If this is how LFR is going to be from now on, I don't see the reason in keeping it.

[endersblade]

I finally, for the first time ever, used LFR today. I haven't stepped into a raid since Vanilla. Hmm, I take that back, a friend's guild carried me through Deathchin because I wanted to see the ending. But that was it. Anyway, I did the first four raids in LFR today, and out of those 4 runs, we booted FOURTY-TWO PEOPLE for AFK'ing. Out of 100 total people (being 25 man raids), we booted almost HALF of them for AFK. I freaking counted. That is just ridiculous - how do you expect a raid to carry you when most of the damned raid isn't even fighting? Hell, one of them was even a freaking BOT lol. Kept running into walls and trying to unstick itself. Was entertaining to watch for a while.

Oddly enough, running as my BM hunter, the queues for LFR were far faster than my queues for heroic 5-mans. Other than the obscene amount of AFK'ers though, I actually had a lot of fun. We wiped a couple of times, but nobody got butthurt about it and we just kept going. Made a lot of jokes, lots of laughing to be had, wasn't bad at all.

I think my only complaint was that, thanks to the timeless isle, I completely and totally outgeared all the stuff that dropped for me -_- I got a trinket that was a minor upgrade to one I already had, but other than that, the rest of it just got vendored. I'm sure once I get into the higher tiers of LFR, the gear will be nicer, but just starting out it is really depressing to spend all that effort to get gear that just gets vendored, when I spent ~30 minutes popping chests in TI to get far better gear lol.

[Scarletpiston]

I finally, for the first time ever, used LFR today. I haven't stepped into a raid since Vanilla. Hmm, I take that back, a friend's guild carried me through Deathchin because I wanted to see the ending. But that was it. Anyway, I did the first four raids in LFR today, and out of those 4 runs, we booted FOURTY-TWO PEOPLE for AFK'ing. Out of 100 total people (being 25 man raids), we booted almost HALF of them for AFK. I freaking counted. That is just ridiculous - how do you expect a raid to carry you when most of the damned raid isn't even fighting? Hell, one of them was even a freaking BOT lol. Kept running into walls and trying to unstick itself. Was entertaining to watch for a while.

Oddly enough, running as my BM hunter, the queues for LFR were far faster than my queues for heroic 5-mans. Other than the obscene amount of AFK'ers though, I actually had a lot of fun. We wiped a couple of times, but nobody got butthurt about it and we just kept going. Made a lot of jokes, lots of laughing to be had, wasn't bad at all.

I think my only complaint was that, thanks to the timeless isle, I completely and totally outgeared all the stuff that dropped for me -_- I got a trinket that was a minor upgrade to one I already had, but other than that, the rest of it just got vendored. I'm sure once I get into the higher tiers of LFR, the gear will be nicer, but just starting out it is really depressing to spend all that effort to get gear that just gets vendored, when I spent ~30 minutes popping chests in TI to get far better gear lol.

The lower level lfrs are not the problem, a lot of players are still running those because they are exceptionally easy and they drop legendary quest items.

[Normie]

Blizz sees LFR as a mistake and is slowly trying to rectify it. I see them getting rid of it all together next expac despite all the whiners you'll see threatening that they'll cancel their sub [blah blah blah]

What Blizzard wishes it could get rid of altogether is players who spend their time on the forums telling other players how they should enjoy their game.

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The lower level lfrs are not the problem, a lot of players are still running those because they are exceptionally easy and they drop legendary quest items.

Yeah, MSV LFR is a fairly quick, pleasant 90 valor.

[Scarletpiston]

What Blizzard wishes it could get rid of altogether is players who spend their time on the forums telling other players how they should enjoy their game.

Blizzard could remove every real raider from the game and you wouldn't even notice a population decrease, what is even funnier is it wouldn't hurt them much at all financially, I could even see it boosting the amount of subs as they won't be around to intimidate casual players anymore.

[Biggles Worth]

Translation: "I had a bad time in a LFR group and had to wait for a long time, remove it now."
Did I get this right?

That's exactly what I read too.

[MoanaLisa]

Blizz sees LFR as a mistake and is slowly trying to rectify it. I see them getting rid of it all together next expac despite all the whiners you'll see threatening that they'll cancel their sub that they only have active for a month or 2 each year to see a patch and then stop playing.

I'm interested in how you came to this conclusion and would like to see your 'evidence' for this. All I've seen is repeated statements, now at the rate of once every couple of weeks from someone in Irvine saying that LFR isn't going anywhere.

My guess is that in one sense they have attempted to make this tier a bit more difficult that past tiers and to take into account a few more mechanics in an effort to make it a little bit closer to what an actual raid is like. It's not the first time that Blizzard has overestimated and misread the audience for a particular piece of the game (reference 5-man Heroics in Cataclysm) and it won't likely be the last.

My bonus guess is that they will soon see the error of their ways in this and rather large nerfs will soon be incoming and rather quickly at that.

The intended audience for LFR--especially now with Flex in the game--seems to be not overly interested in much more than tank and spank encounters. Not standing in stuff seems to be about the upper limit for random large-group encounter mechanics. Tank and spank is not profound stuff but can be fun enough when the mood strikes.

If they do anything radical to LFR--which I don't think they really will--I suspect that the changes will make it look more like a 25-man scenario.

[Grimble]

Blizzard has looked at their data and decided that anyone willing to put in X amount of time should have Y gear. Unless that changes, which I muchly doubt it will, nothing else really matters. If LFR wipes too much they'll nerf the shit out of it.

Right now all I see are some typical early-cycle LFR woes plus a lot of wishful thinking from "omg remove lfr" snowflake types.

[superspots]

All the people replying "just dont do LFR or do flex instead" is the exact point of the OP. If he were to take your suggestions what does that leave for those doing LFR. I myself after experiences with ToT lfr refuse to even do Siege lfr at all. A few guildies have commented on how ridiculous it is and I saw this coming. After researching all the fights to lead my 10M as raid leader I realized even before a lot of these forum threads popped up that the mechanics of this raid were going to cause a serious problem in LFR.

So a lot of leaders like myself and well geared normal and HC raiders completely lose interest in the frustration and blood pressure increase from trying to enjoy something "quick and casual" because of the weight placed on them to carry the raid and tolerate the most toxic of behaviors that really can never be truly dealt with like they need to since keeping subs is so important. This is going to sound bad and conceited but I got tired of coming out of an LFR in ToT with 17 dps and having done 15% of the dmg and I'm not exaggerating that at all. Flex is what I do now and will continue to do on off nights. It is far less stressful and more enjoyable with greater rewards and total control over who is in the group. Glorious. Good bye LFR (Not saying it should be removed I don't agree with that part but it's pretty obvious something needs to be done)

[twinkfist]

I consider myself fairly patient but this lfr... the shaman.... has been brutal. 7 wipes the other day when on my warrior. Three sets of tanks came and went.

I'm just happy that I can get the blue pally set pretty much going holy... that's all I want anyway.

But this lfr has been pretty awful

[Mormolyce]

Yeah well, it's shitty but really - people go for months in an LFR that's been out for ages and everyone knows the strats and half of them outgear it, and they forget what it's like during the first week of a new LFR wing.

1.) Has anyone else seen an INCREASE in chance of joining an lfr ALREADY IN PROGRESS? I don't WANT THAT. I want a FRESH RUN.

If everyone got their fresh run then you'd never be able to replace those tanks that quit in your point 2.)

The non-fresh run rate is directly related to the number of quitters. People leave either because there were wipes, because it's taking too long, because they don't like it or because of legitimate issues like the group not working together properly or pulling its weight, trolls, afkers, etc. That creates lots of partial runs.

2.) I am sitting in an LFR, an LFR that was already in progress btw, and we get to the trash for the Korkron Shaman boss. Two of the tanks leave. I am now waiting with 20+ other people for new tanks. 10 Mins pass - nothing.

I was in an LFR run on Nazgrim the other day, tanks bailed, then everyone bailed. I decided to sit and see how long it'd take to refill. Got to over 2 hours. I suspect the queues won't fill a run that small for some reason (I'm pretty sure it used to though).

The reason tanks quitting is such an issue is because nobody is rolling a tank at the moment. I guess people don't want to be responsible for the fight on new content? Or there's a lot of afkers rolling DPS? Either way, players' fault really.

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So unless the guy is literally a deadweight, (60k DPS isnt a deadweight, but anything lower should be negatively rewarded), it should be positive or at the very least only slightly harder to bring in more people who arent as skilled.

Well 60k isn't the worst I've seen or anything but really if you can get into SoO you should be doing 100k + unless there's serious mechanics reducing that.

[Deleted]

Blizzard could remove every real raider from the game and you wouldn't even notice a population decrease, what is even funnier is it wouldn't hurt them much at all financially, I could even see it boosting the amount of subs as they won't be around to intimidate casual players anymore.

A lot of people play WoW because it gives them a sense of achievement. They feel they accomplished something by getting better gear (else how would you explain running LFR again and again without ever using that gear for a higher difficulty where it is actually meaningful?). Yes, raiders are a small portion of the population but the mere fact that hard content exists in the game gives people the illusion that what they do is also meaningful (even if it's just LFR). If you remove that illusion and tell them there is nothing hard in the game any more why would they stick around?

Another way to look at it is to look at Riot, which I believe to be one of the best gaming companies out there, with great decision making and marketing. They've put immense amounts of effort on promoting professional play, of which the current season 3 world championship is just the tip of the iceberg. Why? Do you think the average LoL player can ever hope to be as good as this guys? Surely not. But it is entertaining to watch (a lot of people follow the world first Garrosh race even without official support from Blizzard) and they learn from watching professional players. Possibly they aspire to be like them or at least get closer to their level. If anything Blizzard should promote more high level play.

[Normie]

Well 60k isn't the worst I've seen or anything but really if you can get into SoO you should be doing 100k + unless there's serious mechanics reducing that.

Running around in circles trying to DPS untanked adds is not conducive to high DPS for unskilled players. Melee get hosed particularly hard because of the usual problems you have standing right next to a boss or add that isn't being tanked properly yet has some very hard-hitting abilities.

I don't know how LFR melee even function during the current version of Dark Shaman. Nazgrim isn't much better.

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A lot of people play WoW because it gives them a sense of achievement. They feel they accomplished something by getting better gear (else how would you explain running LFR again and again without ever using that gear for a higher difficulty where it is actually meaningful?).

I think my "better" LFR gear is perfectly meaningful for doing all kinds of things that have nothing to do with raiding, such as killing mobs faster and soloing more difficult monsters.

Anyone who has spent much time doing old-skool Golden Lotus dailies in 463 gear, or trying to kill Timeless Island cow-dudes, knows what I'm talking about.

[Deleted]

Blizzard can't change how players play. Blizzard can change how encounters work. So which one is basically pointless to talk about?

Players can change how players play though.

I did wing2 with my Druid over the weekend. We had a tank leave right away, and due to ridiculous timers had a Feral Druid respec to Bear to tank. We killed Dark Shaman no wipes, tank #2 leaves and 2 new ones join. Bear went back to DPSing for the Nazgrim trash + first pull which was an utter disaster.

Normally I would have left, but I knew I wouldn't have time to run it again later on this week so I asked for leader so I could spam macros to give instructions. 2nd pull was quite a bit better, but a lot of the DPS were still playing like shit and ignoring everything I asked them to do. Both tanks left then so back in queue for 10minutes.

A new tank joins, the Feral goes Bear again and we try the boss again. Another wipe at around 20%, same people just attacking the boss, tank leaves.

At this point a few DPS and some healers also left so while we were sitting in the queue I wrote in chat who's ignoring all the strategy and doing things such as attacking during D.Stance and not doing any damage to the adds. All of those people were swiftly booted, because the rest of the group (who were grateful for the assistance on what they should be doing) were fed up of wiping because of these assholes. We got a new tank, left the Druid as Bear and killed it the next pull with no problems.

What's my point? Instead of asking for things to be nerfed and be willing to carry the idiots and afk auto-attackers, the player-base should be supporting people trying to lead and booting anyone standing in the way of a boss kill. That is the only way to improve the quality of LFR. Make being the silent ignorant loot collector type not pay off.

[sabag123]

Wasn't there an option in dungeon finder , not to join groups in middle?

[dashflash890]

I do about 150k-170k on my Feral at ilvl 526 with legendary cloak. And around 130-140k at 530 balance if lucky with procs without epic or legendary cloak......Yah low Ik

[Deleted]

What's my point? Instead of asking for things to be nerfed and be willing to carry the idiots and afk auto-attackers, the player-base should be supporting people trying to lead and booting anyone standing in the way of a boss kill. That is the only way to improve the quality of LFR. Make being the silent ignorant loot collector type not pay off.

One can only hope. But to achieve that there needs to be some incentive from Blizzard. The AFK/clueless loot farming type should not be rewarded or even PROTECTED by blizzard mechanics (their attempts to say that they have systems in place that punish this behaviors are laughable).

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I think my "better" LFR gear is perfectly meaningful for doing all kinds of things that have nothing to do with raiding, such as killing mobs faster and soloing more difficult monsters.

Anyone who has spent much time doing old-skool Golden Lotus dailies in 463 gear, or trying to kill Timeless Island cow-dudes, knows what I'm talking about.

I have a feeling that after the first few weeks the time spent in LFR outweights the benefit from the time saved from farming/grinding/questing/killing mobs. And certainly nobody would be killing LFR time and time again just to get their last 2-3 pieces of upgrades.

[Zylan]

Like I said on the EU forums

they added LFR originally for people that

a) don't have an awful lot of time to play so they get to see content
b) people who don't have guilds to raid with or very small guilds incapable of raiding
c) introduction into raiding (which it clearly isn't because it teaches them nothing about actual raiding)

The problem with LFR is that it doesn't teach people anything about raiding really, the only thing it teaches them is basically turn up to instance, zerg, get loot regardless of mistakes and that is not going to instill people with the confidence or wisdom to move out of LFR into proper raiding - imo Blizzard should do the following.

1) Add a proving grounds for raiding showing people in depth the most common raid mechanics like tank swaps, bebuffs, moving out of crap on the floor, adds etc etc - they should make it a solo Scenario that gives none clued up LFR people some sort of insight into how certain mechanics work and how to avoid them/work with them - Make it say they cannot queue for LFR until they have done the Proving Ground first.

2) Split LFR into 10 and 25 man (on the same lockout) reasons? get people used to 10 and 25 man raiding rather than just 25 man raiding, not everyone likes big raids, not everyone has PC's that can handle large scale raiding with lots of spell effects and there's a bigger chance of getting at very least a more competent group when its 10 man as opposed to 25 man where its more prone to mass zerglings.

If LFR is going to remain apart of WoW at least sort it out so its acceptable to newer raiders because as it is you may as well just make the bosses commit suicide and spoon feed new raiders like WOTLK ended up doing, because that's basically all it is, they're picking nothing up from LFR that they can take over to flex/normal/heroic raiding.

[schwarzkopf]

You're kidding.. right?

Nope - you get 25 elite random raiders in a group without VENT - guarantee they will suck, they will all want to be in charge - they will argue over which of them is using the correct strategy etc...

You'd be better off switching this up, taking one random from an LFR, and putting him in a heroic group, get him on vent, and see how well he can listen to directions and perform over the course of an evening. Those results might be more interesting.

You should look up Demming's theories on management - 85% of problems are systemic, only 15% relate to the people. I'd bet you that you have an 85% chance of picking someone who would fit in fine (gear aside).

[PrairieChicken]

Settle down bro. Think long term. If LFR is removed a bunch of idiots will start trolling and whining about accessibility, i pay for the game, etc etc. Then GC will nerf everything to the ground and we'll end up with flex=lfr, normal = flex, heroic is removed or something.

relax and dont' do lfr, do flex. or join lfr with a bunch of guildies.

but whining about it isn't going to fix things it'll only harm things in the long run.

You are genius sir

[Lolvanish]

Yes, because someone suggesting something for the game is always butthurt. Makes sense.

There's a difference between suggesting a intelligent, good solution to a problem, and suggesting a shitty knee jerk reaction solution because of a bad time in a LFR group.