Why exactly are people so anti-LFR?

[Grof]

Please explain why it's not. I mean, that's the real problem with you people. If you guys want to make the assertion that TF is terrible, it's on you to explain why, and it's on you to make sure your argument is robust enough to stand up to scrutiny.


But yeah, sure, I'll bite - if nothing else to contrast just how pathetic the anti-TF "argument" has been thus far:

The purpose of titanforging is to enhance the gearing process in a manner that ensures that players continue to find gear rewards much deeper into a tier. Because of the way the feature is implemented, it tends to have a relatively small impact early in the tier where players are rapidly gearing up with new equippment. The real impact from TF is later in the tier when regular upgrades have tapered off almost entirely.

The benefits of TF are numerous to the game:
1) It makes the content rewarding for longer.
2) It helps to ensure that guilds that are hitting walls in progress can continue to grow in gear power even where, previously, no further upgrades would be possible. It's kinda like a gradual nerf over time, but based on long term effort rather than just handing the players a nerf.
3) It makes a lot more of the content potentially relevant to everyone without making it mandatory.

Titanforging is effective because it removes one of the most significant barriers preventing players from participating in content, namely the certainty that you won't get a reward. If there is zero chance of getting gear from a boss, then it's going to feel pointless killing the boss. But that doesn't mean that there needs to be certainty of getting a reward to make people feel like the activity is worthwhile. All they need is the knowledge that there is a chance, even if it's pretty small.

Titanforging is not about giving people a reason to go out and do content that they don't enjoy. It's about taking away the single biggest reason people will avoid doing content that they would otherwise be happy doing.

When I hear some random guy on MMO-C moaning about how terrible TF is because it's forcing him to do a whole ton of content he hates, I just facepalm. Because clearly he doesn't get it.

Ty m8, finally someone smart with good points!!!

[Raelbo]

Thanks Raelbo for phrasing my point to him once again. The point of TF is its low chance, you can force yourself to engage in that grind of stupid low chance, or just be normal and enjoy the thing.

What's funny is that he will label TF "overkill", seemingly completely oblivious to the fact that what is actually "overkill" is the effort he's going to in order to get gear.

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Ty m8, finally someone smart with good points!!!

Thanks for the compliment

[Jibjub]

If LFR was as damaging as you claim, there would be no mythic raiding guilds anymore. But there's still hundreds of guilds that still run LFR. So the comment of "don't do it if you don't like it" isn't flawed. Sorry your server's raid community sucks. Maybe try looking on another server?

I think a lot of people enjoy LFR (though I don't personally think it is much different than some sort of spectator mode ... it is so easy you might as well just watch the raid and cut scenes on youtube). It might even be great for the current version of this dying giant. I am just telling you why I dislike LFR -- the OP's original question. For me, it has made the game worse. It has affected my ability to enjoy the game, even though I do not do LFR. Why? Because before LFR I was able to easily recruit players excited to experience raiding, people willing to learn and practice and get better at the game in order to succeed in raiding. And as a non-cutting edge player myself, working together with a group of these players to clear the Lich King was EPIC. Some of the most fun I ever had. After LFR, finding players willing to work hard to get better is significantly harder. It's still possible. But it IS harder. That is inarguable. Many people have the perspective that they do not need to learn and get better and understand their class to still see the content and be rewarded (good enough) for their complete lack of effort.

Not to mention extreme burn out. People run LFR to get gear. They do that a lot ... and it is so easy and dull ... they lose any interest in raiding for real.

Now here's a question back to you. If you think LFR was all about getting people into raiding and to seeing the content ... would you be against removing ALL gear rewards from LFR? You said the gear is shit anyways in a previous post (at I think that was you). If you don't think people are doing LFR for easy gear upgrades (again, good enough for them), then let's see how popular it is if you remove gear completely.

I believe that a healthy game (and organization in real life, for that matter) should have systems in place that encourage players/people to become better. I think systems that encourage/reward the path of least resistance and minimalism are bad for games/communities/schools/businesses etc. When you let people get away with doing WAY less and not challenging them to get better, you are failing them as a designer/parent/boss/teacher/etc ... That is why I think LFR is bad.

[Twdft]

Not to mention extreme burn out. People run LFR to get gear. They do that a lot ... and it is so easy and dull ... they lose any interest in raiding for real.

Now here's a question back to you. If you think LFR was all about getting people into raiding and to seeing the content ... would you be against removing ALL gear rewards from LFR? You said the gear is shit anyways in a previous post (at I think that was you). If you don't think people are doing LFR for easy gear upgrades (again, good enough for them), then let's see how popular it is if you remove gear completely.

I believe that a healthy game (and organization in real life, for that matter) should have systems in place that encourage players/people to become better. I think systems that encourage/reward the path of least resistance and minimalism are bad for games/communities/schools/businesses etc. When you let people get away with doing WAY less and not challenging them to get better, you are failing them as a designer/parent/boss/teacher/etc ... That is why I think LFR is bad.

LfR players never had any interest in organized raiding. Two different demografics, with very little overlap. You can't encourage LfR players to get better because they don't want to in the first place. LfR doesn't get anyone into raiding, all it does is let players see the raid who would never see it without LfR. A LOT more players than organized raiders I might add.

Let them have their fun, go raid higher difficulties for your fun.

[Jibjub]

LfR players never had any interest in organized raiding. Two different demografics, with very little overlap. You can't encourage LfR players to get better because they don't want to in the first place. LfR doesn't get anyone into raiding, all it does is let players see the raid who would never see it without LfR. A LOT more players than organized raiders I might add.

Let them have their fun, go raid higher difficulties for your fun.

I don't know if I agree with that. It might be true, but I have my doubts. Maybe that's how it is now. When it was introduced and the years that followed, it destroyed my small casual guild. People who were raiding regularly either 1) saw no reason to continue trying so hard and putting so many hours into raiding when LFR existed or 2) would do LFR for gear upgrades (fill in gaps) and then get burnt out twice as fast.

I believe players (and people in general) need something to aspire to for personal and community success. I mean, one needs to look no further than American Public School Systems to see the far-reaching effects of catering to the lowest common denominator and not challenging people to be better. For me, LFR is a philosophical sticking point. It's not as simple as "don't like it, don't do it."

The path of least resistance is well-trodden and rarely leads to true happiness.

[kebabmasterxd]

Please explain why it's not. I mean, that's the real problem with you people. If you guys want to make the assertion that TF is terrible, it's on you to explain why, and it's on you to make sure your argument is robust enough to stand up to scrutiny.


But yeah, sure, I'll bite - if nothing else to contrast just how pathetic the anti-TF "argument" has been thus far:

The purpose of titanforging is to enhance the gearing process in a manner that ensures that players continue to find gear rewards much deeper into a tier. Because of the way the feature is implemented, it tends to have a relatively small impact early in the tier where players are rapidly gearing up with new equippment. The real impact from TF is later in the tier when regular upgrades have tapered off almost entirely.

The benefits of TF are numerous to the game:
1) It makes the content rewarding for longer.
2) It helps to ensure that guilds that are hitting walls in progress can continue to grow in gear power even where, previously, no further upgrades would be possible. It's kinda like a gradual nerf over time, but based on long term effort rather than just handing the players a nerf.
3) It makes a lot more of the content potentially relevant to everyone without making it mandatory.

Titanforging is effective because it removes one of the most significant barriers preventing players from participating in content, namely the certainty that you won't get a reward. If there is zero chance of getting gear from a boss, then it's going to feel pointless killing the boss. But that doesn't mean that there needs to be certainty of getting a reward to make people feel like the activity is worthwhile. All they need is the knowledge that there is a chance, even if it's pretty small.

Titanforging is not about giving people a reason to go out and do content that they don't enjoy. It's about taking away the single biggest reason people will avoid doing content that they would otherwise be happy doing.

When I hear some random guy on MMO-C moaning about how terrible TF is because it's forcing him to do a whole ton of content he hates, I just facepalm. Because clearly he doesn't get it.

1. Makes it rewarding for longer? who want's to raid or do anything in this game hoping that the item they wants titanforges to say 455 with a socket to maybe get the worst item possible with those stats, no one is going to grind the same content over and over for a small chance for titanforging.

2. what guilds? i can only see this applying to mythic raiders as most boss designs in normal/heroic are pushovers. but that's why we have bosses that are farmable for gear every week until you reach the boss you're stuck on to help break that barrier, didn't need titanforging before, dont need it now. if your a guild that cannot clear normal/heroic, sounds like a player problem not a gear problem.

3. it's already relevant for those trying to gear up in the first place, world quests help people reach normal level raiding gear, that's why they exist in the first place, it's not relevant for a 440, but it's relevant for a 360 item level player, there is nothing wrong with being done with certain content.


So you think it's good because no matter what you do you should have a chance to be rewarded higher than normal for taking 10 seconds to kill a mob for a world quest? yeah.. no.

In this game for the longest time difficulty rewards appropriate gear, mythic raiders get the best gear because they need the best, heroic raiders get heroic gear and so on, i don't need a mythic weapon to do normal raids, BUT HEY TAKE IT ANYWAY, because facerolling a boss into oblivion should give you a piece of gear titanforged right? while your raid members get the basic gear for doing the same job.

Raiders especially have enjoyed getting BIS, now we feel we can never be finished because when you get that 445 weapon drop, you hate it because it didn't warforge to 455 with a socket, feeling you can reach the end by obtaining all BIS is a bar better feeling than this stupid system now where you can never be done and finished with your character for a while.

There was nothing worse than when i was upgrading my benthic gear doing dailies and rares everyday to get 425 boots for some dumbass titanforge system to give me a 455 pair of boots from a mythic + 9, i was fumming because i felt like i had wasted my time, do you think that's a good feeling to have?

Your whole point of players should think they have a small chance of being rewarded for doing content they already did and outgeared is plain stupid. it makes players think they've wasted their time.

When you loot an item that you've always wanted wether it's normal, heroic or mythic it should be the item level you expected it to be, you got it, that's done, no other bullshit like warforge/titanforge to worry about.

[grandgato]

Now here's a question back to you. If you think LFR was all about getting people into raiding and to seeing the content ... would you be against removing ALL gear rewards from LFR? You said the gear is shit anyways in a previous post (at I think that was you). If you don't think people are doing LFR for easy gear upgrades (again, good enough for them), then let's see how popular it is if you remove gear completely.

There has to be rewards and incentives to keep people running the same content for the 5th, 10th....50th time. So no, LFR would not work without offering rewards for clearing it. But neither would most anything else in this game.

[Izenhart]

So many casuals shilling the idea that "but these LFR players would have never wanted to move up the raiding ladder anyways, so for them it's just a way to experience the content and that's it"

Have you ever considered the fact, the shocking fact, that not everyone should be entitled to see every piece of content in a video game?

All these posts are jarring, everyone of those literally comes with the implicit understanding that "lowering the bar so everyone can experience everything" is a just and logical thing to do and nothing is wrong with that.

You're the reason the game has gotten casualized so much and you're the reason "you think you do but you don't" applies to so many instances of changes happening to this game.

I still remember the screeching clowns outraged that they couldn't see Illidan in BT and their pitch was "I PAY MONEY I DESERVE EVERYTHING IN GAME NOW": lo and behold the expansion later, 10man joke mode was introduced, and that was just the start of the raid downgrades.

Bottom line is I don't give a fuck what your situation is, if you can't be in a Heroic/Mythic guild you simply should not be considered a level of player able to experience raiding content in an MMORPG, and there is nothing wrong with that, it's been like that for years.

You should not have Normal/Flex/LFR/10man modes coming in to babysit you in tourist mode so you get to see the raid, even less so when they introduced M+ as a viable alternative to endgame PvE content as well as endgame gearing.

[Raelbo]

I think a lot of people enjoy LFR (though I don't personally think it is much different than some sort of spectator mode ... it is so easy you might as well just watch the raid and cut scenes on youtube). It might even be great for the current version of this dying giant. I am just telling you why I dislike LFR -- the OP's original question. For me, it has made the game worse.

And I think you've done a fine job of expressing your reasons. That being said, I suspect you be misguided in your assessment of the role of LFR in what you're describing.

It has affected my ability to enjoy the game, even though I do not do LFR. Why? Because before LFR I was able to easily recruit players excited to experience raiding, people willing to learn and practice and get better at the game in order to succeed in raiding. And as a non-cutting edge player myself, working together with a group of these players to clear the Lich King was EPIC. Some of the most fun I ever had. After LFR, finding players willing to work hard to get better is significantly harder.

Did you ever consider the possibility that LFR wasn't to blame (correlation =/= causation)? What is your evidence that LFR is the cause? Did you consider rival explanations for your observed phenomenon?

Many people have the perspective that they do not need to learn and get better and understand their class to still see the content and be rewarded (good enough) for their complete lack of effort.

What you're describing is that LFR has given people a choice. Instead of forcing people to do something they don't really want to do in order to see the content (organised raiding), they've now been given a more palatable alternative (LFR).

The problem you're describing isn't LFR. It's that the type of people you were trying to recruit weren't really keen on raiding in the first place and they were only doing it under duress. Now maybe that suited your objectives, but it certainly doesn't mean that LFR is bad.

It's a bit like a farmer who, for years, had access to a large pool of cheap labour. Until a big factory came along and gave all those people a better deal. And now the farmer is complaining how the factory is bad because it took away all his employees.

Not to mention extreme burn out. People run LFR to get gear. They do that a lot ... and it is so easy and dull ... they lose any interest in raiding for real.

I've never bought this argument. I'd agree with @Twdft's hypothesis that the people running LFR are a different group of people to those of us doing "real" raiding. Honestly, I don't know a single person who has burned themselves out from too much LFR. I know a lot of people who simply avoid LFR.

I would argue that in the vast majority of cases, people who quit "real" raiding for LFR do so because of a problem with real raiding (either they don't enjoy it, they can't commit to the schedule, don't want the commitment etc).

It's like if your wife/husband/girlfriend/boyfriend runs off with someone else, many people will blame the person they ran off with, oblivious to the obvious: that their partner wasn't happy in their existing relationship.

Now here's a question back to you. If you think LFR was all about getting people into raiding and to seeing the content ... would you be against removing ALL gear rewards from LFR?

What kind of a disingenuous question is that? How on earth do you think that removing ALL gear rewards from LFR would improve the experience of seeing the content?

The point of LFR has never been just about seeing the content. It's about giving people an opportunity to experience the game more fully. And getting gear from doing content is a core part of the game.

So yeah, I'd be totally against removing all gear from LFR. Because it feels petty and vindictive and spiteful, and frankly there is zero good reason to do it. I totally agree that it's important that LFR gear remains non-mandatory and that no one doing normal/heroic/mythic should ever feel compelled to participate in LFR purely for the gear. But the fact is that this hasn't been an issue

You said the gear is shit anyways in a previous post (at I think that was you). If you don't think people are doing LFR for easy gear upgrades (again, good enough for them), then let's see how popular it is if you remove gear completely.

What's good for the goose is good for the gander. How about we remove gear completely from all raiding, and see how popular it is. As long as gear is part of the game, it's totally appropriate that content reward gear proportional to the difficulty of the content. The fact that you can get gear from LFR doesn't necessarily have to be the primary reason people go into LFR, but not being able to get any gear from LFR would be a strong reason to avoid LFR and focus on content from which you can get gear.

Again, look at a real life analogy: People shouldn't be choosing a job based on the amount of money it pays. You should be choosing your job based on how passionate you are about the work. And while I know many people who will accept a lower salary to do what they are passionate about, almost no one will work for free, no matter how much they love their job.

I believe that a healthy game (and organization in real life, for that matter) should have systems in place that encourage players/people to become better. I think systems that encourage/reward the path of least resistance and minimalism are bad for games/communities/schools/businesses etc. When you let people get away with doing WAY less and not challenging them to get better, you are failing them as a designer/parent/boss/teacher/etc ... That is why I think LFR is bad.

Your argument fails here because you haven't established as fact a link between LFR and encouraging/rewarding the path of least resistance. You've effectively just created a strawman argument.

The unarguable fact is that the path of least resistance is simply to not play at all. You might be able to argue that LFR offers a path of lesser resistance, but the fact that normal, heroic and mythic offer increasingly significant rewards refutes your argument that LFR is encouraging or rewarding this path. What LFR does is to accomodates it. And it does so on the understanding that even though you may want to encourage your players to become better, some simply won't. And allowing them to take the path of lesser resistance is still better than watching them take the path of least resistance and simply not participate at all.

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1. Makes it rewarding for longer? who want's to raid or do anything in this game hoping that the item they wants titanforges to say 455 with a socket to maybe get the worst item possible with those stats, no one is going to grind the same content over and over for a small chance for titanforging.

Clearly you missed the part where I said: "Titanforging is not about giving people a reason to go out and do content that they don't enjoy. It's about taking away the single biggest reason people will avoid doing content that they would otherwise be happy doing."

If you're miserably grinding content just for a chance at a TF upgrade, you're doing it wrong.

2. what guilds? i can only see this applying to mythic raiders as most boss designs in normal/heroic are pushovers. but that's why we have bosses that are farmable for gear every week until you reach the boss you're stuck on to help break that barrier, didn't need titanforging before, dont need it now. if your a guild that cannot clear normal/heroic, sounds like a player problem not a gear problem.

You don't know what you're talking about, clearly. The fact that Normal/Heroic are "pushovers" for you doesn't mean that it isn't challenging for other people. Seriously, do I really have to explain this to you?

Anyhow, any guild, be it normal/heroic or mythic can get getting stuck on a "wall" during a raid tier. It's very common and it's a big problem. Basically what it means is that the players have already farmed the preceding bosses to the point where very few, if any upgrade possibilities remain, and yet they just can't seem to beat the next boss.

And I can tell you first hand that this situation, if left unchecked, can be catastophic for a guild. There comes a point where players start to get frustrated. People start turning on each other when someone fails, people quit, etc.

With Titanforging, that same guild may be stuck at a wall, but at least the bosses they are farming will continue to yield upgrades, which means that they will continue getting closer to the kill purely by virtue of better gear.

If you incapable of understanding this concept, I apologise. But it doesn't make it any less valid.

3. it's already relevant for those trying to gear up in the first place, world quests help people reach normal level raiding gear, that's why they exist in the first place, it's not relevant for a 440, but it's relevant for a 360 item level player, there is nothing wrong with being done with certain content.

I never said there was. But there is a vast difference between a player deciding to be done with certain content, and the game making that content pointless. If my buddy is putting together a normal pug and asks me to tag along: Without TF I look at the raid and know upfront that I won't get any upgrades. With the next raid coming up tomorrow, I feel I need to at least be doing something productive that could yield an upgrade and help my guild's progress. So I am torn between doing something for fun and doing my chores. With TF there is the possibility of an upgrade. Now I don't need to feel torn.

So you think it's good because no matter what you do you should have a chance to be rewarded higher than normal for taking 10 seconds to kill a mob for a world quest? yeah.. no.

Why not? The same principle as above applies. And I can even tell you that this has influenced me personally in the past to do some WQs. I can't recall it ever actually paying off with a real upgrade, but at least I am engaging with content rather than trying to find to avoid it in the interests of being more efficient.

In this game for the longest time difficulty rewards appropriate gear, mythic raiders get the best gear because they need the best, heroic raiders get heroic gear and so on, i don't need a mythic weapon to do normal raids, BUT HEY TAKE IT ANYWAY, because facerolling a boss into oblivion should give you a piece of gear titanforged right? while your raid members get the basic gear for doing the same job.

And gear is still stratified among players according to the content do. Mythic raiders still have the best gear, heroic raiders still have gear that is better than normal raiders but below mythic etc.

And no, I never said that "facerolling a boss into oblivion should give you a piece of gear titanforged". You're trying to strawman. My argument is that it's ok that the possibility exists, not that it should happen all the time.

Raiders especially have enjoyed getting BIS, now we feel we can never be finished because when you get that 445 weapon drop, you hate it because it didn't warforge to 455 with a socket, feeling you can reach the end by obtaining all BIS is a bar better feeling than this stupid system now where you can never be done and finished with your character for a while.

You're playing the game wrong. Playing for BiS was always a toxic system because it pretty much forced a bunch of players to burn themselves out by repeating content long after it was fun or necessary, while simultaneously leaving other players, keen to keep going, feeling pointless.

The whole design philosophy now is that you should stop farming for gear at the point where you decide it's enough based on factors like:
1) Have we achieved our objectives for the tier?
2) Do we have enough gear for where we want to be for the start of the next tier?
3) Are people still having fun?
4) Are we on the verge of burnout?

There was nothing worse than when i was upgrading my benthic gear doing dailies and rares everyday to get 425 boots for some dumbass titanforge system to give me a 455 pair of boots from a mythic + 9, i was fumming because i felt like i had wasted my time, do you think that's a good feeling to have?

Of course it's not a good feeling to have. But here's a little secret: It's not the game's fault.

Your whole point of players should think they have a small chance of being rewarded for doing content they already did and outgeared is plain stupid. it makes players think they've wasted their time.

When someone calls my point "stupid", it says a lot more about them than my point. Also, the rest of what you wrote in this paragraph is unintelligible. You're trying to make some point that you think is obvious, but it's so poorly written that without substantiation I can't even understand what you're trying to say, let alone why.

When you loot an item that you've always wanted wether it's normal, heroic or mythic it should be the item level you expected it to be, you got it, that's done, no other bullshit like warforge/titanforge to worry about.

You're right in that you shouldn't be worrying about that stuff. So why exactly are you worrying about it?

Seriously dude, you have issues you need to sort out.

If you get a gear piece to drop and it's an upgrade, great, equip it and be happy.
If you get a gear piece to drop and it's not an upgrade, accept that shit happens and move on.
Stop obsessing over getting BiS. If you're a consistent raider you will get some really good gear and that's great, equip it and be happy.

You'll know you're done with the tier when you've cleared all the bosses and you're no longer having fun. TF isn't forcing you to keep coming back because of a possible upgrade. That's something you're doing to yourself out of some kind of obsessive compulsive need. That's what you should be focussing on addressing rather than having pointless fights with people on the internet who could actually teach you a thing or two if you'd just listen.

[kaminaris]

Have you ever considered the fact, the shocking fact, that not everyone should be entitled to see every piece of content in a video game?

Fact? Lol no, its just you incredibly bad opinion.

All these posts are jarring, everyone of those literally comes with the implicit understanding that "lowering the bar so everyone can experience everything" is a just and logical thing to do and nothing is wrong with that.

Because this is a fact.

You're the reason the game has gotten casualized so much and you're the reason "you think you do but you don't" applies to so many instances of changes happening to this game.

Oh and they were right on spot with that. Also you are saying "casualized" just as if it was bad thing, protip: its not, it is good thing. This was the trump card when WoW was first released and look now, still most popular MMO, wonder why

I still remember the screeching clowns outraged that they couldn't see Illidan in BT and their pitch was "I PAY MONEY I DESERVE EVERYTHING IN GAME NOW": lo and behold the expansion later, 10man joke mode was introduced, and that was just the start of the raid downgrades.

It was probably a moment more people played the game, so it was UPGRADE not downgrade.

Bottom line is I don't give a fuck what your situation is, if you can't be in a Heroic/Mythic guild you simply should not be considered a level of player able to experience raiding content in an MMORPG, and there is nothing wrong with that, it's been like that for years.

Bottom line is, nobody gives a fuck what your situation is, don't like LFR, dont do it. Dont like game? Stop playing it.

You should not have Normal/Flex/LFR/10man modes coming in to babysit you in tourist mode so you get to see the raid, even less so when they introduced M+ as a viable alternative to endgame PvE content as well as endgame gearing.

You should not say what people should or should not have based on your invalid opinions.

[LuminaL]

Maybe just think for a tiny second about what you're spouting. Guilds actually need new players very much. They can't just arbitrarily set insanely inflated requirements, because then they won't be able to fill/sustain their roster. In reality recruitment mostly boils down to logs.
Maybe it's not them that's toxic, but a certain someone with an inflated sense of entitlement.

just wow! we had what? 3 lines of conversation and you already calling me toxic and entitled ? why am I even talking to you? yea sure LFR bad LFR destroys wow, whatever grinds your gear asshole.

[Sansnom]

Thats not the point, the point is that it happens regularly, yes dont pretend it doesnt cause it does, and this is the issue

What is "regularly"? Blizzard has the numbers. They can see how many proc rates are occuring in the entire game. Do you see that data? If you do, then your must have inside knowledge or you are in inside Blizzard, in which case, your objection is better directed to the company.

Otherwise, your experience of the drop rate may not be representative of the entire game, which is what really matters. If you or your friends received such items, then congrats to you on your lucky drop.

but who cares, you dont need an LFR titanforge for the content you do anyways.

Well, apparently, you do.

[Alphatorg]

just wow! we had what? 3 lines of conversation and you already calling me toxic and entitled ? why am I even talking to you? yea sure LFR bad LFR destroys wow, whatever grinds your gear asshole.

I can see clearly now that you're just a nice guy who is being oppressed by heinous raiding guilds.

[kebabmasterxd]

And I think you've done a fine job of expressing your reasons. That being said, I suspect you be misguided in your assessment of the role of LFR in what you're describing.



Did you ever consider the possibility that LFR wasn't to blame (correlation =/= causation)? What is your evidence that LFR is the cause? Did you consider rival explanations for your observed phenomenon?



What you're describing is that LFR has given people a choice. Instead of forcing people to do something they don't really want to do in order to see the content (organised raiding), they've now been given a more palatable alternative (LFR).

The problem you're describing isn't LFR. It's that the type of people you were trying to recruit weren't really keen on raiding in the first place and they were only doing it under duress. Now maybe that suited your objectives, but it certainly doesn't mean that LFR is bad.

It's a bit like a farmer who, for years, had access to a large pool of cheap labour. Until a big factory came along and gave all those people a better deal. And now the farmer is complaining how the factory is bad because it took away all his employees.



I've never bought this argument. I'd agree with @Twdft's hypothesis that the people running LFR are a different group of people to those of us doing "real" raiding. Honestly, I don't know a single person who has burned themselves out from too much LFR. I know a lot of people who simply avoid LFR.

I would argue that in the vast majority of cases, people who quit "real" raiding for LFR do so because of a problem with real raiding (either they don't enjoy it, they can't commit to the schedule, don't want the commitment etc).

It's like if your wife/husband/girlfriend/boyfriend runs off with someone else, many people will blame the person they ran off with, oblivious to the obvious: that their partner wasn't happy in their existing relationship.



What kind of a disingenuous question is that? How on earth do you think that removing ALL gear rewards from LFR would improve the experience of seeing the content?

The point of LFR has never been just about seeing the content. It's about giving people an opportunity to experience the game more fully. And getting gear from doing content is a core part of the game.

So yeah, I'd be totally against removing all gear from LFR. Because it feels petty and vindictive and spiteful, and frankly there is zero good reason to do it. I totally agree that it's important that LFR gear remains non-mandatory and that no one doing normal/heroic/mythic should ever feel compelled to participate in LFR purely for the gear. But the fact is that this hasn't been an issue



What's good for the goose is good for the gander. How about we remove gear completely from all raiding, and see how popular it is. As long as gear is part of the game, it's totally appropriate that content reward gear proportional to the difficulty of the content. The fact that you can get gear from LFR doesn't necessarily have to be the primary reason people go into LFR, but not being able to get any gear from LFR would be a strong reason to avoid LFR and focus on content from which you can get gear.

Again, look at a real life analogy: People shouldn't be choosing a job based on the amount of money it pays. You should be choosing your job based on how passionate you are about the work. And while I know many people who will accept a lower salary to do what they are passionate about, almost no one will work for free, no matter how much they love their job.



Your argument fails here because you haven't established as fact a link between LFR and encouraging/rewarding the path of least resistance. You've effectively just created a strawman argument.

The unarguable fact is that the path of least resistance is simply to not play at all. You might be able to argue that LFR offers a path of lesser resistance, but the fact that normal, heroic and mythic offer increasingly significant rewards refutes your argument that LFR is encouraging or rewarding this path. What LFR does is to accomodates it. And it does so on the understanding that even though you may want to encourage your players to become better, some simply won't. And allowing them to take the path of lesser resistance is still better than watching them take the path of least resistance and simply not participate at all.

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Clearly you missed the part where I said: "Titanforging is not about giving people a reason to go out and do content that they don't enjoy. It's about taking away the single biggest reason people will avoid doing content that they would otherwise be happy doing."

If you're miserably grinding content just for a chance at a TF upgrade, you're doing it wrong.



You don't know what you're talking about, clearly. The fact that Normal/Heroic are "pushovers" for you doesn't mean that it isn't challenging for other people. Seriously, do I really have to explain this to you?

Anyhow, any guild, be it normal/heroic or mythic can get getting stuck on a "wall" during a raid tier. It's very common and it's a big problem. Basically what it means is that the players have already farmed the preceding bosses to the point where very few, if any upgrade possibilities remain, and yet they just can't seem to beat the next boss.

And I can tell you first hand that this situation, if left unchecked, can be catastophic for a guild. There comes a point where players start to get frustrated. People start turning on each other when someone fails, people quit, etc.

With Titanforging, that same guild may be stuck at a wall, but at least the bosses they are farming will continue to yield upgrades, which means that they will continue getting closer to the kill purely by virtue of better gear.

If you incapable of understanding this concept, I apologise. But it doesn't make it any less valid.



I never said there was. But there is a vast difference between a player deciding to be done with certain content, and the game making that content pointless. If my buddy is putting together a normal pug and asks me to tag along: Without TF I look at the raid and know upfront that I won't get any upgrades. With the next raid coming up tomorrow, I feel I need to at least be doing something productive that could yield an upgrade and help my guild's progress. So I am torn between doing something for fun and doing my chores. With TF there is the possibility of an upgrade. Now I don't need to feel torn.



Why not? The same principle as above applies. And I can even tell you that this has influenced me personally in the past to do some WQs. I can't recall it ever actually paying off with a real upgrade, but at least I am engaging with content rather than trying to find to avoid it in the interests of being more efficient.



And gear is still stratified among players according to the content do. Mythic raiders still have the best gear, heroic raiders still have gear that is better than normal raiders but below mythic etc.

And no, I never said that "facerolling a boss into oblivion should give you a piece of gear titanforged". You're trying to strawman. My argument is that it's ok that the possibility exists, not that it should happen all the time.



You're playing the game wrong. Playing for BiS was always a toxic system because it pretty much forced a bunch of players to burn themselves out by repeating content long after it was fun or necessary, while simultaneously leaving other players, keen to keep going, feeling pointless.

The whole design philosophy now is that you should stop farming for gear at the point where you decide it's enough based on factors like:
1) Have we achieved our objectives for the tier?
2) Do we have enough gear for where we want to be for the start of the next tier?
3) Are people still having fun?
4) Are we on the verge of burnout?



Of course it's not a good feeling to have. But here's a little secret: It's not the game's fault.



When someone calls my point "stupid", it says a lot more about them than my point. Also, the rest of what you wrote in this paragraph is unintelligible. You're trying to make some point that you think is obvious, but it's so poorly written that without substantiation I can't even understand what you're trying to say, let alone why.



You're right in that you shouldn't be worrying about that stuff. So why exactly are you worrying about it?

Seriously dude, you have issues you need to sort out.

If you get a gear piece to drop and it's an upgrade, great, equip it and be happy.
If you get a gear piece to drop and it's not an upgrade, accept that shit happens and move on.
Stop obsessing over getting BiS. If you're a consistent raider you will get some really good gear and that's great, equip it and be happy.

You'll know you're done with the tier when you've cleared all the bosses and you're no longer having fun. TF isn't forcing you to keep coming back because of a possible upgrade. That's something you're doing to yourself out of some kind of obsessive compulsive need. That's what you should be focussing on addressing rather than having pointless fights with people on the internet who could actually teach you a thing or two if you'd just listen.

oh SO NOW i'm playing the game wrong xD now i know im dealing with an idiot.

If you had any knowledge whatsoever you would know players very often do content they don't enjoy BECAUSE titanforging exists, if you are a min/max player or someone in general who cares about gear but hates M+ or doing world quests, guess what? they're doing content they don't enjoy because of titanforging to keep up with the playerbase.

you try and come across intelligent but honestly your just a brainless fool who have probably never accomplished anything out of life because you have a huge lack of understanding on the bigger picture here.

To you all your argument that you've provided is: you have a small chance to get super strong gear for doing anything.

I'm glad people like you don't design games.

[Jibjub]

There has to be rewards and incentives to keep people running the same content for the 5th, 10th....50th time. So no, LFR would not work without offering rewards for clearing it. But neither would most anything else in this game.

So it's not about letting people see the content. It IS about gear. That's what I think, too.

[Mardux]

I'm not. I am playing Classic.

But "don't play it" is a flawed argument. Games are an ecosystem. All major systems affect the entire ecosystem. And players are a part of that ecosystem. As someone who ran a small guide, LFR was TERRIBLE. It made recruiting much harder ... when you offer a path of least resistance, A LOT of people will take it. For example ... I bet if they added a "solo" raid mode that you could run without having to queue, where all the other raid slots are filled with AI, this would have far-reaching implications on the entire game. If you gave the solo mode a similar reward as the hardest modes ... how do you think that would affect hardcore raiding guilds? Would you just say, "if you don't like solo mode, then don't do it?"

Games are an ecosystem. And how do you help an ecosystem flourish? Certainly not by allowing toxins to run amuck and destroy said ecosystem. So "don't play it" does work to some extent.

It already worked when you removed yourself from the bfa "ecosystem", now it has a better chance to flourish.

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So many casuals shilling the idea that "but these LFR players would have never wanted to move up the raiding ladder anyways, so for them it's just a way to experience the content and that's it"

Have you ever considered the fact, the shocking fact, that not everyone should be entitled to see every piece of content in a video game?

All these posts are jarring, everyone of those literally comes with the implicit understanding that "lowering the bar so everyone can experience everything" is a just and logical thing to do and nothing is wrong with that.

You're the reason the game has gotten casualized so much and you're the reason "you think you do but you don't" applies to so many instances of changes happening to this game.

I still remember the screeching clowns outraged that they couldn't see Illidan in BT and their pitch was "I PAY MONEY I DESERVE EVERYTHING IN GAME NOW": lo and behold the expansion later, 10man joke mode was introduced, and that was just the start of the raid downgrades.

Bottom line is I don't give a fuck what your situation is, if you can't be in a Heroic/Mythic guild you simply should not be considered a level of player able to experience raiding content in an MMORPG, and there is nothing wrong with that, it's been like that for years.

You should not have Normal/Flex/LFR/10man modes coming in to babysit you in tourist mode so you get to see the raid, even less so when they introduced M+ as a viable alternative to endgame PvE content as well as endgame gearing.

Tell us more about how lfr being in the game lowered the bar for mythic raids? Or even heroic raids.

[grandgato]

So it's not about letting people see the content. It IS about gear. That's what I think, too.

Come on dude, you are being highly disingenuous here. For this game and the MMORPG genre in general to function, nearly every aspect of it must be designed to be run repeatedly. So yes, LFR has to provide incentives to keep people coming back and participating.

[Jibjub]

Come on dude, you are being highly disingenuous here. For this game and the MMORPG genre in general to function, nearly every aspect of it must be designed to be run repeatedly. So yes, LFR has to provide incentives to keep people coming back and participating.

I disagree. That's where the genre is NOW but getting gear for all activities is certainly NOT an aspect of the MMORPG. You can also make things really fun. But giving out rewards makes it easier to keep people logging in, sure.

Every time I argue with pro-LFR people, they always say how it's not about the gear ("the gear is really bad anyways", etc) and instead it's about letting people see the story. But that's a lie. It is 100% about the gear ... because if you got rid of gear from arena, a lot of people would still play it. If you removed gear from battlegrounds, a lot of people would still play them. If you removed gear from hardcore raiding, a lot of players would still do them (they wouldn't do it over and over as much, granted, because unlike PvP, PvE is more about manipulating people into doing these they don't enjoy over and over with rewards). If you removed gear from LFR a very small percentage of players would do them, especially more than once.

I think it would be a neat experiment. Remove rewards FROM EVERY ASPECT of the game and see what people still do (everyone is top level with equal gear). I think you'd be surprised who keeps playing (people who like a challenge, or ... in other words, people doing hard more things (or content hard for them, like myself and my casual guild doing normal raids back in wrath) and people doing PvP). If you NEED rewards to compel people to do the content, the content is probably not that great.

[Black Goat]

You should not say what people should or should not have based on your invalid opinions.

This might be a hard pill to swallow for you, but try...

What if I told you that everything you just said was strictly your opinion, and because I don't like it, I deem it invalid. See how that works?

You should not say that LFR is beneficial to the game, because your opinion is invalid. Because I say so.

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Come on dude, you are being highly disingenuous here. For this game and the MMORPG genre in general to function, nearly every aspect of it must be designed to be run repeatedly. So yes, LFR has to provide incentives to keep people coming back and participating.

But I thought it was a way for people who can't devote time to organized raiding to see the raid? That's what everyone is claiming. So if it's not about seeing the raid, it's clearly about the gear, then, right? They want easy-mode gear on an easy-mode setting, without having to invest time and/or effort. There's nothing disingenuous about his statement. It's either about seeing the content, or getting the gear.

Which is it?

[kaminaris]

This might be a hard pill to swallow for you, but try...

What if I told you that everything you just said was strictly your opinion, and because I don't like it, I deem it invalid. See how that works?

You should not say that LFR is beneficial to the game, because your opinion is invalid. Because I say so.

No its not my opinion, blizzard is doing changes to game according to their statistics, thats the hard to swallow pill right? See how long LFR lasted and is still going?
Thats because they know it is beneficial to game.

Now what is completely dumb is trying to force your opinion to others as having options has never been bad idea.
I bet you never really thought hard enough about it but there are multiple valid reasons why LFR is good.

For once, for mythic raider like me, LFR is good because i like to somehow test my things there. Training dummy it not always sufficient.
Or when I'm bored I can go there mindlessly bashing buttons with one of my alts.

There was only one time when I hated LFR, it was in legion where I was somehow forced to run it since I really wanted that BiS legendary on my main. But it wasn't LFR fault, it was stupid legendary system fault.

Hating LFR is 100% people insecurities.