How would you like to handle the "gap" between LFR and Normal raiding?

[Deleted]

^QFT

The Kara farmers of yesteryear are now whining that they are getting what they wanted. Seriously can't imagine how MSV/HoF can be hard now if you even just have 502 gear from LFR. Go back and farm the old nerfed raids, even on Heroic they will be easier to learn/get gear from than current raids. Normal IS the easy mode you're free to progress through with any organisation or skill level beyond "none". Yeah you might not clear it until near the end of the tier (bear in mind you have all of next patch to do it in as well) but hey, that's part of the fun. You have a perfectly fun and interesting raid to progress through for 6 months and you think it's a bad deal because you can't instantly stomp it when you have no gear, skill or organisation? That is what LFR is for. Normal modes are for a step up from that and heroic raids are basically the proper content that you can eventually work up to. Not everyone's going to down every heroic boss. That might mean you. I know I won't, I just mainly PVP. I go into Normal for herps and derps and still kill several bosses in a total pug without any real trouble. If you can't even do that then I'm sorry but you're just being bad. Leave the system as it is.

Amen to that bash!

[Deleted]

This is mmo and if some rly wants to get out of lfr and actually have game enjoyable. They should go and find guild that raids normal modes maybe once a week? it just not nature of mmos, that some1 is able to gather random grp and clear whole raid without have to do some progress and getting stuck on some bosses.

[Deleted]

Harcore players will go to Titan and whoever has left will hear about Wow being a casual oriented game now will flock back by the thousands. They will log in to faceroll easy content and if they actually want to raid hard content they can give Titan a try but i am guessing 90% of people will stay in Wow loving the easy content, pretty mounts and pets.

Blizzard knows people will come back if they leave. Titan sounds amazing and even some high end guilds have said they are really excited for Titan so that is another giveaway that it isnt going to be a casual carebear adventure game.

The titan devs said they expect Titan to have even more players than wow. The only time they mentioned how hardcore titan would be was in relation to how many players it could gather up "hardcore in it's reach for players" is the quote, iirc. If you think any game that aims for more than 12 million regular subs will be designed around the hardcore raiders from wow you need to put the crack pipe down.

[Jessicka]

I think they need to do more to get the difficulty curve within the raids right. That Horridon, Council and Magaera are significantly harder and bigger gear checks than Animus, Primordious, Iron Qon and Twins is absurd, and makes those latter encounters deeply underwhelming when you get to them, while giving an unrealistic perception of the overall difficulty of the raid. They could fix this by going back to non linear raids, or just better ptr testing - perhaps by scaling those heroic geared raiders' gear testing the normals down somewhat to where they expect entry level gear to be.

Now I'm there I think normal ToT would be fine if you ran it backwards, Lei Shen aside.

[Osmeric]

Ironically they are nerfing tank dps next tier, vengeance nerfed from, 100% to 30% which will effect guilds total dps, so maybe they dont think normal mode is too hard?

They are nerfing tank dps in 5.4, when the next raid tier comes out. When they tune that tier, they will tune it however they want, but will do so taking the tank dps nerf into account. The tank nerf is not because they want to increase encounter difficulty, but because they don't want the mechanics to encourage certain unintended behaviors.

---------- Post added 2013-05-26 at 10:43 AM ----------

I don't want to even vote.... there is no gap between LFR and Normal because Normal IS the easy mode.

So, you're calling GC and Ion H. liars? They have directly contradicted you on this.

[Nobleshield]

So, you're calling GC and Ion H. liars? They have directly contradicted you on this.

Given the fact the quoted person is 13/13HC and in the #32 guild in the world, I think you can discount anything they say about normal being easy mode because they are the 1%. Of course its easy... to THEM. I've repeatedly noticed this as the thread as grown: People will chime in and say how there is no gap, or the gap is fine, and then you check their progression and they're deep into heroic modes; they don't see the gap because they aren't affected by it. The gap only affects the FnF and laid back style guilds that are probably still stuck on Horridon, and were stuck on Stone Guard/Elegon/Garalon in T14 before it, but because so few of those kinds of players post on forums, it gets drowned out in a sea of above-average players wondering what the hell we're all talking about.

They just don't see the problem, so it's useless to try and argue it with them. Arguing this is like trying to tell a Wall Street bankster that there's a recession going on; you'd get a "What recession? I'm doing fine!" kind of response which is approximately the same kind of thing we're seeing here.

In short, there IS a problem but we're asking the wrong people their opinions about it, and I don't mean that in a condescending way. I like the fact that you get a lot of the high-skill players posting here when it comes to getting boss advice or how to improve your class; they are a godsend in that respect. But when it comes to discussing how FnF guilds are being left in the dust, they just aren't the right audience because they'll never see that issue. This whole thread would have been better posted on the official forums to get more perspective from some more average players (who are much more likely to go to the official forums than a third party site) and where you could also make sure that the person arguing against you has actually been exposed to what you're talking about.

[Osmeric]

This whole thread would have been better posted on the official forums to get more perspective from some more average players (who are much more likely to go to the official forums than a third party site)

I don't know about that; the official DR&S forum doesn't seem to have a terribly representative posting population either. The same phenomenon of driving away the lower players seems to be in play there as well.

Having said that, there was a mostly constructive thread on this topic there (which I started). The posters did mostly see the problem as real, unlike some here.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/8796361655

[kamuimac]

That doesn't make any sense. If that were true, T14 and T15 would look more like Dragonsoul. They aren't catering to the casuals. The casuals are who's leaving. The raiding population has dwindled to 20,000 guilds, and those guilds are the better guilds. If they all leave to play Titan and Blizzard doesn't do a facelift to WoW raiding, there won't be anyone left.

When u look at numbers of boss kills on any of wowprogress like sites u need to take into account that many of htose are "ghost numbers" of guilds which have disbanded or stoped raiding alltogether. so even 10k of 1st boss normal kill doesnt equal to 10k raiidng guilds which are still raiding.

[Bloodfire]

Lower LFRs to 10 ppl so there will be some kind of a challenge.
Or make 10ppl drop 1 more item so there will be 3 items in 10 and 6 items in 25.
Fairly equal.

[Deleted]

Wall of text incoming, but it is a worthwhile read.

How do we know that we are not at that point already? First! I will make a correction.
"50% of those who enter them before half the tier has passed can complete them before the tier is over."
Expecting people to clear normals if they start normals 2 weeks before 5.4 is not really reasonable.

So, are we at that point already? Any guild that started raiding when 5.2 was released or in the first few weeks will atleast be 3/12 by now. Presuming they raid more than 1 hour per week. If your guild is below 3/12 at current stage, you are either
1. Not raiding
2. Recently started

So lets check how many guilds are 3/12. 18064 would be the number.
7530 guilds are 12/12.

That would mean at current stage, 42% of the guilds who cleared 3/12 are at 12/12. It is fairly safe to assume that as more people get meta gems, item upgrades that number will rise. So I would argue that we already are at that point that 50% of the guilds that actually enter ToT clear it on normal. Further, a large majority of the guilds that goes in with the mindset "Hey, lets clear this!" have cleared it. If you started running ToT in 5.2 with the intention to fully clear it on normal, you should probably be on atleast 7/12 right now, probably more, but lets be nice and say 7/12.
11232 guilds are there. That means 67% of the guilds that are 7/12 have already cleared it. So that means that the average guild that actually raid with the intention of clearing the content on normal has already cleared it.

So I think your 50% limit is already there, no change needs to be done on normal mode. The issue is not there.



The issue I believe come from LFR, dailies, valor points and coins. People are drawn away from raids, to do other stuff than raiding to optimise their characters for raiding. I actually just leveled up an alt. So people are spending less time raiding, which equals to less raid participation and people being worse at raiding because they raid less, also tributing to the "lowered success rate in raids".

Dailies needs to be non-mandatory. Making 300+ stat food come from the farm, bad idea. Forcing people to do that to optimise for raids.
Forcing you to do 45 dailies per week in 5.0 to get coins, horrible idea. Now it is more "okay" when it only costs 50 lesser charms and you can get them more easily. I had to do 125 dailes per day in the first week just to keep coins on my main and my alts. Of course I also had to do even more than that since had to do like 40 dailies per day on my main to farm reputation with all the factions.

Look at the wrath daily quest model. Dailies gave pets, tabards, mounts, gold, crafting reciepes. Only one daily chain gave anyting actually worthwhile, and that was sons of hodir with the shoulder enchant. Yet getting that was very easy. Getting the head enchant for your role was also very easy. No dailies were mandatory or gave significant raid upgrades. You did not need to gear up through dailies. That is how it should be. Dailies should be optional, not forced.

I think 5.3 fixed this issue however, as said making coins cost only 50 lesser charms and making them more available is a good move.
Dailies nerfed themselves, in the way that you do not need to farm exalted with klaxxi / lotus for the 489 items anymore. You could but it is not worth the time. So any people got the crafts so you do not need to farm shado pan rep to be able to do weapon enchants etc. So dailies are not 'needed' anymore simply because the new tier is here.

Valor points. Valor points should come from raiding, not from other sources. Again, bringing people out from raids to do stuff like LFR/HC scenarios/CMs/HCs to get valor cap as it is "needed". They buffed the valor drop from raids, so that is good. Still not in a good place. In my opinion there should be a cap of 500 valor points obtainable from non-raid sources. I.e. LFR, HCs, HC scenarios, Dailies, rare spawns etc should cap out at 500 VP per week. Raise the VP cap to 1500. Make raid bosses drop something like 100-150 VP each making the cap easy through raiding, previous content giving half of that per boss. You should get raiding gear from raiding, therefor encouraging people to actually raid to improve themselves. Making people do dailies or HC scenarios for gear upgrades is counterproductive, as it is time consuming, making them raid less making them worse at actual raiding since they practice it less.

I also believe that they should have upped justice points to be able to purches 476 gear to help the catch up. Maybe even 483 gear.

Another problem is the legendary quest. I think the catch up is way to slow. A newly dinged character is basically 2 months away from being competetive.
Imo the entire legendary quest is a piece of garbage. Once the quest get a new chain, they should nerf the quest into the ground.
5.0 quest chain could easily be 2-3 sigils instead of 10.
5.1 quest chain should be 1000 VP max, even 3000 is too much.
5.2 and 5.3 quest chains are fine but should be nerfed to maybe 5 secrets and 4 rune stones when 5.4 is released. The current state of the quest is just waaaay to long if you start from 5.0

Now we hit the big problem. LFR. You say "The bridge between LFR and Normals are to big. How do we fix this?". I say, you are trying to build a bridge between something that should not even exist. You assume to raid progression of LFR -> T15N -> T15H. The problem here is, lets be fair, LFR is not even raiding. You are trying to make people jump from an afk fest of epic boredom, a loot pinata, to actual raiding. That just does not work. People should go from easier raiding to raiding. Not from Nothing to raiding. So what I believe is that the raid progression path should be T14 -> T14H/T15N -> T15H.

I believe LFR should be removed. 'BLASPHEMY!' you might say. Hear me out.

What would this accomplish? In current state, a newly dinged character runs through 9 LFRs. MSV 2/2, HoF 2/2, ToES, ToT 4/4. When you get geared you still have to run atleast the ToT LFRs, probably some of the ToES/HoF ones aswell for those missing pieces. A newdly dinged character easily spends 10 hours on LFR including queue times unless he is a healer. That is 10 hours he could instead have spent on raiding, improving his gameplay. Instead we are 'forcing', even though nobody is forced, people take the path of least resistance, which in gearing up is LFR, it is free epics for no effort. So we have players wasting a majority of their time not doing anything productive, just getting bored, since seriously, 95% of the population do not enjoy LFR. For most its a forced grind that they hate. So we put them into an environment that they do not like, where they do not have to perform, mistakes does not hurt you since bosses are just pinatas. You learn nothing about actual raiding in LFR. So we are teaching the next raiding generation, do nothing and expect free loot from doing nothing. This is where the big problem is. What message LFR sends new players.

What if we instead removed LFR, with the addition of the proposed changes to daily quests and valor points. We would now have players with a ton of free time on their hand. But how should they gear up? Yes, through T14 raids. A change like this would make people actually RAID to get into raiding. You see how this is logical? So people would get to spend time to do the T14 raids instead.

In addition to that I believe that the 10% nerf on T14 raids should be increased to 20-25% to make it even easier. Elder Charms for the T14 raids should be easier to get to make the gearing even easier. Gear upgrades for the old content (T14) gear should only cost say 75-150 VP. This would make people gear up for T15 faster, so that MSV gear becomes 497/510 and HoF/ToES 504/517. This would really smooth gearing into ToT while still keeping people raiding to prepare for raiding.
What benefits would this have?

1. The servers community would start growing again. People would make a lot more pugs for T14 raids. Players would have to start interracting with eachother making this more into a MMO again instead of a CBTGFEW24RPYWNETTG, ( 'click-button-to-get-free-epics-with-24-random-people-you-will-never-even-talk-to-game' ) This would be very healthy for wows player base.

2. Guild recruitment would be easier again with the community being bigger.

3. T14 raids would be a perfect training ground to raiding. Not the bullshit that LFR is. It would be very easy, but not a complete faceroll. People would still need to learn the basics and improve themselves. It would be very healthy for the new players. With the lowered vp upgrade cost for T14 items that I suggested earlier, this would be the perfect stepping stone into ToT.

4. Suddenly, the gap between LFR and ToT is gone. You go T14N->T14H->T15N->T15H, which would be a very smooth transition if as I mentioned earlier VP upgrades for T14 items would cost maybe 75vp per upgrade. And people go from easy raiding to normal raiding to heroic raiding. Without adding an "easy mode" as been suggested. Instead of making developers having to balance a T15 LFR, T15 easy, T15 normal and T15 heroic, they just simply have to do a T15 normal and T15 heroic with T14N taking the place of T15 LFR, T14H the place of T15 easy mode. Developers would get more time to produce content which we would all enjoy without making 4 raid sizes.

5. Suddenly we got more happy raiders. The raiding player base is suddenly not forced to do content they do not want to do (LFR, Dailies, farming valor, farming coins) to get into content they want to play (raiding content). Raiders raid to raid. Not grind to raid. We also get more experienced and better raiders since they get to spend more time raiding. Practice makes perfect.
Add that to all the previous benefits I mentioned, and I can honestly say, sorry, but I see no reason why LFR should stay.

---------- Post added 2013-05-26 at 01:39 AM ----------



Just a question to you. Why do you raid? Not meaning to offend or anything. Just ask yourself, why do you raid?

Personally, I raid for challenges. If raiding becomes easy, it loses its point. Nothing beats the feeling of wiping on a boss for 2 weeks and finally getting the kills. The best memories I have from WoW is from just those occasions, wiping and wiping, raid after raid until finally getting a kill. If everyone fell down in a few pulls, where is the enjoyment in raiding?

QFT and again very good points and solutions to the problems that LFR has caused alongside the grindy nature of MoP.

Sure, I could be wrong. Perhaps Blizzard intends to keep dwindling the raiding population. Perhaps by 5.4 we'll only have 15k guild that have cleared a single boss in T16. You never know. It's their game, they'll do as they please.

I just have a suspicion, since it was the band-aid they used to stop the sub bleeding in Cata, that we are going to see them break it out again in MoP. I think they are shocked that LFR doesn't have the staying power of progression raiding to keep players from dropping their subs.

ToT difficulty has nothing to do with subscription-losses, thats just an excuse from people who dont want to put in effort and still faceroll all content like its LFR.

Read Firefly's posts and get some perspective, Im actually amazed he has the patience to put out such detailed well-written posts when most of the donkeys just ignores every valid point he's brought.

Again this is how it is trying to argue with someone who thinks Normals are too hard and should be nerfed so they can /autoattack their way to epics like LFR:

<snip>
Warning; Don't post MEME's. (Sonnillon)

[Deleted]

Given the fact the quoted person is 13/13HC and in the #32 guild in the world, I think you can discount anything they say about normal being easy mode because they are the 1%.

I understand what you're saying but during TBC (The times when casuals found it a million times harder to raid or infact finish heroic dungeons) I was a casual and I never cleared Karazhan until I got into a proper raiding guild, I had to deal with maybe killing 5 or 6 bosses every week before that, I didn't have the time or motivation but I never spent any time whining about how I wasn't able to pug BT/SWP.

I do agree with ToT normal being a lot harder than normal modes in previous tier, but it gives organized guilds something to aim for as previously most guilds would clear normals after 2-3 weeks be insanely bored, Lei Shen gives something to aim for in the fact that it's one of the harder normal bosses that has ever been released.

It still doesn't eclipse the fact that LFR is for casuals, normal (easy) for organized guilds/pugs and heroics (difficult) for the hardcore, sorry!

[Sonnillon]

Don't call other people names/trolls. Do not post MEME's (those belong to their topic of their own). Further more - do not attack posters (do not reply to poster, but reply to their post).

"Attacking" someone just cause their "progress" is not "good enough", is not worthy argument.

[Keoren]

So, you're calling GC and Ion H. liars? They have directly contradicted you on this.

I personally think that the current design could be improved in many ways, but taking the developers' statements as the word of some god is not good. They have been wrong about things very often and being able to look at their decisions critically and objectively is valuable.

There are so many players in this game that many of them are bound to be more 'right' about things than the developers are, even with the data available to them.

[Deleted]

I don't really think Blizzard need to do anything about the 'gap' between LFR and normal. For the most part, I think the difficulty in normal mode is about right. There's a pretty big gap in difficulty between normal and heroic awell but I don't see anyone complaining about that.

[Deleted]

None of the poll options. Blizzard need to do the following:

1) Improve the LFR system, currently it is nothing more than a mind-numbing loot dispenser, and not much fun for the casuals
2) Make the previous raid tier worth going back to as a form of progression (improve loot ilvl a bit maybe?), a place every guild should have experienced somewhat before the current raid tier
3) Improve the boss difficulty curve in future raids (the 2nd to last boss should not be one of the easiest fights in the raid, none of the earlier bosses should be that difficult)

Myself and the majority of my casual guild has really enjoyed the difficulty of normal modes this tier, Blizzard have pretty much nailed it for us (apart from the difficulty curve being a bit iffy). Hopefully Blizzard won't nerf normal modes to cater to those who don't know how to play their class and as a team, and those who have no interest in improving themselves. Unfortunately I can see this happening to some degree, and I do worry that Siege of Orgrimmar normal modes will be as pathetically easy as Dragon Soul.

[Booniehat]

In addition to that I believe that the 10% nerf on T14 raids should be increased to 20-25% to make it even easier. Elder Charms for the T14 raids should be easier to get to make the gearing even easier. Gear upgrades for the old content (T14) gear should only cost say 75-150 VP. This would make people gear up for T15 faster, so that MSV gear becomes 497/510 and HoF/ToES 504/517. This would really smooth gearing into ToT while still keeping people raiding to prepare for raiding.
What benefits would this have?

1. The servers community would start growing again. People would make a lot more pugs for T14 raids. Players would have to start interracting with eachother making this more into a MMO again instead of a CBTGFEW24RPYWNETTG, ( 'click-button-to-get-free-epics-with-24-random-people-you-will-never-even-talk-to-game' ) This would be very healthy for wows player base.

2. Guild recruitment would be easier again with the community being bigger.

3. T14 raids would be a perfect training ground to raiding. Not the bullshit that LFR is. It would be very easy, but not a complete faceroll. People would still need to learn the basics and improve themselves. It would be very healthy for the new players. With the lowered vp upgrade cost for T14 items that I suggested earlier, this would be the perfect stepping stone into ToT.

4. Suddenly, the gap between LFR and ToT is gone. You go T14N->T14H->T15N->T15H, which would be a very smooth transition if as I mentioned earlier VP upgrades for T14 items would cost maybe 75vp per upgrade. And people go from easy raiding to normal raiding to heroic raiding. Without adding an "easy mode" as been suggested. Instead of making developers having to balance a T15 LFR, T15 easy, T15 normal and T15 heroic, they just simply have to do a T15 normal and T15 heroic with T14N taking the place of T15 LFR, T14H the place of T15 easy mode. Developers would get more time to produce content which we would all enjoy without making 4 raid sizes.

5. Suddenly we got more happy raiders. The raiding player base is suddenly not forced to do content they do not want to do (LFR, Dailies, farming valor, farming coins) to get into content they want to play (raiding content). Raiders raid to raid. Not grind to raid. We also get more experienced and better raiders since they get to spend more time raiding. Practice makes perfect.
Add that to all the previous benefits I mentioned, and I can honestly say, sorry, but I see no reason why LFR should stay.[COLOR="red"]

Been reading this thread as I find the debate interesting.

I'm can see some merits to Injin's points (that Normal TOT is slightly inaccessible to "average" raiders). But I must commend you for a great suggestion. Indeed, I'd like T14 to be semi-current content (as opposed to virtually obsolete due to TOT LFR).

T14 still has SOME mechanic checks that would be an ideal, semi-challenging training ground for newbie raiders. I fully agree that they should drop gear that is upgradeable so you can still remain competitive as you step into TOT after doing normal T14. Good idea!

LFR has its merits in terms of accessibility, but it really just encourages a LOT of people to AFK at the computer (usually among 17 DPS only 10 are actually DPSing the rest are alt tabbed) because mechanics are totally irrelevant. It's really an insult to proper raiding. People do it for the loot, not for any other reason.

[Deleted]

i think this gap only excists cause people except normal to be like LFR only with better loot.

prehaps the best solution would be that the normal mode bosses gradually become harder the futher you move up, instead of the current way were several early wing bosses provide a far greater challenge then most late wing bosses do.
though personally i wouldnt change a thing cause its fine.

[Ragedaug]

Well this is an assumption, we don't know if the best guilds are those that are playing, I guess (an assumption too) that *casuals* don't ever put a foot in a raid, maybe they did after the content is old for the environment, I think those *casuals* that leave at most tried LFR, at most.

It is an assumption, but that is made from the basis of the fact that 6 of the 9 players I raided T14 with are players who completed Black Temple pre-nerf. These are the same guys who finished all normals in T11 & T12 pre-nerf. This is the same group that couldnt' get past Elegon in normal mode.

So granted I'm only basing it on personal experience, but the players I know who couldn't progress through normals are accomplished raiders with a history of raiding for several years. Now consider only 20,000 guilds completed T14 and only 20,000 guilds can down at least 2 bosses in ToT normal - you have to consider that these 20,000 are considerably better then the average raider/guild who completed Black Temple and were into SWP pre-nerf.

So yes, I'm doing a lot of assuming, but I'm not doing it blindly. I'm following a logical path. I think it's fair to say that any guild who can progress past the first couple bosses in ToT are very skilled raiders and are the people who the person I responded to said will all be leaving for Titan. Now take the fact that the casuals know they aren't the ones progressing. They know they are the ones who are un-subbing. The know that MoP progression raiding is not being designed for them

What could possibly cause them to think that WoW is doing a 180 and going full WotLK once Titan is released?

If Titan is hardcore only, the hardcores will leave WoW. The causuals aren't coming back (unless something drastic changes before that time) and there won't be an audiance left. WoW will wither on the vine. That's my assumption if the dude I was quoting is correct. (I have a feeling he's not and Titan will be more casual friendly the he understands, and the casuals will flock there with their millions of subs and the 100,000 hard core raiders will stick to WoW and it's the new model of MoP style Hard and Harder Mode raiding).

---------- Post added 2013-05-26 at 05:02 PM ----------

i think this gap only excists cause people except normal to be like LFR only with better loot.

prehaps the best solution would be that the normal mode bosses gradually become harder the futher you move up, instead of the current way were several early wing bosses provide a far greater challenge then most late wing bosses do.
though personally i wouldnt change a thing cause its fine.

Beer league casuals expect to progress through 1-3 bosses a month. That means they expect to wipe a few dozen times over the course of 4-6 raid nights, then be past that boss. Then by the 3rd or 4th time they've downed that boss, they expect him to be on farm and take no more then 1-2 attempts as the blow through to the boss they are currently working on.

[Nobleshield]

Beer league casuals expect to progress through 1-3 bosses a month. That means they expect to wipe a few dozen times over the course of 4-6 raid nights, then be past that boss. Then by the 3rd or 4th time they've downed that boss, they expect him to be on farm and take no more then 1-2 attempts as the blow through to the boss they are currently working on.

Not even that, but the "beer league" casuals I know and tend to play with wouldn't even complain if it was like the ICC days where you were pretty much guaranteed at least 4/12, and even many "scrub" guilds could manage 6/12 with some effort. That'd still be infinitely better than getting 1/12 and hitting a wall on the second boss.

[Deleted]

I personally think that the current design could be improved in many ways, but taking the developers' statements as the word of some god is not good. They have been wrong about things very often and being able to look at their decisions critically and objectively is valuable.

I'm not sure what you are trying to say here, but "very often" sounds a bit exaggerated. And this "gap" discussion started long ago before Blizzard stated anything about it so you could say that we are "looking at their decisions critically and objectively".

There are so many players in this game that many of them are bound to be more 'right' about things than the developers are, even with the data available to them.

Here you are absolutely correct. However because there is no way to find the right opinion amongst 8 million opinions this fact goes to the same category with X amount of monkeys + typewriters = all Shakespeare's plays.