The hate on LFR

[Low Hanging Fruit]

I used to hate LFR in MoP when it felt very required to do along side my typical raiding schedule for things like set bonuses and trinkets. Now that its just roll for the one in a billion massive forge I can just ignore it. So no reason to worry about it.

[Beerbill Society]

Will keep this simple.

LFR endorse a kind of gameplay that shouldn't be. By allowing mediocrity, Blizzard is actually undermining their player efforts and accomplishments while devaluing their own content.

"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."

LFR is giving the fish.

[shaunika123]

Sorry, but I fundamentally disagree with this.

I think you have this fanciful notion that if people have no choice but to do real raiding then they'll do it, find that they really enjoy it, and be thankful. Reality is that if people don't want to do real raiding, forcing them to do so will simply breed resentment.

As someone who does enjoy raiding, the appeal is in the challenge, in putting in that effort and struggling until we beat the encounter. I enjoy being part of a team working towards that goal. That is why I raid. I couldn't give a fuck if LFR offers an easier path to see the content. If part of my enjoyment of seeing the content is tied to beating it on a real difficulty then, as a functional adult I can easily choose not to do it on LFR. Given that LFR only releases the last boss months after normal/hc, it isn't even an issue.

But for someone who does not value those things, there is absolutely zero point in forcing them to do normal raiding. What possible benefit do you honestly expect to come from it? All you're going to do is piss off people who will feel sidelined because they don't get to experience that part of the content



Those who never progress beyond LFR were never going to in the first place and it has nothing to do with LFR. If anything, I'd argue that LFR is more likely to result in more players trying to get into raiding because LFR gives it some exposure.

and I fundamentally disagree with you :P

I think if people are engaged and challenged (without putting a brick wall in front of them) then they'll get a taste for it and try to go further.
humans are ambitious beings, if we get a taste for real success we start to crave more.


and sure, it gives raiding some "exposure", it gives it negative exposure tho, if all your impression of raiding is from LFR, then you wont EVER try to go further, because it gives a false picture of it.

[Tikishock]

The real problem with LFR isn't really gear related because those who play at a higher level will inevitably get gear. The real problem people have with it is that it disconnected the building relationships and guilds side of the game. In WotLK for example (which most regard as the pinnacle of WoW) if you wanted to raid you needed to join a guild, build friendships, join in on raid nights and other gearing runs. This is now gone with the LFR and even x-realm pre-made groups. There's no real need for a guild anymore. You need help on a quest, make a x-realm group. Want to raid, join up with some other PuG's and knock it out. Wipe on a mob, whatever, leave and join another. THIS is why people hate LFR, not because of the actual system but because it's led to WoW becoming the world largest solo-game MMO.

I think players are what led to the world's largest solo game MMO. People don't WANT to do all those things you just mentioned. The majority of people DON'T want to organize a group or set aside specific times to do content or wait for other guildies to get on. The majority of people gaming want to group up when they need to group up and get stuff done in as little time as possible.

That isn't Blizzard's fault--they just made it easier to do that to satisfy a customer need. Nobody wants to stand in a capital city and spam "LFG-3, Atal" anymore. It's inefficient and I think instead of people "joining guilds and finding groups of people and building relationships" they will just quit.

It's like this fallacy of "players will rise to the occasion and learn to be better if we make content harder". No they won't, they will just quit. Just because you wouldn't do this doesn't mean the majority of people would.

[Raelbo]

LFR endorse a kind of gameplay that shouldn't be. By allowing mediocrity, Blizzard is actually undermining their player efforts and accomplishments while devaluing their own content.

The existence of Heroic and Mythic and the fact that people still participate therein disproves this.

"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."

LFR is giving the fish.

LFR is letting the man fish in a smaller pool. Nothing stops him from venturing out into the sea to chase bigger, more lucrative rewards if that is what appeals to him.

[Tikishock]

Isn't that the point of every company.Cater to majority of your consumers?

You would think so with all the "customer is always right" posts when it comes to said customer wanting something THEY WANT. But if it's what other customers want then "TOO BAD, THIS GAME ISN'T SUPPOSED TO BE THAT WAY. IT'S AN MMO, NOT A SINGLE PLAYER CAMPAIGN!!!1!!"

People that only do queue-able content will probably always only do queue-able content. Or else they will quit. People have this idea that if the queue-able content didn't exist then these players would magically wake up one day and think "Hey, since I can't solo queue content anymore I will find a guild that I like and start doing more group activities to see and experience content."

No, they won't. They will just quit. Or play until they exhaust all forms of solo content and then quit. These people are not going to "rise to the occasion" and start clearing Normal and Heroic raids or start pushing M+. They will just simply cancel their subs until more solo content comes out.

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and I fundamentally disagree with you :P

I think if people are engaged and challenged (without putting a brick wall in front of them) then they'll get a taste for it and try to go further.
humans are ambitious beings, if we get a taste for real success we start to crave more.


and sure, it gives raiding some "exposure", it gives it negative exposure tho, if all your impression of raiding is from LFR, then you wont EVER try to go further, because it gives a false picture of it.

Blizzard has basically stated you're wrong according to the data they have. The idea of harder content will make players rise to the occasion is a myth according to the data Blizzard has. When content gets tougher, the majority of people don't become engaged with the challenge. They quit it.

[shaunika123]

You would think so with all the "customer is always right" posts when it comes to said customer wanting something THEY WANT. But if it's what other customers want then "TOO BAD, THIS GAME ISN'T SUPPOSED TO BE THAT WAY. IT'S AN MMO, NOT A SINGLE PLAYER CAMPAIGN!!!1!!"

People that only do queue-able content will probably always only do queue-able content. Or else they will quit. People have this idea that if the queue-able content didn't exist then these players would magically wake up one day and think "Hey, since I can't solo queue content anymore I will find a guild that I like and start doing more group activities to see and experience content."

No, they won't. They will just quit. Or play until they exhaust all forms of solo content and then quit. These people are not going to "rise to the occasion" and start clearing Normal and Heroic raids or start pushing M+. They will just simply cancel their subs until more solo content comes out.

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Blizzard has basically stated you're wrong according to the data they have. The idea of harder content will make players rise to the occasion is a myth according to the data Blizzard has. When content gets tougher, the majority of people don't become engaged with the challenge. They quit it.

to be fair I dont think blizzard has been good at providing a smooth access and difficulty curve to the content in the past though.

normal was never easy enough to get into for a lot of people. before LFR all we had were normal and HC
normal was basically what HC is now. which is relatively hard. and dont forget, there wasnt any "flex" in it, the raidsize was fixed, which is another big problem for casual players.

if we had the current normal back then (hell probably even slightly easier) but there were still actual mechanics, and you still would have to socialize/organize

I think their data would be different.

of course if you put a brick wall in front of people not many will climb over it, but that kinda skews the data on what's on the other side of the wall doesnt it?

blizzard dug themselves in a hole by making raids pretty inaccessible, and then waaaay overcorrected with LFR, making them way too accessible and not engaging at all. which created this rift.


if we had easily accessible raids, with flexible sizes, but the fundamental values of raiding were still intact in it. the numbers would be VERY different.


the implementation of LFR is basically teaching quantum physics in the 10th grade and failing 99% of students, and then when you see the results, you just give everyone a B for participation.

sure some people will still go for the A, but not many.

[Raelbo]

and I fundamentally disagree with you :P

I think if people are engaged and challenged (without putting a brick wall in front of them) then they'll get a taste for it and try to go further.
humans are ambitious beings, if we get a taste for real success we start to crave more.

And yet before LFR most people didn't raid at all. And even with LFR, people continue to raid normal, heroic and mythic. I have been raiding for a long time and I know a lot of players who have tried real raiding and didn't like it. Others do like it but cannot make the necessary committment because of family, children, career, other hobbies etc etc.

Regardless, it doesn't even matter. WoW is a game played mostly by adults. I find that notion that adults should be coerced into doing content because they might find that they like it to be asinine. Seriously, if people can't be arsed to at least giving normal raiding a try, regardless of the existence of LFR, that is on them, not the feature.

and sure, it gives raiding some "exposure", it gives it negative exposure tho, if all your impression of raiding is from LFR, then you wont EVER try to go further, because it gives a false picture of it.

Again, I think it's pretty insulting to the intelligence of the average player that they're going to think that LFR is going to give an accurate impression of real raiding. Let's give another example: Most of us know how to drive a car. Do you really think that we believe that means we know what it's like to race in Formula 1? Of course not.

[Akka]

EVERYTHING that makes an MMO (socializing, challenge, engagement etc) is missing from LFR, and it gives a false image of what's actual raiding is to new players, which means they'll never ever go further.

That's also a very fair point, in addition to the problems the LFR causes to the overarching design.

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My suggestion next time is this: If you choose to set the tone by openning in your usual "frank" manner, don't be surprised when people don't respond kindly. Me choosing to be "passive aggressive" is my subtle way of dropping the hint that you're acting like a dick and a warning that I can do the same. But it is also leaving the door open for you to engage more civilly.

You see, my first message was simply stating facts about LFR and wasn't addressed to you.
Yet your answer was this :

Sure, if LFR was indeed all those things you say it is, then it would be perfectly understandable. But how anyone could come to such ridiculous conclusions does, indeed, defy comprehension.

So basically you were the one acting like a dick and being passive-aggressive first.
Maybe make use of your own advice before trying to give lessons to others ?

[Tikishock]

to be fair I dont think blizzard has been good at providing a smooth access and difficulty curve to the content in the past though.

normal was never easy enough to get into for a lot of people. before LFR all we had were normal and HC
normal was basically what HC is now. which is relatively hard.

if we had the current normal back then (hell probably even slightly easier) but there were still actual mechanics, and you still would have to socialize/organize

I think their data would be different.

of course if you put a brick wall in front of people not many will climb over it, but that kinda skews the data on what's on the other side of the wall doesnt it?

blizzard dug themselves in a hole by making raids pretty inaccessible, and then waaaay overcorrected with LFR, making them way too accessible and not engaging at all. which created this rift.

I don't think there is a brickwall between LFR and Normal. Is it vastly different? Yes, but if you join an AOTC guild that also clears Normal it is simple. I just think the issue is that players don't want to join a guild and they don't want set times for raids to clear Normal and Heroic. Gamers are becoming more and more casual and don't want to have to deal with game logistics (finding a group, setting up a time to play, etc)--to the point that hard games like Dark Souls and Monster Hunter are a niche game. I think outside of WoW you can see the issue Destiny is having without having a LFG in-game. A lot of gamers, but not all, don't want to have to use third party apps to organize a game. It isn't easy and it's cumbersome and it wastes time in an environment in which attention spans are decreasing and there is so much more media for people to consume that is competing for our attention and time.

This of course doesn't apply to everybody. There are plenty of people like you and me that enjoy a challenge and find it more enjoyable than faceroll challenges. Whenever I get AOTC or finish a challenge M+ on time, I'm very happy. That feeling is what I play WoW for. It's a much much better feeling than finishing LFR where success is guaranteed.

[Raelbo]

You see, my first message was simply stating facts about LFR and wasn't addressed to you.

<snip>

So basically you were the one acting like a dick and being passive-aggressive first.

You conveniently forget about the snide remark you ended it with (without which, sure, I fully acknowledge that my comment would have been dickish). So no, you really do deserve all the credit for setting the tone.

[shaunika123]

And yet before LFR most people didn't raid at all. And even with LFR, people continue to raid normal, heroic and mythic. I have been raiding for a long time and I know a lot of players who have tried real raiding and didn't like it. Others do like it but cannot make the necessary committment because of family, children, career, other hobbies etc etc.
.

I answer this in my post in the previous page, refer to that

Again, I think it's pretty insulting to the intelligence of the average player that they're going to think that LFR is going to give an accurate impression of real raiding. Let's give another example: Most of us know how to drive a car. Do you really think that we believe that means we know what it's like to race in Formula 1? Of course not.

that's not how humans really work though. we're not a 100% rational calculating robots, we're a very subjective. even if rationally, we might know how it works, in reality it still has an effect on how we perceive raiding through LFR.

[yetgdhfgh]

LFR WILL DESTROY WOW - What people said in November 29, 2011 when Dragon Soul was released.

Funny that its nearly 2019 and here we are and this game still has more subs than any other MMO and could still go on for another 20 years and still make money.

[Tikishock]

Again, I think it's pretty insulting to the intelligence of the average player that they're going to think that LFR is going to give an accurate impression of real raiding. Let's give another example: Most of us know how to drive a car. Do you really think that we believe that means we know what it's like to race in Formula 1? Of course not.

You mean to tell me I can't race Formula 1 even though I try to shave seconds off my trip to the grocery story by drafting and taking my corners properly?!?!?!?!?

[shaunika123]

I don't think there is a brickwall between LFR and Normal.

yeah not anymore, but there used to be. which you'd know if you actually read my post :P

the gap between normal and LFR was fucking massive in cataclysm.

Gamers are becoming more and more casual and don't want to have to deal with game logistics (finding a group, setting up a time to play, etc)

I blame video game companies for that. they turned gamers into this in the last decade or so, when you give someone something easily, then of course he's gonna keep expecting it.

when gaming became mainstream in the early 2000s, gaming companies started to appeal to a wider audience, not by engaging them, but by throwing stuff at them for free, because that was easier to do.

this basically turned an entire generation of kids, expecting everything to be handed to them inside games. (obviously there are many exceptions, but the overarching trends dont lie)

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LFR WILL DESTROY WOW - What people said in November 29, 2011 when Dragon Soul was released.

Funny that its nearly 2019 and here we are and this game still has more subs than any other MMO and could still go on for another 20 years and still make money.

wait... there are other MMOs?

coulda fooled me.

wow also lost over half it's avg subscriber base since LFR got introduced so :P

[grandgato]

you skipped this important part of my post :P

I'm not saying LFR is rewarding gearwise, but you still see the entire endgame content essentially. and then a lot of people are no longer motivated to go further, because they've killed the boss already.

There are plenty of incentives to encourage players into normal+ raiding currently. If they are still content with just LFR at this point, there is very likely little you can do to motivate them further.

And there isn't anything wrong with that at all.

[Raelbo]

That's also a very fair point, in addition to the problems the LFR causes to the overarching design.

It's not a fair point because the conclusion doesn't follow from the facts.

The fact that we can agree on is that "EVERYTHING that makes an MMO (socializing, challenge, engagement etc) is missing from LFR" does necessarily not mean that
1) new players are going to think it's a fair reflection of what real raiding is like
2) they will never go further

I mean, sure, some players might be put off trying harder raid modes because of a bad LFR experience (and honestly, if that's the case, how long do you really think that kind of player is going to last in a real raid environment?)

But by the same token, you have to acknowledge that anyone with any capacity for rational thought and who has any kind of gaming experience is going to be aware of the fact that harder difficulties are going to present a much harder challenge, and if that idea is appealing to them, then the taste of raiding they do get from LFR could just as easily lead them to try real raiding.

[Thetruth1400]

I think the excuse of not having enough time is probably only true to a very small amount of players. There are plenty of guild who can clear mythic while devoting 2 days a week / 6-8 hours.

LFR players are known to be toxic, lazy, greedy and incompetent. I also see the excuse of "wanting to see the raid" quite often which is probably only slightly true. If this was really the case, why would you care at all about the gear? If you don't raid or pvp, gear is unnecessary, yet you see so many people complaining that they can't get gear because the content they do only offers so much.

LFR itself isn't a problem for me, it's the players who use it and expect more for doing so little.

This so much. LFR isn't the problem, it's the vocal complaints that demand near, pretty much equal, gear as Mythic raiders while putting in none of the effort to learn, gear, make sure they have consumables etc. and Blizzard listening to them.

Frankly, LFR is not a level of content you progress in to, it's just an alternate to the base level of the world quests / M+0 dungeons and should be treated as such. That means stripping titanforging from it and letting people that "Just want to see the content" see it as an alternate choice to gearing up in even normal raids, which take just as long to do, only involve actually contributing and having a quarter of a functioning brain.

[shaunika123]

It's not a fair point because the conclusion doesn't follow from the facts.

The fact that we can agree on is that "EVERYTHING that makes an MMO (socializing, challenge, engagement etc) is missing from LFR" does necessarily not mean that
1) new players are going to think it's a fair reflection of what real raiding is like
2) they will never go further

I mean, sure, some players might be put off trying harder raid modes because of a bad LFR experience (and honestly, if that's the case, how long do you really think that kind of player is going to last in a real raid environment?)

But by the same token, you have to acknowledge that anyone with any capacity for rational thought and who has any kind of gaming experience is going to be aware of the fact that harder difficulties are going to present a much harder challenge, and if that idea is appealing to them, then the taste of raiding they do get from LFR could just as easily lead them to try real raiding.

but it's not a question of "harder"

LFR isnt even raiding. it's just not. it's basically an hour long cinematic of the bossfights.


everything about it is antithetical to what raiding really is. and that's the point.
not the difficulty by itself.

[yetgdhfgh]

wait... there are other MMOs?

coulda fooled me.

wow also lost over half it's avg subscriber base since LFR got introduced so :P

Well they all bit the dust didnt they

You see the moral of the story is stop listening to those hipster so called hard core (who btw most just play LFR anyway) and just listen to the silent majority.

This is the reason blizz has had to buff up leveling cause they listened to the loud minority who said bring back slow monotonous leveling just so they can recapture that old magic like some bald 40 something trying not to pretend they are going through a mid life crisis.

Blizz needs to ignore the loud minority and start to look at there own inhouse stats and make decisions based on that cause every time they do listen to the loud minority it always backfires spectacularly!! Remember WoD Flying?