My suggestions to fix LFR

[roahn the warlock]

LFR is facing issues because flex has finally separated actual casuals from shitters.

Casuals run flex because it is quick, interesting and offers better rewards.

Shitters do LFR because 50k dps isn't tolerated in flex groups.

Pretty much this. Flex is the best thing to happen to wow. And since that new patch 5.4.2 it's so easy to find a flex group.

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WoW needs to add more options and more avenues for personal progression that doesn't rely on other players exclusively.

LFR gets all of the "bads" because there is no further avenue for advancement after a week of heroics. Timeless Isle was a horrible idea because it allows bads to gear up to LFR without even having to learn heroics! Not like heroics require any learning these days, another failure of MoP.

LFR should be for people who like to and want to raid, but can't commit the consistent time and like that on-demand content, not just "everyone who wants to continue to progress their character."

If you could get LFR level gear in 5-man content, or through solo content that actually presented some challenge (like a re-worked Proving Grounds system), I would STILL do LFR for the lore, to see the fights/bosses, and because I like large-group content in MMOs.

Nah, don't like that idea. Wow is a MMO. Multiplayer is in the name

[Giscoicus]

T16 is a pain in the ass in LFR. T15 was, on the other hand, except for Megaera and the trash in the first wing, a very LFR-friendly tier.

Everyone who's done the second wing of T16 knows it's a slog, but at least the worst of the trash inside Org was nerfed.

So, then, you come to the fourth wing of T16. You have all that trash. Hopefully Blackfuse dies in one shot. Then some bug trash where a bunch of people are going to die but hopefully there won't be more wipes. Then hopefully Paragons die in one shot.

Then, most of an hour into things if they have gone well. you are standing in front of the giant hallway of "trash that needs CC" looking at squares and moons and thinking "Oh great now the fun is going to start," and hopefully there is actually some CC that doesn't get broken. If you have seen this go badly before, you will have a powerful urge to leave group the moment you look into this hallway.

Then, once you get through the hallway, perhaps without dying, perhaps after five wipes and 45 minutes and several changes of group membership, you get to Garrosh. Where basically the only reward is, once he's dead, the instance is over. NO HEIRLOOMS FOR YOU despite what is honestly a pretty arduous voyage to get here.

But, you might think, hey, I could just leave right now, and the instance would ALSO be over.

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EVERY tier drops tier/trinkets better than the last patch heroic ones. If Flex is so awesome, go get them there? Normal's on a different lockout ... get them there too?

The LFR ToT trinkets certainly were not better than heroic tier 14 trinkets in most cases. The rppm didn't come into play until you had the legendary meta and by that time groups who had heroic were fairly deep into ToT multiple weeks of farming.

Tier 16 was the MOSt friendly tier yet. there were so many completely faceroll fights. Immersues is a joke, the protectors are faceroll. Norushen was only broken at the start, Sha doesnt even care about Pride, Galakras doesn't have any mechanics whatsoever, Jugg the bombs dont hurt when they explode. Shamans was the first fight with actual mechanics oops wait no now falling ash doesnt even dent your healthpool. Nazgarim was not hard, at all, it was a combination of people tunneling and inability to dodge ravagers that was the issue. Oh and the ravagers were still super light hitting. Malkorok? 3 pools for 25 people. Spoils was hard because of opening boxes and bombs. Thok? lol he doesnt even eat people. Siegecrafter mechanics are tuned down heavily damage wise, same with Paragons. Garrosh was hard-ish at first but then they nerfed mind control to the point where you don't need to be ready to handle the mechanic.

[Osmeric]

Tier 16 was the MOSt friendly tier yet.

So why did completion rates drop off so steadily from wing to wing? T16 LFR is so friendly it shed most of its intended audience -- what?

[Normie]

The LFR ToT trinkets certainly were not better than heroic tier 14 trinkets in most cases. The rppm didn't come into play until you had the legendary meta and by that time groups who had heroic were fairly deep into ToT multiple weeks of farming.

Tier 16 was the MOSt friendly tier yet. there were so many completely faceroll fights. Immersues is a joke, the protectors are faceroll. Norushen was only broken at the start, Sha doesnt even care about Pride, Galakras doesn't have any mechanics whatsoever, Jugg the bombs dont hurt when they explode. Shamans was the first fight with actual mechanics oops wait no now falling ash doesnt even dent your healthpool. Nazgarim was not hard, at all, it was a combination of people tunneling and inability to dodge ravagers that was the issue. Oh and the ravagers were still super light hitting. Malkorok? 3 pools for 25 people. Spoils was hard because of opening boxes and bombs. Thok? lol he doesnt even eat people. Siegecrafter mechanics are tuned down heavily damage wise, same with Paragons. Garrosh was hard-ish at first but then they nerfed mind control to the point where you don't need to be ready to handle the mechanic.

You're pretty much 100% wrong in every possible way about what makes T16 the least friendly thing ever introduced into LFR.

It's like you haven't even been in it.

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So why did completion rates drop off so steadily from wing to wing? T16 LFR is so friendly it shed most of its intended audience -- what?

He does not understand the implications of shitloads of trash that is a long way from the instance portal in LFR.

[Ronduwil]

Again, this is inconsistent with reality. LFR is still the most popular form of raiding in the game. Wishful thinking doesn't generate facts. If I had to speculate I would say that Flex probably siphoned more players from Normal than it did from LFR.

Do you have any evidence to back that up?

Ghostcrawler said it on his Twitter feed while he was still working at Blizzard:

LFR is still more popular than flex. However we think flex will be more fun for many of our players so we don't mind some transition

Like I said, LFR is still more popular and wishing that Flex would overtake it won't make it so. Blizzard acknowledges that many players like Flex better, but they also realize that inclusion is good for business so they're going to continue to cater to everyone.

[Giscoicus]

So why did completion rates drop off so steadily from wing to wing? T16 LFR is so friendly it shed most of its intended audience -- what?

Simple, casual players, those who don't have the TIME to raid are using Flex. Flex is fast, better rewards, significantly more difficult and as the devs put it, feels like raiding.

Most flex groups are wing 1 and 2 since 3+4 hate significantly harder than the first two. Many players have abandoned LFR completely and simply do Flex, but not all of flex. The number of 1/2 pugs is far greater than 3/4 pugs, so they gear up in those raids and may touch later difficulties eventually.

[Darmalus]

Then, once you get through the hallway, perhaps without dying, perhaps after five wipes and 45 minutes and several changes of group membership, you get to Garrosh. Where basically the only reward is, once he's dead, the instance is over. NO HEIRLOOMS FOR YOU despite what is honestly a pretty arduous voyage to get here.

Well... we also get that tree in the Vale from the quest. :<
This is why all my characters have a single kill of each boss of SoO in LFR, I just want that tree then I never return.

But yeah, lack of any worthwhile rewards from the final tier in LFR really kills my motivation. With the gear reset incoming, the only motivation to see it is the lore since I'll be vendoring my SoO LFR gear for quest greens in a few months. If there were heirlooms off Garrosh, I'd probably be motivated to go, but there isn't so I'm not.

[Giscoicus]

You're pretty much 100% wrong in every possible way about what makes T16 the least friendly thing ever introduced into LFR.

It's like you haven't even been in it.

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He does not understand the implications of shitloads of trash that is a long way from the instance portal in LFR.

Tier 15 was full of soft enrages that LFR players just couldn't handle. Jinrokh frequently had all 4 pools up before LFR downed him, Horridon tunneling left adds overwhelming the group. If you don't have the dps to nuke Sul before sandstorm you wiped, if the nest group couldn't keep up Jikun would wipe you, Durumu...yea. Iron Qon had te stacks at the end that would kill groups if they had lost too may dps. Li Shen was entirely soft enrages.

Tier 16 doesn't have that. The fights either enrage or don't, it doesn't get harder and harder a the fight goes on. Low dps in ToT meant the fight was harder whether or not you met the enrage. In siege it is only a problem if you meet the enrage on most bosses.

Also Siege hardly has shitloads of trash and the portal is only far. On Thok. The ONLY trash in seige that is hard is before Garrosh and that's because bads are too used to AoE spamming every trash pull

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Well... we also get that tree in the Vale from the quest. :<
This is why all my characters have a single kill of each boss of SoO in LFR, I just want that tree then I never return.

But yeah, lack of any worthwhile rewards from the final tier in LFR really kills my motivation. With the gear reset incoming, the only motivation to see it is the lore since I'll be vendoring my SoO LFR gear for quest greens in a few months. If there were heirlooms off Garrosh, I'd probably be motivated to go, but there isn't so I'm not.

Exactly the kind of person LFR is for. I understand the interest in seeing the content, and the tree pretty.

[Osmeric]

Simple, casual players, those who don't have the TIME to raid are using Flex. Flex is fast, better rewards, significantly more difficult and as the devs put it, feels like raiding.

Most flex groups are wing 1 and 2 since 3+4 hate significantly harder than the first two. Many players have abandoned LFR completely and simply do Flex, but not all of flex. The number of 1/2 pugs is far greater than 3/4 pugs, so they gear up in those raids and may touch later difficulties eventually.

Except the TOTAL completion stats are down. Those include Flex (and normal, and heroic). People moving from LFR to Flex wouldn't have changed the numbers at all.

These players aren't going back to to 3 or 4 in LFR, even if they cannot clear them in Flex.

[Alternategray]

Yeah of course. That's how it always is. If you have anything positive to say about WoW pre-Cataclysm then you're nostalgia blinded only. Such bullshit too because I've commented so often on how bad certain things were in those days too. Newsflash for you my friend its possible to find things good and bad in every expac.

And no - WoW didn't start to really bleed subs until LFR came in. Go look up the history if you don't believe me. Every single giant sub loss came after LFR was put in. And again for the record - I'm not claiming LFR was the cause of all the sub losses.

Edit: Actually instead of just telling you this, I'll do you one better. - http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/05/09/wo...n-subscribers/ So as you see one month before Fireland's drops Blizzard was hovering at 11 mil+ subs still. Now fast forward today we're under 7.5 million subs. So nah WoW didn't start 'bleeding' subs 'long before LFR' came out unless you consider long before to mean just a couple months.

YES. I get really, really tired of people telling me that I didn't really like This or That. "Nostalgia Rose-tinted Nostalgia yada yada". Honestly it pisses me off. I played the game for years before many of the current changes were implemented, and I obviously wasn't playing it because it made me miserable or because I had nothing else to do- not even counting other hobbies I have a hundred unplayed games on Steam. Saying the game is "so much better now" is purely subjective. For one thing easier =/= better, and all the people who insist that it does are the ones I want the fuck off my lawn. Remember when reaching a new level was enough of an achievement to actually say "ding" in guild? Guild chat would sound like a fucking pinball machine if players still did that. Flat out, the devs have removed the sense of achievement from too many things in the name of "Quality of Life" bullshit.

[Darmalus]

Exactly the kind of person LFR is for. I understand the interest in seeing the content, and the tree pretty.

Well, there's also transmog. I hem and haw trying to decide if I want to send my mistweaver monk back into SoO to finish her teir set for transmogging.

From Blizzard's PoV, it's probably a tangled mess of motivations to satisfy. I want gear, but only as a means to an end, the gear itself isn't a primary motivator for me. I want gear so I can finish quests more easily, help my friends, and mog hunt in old content more efficiently.

On the other hand, a smooth running LFR is fun! Turn up the rock, turn off the instance chat, and feel like a powerhouse in a massive battle. There are times I've felt like that in SoO, but even when they were new previous tiers of LFR just never felt quite so painful. The whole thing feels overtuned for it's intended audience.

[Giscoicus]

Except the TOTAL completion stats are down. Those include Flex (and normal, and heroic). People moving from LFR to Flex wouldn't have changed the numbers at all.

These players aren't going back to to 3 or 4 in LFR, even if they cannot clear them in Flex.

Because LFR is that horrible of an experience. They would rather raid part of the raid in Flex than all of it in LFR.

but remember LFR isn't broken or anything!!!

[Osmeric]

Because LFR is that horrible of an experience. They would rather raid part of the raid in Flex than all of it in LFR.

but remember LFR isn't broken or anything!!!

I know, I've been one of those people.

[cabyio]

It's because they take too much of a laissez faire approach to player interactions. In Guild Wars about 75% of the crap I see coming over trade chat daily would be a perma-ban. Of course, they can afford to do this because they're not dependent on subscriptions, but the result was that 90% of the players in Guild Wars were polite and pleasant to interact with. In WoW pretty much anything goes. Hate speech, public sexting, and blatant trolling get a slap on the wrist at the very most. Blizzard says that we just don't see the consequences, and that may be true, but when you see the same people time and again engaging in the same behavior you can only conclude that there are no consequences. There's also the fact that the right-click "Report for Language" option only shows up sporadically. I still can't predict when it is and isn't available. Even if I click that I get the feeling it goes into the void. Blizzard even came right out on their forums and threw their hands up in the air saying, "Well, we can't police every player interaction." In other words, if we can't do it right just fuck it and don't do it at all. This is why the community is in the state it is today, not because of LFR.

Besides, they don't have to police everything. They already have mature language filters. Just redirect questionable statements from public channels and public (LFR/LFD) instances to a log file and have one guy look over them to verify whether or not the interaction was appropriate. If Blizzard would just spend a few months focusing on player interactions I think that they would find the problem quickly resolve itself and then they wouldn't have so many player interactions to police because the culture will change for the better.

Honestly the same restrictions should apply to LFD and LFR as supposedly apply to public channels. Unfortunately right now it feels like they don't give a crap about either.

So you want blizzard to police everything people say just so delicate little flowers can avoid getting their feelings hurt? That is some grade A bullshit right there. There is an ignore function, use it. Also, don't be so sensitive to what people say, thats no way to go through life.

[Normie]

Tier 15 was full of soft enrages that LFR players just couldn't handle. Jinrokh frequently had all 4 pools up before LFR downed him, Horridon tunneling left adds overwhelming the group. If you don't have the dps to nuke Sul before sandstorm you wiped, if the nest group couldn't keep up Jikun would wipe you, Durumu...yea. Iron Qon had te stacks at the end that would kill groups if they had lost too may dps. Li Shen was entirely soft enrages.

Tier 16 doesn't have that. The fights either enrage or don't, it doesn't get harder and harder a the fight goes on. Low dps in ToT meant the fight was harder whether or not you met the enrage. In siege it is only a problem if you meet the enrage on most bosses.

Also Siege hardly has shitloads of trash and the portal is only far. On Thok. The ONLY trash in seige that is hard is before Garrosh and that's because bads are too used to AoE spamming every trash pull

Yeah. You really don't spend any time in LFR. Which is fine, except you shouldn't pretend to know what its problems is if you don't know AT ALL what you're talking about. And you don't.

I know you haven't seen Megaera in months.

You could ASK what people find tedious, difficult, annoying, and/or discouraging about LFR, instead of making things up, and maybe stand a greater chance of being correct and/or learn something in the process.

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So you want blizzard to police everything people say just so delicate little flowers can avoid getting their feelings hurt? That is some grade A bullshit right there. There is an ignore function, use it. Also, don't be so sensitive to what people say, thats no way to go through life.

I'm sorry, but that attitude won't cut it.

On the one hand sure it is great to have thick skin, and I encourage it.

On the other hand, disdain for the feelings of others because it's just more fun to be a self-absorbed asshole, and "you can always ignore it," no, that's not okay.

[Kulzan]

LFR got too many issues at the moment.

1. People underperform (LFR doesn't mean you should give everything you have)
2. People do other things than playing wow while they are in lfr to get "free loot"
3. Douchbags (most of those douchbags are normally the worst people in the raid with performance)
4. Afking (normally there's like 2 healers and 5-6 dps's afking through a whole raid, and nothing is done about it)
5. People doesn't accept failing at all, most of the time it goes on the tanks, but most of the times it is lack of dps, especially in SoO.
6. Ilvl requirement for SoO lfr is abit low in my opinion. it should be around 510-520.
7. People doesn't even the dungeon journal to learn the fights. it is one of the best tools you can get ingame for raiding.
8. People are trying to be responsible for others (this is not right, you shouldn't need to tell a new guy tacts every lfr you go, they should look up themselves before they join.

There are many other things that need to be fixed to make lfr more smooth as it is. It was ok to begin with, but it have just ended up really bad.

Some of the worst situations I've had in LFR is in MSV first part. I was healing on my paladin. On Stone Guards I was most likely dpsing with denounce through the fight. because it was almost nothing to heal. After the bossfight I was "afk" because my healing was low. I tried to explain why I did so low healing. and he wanted to kick me because i wasn't healing so much, and I was a healer so I should just save up mana when it wasn't anything to heal. he was flaming me the rest of the raid. and tried to get me kicked.

Some other situations I had was in 2nd part SoO. Here I was healing on my priest and the problem was on kor'kron shamans. The problem here was that 1 dps decided to go as a tank and wanted to 3 tank and split the bosses. I told a million times it was no point to do this tactic unless the bosses was 100 yds apart and it was waste of time due to lack of dps. We wiped 4 times on the boss and after I told it was waste of time. some guy told me just leave if you don't want to be here. I told him that's not the issue here. why is the boss made harder because 1 dps decide to take over the tankrole. the dps is already worse as it is, and the answer I get is "U f**king elitist jerk, since you're so pro, why aren't you telling us what to do?
First of all. It's not my responsibility to tell what everyone should do, I was kind and told an easy way to do the boss. and shitstorm was all I got.

So from my opinion. The biggest issue in LFR is that people aren't thankful enough.

[taheen74]

The problem with your suggestion is this:

Eventually, people that do decide to tank/heal just to be put in front of the line are going to suffer from queue times because a lot of people are doing it.

In other words:

If one person is doing it, it means other people are also.

[Halicia]

The problem is... without a 'tangible' reward that benefits character growth... noone really gives a @!#$...

but if you give tanks & heals better loot drops, more loot drops, or even bonus valor... the GOOD tanks & heals will overgear LFR faster then the dps so it only contributes to the problem.

I havent really touched LFR in ages... except to speed along my dps buddies' queue times on the RARE occasion I can't talk them out of it.

One of the few things that holds me back from LFR nowadays (aside from LFR itself) is the fact that if I queue with a friend, I lose the satchel incentive. If they allowed me to retain the satchel bonus while queueing with up to a party, it might make me approach LFR a little differently.

Still wouldn't do it probably... but friends might have an easier time getting me in there when THEY want to do it.

[Giscoicus]

Yeah. You really don't spend any time in LFR. Which is fine, except you shouldn't pretend to know what its problems is if you don't know AT ALL what you're talking about. And you don't.

I know you haven't seen Megaera in months.

You could ASK what people find tedious, difficult, annoying, and/or discouraging about LFR, instead of making things up, and maybe stand a greater chance of being correct and/or learn something in the process.

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I'm sorry, but that attitude won't cut it.

On the one hand sure it is great to have thick skin, and I encourage it.

On the other hand, disdain for the feelings of others because it's just more fun to be a self-absorbed asshole, and "you can always ignore it," no, that's not okay.

I've done LFR, and last tier was a complete clusterfuck from day one to now. Siege ha been nerfed the moment they realized something might actually be fatal other than the sacrificial dagger.

When there were 15 people dying to Durumus beam or not running with the colors beams, there are more problems than the one guy tunneling Nazgarim.

ToT only got better because the vendors let you buy normal mode gear for doing nothing.

[Normie]

I've done LFR, and last tier was a complete clusterfuck from day one to now. Siege ha been nerfed the moment they realized something might actually be fatal other than the sacrificial dagger.

When there were 15 people dying to Durumus beam or not running with the colors beams, there are more problems than the one guy tunneling Nazgarim.

ToT only got better because the vendors let you buy normal mode gear for doing nothing.

This is the sort of comment that lets everyone KNOW you don't understand LFR. The fact that half the group dies to the beam doesn't matter, because the remaining half kills Durumu anyway. It's an encounter where groups wipe once at most. People still die to the beam and in purple stuff because no one can tell where the path starts, but that's a separate problem. It's a crappy design but it was nerfed within a week or two to the point where the crappy design doesn't matter.

Only problem encounter in ToT for a very long time now: Megaera. And you're not going to be able to tell me why.