Frustrating LFR - How do we fix this mentality?

[Akraen]

So I'm from a more progressed guild than the typical LFR person (11/12). I've never expected much when I queue for an LFR because these are inexperienced people. So I try to be friendly, help out, and honestly carry the weak.

Since Dragon Soul I've noticed a disturbing trend in capability. I'd go from out-DPS-ing people by 20% or so to about 50%, onward up to recently where I flat-out double or more the output of people. Oh well, DPS potential among classes is another topic, but it plays into the point I'm going to make.

What I noticed during a LFR Ji-Kun recently was not that the group was wiping, but it was down to these very disturbing points:

-One person's strategy was just to get the maximum buff from wiping.
-Six to Eight people were yelling at each other about bizarre strategies, such as "ignore the eggs" - or "only plate DPS can kill eggs" - or even most weirdly "just have healers kill eggs since the boss is a DPS check"

And I just sat there, blank stare on my face, wondering how so many people could be so wrong about an encounter, but also about leading an encounter. The attitudes were atrocious and unproductive. Insults were flying everywhere, and on one attempt when I did 95k dps more than the #2 person, one person even suggested they vote kick me because I didn't need any gear. Huh?

So even though, being a GM/raid leader, I wish I could just turn that side of me off and relax in a LFR or pug, as usual, I had to step up. I never just get to relax and be a soldier.

I took charge of the raid, put a diamond on my head, and said:
"If you are uncomfortable with this boss, just DPS the boss and STAY AWAY FROM OTHERS."
"I will (with a diamond on my head) - fly around to each platform and kill the eggs."
"If you want to learn this fight, follow me, and help. Otherwise I will be able to kill enough to let you guys kill Ji-Kun himself."
"Now pull."

Everyone shut up and listened. A few people actually followed me, helped, and we killed him rather quickly without any deaths. I received many thank yous for stepping up and leading, but for some reason, a day later I am still unhappy with this.

What I did was the incorrect strategy, it was "just to get it done" - and now these people aren't really going to "get it" for whenever they go into an LFR group without someone experienced.

I'm honestly not sure what the solution is for mechanically dense fights. Though since Dragon Soul, I've wondered why they even exist. I am also curious if Europe deals with the same things or if this is an American culture problem-- "I want it dead, I want it now, and I don't want to do the fight properly" reigns supreme in every LFR group I've seen. The uninformed rule the raid, bully others, and make giant asses of themselves until someone experienced who is just trying to relax and enjoy an easy raid, or test out some spec changes, or play an alt, is forced to step up and take control.

[zoefschildpad]

I find LFR gets better after a couple weeks when people know what they're doing. You and at most 2-3 others were the only ones in the raid who had ever seen the fight. I'd guess another 5 or so watched a video and the rest just went in blind. In a couple weeks many more people will have done the fights and you'll see enough of them will know what to do to do the fight properly. You are pretty far ahead of the curve, many many raiding guilds haven't gotten to ji-kun yet.

[slime]

I think you did the right thing. In fact, I know LFR has some kind of "leader" option where you can check a box to be called the leader. I think maybe Blizz should take it a step further - and officially choose a leader for your LFR group (one that opted for it obviously) and at the very start of the raid - have a raid warning that says "so and so is the leader, pay attention to him/her or you will be removed and replaced." I know this opens the door to trolls checking leader and messing up the experience for all the others, but I don't know what else to say except it becomes a lot like LFD, you join, pray you get a good group - if not re-queue.

You have to think some percentage of people go to LFR just because usually there are no strats and it's kinda face-roll. As soon as you start barking at those people you've defeated the purpose of why they only LFR and who knows what happens then. Like everything else in WoW, there will be no perfect solution that makes everyone happy all the time.

[Paulosio]

With bosses like Ji'kun (well most bosses really) it's going to take a few weeks before people even understand the basics of what they need to be doing. I've cleared both halves of Throne of thunder LFR this week on 3 characters and no group wiped more than once on any boss.

Admittedly I had to do the eggs myself on Ji'kun all 3 times with the help of 1 or 2 others who were willing to learn how to do it.

[Shiira]

Having a small number of people handle all of the nests is the intended strategy for lfr, that's why feathers don't have limited charges.

As for the attitude problem, what to you expect? A lot of people just go to lfr for loot handouts, they aren't raiders and they don't want to learn a strategy.

[Dunker]

Watching people kick turtles this week because, hey, I have a big button on my screen that says "KICK" was quite frustrating.

I'm hoping it will get better as time goes on, as the second poster mentioned, but the buff actually makes things worse. I think they should remove the "damage taken" and "increased health" and leave "damage done" and "healing done". Those two parts of the buff, in combination, work to nullify a lot of mechanics.

In the end, however, LFR is going to be that way. A combination of people learning the gist of the fight with people acquiring gear from LFR, real raiding, and valor makes it so that eventually the fights are trivial anyway - look at 5.0 LFR.

[VeraeliaBlack]

I find LFR gets better after a couple weeks when people know what they're doing. You and at most 2-3 others were the only ones in the raid who had ever seen the fight. I'd guess another 5 or so watched a video and the rest just went in blind. In a couple weeks many more people will have done the fights and you'll see enough of them will know what to do to do the fight properly. You are pretty far ahead of the curve, many many raiding guilds haven't gotten to ji-kun yet.

Pretty much the same reason why I wait a week or two before I go into them. And usually always right at - or a couple days after - Tuesday. Most people are on their mains / primary alts (I guess you could call them) then, so the level of idiocy and trolling / rage is pretty low. Given both my mains are DPS now, waiting in a 45+ minute queue (on average) only to go in and have to deal with people who apparently got up on the wrong side of the bed isn't something I call fun. I go in to cap valor / get gear / adjust some spec or rotation adjustments / get some practice in on some mechanics for the "real deal" (unfortunately, not something I've gotten to hit yet. Old raid team collapsed due to people being lazy, new team is still back-clearing HoF/Terrace to gear up new people and such, so I guess the best way to describe it is preparing for the new raid >.<).

I miss the community this game used to have, where people were nice to each other. You don't see much by way of what the OP did anymore, and it makes me sad. From someone who's played since before there was server transfers and name/faction changes, it's disappointing sometimes to see how some people act. As far as staying on topic, I've found the best way to "fix" bad groups is vote-kicking the people who are being a problem, and basically doing what OP did. Take charge, lay down the law, and try to get rid of the trolls. Unfortunately, not always easy to do, but I've seen the vast majority of people who are new to the newly-released stuff shape up as soon as someone who has any idea of what they're doing comes along.

[Azrile]

One problem with LFR was actually your method. A lot of times the ´wrong´ strategy will work if you have decent DPS who are real raiders, but then fail for normal LFR players. The first week of ToT LFR, there were a lot of well geared players doing it who had already done the normal mode. Council is a perfect example... the real raiders said ´Kill Sul, then kill whomever is purple´. This work very well because you had half your LFR doing over 100k dps and healers that could handle it.. Sul went down fast, and the rest is a breeze.

Come the second week and subsequent weeks, you now have most of your dps doing 60k... Sul doesn´t go down fast, your healers can´t keep up, and it is a wipe. yet you still have half of your LFR believe they are just not executing well, but the strategy is sound. LFR really has an inverse gear-check the first month. DPS will actually continue to go down.. Once you get the real raiders out of it, the normal LFR people will gradually gear up, but when that starts to happen, then you have a lot more /followers. LFR overall DPS is lower after 8 weeks than it is at week 2.

TLDR.. Everyone has different strategies that worked the first week when DPS was exceedingly high. Now that DPS is down to normal LFR levels, those strategies don´t work.

[XDurionX]

Sometimes the best lfr-strat ISN´T the "proper" way to do it, think of stone guard. The best lfr strategy is the one with the least wipe risk. I´d choose a safe strategy over a "fast" or "right" one anytime.

[Akraen]

I think the onus is on the skilled people who do go into these LFRs.

There are often people who are in heroic guilds who either remain completely silent or just insult people for being bad.

I don't want to be that person, but I also am not given the tools to properly lead the raid itself. I don't know of a method in which leadership powers can be given to an individual without the risk of it going to someone who would handle it tyrannically.

[RickJamesLich]

Personally I think they should just remove LFR from the game, if people aren't interested in raiding, they probably won't be interested in the artificial version of it either. It just creates bad strategies (can't tell you how many pugs I've been in with people decked in almost all LFR gear and they can't down the first boss lol).

[Nerevar]

I like LFR only because you can ruin people's experience there. You join with your 5-man group an LFR queue - and the fun begins! Taunting trash, giving bubbles, not healing, blaming others, kicking players - it's fun! LFR shouldn't be used any other way. I'm so glad they added it. You wouldn't believe how much fun me and my friends had in cataclysm, on deathwing's back - you wipe everyone, while yourself staying alive. After that - you just balance deathwing, and that's it - no one can do anything. The fight is still ongoing, no one can ress - everyone leaves Also, a lot of butthurt comes from that. Some much ragechat, lololol.

Do not make posts like the one above. (by Sonnillon)

[Exeris]

Watching people kick turtles this week because, hey, I have a big button on my screen that says "KICK" was quite frustrating.

I'm hoping it will get better as time goes on, as the second poster mentioned, but the buff actually makes things worse. I think they should remove the "damage taken" and "increased health" and leave "damage done" and "healing done". Those two parts of the buff, in combination, work to nullify a lot of mechanics.

In the end, however, LFR is going to be that way. A combination of people learning the gist of the fight with people acquiring gear from LFR, real raiding, and valor makes it so that eventually the fights are trivial anyway - look at 5.0 LFR.

I thought for a second they were bugged, watching turtles fly in all different directions.

Having a thick skin is almost mandatory in LFR, in most pugs for that matter.

[Akraen]

I like LFR only because you can ruin people's experience there. You join with your 5-man group an LFR queue - and the fun begins! Taunting trash, giving bubbles, not healing, blaming others, kicking players - it's fun! LFR shouldn't be used any other way. I'm so glad they added it. You wouldn't believe how much fun me and my friends had in cataclysm, on deathwing's back - you wipe everyone, while yourself staying alive. After that - you just balance deathwing, and that's it - no one can do anything. The fight is still ongoing, no one can ress - everyone leaves Also, a lot of butthurt comes from that. Some much ragechat, lololol.

As funny as you think you are - you're part of the problem.

[Nerevar]

As funny as you think you are - you're part of the problem.

Problem? I do not see it as a problem. I played the game to have fun, and fun I had.

[willemh]

Being the raidleader of a decent 25 man guild I always try to help out when I can. However this week I have been kicked twice from the new Throne of Thunder LFR while playing 2 different alts.

1st time: We were on council, I marked Sul with a skull and told everyone that we would pop heroism at the start and would dps Sul down as far as we could, and when I would call out we would switch to frostking. Some random guy said 'this leader is clueless, frostking needs to be dpsed down first, lets kick him', a few seconds later I was groupless (after spending nearly an hour in the queue and over an hour in the raid).

2nd time: We were on Magaera, I put 2 raid markers down to stack for rampage, told healers and ranged to make sure they stood at range to avoid icebeams in melee, and explained everyone not to dispell debuffs untill the targetted person ran to the back of the room. We wiped on the last head because 40% of the raid died to a fire debuff that was dispelled in melee ontop of the 'stacking mark'. So I said 'healers make sure you only dispell after the player with the debuff has ran out of the raid'. Then this person said 'you only blame healers, your annoying', and a few seconds later I was without group again.

This was so extremely frustrating for me that I really raged a bit about it. The new LFR's take allot of time allready, queues are long, and then I get abused like this by uninformed and underperforming players while I actually was the one trying to help them out. Extremely annoying, this really shoudnt be possible. Anyway I decided I will close my eyes and mindlessly press some buttons from now on LFR, do not expect any help from me anymore.

[Deleted]

Problem? I do not see it as a problem. I played the game to have fun, and fun I had.

So even if your "fun" makes others have less fun or no fun at all you think you're doing the right thing? I hate people like you.

[Deleted]

So even if your "fun" makes others have less fun or no fun at all you think you're doing the right thing? I hate people like you.

Don't sweat it. Guys like these are oblivious to the fact we are all on them and a wipe costs us ten minutes after which we kick him and his guildies and they waiting 30+ mins to have some "fun".

[Yunru]

Being the raidleader of a decent 25 man guild I always try to help out when I can. However this week I have been kicked twice from the new Throne of Thunder LFR while playing 2 different alts.

1st time: We were on council, I marked Sul with a skull and told everyone that we would pop heroism at the start and would dps Sul down as far as we could, and when I would call out we would switch to frostking. Some random guy said 'this leader is clueless, frostking needs to be dpsed down first, lets kick him', a few seconds later I was groupless (after spending nearly an hour in the queue and over an hour in the raid).

2nd time: We were on Magaera, I put 2 raid markers down to stack for rampage, told healers and ranged to make sure they stood at range to avoid icebeams in melee, and explained everyone not to dispell debuffs untill the targetted person ran to the back of the room. We wiped on the last head because 40% of the raid died to a fire debuff that was dispelled in melee ontop of the 'stacking mark'. So I said 'healers make sure you only dispell after the player with the debuff has ran out of the raid'. Then this person said 'you only blame healers, your annoying', and a few seconds later I was without group again.

This was so extremely frustrating for me that I really raged a bit about it. The new LFR's take allot of time allready, queues are long, and then I get abused like this by uninformed and underperforming players while I actually was the one trying to help them out. Extremely annoying, this really shoudnt be possible. Anyway I decided I will close my eyes and mindlessly press some buttons from now on LFR, do not expect any help from me anymore.

When it comes too random ppl dont bother teling them anything. They think you are a whiner (because they are clueless) so they kick you.

Best tactic is too tell them too kick dps with no dps. Those are usualy the root of the problem. (yes those guys kick)

The more silent you are the better it is. (but you can always troll....trolls hardy get kicked--- direbrews remote ftw..just watchout for those who use some crappy addons)

[Thexx]

I don't know if you can fix it. My guild is ahead of the curve, too, so I often find myself being one of the only (if not THE only) member of the raid that is familiar with the mechanics when a new LFR wing opens. Even if you know what you're doing and are willing to explain, it can get frustrating, because people interrupt you with the "lol shut up and pull" mentality, and then the group wipes because of something stupid like, say, the floor disappearing on Elegon.

When we got to Ji'kun, I said I'd heal nests and told three DPS with good AoE to follow me, and lo and behold - it worked. I kinda feel like you just need to grit your teeth and get through it, because half of the raid is going to ignore your attempts to explain the fights anyway.