What you would have without LFR

[DeadmanWalking]

That is a real selfish attitude. You are complaining because due their life changes, their interest changes, their priority changes and choose to stop raiding with you. This strikes me, as "ME ME ME".

Why complain about LFR? Why not go the source of the problem? Why not complain to his wife for not allowing her husband to raid with you? You can explain to her how your raid, your desire to beat this boss in this video game is more important this marriage, his family and his wife.

Exactly, the real reason they quit heroic raiding was because it was causing problems with thier wives. LFR was just a conveinant patsy to point fingers at. Had LFR never existed these guys would of still quit heroic raiding because of their changed lifestyles. I'm sorry but people grow up and have to spend their gaming time in real life or they won't have a real life. Wives should be more important than heroic raiding, if not then you won't be married long. LFR never stopped these guys from raiding, what it did was give them the opportunity to maintain their marraiges and continue to experience a pale imitation of what raiding was. Unfortunately you can't have your cake and eat it too.

[Vaelorian]

Exactly, the real reason they quit heroic raiding was because it was causing problems with thier wives. LFR was just a conveinant patsy to point fingers at. Had LFR never existed these guys would of still quit heroic raiding because of their changed lifestyles. I'm sorry but people grow up and have to spend their gaming time in real life or they won't have a real life. Wives should be more important than heroic raiding, if not then you won't be married long. LFR never stopped these guys from raiding, what it did was give them the opportunity to maintain their marraiges and continue to experience a pale imitation of what raiding was. Unfortunately you can't have your cake and eat it too.

Dude you claim that everyone who switched to LFR and had troubles with their wives when they raided... would have quit.

In my team of raider back then, everyone was above 25+. Most of them married or deep into a relationship - they had been raiding for years in that same relationship. Suddenly they would quit if not for LFR? I cannot vouch for anyone else then the ones I know. But the ones I did know, they would have stayed in the raid team. I understand that you and I do not have numbers but I am not stating that EVERYONE in that same position acts like XYZ. I am keeping my options open and stating what I have atleast experienced.

[Saxtorph]

i want some of what you were smoking.

Adolescent "wisdom."

[DeadmanWalking]

Dude you claim that everyone who switched to LFR and had troubles with their wives when they raided... would have quit.

In my team of raider back then, everyone was above 25+. Most of them married or deep into a relationship - they had been raiding for years in that same relationship. Suddenly they would quit if not for LFR? I cannot vouch for anyone else then the ones I know. But the ones I did know, they would have stayed in the raid team. I understand that you and I do not have numbers but I am not stating that EVERYONE in that same position acts like XYZ. I am keeping my options open and stating what I have atleast experienced.

You are straining your facts through your hatred of LFR. I stubbed my toe and lfr caused it. Your friends didn't quit because of LFR, your friends quit because they could do LFR and not have problems with their wives. You said it, not me.

[Shelly]

When patch 3.3 launched (ICC), it had 3 awesome looking 5-mans, that served as gear catch-up, AS WELL AS a massive, 12-boss raid. Oh and they had time and resources to also make Ruby Sanctum while we were waiting for Cata. And no matter how small that raid was, and how annoying the cutting lasers were, it was still better than 13 months of NOTHING.

Just thought I would remind you, mr. white knight.

When people like you actually DEFEND Blizzard's laziness, we will have less content, while paying more for it lol.

LFR as a catch-up method for gearing up is absolutely atrocious. Your only way to get into SOO raid is to spend weeks or months in LFR and FLEX if you are unlucky with RNG, and by then you are completely fed up with the place, that you feel no motivation to raid it on normal. "Yey, I can finally fight the bosses with slightly more health, 1-2 more abilties, and be rewarded with 10 ilvls better gear!" wow such excite, much amaze.

In Wotlk or Cata, when I wanted to reroll or gear up an alt for raiding, I would grab 4 friends, we would chain spam dungeons, get some JP gear, 1-2 valor pieces and in a week or two we were geared enough to join latest raid on normal difficulty. Hell, even Firelands trash farm "raids" were more fun than LFR...

WOW! You called me a White Knight.

I didn't actually think people did that anymore. That's so cute.

Anyway, I have addressed this before but since you have me doing it again ....

THE AMOUNT OF CONTENT IN A TIER IS TYPICALLY DETERMINED BY THE TIER BEFORE IT.

There, is that clear enough for you?

In Vanilla and BC this was less of an issue because we went through tiers MUCH slower.

Since LK though it's definitely come to the foreground.

NAXX REQUIRED FEW ASSETS, THEREFORE THEY WERE ABLE TO MAKE ULDUAR AMAZING.

Ulduar, 13 regular bosses. 14 bosses including Alganon. Each boss having an optional heroic mode.

All made possible by Naxx basically being copy-pasta from Vanilla.

ICC AND THE THREE ACCOMPANYING 5-MANS WERE POSSIBLE BECAUSE TOGC REQUIRED FEW ART ASSETS.

Another side effect of how few assets ToGC required was that it came out very very quickly. Most guilds weren't done with their Ulduar progression. It made up for this by overstaying its welcome by quite a bit, combined with the lack of separate raid lockouts and raiders had to face the same highly limited number of bosses four times a week.

On the plus side it introduced the Tourney dailies which were a rousing success even if they'd have been better off done in the Crystalsong forest as had been planned. (Scrapped because Dal takes up too dang many resources in the zone which is why there's only like 3 quests there.)

LFR WAS TACKED ONTO THE DRAGON SOUL RAID. IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A RELEASE FEATURE FOR MOP.

LFR was touted early on when MoP was announced. It made such a stir Blizz released it early. If they hadn't released it then the End of Time 5's would have received much more traction. Though I stand by my statement they'd have been so very much cooler as a raid that went on three to four months before the release of Dragon Soul.

LOOKING FOR RAID IS NOT PERFECT.

LFR has a huge benefit as a catchup form. It gets people involved in the current tier, familiar with the bosses and whets the appetite of those who may want to consider making the leap to an actual raider.

LFR fails spectacularly in regards to community. There's no upvote system to try and get paired with people you enjoyed raiding with. There's very little incentive for communication and it's very rare to build friends through LFR (though it can happen.)

This has been the biggest failure for LFR and the biggest problem for WoW.

WoW is only as good as the community - which is a pretty shitty community all told, sorry guys. Any MMO is reliant on their player base engaging with one another and developing both friendships and rivalries. It's more fun to PvP if you've talked trash to your opponent on the forums. It's more fun to raid when you know everyone in the group. It's more fun to do a 5-man after you've gotten to know some folks over a 45-minute window when you've been trying to just find one goddamn healer.

For all that though it's a genie you can't put back in the bottle. The convenience of LFD and then LFR trump the social 9 out of 10 times. As it stands most guilds I'm in don't often communicate in guild chat. People are constantly going into opencue or openraid to find people to help do challenge modes, flex raids and fill ins for normal raids as well.

Basically if Blizzard wants to "fix" raiding again they'll have to allow for greater community. FLEX has been a great start to this, but it'll only work if Blizz is able to get their Openraid internal software working right.

[breadisfunny]

you are assuming incorrectly that blizzard would add in catch up raids when they stated they aren't going to be doing that anymore.

[Shelly]

you are assuming incorrectly that blizzard would add in catch up raids when they stated they aren't going to be doing that anymore.

No. I'm stating that because of LFR Blizzard no longer needs to add 5-man catchup dungeons.

Unfortunately they haven't figured out yet how to increase the total number of raids/tiers using their new freedom.

They do have a scaling problem going that particular route as well though. But as long as they have gear as the method of end-game progression scaling will remain an issue.

[kamuimac]

Exactly, the real reason they quit heroic raiding was because it was causing problems with thier wives. LFR was just a conveinant patsy to point fingers at. Had LFR never existed these guys would of still quit heroic raiding because of their changed lifestyles. I'm sorry but people grow up and have to spend their gaming time in real life or they won't have a real life. Wives should be more important than heroic raiding, if not then you won't be married long. LFR never stopped these guys from raiding, what it did was give them the opportunity to maintain their marraiges and continue to experience a pale imitation of what raiding was. Unfortunately you can't have your cake and eat it too.

this is so true - but exept for real life issues hc raiding is boring in its own way - how many years can u spend on banging your head into bosses for weeks/months to wipe 100-200 times - it does become boring at some point - and thats why hc teams have very bad retention ratio of keeping raiders in -

But from my observation in game people who are deliberately willing to raid hc for months without a break are usually people with some sort of problems irl - either gf kicked him in the butt and intsead of drinking he drowns in mmorpgs for few months or he has some health/job/social problem and mmorpgs are the answear - very very rarerly people who are happy irl do spend year after year in hc.

[Deleted]

It kinda falls apart as a theory if you include that the raid that started LFR is considered one of the most lackluster raids

Considered by whom?

[Mirishka]

Now, I'm not saying LFR is horrible, but I highly doubt it's what makes raids larger.

Actually, in a way, it is. Because more people than ever see the raids, Blizzard spends more time and resources making them. Its no longer a matter of 'we spent a million dollars making this cool raid that 8 or 9 guilds clear'.

[Mectrid]

You'd literally have scenario mode raids imo. I know it wasn't feasible back in Wrath, but now that's the way I would've pushed it. 2-3 players with all the story text, heck maybe extra stuff and a couple more in game cinematics and then EVERYONE gets to see the story content without being put off by LFR, you don't give it a heroic mode so it's literally for the content alone, and you tone each fight down for a couple of people/throw in NPCs to have mechanics thrown on them. Split raids into 3/4 parts, jobs a goodun.

Never liked that LFR was their way for EVERYONE to see the content, as queues can be a ballache, the end result could sometimes be just as impossible of a prospect for some people that it put them off the game. What they SHOULD have said is that they wanted everyone to raid, because that's what it achieved, however many were left with a bitter taste in their mouth. Flex definitely helped with that though, was a MUCH better transitional mode than LFR, although it needed LFR to be transitional.

I would've honestly said raiding is for raiders, content is for all, you don't need to wait in a big queue for it, just a few people with a scenario you can run as often as you like, and we will give you something for it, could've awarded a lesser charms equivalent to a weekly Warforged Seal quest hand in so it wasn't just outright giving raiders an extra shot at loot, but giving those raiders who didn't have a lot of time to do dailies etc a way to ensure they were prepped each week if that's the method they chose.

BOOOOOM.

[Deleted]

LFR is still a bad solution, as blizzard uses a traditionally premade and organized game component which got raped to be disfunctional on most of its mechanics and which is not really fun.

LFR should be replaced by real content for the masses, and not be the money based reason for the raid-affine devs to develop even more raids whichs main audience are the minority that likes organized gameplay.