LFR and whether it still has a place in WoW

[Otimus]

I will always be in favor of lfr at least as long as raids are tied to the main story.

There are some exceptions, but generally raids are the climaxes to stories that are started and developed via quests and dungeons. Easy, casually accessible content with no need for an organized group or special coordination.

I support LFR as a means for casual players to be able to see for themselves, and not just through youtube, how these story arcs end. Imagine doing all of the Nightborne quests in Suramar but not getting to see the raid because you don't have the time or interest in organized raiding.

You could say that maybe M+ makes the loot from lfr not a requirement, but IMO LFR serves a necessary story element as well. If raid stories were all self contained, then I wouldn't mind lfr going away. But as the end points to story arcs that are started and built up through quests and dungeons, I 100% support lfr as a means to get that story without having to invest in raiding.

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I'm guessing this is in reference to tier sets and good trinkets being removed from LFR in WOD I think it was?

You get at worst, competitive, and at best, better, gear from emissaries than LFR. That was my implication there. Aside from padding out extreme bad luck, why would anyone run LFR more than once? And moreover, why would anyone complain about it's existence with regards to gear yet still in this state? It' is basically a tourist mode already.

[Twdft]

I dont recall any of this at all, can you link any patchnotes or something with substance from wowhead that confirms any of this?

Are you new to WoW? There were oceans of tears from raiders complaining how they were forced (FORCED!!! bah nah wäh wäh) to run LfR for set boni and trinkets.

[ZazuuPriest]

What benefit is there to removing LFR?

it would remove 15 item levels from each tier reducing the insane power/stat bloat every single expansion. I mean it wont solve that problem but it would help. At this point blizzard has done literally nothing to fix the problem that will cause them to do a stat squish every 2-3 expansions.

[Biggles Worth]

When LFR was created, it was a good way for more laid back players to get a taste of raiding without the hassle of organized raiding. It was also a very nice way of getting some gear on alts (specially during end of expac downtime).

However, with the advent of M+ and the relative ease with which chaining keys can quickly gear a new alt up, the need to run LFR for alt gearing seems to have depreciated.

I understand that due to real life commitments and other issues, some people may not necessarily have time for regular organized raid but still want to experience some form of raiding. Do people still run LFR exclusively to get a taste of raiding? If so, does running LFR leave you a real bad experience of the raiding scene as a whole?

My personal experience of LFR on alts throughout BFA has been very poor. From AFK DPS, to people busy constantly crap-talking each other, the whole thing is a mess to the point of me avoiding it completely. Rather run M+ on alts.

In that note, if LFR was removed from the game, would people (who only raid casually) feel motivated to join guilds that run Normal mode raids. There are plenty of such guilds who are willing to try out casual normal raiding. At least you can get a personality match with organized team and raid with a group of similar minded people with similar wow raiding goals.

Honestly, if they really want to make LFR a to see the story sort of deal. Just make easier than it already is, easy as a regular quest, and at the end you unlock just a helmet and something with possible cosmetic options. Or maybe have it be like when we fight in the ring and nagrand and you get a alright starting weapon. Now if you want to get gear you need to go actually raid.

[Kumorii]

It's a tour for story. That's it.

[Lex Icon]

eh i'd gladly trade it for some solid world content but that's not going to happen so here we are.

[Orby]

What I would like to see is a middle ground with LFG. Without getting rid of it completely as I understand why some would still want it.

To keep:
I love the idea that if finds you a group automatically, I hated spamming cities for groups only to have them leave or end up waiting for them and they never get back to you. It's good the group LFG assembles for the most part is ready to go.

To change:
Can we make our own way to the instance? While I have never had an issue with the LFG system and less so over the years, one thing I do miss is making your own way and finding out where these dungeons are and summoning those that are not there yet. Maybe even bring back pre instance walkthroughs, like Sunken Temple, or Blackrock Depths had.

[Malikath]

To be fair, would you do most any pve content in the game more than once if you literally got nothing out of it but story? I just don't get that as an argument. Of course people want rewards. It's part of the gameplay loop of an MMORPG. Outside of just playing with your friends, why the hell would anyone repeat content just for the hell of it? It's not like WoW is king among compelling gameplay in the world of gaming or anything.

Why should people be expected to have to repeat content rather then progressing past it?

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it would remove 15 item levels from each tier reducing the insane power/stat bloat every single expansion. I mean it wont solve that problem but it would help. At this point blizzard has done literally nothing to fix the problem that will cause them to do a stat squish every 2-3 expansions.

This is the best reason for, another is the effect that automatic match-making is having on the community and even the people in it as the lack of accountability has people wantonly abusing the system to leech rewards while providing no effort for the raid and being nothing more then a burden of dead-weight at best or an outright malicious saboteur with how the boot for un-grouped players in the instance has been allowed to be reset by combat allowing people to just keep pulling the boss to force the entire rest of the raid to quit the instance, which breaches TOS as a denial of service action similar to perpetual corpse camping.

[MrLachyG]

That's the key thing that the anti-LFR crowd just can't understand.

i just don't get why people advocate removal for things they don't do. why are some people so obsessed with forcing people to do things a certain way (not just in wow either but society in general)

[mysticx]

They should put visual aids in LFR as it is meant to be a way to experience the content/story. If people are not going to listen or read they need an in-game system to help teach people what they should be attacking and where they should be moving but have it automated and built by Blizz.

That would be good, use it to teach people raid mechanics, lots of fights can be a bit confusing (Until you get the hang of them), all bosses toss stuff on the floor like angry monkeys, but for this boss are we supposed to soak it, or avoid it? Players generally can't be bothered to explain, so let the game do it, preferably in a less vague manner than the encounter journal...

[Sansnom]

- Freeing up dev time to be used elsewhere.
- Forcing people to make friends to join organized team. Will be a significant boost to casual Normal Raiding with an increased recruitment pool from people migrating from LFR.

Forcing people make friends to join organized team?

If people were able to join such teams in the first place, then maybe LFR is not required. LFR was created partly to address the problem you mentioned. People were not being invited to such organized raid groups. Not everyone join guilds for raiding. Normal were never removed. Organized raiding were never removed.

If people could join such groups, they would. But they don't.

[schwank05]

When LFR was created, it was a good way for more laid back players to get a taste of raiding without the hassle of organized raiding. It was also a very nice way of getting some gear on alts (specially during end of expac downtime).

However, with the advent of M+ and the relative ease with which chaining keys can quickly gear a new alt up, the need to run LFR for alt gearing seems to have depreciated.

I understand that due to real life commitments and other issues, some people may not necessarily have time for regular organized raid but still want to experience some form of raiding. Do people still run LFR exclusively to get a taste of raiding? If so, does running LFR leave you a real bad experience of the raiding scene as a whole?

My personal experience of LFR on alts throughout BFA has been very poor. From AFK DPS, to people busy constantly crap-talking each other, the whole thing is a mess to the point of me avoiding it completely. Rather run M+ on alts.

In that note, if LFR was removed from the game, would people (who only raid casually) feel motivated to join guilds that run Normal mode raids. There are plenty of such guilds who are willing to try out casual normal raiding. At least you can get a personality match with organized team and raid with a group of similar minded people with similar wow raiding goals.

If they removed the Time constraint from M+ that is all Id play, I want to get rewarded for completing the dungeon but hate to be rushed. That being said I usually enjoy LFR since I do it for gear mostly and to see the content I have not set foot in an actual Raid since Early Legion.

[Jujudrood]

When LFR was created, it was a good way for more laid back players to get a taste of raiding without the hassle of organized raiding. It was also a very nice way of getting some gear on alts (specially during end of expac downtime).

However, with the advent of M+ and the relative ease with which chaining keys can quickly gear a new alt up, the need to run LFR for alt gearing seems to have depreciated.

I understand that due to real life commitments and other issues, some people may not necessarily have time for regular organized raid but still want to experience some form of raiding. Do people still run LFR exclusively to get a taste of raiding? If so, does running LFR leave you a real bad experience of the raiding scene as a whole?

My personal experience of LFR on alts throughout BFA has been very poor. From AFK DPS, to people busy constantly crap-talking each other, the whole thing is a mess to the point of me avoiding it completely. Rather run M+ on alts.

In that note, if LFR was removed from the game, would people (who only raid casually) feel motivated to join guilds that run Normal mode raids. There are plenty of such guilds who are willing to try out casual normal raiding. At least you can get a personality match with organized team and raid with a group of similar minded people with similar wow raiding goals.

Removing LFR would remove a LARGE amount of what people do.
No, they won't want to join guilds who have fixed raid times and requirements.
No, they won't want to fiddle around in M+ only (because now they won't see raid content).

LFR is for people who want to see the raids (this is good for the development of raids) but can't/won't commit to a "raiding schedule".
The fact is, the majority of players are the pseudo-solo players and, by taking away a piece of content that they consume, you give them less of a reason to hang around, which in turn gives them less of a reason to stay subbed, which in turn gives less of a reason to develop new content.

It's here to stay, it's integral to today's casual audience, and it should absolutely stay to keep that population going (even if they don't like it) because their participation makes play time, makes head counts in raids increase, and overall is good for the health of the business.
You can argue the validity of the health of the game, sure, (my opinion, if anyone cares, is that LFR is another toxic avenue of "single-use" raid teams that is not conducive to the "MMO" portion of the genre) but the business/financial impact is what really matters and keeping it keeps lights on.

[Relapses]

This and that has absolutely nothing to do with each other: making tier sets non-lfr was the issue, axing tier sets alltogether has nothing to do with each other. That removing tier sets was as much of an big mistake as removing them from LFR I think they already know it, and I'm pretty sure that they are coming back with the next big raid tier or at least the last one.

Because Tier Sets are a big part of player engagement: in LFR but also in all other raids.

We don't know how Tier is going to be added back into the game because Blizzard hasn't even officially confirmed it's coming back. But since the experiment of Azerite gear was largely received as a failure, it makes sense that they'd bring back sets in some capacity. If they are reimplemented, we still don't know whether they'll resemble old Tier sets; and, most importantly, in the post where Blizzard talked about it they also mentioned the main reason it was removed: Because it makes gear options boring. To me, it seems like you find a lot of enjoyment from collecting Tier sets and I can understand that -- but it's a bit of stretch to say that Tier and Tier alone was the only motivating factor for players to run the LFR and that the lack of Tier sets in the LFR would somehow have a massively negative impact on the game as a whole.

[Raelbo]

And yet they just released AQ40 in WoW classic - a 40-man raid which doesnt have multiple difficulty level to pick from (LFR, normal, heroic, Mythic). So they are clearly investing in organized raiding.

Classic is a remake of a 15 year old version of the game and it is played by people seeking to relive that experience. It has no bearing on what is done in retail.

Also, as seen with previous raid tiers in Classic, the raids are pretty rudimentary in terms of difficulty - probably somewhere between LFR and normal in retail.

Your claim that organized raiding is for top 10% has no data to support it. Acc to wowprogress around 78% of people who have entered any kind of raid have killed atleast heroic Wrathion with 6% of total raiders having killed Mythic Nzoth. That's a wide spread. I can understand that Mythic being a niche, but Heroic and Normal raiding is not.

78% (actually it's just shy of 75%, but hey, who needs accuracy?) of the ~24 700 guilds in the wowprogress database is not the same as 75% of the wow playerbase. And if you consider that each of those guilds has 25 active raiders, that translates to roughly only 600 000 players. Now if you consider that the total wow playerbase is around 3M, that means that only 15% of players have killed Wrathion on heroic, and only around 12% have killed N'zoth Heroic, and only 1.2% have killed mythic.

[Frolk]

Keep LFR, but add Master Loot as only loot option.

[rrayy]

These people barely exist. LFR is basically worthless and it's people like you's fault and you're STILL not satisfied.

Prove it. Show me your data.

[rrayy]

Rename LFR to Cinematic Mode and make it instantly queuable with NPC's with guaranteed victory, keep the rewards as it is.

Let people try organized raids the way they were meant to from the beginning if they are interested in it.

Or how about we leave LFR as is and you stop trying to change something you don't even play.

[Sughs]

Sounds like they're enjoying what they're doing. It's not our job to tell them they're doing it wrong, or even care. They're not hurting anyone at all.

I don't care or have a problem with it but I think I am free to find it funny.

[Shelly]

Well shit. Shelly on MMO-Champion said that WoD had the worst iteration of the LFR, therefore it is now universally accepted that WoD had the worst iteration of the LFR.

Sorry for making fun of your shitty opinion.

Apologies for calling out your shitty opinion and disagreeing.