the worst possible time, as there is nothing to "force" them into learning the class like levelling does. We had bad 90's before but not on this scale.

It's come to the point now where the good players are no longer queueing for LFR or joining Flex raids, so it will just end up with a bunch of boosteds running around getting nothing done, lol.

[ThePants999]

You think he's an idiot but can't spell "straight". Irony explosion.

Edit: And pretentious latin explosion.

Just popping in to say thanks for the lulz. Irony explosion indeed.

[Smudge]

As someone whose taken the role of both follower and leader of several groups, with purposes ranging from pvp/questing/raiding, since I first started playing when the game came out....that could not be further from the truth.

There are many things beyond the expertise and control of a leader of the group, things that can come together in certain measure and react to produce the catalyst that tears apart the group.

No.

Flex pugs that are led well, do well. If four new players disappear after the first wipe, fine, you replace them with four more. Now, the problem of "players who left" is solved.

[Dirdie]

Blackfuse in particular seems to really filter bad tanks well :O
I have seen several tanks in 540+ gear that simply could not timely kill their add, afterwards claiming that they have never had any problem tanking anything else and that blackfuse i a badly designed fight...

i tank on a prot pally were just starting HM 4/14, and i have never had a problem killing my add on normal, but it seems to take longer to kill the add in flex. Only ever really done flex twice and both fights i had a add not die a timely death.

[Osmeric]

I am impressed by the fraction of players in LFR (and in random BGs) who don't bother to enchant or gem their gear.

This is why enchants/gems are being mostly removed in WoD. Blizzard can't tune/balance content around people getting those buffs when so many refuse to do so.

I came into a ToT1 LFR run yesterday that had wiped on Jin'Rokh. That takes a special level of terrible. Of course I bailed out after the boss went down; the group would have no chance on the next boss.

[kamuimac]

I am impressed by the fraction of players in LFR (and in random BGs) who don't bother to enchant or gem their gear.

.

this "fraction" was always the majority of players who play wow - in past they were just stuck in dungeons and this was their endgame - this is hwy so many of them never made it to raiding in past and this is why blizzzard introduced lfr - for them - only thing which they fucked up was tryign to pretend that lfr should be minimal lv of difficult - in wod they already said its gonan be literaly tourist mode //shrug which means they admit that they were wrong trying to give chalenge to people who dont want chalenge

[Smudge]

I am impressed by the fraction of players in LFR (and in random BGs) who don't bother to enchant or gem their gear.

This is why enchants/gems are being mostly removed in WoD. Blizzard can't tune/balance content around people getting those buffs when so many refuse to do so.

I came into a ToT1 LFR run yesterday that had wiped on Jin'Rokh. That takes a special level of terrible. Of course I bailed out after the boss went down; the group would have no chance on the next boss.

The problem I have with gems and enchants and various gear "optimizations" in general is that -- basically -- they have become a completely unfun part of the game.

I wish there were a tiny number of very expensive, hard to obtain overpowered gems and enchants, rather than ubiquitous weak, shitty gems and enchants that you had to plaster all over your gear in order not to nerf yourself.

[Smudge]

Questionable Decision to Throw in LB90 Boosted Noobs into the mix, as well as move the better players to xrealm Normal/HC at the same time but not nerfing the Content.

I don't think the introduction of the "boosted noobs" has made the slightest difference in the quality of Flex groups.

Better players (by that meaning "better geared players") don't generally pick up a lot of 510 or 520 geared players for their 550+ Flex runs.

[Lioneil]

flex is the new lfr and with stack of the de buff.....its horrible...lfr we we wont say what lfr is..

[Tharkkun]

I am impressed by the fraction of players in LFR (and in random BGs) who don't bother to enchant or gem their gear.

This is why enchants/gems are being mostly removed in WoD. Blizzard can't tune/balance content around people getting those buffs when so many refuse to do so.

I came into a ToT1 LFR run yesterday that had wiped on Jin'Rokh. That takes a special level of terrible. Of course I bailed out after the boss went down; the group would have no chance on the next boss.

ToT LFR in general is just horrible. I can't even describe it but it just never gets better. People use every excuse in the book not the gem/enchant/upgrade their gear but it always comes down to not spending money on something they will upgrade soon. I'm guilty on my DK alt though. I just added 15 gems when I decided to start flex. Mind you I was in the top 1-5 dps in every LFR.

SOO LFR on the other hand is good.

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The problem is the boosted 90's. It came at the worst possible time, as there is nothing to "force" them into learning the class like levelling does. We had bad 90's before but not on this scale.

It's come to the point now where the good players are no longer queueing for LFR or joining Flex raids, so it will just end up with a bunch of boosteds running around getting nothing done, lol.

Honestly if you're allowing boosted 90's with little to no LFR gear into Flex you should just leave and find a new group. The leader is probably trying to carry someone and won't be honest about it.

[Deleted]

Two things I find worrying with this post:
-really, levelling tought you your class? Like dps rotation on a boss that lives 10 minutes when you oneshot things during the level progress? Or like levelling as dps and raiding as healer you have learned your class?

-according to you, every single one of the boosted 90 (106 000 i believe) are new people who never played WoW before are now ruining your shit in ilv 483 and are somehow in every flex that falls apart (and the reason for it)

Yeah, right...

Actually leveling does give you some slight idea of how your spec works.

Level 48 noob-Hmm, I noticed this ability one shots mobs and this other ability doesn't hardly do any damage to the mobs and the mob ends of killing me. I think it'll be a good idea if I use the strong ability from now on whenever I can.

Level 83 lock noob - I noticed my chaos bolt hits harder than any other ability causing the mob to die faster and improves my chance of survival. I think it'll be a good idea to save up embers for when dark soul comes of CD so I can blow chaos bolts and do more damage which will allow mobs to die faster and improve the speed in which I level.

Level 56 tank noob - Hmm, I noticed that I can't pull 10 mobs and live without using my CDs and mitigation. I think it'll be a good idea to use them when taking high amount of damage which will improve my survivability and allow me to level much faster.

[JemiS]

Yeah, but so few of the actual significant rotational abilities at 90 are available at the low levels.

Otherwise, you'd get Prot warriors convinced they need to spam Shield Slam, since it's what worked for them leveling.

Or Ret Paladins in love with Exorcism, since it did the most damage leveling.

Most specs, rotations and priorities change pretty significantly at 90 and in raids. The burst ability that kills most questing mobs does not, in fact, always become the go-to option for a longer fight, where overall sustained damage becomes important.

I leveled 6 chars to 90, and boosted the last one (rogue) from 60->90 with the free boost. I didn't notice any difference in how long it took me to become raiding ready on the boosted alt at 90.

[Alroxas]

After reading all three pages here, it seems that the most obvious solution is to go back to gating content to people who are either to inept or to lazy to do the content properly.

Seriously though, I have a very simple requirement for Flex (or harder) raids: Voice Comms. If you're not on vent/mumble/teamspeak/etc, there's no real point in raiding with you. Honestly I wouldn't care if the person is 14/14 H SoO if something happens in raid and we need to shift strategy on the fly, we aren't going to be typing it out in raid chat. We'll be voicing an audible.

In terms of gearing/enchanting/reforging, yes it was a pain to do (especially when you got loot from a boss) but it at least signified that a player would put in some level of effort to at least be able to hit the boss. With the removal of these "trivial" preparations, it will be more difficult to sort through players who care to the inept/lazy players.

Now you might say hey it's just a game, well I counter that with my time is valuable and if you want to waste yours that fine but don't you waste mine. Especially in raids where you might have anywhere from 9 to 19 other people's time that is being "waste" by a bad player.

[Osmeric]

The problem I have with gems and enchants and various gear "optimizations" in general is that -- basically -- they have become a completely unfun part of the game.

I wish there were a tiny number of very expensive, hard to obtain overpowered gems and enchants, rather than ubiquitous weak, shitty gems and enchants that you had to plaster all over your gear in order not to nerf yourself.

The enchants/gems were there to provide a base for a player economy. In the old, traditional raiding style, pre-Looking-For, the presence of these buffs could be ensured by the filtering provided by the persons organizing the groups. But LF* content doesn't have that, so either the requirement has to be removed, or the filtering has to be done automatically.

Another reason gems/enchants are being removed/scaled back is to make multi-spec gear work better. The paladin will be able to reuse much of his gear for ret or for holy; that's harder to do when he'd have to rebuff most of it when he switched specs (that's also a reason to remove reforging.)

[Deleted]

Actually leveling does give you some slight idea of how your spec works

Not really, especially thanks to base damage.

Some spells are completely overpowered at low levels but completely last in your priority at max level.

Take Exorcism; it's capable of 1-shotting players and mobs because it does massive base damage at a low level. When you start raiding it shifts way down, and if you prioritise it you'll do less damage than you should.

At level 57 it does 827 to 923 (+ 67.7% of Attack power).
At level 58 it does 1688 to 1884 (+ 67.7% of Attack power)

That kind of jump in damage early on can cause people to rely on a spell that loses value at 90.

Aimed Shot is another; I recently levelled a Priest on a PVP server and any Hunters I saw I would avoid because they could simply 1shot me with a single hard-casted Aimed Shot. If you do that at cap though and continually starve yourself of Focus, your damage is going to suck. There's more to a rotation than spamming your most overpowered spell.

With base damage going away though it should help newbies understand what spells are their "best" hitters and how to use them without looking outside the game.

[Smudge]

Seriously though, I have a very simple requirement for Flex (or harder) raids: Voice Comms. If you're not on vent/mumble/teamspeak/etc, there's no real point in raiding with you. Honestly I wouldn't care if the person is 14/14 H SoO if something happens in raid and we need to shift strategy on the fly, we aren't going to be typing it out in raid chat. We'll be voicing an audible.

On the other hand, I think that the game should be designed around a complete lack of voice comms. Developers shouldn't even use voice comms when designing and testing encounters.

Voice comms is pretty much is the worst thing about the WoW community IMO.

[Adhemar]

Garrosh on the other hand is unpuggable along with Blackfuse. I've never been in a "random" Flex 4 that even came close on either of those bosses. I think they are undoable in Flex without at least half the group being practiced and coordinated.

Weird, I have several Flex Garrosh kills and yet I've never run with an organized Flex 4 group. Must be some kind of dimensional wormhole/temporal anomaly around my characters that makes the impossible possible.

I think I've died a grand total of three times to Flex Blackfuse. You can survive without handling belts and the only thing that can kill you is standing in avoidable damage or really awful tanks who don't use Blackfuse's weapons against their adds.

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On the other hand, I think that the game should be designed around a complete lack of voice comms. Developers shouldn't even use voice comms when designing and testing encounters.

Voice comms is pretty much is the worst thing about the WoW community IMO.

Why, exactly? Oh, wait, you're the guy who wants to solo queue for all content in the game and have it brought down to LFR levels of stupid.

[MetroStratics]

Should only have gotten better over time. Just have a super geared friend, especially DPS, join and carry. When it scales per player, and you have a person doing more dps than 2-3 people put together, the place is a complete joke.

Depending on what you are after, you can find 3-4 people interested in running. You run 2 groups. First group has you and one other person on their alts, and the other two people on their main. Then you run a second group with the options switched opposite.
This works very well if you are doing Garrosh heirloom farm, but either way is the best option for avoiding failure.

Either way, at this point, if you are upset about flex, its probably time to find a guild.

[ComputerNerd]

The problem is the boosted 90's. It came at the worst possible time, as there is nothing to "force" them into learning the class like levelling does. We had bad 90's before but not on this scale.

It's come to the point now where the good players are no longer queueing for LFR or joining Flex raids, so it will just end up with a bunch of boosteds running around getting nothing done, lol.

And did traditionally levelled players always have this great amount of skill ?
No they did not, so cut out that kneejerk reaction that is just the latest bandwagon for people to jump onto.
Levelling does not ensure skill, nor will it ever do as long as there is this constant rush to get the level cap as soon as possible.
Heirloomed dps tanking half a dungeon are more of a problem than the boost.

[Diggy]

Honestly, I feel like the the big downside here is that people refuse to use any voice coms. Everyone thinks they are a pro and they don't need to be on vent or whatever for flex. It's so easy, right?! Then when someone starts messing up, there is no way to tell them other than stop playing and type it in chat hoping that they will see which is more of LFR behavior than one of organized group. My guild used to do flex runs on Mondays and we would bring our alts that dinged couple of days ago with an avrg ilvl of 500 and maybe 1-2 guys carrying if they didnt want to play alts. As long as random pugs were on mumble, we were good. That time when couple of tanks in a row were refusing to get on, we were experiencing lots and lots of trouble.