Should raid difficulties and LFR be retuned and consolidated?

[Jastall]

WoW's goal was to become seasonal for the longest time I can't see them reverting that with or without lfr. Overall I think it is a good move so long as extremely rare drops get power creeped out. I don't really want hunters needing sylvannas now next tier past normal for example given how rare its drop rate seems to be assuming my guilds hunters are simply not cursed.

One or two trinkets needing to be farmed for next tier is annoying in itself.

That's indeed been the goal since Wrath. Seasonal model allows for the noticeable increases of power of players like, and makes it much less of a burden on returning players as well. The TBC model of having your BiS list spread across the entire expansion, or close to it, is fine on paper as it keeps the content alive but in practice leads to burnout and having the raid do fights they're sick of just so that some guy can maybe get his Dragonspine Trophy or something. There's a reason it hardly survived the expansion.

Trinkets are the one item that sometimes carries over some power into the next tier. Unless Blizzard nerfs them like they did with Draught of Souls in Legion (but curiously not with Convergence of Fates, which was BiS for a couple specs from Nighthold to the BfA pre-patch).

[Sickjen]

I've seen some suggestions from people that the 3 raid difficulties and the 1 tourist mode that we have right now is too many.

Do you agree? If so, how should Blizzard go about retuning and possibly reducing the amount of difficulties in the game?

I started in Panderia where the difficulty's were LFR-NORMAL-HERIOC.

i was incredibly bad at the game never had played a MMO before. (I thought that intellect on a hunter made my character stronger. So i put cloth pieces on my hunter)
LFR was fun when i first started. My friend and I were really excited for the next raid finder wing to come out each week. When we beat LFR we moved onto normals then heriocs.

It was fun up until they added the Mythic difficulty, The gear became less relevant. You never got people in your group who run LFR for fun (the carrys.)

and having LFR-NORMAL-HERIOC-MYTHIC is just a ridiculous amount of difficulty's. While I'm happy it existed for me and probably should exist. Normal and LFR are basically the same thing more or less.

[Eli85]

Yes, this absolutely should be done. LFR should be merged with Normal, as there is little practical difference in their difficulties. You could add a queue to Normal and you'd see the same clears. Keep Heroic, but maybe tune the first half a little bit easier, with a solid incline on difficulty, so friends and family have something. Mythic remains where it is.

4 raid difficulties just don't make any sense, particularly when the first two are completely bereft of difficulty.

[Kalocy Jim]

I started in Panderia where the difficulty's were LFR-NORMAL-HERIOC.

i was incredibly bad at the game never had played a MMO before. (I thought that intellect on a hunter made my character stronger. So i put cloth pieces on my hunter)
LFR was fun when i first started. My friend and I were really excited for the next raid finder wing to come out each week. When we beat LFR we moved onto normals then heriocs.

It was fun up until they added the Mythic difficulty, The gear became less relevant. You never got people in your group who run LFR for fun (the carrys.)

and having LFR-NORMAL-HERIOC-MYTHIC is just a ridiculous amount of difficulty's. While I'm happy it existed for me and probably should exist. Normal and LFR are basically the same thing more or less.

Having the experiences that you have had, do you think large group content, things meant for organized group activates should be queueable? Tourist mode although its a good way for people to "see the content" has been made clear by the developers it isn't the same thing as raiding.

[Accendor]

Wouldn't that just turn Heroic into Normal, with a new Heroic in the middle, making it exactly the same as it is now?

Great suggestion. /s

???
If we remove LFR, normal, hero and mythic and replace them with a single difficulty that is easier than mythic but harder than heroic, everything stays the same?
1:4 is the same?

[Malania]

Game would be better served by removing LFR. It offers nothing of value. The original purpose of it being so people who couldn't raid could see the places is long since gone (and was bullshit anyway) with most of the subs and it's basically just an alt loot vault now. Which is stupid since Korthea offers better gear anyway.

They created variable difficulty with normal and that's sufficient.

[hulkgor]

???
If we remove LFR, normal, hero and mythic and replace them with a single difficulty that is easier than mythic but harder than heroic, everything stays the same?
1:4 is the same?

You should read what you wrote again, but slowly.

[saixilein]

Yes.

LFR
Heroic
Mythic

is enough.

LFR now called Normal and is somewhat between LFR/Normale on difficulty level.
Heroic stays the same
Mythic stays the same but not with fix 20 people - something like 16-25 players or something. Im sick of raids falling off, cause u was missing 1 person or ssomething. sucks.

LFR still just opens in wings and weeks after heroic/mythic opened.

[ceall]

Yes, lfr should be cut with normal becoming queueable (on a wing per wing basis) AFTER gaining the respective achievement through manual pugging or going with a guild. Manage to clear the first wing of the raid? You can queue for that wing now. Manage to clear the entire thing? You can now queue for it.

Normal should be tuned a little easier for that to happen ofc. A nerf of about 10-15% should be enough.

Also, the achievements will be account wide, so that alts (with the appropriate ilvl) can jump into the queue, if you've proven to be able to do the content on your main (hence the achievement requirements for enabling the queue).

[Kathranis]

Honestly, I think LFR and Normal should be rolled together into one queueable difficulty level. Maybe even make Heroic queueable if you have the ilvl and achievements. Adjust the difficulty and maybe make Determination more powerful if necessary.

They should also implement a currency for weekly LFR clears and a vendor to buy / upgrade raid gear, keeping previous tiers + Timewalking relevant for people who want to grind it out.

[Florena]

I think LFR should be kept.

Do we need normal/heroic/mythic? Idk. Maybe those could be consolidated down to two.

But I'm in favor of keeping LFR unless they decouple raids from the main storyline, which I don't see happening.

I don't like the design of 'you can see the begining and middle of these stories through quests and dungeons, easily accessable content that doesn't require a commitment or coordinated group play to get to. But if you want to experience the ending in game and not just through youtube you better step up your game and start putting more time and effort into the game so you can raid properly.'

I support LFR as an easy mode you can just queue into to see the story, independant of the gear it drops and how good it is or isn't.

[Hildibrand Manderville]

I was fine with the days of Ulduar. Normal mode with a Hard mode that you can trigger.

I even didn't mind just plain old Normal and Heroic.

4 Difficulties is just overkill.

[orgonutil]

i like how it is actually, everyone can target something to fill the expectations

[Empower]

That's indeed been the goal since Wrath. Seasonal model allows for the noticeable increases of power of players like, and makes it much less of a burden on returning players as well. The TBC model of having your BiS list spread across the entire expansion, or close to it, is fine on paper as it keeps the content alive but in practice leads to burnout and having the raid do fights they're sick of just so that some guy can maybe get his Dragonspine Trophy or something. There's a reason it hardly survived the expansion.

Trinkets are the one item that sometimes carries over some power into the next tier. Unless Blizzard nerfs them like they did with Draught of Souls in Legion (but curiously not with Convergence of Fates, which was BiS for a couple specs from Nighthold to the BfA pre-patch).

I think we agree on gear. Where the system breaks down in my opinion is when they try to carry the empty grinds over like conduits or add superfluous grinds like sockets ( just give them back to blacksmiths to craft).

The focus should be getting people into their preferred content not having them do all content.

[Osmeric]

Honestly, I think LFR and Normal should be rolled together into one queueable difficulty level.

This was tried in MoP. It doesn't work.

[Vampyrr]

Or you could remove "mythic"

and instead of having: LFR, normal, heroic, mythic
you would end up with: LFR, NEW normal, NEW heroic.

New normal would become old heroic.
And new heroic would become old mythic.

Just as things used to be before adding 4th difficulty.

I think people like the branding of mythic so that would likely remain

[phattsao]

This was tried in MoP. It doesn't work.

I thought it worked great. Those Flex raids were a lot of fun, always people wanting to join, and they were still easy enough that a pug could power through it with some basic leadership. Probably the last time I've actually enjoyed raiding in this game.

The problem was they didn't really "merge" anything. They just added yet another difficulty and it got to be too much for the completionists who felt obligated to do every single raid every single week just in case they got an random upgrade.

[Raava]

Just making mythic cross-realm from the start would be enough, honestly.

It'd have to take into account that a group has to be made up of x percent of players to gain access to WFR-style achievements or something along those lines, but otherwise it'd be fine.

[Feral Druid ist Op]

lfg and lfr was the root of the x realm anonymus cancer we have to day it should never exist, you can join grief to your liking and leave the grp with no consequences (M+ is the best example)

[Pheraz]

I've seen some suggestions from people that the 3 raid difficulties and the 1 tourist mode that we have right now is too many.

Do you agree? If so, how should Blizzard go about retuning and possibly reducing the amount of difficulties in the game?

No to the LFR removal ! Strong no

LFR is great depending on your real life. I love WoW and I really like raids but I just can't handle to be in guilds anymore and I don't want to ruin random groups by leaving out of nowhere. In LFR I normally stay until the end, even if the group wipes some times but at least I can leave without beeing the exception. I just say why I leave and then leave with best wishes for the rest etc etc. And that is okay!

So killing LFR would kill raiding for such "hardcore casuals" like me

But I can't speak for normal or heroic. Maybe those two could be merged because the difference is not very big? No idea really. On the other hand why does it hurt to have them? I could imagine guilds that love to schedule but are really not at the top of their game and heroic could be too hard for them