Agree with most of this thread. I am contemplating quitting raiding too.
Been on WOW since Beta, raided since then. My guild is now a 10N guild and we always finished all 10N raids before. It feels 10N are too hard now, or at least not worth the investment.
I can invest 2h/week on LFR, I get to wear the new sets, improve my character, discover all the content - 80% of the value of raiding for a 2h/week investment.
If I want the extra 20% (technical challenge of downing the same boss, in the same place that drops the same loot than LFR - just a few ilvls and hps % higher) I need to invest at least 20h/week between 3 nights of raiding and all the farming for valor and raid resources. Its just not worth the extra 18hours per week anymore, which are spent on wiping on Horridon.
I blame LFR.
That and the fact that they don't have to actually think about anything.
No, I'm not hating on LFR. But can you honestly say that you've ever joined an lfr where people actually bother with the mechanics? I'm split in my opinion where people call for Blizzard to remove pieces of loot (like tier gear) from lfr.
If people just do it to "see" content they have no need for it. On the other hand people that do raid with guilds use lfr to try and offset unlucky drops in normals. I always dread queueing lfr as a tank in the 2nd half of HoF cause I KNOW I'm going to die at least once since people can't be assed to actually dps down constructs, and sometimes even the blobs.
STRESS
The confusion caused when one's mind
overrides the body's basic
desire to choke the living shit out of
some jerk who desperately needs it
No. Ulduar model was the best.I agree with you there and the TBC model was the best.
I dunno if you can just flatly say that most people don't want to "real raid". A lot of us loved "real raiding". It’s just that the raiding we loved isn’t there anymore. There are lots of reasons for this. Some are on the players’ side (as a group, we’ve aged and have different priorities), but many are on Blizzard’s side. “Real raiding” died in Cata. Maybe even long before that. It could be argued that the last “real raiding” scene was back in BC when Blizzard just splooged out all the content and let difficulty be the gating mechanism.
They created conflicting goals when they over complicated it with 50 different versions of the same content. HM, NM, 10, 25, LFR… It’s too much. They tried to appease everyone, but I’d argue that what ended up happening was that they drove away their middle ground. That group of players in between “bleeding edge” and “herp derp” is dwindling. Which is too bad. That group was Blizzard’s bread and butter.
That group was me.
LFR Did not reduce the raiding pool. It *did* take many of the lackluster players that got into 25 man content simply because raid leaders needed numbers and put them where they really belong.
Cannot stress this enough, a 25 man raid is simply too big for any MMO community. The skill of the few is what balances out the ineptitude of the many. It was the same with 40 mans. Hell, it is the same with 10 mans, except the ratio is much tighter (you may carry 1-2 in 10)
I state this again, LFR did nothing bad. It *did* kill raids that didn't need to be happening. If your raiding and carrying around people that are not good enough *or* they can't dedicate the necessary time to raid properly, those people are killing the raiding community.
As for reusing boss mechanics, I haven't seen much of that in 5.2. Very, Very fine outlines of old mechanics? Sure. What people want when they ask for "new" mechanics isn't actually anything substantial, they just want to complain without offering suggestions.
For all its prominence in WoW, organized raiding is not a very popular activity, and hardcore/progression raiding is much rarer still. And although playing the actual encounters is fun, all the hoops people have to jump through to get ready and stay ready are not fun, when you are expected to be "optimum" or else "let the raid down."
The great majority of players don't find being "optimum" to be a lot of fun. It's a lot more like work than playing a game.
Why would anyone that just likes to log on and play randomly care about being in a raiding guild now? LFR lets someone enjoy those raids for epic loot without dealing with the drama.
I have said it before and I will say it again, most players don't want challenge. They want to log in an do whatever for an hour. The only reason many people raided before was because the only option to see those locations and bosses was through raiding guilds. Now they don't need that, so why would they app to some brow beaters they probably don't even like?
i think i'd like to see blizz add a second difficulty to LFR
being able to queue for 25n raids via LFR queue would be nice, you'd actually have to have a clue and if you did get grouped with a bunch of numpties, you'd be able to kick the truly fail after a wipe.
<insert witty signature here>
To me, getting gear is content. I'm building up my character. So, technically, LFR is my endgame. People want gear. Even if it's crappy gear. You gotta give people something, otherwise, they'd do it once and be bored, and then quit the game.
---------- Post added 2013-03-18 at 06:18 PM ----------
In theory, that'd be nice. I'd love that a lot so I could do something that's not LFR without a guild. But it wouldn't really work. The problem would be that it'd be too hard for the average player, and either people would get mad and quit, or it'd be nerfed into the ground, which'd defeat it's purpose.
I'd LOVE to have queueable normal and above and such, but it's just not feasible to do without destroying content in some fashion
So, I'll just live with LFR :/
The way I see it, which is the same as a number of others have said as well, is that there were a lot of people who only raided normal mode raids because it was the only option. With LFR, those people can raid when they want without worrying about a schedule, or even a guild, if they're so inclined. I'm in this category. I'm still in a guild, because I like my guildies, but I don't want to raid on a set schedule. Especially since despite being on an east coast U.S. server, almost every guild starts at 7:30pm or later (mostly later) which doesn't fit my schedule.
Stating an opinion as fact does not make it fact. Opinions are not fact. So don't be stupid and make a fool of yourself by trying to pass off your opinion as fact.
I'm not saying that ALL people don't want to do that. Most don't, because, by the numbers, barely anyone has bothered to. I guess it's a bit ASSUMING, but still. You'd think if a lot of people wanted to do stuff... they'd be doing it. Not... not doing it. The amount of people raiding was at their lowest, IIRC, during Vanilla and BC, and at it's highest during WOTLK (Which is when HM's were introduced!)
Assuming Blizzard doesn't lie to us the majority of players are there since Classic. We grew up and there are other things to do than raids. LFR fits my needs completely.
Of course the normal-mode raiding population is down because of LFR. There are plenty of people who primarily just want to see the content and get loot, satisfied with better gear but not so concerned with getting Best in Slot (BiS) or even 2nd BiS.
That was initially one of my gripes about LFR, and the numbers appear to line up to affirm what I suspected was true. I'd hate to be one of the primaries in a guild responsible for forming up a raid team. Usually, we have to sit around for half an hour before our 10-man gets going, but it does eventually get going.
LFR, CRZ's, and even to an extent LFD bothered me for a long time because it points to less server camaraderie and appeared to be a philosophical change of direction from the developers.
However, I've mostly gotten over it thanks to several things I'm seeing in the latest patch (5.2).
Primarily for two reasons.
• General Chat related to forming groups for boss summons and rares on the Isle of Thunder and for Oondasta on the Isle of Giants. That's server groups that are forming, and it's really refreshing to see that. Seriously.
• Normal raids loot drops that are significantly higher (iLvl+20 pts) than what is available in LFR. Not an end-all solution, but could serve to at least increase those interested in normal raiding by maybe 1 or 2 percent.
However, the thing I like best about those two points is that it appears (and I could be totally wrong about this, but I don't think I am) that it demonstrates that the developers have recognized the dip in server camaraderie and are working to address those issues.
The way I see it, that's a step in the right direction allowing all the cross-realm abilities to coexist without completely obliterating individual server harmony.
Ideally, CRZ's won't be introduced for any current expansion content until the next expansion it released.
My point is that "it" no longer exists. If I could round up the same group of people and go back and re-live my BC experience, I'd be all over it. I'd be blowing 5-6 hours a day on WoW instead of being un-subscribed for about a year now.
And it's not just a nostalgia thing. Of the 50+ friends I made playing WoW, three still play. If even just one of them got on our guild forums (which are still quite active though we've moved on to other games and the like) and said, "This new expansion is a lot like BC!" I can guarantee you two full raid groups would re-sub, fire it up and be hardcore raiding in days. So it's not just that real life caused us to move on. Blizzard also is to blame when they stopped giving us what we wanted.
Note: I'm not saying "fuck you Blizzard for not making the game how I want it and screw everyone else". From a business standpoint, it's best for them to cater to the majority (see: casual). My guess is that Blizzard saw the writing on the wall years ago and thus why the game has slowly moved away from the hardcore raiding model over the past two and a half expansions. The feelings expressed in this thread are the direct result of that movement though.
Of course the number of raiders were lowest in BC and Vanilla. The number of players were lowest then. A more interesting figure would be the ratio between active raiders and active accounts across time. Alas, those are numbers only Blizzard has.The amount of people raiding was at their lowest, IIRC, during Vanilla and BC, and at it's highest during WOTLK (Which is when HM's were introduced!)