LFD and LFR are hurting WoW gameplay.

[Syran]

And I would think you are me... if it wasn't for the Ironforge reference.

Actually, I have to say that the LFD and LFR tools are not themselves a problem. The problem is that the bulk of the game has degenerated into a one-dimensional token farm.

Yeah, LFD and LFG could be implemented better, one problem is where you say it is, in the mindset of dungeon design. People expect a quick, painless run because they mostly see that tier piece which costs xxxx Valor dangling before their eyes and because that's ultimately what the dungeons are for today, a farming ground for badges and free handouts of gear.
Look at 4.3 heroics, you don't even have to actually win any loot and you're already half decked in 378s just by them quests. Count in the separate LFD for them without lockouts and you can literally farm all the gear from there in one day if you have some luck. Lasting content, which doesn't include 1000 clears of the same dungeon? Pfft, please!

I could actually go as far as to say that LFD could be an good tool, if it wasn't for the purpose of quick run but rather just about the quick group setup. Blizzard should have stood their ground, not caving in to the crying of people, implementing more bosses with more loot (abolishing the Valor points for everything except some hard to get pieces like wands/relics/shields maybe) for the T11 and giving alternative ways of obtaining gear for raiding (like level cap normals were in TBC, more entry level epic crafts without retarded chaos orbs). Gradually this would seep into the minds of people.

I'm pretty thankful to have experienced the old style of dungeon crawls, 4 hour BRD, the ringing of ZF gong, getting lost in Sunken Temple and Uldaman, clearing Scholo for my pally quest and last but not least, my first DM run ever. Quests, NPCs, stories, danger everywhere. It wasn't fun all the time, but it was rememberable and grand and this was the way I wanted to remember WoW, not the washed-out, soulless generic grind it has gradually become.

[AeneasBK]

Look at all the insults strewn through your posts. All the internet meme terms and put downs you have for others.

I never have a problem with the quiet casual who does really bad DPS in LFD or LFR. It's the loud mouth trash talkers who throw insults at "bads" that are at the heart of why the WoW community is so ugly these days.

For the record (as you've clearly established your judgement here :P) the only thing that I try not to tolerate in WoW are the trash talkers. Like yourself (although this may hurt to hear) I too, have no issue with people being bad at the game. In fact a players skill at the game is NEVER an issue for me. How they treat others, however, is. And don't make the mistake of assuming because I fling a few derogatory comments at the ass-hats who are ruining the community by being themselves, that I'm there in trade shouting down any and all who post there. Get real. I've played with world class players who are also the nicest people you could hope to meet, so the elitist attitude has always annoyed me. And if I come across as being elitist then consider the subject matter, and then forgive me for considering myself more "elite" than the idiots who really can't achieve much in game but still feel the need to talk to others like they are shit.

For example, I was in LFR earlier, second half, on first attempt on Ultraxion both tanks die on their first Fading Light. The group descends into "omg tank suks" "L2P fag" and all the rest. From ppl pulling 10k DpS. Not that thier comments would be any fairer coming from someone spouting 50k DpS. The comments are totally unnecessary. If the group had been a server bound PuG, people would notice these assholes and be able to make a better judgement of whether they want to group with them again. Eventually the social retards are left with no one to play with and no one to blame but themselves (read: Vanilla and TBC model). However with the current model people won't even be bothered to argue they just dumbly accept it and move on trying to finish the run as quickly as possible.

BTW, we kicked the DpS, kept on with the same tanks and cleared it no trouble second shot, and every other boss in one.

So yeah, you can make your own mind up about the virtues of LFD or LFR. I feel (and a fair chunk of ppl agree) that these mechanisms remove any responsibility to not be a complete asshole to each other, and over the 2 years since they've been implemented its caused the people who find dickhead behaviour abhorent to just leave the game, and the borderline polite/rude people have no reason not to let rip at the slightest thing anymore.

As you were...

[Yuuki Asuna]

I heard horror stories from members of my guild before LFD and I wouldn't want to go back before then and none of my guildies would either. I played shortly after LFD came out during LK. I wouldn't have patience to sit and find a group of people then have to wait and run out if one member left.

I had this conversation with my guildies a few months ago about what WoW was like during vanilla and BC. And some said if LFD wasn't implemented in the first place, they would keep playing (Note some in the guild didn't like LFD). But considering LFD was released and made a big impact, they said they wouldn't know what to do without it now.

[Destruktion]

Nothing in this game is needed. I'm not sure of the point of your argument.

I was replying to someone about game content that I enjoy leaving the city for in current WoW and now you're telling me I shouldn't enjoy doing these things because it's just bonus content?

My point was that there was no content that offers meaningful character progression. I'm not saying you can't enjoy the bonus activities, I'm just lamenting that those were the only alternatives to raiding and heroics.

How's that different from how it's always been? What % of LBRS runs were done with everyone in the group really wanting to see the dungeon(that they've already done many times before) as opposed to just being there for loot?

Everything gets boring when you do it over and over again.

It was no different in vanilla. And TBC. And Wrath.

People run dungeons and raids for gear. It's kind of the point of a PvE based MMO.

The difference between today's WoW and classic is the tokens. Everybody knew that there were no guarantees when running LBRS or similar for loot, unlike today when tokens are handed out after every single run. Not only that, but in classic there were multiple reasons to run any given dungeon. Heroics are run for VP (and possibly achievements), nothing more.

[SamR]

My point was that there was no content that offers meaningful character progression. I'm not saying you can't enjoy the bonus activities, I'm just lamenting that those were the only alternatives to raiding and heroics.

Sometimes it's the bonus stuff without meaningful character progression that people enjoy the most. You know, like vanilla open world pvp that old timers always talk about. Some might say that the attitude that you won't do something unless you get meaningful character progression out of it was the downfall of WoW.

The difference between today's WoW and classic is the tokens. Everybody knew that there were no guarantees when running LBRS or similar for loot, unlike today when tokens are handed out after every single run. Not only that, but in classic there were multiple reasons to run any given dungeon. Heroics are run for VP (and possibly achievements), nothing more.

I don't see at all how the motivation to run dungeons has changed between vanilla and today. You run it to get gear. Whether from boss drops or tokens. Today people who don't need any gear at all might still run a dungeon for achievements or rep. If anything, there are more reasons to run dungeons today than there were in vanilla when people ran Scholo countless times just to get a stupid tier 0 drop. Why else might someone be making their 12th run of Scholo if not because of gear?

[topitopi]

The fact that an MMO basically needs this system to make money (see Rift adding it and SWTOR adding it in 1.3) speaks against the minority opinions I've encountered against LFD/LFR in this thread. I'm glad most people are in favor of it

[AeneasBK]

The fact that an MMO basically needs this system to make money (see Rift adding it and SWTOR adding it in 1.3) speaks against the minority opinions I've encountered against LFD/LFR in this thread. I'm glad most people are in favor of it

WoW seemed to be doing just fine at the launch of Wrath...

[Nadev]

WoW seemed to be doing just fine at the launch of Wrath...

Because the content was fresh and relevant as a way to gear up for the first tier of raiding, which made finding groups easy?

[ComputerNerd]

LFD/LFR have given us, among other things:

-The ability to be a dick with no fear of reprimand
-No incentive to behave and be a decent player due to the lack of any need for a server reputation
-The ability to gear and see content whilst being an aforementioned dick or general, horrible inconvenience
-A sense of self-entitlement; that your subscription fee permits you to see absolutely everything in the game, rather than that permission coming from the merit of your skill as a player.

A new feature in the game does not make players what they were not already, it just exposes us to it more.
We just didn't encounter them as much because them being removed from a group hurt a lot more, so they tended to have their own little guild/friend groups who were generally as bad as each other.

[Sealbinder]

Removal of LFD would probably drive me from WoW. Spending hours spamming for groups is not social. It is annoying. I seldom did instances before it was released. Now that I have it and can actually enjoy seeing instances it would take away a majority of what I now find to be fun in the game. I now spend much of time in dungeons because of LFD. Before it was released I lacked the patience to look for groups even as a tank or heals. Was just too time consuming and pointless.

LFR I enjoy and it is fun, but I am not as tied to it as I am with LFD since I can only do it once a week. I am still unsure how this hurts the community in anyway other then making it so more people have epics. If your epics are from regular raids or heroic raids your gear may share a color, but not stats or quality. Worry about stats and the quality of the player, not the color of his gear. Purple is just a color. Pay attention to what is really important.

[Julexlol]

Don't blame the features for the morons that come into them. Instead blame the schools who fail at teaching people common sense and the parents for failing to teach manners.

[RickJamesLich]

I'd also like to add, another problem LFD and LFR have created is that you can see all of the content within the game within about a week tops (some players can probably see it all in a bout 2 or 3 days or hitting 85). WoW previously was a game where you'd literally never run out of things to do and places to go. As for the guys saying it took them 3 hours to find a group... I dunno what to say, I've never come close to running into that kind of problem, honestly if you built a good reputation for yourself on the server and weren't a jerk to people, I've never really seen people with that kind of problem. Not to mention it's easy to get around that with guilds too.

I myself gave up wow a few months ago and couldn't be happier, if they did introduce an official vanilla or BC server though, I'd definitely consider coming back.

---------- Post added 2012-05-04 at 01:08 AM ----------

My point was that there was no content that offers meaningful character progression. I'm not saying you can't enjoy the bonus activities, I'm just lamenting that those were the only alternatives to raiding and heroics.



The difference between today's WoW and classic is the tokens. Everybody knew that there were no guarantees when running LBRS or similar for loot, unlike today when tokens are handed out after every single run. Not only that, but in classic there were multiple reasons to run any given dungeon. Heroics are run for VP (and possibly achievements), nothing more.

I definitely agree here, today it's more about just getting epics... before it was actually surviving the dungeon and hopefully getting a reward in the end, hell getting to the dungeon could be a journey.... personally battles in blackrock spire and else where were a blast for me, nowadays if that type of stuff happened, blizz would find a way to nerf it within 2 weeks lol. And I'm not sure about anyone else, but the valor point system to me is just really boring.

[Nadev]

I'd also like to add, another problem LFD and LFR have created is that you can see all of the content within the game within about a week tops (some players can probably see it all in a bout 2 or 3 days or hitting 85). WoW previously was a game where you'd literally never run out of things to do and places to go. As for the guys saying it took them 3 hours to find a group... I dunno what to say, I've never come close to running into that kind of problem, honestly if you built a good reputation for yourself on the server and weren't a jerk to people, I've never really seen people with that kind of problem. Not to mention it's easy to get around that with guilds too.

I myself gave up wow a few months ago and couldn't be happier, if they did introduce an official vanilla or BC server though, I'd definitely consider coming back.

I definitely agree here, today it's more about just getting epics... before it was actually surviving the dungeon and hopefully getting a reward in the end, hell getting to the dungeon could be a journey.... personally battles in blackrock spire and else where were a blast for me, nowadays if that type of stuff happened, blizz would find a way to nerf it within 2 weeks lol. And I'm not sure about anyone else, but the valor point system to me is just really boring.

I'd like to believe that LFR was created primarily as a way for those without the time commitments (such as myself) to see content, not the people who drool on the keyboard and dps with their face.

It's tough finding a group for content that is outdated. That was my experience throughout Wrath being stuck at Naxx gear levels until all emblems became triumph. PUG groups can take forever to find late at night Saturday night, which was at that time the only time I could play, especially on low population servers. It's also difficult staying in a raiding guild when you don't have the time commitments.

I for one would like more difficult instances, but running from Stormwind to Wailing Caverns or Orgrimmar to Deadmines wasn't fun. Wiping in places like Maraudon wasn't fun.

[Furye]

I never understood why people are putting the horrendous grind of BC on a pedestal. Sure, it's easier to get gear now (although it also was easy back in BC). So what?

[Hakto]

Well i'm a late BC player and from what i heard of Vanilla you are lucky as hell.

I first raided Molten Core @ 58 on my hunter.

It has nothing to do with luck, more to do with attitude and a willingness to do things.

[Tychoblu]

Oh why did you have to make me remember those long 8 hours of looking for a tank who'd be willing to tank those dreaded Mana Tombs heroic for me so I would get my pretty blue shoulders...

They NEVER dropped, btw. NEVER!

Mend your soul, go back and solo that shit.

[Furye]

I'd like to believe that LFR was created primarily as a way for those without the time commitments (such as myself) to see content, not the people who drool on the keyboard and dps with their face.

It's tough finding a group for content that is outdated. That was my experience throughout Wrath being stuck at Naxx gear levels until all emblems became triumph. PUG groups can take forever to find late at night Saturday night, which was at that time the only time I could play, especially on low population servers. It's also difficult staying in a raiding guild when you don't have the time commitments.

I for one would like more difficult instances, but running from Stormwind to Wailing Caverns or Orgrimmar to Deadmines wasn't fun. Wiping in places like Maraudon wasn't fun.

What about wiping lbrs just to disband shortly after because people couldn't find the goddamn entrance?

[Nadev]

What about wiping lbrs just to disband shortly after because people couldn't find the goddamn entrance?

Or any instance with an entrance vaguely resembling anything labyrinthine for that matter? Deadmines, Wailing Caverns, Razorfen Downs, etc.

I can't remember anything more unnerving than running right past Undercity on my way to Scarlet Monastery.

[Metallikiddd]

The only thing hurting the game is Kalgan!

[Adramalech]

Or any instance with an entrance vaguely resembling anything labyrinthine for that matter? Deadmines, Wailing Caverns, Razorfen Downs, etc.

I can't remember anything more unnerving than running right past Undercity on my way to Scarlet Monastery.

Ugh, I still get lost finding Maraudon's entrance(s). I've been playing for years and only during the last Lunar Festival did it come to my knowledge that there WAS a direct entrance to the waterfall in Maraudon (to the same location LFD teleports us) in that maze. But to be fair, I've always been one to get lost in, like you put it, anything "vaguely resembling anything labyrinthine". Oh Barrow Deeps, how I loathe you all.