Is LFR ruining the raid experience?

[marukale]

Geezus. People that keep saying this. Yea sure dont do it. However Blizzard tuned the fights in normal with LFR loot considered in mind. Also it doesnt change the fact that you will see people running around left in right in the gear from the current raid tier. Which they didnt get from normal mode but from lfr. Also changes the experience of being some of the rare people on your server that actual got a raid together and downed something worth while to earn that loot.


ITS PLAIN AND SIMPLE> LFR is in fact ruining the experience of raiding in WoW. And its a simple solution. They should not have spoiled casuals from the get go when they released LFR. LFR was a good idea. But it should be current content. For example LFR should just now be being released for MV. It should always be two instances behind. And that would fix the problem.

As I said in the next tier LFR wont provide any upgrades for a guild that is currently doing heroic modes so there will be no point in doing it other than trivial stuff like being able to disenchant the loot.

Trying to define when it should be released is difficult, no matter when you release it, you will have some people claiming you should have already cleared normal mode and are a scrub who clearly needs LFR and there will be people working their way through normal who are upset that they didn't clear it in time. Neither of these sets of people matter, they are not who LFR is aimed at.

As for the argument of showing off loot, that's irrelevant to the conversation, it is about your experience within the raid not your experience strutting your epeen.

[Mehdi]

Killing a boss on LFR isn't an accomplishment; stop comparing it to content that actually was an accomplishment to clear. LFR isn't even meant to feel like an accomplishment for people who want challenging content.



No, you're just ignorant about what LFR is meant for, but others already explained it.

Why should release dates for LFR be pushed down the road? Because your guild can't clear Normal fast enough and LFR is "ruining" your experience because you see LFR before Normal?

LFR being difficult is a disaster. Were you not around for the first week of HoF LFR? Days upon days of 2/6 HoF because Garalon kept every mechanic from Normal mode on a fight where one person can wipe the entire the raid by standing in the purple circle; that isn't a fight meant for LFR until the nerfs it has received to compensate for LFR. Difficult content in Dungeon Finder/Raid Finder does not work; Cata Heroics at release were too hard for pugs and the average player and Garalon proved that mechanics need to be either removed entirely, have an added cooldown, or have the damage reduced so significantly that it doesn't matter so much if you don't do it right. Face it, we've hit rock bottom when not standing in the purple circle is too hard for people and Blizzard had to nerf the fight three times. LFR has to be tuned to those mouthbreathers.

PS once you down Normals and Heroics enough, then you won't even need to step foot into LFR.

You missed my points entirely, congrats. For the record, HoF LFR was annoying Day 1-3, because of Garalon, it was an AFK fest day 4... as long as two people knew how to do pheramones out of 25. Even then, it was a joke.

[notdryad]

Or you could just stop being bad and clear Normal mode before LFR is released, then it won't be ruining the content for you. Shouldn't be a problem for you since you killed all those hard bosses way back when in Vanilla, huh?

...or Blizzard can change the content to cater to your guild's lack of skill.

[Deleted]

You missed my points entirely, congrats. For the record, HoF LFR was annoying Day 1-3, because of Garalon, it was an AFK fest day 4... as long as two people knew how to do pheramones out of 25. Even then, it was a joke.

There is no point to exaggerate the fact. If it had been an afk fest, say half of dps afk the raid will wipe on enrage timer, if the healor gone afk, raid will die to raid wide dots, if tank go afk boss will also wipe the raid because of the fury swipe. It is not hard now for sure but people still need to do their jobs in order to kill it. LFR is a taste of raid, it doesn't need, and should not require, min/max of the efforts of each member because that is impossible for 25 totally strangers put together, however the raid still need to perform "approximately" correct to be able to beat it. That is good enough for its rewards.

[Mehdi]

Or you could just stop being bad and clear Normal mode before LFR is released, then it won't be ruining the content for you. Shouldn't be a problem for you since you killed all those hard bosses way back when in Vanilla, huh?

...or Blizzard can change the content to cater to your guild's lack of skill.

Why does this subject cause so much emotion with some of you posters? There is no reason to be mad. As a player, I'm stating my opinion and I'd like to discuss it with others. This isn't a discussion on the Israeli / Palestinian conflict... it's just a game, and this is a thread discussing blizzards design decision. lol

[Mad_Murdock]

I'm sorry, but unless you've got your tier pieces and have all your items 489 or higher, and are valor capped - skipping LFR is skipping on an upgrade route.
.

The good news for the rest of us, is that excuse will be invalid going into the next tier. To be clear, I run LFR for the upgrades and nifty valor. I DO NOT complain about LFR being too easy and needs to be made harder. LFR is NOT MEANT FOR ME. I'm using it for my own personal gains. Casuals and bads DO NOT NEED to raid at a harder level just because I don't like them getting purples. I don't want heroic dungeons harder just because I'm so self righteous that I want to "weed out" all the unworthy players based on my criteria.

You have harder raids, they are called heroics. Why do you need LFR to be near equal to normals ? Take a look in the mirror and dig around in your soul and see what answer is really there.

And not sure about your region, but Garalon and Will of Emp are still wipefest, especially anytime past Thursday. I have 3 (soon to be 4) toons I run it on. The early runs have mostly normal and heroic raiders and it's all 1 shots. By the time I get to my alts, it's all the weekend warriors (the ones LFR is meant for) and it's wipefest. Of course, by then, it's also Troll season with the normal raiders who hate LFR and want to grief "all the bads" as well.

[notdryad]

Who said I'm mad? Because I'm pointing out the obvious? Sounds like you just can't handle being told that you and your guild aren't as good as you think you are. Perhaps an Empress kill on Normal will give you that satisfaction you're looking for given that you're struggling.

[Varabently]

I agree that lfr has killed raiding for me, but it also coincided with all my good friends quiting the game. Hard to know which hurt my gameplay experience more. To those saying its nostalgia: it may be but it's also undeniable that progressing through raids meant more in vanilla and tbc. Naxx probably single handedly caused the increase in players in wrath. Accessible content equals subs. Challenging raids with barriers to entry do not. That's why I only Pvp because pve is such a rat race right now. Do dailies farm lfr so you can farm normals so you can farm heroics. It works but its not the same that us veterans know and love.

[Mehdi]

The good news for the rest of us, is that excuse will be invalid going into the next tier. To be clear, I run LFR for the upgrades and nifty valor. I DO NOT complain about LFR being too easy and needs to be made harder. LFR is NOT MEANT FOR ME. I'm using it for my own personal gains. Casuals and bads DO NOT NEED to raid at a harder level just because I don't like them getting purples. I don't want heroic dungeons harder just because I'm so self righteous that I want to "weed out" all the unworthy players based on my criteria.

You have harder raids, they are called heroics. Why do you need LFR to be near equal to normals ? Take a look in the mirror and dig around in your soul and see what answer is really there.

And not sure about your region, but Garalon and Will of Emp are still wipefest, especially anytime past Thursday. I have 3 (soon to be 4) toons I run it on. The early runs have mostly normal and heroic raiders and it's all 1 shots. By the time I get to my alts, it's all the weekend warriors (the ones LFR is meant for) and it's wipefest. Of course, by then, it's also Troll season with the normal raiders who hate LFR and want to grief "all the bads" as well.

I agree with a lot of what you're saying for sure.

I think the point is being missed here, but as another poster noted - it's like watching spoilers before the movie, via an upgrade path that is only idealistically optional but not realistically optional. Not everyone minds spoilers.

Maybe LFR should remain as it is, but needs to be released at a different point in time. Maybe something else should change, or maybe I am part of a 1%, and thus Blizz shouldn't do anything - I don't know.

At the end of the day, I'm voicing my opinion on why I think the encounter has gotten cheapened, and wanted to discuss it I didn't expect to see such vehement reactions to it though.

---------- Post added 2012-11-20 at 12:02 PM ----------

Who said I'm mad? Because I'm pointing out the obvious? Sounds like you just can't handle being told that you and your guild aren't as good as you think you are. Perhaps an Empress kill on Normal will give you that satisfaction you're looking for given that you're struggling.

I did, which is clear by the way you resort to ad hominem attacks. In any case, I've already stated that my guild isn't anything special, and it's irrelevant to the points at hand.

[notdryad]

It isn't irrelevant when you're asking for Blizzard to cater to your mediocre guild. "boo hoo LFR is ruining my experience because we suck at Normal." Stop failing at Normal, clear it on time, and then LFR won't be spoiling or ruining the experience for you. Simple as that. LFR does exactly what it's intended to do: let casuals see the content and get some purples out of it.

PS you're not part of any 1% if you haven't even cleared 16/16 Normal yet; get that psuedo hardcore mentality out of your head.

[ejpaints]

The day Blizz listens to all of this QQ and gets rid of LFR is the day they seal their fate on losing a very huge chunk of subs. A fact that many fail to acknowledge is the majority of the playerbase don't actually raid. But, that player base gets bored after awhile into an expansion b/c once they hit max level and have everything from dungeons, then there is pretty much nothing to do until new dungeons come out. Giving those players LFR gave them something new to do, and while it may not be challenging for you, I can attest to the many wipes I see that is not the case for the vast majority of people going in there.

I can go in with one of my 90's and have a quick easy one shot run. And then turn around and go in directly after with another one and have an epic fail fest. So it's obviously not easy for everyone, and if there's enough people that just plain don't know what to do it can quite easily be a giant wipefest which I'm sure the majority of you have seen whether you care to admit it or not.

Since MoP came out I've actually seen with newly opened eyes why LFR was implemented. During cata I was in a semi-hardcore guild. We weren't going to make any world firsts, but we did consistently stay in top 5 on our server, generally top 3. It was fun. It was also very time consuming. And as is pretty commonly the death of many raiding guilds, we had a few people that had to quit b/c of real life. Started college, got married, had kids, lost their job and couldn't afford it, what have you. Logged on one day to find there had been a huge blown up argument and half the guild had just left overnight. To be honest I was grateful. Burnout for DS was in full swing and the fun factor had went away.

I don't raid anymore. I could, just don't have the desire to. I may choose to pug later in the expac, but right now I'd honestly rather do my own thing, and I've 7 more alts still wearing Tier 13 that could use some leveling. I've had 3 guilds fall apart like that last one after pouring countless hours of time into building a good team. I had a lot of money invested in each one too, as I've always been that officer in the guild that paid for the website/vent server, etc. But now, I'd rather take the Jeeps out with my hubby and kiddos and enjoy sunshine and fresh air. But I do still play. And LFR at least gives me something to do that resembles raiding. Is it as hard as true raiding? Of course not! But that's one of the reasons it's such a good thing for people like me. I can jump on and knock it all out in a little over an hour depending on my wait time.

For the people complaining about LFR coming out too soon after a tier comes out, there's a simple fact that you need to realize. If you were even remotely competitive in raiding, then you would have normal cleared on the first day. LFR has positively no affect whatsoever on that. For Heroic Progression, let's face it, the world firsts generally have it down the week it unlocks too. With or without LFR, this would still be the same, with exception of a few bosses that Blizz manages to stump them on occasionally in a tier. So if you're whining about LFR giving unfair advantage, you've already admitted to the fact that you aren't even close to the category of players that you're trying to compare yourself to.

[marukale]

I agree with a lot of what you're saying for sure.

I think the point is being missed here, but as another poster noted - it's like watching spoilers before the movie, via an upgrade path that is only idealistically optional but not realistically optional. Not everyone minds spoilers.

Maybe LFR should remain as it is, but needs to be released at a different point in time. Maybe something else should change, or maybe I am part of a 1%, and thus Blizz shouldn't do anything - I don't know.

At the end of the day, I'm voicing my opinion on why I think the encounter has gotten cheapened, and wanted to discuss it I didn't expect to see such vehement reactions to it though.

---------- Post added 2012-11-20 at 12:02 PM ----------



I did, which is clear by the way you resort to ad hominem attacks. In any case, I've already stated that my guild isn't anything special, and it's irrelevant to the points at hand.

The point is next tier it is completely optional for anyone managing heroic content this tier. For people who start late, or need the extra help, they will need LFR next tier to catch up (similar to how valor gear was used in previous expansions now we have LFR gear).

I'm not sure there is a good way to handle its release for first tier, even if it drops loot equal to heroic dungeons there are going to be people who see it as a way to get the gear that refuses to drop in dungeons.

[Kazi]

@OP - Dude, this is MMO-Champ forum. You will get no sympathy here. All your going to get is 99% of the replies telling you how nobody is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to do anything in WoW, therefore Blizzard can dumb down and ruin the game all they want as long as there is a "hardmode" option....blah blah blah. (Even though, wasnt this the reason Blizzard joined 10 and 25 raids, because people felt "forced" to do both, where were all the no gun to your head people then...)

My guess is the majority of posters here are Wrath babies(and Cata etc.) and just dont understand how people like you and I feel. You are 100% correct though. My guild was working on MV and HoF, I honestly lost desire to raid, in part, because I've seen it all in LFR already, no sense of progression anymore.

---------- Post added 2012-11-20 at 05:15 PM ----------

The day Blizz listens to all of this QQ and gets rid of LFR is the day they seal their fate on losing a very huge chunk of subs.

Yet, there was no LFR for the first 7 years of the game. There was no hardmodes for like the first 5 or 6 years of the game...and, I could be wrong here, but the game was doing just fine through BC and the first half of WotLK. /sigh

[shamozzle]

Been playing since launch (with large gaps of course) and I love LFR.
Having just switched servers with a group of older/casual friends who all also have jobs/wives/kids it has been hard finding a guild.
Thanks to LFR we've been able to gear up a little bit while trying to find the right new home.

So in our cases, LFR has rescued our raiding experience from non-existence

Me likey.

[Algearond]

I love how LFR is now. I am in a very casual F&F guild, and LFR works great for our schedule. Working as intended.

[ejpaints]

Or you could just stop being bad and clear Normal mode before LFR is released, then it won't be ruining the content for you. Shouldn't be a problem for you since you killed all those hard bosses way back when in Vanilla, huh?

...or Blizzard can change the content to cater to your guild's lack of skill.

And this would be my point exactly. The tier is out for an entire week before the the first HALF of an LFR is even available. If you don't have it down by the time that happens, you aren't exactly in a category of players that has a reason to be concerned about it. And if you STILL don't have it down by the time the second half of that LFR releases, then that's even worse.

The fact is, people complaining about it are running it b/c they think the mediocre upgrades are going to help them get that edge for their next "real raid", when in fact the realm first race on their server is already long over. I can't actually remember the last time that race took longer than two weeks even on low pop servers. So seriously what is it people are complaining about? I don't understand the logic.

[marukale]

@OP - Dude, this is MMO-Champ forum. You will get no sympathy here. All your going to get is 99% of the replies telling you how nobody is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to do anything in WoW, therefore Blizzard can dumb down and ruin the game all they want as long as there is a "hardmode" option....blah blah blah. (Even though, wasnt this the reason Blizzard joined 10 and 25 raids, because people felt "forced" to do both, where were all the no gun to your head people then...)

My guess is the majority of posters here are Wrath babies(and Cata etc.) and just dont understand how people like you and I feel. You are 100% correct though. My guild was working on MV and HoF, I honestly lost desire to raid, in part, because I've seen it all in LFR already, no sense of progression anymore.

---------- Post added 2012-11-20 at 05:15 PM ----------


Yet, there was no LFR for the first 7 years of the game. There was no hardmodes for like the first 5 or 6 years of the game...and, I could be wrong here, but the game was doing just fine through BC and the first half of WotLK. /sigh

WoW has a very high turnover of players, as they have stated before more players have left WoW than currently play. So just because something worked 5 or 6 years ago it doesn't mean it would work today on a completely new demographic.

As stated multiple times next tier LFR will be completely optional as there should be no upgrades in there for you.

I don't understand the argument that seeing the boss dies diminishes the sense of accomplishment, does watching the kill videos that are posted from beta/ptr or from world firsts make you feel like there is no sense of progression? You could just go to LFR get yourself killed at the start of the fight and then pretend you are just watching a kill video on youtube.

I've been playing since vanilla, raiding since BC. At times I've felt a greater accomplishment for killing a boss that was on farm but we had to relearn and train people up when the raid team got ripped apart, than I've felt on some first kills. You don't see these kind of discussions for other hobbys, do footballers say their accomplishment is diminished because they won a game in a lower league? Do chess champions complain that they can win games against kids, so international tournaments feel less exciting? The accomplishment comes from overcoming something, not from watching a death animation.

[Mad_Murdock]

At the end of the day, I'm voicing my opinion on why I think the encounter has gotten cheapened, and wanted to discuss it I didn't expect to see such vehement reactions to it though.

Hmm, you must not read these forums very much. This is one of those hot topic issues like CRZ and ganking corpse camping people on PvP servers. maybe some of the firey passionate responses are from people like me, who are semi tired of the same on complaints arguments.

1. I have to run LFR cause I need the loot so I can kill normal mode bosses. (Which is tied with I can't turn off the buff cause I'm competing with other guilds)
2. LFR is too easy it needs to be made alot harder because I find it boring (especially compared with normal and heroic raiding)
3. People are getting free epics. They use to say Welfare epics all the time in TBC, now it's entitlement Epics I guess.

There are several camps on this. There is the "Don't do it" side and there is the "I have to do it to compete" side. I don't believe those sides are ever going to be able to agree. Because it's two fairly different mindsets and beliefs in play.

For me personally, when I hear someone say "I have to do it" and especially when they follow it with, "it's too easy". I have no sympathy for them at all. And they are really no different than the people they hate (the bads). both sides are complaining, But at least the side that complains about something being too hard, doesn't have a choice to skip it.

All I really need is two tier pieces to drop from HoF-LFR and I probably won't run it again on my main. I'll keep my alts gearing up, since I might need to bring them in for a kill we're struggling with, with our current raid comp. I'll never complain about LFR being too easy. I'd be more than happy to show up, have my account locked for 1 hr and then come back to see if I was awarded any loot. Personally, Running LFR is easier and normally less time consuming than running last tier's raids to get up alts. It's sure a lot easier than trying to PUG normals. I like raiding and I like doing normal and heroics. I don't really care for pugging anymore, since on my server. overall progression is down and the server has becomes fairly casual based. If you're on a server like Stormrage or Illidan where you probably have 20-30 pugs a week that can clear Vaults\HoF then pugging is probably more fun and time better spent

[Danielm7]

I've played and raiding since vanilla too. I'd agree that a lot of people put on their rose colored glasses when they think farther back in the game. With that in mind I had the most fun raiding in BC, having a tight group of friends that played very well together was a huge part of that.

I raided up until earlier Cata tiers, then we had a baby which changes things dramatically for most people. Took a break, came back, that tight group of players was gone, I wasn't in a raiding guild, etc.

I was still playing and enjoying the game, when LFR was released I was able to at least see the content when it was current, which I enjoy. I know it isn't the same experience I had in the past working closely with people and being so excited when we downed a new boss, but I don't expect it to be either. Now I have a more casual schedule (note, it doesn't mean "casuals" don't know how to play the game) and like that I can log in and get into an LFR group and be able to see the current content without a whole lot of drama involved on my schedule.

If LFR is ruining your gaming experience it is only because you are letting that happen. Either don't run it or stop being so upset that other people get to see the content in a toned down manner. Pick either option and you can go back to your same old raiding that you had before.

[ganush]

Damn, some of you took this opinion personally. I'm not saying LFR players are bad, or that my guild is superior to be the only ones who deserve to see the content. We're far from it, and we have much to aspire to still. I think I made that abundantly clear in my post.

LFR is certainly optional. As is doing heroics dungeons prior to raiding, buying enchants, gemming, etc. However, it's generally considered unacceptable behavior to be skipping out on upgrade routes that benefit your raid. I rather doubt many guilds would accept such a mentality from their players.

To my earlier point, regardless of whether they are optional or not, the boss and zone gets cheapened when there a loot pinata version of it available. Yes, that version can be avoided, but this is an MMO - not a single player game. Yes, it'll be more fun killing it on normal and heroic difficulty, that's for sure - but some of that value is lost along the way.

A very large sector of the games playerbase sees anything negative about LFR and assumes that it's just some selfish elitist trying to take their content away. I think LFR is fine and I could care less about who sees what content, yet I agree entirely with the original post, I don't think the way the content is released currently through LFR is a good system, and I believe it will hurt the game in the long term. I am fine with LFR existing, it just needs to be different somehow. I will continute to be a proponent of it sharing a lockout with normal modes and I will continue to be a proponent of a slower gating system than currently exists (I would love to see one boss released per week). I realize a lot of people don't want that, but as a species we're not always great at knowing what is best for ourselves. It's not because I don't think people should see the content, it's because I think slower gating keeps people more engaged looking forward to the next boss.