Does the 'LFR pays for Raid Development' argument make sense?

[Daffan]

LFR is interesting.

It allows people to see the content which is good.

But it allows them to skip over other content and also makes the game end faster, which is bad for retention.

It's tricky. I doubt Blizzard could ever remove it either way.

[Jtbrig7390]

LFR is interesting.

It allows people to see the content which is good.

But it allows them to skip over other content and also makes the game end faster, which is bad for retention.

It's tricky. I doubt Blizzard could ever remove it either way.

There is a few things wrong with the bolded.

First off skipping over content has been a problem since wrath (Before LFR) if not since the end of BC.
Second in order for people to see all of the raid they have to wait for it to unlock, That takes 3-1/2 to 5 months to happen. So ether people unsub for that time frame or stay subbed until its done. These same people would still unsub if LFR wasn't there since there would be nothing for them to do.

[guardian_titan]

Those numbers seem way off.

If 70% of players did SoO LFR and 40% did normal, that's means 30% of those in LFR didn't move on to normal.

If 40% of players did normal SoO and 25% did heroic, that means 15% of those who did normal didn't step up to heroic.

And then heroic to mythic is another 15%.

That excludes those who only did one difficulty (like thought who bought a run) or started higher up (such as heroic) and went into mythic. A good many in normal-mythic also didn't do LFR so the difference between LFR and normal could very well be closer to 50% rather than 40%.

But ignoring those who perhaps didn't do a difficulty level, LFR effectively doubled the number of players who didn't step up to the next tier (30% compared to 15%), but LFR is also nearly double normal.

Taking away LFR is only going to cause participation to plummet. If the game has 6 million players and 4 million of them raid, remove LFR and 2.5 million might be raiding instead. But without LFR, a good many of those 2.5 million might never have the confidence to get into normal raiding so drop that even lower to perhaps 1.5-2 million. It's still a far cry from the few thousand who saw Kel'thuzad at level 60, but remove normal and heroic (because that would be what people will whine about next) and you might be lucky to see 500k raiding the final tier. Split that between 4 regions and good luck trying to find players to raid with. Guilds and servers will die faster than they are now.

You can't keep blaming LFR on being anti-social. Seriously. Look around you when you leave your house (you do leave, right?). How many people are glued to their phones? How many people are making new friends? How many people are ignoring everyone around them? How many people are only talking to those they already know? People started to become anti-social before LFR was introduced. Think of the last time you spoke to someone new and made a friend (NOT an acquaintance). For many people, that might have been years ago. Watch those around you the next time you leave the house. If people are anti-social outside, then you can't blame LFR for causing anti-social behavior in WoW. WoW is nothing but a symptom of the real world. Blizzard can slap a band-aid on things all you want or delete/add things all you want, but if people aren't willing to be social themselves, then nothing Blizzard can do will "fix" the issue. In an MMO, a company shouldn't have to promote social behavior. We should be doing that ourselves. And yet we're not. Just step out of your own front door and you can see why. LFR didn't do a damn thing to how social people are. The real world did it. If you want to fix anti-social behavior, focus on the source of the problem (which is in the real world, not in WoW), not slap a band-aid on a minor issue that will change nothing in the long run.

[Alomega]

Now, they press a button and they are done. /unsub

People unsub because they have to wait 10 - 14+ months for new content patches. Even raiders can only run the same raid some many times before looking elsewhere for entertainment.

[Smauldy]

It did starting with Dragon Soul until WoD released. Today's LFR is a pathetic waste of time that offers no decent rewards and faceroll encounters. It may as well just be removed if it's going to stay like this.

[A Chozo]

I am one of them. I used to be hardcore raider up until end of Cata where i start asking my self why i am even bothering with organized raiding when i can solo it in LFR and save so many hours doing pointless higher difficulty levels just to see same content with different rewards what will become absolote anyway.

Well, my situation is very similar.

I used to be a hardcore raider up until end of Cata where i started asking my self why i am even bothering with organized raiding when i can solo it in LFR and save so many hours waiting for the other players and conforming with strict raiding times just to see the same content with different rewards that I would be able to get later anyway.

I miss the difficulty, I miss the cool rewards, but the hassle of answering to 9 (now 19) other players kept me for raiding. If LFR was vanquished, I would not hop to normal mode.

The numbers are weird, but LFR provides raiding with the majority of it's raiders.

[FelPlague]

I think LFR kills sub numbers because it allows people to see all the content they want without making a single friend. Its the friendships that compel people to stay subbed even when the content is lacking. Once people unsub, its easy to forget the game.

I think this game could go to 30 million subs but the antisocial tools must go. Unfortunately, they added ANOTHER antisocial feature in legion with the DISASTEROUS Suramar quest system. That's yet another thing that needs to be removed but it wont be.

Without LFR, subs would be dramatically higher and you'd have more raiders overall, even if a lower percentage were actually raiding.

i stopped reading right there... you are the first person i have ever heard complain about surarmar.... why? why do you hate the awesome suramar quest chain that doesent string you across with a million rewards and just lets you have fun?

[Tomana]

So the main development 'cost' is not in Mythic raiding, it is developing the initial encounter for (Heroic/Normal). The more you deviate from that core the higher the extra costs, but the extra will be relative to the large initial investment. This is the basis of the reuse model, which is undeniably cheaper than having completely separate raids for different difficulties developed from scratch.

No one said that the main development costs was mythic raiding. According to dev data, it's maybe 10% of the overall job.

Participation figures in current tier raiding are (data from SoO, using current terminology):

LFR: 70%
Normal:40%
Heroic: 25%
Mythic: 10%

Source please. I don't think that 40% of ALL warcraft players did flex/normal.

The argument 'LFR sponsors raid development' should be laid to rest, as LFR just expands content to an additional 15-20% of players (at most, since it assumes no LFR player sets foot in normals). Raiding outside LFR is not a 'niche' activity, it is a staple of the MMO game design with high participation numbers. The game was profitable designing encounters long before LFR existed, and would still be without it.

Devs explicitly said that raiders are a minority. I'd rather trust them than your calculations.

I'm just staying stop saying 'LFR pays for raids', as that argument is false.

Or maybe your figures lead you to the wrong conclusion?

[Deleted]

How do you make that 55 % raid above LFR when Normal has only 40%?
Assuming that all of those 40% even bother with LFR that would still leave us with 30% of the playerbase.
So that would be 30% less money blizz gets for raid content. If it actually worked like that.

The most important thing is that this argument comes from blizzard. I think they know their numbers better than you.

[Tomana]

Blizzard will always spend more money and time on content that more people are doing. A smaller percentage of players do arenas - do you really want Blizzard investing as much time and resources into raids as they do into new Arenas and PVP content?

No, and that's one of three WoW's main problems. They invest way too much resources into raiding rather than open-world content.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

LFR has its role. Some people are stupid and try to tag along with it when it isn't targeted at them which starts the problems. I would probably space out the releases of wings a bit further and up the challenge a hair and bring back more MoP style rewards but not allow LFR set bonus to cross over into other difficulties.

[RoKPaNda]

No, it does not.

It removes the carrot on a stick. People would sub and join guilds to experience the content and be subbed for many months to see it.

Now, they press a button and they are done. /unsub

So, no i think the argument is flawed and it think not only does it hurt the game's progression systems and social incentives as it grosses less money to blizzard on the long run.

The people that run LFR now? They *NEVER* raided before LFR. That's direct from Blizzard. You believe that without LFR people would stay subbed? Bullshit. Yes, right now LFR players will sub, run LFR until they're bored with it, unsub, and resub when the next LFR content is available. Without LFR they would likely unsub and STAY unsubbed. No reason to stay subbed or re-sub for zero content.

It's also a quote from Blizzard that the large raid tiers are justified by the existence of LFR.

Deal with it.

[Golden]

It is what i refer to as the 'subsidy' argument, and it goes something like this 'you (inserts some derogatory term for people that raid) are so lucky us (LFR exclusive raiders) exist, because without us there would be no raids developed at all'.

I think it's pretty clear just from looking at the various patch notes from the past, that at least 80% of Blizzard's patch budge and time goes to making new raids.

Using your own statics, why should 60% of the player base stick around if LFR was removed?

[BetoClinn]

LFR wouldn't be bad if it was a 10 man instance and required some amount of skill for the casual players but as the 20(25?) man cluster fuck that it is you can literally afk If your not a tank and clear the raid. The individual player has no importance and there's no communication between players because of how watered down the bosses are. I expect that's why people have a problem with it because even 5 man normal dungeons have a higher difficulty than LFR. And it doesn't allow the average player to grow into something better.

[Deleted]

There is a few things wrong with the bolded.

First off skipping over content has been a problem since wrath (Before LFR) if not since the end of BC.
Second in order for people to see all of the raid they have to wait for it to unlock, That takes 3-1/2 to 5 months to happen. So ether people unsub for that time frame or stay subbed until its done. These same people would still unsub if LFR wasn't there since there would be nothing for them to do.

I dont know. Back in Wrath you still saw pugs for naxx and ulduar and ToC on ICC patch so you obvisouly have no idea what are you talking about. Even out own guild what was second best guild on realm went back to do older raids.

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The people that run LFR now? They *NEVER* raided before LFR. That's direct from Blizzard. You believe that without LFR people would stay subbed? Bullshit. Yes, right now LFR players will sub, run LFR until they're bored with it, unsub, and resub when the next LFR content is available. Without LFR they would likely unsub and STAY unsubbed. No reason to stay subbed or re-sub for zero content.

It's also a quote from Blizzard that the large raid tiers are justified by the existence of LFR.

Deal with it.

Funny becouse people what you talkig about enver wanted to raid in first place inlcuding doing LFR. They didnt want to do LFR. it was forced on them by Blizzard. LFR made all that content what non raiders back in old days enyojed absolote. Non raider do LFR becosue they dont ahve any other relevant content to do. It opened for them ultimate end game content for free so those players dont bother with non riading content jump straingh into LFR and leave game.

- - - Updated - - -

LFR has its role. Some people are stupid and try to tag along with it when it isn't targeted at them which starts the problems. I would probably space out the releases of wings a bit further and up the challenge a hair and bring back more MoP style rewards but not allow LFR set bonus to cross over into other difficulties.

Which would made World Q and Mythic+ dungeons absolote. Yep totaly mazing desing riht there again forcing LFR on non raiders what doesnt wanted to do it in first place.

[Jtbrig7390]

I dont know. Back in Wrath you still saw pugs for naxx and ulduar and ToC on ICC patch so you obvisouly have no idea what are you talking about. Even out own guild what was second best guild on realm went back to do older raids.

Ummm seeing how I played in wrath I know what I am talking about.


TOC dungeon made Naxx,Os,EoE useless, ICC dungeons made TOC and Uld useless besides one tricket in TOC. Skipping content has been a thing since the end of BC.

Just because you saw pugs for X raid doesn't mean there wasn't skipping of content. You can see pugs right now for HM and BRF.

You can ignore history but you can't say its wrong. History is fact.

[Jewsco]

Why d the genius's that keep making these same lfr threads over and over miss the fact that BLIZZ themselves said lfr helps pay for raiding. Why is that fact consitently overlooked? The op might not want to accept it but it is what BLIZZ has said repeatedly. So that makes this whole ramble pointless.

[Grumpy Old Man]

I think LFR kills sub numbers because it allows people to see all the content they want without making a single friend. Its the friendships that compel people to stay subbed even when the content is lacking. Once people unsub, its easy to forget the game.

I'm quoting this specific sentence because I feel this is a point that needs to be reinforced.

Honestly; one of the most strong reasons that keep me playing this game is the circle of friends I managed to form inside the game. Back in 2009, when I started playing, we were 6 RL friends. Of those just 2 remain, including me. But the friends we made online that kept playing, those compel me to keep playing.

I can wipe 500 times in the same boss playing with my current guild; I'll keep going because I have fun playing with my friends. The game isn't perfect; the lore, even worse. But the feel of playing online with friends is unique. The only thing that would make me unsub, really, is if everybody I know just left and I couldn't find a similar group (it has happened to me twice, and twice I could find a new group of people with similar mindset, same time restrictions, etc.)

Of course, that's ME; I won't claim that this is true for everyone, or even the majority of the playerbase. But my gut feeling is that this is a strong reason for several players, and should be reinforced.

EDIT: after re-reading what I just posted, I felt I need to add: note that I'm not talking about LFR, for good or bad. I'm just using this example to reinforce the friendships/guild point.

[Jtbrig7390]

Why d the genius's that keep making these same lfr threads over and over miss the fact that BLIZZ themselves said lfr helps pay for raiding. Why is that fact consitently overlooked? The op might not want to accept it but it is what BLIZZ has said repeatedly. So that makes this whole ramble pointless.

Because to many everything blizzard says that doesn't fit there argument is a lie. If blizzard said the sun was big these people would say they are lying.

Then you got a group that no matter what blizzard says they are lying.

[Jewsco]

Ummm seeing how I played in wrath I know what I am talking about.


TOC dungeon made Naxx,Os,EoE useless, ICC dungeons made TOC and Uld useless besides one tricket in TOC. Skipping content has been a thing since the end of BC.

Just because you saw pugs for X raid doesn't mean there wasn't skipping of content. You can see pugs right now for HM and BRF.

You can ignore history but you can't say its wrong. History is fact.

That has historically been blizz's Achilles heal that new content almost has always made past content obsolete. They have just started to address this and have years of content sitting there near pointless. Maybe with timewalking this might somewhat get fixed if they add old raids to this. Be nice as we have a new raid going on an old raid is time walked and one could raid both so one doesn't get sick of raiding the same raid over and over. Just have tier pieces and maybe even like class trinkets only in current raid. A vast majority of the player base has never raided most of the old raids when they were current especially be and vanilla.

- - - Updated - - -

I would say that normal and heroic now being flex has hurt raiding way more than lfr. Now memebers don't need to show up every raid not a spot will be there unlike before where there was a limit in raid spots. That has hurt my guild a ton this expansion. One night 15 show up the next 20 plus the next less than 10. Being flex has made it where ones raid spot is something they want to or need to keep. But let's keep making new excuses to blame lfr.