Normal and Heroic should be merged

[Ninotchka]

There are some people for whom LFR is too easy and old normal (current heroic) is too hard. The current system fixes this.

I'm going to be running an open guildwide normal raid tomorrow, then our actual raid teams are going to hit heroic mode and potentially mythic. The open guildwide raid is low pressure, I'm setting a gear minimum of 610, I let folks drop out as we go along and I announce in guild chat when we're about to pull each new boss for folks who signed on late, and I'm not going to sweat it if our composition is less than ideal. My old flex raid would often have a heal team of all priests, or 7 warlocks and no hunters, or other odd compositions, but it didn't matter we had fun and killed stuff anyhow. The raid teams are going to ask for commitment to be there and a higher gear minimum, we've planned out who is levelling what so that we have a decent coverage of raid buffs and a nice mix of melee and ranged and clutch utility players.

There is absolutely a need for normal and heroic. YOU don't need the two difficulties, but we welcome them.

[Radish Spirit]

nothing is heroic about heroic anymore because its actually what normal used to be and normal is old flex difficulty.

So heroic means something different now.

That's really not a good reason to go changing the design of the game around.

Just forget what heroic used to mean. It means something different now. Get over it.

[Stormspark]

What? It's the same system as MOP except for the following changes: They changed the names, they made the two middle difficulties flexible, and people on the top end lost 5 people. What is now referred to as "Normal" is just the same difficulty as "Flex" was in Pandaria, that is to say it's just as faceroll as LFR but it gives better rewards to keep up the illusion that it's closer to real raiding.

No, it's not. Flex ONLY existed in patch 5.4 (there was no flex in MSV, HOF, TOES, or TOT). And in 5.4 it was in a neutered form where you queued for "wings" like LFR. It wasn't until 6.0 that it was brought in as a full difficulty mode (normal). And it's nowhere near as faceroll as LFR. Flex/normal has all of the mechanics that the higher difficulties do, they just don't hit quite as hard.

[nexellent]

Do we really need 4 versions of the same raid.

I think Normal and Heroic mode should be merged and we should just be left with LFR, Normal, and Mythic.

LFR as something accessible to everyone.
Normal to guilds and groups.
Mythic for those who really want the challenge.

I don't know if its just me i find it unnecessary to include a normal and heroic version of a raid considering they are both pretty much flex.

nope, Lfr, normal,heroic, and mythic should all be merged, you can either down the boss or you can't. Having all these different difficulties causes quicker burnout, and makes higher level raiding less enjoyable.

[Stormspark]

There are some people for whom LFR is too easy and old normal (current heroic) is too hard. The current system fixes this.

Actually I would say it's not just "some people" but quite a large number of people. The people that enjoyed normal modes in Wrath.

[RoKPaNda]

No, it's not. Flex ONLY existed in patch 5.4 (there was no flex in MSV, HOF, TOES, or TOT). And in 5.4 it was in a neutered form where you queued for "wings" like LFR. It wasn't until 6.0 that it was brought in as a full difficulty mode (normal). And it's nowhere near as faceroll as LFR. Flex/normal has all of the mechanics that the higher difficulties do, they just don't hit quite as hard.

I never said it existed before that. And yeah Flex was faceroll. It had the mechanics, but they were completely neutered. I'll concede that it wasn't "just as faceroll" but it was really close. I'm certain they could have cut LFR from the game completely, made Flex SoO something you could queue for, and people would have no issues with it aside from Thok because the whole concept of "Left" and "Right" are beyond a shocking number of people. Flex, and now Normal, is basically an ever so slightly more difficult LFR.