How would you like to handle the "gap" between LFR and Normal raiding?

[Shahad]

You can afk through a 25 man AFK. I doubt you can afk through 10 man afk (don't know any "family" 25 mans).
Everyone's skill level is different, what is fine for some family guilds (i've ran with 11/12+ family guilds) isn't fine for others. If lfr was so easy there wouldn't be 6+ wipes on durumu / lei-shen when they came out.

Increase LFR difficulty by 10-15% (we don't want to alienate too much of community after all) and make it a new raiding mode. (Something i suggested only 26 pages ago)

The goal isn't to be faceroll easy like LFR. Even making LFR 15% harder probably isn't enough.
If I take the example of a friends and family guild I know, they started progressing at a decent pace in T14 once T15 came out with the T14 10% nerfs. And they are still pretty terrible, but at least they can get a real sense of accomplishment when clearing a new boss because it is still hard enough to be a challenge. 10% down from Normal is all that is needed, with the same mechanics as Normal.

[Deleted]

my answer: none of them. Why you wanna close a gap? LFR is LFR and should be treated as such. If you wanna improve your gear, go and organize groups. If not, then not. My wish is that they remove LFR completely, this would stop ppl complaining about "gaps".

[Firebert]

My wish is that they remove LFR completely.

Why do you want to kill raiding? Because that's the end result of removing LFR.

[Deleted]

Why do you want to kill raiding? Because that's the end result of removing LFR.

Kill raiding? Perhaps for those who dont wanna run with organized grps or contribute to organize them. Also, LFR has little to do with Raiding, most aspects of Raiding are switched off in LFR. Bosses have same names and drop some loot, but thats it.

[Pua]

Having to carry skill-wise impaired player(s) is never going to be good for the group. Gear will come eventually, skill... not so certain. Endurable for short period of time, but in long shot other players are just gonna get frustrated and eventually quit or switch guilds. Of course it's impossible to have everybody exactly on the same level, but having large skill gaps usually means problems for raid team.

Statistically, raiding thrived when casual or lesser skilled players could into the content and play with their friends. The game increased in popularitly.

Now that you can no longer do this, raiding is dying - and alarmingly quickly.

---------- Post added 2013-05-30 at 03:52 PM ----------

And yet they all can be cheesed.

Not by new players.

I don't know how many times I'm going to have to say this.

New players are not going to be capable of doing what you're suggesting, as well as doing their own job (and learning it).

[Firebert]

Kill raiding? Perhaps for those who dont wanna run with organized grps or contribute to organize them.

Less people seeing the raid means raiding is less viable to create as endgame content.
Less viability of raid content means funds pulled away to other content.
Less funds means less quality raids, a la Firelands.
With no LFR, it's a self-feeding loop that will just end up killing raiding.

Also, LFR has little to do with Raiding, most aspects of Raiding are switched off in LFR. Bosses have same names and drop some loot, but thats it.

LFR is raiding by definition.

[Deleted]

People have always been choosing the best possible players available to them when pugging. Asking about their experience, checking the armory, and in WotLK even going by the gearscore was and is the common practice.



24.44% of the raiding guilds that have been registered on WoWProgress have killed Jin'rokh heroic or more in Throne of Thunder. That is a big demographic of all the raiders.

Gearscore was horrific - I'm very glad I exceeded the stage where it was necessary because it was just a wankfest. But I take your point. It's also nice to actually see someone in a top guild in here giving an opinion.

Mechanically I find Jinrokh heroic a lot easier than Lei Shen - aside from having your usual suspects in the raid eating lightning, it's not a truly tough fight. I'm not sure where the cut-off in heroics comes because, alas, I've not reached it, but 2/13hc seems to be a common progression.

Being in a bigger guild though Keoren, since Immersion are, by anyone's standards, brilliant, (hai to Metaz from an ex-Barbarian btw), do you worry about what you can replace your guys with when they retire given that the modern playerbase isn't raiding anything hard enough to teach them?

[Lumineus]

Kill raiding? Perhaps for those who dont wanna run with organized grps or contribute to organize them. Also, LFR has little to do with Raiding, most aspects of Raiding are switched off in LFR. Bosses have same names and drop some loot, but thats it.

You misunderstand. LFR's popularity is what justifies raid development in the current paradigm. Kill LFR? Enjoy your five boss raid tiers.

OTOH maybe they'd actually feel compelled to make new dungeons... TBH I would have happily sacrificed all six of the sewer bosses in ToT for a couple of five mans.

[Firebert]

OTOH maybe they'd actually feel compelled to make new dungeons... TBH I would have happily sacrificed all six of the sewer bosses in ToT for a couple of five mans.

Even though ICC (and Dragon Soul) was far too long, I enjoyed the "some 5-mans for catch-up and a new raid" patches. Re-using the Burning Crusade model of stacking raids is just stratifying the population out, and it shows (on wowprogress). Having falling subs is also making the problem worse.

[Pua]

OTOH maybe they'd actually feel compelled to make new dungeons... TBH I would have happily sacrificed all six of the sewer bosses in ToT for a couple of five mans.

I think new dungeons is the way to go. Given a choice between raids and dungeons, we can safely say that the overwhelming majority of players would opt for the latter.

[Nobleshield]

As an aside, what about having more than one raid instance but on the same tier, or perhaps like a half tier behind a la MSV? That way you don't have a huge 12 boss raid that burns people out, but two 6x bosses, or an 8 and a 4 or any combination thereof to differ things?

[Keoren]

Mechanically I find Jinrokh heroic a lot easier than Lei Shen - aside from having your usual suspects in the raid eating lightning, it's not a truly tough fight. I'm not sure where the cut-off in heroics comes because, alas, I've not reached it, but 2/13hc seems to be a common progression.

Lei Shen normal is the more complex of the two while Jin'rokh heroic tends to be more punishing. I think they are in a pretty good position. The early heroic modes in general are a very popular and reasonable extension to the normal modes for many.

do you worry about what you can replace your guys with when they retire given that the modern playerbase isn't raiding anything hard enough to teach them?

I am concerned by both the lack of interest in raiding and the shrinking of 25-man raiding. I welcome the playstyle being promoted and raiding being made more accessible. I also think that normal modes should keep on providing an adequate challenge to the players. This extends the lifetime of the content, prepares the players for the heroic content, and means that the heroic tuning doesn't have to be adjusted downward. The ideal design in my eyes would take all this into account.

[Ninotchka]

More than one option for progress removes a whole ton of issues. The last time I pugged anything was one tier 14 "Sunday night I'm bored and our raid group didn't touch MSV this week".

People like the massive raids, but you can bring the epic without it being a single straight line.

This expansion has been extremely alt unfriendly so I haven't had a geared alt until just this week. And with the single ToT lockout I can't go knock around on my main and help less-progressed guilds in current content. So many guilds on our server have post-traumatic stress over Elegon and Garalon so there aren't even any tier 14 kickaround pugs.

If I were in charge of raid design, I would have released this tier as two raids. One of them (Throne of Thunder) goes Jin -> Horridon -> Council -> IQ -> Twins -> Lei Shen, the other (Forgotten Depths) goes Tortos -> Meg -> Jikun -> Primordius -> Durumu -> Animus. Tweak down the tuning on Tortos somewhat since it's the other 'entry level' boss, tho still keep it harder than Jin. Maybe make it so that you can't access Lei Shen without someone who has killed Animus in the raid.

Of course I'm making timing choices in hindsight.

But anyhow, this leaves your "scrub" guild with two options at any given time. If your raid leaders chose to focus on one raid for a given week you would have more geared raiders with available lockouts looking around for stuff to do on Sunday/Monday pugs.

Linear raid design with blocking bosses is bad. Choices are good.

[Keoren]

Choices are good.

I definitely agree with this. Non-linear tiers give the guilds more options. Raiding in a pipe restricts the players and is not an interesting design.

[Deleted]

As an aside, what about having more than one raid instance but on the same tier, or perhaps like a half tier behind a la MSV? That way you don't have a huge 12 boss raid that burns people out, but two 6x bosses, or an 8 and a 4 or any combination thereof to differ things?

No you don't really do the endbosses justice by spreading it out in different instances. Somehow when I walk into an instance its nice to know that the endboss has a lot of henchmen it does give you a certain sense of a journey.

T5 and t11 where just kinda annoying, they blow of some big lore characters, but you feel so yea ok thats it thats all you have you ain't that tough.
Especially al-akir ended up being a huge huge disappointment.

I would much rather have the wing approach there you get different choices to get further.

Also when done correctly you have the ability to slowly ramp of the difficulty over the instance instead of jumping between instances because now the next easy boss in the flow chart is in that other instance so we have to go there.

[fangless]

Less people seeing the raid means raiding is less viable to create as endgame content.
Less viability of raid content means funds pulled away to other content.
Less funds means less quality raids, a la Firelands.
With no LFR, it's a self-feeding loop that will just end up killing raiding.

Less people seeing raids means all that? So, for the last 7 years, the raid content was made for ... fun?

LFR is raiding by definition.

And Nicky Minaj, by definition, is a musician.

[Firebert]

Less people seeing raids means all that? So, for the last 7 years, the raid content was made for ... fun?

For the last 7 years there's been enough people seeing raids to justify the content.

And Nicky Minaj, by definition, is a musician.

She is, as is Rebecca Black. If you're trying to say that unpopular raiding isn't raiding then you're quite incorrect.

[celinamuna]

Not by new players.

I don't know how many times I'm going to have to say this.

New players are not going to be capable of doing what you're suggesting, as well as doing their own job (and learning it).

That's a great assumption, let's establish a fact that just because a player is new does make them a bad player.
They can be coming in from another mmo.
They can be talented in following very simple instructions while pressing 5-9 buttons in possibly certain order.
They can be quick learners.

I personally know people who only started playing when DS already came out, and who were in top 30 guilds in US during t14.

While not best case, but before MoP i only had a vague idea of tanking (never actively tanking as anything remotely a main) and don't think i ever tanked any raids.
Yet i've had little to no problems rerolling and playing 2 completely different classes from my main one, which took me ~half of t14 to accomplish.

So please, let's not make assumptions.

[Leolis]

Personally I have put a lot of thought into this and the whole thing got shot off when Blizzard says something around the lines of "Family and friend" oriented. Which means hell a 4th type of raid difficulty.

So going off that system (i know there will be tons of flak and criticism for this but hear me out) the option of a 5 man raid could be explored. The ilvl would have to be tweaked heavily so as example if it was done this tier we would see this.
LFR - 502
5 Man - 516
10 Man - 522
25 Man - 528
Bear in mind these are ball park numbers and not including heroic or "thunderforged" type items.

The 5 man fits a family and friends type of setting because there are many instances were I have seen very good players who are friends and family in groups of 4 - 6 people average and they cannot get stuff done not because they are bad but because they cannot find other good players or if they are to go into a bigger guild the guild cherry picks them (which they have to do for bigger group progression) but going about it to where higher man raids yield better iLvl as it should be will make it to where its not a slap in the face to those doing 25 or the big league players. In addition realm first achievements should be separated in this regard: 5/10/25 should each have their own and 5/10/25 share lockouts.

Now 5 man difficulty will be on par with 10 and 25 so its like doing challenge modes almost but with trusted friends and family. Loot is 1 per boss where mounts or pets are on a separate chance.

I know the idea sounds really out there but when you really think about that "family and friends" setting most of them cant get a 10 man going to save their lives, the groups big enough will do 10 because they wont wanna leave people out but those not large enough will want to stay in house without risk for drama and stick to a 5 man setting. To them they want to say hey look we are skilled enough to deal with hard mode but we lack the time and numbers to get into a 10 and 25 man guild. They would work just as hard as other raiders to get stuff done but as we all well know not everyone that is "family and friends" are good so there will be a lot of people saying they can't do it. And if that happens well there is nothing more to be done except say: Get better and L2P.

[Pua]

That's a great assumption, let's establish a fact that just because a player is new does make them a bad player.

Of course it's an assumption; but the premise that a new player will not have the same capabilities as an experienced one, in the vast majority of cases, is self-evident.

The drop in raiders throughout tier 14 certainly implies that this is the case, while the craziness of progression races these days is burning players out.

While not best case, but before MoP i only had a vague idea of tanking (never actively tanking as anything remotely a main) and don't think i ever tanked any raids.
Yet i've had little to no problems rerolling and playing 2 completely different classes from my main one, which took me ~half of t14 to accomplish.

How long have you been playing World of Warcraft?

How long have you been raiding?