Why do you choose LFR over Raid Guilds?

[Deleted]

Did a fair bit of raiding in WotLK days and had a good time but being on British time vs mostly mainland EU peoples in the guild meant that I had to rush home from work and get straight onto the computer in order to hit raid gathering time, no leeway for anything in between. I have a dog now. Dog wants walk. Dog is a border collie. Dog wants LOOOONG walk. Sadly raiding was the victim. Therefore LFR. Which is a horrible hive of scum and villainy and not the lovely flirt and joke-fest of an RP server raiding guild.

[Jaylock]

Not having time often means not being able to commit to specific days and times of the week. Are there days or nights when time is available to sit in queue as a choice? Well, sure. Spending a couple of hours doing something on a Sunday morning when you have nothing else going on is a very different thing than Monday-Wednesday-Friday (as an example) starting at 7:30 realm time when there might be things you need or have to do.

It's the difference between choosing how you spend your time or letting someone else make that choice for you.

Which is why there are guilds that have raid times starting at all times of the evening / night / even late night and early morning start times.

I don't get how people think that guilds only start raiding at 7pm every night 3 nights a week... its dumb.

When I raided "hardcore" back in TBC our raid hours were Saturday and Sunday morning from 8am-1pm. So 10 hours a week, 2 days a week. We cleared everything TBC had to offer including KJ (sunwell's last boss). I get that these days 5 hours is a lot of time to commit to raiding in a night. But 10 hours a week? Thats nothing. Some guilds do even less, the one I was in during WoTLK raided 6 hours a week, 2 days a week, so thats 3 hours each night 2 nights a week.

So again, the age old excuse of "i dont have time to commit" is just an excuse and a cop out, and quite frankly, its a statement of laziness, especially when people sit in que and raid LFR for at least as long on multiple characters every single day.

[melodramocracy]

I guild raided in Wrath, and mostly stayed away from it in the next 2 expansions. I'll be looking to get back to it for WoD, but my reasons for not going back sooner is simply that I didn't want to have to commit to a schedule.

I also think that for many folks, there's an appeal that they get to involve themselves in a game mechanic without the playerbase determining their eligibility.

[TheTaurenOrc]

So again, the age old excuse of "i dont have time to commit" is just an excuse and a cop out, and quite frankly, its a statement of laziness, especially when people sit in que and raid LFR for at least as long on multiple characters every single day.

BS. The difference is I can't guarantee when the time will be. Not the fact that I can't or don't want to make the time.

[Jaylock]

BS. The difference is I can't guarantee when the time will be. Not the fact that I can't or don't want to make the time.

I would bet you play this game more than 20 hours a week.

[Captainn]

I choose LFR because I have alts. Lol I would never take my mains through there. Yuuuuck.

[Howard Moon]

I'm too busy in RL right now to accommodate a raiding schedule. That simple.

Edit: I do miss it. though :/

[TheTaurenOrc]

I would bet you play this game more than 20 hours a week.

Closer to 10-15 max. Plenty of time to raid yes. But I am not going to be that guy who doesn't show because something comes up and let the other 24 people down.

[DeadmanWalking]

Wow, necro of an old thread.

Anyways if you have a healer or tank the wait time is a few seconds. If you are a dps and you play with a friend who is healer/tank your queue is a few seconds. Anyone with half a brain would see an advantage in playing in LFr with a friend that is a healer or tank. You get instant queues.

You can also queue up a single player scenario and put your lfr queue on pause, so if you know you can play at 6pm and get home at 5pm you can set yourself up with 4-5 LFR queues, come back once in a while to jump once and then at 6 get an insta-queue and run all 4 LFR's at once.

There are ways around the queue and the escuse that you could be raiding instead of LFR because of the queue time is not valid, there are ways around the queues that people who use this escuse have not put any thought into.

[melodramocracy]

I would bet you play this game more than 20 hours a week.

If those 20 / week are all over the place, it doesn't really matter... a guild schedule still isn't going to work for that person.

[MoanaLisa]

Which is why there are guilds that have raid times starting at all times of the evening / night / even late night and early morning start times.

I don't get how people think that guilds only start raiding at 7pm every night 3 nights a week... its dumb.

Probably just like I don't get how anyone with half a brain would propose that guilds are only a set of starting times. Stop implying that people are lazy when you know nothing about them.

[DeadmanWalking]

I also dont want path of least resistance guys in my raiding guild, I am happy they have LFR. They want to experience the raid boss dropping and they dont want to deal with raid guilds, I don't want guys in my guild who disapear the day we down the Thunderking and doesn't help us farm up full sets for the next tier and when he comes back is undergeared and expects to be carried to Garrosh falling down. They are better off in LFR and my raid guild is better off with people who actually want to be playing wow rather than LoL.

[randomengine]

I used to run my own guild with my wife that had at one time over 100 people in it. We labeled ourselves as a casual guild, but also we focused on doing all aspect of content. This was before LFR, but after the Dungeon Finder existed. Once a good portion of our guild got up there in gear and experience, we attempted to get a 10-man group to do normal raids and it was hard.....like really hard. I don't mean the content, but getting 10 people together at the same time for the same length of time, in roughly the same gear and experience is extremely difficult and has nothing to do with WoW, but is a meta-gaming challenge. Every guild has drama of course because guilds are composed of people. People create drama. They want to leave because we aren't making progress, guildie X hates guildie Y. Being a guild leader can sometimes feel like an exercise in futility because it is like trying to herd cats. So many people trying to follow their self-interest and you have to assure them that failing against WoW content every week is the most fun ever.

Then of course my wife and I had a baby. We stopped playing WoW, we left the guild in the hands of a close friend and the guild died without our leadership. Now my son is 4 years old and my wife and I decided we had the time and energy to play WoW again. We still have the guild, but it is a guild of two people, my wife and I. Our close friend had since left the guild to join a different guild on a different server. Leaving the guild is not an option. I started it the first day the server existed. We have 7/8 bank tabs which both of us have full access to move materials back and forth - that is a perk I could never achieve in another guild.

My wife is a nurse that works 12 hour shifts and when not working takes care of my son...while I am working. The only time we have to play together is when my son is in bed and only for a couple of hours. Those hours change and some nights we may not play at all. LFR is a blessing because my wife and I can queue together and play together, seeing all the content WoW has to offer - since we pay the same amount everyone else does we should have the same chance to enjoy all the same content.

Normal/flex/heroic/mythic raids are just not a possibility in our lives. It doesn't even enter the equation. LFR is our endgame, period.

[Lyllian]

So again, the age old excuse of "i dont have time to commit" is just an excuse and a cop out, and quite frankly, its a statement of laziness, especially when people sit in que and raid LFR for at least as long on multiple characters every single day.

If you can find me any guild that can match my shift patterns, I will give you a cookie.

I work a four weekly shift rota:

Week 1: 04.30 to 14.30 Mon to Fri - I could raid 18.30 to 19.30.
Week 2: 08.00 to 16.36 Mon to Fri - I could raid 18.30 to 20.30.
Week 3: 08.00 to 16.36 Mon to Fri - I could raid 18.30 to 20.30.
Week 4: 11.15 to 21:15 Mon to Sat and 08.00 to 16.30 Sun. No raiding at all.

Don't forget, that as well as having to accommodate my work shifts, I also have to feed my children, do the household chores, do the shopping and a thousand other things that working parents have to do. So as you can see I simply can't commit to a regular progression raiding slot, my only recourse is to queue for LFR or join random alt runs.

Frankly your statement that not having time to commit is

is just an excuse and a cop out, and quite frankly, its a statement of laziness

shows that you have no understanding of adult life or commitments.

[WskyDK]

Why?
Time, real life commitments, dead servers, lack of friends who play, no desire to put in the time/effort to clear normal/heroic, raiding isn't a focus, but they're into the lore, they're shy.
Just a few reasons.

[Tazr]

This.

And really, as corny as it sounds, when you stop hardcore raiding the sense of freedom is amazing especially after doing it week in week out for 8 frickin years.

I miss it sometimes, mainly the people, i don't miss it having a claim on my nights.

This is a huge part of why I quit raiding. I don't think I ever raided in a guild that demanded fewer than 5 nights a week. Hubby and I raided together (he tanked, I healed or dps'd), which kept there from being "spousal aggro," but after a while, raid night (which was almost every night) became something to dread.

I miss feeling like a badass to a degree, and I get my mounts an expansion or two later, but I love having the freedom to do what I want, when I want. I also don't miss the dramas or hyper-inflated egos.

[Ratboy]

My server doesn't have any guilds that raid after midnight server time which is my primary play time and I'm not paying to transfer my toons to a different server.

[americandavey]

I choose LFR, because my old raiding guild played favorites. People that led the guild said they wanted to keep it 10 man when they recruited out the ying yang and we had enough to do 25. This same guild that couldn't bring itself to do flex when it was introduced. So for me after 4 expansions of some type of guild drama, I will continue to be LFR raider. I do not have the patience nor the time to deal with drama queens in guilds.

[twh]

I don't like dealing with people. I don't like logging onto a game and feeling like it's a job. Therefore, enduring the occasional LFR with 25 anonymous people who, for the most part, don't interact with each other, is fine by me. Queue, kill boss, leave. Barely any interaction. Yes it can suck due to wipes etc. But LFR isn't something i do regularly, so it's ok. I won't be doing it at all in WoD. My desire to play the game going down, down, down, more so when WoD was announced.

[hyphnos]

For the same reason that the only flex/normal raiding I did in Mists was via PUGs. I don't want to depend on 9 to 29 other people to be able to play the game and more importantly, I don't want to take on the responsibility of ruining someone else's playtime because I had to work late, or had something come up that rates higher than playing video games in my priorities.