Keep LFR out of Legion!

[Deleted]

Kinda torn apart on this one.

On one side, LFR is a godsend for people that can't raid. Without LFR, those people would NOT SEE THE CONTENT. End of story. If you have a family and heavily occupying job, you simply CANNOT RAID in a typical guild environment, where you have to be available for a set time period and you have to exhibit a certain % attendcence rate. This happens regardless whether you're a total scrub or ex-Method player. If you can't realibly commit to a scheduled raiding, LFR allows you to see what Blizzard has created. Without it, you wouldn't be able to unless you bought a boost.

On the other hand, LFR isn't really raiding and isn't representative of what this content really is.

What I would make instad, would be SOLO LFR with multiple difficulty options. Maybe just two: normal and heroic. The raid would look exactly the same, but instead of players you would have NPC's helping you. You would choose your role and job for each encounter (or be assigned the job randomly: for example on Archimonde you would need to DPS shadowy things in P3 etc) and the bosses would normally drop loot. The difficulty could be tuned similarly to normal and heroic raids. Loot quality would be slighly lower than corresponding "standard" raids due to their accesibility and no group requirement. Say if regular Normal drops 700 gear, this solo version would drop 690. Heroic diffulty solo raid would still be better than normal raid of any type.

This way you could have meaningful and hard solo content that can be done at any time, without too much watering down actual raiding.

[khalltusk]

What was debunked exactly?

The game saw the majority of its ***growth*** during the first 4 years of the game. The 100 mil figure is recent, it was nowhere near that back in the day. The game was retaining players faster than it was losing them, hence the growth. Whatever happened around wrath launch (which could have just as easily had nothing to do with the game or everything to do with the game) the growth came to a halt which meant they were losing players at the same rate as they were gaining them. And then they started losing them faster after wrath.

Though if you think whatever they were doing was masking problems, what's it say when retention went down after they made the changes you support?

The game is much older now and has been out a number of years. It was until wods blip following a normal path of any product cycle. Launch - peak - decline. After Wrath is when the game finally bled subs at a faster rate than they can get new ones in. Which was changes to make the game harder/more hardcore. So again your argument has no weight here. Ghostcrawler who you are relying on also pointed out that most players quit when presented a challenge. Go figure.

In the US (not including eu and asia) 500 - 700 unique instances for MC alone ***during prime time***, he's saying in just that window alone there are that many players yet alone the rest of each day every day. And it's not just MC, its all 4 raids running simultaneously. And remember this was in 2005, at a time in the game where it took a ludicrous amount of time to level and get attuned and get geared enough to raid. Also I'm not sure why but he severely understates the number of players considering most of those were 40 man raids and zg was a 20 man. 500 MC instances is 20k players + people sitting on the bench outside the instance, 150 onyxia's is 6000 players + bench etc.

This dev did an entire lil panel during blizzcon just to tell people that the 1% myth is flat out wrong and you're still steadfast in your belief so... there is no reason to be had here... you just want to believe something that isn't true.

This argument is so dishonest from you its unreal. Those stats they provided are from prime time so when the most amount of players are online. Even if you add up all the raid instances its still not even close to a majority of the player base. I won't argue that raiding had a nice sized player base for its time but its not even close to LFR numbers. Now given that its only a small snap shot we have a limited window to look at it but if you used a calculator you could get a good estimate based off that data. Still this argument is pointless as neither will convince the other here, I have not talked about this 1% myth as you call it (which is not a myth when it revolves around content like Nax 40 and BT/Sunwell its very close to the mark). The earlier tiers had a fairly good participation but it dropped off fast. Same as we see in the data at the moment on higher difficulties. Again this arguments done as far as I care. You've not provided anything to back up your claims to a reasonable level to convince me otherwise as the maths show that the numbers DO NOT add up.

...? The quote is right there in our convo... its even bolded... I was responding to your response to it. Did you not read the post? I mean you quoted the entire quote to respond to it and I told you where it was from in the part you quoted.

No there is no bolded words on that part of your post or any link or anything about it care to try again?

Apparently we don't though, since you support LFR.

Well sadly I won't ever agree to get rid of LFR until something vastly better takes its place.

A person who's opinion that you yourself brought into the convo even though his far more educated opinion than either of ours disagrees with you.

Thats his opinion and he's welcome to it. Its only his personal view.

I wonder if you would have quit without LFR if it never existed in the first place and the kinds of systems I've been talking about would have been created instead alongside some of the other more healthy streamlining they did. Somehow I doubt you or many people are only playing this game for LFR and nothing else, and would have quit if it were never a thing in the first place or if blizzard put something more fitting into the game now in its absence. Call me a skeptic.

I played the game mainly for questing these days which runs out fast at max level, even more so in WoD. I did the dungeons, did a normal pug or two of highmaul when it was out and we just kept having to replace people as some people would wipe and leave etc. So that was a pain in the arse. I switched over to LFR after a while as a lot of my mates dropped out just leaving a few of us. With out LFR I would have quit WoD as I would not have seen BRF or HFC. While I did those I also worked on my transmog. I am now at the point of unsubbing (just want one last item from MSV before I do) until legion.

I think I will end our little discourse here, it's clear to me neither of us will convince the other.

[Desparil]

This way you could have meaningful and hard solo content that can be done at any time, without too much watering down actual raiding.

Again it would be awesome for players that want hard solo content and we are pretty sure thats not majority of lfr people since they would be doing hard content to begin with, and i dont think blizzard really wants make game even less social.

I could see them making proving grounds 2.0 similar to that but easier before you can queue.

[Deleted]

Ghost crawler also made a famous post of "wow dungeons are hard" and got slapped back hard by the community

Yes but for no reason; i have read that post two or three times, he only said, maybe in a little rude way, that players had to take some time understanding their chars, not using just 5 or 6 abilities from the spellbook and that is all.
there were cc abilities at the players disposal but somehow players refused to use them, and therefore it was like impossible to finish dungeons succesfully, and also because some players seem to like bosses like piñatas, so there is no mechanics in them.
If you start playing this game and you take a peek at your char spellbook, it is logical to think those abilities are for using them, and because there are (or were) so many, it is also logical to think that maybe clicking them from the bars it is not gonna be an adequate way of playing the game, specially in end game content.
He was indeed slapped back hard for saying these things, they had to nerf dungeons and lower the difficulty, and still we have to hear today people asking blizz why do they pruned abilities in WOD and why are they prunning them further in Legion, or why do they have easy mode raiding; the answer it is quite simple and anyone can understand these things by watching the feedback that post from ghostcrawler had.

[Deleted]

No it shouldnt be removed. But the ability or need to farm items from it for legendary questlines and such should be.

Leave it as its own seperate entity to normal/heroic/mythic raiding and be done with it.

[xalenthas]

Need to leave LFR alone but put a loot lock on the bosses ... across all difficulty levels. This should include valor, drops for legendary and anything else Blizz comes up with.

Could then put back tier and trinkets because the "Its mandatory" suddenly goes out the door.

[Deleted]

Need to leave LFR alone but put a loot lock on the bosses ... across all difficulty levels. This should include valor, drops for legendary and anything else Blizz comes up with.

Could then put back tier and trinkets because the "Its mandatory" suddenly goes out the door.

This is something nearly everyone in this thread agrees with, but somehow blizz does not.

[Sansnom]

Accounting for the game population, participation in these is actually growing.

Are there any official data on this? I would be interested in seeing the distribution of the raids participation across all levels. I do not mean third party data that may rely on add ons since not every player uses add on.

[Osmeric]

Accounting for the game population, participation in these is actually growing.

I'm a heroic raider now. That should tell everyone something.

[Sansnom]

Need to leave LFR alone but put a loot lock on the bosses ... across all difficulty levels. This should include valor, drops for legendary and anything else Blizz comes up with.

Could then put back tier and trinkets because the "Its mandatory" suddenly goes out the door.

It probably would. But it stills leaves the "You do not deserve it", "It is tourist mode", "The loot should be degrades, or removed" argument, which is what some people are arguing about it.

Why these people care about what others are playing, doing, getting in the game is something I do not understand. There has been attempt in explanation and most are just their own personal opinion.

Everyone has their opinion. Does not make it right or wrong.

[Deleted]

The game is much older now and has been out a number of years. It was until wods blip following a normal path of any product cycle. Launch - peak - decline. After Wrath is when the game finally bled subs at a faster rate than they can get new ones in. Which was changes to make the game harder/more hardcore. So again your argument has no weight here. Ghostcrawler who you are relying on also pointed out that most players quit when presented a challenge. Go figure.

No I don't believe challenge is why players quit the game because cata dungeons were still easy. Players quit because WoW's wonderful community loves to jump on "bad players" instead of attempting to be nice and helpful, mainly caused by the amazing group up tools blizzard has given us.

It was fairly common in ICC 25 man raids too but the difference is the leader didn't need to take all the shit.

[Deleted]

Why these people care about what others are playing, doing, getting in the game is something I do not understand.

Nobody cares about what other players are doing if it does not affect their game, or at least if they think it does not affect their game.
I have never seen for ex PVE only players asking for the removal of PVP, or the removal of pet battles.

People who ask for the removal of LFR do it because they think it affects their own game, which i think it is true at least to some extent.

Same way that the people who ask for the removal of raids, do it because they think it would make their game better, not because they want to spoil other people´s game.

[JustRob]

No it shouldn't be removed. And give us tier sets back plz.

[Deleted]

No it shouldn't be removed. And give us tier sets back plz.

Easy, convince blizzard to put shared lockouts as AASTARIUS mentioned and problem solved.

[Desparil]

Easy, convince blizzard to put shared lockouts as AASTARIUS mentioned and problem solved.

Tbh they should do it on all difficulties if you loot boss on hc you shouldn't be able to loot it on normal/mythic, many people are forced to do that so they can get tier/trinket.

[Deleted]

LFD and LFR needs to be your server only and have the lockouts at least to begin with, then maybe the lockout can be removed near the start of a new raid, the only issue is maybe queue times, but then it is all fixed as misbehaviour will affect social status and nobody will be "forced" to do it

[Desparil]

LFD and LFR needs to be your server only and have the lockouts at least to begin with, then maybe the lockout can be removed near the start of a new raid, the only issue is maybe queue times, but then it is all fixed as misbehaviour will affect social status

I'm really not sure what misbehavior are you talking about. In last 2 months i did at least 25-35 lfr runs on alts for ring and i have yet to see any significant amount of toxic behavior and even when it happens it is usually some tryhard asshole on alt that is pulling boss before everyone is inside or talking down on people.

There are barely any wipes, most of people dont talk, afk people get votekicked fast, assholes get kicked fast, there is even some kind of small talk from time to time, its really easy and fast, its not awesome experience by any means but it also isnt bad as people make it sound. I think most of people talking about lfr being toxic didnt run lfr more then 1 time or they are dishonest to support their hate.

Normal and hc pugging on other hand gg its 50/50 chance you will get into really shithole of a group, get ninjad, group will reform after each boss, kicked people wiping raid, 90% of pugs have items reserved, bunch of boosted people itd. There are awesome pugs ofc but compared to lfr there are far faaaaar more toxic people in difficulties above lfr.

Imo just make it so that each difficulty gives valor so raiders dont have to do lfr and problem solved.

[grandgato]

Need to leave LFR alone but put a loot lock on the bosses ... across all difficulty levels. This should include valor, drops for legendary and anything else Blizz comes up with.

Could then put back tier and trinkets because the "Its mandatory" suddenly goes out the door.

I think this would be a terrific change.

[Deleted]

What I don't get is LFR is an option, nobody has to do it, its a tourist mode and it fills that role well, the rewards for doing lfr are nowhere near a good as real raiding, it actually encourages a certain amount of players to seek out and join raiding guilds, surely this can only be a good thing for the community. Players who seek the challenge of heroic and mythic raiding are unharmed by lfr's existence, so maybe players have to ask themselves why they really object to lfr at all, it is after all an option and by no means compulsory.

[Baconeggcheese]

The game is much older now and has been out a number of years. It was until wods blip following a normal path of any product cycle. Launch - peak - decline. After Wrath is when the game finally bled subs at a faster rate than they can get new ones in. Which was changes to make the game harder/more hardcore. So again your argument has no weight here. Ghostcrawler who you are relying on also pointed out that most players quit when presented a challenge. Go figure.

Saying wow is an old game is like saying the latest installment of <insert shooter here> is an old game... They've been regularly updating it and selling new boxes. It's not a normal product life cycle if you understand that every new xpac is a new product. Hence why it doesn't look like a normal product life cycle when you look at the subscription chart, that massive spike at wod is anything but normal.

Wrath bled subs at the same rate that they could get new ones in, which was far more bleeding than ever came before it. And then at the end of wrath they put in matchmaking and game went downhill from there(which frankly is total coincidence as far as I'm concerned). Last I checked the majority of changes in cata and every xpac since wotlk have been pro-streamlining. I hesitate to say pro-casual because its not the same thing, vanilla was super casual friendly and was also extremely time consuming.

The best you've got as an example from cata is the cliche of bringing up harder ***match made*** heroic dungeons, which isn't really a wonder why those failed in isolation. Match making necessitates catering to the lowest common denominator, and the game demands nothing out of the player so that they become better, which means the lowest common denominator is quite low. But that doesn't mean harder dungeons + LFG tool is bad though, hence they have harder dungeons + LFG tool in the game right now without matchmaking and its highly well received. And one of the major new systems they're putting in place in legion (greater rift style challenge modes) is just taking that a step further and properly designing a system around *harder dungeons + lfg tool without matchmaking*.

I mean even ghostcrawler said https://twitter.com/occupygstreet/st...50635205865472

This argument is so dishonest from you its unreal.

It really isn't though, you just don't want to believe it. Again a dev made a panel at blizzcon specifically to tell people who made the same notion as you that you were wrong... and you still don't believe him. Not really any conversation to be had there.

No there is no bolded words on that part of your post or any link or anything about it care to try again?

Friend... post 3458 I say it... and post 3462 you directly quoted it.

Well sadly I won't ever agree to get rid of LFR until something vastly better takes its place.

I've said the same repeatedly in threads like these. Anyone who thinks you just remove LFR in isolation and do nothing else and it would go over well is silly. It would be catastrophic.

You remove it, while simultaneously putting in healthier systems. Or maybe even better, you do something similar to what blizzard did this xpac, where you continue to disincentivize it while putting healthier + more rewarding systems in place that more naturally drive players away from it without actually removing it. And then from there you can continue to make it irrelevant or remove it all together once its basically slain. Which again appears to be the route they're taking.

Though we'll see they could add tier back to it tomorrow.

Thats his opinion and he's welcome to it. Its only his personal view.

I'd take one of the most successful developers in the history of ever's personal view over an mmo-champ posters any day. Apparently you do too when its convenient hence you bringing him up in the first place.

I played the game mainly for questing these days which runs out fast at max level, even more so in WoD. I did the dungeons, did a normal pug or two of highmaul when it was out and we just kept having to replace people as some people would wipe and leave etc. So that was a pain in the arse. I switched over to LFR after a while as a lot of my mates dropped out just leaving a few of us. With out LFR I would have quit WoD as I would not have seen BRF or HFC. While I did those I also worked on my transmog. I am now at the point of unsubbing (just want one last item from MSV before I do) until legion.

Frankly I would have quit wod as well if not for raiding in my guild, they made a lot of silly decisions in this xpac. I can only imagine how disheartened the devs were as the higher ups told them to do things that they likely knew were mistakes. I often feel bad for the art team, cause they're forever doing an awesome job and forever they have to watch parts of the game they made look damned good get poorly received due to reward structure etc.

People dropping out because of wipes was something that was extremely prevalent in LFR during DS and all of mop, and is something I think about a lot when talking about a "more robust lfg tool". The beauty of the inconvenience in the old days of having to recruit from trade chat was that it was so difficult to find a group that people often stuck it out even if it wasn't the smoothest run in the world. But with things like matchmaking making it trivial to find another group, it becomes extremely appealing to just drop at the first sign of a difficult run.

I think making a really solid LFG tool is guaranteed to run into the same problem, and I think they need further systems to address that as well.

I think I will end our little discourse here, it's clear to me neither of us will convince the other.

Oh I don't really have conversations expecting to change peoples minds. That almost never happens unless people are open to it, but it does give myself and others food for thought.