LFR: Success or Failure?

[Glorious Leader]

It succeeded at exactly what the developers wanted: to shovel more people into "raiding" so that they can justify building the game around the part they like.

It fails at being fun and has drained the life out of the rest of the game by letting the devs turn everything into a damnable slot machine that is "successful" because they bribe people into doing it.

Precisely. Everyone calling for lfr removal is actually calling for less people consuming raid content and if they aren't consuming raid content they're going to have to be entertained in some other fashion .

[Seefer]

I find it amusing that you insist on removing LFR AND real raiding instances to only be replaced with ...???

What kind of content do you propose to replace raiding, since apparently in the fantasy world you live in, raiding isn't the main draw that brought millions of players to the game. If you take away raiding, the game turns into another TERA, and we both know how long that game lasted.

If they already develop raids AND dungeons AND other world content, why even have LFR at all?

He wants a single player game really, he thinks mythic gear should be craftable and obtainable in solo content..........he has no business in these types of games but keeps paying for a game he doesn't enjoy anymore.

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Precisely. Everyone calling for lfr removal is actually calling for less people consuming raid content and if they aren't consuming raid content they're going to have to be entertained in some other fashion .

Yeah I know, you read what Blizz said and interpreted it your own way.

[Pann]

Yeah I know, you read what Blizz said and interpreted it your own way.

What other way would you interpret what Blizzard employees have said about about LFR?

[Seefer]

What other way would you interpret what Blizzard employees have said about about LFR?

They never EVER said it wouldn't justify the cost if LFR was never made, the way it was said basically says "It would suck that people didn't see the work we put in" never mentioned money or not making raids like people on here like to claim in order to shit on raiders.

Hell they even went as far as to say LFR was a bad first choice that they should have gone the flex route instead.

[Deleted]

Success. It's not perfect, but it definitely serves its purpose.

[Pantalaimon]

Is there any REAL justification for it continuing as a feature in any future expansions? Or should it just be removed all together since we have many more ways for players to get a taste of raiding (*cough*cough*LOOKING FOR GROUP FEATURE*cough*cough*)

If a player isn't good enough to clear normal flex raiding (plenty of these players do exist), and these players are not seeing the end boss until the expansion become old with a new expansion, then yes lfr still stands as a tool that in Blizzard's eyes should still exist. Their goals for lfr have mostly included the following; lfr being used as a tool for players who are not 'typically skilled' raiders to see the big bad before the next expansion comes out, a catch-up mechanic, provide players who are not in a guild and/or have inconsistent real life schedules have a format to raid on their own hour. Although I do believe the last point is now a non issue because looking for group allows players to look for & sign up for groups whenever they want now anyway so "not having a schedule to raid" no longer applies.

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It succeeded at exactly what the developers wanted: to shovel more people into "raiding" so that they can justify building the game around the part they like.

It fails at being fun and has drained the life out of the rest of the game by letting the devs turn everything into a damnable slot machine that is "successful" because they bribe people into doing it.

Contrary to popular belief, most regular lfr players do not move on to higher levels of raiding & mostly just stay with that mode (barring players who already raided higher than lfr & are most just doing lfr for transmog & legendaries). If they don't move on nobody is being funneled into raiding. 'Hardcore' raiders still do their thing & lfr players mostly stay in lfr & don't move up to normal & heroic.

I don't get your second point at all. Most content before lfr was brought about in cata was a slot machine. Raid bosses dropping gear you want was a coin flip & many guilds start out with loot systems that are also a coin flip concerning whether you win said gear or not. Dungeons were the same way, albeit to a lesser degree. TBC bribed players to do more heroics in order to get badge gear, pvp bribed more casual pvpers to farm gear to get full epic sets from normal bgs for much less time than it required in vanilla, and wrath bribed players to set foot into the first couple of rooms (or a little further) of ICC in order to rep farm for a raid quality ring that was better than any other content could provide non raiding players. LFR didn't create "bribery" for players, it simply existed in other forms spread out across more of the types of content.

[Pann]

They never EVER said it wouldn't justify the cost if LFR was never made, the way it was said basically says "It would suck that people didn't see the work we put in" never mentioned money or not making raids like people on here like to claim in order to shit on raiders.

Hell they even went as far as to say LFR was a bad first choice that they should have gone the flex route instead.

What? Watcher said "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."

[Spunt]

It's a success if you want free epics and bosses that are just loot pinatas.

[Quincey]

Take out LFR difficulty, Add in matchmaking to Current normal mode. Wipe on that, bitches.

I *almost* (not quite) approved of LFR in SoO, it was difficult enough that wiping was possible and you had to somewhat know what was going off, brute forcing only worked if you had some geared people in the group with you. Now? It's become such a shit show that I'm fairly sure it could be solo'd, Pathetic!

[McNeil]

Somewhere inbetween, but leaning more towards failure. I actually think MoP had LFR right, when the bosses could actually kill you if your raid managed to do terrible DPS or not follow any tacs at all (yeah you still had to take down engineers in Garrosh's fight...). But WoD's LFR is a monstrosity, it has no real reason to be around other then looking inside the raids. But all the bosses are just prettier target dummies, with terrible loot. MoP atleast had tier sets.

But even then I think LFR needs a complete overhaul. For one, it shouldn't be another raid difficulty, but rather make it a scenario.

[Jaylock]

Take out LFR difficulty, Add in matchmaking to Current normal mode. Wipe on that, bitches.

I *almost* (not quite) approved of LFR in SoO, it was difficult enough that wiping was possible and you had to somewhat know what was going off, brute forcing only worked if you had some geared people in the group with you. Now? It's become such a shit show that I'm fairly sure it could be solo'd, Pathetic!

Wiping was possible in SOO LFR because you had 15 players carrying 10 afk dead weights. If EVERYONE who queued up had participated the wipe rate would have been much lower, and I would argue, you would have little to no wipes / determination stacks.

Bosses in SOO LFR were still loot pinatas.

[hyphnos]

If a player isn't good enough to clear normal flex raiding (plenty of these players do exist), and these players are not seeing the end boss until the expansion become old with a new expansion, then yes lfr still stands as a tool that in Blizzard's eyes should still exist. Their goals for lfr have mostly included the following; lfr being used as a tool for players who are not 'typically skilled' raiders to see the big bad before the next expansion comes out, a catch-up mechanic, provide players who are not in a guild and/or have inconsistent real life schedules have a format to raid on their own hour. Although I do believe the last point is now a non issue because looking for group allows players to look for & sign up for groups whenever they want now anyway so "not having a schedule to raid" no longer applies.

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Contrary to popular belief, most regular lfr players do not move on to higher levels of raiding & mostly just stay with that mode (barring players who already raided higher than lfr & are most just doing lfr for transmog & legendaries). If they don't move on nobody is being funneled into raiding. 'Hardcore' raiders still do their thing & lfr players mostly stay in lfr & don't move up to normal & heroic.

I don't get your second point at all. Most content before lfr was brought about in cata was a slot machine. Raid bosses dropping gear you want was a coin flip & many guilds start out with loot systems that are also a coin flip concerning whether you win said gear or not. Dungeons were the same way, albeit to a lesser degree. TBC bribed players to do more heroics in order to get badge gear, pvp bribed more casual pvpers to farm gear to get full epic sets from normal bgs for much less time than it required in vanilla, and wrath bribed players to set foot into the first couple of rooms (or a little further) of ICC in order to rep farm for a raid quality ring that was better than any other content could provide non raiding players. LFR didn't create "bribery" for players, it simply existed in other forms spread out across more of the types of content.

Without LFR, no amount of bribery was going to get 50% of players into raids. Yes, they have rewarded forms of content before and people did it for the rewards. Raids however, even when loaded down with the best rewards, still failed to have decent participation. LFR allowed them to make a slot machine that people could queue for so that raid participation went up. It's just my opinion but I believe that players farming currency in dungeons in the past were experiencing what I like to call "fun" in addition to earning rewards. LFR is, IMO, a purely miserable time suck that is endured because people want the rewards in it. I'm sure there are a few out there who think LFR is all that and a bag of chips but I firmly believe there are a lot more players out there that enjoyed a dungeon/currency reward system that didn't involve pretending to raid for fairly shitty rewards so that the devs could bloat raid tiers to 16 to 18 bosses.

[Apexis]

I believe they had to do something at the end of Cata, they were loosing people in droves and had to find away to keep the causal people playing since they are the ones that constantly play the game without breaking for periods of time. While they made more content in Mist. It still lack in many ways due to the way they structured the daily hub areas. They took way to long to get rep from for most of the gear that was offered to be of little use to anyone that chose to raid, but still needed filler pieces gear to account for the RNG in the raids.

While the LFR is far from perfect, it does provide the bulk of the non-raiders something else to do that do not want to be part of an organized group of people for whatever reasons they have for not doing so. I believe at this stage in WoW's life cycle it would have further declined had they not put the LFR in place. It at least help to keep the bulk of the casual player base constantly engaged in it. I would of hope they had done a better job of how they approached and implemented the LFR, but I believe it is now a necessary part of the game in order to keep subs from declining any further than they have in recent years.

[Pantalaimon]

Without LFR, no amount of bribery was going to get 50% of players into raids. Yes, they have rewarded forms of content before and people did it for the rewards. Raids however, even when loaded down with the best rewards, still failed to have decent participation. LFR allowed them to make a slot machine that people could queue for so that raid participation went up. It's just my opinion but I believe that players farming currency in dungeons in the past were experiencing what I like to call "fun" in addition to earning rewards. LFR is, IMO, a purely miserable time suck that is endured because people want the rewards in it. I'm sure there are a few out there who think LFR is all that and a bag of chips but I firmly believe there are a lot more players out there that enjoyed a dungeon/currency reward system that didn't involve pretending to raid for fairly shitty rewards so that the devs could bloat raid tiers to 16 to 18 bosses.

"Pretending to raid" is a very loaded description though. If that is truly one of the main complaints about it then according to whose perspective would we be axing lfr? Imo, by the fact that you use such a term heavily implies to me that you mostly raid at a level above lfr. If my assumption is indeed correct then why do you even care what goes on in a difficulty level considerably easier than what you derive your fun from? Imho I think that the only people other than Blizzard who should have much of a say in what happens with the fate or direction of lfr should be those players who legitimately progress in it & who plateau in gear acquisition once they exhaust the content. I'm sure plenty of mythic raiders don't consider normal or heroic raiding to be real raiding either so I guess we should remove those too. See how silly that argument becomes?

Personally, I find "fun" arguments to be very weak because they're among the embodiment of subjectivity. However, since you threw down the term first I'll play the subjective fun game. Is it "fun" for players who aren't skilled enough to clear normal raiding to never play through the encounter of the big bad & previous encounters leading up to it until the level cap is raised? If the answer is no then why are we even entertaining the possibility of wanting lfr removed if it was deemed a failure?

In the end whether or not lfr is a failure or success it takes very little design time to work on it. Does that mean I wouldn't prefer to return it in difficulty to pre nerf Lei Shen levels to more accurately prepare players for the punishing mechanics of later raid difficulties? No, of course not, but even it was deemed a failure (which I disagree with somewhat) it shouldn't be removed. I feel like this thread has another underlying issue & tone to it though which prompts me to ask Why do you care what happens in lfr when that isn't your primary difficulty? Doesn't detract from your "fun" or your rewards. Hell, can't even really use the argument of being 'forced' to do lfr for legendary quests when you can fully clear normal & get them all that way without even touching lfr.

[Vineri]

It's a failure. Good concept, but overall counter-productive. Content should be something a player works for, not something guaranteed by breathing and paying a sub. It diminishes the experience of everyone else who actually achieved what they have (and also pays a sub).

Even if only a small fraction raids, if the quality is diminished in fans eyes, then they will leave, and what Blizzard will be left with is a group of players who want glory, without working for said glory. They will get this, but the people who made Blizzard happen in the first place will have already vacated the building. It's a failure. It's been a failure over the past 10 years, since sub declines. LFR .. LFG. These concepts are bad for communities.

[Seefer]

What? Watcher said "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."

Again, never said anything about COST it just means "Why do it if nobody see's it?"

[Pann]

Again, never said anything about COST it just means "Why do it if nobody see's it?"

What do you think he was talking about when he said "LFR justifies the creation of more raid content when millions of players are able to see content." or that its existence meant they could make larger raids?

[Dormie]

Is the PGA useless because the minority of golfers are in it?

[Pantalaimon]

It's a failure. Good concept, but overall counter-productive. Content should be something a player works for, not something guaranteed by breathing and paying a sub. It diminishes the experience of everyone else who actually achieved what they have (and also pays a sub).

Even if only a small fraction raids, if the quality is diminished in fans eyes, then they will leave, and what Blizzard will be left with is a group of players who want glory, without working for said glory. They will get this, but the people who made Blizzard happen in the first place will have already vacated the building. It's a failure.

How does it diminish the experience of other raiders? Do you really feel slighted or feel no sense of accomplishment when you progress on a boss with your guild, or a good pug, because you know there are other players out there doing the same fight on lfr? If we're talking about rewards then lfr wouldn't detract from that either since titles, mounts, & some transmog gear is only available from doing it on levels above lfr. The point of everyone paying a sub can be turned on its head as well & it is just as easy to say everyone is 'entitled' to being able to have a chance to have a raid like experience in one difficulty or another, because they also pay a sub, & should not be arbitrary gated & decided by special snowflakes that aren't really special at all because even in the raiding community they are a drop in the ocean, so to speak.

The thing is that there are players who do work for it in lfr. It is hard to believe & I don't want to say that players who do work hard in lfr are 'bad', but there are players who aren't good at group content in almost any mmo style of game, but who still enjoy doing it. Those players don't get the gear handed to them. The problem with the community and lfr is you have so many players who can do normal or even heroic raiding but just don't want to do it for whatever reason so they stick with lfr. And since these players who can do harder content are choosing to only do 'easier' content via lfr they complain & say the game is watered down (even though they're more or less choosing to play the WoW game on 'Beginner Mode' when they should be playing on standard or hard mode instead for their individual playstyle). If so many more experienced players just stopped playing lfr & actually stuck to the mode that gives them the most satisfaction then they probably wouldn't feel so insecure about their gaming experience when another player also clears Arch on lfr.

[Pann]

Is the PGA useless because the minority of golfers are in it?

When Method or similar guild attracts an audience of several million then this might be a valid comparison.