LFR and whether it still has a place in WoW

[Kralljin]

Quite frankly, the amount of pandering to elitists that has been done by neutering LFR gear is ridiculous.

LFR Gear got useless because of alternate paths to gearing, not because of elitists.
The only thing that there has been were Tier set bonuses but those have been removed with BfA anyway.
Previously, those "elitist" players entered LFR to get the Valor Point cap or something similiar, not for gear.

LFR has become pointless in terms of gearing because of M+0 and Emissaries, not because it was nerfed.

[Raelbo]

If LFR's purpose is to see the raid, then why do they give people incentive to run in multiple times?

The primary purpose of LFR is to provide an accessible raiding experience to people who, for whatever reason, can't or won't participate in the organised raiding modes. To "see the raid" is only a small part of that.

As such it makes perfect sense that there should be equivalent "incentives", scaled accordingly, for people to run it.

Its just a path of least resistance for players to go and grab gear without putting in any effort

Sorry, but that is just plain nonsense.

• The gear is pretty pathetic. You get better gear from emissaries, M0 and N'zoth assaults, all of which are trivial content.
• You get one shot at gear for each LFR boss per week. Furthermore LFR isn't even available at the start of the tier, and you have to wait, literally, months before you can even access the later bosses. This translates into a very slow acquisition rate.
• Doing LFR isn't particularly quick. First you have to queue, which typically takes 15-20 mins. Then the wings themselves take quite a lot of time.
• Where do you get this idea that no one ever puts any "effort" (whatever that actually means) into their LFR participation? I mean I know that when I do LFR I typically put as much effort into it as I would any other casual activity, often more. And it's pretty evident that most other people in LFR do the same.

and I dont think its good for the game in its current state.

Yeah, you've made that much abundantly clear. But honestly you've done a pretty useless job of substantiating that stance. I mean I could accept that you don't like LFR (everyone is entitled to their own likes/dislikes) or that because you don't see any value of it to yourself that you fail to understand how it could have value to other people. But if you want to insist on proclaiming that it's bad for the game, I really think you need to come with a proper argument, backed up by valid reasoning and/or facts, not just a bunch of baseless assertions.

The simple truth is this: LFR is fantastic for the game because it provides an accessible form of raiding to everyone in the game, not just the <20% who participate in Normal, Heroic and Mythic. Which means that 200% more people actually get to experience the raids.

This not only justifies the expense of putting significant development resources into raids, but also ensures that there is more content for everyone.

The one thing I will agree with you on, in principle, is that it's current state isn't as good as what it should be. They've nerfed gear too hard, which is kinda like giving the middle finger finger to the substantial portion of the playerbase who makes use of LFR, and serves as a disincentive for better players from participating.

I think that having the possibility of WF/TF in LFR was excellent in that it allowed players who outgeared it to justify choosing to participate in it if they wanted to (without ever feeling compelled to)

[Lex Icon]

Mmorpg endgame = raids and pvp. if they dont want to learn the game they should play something else. like me for instance 12/12 mythic raider but good damn I suck at pvp and I avoid it like the plaugue. if they want the story they can just look it up.

it's not a mmorpg thing.. there's no rules that say that an mmorpg has to have raiding.. it's just 1 approach that wow and a few other games chosen to take.

[Raelbo]

LFR Gear got useless because of alternate paths to gearing, not because of elitists.
The only thing that there has been were Tier set bonuses but those have been removed with BfA anyway.
Previously, those "elitist" players entered LFR to get the Valor Point cap or something similiar, not for gear.

LFR has become pointless in terms of gearing because of M+0 and Emissaries, not because it was nerfed.

Without disagreeing with what you're saying about alternative gearing paths, I still think that the constant barrage of complaints about LFR gear from elitists, whom it never even affected, had a lot to do with where LFR now sits in the scheme of potential gearing paths.

For example:
- No more WF/TF. Which means that LFR gear is now guaranteed to not be an upgrade for anyone with 430 gear
- LFR doesn't even open during the first week, and the final wing only opens like 10 weeks in, meaning that by the time anyone gets to those bosses in LFR, they've almost certainly already filled those gear slots. This idea was implemented btw in order to address the issue of raiders needing to run LFR in order to get tier pieces and fancy trinkets early on during progression.

[goldlock]

Sort of.

I don't think anyone would argue against the idea that LFR should never offer power that would make it mandatory for people running above mythic 0. The problem is that some players have a very poor grasp of what is meant by the term mandatory and will consider any content in which there is even the tiniest of possibility of even the smallest upgrade to be mandatory. Sorry, but as far as I am concerned, at some point players have to take responsibility for making objectively poor decisions. There needs to be a balance between keeping the gear from LFR sane, while still keeping it appealing for its target audience.

Quite frankly, the amount of pandering to elitists that has been done by neutering LFR gear is ridiculous. It hasn't been mandatory to use it for anyone for many years, and those who still persist on peddling the notion that LFR gear needs to be further nerfed until the gear is no longer useful for anyone should dismissed with the contempt that they deserve.

Right now it is in a good spot I agree but it must have a constant vigil placed on it... Never again may it be allowed to return to mop levels.

[Kralljin]

I still think that the constant barrage of complaints about LFR gear from elitists, had a lot to do with where LFR now sits in the scheme of potential gearing paths.

That's false, it's just that Blizzard created this massive tumbling tower of Ilvl that needs to be carried over with each patch.

Like, where do you want to place LFR?
That's the big problem, you basically have to add yet another step between sources like M+0 / Emissaries and LFR.
LFR is the lowest form of raiding, thus it rewards the lowest Ilvl of gear from raiding, LFR is pointless due to non raiding sources that in terms of difficulty aren't that much more challenging than LFR.

LFR used to be the endgame for anyone who didn't raid flex or heroic, because of a lack of any other gearing sources, all Blizzard did was adding alternatives.

If you have a problem with that, i suggest this thread:
https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...nt-progression

- LFR doesn't even open during the first week, and the final wing only opens like 10 weeks in, meaning that by the time anyone gets to those bosses in LFR, they've almost certainly already filled those gear slots. This idea was implemented btw in order to address the issue of raiders needing to run LFR in order to get tier pieces and fancy trinkets early on during progression.

While this has existed in the past, i think the primary reason now is to reward players who actually engage in not automated queueing system with seeing the things sooner.
After all, people would rather have their first kill on a boss with their guild rather than some random people that somehow struggled through it.

Not to mention, the rewards in regards to the non Mythic raiders.
Even gear from the newest raid LFR is below 15 Ilvl what Mythic raiders are already wearing, you need some bonkers pieces that they make up for that.
Not to mention that those raiders also have the chance to get from Normal and Heroic, thus further eliminating the possibility of them ever needing something out of LFR.

That's kinda the problem, Mythic raiders due to the multiple layers of difficulty are pretty much out of reach for LFR ever being viable for them, Heroic and Normal raiders on the other hand...
If you're a Normal Raider, LFR gear from the newest raid is a +15 Upgrade for you, for Heroic raiders it's equivalent, and those people also aren't necessarily fond of doing LFR, especially once a new raid is out and almost no one on the LFR knows any strats if one encounter actually requires people to follow some strategy.

That's the real irony right here, Mythic raiders (you know, the actual elitists) are still pretty safe from ever going LFR if those restrictions you mentioned are removed, the non Mythic raiders however are a different story.

[ceall]

I believe lfr has no place in this game since the flex mode was introduced in 5.4, which is now called normal mode.

Why do i think this to be the case? Quite simple honestly. From my experience it is way faster joining a normal mode pug and CLEARING the ENTIRE raid than waiting for lfr queue and doing a whopping 2-4 bosses (depending on the wing). It also rewards better gear and because of noone being afk or auto attacking, normal is waaaay easier than lfr. And since you're pugging normal, you don't have to commit to any kind of schedule either, so there really is no argument alas "i only do lfr because i can't commit to organized raiding".

Also, correct me if I'm wrong, mythic 0 dungeons provide the exact same itemlvl lfr does, which is also way easier.

[Firebert]

Mmorpg endgame = raids and pvp. if they dont want to learn the game they should play something else. like me for instance 12/12 mythic raider but good damn I suck at pvp and I avoid it like the plaugue. if they want the story they can just look it up.

How to get players to unsubscribe en masse 101...

"Go watch the story on YouTube" is a terrible slogan...

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I believe lfr has no place in this game since the flex mode was introduced in 5.4, which is now called normal mode.

Normal raids aren't on the LFD/R tool; that's one reason why LFR still has a place in WoW.

[Glorious Leader]

LFR Gear got useless because of alternate paths to gearing, not because of elitists.
The only thing that there has been were Tier set bonuses but those have been removed with BfA anyway.
Previously, those "elitist" players entered LFR to get the Valor Point cap or something similiar, not for gear.

LFR has become pointless in terms of gearing because of M+0 and Emissaries, not because it was nerfed.

This is, and youll pardon my french a load of horse shit.

Tier was a thing at one point and elitists did bitch about having to do lfr to get it (never mind trinkets and weapons). The fact that Blizzard removed tier from the game isnt evidence against the argument that elitists are responsible for the gutting of lfr its just more evidence theyre complaints get serious attention.

Furthermore even if all that was left in lfr was valor points elitist dicks still complained about that as well. Because you could use that valor to buy either gear or just flat upgrades. To be fair its not really the elites its mid tier shit heels who need the gear advantage

At the end of the day its still the same thing. Emissaries give better gear than lfr. Okay that still doesnt answer the question why doesnt lfr reward better?

[Kralljin]

Tier was a thing at one point and elitists did bitch about having to do lfr to get it (never mind trinkets and weapons).

I can assure you as Mythic raider, the only time LFR was relevant to high end raider was Dragon Soul.
There it only was relevant because of the insane Set bonuses for tanks, which turned their defensive CD into a raidwide CD.

The fact that Blizzard removed tier from the game isnt evidence against the argument that elitists are responsible for the gutting of lfr its just more evidence theyre complaints get serious attention.

LFR tier sets existed in MoP, yet no hardcore raider cared about running LFR for gear, the delayed release and drop of Ilvl didn't make it worth running.
Especially with the addition of Flex in SoO.

Furthermore even if all that was left in lfr was valor points elitist dicks still complained about that as well.

The hardcore raiders only did that during farm, valor point upgrades usually came out on .5 patches in MoP, at this point the hardcore raiders were usually done with progression and used it to fill up any VP they didn't get from farming the current raid.

Then again, alternatives also existed, so you could have avoided LFR entirely if you wanted to.

To be fair its not really the elites its mid tier shit heels who need the gear advantage

I fucking love when people midway through their post admit they're actually incorrect.

Then talk to the Normal and Heroic raiders, not the "Elitist" players.

At the end of the day its still the same thing. Emissaries give better gear than lfr. Okay that still doesnt answer the question why doesnt lfr reward better?

I'm going to raise the question as above: What sort of Ilvl is LFR then supposed to have?

Do you want to add another step in just for LFR?

Personally, i find it almost comical how people used to complain over "It's raid or die!", now you can bypass basically raiding entirely besides Mythic and now some people go "My difficulty is almost pointless!", yeah that's what alternative paths to progress do if not implemented properly.
Maybe you should have raised your voice while people complained over "Raid or die"?

I suggest to you the same thing:
https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...ression/page20
This is the thread you're looking for.

[Ragingheadache]

I believe lfr has no place in this game since the flex mode was introduced in 5.4, which is now called normal mode.

Why do i think this to be the case? Quite simple honestly. From my experience it is way faster joining a normal mode pug and CLEARING the ENTIRE raid than waiting for lfr queue and doing a whopping 2-4 bosses (depending on the wing). It also rewards better gear and because of noone being afk or auto attacking, normal is waaaay easier than lfr. And since you're pugging normal, you don't have to commit to any kind of schedule either, so there really is no argument alas "i only do lfr because i can't commit to organized raiding".

If it's "waaaay" easier then why do most LFG pugs that I come across want:

- over geared

- achievements

- meta specs

- raider.io

??

[Bisque]

If it's "waaaay" easier then why do most LFG pugs that I come across want:

- over geared

- achievements

- meta specs

- raider.io

??

Yeah this and I know people are going to say "just form your own group", fair enough but for the people who don't want to form their own group, who don't want to go through the hoops of Raider. IO score , past achievements (what you didn't kill the boss the first week the raid came out? Then you are already behind), LFR exists. And I believe the majority of people who have no problem with LFR existing are not asking for the LFR gear to be made super better, they aren't asking for the LFR wings to be released faster, they are simply enjoying "raiding" on their own time, training wheels and all.

Yes LFR isn't real

[Ethas]

Like many already mentioned, the LFR is here because majority of people cba to justify their chars and gear before some randoms. These randoms also have their own rightful reason to judge said player. Hence LFR solves the problem for them both.

[Balbuto]

How to get players to unsubscribe en masse 101...

"Go watch the story on YouTube" is a terrible slogan...

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yeah I have to agree it shouldnt have be like that. But lfr... lets be honest now, the watered down mechanics does more damage to the game as a whole than what they bring. 4 difficulties is too much. 2 should be enough, one normal setting which should be somewhere around normal/heroic and one harder for the guilds that need a harder challenge. If you want to experience the story of any game you need to improve as a player and beat the boss/level whatever. LFR lets blizz tell ppl, its ok that you arent good enough, here we bring the story to you, but it just feels so, backwards. like, help them become better instead, help them be able to raid normal and heroic, help them grow as a gamer instead of just handing them the reward (story) with slim effort.

[Firebert]

4 difficulties is too much. 2 should be enough

So, LFR and Heroic.

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help them become better instead

This was attempted in Cataclysm with increased Heroic dungeon difficulty and players left in droves; this was quickly reverted

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If you want to experience the story of any game you need to improve as a player

Not all games. Some have dynamic difficulties that ensure victory by analysing gameplay. I gave an example earlier in the thread that modern Mario games give powerups, invincibility and flight when you die continuously.

In any case, barriers to raid exposure just hurts raiding as a whole, as high resource allocation to raid creation is based off raid exposure. LFR provides the most raid exposure.

[Steelcryo]

LFR is all about getting people who wouldn't normally raid into raids to see content. That's why they added it, because before LFR only a small % of the playerbase saw all the content in raids and they were stuck trying to balance putting story into raids while not making it so people who didn't have a raiding guild didn't miss out.

So LFR serves a purpose. It was never meant to be about getting gear or teaching people raiding, it was just so they could put story content in raids and people wouldn't miss it.

I've said this before on these forums, I used to do mythic raiding and have raided since Vanilla, but recently I've gotten so bored of it. Without LFR, I would never step into raids and the only reason I go into LFR is to see the story.

[Tanidor]

They should not remove it. Even for normal PuG runs they ask for absolutely ridiculous requirements to join. We set up with friends from time to time, but the LFG is a great tool when I can't get into PuG normal or HC runs when the requirement is asking for ilevel 480+

[RobertMugabe]

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.

IMO they should only keep 2 raiding modes: Normal and Mythic.

Normal stays hard like normal as always, while Mythic is between heroic and mythic in terms of difficulty.

We really don't need so many difficulties, but we also don't need raids to be that super hard, especially now that method is gone and more and more hardcore guilds cease to exist.

[IIamaKing]

- 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.

Dev time for LFR is low, has been stated many times.
No LFR will not move people into regular raiding, thats a fallacy you are telling yourself.


I wont do normal raiding ever again, no time, no care for it. Take out LFR and I just wont raid. Oddly you still get raids BECAUSE LFR exists. Hate it all you want, bean counters would have striped that feature out if only ~10% of the players were engaging in it.

[rrayy]

Mmorpg endgame = raids and pvp. if they dont want to learn the game they should play something else. like me for instance 12/12 mythic raider but good damn I suck at pvp and I avoid it like the plaugue. if they want the story they can just look it up.

WHo made you the sole arbiter of what endgame is in an MMORPG? This is quite an elitist take and is nothing more than "Play the game my way or play something else".