SoO LFR one week later?

[darklord0110]

I was just wondering why SoO LFR is a week later in release then 10man SoO, I just thought it would be the other way around so ppl could go though SoO LFR and learn the basics of each wing then do SoO 10man with a little bit more knowledge go into it.

[isuridedes]

LFR is not designed for the purposes you're applying to it. LFR exists only so that people who cannot or will not attend 10/25 man raids still have an opportunity to experience the content Blizzard has created.

Throughout this expansion LFR has been staggered behind 10/25 access. It is I suppose, one of the 'perks' of continuing to engage in 10/25 man raiding.

[Inthislzon]

wat?

I feel i'm not alone when i say this but, exactly what mechanic do you need to learn in LFR?

Not to mention LFR should be the last difficulty to open to make up for being the easiest one.

[IRunSoFarAway]

Its been this way since the beginning of pandaland, I'm not sure why you expect it to be any different.

[Belloc]

Blue posters have already gone over the thought behind staggered LFR releases: They're intended to follow normal mode progression. That is to say that, by the time the final LFR wing is released, the average normal mode group will have completed normal mode SoO.

LFR is not preparation for SoO. Releasing LFR before Normal mode would encourage players to completely ignore normal modes because they could simply do LFR instead, see the content, and be done. That's not a very good approach.

LFR has a place. That place is for people who cannot or will not engage in organized raiding. For everyone else, there is Flex, Normal, and Heroic modes... and those modes come before LFR. That's the way it is and the way it should be.

If you're the kind of player that needs to do LFR to learn a fight before going into normal mode, then normal modes are not for you. This game is designed with the intention that you pull a fight, wipe, pull it again, wipe, keep pulling it until you develop a working approach and THEN finally kill it. LFR does nothing along those lines. LFR's sole purpose is to see content in a state of reduced difficulty and provide easily acquired gear. LFR does not encourage proper strategy development. The average LFR player will learn nothing about a fight from LFR.

[Osmeric]

Blue posters have already gone over the thought behind staggered LFR releases: They're intended to follow normal mode progression. That is to say that, by the time the final LFR wing is released, the average normal mode group will have completed normal mode SoO.

Of course it comes nowhere close to that. The clearance rate of normal mode ToT only barely exceeded 50% recently.

Even with the delay of LFR in ToT (the same delay as in SoO), LFR raiders cleared ToT long before the average normal mode raid guild did.

[braeldiil]

Blue posters have already gone over the thought behind staggered LFR releases: They're intended to follow normal mode progression. That is to say that, by the time the final LFR wing is released, the average normal mode group will have completed normal mode SoO.

LFR is not preparation for SoO. Releasing LFR before Normal mode would encourage players to completely ignore normal modes because they could simply do LFR instead, see the content, and be done. That's not a very good approach.

LFR has a place. That place is for people who cannot or will not engage in organized raiding. For everyone else, there is Flex, Normal, and Heroic modes... and those modes come before LFR. That's the way it is and the way it should be.

If you're the kind of player that needs to do LFR to learn a fight before going into normal mode, then normal modes are not for you. This game is designed with the intention that you pull a fight, wipe, pull it again, wipe, keep pulling it until you develop a working approach and THEN finally kill it. LFR does nothing along those lines. LFR's sole purpose is to see content in a state of reduced difficulty and provide easily acquired gear. LFR does not encourage proper strategy development. The average LFR player will learn nothing about a fight from LFR.

Actually, LFRs are quite useful for normal mode raiders. The first step in learning a fight is to learn what all the different elements of the fight look like. Saying "stand in the blue swirlies, but not the lightning pools" is nice, but actually seeing them in action is a whole lot nicer. This goes for a ton of fights, and significantly speeds up progress. You also get to see the flow of a fight - the order things happen, and how you need to respond. It doesn't replace all of the normal-mode learning, but it really does shorten it.

It also makes bringing fill-ins a ton easier. My guild has 10 core raiders, and if someone's missing we'll generally bring whoever happens to be logged in and carry them. It's a lot easier to say "It's just like LFR, but things hurt" or "it's just like LFR, except this one thing" than to explain the entire fight.

[Nobleshield]

Of course it comes nowhere close to that. The clearance rate of normal mode ToT only barely exceeded 50% recently.

Even with the delay of LFR in ToT (the same delay as in SoO), LFR raiders cleared ToT long before the average normal mode raid guild did.

While the person you quoted said "average guilds" they really mean above average guilds, as by definition an average guild clears normal mode at some point before the next tier, or perhaps for final tiers before the mega nerfs kick in.

To answer the OP, because LFR is meant to come afterwards as something for people who aren't actively raiding, it's not "learn the mechanics" although it can be used for that purpose.

[Osmeric]

While the person you quoted said "average guilds" they really mean above average guilds, as by definition an average guild clears normal mode at some point before the next tier, or perhaps for final tiers before the mega nerfs kick in.

Why is that an "average guild"? That definition certainly didn't apply to guilds that attempted normal mode raiding in T14, for example. And the number of guilds attempting to raid has declined sharply from T14 to T15. On my server, it's down by 50%. It's not clear why those missing guilds suddenly become nonentities from one tier to the next.

[AeneasBK]

While the person you quoted said "average guilds" they really mean above average guilds, as by definition an average guild clears normal mode at some point before the next tier, or perhaps for final tiers before the mega nerfs kick in.

Hmm, I guess it depends on what you define as a raiding guild. If they kill Jon'rohk 10 man normal once during the tier, they get counted on places like WoW progress, or guildOx, but that doesn't necessarily equate to being a raiding guild, especially with the lifespan of new guilds not being as long as it used to be. I'll wager theres a fair number of guilds that get "counted" that no longer exist, and haven't for a while.

The reason I say this is because if you discount all of those guilds, the number of stable raiding guilds is a) lower, and b) more likely to have progressed further. I'm not refuting anytihng you're saying; but from what I can tell there seems to be a much higher proportion of heroic mode raiding guilds than in previous expansions, simply because the normal mode raiding guilds are falling apart and disbanding.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this, I guess what I mean is with Throne of Thunder, by the time Lei Shen was released in LFR I suspect the raiding guilds were divided into 2 kinda distinct groups, the Heroic raiders who mostly cleared normal mode in week 1 or 2, and the normal mode raiders who were stuck on Horridon; or had been stuck on Horridon for long enough that they were only up to Ji-kun or so by that point - I doubt that the "average" raiding guild was actually progressing on Lei Shen himself.

However, they had set somewhat of a precedent in releasing each wing after, what, 3 weeks was it? So I think they'd have had a LOT more angry customers if they'd said "No killing Lei Shen this week for all you LFR players, because the tiny handful of raiders who haven't given up but also aren't good enough for zerging normal modes need to catch up"

[Belloc]

Actually, LFRs are quite useful for normal mode raiders. The first step in learning a fight is to learn what all the different elements of the fight look like. Saying "stand in the blue swirlies, but not the lightning pools" is nice, but actually seeing them in action is a whole lot nicer. This goes for a ton of fights, and significantly speeds up progress. You also get to see the flow of a fight - the order things happen, and how you need to respond. It doesn't replace all of the normal-mode learning, but it really does shorten it.

It also makes bringing fill-ins a ton easier. My guild has 10 core raiders, and if someone's missing we'll generally bring whoever happens to be logged in and carry them. It's a lot easier to say "It's just like LFR, but things hurt" or "it's just like LFR, except this one thing" than to explain the entire fight.

If you're going to use "learn what all the different elements of the fight look like" as a reason, then your players might as well be watching a Youtube video of the encounter, for all that's worth.

Either way, random LFR players are not going to learn anything from LFR. Yes, your GUILD group might -- because you're going in with that specific intent. But, guess what? You could, just as easily, go into normal mode and see those exact same mechanics in action. Indeed, since normal mode releases significantly earlier than LFR, you should, assuming competent players, be able to learn those mechanics long before the LFR version is released.

So, once again, what I said stands. LFR doesn't teach normal mode players anything. ToT LFR was an excellent example of this. I've seen plenty of people who have "done the fight on LFR" that did not understand what was going on. LFR is not a teaching tool.

- - - Updated - - -

Of course it comes nowhere close to that. The clearance rate of normal mode ToT only barely exceeded 50% recently.

Even with the delay of LFR in ToT (the same delay as in SoO), LFR raiders cleared ToT long before the average normal mode raid guild did.

The majority of guilds considered in your statistics aren't raiding guilds. Just because a guild pops up on wowprogress or guildox doesn't mean they're a raiding guild.

In other words, I'm going to trust Blizzard's definition of "Average Raiding Guild" over a website's. For one, there are thousands of guilds on those sites that no longer exist. For two, there are thousands more that never had any intention (or chance) of clearing normal mode ToT. A guild that does not have the intention of clearing normal ToT is not a normal-mode guild. They don't count. Hell, even they understand that. Wowprogress/Guildox, however, does not. Such statistics are utterly worthless.

[Nobleshield]

Why is that an "average guild"? That definition certainly didn't apply to guilds that attempted normal mode raiding in T14, for example. And the number of guilds attempting to raid has declined sharply from T14 to T15. On my server, it's down by 50%. It's not clear why those missing guilds suddenly become nonentities from one tier to the next.

Because there has to be SOME definition of "average", as average isn't subjective. So "average" is one of:

1) Clears heroic content when current (not likely at all)
2) Clears normal quickly to focus on heroic content (could be, but unlikely given the numbers)
3) Clears normal at some point between start/end of the tier, maybe dabbles in heroic (likely?)
4) Struggles on normal, possibly not even clearing it at all before the next tier/nerfs

I'd argue #4 is below average (or, more likely, not a serious raiding group but a guild that goes into the raids for fun just to see how they do), #3 is average, #2 is above average, and #1 is the best of the best.

What is "average" as defined by raiding guilds, which excludes the guilds that don't focus on raiding but may go into ToT and get let's say a handful of bosses in, and then walk away feeling "That was pretty fun".

[Osmeric]

The majority of guilds considered in your statistics aren't raiding guilds. Just because a guild pops up on wowprogress or guildox doesn't mean they're a raiding guild.

I love the smell of special pleading in the morning. It smells like ... logical failure.

[Tziva]

I do disagree that LFR is totally useless for seeing the fight for normal mode raiders.

Most mechanics in LFR can be ignored and brute forced, so consequently most people don't learn the mechanics there in practice because they don't have to. However, they usually still exist in a weakened form and a person who is actually paying attention and trying to comprehend mechanics does have the ability to learn from even the LFR version.

And actually, one of the nicest things about LFR peaks for me is just the ability to see things better than you might find in a written or video guide. The ability to have high quality visuals and be able to control the camera angle and viewing position can be really useful with regard to knowing what stuff is going to look like - spell effects, add appearance, spawn spots, positioning requirements, etc. Durumu is a good example of this, where you can see what the beams look like and what the fog looks like, and what the adds look like, etc. Also, stuff like add driving on Ambershaper - things of that nature.

I wouldn't go as far as to say LFR is useful for everyone or that something normal mode raiders should do as an intro (especially because they release later), but for some people on some fights, seeing it in LFR can add an extra layer of understanding before trying the fight on normal.

[judgementofantonidas]

LFR is for non raiders not for a sneak peek.

[Deleted]

LFR is for non raiders not for a sneak peek.

Check what people are in your LFR the next time you run it, I promise you a majority is raiders.

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...g-the-content/

Because there has to be SOME definition of "average", as average isn't subjective. So "average" is one of:

1) Clears heroic content when current (not likely at all)
2) Clears normal quickly to focus on heroic content (could be, but unlikely given the numbers)
3) Clears normal at some point between start/end of the tier, maybe dabbles in heroic (likely?)
4) Struggles on normal, possibly not even clearing it at all before the next tier/nerfs

I'd argue #4 is below average (or, more likely, not a serious raiding group but a guild that goes into the raids for fun just to see how they do), #3 is average, #2 is above average, and #1 is the best of the best.

What is "average" as defined by raiding guilds, which excludes the guilds that don't focus on raiding but may go into ToT and get let's say a handful of bosses in, and then walk away feeling "That was pretty fun".

So I decided to check up how it looked on my realm. I checked on WoWprogress how many guilds where at different levels of progress after the week that Lei-Shen was available on LFR. The results:

22 guilds that did not have 6/12 (progressing early ToT normals)
22 guilds were between 6/12 and 11/12 (progressing the later ToT normals)
28 guilds that were between 12/12 and early heroics, horridon not killed (early ToT heroics)
13 guilds that had killed Horridon HC or more (later ToT heroics)

What is interesting to see here is that the by far largest sample was the guild in early ToT heroics, even though it had the smallest range (it was only between 12/12 1/13 HC and 2/13 HC depending on what bosses you killed). So really, blizzard idea of what the "average raiding guild" is could be kinda accurate if you take into consideration the guilds that start the tier late and undergeared.

I do understand why Blizzard stagger the LFR releases though. It is all about the money. Blizzard has the statistics, they know a lot of people unsub after clearing the content on LFR, especially in the end of an expansion. A lot of people are simply gonna quit after they done garrosh LFR. By staggering the release they keep people subbed longer. I do not honestly buy their "It is to let the average raiding guilds clear it", it is all about keeping players in the game longer. The question is though, if they are releasing them too fast, they could stagger it even more.

[Nobleshield]

I do understand why Blizzard stagger the LFR releases though. It is all about the money. Blizzard has the statistics, they know a lot of people unsub after clearing the content on LFR, especially in the end of an expansion. A lot of people are simply gonna quit after they done garrosh LFR. By staggering the release they keep people subbed longer. I do not honestly buy their "It is to let the average raiding guilds clear it", it is all about keeping players in the game longer. The question is though, if they are releasing them too fast, they could stagger it even more.

Well of course. A blind monkey could see that the real reason they stagger is to artificially extend it's life as they know the majority of players (i.e. non-raiders) will likely get bored after they kill Garrosh and farm him for a little bit once the next expansion is revealed and we all wind down waiting/speculating/salivating at the new stuff to come.

[Bisso]

I feel i'm not alone when i say this but, exactly what mechanic do you need to learn in LFR?

Well, to be fair, in ToT, the mechanic differences between LFR and Normal aren't so big, they are actually nearly the same (some exceptions like Durumu color Beams). But I think I understand your point, that in LFR, even though alot of the mechanics are intact, their impact on players have been nerfed so much that most people will just ignore them. So yes, a majority of people won't learn anything from LFR, which IMO is the only flaw of LFR, as it doesn't encourage players to improve.

But again, the Death Beam from Durumu wipes half the raid on EVERY LFR since it's release, yet, it doesn't seem to improve, so killing players doesn't seem to have much of an effect on a LFR player's will to improve.

Funny story, this week, I was doing LFR with a friend that was farming Durumu's Xbow with my alt, when she told me she kept dying on the maze part, but I had to convince her that I would show her how to deal with the maze, especially when figuring out which side to go first. Then, she did the maze like it was nothing. Nothing in this game is hard, a LFR player's worst ennemy is him/herself.

[MoanaLisa]

Whether or not you disagree or agree about the gated release of LFR, there is something of an explanation in the latest news post which can be found here:

http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/...U-Beta-Fan-Art

Scroll down to Raidfinder Difficulty Unlock Speed and behold.

[Spoonman]

I remember i read somewhere that the reason of it was only because they didnt want to release the whole raid to these "LFR raiders" so they would clean the whole raid at day one and then go to wow forums making thread about why there isnt enough content