November 4 - Even More LFR Nerfs

[Firebert]

You missed one key fact, that LFR is easy when the players are not to lazy and too stupid.

Flex is easy when the players are not too lazy and too stupid.
Normal is easy when the players are not too lazy and too stupid.
Heroic is easy when the players are not too lazy and too stupid.
The definition of "lazy" and "stupid" is arbitrary. Stopping DPS to move out of fire might be fine for most in Flex/LFR but you'll probably catch hell for it in Heroic.

LFR, if the tank is fifth in dps, the dps is slacking.

Because it's impossible that the tank is overgeared or geared for more DPS.

That means they are to lazy to learn their class, or actually try.

The game doesn't teach them how to play and currently it's not required for LFR (and it probably never will be).

You tell them to stack at point A, they wont do it. You yell in all caps in /rw multiple times for them to get out of the over loaded zone on lei shen, they keep walking into it. That's stupid.

Or they ignore you because you aren't a raid leader, no-one is. All players equal in LFR. Why should they listen you?

And the other modes are not made hard by the players themselfs.

In WoW, there's always more that you can do. Especially with TI Burdened gear. Hence, players that slack in this regard make the content more difficult for themselves.

They are not actively going out of their way to ignore mechanics.

In LFR some of the mechanics are tuned such that they can be ignored, so why shouldn't they ignore them?

[purebalance]

I imagine the LFR only crowd would be briefly sad, but move on and mostly forget about it before long.

The people who would be REALLY upset would be the people doing Flex, Normal and Heroic raids when the raiding budget crashes and they go from 46 high quality bosses in an expansion to 15 buggy recycled content bosses per expansion.

That's funny because you know before LFR there were totally only 15 buggy bosses....

The whole "casuals pay for your content and the game will halt without them" is a load. People need to stop making that claim because it is 100% an unfounded claim.

- - - Updated - - -

Me, simply because I go back to not seeing the raids because of ridiculous entry requirements that I can't get via LFR any more, and then the same applies to Normal.

The bad players leading raids asking for achievement links to get in or ilvls beyond the drops in said raid are dumb, but here's a thought: set up your own flex raid via oraid.

[Polarthief]

That's funny because you know before LFR there were totally only 15 buggy bosses....

The whole "casuals pay for your content and the game will halt without them" is a load. People need to stop making that claim because it is 100% an unfounded claim.

I would have agreed with the claim had Flex not been introduced, but now that it is, LFR no longer has a place in this world because Flex fills and overtakes it.

Bottom line: Raiding shouldn't be involved in matchmaking. If your end-game consists of grouping with 100% random people that you don't even talk to, I feel so sorry for you as you're not getting close to the full experience.

[Firebert]

The whole "casuals pay for your content and the game will halt without them" is a load.

Then just go look this up.

Ion Hazzikostas:
LFR justifies the creation of more raid content when millions of players are able to see content. Only a few thousand people actually saw Kel'thuzad, but millions saw Deathwing. The reason Mists of Pandaria is starting with 18 bosses and adding larger raid tiers than we have had previously is because many players are going to see the raids through LFR.

Unfortunately, the Blizzard's Lead Encounter Designer tells us that casuals do pay for the content of anyone raiding the higher tiers, and it will now halt without them.

- - - Updated - - -

The bad players leading raids asking for achievement links to get in or ilvls beyond the drops in said raid are dumb, but here's a thought: set up your own flex raid via oraid.

No, because I like my on-the-fly raiding that LFR gives.

[Ronduwil]

Back in T14, I was blamed for taunting the Amber Monstrosity off the tanks and was kicked shortly after. If you take a look at my signature (and more importantly, my class), you'll see why that is a mockery.

I can't say I'm surprised. As a resto shaman I was blamed for knocking back adds despite the fact that our knockback is an elemental-only ability. It happens. In both cases, however, no one would have said a word if the bosses had died. Whenever there's a wipe players are quick to point fingers at everyone except themselves. It wouldn't be so bad if they would do so constructively, and they might even learn something, but for the most part the blame is accompanied by a barrage of insults and unfounded criticisms.

[Zantos]

Flex is easy when the players are not too lazy and too stupid.
Normal is easy when the players are not too lazy and too stupid.
Heroic is easy when the players are not too lazy and too stupid.
The definition of "lazy" and "stupid" is arbitrary. Stopping DPS to move out of fire might be fine for most in Flex/LFR but you'll probably catch hell for it in Heroic.

That isn't a good argument. If you are in normal or heroic, you are doing your best. Even in flex. In LFR, players literally go afk on the boss. This is fact. That is lazy and stupid. More importantly, you can usually get away with slacking in LFR where as in the other modes you can't. Most people don't even look for the afkers or slackers or down right stupid players in LFR that do anything, or nothing, so they can get free loot with no effort. You try that in the other raids, you WILL be kicked. Thus, you can't really be lazy or stupid in the other modes without an ensured kick. Where as in LFR, you are one of the majority and thus, probably wont be noticed or kicked.

Because it's impossible that the tank is overgeared or geared for more DPS.

I am a tank. I have gone in and been fifth dps even when not over gearing the place because the dps dont try! They don't care about doing the fight. Ive seen dps standing in the corner just waiting for the boss to die.

The game doesn't teach them how to play and currently it's not required for LFR (and it probably never will be).

Like hell it isn't. If no one could break more dps then either tanks, guess what? The boss wont die. If no one does any mechanics at all, its a wipe. It is required to know how to play your class. However, the ones who do shine in LFR to the extent that the vast majority can walk in there clueless. The players who are skilled are realizing this and are no longer willing to carry the bads in LFR. Thus, why tanks hardly queue anymore. I mean, if a dps is only doing 20k dps, that is literally not even reading the poor section in your spell book on your basic rotation. That is not even getting hit/exp capped. Thats maybe just auto attack.

Or they ignore you because you aren't a raid leader, no-one is. All players equal in LFR. Why should they listen you?

Oh idk, maybe so they live, the boss dies, and they get their loot? Is that not a good enough reason to listen to the guy yelling at you to get out of the overloaded zone that is currently killing you? All players are not equal on LFR, obviously. Since there are players like you who think its fine to ignore the tank (who by the way is always the raid leader or assistant) that is telling you not to stand in the dangerous stuff.

In WoW, there's always more that you can do. Especially with TI Burdened gear. Hence, players that slack in this regard make the content more difficult for themselves.

There is, thus why tanks are not queueing for LFR. The people that do go into LFR and are actually competent players are there for a reason. Like how I would run it for a trinket to replace my 486. But, that's not enough to get me to tank anymore even.

In LFR some of the mechanics are tuned such that they can be ignored, so why shouldn't they ignore them?

Because they are not tuned to the point where everyone can ignore them. Some mechanics such as an aoe damage is nerfed to where it can be ignored in how you prevent them. However, mechanics such as kill adds, stay out of fire, and other things generally cannot be ignored. Very few can be ignored, but that doesn't mean you should. Most of the time, if it wasn't for the skilled players who took the time to look up what they are doing actually following those mechanics, the raid would be a wipe.

[Frolk]

Seeing all the nerfs it makes me willing to perhaps gear up some of my alts via LFR, been only using flex/norm to gear up until now

[Polarthief]

I can't say I'm surprised. As a resto shaman I was blamed for knocking back adds despite the fact that our knockback is an elemental-only ability. It happens. In both cases, however, no one would have said a word if the bosses had died. Whenever there's a wipe players are quick to point fingers at everyone except themselves. It wouldn't be so bad if they would do so constructively, and they might even learn something, but for the most part the blame is accompanied by a barrage of insults and unfounded criticisms.

Oh I forgot to mention: NO WIPE. A few deaths, but none of which were my fault, not to mention I was carrying DPS bigtime as I was the only one in heroic (let alone normal) gear. We didn't wipe and I STILL got kicked for it.

[Breccia]

I feel for the devs. I really do.

They tried, they really did, to make something that would allow anyone to raid if they felt like it. And so many players just show up and afk auto-attacking and ruin it for everyone else. The choices are limited, and of those limited choices, most are bad. Nerfing LFR to the point that people actively trying should succeed is the least bad of the options they can do at this stage.

I take back many of the things I said about Flex before. Truly, this is where people who actively want to succeed should use. I have heard, and seen, horror stories from LFR. I have few valid reasons to set foot in there myself, which makes it worse -- most experienced players are avoiding LFR entirely, leaving just the inexperienced and the bads.

Honestly I'm wondering if this approach would help:
1) Have every man, woman, child and pet who works for Blizzard run LFR with strangers once/week for, say, three raids. On paid time.
2) Give these people a special code tool and let them "tag" anyone they find that's deliberately trolling, wiping the raid on purpose, AFKing, auto-attacking only, or otherwise deliberately choosing to make the raid fail/worse for everyone else. Key word "deliberately".
3) At the end of each week, these names are put on The List.
4) From now on, anyone on The List can only LFR with other people on The List.
5) Deny everything, claim it's a coincidence, while laughing hysterically behind closed doors.

[Ryme]

Hasn't it always been known that LFR is a pit of failure and awful? It's simply that now Flex exists there's a way out for anyone who actually wanted to raid in the first place. And I couldn't be happier.

[Zantos]

Ion Hazzikostas:
LFR justifies the creation of more raid content when millions of players are able to see content. Only a few thousand people actually saw Kel'thuzad, but millions saw Deathwing. The reason Mists of Pandaria is starting with 18 bosses and adding larger raid tiers than we have had previously is because many players are going to see the raids through LFR.

Unfortunately, the Blizzard's Lead Encounter Designer tells us that casuals do pay for the content of anyone raiding the higher tiers, and it will now halt without them.

Bs. Even If all those players leave, they will continue to make raids. They did all up until the final tier of Cata when LFR was introduced. Ulduar had a ton of bosses, but it didn't have a LFR mode at all. Raids will continue to be around even if they removed LFR. Period. That is the end game. No end game, no players. Simple as that. So as long as they plan on actually making money, they will make raids that only a few thousand will see. Why? Because the other millions will still want to work towards seeing it.

[ShimmerSwirl]

Why do people expect LFR raiders to be able to understand things like 'strategy' or 'mechanics'? In all seriousness, much of the current WoW playerbase has literally never experienced 'raiding' as old school players know it.

Remember when you joined your first ever pug formed by some higher level guy in /trade talking about this strange thing called a 'raid', and you joined it having no clue what the heck was going on? And you went to some distant place you had never heard of and just followed a big ragtag mob of random people you had never seen before into an low level raid instance that you couldn't find on your own, and then you run around inside whacking things while this strange [Raid Leader] shouts out things you don't understand. Its a big chaotic mess, you don't quite know whats going on but it doesn't seem to really matter as everything is dying easily.

Now imagine if that was the only raid experience you ever had, because thats the boat LFRers are in.

[Firebert]

That isn't a good argument. If you are in normal or heroic, you are doing your best.

So because I'm in LFR I'm not doing my best? Nice tar brush.

In LFR, players literally go afk on the boss. This is fact. That is lazy and stupid.

Players go AFK on every boss in every difficulty, it's just that it goes relatively unpunished in LFR. Also, it's a very small minority that does this that are making the majority look bad. Another nice tar brush.

More importantly, you can usually get away with slacking in LFR where as in the other modes you can't.

Heroic raiders can slack in Flex.

Most people don't even look for the afkers or slackers or down right stupid players in LFR that do anything, or nothing, so they can get free loot with no effort. You try that in the other raids, you WILL be kicked. Thus, you can't really be lazy or stupid in the other modes without an ensured kick. Where as in LFR, you are one of the majority and thus, probably wont be noticed or kicked.

Fallacious argument that 13 people in every LFR are AFK.

I am a tank. I have gone in and been fifth dps even when not over gearing the place because the dps dont try! They don't care about doing the fight. Ive seen dps standing in the corner just waiting for the boss to die.

Fallacious argument that personal experience can be extrapolated on to every LFR run ever.

Like hell it isn't. If no one could break more dps then either tanks, guess what? The boss wont die. If no one does any mechanics at all, its a wipe. It is required to know how to play your class.

Then where is this requirement in the list of requirements to enter LFR? I don't see it anywhere.

The players who are skilled are realizing this and are no longer willing to carry the bads in LFR. Thus, why tanks hardly queue anymore.

There is a poll somewhere on these forums about tanks and the leading cause for the lack of tanks in LFR is the poor attitude they recieve from DPS, not the poor quality of players in LFR.

Oh idk, maybe so they live, the boss dies, and they get their loot? Is that not a good enough reason to listen to the guy yelling at you to get out of the overloaded zone that is currently killing you?

They do not have any respect for you if they are being shouted at, so it's not surprising if they don't listen to you.

Since there are players like you who think its fine to ignore the tank (who by the way is always the raid leader or assistant) that is telling you not to stand in the dangerous stuff.

Players can do what they like in LFR. Players don't need to be told that fire is bad, that's a waste of time typing into chat. Fire is usually ignorable in LFR anyway.

There is, thus why tanks are not queueing for LFR. The people that do go into LFR and are actually competent players are there for a reason. Like how I would run it for a trinket to replace my 486. But, that's not enough to get me to tank anymore even.

Incentives for tanks in LFR will come, I'm sure of it.

Most of the time, if it wasn't for the skilled players who took the time to look up what they are doing actually following those mechanics, the raid would be a wipe.

The mechanics should be intuitive in LFR. If they're required reading material then either the mechanics aren't intuitive or they can be ignored.

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Bs.

Look it up yourself.

Even If all those players leave, they will continue to make raids.

..poor quality Firelands/DS style raids with few bosses and re-used content, yes.

They did all up until the final tier of Cata when LFR was introduced.

...where the participation of raids had hit an all time low, as well as the boss count for the tier, because Blizzard couldn't justify spending resources on content hardly anyone saw. Hence why LFR was rushed in to try to save raiding.

Ulduar had a ton of bosses, but it didn't have a LFR mode at all.

That because Ulduar had an easy quarter that everyone could see, and Naxx was relatively easy, so that justified spending lots of resources on raids.

Had no-one seen ICC, say, because it was too difficult, it would have incentivised LFR earlier.

Raids will continue to be around even if they removed LFR. Period. That is the end game. No end game, no players. Simple as that. So as long as they plan on actually making money, they will make raids that only a few thousand will see. Why? Because the other millions will still want to work towards seeing it.

However, the quality of the raid entirely depends on how many people saw the previous raid. LFR is here to stay because it justifies a large resource percentage on raids. It's a cyclic argument.

[MonsieuRoberts]

People are fucking idiots and wiping in easy LFR is depressing. Making it easier means I have to deal with less idiocy, and my chances of joining a group that's going to drag their faces across Nazgrim, Norushen, Sha of Pride, Kor'kron Shamans, Thok, Spoils and Garrosh is lessened.

Bring on the nerfs. You've created a community of players that queue and refuse to use their brain cells.

[Bullettime]

Why do people expect LFR raiders to be able to understand things like 'strategy' or 'mechanics'? In all seriousness, much of the current WoW playerbase has literally never experienced 'raiding' as old school players know it.

Remember when you joined your first ever pug formed by some higher level guy in /trade talking about this strange thing called a 'raid', and you joined it having no clue what the heck was going on? And you went to some distant place you had never heard of and just followed a big ragtag mob of random people you had never seen before into an low level raid instance that you couldn't find on your own, and then you run around inside whacking things while this strange [Raid Leader] shouts out things you don't understand. Its a big chaotic mess, you don't quite know whats going on but it doesn't seem to really matter as everything is dying easily.

Now imagine if that was the only raid experience you ever had, because thats the boat LFRers are in.

The issue many of us are having is that no one really speaks up in the raid or shows interest in improving. I'll ask before the pull if anyone has not done it and would like an explanation. I get the response of "fuck you tryhard just pull the boss" while 6 people run to the corner of the room and AFK until it's over. People doing 20k DPS in LFR by auto attacking.

People WILL actually try to help. There are a lot of us who do want to help people improve. But until the players start trying to improve themselves or show interest in it, then it's a waste of our time. Why am I going to keep queuing into LFR on my Shaman alt which does 5x the DPS of some people at 150k? Why am I going to try to explain fights and carry people through mechanics when they just want to AFK to get loot or not participate at all? Most don't even bother to read the dungeon journal for a basic understanding.

LFR is an amazing tool but the playerbase is ruining it for themselves. LFR is in the worst state it's ever been in with the decent players running flex now and the players who want to AFK to epics are being grouped with each other more frequently. Sadly it's the true casuals, the ones decent at the game but can only play sporadically, who are suffering for it as their end game content is ruined by AFKers and griefers who hide behind vote kick immunity and the terrible players who have no interest in getting better.

[Tikaru]

Why do people who don't participate in LFR care what happens to it?

[Bullettime]

Why do people who don't participate in LFR care what happens to it?

Because the health of the game going forward is dependent on LFR thriving to give the casual players, the bulk of the playerbase, their end game content.

The game is dependent on both the casual players AND the hardcore players coexisting. Casuals make up the bulk of the sub money while hardcore players provide consistent income, game knowledge (the guides, addons, theorycrafting, etc people depend on,) and a community cornerstone. If one side falls, the entire game suffers for it.

[Alyxanna]

The issue many of us are having is that no one really speaks up in the raid or shows interest in improving. I'll ask before the pull if anyone has not done it and would like an explanation. I get the response of "fuck you tryhard just pull the boss" while 6 people run to the corner of the room and AFK until it's over. People doing 20k DPS in LFR by auto attacking.

Hence, why people don't speak up. That goes for both sides of the debate. It's not too hard to imagine someone speaking up and saying "first time here" and being summarily kicked.

[Bullettime]

I participate in it and I dislike the changes.
The beauty of LFR was that I could feel like raiding by queue'ing up, so it makes me sad when things that (in my opinion) didn't need nerfing suddenly get nerfed.

Blame your peers then who are ruining LFR for everyone. Convince Blizzard to address the vote kick system in order to prevent people from hiding behind immunity.

Blizzard didn't ruin LFR. The players have and Blizzard is trying to play damage control to keep people queuing for it when they're noticing stacks getting too high, run failure increasing, and queue times going up drastically.

[Normie]

I go afk because I think I am special? No, not really. I think I already explained why I don't do my best anymore in LFR, because it does not matter.

Apparently it's not that obvious because it happens constantly in LFR without anyone saying a word about it and whenever I said something about it it either got ignored or I got flamed for being an elitist so I simply adapted.

Actually, the reason you don't do your best is that you're a bad person, and you don't care at all what anyone thinks about you, or whether you have contributed in any way to the success of a group effort. You are lazy, sarcastic, cynical, sneaky, and no more useful to anyone than is absolutely necessary.

That's the reason you don't do your best.

- - - Updated - - -

Bs. Even If all those players leave, they will continue to make raids. They did all up until the final tier of Cata when LFR was introduced. Ulduar had a ton of bosses, but it didn't have a LFR mode at all. Raids will continue to be around even if they removed LFR. Period. That is the end game. No end game, no players. Simple as that. So as long as they plan on actually making money, they will make raids that only a few thousand will see. Why? Because the other millions will still want to work towards seeing it.

No, there won't be any more large tiers accessible to only 5% of the player base, not again, ever. Raids are tremendously expensive to design and test, and they are simply always going to be either "for everyone" or nonexistent, from here out. Everyone who has ever killed a current heroic boss could quit the game and Blizzard wouldn't even notice something happened.