LFR: Success or Failure?

[maunazero]

Depends on what you need from it.

Success: If you are casual raider then its a valuable tool that can be used to see content otherwise not able to be seen. Mediocre gear upgrade, that "feel" of a raid environment somewhat (ok people standing around shooting at the same thing).

Failure: If you are a hard-core raider then it opens the prospect of a fail-bot assuming they "know' the fight having seen it in LFR and therefor no need to read strats on it.

It's one of those things, if you don't need it, you won't use it. If you do need/want it, its there to be used. Just because its there doesn't mean you have to use it.

[Brutalshock]

Failure.

Look, it created a distraction for Blizzard. LFR significantly adds to all sorts of development costs with little gain.

If Blizzard wanted every WoW player to be a part of a WoW story, they should bake them in with quests (ex: Garrosh in Warlords of Draenor).

The big-bad-evil-guy doesn't need to be the final raid boss. Hardcore raiders don't care if they're killing Arthas or just "UberLich1000000"

[Sithalos]

Well, the game's sub count took a nose dive right after Dragon Soul. You be the judge.

[Seefer]

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?

Let's see...........it could be taken as "Nobody sees it so why waste our time?" it doesn't mean the cost it just means why bother doing something if nobody will see it like an artist and a painting nobody will see, but I will say this again..........even Blizzard said LFR was a mistake and they should have done Flex instead.

[Pann]

Let's see...........it could be taken as "Nobody sees it so why waste our time?" it doesn't mean the cost it just means why bother doing something if nobody will see it like an artist and a painting nobody will see, but I will say this again..........even Blizzard said LFR was a mistake and they should have done Flex instead.

Yeah, it could be taken that way if he had used different words and WoW was a work of art and not a commercial product designed to make money for its creators. Blizzard have never said that LFR was mistake.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

The concern that LFR made high end guilds do stuff is reason enough to get rid of LFR is not a good stance. These guilds will always find an advantage. Right now it is split runs. If you somehow come up with a system to prevent that (account wide locks is one I hear, for example) they will split accounts and pay for 2, 3, 4, or as many as it takes to accomplish it. Point is those guilds have always and will always find ways to do a lot of extra work to find a competitive edge. If LFR is there than its just another thing on the list.

Not to mention it is for a very small minority. I know on these forums it sounds like everyone has been 13/13 mythic since a month or two after it was released but that certainly isn't the case. Most guilds raiding competitively (on their own level) actually do need stuff like this to progress. Then you have the even larger majority that doesn't raid much outside of just plan LFR. No reason for their rewards to be shit. Not to mention if your average player is better equipped it makes your random ques an easier experience. That weekly event a simpler thing to get done on your alt. In Legion a throw together group to get a bigger world quest done an easier task.

Limiting access to decent rewards doesn't restrict it to higher end players. In all honestly boosts during this period have become a bigger and booming business because of these ridiculous walls. Sure my guild loves it because of the endless gold laying around. The players in the guild love it because it has made them all rich as hell. But truth be told it is a really lame side of the game. Not to mention the darker side with real money transfers and cons going on that surround it. Stuff we just in general do not want in the game or promote in anyway.

[Seefer]

Yeah, it could be taken that way if he had used different words and WoW was a work of art and not a commercial product designed to make money for its creators. Blizzard have never said that LFR was mistake.

Missed Ion saying they should have done flex instead of LFR?

[Vineri]

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.

How does it diminish the experience of other raiders?
It diminishes the sense of accomplishment. LFG / LFR was a big factor in the degradation to WoW, as explained.

Your further defense is interesting, but really only highlights what new raiders want: fast raids, easy gear, low investment. It's not the WoW people used to know. Some people are not coming back, as a result, enough leave every month to keep subs overall dropping. LFG / LFR is a failure. Cross-realm is another huge failure, while we are on the topic.

[Pantalaimon]

How does it diminish the experience of other raiders?
It diminishes the sense of accomplishment. LFG / LFR was a big factor in the degradation to WoW, as explained.

Your further defense is interesting, but really only highlights what new raiders want: fast raids, easy gear, low investment. It's not the WoW people used to know. Some people are not coming back, as a result, enough leave every month to keep dropping subs. LFG / LFR is a failure. Cross-realm is another huge failure, while we are on the topic.

People are leaving every month, but people don't just leave WoW for one reason. We are in yet another long content drought after all & lfr/lfg can't accurately be scapegoated as X% of the people who are unsubbing from WoW.

As for the diminished sense of accomplishment excuse I don't buy that for a second. I know for myself personally that I don't feel bad for say normal level 100 dungeons existing when I am doing challenge modes, nor do I think that people should be prevented from getting gear easily from 5 mans while I am a CM gold player. 'Better players' are rewarded with exclusive rewards in WoW, not exclusive content that only they are allowed to do.

[Pann]

Missed Ion saying they should have done flex instead of LFR?

Yeah, I must have. Don't suppose you have a link?

[Vineri]

People are leaving every month, but people don't just leave WoW for one reason. We are in yet another long content drought after all & lfr/lfg can't accurately be scapegoated as X% of the people who are unsubbing from WoW.

As for the diminished sense of accomplishment excuse I don't buy that for a second. I know for myself personally that I don't feel bad for say normal level 100 dungeons existing when I am doing challenge modes, nor do I think that people should be prevented from getting gear easily from 5 mans while I am a CM gold player. 'Better players' are rewarded with exclusive rewards in WoW, not exclusive content that only they are allowed to do.

It's call churn. Sometimes churn is bad, when quality fans leave and are replaced with others. Deny all you want it was happening 2006-today.

My guess is you are not an original Vanilla WoW fan.You would otherwise know that your reward was not in what you did, but with others having satisfaction with what you did.

[Malkiah]

[COLOR=#ff0000]It diminishes the sense of accomplishment.

only if you hallucinate that it does, but it doesn't do this in any real or tangible way.
raid gear is still X power higher than the gear you can get from non-raiding, same as it's been since vanilla - the only thing LFR does is put another point on the power curve going from non-raid gear to raid gear.

fast raids, easy gear, low investment. It's not the WoW people used to know. Some people are not coming back, as a result, enough leave every month to keep subs overall dropping.

this argument is pretty much totally negated by simply looking at several other MMOs that retain exclusively 'hardcore' raid environments that are also losing subs and failing to retain players.
if keeping raids difficult and exclusory meant that you kept a healthy and interested player base, games like rift and EQ wouldn't be bleeding subs at the same relative rate that WoW has been doing.
in the case of EQ at least raiding *at all* is set to what is equivalent to WoW's mythic difficulty, that's the only option - and it's been losing numbers for years, same as WoW.

LFG / LFR is a failure.

LFR is an unmitigated success because it does what it set out to do, something that never existed prior to LFR and has never existed since LFR was introduced (except for a brief period during MOP): provides viable post-level-cap content for increasing player power available to non-raiders.

side note of personal reflection on the topic:
i do not raid in WoW and never really have, except for a little bit during WoTLK, and i never will - it's simply not a form of engagement in this game's environment that i enjoy.
so for me i've had a good time with LFR because it's something to do after you hit the level cap on a toon, it's basically what kept me interested in continuing to play the game (at all) and level up new alts through the end of cata and MOP.
the neutering of LFR in WoD caused my first period of inconsistent play since i first started where i now go days or weeks without bothering to log in.

[Pantalaimon]

It's call churn. Sometimes churn is bad, when quality fans leave and are replaced with others. Deny all you want it was happening 2006-today.

My guess is you are not an original Vanilla WoW fan.You would otherwise know that your reward was not in what you did, but with others having satisfaction with what you did.

I didn't deny it was happening, I just refused to accept your unscientifically based claim that it was due to lfr & lfg.

Except that in many cases the rewards you get are the sign that other player look for to give you praise for what you did. A good example is the CM gear. Despite many players having bought carries they are still a reward that most players don't have, thus providing occasional praise by other players who never got it but see that you have the cool reward for it. I fail to see how a player killing a random boss on lfr all of a sudden makes other players who haven't killed it on a higher difficulty from praising you for it once in a blue moon. Last I checked, on my server when Mythic Archimonde was killed by our top raiding guild that those players in trade congratulating them for the kill & whispering them made that guild feel pretty good about their accomplishment in game, despite lfr arch having been killed who knows how many times by then. If you can't enjoy your in game activities because of the accomplishments of other players at a much lower difficulty then I have to say that the fate of your enjoyment of the game is potentially pretty bleak.

[Deleted]

I disagree, I think that raids always paid for themselves by being a goal, something for people to aim for, and content for the best/most dedicated players in the game, as WoW's consistent success through Cata showed.

are you new to the game? around the same number of people doing pet battles/pvp are raiding. Thanks to Lfr even a few more or did you forgot Nax The ORIGINAL VERSION that was seen by like 0.01% of the playbase?

[Vineri]

only if you hallucinate that it does, but it doesn't do this in any real or tangible way.

No tangible way? Are you joking?
-easy raid gear to quality raid gear. The thrill of really being in a raid is gone? If the raid is nerfed, yes.

this argument is pretty much totally negated by simply looking at several other MMOs that retain exclusively 'hardcore' raid environments that are also losing subs and failing to retain players.

Other MMO's have WoW's success and fanbase? Go on, please.

if keeping raids difficult and exclusory meant that you kept a healthy and interested player base, games like rift and EQ wouldn't be bleeding subs at the same relative rate that WoW has been doing.
in the case of EQ at least raiding *at all* is set to what is equivalent to WoW's mythic difficulty, that's the only option - and it's been losing numbers for years, same as WoW.

EQ already bled over to WoW, circa 2004-2005. EQ and Rift are so minuscule currently in the MMO genre that I find the comparison to lost subs humorous.

Mythic would be awesome if Blizzard didn't already scare old schoolers to private Vanilla servers. They are unpopular now, because few are left to care.

LFR is an unmitigated success because it does what it set out to do, something that never existed prior to LFR and has never existed since LFR was introduced (except for a brief period during MOP): provides viable post-level-cap content for increasing player power available to non-raiders.

LFR is an unmitigated success.
Are you kidding me. By your definition then anything is an unmitigated success if it does what it sets out to do. Real life, please. Nobody asked for LFR. All this did was make more subscribers unsub.

side note of personal reflection on the topic:
i do not raid in WoW and never really have.

I already know.

[Sansnom]

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

No, but there are more people playing golf that do not compete in the PGA.

Is Mythic useless if only a minority are only interested in it?

[Pantalaimon]

No, but there are more people playing golf that do not compete in the PGA.

Is Mythic useless if only a minority are only interested in it?

Look at what Blizzard did to old 3 man scenarios & the old challenge mode format in Legion. I think we both know the answer to your question.

[Dormie]

Look at what Blizzard did to old 3 man scenarios & the old challenge mode format in Legion. I think we both know the answer to your question.

Plz don't compare end game raiding to scenarios.

- - - Updated - - -

No, but there are more people playing golf that do not compete in the PGA.

Is Mythic useless if only a minority are only interested in it?

I think you reiterated my point.

[Pantalaimon]

Plz don't compare end game raiding to scenarios.

Would you rather me restate what others have already mentioned about the old format & accessibility for vanilla 40 man raiding instead? Didn't even last past vanilla. Again, we both really know the answer to your question.

[hyphnos]

"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.

Let me be clear, I do not like and do not do organized raiding. I call LFR pretending to raid because it lacks the one redeeming element in raiding - a cohesive repeating social large group. (which is not really a big enough draw to make organized guild raiding a draw for more than a small percentage of players)

I absolutely do not care what happens in LFR and think what they did to the rewards in WoD was a travesty that was basically a slap at non-guild raiders who were in LFR for the sake of a bunch of special snowflakes who think what happens in a video game is of enough consequence to worry about. The only objection I have about LFR is that it allows the developers to focus on "the content that matters" (to the devs) or whatever the wording Watcher used in that interview at the expense of content that has, in the past at least, shown to have a broader appeal.