Can we have casual gear progression content that isn't a raid?

[MoanaLisa]

I am amazed at how smoothly Blizzard got people to accept the shift from "do it at your own pace" to "wait a week for a couple of months for the same thing", but I think that eventually people will wake up and see Blizzard's shady ways.

A for-profit game studio bakes in ways to keep people playing their game. Yeah, very shady. I would suggest that if you're searching for ethics violations and the like in your MMO gaming, you might be taking it a wee bit too seriously.

[zimzum2523]

I think the problem is that the 5 mans were such garbage this xpac that blizz completely gave up on them instead of making them better. 5 mans have been a huge part of this game for a lot of people, and scenarios are just not the same.

[Thelxi]

A for-profit game studio bakes in ways to keep people playing their game. Yeah, very shady. I would suggest that if you're searching for ethics violations and the like in your MMO gaming, you might be taking it a wee bit too seriously.

WoW broke all records when it was just the actual raid content having weekly lockouts, and has thrived beyond imagination for years with just actual raid content having weekly lockouts. Suddenly pre-raid content being on the weekly lockout is a very new thing, and yes it is shady considering the age of the game.

I actually have a very high tolerance for Blizzard's greed, because honestly they don't cross the line and provide great service I haven't found in any other game. However forcing me to suddenly play much more than ever before achieving the same things, while punishing me for taking a break will make me speak up. You'll see the light too, eventually..

[TheBigPapi]

I'm starting to think people are forgetting that WoW is in fact an MMORPG and not an RPG. Blizzard has already, for the most part, killed raiding and made this game a solo experience. Solo gear progression would most certainly be a final nail in the coffin

[Ronduwil]

Blizzard has already, for the most part, killed raiding

What are you talking about? They've killed off every multi-player activity except raiding. That's all there is to do if you want multi-player content. Even the "casual" experience is now focused on LFR, a watered down version of raiding. The reason raiding is in decline is that all those other multi-player activities that used to form bonds between players strong enough to entice them to raid together are gone. The only multi-player incentive to play now is raiding.

[Osmeric]

The reason raiding is in decline is that all those other multi-player activities that used to form bonds between players strong enough to entice them to raid together are gone. .

No. The reason it's in decline is that the only form of raiding suitable for most players, LFR, doesn't require such bonds. Normal mode raiding has been made too difficult/complex for all but a small portion of the player population. Exclusivity excludes.

[Ronduwil]

No. The reason it's in decline is that the only form of raiding suitable for most players, LFR, doesn't require such bonds.

You said no and then pretty much repeated what I said. What gives?

[Osmeric]

You said no and then pretty much repeated what I said. What gives?

No, what I said was different. If normal mode raiding were detuned to be accessible to many more people, but all the preceding content was still doable in social isolation, raiding would not be in decline, or at least not nearly as badly in decline as it is now.

This is why they're adding flex mode -- it's the detuned mode that normal mode should have been.

[MoanaLisa]

Raiding has never been a majority thing though. Not even close. The best gear was always there to be a carrot to the average player to get into raiding. Over the years this has failed to a great degree for a lot of reasons not least of which are the problems of coordinating large groups, people not being interested in being that good or going through the trouble to do that and then on top of everything put up with progressive raiding guild culture, and a raiding community that has never in my memory presented a public face of being openly welcoming to those new to the game.

Putting the best rewards into something that most people continue to refuse to do has been a failure in attracting a lot of people to that thing.

I understand that a lot of people like to think that the best rewards go the best players or the hardest workers but it's much more likely that it's always been about getting people into raids.

Hence the need to provide additional ways to get to those rewards outside the framework of raiding. It can still be difficult, it can still be the result of a considerable amount of time and effort but the normal/heroic format for raiding (in any size) simply hasn't interested enough people to warrant continuing to gate the best stuff behind content that few people run.

[Attackrabbit]

Normal mode raiding has been made too difficult/complex for all but a small portion of the player population

This one always makes me laugh good and hard

[Osmeric]

This one always makes me laugh good and hard

But are you denying that is true? Note that "more difficult than someone wants to bother to do" does count as too difficult.

[TheBigPapi]

But are you denying that is true? Note that "more difficult than someone wants to bother to do" does count as too difficult.

Its human nature to take the easy way out when rewards are virtually the same for 2 very different amounts of effort put into something (IE: choosing to run LFR raher than do Normals/HM). People dont want to do harder raiding because it requires them to actually play at a certain level and put some effort into the game. They choose to run LFR because it is convenient and simple. Anyone who says that normal is too hard and time consuming is either kidding themselves or would rather cop out than admit the truth. Many people with jobs, children, etc raided from vanilla up until Cata. If someone wanted to raid, they had to match the level of the raiding guild they played with. Now, its becoming less and less an MMORPG and more into an easy solo RPG. The time and effort required to raid hasn't suddenly become too much for people. That's an illusion. People who either don't want to raid on a schedule or were never good enough too have free gear with no effort or guild requirement. Now, there's simply a choice and people have taken the easy way out. This has rapidly increased the deterioration of the community and drop in subs. Instead of admitting it, people get defensive if you mention changing or taking away LFR. But then again, thats just human nature too...

[Jtree]

?
Don't even mention heroic scenarios, chance to get reward there is abysmally small, I haven't got an item from daily bag, and was doing hc scenarios daily from release. It would take much longer than eternity to gear up your char from hc scenarios.

What other options? Gearing in 489 (as Shado-Pan Assault vendor would be out of use without ToT LFR)? 489 are new grays. As we have no new 5-men, there will be no reason for non-raiders to play till next expansion. Playing only on expansion days is much-much worse than playing only on patch days. Subscribers' money wouldn't be enough to sustain raiding scene at all, if not whole game altogether.

Your string of bad luck doesn't devalue the loot available from heroic scenarios; I've seen the counter claim that someone got a piece eight times straight. And calling 489s "new grays" is just silly hyperbole. Even if Blizz did add a set of dungeons to 5.4, the loot would be around 502, just enough to get you into the next tier's LFR. I can say that with confidence because patch dungeons have only provided entry-level epics for the last three expansion. This time around we have LFR, which makes raid caliber gear sufficiently available for modest effort. Frankly, I've yet to feel LFR to be a less reliable gear grind than any other previous method that relies on random drops.

Unlimited leveling in first MMORPGs (Yserbius, etc.), non-binding gear in UO, RO, Lineage... and so on.

If to think of it, only WoW is entirely raid-centric in terms of character progression. Not even all it's clones follow this.

As I said it before, WoW feels sterile outside raids. And with leveling being so lightning-fast and inconsistent, for many people game ends much faster than before, leaving no motivation to play outside patch days.

WoW has no clones, only poor imitators and also-runs. XD

In the world, I think this expansion has proven to have the most patch and lore content yet. Isle of Thunder is easily on par with Quel'Danas or the Argent Crusade for a world quest hub and story point. And we also got the Kasarang invasion in 5.1 and the Barrens rebellion in 5.3, with related scenarios, that have advanced this expansion's story more than any previous one. Blizz has kept very busy, they're just not adding anything that hands out rewards with the speed and reliability of a Pez dispenser.

[Dilbon]

This game needs puggable raids that are about as difficult (=easy) as Naxxramas or Obsidian Sanctum (without dragons). It was the beginning of Wrath when many people raided because those raids were rather simple and pretty much anyone was welcome to join. Hopefully flexible raids will bring that back.

[TheBigPapi]

This game needs puggable raids that are about as difficult (=easy) as Naxxramas or Obsidian Sanctum (without dragons). It was the beginning of Wrath when many people raided because those raids were rather simple and pretty much anyone was welcome to join. Hopefully flexible raids will bring that back.

Pretty sure LFR is a pandoras box they're gonna have alot of trouble getting rid of. Flex raids is a step in the right direction but it's gonna take blizz just as long to build up the raiding community as it did to destroy it. So thats atleast another expac or 2 of gradual weening people off the teet that is LFR. It would be a long while, if ever, that the raiding scene gets to like it was in wrath

[Treesus]

The players you are refering to don't want to make any effort in order to obtain their welfare epics. In theory it's a good idea but these new generation gamers expect everything served on a plate.

Comments like this are counter productive, and not 100% true it is representative of one extreme end of the spectrum.

As many have pointed out there are alternatives to LFR, but they are starting points the issue then becomes a lack of progression to keep people going. Blizzard runs into the 2 problems.

1) Bleeding Edge raiders feeling required to do one more thing to get the most out of their character

2) People having nothing to do once they complete said casual content.

They are getting better, but even in 5.2 there is some gear you can get to progress, but you now require Rep, which can only be earned in a raid zone. (Technically you can do the weekly quest on Isle of Thunder to earn faction, but its not going to keep many enthralled). Personally I liked Wrath's system, the only way to get Current content rewards was to raid. You could buy previous raid tier items from vendors for JP/Valor depending upon the item. But the "WELFARE EPICS RAWR" group came in and blizzard had to find a way for people to "earn" gear again. But now that is to easy for the aforementioned group. Its a vicious cycle that will never be resolved without angering one end of the spectrum or another (read the vocal minority) the majority of the middle of the road people don't care either way as long as they can have a carrot to chase on the treadmill.

[TheBigPapi]

Comments like this are counter productive, and not 100% true it is representative of one extreme end of the spectrum.

Actually, it has far more truth in it then you might think

[nekobaka]

No. The reason it's in decline is that the only form of raiding suitable for most players, LFR, doesn't require such bonds. Normal mode raiding has been made too difficult/complex for all but a small portion of the player population. Exclusivity excludes.

What else do you expect when Blizzard added a difficulty bellow normal of which its success is based on getting as large of an active playerbase as possible due to the nature of a queue system. Blizzard told those who was PuGing normal modes without a schedule that LFR was their place and behaved the same way to guilded raiders that found T14 too hard.

The developers did it right when they made heroic/hard modes. It was added on top of an existing playerbase as an extension to what they already do and players did not make a fuss about it.

But are you denying that is true? Note that "more difficult than someone wants to bother to do" does count as too difficult.

So if a player is capable of doing something but chooses not to do it then it is deemed too difficult and therefore are being excluded based on a choice? So if I choose to not level then leveling is too hard and I am being excluded from max level content.

[Osmeric]

So if a player is capable of doing something but chooses not to do it then it is deemed too difficult and therefore are being excluded based on a choice? So if I choose to not level then leveling is too hard and I am being excluded from max level content.

It counts from Blizzard's perspective. The devs don't care if someone is lazy, dumb, unskilled, or cursed by a witch. If that person (for whatever reason) is not being entertained by content, but would be entertained if the content were easier, then the content is too difficult for that person.

[Deleted]

Hopefully flexible raids will bring that back.

It won't, because their ilvl will be at the same distance to normal as LFR was before, 12-14 below it. Itemlevel-wise, Flex replaces LFR, and LFR becomes literally useless.