Your first statement contradicts what you have been saying.
There's your contradiction. If people are leaving because they have in their minds the best looking gear, why do people such as myself transmog the gear? It isn't because it is about how cool looking the gear looks. You're connecting best looking gear to LFR stating that LFR has the best looking gear. Now if your goal in the game is to get LFR gear cause you like its looks. That that is MORE than fine. There isn't anything wrong with this goal. HOWEVER this type of person probably wouldn't raid anymore if there was or wasn't LFR UNLESS they want that tiers gear. So what is it, people are leaving because they have the best looking gear which you have connected to LFR with previous posts or people want to transmog because they want to look unique? It can't be both.
I can say the same and come up with a different outcome, just by this thread alone. You are about how gear looks. That is fine, there are players who don't care about how gear looks and transmog which like players like me. You have players who are mount collectors and there is incentive for them, same with title collectors. Now if you care about how gear looks, don't even bother to raid past LFR cause most of the gear is recolor. I am not 100% sure if there is unique gear just for Heroic. If there is, that is great. I do believe that Heroic players should get a tad more. There are so many different players, that you don't know what the majority of players are. I will never state my instincts of what players want as fact. It seems like that is what you're doing.Im not saying I know everything, I just know well the very basic instincts of players because I am one myself. Those mounts and achievments for me alone really mean nothing. I would never even step in a normal raid because I have no incentive to do it.
Yea there will be those people. However there you are again stating opinion as fact. You're telling me that at one point 12 million people wanted more than "normal". Wrong because you don't know 12 million people, you don't know 10 million people, you don't know 7 million people. I watch a streamer and all they do is just derp around in WoW. They RARELY do LFR, infact this streamer has been playing since TBC and did their first current raid in MoP (all the raids he has done were older raids from past expansions). This person defys everything you said about incentive. He has fun with people he knows in games and collects mounts and pets. He is casual as they come. So WoW isn;t about just sitting on your butt and have people admire your gear, especially not now with people transmogging or going server and world firsts.I guarantee you that people always want to show off unique/ different gear and that would be more than "normal kind of wow incentive" to continue playing this game....hell this is what wow as always been about. PVEwise as always been about siting my butt on the city showing of my gear I just got from boss X raiding with my buddys and guildies.
Raid flex and normal and you can get that feeling back. Apperently showing off your "cool looking" gear means a lot more than the feeling working with friends and guildies. Pieces of gear EVEN if they look the same can tell a different story. If that one guy got his helm from LFR and it looks the same as yours, it doesn't take away that experience you got from doing the raid with friends and guildies. Cause maybe how you got that helm was you almost wiped, you're the last one up and you got the boss down. You can ALWAYS look at that helm that same helm that thousands of guys have but you yourself will have a story and will like it more and keep it. I don't know about you, if I could raid with friends and a active guild, I would because that is more fun and you get the cool gear while at it. I would take that over LFR everyday and I probably would still do LFR.Is such a good feeling being able to wear items you know full well you couldn't do it alone without the help of your friends and teamwork of your guildies. Those pieces of armor always end up meaning something special to you.
I find it funny with all this debating that everyone is actually right when it comes to sub losses. WoW lost subs due to age, due to casualsation (is this a word?) of the game, LFR, game is too hard, game is too easy, etc. There are SOOO many factors on why people leave, that everyone is right. However, there isn't no ONE true giant reason. If there was, Blizzard would know and would have tried to fix it. All we can do is think why we know why there are sub losses and how everyone thinks, but we don't and never will. All we have is what Blizzard says and I'll take their word everyday of the week cause they do have the facts and figures. There is no sense in lying because 1 that builds major distrust with alot of players and 2 you can't hide problems especially if you have to report sub gains and losses.