Why is Exclusive content a bad thing to some people?

[dryankem]

Whining on a forum is not going to change anything, the only way to change it is if enough people unsub because they dislike LFR.

So much this. The only way for blizzard to tell if people don't like an option in the game is if either stop doing said option (LFR in this example but it could be dailies or raiding or PVP or scenarios) or unsub and let them know why. That's it.

On the flip side just because a person personally dislikes something that the majority are going to feel the same.

[melodramocracy]

Its not though. Normal modes being buffed a lot caused this problem.

How do you figure? Attempts on the very first boss of each tier seem to consistently go down since LFR came about.... this has nothing to do with finishing a tier or even progressing beyond that first boss (first to last boss per tier success is more indicative of the difficulty IMO). Fewer folks are even trying at all, and that's because LFR offers enough progression for a chunk of the playerbase that they don't feel inclined to go past it. They get tier, they get to participate in the Wrathion quests, they get to reach the next LFR tier requirements without any n / h gear.

No, it's not the best gear in the game, but it's sort of its own 'thing', and will probably remain so unless Blizzard decides to alter the rewards for it. I'd guess that Blizz realizes that this trend would have simply continued, which is why flex is being started up.

[gamingmuscle]

So mindlessly facerolling bosses is engaging? I agree, the journey is more important but you can't ignore the destination or mile stones.

My journey hasn't changed because of LFR. But I'm not the sort that would avoid doing something because there are easier alternatives. I would do it because it is harder. Now those that would rather take the easier road...I don't think I miss them taking up slots in my raids.

And the problem is my journey sort of lost it's meaning so it's not really intact. I'm sure everyone is feeling it aswell and that's what I'm getting at.
I don't think you even try to see why I don't like LFR and why I argue against it and it's philosophy that goes with it.
You just told me "you should be happy with my higher ilvl gear" and I see that a lot because you know you took the lion's share with LFR.
Same bosses, same instances, same looking gear. Lower the ilvl, throw in an add mechanic or two, recolor the gear.
Sorry, I see a clever nerf to raiding in general when I see it.

This isn't a nerf to raiding, it is a diversification of a product. It's like making 3 types of ketchup instead of 1. If your journey is affected it's more of a reflection of you and what you hold be valuable than the changes to raiding.

[Osmeric]

How do you figure? Attempts on the very first boss of each tier seem to consistently go down since LFR came about....

People have wised up to the difficulty and aren't even bothering to try it. Some took longer than others to give up.

You can't conclude that because someone didn't try X, X isn't to blame. Maybe what that person could figure out about X without trying it was enough to drive them away. Maybe LFR made that decision easier, but it can't all be ascribed to LFR.

[Totle]

I pay my 15 just the same as the next person.

I should not be denied content just because I can't put in 28 hours/week to this game.

[Ronduwil]

I've stated 100 times before. You have less reason to be in Normal if you don't HAVE to if you want to see the content and gear (Ilvl is more of a means than a reward so don't go there). This is something I don't think many players realize yet but no doubt I think they're feeling it.

If you want any of the raiding achievements (I'm talking about the meta-achievements) you still have to raid.

They also worked on daily hubs. Heroic dungeons are just like LFR. They're great, sure, but their lifespan is short. Not like a Raid which takes weeks to complete on average.. unless you nerf them to hell.

The daily hubs are fun for half a week and then they get old. They also require less work for developers because they all take place in the same place that levelling did.

So mindlessly facerolling bosses is engaging? I agree, the journey is more important but you can't ignore the destination or mile stones.
And the problem is my journey sort of lost it's meaning so it's not really intact. I'm sure everyone is feeling it aswell and that's what I'm getting at.
I don't think you even try to see why I don't like LFR and why I argue against it and it's philosophy that goes with it.

I don't think it's engaging, and that's the one place where we agree. I don't think that casual players are happy with the way LFR has turned out, partially because it's highly susceptible to trolling, and partially because the gear acquisition rate is significantly lower than that of actual raids. However, it is not as mindless an activity as you make it out to be. Many of the mechanics are still intact, if to a lesser degree. The difference is that you can lose half the raid and the other half can still power through. You can't finish a LFR instance if over half of the raid is playing the way that you claim LFR should be played (mindlessly). So I'm not saying that LFR is great, but I'm pointing out that its current function is not to please casuals. It is more of a consolation prize for them because they've been left out in the cold for this expansion.

You just told me "you should be happy with my higher ilvl gear" and I see that a lot because you know you took the lion's share with LFR.
Same bosses, same instances, same looking gear. Lower the ilvl, throw in an add mechanic or two, recolor the gear.
Sorry, I see a clever nerf to raiding in general when I see it.

The LFR gear is a different color and has lower stats, so it's not quite the same, and if you think the bosses and instances are the same in LFR as in normal raids then you can't have done a normal raid yet. If you're doing normal raids for gear, the gear is still better. If you're doing normal raids for the challenge, the challenge is still higher. If you're doing normal raids for the achievements, the achievements are still exclusive to normal raids. If you're doing normal raids to see content then I don't know why you don't just fire up your browser and see it on youtube, because kill videos have been there from as far back as the MC days. LFR didn't change that. That's why I don't understand your complaints.

[DeadmanWalking]

My journey hasn't changed because of LFR. But I'm not the sort that would avoid doing something because there are easier alternatives. I would do it because it is harder. Now those that would rather take the easier road...I don't think I miss them taking up slots in my raids.



This isn't a nerf to raiding, it is a diversification of a product. It's like making 3 types of ketchup instead of 1. If your journey is affected it's more of a reflection of you and what you hold be valuable than the changes to raiding.

I've been saying this for the last few posts. These 'path of least resistance' escuses don't float because I don't want guys who will settle for less rewards for less effort types being forced into my Guild Raid run. Forcing them into harder content makes no sense since thier needs are obviously being met in LFR and I don't want people in my raid that don't really want to be there.

Its just another misdirection escuse that is merely a throw poop at the wall and see what sticks tactic.

[breadisfunny]

because its a lot like console exclusive preorders from how i see it. as in oh you dont have x well then you dont get y part of the game even though you paid for the product and its still technically in the game disc. you want x then you'll to do y to even have a chance of getting it. just replace consoles with raid modes and preorder bonuses with raid game content. not saying the stuff should be nerfed just saying everyone should eventually have a chance to see it.

[khalltusk]

How do you figure? Attempts on the very first boss of each tier seem to consistently go down since LFR came about.... this has nothing to do with finishing a tier or even progressing beyond that first boss (first to last boss per tier success is more indicative of the difficulty IMO). Fewer folks are even trying at all, and that's because LFR offers enough progression for a chunk of the playerbase that they don't feel inclined to go past it. They get tier, they get to participate in the Wrathion quests, they get to reach the next LFR tier requirements without any n / h gear.

No, it's not the best gear in the game, but it's sort of its own 'thing', and will probably remain so unless Blizzard decides to alter the rewards for it. I'd guess that Blizz realizes that this trend would have simply continued, which is why flex is being started up.

Blizzard stated so them selves.

10man casual guilds got screwed over with the increase in difficulty. Since a lot of people struggled to clear even the first few bosses so many gave up. They really did explain this it should not be too hard to grasp.

[DeadmanWalking]

because its a lot like console exclusive preorders from how i see it. as in oh you dont have x well then you dont get y part of the game even though you paid for the product and its still technically in the game disc. you want x then you'll to do y to even have a chance of getting it. just replace consoles with raid modes and preorder bonuses with raid game content. not saying the stuff should be nerfed just saying everyone should eventually have a chance to see it.

They are not really complaining that you get to ‘see’ the content, because anyone on youtube can ‘see the content’, they are complaining that you get crappy versions of their gear and they have convinced themselves that the crappy version of the gear takes away their sense of accomplishment for the primo gear.

They are complaining because they can’t enforce membership into their sandboxes.

They are complaining because people who dont want to deal with raiding and raid guilds are not being force to do so to experience end game content.

They are complaining because it ruined server communities (which is a valid complaint but the advantages to such a large percentage of the game out weighs the negatives of a few unpunished asshats inspiring more unpunished asshats)

They are complaining because something changed and they cant handle change very well.

Pick your poison, one of the above applies.

[Deleted]

They are complaining because it ruined server communities (which is a valid complaint but the advantages to such a large percentage of the game out weighs the negatives of a few unpunished asshats inspiring more unpunished asshats)

Tell me about those advantages.

The advantage for Blizzard is clear... cost-effective content.

At least raiders couldnt force non-raiders to raid... but now Blizz tries exactly that.

[TheBigPapi]

I pay my 15 just the same as the next person.

I should not be denied content just because I can't put in 28 hours/week to this game.

this argument is absolutely ridiculous. You are denied nothing in this game. Never were, never will be. The only thing separating you and high end content is you. Everyone has all the content in the game available to them, it is up to you whether you do it or not. When you buy any other game, you have to beat it in order to unlock certain things and that includes a harder game mode, more items,and new achievements. So since you don't have the time to lets say beat Brutal mode in Halo, that means you should be automatically have it unlocked for you, already given all the rewards, and have it scaled down to your level because you cant do it? This selfish "give me everything I want without making me earn it" attitude the community has taken in this game is the prime reason Blizzard has dumbed down everything so much that its just a brain dead grind fest that can't hold a subscription for more than a month at a time and its bleeding players faster than XBOX lost support at E3

[Deleted]

People have wised up to the difficulty and aren't even bothering to try it. Some took longer than others to give up.

You can't conclude that because someone didn't try X, X isn't to blame. Maybe what that person could figure out about X without trying it was enough to drive them away. Maybe LFR made that decision easier, but it can't all be ascribed to LFR.

Imagine there would be an alternative raiding system to LFR, but the only difference would be that you have to create the raidgroup yourself.
What would the majority choose?
And would you blame LFR for being too convenient or would you blame the alternative for not beim convenient enough? :P


easier=better
faster=better
more convenience=better
People always want it easier, faster and more convenient... and they dont know or just dont care that it destroys the overall gaming experience.

[Horizon]

easier=better
faster=better
more convenience=better
People always want it easier, faster and more convenient... and they dont know or just dont care that it destroys the overall gaming experience.

This is why I don’t enjoy wow as much now a days, when you try to make everything more convenient you give up on context.

[Aquamonkey]

Which goes to show you what people wanted. If they were only doing Normal because they had no other option that was more enjoyable, obviously they will move to the more enjoyable option when it opens. Some people don't like smashing versus a wall over and over. How many times do people have to point this out?

That doesn't mean it's the right direction for the game. Just look at what Blizzard is doing with 25m. 25m are dying because people don't find them as enjoyable as 10m, so Blizzard has to artificially inflate the rewards to get people to do them.

It's the same thing with LFR. People gravitate to what requires the least amount of effort. Even with the lower ilvl and no mounts/achievements, LFR is killing regular raiding. That's why Blizzard is adding additional rewards to non-LFR to get people to do them.

---------- Post added 2013-06-20 at 11:33 AM ----------

because its a lot like console exclusive preorders from how i see it. as in oh you dont have x well then you dont get y part of the game even though you paid for the product and its still technically in the game disc. you want x then you'll to do y to even have a chance of getting it. just replace consoles with raid modes and preorder bonuses with raid game content. not saying the stuff should be nerfed just saying everyone should eventually have a chance to see it.

It's nothing like that. You don't have to pay extra or for special packages to get those raid tiers. They're available to everyone who bought the game. It's that you had to unlock the raid tiers by playing the game.

[Tomana]

this argument is absolutely ridiculous. You are denied nothing in this game. Never were, never will be. The only thing separating you and high end content is you. Everyone has all the content in the game available to them, it is up to you whether you do it or not. When you buy any other game, you have to beat it in order to unlock certain things and that includes a harder game mode, more items,and new achievements. So since you don't have the time to lets say beat Brutal mode in Halo, that means you should be automatically have it unlocked for you, already given all the rewards, and have it scaled down to your level because you cant do it?

No but you can beat Halo in Easy Mode (or w/e it's called). That's what LFR is for.

[nekobaka]

You are. Don't take MMO-Champion and the vocal whiners are a majority. There are many more players who just play the game and do LFR without caring what is said here. Blizzard has said LFR has been a huge success when it comes to participation and interest.

Is it a huge success in participation because its raid content or because of how the game focuses the best nonraid rewards around something that is fairly easy to do that many will put up with it? Would it be as successful if there was five mans that offer the same gear or even scenarios that offer the same gear? GC has already said a lot of players would leave over gear. Players who play on off times and days of the week cannot even get into an LFR group sometimes. The LFR queue is a far more hungry beast than LFD is in order to stay smoothly functioning.

Two, do you really want a whole lot more "Argent Tournament" and "Dragon Soul" raids? Do you really enjoy those more then Ulduar or Throne of Thunder?

ToC and DS are completely different while still being shitty raids in my opinion. ToC was too short, no trash, one room for four bosses, and too easy on normal mode for guilds and even easy for PuGs who was one shotting the first boss at launch. There was also too large of a gap between normal and heroic causing issues in guilds. The bosses in ToC was somewhat fun though. DS was just a boring unimaginative experience for me. I watched that post video talking about on the development side of what they was trying to do while as a player it felt like they missed the mark by a large margin and that also the go go go nature of LFR was far more hurtful for the design of DS and that the developers did a better job with the later raids conveying what is going on without a player having to stop and get left behind. The length was fine and far more preferable than ToC for a whole tier. I would still like Blizzard to split the bosses up in separate lockouts like it is done for LFR. I am a fan of the smaller multiple raid design as it is far more casual friendly and splitting up raids in lockouts would also help.

With DS the developers told the players it was smaller to offer more quality and it was the excuse for the majority of the expansion and we still ended up with crap. If the developer can actually pump out a fun quality raid then something along the size of DS is fine for me. Something the size of ICC is harder for PuGs to clear anyways.

No but you can beat Halo in Easy Mode (or w/e it's called). That's what LFR is for.

But can they beat Halo while AFK? This concept of making an easy mode is still somewhat new to WoW. The foundation of WoW was built with the idea that things got harder as a player went to the top. If you could break things down into difficulties then leveling would be easy mode, dungeons normal mode, and raids hard mode, but to Blizzard it was just a progressively harder game on one difficulty line. Then Blizzard built a heroic mode, not an easy mode but a harder mode. You still had your normal mode but there was not easy mode. WoW is not a single player game like Halo is. There is no difficulty setting for multi-player. Still many multi player focused RPGs separate their difficulties in the type of content like WoW has for many years. Also not every single player game has a difficulty setting. Portal for example has no difficulty setting and ramps up in difficulty and complexity and yet is a very popular game praised by all sorts of gamers from the casuals to the hardcore. Even n00b parents are beating Portal despite it only have one difficulty that gets harder and harder.

There are some new MMOs that are coming out in the next couple of years like Destiny from the makers of Halo. I would not be surprised if there was no direct difficulty setting but rather varying levels of difficulty of quests and "bosses" to defeat which would still mean players might not be able to defeat the same "content". It is still a ways off so we wont know for sure but separate difficulties in open world games are just not handled the same way as flipping a switch in a setting that only affects the player in a single player game.

I pay my 15 just the same as the next person.

I should not be denied content just because I can't put in 28 hours/week to this game.

The content doesnt disappear, it is still there and no you do not need to put 28 hours a week into this game just to raid. That is serious heroic progression level of time input and I dont think I have ever come across a guild who schedules in that much time, they must be among the rare few pushing really hard. You only need a fraction of that time if you only care about raiding. Now if you want to do every single piece of content in WoW then not even most raiders do everything and that is your problem, not raiders.

[DeadmanWalking]

Tell me about those advantages.

The advantage for Blizzard is clear... cost-effective content.

At least raiders couldnt force non-raiders to raid... but now Blizz tries exactly that.

You notice how you don't have to shout for puggers for 90 mins to find someone with raid ready LFR gear that has basic understanding of 3/5 mechanics and isn't raid locked or committed to another guilds raid later in the week? Don't make me list why LFR exists and its advantages to the community again, I am trying to cut back to every 8 pages.

Don't be that guy who doesn't have kids and complains about paying school taxes when he enjoys the benefits of an educated society every single moment he draws breath.

And where do you get this fantasy of blizzard forcing us to raid? I know many people who don't go further than 5 mans, or only PVP. You go do what you want to do, which is an improvement over the old days of keeping players out of the content because no one wants to help a player get attuned or you poach attuned players from other guilds ensuring that those guilds never get enough players to actually get their raid on, they are stuck in a 10 man attunement phase. Why would you wait for all 10 people to get attuned when you can jump the gate into a group that already has 9 attuned players?

[Maios]

That doesn't mean it's the right direction for the game. Just look at what Blizzard is doing with 25m. 25m are dying because people don't find them as enjoyable as 10m, so Blizzard has to artificially inflate the rewards to get people to do them.

It's the same thing with LFR. People gravitate to what requires the least amount of effort. Even with the lower ilvl and no mounts/achievements, LFR is killing regular raiding. That's why Blizzard is adding additional rewards to non-LFR to get people to do them.

---------- Post added 2013-06-20 at 11:33 AM ----------


It's nothing like that. You don't have to pay extra or for special packages to get those raid tiers. They're available to everyone who bought the game. It's that you had to unlock the raid tiers by playing the game.

If people gravitated to LFR from normals, how do you make the claim that those people wouldn't have just quit rather than keep doing normals? What about all the people who were forced to support the players who really didn't want to be there but wanted to see the content? What makes you think they loved normal raiding, as opposed to doing it because they had to in order to experience the game? How do you justify all the early game raid-loggers? Remember those people who wouldn't do any work to make the raid successful, but would log in at raid time to experience the raid then leave? What about the people who would jump to a more progressed guild so they didn't have to do the work of beating bosses? What about the stigma of the stepping-stone guild? Do you recall any of the problems with Classic/TBC raiding or only the rosy sweet nostalgia?

[brunnor]

If people gravitated to LFR from normals, how do you make the claim that those people wouldn't have just quit rather than keep doing normals? What about all the people who were forced to support the players who really didn't want to be there but wanted to see the content? What makes you think they loved normal raiding, as opposed to doing it because they had to in order to experience the game? How do you justify all the early game raid-loggers? Remember those people who wouldn't do any work to make the raid successful, but would log in at raid time to experience the raid then leave? What about the people who would jump to a more progressed guild so they didn't have to do the work of beating bosses? What about the stigma of the stepping-stone guild? Do you recall any of the problems with Classic/TBC raiding or only the rosy sweet nostalgia?

How do you know those players have stayed rather than unsubbing? You know as much about it as we do, ie nothing. The only things that are known is the population of the game at specific times, that's it. So that is realistically the only data that can be backed up with any theory. Those number, in regards to this thread, are 11.5 million subs when the game was thought to be as exclusive as it ever could be, ie sunwell. 12 million players during ICC when China got its release of Wrath. "A little over 10 million" at the start of MoP and 8.3 million now.

Now, using those numbers, more people liked the game when it was Wrath and/or TBC style than they do now. I'm not saying what specific part of those expansions was the key to success and what of the current ones equal failure. I am just saying when the game as a whole was like those two types, it had more players.

edit - About the player types, how aren't those here now? People always will jump guilds to better ones when they feel they are being held back or no longer enjoy where they are at. If anything it was much harder back then to guild hop than it is today. The whole attunement thing keeping you kind of "locked" in the same tier you were progressing in with limited exceptions. The whole 30 day(I think it was 30, might be 90) transfer limit keeping you from xfering more often than 30 days.

And it is just laughable that you even mention people "didn't have to do the work of beating bosses" while attempt to defend LFR with that as a point.