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

[QuiksLE]

But thats the problem i guess, players wants everything on a silver platter, not having to work for it.

Last night one of my guildies said after defeating Immersius :" Stupid boss, why do we have to kill him every week. Why can't there just be a box with loot in it?"
So Blizzard, read this, this will keep the casuals, who don't "have the time to gear characters", but actually sit in cities the who day, telling everyone how they are have life and others don't, happy.

[DeadmanWalking]

well, its not that hard to gear up a character.
My warrior got 90 1 month ago and is 537 ilvl.

11 LFR kills, 3 items.
15 flex kills, 2 items.

The rest is world bosses, timeless, crafted and normal ToT. So.. if LFR was removed, ye sure i might be few ilvls lower, but if you put in a little bit of effort it really isnt hard to get to a decent ilvl and get into pugs.

But thats the problem i guess, players wants everything on a silver platter, not having to work for it (like us that started at mop launched and been going at it tier after tier).

Well not everyone has a time machine to go back to the beginning of mop and stay in a raiding group, and on openraid they had one group that actually went back and did tot and they were short handed at a time when I could not join them.

I hate to bust the truth to you but LFR doesn't hand you rewards without working for it, can someone do nothing? Yeah but the majority of the people in there are working for it and they are working more than they would have to if they didn't have to drag an afk across the finish line. Saying you dont have to work for it is like you got flipped off on the highway after being cut off and so you go around telling everyone that no one knows how to drive and everyone is awful behind the wheel but you passed 300 other cars that abided by the rules of the road but you don't remember those people.

[Deleted]

Pretty much every first kill video you see has DBM running, and the top guilds have forum posts committed to learning and discussing tactics. Arguing that it's pure "trial and error" isn't quite as accurate as you're making it out to be.

Having internal discussions on how to best approach a fight is not really considered studying in my eyes. In every sport or team activity I have ever done in my life, I have always had to participate in discussions within the group on how to improve ourselves at whatever we are doing to get the best result.

Do you think any football team just shows up and randomly kick the ball? Of course not, they discuss tactics and play patterns both on and off the field.


I also do not see how using a boss mod is interfering with the trial and error method. It is a tool and sometimes having timers is useful. Personally I have it installed but dont even use it for most fights.

Immerseus HC - Dont ever look at the boss timers, nothing to look at.
Protectors HC - Dont ever look at the boss timers, boss is % based anyway.
Norushen HC - Dont ever look at the boss timers, has 0 mechanics, only enrage timer is relevant for progressing guilds
Pride HC - Sometimes look at the timer left to the tank debuff to be able to taunt faster and imprison. But mostly dont, just run on the feels. Boss major ability is tracked with energy anyway.
Galakras HC - Dont ever look at the timers, guess it can be useful if you are shooting down the boss to know how long it is left to the next add wave.
Iron Jugg HC - Dont ever look at the boss timers, boss is energy based between the phases and no real abilities to pay attention to.
Dark Shams HC - As a tank having timer for Ashen Wall is really helpful, other than that I do not look at any timers on this fight.
Nazgrim HC - I dont even look at the decapitate timer on this fight, just play on the feels. Nothing to really have the timers for.
Malkorok HC - Entire boss is rage based, no need to ever look at timers really. I rarely look at timers to check when the next add spawns, but as raid members call out when they spawn an add, it is not really needed.
Spoils HC - Nothing to have timers for.
Thok HC - Nothing to have timers for.
Siegecrafter HC - Timers was nice in the beginning when learning the fight to see the exact time to a few abilities such as electromagnetic smash and overloads. But after having 350 wipes on that fight, everything is just done on automation, the timers are in my head now and everything works as clockwork.
Paragons HC - Timers are nice on quite a few abilities but nothing major that it is 100% needed. I play this fight on my gut feeling when abilities is going to come out.
Garrosh HC - Not really much to keep timers for. This entire fight is just a clockwork machine spinning. Having the exact time left to the next empowered whirling corruption is helpful for timing CDs.

But honestly, having a boss mod is a tool, not a necessity. But why would you not have it for those 1/25 chance that you actually really really need it?
I see nothing different with aquiring boss mod than our players were required to get hand glue when playing handball to get better grip on the ball. You simply put a bit of special glue on your hand designed for playing handball and it helps you to catch the ball easier and grip it easier if your hands are small. That was nothing that was provided at every game, it was nothing that was 100% required to throw the ball, but it was expected of the players as it gave you a minor edge and advantage.

It's about looking up helpful macros, composition tactics, map specific attack points or learning about other classes and compositions without having to physically play them all.

When I PvPed I made the few macros I wanted myself. Composition tactics should be fairly obvious to figure out and learning about other classes is not exactly hard either. You can learn all this by just playing the game, studying up a bit can for sure be helpful, but again, you can learn all that by just playing if you have a decent attention span. After playing against a retri paladin, bm hunter + healer 10 times, I would be quite stupid to not figure out that their comp revolves around popping all CDs at the same time and bursting someone down and that as a resto druid, it is probably my best bet to have my CDs up when their DPSers pop their CDs to counter that. It is not really rocket science.

Playing with whatever arena partners I had, it is also not that hard to figure out what their strengths and weaknesses are to figure out our composition tactics.

[Zarc]

Have 2 unique raids each release with the same theme, one that is easy and uses the Flex technology, and one that is hard requiring heroic skills to complete. The current tiers end boss will be in the harder one, while the easier one will share its theme. Then when the next tier hits these two raids will be scaled down to 5-man dungeons and the non-set loot will be redistributed to all Heroic dungeons. All dungeons (and dungeonified raids) ever created will be scaled for max level, so for each patch, each expansion, as time goes by, the content for casuals to run random dungeons will forever increase. And the loot table will forever evolve. The feeling of endlessness will return to the game as the "last boss" will be an enigma and out-of-reach for most of the playerbase (until that raid is dungeonized the following tier, but then a new "end boss" will exist). But all the environmental and model design work that Blizzard has done for this raid will still be seen and used by all casual players, and even in coming expansions when running random dungeons. Solved.

[DeadmanWalking]

Have 2 unique raids each release with the same theme, one that is easy and uses the Flex technology, and one that is hard requiring heroic skills to complete. The current tiers end boss will be in the harder one, while the easier one will share its theme. Then when the next tier hits these two raids will be scaled down to 5-man dungeons and the non-set loot will be redistributed to all Heroic dungeons. All dungeons (and dungeonified raids) ever created will be scaled for max level, so for each patch, each expansion, as time goes by, the content for casuals to run random dungeons will forever increase. And the loot table will forever evolve. The feeling of endlessness will return to the game as the "last boss" will be an enigma and out-of-reach for most of the playerbase (until that raid is dungeonized the following tier, but then a new "end boss" will exist). But all the environmental and model design work that Blizzard has done for this raid will still be seen and used by all casual players, and even in coming expansions when running random dungeons. Solved.

Not solved. Allowing casuals to experience the content one content drop later means they will never fight garrosh until the next expansion and by then people will be doing the new content. Current system allows all players to do dungeons in first tier and raid content, your hack version would half their content for one drop until something new came along. If you think this is a good ideal then I suggest an experiment, next expansion you only do dungeons in 6.0 and refuse any raid content, then in 6.2 you will be allowed to do 6.0 LFR and dungeons, then in 6.4 you can do 6.2 LFR and dungeons, and not do any 6.4 content ever because then you will only be allowed to do dungeons in 7. Then once 7.0 comes out you can come here and tell us all how much you enjoyed it so that is proof that it will work for everyone else. Its like bitching about flying mounts but refusing to only use ground mounts unless everyone is forced to do it. You do it and see how much you actually enjoy it.

One advantage to lfr is that you can gear up your alts in LFR so if your raid needs 1 less healer and 1 more dps you can switch characters and keep on raiding with your guild. Under your mismanagement that alt would always be 1 tier behind. Its a fail. Most bosses would have to be gutted due to not having 2 tanks, so fights would become massively easier and people already bitch that you can gear up for less effort than a raider, you going to give out good rewards for even less effort? Good thing you don't work for Blizzard.

[HeedmySpeed]

I hate to bust the truth to you but LFR doesn't hand you rewards without working for it, can someone do nothing? Yeah but the majority of the people in there are working for it and they are working more than they would have to if they didn't have to drag an afk across the finish line. Saying you dont have to work for it is like you got flipped off on the highway after being cut off and so you go around telling everyone that no one knows how to drive and everyone is awful behind the wheel but you passed 300 other cars that abided by the rules of the road but you don't remember those people.

It the grand scheme of things, you don't have to do much to succeed in LFR especially now with determination buff. And while yes, you still have to log on, move your arrow keys a few times, click on an ability and breathe all the while you're doing it, it's not demanding you to do much else.

Your characters have limits in any raiding environment, Normal and Hardcore force you to get closer it. LFR takes you as you are.

And even if you couldn't piggyback on the few players, and I mean few, who are obeying mechanics and have at least their rotation spells keybound, Blizzard would intervene.
It's the nature of LFR, if everyone decided not to touch a button and completion rates dropped there would be intervention. That's the purpose of LFR.

[Deleted]

It the grand scheme of things, you don't have to do much to succeed in LFR especially now with determination buff. And while yes, you still have to log on, move your arrow keys a few times, click on an ability and breathe all the while you're doing it, it's not demanding you to do much else.

Your characters have limits in any raiding environment, Normal and Hardcore force you to get closer it. LFR takes you as you are.

And even if you couldn't piggyback on the few players, and I mean few, who are obeying mechanics and have at least their rotation spells keybound, Blizzard would intervene.
It's the nature of LFR, if everyone decided not to touch a button and completion rates dropped there would be intervention. That's the purpose of LFR.

Yes, exactly.

The point of lfr is to let people get loot (aka see the content) without needing to be particularly competent. Anyone who moans that people in LFR aren't playing well is an idiot, frankly. It's specifically designed for that audience.

[DeadmanWalking]

It the grand scheme of things, you don't have to do much to succeed in LFR especially now with determination buff. And while yes, you still have to log on, move your arrow keys a few times, click on an ability and breathe all the while you're doing it, it's not demanding you to do much else.

Your characters have limits in any raiding environment, Normal and Hardcore force you to get closer it. LFR takes you as you are.

And even if you couldn't piggyback on the few players, and I mean few, who are obeying mechanics and have at least their rotation spells keybound, Blizzard would intervene.
It's the nature of LFR, if everyone decided not to touch a button and completion rates dropped there would be intervention. That's the purpose of LFR.

Do it, I dare you. Go get 13 players and agree that they will go into wing 4 SoO LFR and just go afk, you will control the kicks so you cant be kicked. Just stay there afk for every single fight and see how long it takes to finish the fight. Then post it on Youtube as proof. Let's see if Blizzard interveins too. Prove it. Until you prove it you are just talking out of your butt and making shit up because it sounds good to you and reinforces your view point. It means nothing until you prove it.

[Deleted]

Not solved. Allowing casuals to experience the content one content drop later means they will never fight garrosh until the next expansion and by then people will be doing the new content. Current system allows all players to do dungeons in first tier and raid content, your hack version would half their content for one drop until something new came along. If you think this is a good ideal then I suggest an experiment, next expansion you only do dungeons in 6.0 and refuse any raid content, then in 6.2 you will be allowed to do 6.0 LFR and dungeons, then in 6.4 you can do 6.2 LFR and dungeons, and not do any 6.4 content ever because then you will only be allowed to do dungeons in 7. Then once 7.0 comes out you can come here and tell us all how much you enjoyed it so that is proof that it will work for everyone else. Its like bitching about flying mounts but refusing to only use ground mounts unless everyone is forced to do it. You do it and see how much you actually enjoy it.

I think people use the term casual to loosely. I know plenty of casual players that killed Garrosh in normal either via pugs or 1 day raid guilds. The players that did not get to kill the end boss was the players that were either really bad, or had no intention or desire to actually do it. The latter is probably the most common as believe it or not, there are plenty of people in WoW who couldnt care less about raiding.

One advantage to lfr is that you can gear up your alts in LFR so if your raid needs 1 less healer and 1 more dps you can switch characters and keep on raiding with your guild. Under your mismanagement that alt would always be 1 tier behind. Its a fail. Most bosses would have to be gutted due to not having 2 tanks, so fights would become massively easier and people already bitch that you can gear up for less effort than a raider, you going to give out good rewards for even less effort? Good thing you don't work for Blizzard.

So you mean the advantage is that we now can get burnt out even faster by running the same raid even more times per lockout on more characters than ever, being forced into a random group consisting mostly of bad players and people that are AFK, a general bad atmosphere and having to carry the entire group to success or rely on someone else in there doing it.

Yes, the sounds like a lovely advantage. Having a lower gear inflation so that the previous tiers normal mode was 19 item levels lower instead of 31 item levels lower so gearing up alts through the last tier was viable through making a fun beer run with friends and/or pugs, with the added benefit of prolonging the life length of tiers and making raid content last the entire expansion rather than one patch. Yeah, that raid design sounds like a clearly inferior option.

[Barcasaur]

I propose player housing, oh wait kill 2 birds with one stone! Wildstar (now with 100% less fake raiding then then the warcraft)

But being excided for wildstar aside (still play and enjoy warcraft very much, leveling a character with a friend is a blast be it to easy and way to short but a blast) Endgame 5.4 is beyond boring its 4 difficultys of one raid, sure i could plant some useless crap on a farm, go do old dailies that hardly matter, go pvp? on the timeless isle, do rated pvp for a different gear set id personally never use.

Player housing is a great thing for casual end game, go hunting for rare house prop drops, decorate to your hearts content, throw some partys for guild and/or friends, do some housing dungeons (essentially scenarios, which by the way are boring and a waste of dev time in wacraft /endopinion) work to farm up mats and craft stuff since you wont be getting any of that raid gear being a "casual" player. Housing, seriously it is the answer! and maybe put a little freaking effort in to the game and work your wait up the ranks raiding is fun and doesnt have to be such a huge time commitment that you feel bad about it (seriously just quit if you feel bad about it) or if you truly can't commit to much time.

[Deleted]

Well not everyone has a time machine to go back to the beginning of mop and stay in a raiding group, and on openraid they had one group that actually went back and did tot and they were short handed at a time when I could not join them.

I hate to bust the truth to you but LFR doesn't hand you rewards without working for it, can someone do nothing? Yeah but the majority of the people in there are working for it and they are working more than they would have to if they didn't have to drag an afk across the finish line. Saying you dont have to work for it is like you got flipped off on the highway after being cut off and so you go around telling everyone that no one knows how to drive and everyone is awful behind the wheel but you passed 300 other cars that abided by the rules of the road but you don't remember those people.

If you read again i said my warrior hit 90 1 month ago and is 537. My main is way above that, and is due to having worked from the start of the expansion.

I have done my fair share of LFR, trust me. I run ToT LFR on an alt for secrets, 3/4 of the raid still dies to Durumus maze.
I am the kind of guy that tries to lead and organize in LFR. In ToT we had nests on Ji Kun.. you often had to ask for a few minutes before anyone spoke up and wanted to do it (and then failed at it, never asked how just said "ok").

Now in SoO we have Galakras, which is the same thing. Took ~5 min of asking last time i was there before there was a group for towers.
Most people just want to tunnel a target and go "omg gold again". LFR is so forgiving that you can have most of the players go "derpmode" and still kill the boss.

Dont get me wrong, the first time i played WoW i was so bad, but i have gained experience over the years. Thats a problem for newcomers, LFR is not a good place to learn the game since it allows for tunneling through content. There are no inbuilt guides on reforge, gemming, stat choices, talents, rotations etc.
As a new player you don't know about sites like mmo-champion, askmrrobot and so on.

Proving grounds might be a step in the right direction for newcomers, if Blizzard really fleshes it out.

[DeadmanWalking]

Yes, exactly.

The point of lfr is to let people get loot (aka see the content) without needing to be particularly competent. Anyone who moans that people in LFR aren't playing well is an idiot, frankly. It's specifically designed for that audience.

Exactly, LFR exists so these people will consume a grey copy of raiding instead of having non-raid content designed for them allowing Blizzard to use all post-leveling resources on making raiders more content more often. Anyone calling for the end of LFR that likes lots of raid content is shooting themselves in the face.

[Pull My Finger]

It the grand scheme of things, you don't have to do much to succeed in LFR especially now with determination buff. And while yes, you still have to log on, move your arrow keys a few times, click on an ability and breathe all the while you're doing it, it's not demanding you to do much else.

Your characters have limits in any raiding environment, Normal and Hardcore force you to get closer it. LFR takes you as you are.

And even if you couldn't piggyback on the few players, and I mean few, who are obeying mechanics and have at least their rotation spells keybound, Blizzard would intervene.
It's the nature of LFR, if everyone decided not to touch a button and completion rates dropped there would be intervention. That's the purpose of LFR.

While LFR is far from what would be considered demanding or interesting by the more seasoned and capable WoW player, what you're saying is obviously nonsense. The thing is, I can imagine you actually mean/believe it.

[Teebone]

Yes, exactly.

The point of lfr is to let people get loot (aka see the content) without needing to be particularly competent. Anyone who moans that people in LFR aren't playing well is an idiot, frankly. It's specifically designed for that audience.

Thisssss one... getsss it. Yessss, preciousssss, IT UNDERSSSTANDSSSS THE WORLD!!! IT GETSS IT!

I never understood why people complain about something so completely avoidable like LFR.

[Deleted]

While LFR is far from what would be considered demanding or interesting by the more seasoned and capable WoW player, what you're saying is obviously nonsense. The thing is, I can imagine you actually mean/believe it.

I think he's right - if LFR didn't have any normal/HC raiders joining and was left to the bottom end of the playerbase - the 30-40k timeless ilse geared dpsers etc then blizzard would respond by nerfing LFR into atoms so that it was still doable.

In the same way that HC modes are specifically designed so that only the very best players can do them, LFR is specifically designed so that anybody (i.e. the most useless players) can do them.

[DeadmanWalking]

I think he's right - if LFR didn't have any normal/HC raiders joining and was left to the bottom end of the playerbase - the 30-40k timeless ilse geared dpsers etc then blizzard would respond by nerfing LFR into atoms so that it was still doable.

In the same way that HC modes are specifically designed so that only the very best players can do them, LFR is specifically designed so that anybody (i.e. the most useless players) can do them.

HC raiders don't do LFR and most Normals don't do it unless they have a lot of free time and need a gear piece to fill a hole, once they get it they dont do it anymore. They already say the best lfr warriors are now in flex and yet LFR has not been nerfed into atoms. They have always gone in and tweeked the numbers a bit to make the fight more manageable but what the other poster was talking about was people going in and doing nothing and blizzard fixing it so it was an instant win, not low end people pulling less numbers than a normal raider.

- - - Updated - - -

So you mean the advantage is that we now can get burnt out even faster by running the same raid even more times per lockout on more characters than ever, being forced into a random group consisting mostly of bad players and people that are AFK, a general bad atmosphere and having to carry the entire group to success or rely on someone else in there doing it.

Yes, the sounds like a lovely advantage. Having a lower gear inflation so that the previous tiers normal mode was 19 item levels lower instead of 31 item levels lower so gearing up alts through the last tier was viable through making a fun beer run with friends and/or pugs, with the added benefit of prolonging the life length of tiers and making raid content last the entire expansion rather than one patch. Yeah, that raid design sounds like a clearly inferior option.

You guys need to have an LFR-Hater meeting and have a vote to decide if they are burning out on LFR because they run all 3 difficulties and burning out on it or if they are failing to move into higher difficulty settings and getting effortless rewards because you can't have both and still claim to be a logical reasonable intelligent being.

[Deleted]

HC raiders don't do LFR and most Normals don't do it unless they have a lot of free time and need a gear piece to fill a hole, once they get it they dont do it anymore. They already say the best lfr warriors are now in flex and yet LFR has not been nerfed into atoms. They have always gone in and tweeked the numbers a bit to make the fight more manageable but what the other poster was talking about was people going in and doing nothing and blizzard fixing it so it was an instant win, not low end people pulling less numbers than a normal raider.

I know at least a dozen normal/HC raiders who clear LFR on multiple toons every week just cos they like the loot train/playing meter god.

If he was saying you can do nothing now, he's wrong. If he is saying that no matter how badly the average LFR group plays blizzard will find a way to get them through it if enough of them fail, he's right.

[DeadmanWalking]

I know at least a dozen normal/HC raiders who clear LFR on multiple toons every week just cos they like the loot train/playing meter god.

If he was saying you can do nothing now, he's wrong. If he is saying that no matter how badly the average LFR group plays blizzard will find a way to get them through it if enough of them fail, he's right.

So LFR is good for those HC/Norm raiders for their own guilds progression but its destroying the game for everyone else?

Hell for allowing blizz to only make raid content to keep casuals chewing on a lesser shade of actual raid content you would think that raiders would be trying to trick people into doing LFR.
"Hey, I got 24 people ready for flex, you wan in?"
"Sure!"
Queues up for LFR....
"Hey, this is LFR!"
"Suckers!" - Logs out leaving the rest with the option to complete it or take a 30 min lock out from any queueing.

[isride]

LFR and it's inherent problems are a symptom of the bigger issues in wow, not a cause.

There are 3 major issues for me:

Wow is very elitist, finding comments calling someone a scrub because they've gemmed for haste instead of mastery, or similar take s afew seconds on pretty much any site you can find. - This leads to the situation with needing the achievement for killing garrosh to join a flex raid on the 2nd week after he was available in that mode and the ilvl 540+ requests and the "report to me for inspection before invite", etc.

The UI is too easily customised, with complete overhauls, alerts, macro'd actions, etc. - All this does is force complexity to levels where a lot of fights are close to impossible without any addons for anyone outside the top 0.1% of their class.

The mechanics are too established and too focused on meter balancing (partly because of how easy it is to 'play the meters' instead of playing the game). - This means they have to add gimmicks to every fight with 4-5 phases on a lot of the bosses and masses of adds to manage, etc. Compare this to the bosses in MC, etc and you can quickly see that the complexity has ramped up to critical levels which forces you to read up on tactics before a fight. By adding a step where you have to read up on skills and watch youtube movies before you step into a raid you're instantly dismissing a big chunk of player base.

All 3 of these lead to a situation where LFR is a requirement for many players, you can't get rid of it without fixing the rest, and fixing those will piss off far more people than having LFR does.

[Vyadore]

I'm hardcore at WOW. I used to raid 2 groups 5 days PLUS alt runs. I don't anymore but still am really active. I'm an old geek who actually knows who the elite players are in WOW, watch streams, etc. I have NO PROBLEM with LFR.

My daughter is a grad student with a part time job. She runs lfr each week on her ONE toon she has and does just enough daily stuff to get 3 coins each week. She has no raiding experience, no desire to do organized raids or time. She just likes to get some new gear once in a while. She has NO PROBLEM with LFR.

My wife is a complete casual. She works a reg job, she has daily stuff to do. She plays WOW for the pets, the mounts, the professions and working the AH for gold. She has 3 buttons she knows how to use on her keyboard and clicks everything else. If you removed LFR she would never know unless you actually told her. She has NO PROBLEM with LFR.

We all pay $15 a month, play every day in some fashion at different levels...and have NO PROBLEM with LFR.

After reading most of the posts in this thread, I'm starting to wonder what kind of person it takes to have such a problem with LFR that it ruins their enjoyment of WOW?