Why exactly are people so anti-LFR?

[Mardux]

It was and I can tell you exactly when

5.2 LFR

Dropped gear higher than what you got doing anything outside of heroic raiding

Multiple guilds stopped farming raids because why bother when you get better loot for less effort

It killed any reason to do past content and blizzard tried to use titanforging as a way to fix it


LFR was also the reason we no longer have super strong set bonuses (DS LFR)

In a world where some people are motivated by gear (which I will never understand) they will take the easier path

LFR began a downfall of raiding and the numbers can be used for the proof

Move to now and blizzard has decided to constantly kill old content and LFR is part of it (they could Nerf the gear but that didn't work well in WoD)

If you're going to lie, at least lie about something that can't be fact-checked and proven false in less than 5 seconds.

5.2 LFR dropped ilvl 502. 5.2 normal dropped ilvl 522.

[Otimus]

It was and I can tell you exactly when

5.2 LFR

Dropped gear higher than what you got doing anything outside of heroic raiding

Multiple guilds stopped farming raids because why bother when you get better loot for less effort

It killed any reason to do past content and blizzard tried to use titanforging as a way to fix it


LFR was also the reason we no longer have super strong set bonuses (DS LFR)

In a world where some people are motivated by gear (which I will never understand) they will take the easier path

LFR began a downfall of raiding and the numbers can be used for the proof

Move to now and blizzard has decided to constantly kill old content and LFR is part of it (they could Nerf the gear but that didn't work well in WoD)

I'd argue that the death of split of 10/25 raids (and Cata in general, really) did more long term harm to raiding/the perception of raiding than LFR in and of itself did. (But then, I would also argue that most of the problems caused by that were eventually fixed by adding Flex raiding. It just took them a long time to fix it.)

Plus, also, Blizzard outmoding old content is a problem that existed before LFR. LFR just makes it a whole lot more apparent. Also, LFR gear is mostly worthless now, so I don't see why anyone's going to take issue with that part of it, and not take issue with the other stuff that's even easier to do than LFR that offers better rewards than LFR now. If you took LFR away, Blizzard would probably still have this "GOGOGOGO PUSH EVERYONE TO WHAT'S NEW, GOGOGOGOGO" attitude they have now. They had it in the second half of WotLK and it hasn't gone away, and that didn't have a LFR. I think it's kind of used as a scapegoat, when people just really need to give Blizzard harsher treatment for just general really inconsistent (and often times bad) design. (I think a lot of people would rather just insult other people than critique Blizzard)

[zulugaming]

After spending only a week playing Classic WoW, it only reinforces what I already felt. Server transfers and LFR eliminated server communities and took a massive amount of personal interaction out of the game. I could still say "LFM" in general chat in retail, but there's not really a point. I'm not even sure there's a Looking for Group channel any more.

[rhorle]

It was and I can tell you exactly when 5.2 LFR Dropped gear higher than what you got doing anything outside of heroic raiding

The base item level for LFR was 502, Normal was 522, and forged was 528. Heroic was 335 with forged of 541. LFR did not drop loot higher then normal mode at the base level. Again an issue that is not the result of LFR being added to the game as 5.4 was not the first patch to feature LFR. Blame the bonus forging system. Don't hate on LFR because you want to blame it for everything that has happened in your life.

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After spending only a week playing Classic WoW, it only reinforces what I already felt. Server transfers and LFR eliminated server communities and took a massive amount of personal interaction out of the game. I could still say "LFM" in general chat in retail, but there's not really a point. I'm not even sure there's a Looking for Group channel any more.

So does that mean that classic will have no server communities because it has server transfers?

[Osmeric]

The problem with LFR is it increases stratification of the player base, making bad players feel bad. This is the fundamental psychological failing of retail. The crappyness of the gear just reinforces this sense. It's even labelled differently so people immediately know you're an LFR scrub. The only way to address this is to flatten the difficulties and increase the quality of the rewards for lower difficulty content.

LFR could be merged with normal, so that you can enter normal mode either via the LFR tool or by going in as a raid group in the standard way. The new LFR mode would essentially be aimed at streamlining the pugging process, there would be a designated raid leader (someone who has elected to lead and completed the bosses outside of the LFR tool), the raid leader can pass lead to others or be voted out of the position in a democratic way. The difficulty level would be roughly the same as normal but you might keep the stacking buff for repeated wipes. It might also be dynamically tailored to average ilvl. It should essentially be a similar experience to entry level Classic raids. There would be no one "checking achievments" or dungeon.io scores meaning even the most casual player can have a semi-authentic raid experience. The result of this would be easyish content with good rewards that have been somewhat earned and don't loudly broadcast to the world that you suck.

You should also remove Mythic and make Heroic slightly harder to compensate. It's a mistake to have content tailored towards professional "esports" teams. Blizzard should just create a temporary difficulty for the first few weeks of a tier for the purpose of world first races that reward a title or mount but not any better gear.

The bad player must feel like they have a shot at glory, even if it is by masking how bad they are. This is essential to the survival of WoW.

I 100% agree with this. Well said.

[kaminaris]

After spending only a week playing Classic WoW, it only reinforces what I already felt. Server transfers and LFR eliminated server communities and took a massive amount of personal interaction out of the game. I could still say "LFM" in general chat in retail, but there's not really a point. I'm not even sure there's a Looking for Group channel any more.

You mean spamming LF in chat is somehow "social interaction" ? Lol no. I've been socializing in damn rustfeather camp groups. All it takes is to write on party chat.
Finding a group has never been anything more than a tedious chat spam.

[Osmeric]

I guarantee you more than 1% of the player base saw Ulduar and all the raids of Wrath.

I'm don't think it was 1%, and I don't know about the other raids of Wrath, but Street had the following to say about Ulduar (on twitter):

"Ulduar was a high-water mark in many ways. Participation was low and the "button" hard modes weren't sustainable long term."

"The team worked hard on Ulduar, but many players weren't ready for the content and didn't participate."

"Ulduar was popular for the tiny percent of players who saw it. Flex mode normal would have helped it a ton."

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A restaurant with 3 carefully prepared dishes from the freshest ingredients vs McDonalds and its offer of dozens of burgers. Just to counter that point a bit

If one had the choice of having one or the other as their business, they'd choose McD's (the entire chain, not a single one), because it makes far more money.

The niche restaurant can exist because it is limited to that niche.

[Revamp Man]

If you're going to lie, at least lie about something that can't be fact-checked and proven false in less than 5 seconds.

5.2 LFR dropped ilvl 502. 5.2 normal dropped ilvl 522.

I seem to have forgotten to say that it was higher than previous raids

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I'd argue that the death of split of 10/25 raids (and Cata in general, really) did more long term harm to raiding/the perception of raiding than LFR in and of itself did. (But then, I would also argue that most of the problems caused by that were eventually fixed by adding Flex raiding. It just took them a long time to fix it.)

Plus, also, Blizzard outmoding old content is a problem that existed before LFR. LFR just makes it a whole lot more apparent. Also, LFR gear is mostly worthless now, so I don't see why anyone's going to take issue with that part of it, and not take issue with the other stuff that's even easier to do than LFR that offers better rewards than LFR now. If you took LFR away, Blizzard would probably still have this "GOGOGOGO PUSH EVERYONE TO WHAT'S NEW, GOGOGOGOGO" attitude they have now. They had it in the second half of WotLK and it hasn't gone away, and that didn't have a LFR. I think it's kind of used as a scapegoat, when people just really need to give Blizzard harsher treatment for just general really inconsistent (and often times bad) design. (I think a lot of people would rather just insult other people than critique Blizzard)

Shot design I agree

[Osmeric]

If you don't have the time or skill to beat literally any other game then you don't get to experience that content. That's literally how all other video games work.

As a game designer, you'd make an excellent fry cook.

That's a comprehensively dumb way to design a mass market game. You'd be fired in a jiffy if you took that attitude, and for good reason.

[rhorle]

I seem to have forgotten to say that it was higher than previous raids

Still wrong. Heroic dropped 509 for the first tier or raiding in 5.0. That means 5.2 LFR dropping 502 was still not an upgrade. Also of note is that 5.1 allowed you to upgrade your items up to 8 item levels. Which is also why the item levels of 502 are where they were at. They needed to ensure all levels of content saw "upgrades" in the respective content.

[damonskye]

I'm not angry. I'm tired of people like you making up numbers and evading when you're called on your imaginary "facts" just like you've done with each consecutive post.

This thread, once again, is not about LFD. It is nowhere in the title, and completely irrelevant to the context. LFR matchmakes you with 24 other people to complete a raid. It has a completely different interface and impact on the game. They are not the same thing. Furthermore, dungeons and raids are also very different things.

Complete load of tosh, there. Whatever makes you feel good, though. You’re still utterly and completely wrong, not to mention rude as hell, and I’m done with you.

For the others... LFR is still never going away, so all of this is moot. Like it, don’t like it, it just doesn’t matter at the end of the day.

[ghays]

Wrong. The issue was that PVP gear was BIS for raiding, so now in order to be optimized for PVE you were required to do PVP.

Same issue happened in reverse: to be the best in PVP you had to have PVE trinkets.

You are talking about "inferior rewards" in a vacuum. The point was that you shouldn't get BETTER rewards out of PVP for use in PVE, and someone new to arenas shouldn't be crushing everyone because they have raid gear.


The strawman of "PVP should be worse than PVE" was never relevant and had no bearing on anything, yet you see this weird whine a lot on forums like it was actually the issue. It was not.

No, a lot of serious raiders who were uninterested in PVP were saying exactly what I told you. You’re confusing a statement about players opinions with developer issues. I saw lots of raiders on my realm and in forums, including here, wanting to begrudge PVP’ers epic gear.

This may not have been the issue in your mind, but it was certainly a real sentiment at that time.

[Arthzull]

How about don't use it and don't worry, it does not effect you if you don't use it.

I see this everywhere elitist jerks who want everything the way you want it, a lot of the people who played vanilla back when it released are a lot older now, have jobs, lives, wives, husbands, boyfriends, girlfriends etc. Just because I have a job a life and a wife, does not mean I am able to be like these hardcore raiders and spend hours and hours and hours on the game, farming, gearing up, all that, but just because I cannot play that much does not mean I do not deserve to see the story progression, I feel like a lot of people forgot this is a damn game! with a storyline!

I am one of those people who like leveling, doing LFR and seeing the story progress, would I love to go back to raiding hardcore again....maybe but I cannot do that anymore, I am 31 and have a life outside the game, but that should not mean I am not allowed to see the end game, I pay the same amount of money on a sub as you and there is nothing you can say or do that will take that away. LFR is not going away any time soon, because casuals or (Filthy casuals which you call us "which is dumb by the way") out number the hardcore players, because people do have lives outside of this game, just because you don't does not mean everyone else does not.

End of the day LFR Does not effect you, and if it does it is because you are letting it, nothing is stopping you from joining a raiding guild and doing what you love, but for the love of god, don't stop us from doing what we love.

Remember World of Warcraft is an MMORPG it is meant to be played the way the person paying for their sub wants to. Don't like flying? don't! Like Flying! awesome!, Hate PVP cool! that is what normal realms are for!, like pvp? awesome! that is what PVP realms and warmode is for! You don't see me saying I HATE PVP GET RID OF WARMODE! because I do not care, I don't have to use it if I do not want to, just like if you don't like LFR don't use it. Just because YOU don't like it does not mean everyone does, don't ruin it for the people that do.

[barrsftw]

Then give a proper reason that you can adequately defend. Honestly, if there was any factual basis for this assertion being made by "thousands" then surely someone could put together an argument that isn't shredded so easily. The fact that thousands of people claim "it devalues higher raid content" but between cannot put together a cogent explanation of why, actually speaks to the fact that the assertion is bullshit plain and simple.

We have..... It's not being "shredded". We've explained why. You can't just say "JuSt DoNt dO LFR!". It gives gear, and is the easiest form of the raid. People are going to do it. Players take the path of least resistance. People end up doing LFR and then can't be bothered to do Normal or Heroic.

You're essentially saying that these players who can't be bothered to do Normal/Heroic after doing LFR desires are wrong lol.... how can anyone be so arrogant....

[Raelbo]

We have..... It's not being "shredded". We've explained why.

No you haven't. Not in the slightest.

Saying "LFR is bad for the game because it's toxic cancer" isn't an explanation. It's a baseless assertion.

An argument that can't even stand up to a simple and obvious rebuttal, riddled with logical flaws that could fly a city through hardly qualifies as an "adequate" explanation:

You can't just say "JuSt DoNt dO LFR!". It gives gear, and is the easiest form of the raid.

Other raid difficulties give significantly better gear. WQs give better gear. Benthic gives better gear. There is absolutely nothing compelling anyone to run LFR for gear.

People are going to do it. Players take the path of least resistance. People end up doing LFR and then can't be bothered to do Normal or Heroic.

So that's somehow LFR's fault? Come on dude, we're not slaves without choice. I am also a person. I have done LFR and I am still "bothered" to do Normal and Heroic. At least half of my guild also dabbles occasionally in LFR and none have quit real raiding because of it.

The existence of LFR is not a reason to not "bother" with normal or heroic. Ironically, you've actually highlighted the flaw in your logic through the use of that word: "bother". You see that's the real reason why those people don't do normal or heroic. Because they regard it as a "bother". That is not LFR's fault at all. It simply means that Normal or Heroic are not appealing to the people in question. Now, while you might well be correct that some of those people might "bother" to go and do Normal/Heroic if LFR didn't exist, you cannot reasonably argue that this is a good thing.

I mean, seriously, why on earth would you want to encourage people to do something that they find to be bothersome? That is the perfect way to create toxicity in the game. It is much better for everyone involved if said people stay away from Normal/Heroic, and for that reason, LFR is actually healthy for the game.

You're essentially saying that these players who can't be bothered to do Normal/Heroic after doing LFR desires are wrong lol.... how can anyone be so arrogant....

No, I am not saying that they're wrong at all. I am saying you're wrong to want to force/coerce them in Normal/Heroic in the first place when, clearly, they have absolutely no real desire to be there. You're wrong to think it's your place to dictate what difficulty modes should be available to them so that they have no choice but to follow the one you think they should.

That, my friend, is actual arrogance.

[KaPe]

People say excuses like "-Im this age and I have a kids and wife etc" but I have raided with plenty of people who were in similar situations and they were fine.

And I know plenty former guildies who don't have time for scheduled raids and only do LFR from time to time. I see no issue with them having access to this "casual" difficulty mode, since otherwise, they wouldn't raid at all. Meanwhile, I am doing higher difficulty content, completely unaffected by this - and why would I be? Oh no, they killed a boss that does 1/10th of damage and doesn't use half of its abilities. My ego is shattered.

LFR isnt a necessity to the game its just lazy unfulfilling game-design, queue 1.5 hours for a group where none of the tanks bothered to research tactics before hand, wipe for 2 more hours. Or be social and find a guild and overcome those obstacles with better reward in lesser time than you have to waste in LFR queues & wipes? Easy enough choice.

LFR can be done at any time, reasonably quickly (depending on queues), requires no scheduling, no consumable farming, no AP farming, no essence farming and so on. People *hugely* underestimate the time investment "necessary" to raid on higher level. Even on normal, you need a lot higher perfomance than LFR, which in turn means a lot more time. It's the epitome of "plug&play" experience, with the option of having something more involving if someone is into that.

It makes more sense to schedule a playtime where you are more or less guaranteed to clear content than randomly choose 3 hours on a given day that you might not even clear or people will leave or what not.

People do have time, they are just lazy and make terrible choices.

What if their schedule is too erratic for regular raiding? What if they don't feel like dealing with 9+ people? What if it's my alt and I don't feel like looking for PUG and just want to see how I do on some random boss?

None of that matters. When I want challenge, I fight mythic bosses. Couldn't care less about person I'll probably never even see killing training dummy version of same boss.

[Mardux]

I seem to have forgotten to say that it was higher than previous raids

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Shot design I agree

So you're pissy because current content (at the time) dropped higher ilvl gear than old content (at the time)? Jesus...

Did you also get pissed when SoO dropped better gear than ToT?

[kaminaris]

Answer is in bolded lettering.

It's not answer, it's your opinion projected to everyone.

[Raelbo]

People say excuses like "-Im this age and I have a kids and wife etc" but I have raided with plenty of people who were in similar situations and they were fine.

Don't be silly. What works for one person isn't going to necessarily work for another person simply because both have a wife and kids. By that criterion everyone with a "wife and kids etc" would like the same flavour of ice-cream, wear exactly the same clothes, drive the same model of car, etc etc.

queue 1.5 hours for a group where none of the tanks bothered to research tactics before hand, wipe for 2 more hours. Or be social and find a guild and overcome those obstacles with better reward in lesser time than you have to waste in LFR queues & wipes? Easy enough choice.

The choice depends entirely on the person involved, their circumstances and their personal preferences. Shockingly people aren't all exactly the same. Who knew?

It makes more sense to schedule a playtime where you are more or less guaranteed to clear content than randomly choose 3 hours on a given day that you might not even clear or people will leave or what not.

For many people, sure. For others, not really. We get it. Organised raiding works for you. Great! It also works for me. Also great! That doesn't mean it works for everyone. So instead of getting upset at LFR because you can live without it, focus on what works for you and leave LFR to those for whom it does actually work.

People do have time, they are just lazy and make terrible choices.

You know what? Even if you're 100% correct (and you're definitely not, but even if you were), it's entirely irrelevant. It's their choice to make. It's not your place to police those choices or dictate how they should be going about enjoying their game

[Kiri]

I'm not using phrases like "a lot of people" or "everyone" or "everybody" to support my argument. He or she is. I don't need artificial support from phantom people to back me up.

If you'd actually read my post, this should be obvious to you as to why it's relevant and how totally wrong you are in accusing me of the same cheesy tactics to support my belief. I am human so I make mistakes, so please show me where I used a similar tactic in my post. If you read carefully, I only speak for myself.

I haven't undermined my argument, and I challenge you to show me where I did.

I really should not bother, since it's just the implication of your last paragraph, not an exact words used case. No, you don't say "a lot of people" or anything like that. You only speak about "people" being so passionate about it that they would take the private server risk, and that them being able to play safely implies that Classic will be a success, even using embellishing terms like "tremendous" and "immense". All I was saying is that due to that, your argument is weakened.

That's because you cite an example, i.e. those who put truly a lot of effort into putting up those private servers etc. and designate them with "people". Then, you use "people" again when you talk about those who can play it safely now. They are both addressed the same way, which causes conflation - those passionate enough to set up private servers with those who play on them - and thus implies that they have the same passion.
Mind you, that's not really an accusation as much as a pointing out of an issue with the argument. I know myself how easily one can just use "people" multiple times without deliberately wanting to conflate. It just happens, and it tends to take away from the argument.

I thought it was 1 week and classic dead. Or was 2 weeks? Or month? I dont know. What we know so far is that every single negattive predictions were all wrong.

And lets be honest even BFA do not retain players for more than 1 month. So if 15 old game game retain players for 6 months i would give myself big slap on my face as developer.

That's not really honest, though. BFA does and did retain players for more than one month. The numbers do drop significantly once the content is no longer new, though, but there is a sizable base still playing even after a year. Otherwise, the servers would have been shut down already.
Being honest would be acknowledging that yes, some people said classic would be dead in a week or two. And some said classic would kill BFA in a week or two. We do know that those predictions have been wrong. We won't know how other negative predictions will hold out. But does it even matter?
I never get this hyperbole, or the need for one side to "win". Some players will always like the older versions more. Some don't. Why not just be happy that Blizzard is currently catering to both? Classic isn't really doing it for me, since it feels so much like re-doing stuff I already did so long ago. But I don't have a need to tell everyone that Classic is bad and will be dead etc. I'm happy that others are happy, especially if it doesn't harm me or my interests. If Classic is still kicking in a year, that's great, and no one should slap themselves in the face because of that.