The Creator of LFR Regrets Inventing It

[Deleted]

Creator of LFR, Ghostcrawler, says that LFR is one of the design decisions he regrets the most
What do you think? Is LFR a design mistake?

I believe , as Ghostcrawler says, it does destroy the epicness of raiding but i also think some sort of LFR version is needed to cater to people with little time.
Just a different one from the present version.

original reddit post
https://m.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegen...street/d7jwm98

What design decision do you regret the most, from all games?

GC:I have a lot of regrets about Raid Finder for WoW. I am sure I worked on features that were much, much worse, but that's the first one that came to mind.
To be clear, the goal of getting more players into raiding is a good one. But the way Raid Finder turned out removed, IMO anyway, a lot of the epicness of what made raiding raiding. I also haven't played WoW in a few years, so it's entirely possible they have solved the problem by now.

another post regarding the reddit reply

Seeing the post on reddit in which you basically say that LFR is the worst design decision you've ever made, I'm wondering what was the idea/mindset behind making it? To allow people who aren't that good at the game to experience raiding?

GC:Yeah I expanded a little in that answer. I said that the goal of getting players with less time or willingness to wipe for 3 hours into raiding was a noble goal. Raiding is fun. It's the most epic part of the game IMHO. A lot of storytelling happens in raids and you get to see some great art and interact with famous characters. We definitely spent a lot of dev time on raiding, so getting it accessible to a larger population made sense.

The problem with Raid Finder was that when the content was too tough (meaning easier than normal raiding, but not a cake walk) then people would tend to drop the raid after a wipe or two. You'd get these revolving doors where the raid itself was stuck on a boss but the individuals in the raid had cycled through maybe 100s of players after a few hours. There was no "Okay, boys and girls, let's call it a night," moment that you get from a raid leader in an organized guild. For that matter, there was no leader who could kick problem players, dictate strategy or explain the fights. For most players, Raid Finder was a weirdly silent and anonymous affair.

The altenative was to make the difficulty level so easy that you'd probably steamroll every boss and that's sort of where we ended up, but it meant you weren't really doing a rotation, lots of people were AFK and these famous bosses hit like kittens.

Daelo (Scott Mercer) was the other designer who worked with me on Raid Finder, and if I had to do it all over again, I think I would advocate we try something more like a group builder where a leader would invite (and be able to kick) people. I did a lot of pug raiding over the years, and some of them worked fine, which leads me to believe that model has promise. I *think* WoW has something like that now? Not sure.

I have a lot of faith in those guys. They will eventually figure out a good solution if they haven't already. The original question and answer were both targeting my career as a designer, not an attempt to take a shot at WoW.

[Compstance]

Creator of LFR, Ghostcrawler, says that LFR is one of the design decisions he regrets the most
What do you think? Is LFR a design mistake?

I believe , as Ghostcrawler says, it does destroy the epicness of raiding but i also think some sort of LFR version is needed to cater to people with little time.
Just a different one from the present version.

original reddit post
https://m.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegen...street/d7jwm98


another post regarding the reddit reply

I think there would be a much more stable community if Normal (Flex) were invented in place of Raid Finder. I feel like the way Raid Finder works, and has ended up, killed a lot of potential people who would have become consistent raiders, but given that LFR may have been their first (and only) experience with raiding, they assume it's all a huge shitfest like LFR and see no reason to try anything more difficult if - in their mind - it's all the same, but more of a headache.

Normal (Flex) would have been a great way to get people working together, grouping with friends and seeing the fun of raiding while still offering an easier difficulty. But the anonymous-trolling-afking shitfest of LFR likely killed any desire for most people to step into raiding, who hadn't already. Why do heroic or mythic when LFR is hard enough with all the asshattery involved? Why subject yourself to more of the same? In this regard, I feel like Raid Finder did more harm than good, because a lot of potential raiders never got the same experience as those raiding pre-raid finder age.

I still remember my first night in Kara (my first raiding experience). But if my first time had been in raid finder, I likely wouldn't have continued the game at all, much less sought higher difficulties.

[Darsithis]

This was covered a while back when he first said it, and I see no reason to bring it back up.