Why exactly are people so anti-LFR?

[rrayy]

Ehhhh... world quests are just repainted daily quests. By "world content", I'd mean, like.. players being able to actively run cities/shops, have governments, have a legit crafting system that matters, more involved bartering, etc. Along with like... large gigantic PVP wars over stuff.
World bosses are about the only good hold over from what I'd like in a world, in an MMORPG.

Now you are moving the goalposts. World Quests are world content regardless of what they are. Almost everything else you mention was never in the game to begin with. There is a ton of world content in the game, but it seems you are intentionally discounting a ton of stuff to make your claim.

Also:
Warfronts are instanced.
Island expeditions are instanced.
Certain quests have instanced parts (Basically the modern version of scenarios... which also are instanced)
Large scale PVP is instanced (Battlegrounds)
Small scale PVP is instanced (Arenas)
Raids are instanced.
Dungeons are instanced.

There's also phasing, but they've thankfully cut back a lot on that in the last few years.

That is hardly anything compared to the amount of content in the rest of the game. PvP is basically nothing but a side game. You romanticize the old game, yet there was practically ZERO in terms of world content at the start. It was raid or nothing. There is far more to do out in the world now than there ever was.

[Otimus]

snip

Whoa, I think you're mistaking me for someone else or misunderstanding the argument I made. I'm complaining that this stuff was never in the game to begin with, that the world was never important enough, and that Blizzard has spent too much time focusing on raiding. I'm also Pro-LFR, and I pretty much hate classic WoW, so I'm not romanticizing anything. Moreso saying how I wish MMOs were made. (WoW made themepark MMOs become the standard, more or less).

Like.. you said "You romanticize the old game, yet there was practically ZERO in terms of world content at the start.", like, lol, I pretty much literally said the same thing! (Well, except the first part)

[rrayy]

Which is a very small amount compared to all the world content in the game. PvP is basically nothing but a side game. You romanticize the old game, yet there was practically ZERO in terms of world content at the start. It was raid or nothing. There is far more to do out in the world now than there ever was.

Whoa, I think you're mistaking me for someone else or misunderstanding the argument I made. I'm complaining that this stuff was never in the game to begin with, that the world was never important enough, and that Blizzard has spent too much time focusing on raiding. I'm also Pro-LFR, and I pretty much hate classic WoW, so I'm not romanticizing anything. Moreso saying how I wish MMOs were made. (WoW made themepark MMOs become the standard, more or less).

Like.. you said "You romanticize the old game, yet there was practically ZERO in terms of world content at the start.", like, lol, I pretty much literally said the same thing! (Well, except the first part)[/QUOTE]But what they focused on is what made the game popular in the first place. Basically what you wanted is is for them to completely ignore what made them popular to begin with for what you want. You could make your argument when it first came out, but it gets kind of ridiculous now when they have added a ton of world content that wasn't available at the beginning.

[Otimus]

snip

I'm just lamenting some stuff. (That mainly was just a side argument I was making there about MMO's in general) Mainly, I don't get how people can be so anti-LFR for it making the game anti-social, and in the same token not take that against like... things that were the core being of the game. The leveling experience is inherently anti-social. To me, if these people want to whine about LFR devaluing the social experience, they should be looking at that, and not LFR. Clearly, WoW put itself in a position where it promoted that style of play. It was the draw of the entire thing. It's like Everquest, but easier and you could easily level solo! But everyone just wants to focus on raiding :/

[bullseyed]

I don't like LFR because it is a symbol of a disease that has been growing in WoW for years. It started with the dailies and normal/hero modes in BC, spread like the plague and now entirely contaminated the game with M+, Island expeditions, WQ and so on. That disease is: repetitive content, an absolute immersion killer. Imagine your D&D GM telling you "Good job guys, you did a great job in this dungeon. Let's start our next adventure! Same dungeon in a different difficulty". You can't, right? Well, Blizzard decided to do that, and not just a bit, they did it for every single piece of end game content there is in the game, to the point where unique content is rarely developed anymore. It probably started without any bad intention from Blizzard but it quickly grew out of control and here we are. A game with over 90% of its content being anti-immersive, anti-progression, anti RPG, and of all those repetitive things, LFR is probably the dumbest one with zero challenge, zero communication, zero investment, zero learning, but hey, you get to see the story and repeat it in normal after that. Then in heroic, then in Mythic. Yay

D&D is absolutely more repetitive than WoW is. Constantly rolling for auto-attacks against shit-tier trash mobs.

The only decrease in content over the years for WoW is that WQs today are generally repeats of original story quests, while original daily quests were new add-ons to TBC.

[Saverem]

From a progression standpoint, there's absolutely no reason whatsoever to step foot into LFR - you can get as good or better gear just by doing dailies. The only reason anybody does LFR is likely because it's a way for them to see content they otherwise wouldn't see likely because they're too busy to be in an active raiding guild or don't care to invest that much time into the game. So what exactly is the problem with allowing "casuals" to see this content when they're not even being rewarded for it? Why is LFR such a major talking point for classic fanboys and the like? How does it affect your gameplay at all? I personally don't use LFR and forget it exists most of the time so I struggle to understand why so many people have such an issue with it when the only thing people get from it is trash gear (hardly the "free epixx" people frame it as).

Because it's bad for the game. Adding in a literal brain dead version of the raids cheapens the gameplay. Why do you think Classic is so popular now despite the fact that it is EXTREMELY inconvenient and harsh to play? BECAUSE IT'S EXTREMELY INCONVENIENT AND HARSH TO PLAY AND THUS WHEN YOU GET GOOD LOOT YOU FEEL EXTREMELY REWARDED FROM IT. LFR is like being rewarded for watching paint dry. It's like getting a participation trophy for coming in last place. It's not rewarding. It's boring AF. They should REMOVE this part of the game and bring retail closer to Classic.

One of my fondest memory of WoW in the last 6 yrs of playing it was when I finally got my BrM's Mage Tower weapon back when MT came out (before ToS was released and people became overgeared). BrMs were one of the worst tanks to do MT and it took me like 200 attempts. But when I got it, holy shit did it feel good. I still remember it fondly, I still remember how excited I was and I still use my MT weapon to this day. This is what makes WoW good, not queuing into a raid and then afking for half of it and getting free purps.

[bullseyed]

nobody calls themself a raider for doing LFR. The only people who make comments like this are people who hate LFR.

So we agree then, if I can find a single LFR player who calls themselves a raider, we'll have a mod perma-ban your MMO-C account?

[Jtbrig7390]

nobody calls themself a raider for doing LFR. The only people who make comments like this are people who hate LFR.

So we agree then, if I can find a single LFR player who calls themselves a raider, we'll have a mod perma-ban your MMO-C account?

If you play any video game (including shit like candy crush) you are a gamer.

If you raid any difficulty of raiding then you are a raider.

These days I only do LFR and I am a raider because I am raiding.

[rrayy]

snip/

IN the early days, leveling was far more social because there were quests that could not be soloed without severely overpowering it level wise and players weren't actively penalized for joining a group. Leveling it self didn't cause players to be anti-social. It was a product of how Blizzard changed the leveling process.

The players that say "LFR made the game anti-social" use that response to hide their true reasons for hating it. The real reason they hate LFR is because BLIZZARD dictates the requirements to enter the raid, not them. Therefore, they can't be special snowflakes when everyone is able to access the raid. They aren't going to get the god treatment they crave when everyone else has done the same thing. OF course, they won't get anywhere admitting that, so it is far easier to mask that with an argument that look far more reasonable in comparison.

I do appreciate the respectful back and forth we are having even if it got a little heated. There are others in this thread who are only here to proclaim "LFR is garbage and anyone who disagrees with me is wrong" and that trolling nonsense, so it is good to find a real discussion.

- - - Updated - - -

Because it's bad for the game. Adding in a literal brain dead version of the raids cheapens the gameplay. Why do you think Classic is so popular now despite the fact that it is EXTREMELY inconvenient and harsh to play? BECAUSE IT'S EXTREMELY INCONVENIENT AND HARSH TO PLAY AND THUS WHEN YOU GET GOOD LOOT YOU FEEL EXTREMELY REWARDED FROM IT. LFR is like being rewarded for watching paint dry. It's like getting a participation trophy for coming in last place. It's not rewarding. It's boring AF. They should REMOVE this part of the game and bring retail closer to Classic.

One of my fondest memory of WoW in the last 6 yrs of playing it was when I finally got my BrM's Mage Tower weapon back when MT came out (before ToS was released and people became overgeared). BrMs were one of the worst tanks to do MT and it took me like 200 attempts. But when I got it, holy shit did it feel good. I still remember it fondly, I still remember how excited I was and I still use my MT weapon to this day. This is what makes WoW good, not queuing into a raid and then afking for half of it and getting free purps.

Good thing you have normal./heroic/mythic to give you what you want and you are in no way required to queue to raid. IT does absolutely none of whjat you say for those that don't do it. I love how people act like LFR caused all other raiding difficulties to disappear. This argument never fails to amuse me.

- - - Updated - - -

I think it's fair to argue that raids should require you to actively find a group, not just click a "join" button

There is no rule that says that should be the case and there is absolutely nothing stopping you from creating your own group. They didn't remove manual grouping up for raids after all meaning the ability to queue doesn't affect you one bit. So, not it is not fair to argue to require manual grouping.

[Jibjub]

Because it's terrible...

[rrayy]

I don't agree with you

So, you are telling me you cannot manually form your own group? That is news to mythic raiders. I also find it funny that somehow a tool that you don't use can affect you since you don't even touch it. Oh right, you are one of the elitists who want to control who accesses the content so you can be a special snowflake. Got it now.

- - - Updated - - -

Because it's terrible...

Then don't play it. Problem solved.

[Black Goat]

They treat it as relevant because it impedes their ability to be special snowflakes who control who gets to raid despite the fact that they can still do all that to their hearts content with mythic.

It's statements like these that make me unwilling to respect you or your argument. You're so closed off. You don't reply to posts that actually offer debate and good discussion. You only want the low hanging fruit you can insult and condescend. Yet you're calling US the snowflakes, but you can't even be bothered to open your mind and make good discussion. This proves to me you only want to be toxic. You only want to call people names and try to make yourself look like you're some paragon for the little guy to look up to. What a waste of oxygen.

You're reading from a script and it's becoming almost laughable. I've lost count of how many times you've used the words "special snowflake, elitist, control, control, control, control". Did someone hurt you in the raid department, son?

[Ghost10491]

Mainly three reasons I hate lfr.

1- as many people said, it trivializes what is supposed to be endgame content, and demotivates people from actually trying to do the hard modes. Finding friends/a guild that you could progress through the game with used to be a big deal, as it should in an mmo. After killing a boss on lfr, it also takes away the feeling the sense of accomplishment of killing it on the real difficulties.

2- it takes the epic out of epic content. I used to see people running around in tier whatever armor and thought, damn that's cool, I want that. And finally being able to progress with my friends and getting a piece of that armor was badass.

3- this is my main one. Too many difficulties creates too much gear inflation. There is no need to have a difference of 60 item levels EVERY PATCH. I can see the need for one puggable difficulty, and then one much more difficult for guilds to progress through where you can obtain tier sets. The absurd gear inflation every patch causes ridiculous catch up mechanics that reduce the rewarding feeling of actually doing content.

These are the cons of lfr. Here's the pro.

1- everyone can see all the content easily.

[TheRevenantHero]

So we agree then, if I can find a single LFR player who calls themselves a raider, we'll have a mod perma-ban your MMO-C account?

Wtf? no. Because you can easily get a friend to say it and go "HERP DERP SEE THEY SAID IT YOU GET BANNED NAO." Grow up.

[Nnyco]

This trash can of a response is absolutely what you expect from a turd who spends his life posting 5000 trash can posts on a wow forum, what are you doing AFKing in Stormwind while constantly spamming the forums? Honestly if you think LFR is worth playing, you must be one of the kids who plays games on the easiest setting and feels accomplished. Also report me for calling you a trash can Idc about my forum account you trash can.

You make it sound like 500 posts is a small number too, but ye keep spammin insults on this forum, lets see how far that will get ya.

[Saverem]

Good thing you have normal./heroic/mythic to give you what you want and you are in no way required to queue to raid. IT does absolutely none of whjat you say for those that don't do it. I love how people act like LFR caused all other raiding difficulties to disappear. This argument never fails to amuse me.

The act of having it available is detrimental. It enables people to continue being lazy. If they just had normal, a bunch of those people who only do LFR will have to look for groups and join social guilds instead of being an autistic hermit doing easy content and then getting bored with the game and leaving for Fortnite.

[Aucald]

This thread needs to calm down in every sense of the term. Post your opinions but stop fighting and carping over other people's as much - everyone has their own $0.02 on the matter, there's no need to tear down every dissenting opinion.

[Eroginous]

You just defeated yourself.

There is no value in geting from place A to place B. Games are suppose to be fun, not walking simulator.
It is fun for the first few times to go around the map, but after that not anymore.

There is no value in completing "check list" of consumables for raid.

Everything you just listed is boring and mindless pseudo activity to artificially keep you hooked up, interfering with your real life.

Everything you've said is a subjective opinion you have about things that are basic to any open world sandbox. You have to explore. Which is a journey. Takes time to get from one place to the other. There is no logical reason to skip that, it is part of the game. Getting to the dungeon is just as much part of the journey as completing it and putting a group together for it. Those things have value because you learn to appreciate the effort others put forth to help you accomplish it.

You're not suddenly getting more enjoyment out of the game because you can get skip the parts you deem unenjoyable. It's not interfering with your real life unless you don't know how to moderate. You don't need to do everything in a single play session and you don't need to give 6 hours of your day to a video game. You can get everything you want out of the game and moderate your play time, that was the beauty of Wow. There was no rush to get things done before the next teir of content came out. Take it at your own pace, profit.

Where you fail is that classic would have died years ago if they stayed the way it was. Players get older. Time becomes a lot more important than comittment once you have a family., kids, responsibilities outside the game. With LFD, LFR and stuff like that, many players will keep playing. Continuing on your way means even more players will quit than they do now. Your way isn't automatically better no matter how much you try to claim it is.

But here is the best part. You now have classic. Go play that to your hearts content. You can also have fun when people get bored of it in a few months as they rembmber what a boring tedious slog it was, had no end game, and you are left with nobody. The game still exists because it evolved with things like LFD and LFR. Keeping it the way you want at all times is the fastest way to kill it.

I don't know what you think being a gamer is about, but I prioritize the important things and find time to play Wow too. The average wow gamer didn't change over the course of 15 years, the overwhelming popularity of Classic demonstrates that. The DDoSing attacks we've had all week (while retail is ignored) demonstrates that. The emergency layering changes, new servers, and free server migrations offered to players on classic realms demonstrates that. No matter how you think your time should be spent in Wow, Classic is the version of the game the original Wow fans remember. I'm not saying you aren't a Wow fan if you don't like it. I'm saying this is the way the game originally tested through beta and launched. This was the version of Wow that defined the genre for 2 years before releasing an expansion.

Players spent time just being a part of the world. It wasn't always go here do this collect loot. That's the theme park effect of most single player games. MMOs are designed to be more open ended, where you can choose which adventures to under take and the game play is more centered around what you make of it, not pre defined like a single player game would be. You still have story, you still have lots of things to do in the way of pve, but you decide when and how to spend your time. And the incremental steps you take along the way have meaning. Everything on live, from the way you level to the way you build your character, is gratuitous. You get far too much loot, far too quickly. You replace it, far too quickly. Even in pvp, where the seasons last approx 6 months, you replace your gear that frequently. The whole set. Progression doesn't have to be big steps to be meaningful. That is something that Classic is proving again.

It's month 4 of MC. You still haven't finished your main set. You've encountered 3 bosses that dropped loot for classes that your faction doesn't even have. A piece of gear drops for your main set. Someone else gets the piece simply because it was -marginally- better for them than it is for you. Oh well, next week right?

I don't know how you can think that's fun. Having to wait literal MONTHS for gear doesn't make it more valuable. If it's something you enjoy, then you're a masochist. Most players hate that shit. Nothing was difficult in vanilla, stop painting that utterly false picture. Things just took longer. It wasn't hard, it was just a lot of waiting and grinding. You complete a raid in an hour or so then do nothing for a week because there's literally NOTHING ELSE to do at max level. At least in retail, there's other things I can do to occupy my time.

Well, if you think pve is the only content, I can't help you. Without all the features of BFA, there is plenty to do for years, even without adding new features. Most of it is completionist, and why achievements started getting tracked and eventually became it's own system of rewards and whatnot. But, the game is both pve and pvp. When you aren't raiding, go help out in BGs. Sit in an AV for 8 hours to slaughter other players. Bored of pvp? Make alts. Re roll other specs. Make twinks. Farm AH. Max out each profession. It's like minecraft, where you kinda need an imagination to get the most out of the game.

I could talk for hours about some of the things I've done in Wow other than raiding or pvping at max level. It's there, even in vanilla. As far as your example goes, it's working as intended, which is basically my point. From TBC to BFA the game has deviated so far from it's originally intended design that it doesn't even feel like it exists in the same universe. I have many many fond memories from each expansion, I've delighted in changes, features, and updates just as much as I've cursed Blizzard for ruining my favorite things. This game has never been better than it was in Vanilla, and how it is in Classic now.

The proof is in the massive subscriber numbers giving it a shot. Some will surely leave sooner rather than later, but there are 10s of thousands of people who have spent the last 15 years playing private servers just to play this version of the game. There are more who would love to but don't have access or don't want to risk penalty. I mean, when you look at the numbers Blizzard has posted, over a hundred million people have created accounts for this game. Yet the subscriber numbers have never been higher than about 12 million concurrent subs. Those two numbers show you that there have been more people leaving Wow than staying. In fact, even if the number of players was exactly 100 million total and 12 million played BFA right now, we're talking about 88% of the player base starting and quitting at some point since 2004. Starting up with each new expansion and quitting with the next.

Blizzard realized a long time ago (which is why they stopped reporting the subscriber numbers) they can't both retain subs and release new content. The release of new content flies directly in the face of current and past progress being made by characters. There is no bigger reason to quit wow than your progress all of a sudden being invalidated by new content. What happens if you were in the middle of something important and all of a sudden no one is doing that content anymore, because they have all moved on to new stuff? You've just lost your play group. This is only somewhat avoidable in pvp because there really isn't any new content to release that would displace anything else. It all retains value because it's player generated activity instead of scripted fights.

Moreso, pvp doesn't directly reward gear, your gear comes from a vendor or a loot box and you acquire it incrementally rather than randomly (well at least before BFA loot boxes). You don't go fight a specific boss to get a specific item. You just fight the same arenas and BGs and get new gear upgrades so that you can try to keep as close to the always-getting-higher gear ceiling. This is why so many people pvp and why they've played the same WSG and AB for 15 years (almost the same) without getting sick of it. It's not the content that needs to change, it's the attitude of players and devs about the content that needs to change.

Factually, we could have all been playing Classic wow for the last 15 years with no new content (past naxx), no new classes, no new expansions, only balance changes, bug fixes, and qol changes; you would have a much larger portion of that 88% still playing the game. The part that the devs need to pay attention to, is the reason why Classic was so huge to begin with: it became home to so many people. That home became a foreign place when the game began to introduce new level caps, gear, and content. Anyone coming back is welcomed into a place unfamiliar to the one they left. Which is why 88% of all players who have created an account (or more) simply do not play anymore. People do come and go for reasons that have nothing to do with the game, and people do change. But nothing causes more player turnover than the constant new content cycling which has happened over the years. The numbers clearly spell that out.

So while many predict the lull of Classic to fade in a few months, I wouldn't be surprised if BFA numbers dwindled to the point of them cancelling the next retail expansion completely. Classic is sure to be the thing many people play until Blizzard starts to ruin it again with updates into TBC or whatever plan they have beyond stage 4 (they are no doubt talking about it right now).

[Osmeric]

LFR goes against everything an MMORPG is all about.

MMORPGs are about making money. Every MMORPG that exists makes money, or else it ceases to exist. LFR is all about that.

[Eroginous]

MMORPGs are about making money. Every MMORPG that exists makes money, or else it ceases to exist. LFR is all about that.

Every business ever is 'about making money.' Can't exist if you don't. Summarizing everything with Capitalism doesn't change that MMORPGs are about the social construct between players more than anything else. When you give tools to avoid having to build to constructs, it ruins the game, as we've seen for the last 15 years.