Where have all the Raiders Gone?

[MoanaLisa]

Problem is, people see LFR as too easy, and this makes the LFR achievement worthless when you apply to a guild (I know from first-hand experience).

I don't doubt your experience with this at all. That's why I said that guilds--who are supposedly having difficulties recruiting people anyway--need to put their biases aside. Really it's just a case of "Apply gun to foot...pull trigger" for the guild if they outright refuse to think about it like this.

Is letting a guild collapse better than bringing in people who have seen the fights in LFR, need some help to get up to full speed and bring them along a little bit?

Re: Is LFR Raiding?

Blizzard says it is. Their definition automatically trumps everyone else's definition. They make the rules. It's raiding. You're entitled to your own opinions of course but in this case it doesn't matter.

[Simulacrum]

Nemro... Just stop. I think LFR is raiding. I have Tribute to Insanity pre-nerf, I killed Algalon as current content, I have the Plagued and Black Proto-Drake, I saw C'Thun as current content, my guild died at M'uru (sadly), I was in the group that got server first 25man H Halion. This idea that only "bads" think LFR is raiding is bullshit. I don't have the time to set aside a few nights a week anymore to raid with my friends that like to do progression raiding, so instead of holding them back or making excuses I helped find and gear someone up to replace me then went on my way with LFR. Would I do normals/heroics if I still could? Yes. Does that mean I think LFR isn't raiding? No. You're the ignoring the definition and stating your opinion of a raid as a broad generalization of what every raider ever believes. So, again, stop it. It makes you look incredibly silly.

I guess it's raiding in the sense that you are inside raid instances, but the people who raid this way don't participate in the raiding community (since they don't raid outside of LFR, which doesn't have a community as it doesn't need one to function), and it doesn't stimulate you (or me, at least) in any way, since nothing you do matters. You can literally go afk, and it won't actually matter unless somebody notices and screams that you are afk in raid chat long enough for enough people to care enough to want to stop pulling mobs for long enough to votekick you.

If you're not actually required to interact with the people you're raiding with, is it really raiding? I guess you can use that word to describe it... but I wouldn't.

[Ridesdel]

I will settle this being as impartial as I can
LFR AS RAIDING

First let's define a "raid", and "Raiding" as they are to World Of Warcraft
A "raid" is 1)a form of an instance that requires 10, or more, persons to complete. 2)a group of 10 or more people

"Raiding" has been classically defined as taking a raid group into a raid instance, for the common goal of defeating the raid bosses.
Ok, so "Raiding" has a bit of a wide definition, so lets narrow it down to how it was defined PRE-MoP.
"Raiding" PRE-MoP: A Guild, or Union of Guilds, forming a raid group to enter, and complete a raid on a set schedule.
Now that's a little bit too narrow, so lets get a good middle ground.
"Raiding" Middle Ground: A Guild(s), or a Pick Up Group(PUG) forming a raid group to enter into a raid instance, for the common goal of defeating the raid bosses.
I think we can all agree on the third definition of raiding, can we not? Seems to be the most current definition that fits.

What this means
* By definition, in LFR you are in a "raid". That's settled, LFR DOES take place in a "raid". So drop it.
* By the "classical" definition of "Raiding" LFR is "Raiding"
* By the PRE-MoP definition of "Raiding" LFR is NOT "Raiding"
* By the Middle Ground/Current definition of "Raiding" LFR is "Raiding"

OK, so I have laid out the definition of what I, and I'm sure most people would agree with them, think is "Raiding", but what about the Developers of WoW? What, you mean that they have a solid stance on this? Blizzard says LFR IS "Raiding"?
Sarcasm aside, "Raiding" has a new definition, even if the older "elite/hardcore/vanilla raiders" don't want it to be. Drop it. LFR is raiding.

HOWEVER, that does not mean that everyone who does LFR is a Raider. Raiders have been, and always will be people who work together to gear up, learn fights, and tackle boss fights as they are meant to be. Nearly everyone I know who has raided in the past(pre lfr) will agree that just by doing LFR they do not feel like they are Raiding anymore. That they are merely just seeing the content, not experiencing how it was designed.

Disagree if you want, but please, don't just say I'm wrong. If you don't like how I've defined things, let me know, I'll work with you on adding definitions, and possibly updating this post.

My personal feelings are that LFR does not deserve to be called Raiding

[Osmeric]

To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln...

Q: How many raid difficulties does WoW have, if we say LFR isn't raiding?

A: Three. Saying LFR isn't raiding doesn't make it so.

[Otimus]

I will settle this being as impartial as I can
LFR AS RAIDING

First let's define a "raid", and "Raiding" as they are to World Of Warcraft
A "raid" is 1)a form of an instance that requires 10, or more, persons to complete. 2)a group of 10 or more people

"Raiding" has been classically defined as taking a raid group into a raid instance, for the common goal of defeating the raid bosses.
Ok, so "Raiding" has a bit of a wide definition, so lets narrow it down to how it was defined PRE-MoP.
"Raiding" PRE-MoP: A Guild, or Union of Guilds, forming a raid group to enter, and complete a raid on a set schedule.
Now that's a little bit too narrow, so lets get a good middle ground.
"Raiding" Middle Ground: A Guild(s), or a Pick Up Group(PUG) forming a raid group to enter into a raid instance, for the common goal of defeating the raid bosses.
I think we can all agree on the third definition of raiding, can we not? Seems to be the most current definition that fits.

What this means
* By definition, in LFR you are in a "raid". That's settled, LFR DOES take place in a "raid". So drop it.
* By the "classical" definition of "Raiding" LFR is "Raiding"
* By the PRE-MoP definition of "Raiding" LFR is NOT "Raiding"
* By the Middle Ground/Current definition of "Raiding" LFR is "Raiding"

OK, so I have laid out the definition of what I, and I'm sure most people would agree with them, think is "Raiding", but what about the Developers of WoW? What, you mean that they have a solid stance on this? Blizzard says LFR IS "Raiding"?
Sarcasm aside, "Raiding" has a new definition, even if the older "elite/hardcore/vanilla raiders" don't want it to be. Drop it. LFR is raiding.

HOWEVER, that does not mean that everyone who does LFR is a Raider. Raiders have been, and always will be people who work together to gear up, learn fights, and tackle boss fights as they are meant to be. Nearly everyone I know who has raided in the past(pre lfr) will agree that just by doing LFR they do not feel like they are Raiding anymore. That they are merely just seeing the content, not experiencing how it was designed.

Disagree if you want, but please, don't just say I'm wrong. If you don't like how I've defined things, let me know, I'll work with you on adding definitions, and possibly updating this post.

My personal feelings are that LFR does not deserve to be called Raiding

To all of this, I just say: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

this is basically what people are doing, but -Scotsman +Raider

[jbombard]

Indeed. All the raiders are in LFR. I think the better question is when did accessibility become more important than community? And why?

[Tenjen]

some people are bringing up "the massive gear grind"

errrr what? the gear grind has been phenomenally reduced compared to each previous expansion, which have each time reduced the gear grind both on terms of gear sets needed, ease/difficulty of obtaining gear, sources for gear, number of "tiers" of gear needed to access additional content,

[Vaelorian]

I made a topic about what you consider LFR > http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...l-raiding-quot

As not to derail this thread further (of which I also am to blame).

[HardCoder]

some people are bringing up "the massive gear grind"

errrr what? the gear grind has been phenomenally reduced compared to each previous expansion, which have each time reduced the gear grind both on terms of gear sets needed, ease/difficulty of obtaining gear, sources for gear, number of "tiers" of gear needed to access additional content,

It's pretty easy to obtain gear if you are interested in super duper casual raiding. Anything else, there is still plenty of grind. In MoP with all the "things you can do" available to you, if you want to do every last thing for a character, you can spend hours a day.

If you want to do even better and gear for alt raids so you can funnel gear to your mains, well, heck, you can play WoW 24 hours a day and still feel like you're behind.

---------- Post added 2013-03-21 at 01:31 AM ----------

Indeed. All the raiders are in LFR. I think the better question is when did accessibility become more important than community? And why?

When the people in the community stopped being, on the average, civilized.

[Maelle]

I quit raiding a few months back, partly because the guild me and my partner were running became too much work. The main reason however, and the reason I have not found a new team, is my job requires that I work into about the first hour or two of most guilds raid times AND in the mornings.

Meaning 99% of guilds raiding hours are either too late or too early. I basically have to find a weekend guild I suppose, just can't seem to work up the enthusiasm though as it will almost certainly mean a server move :<

[Deleted]

Its just like Vanilla / TBC. Only that small percent that is good anough is raiding, The rest are doing LFR.

I can tell you straight up , from all the people i know that don't raid any more , they don't want to raid because it's hard , they don't raid coz they don't want to do same content on different difficulties .

In TBC u didnt have 1 raid with 3 difficulties , u had KARA as an equivalent to lfr , really easy and accesible , then u had grull/mag which wre a bit harder and some of SSC/TK bosses that were on par with normals now and Last bosses on par with heroic .

Everything was new , u were done with an easy raid , u went to a new harder one .
Now you're done with easy(LFR) , you go and do THE SAME raid again on harder difficulty , and when you're done with that , YOU GO IN THE SAME RAID AGAIN .

Thats what's killing raiding , doing the same crappy raid 3 times .

[Tomana]

In TBC u didnt have 1 raid with 3 difficulties , u had KARA as an equivalent to lfr , really easy and accesible , then u had grull/mag which wre a bit harder and some of SSC/TK bosses that were on par with normals now and Last bosses on par with heroic .

Erm, Kara was beyond LFR by a fair margin. Most people, according to the devs, never even downed the first boss in Kara, let alone finish it. At the start of BC, Kara was brutal for a lot of people.

Everything was new , u were done with an easy raid , u went to a new harder one .
Now you're done with easy(LFR) , you go and do THE SAME raid again on harder difficulty , and when you're done with that , YOU GO IN THE SAME RAID AGAIN .

First off, LFR is now released later than the normal raid, so saying that you do LFR then normal then heroic is far-fetched at best. At MOP release, you could as well clear normal before LFR.
Second, why is doing a boss 3 times on 3 different levels is problematic while farming the same instance in 1 difficulty level in BC (hi2u 9 months of BT farming) is OK? What's the difference? MMORPGs are all about killing bosses again and again and again to get gear anyway.
Third, the BC model was/is not defensible from any point of view. I know I start to sound like a monk with a mantra by now, but you can't afford sinking such huge resources into instances only a small portion of the player base will see. You have to spread it on the largest possible playerbase, otherwise it is a gigantic waste of resources.

[Deleted]

I'm a long time raider and I'm finally getting to the point where I wonder if it's all still worth it and if I shouldn't just run lfr and be done with it. I've got a job, a steady relationship, a rich social life. MOP isn't exactly most time-friendly expansion if you want to do everything. And even more : normal modes have never been harder than they are now. For me personally, I just can't and don't wanna put in the time anymore to wipe on normal bosses for weeks at a time. My current guild wiped 2 weeks on horridon ... the second boss in the instance. For one of the final bosses, that would be acceptable, but the first 4 or 5 bosses should be tuned so most guilds can down them within one or two nights. I mean, how are we ever gonna gear up enough to be able to handle the rest of the encounters? It just feels like Blizzard makes normal modes so hard to force you to run lfr (because most raiders would just keep to normal if they could, but now they feel like they have to run lfr to get enough gear to be able to do normal modes). So for me raiding has gone from 2 or 3 nights a week running normals and after a while heroics, to wiping on normals for 3 nights a week and running multiple lfr's (another night a week) hoping for some drops there. Throw some alts into the equation (more lfr's) and you can understand why it's getting pretty frustration lately.

[Eisenstein]

I think people are beginning to miss the point. This forum isn't called "Is LFR a Raid". It's called "Where have all the raiders gone". Just because you press "Join instance" does not make you a raider. Just because you pick up a guitar does not make you a musician? Just because you where a ten gallon hat does that make you a cowboy? NO, it makes you a giant dildo so does thinking running LFR makes you a raider. LFR is considered a raid, a matchmaking raid with minimal substance yet still a raid.

The real issue is all the players who have left game, lost motivation, or never really wanted to do the grind of raiding and LFR filled that in for them. Yes, I believe LFR is killing normals but really it's an enabler for the non-try hards to walk away hands clean and not feel like they are missing anything. OK, so sue me I am a try hard and want to see things die at the hardest level possible just for the challenge. When I pop in a new Xbox game I swap to the hardest mode. I mean who wants to die over and over again attempting to figure out the exact pattern for a situation to advance on said level. I'll tell you who, this guy right here and seem slike there used to be more out there like me but maybe I'm a dieing breed.

[NeverStop]

I'm a long time raider and I'm finally getting to the point where I wonder if it's all still worth it and if I shouldn't just run lfr and be done with it. I've got a job, a steady relationship, a rich social life. MOP isn't exactly most time-friendly expansion if you want to do everything. And even more : normal modes have never been harder than they are now. For me personally, I just can't and don't wanna put in the time anymore to wipe on normal bosses for weeks at a time. My current guild wiped 2 weeks on horridon ... the second boss in the instance. For one of the final bosses, that would be acceptable, but the first 4 or 5 bosses should be tuned so most guilds can down them within one or two nights. I mean, how are we ever gonna gear up enough to be able to handle the rest of the encounters? It just feels like Blizzard makes normal modes so hard to force you to run lfr (because most raiders would just keep to normal if they could, but now they feel like they have to run lfr to get enough gear to be able to do normal modes). So for me raiding has gone from 2 or 3 nights a week running normals and after a while heroics, to wiping on normals for 3 nights a week and running multiple lfr's (another night a week) hoping for some drops there. Throw some alts into the equation (more lfr's) and you can understand why it's getting pretty frustration lately.

Tell your team to get better. Horridon was downed by people with 495 ilvl.

[Deleted]

Tell your team to get better. Horridon was downed by people with 495 ilvl.

We killed it last sunday and all our raiders had an ilvl of under 500 (mine was 497 at the time). kthxbye.

But that's exactly what I mean : the average item level of most players was under 500 when 5.2 launched, which means that blizzard kinda forced all those players to run lfr to be able to kill anything in normal. That's just wrong. People that finished T14 normals should be able to smoothly go into T15 without having to run lfr first and be lucky to get drops there.

[oraz4000]

I must say i am surprised by the tuning of normal modes this time around they really are tuned pretty tightly for a t14 16/16 guild.

[Vaalyn]

Still wiping on Horridon - 2 weeks.
Getting closer though and will be an accomplishment when we drop him. Highest ilvl in the raid is 498 with most being 490 or so.

[Deleted]

Still wiping on Horridon - 2 weeks.
Getting closer though and will be an accomplishment when we drop him. Highest ilvl in the raid is 498 with most being 490 or so.

Yep, the "normal" raids need to be renamed "hard" raids or something.

And they could do with adding a normal difficulty to raids while they are at it. long gone are the days when you could trawl trade for the first 10 or 15 likely looking people and hit UBRS or similar and expect to finish it. Shit is overtuned, which is removing raiders simply because they can't actually meet the requirements to raid even if they want to.

Garalon/Elegon can bite a fat one as well. Guild killing bosses in normal modes - fucks sake.

[Osmeric]

Indeed. All the raiders are in LFR. I think the better question is when did accessibility become more important than community? And why?

When the great majority of people who had been playing WoW stopped playing it entirely. What kind of community is it that causes most of the people who try it to leave?