Why do lesser skilled players feel entitled to see content?

[Mulderfox]

LFR isn't just for terribads. Its also for people like me who, in college, had plenty of time to devote to raiding and raid preparation to earn the end game, but have since graduated into real life, where I now have a big boy job and big boy things to spend my time on. I don't expect to be given heroic gear or titles or mounts, but I do like to be able to participate in the entire expansion lore-wise. The rest of that stuff is vanity. Its like, just because I'm not a professional basketball player doesn't mean I should be limited to 1/4 of the court. I just won't make millions of dollars and have loads of fans like the pros.

People are so fixated on ruining others' fun that they miss out on their own. They're their own worst enemy, as far as WoW no longer feeling satisfying.

[Jessicka]

Blizzard will make this game into anything as long as it's going to get more money for them. Things change, 'Back in the days' has passed and the current WoW is a lot better for 90% of the players. As long as blizzard can keep most of those that are happy now, thay will make a profit and keep doing it.

If that means making a few raiders unhappy, fine. But it's not the world first that complain, it's not the social normal raiders that complain, it's not the people who used to raid heroic and now either play LFR or normal that complain. It seems a very small group that complains about LFR. most of which aren't even playing WoW anymore and treaten not to come back every few weeks because of reason A of wellfare item B.

Even if 5% of the players were in this group, it would be stupid of blizzard to give them what they want. Or even listen to much to them.

To be fair, I think LFR is safe. Losing a dozen battlegrounds a week in TBC was perfectly viable for gearing and we still have Battlegrounds. Back then though, players just mocked the "Welfare Epics", I'm not sure what changed to make LFR's equivalent Welfare Epics be worthy of the same respect as Heroic Thunderforged ones that the OP seems to give them, even though these days that and the item level are all spelled out clearly on the tooltip. :S

[Krolikn]

LFR isn't just for terribads. Its also for people like me who, in college, had plenty of time to devote to raiding and raid preparation to earn the end game, but have since graduated into real life, where I now have a big boy job and big boy things to spend my time on. I don't expect to be given heroic gear or titles or mounts, but I do like to be able to participate in the entire expansion lore-wise. The rest of that stuff is vanity. Its like, just because I'm not a professional basketball player doesn't mean I should be limited to 1/4 of the court. I just won't make millions of dollars and have loads of fans like the pros.

People are so fixated on ruining others' fun that they miss out on their own. They're their own worst enemy, as far as WoW no longer feeling satisfying.

The messiah is here! Thank you

[rinleezwins]

There is only one reason. They pay for the game too.

[Yriel]

Similarly, let's say LFR was restricted to one tier behind(like right now you could do t14 but no ToT, it'd drop same gear as normal t14 instead of LFR T14). I'm sure a lot of people would complain. Yet the exact same question could be asked - as long as you have content, why does it matter what other people do?

Bringing game design problematics to personal levels is not the right approach.

I don't even think people would mind that in principle, it would just not work with the first and last raid so Blizzard doesn't do it. People want something to do when they log in and as long as raiding is still the only real endgame blizzard provides you can't tell the people they have to wait for 6 months until they can start their endgame because of the egos of some elitists.

I can exactly tell you how it affects my game (well used to affect, I'm not subscribed anymore):

[...]

So, to sum it up: Raiding guilds need new recruits all the time to keep going. Blizzard took away any motivation from casual players to improve and try to do better, so they don't even think about it. Meaning: Not enough new recruits for raiding guilds. Meaning: Raidings guilds are dying like flies since LFR has been introduced left and right, the population of the game is dwindling and more and more people get bored by the stale and un-social experience this once so great game offers. And that's how it affects me.

Don't you think that the underlaying problem is that many people didn't ever enjoy the activity of raiding and only did it grudgingly to get rewards and now because they do have a more fun alternative you have problems with recruiting ?

Of course they are. Or why, do you think, are non-LFR raiding guilds dying left and right since LFR has been introduced? That's not a coincidence, it has to do directly with one another.

I can only refer to my guild, many players on my guild are quite bad and we couldn't do normals anymore since they got more difficult then back in Cata/Wrath so the raid disbanded.
We were able to do any Wrath/Cata normals while they were current content.

[barackohmama]

There is only one reason. They pay for the game too.

Me and many with me are going to stop paying. cause they have changed the game into a game I dont like anymore. When I buy a game I buy a game I dont want it to get changed into a anti social steamroll game by whiners. This is what's happening and wow is losing subscribers because of it.

[malbojia]

Why do they?

If you are a terrible player who has no chance to ever get into a raiding guild or pug normal modes, why do you expect to see raid content? Thats the reason LFR was implemented but WHY do terribads demand content just for them? LFR was made to see content, but why did Blizzard do so?

I just don't understand how hard can it be to read up on your class for 1 hour, ask a better player for tips and then improve yourself to get into raiding...


I think WoW is going down the toilet if something isn't done soon to stop catering to the majority. Dont get me wrong, im fine with catering to casuals, but not like this. Not this way with giving welfare "special" content just for them rather than incentive to improve your gaming skills.

I've been there, clueless. I learned, asked better players. I've been high rated in PvP and raided top PvE content but we ALL started on the bottom some time. Why cant those who run LFR do the same?

If it wasn't for the "terribads" as you call them...without their sub fees you would run out of pixels/new content to kill and deflate your epeen.

[smiiiff]

Me and many with me are going to stop paying. cause they have changed the game into a game I dont like anymore. When I buy a game I buy a game I dont want it to get changed into a anti social steamroll game by whiners. This is what's happening and wow is losing subscribers because of it.

i hear this a lot. seems that only those that don't whine and thteaten actually leave. but maybe you are different

[Otimus]

How come these people never seem to complain about the real problem: Thew game doesn't teach you anything, and that is absolutely Blizzard's fault. Everyone glosses over this problem, and wants to blame players for flawed implementation of content.


As is, the "Tough" content is designed for people already doing that content, or people who really search for it, which is kind of flawed. It's why there's no new blood coming in. It's desgined very insular, the entire game.


Bad players exist because Blizzard has spent the last 8 years training them that way by making one part of the game work entirely different from the other :x and providing no real systems in game to teach players how to actually play the game :x


If it were the opposite, most anything could introduce challenge without much problem. Instead, everything is either REALLY EASY or REALLY HARD for people. There's no sliding curve of difficulty, and again, the game doesn't teach you anything. You can cap out playing "wrong", and that's not even a new thing :x You could do this in BC (When I started playing!) too. That's a problem.



Anyways, to jump back on the right topic, it's pretty obvious why Blizzard is pushing LFR like they are.

It's so they only have to design assets for only one thing, and put everyone in it, and keep everyone "happy" with minimal effort on Blizzard's part, rather than having to design different content for a multitude of playstyles.

[Aquamonkey]

How come these people never seem to complain about the real problem: Thew game doesn't teach you anything, and that is absolutely Blizzard's fault. Everyone glosses over this problem, and wants to blame players for flawed implementation of content.


As is, the "Tough" content is designed for people already doing that content, or people who really search for it, which is kind of flawed. It's why there's no new blood coming in. It's desgined very insular, the entire game.


Bad players exist because Blizzard has spent the last 8 years training them that way by making one part of the game work entirely different from the other :x and providing no real systems in game to teach players how to actually play the game :x


If it were the opposite, most anything could introduce challenge without much problem. Instead, everything is either REALLY EASY or REALLY HARD for people. There's no sliding curve of difficulty, and again, the game doesn't teach you anything. You can cap out playing "wrong", and that's not even a new thing :x You could do this in BC (When I started playing!) too. That's a problem.



Anyways, to jump back on the right topic, it's pretty obvious why Blizzard is pushing LFR like they are.

It's so they only have to design assets for only one thing, and put everyone in it, and keep everyone "happy" with minimal effort on Blizzard's part, rather than having to design different content for a multitude of playstyles.

Blizzard is hoping to address this with Proving Grounds.

[GoldNSilence]

I don't mind if casual players see content through LFR as long as they have an extra boss or something for heroic raiders.

[Spinalcrack]

The only big issue with LFR is when it comes to new players. Their first exposure to raiding tends to be terrible. LFR groups nearly always have at least one or two idiots in them that either try to wipe the group, or make awful comments in chat, or just afk through boss fights. You combine that with zero socialization and you have a 25 man raid format that presents 25 man raiding as a terrible experience to someone that has never raided. Asking some one brand new to raiding, immediately following a LFR, so, how would you like to do that again, but make the fights much, much harder? Not very appealing. LFR removes the desire to really go past LFR for people that just started playing in MoP, (yes, yes there are exceptions, but in general), as to do so requires some socialization and time that LFR doesn't require. You can tough out LFR or act like an idiot yourself in LFR and still get all the lore, named loot and even Legendary items.

In otherwords, if you've never raided before MoP, and the first thing you raid is LFR, you don't know what you are missing from being part of a strong guild and team of people that spends their nights together working towards common in game goals. You only know the chaos and unfriendly LFR environment, and the thought of putting in the effort to see the exact same bosses to get the exact same named loot with just more stats, but at a much harder difficulty just isn't a real seller. So as real raiders retire from raiding, there isn't a new younger generation of players waiting for their chance to raid at a higher level. They (some of you in this thread), just don't care beyond LFR, not because you wouldn't really enjoy a proper raid, but because you've never really tried, or your guild fell apart and it's too much trouble to pick up the pieces or whatever the case may be, you no longer care as long as you "see" the boss models in game. Take LFR away and you would probably care a little more about fitting in to a normal mode guild.

Look, there is a reason they are doing flex-raids, and a big part of it IS because LFR has hurt raiding. It doesn't "steal" raiders, it stops people from ever even wanting to really try raiding past LFR. I mean why bother keeping a schedule when you can see all the content? Why do you care what your ilvl is when you can kill the bosses now without it? What difference does it really make because I can get a Legendary (oh the irony of that term now) by just sitting in LFR till the bosses die and the Runes appear in your bag. So Flex raids are there to try and bring some small sense of socialization back to the casual crowd, and if successful, LFR will probably be phased out.

For myself, I would rather not see all the bosses if each and every boss I did see felt like a real accomplishment. Right now, people have seen and killed each boss every week since LFR opened, so that when they finally work up to killing it on normal or heroic, even though the boss has more health and a few more mechanics, it doesn't feel the same as the first time Illidan died, or you cleared Kara, or finally reach Lich King. I mean seriously.. for any people that raided Vanilla, TBC or Wrath, do ANY of the bosses in MoP feel as exciting when you reach them as the bosses in those expansions? They are still cool bosses, but every single person in the game has just already seen them to the point of boredom within a month of patch release due to LFR.

[Otimus]

Blizzard is hoping to address this with Proving Grounds.

While I do think those are a good idea, I think they won't be much of a help, mainly because it'll be mainly helping people who want to be helped, rather than the general players. What WoW really needs to do is just have it's general content gradually get harder. It'd probably take 2-3 more expansions of gradually introducing more difficulty in normal leveling and standard casual end-game, but it'd probably be doable. That was the problem with Cata. They turned the dial on difficulty for most people from a 5 to an 11 instantly. Instead, imagine if the next few expansions, things were slowly introduced, slowly, without it being very noticable. Slowly introduce required mechanics, and teach the player as they come, VERY gradually, then you can pretty much sneak a much higher degree of challenge on the average player, without them even noticing. It's how most single player games handle things like that, progressive challenges that you've been taught to be prepared for by previous experiences.

[Deleted]

How come these people never seem to complain about the real problem: Thew game doesn't teach you anything, and that is absolutely Blizzard's fault...

I couldn't agree more, but will point out that this is a conscious design desicion since day one. They made a complicated game, with complex character and encounter mechanics, with no tutorial. The idea was to force players to seek help from each other, and in doing so incidentaly build a rock-solid, active community. From a game design perspective, this was extraordinarily successful and constitutes the games single-unique-best-attribute. No other game has as many fansites, datamining, analysing, optimising, and discussing it.

All that said, I do think they could retain this whilst meeting noobs a little closer to the middle of the bridge. Without undermining the need to seek help for touch encounters and optimised character speccing, they could totally smooth out the learning curve on the basics a little more. The game has more loading screens than the 1990's combined, and they're basically wasting them with largely irrelevant hints and tips. These screens could feature cute infographics; selected from a pool which are filtered based on variables to do with your class, location, play habits, skill level, etc. Make 'em disable-able for people who'd prefer to just look at a pretty picture during loading screens. Entering a PUG dungeon run with threat buff or pet growl turned on? A simple helpful graphic in PUG loadin screens that explained what growl was, how to toggle it, and why (usually) it's preferred. Loading up Warsong Gulch? A quick map that highlights key strategic points and what you're supposed to be doing.

[Deleted]

How come these people never seem to complain about the real problem: Thew game doesn't teach you anything, and that is absolutely Blizzard's fault. Everyone glosses over this problem, and wants to blame players for flawed implementation of content.

Totally right, there's a world of difference between levelling and killing mobs and any kind of raiding and the first people usually hear about is via abuse when they stumble into a dungeon / LFR

Not to toot my own horn here, but I pitched the idea of 'The Proving Grounds' back in 2011, although my idea was to have it as an attunement for heroic dungeons / raids, as in unless you passed you couldn't get in.

But going back to your point, even this doesn't help someone play it just tells them they aren't doing it right.

[Deleted]

Not to toot my own horn here, but I pitched the idea of 'The Proving Grounds' back in 2011, although my idea was to have it as an attunement for heroic dungeons / raids, as in unless you passed you couldn't get in.

Oh that's not a bad idea at all; like licences in Gran Turismo (for the uninitiated, to compete in increasingly tough, lucrative tournaments, you need to earn a correspondingly tough licence test consisting off usually 10 key racing maneuvers you need to have a good command of. Passing with bronze medals doesn't take too long and basically means they can make the AI hard because they know all play *must* have learned about things like the racing line. Passing with all gold medals is game in and of itself; an outstandingly tough achievement, even trying and failing with a mix of golds and silvers will make you a superb racer).

[Dilbon]

You put more effort into the game, so you get better rewards. You see better content. You have that awesome feeling of doing something awesome that not many other people can.

What more do you want?

"It's not enough that I should succeed - all others must fail."

[Elian]

so where were these entitled people during Vanilla/Burning crusade? i mean where were these people during that era spamming wow forums with "Dungeons are too hard" "heroics are too hard", "raids are too hard". "i pay the same $15 as you do, so i should get to see Illidan, Kill'jaden, Archimonde,Nefarian,Cthun,,etc"
if they did complain, why did Blizzards ignorance toward them made the game much more fun? more sociable? mysterious? the sub numbers where escalating?

[Payback]

so where were these entitled people during Vanilla/Burning crusade? i mean where were these people during that era spamming wow forums with "Dungeons are too hard" "heroics are too hard", "raids are too hard". "i pay the same $15 as you do, so i should get to see Illidan, Kill'jaden, Archimonde,Nefarian,Cthun,,etc"
if they did complain, why did Blizzards ignorance toward them made the game much more fun? more sociable? mysterious? the sub numbers where escalating?

They didn't have anywhere else to go then that wasn't either shite, or even more elitist. Times change.

More to the point people spent months getting to the level cap, with a bit of effort you can hit 90 in under 4 days played. In the time of KZ what was on average 15 days for example to get to 70.

[Deleted]

Oh that's not a bad idea at all; like licences in Gran Turismo (for the uninitiated, to compete in increasingly tough, lucrative tournaments, you need to earn a correspondingly tough licence test consisting off usually 10 key racing maneuvers you need to have a good command of.

That was it, you still needed a certain ilevel to get into them but then it was, you and some NPC's where you had to master the basics:

DPS - DPS X amount, kills adds before they reach the tank, move out of bad that kind of thing
Tanks - Pick up Boss, move him away from bad, pick up adds to stop them killing the NPC healer / DPS (the healer would put out X amount of HPS, you take more damage than that, then you need better gear or learn how to use cooldowns for things)
Healer - Keep the Tank / DPS alive, move out of bad...and whatever else they could come up with.

All these things can be tuned, tank will take X damage over X seconds, big damage on a cooldown and announced.

The thinking was if they can tune these things to a certain level and people have to pass them, then you can make dungeons a little harder again. Use the same mechanics and it should lead to a "better" (for want of a better word) class of player queuing up for them.

They actually got gear scaling now....so that actually makes it easier, you can't out gear them.

But like Otiswhitaker said, that's only one half of it, should people fail there needs to be something in there to help them, not just the hope that they'll go somewhere and learn how to play.

I guess you'd also have to be careful of how much of a brick wall it is to people, that's why I picked heroic dungeons, should they fail they can still go back to normal...