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

[Glorious Leader]

I understand there is a difference.
I just think the level of engagement in WotLK dungeon runs was so low as to be negligible. Guild mates would watch TV while they dutifully did their weekly dungeon cap. And to me that's a failure.

I can understand some people may enjoy zero risk content, but I won't applaud it as good game design.

What is "good game design" and to whom is it "good" for? Meaningless and arbitrary distinctions aside, the good news is that you didn't have to participate in the wotlk system. It existed and if your buddies watched tv doing it okay awesome. I don't see that as a problem in the slightest. It was removed ostensible to encourage raid participation and to placate the jackasses who whined about it being forced (it wasn't). It should be brought back and it should reward even better. I know you don't think the level of engagement was meaningful but once again that's okay cause wow should be or was big enough to accommodate all players.

[Reyvah]

What is "good game design" and to whom is it "good" for? Meaningless and arbitrary distinctions aside, the good news is that you didn't have to participate in the wotlk system. It existed and if your buddies watched tv doing it okay awesome. I don't see that as a problem in the slightest. It was removed ostensible to encourage raid participation and to placate the jackasses who whined about it being forced (it wasn't). It should be brought back and it should reward even better. I know you don't think the level of engagement was meaningful but once again that's okay cause wow should be or was big enough to accommodate all players.

What makes you think I don't want to be accommodating to all players?

My preferred content for the past decade has been challenging small group gameplay. In WotLK, I had very limited content because everything was so easy. Friends watching TV while completing the content helped illustrate this point.

What makes me wrong for asking for the option of challenging gameplay?

[Seefer]

What is "good game design" and to whom is it "good" for? Meaningless and arbitrary distinctions aside, the good news is that you didn't have to participate in the wotlk system. It existed and if your buddies watched tv doing it okay awesome. I don't see that as a problem in the slightest. It was removed ostensible to encourage raid participation and to placate the jackasses who whined about it being forced (it wasn't). It should be brought back and it should reward even better. I know you don't think the level of engagement was meaningful but once again that's okay cause wow should be or was big enough to accommodate all players.

Baddies? It's saying something when you could watch TV and complete the dungeons, basically you are saying you want nothing but easy content, things that are too easy get boring right quick, if you want easy go to facebook.

[Blayze]

From personal experience, I was bored to tears with pulling 30 enemies at a time into an AoE-fest.

I don't understand how that bored you to tears.
I loved getting drunk and talking shit on TS with guildies as we practically raced each other through dungeon after dungeon, so we could get badges for gear to help with raiding.

[Relapses]

I don't understand how that bored you to tears.
I loved getting drunk and talking shit on TS with guildies as we practically raced each other through dungeon after dungeon, so we could get badges for gear to help with raiding.

Good thing your anecdotal experience was universally shared by 100% of players.

[Glorious Leader]

What makes you think I don't want to be accommodating to all players?

My preferred content for the past decade has been challenging small group gameplay. In WotLK, I had very limited content because everything was so easy. Friends watching TV while completing the content helped illustrate this point.

What makes me wrong for asking for the option of challenging gameplay?

When you qualify certain game design decisions as "good" it only leaves the impression that others are "bad". Of course nobody wants "bad" design so it ultimately gets cast away (regardless of whatever the hell "good" and "bad" mean). You're in favor of accommodating all players but against "bad" game design, well what if "bad" game design accomodates more players than "good" game design?

[Reyvah]

When you qualify certain game design decisions as "good" it only leaves the impression that others are "bad". Of course nobody wants "bad" design so it ultimately gets cast away (regardless of whatever the hell "good" and "bad" mean). You're in favor of accommodating all players but against "bad" game design, well what if "bad" game design accomodates more players than "good" game design?

What?
I can disagree with something without wanting its complete annihilation can't I?
I can disagree with my wife on political matters and still love and respect her view.
You asked earlier "What is good game design?", and to answer I can only honestly do that through my own viewpoint and opinion.

Specifically my issue was providing players with only easy dungeon content in WotLK. To me, that is bad game design. Similarly, if normal dungeons were removed with only Mythic dungeons taking their place, that would also be bad game design. I'm not asking to be a special snowflake at the expense of others.

I don't want lightning to strike you dead because we have conflicting opinions.
You don't have to take my opposing opinion personally as if it invalidates your viewpoint.

[Glorious Leader]

What?
I can disagree with something without wanting its complete annihilation can't I?
I can disagree with my wife on political matters and still love and respect her view.
You asked earlier "What is good game design?", and to answer I can only honestly do that through my own viewpoint and opinion.

Specifically my issue was providing players with only easy dungeon content in WotLK. To me, that is bad game design. Similarly, if normal dungeons were removed with only Mythic dungeons taking their place, that would also be bad game design. I'm not asking to be a special snowflake at the expense of others.

I don't want lightning to strike you dead because we have conflicting opinions.
You don't have to take my opposing opinion personally as if it invalidates your viewpoint.

And if "good" and "bad" design are mutually exclusive?

[Reyvah]

And if "good" and "bad" design are mutually exclusive?

Care to provide an example for this hypothetical?
Very rarely is the world strictly black or white.

[Glorious Leader]

Care to provide an example for this hypothetical?
Very rarely is the world strictly black or white.

The developers have limited resources in terms of budget, man power and time. The past several expansions have seem the developers eschew dungeon content in favor of raid content because dungeons ostensible take just as long to make and jutlst as resource intensive. For raiders this is a boom for people who enjoyed dungeons it sucks. The two are mutually exclusive. They could make more dungeons but we'd have less raids.

[Reyvah]

The developers have limited resources in terms of budget, man power and time. The past several expansions have seem the developers eschew dungeon content in favor of raid content because dungeons ostensible take just as long to make and jutlst as resource intensive. For raiders this is a boom for people who enjoyed dungeons it sucks. The two are mutually exclusive. They could make more dungeons but we'd have less raids.

Isn't this a false choice?

Legion is proving that they have resources to both add stellar raids (with multiple difficulty levels) as well as support dungeons (with multiple difficulty levels, and endlessly scaling challenge from Mythic+).

This gives me my cake.
This gives people who enjoy easy dungeons their cake.
This gives people who enjoy punishing mythic raids their cake.

[Glorious Leader]

Isn't this a false choice?

Legion is proving that they have resources to both add stellar raids (with multiple difficulty levels) as well as support dungeons (with multiple difficulty levels, and endlessly scaling challenge from Mythic+).

This gives me my cake.
This gives people who enjoy easy dungeons their cake.
This gives people who enjoy punishing mythic raids their cake.

Only a fool believes he can have his cake and eat it too. My suspicion is that easy dungeons will be woefully unrewarding and everyone will be pushed into mytbic dungeons asap. I will not get "my cake"

[Reyvah]

Only a fool believes he can have his cake and eat it too. My suspicion is that easy dungeons will be woefully unrewarding and everyone will be pushed into mytbic dungeons asap. I will not get "my cake"

Now this is a separate argument entirely (rewards structure).

It seems we are on opposite ends of the player spectrum?
I want challenging content, but don't care about rewards. Gameplay-in-the-moment is king.
You want easy content, but want compelling rewards. Sense of player progression is king.

[Otimus]

Yeah look at Legion, nothing to do but raid there /sarcasm, people with your mentality should just move on.

- - - Updated - - -



Blizzard does 1 thing better than others and that is raiding, everything else other MMOs trump so with no raiding WoW would fall.

- - - Updated - - -



And got boring as fuck, just like LFR.

Legion isn't out yet and it costs $50. and WoD has been in this state for like, what, a year now? Jesus Christ. It's like you're willing to totally excuse anything in the face of promises if you spend more money, or something.

[Seefer]

Legion isn't out yet and it costs $50. and WoD has been in this state for like, what, a year now? Jesus Christ. It's like you're willing to totally excuse anything in the face of promises if you spend more money, or something.

I am in the beta and having a blast, you people are quick to shit on anything in the name of thinking they promise things when they don't, again if you hate blizzard so much and loathe the game just quit, don't buy Legion and just stop playing now because what you do now won't matter if you don't play Legion.

[Otimus]

I am in the beta and having a blast, you people are quick to shit on anything in the name of thinking they promise things when they don't, again if you hate blizzard so much and loathe the game just quit, don't buy Legion and just stop playing now because what you do now won't matter if you don't play Legion.

I did unsub I'm waiting for Legion to come out and see how things go after being burned by WoD.

WoD was bad. Really bad. Worse than Cataclysm bad. I'm not going to just forgive everything because they decided to wait an entire year and make me pay $50 to fix all their problems. (If that is indeed the case. Which is why I'm taking a wait and see approach.)

I think it's a natural reaction to have, so I don't get why you're getting so upset by it.

It's like a movie you really loved getting a sequel that was awful, you're gonna be hesitant to believe when people tell you the third one isn't awful, and certainly less willing to throw your money in the air and throw your hands up or whatever.


I'm not even talking about promising things and whatnot.

I'm talking about WoD being fucking awful and staying fucking awful for a year. That's not the kind of thing you just rebound from and ignore.

[Seefer]

I did unsub I'm waiting for Legion to come out and see how things go after being burned by WoD.

WoD was bad. Really bad. Worse than Cataclysm bad. I'm not going to just forgive everything because they decided to wait an entire year and make me pay $50 to fix all their problems. (If that is indeed the case. Which is why I'm taking a wait and see approach.)

I think it's a natural reaction to have, so I don't get why you're getting so upset by it.

It's like a movie you really loved getting a sequel that was awful, you're gonna be hesitant to believe when people tell you the third one isn't awful, and certainly less willing to throw your money in the air and throw your hands up or whatever.


I'm not even talking about promising things and whatnot.

I'm talking about WoD being fucking awful and staying fucking awful for a year. That's not the kind of thing you just rebound from and ignore.

I managed to have no issues when I quit because Cata was god awful to me, I looked at MoP and was like "Ok this looks cool", I didn't sit there and go "Oh Blizz made a shitty expansion this time around, the next one is going to be shit too!" which is the case for people on here with Legion. I mean come on people are already bitching and when asked no they don't have beta, was WoD perfect? Absolutely not, was it good? Meh not so much, was it ok? Yes, I enjoyed the leveling and raids, I liked the dungeons ok I guess, as for stuff outside of those things? Yeah pretty damn bad.

HOWEVER when I saw Legions unavailing I did NOT go "Oh man they are probably gonna fuck this up too", I was like "Man this looks cool as hell, then I got into the beta a low and behold..........I enjoy it, people on here and other forums are so negative I wonder if they even know how to be positive about anything in games or life.

[ipaq]

This is not about LFR being 'good' or 'bad' it is about a specific argument that turns up in these discussions time and time again. 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'. Variations exist, but they all boil down to 'development of raid content can only be economically justified because of the masses of LFR'ers consuming the content'.

Is his true?

As far as I know Blizzard designs raids around the 'heroic' difficulty, and derives the other difficulties from that

Normal is mostly just a re-tune
Mythic is a re-tune + some extra/adapted abilities
LFR is a re-tune with disabled abilities, and specific art assets (loot sets) designed

Yes, there are exceptions to the above, but probably this iit is largely accurate.

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.

So who raids? Who 'consumes' this content?

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

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

It is safe to assume Heroic players will have taken part in Normal, and Mythic players will have taken part in Heroic. Taking out the overlap, I would guess that about 50-55% of the playerbase raids N/H/M.
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.

Given these figures, it seems the 'subsidy' argument makes no sense. Besides, you might as well argue N/H/M players sponsor LFR. You might as well argue Humans and Orcs sponsor model development of Gnomes, Dwarfs, Tauren and Goblins.

I'm not arguing for or against LFR. As I have stated before in other threads I do find the current implementation horrendous, but see that design is a direct result of Blizzard's failure in the nurturing the social environment, or as one could say Blizzard's unfortunate destruction of the potential for a social environment. It is impossible to provide a meaningful challenge to a casual group that has to take into account there will be significant portions of AFK'ers and a few active griefers in the run. I'm all for providing a nice challenging raid experience for people that can not commit to an organized raiding schedule. Current LFR does not offer that, and is in fact an insult to the casual player.

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

Another moronic LFR thread made a MMO-C moderator to bring eyeballs to the site...

[Glorious Leader]

That's inaccurate. The past several expansions, and most specifically WoD, have seen them eschew making all content. WoD has less raid content, less dungeon content, and no new pvp content, making it basically unique among expansions.

The problem is not that they spend too much on raids, they just stopped producing.

They've made less certainly but within that distribution it is stikl disproportionately in favor of raids. Imagine if hfc wasn't 13+ bosses but was like 5 and then a bunch of dungeons or more world.content. so no it is not inaccurate. The developers still eschew dungeon content in favor of raids.

[kingshiteposter]

well do you blame blizzard when raids are the only thing worth doing in this game next to rated bgs