Where have all the Raiders Gone?

[Sianl]

In general populations tend to wane as expansions progress on. I'm more surprised the WoW still has the player base it does for being around so long.

[Deleted]

untrue. If I were to log on now there would be at least three to seven people on and half of them in mumble. maybe in a ten man guild that only runs one group you would be correct.

And you know what most 10 man raiding guilds only run 1 group so it is true.

[Nevor]

the number of skilled PVE players is decreasing every year... noone wants to learn boss mechanics anymore (they are pretty complex in mop, too) and LFR tells people they don't have to learn anything to get loot... so why raid normal / hero at all?

its very hard to find good players for normal and heroic raids and most raids are actually 10 people with a difficult loot situation... just 2 epics per boss and a good chance you dont even need that items and have to disenchant them... so why raid as a 10 man raid?

i quit raiding at start of mop cause noone cared anymore... every stupid dd in our 10 man was standing in aoe and didnt even think to move cause it would lower his damage (probably learned that in LFR). the healers (including me) of course were not able to heal that increased damage and went oom very fast... and as a result WE got the blame for wiping... cause if healers run oom "they are doing something wrong"... and i just dont have time anymore to explain morons who dont want to listen how to raid...

[Mission]

yep tonnes of guilds on many realms that have died off, and gone. Alot cant recruit also and die off, give up, quit etc as well, seeing it heaps, far to much.

and like others said, why bother with all crap when you can just do LFR, aint awesome gear but its not too bad too get gear, most times, and you do it when u want, no schedules, no fuss.

friends come and go this also kills small guilds off too.

raiders still around but yes alot less then there used too be, and game is old, when u raid its fun, after yrs, its same old and is boring too. and we have LFR... who cares its a game for part time amusement

[ihyln]

It couldn't be that the rest of the game sucks? Nah, just players burning out. Keep telling yourself the current expansion is some glorious achievement for blizzard when it's nothing but a boring daily grindfest, with no new content, and forced lfr. The raiding in MOP would be enjoyable if the rest of the game wasn't such a bore.

[Adjusting]

I love to raid but raiding now is just not fun. We used to go in as a team to figure things out, now you have to figure things out before you even start to raid or people will have a cow so to say. We used to try a few times and call it a night, now you wipe for hours on end very frustrating for me. Nobody has fun to me, people start pointing fingers at each other. Who needs that?

And to tell you the truth the raids just have you jumping around into to many hoops for me.

[Otimus]

Dunno. You need to wear that blindfold so that you can no longer see your addiction. ;P

---------- Post added 2013-03-17 at 09:58 AM ----------



The real raiding community is thriving. Us bottom feeders however are feeling a pinch. I only find it comical that someone who does not raid feels compelled to always speak for those who do, or at least continue to attempt to.

---------- Post added 2013-03-17 at 10:02 AM ----------



I will have to agree with you on the topic of LFR heroes. We recently had a shaman leave our guild. She left because we would never slot her in the core progression group. In the post leaving conversation, which is something I try to have with every former guild member, she stated that she did not understand why we claimed her healing was below par as she always topped the charts in LFR.......................

---------- Post added 2013-03-17 at 10:06 AM ----------



so you made a sound decission and a good one to not drag your guild down. I would however like to state that if you really loved your guild and the people in it you would have staid in guild, supported the raiders through mats and the percentage contribution of gold from your random heroics AND switched to LFR visits until such time as your schedule mellows out or you quit playing completely.

I wasn't speaking "for raiders". I was speaking in the general terms of the game as a whole, and providing an analysis of why they're not a common bunch!

[stumpy]

where have all the raiders gone
long time lasting
where have all the raiders gone
long time ago
where have all the raiders gone
gone to real life, everyone

when will they ever learn?
when will they e-ver learn?

[BLSTMASTER]

I see fewer raiders after LFR.

It sometimes make recruiting harder, but I like that it 'weeds out' people who don't match up with me well in raiding.
I want people who would keep playing with their group not only because challenging content is fun, but also because they like playing with their fellow raid members.


People who quit normal/heroic raiding because of LFR do not 'qualify' and I kind of like it that they don't have to raid with my group and vice versa. They wouldn't have lasted long anyways, just saves us all a bit of time.

[Golden]

What's the point? I raided for 7 years but come mop I can see all the content and "raid" when I feel like it in lfr. But! The main reason I stopped raiding was the fact that bosses are starting to get very boring. Reusing old raid mechanics from fights in years past is not fun. Doing a boss that is doing the same move with a different name that a boss did 4 years ago is bullshit.

Yeah, I agree.

Also, I think LFR would have been better if it was a release behind type of thing. For example, if they released a tier 15 raid, they should just re-work the tier 14 raid for LFR, etc.

[lianzhu]

a few reasons i can think off:
- loss of virtual friends and not building up many new ones
- loss of people with sufficient skills, somehow people do not understand some things and refuse to learn
- different mind set (people want faster and easier rewards)
- some body symptoms that restrict me from spending full time play
- have to work next day
- in the 40 days it was hard to find a guild and a spot for those mystical instances (if you never entered one ... molten core sounded mysterious). you made sure you were there on time because it was not easy joining a already good running group
- more recently: all the dailies and reputations you have to get ... it looks too much work then actual game play
- not enough quality raid leaders, those people who make or break a raid ... it's amazing how much influence a good raidleader has on progress

[Otimus]

Yeah, I agree.

Also, I think LFR would have been better if it was a release behind type of thing. For example, if they released a tier 15 raid, they should just re-work the tier 14 raid for LFR, etc.

Doesn't that leave the overwhelming majority of players with very little to do, while a minority of players benefit from the content? That pretty much makes no sense. it made no sense that they essentially gave a huge segment of the playerbase no real endgame for about 7 years as is :x

If Blizzard really wants to get more people raiding outside of LFR, they have to find the apt ways to get more people into it, and curb the community's toxicity. The answer isn't to punish people who aren't doing it.

[BergErr]

I guess many left since how limited the content is.
Except the 20min daily run and clearing all raids there is no way to progress your char. I rly see this a big flaw in this game. (Ofc first week after hitting 90 u got stuff to do and valor cap should be removed)
T14 was like, 4h wednesday 3h sunday. Other days spent playing other games that offer some content :/

Casuals got bumped to LFR(rofl calling this raiding) and others moved on.

[underdogba]

Normal modes are generally both over-tuned with too many mechanics in MoP.

They made serious mistakes in the 5.0 tiers with Elegon and Garalon, that brickwalled too many mediocre guilds, which prevented them from progressing to ToES, which was relatively undertuned/simpler compared to HoF.

The inability to progress turns off the mainstream demographic that got into raiding during WotLK and Cata.

For the 2nd tier now, they've made the classic Firelands mistake of throwing a crap ton of movement mechanics and gimmicks at you. The encounter design team is so zealous to try to give the impression that they're doing something different, that they're more or less creating a shitshow of Super Mario bosses out of fear that God forbid anybody thinks something is Patchwerk again!

[Socialhealer]

LFR & the fact normals are harder than cata, end of really.

[slime]

I would think it was LFR. Before LFR, people had to do at least normal mode to raid at all. Sometimes, this forced them to work harder, play better than they even wanted to just to be able to raid - remember this is supposed to be fun. LFR gives them that with out any difficulty what-so-ever (minus good old week 1, hehe). No need for pots or farming.. hell no need to even gear or enchant past the minimum required to get into LFR. Not everyone raided for the challenge - some just to see content and actually were fustrated with the possible fail aspect of raiding.. again LFR gives them the raiding content minus the challenge, and they still get neat purplez. The raiders you still see raiding probably always did it for the challenge and the feeling of progression when something tough goes down after some hard work... at least that is me - even though i did lfr every reset, i saw it as running a dungeon - nothing replaces WoWs raiding - especially heroic as far as challenge and feeling of success at downing the next progress boss.

[Blur4stuff]

i raided in eq1 and wow for years. i got tired of having to keep a schedule. basically makes the game a job. i want to log on when i feel like it and do what i want.

i'm guessing a lot of people are like that and lfr is the solution

[Otimus]

Normal modes are generally both over-tuned with too many mechanics in MoP.

They made serious mistakes in the 5.0 tiers with Elegon and Garalon, that brickwalled too many mediocre guilds, which prevented them from progressing to ToES, which was relatively undertuned/simpler compared to HoF.

The inability to progress turns off the mainstream demographic that got into raiding during WotLK and Cata.

For the 2nd tier now, they've made the classic Firelands mistake of throwing a crap ton of movement mechanics and gimmicks at you. The encounter design team is so zealous to try to give the impression that they're doing something different, that they're more or less creating a shitshow of Super Mario bosses out of fear that God forbid anybody thinks something is Patchwerk again!

I'd somewhat argue that many players, and Blizzard as well, have forgotten that this is supposed to be an RPG. It's pretty much become more of an arcade-y game with RPG-esque mechanics/rules. The minute you mention any staple of what constitutes an RPG, someone in the community, or Blizzard, will say "that's boring". Yes. RPG's are boring, god dammit, and that's why I love them

[foxHeart]

Cause second jobs aren't fun?

[Mr. Casual]

i have quit raiding, just because i dont want or have the time to put into raiding. grinding dailies to spend valor isnt fun and takes up too much time. plus my guild is pretty wack, we run 25 man and dont even finish content before its released. So spending all that time to wipe isn't fun. Raiding on auchindoun us is brutal unless ur in 1 of 2 horde guilds which i am not.