This whole idea you came up with is stupid. Want to know why? Because LFR didnt exist for years and raiding was still an integral part of WoW.
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It used to work in the earlier releases of LFR, many guild groups would be there. Ok the loot rules needed changing but even in MoP I found myself with some good groups in LFR. Also some awful ones but perseverance always won in those. In its entire existence I've never had a group that a few stacks of determination didn't fix.
The main problem is the entitled spoilt brats who just want to afk clear everything without even any putting effort in.
And you would be wrong.
Before LFR the raiding % was extremely low and once again this has been backed up by blizzard. Releasing LFR has raised that % (since LFR is raiding). Removing it will NOT raise it but it will lower it back to TBC levels.
Use some logic ffs this argument has been debuked many times.
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True but what can you do.
All that is left now is to run your one lfr a week in case it drops mythic raid tier.
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I wouldn't say extremely but it was far less common. You are right though what could be said has been said. All we can do now is wait and see how it plays out.
I think it is kind of a shame though they put in so much work to world content even making a recolored version of cm gear for questers,dungeons, and reputation players. All of that made moot from lfr...
Feel like a waste.
To just address the OP's question, no raiding was still a thing before LFR
Yes, and as an editor, you have two options : adapt or go for a niche game (which, for an AAA editor, equals to "dead game pulled off the market").
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Which is why normal should IMHO still be a thing, because people can choose who they run with. Or fix the kick timers for LFR, maybe.
MMO player
WoW: 2006-2020 || EvE: 2013-2020 // 2023- || FFXIV: 2020- || Lost Ark: 2022-
Got a source to site for this?Originally Posted by nekobaka
People play video games for different reasons, that should be apparent at this point. Not everyone wants challenging content, nor is there any evidence at all to suggest removing matchmaking services(LFD/LFR) will suddenly motivate players content with the easier difficulties to "git gud" and move upward into organized group content.Originally Posted by Schattenlied
Sure for full clear groups. Lets not ignore the many groups targeted for progressing players and even the experienced raid leaders who advertise in the forums making groups for newbies. Groups are available. While the average requirements of groups will naturally go up as the majority of the population progresses there still will be groups for starters.
Lets not dismiss on those who create starter groups just because there are full clear groups expecting experienced and geared players.
I've played the game since vanilla - and gone from a serious progression raider to a casual player. I stopped serious raiding after ulduar and due to lack of time went casual. The argument about LFR is endless and I usually don't read those threads.
I've been in a casual friendly guild since WoTLK - one that has slowly withered away from 40 active players to 5 or so left. The impact of LFR on this demise would be somewhere between 0 and 0% - if has had NO impact on people in my guild leaving the game. If anything some probably stayed a bit longer.
As a casual player I got legendary cloaks on 4 toons during MoP, I have the legendary ring on one toon and three others are some way through the HFC part but Im sorta bored with finishing them - mainly becuase then leveling the ring beyond ilvl 735 is painful in terms of time. This was done solely on LFR.
As an LFR player (which I do because my job means I cant predict when I have free time) I was annoyed LFR lost good trinkets and proper tier gear (but I understand the reason - but you could achieve the same outcome by different rules). I also liked world bosses dropping tier gear - it kept them relevant much longer. The world bosses in WoD were almost irrelevant in a few weeks.
If you want an alternative method to LFR then you need to look back to the burning crusade. The best gearing system for me was TBC where heroic dungeon badges unlocked raid quality gear. It took much longer to get than good raid guilds - but it still meant eventually you had reasonable gear. It was this reason alone that led 50% of players get into karazhan instead of the very small % who had killed a raid boss in Molten Core during Vanilla. For WoTLK, Blizzard's went 'um people like raiding so we'll make them easy' - so their access method was to make raids easy instead of giving an alternate gearing path (which eventually makes raids easier). And guess who complained about the alternative gearing method non-stop - the same people complaining about LFR. But it was the lack of alternative gearing that ultimately led to LFR. So if you want an alternative path into raiding that does not have an LFR give an alternative (but not easy) and slower gearing mechanism for raid quality gear.
I think catering to the lazy entitled "I want everything because I pay a sub, I don't want a challenge I just want loot" is what made LFR such a bane of contention for other people. In its original form LFR was still "raiding" in MoP it was still a viable route. Now its just a joke and offers no challenge or even resembles a real raid. You zone in, rush through, ignore everything going on and collect shiny
You have to understand the reason the LFR became a joke is because when it dropped tier and trinkets in SoO, raiders felt obligated to do it for missing items. Blizzard felt it was a poor design for them to have players who would normally have no interest in doing said raid difficulty feeling like they were behind the ball if they didn't do it. The easier LFR was meant to help usher players from the LFR into more "serious" raid difficulties, like Normal or Heroic. The problem is that the WoD's LFR largely missed the mark on this point and simply made players even lazier than ever.
Now, that's not to say Blizzard can't make the LFR more difficult while simultaneously leaving out the incentives which made actual raiders want to do it, but I personally believe the issue with WoD's raiding hierarchy was more due to the lack of things to do outside of raiding than the difficulty of the LFR itself.