Blizzard just give up on LFR

[Deleted]

What do you feel was the overall purpose of LFR? If it was meant for an endgame for casuals, its certainly an endgame that doesn't have a lot of depth to it. Depth to the game is when social connections are made and any content Blizzard throws at you is fun, because you're doing it with your friends/guildies (all my opinion of course). LFR is a solo player's endgame. I'm not bashing that kind of play style at all, but it does create an ending to a game that would otherwise continue if you had people to play with.

The purpose always was tourist mode in the truest sense. The fact that you could actually see the content. Imagine not having LFR atm, you would have had no clue about Argus or why its suddenly there.

[nekobaka]

That wasn't my experience in vanilla. People excluded just as much, it was simply based on other factors, such as your class (warriors are tanks not DPS!) or the time you wanted to commit (don't wanna farm your ass to make this fire resist gear? get out of here scrub!). And not too many were teaching because a lot of people were shit at the game anyway and/or you barely even needed to teach everyone in your raid until, what, AQ? You could definitely clear Molten Core with a good third of the raid having no clue. Hm, what difficulty mode does that remind me of...

There's a reason so few even saw raids before 10m, and then LFR. It wasn't because the raiding community was an utopia where everyone was welcome.

Ive put it down to that not everyone is willing to use their personal time to help others. Many of those who complain about others not helping are the same types to do the same if in the same position of those they ridicule.

Despite what posters like oldgeezer tin foil hat theories about some kind of coordinated effort to keep numbers down the introduction of Flex difficulty and the group finder has more than doubled those who are participating in organized raiding content. Many who raid are casuals as well with jobs and families who value their time. It amazes me those who shit talk other time limited players as if it is their job to help others.

[Grevmak]

Glad your opinion is not the one the devs have :P

I like LFR and would be pissed off if we had to wait until another tier is released before the previous one was unlocked. The delay at present is more than enough time. If your alts still "Need" to run LFR after then thats your problem or your guilds.

I'll just preface this by saying that I don't mind LFR too much being in the game, and don't need it removed or I'll quit etc. that's a silly and childish attitude. I also don't mind people seeing the content, totally fine with me.
But what you said sounds kinda horrible.
Sure, I'll just leech my way to higher levels of gear and run my 860 character through ToS normal. That's a cool way to get gear and totally fair to mates who need some select item upgrades. Woo.

Seriously, all I really want is to have some sort of way to get the same level of gear, without having a monotonous grind (Nethershards are not fun, I'm pretty sure most people don't really enjoy mundane grinding). I don't want gear handed out to me, either, just another way that won't be community gated after a few days like Mythics are. And don't tell me "just make your own group" - again, that's something I already do, but I can't really run +6's on an 860 geared DPS with just 1 legendary which is also not the BiS. Which is a pretty normal situation for an alt to be in at first.

I personally can skip LFR as my guild runs mythic dungeons etc. but that's cause they're willing to carry me through a few times, and thus get some ok-ish gear. Sadly, ok-ish isn't really enough to guarantee getting into Raiding, neither is not having your T-set bonus which you can get only by raiding. As such, all I want is not be forced into LFR to raid normally on alts. It can remain in the game, have the same visuals as normal tier sets, can have trinkets and T sets remain the same in it, I don't mind. I just don't want to be forced to do it to get into normal raids.

To me that's just annoying, and saying "lol just don't do it" is a horrible argument, as I already don't and get penalized for it. How about we reverse the situation? Gotta do a few normals before LFR unlocks. Makes no sense? Yeah that's how I see being forced into LFR to do normals. It's not the same, should never be the same and as such should not require each other as a step to get into the other way faster.

TL;DR I just don't want to feel like I'm getting penalized for not running LFR. It can remain the same. If you still think that's stupid, imagine not being allowed into LFR until you've cleared some unrelated content that you don't enjoy and isn't really similiar. Sounds silly? Yeah. Cause it is.

[Blackmist]

When the fuck was LFR ever a challenge?

It hasn't changed. It's always been this doddlingly easy weekly queue for a chance at low level loot. It's just fine for awful alts that you can't bear to burden an actual raid with.

[Demonidze]

the whole purpose of LFR is to be a tour mode, it doesnt suppose to be challanging in any way. dunno why the whole fuss is about.. just leave it as it is, it serves its purpose. for a more challanging experience there is normal, heroic and mythic difficulties.

[khalltusk]

snip

Personally you don't need LFR at all. It can be skipped if needed. With M+ and world quests providing a realistic alternative to gearing your character for raiding.

It sucks that people think they need to do it or that they feel forced to do it. I don't know what other options can be provided to help them in all honesty. As the problem is the community not the in game systems. I always set my m+ runs to a lower ilevel limit than what the community wanted as I didn't give a shit. Still managed to get decent clears done.

Luckily you sound as though you have a solid guild who helps you out. I can appreciate not wanting to do LFR as you may prefer to only do the raid so many times before it gets boring. One difficulty level (like vanilla and tbc) did make it cool when you first stepped in. Totc 10n/h and 25n/h made me quit the game with the amount of burn out I endured.

[anon5123]

I agree. The death of LFR as a reasonable challenge was the nail in the coffin

????

LFR has always been a fucking joke, ever since it released

At no point was it EVER a "reasonable challenge"

[Trapped]

LFR was created to get a larger percentage of players into "raiding" because before LFR less than 5% of the total player base ever participated in raiding. MUCH more than 5% of the dev time was spent on creating raids, so LFR helped justify the time, and therefore money, spent on creating raids. That mindset has shifted where LFR isn't seen as just tourist mode raiding anymore by the devs and players.

Personally, I never felt that Normal mode raiding was ever that difficult, the challenge was always just getting into a group. As easy as the LFG tool is to use, it's still predicated on you being accepted to, or creating a group and then getting a successful group together. I've gone hours applying to groups to never get accepted, flat out denied or accepted and then immediately replaced by a friend or guild mate or something. LFR makes the whole match making process a no brainer. THAT'S why it's so successful. Not because LFR is easier than Normal, but because LFR is mindlessly easy and guaranteed to get into. If they took LFR away and just made Normal queue-able I don't think we'd see much difference.

The issue is that too many players "quit" after beating the last boss in LFR. I understand it has its purpose, but I think queueable normal/flex would be a better alternative. It worked good for SoO, imo. Break the raid up into wings, LFR style, and allow each wing to have its own matchmaking tool.

[Osmeric]

I'm of the opinion that, if LFR is to stay, that it should be delayed by one raid tier, and for the final tier just be delayed by 2 months.

They kind of tried something like this in early Cataclysm, with the lesser players intended to do the first tier of the expansion (which had been nerfed) while their betters were doing the second. It didn't work. If you ask players to wait long enough, they'll just go "ok, I'll do it next expansion. <unsub>"

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The issue is that too many players "quit" after beating the last boss in LFR.

I don't believe there is any actual evidence to support this anti-LFR talking point.

[khalltusk]

They kind of tried something like this in early Cataclysm, with the lesser players intended to do the first tier of the expansion (which had been nerfed) while their betters were doing the second. It didn't work. If you ask players to wait long enough, they'll just go "ok, I'll do it next expansion. <unsub>"

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I don't believe there is any actual evidence to support this anti-LFR talking point.

For Cata I think it was also a case of the straight up raid difficulty on launch. I liked it but I fully understood that it was a pug killer. Certainly having 10 and 25 man tuned to the same level was brutal for a lot of casual players/groups.

[Grevmak]

For Cata I think it was also a case of the straight up raid difficulty on launch. I liked it but I fully understood that it was a pug killer. Certainly having 10 and 25 man tuned to the same level was brutal for a lot of casual players/groups.

True. The first tier had some really tough healing as mana was super scarce and healing got nerfed to be less spiky again. Combine that with Sinestra just being brutal and Firelands' Ragnaros HC being a crazy almost 30 minute fight and you can see why most people didn't want to bother. And I also agree with the 10/25 man sentiment. Don't think I saw a single 25 man PUG or guild on Blackhand-EU a few weeks after launch, why bother?

[khalltusk]

True. The first tier had some really tough healing as mana was super scarce and healing got nerfed to be less spiky again. Combine that with Sinestra just being brutal and Firelands' Ragnaros HC being a crazy almost 30 minute fight and you can see why most people didn't want to bother. And I also agree with the 10/25 man sentiment. Don't think I saw a single 25 man PUG or guild on Blackhand-EU a few weeks after launch, why bother?

Yeh the healing nerf was a pretty nasty one, that with more tightly tuned/tougher initial tier was brutal. Most 25 man groups simply farmed the TRASH before the ettin boss whos name I forget right now. I was in a group with some friends and we worked from Normal to Heroic and it was fun but we all kinda stopped as there was not a lot to do outside of raiding. Was a shame as we really liked the initial raid tier.

[Grevmak]

Yeh the healing nerf was a pretty nasty one, that with more tightly tuned/tougher initial tier was brutal. Most 25 man groups simply farmed the TRASH before the ettin boss whos name I forget right now. I was in a group with some friends and we worked from Normal to Heroic and it was fun but we all kinda stopped as there was not a lot to do outside of raiding. Was a shame as we really liked the initial raid tier.

Î can understand that - while I loved the first patch's heroics, once you raided they were obsolete for everyone in the raid but their alts. Seriously that's why I can't take people who say old WoW was oh so great seriously. There was so few content in older expansions. Legion's doing a good job w/ that, especially M+.

[Trapped]

They kind of tried something like this in early Cataclysm, with the lesser players intended to do the first tier of the expansion (which had been nerfed) while their betters were doing the second. It didn't work. If you ask players to wait long enough, they'll just go "ok, I'll do it next expansion. <unsub>"

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I don't believe there is any actual evidence to support this anti-LFR talking point.

My point is that pre-Cata, casuals and non-raiders still played and enjoyed the game. Their endgame was whatever they wanted it to be. When LFR was added, Blizzard was blatantly pointing these types of players in that direction.

"Look here! Come try this out!"

Now, these types of players are completing their LFR and unsubbing (?) because this is now their endgame. Do I have evidence to back this up? Clearly not, but this is what I feel. People no longer stay subbed to the game, year after year after year, and they used to. You know why? Because of the social infrastructure that was in the game. Blizzard took out the necessity to coordinate with other players when they implemented LFR. It made players lazy. They don't look up class info, rotations, best stats, etc, because they don't have to. They can do piss poor dps, healing, tanking, whatever. And you know what? It does not matter. The bosses die, they get their loot, they move on. This is why LFR is bad, and this is why I am anti-LFR.

[mysticx]

The issue is that too many players "quit" after beating the last boss in LFR. I understand it has its purpose, but I think queueable normal/flex would be a better alternative. It worked good for SoO, imo. Break the raid up into wings, LFR style, and allow each wing to have its own matchmaking tool.

Even if that's true (Citation needed), LfR at least has people coming back for it, i honestly doubt anybody would maintain a subscription just to do world quests all expansion long...

[Osmeric]

My point is that pre-Cata, casuals and non-raiders still played and enjoyed the game. Their endgame was whatever they wanted it to be. When LFR was added, Blizzard was blatantly pointing these types of players in that direction.

Pre-Cata, the game was churning through players. It was not some sort of golden age of WoW design; it was a game that was desperately changing to try to stop the bleeding. The game only appeared healthy because the losses were being masked by the inflow.

[khalltusk]

Pre-Cata, the game was churning through players. It was not some sort of golden age of WoW design; it was a game that was desperately changing to try to stop the bleeding. The game only appeared healthy because the losses were being masked by the inflow.

Not to mention blizzard ever since TBC was trying to funnel more people into raids. Wrath went even further with 10man and 25 man sitting along side each other with 10man being a lot easier. All LFR did was make it so people could cut out the need to get some other players approval before going into a raid.

Î can understand that - while I loved the first patch's heroics, once you raided they were obsolete for everyone in the raid but their alts. Seriously that's why I can't take people who say old WoW was oh so great seriously. There was so few content in older expansions. Legion's doing a good job w/ that, especially M+.

Yeh same, the heroic dungeons were a challenge at first. Which was fun same for the raids. But for your average group it was brutal as fuck. Ghost crawler did his infamous "dungeons are hard yo" post about it.

To be fair the previous expansions had a good amount of dungeon content (wrath tbc) while they had some daily quests new zones etc and of course with wrath specifically they had quite accessible raids and ways of earning raid loot while only doing dungeons. Cata kinda flipped that around and we had the first time where sub losses out paced replacement subs. Hence the sub drop.

[Trapped]

Pre-Cata, the game was churning through players. It was not some sort of golden age of WoW design; it was a game that was desperately changing to try to stop the bleeding. The game only appeared healthy because the losses were being masked by the inflow.

Somehow it managed to hold onto 10 or 12 million players though. I'm not saying the game was better then, but the game still had that "wow" factor that kept people playing. LFR is mindless content, and is a disgrace to even have the word "raid" in the acronym. I also don't agree with the idea that the game was bleeding subs in Vanilla/BC/Wrath, but we can just agree to disagree.

[Spiral Mage]

I'm still confused whenever I see people say:
"LFR used to be hard."

LFR has always had the same approximate difficulty level: Easy.

This has never really changed. It hasn't gotten easier, it hasn't gotten harder.
It wasn't easier/harder at any point, it's always been about the same.

What I want to see is LFR have >all< the mechanics of Normal and Heroic,
but make them completely trivial.
Yep, where you can entirely ignore them and do what people do in LFR now.

This is because then those who WANT to see the mechanics can hit up LFR.
There they can see the mechanics in a totally non-threatening environment.

They can ignore the add, stand in the shit. Do whatever and still have as hard a time wiping as you do now.
BUT even if they do all that, if they WANT to do Normal/Heroic, they can hit up LFR.

Doing LFR, they can say: "OK, this is what that mechanic looks like. There's adds that should probably die."
And while in LFR, they won't avoid/kill anything like that .. they'll see them and know the visuals and effects.

Then when they join your Normal group, they can say to themselves: "I know what all the mechanics look like/do, but this isn't LFR. I DO need to get out of that shit, I DO need to kill that add I saw on this next boss."

Let LFR be a chance to preview the raid for those interested to prepare themselves to step up to Normal/Heroic, but keep it nice and easy so the people who don't care at all, won't wipe over and over again.

[Osmeric]

Somehow it managed to hold onto 10 or 12 million players though.

That was because it had a huge pool of MMO virgins it had tapped into, and as they flowed into, and then mostly back out of, the game they could maintain the appearance of a game that had a stable player population. That resource is gone.

The other thing that has happened is the general population has filled up with ex-players. Word of mouth changed from "you have to try this" to "I used to play that".