Why do people ignore normal raid difficulty?

[Deleted]

I see threads all the time that say "I like LFR, but I wish it was harder and more rewarding"

Do they not know normal mode exists? The only difference between LFR and Normal Raiding is that in Normal you have to form the group yourself, it's not done for you.

I think, at least in HFC, Normal model was tuned way too high for a LFR-level raid.

In this last tier, in my guild we started normal HFC with heroic BRF gear, and we hit a wall after the first few bosses. We reached a point where we started killing the first bosses in heroic HFC without yet having cleared normal. It felt weird. Only when we got a few upgrades from heroic we were able to complete normal up to Archi.

I believe this tuning was a mistake, and turned away less experienced players. I'd say that doing HFC normal for a raid having LFR level gear is roughly as hard as doing HFC heroic for a raid having HFC normal gear. I think normal should be easier than heroic at the correct gear level.

Heroic HFC, IMO, was tuned right, so I would have nerfed HFC normal a bit more.

Also I'd like normal to be mechanically simpler than heroic, and not just scaled down. Just like mythic vs heroic is right now. For instance, it would be nice to have more reaction time in normal: between the boss emote and the actual hit, there could be 1-2s more to give "slower" people more time to react.

[Djriff]

Heart of Fear Garalon and Ambershaper, the wipes were quite numerous.

Oh god, I had forgotten about those horrible bosses.

[Sxq]

I think the gap between normal and lfr was just too high this expansion. The last couple of hfc wings in lfr were fine imo, but the rest was on the easy side where it didn't even feel possible to die without trying to.

On the other hand, normal (especially before the late expansion tuning) did feel a little too punishing for casual players. Especially the end bosses which were often harder than most of heroic.

I like the idea of lfr, I like the philosophy behind the normal-mythic difficulties, I'd just like to see the tuning be fiddled with a bit to make the progression feel more logical.

[Deleted]

The worst WoD LFR experience I have had, was right after Valor upgrades were introduced. A pair of heroic geared tanks from the same guild joined up, and promptly proceeded to chain pull *everything* as fast as they could run. That worked up until after the second boss, Socrethar, when they wanted to clear up to Tyrant Velhari without waiting for people to loot, ress, drink up (yes, that is a thing in LFR. Amazing, I know...), run back etc. We wiped thrice that way, all due to their impatience. After they left, leaving a few choice parting remarks, a pair of regular LFR tanks joined up, and we cleared the rest of the instance without incident.

The best WoD LFR experience I have had, was right after Valor upgrades were introduced. A heroic geared tank joined up, along with a pretty new and low geared tank. Scene was first wing of HFC LFR. New tank started by saying that this might be a bit of a rough ride, as he was still trying to learn his craft. The experienced tank thought this should be a teaching experience, and we the healers agreed. We had checked each other, and 4 of us were pretty well geared for LFR, so it couldn't go completely to manure. The fifth healer was new but also eager to learn. So the heroic tank stated this run would be taken at a more leisurely pace than usual, as the tanks would occasionally have to talk things over before the next pull etc.

At this announcement 2 or 3 dps immediately dropped the group, and they were instantly replaced. The next deeps decided to stay, and off we were. Occasionally the tanks paused, and the raid waited patiently doing whatever, until the next ready check woke everybody up again. A very fun yet otherwise fairly uneventful run.

LFR is what you make of it. The bad experiences are usually due to people feeling their sh!t doesn't stink.

[BiggestNoob]

The best LFR experience was having 10 735 geared players killing bosses in under 30 seconds.

The worst LFR experience was all the rest.

[FertsBlert]

Because it's ignorable.

If you're good enough to organise and do Normal you're good enough to organise and do Heroic after maybe one or 2 normal runs to get a bit of gear.

[Immoralist]

For me personally I often over look the "Normal Raid Difficultly" because it is not worth the time investment when compared to LFR and Heroic.

I would like to see Blizzard give us some type of success rate statistics for Heroic vs Normal groups using the LFR tools but I would not be surprised to see them be very similar.

First lets look at LFR I can get the required legendary components while being for the most part AFK watching Netflix or browsing the internet with the bonus of free loot. LFR does not require me to do anything other than hit ready on the occasionally ready check in order to avoid being kicked. There is no incentive to actually contribute to the groups success.

In Heroic I can hope to get carried if I am under geared and most of the time still be allowed to roll on items or even better yet personal loot as well as use my coin to bonus roll loot. I might be removed after a boss or two but the opportunity cost is well worth it since I might walk way with a heroic loot.

[MrLachyG]

so far 10237 guilds have downed a mythic boss, a further 16541 guilds have downed a heroic boss and a further 22620 guilds have downed a normal boss. so I think the 4 difficulties are working, that's at least a quarter of a million players who might not have done normal had the difficulties not changed from normal/heroic to normal/heroic/mythic

[Heladys]

Do they not know normal mode exists? The only difference between LFR and Normal Raiding is that in Normal you have to form the group yourself, it's not done for you.

It's almost like you didn't even try to think before you posted your thread.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

Casuals ignore it because they can't queue for it.
Serious players ignore it because Heroic is what you do if you aren't ready for Mythic.

The right play is to remove LFR and make Normal some bit easier so casuals can learn what it means to actually raid and not just queue in for 3 bosses at a time and leave whenever they want.

[Advent]

Casuals ignore it because they can't queue for it.
Serious players ignore it because Heroic is what you do if you aren't ready for Mythic.

The right play is to remove LFR and make Normal some bit easier so casuals can learn what it means to actually raid and not just queue in for 3 bosses at a time and leave whenever they want.

I don't think that would be received very well. I think the people who play in LFR casually look to that design favorably because they don't have to set aside blocks of uninterrupted time. There are a few of us who simply cannot do that, but would like to enjoy the story and get meaningful, interesting upgrades along the way.

[Jtbrig7390]

I see threads all the time that say "I like LFR, but I wish it was harder and more rewarding"

Let me know when NM is queable until then I give no fucks about it. I did NM in legion via LFG and I am not going back to that again.

[MoanaLisa]

Casuals ignore it because they can't queue for it.
Serious players ignore it because Heroic is what you do if you aren't ready for Mythic.

The right play is to remove LFR and make Normal some bit easier so casuals can learn what it means to actually raid and not just queue in for 3 bosses at a time and leave whenever they want.

But there's zero evidence to support the idea that casuals will or even want to learn how to actually raid. And what have you unintentionally done in the meanwhile? Reduced the number of people who see raids to the point that it becomes a developer design issue yet again on how much resources to give to something that 1 in 5 players (or fewer) ever see. Well done. You do understand that LFR exists in part to allow the developers to continue to make the raids they want to make?

[oldgeezer]

What is the appeal of LFR over normal mode, I would like to know, because I don't get it. Is it simply that the group is formed for you?

Automated matchmaking. You don't need to a) 'link achievement' or b) have an ilevel +20 over what drops in the raid. And c) there's no assholery with loot drops either.

[Spotnick]

If you're a casual raider, you can't really raid with a guild cause that would make raiding a job.. you have to show up on time and can't leave without an excuse before its over. Not to mention voice chat etc. (I prefer listening to music while raiding)..

How is it any different than any team sport? It's not a "job" if you actually like it.

You can also say Poker Game or anything that requires you to schedule an activity done in group.

I have doubts people doing PUG are doing it for anything other than loot... surely not for the fun of doing progression with friends. Pugging is probably the worst raiding experience possible beside LFR.

With one exception: OpenRaid.

Sadly LFG made it a lot less useful, but with the feedback and ranking system, you could queue for a raid and know it wouldn't suck, and if people had bad attendance you knew it, and people would not leave before the end because they would get bad feedbacks.. the oQueue model which WOW copied didn't have any of the good ideas from OpenRaid, only the bad ones linked to the "don't care, won't see you again" attitude that explains so much why this game is in decline.

[Deleted]

How is it any different than any team sport? It's not a "job" if you actually like it.

You can also say Poker Game or anything that requires you to schedule an activity done in group.

I have doubts people doing PUG are doing it for anything other than loot... surely not for the fun of doing progression with friends. Pugging is probably the worst raiding experience possible beside LFR.

With one exception: OpenRaid.

Sadly LFG made it a lot less useful, but with the feedback and ranking system, you could queue for a raid and know it wouldn't suck, and if people had bad attendance you knew it, and people would not leave before the end because they would get bad feedbacks.. the oQueue model which WOW copied didn't have any of the good ideas from OpenRaid, only the bad ones linked to the "don't care, won't see you again" attitude that explains so much why this game is in decline.

Look, the OP asked a question. Why dont people raid normal for more challenge and opt for LFR. I (and most casuals) dont see a computer game as sport but just something I can do to relax, when I have free time. This is why single player games have difficulty settings. Ask yourself if people who usually play games on normal or hard would still bother with it instead of just going with "Story mode" if it meant the game could crash any moment and you could lose your progress (ninjas) or had massive load times if you didn't want to schedule your gaming sessions.

As for PuGs.. well, Ive done my fair share of LFR raids, usually with a few friends and they were pretty fun. Full of incompetent people, too easy but often enough, there was some fun banter going on. PuGing dungeons however is far worse. People just rush to the end and usually no one says anything.

[Djriff]

As for PuGs.. well, Ive done my fair share of LFR raids, usually with a few friends and they were pretty fun. Full of incompetent people, too easy but often enough, there was some fun banter going on. PuGing dungeons however is far worse. People just rush to the end and usually no one says anything.

Do you mean Mythics? Most people doing them now are just there for valor. The most conversation I've had with people are hey can I get a summon or hello, and that's it. Other than the occasional comment of hey you can pull more, or hey we can ignore this boss if you don't need loot.

[Spiral Mage]

A lot of people barely even understand what they're posting. They have the most confusing, or idiotic reasons and motives that often don't have anything to do with common sense. Many people venomously complain about things that "need to be added to the game", that are already there. They just don't WANT to use them. They want like .. the same feature that's already there, but they refuse to use said feature, so they keep demanding it.

But like others have said, LFR = 100% of finishing it and getting your Legendary items.
EVEN NORMAL MODE PUGS .. dude, 710 item level? "Your application has been declined."
"Your application has been declined."
"Your application has been declined." or whatever it says when a group lead refuses to invite you.
You have higher gear than Normal even DROPS and it isn't good enough for an invite.

And even if you DO somehow get into a group, RAGE ensues as people start insulting each other over practically nothing 5 minutes in and alot of groups disband before ever even downing a boss. Usually due to a clueless raid leader, who wants to get carried, and not admit that he has no understanding of the fights or how to lead anyone out of a paper bag, let alone through a raid instance.

[Gen4Glock21]

When I do LFR I would say the auto forming of groups is the major reason for it. If normal had a feature like they did prior to WOD where I just flag myself as available and raid leaders could just see my gear and experience and invite me based off of that then I would do normal more often. The old LFG feature was way better IMO. I could just flag myself and go and do other stuff like dailies etc.

[Adamas102]

Yes, queuing is the main draw of LFR over normal.

The group finder tool is NOT comparable to LFR queuing. I don't see how this is so difficult to understand. Unless of course your idea of fun is spending your evening applying for and being rejected by groups. With LFR you log on whenever, you queue, and you are guaranteed a raid after a certain amount of time. For people who don't want to spend more than an hour or two online, this is fantastic.

Do I think it should be harder? I don't care. I go in there and perform my role at the same level of intensity that I do when I'm on my main doing heroic. Do I care if a couple people are afk and half the raid doesn't know how to optimally play their class? No.