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

[apluscarp]

I cleared Flex in a straight pug on Wednesday in 2 hours, and didn't even have everyone in vent. You have to exercise a little judgement in who you invite.

[Avranas]

I find Flex to be more enjoyable than LFR. Why? Because I did it with my group of friends and we all had a lot of fun and easily cleared it to Sha of Pride. So, in my eyes, Flex is actually better than LFR because I just can't stand LFR at all.

And Flex has a bit more challenge than LFR does (at least that what I think anyway since LFR isn't out so we can't really compare until tomorrow).

[Nero Duskwind]

How many times do you people (yeah I said it) need to be told: Flex is not intended for pugs. LFR is intended for pugs.

Half right. It's not intended to be pugged in the manner that LFR is, which is to say that you cannot just band together with 9-25 undergeared strangers, bypass the mechanics willy-nilly, and expect it to be a cakewalk nor can you grab 5-6 overgeared buddies with the expectation that they will effortlessly carry 10-19 undergeared players. Furthermore, there is no Determination buff to permit your group to "fail its way to victory."

You CAN, however, rope together a few friends and/or acquaintances and, as long as everyone understands that mechanics can't be completely bypassed and a modicum of personal skill and responsibility is expected, anticipate a relatively smooth encounter.

[blackblade]

Half right. It's not intended to be pugged in the manner that LFR is, which is to say that you cannot just band together with 9-25 undergeared strangers, bypass the mechanics willy-nilly, and expect it to be a cakewalk nor can you grab 5-6 overgeared buddies with the expectation that they will effortlessly carry 10-19 undergeared players. Furthermore, there is no Determination buff to permit your group to "fail its way to victory."

You CAN, however, rope together a few friends and/or acquaintances and, as long as everyone understands that mechanics can't be completely bypassed and a modicum of personal skill and responsibility is expected, anticipate a relatively smooth encounter.

Also helps that you can trust your friends and/or acquaintances not to misuse your vent info.

[MoanaLisa]

They still dont teach entry level raiders anything. the "one difficulty" model was pretty tough and was a hell of a lot more rewarding to each player. if you pugged a guy that had been raiding a previous tier then he more than likely had the skills to do well in new content. todays crowd wants everything given to them.

Pugs have always established requirements that are specific to the pug leader. Nothing new there. I would suggest that if pug leaders want to find 'a guy that had been raiding a previous tier'--normal/heroic--that they do exactly that and ask for whatever evidence they need to satisfy that requirement. Problem solved and in the same way that it's been solved since forever.

It's ironic that you talk about how 'today's crowd wants everything given to them' in that there are apparently those that think the game should simply give them well-seasoned tier raiders without having to do any reality checks. So I suppose that statement about entitlement is true in more ways than you probably intended.

[SodiumChloride]

Can you elaborate? It's a 19 minute video of two guys playing Mario Sunshine while shooting the shit. I don't want to sit through the entire thing. What exactly don't you want to happen?

You can watch from 10 mins onwards but you won't really get it though.

Sunshrine has got to be one of the most frustrating Mario games ever - contrasts so much with it's "happy" appearance.

[Nero Duskwind]

Also helps that you can trust your friends and/or acquaintances not to misuse your vent info.

Blizzard chat for the pugs XD

[Ronduwil]

It's ironic that you talk about how 'today's crowd wants everything given to them' in that there are apparently those that think the game should simply give them well-seasoned tier raiders without having to do any reality checks. So I suppose that statement about entitlement is true in more ways than you probably intended.

Agreed. The comments on this thread indicate how quickly players forget how pugs work. For the longest time there was no middle ground between faceroll easy and unpuggably hard, so players on non-progressed haven't experienced proper pugs since WotLK.

The typical player doesn't read raid walkthoughs prior to playing a game for the first time. Similarly, the typical player doesn't read raid strats prior to entering a raid for the first time; they expect to learn through trial and error (you know, by actually playing).

The typical player didn't spend weeks farming up gear through LFR, rep, and/or timeless isle-style questing just so they could go into a raid without feeling ashamed; they see the raid as their means of acquiring gear.

The typical player didn't spend two hours on a practice dummy after the latest patch dropped in order to optimize their rotation in preparation for the raid; they'll figure things out as they go and if their DPS is low they'll find a way to jack it up.

I know it's weird for players to actually want to learn how to play the game by playing the game, but that's just how most games are. If 90% of the players you pug with are letting you down maybe your expectations are simply unrealistic.

[antelope591]

Flex will be trade chat puggable in a few months right now its nowhere near that....its still quite a few steps above LFR not that that's a bad thing but when ur dealing with 90% of the WoW population which is god awful terrible at this game then u can't expect much.

[Zaqwert]

It is still amazing to me how horrible most WoW players are in a raid setting. Or PVP setting. Basically anything but questing and even then you get crackheads asking what to do for a quest when it is written in the text.

Blizzard has systematically driven away most of the player's with half a brain because they were too "elitest"

The whole no retard left behind model has result in WoW being primarily a bunch of retards.

Infracted

[SodiumChloride]

Blizzard has systematically driven away most of the player's with half a brain because they were too "elitest"

The whole no retard left behind model has result in WoW being primarily a bunch of retards.

So they lost like 0.01% of their original player base. What a terrible lost.

[greeeed]

Wrong.

Wrong again. Someone already posted a link to the Blizzard blog, A Raid for All Seasons, that specifically indicates:

To fill this void, we’re in the process of developing a new Flexible Raid system, which includes a new difficulty that sits between Raid Finder and Normal difficulty, while still allowing friends, family, or pick-up groups to play together.

Don't know where you're getting your information, but now you stand corrected.

have you play LFR and flex?


in LFR I don't need to move from four kings army,bow...etc in my under-gear mage since it won't kill me...
but it was another story why I try it in normal...

while in flex even if you are 518 DK dps "full gems and enchantments" it's still easy to get one shot if you are just dps like mindless zombi like I did in LFR...
(In LFR you don't even need to know anything about most bosses as dps )

basically Flex is easier than normal(people need to used their brain) but a lot harder than LFR (mindless zombi)


Flex = normal pug with less armor ilvl requirement (since boss have less damage and health)

though it look like they plan to make it easier...
(example: hotfix > third boss orb in flex mode have fixed place...)

[jimbojonez]

A lot of misconceptions here that the main reason people don't do normal mode is due to the difficulty spike from LFR. That certainly isn't my reason and I doubt that's the case for most people. It just comes down to time and logistics. LFR I don't have to worry about recruiting people and maintaining the appropriate roles in guild, I don't have to worry about scheduling, I don't have to worry about egos, drama - none of that crap. Yeah, lfr is frustrating due to numbskulls, but it offers a lot of flexibility that I appreciate.

[stumpy]

What's wrong with Battletoads level of difficulty? We used to complete that game when we were kids...

No. Kids used to brag about having a big brother who'd beaten the game while actually never having seen anything past the Turbo Tunnel.

[mmowin]

How many times do you people (yeah I said it) need to be told: Flex is not intended for pugs. LFR is intended for pugs.
Flex is so you can play with your friends or guild (any number besides 10 or 25), so you DON"T NEED TO PUG.
If you choose to pug, it will be unbearable.

Flex is scaled from normal. Would you take 9 random idiots into normal? No. Then why would you take 13 random idiots into flex which theoretically is the same difficulty as normal?
Get your paper dictionary out and look up scaled, obviously google and wikipedia failed you.


As for the thread title: Flex worse than LFR? That awkward moment when....you find out your friends suck at wow?

lol ouch that would be awkward..

[MoanaLisa]

Agreed. The comments on this thread indicate how quickly players forget how pugs work. For the longest time there was no middle ground between faceroll easy and unpuggably hard, so players on non-progressed haven't experienced proper pugs since WotLK.

It's also a bit curious to me that true raiding is celebrated by many due to its devotion to overcoming obstacles by failing over and over again until things sort themselves out and then the immense satisfaction of overcoming the odds and getting a satisfying and great win. Pugs, not so much.

It's always been that way of course but it's a disconnect that is slightly hypocritical. Pug groups are always constructed to hopefully be as likely to win as LFR is. This is accepted as a good thing in pugs; it's destroying the game in LFR according to some. Note that I do understand the differences between all of these raiding modes and difficulties. There's just a lot of contradictory thinking in all of it.

[frumper]

My experience with FLEX. First, I'd like to note that my ilvl was around 510-515 when trying to get a group.

The first two pugs I joined were able to get to phase 2 of the first boss....with no more than half the people alive. We had vent for 1 group, no vent for another. The group that had vent did worse on mechanics, the group that did not have vent just were under geared and unprepared. Joining random groups that did not request any ilvl req I ended up getting in groups that were generally filled with people under ilvl 500, many of the key roles didnt have gems/enchants on gear. Also each group had 10-13 people. They both seemed like nice partial guilds just trying it out, and they'll probably be fine with a bit of prep work, but not week 1. I was pleasantly surprised by the lack of attitude and anger over wiping repeatedly.

The 3rd group I joined advertised a min 510 ilvl, so I barely got in, not that they checked. At first our group had 11 people, then they decided to add more, then more then more then more. It quickly filled up, and I think the mechanics were easier with more people. There was more wiggle room, more coverage of the add areas, etc. I'd say most people probably pulled their weight and there were very few deaths due to mechanics. We killed the boss on the 2nd try. We killed the 2nd boss on the second try. 3rd boss I think also was 2 tries, and the 4th boss was probably 3 tries. The group had people that could follow basic mechanics and perform moderate dps. It was fun, no one asked, and they were close calls in the end. Over time I'm sure that it will get easier as the LFR gears people. It wasn't something we couldnt just cake walk through as a pug, but the experience was much more enjoyable than LFR. Knowing we could boot someone screwing off and not have to worry about replacing them I think kept things moving. Going from 23 > 21 players was something done in stride instead of the headache of having to worry about finding replacements.

I think trying to do FLEX with 10 people isn't the best way to experience it, especially as a pug. Having more players let the raid have some give and take, though everyone still needed to perform mechanics. It also took the pressure off of having to replace people else you find yourself at a disadvantage. I'm sure there will be a sweet spot of tanks > healers > dps that pugs can be fairly successful with, but messing up mechanics caused wipes, unlike LFR.

I am very happy with the results and look forward to next week, though I certainly expect it to be more challenging.

TL;DR

I had fun, more people the better, ignoring mechanics = wipes, decent mechanics + moderate dps = loots

[hablix]

I did flex as a crossrealm pickup with a core raid group. It was the first low-pressure, semi-progression raid on new content I've done over Vent since Wrath. The conversations were hilarious, the fights were fun, and the experience was a blast. I'm sorry, I'm not interested in wiping on bosses dozens of times anymore, I've already gone through that phase and still shake my head in disbelief that they took the kind of raiding provided by Wrath 10-mans away in Cata.

There were some players off the bat who were probably expecting an LFR experience and momentarily held up the raid with needless wipes. The good news is, kicking someone out of a Flex raid only takes one vote: the raid leader. Laying down the law cleaned things up fast. (The freedom to kick players without having to replace them to proceed is immensely gratifying for some reason.) Player expectations probably need time to adjust.

Anyway, I can't imagine I'll be doing SoO with a trade chat realm-only pug anytime soon. I've been in trade chat pugs that have wiped endlessly on Oondasta, often without a kill, while every OpenRaid group I've been in for that fight has been a oneshot and a clean kill.

[PrairieChicken]

It's far too early to make an assessment like this about the mode. It can, and will be, nerfed on its own just via folks gearing up in SoO LFR. Revisit it a month from now, after people have a bit more experience w/ the fights, and see if you still feel that it's too difficult.

Our group was heroic raiders + normal raiders + bad normal raiders and we still wiped couple of times

Although dps was non issue for us (we had half of dps died in norushen and still had like 2 minutes to enrage and stuff) we fucked up mechanics (not by a lot) and it was still a wipe.

As we were all previous raiders and had a competent raid leader we didn't have problem in second attempts, but how about the LFR people? They are just going to make same mistake over and over and die. Mechanics like soaking balls in norushen or dodging add voidzones or prison in sha is exactly the same as the normal, so if you fuck up you die. If the mechanics are same as normal what's the point of flex?

And note that this is only the first wing - which is easiest.

[frumper]

I think the point of Flex is to teach people that mechanics are important. LFR teaches damage good. Flex lets you not worry about hps/dps as much and just execute mechanics, normal puts them both together and heroic has you turn up the dial and squeeze the most out you can.