LFR is a superfluous, meaningless difficulty

[Zantera]

I haven't set foot in LFR since Legion (for legendaries) and I definitely feel it could be removed, but I do think in the bigger scheme of things, normal definitely feels more 'useless' than LFR.

With LFR you have the people who either just want to see how the raid looks and don't care about challenges and you also have the people too bad to achieve anything - so whether you like LFR or not you can at least argue there is a crowd for it.

With Normal I just don't really see who it's for? It would make more sense IMO to 'merge' normal and heroic into one mode which is the default raid difficulty. You keep LFR for the people with no ambition and you keep Mythic for the people who want serious challenging raid progression. And the merged normal/HC will be there for the "i raid once a night for the chill vibe" people and for fun alt/social runs or whatever.

Having 4 difficulties is just beyond overkill imo.

[secondgasp]

Having 4 difficulties is just beyond overkill imo.

It's also the reason we've needed stat squishes. 4 difficulties a tier is basically the same as what an entire expansion of power used to be. there should be 3 Modes and LFR shouldn't award any form of power or just the current equivalent of Renown/WQ gear and Normal should be removed.

[Argorwal]

It's also the reason we've needed stat squishes. 4 difficulties a tier is basically the same as what an entire expansion of power used to be. there should be 3 Modes and LFR shouldn't award any form of power or just the current equivalent of Renown/WQ gear and Normal should be removed.

LFR gear in BFA was equal to mythic 0 and it’s almost the same as that now.

LFR is not causing the item level inflation, because if you removed LFR today they wouldn’t drop normal down from where it is due to how close it is to M0.

Normal/heroic/mythic cause the jumps.

[Chin]

I haven't set foot in LFR since Legion (for legendaries) and I definitely feel it could be removed, but I do think in the bigger scheme of things, normal definitely feels more 'useless' than LFR.

With LFR you have the people who either just want to see how the raid looks and don't care about challenges and you also have the people too bad to achieve anything - so whether you like LFR or not you can at least argue there is a crowd for it.

With Normal I just don't really see who it's for? It would make more sense IMO to 'merge' normal and heroic into one mode which is the default raid difficulty. You keep LFR for the people with no ambition and you keep Mythic for the people who want serious challenging raid progression. And the merged normal/HC will be there for the "i raid once a night for the chill vibe" people and for fun alt/social runs or whatever.

Having 4 difficulties is just beyond overkill imo.

This is just essentially going back to what we had yonks ago with Normal/Heroic.

Having 4 levels of difficulty doesn't hurt anyone and just brings inclusiveness to players at different levels of play.

[Zantera]

This is just essentially going back to what we had yonks ago with Normal/Heroic.

Having 4 levels of difficulty doesn't hurt anyone and just brings inclusiveness to players at different levels of play.

No but see thats where you are wrong. It does impact the game because as others have stated, thats why you get the insane power jumps and thats why a lot of things feel so imbalanced. I don't personally mind you have a nothing difficulty like LFR for those who for some reason don't want to do real raiding - that's all fine. But having 4 difficulties instead of 2 (which you compare it to) means the jump in gear level is double.

This also feeds into the problem that has grown alongside the multiple raid difficulties which is the expectations of people when making groups. Fewer raid difficulties would mean people stay closer to each other ilvl wise which also means the problem of "i need full mythic gear to pug heroic" will slightly improve because the gap between the top and the bottom won't be as huge.

I'm all for options to include all types of players and encourage them to raid, but my main question is do we really need both normal and heroic? You have mythic for the 'oldschool' serious raiders, you have LFRs for the dads, grandmas and people just wanting to see the raid, and you have normal/hc in between which seems like one mode too many. Personally I don't really see a clear separation of what is a normal raider and what is a heroic raider? It seems like you could merge the two imo.

[ellieg]

No but see thats where you are wrong. It does impact the game because as others have stated, thats why you get the insane power jumps and thats why a lot of things feel so imbalanced. I don't personally mind you have a nothing difficulty like LFR for those who for some reason don't want to do real raiding - that's all fine. But having 4 difficulties instead of 2 (which you compare it to) means the jump in gear level is double.

This also feeds into the problem that has grown alongside the multiple raid difficulties which is the expectations of people when making groups. Fewer raid difficulties would mean people stay closer to each other ilvl wise which also means the problem of "i need full mythic gear to pug heroic" will slightly improve because the gap between the top and the bottom won't be as huge.

I'm all for options to include all types of players and encourage them to raid, but my main question is do we really need both normal and heroic? You have mythic for the 'oldschool' serious raiders, you have LFRs for the dads, grandmas and people just wanting to see the raid, and you have normal/hc in between which seems like one mode too many. Personally I don't really see a clear separation of what is a normal raider and what is a heroic raider? It seems like you could merge the two imo.

Normal is for pugging and dealing with some mechanics. Heroic is for guilds and pugs that are pretty good but can't commit to a raid schedule.

And each tier raises ilvl by 2 difficulties (2x13=26). So having 1 extra difficulty only adds 13 ilvl gain across the whole xpac.

[Araevin]

The real issue is how large the increase in ilvl is tier to tier in comparable content, not the number of difficulties. THAT is the base number that everything else is adjusted to and that number is defined by the level of power gain that is effective for players to feel their characters have grown and the difficulty increase to be appreciable so that you feel the need to re-earn gear every tier. Drop the ilvl increase between tiers to a lower number and you will end up with situations were a very strong trinket (or set, back when we had those) from an early tier stays BiS for the entire expac. Heck even with the current ilvl gain by tier and in Legion raid sets still often had two sets bonuses that were BiS in the next tier (very common between NH and ToS)

The only issue really is how smooth stat progression is. In some xpacs they frontloaded the value of stats so gains in haste/crit across the xpac is not as significant and we hit the sweet spot very early; imo this is ideal. That said, I hate haste as a stat anyway and feel the game should just be faster by default.

[crusadernero]

Its a tricky one though. Personally i've cleared current raid ONCE, on one character. After I did that, I didnt really need to do it again. I saw the place and story on LFR, no desire to go back on any difficulty. Gear is useless too.

Its just there if you want to see a raid, but it doesnt really bring anything great of gameplay value. I have no idea what most bosses do. I just dont stand in shit and avoid whatever comes at me, and thats more or less enough.

[cateran100]

Its a tricky one though. Personally i've cleared current raid ONCE, on one character. After I did that, I didnt really need to do it again. I saw the place and story on LFR, no desire to go back on any difficulty. Gear is useless too.

Its just there if you want to see a raid, but it doesnt really bring anything great of gameplay value. I have no idea what most bosses do. I just dont stand in shit and avoid whatever comes at me, and thats more or less enough.

This....same here

[crusadernero]

This....same here

Its important to note that I understand why its there - so everyone gets to see the raids and story(that often times end inside a raid).

That said - What can Blizzard really do here? I mean, right now they have covered every aspect of player engagement with these difficulties. If you want to push hard content, get the best rewards/titles/mounts the content is there. If you dont care about that or are unable/unwilling to put in the effort for it, theres easier difficulties to pick.

You dont have to do anything inside a LFR raid. Just queue up, enter and go for a stroll while hitting some buttons now and then. The boss dies anyway.

But I doubt LFR makes people go "wow I want to do this on a harder difficulty". I think most people just do it a few times and call it quits with raiding. I suspect the same thing will happen, or has happend, with the m+ feature for dungeons. Atleast with dungeons theres only you and 4 other people and can be done all the time.

Maybe thats the reason why I feel many raids have been poorer/Boring overall, cause i've done them on LFR. Its just a shallow experience and resembles nothing like raiding I used to know. At the same time, I cant really commit to a set schedule and pugging is a huge hit and miss with mostly misses.

So in a way im glad LFR is there - but its also a shite and useless feature 99% of the time and doesnt really represent what raids are about.

[grandgato]

They bumped the amount of anima you get per wing by quite a bit, so I make an effort to run it weekly now and i have long outgeared anything that drops there. I imagine others do the same, so that keeps the queue flowing for those that need gear/story out of it.

[BlueAnon]

just an excuse to get more xmog, n an upgrade or two, although I think the loot increase doesn't seem to have changed things much.