To people whom want LFR removed: What endgame do you propose for the casual players?

[pallyopness]

So you showed me one guy who started out by whining that his 10-man raid was "downgraded" to a 5-man heroic and then after asking that it be reinstated as a 10-man he asked for a LFD feature to go with it. What's you've neglected to point out is the nine "NO!!!" posts that immediately followed it. Here are the highlights from each of these posts:

• how do you expect that will happen in raids. lets say nefarian 10 man i dont see a plate dps volunteer for kiting adds. or ascedant council i dont see randoms quit dps on 27% to wait till the other mob is at the same %. if this comes treu i think it would be a verry big mess.
• Just no. If you put LFD on raids you will get random people from all levels of the game who feel entitled to completing the raid they enter. Therefore will be asking for nerfs, because PuG-s can't handle the complexity of raid encounters at this time due to the lack of organization and the very very diverse skill and preparation of the people you meet already in LFD...
• THE worst idea of all time.
• 0/10
• There are people in this game who would not be able to beat 5 man content without being carried through it EG; DPS who can only deal 5-6k damage with a 15% buff while in full 346 gear. These are the people who you would be raiding with.
• The chances of you getting at least 2 random retards who can't see the supergiant star that's going to hit them in 30 seconds is pretty high when you random 9 other people. You simply will fail the vast majority of any random 10 man raid, in my opinion.
• PUGs do not have Ventrillo. Hence they will fail raids.
• It'd be a massive mess given the co-ordination the fights need being beyond most puglings, i may have worked for WotLK but for cata it isnt possible.
• LFD for raids? no. not atleast this way.

Then there was one guy who was trying to argue that PvP gear was just as good as raiding gear so you can't even take him seriously. Even back then people warned that it would be a crappy idea. If Blizzard was really taking their queues from the forums they wouldn't have bothered with LFR. Let me also point out that as stupid as the idea was, it was still better than the actual implementation in that he was calling for a 10-man instance, not the 25-man zergfest that they implemented.

well seeing how ghost crawler has said lfr is EXTREMELY popular with the player base....that would make YOU wrong. They must have done something right.

[Thetruth1400]

The answer is simple, they will need to re-allocate resources for the casuals, take some away from raid resources, I am primarily a raider but I would happily have less resources allocated to raids if it would get the casual fan the fuck away from them or more to the point, get rid of LFR.

I agree with this. Another simple solution would be to make everything share a single lockout. If you do LFR, you don't get to do Normal or Heroic that week. Additionally, make LFR difficult enough to require people not ignore the mechanics and still succeed.

All in all, the best would be to just make content for those that don't want to do raids. More 5 mans, more difficulty in scaling, and the inability to buy gear for valor. Valor purchasing of gear makes content skippable. As a result, there's less to do overall.

[pallyopness]

I agree with this. Another simple solution would be to make everything share a single lockout. If you do LFR, you don't get to do Normal or Heroic that week. Additionally, make LFR difficult enough to require people not ignore the mechanics and still succeed.

All in all, the best would be to just make content for those that don't want to do raids. More 5 mans, more difficulty in scaling, and the inability to buy gear for valor. Valor purchasing of gear makes content skippable. As a result, there's less to do overall.

that wouldn't work....lfr players don't want to have to coordinate and get in vent....takes too much time and effort...keep up with the lfr folks here....otherwise they would do flex but flex takes too much time they say and they don't want to talk to people

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How do you get to raid if you come back to the game and find you are on a dead server? Blizzard has said that a 5 man dungeon takes almost as long as a raid wing to design and that it would take 2 dungeons a month to keep casuals content. Currently with an LFR system they design 4 wings every 6 months, to get the 2 5 man a month goal they would have to design the equivalent of 12 raid wings in 6 months. If you are sticking with the math that equates to a little more than double the amount of resources they currently put into raid content which gets turned into lfr for casuals.

So where do you suggest Blizzard find double the resouces that raid wings take to keep casuals busy and find the resources to continue to pour out Raids for the raider like you? Your fuzzy math does not add up.

they are fixing dead servers so moot point

[Ronduwil]

well seeing how ghost crawler has said lfr is EXTREMELY popular with the player base....that would make YOU wrong. They must have done something right.

That's kind of funny coming from the guy who is trying to argue that LFR should go away. The reason it is so popular with the player base is that there isn't anything else for them to do aside from My Little Panda Island Adventure, Pokemon, Harvest Moon, and dailies. Of course it's going to be popular with the remaining players. Many of those replies came from raiders who presumably still raid, and the others are probably no longer subscribed to the game. That's beside the point I was making, however. My point was that I do not remember a majority of casual players asking for LFR. The one example that was just presented a) wasn't a casual player and b) was immediately shouted down by nine other people.

[pallyopness]

That's kind of funny coming from the guy who is trying to argue that LFR should go away. The reason it is so popular with the player base is that there isn't anything else for them to do aside from My Little Panda Island Adventure, Pokemon, and dailies. Of course it's going to be popular with the remaining players. Many of those replies came from raiders who presumably still raid, and the others are probably no longer subscribed to the game. That's beside the point I was making, however. My point was that I do not remember a majority of casual players asking for LFR. The one example that was just presented a) wasn't a casual player and b) was immediately shouted down by nine other people.

ONCE AGAIN READ MY POST......I have NEVER said to do away with lfr....I said stop bitching about other difficulties and to KEEP LFR....learn to read please....you show everything that is wrong with the lfr community....you really don't even know what you are arguing for....you are jealous of other peoples time and skill to do stuff you cannot and therefor you hate it....we got it....now let it go and move on

[Deleted]

My point was that I do not remember a majority of casual players asking for LFR. The one example that was just presented a) wasn't a casual player and b) was immediately shouted down by nine other people.

Here's another forum post then.
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...od-or-Bad-Idea
Of course I can't provide the kind of quantitative data you're looking forward, and eventually I'll get tired of providing you with examples.
Clearly there was a desire among casual players to make raiding more accessible, and from Blizzard's point of view LFR has DEFINITELY achieved that goal. Just look at the stats that were on the front page a week or so ago.
If they had introduced Flex instead, it might have done nearly as good a job, but I doubt it.

[DeadmanWalking]

Im not a basement dweller and your attitude is bad for the community.......yet I am good at this game to where I can raid any difficulty. Sorry that I am able to experience everything that you cannot but normal/heroic raids are going no where. Just like flex/lfr are going no where. deal with it. If you don't like challenges or raiding goto any other mmo, a simple concept.

I raid one night a week after kid goes to bed and am not a basement dweller either. This attitude about raiders needs to change as well.

But I think its possible that flex and normal will combine, or have a flex and a normal that flexes.

My guild had a whole bunch of people leave the game for tot and we had trouble filling 10 mans every week, then flex came along and suddenly they all came back but now we find that we are stuck in flex because we are a casual group that wants to be inclusive and we don’t want to bench 7 players. It would be nice if we could flex normal at normal difficulty. This would remove the need for 25 mans needing better loot to organize since players can come and go, decreasing the ilevel leaps that every tier brings.

[pallyopness]

I raid one night a week after kid goes to bed and am not a basement dweller either. This attitude about raiders needs to change as well.

But I think its possible that flex and normal will combine, or have a flex and a normal that flexes.

My guild had a whole bunch of people leave the game for tot and we had trouble filling 10 mans every week, then flex came along and suddenly they all came back but now we find that we are stuck in flex because we are a casual group that wants to be inclusive and we don’t want to bench 7 players. It would be nice if we could flex normal at normal difficulty. This would remove the need for 25 mans needing better loot to organize since players can come and go, decreasing the ilevel leaps that every tier brings.

see i am perfectly ok with normal being the flex type of system as well but i do not want them to nerf the difficulty in the process....Keep difficulty as is....add the flex type of scaling and gg....they could also do it with it heroic for all i care as long as the difficulty doesn't change too. As for min/maxing number of people to make it easier and harder....they will do that anyway and if people are only interested in server first than don't bring more than 10. It is the responsibility of the guild leader to decide server first options over guild atmosphere....not blizzard to patrol so to speak.....But DO NOT FUCK WITH THE DIFFICULTY LEVEL AS IS!!!!!

[Fiana]

Assuming you realize most people won't ever step up to Flex/Normal/Heroic, and rarely, if ever do guilded/organized activities.

Dungeons obviously.
Dungeons like BRD can be considered a proper 5 man raids. And BRD in BC was significantly harder than LFR now. And took significantly more time to finish.

Make heroic dungeons heroic and give a decent reward for finishing them. Make several dungeons raid-like, 10+ bosses, 1-2 hours to finish, with chance of epic item drop from the last boss.
I loved Stratholm, I loved BRD. They were as good as raiding, especially with a good group of friends.

I don't remember that anyone complained about lack of the endgame content back in BC.

[DeadmanWalking]

that wouldn't work....lfr players don't want to have to coordinate and get in vent....takes too much time and effort...keep up with the lfr folks here....otherwise they would do flex but flex takes too much time they say and they don't want to talk to people

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they are fixing dead servers so moot point

Its not a moot point since they are not basing mergers on faction imbalance. I know a guy who was on a dead server that was mostly horde and they got merged with another server that was mostly horde. Alliance side its still a dead server. Your serve.

[fangless]

Something rewarding and interesting?
Blizzard employs a smart group of people. I'm sure they can come up with something.

[pallyopness]

well they aren't completely done merging yet so until things are finished I won't comment on the imbalance...they said they will TRY to keep it in the mix but can't guarantee it....I don't know if that means they will be out of luck or things will fall into place....thats what I am waiting to see.

But until mergers are completed and all is said and done no one knows atm...but they are trying and that should deserve some credit. especially since like I said, they aren't done yet.

[crazyman2]

I got thinking the other day that TBC was the best expansion because there were so many more dungeons and MoP had a lack of content, but I guess the point of that was that dungeons actually were pve endgame (and hard enough to feel like you're accomplishing something just to get through a heroic) for the majority of the playerbase, and pvp was so popular because you could get better gear from pvp than said dungeons. I really do miss that model and would love to see it back but it might just be too outdated and the game has simply moved on from that.

For a comparison
TBC released with 15 dungeons/heroics
Wrath had 12
Cata had 9
MoP also has 9

Also, cataclysm release was a massive failure, and it essentially was the same as TBC with less dungeons. It might have been because of the lack of content, but I think it was more because once raiding was made accessible in wrath it was impossible to go back, and I think that's what Blizzard also feels, as they've made huge steps since then to make raid content much more accessible and move away from the 5 man endgame casual model.

[Pull My Finger]

Raiders are generally nice people. We have to be, or we wouldn't be able to spend several hours a week in each other's virtual company.

No, raiders are just being held together by peer pressure and fears of failure.

[DeadmanWalking]

well they aren't completely done merging yet so until things are finished I won't comment on the imbalance...they said they will TRY to keep it in the mix but can't guarantee it....I don't know if that means they will be out of luck or things will fall into place....thats what I am waiting to see.

But until mergers are completed and all is said and done no one knows atm...but they are trying and that should deserve some credit. especially since like I said, they aren't done yet.

They had an interview on wowinsider with the dev in charge of server merges and they were asked if they take faction imbalance into mind when they server merge and they flatly said no, that faction imbalances happen due to the nature of pvp (cutting off one sides ability to wage war by usurping resources) and that it would be impossible to stop faction imbalances from happening. Then they said that they will not be taking server faction numbers into mind for PVE servers either.

So ‘hoping’ they fix your dead server is still not going to solve the problem, and if you want to raid normal/heroic mode in current content you can’t cross server that. Yo u are just sol.

[pallyopness]

No, raiders are just being held together by peer pressure and fears of failure.

you are very very wrong in every single word you typed

[Ronduwil]

you are jealous of other peoples time and skill to do stuff you cannot and therefor you hate it....we got it....now let it go and move on

I don't even know where that's coming from. When did I say I was jealous or that I hate it? By all means have your 561 gear, but quit claminig that LFR is giving you the same level of gear when it's over 30 ilevels lower.

[Pull My Finger]

you are very very wrong in every single word you typed

I'm a vanilla vet, I know best.

[pallyopness]

They had an interview on wowinsider with the dev in charge of server merges and they were asked if they take faction imbalance into mind when they server merge and they flatly said no, that faction imbalances happen due to the nature of pvp (cutting off one sides ability to wage war by usurping resources) and that it would be impossible to stop faction imbalances from happening. Then they said that they will not be taking server faction numbers into mind for PVE servers either.

So ‘hoping’ they fix your dead server is still not going to solve the problem, and if you want to raid normal/heroic mode in current content you can’t cross server that. Yo u are just sol.

I don't know, Im the type of guy that would have transferred servers if it was that bad....and if I didn't have the money I would relevel on a different server....but I also see people leveling up alts on those dead servers instead....so I mean it could be solved but chosen not to be. I don't want to get into whose problem it is and whose it is to fix...just stating that there are plenty of solutions some cost money some don't

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I'm a vanilla vet, I know best.

you mean you wish you knew best lol nice try

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I don't even know where that's coming from. When did I say I was jealous or that I hate it? By all means have your 561 gear, but quit claminig that LFR is giving you the same level of gear when it's over 30 ilevels lower.

are you even reading my posts in this thread? or just looking to talk shit? because you clearly haven't been reading this thread have you?

[DeadmanWalking]

I got thinking the other day that TBC was the best expansion because there were so many more dungeons and MoP had a lack of content, but I guess the point of that was that dungeons actually were pve endgame (and hard enough to feel like you're accomplishing something just to get through a heroic) for the majority of the playerbase, and pvp was so popular because you could get better gear from pvp than said dungeons. I really do miss that model and would love to see it back but it might just be too outdated and the game has simply moved on from that.

For a comparison
TBC released with 15 dungeons/heroics
Wrath had 12
Cata had 9
MoP also has 9

Also, cataclysm release was a massive failure, and it essentially was the same as TBC with less dungeons. It might have been because of the lack of content, but I think it was more because once raiding was made accessible in wrath it was impossible to go back, and I think that's what Blizzard also feels, as they've made huge steps since then to make raid content much more accessible and move away from the 5 man endgame casual model.

Cata made 3 huge mistakes;
1. Spent way too many resources on revamping the old world 1-60 content (which I argue was needed but it shot itself in the face none the less).
2. It did had a disjointed set of new places to go, no smooth transition of questing zones like Mop had.
3. They introduced a random dungeon finder but the difficulty of those dungeons was too high for random pugs to complete. Guilds and friends? No problem, casual dungeon plungers? No way. It caused such a sub problem that it is the only time I have ever seen Blizzard do an about face and quickly change something so key to the gearing up process. Even changes to dailies to make them more alt friendly took longer to change and the changes were very light tweeks.