Where have all the Raiders Gone?

[hyphnos]

check this thread and you will notice your opinion doesnt matter. for 80% of players LFR is NOT raiding
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...l-raiding-quot

80% of players don't read MMO Champ nor respond to it's polls.

You're talking about the aggregate view of 600 people which says basically nothing.

[Otimus]

I enjoy how you and Einstein both ignored my post, yet I have a far greater raiding resume than either of you. Just because YOU feel it isn't raiding doesn't mean it's not. Once you get that through your thick skulls more people will be able to enjoy all aspects of the game without feeling excluded.

Note: I don't feel excluded, I could easily be raiding if I chose to do so, but do not have a set schedule I can adhere by for raiding.

So please both of you. Shove it.

it's pretty clear that both of these people actively want to look down on people, and revel in doing so.

---------- Post added 2013-03-21 at 07:43 PM ----------

First of all, the original poll question (which you still can see in the title of the OP) was "Do you consider LFR "real raiding"? "
And that what is called a loaded question, because first you would have to agree on what "real raiding" is, while it's something like the legendary True Scotsman.

That's what I've been saying all along! Do people ignore the existence of that logical fallacy? I posted the darn wikipedia link, and some people just look at it? Cock their heads, and go "RAIDING RAIDING RAIDING!"

---------- Post added 2013-03-21 at 07:45 PM ----------

80% of self entitled players on a fucking website occupied by, guess what, mostly raiders. As my post in that thread says. If LFR isn't real raiding, then none of WoW raiding is. Since, compared to other games with raids, it's retardedly easy.

That is the same guy in this thread who made asinine comments based on nothing as you have through and through. I'm still waiting for you to prove to anyone that LFR is somehow not raiding.

The people who are going around telling others if what they do is or isn't real are pathetic and a detriment to the game in general.

Edit: Just to add. You and the people in that thread have no idea what a legitimate statistic is if you think that poll means anything. It's just stupidly biased. Good luck getting a random sample.

Not only that, but I've been in other topics with that particular person, and it's pretty damned clear they want not much else to do other than to prop themselves up, and put others down. Look at the damn general tone, too. It's pretty damned clear exactly what kind of person we have here.

[Eisenstein]

I enjoy how you and Einstein both ignored my post, yet I have a far greater raiding resume than either of you. Just because YOU feel it isn't raiding doesn't mean it's not. Once you get that through your thick skulls more people will be able to enjoy all aspects of the game without feeling excluded.

Note: I don't feel excluded, I could easily be raiding if I chose to do so, but do not have a set schedule I can adhere by for raiding.

So please both of you. Shove it.

First of all, the name is Eisenstein but thank you for the compliment. Any way, to the contrary I did not ignore your post and maybe you should read into what I wrote. I stated LFR is a raid even if it is a watered down matchmaking version or how ever I put it. I was making a point about the type of person a raider is. Seems as if you were looking to attempt to insult me for basically agreeing with you in a way.

One more thing also if I may, WTH are you talking about. You sound as if I insulted you. It does not take your Rockstar status away if you have real life to contend with buddy. You can post all your glorious memories of raids I've never seen and I would listen. The people I am talking about are the ones who would never make it in a raid group because they don't have that will to be challenged. Not because you have a real life that prohibits this. Shoot, as I struggle trying to get raiding again I also have real life that is calling for me to stop playing the game. It's my love for it that keeps me here and trying.
Along with Halo eventually gets boring.

[Paladin885]

after doing heroic firelands in Cata, and then playing TERA last year WoW's raid boss designs just don't cut it anymore.

The giant stationary 15min long boss fights make me yawn.

[Titan]

check this thread and you will notice your opinion doesnt matter. for 80% of players LFR is NOT raiding
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...l-raiding-quot

This post has to be a joke......

LFR is one of the best tools they added to this game. Not everyone has the time, or wants to be part of a multiple day a week raiding guild. I used to do it, very hardcore, now I don't. I simply don't have the time or desire. LFR allows me to get decent gear and see the content on my own time. It's fantastic, and I honestly wouldn't be playing WoW in the long run without it.

If you are so concerned about real raiding and difficult raiding, why not go play Rift? Raiding in Rift is much more difficult than WoW, and has a more old-school feel. You won't though. You love the easy game like everyone else.

[Korgoth]

I was a raider from Vanilla through Wrath, but got tired of it. I liked it when you had just the instance, no dificulty settings, and maybe a couple bosses had hardmodes you could activate. Not this 3 difficulty bullshit they got now. Fun was when you geared out the whole set from Hyjal and BT, fun isn't when you geared out your whole LFR set only to gear out a full Normal set only to gear out a full Heroic set, only to then have to item upgrade it all... c'mon already.

[Deleted]

This post has to be a joke......

LFR is one of the best tools they added to this game. Not everyone has the time, or wants to be part of a multiple day a week raiding guild. I used to do it, very hardcore, now I don't. I simply don't have the time or desire. LFR allows me to get decent gear and see the content on my own time. It's fantastic, and I honestly wouldn't be playing WoW in the long run without it.

If you are so concerned about real raiding and difficult raiding, why not go play Rift? Raiding in Rift is much more difficult than WoW, and has a more old-school feel. You won't though. You love the easy game like everyone else.

I played Rift and even was raiding a bit, but then everybody quit so no more raiding. Wasn't all that special, bugged as fuck and too demanding for my PC, so I didn't even bother applying to new guild. The thing that made me unsuscribe wasn't diffuculity but lame horribe and boring lore.

[Moistmuffins]

snip.

I'm not taking it as a personal insult. I'm just getting tired of the people (mainly Nemro sorry you got dragged into it) that are all high and fucking mighty with nothing to back them up.

And I understand your argument is about the type of raider. But, in all honesty, if you dismis every LFR raider as that type of raider just because they are an LFR raider you are turning away an entirely new raiding population that could have people in it groomed to be better and what not. It's silly to assume that no one who only raids LFR isn't capable and that was the reason for listing my experiences. I only did PuG's/weekend groups after content was old in Cata and only do LFR now. I guarantee there are plenty of people who wish they could raid normals, but are pushed out as a bad raider because they only do LFR. It's this toxic attitude I'm talking about which is wholly detrimental to the game and needs to be removed. If I remember correctly you started the thread asking where the raiders went anyway, did you not? Maybe give the newbies a try like most applications work. If they aren't gemmed, enchanted, etc. properly maybe offer suggestions and see if they figure it out. If they don't then turn them away. If they do then you have someone willing to learn who just doesn't know yet.

Understand why it's frustrating to see this happening? We need more people! Try new raiders. FUCK NO THEY ONLY DO LFR! It's rather odd. It's like the old adage "I want a job so I can get experience, but I need experience to get a job." It's bs stop defending this idiotic mindset.

[Galaddriel]

I was a raider from Vanilla through Wrath, but got tired of it. I liked it when you had just the instance, no dificulty settings, and maybe a couple bosses had hardmodes you could activate. Not this 3 difficulty bullshit they got now. Fun was when you geared out the whole set from Hyjal and BT, fun isn't when you geared out your whole LFR set only to gear out a full Normal set only to gear out a full Heroic set, only to then have to item upgrade it all... c'mon already.

You nailed it. This is exactly what's wrong with raiding now.

[Simulacrum]

80% of self entitled players on a fucking website occupied by, guess what, mostly raiders. As my post in that thread says. If LFR isn't real raiding, then none of WoW raiding is. Since, compared to other games with raids, it's retardedly easy.

That is the same guy in this thread who made asinine comments based on nothing as you have through and through. I'm still waiting for you to prove to anyone that LFR is somehow not raiding.

The people who are going around telling others if what they do is or isn't real are pathetic and a detriment to the game in general.

Edit: Just to add. You and the people in that thread have no idea what a legitimate statistic is if you think that poll means anything. It's just stupidly biased. Good luck getting a random sample.

Ignoring how the point of your posts at this point seems to just be to spew hatred and bile... I'm curious as to what kinds of games out there with raids in them have raid content so hard that it makes WoW raiding look "retardedly easy"? Comparing its hardest content to WoW's hardest content, obviously.

[Otimus]

I'm not taking it as a personal insult. I'm just getting tired of the people (mainly Nemro sorry you got dragged into it) that are all high and fucking mighty with nothing to back them up.

And I understand your argument is about the type of raider. But, in all honesty, if you dismis every LFR raider as that type of raider just because they are an LFR raider you are turning away an entirely new raiding population that could have people in it groomed to be better and what not. It's silly to assume that no one who only raids LFR isn't capable and that was the reason for listing my experiences. I only did PuG's/weekend groups after content was old in Cata and only do LFR now. I guarantee there are plenty of people who wish they could raid normals, but are pushed out as a bad raider because they only do LFR. It's this toxic attitude I'm talking about which is wholly detrimental to the game and needs to be removed. If I remember correctly you started the thread asking where the raiders went anyway, did you not? Maybe give the newbies a try like most applications work. If they aren't gemmed, enchanted, etc. properly maybe offer suggestions and see if they figure it out. If they don't then turn them away. If they do then you have someone willing to learn who just doesn't know yet.

Understand why it's frustrating to see this happening? We need more people! Try new raiders. FUCK NO THEY ONLY DO LFR! It's rather odd. It's like the old adage "I want a job so I can get experience, but I need experience to get a job." It's bs stop defending this idiotic mindset.

This is basically what I've been saying all along, and the "proud raiders" in here won't give that bit the time of day to listening to the argument, and still probably won't after you put it so well.

[MoanaLisa]

The larger problem over the very long run may be that the raiding population for normal/heroics will continue to shrink to the point where eventually it won't be worth it to develop those difficulty levels either. There's a rather casual assumption on the part of some that Blizzard will never do this but I wouldn't be so sure about that. It's always good to remind people that if we see close to three dozen raid bosses in this expansion, it will largely be due to the popularity of LFR. Otherwise, there's a totally valid argument to have that MoP would be better off with zero raids and another two dozen dungeons instead. LFR participants are a potential resource for recruiting. Some won't be interested but many will if there's some genuine outreach attempted.

It's up to the raiding community and it's associated guilds to figure out how to expand and thrive again. Mostly, of course, a lot of the current raiding community will do what they do now, blame Blizzard for their problems and ignore the years of barrier-erecting and generally attempting to be very exclusive which is the main problem at the moment with regard to recruiting.

There's a reason why major-league baseball keeps farm teams and why the other major team sports actively look after young college players for new recruits. It works. You never ever hear about this in WoW, even among the most serious guilds. It's no wonder that guilds have difficulties sustaining themselves over the long run.

[Otimus]

The larger problem over the very long run may be that the raiding population for normal/heroics will continue to shrink to the point where eventually it won't be worth it to develop those difficulty levels either. There's a rather casual assumption on the part of some that Blizzard will never do this but I wouldn't be so sure about that. It's always good to remind people that if we see close to three dozen raid bosses in this expansion, it will largely be due to the popularity of LFR. Otherwise, there's a totally valid argument to have that MoP would be better off with zero raids and another two dozen dungeons instead. LFR participants are a potential resource for recruiting. Some won't be interested but many will if there's some genuine outreach attempted.

It's up to the raiding community and it's associated guilds to figure out how to expand and thrive again. Mostly, of course, a lot of the current raiding community will do what they do now, blame Blizzard for their problems and ignore the years of barrier-erecting and generally attempting to be very exclusive which is the main problem at the moment with regard to recruiting.

There's a reason why major-league baseball keeps farm teams and why the other major team sports actively look after young college players for new recruits. It works. You never ever hear about this in WoW, even among the most serious guilds. It's no wonder that guilds have difficulties sustaining themselves over the long run.

What's interesting is, is a few responses here, in other topics, and in other forums, the raiders' immediate reactions are to just make it take longer to get into LFR (like, the people wanting to delay a tier an entire patch), and so on. i.e. They want to punish people for... some reason. Like that's actually a good solution.

[Grogo]

80% of players don't read MMO Champ nor respond to it's polls.

You're talking about the aggregate view of 600 people which says basically nothing.

BUT it is something, show us your pool that says different? This poll does need to be taken in context, it is a poll on this site to poll these users who voted. Is it infallible? Of course not, but it's accurate for the users who visit the general forums daily.

---------- Post added 2013-03-22 at 02:42 AM ----------

But the questions remains, where did all the raiders go? This little one hit wonder may answer all our questions..

If it hadn't been for where did the raiders go,
I'ld been married long time ago
Where did you come from where did you go
Where did you come from Raider Joe
If it hadn't been...

If it hadn't been...
If it hadn't been...

He came to town like a midwinter storm
He rode through the fields so hansome and strong
His eyes was his tools and his smile was his gun
But all he had come for was having some fun

If it hadn't been...
If it hadn't been...

He brought disaster wherever he went
The hearts of the girls was to hell broken sent
They raiders ran away so nobody would know

[judgementofantonidas]

We killed it last sunday and all our raiders had an ilvl of under 500 (mine was 497 at the time). kthxbye.

But that's exactly what I mean : the average item level of most players was under 500 when 5.2 launched, which means that blizzard kinda forced all those players to run lfr to be able to kill anything in normal. That's just wrong. People that finished T14 normals should be able to smoothly go into T15 without having to run lfr first and be lucky to get drops there.

how does "raiding" LFR have any affect on your ilvl? I ran all six bosses wasted 9 tokens in the last two weeks and have yet to see loot drop.

---------- Post added 2013-03-22 at 12:13 AM ----------

I use a razor nostromo and the keybinds bear no relevance to the SINGLE key that is being used for each key combination. So your point is?

[Cosmic Janitor]

One of the reasons is defineatly that raiding this tier has been pretty hard so far. I always raided since the beginning in wow (well since the patch they introduced it obviously) some times more successfull, sometimes less. At the moment we raid 3 evenings a week each 3h in length. In the previous tier we already struggeled to accomplish heroic boss fights outside of mogushan vaults, but this was to be expected, two of our more active raiders are downright scrubs, we have a very limted roster (15 ppl with 6 working in shifts or at odd hours) and as this was a new expansion the gearlvl was obviously quite low in the beginning. But now, even with most of us having iLvls obove 503 we find a couple of fights in normal mode downright undoable if we have to drag our 2 not so ideal people through with us. Despite blizzard claiming they lowered the dps requirement, I see quite the opposite, we simply can't do some bosses where theys do less than 60k dps, when others do 90k - 120k dps. The same is true for healing. One of our tanks is a monk and having a healer that takes 5 sek (or more..) to react to incoming dmg simply doesn't cut it to stay alive. While we were not exactly good in the previous tier either, this one so far incolved quite a bit of whiping to get through to the 4. boss (normal) and was only possible for us when we had our "good" setup at an evening. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a challenge that challenges me, but in this case the challenging part is more among our team setup.

My guild was never that great to begin with, at least not since cata, but I know there are alot worse guilds than mine that hardly downed stuff in the previous content and I can't even imagine the difficulty they have at moment. For us this will probably the first time we actually leg behind in normal mode compared to the staggered lfr release. So this is defineatly something to take into consideration. And here lies probably the real problem. Like with the old 25 vs 10 man debate, people will always seek the way of the least resistance, at least to a certain degree. Currently it might be more attractive for alot of people just to pug lfr and get something done, than to wipe over and over again at the first few bosses. I also see alot of people loosing interest at the moment in wow, especially now that a few nice games were released. The daily content on the isle is a huge leap back from the previous, extremely story driven version, to the point where even the most daily-enduring people I know lost interest.

People also grow up as was mentioned already, and if I may take a guess I'd say not many people nowadays are willing to put up with a rading schedule that requires an attention span exceding the 2 minute focus of an angrybirds session by 60 times.

Add to that ever growing "casualization" of the community (which doesn't have to be negative, it just is if you look for raiding material in people) and guilds meaning less and less due to previous reasons and you end up with a slowly dwindling amount of raiding guilds.

[zshikara]

I tried for the first 3 or so months of mop to find a raiding team I could be a part of. But I am just bored of spending 4 to 6 hours 3 times a week raiding when I can spend that time playing other RPGs that I've never gotten to play. So I quit doing normal modes all together and only do LFR now. I still love my wow, but there is so so much that I missed because all I played was wow. Now I play other games too, which means I just don't have time anymore for normal raids. I just wish I had realized this before transferring to area 52 US.

[NeverStop]

My guild was never that great to begin with, at least not since cata, but I know there are alot worse guilds than mine that hardly downed stuff in the previous content and I can't even imagine the difficulty they have at moment. For us this will probably the first time we actually leg behind in normal mode compared to the staggered lfr release. So this is defineatly something to take into consideration. And here lies probably the real problem. Like with the old 25 vs 10 man debate, people will always seek the way of the least resistance, at least to a certain degree. Currently it might be more attractive for alot of people just to pug lfr and get something done, than to wipe over and over again at the first few bosses. I also see alot of people loosing interest at the moment in wow, especially now that a few nice games were released. The daily content on the isle is a huge leap back from the previous, extremely story driven version, to the point where even the most daily-enduring people I know lost interest.

Normal modes are tuned harder because otherwise we'd have a repeat of Dragon Soul. People need to wake up to the fact that just because you downed Heroic Deathwing with a 35% nerf does not make you comparable in skill to the people who downed it 8 months earlier with a 0% nerf.

A normal mode guild should expect to reach 12/12 N right before T16 launches. T15 is supposed to last around 6 months, so the average normal mode guild should be 3/12 right now. Any better and your guild is an above average normal mode guild.

[HardCoder]

Normal modes are tuned harder because otherwise we'd have a repeat of Dragon Soul. People need to wake up to the fact that just because you downed Heroic Deathwing with a 35% nerf does not make you comparable in skill to the people who downed it 8 months earlier with a 0% nerf.

A normal mode guild should expect to reach 12/12 N right before T16 launches. T15 is supposed to last around 6 months, so the average normal mode guild should be 3/12 right now. Any better and your guild is an above average normal mode guild.

This is because people subscribe to WoW to compare themselves to random strangers.

[Slant]

Edit: If the community allowed it LFR could be used as it was intended to which is a way to introduce more players into raiding. However, the raiding community of today doesn't view it as such thus rejecting people who only have LFR experience from ever participating in their "real" raiding. It's a toxic attitude that needs to stop.

Hmm, I thought about what you said. You're pretty much someone like me, with the exception that I still raid. I've seen your accomplishments, I'm with you there. Just to let you know about my background. Why does it feel that progression guilds reject LFR experienced people? Because LFR doesn't teach anyone anything. I'm not looking for people based on gear. If that was the sole factor, I'd take any LFR raider that has equipped himself in LFR. At least it shows dedication to go through that hell.

My problem is that they still don't know not to stand in the fire, they don't grasp anything but the most obvious boss mechanics - and only if they kill you if you don't handle them! - and they don't know how to communicate with others. Those are some of the core elements I'm looking for in a new player. And LFR doesn't teach anyone any of that. At alll. It is so bad that when I recently made my reboot after a break, my guildmates went into LFR to me and explained every single boss to me like this "There's the boss, nuke it, loot it." Yep, that is the amount of tactics involved in LFR. And it really works, which is the sad part. No, we're not rejecting the players just because they're coming from LFR. We're not keen on them, because they're a problem in our raid.

Having said that, I believe we never actually turned someone down outright. But he would have to make the impression that he really wanted to raid on a more meaningful level. There are certain aspects of a raider that we just expect to be there in an application. If it was an LFR applicant, we'd have to actually ask him about those when otherwise we'd just assume they were there.

TL;DR: LFR is not a viable tool to introduce players to raiding. Not in its current form, at least.

Edit: Also, it's discouraging to invite people into your raid when you see them AFK in LFR half the time, which seems to be common practice, or if you outdps them by a margin of 100% and more... I shit you not. Last week, I was #2 on the meter, my hunter mate was #1. He was at something like 20% dmg done and I was at 10% dmg done. I should tell you that I was tanking the shit. Does it sound like any of those dpsers inspire a lot of confidence that they'll be able to cope with our dps requirements in our proper raid? Tell me, should we invite those guys?