To people whom want LFR removed: What endgame do you propose for the casual players?

[Buxton McGraff]

I don't think LFR should be removed.

But the end game for casuals was just fine back when casuals just did the old raids like Karazan back in BC.
It was a constant goal at progression without ever actually being able to reach the end, which I didn't mind.
It was cool seeing people with amazing gear, these people were easily recognizable because the sets were rare.

[FobManX]

I think Flex Mode accomplishes everything a casual player would want. There are plenty of guilds that raid casually that do Flex, you don't need to set aside a schedule(which is the definition of casual I would think).

LFR just breeds contempt and anger. It doesn't serve any real purpose with Flex now in the game.

[Paula Deen]

It also rewards people who are patient and do the right thing.

This thing where because one person pisses in the swimming pool, you blow up the swimming pool, that's just stupid.

Thats the thing though, its about 15-20 people pissing in the pool and 5-10 not pissing in the pool. If it were like 1 out of the 15 dps were afk or just awful I would agree with you, but its so bad right now I have yet to complete LFR.

[Brodeo]

Actually, I think they just need to make dungeons more 'epic'. Right now, you spend ~10 minutes in a dungeon, get your loot/JP/etc, and then requeue. Well, I guess LFR is like that too lol. But there just isn't any substance to dungeons anymore. Not enough mob pulls, not enough fight mechanics, zero story (some of the Wrath instances had great story) and just pull-pull-pull-done. It's just kinda lame.

They need to make instances that take time. This will get rid of a lot of the generation ADD kiddies, too, as they won't be able to speed through instances anymore. The playerbase would get better. They also should give dungeons some sense of progression - hell, make the higher tier dungeons drop epics and have higher requirements to get in. Bring back attunements or something. The problem is, this isn't even really an RPG anymore, it's just a loot pinata. Log in, get lootz, log out. While I don't think things need to get impossibly challenging, they definitely need to be beefed up.

PG is still a piece of the puzzle that isnt 'inconvenience people until you figure it out'

LFR is one of the most toxic experiences ive had in any game. Failure breeds elitist assholes. LFR just widens that rift.

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It also rewards people who are patient and do the right thing.

This thing where because one person pisses in the swimming pool, you blow up the swimming pool, that's just stupid.

when 20/25 people piss in the pool, i want it irradiated.

[Orcindauh]

Casual raiders can do flex. Mechanics are much more forgiving than normal and heroic which can actually allow people to learn how the fight functions so they can possibly move to normals and unlike LFR, you have to actually do the mechanics. It also doesn't create players who think raiding is akfing or standing in the same spot pushing 2 buttons unaware of what's going on.

[Brodeo]

Hey anyone remember Fear/CoR juggling? That was when being good at your class was more than mashing the glowing button.

[Deleted]

I don't think LFR should be removed, but it shouldn't offer the best gear available for non-raiders.

Make LFR drop rares, add ways to acquire epics like epic quest lines. For example the Isle of Thunder questline should at least offer you something nice at the end. Also epics from reputation, make gaining reputation something other than grinding mobs / daily quests.

[PrairieChicken]

What the game needs is a MULTIPLE progression paths for people; not the current design of lfr or nothing.

Although I don't say lfr should be removed but it needs serious revamp.

My solution would be throw in bunch of

- 5 mans and scenarios. LotZ of them.
- dailies or weeklies without being too brutal like before
- boa/bop epics you can craft (something in lines of the reborn things in 5.2 but in better quality and less time)
- vp/jp we had in the past. Vp should encompass ALL slots
- additional grinds for people who liked vanilla style stuff
- reputations that require gold to buy
- alternate fast progression for raiders. Should be very very xdifficult and brutal (else it will just force everyone to run it)
- lfr can stay if it does not trump all other content in reward
- mop style treasure finding plus rare killing. Just extend timeless concept that doesnt involve currency grinding
- epic quest lines that take a while but ultimately give something worth it

The point is that all the casual progression paths should give out similar rewards so that you don't feel the need to run xxx because other activities give out garbage/is too slow. Give people choic instead of forcing everyone into single activity.

Currently it is from
Ding 90 - timeless welfare - lfr - lfr - lfr - lfr - lfr
To
ding 90 -> choose from varieties of stuff you want to do! No one is forced to some activity

[Deleted]

Hey anyone remember Fear/CoR juggling? That was when being good at your class was more than mashing the glowing button.

I remember pressing one actaully made you good... Time really have changed

[Wildtree]

Actually there is no flaw

You see the LFR gear is meant to get you started, if you have gear equal to the first tier then you can enter the second tier Flex or the Second Tier Normal with gear that would suffice for such a task and give players a better experience in Normal and Flex content. Obviously first tier would be different (more than likely Dungeon Epics status, much not rare, like the MoP Dungeons) but this entire setup would force players to interact with others and get a feel for how harder content works, even if it is nerfed by that point. To be completely honest, its the way gearing was meant to be.

Basically this would require to do old content to get your gear up to current levels.

I see what you sayin..
Unfortunately my observations of the community speaking another language.
When SoO Flex opened up, the majority of pugs and even guild groups asked for an item level that was on par with ToT normal/heroic mix. It's unreasonable, no doubt, but it's hard to defeat the odds. So finding a raid would prove to become rather difficult. And to top that, the people that completed the former tier on higher difficulty are hard to get to run the old tier.
The sole purpose for LFR is at large also to protect many players from getting blocked out.

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What the game needs is a MULTIPLE progression paths for people; not the current design of lfr or nothing.

Although I don't say lfr should be removed but it needs serious revamp.

My solution would be throw in bunch of

- 5 mans and scenarios. LotZ of them.
- dailies or weeklies without being too brutal like before
- boa/bop epics you can craft (something in lines of the reborn things in 5.2 but in better quality and less time)
- vp/jp we had in the past. Vp should encompass ALL slots
- additional grinds for people who liked vanilla style stuff
- reputations that require gold to buy
- alternate fast progression for raiders. Should be very very xdifficult and brutal (else it will just force everyone to run it)
- lfr can stay if it does not trump all other content in reward
- mop style treasure finding
- epic quest lines that take a while but ultimately give something worth it

The point is that all the casual progression paths should give out similar rewards so that you don't feel the need to run xxx because other activities give out garbage/is too slow. Give people choic instead of forcing everyone into single activity.

I like that approach...
Now add a couple world bosses to it, that are unpredictable.
No spawn timer known... Can be anywhere between 1 hour and 2 weeks.. And where? ANYWHERE in Azeroth..
Makes them uncampable. And adds a certain excitement factor to it, when someone finds them by chance.

[Perpetuus]

I purpose a few changes, possibly drastic, to LFR. So first let's make it 10 man. Next you queue between 1-5 people. The remaining slots will be filled by modified Proving Grounds AI scripts. Depending on the group makeup, the AI scripted NPCs will fill DPS, heal and tank roles as needed. If you don't do the required role the group will wipe. For example, you queue solo DPS and AFK. The group will wipe on the boss by hitting the enrage timer. Everything else, like loot rules, remains the same as LFR.

I call it, LFR: Mercenaries

Now everyone can see content without needing to rely on other random people.

[Xami]

I see two options:
1. Remove LFR, implement OQueue system in-game (I think they're strongly considering something like this already).
2. Keep LFR system but remove any meaningful rewards for Normal+ raiders. Meaning no Legendary quest items, no pets, and importantly, no tier sets (or make it incompatible with Normal/Heroic set). This way, raiders wouldn't feel forced to run LFR for quest items and tier sets.

I've been hardcore before (two-digit US rank back in vanilla/BC). I've been casual once (mostly during WotLK). I'm now in a casually-serious raid guild (4/14H). I think I've seen a lot from each playerbase's standpoint. Raiders need incentives and some prestigeous content. Casuals still need sense of progression. If I were to go casual now, I think I'd be ok without LFR if I had Flex + OQueue.

[pastar]

The same end game that was there for casuals when wow started dungeons... along with new things like achieves, dailies, timeless isle, and even better with 5.4 brings flex. lfr is a watered down horrible excuse for a raid that does nothing but make bads worse and lazy people more lazy. You do not have to follow any kind of strat and on the few bosses that might be slightly "harder" they nerf to the ground within a month aka the october 29th hotfixes that literally nerfed 85% of lfr...this is the 2nd or 3rd nerf to some bosses... Lfr is a toxic, watered down, pitiful excuse for a raid and needs to be taken out of the game. done and done

[damonskye]

The same end game that was there for casuals when wow started dungeons... along with new things like achieves, dailies, timeless isle, and even better with 5.4 brings flex. lfr is a watered down horrible excuse for a raid that does nothing but make bads worse and lazy people more lazy. You do not have to follow any kind of strat and on the few bosses that might be slightly "harder" they nerf to the ground within a month aka the october 29th hotfixes that literally nerfed 85% of lfr...this is the 2nd or 3rd nerf to some bosses... Lfr is a toxic, watered down, pitiful excuse for a raid and needs to be taken out of the game. done and done

And yet it's never going to happen, and LFR will not be removed, because the people you call bad and lazy are also players who pay the same amount of money that you do. It's time to remove the contempt from the equation.

[Zaithor]

While features like LFR, which reward players for being bad/lazy, are indeed part of the problem, we just have to face the fact that MMOs have been looking to the casual audience to make money. Sure, you have heroic "content" for the hardcore players, but it's just the same raid/dungeon with the difficulty turned up, which is fine if you like running the same thing over and over through 3(or is it 4 now?) different difficulties.

I don't see wow changing, even until the day it is shut down (if ever). Titan will only bring the same problems. I'd love to see an MMO aimed primarily at hardcore players that doesn't require you to run through the same content on 3 (or 4) different difficulties. More real content, less artificial content.

[Ronduwil]

Maybe if they aren't devoted players try don't belong in this type of game...

This isn't a cult or a startup company. It's a game. Since when do you have to be devoted to a game to play it? I think you're confused about who's paying who here.

[Kaleredar]

Casual raiders can do flex. Mechanics are much more forgiving than normal and heroic which can actually allow people to learn how the fight functions so they can possibly move to normals and unlike LFR, you have to actually do the mechanics. It also doesn't create players who think raiding is akfing or standing in the same spot pushing 2 buttons unaware of what's going on.

It's getting in a flex group that's the problem.

It's just like PuGs in WotLK. "Must have achieve for the raid to get into the group." And you're probably not going to start up a raid group if you haven't done the bosses.

[Ronduwil]

I'm pretty sure if Method, Midwinter and Blood Legion all went on strike at the start I next expansion Blizzard would scramble to get them back. Why? Because they are the players who have stayed here for a long time. The ones who don't quit because they have bad loot luck or got nerfed.

I would take that bet and collect my winnings. Exodus broke up this expansion and no one even noticed except a handful of readers on MMO-C. Maybe I just missed the posting on Blizzard's front news page.

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But the end game for casuals was just fine back when casuals just did the old raids like Karazan back in BC.

There were also dungeon sets in BC and you could craft nice things without having to raid or pay through the nose from crafting mats from raids. Casuals had something to look forward to even if they couldn't get into a good raiding guild. That's not the case now in the absence of LFR.

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Thats the thing though, its about 15-20 people pissing in the pool and 5-10 not pissing in the pool. If it were like 1 out of the 15 dps were afk or just awful I would agree with you, but its so bad right now I have yet to complete LFR.

I think maybe the problem is you. I've completed the first three wings of LFR at least 4 times, and I've did the newly released wing in a single run. You're either extremely unlucky or completely unable to identify and fix your groups' problems.

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It also doesn't create players who think raiding is akfing or standing in the same spot pushing 2 buttons unaware of what's going on.

You haven't done LFR since DS, have you? Tell me how you're going to get through Malkorok, Nazgrim, or Garrosh with everyone parked and spamming 2-button rotations.

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I don't think LFR should be removed, but it shouldn't offer the best gear available for non-raiders.

Then mission accomplished because it doesn't. It offers 528 gear, which is over 30 ilevels lower than the best. I believe that's a far wider gap than the one from the Vanilla and BC expansions that you guys seem to worship.

add ways to acquire epics like epic quest lines.

People would still bitch about that. Take the "welfare" cape for instance. It's a 3-month slog that requires players to engage world bosses, solo elites, grind rep, and farm raids, but people still refer to it as "welfare." Where does it stop?

[valliant13]

There is something wrong with it, but we can only guess as to what the main reason for sub loss this time around has been. I personally doubt it's due to lfr specifically.

The game is almost ten years old. That is probably the main reason people are quitting in droves.

[judgementofantonidas]

Then they wouldn't receive raid worthy gear... but that's just my opinion though.



I see a lot of these idle threats running around on forums but honestly, where will they go? The US market doesn't have any competitors that come close in my opinion. It's kind of why I'm playing nothing at the moment.



It's amazing whenever I peek over on the WoW forums, there's someone who does 30k DPS in LFR, dies constantly or refuses to look up fights before hand as a tank trying to bash on "elitist jerks". It's not elitist.. you're a tank, know what you're doing before you come here and if you're a DPS, for the love of god doing 30k DPS was what people did in Cataclysm.

Ah well, the game scope has changed, I really don't get involved with it much anymore nor do I even have an account.

From my co (pally) tank on wing 4 LF"R" tonight. pst, can I just stay on boss, I am bad at adds.

I chuckle and say ok.

He blythly comences to aoe away and taunt adds then doesn't understand why he gets beat to a bloody pulp in his Hello Kitty Timeless Isle gear.

He dies, I tank everything.

He gets rezz'd

He taunts a few off me and dies again.....................

I wonder why I stepped into an LF"R" with 3 stacks of wipe reward buff.....................................

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They don't want us playing at all, just farming mats to give to them

You forgotz my samich. Back in da kitchen.

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I'm pretty sure if Method, Midwinter and Blood Legion all went on strike at the start I next expansion Blizzard would scramble to get them back. Why? Because they are the players who have stayed here for a long time. The ones who don't quit because they have bad loot luck or got nerfed.

LOL and dozens of wannabe guilds would be scrambling to momentarily fill the opening.

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Uhh. I really doubt that would be the reason... Does anyone remember DnT, Ensidia, Nihilum? Nope. There will always be new shoes to fill the void.

If anything Blizz relies on the people who sub and play minimally. Who makes more for them? The guys online all the time, testing the game to its limits all the time, forcing patching and CS strictly for them; or, the dude who logs on once a week.

Think about it from a financial perspective. yeah, they are not gonna let the raid scene die off but they sure as heck have not, and will not in the foreseeable future, subsidize the raid crowd to stick around anymore than they already do making endgame for them.

ensidia-fails THE BEST addon to run in LF"R".