Tips for Future Tragically Terrible LFR Encounter Designs

[Barnabas]

The problem is in the public lobby system itself. The problem is the players and that is what needs to change. Punishing developers by locking them into a set of rules will just make each fight identical and give them little creative freedom. Better off just removing LFR and then all the design headaches it brings will go away. Can do away with the lack of camaraderie and tolerance you find in those groups. Can do with away with an eventual guaranteed victory type of game play which just encourages players to not have to learn the fight or prepare for it. It would make actually finishing an encounter feel awesome rather then the current mindset e.g. "gold again? grrr. I hope the next boss drops something other than gold."

[Deleted]

If you're alliance, you get to skip all that trash!

And if you're Horde you get to skip a few bugs in the tunnel to the Klaxxi guys. Clearest evidence of alliance bias at Blizzard yet.

[Fluttershy]

Tried to play my alt and tried to do LFR(first time in months I touched my non-main), this has got to be the most retarded !@#!@ I've seen in my life I'm not surprised half the raid is just afking.

It took less time to do a 11/14 H farm run + N clear than it took for my alt to clear the vale of sorrows LFR, actually he hasn't even killed all 4 bosses there.

LFR better be delayed 2 weeks after normal mode unlocks in WoD.

[Normie]

Also like where I queue for 30 min to get into Vale, kill 3 bosses (1 wipe apiece on Immerseus AND Protectors?!? wtf?), and after a decent job on Norushen, DC the instant the trash in Sha's room is pulled.

So: 135 valor down the toilet.

I'm getting tired of these more-frequent DCs since 5.4 or 5.4.2 or whatever. I guess they must have been a "fix" for some duping or exploring exploit.

[Deleted]

I'm totally with you on the optional trash bit. Same goes for 5 mans, and hard to kill trashpacks right next to annoying bosses.
Because half the group will want to play it safe and kill the trash, the others will want to skip it to get to the good stuff.

I'd favour removing optional trash entirely, if it doesn't drop anything.
This applies to most of my favourite raid zones. Black Temple, Ulduar and ICC.

[kamuimac]

Also like where I queue for 30 min to get into Vale, kill 3 bosses (1 wipe apiece on Immerseus AND Protectors?!? wtf?), and after a decent job on Norushen, DC the instant the trash in Sha's room is pulled.

So: 135 valor down the toilet.

I'm getting tired of these more-frequent DCs since 5.4 or 5.4.2 or whatever. I guess they must have been a "fix" for some duping or exploring exploit.

change your internet provider ? if u get real dc there is 1 minute timer preventing u from being kicked. and 1 minute is more then enough to log back after server dc.

[Normie]

change your internet provider ? if u get real dc there is 1 minute timer preventing u from being kicked. and 1 minute is more then enough to log back after server dc.

As badly as WoW tends to swap on my 4 gig machine the only way I can make it back on before getting kicked is if I kill it from Process Manager and pray to god it restarts in a hurry.

[Octa]

As badly as WoW tends to swap on my 4 gig machine the only way I can make it back on before getting kicked is if I kill it from Process Manager and pray to god it restarts in a hurry.

TIL people are still using pentium computers with windows 2000. Seriously though, how in the name of God do you manage to do anything inside the game if the loading of it is THAT horrendous?

[Schizoide]

Great post!

Many of these issues are difficult to fix without a fair amount of work and thought.

For example, defensive stance on Nazgrim. Upon initial release LFR continually failed on this boss due to defensive stance, so much so that the devs nerfed it so that LFR can basically just ignore it. Is the right fix not to nerf it? But LFRs were getting to 7 or 8 stacks of determination on Nazgrim, and being LFR, many wipes meant a 20-40 minute wait for new tanks and healers to join.

As for the various trash packs and ways for players to mess up, the only way to fix those would be to spend extra time tuning content to be appropriate for LFR. And yeah, they should do that. They are doing that, but they're not particularly responsive. The Durumu maze wasn't really fixed until 5.4 (it is really easy to see now). Those mobs before Garrosh that need to be CC'd? They should have been nerfed in week one. The skill checks 10 minutes into Garrosh, same deal. Anyway.

IMO, the best fix (for bosses at least) is to scale up determination faster. LFR is supposed to be easy. Do the devs really want players to wipe ten times in LFR? Ever?

Determination
Your persistence in the face of adversity strengthens your resolve. Stacks four times.

Damage dealt increased by 15%.
Healing received increased by 15%.
Health increased by 15%.

[Normie]

As for the various trash packs and ways for players to mess up, the only way to fix those would be to spend extra time tuning content to be appropriate for LFR. And yeah, they should do that. They are doing that, but they're not particularly responsive. The Durumu maze wasn't really fixed until 5.4 (it is really easy to see now). Those mobs before Garrosh that need to be CC'd? They should have been nerfed in week one. The skill checks 10 minutes into Garrosh, same deal. Anyway.

IMO, the best fix (for bosses at least) is to scale up determination faster. LFR is supposed to be easy. Do the devs really want players to wipe ten times in LFR? Ever?

I've always thought 5% determination was too low.

The first week of wipes on LFR Nazgrim, pretty much all of them I experienced were due to enrage. That could have been due to a few players being mowed down by ravagers, but honestly I saw groups that looked like they were trying and still didn't get him below 20% before enrage. Average stacks to get a kill that I saw was 5-6 the first two weeks (I experienced that ordeal maybe a half dozen times).

Right now, much of T14 and T15 runs very smoothly in LFR. My general impression is that the average ilevel of players in T14 and T15 is higher than in T16. I have certainly never seen a pair of boomkins anywhere in T16 LFR doing 250-350k APIECE single target, whereas I saw exactly that in MSV last week.

It's kind of fun to go run T14 and T15 (as long as you stay away from HoF and Megaera) nowadays. It's pretty quick valor and you can practice rotations, new specs, et cetera. But by putting a little "challenge" in T16, Blizzard has made it a place that ONLY people who need the gear will go, because it is NOT that much fun, especially that goddamned 2nd wing. And because people are marginally geared, it's slow and draggy and unpleasant.

Blizzard continues to err on the side of difficulty in things that are fun/relaxing when they are almost trivially easy, and are only made unfun as they become more difficult.

Pet battles, for one thing.

LFR, for another.

I'm not saying that there shouldn't be things in the game that are difficult. I am saying though that LFR, even though it is trivially easy for a coordinated group, is obviously overtuned, still, in T16.

Also, T16 seems to be a griefer's playground. Or paradise. Or both.

[Lovestar]

Don't hate me, but maybe the answer is to stop making random-matchmade content on a scale and complexity like this. If LFR is meant to be "tourist mode" couldn't it just become a solo experience with CPU allies? There, you saw the story and experienced the epic scale.

I'm not being condescending; I don't LFR, so I really don't know. Would taking away the other 24 "people" seriously injure what LFR provides its consumers?

[Blueobelisk]

This thread was epic. OP you're so funny lol.

[Normie]

Don't hate me, but maybe the answer is to stop making random-matchmade content on a scale and complexity like this. If LFR is meant to be "tourist mode" couldn't it just become a solo experience with CPU allies? There, you saw the story and experienced the epic scale.

I'm not being condescending; I don't LFR, so I really don't know. Would taking away the other 24 "people" seriously injure what LFR provides its consumers?

To be honest, if I could pick my favorite role and go be a tourist or practice or whatever with 24 (or 9, which would make more sense) CPU allies, I would prefer that to the current state of T16.

But I also enjoy going into T14 and T15 with way too much gear, and just having fun, and for the most part it seems like other people have the same idea.

[Deleted]

There should always be high-HP boss adds that need to die asap or they wipe the group. And even better, make them spawn so far away that no-one could see them.

Boss healing mechanics are always good too. Especially if they can go unnoticed.

[Lovestar]

But I also enjoy going into T14 and T15 with way too much gear, and just having fun, and for the most part it seems like other people have the same idea.

So maybe it would be better to just tone the difficulty and mechanics down to absolute zero, take away the illusion of "gearing" from LFR, and make it more like a direct alternative to dungeons/scenarios for screwing around? Then offer Flex (Normal) > Normal (Heroic) > Heroic (Mythic) as the pathways for challenge/"real gear".

In other words, make wiping basically non-possible in blind matchmade content, making a tradeoff of reduced reward for reduced stress and time investment. Again, with the goal of allowing LFR to be "tourist mode" for raids — I think it's the spectacle and story, not really the "gameplay", that most people are interested in touring. Especially with Flex up now.

Under that design you could even go Scenario-style and just cut the Role selection out of the queue and matchmake whoever's available.

[Normie]

So maybe it would be better to just tone the difficulty and mechanics down to absolute zero, take away the illusion of "gearing" from LFR, and make it more like a direct alternative to dungeons/scenarios for screwing around? Then offer Flex (Normal) > Normal (Heroic) > Heroic (Mythic) as the pathways for challenge/"real gear".

In other words, make wiping basically non-possible in blind matchmade content, making a tradeoff of reduced reward for reduced stress and time investment. Again, with the goal of allowing LFR to be "tourist mode" for raids — I think it's the spectacle and story, not really the "gameplay", that most people are interested in touring. Especially with Flex up now.

Under that design you could even go Scenario-style and just cut the Role selection out of the queue and matchmake whoever's available.

I think that wiping once as a wakeup call to shake out the AFKs and tanks that didn't mention they have no idea what to do is fine.

What's not fine is wiping five times because a group that definitely should have had the gear to EASILY overcome a boss can't manage to kill that boss even with a 20% buff.

That's not what people go into LFR for. You go into LFR, ideally, with the mindset that "if everyone does a halfway decent job each boss will be an easy one-shot, and otherwise it'll take a wipe to wake everyone up and then we'll get the boss." You don't go into LFR wanting/expecting/NEEDING stacks of determination to kill the boss.

The fact that most/all LFR groups didn't have enough DPS to kill Nazgrim before enrage was not in any way the fault of the players in LFR. It isn't the fault of an individual AFK player, or the fault of a player who is in bad off-spec gear with good main spec gear in his bags. It was solely Blizzard's fault, for horribly misjudging the average capability of a LFR group, because the average capability includes all those things, the AFKs, the gear-in-baggers, the druids who just drop a mushroom, et cetera.

Matchmaking is supposed to make good matches, and in T16, it wasn't doing that, and to some extent still isn't.

[Relapses]

Adding to this already magnificent list:

LFR players love volunteering for things like belts and towers, so add as many of these mechanics as possible.

Seriously, the last time I queued for the LFR there were so many volunteers we had to convince people not to volunteer themselves otherwise nothing would get done!

Every single player ever absolutely loves and adores MC mechanics, so please add a MC component to every single fight.

Who doesn't love a great RNG streak followed by a prompt MC which uses all of your cooldowns and makes you susceptible to player silences, stuns and otherwise very fucking annoying spells?

The more complicated the fight, the more awesome your LFR heroes will be.

Make sure there are at least 30,000 mechanics for every encounter so the LFR heroes will have lots of shit to type in bold faced raid warnings. There's nothing more exciting than being lectured about how awesome a player is for understanding literally every nuance of every mechanic you guys create. We love to hear from these guys, please give them more reasons to feel superior!

Design all encounters to hinge entirely upon the tank's understanding of the fight's mechanics.

This will ensure new tanks will be forced to adapt to increasingly difficult situations and in the long run will create a more satisfying gameplay experience as undertalented or incapable tanks will eventually realize their insurmountable inadequacy and simply quit.

Reduce boss healing/DPS requirements to such incredibly low levels you can kill most encounters with at least 60% of the raid AFK.

Let's face it, about the same percentage of the raid is AFK anyway.