To people whom want LFR removed: What endgame do you propose for the casual players?

[DeadmanWalking]

LFR and it's inherent problems are a symptom of the bigger issues in wow, not a cause.

There are 3 major issues for me:

Wow is very elitist, finding comments calling someone a scrub because they've gemmed for haste instead of mastery, or similar take s afew seconds on pretty much any site you can find. - This leads to the situation with needing the achievement for killing garrosh to join a flex raid on the 2nd week after he was available in that mode and the ilvl 540+ requests and the "report to me for inspection before invite", etc.

The UI is too easily customised, with complete overhauls, alerts, macro'd actions, etc. - All this does is force complexity to levels where a lot of fights are close to impossible without any addons for anyone outside the top 0.1% of their class.

The mechanics are too established and too focused on meter balancing (partly because of how easy it is to 'play the meters' instead of playing the game). - This means they have to add gimmicks to every fight with 4-5 phases on a lot of the bosses and masses of adds to manage, etc. Compare this to the bosses in MC, etc and you can quickly see that the complexity has ramped up to critical levels which forces you to read up on tactics before a fight. By adding a step where you have to read up on skills and watch youtube movies before you step into a raid you're instantly dismissing a big chunk of player base.

All 3 of these lead to a situation where LFR is a requirement for many players, you can't get rid of it without fixing the rest, and fixing those will piss off far more people than having LFR does.

I have to hand it to you I have never heard anyone complain ever about being able to customize their UI, in fact the majority of people complain about not being able to customize the UI, being able to customize the UI without addons tend to be a selling point for some games. I think you just have a deep seated hatred of add ons for no particular reason other than 'I think it is bad.'.

[Ronduwil]

That problem is Self-Entitlement. Everyone expects everything to just get handed to them now while putting in the very least amount of effort possible. This attitude is prevalent everywhere in WoW now.

Why did you have to screw up a perfectly reasonable post with this? I don't see this problem. I've never seen anyone demanding heroic gear for running LFR. If anything, it's the other way around. I always see players complaining about people getting purples from LFR. It's not self-entitled to expect for a subscription game to continue to provide your main character with a progression path on your schedule in order to continue paying that subscription. Otherwise what's the point? Just unsub and wait for next expansion, at which point the level cap will be raised again and you'll have a means of making your main character more powerful. That's not entitlement; that's simple logic.

LFR players are stuck with gear in the 520s while Heroic players are at 570+. With very few exceptions, LFR players seem to be OK with that. Besides, this is a game. Stuff gets handed to you with minimal effort all the time. Are you telling me that anyone can swing a sword competently with only a couple of hours of training in real life? Do crops spring up overnight after you plant them? Does weeding an entire farm really take < 5 minutes? Of course not! This stuff only happens in games. What do you care if someone gets handed a purple shirt that's 50 ilevels lower than yours for putting in two hours a week of play time? How is that a symptom of entitlement?

[Krez]

(Sorry for the massive write up, just got thinking about it and it just came out. I think I'll post this here and perhaps make a new thread about some of my musings for a more focused, uh, critique(?), I guess? Or other people's thoughts, additions, improvements. /shrug Hooray for no sleep mornings.)
If I could totally rework how endgame is run for casuals, it would take a restructuring of the philosophy of endgame; that being how can you make the game more enjoyable, keep the player base continually interested in play, and appeal to a very large base while simultaneously supplying an appropriate level of difficulty for players of all skill levels while challenging and improving them through game play? My proposal:

Gear Change:
I would get rid of several things right away. Gear needs to be explained more simply and an item squish is very necessary (old content should still be easy though). The large numbers are difficult for the average player to compute easily/quickly and scares off new players - as does the complicated gear structure. I would also get rid of reforging as this adds an enormous layer of complexity that is unneeded.

All gear should be kept to the base stats: Armor type, Strength, Agility, Intellect, Spirit, and Stamina. Secondary stats would be limited to critical chance, accuracy (replacing hit and expertise - two stats to help hit a mob, really?), defense (bringing it back and getting rid of parry/dodge - or at least the need to put it on gear), and mastery (which would be simplified to increase your "base power"). These secondary stats would be balanced so they wouldn't overpower each other, and stamina could be added as well (possibly spirit too). In terms of DPS - players could choose from spikiest damage (big crits, more misses, weaker normal hits), middle value (few crits, more powerful normal hits, with misses), or smoothest damage (few crits and weak normal hits, but few misses). Healers choose between constant heals and big heals (heals don't miss), or adding more spirit for faster mana regeneration. Tanks could choose between adding mitigation through defense, adding stamina for smoother damage intake, or a dps secondary stat to increase damage or threat. (Threat - which should go back to BC difficulty in my opinion.) Or combinations of all of the above. Whatever the player decides is best for their play style. These stats would be adjusted so while there might be a "best" combination in terms of min/max, it wouldn't be overly so. All gear would only have the base stats - professions would be utilized to add secondary stats to gear. This eliminates the need for reforging as classes would take the same gear regardless of spec, modifying it later to their specific role. Gear can be manipulated in the following ways:
1. Armorers of the appropriate armor type can put sockets on gear. (In my mind 2 max. Perhaps make the second socket more costly time/money. Discussion for another time.)
2. These sockets could be filled by jewelcrafters or engineers with secondary stats. (Doesn't make sense to me to have gem sockets on items like neck, ring, trinket slots as they were usually made by jewelcrafters or engineers in the first place.)
3. Enchanters, Alchemists, and Inscribers would compete for various slots to put enchants, oils, and rune inscriptions - further enhancing the item. (Enchanting being the sole profession for weapons.)

Specs, Talents, and Glyphs:
I like how the current system is set up. Much less of a cookie cutter situation in my opinion. More personal taste for play. Also, I enjoy the flavor of many of the aesthetic glyphs. Would like to see even more though!

Hitting the Cap:
As a player hits the new level cap, and works to get into the first raid, the time between hitting the level cap and getting into the first raid should be filled with more "stuff to do". Currently players get all their gear in their Heroics (grind), do their dailies (ugh, grind), then start in on LFR (Ugh!). I feel as though there should be epic quests (attunements if you'd rather) to follow that will eventually unlock the raid and other parts of the expansion, and immerse the player more in the story, creating a more personal experience as the player personally feels he affects the world and story. I would like to get away from "Heroic Dungeons" (same thing only harder lol) and just have "Dungeons" - being used to: tell the story of a zone (usually the climax of the zone story), get slightly better leveling gear, and focus on fun and cooperation. Instead of Heroics, you could implement "Epic Dungeons" that are longer, unique (no "regular" version), and more difficult than today's Heroic Dungeons. (Think BRD length/difficulty/maze with more modern mechanics, BC level difficulty but not so reliant on cc) In addition to Scenarios (could range from the "easy" beginning ones - to "epic scenarios" which could happen before/after/simultaneously as the "Epic Dungeons".) these "Epic Dungeons" could be used to craft a (hopefully lengthy) story that the player cares about and is motivated into completing, by entering the raiding scene.

If you're a new player or new to the server or unguilded or whatever, your goal upon reaching the level cap is to find a similarly geared progressed group friends/players first, forming a 3 man team, then expanding to a 5 man team, as you progress through the questline's scenarios and epic dungeons. In my opinion a well organized raiding guild would be a group of 3 5-man teams. (With some backups.)

Starting to Raid:
Raiding would be reworked as well, as I would remove both LFR and Heroic Difficulties. In addition I would get rid of 10 and 25 man raiding and replace it with 15 man raiding. I feel this number works well with what I've outlined above as it would be easy to split your "starters" into 3 teams of 5, or 5 teams of 3. The basic group setup would require 2 tanks, 3-4 healers, and the rest dps. (Hooray for Dual Specs) I very much like the idea of a flexible number of players in a raid (7 - 21 or so), and would keep that "Flex" level as a casual friendly raid environment. It would offer slightly better gear than the Epic Dungeons and Scenarios that came before it, or complete the tier for gear, and focus more on learning boss fights and mechanics while simultaneously offering story progression. The difficulty would be easy enough where you could pug a group of appropriately geared players and progress through / learn most boss fights with a few wipes. Maybe even have warnings or alerts when you did something incorrect. (The further into the raid, the more difficult, but still manageable.) Instead of spamming trade chat looking for more to either raid, dungeon, scenario, pvp, or whatever, I think Blizzard needs to incorporate a function similar to OQ, where one can list what they are looking to do, what qualifications they want the applicant to the group to have accomplished, and base scores for gear as a prerequisite.

Progression in Ability:
As the player progresses through the Proving Grounds (I like), the Brawler's Guild (good but needs more balance, possibly split like proving grounds for all three role types - or four as sometimes it is hard to expect the same things from melee/ranged DPS), Scenarios, Epic Dungeons, Epic Scenarios, and Flex Raiding, he will by this time (hopefully) significantly improved his ability to play his class. If his confidence at playing the game improves and his playtime allows it he could make the further jump to a "progressive" guild.

Non Casual Raiding
As someone who has raided every raid in the game when current (with the exceptions of Vanilla Naxx, AQ 40 and Sunwell. Oh Ruby Sanctum too I guess.) I am of the opinion that Ulduar was the epitome of Blizzard's raid design in terms of grandeur, creativity, and enjoyment. I was also a big fan of the fairly non linear route you could take, skipping several "optional" bosses if you wanted to work on things further inside, or at one point picking between four progression bosses to work on. When my guild and I were pushing Hard mode progression on my server, it was a nice reprieve to work on a different boss if you were having a bad night on another one. As previously stated, I would get rid of Heroic Raiding and replace it with "Hard mode" activations reminiscent of Ulduar. These bosses would utilize mechanics in the fight, the boss itself, or the environment to activate the harder version. Additionally, you would be able to activate this mode in Flex Raiding to learn the mechanics, but for no additional reward. The "Hard mode" raiding would of course reward slightly more powerful gear, and in my opinion should be visually different from any other gear available. In fact, I believe that the hard mode gear of the current tier should be recolored and recycled into the next tier's flex raid (or normal raid), so that all would have a chance to get that "look" of gear, while keeping an "elite" feeling to it for a short period of time. With that, I believe I've outlined my ideas for raiding or PvE progression. (The biggest section as its what most players do.)

But Krez, what else can I do?
PvP. I like PvP; I don't have the time to raid very much this expansion, but have thoroughly enjoyed putting more of my effort into pvp. It was always something I feel I neglected playing throughout the game since Vanilla, as either going to raids or raid leading left me little time to do anything else. (Also before dual specs, I was a tank most of the time, and doing other things besides dungeons and raids, was not very efficient.) I've not done many arenas, but have built quite a bit of experience in random bgs and rated bgs. In my experience, the pvp power would continue to be useful in my reformatting of the game. I think pvp gear should be the strongest in pvp, and pve gear should be the strongest in pve. No exceptions. If you do have the highest ranked pvp gear for a tier, I think you should be able to go into a flex raid and be able to do mediocre, to slightly under mediocre dps. Similar conversions the other way as well. I also feel (as a tank most of my wow life) that tanks need to be more viable in pvp outside of flag running or being "tough to kill". They should be able to use their taunts in a way to mitigate damage. (I kind of liked swtors example - when you taunt an opponent it does X% dmg less, unless targeting you.) Or perhaps the "defense" secondary stat could shorten the times on cc. Or they could do more to mitigate damage aimed at their teammates. Something. Focusing on teammates damage mitigation, control, unstoppableness, coupled with lousy damage should make for a more entertaining experience. Everyone should be able to play the spec they like in whatever part of the game they choose to participate in. Healing has always seemed a little overpowered to me. In my opinion, an equally geared dps and healer fighting, the dps should be able to put out more damage than what the healer can heal. Healers should increase the amount of time the dps is active, not turn them into invincible gods. (Or themselves for that matter.)

I'm not sure if the grind for conquest points right now is the best system for pvp gear. I do it, and its not too bad, it just seems like there could be a better one. Like if you load into a bg in a role you designated, you could receive honor/conquest based on total dmg done, healing done, or damage mitigated. I think people who contribute more to the battle ground should be rewarded more as well. If you sit on your mount at blacksmith during an entire AB "defending", do you really deserve as much honor as the guy running from Lumber Mill to Mine each rez trying to create a shifting attack pattern creating openings in the other teams defenses by damaging or healing at those locations?. I would say no.

Professions would fill the same void as the pve side of the game, with the addition of "pvp power" to the secondary stats. You could put it on your pve gear... but it wouldn't do anything (in pve). There would also be a base level of the "pvp power", or resilience or pvp defense or whatever, to the gear itself, so it would remain the best in the pvp areas.

Crafting and Professions
I think crafting can remain about the same as it is, except it should take longer to make one piece. I think crafted gear should be craftable at any level of end game - mats should be collected in the outside world like thorium, ghost iron, and so on, and include hard to get crafting pieces from inside Epic Dungeons and non Flex raids. Perhaps in the Epic Dungeon you'd collect a 1/3 of the piece at a time, while in the raid you get a full piece - there should be an advantage going into the raids to and getting mats. The rare crafting pieces would necessarily be soulbound as it would require the profession to collect the items in the first place. As each subsequent tier of the expansion is released, the pieces would no longer become soulbound and could drop at a higher rate, or become unessary altogether. This could be a method in which characters could play "catch up" as I'm not a fan of Justice/Valor point gear. You're already getting gear going into the raid (I know not *every* time, but if gear differences are kept slight, it should be such a minor upgrade as to not be worth it), why do you need more? Similar to how the professions are balanced now, I'm sure they could be adjusted under my rules to be equal/fair as well. I'm of the opinion you should collaborate inside the economy and find your niche. I like many of you have an army of alts in order to have all the professions; and if you have time to invest in all your alts, go for it. However, having another max level character just to cut your gems so you don't have to interact with the server economy seems to be a negative investment in the community. /shrug But, if you have the time to do it, by all means. One thing I would change additionally is to add the profession Weaponsmith - obviously focusing on building weapons, applying sockets to them, and giving temporary enchantments like oils or sharpening in lieu of enchantment if you so desire. (Enchants would be best though.) There would also be some stock bonuses to having gathering professions as well, balanced out with the crafting professions, but the crafting professions advantages would still be marginally better. I'm undecided if the game would be better if the professions were to divide more like leather working specializing in mail or leather. I think that it could create to much specialization and be harmful to the profession.

Another interesting concept I'd like to see implemented but am unsure of how to go about doing it well with WoW, is to have experience change slightly in professions. Like if I make (green level) Iron Sword, 8 times, maybe on the 6th time, I'm able to add an extra strength point or something, and on all future Iron Sword creations. Or being able to have a crit creation (not dependent on gear) that makes it a more powerful rare (blue) item? Maybe piggybacking off the currently installed "valor upgrade system"? I'm unsure. But becoming skilled at making something sounds like a fun meta game that could exist inside the crafting professions. Smelting or making cloth or whatever could do it too. After 100 silk bolts made, they start costing one silk cloth less, and so on.

I would remove First Aid from the game. It doesn't serve much of purpose in my opinion. I'd rather see restrictions on potions lifted slightly so people could use emergency potions or crystals instead of bandaging. I would like to remove Archeology from the game, as I hate it (lol I found grinding Shendralar rep more exciting) but know a lot of people really enjoy it, so I'd leave it in and probably work more of the Heirloom type gear into that profession as extra incentive beyond vanity items and some (honestly) terrible BoA gear that doesn't scale. With as fast as leveling is now, you'd use it, what? All of an hour at the appropriate level? I think all "Heirloom" gear should scale. I kind of like the place where cooking is at - probably wouldn't change that; I found doing the Master of Ways fairly fun and time consuming - as you had to sort of plan out all the ingredients you needed utilizing your farm if you wanted. Farm was interesting this expansion, don't think I'd keep it though. It was a good experiment. Fishing needs to be reworked somehow. I find it boring, and if I'm watching a show or something on the other screen, I sometimes get focused and don't hear the fish. Needs to be changed to either be faster or more stimulating.

All the Rest
I'm an achievement hunter and very much enjoyed hunting them all down. I was doing it even before the achievements were implemented. When they went live on patch day at the end of BC, I had loremaster for Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor immediately. I think there's many other people who enjoy hunting achievements as well, and if Blizzard implements and OQ type group finder, you could find like minded individuals and hunt down some of the more pesky ones. Heck even OQ doesn't have an achievement grouping channel (to my dismay... although I suppose you could do "quest group", but, still.).

Pet Battles? Oh, right. Believe it or not, I've yet to do one. On my list of things to do after I've done every other possible thing I want to do in game. I played the original pokemon (blue) when it first came out, and I think that might have fried my need to play that after all the time I spent on that thing - on the old school original game boy mind you. Not one of them new fangled 3ds deals. Young whippersnappers and so forth.

Earlier I mentioned going through the "Epic Questline" to unlock the raid and other parts of the expansion. When I wrote that I was specifically thinking of the Timeless Isle and how it was implemented in this expansion. Blizzard is tired of the Valor gear like I am, I think, and added the Timeless gear for folks to catch up with instead of farming Heroics for hours on end. There's quite a bit you can do on the island - however, I'd like to see it more as a reward for those who finish the long questline and finish the raid (either flex or normal/hard). If they choose to level alts as their end game, it would be a place where they could get gear for their toons and skip the questing and go straight into raiding, as they've already completed the questline once, I don't think its necessary to force them to do it again. They could do this every patch - opening up a small area, maybe even instanced, that could serve as a spot to get gear for alts and serve as an efficient place to gather materials for gatherers and other minor rewards. Pvp players of suitable ranking could have access to this space too. So the space could have pvp and pve both. Unless crafted pvp makes more sense for entry level, though I'm not sure it does as pvers aren't forced to buy their starter gear off the AH. Additionally, I also think all your characters should share...

Dailies and Reputation
I'm exalted with just about every possible rep in the game. Once you get one rep to exalted - its a ludicrous timesink to make you have to do it again. I do like the concept of reps though, and think there should multiple ways of gaining it. I think if Blizzard is going to keep putting the reputations into the game, they should a) make them harder to level b) make the rewards more substantive. I got exalted rep after 30 days of dailies, I get a massive bag now! What? Oh, I get a recipe for a bag, that takes weeks to collect the mats for? ... neat... There should be dailies, and I know some of you hate them - and they should give the largest rep gains available for the faction - but offered either daily or weekly. You should also be able to get a tabard and earn rep with them while questing and adventuring throughout the game. PvP, Dungeons, Scenarios, Raids, whatever. However, the gains should be very, very, small. But doable to farm "quickly" for someone highly motivated with a lot of time on their hands. Dailies would remain the most efficient way to earn the rep (in terms of time spent on it), perhaps just not the way to max out the rep the fastest.

Future Patches
I think with each new raid patch or pvp or alternating or whatever - there needs to be a continuation of that narrative I talked about before. The story that gets people excited about the game. About seeing how things will turn out. So anytime there is a new raid on the horizon; perhaps several weeks before they drop some Epic Scenarios and 1 Epic Dungeon to set the stage and story for the Raid that is to come. As opposed to, for example Dominance Offensive - which wasn't terrible, but only added some bits to the overall story for the expansion, rather than help to set the stage for the Throne of Thunder. I think if they could have incorporated that it could have been much better. And to just continue the pattern of varying levels of complexity while at the same time garnering the interest of their gamers.

Holy crap I didn't realize how much I wrote, thanks for reading if you did guys.

TLDR; Krez muses on his ideas for changes for the casual community that would benefit them and the community at large. Mostly by simplifying how the gear is set up, and eliminating some unnecessary features that clutter the game and confuse players.

[DeadmanWalking]

Let’s look at the math here;
Blizzard has stated that it would take 2 new dungeons a month to satisfy content for casuals.
Blizzard has stated that a 5 man dungeon takes almost as much time as a raid wing to finish.
Blizzard spends 6 months creating 0 dungeons and 4 raid wings with 14 bosses, they do this every 6 months for a total of 42 bosses over 18 months not counting world bosses.

Let’s assume “almost as much time as a raid wing to complete” is 75% since we don’t have any specific number to work with...
2 five man dungeons a month for 6 months =12 dungeons every 6 months
75% of 12 dungeon production=production of 8 raid wings
Currently they create 4 raid wings in 6 months so they would have to double production to meet the casual players content requirement before designing a single wing of raid content.
Then they would have to create 4 raid wings for raiders on top of the 8 raid wings worth of 5 man dungeons for the elite raiders.
So essentially they would have to be able to produce 12 raid wings worth of content every 6 months to keep everyone happy.

The math just does not add up in favor of people who love lots of great raid content without LFR. LFR allows blizzard to spend all the resources on raiders and toss less tastey scraps to the casuals and yet the elitists still rage against it even though it directly feeds raiders constant great content. It makes no sense what so ever.

[isride]

I have to hand it to you I have never heard anyone complain ever about being able to customize their UI, in fact the majority of people complain about not being able to customize the UI, being able to customize the UI without addons tend to be a selling point for some games. I think you just have a deep seated hatred of add ons for no particular reason other than 'I think it is bad.'.

What makes you think I'm complaining or that I hate addons? I use a lot and have no real issue with them. However the ability to have addons that warn you that a boss is going to kill you if you stand still means that developers kinda have to develop the game in the knowledge that most people have an addon that tells them that standing still is a bad idea. This means they add things like standing still is bad, but running this direction is worse, i.e. complexity added purely to counter the addons. This leads to a bit of an 'arms race' between encounter design and addon design, every now and then the addons go too far (the whole drawing on the environment thing in wotlk) and the designers have to break the addon but not often.

The net effect of this is that trying to do normal mode raiding without DBM/bigwigs/etc is beyond the skills and experience of the vast majority of the player base. So they have to have a mode of the game where not having those addons doesn't make you a sitting duck. Is that simple enough now or are you going to completely misunderstand the point again?

[Zantera]

I don't think LFR should be removed, but they do need to change things. Either remove LFR and make Flex so that you can queue solo, or mix them together to a new form of queue-system.

The one thing I feel like they need to implement is: A) You need to have completed Proving Grounds: Silver with your character. B) You need to have gemmed/enchanted gear.

I don't feel like anyone would argue with these two points. Some would probably want Proving Grounds: Gold, but I feel like that one could be hard even for good players, depending on your class and so on. Silver at least is proof that you know what you are doing. As for the gems/enchants-part, it just really bothers me when people don't even care to gem or enchant their gear. Obviously there could be something like if you have green or blue gear that is unechanted, that it's okay, but when people have epic-gear and haven't even bothered to gem or enchanted it.. it's just lame.

I don't find either of those objectives too harsh or too difficult, it's just a matter of doing it. Anyone could get Proving Grounds: Silver within 30 minutes (probably shorter), and as for gems/enchants, it's not hard either. At least try to separate the people who try, and the people who don't give a shit.

[DeadmanWalking]

What makes you think I'm complaining or that I hate addons? I use a lot and have no real issue with them. However the ability to have addons that warn you that a boss is going to kill you if you stand still means that developers kinda have to develop the game in the knowledge that most people have an addon that tells them that standing still is a bad idea. This means they add things like standing still is bad, but running this direction is worse, i.e. complexity added purely to counter the addons. This leads to a bit of an 'arms race' between encounter design and addon design, every now and then the addons go too far (the whole drawing on the environment thing in wotlk) and the designers have to break the addon but not often.

The net effect of this is that trying to do normal mode raiding without DBM/bigwigs/etc is beyond the skills and experience of the vast majority of the player base. So they have to have a mode of the game where not having those addons doesn't make you a sitting duck. Is that simple enough now or are you going to completely misunderstand the point again?

Actually Blizzard has stated that they have reduced reaction times due to addons giving you an early warning addons, in the past they would show the fire at your feet and give you 3 seconds to get out of it before it would do damage and now the damage starts ticking away immediately to compensate for the warning. You still have to react fast enough as not reacting fast enough causes you to take far more damage than you want to. I am happy for stuff like GTFO because I find that I am looking at stat procs and aura flares to manage my dps rotation to always be paying attention to me feet, I hear my alarm go off and I can get my eyes to the right place so I can react. I still don't always react fast enough so this 'arms race' is a non-issue for me, if I never took damage ever due to the alarm then that would be an issue.

- - - Updated - - -

I don't think LFR should be removed, but they do need to change things. Either remove LFR and make Flex so that you can queue solo, or mix them together to a new form of queue-system.

The one thing I feel like they need to implement is: A) You need to have completed Proving Grounds: Silver with your character. B) You need to have gemmed/enchanted gear.

I don't feel like anyone would argue with these two points. Some would probably want Proving Grounds: Gold, but I feel like that one could be hard even for good players, depending on your class and so on. Silver at least is proof that you know what you are doing. As for the gems/enchants-part, it just really bothers me when people don't even care to gem or enchant their gear. Obviously there could be something like if you have green or blue gear that is unechanted, that it's okay, but when people have epic-gear and haven't even bothered to gem or enchanted it.. it's just lame.

I don't find either of those objectives too harsh or too difficult, it's just a matter of doing it. Anyone could get Proving Grounds: Silver within 30 minutes (probably shorter), and as for gems/enchants, it's not hard either. At least try to separate the people who try, and the people who don't give a shit.

I dont have a problem with either, especially the gem/enchant thing but the silver requirement goes against the entire intent behind LFR which is giving non-raiding casuals content that they can consume so all of the post-leveling resources can be spent on raiders. Requiring skill is not what LFR was created for.

To be honest I have never done the proving grounds because I don't waste my time on frivolous things and grinding constant waves of mobs is not what I consider good game design.

[isride]

Actually Blizzard has stated that they have reduced reaction times due to addons giving you an early warning addons, in the past they would show the fire at your feet and give you 3 seconds to get out of it before it would do damage and now the damage starts ticking away immediately to compensate for the warning. You still have to react fast enough as not reacting fast enough causes you to take far more damage than you want to. I am happy for stuff like GTFO because I find that I am looking at stat procs and aura flares to manage my dps rotation to always be paying attention to me feet, I hear my alarm go off and I can get my eyes to the right place so I can react. I still don't always react fast enough so this 'arms race' is a non-issue for me, if I never took damage ever due to the alarm then that would be an issue.

The point is what about people who like you are distracted by other things (aura flares, etc) but don't have an alarm installed? That's my point. Those alarm addons are almost mandatory for raiding at normal or higher but you don't have a mail from Lorewalker Cho when you hit 90 telling you that if you don'#t have an addon you really should install one before you raid. So take away LFR, add in the elitism of wow players in general and you end up with people being kiced from groups because they keep standing in fires, they might be trying to move but are just too slow and the damage stacks too quickly, this never used to happen, as you've stated, that's the point.

Fundamentally addons have changed encounter design, as addons have got more sophisticated the encounters have added complexity to counteract this, this is impossible to deny, you even gave you're own example of this before trying to refute it. Therefore LFR, as a simplified version of the game, is a necessary option as a result of, amongst other things, the sophisticated addon system in wow.

[bergmann620]

The entire issue is two-fold.

One part of the problem is how difficulty is derived. In 'classic' WoW, difficulty arose much more from social and logistical concerns than from the encounters themselves. Getting 40 people, knowing something about the fights, resistance gear, farming raid mats, having people spec'd correctly, having people on voice chat, managing the loot distribution, all the things that went into a raid.

As time has gone by, almost all of those sources of difficulty have been set aside, and all the remaining difficulty comes from the encounter itself. Thus, if you haven't kept up with the game, a player that was 'good' in Vanilla is likely 'terrible' now.

Along with this shift, WoW has not done a good enough job internalizing the things that make 'bads' into constructive players. As you level, dungeons to not teach roles. As you get a new ability, WoW does nothing to teach you how it should slot into a rotation. Almost all learning takes place outside of the game. WoW doesn't even do a good job pointing at those outside resources. Thus, as the social bonds of the game have largely crumbled, there is nothing to help players learn how to learn. In 'Classic' you had a class officer. In 'Modern', you have a heroic raider terrorizing the 'bads' that are slowing him down in LFG (Not always, but often enough).

Just like real life, there's pretty much no middle class anymore.

I don't want LFG removed, but I do crave a revamp to leveling that produces 'mature' players at 90, ready to do grown up things. Along that tack, I hope Flex goes a long way to make non-hardcore guilds relevant again.

[DeadmanWalking]

The entire issue is two-fold.

One part of the problem is how difficulty is derived. In 'classic' WoW, difficulty arose much more from social and logistical concerns than from the encounters themselves. Getting 40 people, knowing something about the fights, resistance gear, farming raid mats, having people spec'd correctly, having people on voice chat, managing the loot distribution, all the things that went into a raid.

As time has gone by, almost all of those sources of difficulty have been set aside, and all the remaining difficulty comes from the encounter itself. Thus, if you haven't kept up with the game, a player that was 'good' in Vanilla is likely 'terrible' now.

Along with this shift, WoW has not done a good enough job internalizing the things that make 'bads' into constructive players. As you level, dungeons to not teach roles. As you get a new ability, WoW does nothing to teach you how it should slot into a rotation. Almost all learning takes place outside of the game. WoW doesn't even do a good job pointing at those outside resources. Thus, as the social bonds of the game have largely crumbled, there is nothing to help players learn how to learn. In 'Classic' you had a class officer. In 'Modern', you have a heroic raider terrorizing the 'bads' that are slowing him down in LFG (Not always, but often enough).

Just like real life, there's pretty much no middle class anymore.

I don't want LFG removed, but I do crave a revamp to leveling that produces 'mature' players at 90, ready to do grown up things. Along that tack, I hope Flex goes a long way to make non-hardcore guilds relevant again.

things like oqueue and open raid undermine the formation of flex guilds.

[Deleted]

Not solved. Allowing casuals to experience the content one content drop later means they will never fight garrosh until the next expansion and by then people will be doing the new content. Current system allows all players to do dungeons in first tier and raid content, your hack version would half their content for one drop until something new came along. If you think this is a good ideal then I suggest an experiment, next expansion you only do dungeons in 6.0 and refuse any raid content, then in 6.2 you will be allowed to do 6.0 LFR and dungeons, then in 6.4 you can do 6.2 LFR and dungeons, and not do any 6.4 content ever because then you will only be allowed to do dungeons in 7.

First of all, the endboss problem can be solved by "dungeonising" the final raid tier in a patch midway between the raid's release and the release of the next expansion. That's essentially what happened with Sunwell, and gradually over time with the ICC and Dragon Soul 30% nerf.
Secondly, when I had a more casual playstyle, I DID lag behind in consuming dungeon and raid content.
In TBC 2.0 when Karazhan was available, I was leveling and doing normal modes. In 2.1 when Black Temple was released I was starting to do heroic 5 mans and raiding Kara. Even after joining a raiding guild I didn't see the inside of Black Temple till Patch 2.3, and only saw Sunwell well after it had been cleared by the hardcore guilds.

Likewise in Cataclysm I would have been absolutely DELIGHTED if they had delayed the release of the Tier 11 raids, so I would have had time to enjoy the 5 man dungeons and questing zones in a more leisurely manner, instead of being in a mad rush to clear the ungated raidbosses.

The type of "casual" who needs to get inside raids as soon as they are released is not particularly casual at all.

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Wow is very elitist, finding comments calling someone a scrub because they've gemmed for haste instead of mastery, or similar take s afew seconds on pretty much any site you can find. - This leads to the situation with needing the achievement for killing garrosh to join a flex raid on the 2nd week after he was available in that mode and the ilvl 540+ requests and the "report to me for inspection before invite", etc.

Inspecting someone before attempting difficult content is just bloody common sense. Would you be upset if someone asked you to dribble a basketball or take a few shots before inviting you for an arranged basketball game?

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So essentially they would have to be able to produce 12 raid wings worth of content every 6 months to keep everyone happy.

The math just does not add up in favor of people who love lots of great raid content without LFR. LFR allows blizzard to spend all the resources on raiders and toss less tastey scraps to the casuals and yet the elitists still rage against it even though it directly feeds raiders constant great content. It makes no sense what so ever.

They could also just dungeonify the raids after a patch. That way they get to reuse all their art assets and just need to tweak the numbers and mechanics a bit. They're proven adept at this with the likes of ZA and ZG. And some LFRaiders have been asking for a variant of this already, ie simplified tanking mechanics, shorter queues and shorter runs.

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I dont have a problem with either, especially the gem/enchant thing but the silver requirement goes against the entire intent behind LFR which is giving non-raiding casuals content that they can consume so all of the post-leveling resources can be spent on raiders. Requiring skill is not what LFR was created for.
To be honest I have never done the proving grounds because I don't waste my time on frivolous things and grinding constant waves of mobs is not what I consider good game design.

I think we have a terminology problem here. Because the word casual is used to denote two very different things
-player who can't commit to a raiding schedule
-player who is bad at the game

I know LFR has to cater for the first kind, but the 2nd is questionable.

[Zantera]

I dont have a problem with either, especially the gem/enchant thing but the silver requirement goes against the entire intent behind LFR which is giving non-raiding casuals content that they can consume so all of the post-leveling resources can be spent on raiders. Requiring skill is not what LFR was created for.

To be honest I have never done the proving grounds because I don't waste my time on frivolous things and grinding constant waves of mobs is not what I consider good game design.

But Proving Grounds: Silver isn't exactly a measurement for skill anyways, and the whole "its aimed to casuals, so therefor nothing challenging should be involved" is just a silly argument. LFR is already a loot-pinata and the next step to make it easier would be to replace each boss with a chest with loot, and just remove the trash. Right now people are being rewarded for doing nothing, and basically just pushing a button to queue, and then run around without knowing what to do.

Proving Grounds Bronze to Gold is an interesting way of getting to know your class, and it's not comparable to the endless waves-scenario where it just keeps going. It teaches you things about your class that you might have missed, and won't pick up from standing in Orgrimmar waiting for the queue to pop. The endless waves-mode in Proving Grounds is more hardcore, but getting the silver medal is really casual.

And I think it's important to keep "casual" separated from "lazy". People seem to use casual as an excuse for being lazy at something, and they still expect being rewarded for not doing their job. I think the line between casual and more serious/hardcore should be drawn in terms of how much you get out of your gear, and that's a whole other story. I don't think LFR should take that into account, but at least have some form of "I know what spells to use"-check. Last night in LFR, I had a shadow priest in my group who only used Mind Flay. Things like this is very easy to prevent just by having some form of mini-guide or proving grounds.

They even introduced the "Important Spells"-tab in the book which gives you a good explanation of how your role should be played. Maybe make something out of that one. They could make a 3 minute scenario-mode which is basically "You are this specc.. here are some of your most important spells" and just give some tips on how these are used, like if a certain spell proccs another. I know lazy players will always be around, but if they try something to get those players to listen/improve, things will get better.

And again, I don't think "casual" should be confused with "lazy" or "stupid". Even if you want to play for fun and no strings attached, you could at least TRY and put some effort into it, and know what spells to use. It's a big difference between that, and what a hardcore raider does.

[Krez]

The entire issue is two-fold.

One part of the problem is how difficulty is derived. In 'classic' WoW, difficulty arose much more from social and logistical concerns than from the encounters themselves. Getting 40 people, knowing something about the fights, resistance gear, farming raid mats, having people spec'd correctly, having people on voice chat, managing the loot distribution, all the things that went into a raid.

As time has gone by, almost all of those sources of difficulty have been set aside, and all the remaining difficulty comes from the encounter itself. Thus, if you haven't kept up with the game, a player that was 'good' in Vanilla is likely 'terrible' now.

Along with this shift, WoW has not done a good enough job internalizing the things that make 'bads' into constructive players. As you level, dungeons to not teach roles. As you get a new ability, WoW does nothing to teach you how it should slot into a rotation. Almost all learning takes place outside of the game. WoW doesn't even do a good job pointing at those outside resources. Thus, as the social bonds of the game have largely crumbled, there is nothing to help players learn how to learn. In 'Classic' you had a class officer. In 'Modern', you have a heroic raider terrorizing the 'bads' that are slowing him down in LFG (Not always, but often enough).

Just like real life, there's pretty much no middle class anymore.

I don't want LFG removed, but I do crave a revamp to leveling that produces 'mature' players at 90, ready to do grown up things. Along that tack, I hope Flex goes a long way to make non-hardcore guilds relevant again.

I like how you think Although I'd like to see Flex mode made easier to get into - like when using the OQ addon, only supported and run through Blizzard - and replace LFR as we know it now.

[smiggity]

A game where they work for things and not just have it handed to them because they want things to be easy.

[Flaks]

Playing since the beginning of BC, I've always hated what the game was before in terms of getting people together for dungeons. It was terrible. At times, it took hours to get people and if they dropped while in the dungeon, that was it. It was a complete waste of time and effort, all for a lousy bit of gear. Thank goodness those days are long gone. Insta queues are so much better and more convenient. It was good for the game. JMO and I stand by it.

Both LFD and LFR were endemic to what the MMORPG represents: a time sink.

The game only continued to grow and more and more people continued to spam chat channels looking for groups to raid or do dungeons before LFD and LFR. That took time. The dungeons themselves took time. And more often than not, you'd stick to your group. You would make friends from it. It would be your route to getting into a guild. It would be a basic requirement of getting into raiding and in fulfilling all of the previous, would ensure you were in fact ready to raid because you spent the time to do the dungeons and got to know the people you'd probably be raiding with.

But I'm not saying there were no problems with the old system, there certainly were. Fixing those problems should not have been so drastic though that something was added that would lead to a system in MMORPGs as a whole that would gut them right from the start.

Just because it's a quicker way to do things in the game in no way means that it is in fact better for the game, community or developers. Only for completely impatient players that want instant gratification. And oh look, what do you see? People bitching left right and center about why they can't get things EVEN FASTER. The difference between then and now is that Blizzard DIDN'T give people what they wanted and yet they still continued to come in droves. Now that Blizzard has catered to them the game is hemorrhaging subscriptions.

[ganush]

Wow is very elitist, finding comments calling someone a scrub because they've gemmed for haste instead of mastery, or similar take s afew seconds on pretty much any site you can find. - This leads to the situation with needing the achievement for killing garrosh to join a flex raid on the 2nd week after he was available in that mode and the ilvl 540+ requests and the "report to me for inspection before invite", etc.

The person forming the raid has the right to put any restrictions he wants on entry into his group. That's not elitist. The reality is that a random group of people in 540 gear with proper gems and enchants is going to have an easier time in flex than random a group of people in 520 gear without gems and enchants. If the person leading the raid can put a group together of higher geared people that increases his/her chance of success, why would they not? It is not their responsibility to provide lower geared people a flex spot.

If you are sitting in 520 gear and want to flex, here's a solution for everyone who complains about not being able to find a flex group. Form your own and look for other people in similar gear who want to run flex. Nobody is preventing you from running the content, your laziness of not wanting to form your own group is.

[Ronduwil]

I said in the other thread you and I were involved in that it was high time Blizzard stopped designing the game around raiders and what they think.

And in that post you're quoting I specifically called out your post in this thread as being the exception to all those other non-constructive responses. I'm sorry that you didn't take it as the compliment that I intended.

[dd614]

LFR can exist, but the gear in it should be heroic dungeon level or t-mog at best and there should be no requirement for good players to carry terrible ones through it. That would take away all incentive for non-LFR players to run it and curb the complaining. Putting gear in it that's better than last tier's normal is Blizzard's bullshit way of getting normal or unlucky heroic raiders to carry terrible players through.

[DeadmanWalking]

First of all, the endboss problem can be solved by "dungeonising" the final raid tier in a patch midway between the raid's release and the release of the next expansion. That's essentially what happened with Sunwell, and gradually over time with the ICC and Dragon Soul 30% nerf.
Secondly, when I had a more casual playstyle, I DID lag behind in consuming dungeon and raid content.
In TBC 2.0 when Karazhan was available, I was leveling and doing normal modes. In 2.1 when Black Temple was released I was starting to do heroic 5 mans and raiding Kara. Even after joining a raiding guild I didn't see the inside of Black Temple till Patch 2.3, and only saw Sunwell well after it had been cleared by the hardcore guilds.

Likewise in Cataclysm I would have been absolutely DELIGHTED if they had delayed the release of the Tier 11 raids, so I would have had time to enjoy the 5 man dungeons and questing zones in a more leisurely manner, instead of being in a mad rush to clear the ungated raidbosses.

The type of "casual" who needs to get inside raids as soon as they are released is not particularly casual at all.

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Inspecting someone before attempting difficult content is just bloody common sense. Would you be upset if someone asked you to dribble a basketball or take a few shots before inviting you for an arranged basketball game?

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They could also just dungeonify the raids after a patch. That way they get to reuse all their art assets and just need to tweak the numbers and mechanics a bit. They're proven adept at this with the likes of ZA and ZG. And some LFRaiders have been asking for a variant of this already, ie simplified tanking mechanics, shorter queues and shorter runs.

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I think we have a terminology problem here. Because the word casual is used to denote two very different things
-player who can't commit to a raiding schedule
-player who is bad at the game

I know LFR has to cater for the first kind, but the 2nd is questionable.

To be honest to the people who come here bitching about LFR (and wanting to burn it to the ground) there is no difference in the two and the only desciption that have for either player is that the people in LFR get raid rewards 'for doing nothing' and it makes them feel less special now that they can't exclude those people from content and the precious purples. I do LFR with my raid guild on non-raid nights as an hour long socializing activity so I know there are people who are very good players who pull double their wieght and I know there are bad players in there but I wouldn't give that up. To be truthful the only real difficulty in that content is the die roll of the capability of the random people I am grouped with.

[Deleted]

I do LFR with my raid guild on non-raid nights as an hour long socializing activity so I know there are people who are very good players who pull double their wieght and I know there are bad players in there but I wouldn't give that up. To be truthful the only real difficulty in that content is the die roll of the capability of the random people I am grouped with.

Atleast your guildmates have a choice in grouping with bad players. But requiring a Silver in the Proving Grounds is quite a small thing to ask, as a way of improving everyone's LFR experience.