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

[Gags]

I agree that they should add another difficulty level. I like the difficulty of the current encounters but as plenty have said there are certain players who would definitely make use of an easier mode. There is plenty of people who obviously aren't up to the average player for whatever reason, or even people who have a 10m team full of family friends and they want to play whatever class they want and they're group make up is horrible. Why tell these people to either get better or go home, doesn't achieve anything. Adding a difficulty in between LFR and normal wont affect anyone except for the people who would actually enjoy it. It would simply be a toned down version of Normal mode, same mechanics just not as punishing.

And it wouldn't be called easy mode. I would think make it go as follows, LFR - Normal - Elite - Heroic, where elite is the current normal mode. At the beginning of a tier you can start on either normal or elite with heroic being reserved for completion of elite mode, same as current. There really is no reason not to do this, it would be easy to balance since it's just a toned down version of normal and if we use current gear as a example the new gear would be 512 ilvl.

[Alvito]

We don't need to nerf normal. On top of that people need to stop counting on and relying on nerfs to get them past content.

[matthias9742]

Make LFR a selectable difficulty for both 10 and 25 man formats so that guilds can clear them without having to deal with the "community" that blizzard currently makes you run LFR with.
In addition, normals modes should be toned down about 10-15% from where they are at now. If people really want a challenge then they can go do heroic modes.
Another solution for normals is to add a smaller determination buff (2% per wipe, max 10 stacks) to normal modes, but make the time spent per stack like 5 minutes of active boss time and lock out achievement progress for groups that have stacks of the buff.

[clevin]

The question asked how WE would like it handled. My answer is that I see no gap, and see no reason to "fix" anything. You can get almost everything from VP and SPA rep, +Nalak and Oon loot. There's nothing to bridge. If you can't progress as it is now, you need to really go over your raid team/strategies with a fine toothed comb.

Which isn't relevant if you and others would read the damn interview. BLIZZARD sees a gap in the sense that normal is harder than it was in previous xpacs. The perception is that you can't carry 1-2 people in the current tuning in 10s so people who want to raid in a group that they know either a) have to drop people who are their friends or b) not progress. LFR is not an solution since the requirement is for raiding with a known, chosen group of people. Sure, you can be all hardass and say "Get better or get out" but there are some raids that raid socially, more for fun than progression and who in the past could carry 1-2 people in 10 mans and still get ahead. Slowly, but they were fine with that. Now, in ToT, that's not really the case. Most of those people stop an Jinrokh. In HoF, they stopped at Garalon.

Their point was that in Wrath they could tune 10s and 25 differently since they dropped different levels of loot. They can't do that now since both sizes drop the same ilevel of loot, so 10s are tuned to be the same relative difficulty as 25s (yes, I know... ).

Now, IS normal harder than in the past? Honestly, I don't think so, but then we're not trying to carry anyone who's not good. Not to say we're all pro, but we're pretty good and no one is really being carried. When we tried to do that last reset because of a lack of people it failed. So I can see the problem. I just don't see a good solution.

Actually, there IS a solution. Make a new, 10 man only difficulty that's easier than normal. Have it drop loot 0-6 ilevels above LFR and have it share a lockout with normals. So you can raid 10Easy OR 10Normal in a given reset. That lets people play with friends, get some gear and have fun. For those of us who'd rather have a challenge we have 10 man normals and of course, 10 man heroics and the two 25 man difficulties.

[Mnevis]

I think if they put an NPC at the front of each raid who had a dialogue option "Would you like my help clearing this raid, I will increase your power and survivability slightly, but my influence will somewhat diminish the power of the rewards", and you got like 509s for "Assisted Normal" ToT, that would be a pretty reasonable proposal.

It'd be kind of like the nerf npcs for ICC or DS, but not on by default and available at the beginning. Only the raid leader should be able to change it, of course. I also don't think you should be able to switch back and forth by boss, but maybe it would be for the better, for cases like 10m Horridon/Council which were kind of cockblocks compared to later bosses.

Most mechanics in LFR are kind of trivialized, I wouldn't want to see that. The Tortos kick example someone gave is a pretty good one. I think you should still have to master that to get past him, but it would be fine if you could decide to go in there with your average raider at 500k hp instead of 430k hp. Mechanics would still kill you, but a little slower.

For the most part though I agree with people saying that the progression path is there to kill Lei Shen; if people are hitting a wall, it's either they need to put in a bit more work gearing up (which is available, even if it requires going to the previous raid!), or they want LFR style non-mechanics, which I don't hear people asking for.

[brainwashed]

I've read this whole thread and I havnt seen anything that really broaches the main problem... tone down the ramp up dificulty of the first 3 bosses of the tier... Horridon and Council are killing guilds with slightly less organisation/ skilled players... maybe blizzard got the boss order wrong?
if guilds had 3 slightly easier bosses to farm gear from instead of brick walling on Horridon and Council.. none of these posts would even be here.

[clevin]

I've read this whole thread and I havnt seen anything that really broaches the main problem... tone down the ramp up dificulty of the first 3 bosses of the tier... Horridon and Council are killing guilds with slightly less organisation/ skilled players... maybe blizzard got the boss order wrong?
if guilds had 3 slightly easier bosses to farm gear from instead of brick walling on Horridon and Council.. none of these posts would even be here.

True, but it's not just ToT. Some people got stuck on Elegon for a while and a lot didn't make it past Garalon ever.

You're right in that doing the ramp up for the first 3-5 bosses in a long raid will certainly help, but at some point some raids will get blocked. I'd argue that if that happens late enough it's not an issue (say after the halfway mark), but...

[MoanaLisa]

I think what I would do--just to be different--is leave normal difficulty exactly where it is. After a certain number of wipes for the night, say....I dunno....somewhere between 3 and 5 on a boss...provide an optional switch to get something akin to the Determination buff that's in LFR.

Not 5% though...say 2% and then increasing by 1-2% for every valid wipe thereafter. It wouldn't carry to the next boss or into the next time you raid. It would have to be enabled by clicking on it manually for every fight.

Those that beat the raid without it being enabled get the achievement credit. If it's active when you get the boss down, gear drops but no achievement.

That's how I'd fix normals. People could eventually get past bosses, get geared up on drops and then return later on to do the raid boss/raid without the buff or wouldn't wipe enough times to trigger it and receive their achievements.

Last thing: For the wipe to count toward having the buff available or increased, you'd have to get the boss down to at least 50% or so and have the trash leading up to the boss done. That way you couldn't cheese the raid by wiping repeatedly just to get to the buff.

[Galbrei]

I personally "handle" the gap by skipping it. If Blizzard wants to make LFR and Normal mode more near each other in terms of difficulty I hope they do so my increasing the bar on LFR rather than lowering it on Normal.

[juzalol]

Different lockouts for 10 and 25 man raids so the more experienced raiders can raid with their less
skilled friends and do pugs and such.

And honestly, there isn't any reward from doing normal modes. You get all the same stuff but with
higher item level which is completely pointless if you don't plan on progressing in the first place.

Players will leap over the gap if the carrot is shiny enough.

[ComputerNerd]

blizzard has said atleast 3 times this xpac that lfr is the catch up mecanic for those that started late in the xpac so that wont happen. also if blizzard did make lfr/normal/hc share a lock out you would never clear a section also queues would be atleast treble what they are atm.

blizzard also said atleast 2 times that lfr is there to get you gear that just wont drop on normal

If LFR is considered an easier and additional gearing route with lesser gear, then they have gone back on the very reason they normalised 10 and 25m raiding in the first place.
I am not convinced that is what it was meant to be, nor should it be.
They screwed up because LFR is a bit of everything and completely lost as to what it role it really should be playing.

As a catch up it could have the same lockout as the others, and still remain valid for that.
The problem is it can be in addition to normal or heroic, and that is exactly the same problem which saw smaller guilds penalised by the separate 10/25m formats.

Put everything on the loot lockout format.
Do not prevent them from raiding in another format, but simply deny them loot from the same boss in different formats.

[Definition]

The gap isn't really a problem, it's less than the gap between normal and heroic, really.

[Xeraxis]

Add heroics so ppl can gear up without LFR and it's RNG.

Yes add an RNG element to solve an RNG problem that will surely work.

[Deleted]

I really really miss the WotLK raid model with having seperate lockouts, 25 being harder than 10 with higher item level.

It was so fun being able to pug a lot, it was fun gearing up alts. Gearing up alts in 10 man normal/heroic and 25 normal was 100x more fun than gearing them up in LFR. Since LFR came in I lost complete touch with the realm. Before LFR, I knew almost everyone on my realm, as I was pugging several raids a week with several alts, putting the pugs together, knowing who was good, who was bad. Who I wanted to pug with etc. Pugging with the same people week after week etc. That just doesnt happen at the same extent anymore, and I really wish that. WoW has become so unpersonal. Not to mention that LFR is boring as crap. Nobody is talking, nobody cares, everyone is just there because they feel forced to get free epics.

I really wish that LFR was removed at the moment, the benefits does not justfiy the drawback of dumbing down the community and removing the interraction between players on a realm, and that it went back to seperate lockouts.

[Durandro]

None of those options would work.

There just needs to be more 'ramp up' in the difficulty of a raid, at least on normal mode. For 10 and 25 man. First few bosses should be very simple, and give a smattering of loot that should help people gear up for the next few bosses who are a bit more challenging. Finally the last few bosses should be very challenging, almost on par with early heroic modes.

Thing is, they sort of did this already with previous tiers. Dragon Soul did this to a degree (ignore the quality of the content, just the difficulty), Morchok was a complete joke, Yor'sahj was simple when you learned the mechanics and Zon'ozz only required simple raid cordination. Then Hagara required more coordination and knowledge of the tactics, with Ultraxion being a DPS and healing check that pushed people to play better. Blackhorn was even more challenging, requiring good burst dps, raid awareness, cooldown usage and priorities on killing certain adds. Then Spine was an utter hellhole for many non-hardcore guilds that they struggled with for ages, with Madness being the only issue with my example as it was slightly easier then Spine (though still more difficult then half the rest of the raid). The heroic modes then ramped up almost in the same order, with Zon'ozz being the sore thumb due to the sheer amount of healing required.

If they just keep doing that, people will do fine in normal modes. The problem with ToT was Horridon being a brick wall right after Jin'rokh, and the rest of the dungeon being relatively simple in comparison up until Dark Animus.

[MoanaLisa]

Make LFR a selectable difficulty for both 10 and 25 man formats so that guilds can clear them without having to deal with the "community" that blizzard currently makes you run LFR with.
In addition, normals modes should be toned down about 10-15% from where they are at now. If people really want a challenge then they can go do heroic modes.
Another solution for normals is to add a smaller determination buff (2% per wipe, max 10 stacks) to normal modes, but make the time spent per stack like 5 minutes of active boss time and lock out achievement progress for groups that have stacks of the buff.

I swear I hadn't read your post when I did mine centering around a version of the determination buff that's only slightly different from yours. Really.

LFR as selectable for premade groups is an excellent idea and I can't imagine that it would be overly difficult to code.

[tuesday the paladin]

A 10 man LFR level difficulty raid that drops thunderforged raid finder gear with the same loot system of normal and heroic that also shares lockouts with normal and heroic. Requires you to put the group together and run to the dungeon. Would work well for fun/alt runs or pugs but if you're actually killing bosses in normal/heroic you wouldn't bother with. An additional perk would allow lower guilds still working through toes/hof and stuck at an earlier boss to get a bit more gear.

[Radio]

I voted for an easy mode but in all honesty I'd prefer:

Non-Linear instance with appropriate difficulty ramping for the "linear" paths in the instance. 'Somewhat' similar to ulduar.

Example:

(elite drops normal loot table with guaranteed 1 extra TFed piece)

Wing 1: (easy linear)
- 3 bosses
1. easy
2. easy + gimmick
3. easy + adds, tier, elite mode if encounter done special way

Wing 2: (medium-hard varied)
- 4 bosses
4. medium
5. medium + gimmick
6. optional hard
7. medium + adds, tier, elite mode if 6 defeated
- 4 and 5 can be done in any order but both must be beaten to reach 6 and 7

Wing 3: (hard with punishing optionals)
- 5 bosses
8. optional very hard
9. optional very hard
10. optional very hard
11. hard, tier, elite mode if 8, 9, 10 defeated
12. hard, tier, elite mode if encounter done special way

Wing 4: (final moment of awesome)
13. final epic multiphase, tier, bonus phase elite mode if all other elite modes defeated


So, say you only have LFR, normal and Heroic:

LFR:
3 seperate runs encompassing:
- Wing 1 (Fights 1/2/3)
- Wing 2 (Fights 4/5/7)
- Wing 3/4 (Fights 11/12/13)
- all optional fights deactivated

Beer League/Easy Mode:
- Run normal mode doing fights 1, 2, 3, 4/5, 7, 11, 12, 13
- can add optionals when comfortable
- avoid elite

Normal progression:
- Start with beer league run if new guild
- do optional fights + elites until all elites beaten

Semi hardcore Heroic progression:
- must beat all normal elites to unlock heroic
- beat heroic edition of beer league run
- optionals when feeling confident
- avoid heroic elite

Hardcore Heroic Progression:
- beat all heroic optionals / elites
- beat final heroic elite to win race

[Xionyus]

This is going to sound harsh but, if you can't down normal mode, you/your guild/someone has a problem. There shouldn't be a change. There should be a difficulty between Normal and Heroic before there's one between LFR and Normal. That's just my opinion.

[Akylios]

Isn't every 25m raider just going to vote for option 1?

My entire guild would leave the game if 10m raids would be made easier. None of us cares for 25m raiding, yet every single one of us wants challenging raid content. I'm pretty sure there are quite a few 10m raiders who feel the same way, so I'm not sure what Blizzard would gain by simply telling us to fuck off and leave their game. So I wonder why this is even listed as a viable option?