What's the point of LFR these days?

[Sliske]

I'm an ex-mythic (heroic) raider world 200 or so. I only do LFR now. I stopped raiding in Highmaul due to how much I hated the specs I played in a raid environment.

LFR to me is what its intended to be - tour mode. I enjoy rolling in, seeing wtf happens to Xavius, Malfurion, Ursoc etc and rolling out. I don't care that the loot is useless to me, all I care about is seeing what happens.

All of my characters are 860 ilvl right now just from mythic0 - mythic3s, i'll probably never get a usable item from LFR

Oh and transmog. I do it for that too.

[hablix]

A longshot at a legendary.

[Zka]

1) initial gearing
2) for people who don't want to raid but wanna see the content
3) can drop legendaries

[bufferunderrun]

Edit: This is not meant to be "qq" or anti-LFR. I've got no problems with it, I'm certainly not complaining, I'm just genuinely curious.

With Normal mode being completely cross-server compatible, along with how easy it is to use the current iteration of the group finder tool, does LFR really fill a necessary role in the game these days? In terms of being a no effort way to click a button and join a raid, the group finder pretty much fills that slot on its own; on both fronts you have to select the raid you want to run, and in group finder you can even have a bit of control over what groups you want to join. Unless the content is extremely dated there's usually not trouble finding a group, and when it comes to Normal mode people generally aren't terribly elitist in terms of item level requirements (although I'm aware it does happen).

I get that LFR is still the sort of "click and forget" thing that people want, a zero-effort way to queue up without making the slightest selection, but outside of "it's easier to get in" is there really any game-wide benefit to it at this point? Do we really need to spend extra development time tuning every single encounter for that additional difficulty level? Because that's all LFR is at this point; an easier difficulty. The method of queuing for it seems irrelevant now with the ease of the LFG tool.

So, while not saying there are no pros/cons to LFR vs the LFG tool, can we really still argue that it's something the game needs? It feels like we still have it simply because it's already there; why remove something that's been there for ages any people are used to? What if some players only use LFR and won't know what to do without it? Even considering that, there could always be some LFG tool improvements helping guide players towards the raid of their choice. So, again, are there enough pros to LFR to make it worthwhile at a time where finding a Normal-mode run is just as easy and, frankly, usually faster? Are we keeping it around simply for nostalgia's sake, or are there players that are genuinely incapable of completing Normal-mode that would be flat-out unable to see raid content if this lower difficulty tier were removed?

You start from the wrong assumption the average player who use lfr is someone that would gladly take on normal mode but don't have the skill to do so, imho many many peoples do lfr for the automatic queue, because it's fair and square, because other players have no way to influence it, because it don't judge, and for all the nice perk it offer like no schedule.
The benefit it offer is to keep many peoples subbed that otherwise would have left the game around DS and no there is no amount of improvement that blizzard could do to the manual system that have a slight chance to offset lfr (or lfd).
If you want to talk about popularity lfr > all the other grouped together so if anything the time spent tuning it is better invested one.

[Vaelorian]

LFR exists because:
"you see the story without having to organise to get into a raid"

For me LFR exists to go into ONCE and get the quests done that I require to be done to progress my character and Legion's story. I don't raid not even pugwise. The other night I went into LFR to complete such a quest. Damn it took ages. People failing left and right. People did not die due to lack of heals btw. They died because of falling off a platform during a bossfight. They died due to not rezzing a tank right away or pulled before people were ready. And I am not even going to go into how people can pull those tentacles for no reason.

While no one said a word (bad or good), it was a very depressing experience. But for the sake of completing said quest... I do it anyway.

[Deleted]

LFR is just for those baddies that love to claim they have no time for real raiding, but still deserve to see the "Story".

[Reavyn]

LFR is just for those baddies that love to claim they have no time for real raiding, but still deserve to see the "Story".

That's about the same argument as "Heroic and Mythic raiding is only for elitist no-lifers who still live in their mommy's basement".

Gotta love these threads.

I do raiding with my guild and LFR whenever I feel like it. Neither is inherently 'wrong'. They're just two completely different aspects of the game. Why does everyone feel like it somehow affects them personally that people run LFR? It's like those threads about casual players having good gear through warforged/titanforged procs; it affects you in exactly no way at all.

Instead, look at it from another angle; Some people are hesitant to step into raids. Especially tanks and healers, due to those roles being far more stressful than DPS. LFR makes for a good platform to test the waters a bit. I know that it wasn't untill LFR came out that I felt comfortable enough to tank in raid settings, as 5-mans meant pretty much nothing compared to raiding pre-Mythic+. I basically treated it like a glorified training dummy. This resulted in me tanking for my guild in higher difficulty raids.

So, instead of looking at LFR as a place for plebs/baddies/casuals/whatever retarded name for players that don't copy your playstyle is thought of next just to engorge your own e-peen, look at it as a possibility for people to get into raiding proper. More raiders = bigger raiding community = better for everyone. I am in no way claiming LFR is perfect. Far from it. But the whole shitbagging of LFR as a whole goes a bit too far for me.

LFR is probably not a place for (semi-)hardcore raiders besides getting a chance for legendary/TF drops. But does that really matter? Higher difficulty raiders still get better gear and get it faster. So, yeah.... Getting all pent up about people runnning LFR makes me laugh.

[Bbobert]

You can obtain legendaries in lfr. Also story for the plebs, i mean the casualist of casuals.

An insult already and it's not even been 5 comments yet.

- - - Updated - - -

LFR is just for those baddies that love to claim they have no time for real raiding, but still deserve to see the "Story".

What data did you use to form the opinion that they do indeed have time or that they are in fact poor players? Can one assume that people who make these kind of comments are a certain type of person? I work all the time...all of the time and can only spare one evening a week to play. I'm lucky to be in a guild that runs on that day. During my last job I only have every other weekend off and no guild I know of raids every other weekend. Stop assuming your opinion is correct because it's your opinion.

[HeiAggra]

Edit: This is not meant to be "qq" or anti-LFR. I've got no problems with it, I'm certainly not complaining, I'm just genuinely curious.

With Normal mode being completely cross-server compatible, along with how easy it is to use the current iteration of the group finder tool, does LFR really fill a necessary role in the game these days? In terms of being a no effort way to click a button and join a raid, the group finder pretty much fills that slot on its own; on both fronts you have to select the raid you want to run, and in group finder you can even have a bit of control over what groups you want to join. Unless the content is extremely dated there's usually not trouble finding a group, and when it comes to Normal mode people generally aren't terribly elitist in terms of item level requirements (although I'm aware it does happen).

I get that LFR is still the sort of "click and forget" thing that people want, a zero-effort way to queue up without making the slightest selection, but outside of "it's easier to get in" is there really any game-wide benefit to it at this point? Do we really need to spend extra development time tuning every single encounter for that additional difficulty level? Because that's all LFR is at this point; an easier difficulty. The method of queuing for it seems irrelevant now with the ease of the LFG tool.

So, while not saying there are no pros/cons to LFR vs the LFG tool, can we really still argue that it's something the game needs? It feels like we still have it simply because it's already there; why remove something that's been there for ages any people are used to? What if some players only use LFR and won't know what to do without it? Even considering that, there could always be some LFG tool improvements helping guide players towards the raid of their choice. So, again, are there enough pros to LFR to make it worthwhile at a time where finding a Normal-mode run is just as easy and, frankly, usually faster? Are we keeping it around simply for nostalgia's sake, or are there players that are genuinely incapable of completing Normal-mode that would be flat-out unable to see raid content if this lower difficulty tier were removed?

No clue just did Xavius one because tank bag! That's my exp in LFR this expac.

[Azerox]

Just remove LFR and put normal in it.

Done.

[assman]

It's for idiots who are too brain dead to complete normal mode versions of raids.

[Deleted]

its easy to get in and no hassle need to link achievements or item levels to anyone

Yup. It's a very welcome possibility to see the content and get some gear without having to bother with random pug leaders or making your own group. Queue up, do it, leave.

[tikcol]

You need to appease the super casual. If you don't, he will let you know he's not happy with thunderous whinning.

He needs that LFR fix to survive because it's one of those places that those that actually try to be better players are frowned upon.

It's their territory, it's their only mean of survival because they can't be bothered to talk to people and find a group or form one themselves and go normal mode (which is a joke difficulty wise already)

The super casual exists and he will let you know about it. Especially if you talk about removing LFR

[Deleted]

PuGs are cancer so guildless people have a way to see that guilds have a point. In result, some of them start looking for one.
/thread

[Deleted]

1. there is weekly quest you get form order hall follower missions, to kill one boss in EN.
2. chance for legendary to drop
3. chance some random loot drops as titanforged and is useful
4. to do with alt - for gear/runes/gold/disenchant/AP

LFR is now more useful than ever before - same as world boss, mythic 0 dungeons or world quests... you dont really need to do them but still you can get something

[Exeris]

PuGs are cancer so guildless people have a way to see that guilds have a point. In result, some of them start looking for one.
/thread

That also often end with a bad experience, important to do some research on the guild you want to apply to.

[Deleted]

That also often end with a bad experience, important to do some research on the guild you want to apply to.

That's the next step. Doesn't prevent disappointment every time either.

[Icaras]

It's how some of us prefer to raid /thread

[BatteredSausage]

It's a videogame.

Video games and living in a fantasy virtual world with pixelated items they will forget about in years to come is serious business for some of these fucktards.

Nothing wrong with lfr if people get to see content. The item level is horrendous so all you special snowflakes can whack each other off knowing you will always be more poooweerfulllllllllllllllllllll...............

[Echocho]

Same as it has always been. A way for everyone to experience the content, an accessible method of queueable content for those that don't want to deal with the hassle of schedules or manually forming groups.