LFD and LFR are hurting WoW gameplay.

[Nadev]

Yes they can.

Make kicking people easier. There is absolutely no excuse for the current "can't initiate more kicks" bullshit. If a person is frequently kicked the system gives a player deserter debuff. This debuff needs to last for a long time, anywhere from a day to a week or so. If it requires 2-3 kicks in relatively short period of time to give a debuff, there's really no way to abuse it since you don't really meet same people in LFR/LFD anyways. And if a player is frequently kicked, they are doing something very wrong, whether it's being an asshole or playing like an idiot.

That would fix every issue. It's that simple really.

What Firebert said.

I'd suggest something more along the lines of having the dungeon journal automatically pop up every time you zone into a dungeon. This allows players to read the descriptions before they get to the bosses and if they still manage to fail, that's on them.

[Firebert]

I'd suggest something more along the lines of having the dungeon journal automatically pop up every time you zone into a dungeon. This allows players to read the descriptions before they get to the bosses and if they still manage to fail, that's on them.

Some people would download an addon that instantly closes the Journal when you enter a dungeon.

Some players don't want to learn. LFR is fine, if undertuned.

[Rifter]

LFD and LFR are great. I would not play wow again if they took them out.

Who cares if people 'get out into the world'? I log in, raid, then log out. Works prefectly.

[Zeveth]

Blizzard can't really fix bad players.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

But they could get an auto kick system that works quicker. Gotta love all the times people are auto attacking boss and winning loot.

[Nadev]

Some people would download an addon that instantly closes the Journal when you enter a dungeon.

Some players don't want to learn. LFR is fine, if undertuned.

And if they do that and still under preform, then they deserve to be kicked.

[Firebert]

And if they do that and still under preform, then they deserve to be kicked.

"Under-perform". That's very subjective.

The only reason you should kick people for "underperforming" is if you wipe on a boss because of their underperformance. If you hit the Enrage timers, you can start kicking DPS. If your tank never blows a cooldown and keeps dying, you can start kicking the tank. If your healers never cast anything except their quickest and most expensive heal, go OOM, and cause a wipe, you can start kicking healers.

Otherwise, what would be the point of DPS/Tank/Healing checks, such as Enrage timers and special boss abilities?

[Alhoon]

Cue the mass outrage of players being troll kicked and not having access to the game their paying for.

"Troll kicking?" In case you mean kicking for utterly no reason, I've never actually seen that happen, even though I run LFR maybe once a month and LFD couple of times a week. There's always a reason, although sometimes the reason is not that big. But if you've been kicked twice or thrice in a quick succession, there is a reason you're being kicked. In an extremely unfortunate situation where you were truly kicked for no reason multiple times in a row by different people, you can still appeal by filing a ticket.

[Firminator]

The best part is that you (the OP) think that this game is supposed to be "hard" to be a good game. But what you are confusing "hard" for is the phrase "time-sink." Not everyone has hours upon hours to spend playing this game. If i could, trust me, i would. But it just isnt possible in my current situation.

Not to mention the fact that the "hardest" part of raiding in general is not standing in shit, hardest part of 25man raids is organizing 25 people, and the hardest part of 10man is getting the right raid comp. The "hardest" part of this game used to be the massive pain-in-the-dick time sink it was, and now that Blizz listened to the massive pleas to lessen it, people are roaring out of ignorance for it to be harder, as if it makes one's epeen larger because one is looking for a "harder" game.

@OP: Stop worrying about other people's enjoyment and worry about your own. If you dont enjoy this game then quit, there are millions of people who like it the way it is. Note: you most likely read "there are alot of people who like it the way it is," when in fact there are "Millions" of people who like it this way.

/end rant

[Firebert]

"Troll kicking?" In case you mean kicking for utterly no reason, I've never actually seen that happen, even though I run LFR maybe once a month and LFD couple of times a week. There's always a reason, although sometimes the reason is not that big. But if you've been kicked twice or thrice in a quick succession, there is a reason you're being kicked. In an extremely unfortunate situation where you were truly kicked for no reason multiple times in a row by different people, you can still appeal by filing a ticket.

Ticket times fluctuate wildly. It would not be worth making a ticket to clear a 24h debuff if the GMs couldn't see your ticket in time.

With unlimited kicking, cue a guild running LFR with 20+ people, kicking all the DPS that share a token with the classes they want to gear up. If your idea was implemented, we'd see many people with the debuff wrongly applied by guilds trying to get the most out of the system for Server/World Firsts.

Plus, I don't think Blizzard want more GM tickets, considering how they've changed the report function and potentially how slow getting a GM to chat with you can take.

[Deleted]

The best part is that you (the OP) think that this game is supposed to be "hard" to be a good game. But what you are confusing "hard" for is the phrase "time-sink." Not everyone has hours upon hours to spend playing this game.

LFD does make dungeons more accessible. But is it really worth it? Does all those millions you talk about find dungeon runs fun nowadays? Most just do them for loot. They want them finished as soon as possible, with no fuss. Not because they don't have time to squeeze in another 10-20 minutes of play time, but because they find the dungeon runs boring and just want their loot as soon as possible.

LFD has turned dungeon runs into a grind worse than any rep or reagent grind in Vanilla.

[Firebert]

LFD does make dungeons more accessible. But is it really worth it? Does all those millions you talk about find dungeon runs fun nowadays? Most just do them for loot. They want them finished as soon as possible, with no fuss. Not because they don't have time to squeeze in another 10-20 minutes of play time, but because they find the dungeon runs boring and just want their loot as soon as possible.

LFD has turned dungeon runs into a grind worse than any rep or reagent grind in Vanilla.

Notice that the person you quoted said nothing about fun. LFD wasn't implemented to make dungeons more fun. They were implemented to remove the large amounts of time spent by players spamming Trade for a group to a Heroic (or by groups looking for the least played role on the server to come to a Heroic), and to provide a bonus for doing so.

The consequence of the removal of this player-created time-sink is that players could go do other things in their time after they had ground out their heroics, which in turn improved the amount of fun they got from playing (less time grinding and more time doing things they thought fun).

If you're looking for a game that doesn't have a grind in it, WoW's not for you.

[Divineknight13]

Yes they can.

Make kicking people easier. There is absolutely no excuse for the current "can't initiate more kicks" bullshit. If a person is frequently kicked the system gives a player deserter debuff. This debuff needs to last for a long time, anywhere from a day to a week or so. If it requires 2-3 kicks in relatively short period of time to give a debuff, there's really no way to abuse it since you don't really meet same people in LFR/LFD anyways. And if a player is frequently kicked, they are doing something very wrong, whether it's being an asshole or playing like an idiot.

That would fix every issue. It's that simple really.

ummm actually ive seen a guy get kicked from LFR then get put back into the same raid with us while we where waiting for more dps

[Deleted]

Notice that the person you quoted said nothing about fun. LFD wasn't implemented to make dungeons more fun. They were implemented to remove the large amounts of time spent by players spamming Trade for a group to a Heroic (or by groups looking for the least played role on the server to come to a Heroic), and to provide a bonus for doing so.

The consequence of the removal of this player-created time-sink is that players could go do other things in their time after they had ground out their heroics, which in turn improved the amount of fun they got from playing (less time grinding and more time doing things they thought fun).

If you're looking for a game that doesn't have a grind in it, WoW's not for you.

The problem for me is not that there's grinds in WoW. It's that LFD has turned one of my favourite parts of the game, dungeons, and made them into something I don't enjoy as much any more. While I can see the need for the LFD tool - and I do think it has it's good parts too - I don't think it's a good enough tool yet and need changing. As for now, it's just too high a cost for easier access. BattleTag could be a step in the right direction, we'll see.

[Kjalar]

LFD has changed the way people do dungeons altogether

I think you're wrong here. It's not LFD that's killing it, it's the low difficulty of the 5-man content. People are self-centered 'by design' and only start acting as a group if they really have to. I remember heroics runs at the Cata start when people had to CC stuff and follow the tactics to clear the dungeon - people had to communicate back then. Also, that design encouraged people to stay in a group that appeared to be good to run more dungeons smoothly. Since current 5-mans can be facerolled through people don't need to communicate and they don't.

[Deleted]

I spent hours (literally) in Dalaran looking for people to run heroics. People being saved, some other leaving, people being 5 minutes away from the instance but refusing to go if not summoned, etc.
Oh, we wiped and two left? Good luck.

LFD is the best thing ever.

[redruMPanda]

I beg to differ. I tried playing other games that didn't have LFG/LFR and it just plain sucked. You had to sit in channels for ever spamming LFG etc etc.

[mysticx]

LFD does make dungeons more accessible. But is it really worth it? Does all those millions you talk about find dungeon runs fun nowadays? Most just do them for loot. They want them finished as soon as possible, with no fuss. Not because they don't have time to squeeze in another 10-20 minutes of play time, but because they find the dungeon runs boring and just want their loot as soon as possible.

LFD has turned dungeon runs into a grind worse than any rep or reagent grind in Vanilla.

Funny that, by late Vanilla (The golden age of WoW, apparently), i was sick and tired of Scholo, Strat, DM and U/LBRS, i've seen every nook and cranny of them dozens of times and they became as big a grind as current heroics are now, except that the vanilla ones were far longer, and as such more off-putting, once content reaches the farming-stage it becomes a chore, and when it comes to that, a shorter chore beats a long one...

[Tekkommo]

If anything, they improve gameplay.

Anything becomes a grind after you have cleared it a couple of times. It's been the same with every expansion.

[Gilian]

The best part is that you (the OP) think that this game is supposed to be "hard" to be a good game. But what you are confusing "hard" for is the phrase "time-sink." Not everyone has hours upon hours to spend playing this game. If i could, trust me, i would. But it just isnt possible in my current situation.

Not to mention the fact that the "hardest" part of raiding in general is not standing in shit, hardest part of 25man raids is organizing 25 people, and the hardest part of 10man is getting the right raid comp. The "hardest" part of this game used to be the massive pain-in-the-dick time sink it was, and now that Blizz listened to the massive pleas to lessen it, people are roaring out of ignorance for it to be harder, as if it makes one's epeen larger because one is looking for a "harder" game.

@OP: Stop worrying about other people's enjoyment and worry about your own. If you dont enjoy this game then quit, there are millions of people who like it the way it is. Note: you most likely read "there are alot of people who like it the way it is," when in fact there are "Millions" of people who like it this way.

/end rant

There were also 11 million people who liked the way it was. I don't know what you were doing there if you didn't like it. It is beyond me that people start playing an MMORPG when they are unable to spend 1,5 hour ingame and unable to commit to a group of people (MASSIVE MULTIPLAYER). What were you expecting?
All I can think is that you are an asshole who just says to himself behind his PC: Fuck them, I will do whatever I want. I don't care this is a multiplayer and those people I play with also have schedules and other things to do instead of watching me screw up, slack and leave groups.

I guess you quit playing at the start of Cataclysm because it was too hard instead of complaining? I doubt it.

Hard =/= time-sink.

[Deleted]

I think you're wrong here. It's not LFD that's killing it, it's the low difficulty of the 5-man content. People are self-centered 'by design' and only start acting as a group if they really have to. I remember heroics runs at the Cata start when people had to CC stuff and follow the tactics to clear the dungeon - people had to communicate back then. Also, that design encouraged people to stay in a group that appeared to be good to run more dungeons smoothly. Since current 5-mans can be facerolled through people don't need to communicate and they don't.

I agree, in part at least. The design policy in WLK that lead to things being more accessible by being faster and easier also introduced LFD. The downside of those changes were diminished social interaction and weaker gameplay (in my opinion, anyway).

Funny that, by late Vanilla (The golden age of WoW, apparently), i was sick and tired of Scholo, Strat, DM and U/LBRS, i've seen every nook and cranny of them dozens of times and they became as big a grind as current heroics are now, except that the vanilla ones were far longer, and as such more off-putting, once content reaches the farming-stage it becomes a chore, and when it comes to that, a shorter chore beats a long one...

I too was sick and tired of those dungeons (with the possible exception of BRD, that place was just too damn fun). You're bound to grow tired of things after repeating them too often. The difference was that I now grow tired of dungeons after a week or two, instead of after a year back then (but then I'm possibly doing the same amount of dungeon runs in a week as I did in a year in Vanilla - har har)

I beg to differ. I tried playing other games that didn't have LFG/LFR and it just plain sucked. You had to sit in channels for ever spamming LFG etc etc.

To be honest, I've never had as fun in ages as I did assembling and running dungeons in Rift before they added their LFD tool. But then I'm pretty good at it, and enjoy the process - something I'm well aware I'm quite a minority in doing. I just wish they had a way of solving the problem with assembling groups without diminishing the social interaction.