LFR -> Flex -> Normal -> Heroic: Why?

[Deleted]

bad 1 (bd)
adj. worse (wûrs), worst (wûrst)
1. Not achieving an adequate standard; poor: a bad concert.
2. Evil; sinful.
3. Vulgar or obscene: bad language.
4. Informal Disobedient or naughty: bad children.
5. Disagreeable, unpleasant, or disturbing: a bad piece of news.
6. Unfavorable: bad reviews for the play.
7. Not fresh; rotten or spoiled: bad meat.
8. Injurious in effect; detrimental: bad habits.
9. Not working properly; defective: a bad telephone connection.
10. Full of or exhibiting faults or errors: bad grammar.
11. Having no validity; void: passed bad checks.
12. Being so far behind in repayment as to be considered a loss: bad loans.
13. Severe; intense: a bad cold.

feel free to keep your definition based on averages/medians, ill keep mine

Compared to what?

You are missing a comparator, and the only comparator is the people playing the game. You can only be good or bad relative to other people.

[dawawe]

My problem with the 4 raid modes is they work on the same boss 4 time instead of making 4 new bosses. Feels like a cop out to me

[Raelbo]

When my tinfoil hat is feeling particularly tight, I think Flex is the first step to a stealth nerf of heroic and normal.

What exactly is their motive? As I understand, the whole point of flex is actually about introducing an easier mode than normal so that they can leave Normal and Heroic as is, or make them even harder to appeal to the people using them.

The steps:

(1) Introduce Flex.

(2) Tune up normal and heroic a bit, since now we have Flex.

I think it's fair to say that normal and heroic have been getting steadily harder over the years in response to the fact that the players are continually improving. This is why it has become necessary to introduce an easier difficulty, because the gap between entry level raiders and veteran raiders has grown to such an extreme level, not because the standard of the entry level raider is any worse, but because the standards set by the top end have grown.

(3) Notice that almost no one can now do heroic (or is doing heroic).

This step doesn't make sense at all. Heroic raids have always been tuned to challenge the top 1% of the gaming community. The driver behind making Heroics harder would therefore continue to be escalating skill levels.

(4) Remove heroic, since so few are doing it.

(5) After a few complain about (4), rename "Flex" to "Normal" and "Normal" to "Heroic".

Bam! Normal and Heroic have effectively been nerfed by (1)-(5) (and normal now has the flex mechanism).

How exactly does this help anything? If you were following the discussions preceding the announcement of Flex, it is pretty clear that Blizzard identified a need for more than 2 difficulty settings. Now you are saying that they want to go back to 2 difficulty settings?

Look, I can see that they might decide to make Normal mode flexi-format at some point in the future. But I think it's important to understand the distinction between the Flex concept and having multiple difficulty settings. The fact that they have chosen to name it Flex doesn't help, because IMO it distracts from the real purpose of the feature. Flex mode is actually "easy" mode. It just so happens that it comes with a flexible raid size.

WoW has a long history of coupling raid difficulty to raid size and in the minds of a lot of players they struggle to recognise that it's actually two seperate issues tangled together.

With Cataclysm they finally recognised that difficulty really shouldn't be tied to raid size. With MoP they have recognised two things:
1) Two difficulty settings are not enough.
2) When you are talking about the lower difficulty settings, you can offer more than just 2 raid sizes, hence the flex concept.

If anything, I foresee more difficulty settings in the future, not less.



PS: You will notice that I have not mentioned LFR in this at all. That is because I do not believe it is part of the model - namely providing different difficulty settings for different people. The rationale for LFR has nothing to do with providing a "super-easy" difficulty setting. It is about providing a tool to create raid groups for players. The difficulty setting is consequent to that. People don't do LFR by and large because it is easy to beat. They do it because it is easy to join.

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compared to what is theorically achievable, which is the only objective factor out there.

Which is, like I keep saying: COMPLETELY USELESS!

[Deleted]

compared to what is theorically achievable, which is the only objective factor out there.

Bad and good are relative measure, not objective ones.

lol

[Deleted]

Bad and good are relative measure, not objective ones.

lol

Yes, they are a relative measure, relative to what is theoretically achieveable, which is an objective factor.

rofl

[Raelbo]

bad 1 (bd)
adj. worse (wûrs), worst (wûrst)
1. Not achieving an adequate standard; poor: a bad concert.
9. Not working properly; defective: a bad telephone connection.
10. Full of or exhibiting faults or errors: bad grammar.

feel free to keep your definition based on averages/medians, ill keep mine

Your dictionary definitions fail to prove your point. In my opinion they 100% support my line of reasoning.

Here is what the definitions would be if your interpretation was any good:
1) Not achieving a perfect standard:
9) Not working perfectly; imperfect
10) Full of or exhibiting faults or errors

How about trying to look at some synonyms for the word:
http://www.synonym.com/synonyms/bad/
atrocious, abominable, awful, dreadful, painful, terrible, unspeakable
corked, corky
deplorable, distressing, lamentable, pitiful, sad, sorry
fearful, frightful
hard, tough
hopeless
horrid
icky, crappy, lousy, rotten, shitty, stinking, stinky
ill
incompetent, unskilled
mediocre
naughty
negative
poor
prettyrubber,
no-good
severe
swingeing
uncool
unfavorable, unfavourable
unsuitable

So of all these synonyms, most of them conotate a fair level of intensity (ie being well below average) - my definition. Only one synonym, "mediocre" (average, fair, middling) even comes close to matching your definition. I am not even sure that someone who would even need to classify as poorly as mediocre to meet your definition.

By all means, keep your definition. Don't be surprised though when the vast majority of us who don't have bad language skills fail to comprehend what it is you are trying to say.

[DaHomieG]

No you go normal>heroic with maybe some lfr/flex at the start of the tier. LFR and flex is just for people who don't have time for a regular raidteam or for alts imo.

Because the playerbase is very diverse. That's why.

/thread

I'm never able to do normal or heroic without a pug because of school. Most guilds raid on weekdays, and to make it worse, they raid really late at night. I have to get up at 6 every day and then commute to my campus which is an hour away. So I'm stuck doing LFR during the day to get geared as best as I can. I WANT to do flex, but hell, where will I find 9 more people? I have over 50 Battle.net friends and all are online at different times, and not to mention they're all varied faction; not all Horde.

[Raelbo]

Yes, they are a relative measure, relative to what is theoretically achieveable, which is an objective factor.

No. No. No.

They are relative measures, relative to something that must be specified when using them. If no factor is specified then the default comparator needs to be something sensible.

Comparing something, by default, to a statistical outlier is useless. It is far more sensical to compare to some sort of statistical average, mean or median. This also happens to be the closest one can get to an objective comparator.

To clarify:

Compared to Novak Djokovic, I am a bad tennis player. Objectively I am not a bad tennis player.

According to Mionelol's definition David Ferrer would classify as a "bad" tennis player because he just got eliminated in the quarter finals of the US open.

rofl

Irony....

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My problem with the 4 raid modes is they work on the same boss 4 time instead of making 4 new bosses. Feels like a cop out to me

If they had to make 4 times as many bosses in order to satisfy your desire, they would produce 1/4 of the content for each mode. I can't say that idea really appeals to me at all. In fact you'll have a hard time convincing me that this would appeal to anyone.

[Deleted]

Yes, they are a relative measure, relative to what is theoretically achieveable, which is an objective factor.

rofl

No, it's not an objective factor, that's an arbitary factor.

The objective factor is when you measure the population doing it, and then you can make relative statements about that population.

If you make a test of 20 questions, and no one gets more than 10 right, 8 is a good score.

[Fluorescent0]

No, it's not an objective factor, that's an arbitary factor.

The objective factor is when you measure the population doing it, and then you can make relative statements about that population.

If you make a test of 20 questions, and no one gets more than 10 right, 8 is a good score.

Wrong, it's an awful score. We don't know the cause but the test has still been failed by everybody. You don't see people passing tests because they were inadequate but above average. And keep in mind that average means nothing of what good and bad could be, because in that average you probably have people not doing anything to improve at all.

[Vanisari]

I think having the 4 difficulties is a good thing for the game in general. They clearly lost the people that just wanted to PUG raids and flex mode fixes that, but will be too easy for a lot of raiders but jumping right up to heroic would be too challenging for them. With this system they pretty much have everyone covered who is interested in end game PvE, from the super casual LFR people to hardcore raiders.

[Deleted]

Wrong, it's an awful score. We don't know the cause but the test has still been failed by everybody. You don't see people passing tests because they were inadequate but above average. And keep in mind that average means nothing of what good and bad could be, because in that average you probably have people not doing anything to improve at all.

No, it's a good score.

There are no people who got 20 on 20, so what you are asking for doesn't exist anywhere. Therefore your viewpoint is not objective.

[Deleted]

Yes, you don't read, so I'll say it one last time although you probably won't read it again.

You seem to think I judge anyone below 99.99% as bad, or that only one person is good. No. I judge, however, based on the theorical max (@test example, you are compared to accurate answers), and that's where the subjectivity of the term comes from, as everyone has their own thereshold of bad when making that comparison. To go back on the test example, some people will think anything below 18/20 is bad, some people will think below 10/20 is bad, some people will think being below the average of the people taking the test is bad, and so on. My personal threshold is actually pretty low compared to an awful lot of people, so this is particularly ironic to read such a post.

In any case, however, I am judging based on something objective, that is somewhat easily defined, and not something relative to the population itself, which is as volatile as the wind and is anyway not really measurable. The majority of players who touched WoW didn't even manage to level a character to max level (yes I know there are other reasons, doesn't matter i'm lazy to make a proper example), so all level 90 players are good at WoW, woop da woop. no, they are not.

You can measure against the theoretical max, but you cannot meaningfully give that measurement relative terminology.

If the best player in the world is 80% of theoretical max, they are great, amazing, fantstic. Not shit. lol

Edit - you are also not measuring against anything objective. Objective means real, external, out there in the world. You are measuring against something made up, notional, unreal, fictional. Your measuring stick is completely arbitary.

[Nobleshield]

I think having the 4 difficulties is a good thing for the game in general. They clearly lost the people that just wanted to PUG raids and flex mode fixes that, but will be too easy for a lot of raiders but jumping right up to heroic would be too challenging for them. With this system they pretty much have everyone covered who is interested in end game PvE, from the super casual LFR people to hardcore raiders.

I could certainly see Normal going away and being replaced by Flex in the future, with Heroic being modified to maybe having the additional mechanics but not the additional health (i.e. imagine a Heroic boss with the same health as normal mode, since Normal mode would not exist, but the extra mechanics) to make Heroic the same gap as it is now (since Flex -> Heroic would be a health increase anyways).

I think that could really work because you have an easier Normal mode (i.e. Flex-as-Normal), and still have a challenging Heroic mode (i.e. Normal-with-extras being called Heroic). The main point of concern would be how Flex awards loot, since all of us pretty much hate the LFR style and to be honest I don't get why they didn't have some kind of "break points", say if 10-man gets 2 drops, and 25 gets let's say 5 drops, then 15 gets 3 (11-14 still gets 2) and 20 gets 4 drops (16-19 get 3, 21-24 get 4). You would still run into people "gaming" the system, but realistically you ALWAYS have people trying to game the system whenever possible.

Or even some kind of system where it looks at the number of players, divides by some number and rounds down; you get the idea. That could be something they ought to look at for the future, because for me one of the biggest downsides to Flex is the fact you can't utilize a guild loot system. I didn't care for them that much but I did enjoy the occasional GDKP in Wrath, and Flex won't let you do that.

[Kashii]

They should just make Normal Mode Flex. I understand the need to tightly tune Heroic; but the majority of WoW guilds don't down Normal in the first couple of weeks of raiding and spend some time doing a mix of Normal and Heroics once they do.

In addition, to maintain a viable 10 or 25 man raiding group, you need to have an active bench of 3-5 players or more. As a guild/raid leader, it would be awesome to have the opportunity to bring everyone in for normal mode kills after working on a challenging hardmode for hours. I hate making people sit...it's the absolute worst part of my job. I can make them see the value in it for hardmodes...but I'd really like some bone to throw them.

What we DO NOT NEED is another intermediate level of raiding.

[dawawe]

If they had to make 4 times as many bosses in order to satisfy your desire, they would produce 1/4 of the content for each mode. I can't say that idea really appeals to me at all. In fact you'll have a hard time convincing me that this would appeal to anyone.

If they kept just flex and normal they could focus half the work on new bosses instead of tuning the same bosses mechanics over and over. Wows peak was in Wrath 2 difficulties but thats when they started there current raid set up with an xpac launching with 3 raids then only 1 more for each patch. BC had less developers and had more raid content throughout. And for the "Hardcores" they should bring back the Ulduar Hm system instead of the switch on/off.

[Nobleshield]

Re: different bosses I'd rather see smaller raids in each tier, but multiple raids. Like how T7/11/14 are, instead of one big raid. They can keep it 12 or 14 or whatever bosses, but split them up.

[Khiyone]

No, it's a good score.

There are no people who got 20 on 20, so what you are asking for doesn't exist anywhere. Therefore your viewpoint is not objective.

The AIME (American Invitational Math Examination) is an example of such a test - it consists of 15 problems. Prior to 2013, the average score on this exam was a 2/15. (Your score is the number of problems you get right). Keep in mind that only people who score in the top 5% of the AMC are allowed to take the AIME, and the people who take the AMC are well above the "average" math level of a US high school student.

Would a 4/15 be considered a good score? No, it's poor, and it would show that you have little experience with mathematical problem solving. Yet, by doing this, you're probably in the top 0.01% of American high school students, which, by your thinking, would actually be extremely good.

(Sorry, this has gotten pretty off-topic. I think the current raiding system, with 4 levels of difficulty, is great).

[Deleted]

The AIME (American Invitational Math Examination) is an example of such a test - it consists of 15 problems. Prior to 2013, the average score on this exam was a 2/15. (Your score is the number of problems you get right). Keep in mind that only people who score in the top 5% of the AMC are allowed to take the AIME, and the people who take the AMC are well above the "average" math level of a US high school student.

The test is notional, fictional, unreal. The skills it measures (the results) are real.

Would a 4/15 be considered a good score? No, it's poor, and it would show that you have little experience with mathematical problem solving. Yet, by doing this, you're probably in the top 0.01% of American high school students, which, by your thinking, would actually be extremely good.

Of course it's extremely good. You cannot objectively label someone who is better than 99.9% of the rest of humanity as being bad at something.

(Sorry, this has gotten pretty off-topic. I think the current raiding system, with 4 levels of difficulty, is great).

Aye, isn't it!

[Fluorescent0]

The test is notional, fictional, unreal. The skills it measures (the results) are real.


Of course it's extremely good. You cannot objectively label someone who is better than 99.9% of the rest of humanity as being bad at something.


Aye, isn't it!

Cute how you think Americans = humanity. Download the text of one of those and come to Skype with me. I finished high school this year and I'm sure I'd score more than that. So would probably half my (old) class. (assumption taken by seeing 2012's problems)
The point I'm trying to make is that average is skewed by so many factors that it's not a good indicator of how people are actually performing.