Blizz needs to either: lower Timeless Isle gear Ilvl, or increase LFR Soo ivlvl req

[Azrile]

First off, I like the Timeless Isle.
It gives people something to do, and allows returning players to catch up.

I also love LFR and Flex raiding.

However, the problem arises when the two of these are combined.
What Blizzard has created is a true hell. Screw Satan, he aint got shit in LFR SoO.

What happens now is that clueless players, new or not, can jump straight into the latest tier of LFR with 30 minutes of Isle farming.
This results in the majority of your LFR consisting of dps that hover between 30-50k dps.
Often said players are obnoxious and refuse to take advice, or follow simple instructions.

I literally had a wing 3 of SoO where 8, count em, EIGHT dps were between that margin. This was with 2 stacks of determination.
And this was not an isolated incident, earlier today I had the great displeasure of spending 2 hours on Galakras, again, because of players like this.

Ofcourse, you had this in far lessser proportions in previous tiers, with people geared in pvp crap which they got by afking BG's.
But it has never been as bad as it is now.

Therefore, I feel that something needs to be done.

Either:
Lower the itemlevel of Timeless Isle gear, but keep the stats the same.
Increase the required itemlevel for SoO, and make Timeless gear not count towards it, UNLESS you have Silver in the proving grounds.

You are clueless if you think people can qualify withn 30 minutes on timeless island. It would take about 8 hours at minimum, and that would require some good RNG as well as not being ´clueless´ about how to do it.

People who are clueless on Timeless Island.. they are about ilvl 480ish. Sure, you get many armor slots, and even maybe 1 or 2 535s.. but you also have no 2nd trinket and no weapon. Want to buy a TI weapon ( which also will not get you into SoO).. trust me, it is NOT fun trying to farm 20,000 coins on a character that is at iLVL 480ish with a crap weapon. In fact, I would say if they earned 20,000 coins on a character with that type of gear.. they are far from clueless.

LFR is always going to have people not giving effort.. who cares.. bosses are dying fast already in everything but the latest wing, which is basically same as it´s always been with LFR.

[Mormolyce]

I'm going to agree with this.

Flex has taken a lot of the "better" players out of LFR. I now only do Flex and occasionally normal but I used to only do LFR and rarely normal. Dealing with LFR now is just not fun, more of a chore. Some groups are better than others but for the most part it's horrible.

Shrug. Anecdotal evidence doesn't mean much.

My impression is that the "carriers" might be slightly less common than previously. Maybe. But again you have to compare like to like, there were a fair few people in full NM gear in ToT LFR towards the end of its lifecycle because it had been out for months. And of course, you could get NM-level gear in all but a couple of slots from VP - you didn't even need to raid.

I notice nobody is talking about the effect of the lack of new VP vendors? On the one hand this means that you can't get any new gear UNLESS you raid in LFR at the minimum, on the other hand it means VP isn't all that useful unless you're getting decent gear and want to upgrade it (not that LFR was a very efficient way to get VP). Personally I've been very slack about doing LFR lately because there's no longer a pressing need. Another part of that is the fact I've finished the legendary chain already, that kept me doing LFR several weeks longer than I might've in ToT.

[AeneasBK]

When i do LFRs i usually just watch a movie and tab in occasionally. When the movie is over its usually at 4-5 stacks of determination.

This is why LFR is bad, pretty much. No offense.

[MoanaLisa]

Anyone that can fit themselves out with a set of gear from Timeless Isle in less than an hour knows what they're doing and is probably on an alt. So no, that's not it.

[ophion1990]

Then kindly explain why it has never been THIS bad up until the Clueless Isle came along.

Haven't done LFR since 4.3, but people back then could just run the 4.3 heroics and get their easy epics while doing horrendous damage and get valor to buy (DS normal?) equivelant gear and get into LFR. I was in the top 10 of dps as a tank fairly often back then, if it's even worse now I'm not sure I wanna try out SoO aside from flex.

This is why LFR is bad, pretty much. No offense.

Also proofs the awful state of the online gaming community. :/

[Mormolyce]

This is why LFR is bad, pretty much. No offense.

Maybe we shouldn't come on forums and ceaselessly bitch about LFR and create the atmosphere that encourages people to AFK, not take it seriously, and be a jerk to other players

[velde046]

Then kindly explain why it has never been THIS bad up until the Clueless Isle came along.

It's not worse than before... just give each wing a few weeks after release and everything is fine. First week on Shaman was awful, we ended up with 4 stacks of determination. Week after we one-shotted it. It's a MMO mate. Just like in real life you get to deal with all kinds of people, so deal with it or stay out.
And yes you encounter people that won't take advice, but in general most people appreciate it if you give them some decent advice. Mind you, "L2P" is NOT advice in my opinion....

[Deleted]

LFR certainly seems to have become a bigger pain.

I was in TOT on my Shaman and I entered with 4 stacks of determination on horridon, then got to council and the group didn't burn Sul down instantly, instead migrating between bosses as they empower, which is suboptimal, and we seemed to have zero dps. Ended up finishing the fight after 2 bloodlusts and with a heap of people dead, and this was with a few stacks of determination.

Absolutely no dps output from the group or proper target switching to spirits etc, it was horrible. Not sure if timeless isle is entirely to blame though.

You can do more than 50k dps in quest greens, people doing damage that poor are not doing so because of gear.

He never argued they were, if you read the post he's saying that it's because they can queue with zero experience, as opposed to having to run a few of the earlier and easier LFRs where people would (hopefully) learn a little, you can now queue for siege of orgrimmar without ever actually playing your character at max level.

[Fluttershy]

Or they could've just made 3 new 5mans giving 516 gear(requiring item level 480, which is easily obtained from 496 jp gear).


That way people can at least learn even a little about their class instead of hitting 90, getting literally garbage gear and then queuing 5 minutes later.

But nah, that takes too much effort, just copy paste an island, copy paste mobs, use 100% randomized gear and then call it a day. good job!

[Dasani]

It's that bad because people who usually carry bads now are in Flex.

^^^ This basically.

Now that flex exists, the "better" people that used to have to struggle through LFR because they couldn't commit to a real raid team for whatever reason are off running flex raids and not doing LFR anymore. Even on my alts, I only do flex, I don't step foot in LFR with all the bads. Flex is really the way to go. Better rewards, and if someone is shit or not pulling their weight you can just toss them out instead of relying on broken protect-the-dumbass vote kick rules.

LFR is more horrible right now than it will be in the future where everyone's shitty alts are geared better and also when everyone knows all the fights. Cause right now LFR quality people don't give a fuck, they don't bother knowing anything about a fight before queueing up, they just GO and expect to be carried. But even those fools will pickup a few things in a few weeks and some of them will improve with the mechanics.

Having a full set of timeless isle gear letting you go straight into LFR is a nice catch up mechanic and works just fine. It's just people are crap and theres no reason to run LFR anymore for a lot of people. The geared raiders who used to do it for other reasons or a shot at a better trinket or whatever even at a lower quality are again, doing flex instead.

Only thing that needs to change with timeless gear is remove the "pure" pieces which penalize the hell out of your total stat value, and remove retarded pieces like hit/expertise, etc. Even with full 496 gear if you get bad rolls on your random pieces, you can end up with stats shittier than 463 gear.

[Fiddlesnarf]

Its too late to rework Timeless Isle. Blizzard just needs to learn from the mistakes they made making it, which are numerous.

[CyberTod]

When i do LFRs i usually just watch a movie and tab in occasionally. When the movie is over its usually at 4-5 stacks of determination.

Here is the main reason why LFRs fail. People like this one, nothing else. And when I see someone posting something like this it makes me sick. And I've seen posts like this many times.

[Bluetarragon]

^^^ This basically.

Now that flex exists, the "better" people that used to have to struggle through LFR because they couldn't commit to a real raid team for whatever reason are off running flex raids and not doing LFR anymore. Even on my alts, I only do flex, I don't step foot in LFR with all the bads. Flex is really the way to go. Better rewards, and if someone is shit or not pulling their weight you can just toss them out instead of relying on broken protect-the-dumbass vote kick rules.

LFR is more horrible right now than it will be in the future where everyone's shitty alts are geared better and also when everyone knows all the fights. Cause right now LFR quality people don't give a fuck, they don't bother knowing anything about a fight before queueing up, they just GO and expect to be carried. But even those fools will pickup a few things in a few weeks and some of them will improve with the mechanics.

Having a full set of timeless isle gear letting you go straight into LFR is a nice catch up mechanic and works just fine. It's just people are crap and theres no reason to run LFR anymore for a lot of people. The geared raiders who used to do it for other reasons or a shot at a better trinket or whatever even at a lower quality are again, doing flex instead.

Only thing that needs to change with timeless gear is remove the "pure" pieces which penalize the hell out of your total stat value, and remove retarded pieces like hit/expertise, etc. Even with full 496 gear if you get bad rolls on your random pieces, you can end up with stats shittier than 463 gear.

Exactly what I was going to say. All the raiders in our guild have stopped LFR this tier. There just isn't really a point in doing LFR if you are a normal raider or higher (unless you want to waste your time and have a thoroughly unenjoyable time). I do the odd flex if I want to outside our raids.

From what I saw by testing out LFR in 5.4, it was a horrible waste of time with awful people.

The LFR community has definitely lost a large proportion of the "better players" to flex, making the LFR experience even worse. As people have said, I am sure things will improve in LFR over time, but I will not run another LFR now.

[Itakas]

Well, its mostly the players who choose to be bad and just slack it off. I have seen so many in soo, that just join with TI gear, no gems, no enchants, just raw gear with some crap weapons. And you can not say someone does not know what gems or enchants are, it is just pure slack from people that expect to get their alts geared by afking in lfr. Sure there are bad players, but as i see it its mostly alts who ppl didnt wanma agear before, but now with the fast TI ilvl system they can gear them up fast and afk farm lfr. Most of them even know the basic rotations for the class, they just cba doing it so they just spam or white hit while afk. Even if you explain to someone how he can improve his/her dmg usualy i get no response or they just insult me back. So the major problem is that the game has turned 90%+ of people into spoiled retards who think they are entitled to everything and dont wanna even try and improve or put some effort into the game. I mean when you get served with everything from items/achievements/titles for no effort for the last x years, why change anything now and i am affraid that this trend of major slack and bad play wont end untill lfr gets remove and players actually have to work a bit to get things.

A situation i had on this week spoils, i was on ilvl 529 warrior (Arms), so we go in wipe 2-3 times to low dps, i open recaunt and i see me and 1 shaman 60kdps above everyone else, while i was doing 3-4 times more damage then other 2 arms warriors in raid. I check their gear and it was decent, on my level or higher, so i check their dmg and they are not using TC to aoe DW the mobs. I tell them in whispers they should do it, one completley ignored me, while the other called me an elitist fuck that should keep my opinion to my self and stop wanking on recount. So i call them out in raid, since i cba wiping because of ppl dont wanna listen and then there is 10min drama where in the end i barely get to stay in lfr (mostly because i was so high in dps) and the 2 warriors i called out, dont get kicked. Eventualy we got to 9 stacks and killed the boss, but was too much pain rly.

Edit: As long as there is a system in game that just gives rewards no matter what and that has no way of punishing bad/lazy players lfr wont be getting any better. And no vote kick option is not a punishment, since you will get an equaly bad player and the player that got kicked will just queue again for new lfr.

[MrExcelion]

Because Flex was introduced reducing the amount of people who carry LFR groups. The problem is not Timeless Isle. The problem is the players as it has always been.

That and no new legendary quest drops

[Sqeen]

In my opinion the bad performance has nothing to do with the inexperience of people, it's only their laziness in LFR. If you furiously smash all your buttons in a random order no matter which class you are playing you will end up above 80k dps with timeless gear (around 520-525).

Decreasing the item level of the gear will just make it worse because the mage who only spams ice lance once every 5 seconds will then end up even lower in the ranking. As long as people refuse to shape up in LFR to get things done faster this will remain a pain in the butt.

I can only recommend that you look for a bunch of friends or a nice casual guild and go for Flex instead of LFR. Better loot for less effort and it can easily be done with the timeless isle gear.

[Marxman]

Then kindly explain why it has never been THIS bad up until the Clueless Isle came along.

Because LFR was even more idiot-proof in previous tiers than it is now. Stuff in this LFR can actually kill you, dumb people can actually cause problems, and DPS requirements actually exist. It's not like Durumu where 11 people can die to the first beam and you still kill the boss.

The problem has a lot less to do with Timeless Isle (though I agree it's a small contributing factor) and a lot more to do with LFR being a little overtuned, particularly wing 2. No, LFR isn't even remotely difficult, but you have to tune it for the average LFR player... who these days seem to have IQs in the 60s.

[Sildor]

Then kindly explain why it has never been THIS bad up until the Clueless Isle came along.

It's because the SoO LFR has nothing to offer for real raiders, their old heroic gear was just better and there's no legendary quest to do, and a lot of the better people in LFR are now in Flex.

[Deleted]

LFR crowd wanted a difficulty that was just for people who wanted to run LFR. LFR crowd have that difficulty. The crowd of raiders, casual raiders, or people who ahve invested even an iota of time in to the game and being social can run Flex now and not have to put up with the worst experience in WoW. Everyone wins. Raiders get to stay out of LFR, and LFR can be for the people who LFR is catered for. I know many a time I've been flamed for attempting to tell tactics and dare to vote to kick AFK'ers or people 20th on DPS.

But, any attempt to constrctively deal with the problems has led to people being branded as 'raiders' 'elitist scum' 'this is a difficulty for us'. Now with no legendary quest in LFR, no real incentive to run it due to the low item level, it truly is.

[Itakas]

Because LFR was even more idiot-proof in previous tiers than it is now. Stuff in this LFR can actually kill you, dumb people can actually cause problems, and DPS requirements actually exist. It's not like Durumu where 11 people can die to the first beam and you still kill the boss.

The problem has a lot less to do with Timeless Isle (though I agree it's a small contributing factor) and a lot more to do with LFR being a little overtuned, particularly wing 2. No, LFR isn't even remotely difficult, but you have to tune it for the average LFR player... who these days seem to have IQs in the 60s.

Tbh, is they dump down lfr any more, they can just make it you wait in queue for x minutes and then get the items (if you won any) sent to you by mail, without even having to enter raid, since atm lfr is a joke and how low should it get before blizzard starts punishing people for bad/lazy play, instead catering to them by rewarding for continus bad/lazy play.

The lfr is not overtuned, its just that:

1) 60-80k dps is not acceptable at this point in game
2) Standing in shit and dieing to same aoe what not is not acceptable
3) Being afk and just white hitting/casting filler spell is not acceptable
4) many more things i cba writing down.

And yet all of the above are ok atm, because there is no punishment for those, instead it just rewards, rewards, rewards... Simple solution is, make it so if you do low dps, die to stupid things you dont get any loot, not the bag with gold, but a big ass red message saying "You underperformed for the given boss and you dont get anything!" and get saved. Like that ppl will learn rly fast or stop joining the lfr before they learn to play. Could be even done, so the loot is assigned at the end of run for all bosses, like that you have a pattern how did someone do and did he underperform on all bosses, or was it just bad luck for one boss and assignt loot/no loot accordingly.