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

[Osmeric]

You have not stopped to consider that the devs do not think the problem is the 'gap' (since it does not exist).

Wow. Let's go back to the MMO-C news recap, folks. What did Ion H. say? (Emphasis added)

There is a group of players that wants to do group raiding, but they aren't well served by the current difficulty choices. This would include the friends and family type guilds that don't remove players because they aren't performing at their best. In Wrath of the Lich King, 10 player normal difficulty raiding served these players well, but there is now a gap between Raid Finder and Normal difficulty.

Looks like Ion H. says you're delusional.

BTW, in today's tweets, GC is hinting that the reason raids were tuned this way was to try to keep the previous tier relevant. Nerfed T14 was supposed to fill the gap. His phrasing suggests this didn't work. Not surprising; it didn't work in the T11/T12 transition either (slightly different context of course; no LFR at that time).

[Deleted]

I must be mad.

[Raone]

BTW, in today's tweets, GC is hinting that the reason raids were tuned this way was to try to keep the previous tier relevant. Nerfed T14 was supposed to fill the gap. His phrasing suggests this didn't work. Not surprising; it didn't work in the T11/T12 transition either (slightly different context of course; no LFR at that time).

If they nerfed it a lot more then 10% and it gave better gear then LFR people would do it (good example is ToT when ICC was out, people still did it even though ICC was current ... well till ICC buff got crazy high in stacks. It was a stupid idea to make LFR give better gear, easier to do, easier to setup, and can be done at anytime and anyplace and you can join/leave whenever you want to ... there is no upside to doing the previous tier.

[Deleted]

To quote the stats from my realm that I posted earlier.

I count 25 man guilds as 2.5 guilds because they get 250% more players.
Will present numbers as say 10 (2/5) means 10 'guilds', two 25 man and five 10 mans.
Checking on my realm:

Guilds above 10/13HC: 13 (4/3)
Guilds between 6/13 and 9/13HC: 7 (2/2)
Guilds between 12/12N and 5/13HC: 45.5 (3/38)
Guilds between 6/12N and 11/12N: 24.5 (1/22)
Guilds between 2/12N and 5/12N: 22 (0/22)
Guilds at 1/12N: 24 (0/24)

Guilds in heroic content: 65.5 (9/43)
Guilds in normal content: 70.5 (1/68)

What to notice here is that there are a lot of 'ghost guilds' between 1/12N and 12/12N, guilds that do not exist anymore. Just checking through those guilds the guilds that are actually still raiding in normal content is about half, around 30. One of those 'ghost guilds' is the pug my alt is running in that is 11/12N, that is not a guild, just a pug yet registers at 11/12N.

Basically making 6 kill boss intervals. The place where the players are stack is between entry level heroics and late heroics. This suggests that the biggest gap in difficulty is between normal/early heroics to late heroics. Taking ghost guilds into consideration the early normals is where the least guilds are "stuck". More guilds make it into heroic content than dont, which suggest that the gap is between N and H, not in early N.

[NeverStop]

ToT LFR should have been under 496 ilvl so nerfed T14 would have remained relevant.

[RickJamesLich]

Yes it is. They fail to provide appropriate options with appropriate difficulty. Even if you say it isn't and you plug your ears and stand up and down and scream lalalalla and ignore it the players still leave. If they want to salvage any of their business changes are coming. End of story?

lol, sounds like you are the one that's plugging your ears. Statistics? Where are these statistics? I think it would be kinda hard to have stats on things like heroic challenge modes considering they just came out.... but let's see them. And how do you know that heroic challenge modes don't provide the appropriate difficulty? How can you speak for everyone else? lol

---------- Post added 2013-05-26 at 05:14 AM ----------

It stops when the content is no longer providing enough push back to be appealing. Tthat's the whole fucking point.

Wait a minute lol, I thought that they didn't like normal because "the mechanics were too crazy hard" even for tier 14 right now, and now "LFR doesn't provide enough push back".... so you want something that's challenging but really easy at the same time? Makes a whole lot of sense lol.

---------- Post added 2013-05-26 at 05:16 AM ----------

There is a difference between being a small group among many strangers among different realms and having a small group of friends that can control the pace that a group is going. Have you ever played with friends or players you have befriended in WoW?

Who hasn't played with buddies? The thing is, you can still group up with friends in LFR. As for controlling the pace, you can definitely do that in LFR too if you and your buddies are running it.

[Osmeric]

lol, sounds like you are the one that's plugging your ears. Statistics? Where are these statistics?

Well, there are the public stats from tracking sites on raid participation. If you doubt those, we have the following confirmation from GC that raid participation (outside LFR) is down, and he doesn't think it's due to LFR stealing raiders.

waltteri wiikinkoski ‏@pisuri
@Ghostcrawler Raiding in its current form has lost its niche among the players but i might be wrong. I mean from player participation %

Greg Street ‏@Ghostcrawler
@pisuri Our numbers don't look very different. I am sure LFR stole some folks from 10s, but overall my suspicion is most didn't raid before.

[RickJamesLich]

BTW, in today's tweets, GC is hinting that the reason raids were tuned this way was to try to keep the previous tier relevant. Nerfed T14 was supposed to fill the gap. His phrasing suggests this didn't work. Not surprising; it didn't work in the T11/T12 transition either (slightly different context of course; no LFR at that time).

There's always been a gap between normal mode and LFR, just like there's been a gap between arena and bg's, and normal 5 mans, challenge modes, and heroics.... different difficulties will do that. The thing is now, with 5.3, there's plenty of content for those that are up to par with normal modes but want to do LFR, they can run tier 14, northern barrens, challenge modes, and heroic scenarios. I don't see any chance this easy mode raid thing will come into being, but I guess time will tell.

[Osmeric]

There's always been a gap between normal mode and LFR, just like there's been a gap between arena and bg's, and normal 5 mans, challenge modes, and heroics.... different difficulties will do that. The thing is now, with 5.3, there's plenty of content for those that are up to par with normal modes but want to do LFR, they can run tier 14, northern barrens, challenge modes, and heroic scenarios. I don't see any chance this easy mode raid thing will come into being, but I guess time will tell.

Yes, there is always a gap. What the devs are telling us is that a significant (and presumably sizable) chunk of the player population, the casual guilds who won't kick their friends, fell right into this gap. In other words, the raid design has malfunctioned in a way that the devs are highlighting, presumably because they find the problem serious enough that they feel they need to fix it.

[RickJamesLich]

Well, there are the public stats from tracking sites on raid participation. If you doubt those, we have the following confirmation from GC that raid participation (outside LFR) is down, and he doesn't think it's due to LFR stealing raiders.

waltteri wiikinkoski ‏@pisuri
@Ghostcrawler Raiding in its current form has lost its niche among the players but i might be wrong. I mean from player participation %

Greg Street ‏@Ghostcrawler
@pisuri Our numbers don't look very different. I am sure LFR stole some folks from 10s, but overall my suspicion is most didn't raid before.

Do we know why those numbers are lowered? Did LFR bore these people into quitting? Are they pvping instead? Are these people still playing, but just different content?

---------- Post added 2013-05-26 at 05:26 AM ----------

Yes, there is always a gap. What the devs are telling us is that a significant (and presumably sizable) chunk of the player population, the casual guilds who won't kick their friends, fell right into this gap. In other words, the raid design has malfunctioned in a way that the devs are highlighting, presumably because they find the problem serious enough that they feel they need to fix it.

Agreed, there are definitely some out there, and I think 5.3 is definitely the right way to go. When you think about it, easy mode is self contradictory, if LFR is boring you, why would you want another mode that will essentially bore you as well? Perhaps these people don't want to raid but since it drops the best gear, we should give them ways to gear up aside from raiding - this is what 5.3 is doing, I think it's way better then putting people into something they clearly don't enjoy doing in the first place.

[Deleted]

To back up my previous claim I made a small crude excel file, simply checking how many % of the guilds that killed boss N killed boss N+1.
The results was interesting.

What these colmuns show is:

Column 1: How many guilds have said progress
Column 2: How many guilds that are wiping on a boss in comparison to people that killed it. (in %)
Column 3: Which boss/progress level

Example:

1200 --- Boss 1
1000 20 Boss 2
The 20 means that 20% of the amount of guilds that killed boss 2 is wiping on boss 2.



What we can clearly see is that the biggest "gap" is in heroics. Especially early / late heroics. The gap in normal is barely non existant. The only reason that Jin'Rokh N and the first 3 normal bosses is ranked so high is because of all the ghost guilds and pugs and on raiding guilds inflating the results. In reality they should be lower if you would seed out the inactive guilds / guild migrations / pugs / non raiding guilds.

Quite undeniable that the normal to heroic gap is larger than the gap entering normals.

---------- Post added 2013-05-26 at 05:29 AM ----------

Yes, there is always a gap. What the devs are telling us is that a significant (and presumably sizable) chunk of the player population, the casual guilds who won't kick their friends, fell right into this gap. In other words, the raid design has malfunctioned in a way that the devs are highlighting, presumably because they find the problem serious enough that they feel they need to fix it.

As I showed in this post. The "hardest" normal boss (durumu) had a smaller 'gap' than the easiest heroic boss progression (going from 8/13 to 9/13).

[xenogear3]

96 guilds are 13/13 HC !
This game is too easy.

[Osmeric]

As I showed in this post. The "hardest" normal boss (durumu) had a smaller 'gap' than the easiest heroic boss progression (going from 8/13 to 9/13).

But your numbers tell us absolutely nothing about the gap between LFR and normal. Your numbers aren't wrong; they're just irrelevant.

/shrug

[Deleted]

But your numbers tell us absolutely nothing about the gap between LFR and normal. Your numbers aren't wrong; they're just irrelevant.

/shrug

Nice attempt to avoid data countering your argument.

Step 1. Anyone can kill Jin'Rokh, simple as that. If you wanted to kill Jin'rokh, even if you are a "LFR raider", you could kill Jin'Rokh. Even Jin'Rokh, who has extremely inflated numbers because of previous mentioned reasons, only barely beats a few of the heroic kills, just the early heroics have a gap almost twice as big.

Going from LFR raider to normal raider is not about going 1/12 normal and calling it the day. It is atleast about getting into early normals say 3-4/12.
Which that stats clearly shows us, have a smaller gap than heroic raiding. Even considering that Council and Tortos and Megaera are also heavily affected by ghost guild / pug inflation, though not to the same extent as Horridon of course, they are still not even remotely close to Horridon

Sorry, but you must either be in blind denial or... something I would prefer to avoid saying, not to understand this.

Even while putting "make-up" on the gap in the early normal modes by not considering the inflation, it is still a lot smaller than the gap in early heroics. Which is about 100-400% bigger. Taking the obvious inflation of early normals in consideration, would probably make the early heroic gap about 400-600% bigger.

[Osmeric]

Nice attempt to avoid data countering your argument.

What data? Your post had zero data on LFR participation or difficulty. The data you presented say nothing about the gap between LFR and normal mode ToT.

Also, you ignore the possibility that large numbers of erstwhile normal mode raiding guilds gave up in T14, and never even made it to Jin'Rokh (on my server, more than half the guilds with T14 N progression are MIA in T15). The absolute number of guilds that have downed that boss is troublingly low. The LFR/N gap existed in T14 as well. Indeed, since T15 isn't over, the devs are probably talking about T14 when they talk about the gap.

[NeverStop]

Also, you ignore the possibility that large numbers of erstwhile normal mode raiding guilds gave up in T14, and never even made it to Jin'Rokh (on my server, more than half the guilds with T14 N progression are MIA in T15).

Those guilds probably left their dying servers and transferred to Illidan or Stormrage so they can find better recruits.

[Osmeric]

Those guilds probably left their dying servers and transferred to Illidan or Stormrage so they can find better recruits.

At least on my server, that doesn't look like what happened. Also, a mediocre guild struggling in normal mode is not going to be able to attract many recruits on those top servers.

[Deleted]

Guilds break up, always been happening. Not like guilds said "Dang those trolls in new raid looks scary. Better not even attempt them".

So what you are saying is the there is some magical gap between LFR and Jin'Rokh and right now there are 15600 guilds wiping on Jin'Rokh normal since there is such a huge gap between LFR and normal. Yes, 15600 guilds needs to currently be progressing and wiping on jin'rokh normal to make that gap equal to that of early heroic raiding.

So currently there are, according to you, atleast 150% more guilds progress wiping on Jin'Rokh normal than Horridon normal. Seems completely legit.

Jin'Rokh is the only fight that we do not have full data on as we can not check how many guilds is progressing on it.
If we presume that the LFR raiders actually get Jin'Rokh down. All data after thats supports that the gap after Jin'Rokh is almost non-existant.
So, this magical gap between LFR and Normal needs to be on Jin'Rokh then. Seeing as I have not seen that many (read as: any) threads about "Help my guild on Jin'Rokh normal", and for sure not 150% more threads about that compared to Horridon normal threads, which pop up all the time.

I think it is safe to call bullshit. Or you have some other source showing the public outcry of the overtuning of Jin'Rokh normal forcing over ten thousand LFR guilds trying to get into normal mode raiding falling into the giant ravine that is created by the Gap of the Magical Unicorn (which the gap between LFR and Normal shall hence be referred as)

One word for you: Denial.

[Osmeric]

So what you are saying is the there is some magical gap between LFR and Jin'Rokh and right now there are 15600 guilds wiping on Jin'Rokh normal since there is such a huge gap between LFR and normal. Yes, 15600 guilds needs to currently be progressing and wiping on jin'rokh normal to make that gap equal to that of early heroic raiding.

Or, the guilds have simply given up. I imagine many of the guilds that failed to make adequate progress in T14 decided to throw in the towel. This appears to be the case among many such guilds on my server. Not all, or even most, of them have broken up, btw.

I also don't see many new guilds forming for T15. I'm sure there are a few, but it looks mostly like guilds that were successful in T14.

I think it is safe to call bullshit.

I think you need to hone your reasoning abilities before you start applying that epithet to others. The argument you are attempting to construct does not hold together.

[Ragedaug]

LFR is solo raiding. There is currently no mode of raiding available to scrub players who want to raid and progress as a team. And it doesn't have to be easy enough for 10 mouth breathers to coast through, there are limits, however 8 average skilled raiders should be able to carry 1-2 mouth-breathers or clickers or keyboard turners, etc and still be able to down bosses.

There needs to be a mode of raiding that a team can join up for each week where they can eventually down bosses where they aren't told "the only way you can progress is by excluding your friends and only raiding with highly skilled strangers".