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

[primalmatter]

Well, if you have the raids to do, at least that's something. For players stuck with world content and LFR, it has much more impact.

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Well, maybe world content should award better gear than LFR? But if that happens, all the raiders will be up in arms and whining on the forums about how raiding is getting devalued. -_-

Would they...?

I admit I do not like the idea of world content being the source of endless upgrades but I heard no complaints of it infringing on normal raids.

[Seefer]

Yes, but it cost them a metric crapton and devs got smacked around for that. Because it doesn't take a grand finance controller to figure out that designing a raid that only 2% of players will see (hi, Shamanwell Plateau) is completely retarded.

No it really doesn't, most of their resources go to the world and dungeons (more dungeons than raids and yes dungeons were just as big as raids once upon a time).

[Tomana]

No it really doesn't, most of their resources go to the world and dungeons (more dungeons than raids and yes dungeons were just as big as raids once upon a time).

That's true for vanilla dungeons they had 5 years to develop. Most resources ofc go to the the world, because without a world it wouldn't be an MMORPG

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Would they...?

Well they were when LFR provided tier sets with the same bonuses and trinkets, so I'd guess so.

I admit I do not like the idea of world content being the source of endless upgrades but I heard no complaints of it infringing on normal raids.

In its current implementation, it doesn't infringe that much. Baleful stuff has much worse stat allocation.

[neosen]

...if you really think there are 30 millions gamers in the world willing to pay $15/mo to play WoW, I have some beachfront property in Utah I'd like to show you.

There was a time when less people had good PCs and playing games (especially wow) was more heavily stigmatized and it still had well over 1/3 of 30 million people paying for it.

I think its totally possible. it will probably never happen in wow due to design choice, but to dismiss it as "omg lol 30 million gamurs" is silly. League of Legends had that many players per month years ago.

[Deleted]

LFR almost doubles the number of people that see the Raid content.
If LFR did not exist a lot of people would not be interested in subscribing at all after a major content patch has arrived, since they are not interested in joining guilds.

Arrrgh this post makes me want to eat my own face off.

Is there anyone out there that thinks LFR improves the game in any way? Just because people do the content does not mean it is good content. I bet absolutely shitloads of people regularly do garrison content too, but it's the worst content ever added to the game. The rewards however justify the time spent.

My experience with LFR was this: I went along to get my items for the legendary quest. I have become a casual player, after a long and storied wow career. I frequently found myself falling asleep at the keyboard during LFR raids for the first time ever in the history of playing wow. This has never happened me before. So I did something I never thought I would do, I just unsubbed. LFR actually had a negative effect on my overall experience of the game. It "spoiled" the excitement and dangerousness of the content for me so that I had no inclination to go up in difficulty level, and it left me facing a tedious grind to get a "legendary" item that everyone else in the whole game would have.

LFR gives people a false sense of what raiding is. It also creates a feeling where people feel they have "finished" the game, whereas in actual fact they may aswell have just watched a cutscene of the end boss fights. The fights are so simple as to be almost pointless yet they make you feel like youre done. The also detract from the fact that this is an MMO and the game should push you to co-operate with players, not facilitate your reclusive RPG tendencies.

When this game was an MMO that required you to do MMO type things to enjoy it, it was the greatest game in the world. Now it has been made super accessible to the point where you just barely even have to play to get your stupid reward. It's lazy inept game design, and LFR is one arm of a visionless 2 dimensional game strategy that is more aimed at hooking in casuals than making the game good. And it's even failing at doing that as the sub numbers cascade downwards.

Edit. I hate using the term casual as I think it means different things to different people. I am currently a "casual" and despise that the game is so shallow and aimed at people like me. I want to play a game that feels large that feels insurmountable to me. That to me is what an MMO is and should be.

[Reyvah]

There was a time when less people had good PCs and playing games (especially wow) was more heavily stigmatized and it still had well over 1/3 of 30 million people paying for it.

I think its totally possible. it will probably never happen in wow due to design choice, but to dismiss it as "omg lol 30 million gamurs" is silly. League of Legends had that many players per month years ago.

Definitely not happening. MMOs arrived at a time where the internet was newish, and social interaction with strangers across the world (in real-time!) was exciting and novel. Booting up EverQuest was incredible when the alternative was using an AOL chatroom.

Mobile gaming has taken over. The hardware is more exciting to the average person, there's better brand recognition, there's better market penetration worldwide, and they are upgraded more frequently than PCs. With a smartphone in your hands, you already have instant 24/7 access from your pocket to all things social media, social interaction (calls, texts, instant-messaging, and video chat), as well as tons of cheap and free games. Internet access is widely available both at home and on the go (cell towers or wi-fi) so there's no need to be tethered to a chair at home.

Ultimately the PC MMO market is just not big enough to support those kinds of numbers.

[Jtbrig7390]

Right but all that content but mythic + and normal + raiding becomes irrelevant again after lfr comes out... it just seems weird for you of all people to want raid or die.

Please do point out where I said I wanted WoW to be raid or die because I have never said such...

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Considering they made epic raids long before LFR................no it doesn't make sense, it is just something morons misquote "We want people to see our content" as to slam raiders.

You do realize that blizzard has outright said (LFR justfies content for Hardcore and casuals alike).

The link to said quote has been provided many times as well. No one misquoted anything and what worked for WoW in 2007 doesn't work now.

[Seefer]

Bollocks. You are some guy that just made an epic raid. Would you want 2% of players to enjoy your hard work or 70%? No one cares that you poor persecuted raiders get raids. It is you guys that get upset that other people can see them.

This is the exact quote from Hazzikostas.

LFR justifies the creation of more raid content when millions of players are able to see content. Only a few thousand people actually saw Kel'thuzad, but millions saw Deathwing. The reason Mists of Pandaria is starting with 18 bosses and adding larger raid tiers than we have had previously is because many players are going to see the raids through LFR

At what point does he say PAY FOR? As I said, they said "We wanted more people to see what we made" so please, learn to read.

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Please do point out where I said I wanted WoW to be raid or die because I have never said such...

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You do realize that blizzard has outright said (LFR justfies content for Hardcore and casuals alike).

The link to said quote has been provided many times as well. No one misquoted anything and what worked for WoW in 2007 doesn't work now.

Again, where does it say PAID FOR? And as I said, just a thing people like to misquote and turn around to bash raiders.

[Pann]

At what point does he say PAY FOR? As I said, they said "We wanted more people to see what we made" so please, learn to read.

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Again, where does it say PAID FOR? And as I said, just a thing people like to misquote and turn around to bash raiders.

You are joking? Right?

[Jtbrig7390]

Again, where does it say PAID FOR? And as I said, just a thing people like to misquote and turn around to bash raiders.

When he said (It justfies it) ergo it makes the budget raiding has worth it.

Really not hard to figure out.

[primalmatter]

Please do point out where I said I wanted WoW to be raid or die because I have never said such...

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You do realize that blizzard has outright said (LFR justfies content for Hardcore and casuals alike).

The link to said quote has been provided many times as well. No one misquoted anything and what worked for WoW in 2007 doesn't work now.

You want LFR to over reward anything but raids. You are fine with it making the world rewards trivial. The rep gear,dungeons, and world quests all brushed under the rug for lfr.

How am I to take it as any other besides you want raid or day?

[Reyvah]

Arrrgh this post makes me want to eat my own face off.

Is there anyone out there that thinks LFR improves the game in any way? Just because people do the content does not mean it is good content. I bet absolutely shitloads of people regularly do garrison content too, but it's the worst content ever added to the game. The rewards however justify the time spent.

My experience with LFR was this: I went along to get my items for the legendary quest. I have become a casual player, after a long and storied wow career. I frequently found myself falling asleep at the keyboard during LFR raids for the first time ever in the history of playing wow. This has never happened me before. So I did something I never thought I would do, I just unsubbed. LFR actually had a negative effect on my overall experience of the game. It "spoiled" the excitement and dangerousness of the content for me so that I had no inclination to go up in difficulty level, and it left me facing a tedious grind to get a "legendary" item that everyone else in the whole game would have.

LFR gives people a false sense of what raiding is. It also creates a feeling where people feel they have "finished" the game, whereas in actual fact they may aswell have just watched a cutscene of the end boss fights. The fights are so simple as to be almost pointless yet they make you feel like youre done. The also detract from the fact that this is an MMO and the game should push you to co-operate with players, not facilitate your reclusive RPG tendencies.

LFR is neither compelling, nor rewarding to me. I'll whole-heartedly agree with that. I played through each raid once for the story, and eventually ground through it over and over so I could experience the Legendary storyline as well. As a player, I'm not enticed by the LFR epic drops, the orange text, or player power, I'm just here to have an adventure and see new things.

Without LFR, I wouldn't have seen the storyline for sure. LFR gave me a chance to quickly join a group, down 1-4 bosses, and not deal with ridiculous ilvl requirements, loot drama, guild drama, ninja looters, etc. It was something I could do in 30 minutes while dinner was cooking. It gave me no false sense of grandeur or completion. My wife was out of town one weekend and I was able to spend 7 straight hours running all of Normal HFC, it was both fun, and I got some cool upgrades. So I didn't feel spoiled by LFR really.

I'm not sure what the best method would be for players like me. I enjoy a challenge, but I don't enjoy the time commitment. Give me difficult content I can deal with in 30mins - 1 hour and I'm happy. Unfortunately WoW game design (and the player base as well) likes to tie difficulty and time commitment together. You either have laughably easy quick content, or grueling hours-long marathon content that provides a fun challenge.

[Jtbrig7390]

You want LFR to over reward anything but raids. You are fine with it making the world rewards trivial. The rep gear,dungeons, and world quests all brushed under the rug for lfr.

How am I to take it as any other besides you want raid or day?

Once again never said the bolded. I want LFR raid gear to be decent (Not shit like the current model).

You do realize people did every bit of content in MOP all the way up to its end even tho LFR had decent loot.

[primalmatter]

Once again never said the bolded. I want LFR raid gear to be decent (Not shit like the current model).

You do realize people did every bit of content in MOP all the way up to its end even tho LFR had decent loot.

Right I am just following your logic to the end of its course... Ilv isn't enough lfr needs to have powerful set bonuses. Such gear can not be equal to rep or quest gear by that definition.

You want raid or die. You crave it. You just want to be ensured your preferred form of raiding lfr is on top of the casual pile.

[Nethlord]

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'd argue that the point I bolded can be interpreted in the opposite way than the intended point you are making here. LFR, as designed now is just the worst, but the queue-up functionality is the piece people want. What sounds more appealing to you?

1)Sitting in a queue for X amount of time, doing dailies and completing whatever you normally do while waiting for the group to be put together
2)Sitting in a raid group for X amount of time while someone finds people for a raid. You can't do dailies or other content at your leisure because you earn zero credit. And then there's the added issue of time...which "could" take longer or might just fall apart due to not finding the right comp.

I'll take the first one every time. Now as for design...LFR needs a complete overhaul but that needs to take the form of a challenging piece of content that is structurally the same as Normal to Mythic (in that I mean it's the exact same raid content..mobs, bosses etc...) but philosophically does not function like Normal to Mythic.

Raiding in this game means one thing....strike force combat. Each spec and class has a role, those roles need to work in tandem with the rules of each fight. Class and player synergy rules the day in normal to mythic raiding, yet if you think about it...the classes and the players are not soldiers. We're not a squad brought up thru the ranks (though I know people that have been playing together for years know each other playstyle, so outside the confines of the game they make this work), we're individual heroes, adventurers and we each bring our unique skills and talents to the table in the fight.

For Normal to Mythic, the game should focus around teamwork (strikeforce team) but LFR (or just insta queue raiding) could be more focused on a group of individuals fighting for a common cause. It's not a "Zerg" as much as a force of like-minded heroes banding together to take on the evils of an instanced encounter. It's a different experience for those that do this kind of fighting from those that like the cohesive lock-step combat of traditional raiding.

I'm no encounter designer, so i'd leave that designing to the experts, but right now LFR is just a watered down, dumbed down version of traditional raiding, and I don't think it needs to be. I mean Mythic adds mechanics to combat, why not outright design the LFR fights exclusively for that? Same boss, different way needed to fight him, not just less HP and damage it does.

It's never going to appeal to the general population to outright get rid of LFR, just never. It'll go the other way, people will just unsub. But giving that kind of raiding its own identity might be what it needs, because right now it's a carbon copy of a carbon copy of the raid.

[Reyvah]

Right I am just following your logic to the end of its course... Ilv isn't enough lfr needs to have powerful set bonuses. Such gear can not be equal to rep or quest gear by that definition.

You want raid or die. You crave it. You just want to be ensured your preferred form of raiding lfr is on top of the casual pile.

Current operating procedure is raid normal+ or die.

Other options to gear in PvE:
Questing, caps out at 695 upgraded baleful. No interesting set bonuses, procs, or use effects.
Dungeons, caps out at 725 mythic warforged (with luck). No interesting set bonuses, procs, or use effects.
Reputation, umm... I guess caps at 695? If you count baleful as reputation? Otherwise it's like ilvl615 trinkets.
PvP, haha. ilvl710 with again, no interesting set bonuses (for PvE), boring procs, nothing unique.
Garrisons, finally some fun options! But with almost 0 game player, and only if you get lucky with a trinket from an epic reward box.

To me, I'd just like to have some source of gear that isn't so mind-numbingly boring. Oh boy! +20 agility! woohoo! Hard to get excited with just number increases. There's a reason raiders love set bonuses, legendary items, and unique trinkets - they break up the static gameplay.

I'd be happy if there was literally any other gear progression path that had set bonuses that were interesting (no, LFR set bonuses are not interesting). Doesn't need to be overpowered, just needs to allow me to play the game differently after 10 months of the same thing.

If I've been keeping up correctly, it sounds like world-drop legendary items and mythic+ dungeons will finally answer this?

[Seefer]

When he said (It justfies it) ergo it makes the budget raiding has worth it.

Really not hard to figure out.

Um, no it really doesn't, it tells me "We want people to see it, so making it so more people can see it justifies even bothering" but again.............you people spin it how you want, nothing new.

[Glorious Leader]

Current operating procedure is raid normal+ or die.

Other options to gear in PvE:
Questing, caps out at 695 upgraded baleful. No interesting set bonuses, procs, or use effects.
Dungeons, caps out at 725 mythic warforged (with luck). No interesting set bonuses, procs, or use effects.
Reputation, umm... I guess caps at 695? If you count baleful as reputation? Otherwise it's like ilvl615 trinkets.
PvP, haha. ilvl710 with again, no interesting set bonuses (for PvE), boring procs, nothing unique.
Garrisons, finally some fun options! But with almost 0 game player, and only if you get lucky with a trinket from an epic reward box.

To me, I'd just like to have some source of gear that isn't so mind-numbingly boring. Oh boy! +20 agility! woohoo! Hard to get excited with just number increases. There's a reason raiders love set bonuses, legendary items, and unique trinkets - they break up the static gameplay.

I'd be happy if there was literally any other gear progression path that had set bonuses that were interesting (no, LFR set bonuses are not interesting). Doesn't need to be overpowered, just needs to allow me to play the game differently after 10 months of the same thing.

If I've been keeping up correctly, it sounds like world-drop legendary items and mythic+ dungeons will finally answer this?

LFR will be getting tier back as well apparently. What the game desperately needs is a valor vendor like we had during icc and cata. Normal or heroic ilvl tier trinkets and weapons available for purchase with a currency yiu can acquire through a variety of activities.

[Tomana]

Proof for your statement that devs got smacked around? SWP was a great success. BC was a great success, unlike WoD and MoP with their uber-accessible crap.

Proof? How about the fact the devs completely changed the strategy in WOTLK, with more accessible dungeons and raids?

Raids are supposed to be elite content - you either rise up to the challenge, or gtfo and farm rabbits in Stranglethorn or whatever is that you people do.

I have no issue whatsoever with raids being elite content. However, I have an issue when the said elite content is paid with subs of players not playing the said elite content. If raids were DLCs that you choose to buy, I wouldn't say a word. However, they are not, they are paid by all the subs. Therefore, they should be beneficial to the largest possible crowd.

[Seefer]

Proof? How about the fact the devs completely changed the strategy in WOTLK, with more accessible dungeons and raids?


I have no issue whatsoever with raids being elite content. However, I have an issue when the said elite content is paid with subs of players not playing the said elite content. If raids were DLCs that you choose to buy, I wouldn't say a word. However, they are not, they are paid by all the subs. Therefore, they should be beneficial to the largest possible crowd.

You pay for EVERYTHING, I don't want to pay for your pet battles but I do it anyway...........stop being a brat, thinking non-raiders are the only ones who pay for shit, our money pays for stuff we don't like or don't want to do as well.