My suggestions to fix LFR

[Ikkarus]

And my sugestion is...REMOVE IT!!!

[Deleted]

I hope in WoD, LFR is watered down even further, no achievements, and you have a chance to get some shitty gear to get you by.

That would probably give the shitters an incentive to improve their play, improve their manners and join the flex/normal modes, turning LFR into a last resort when you're between guilds or whatever.

Or just remove it, I don't see the harm in removing it, and I can't believe people would unsubscribe in their masses if they removed it.

[Normie]

Hrm weird though that when the game was 'all about 5 percenters' is when it hit it's peak of players. And ever since they've brought things like LFR to the game they've been bleeding subs. It really is funny though when you think about it. In vanilla not many people got to do Naxx40, but not many people really cared. They had a blast doing other things. That's also when if you got an alt to the level cap at 60 it was quite a feat. Not many casuals managed to get four characters to level 60 for example. And back then every class felt very different so alts were great fun.

I just cannot help but laugh when I see people trash the 'old days' of WoW and talk about how terrible it was and what not yet that was when WoW had more growth than ever and was when it had the majority of players. I think it's time Blizzard decides to stop going in the same direction they've been going in and turn things around and try making some difficult content again, and better yet some content that requires you to find groups on your own to do. We've been going down this path for a long time and it's given us things like LFR, and along with it we've gotten millions of sub losses.

Leveling through 5 expansions + 60 levels of vanilla, there is no way that will be or can ever be satisfying, no matter how hard or easy it is.

And saying leveling was ever "hard," people have strange definitions of "hard." If by "hard" you mean "takes a very long time spent doing mindless things mostly by yourself" I guess so.

Participation and subscriptions started to tank at the start of Cataclysm, but it seems to me, that didn't have anything to do with LFR, LFR not existing at that time and all.

[MoanaLisa]

The only fix for the social problems in WoW is to shut the game down and start up a different MMO in a different genre with a different enough playstyle that the "problems" from WoW will shun it.

This will read as mostly off-topic but at the end it has a point and it has to do with matchmaking in the game, LFR, LFD, and the social experience, so bear with me.

As cynical as I am about the game--which is more cynical than I allow myself to be here--I don't think this is true. But Blizzard needs to think seriously about what the social unit in the game really is. It's not the realm and really never was despite what people say. On most realms you're lucky to know more than fifty or sixty people to any great extent which is really just a good-sized guild.

Which brings me to guilds which I think are and always have been the level at which people should socialize. My primary criticism of the current system is that I believe that players should be allowed to join more than one guild so that they have a better chance of finding people to play with. The other thing that I think Blizzard needs to do is provide ways for guilds to co-operate easily when they wish to: guild co-op chat channels and the like. Blizzard's past steps to strengthen guilds have done more harm than good. There are some new things being tried in WoD and we'll see if they work out any better. Players need a strong incentive to be in a guild but limiting players to a single guild is a problem in my view. Their attempts at something like teaching guilds at the start of MoP were half-assed, badly organized and didn't really give many guilds a reason to do so.

If you're in a good guild that supports the things that you like to do you're golden as far as the game goes. Somehow that needs to be more up front and center in their thinking. I think a really important missing piece for this is scaled raids and dungeons which would give organized groups a ton of things to do. If someone in the guild is leveling and wants to run something, people can go along and play at the appropriate level as a group, no matter their actual level. It's the sort of thing that can change the social game entirely. But Blizzard can't sit back and just wait for it to happen. There have to be player incentives to be there.

If there were enough strong guilds around with ways to play together throughout the entirety of the game you wouldn't really need LFD/LFR. If you want to belong to a strong end-game raiding guild and can get a spot you should. That shouldn't limit you to being able to run in some other guild that's more dedicated to doing older content. Or other purposed guilds that support different things.

[Goat7]

And my sugestion is...REMOVE IT!!!

I agree.

LFR is complete trash because of the way the community is. Its unfortunate but its true. LFR was created so that everyone can see the content and dumbed down so everyone can complete it. You can go AFK, go in PVP gear, naked, whatever and you will complete it. Its a joke.

They would be better off removing it. LFR is not raiding, not even close. Its just a loot grab, its dumb. If people want to see content but cant raid the way raiding is supposed to be (naxx 40 for example) they can always watch you tube videos. IMO.

[RicardoZ]

Sorry, but I don't see why LFR is still in game with Flex being a casual fun way to raid.

No achieve no invite

[ComputerNerd]

So I say again, destroy every LFR you can. Reveal it as the true wasteland it is. And the community will be better for it.

No, arrogance in the community is why LFR exists.
People often make no effort in LFR because there is no need to reach a standard for content they won't be getting into.
Inflated requirements and downright toxic behaviour is why the traditional raiding community is so unattractive.
Make it more attractive, you play your part in making LFR a stepping stone rather than a necessity rather than proving yourself to be part of the problem.

The community makes bad players bad.

I agree.

LFR is complete trash because of the way the community is. Its unfortunate but its true. LFR was created so that everyone can see the content and dumbed down so everyone can complete it. You can go AFK, go in PVP gear, naked, whatever and you will complete it. Its a joke.

They would be better off removing it. LFR is not raiding, not even close. Its just a loot grab, its dumb. If people want to see content but cant raid the way raiding is supposed to be (naxx 40 for example) they can always watch you tube videos. IMO.

If it was about "seeing the content", then nobody would raid anything higher.
That is elitist rubbish, plain and simple.
LFR is a forced end-game for many players.

[Normie]

If there were enough strong guilds around with ways to play together throughout the entirety of the game you wouldn't really need LFD/LFR. If you want to belong to a strong end-game raiding guild and can get a spot you should. That shouldn't limit you to being able to run in some other guild that's more dedicated to doing older content. Or other purposed guilds that support different things.

Guild leveling pretty much destroyed the formation of new guilds and with it the ability for you to be in a guild with people of your choosing, and NOT with people you would prefer not to be with.

[Beet]

Leveling through 5 expansions + 60 levels of vanilla, there is no way that will be or can ever be satisfying, no matter how hard or easy it is.

And saying leveling was ever "hard," people have strange definitions of "hard." If by "hard" you mean "takes a very long time spent doing mindless things mostly by yourself" I guess so.

Participation and subscriptions started to tank at the start of Cataclysm, but it seems to me, that didn't have anything to do with LFR, LFR not existing at that time and all.

Wait what? You're saying you've never been satisfied after leveling from 1 to a cap? Be it to 60, 70, or 90. I find that hard to believe because everyone I knew in vanilla for example practically celebrated after overcoming the lengthy trek to 60. And you're right I suppose. Leveling to 60 for example wasn't really 'hard', but it was harder by far than leveling now. And sometimes having things take a long time to accomplish is a good thing. Like I said maybe you didn't feel it was rewarding getting multiple characters to 60 or 70, but I sure as hell did.

And while Cataclysm may have been the start of the sub loss, it wasn't until after Firelands that they went on their journey towards rock bottom that's still going on today. Not saying LFR was completely the cause of it, Dragon Soul was terrible for example. I'm just saying that maybe its time things change. There is no denying that World of Warcraft had it's peak of growth during times that were considered 'hardcore'.

[corebit]

Hrm weird though that when the game was 'all about 5 percenters' is when it hit it's peak of players. And ever since they've brought things like LFR to the game they've been bleeding subs. It really is funny though when you think about it. In vanilla not many people got to do Naxx40, but not many people really cared. They had a blast doing other things. That's also when if you got an alt to the level cap at 60 it was quite a feat. Not many casuals managed to get four characters to level 60 for example. And back then every class felt very different so alts were great fun.

I just cannot help but laugh when I see people trash the 'old days' of WoW and talk about how terrible it was and what not yet that was when WoW had more growth than ever and was when it had the majority of players. I think it's time Blizzard decides to stop going in the same direction they've been going in and turn things around and try making some difficult content again, and better yet some content that requires you to find groups on your own to do. We've been going down this path for a long time and it's given us things like LFR, and along with it we've gotten millions of sub losses.

This is a classic example of rose-tinted glasses syndrome.

Newsflash for you, WoW began bleeding subs long before LFR even came into the picture.

[Beet]

This is a classic example of rose-tinted glasses syndrome.

Newsflash for you, WoW began bleeding subs long before LFR even came into the picture.

Yeah of course. That's how it always is. If you have anything positive to say about WoW pre-Cataclysm then you're nostalgia blinded only. Such bullshit too because I've commented so often on how bad certain things were in those days too. Newsflash for you my friend its possible to find things good and bad in every expac.

And no - WoW didn't start to really bleed subs until LFR came in. Go look up the history if you don't believe me. Every single giant sub loss came after LFR was put in. And again for the record - I'm not claiming LFR was the cause of all the sub losses.

Edit: Actually instead of just telling you this, I'll do you one better. - http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/05/09/wo...n-subscribers/ So as you see one month before Fireland's drops Blizzard was hovering at 11 mil+ subs still. Now fast forward today we're under 7.5 million subs. So nah WoW didn't start 'bleeding' subs 'long before LFR' came out unless you consider long before to mean just a couple months.

[Normie]

Wait what? You're saying you've never been satisfied after leveling from 1 to a cap? Be it to 60, 70, or 90. I find that hard to believe because everyone I knew in vanilla for example practically celebrated after overcoming the lengthy trek to 60. And you're right I suppose. Leveling to 60 for example wasn't really 'hard', but it was harder by far than leveling now. And sometimes having things take a long time to accomplish is a good thing. Like I said maybe you didn't feel it was rewarding getting multiple characters to 60 or 70, but I sure as hell did.

I don't think you get that leveling through a half dozen different expansions that make no sense together is not the same as 1-60 8 years ago in vanilla.

[Beet]

I don't think you get that leveling through a half dozen different expansions that make no sense together is not the same as 1-60 8 years ago in vanilla.

Oh sorry I had misunderstood what you meant. My apologies. I do agree with you there then.

Guild leveling pretty much destroyed the formation of new guilds and with it the ability for you to be in a guild with people of your choosing, and NOT with people you would prefer not to be with.

I didn't see this until now, but yeah this the truth. I really hate having to join some random guild with people I don't like or whatever just so I can get the rather big perks.

[Alternategray]

The only fix for the social problems in WoW is to shut the game down and start up a different MMO in a different genre with a different enough playstyle that the "problems" from WoW will shun it.

The behaviors have become so ingrained and people have become so self-righteous about being assholes to strangers that I can't see any way back out of it.

But, good work folks, you trolled WoW, and you have wounded the game fatally.

- - - Updated - - -


Grindy content just makes the evildoers run in packs because the game makes grinding in groups more efficient. If anything it makes the trolls worse.

Individual grindy content that was required for the holy heroic raiders to do their thing, hah, we'll never see that in the game again.

No, not necessarily grindy as in "kill 1,000,000 stupid ox dudes to get anywhere in this zone" but grindy as in "takes a long time to accomplish". It doesn't have to be boring at all- just quit with the difficulty nerfs. And it's not a magic fix; you can never weed out all the assholes. Ever. But it would go a looong way.

They can use common sense. No one likes to do the same quest a million times. So for each character you raise to 90, you get a permanent leveling buff for your other characters. But that very first 90 should still be an epic journey- by the time you get there, you should have learned your class in and out by necessity because you had to work your way through different difficult situations, not because the devs pushed off the burden of teaching you how to play well to fucking websites that don't even belong to them. Hell, it was harder to hit 40 in vanilla than it is to reach max level now. AND the content on the way is stupid easy. No one has to group, no one has to work together for quests. It's a welcome mat for anti-social assholes.

Edit: I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Leveling design (and some game design in general) on this game has gotten really, really lazy. You can tell when a business shifts its agenda from "making a good product and thereby a good profit" to "making a good profit however we can". I'm fairly certain the focus isn't creating a good game any longer, it's simply keeping as many subscriptions for as long as possible. That approach never works in creative endeavors, the end product ends up stale, two-dimensional and lacking. You can see it with TV shows that took off and were too successful for their own good. Surprise hit movies that get shitty soul-less sequels pumped out. And it happens to games. Sure, they can fool people for a little while, but after people realize they're not buying "Cool Thing 2.0", but "Supposedly Cool Thing designed to make you buy it again and made as cheaply as possible to get as much money out of it before people wise up and realize we're not even really the same fuckers who made the first product", they STOP BUYING IT.

[hanketsu]

I would simply suggest removing LFR all together. It has only proven a few things:

1) As OP posted, there is zero accountability. People are morons, a-holes, etc.
2) It provides a welfare system for the lazy that want to faceroll the raid, be done in a week then cancel sub and leave WoW till end of next expansion. As others have pointed out, Blizzard is a business. To keep people subbed, there has to be a hook/incentive. If people can just simply steamroll a raid without any work they get bored and leave.
3) Flex raid grants the accountability to some degree over LFR, as there is a bit more organization and structure. People are required to know their class to some degree and have to know not to stand in bad stuff. It allows the "casual" a chance to come and go as they please but also requires a little more discipline.
4) without any required skills to run LFR, and without any reward and "heck yeah!" moments when a boss is downed the morons/slackers turn to the forums to cry there isn't enough to do. It wasn't enough for them to clear the raid that was handed to them, they take that for granted and want "more" despite being given something.
5) Seeing as there is now no significant difference in recognition between LFR and Flex/normal much less anything to make the heroic raiders stand out as it can be handed to people in the next expansion when content becomes moot, there is less incentive to climb any ladder to work toward any higher goals. In the business world, if the poor high school dropout was given a ferrari and mansion and $50/hr there would be no incentive to climb any ladders. Such is the way I view this game, that without a ladder to climb or any incentive to do so, the game will stagnate and you will wind up with an increase in the morons/slackers populace.

Remove LFR, and just have flex as the new lower standard, to replace it.

Lastly, I leave you with this post

https://twitter.com/Gnomerix/status/407484659548033024

I would wholly agree, Flex is a far better idea than LFR ever was. It gives a sense of community and effort back and feels like proper raiding and you don't have to carry the morons and slackers.

[Alternategray]

I have close to 100 LFR runs on all my characters combined, and out of those encounters, I have had bad experiences (meaning wiping constantly and the group dissolving) about three times. All the rest were pretty smooth and people were cordial. There are several wipes here and there especially on the later Bosses, but the groups usually end up succeeding the second/third try.

Most of the time I breeze through the 4 SOO Wings in under 2 hours.

I don't know if it's people with an anti-LFR agenda trying to exaggerate or just focusing on their bad experiences, trying to make it look as if every single LFR group was crap. They aren't.

There is really nothing to fix in LFR, it's basically a PUG for Christ's sakes. If you have bad luck and get a bad group, just leave and requeue again. It's not like BGs you don't get a deserter debuff last I checked. If you introduce too many mechanics to vote/kick people , those mechanics WILL BE ABUSED. If you have such hate towards LFR, don't run it simple as that. There are three other difficulty modes to choose from.

What the what?! I hear stories like this occasionally, and it boggles my mind. I've run LFR in the hundreds, and I have no idea where you people come from, but I want to go there. Not to be rude, but all 4 wings in 2 hours EVER, much less "most of the time"? I have to call you out on that one. That's total bullshit. In flex groups that down the bosses in 3-ish minutes, it still takes longer than that. Unless you mean 2 hours per wing, which is actually realistic for LFR. If not, I have no idea why you'd claim that, but lying is not helping the discussion. And in easily the majority of every SoO LFR wing I've ever run someone seriously goes off on someone else. It's a nice change when it doesn't happen.

If you're talking about PRIOR tiers... Before SoO MSV was usually pretty smooth. Heart of Fear seemed to attract assholes like no tomorrow. Terrace mostly ran into technical issues, some bickering but that's about it. Some wings in ToT was where you started to see some griefing similar to HoF, like in the Forgotten Depths (fuck that place). But aside from the Depths, ToT wasn't that bad and got way better over time. Three months in and hardly anyone was wiping in my experience (unless it was a ninja-pull etc.). SoO? Holy shit. That's where the hot mess is. Thing is, it's been 3 months and most groups do no better now than in the first month, in my experience.

LFR runs nothing like a PUG. I pugged through the end of vanilla, all of BC, and much of Wrath and MoP and the dynamics of LFR are completely different. If it was a PUG, most of these problems wouldn't exist. Either you haven't ever pugged or you haven't done LFR or someone's standing beside you wiping your drool off your keyboard so it doesn't short out.

No deserter debuff? You've done a hundred LFR runs, and you leave whenever you have a bad group and you claim you don't know if there's a deserter debuff? Last you checked, of course. I smell pathological Blizzard ass-kissing. Or it's possible you're just looking to get others banned by coming into the thread and making the most inane dumbass statements you can think up.

[Sierra85]

Remove LFR, and just have flex as the new lower standard, to replace it.

this is a really good soloution as long as it was super easy to find flexi runs through an Oqueue or blizzard group finder.

[Osmeric]

you mean the chart that only had like 2 months of data for SoO? unlike the rest of the raids.

They posted stats for earlier raids earlier.

By 5.4, some 54% of players had downed LS (on LFR or above). This was more than 4x the number that had downed Garrosh (on LFR or above) in that more recent dump. Yes, we're not at the end up 5.4, but this is LFR we're talking about.

[Giscoicus]

They posted stats for earlier raids earlier.

By 5.4, some 54% of players had downed LS (on LFR or above). This was more than 4x the number that had downed Garrosh (on LFR or above) in that more recent dump. Yes, we're not at the end up 5.4, but this is LFR we're talking about.

This. Its not like LFR has progression, those who are going to kill Garrosh have killed Garrosh.

[Osmeric]

This. Its not like LFR has progression, those who are going to kill Garrosh have killed Garrosh.

Yup. More than 3/4 of those who were doing LFR in the prior tier (and possibly more, if most of those Garrosh kills are non-LFR raiders) have said "screw this, not going to bother" about clearing SoO.

LFR has failed to keep people engaged in the last tier, as some of us had long been predicting. I think the Q4 sub numbers are going to be really bad.

The last tier of Cataclysm, you had more people clearing DS on LFR. Imagine how badly subs would have tanked then if LFR had been like SoO.