FLex worse than LFR? That awkward moment when....

[eldritchforeshadow]

My guild and I are doing flex until we get enough gear for normal. Lots of the guild members are behind due to absence and they came back so flex is helping. We plan to clear normal as soon as we all gear up more and maybe start heroic.

[mellowconundrum]

My flex raid experience is interesting at the least

If you want expedience, wait for LFR. Flex occupies about 3/4 of the time a normal would take, and based off ToT's LFR taking only around 1/4 of the time of a normal, I'd say Siege's LFR will be about the same. The experience kind of drags in Flex when you PUG it - it's something to really do with a guild.

People's gear problems persist over both LFR and Flex though. It seemed like the people organising it just picked up any old person with 505+ ilvl regardless of whether their gear was properly enchanted or gemmed...or even gemmed at all *shudder*

Hopefully Siege LFR will have people from normal's trying to get some gear to help direct the show. ToT lfr has degraded into 4-5 stacks of determination for the earlier wings with everyone just jumping up from the Timeless Isle gear. Either way, Flex or LFR...do Flex with a guild or normal if possible.

[ComputerNerd]

What I see here is that the people on your realm are awful, and so randoms from others are offering a better experience.
What exactly does this have to do with Flex or LFR specifically ?
Nothing.

[Bigbazz]

I went in with some guildies and some pugs, around 15 of us, varying degree of skill/gear level (I was at 503, Arms Warrior) We wiped twice, once on the first boss (lol) and once on the final boss. I didn't have a fucking clue what I was doing the whole time, winged it completely.

[DechCJC]

"LFR is turning people into horrible raiders!"

False. It just opened raiding to a whole slew of people who had never had the opportunity to raid before. It doesn't turn good players into bad ones. It's just a place for the bad ones--or even just people who did not have the time or the group to run Normals--to get a feel of progression that's lacking after heroic dungeons are finished.

"Flex raiding is just as bad/even worse than LFR!"

False. You get to pick who stays in your group without having to spin the roulette wheel afterwards and you can permanently ban people from your group if they've proven to be intolerable before WITHOUT having to wait in a queue for an hour for another member (unless it's the tank/healer being a complete ass, although at least in Flex you can actively recruit someone for the role rather than sit there and wait). And this is all only if you decide to try to PuG it, which it wasn't really intended for. If you think Flex raiding is worse, chances are it's because you yourself aren't patient enough to actually learn real raid mechanics (and cope with the subsequent fails) or you've made the wrong choice when deciding who to run it with.

The average "skill" level of the WoW population hasn't changed with the advent of these new systems. They've only shone a spotlight on what was already evident long before LFG/LFR came to the fore. You just didn't hear about it because those people never had any avenues to pursue: either they were shut out of raid groups for their poor performance in the past, or they didn't try at all. Remember, only a relatively small portion of the WoW community was actually heavily involved in raiding before LFR made it more accessible. No raiding guild worth its salt suffers in the least from these other people running their own "easy mode".

My guild doesn't suffer from it, nor do I particularly care, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have a slightly negative effect on my gameplay. I won't get into it, but having multiple difficulties always has a negative effect on me (Not special snowflake, would be writing paragraphs trying to get what i really mean across though).

But honestly, I 'do' actually feel that LFR has reduced the general skill level, in the past most people would just join a pug or whatever if they couldn't find something to do, nowadays if they're bored they join LFR. I can honestly say that the typical pug I join with is complete rubbish now, where as back then, they weren't anything special but they weren't COMPLETELY retarded.

This post of mine was really half-assed, 3am in the morning so i probably made 500 spelling mistakes but cba to fix so kbainight

[nekobaka]

Not surprised. Beyond a lot of realms just having lack luster raiding population, a lot of players have ether gained their raiding experience from LFR or have had their skills degenerate over time from doing LFR for so long just like players out gearing WotLK heroics for a year.

For my realm it is doing good in large part from having a large raiding population and a somewhat active PuG population prior to Flex.

I would still rather do a normal mode PuG on my server than do an LFR. I can see how it might feel awkward when a same realm PuG flops, but I do not see how that is worse besides the wasted time.

[Blur4stuff]

flex is much better

too bad every difficulty can't be flex

[thunderdragon2]

You'll want at least full ToT LFR (502) gear if you want to do Flex virtually headache free.

Anyone doing Flex as 522+ and complains about how easy it is should just stop right now and do Normal SoO like you're expected.

my guild dome flexi as were a 25 man guild but could only get 23 and we actualy wiped on sha of pride twice 1st was a ninja pull and 2nd was coz ppl werent pying attention our guild was 4/13 hc 2 of those comeing form 10m when we had low siigns at the end of ToT id say it's ok since weve had may 5% wipes on noreshen sha of pride was new to ppl that hadent been to flexi earlier that week.

best clear ive had with some pugs thom is 2-3/4 on flexi

[IIamaKing]

Dont Q with mouth breathers, apply some basic stratagy, win.............its not a hard concept.

[Thyrial]

My guild doesn't suffer from it, nor do I particularly care, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have a slightly negative effect on my gameplay. I won't get into it, but having multiple difficulties always has a negative effect on me (Not special snowflake, would be writing paragraphs trying to get what i really mean across though).

But honestly, I 'do' actually feel that LFR has reduced the general skill level, in the past most people would just join a pug or whatever if they couldn't find something to do, nowadays if they're bored they join LFR. I can honestly say that the typical pug I join with is complete rubbish now, where as back then, they weren't anything special but they weren't COMPLETELY retarded.

This post of mine was really half-assed, 3am in the morning so i probably made 500 spelling mistakes but cba to fix so kbainight

No see you're misinterpreting things completely. The difference between now and then isn't that people are worse it's that more people are willing to try. Back then, people who weren't good enough to handle normal just didn't raid. They'd maybe give it a shot in a PUG now and then but mostly they just wouldn't. Then LFR came, these people realized they enjoy "raiding" so they are more willing to try PUGs, especially now for FLEX which no one really knew the difficulty level of besides "between LFR and Normal".

tl;dr: Players aren't less skilled then before, LFR just inspired the lower skill level players to actually try PUGs which they wouldn't have done before.

[Mormolyce]

I went into Flex on day 1 with some randoms who were advertising in General on TI and had a great time. They hadn't even read the strats and their gear was... moderate? I came 2nd on DPS on a few fights and I haven't raided since MSV. I mean the third boss took quite a while for us to get the hang of it but hey, 4/4 clear, who's complaining?

It's pugging, sometimes you get a bad team. It has ALWAYS been that way.

Every Flex run I seen wants you to have IL 520 min + exp with fights

Yeah because of people trying to avoid exactly the experience we're all talking about in this thread.

And of course, this has been true of pugging since God put buttons on keyboards.

[melodramocracy]

Sadly everyone on my server wants a 520+ to do flex

That's because most folks creating any sort of pug for anything actually want to be carried, and just use "but I want it to be smooooooth" as an excuse. There's folks on my server who ask for 520 to do heroic scenarios.

Flex will improve over time as folks continue to gear up, but really, if you want a decent raid experience, join a guild.

[Sliippy]

Flex is as bad as you make it. Instead of complaining about grouping with bad people. Try not grouping with bad people. If you cant find any you might want to take a step back and do a bit of reflection.

[JimPaladin]

Every Flex run I seen wants you to have IL 520 min + exp with fights

What server are you on? It's pretty elitist and stupid to demand people know fights the WEEK the raid comes out.

[nekobaka]

That's because most folks creating any sort of pug for anything actually want to be carried, and just use "but I want it to be smooooooth" as an excuse. There's folks on my server who ask for 520 to do heroic scenarios.

Flex will improve over time as folks continue to gear up, but really, if you want a decent raid experience, join a guild.

It gives them an opportunity as well to target other players by forming their own group. The whole ridiculous gear complaints in WotLK and Cata was rarely an issue on my realm as ether the person would get laughed at and trolled in general or there was enough groups going around that the others filled.

[Mormolyce]

My flex raid experience is interesting at the least

If you want expedience, wait for LFR. Flex occupies about 3/4 of the time a normal would take, and based off ToT's LFR taking only around 1/4 of the time of a normal, I'd say Siege's LFR will be about the same. The experience kind of drags in Flex when you PUG it - it's something to really do with a guild.

Probably roughly true but of course there's a lot of other factors. Pugging a Flex doesn't require you to be online between X and Y every Wed, Thu, Sat or whatever like a committed raiding group might. Also, you might find a group that has 11 players already and just jump in, they can take an extra 1 easily. That's very convenient. Helps with casual raiding guilds (no more "sorry Dave no room for you tonight", no more stress about maintaining a bench without pissing those players off...), not just pugging.

[Weightlifter]

Don't invite everyone to your raid.

[melodramocracy]

I don't know how Blizzard is supposed/expected to fix an influx of horrible players.

Especially when Blizzard are the ones who've been conditioning said playersthrough their actions, changes, constant nerfs, qol improvements, etc etc for years now.

[But I Hate You All]

What server are you on? It's pretty elitist and stupid to demand people know fights the WEEK the raid comes out.

Proudmore us, Blackrock us, lightbringer us, Cho'gall us

[Ganador]

I guess I'm lucky my guild hosts a flex run for Alts and Casuals in the guild. I haven't done anything but LFR in a long time. I found Flex to be a fun experience when played with people you know/mutually know, and have semi reliable people.