Is WoW always going to be like this?

[Theendgamelv3]

Your first statement contradicts what you have been saying.

People are leaving because in their minds they have the best looking rewards ingame.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

[Peso]

The way I see people not 'seeing' the content is it is good, as there is still something for them to play for. In BC I only got up to SSC. It's not the games fault, I could of gone all the way to Sunwell given enough time. But TK-Sunwell served its purpose to me as something to work towards.

Bingo. WoTLK was a big offender. Tier pieces for heroic 5 man badges pissed me off. Noobs didn't even need to step into Naxx to get tier gear. But it was after Ulduar and when team 2 stepped in when it all went to shit. Now we are drenched with garbage after garbage. and no motivation after no motivation to do anything.

[Jun]

Saying that you are motivated by something you'll never see is.... special.
If you're tired of raiding, just admit you're burned out. It's really that simple.
If you feel you have no motivation to progress because "you've seen it all," then yeah, you're done. That's not Blizz's fault. There's always more content to experience.
"But it's not content I waaaaant!"
So? It's there to do all the same. I hate PvP. I'd be all right if they removed every aspect of it.
Doesn't mean I'm gonna complain about how constant balancing is ruining the game, as 1. It's not true, and 2. I don't PvP; not my problem.
I could be assuming too much, but from what I've read, the majority of people complaining about one side of the fence spend their time on the opposite side.
Players who complain about LFR typically have little to do with it.
Players who complain about heroic raiding typically have little to do with it.
Most everyone else is a troll, flame-baiting for attention.
Find me a player who has 14/14H, 95% of the achievements, 200+ mounts, and full Gladiator ranking, and ask them what they think of LFR.
I'm willing to bet they don't give one little damn about it.
Why?
They're motivated by more than "seeing content."

[nekobaka]

Some people, myself included, just preferred the original model. The one where older content did not get tossed aside with each new patch, because of catch up mechanics. The one where you still went on a journey with your team, and even if you didn't get to the top tier for months it didn't matter because the fun part was getting there.

Other people like the new system, where you defeat the same bosses on multiple settings. I mean, it's more or less the same in a lot of ways, but a lot more repetitive.

It really comes down to preference. But it's okay to disagree. I don't think there's any 'one true' method one way or the other. It's just about what you like personally. For me the game was more fun originally because, as Preach says in that video, it didn't matter if you didn't see the top level content, because the game felt a lot more epic when it took effort to get to there.

Just my preference.

This brings the player adaptation issue and to it the hypocrisy players will use it at time. People are different and a lot of times players fail in being able to communicate and stand up for their points without having to rely on the belief that they represent the majority. Sure not everyone is going to like a change and there will be changes that players can adapt to and other that just fully turn them off. In Cata if someone said adapt or leave then you was told to shut up you elitists and the kinds of players who would have said shut up elitists would then tell others to adapt or leave.

Just like the special snowflake or elitist term which gets tossed at players. You are an elitist if you seem self centered while being a more successful player in a video game, but if you are self centered while believing you represent the majority(which is always false) some how you become a saint. Why is it that one person gets to have ego issues while another doesnt. I could see a point if a person was actually voted to be a representative of others or if they payed more, but they dont and are only representative of themselves.

The idea that players who segregate the community and spit on others while thinking only what good for them will call themselves the more mature individual is really telling how blinded by ego a player is especially when they refuse to take responsibility for their own actions and choices.

Where were you guys earlier when I was debating 5 people at once?

IDK, but one of them ran off two threads in a row after I called them out to back their source which at this point I have them falsifying statements and putting words in a developers mouth.

[Ielenia]

See you didn't actually prove anything there. My response could be that it had nearly 4million more subs in its older style. And that has more substance behind it than what you're saying, which is speculation. The truth is we don't know either way.

Actually, it has no substance at all other than just your preference of 'older style' over modern style. (Classical '<Currrent Expansion> sucks, Vanilla was better' case).

Tossing nostalgia goggles and opinions aside, judging purely from what is reasonably known about the current MMO market, one can take an educated guess that the reason WoW is 'losing subs' is simply because the influx of new players is no longer catching up to the departure of players. People change. What a player liked five years ago is likely to have changed in those five years. A small example is myself: I loved Space Combat games the most until eight, seven years ago. Now, RPGs are at the top of my list. People's likes and dislikes, opinions and even personalities change with the passage of time. People grow bored of WoW. People can have kids. People can have a wife now. People can get unemployed and need to drop any unnecessary bills just to survive the months. People can get angry at WoW's changes.

Now you say WoW could very well have 'nearly 4 millions more subs in its older style', as you put it. Again. Tossing nostalgia goggles and opinions asside, we can see what you say is a very, VERY unlikely scenario. Why? While the WoW of old was more friendly than the others MMO around its launch, WoW Classic was still very much grindy. Again, myself as an example: it took me a month and a half to get to level 70 during early BC, while I was in college, and I was quite irresponsible back then, skipping class to play WoW.

Now I got a job. And if I want to make a new alt, even WITH my regular job, I can reach current max level, in just a week. Week and a half if I get too much stress at work. Can you imagine how long it'd take to reach max level, level 90, using old WoW's metrics? And if you want to invite a friend: "Hey, want to come play World of Warcraft with me? Yeah. Start a new character and then, in a few months, we'll be able to party together for heroics and stuff!" Of course, assuming the first class your friend picks ends up being the one he actually likes the way it plays at max level.

[Deleted]

Are things this bad? Can ANY player no matter how bad they are be able to do 100% of the content (Heroic modes not included).

You have an interesting definition of what 100% of content is. Can you afk through 5 mens or even lfr? Yes, since these things were made for players without a plan of what they do, so if a couple of players actually know, what to do, they can easily carry those afk-ers.

Are you thus able to do 100% of the content? Simple answer: No. Even if you exclude heroic modes (which is just a plain stupid thing to do, as every difficulty is part of the content) there are several other thing, you can't do with only being afk. Try to find a group for challenge modes. Try brawler's guild or proving grounds without doing anything or playing just really bad. Pet battles anyone? Or try to get a flex group, I promise you will be kicked. So, the only thing you actually can do no matter how bad you are is extremly outgeared content like 5 men heroics or lfr (which is outgeared from the moment of its release).

So, what your point? First excluding the content, which is per definition not easy, so all that is left IS per definition easy and then saying "oh no, everything is sooo easy, what a silly game"? That is, again, just plain stupid, sorry for those harsh words. Are you looking for a game, which has difficult content, which is not overly accessible to everyone who is able to turn on his computer, where you need to find other players to conquer the badass bosses after trying it for several hundred times, because it's so difficult? Yes? So play WoW, cause it just has this content besides easy content for people who want to do easy content. It's seems very hard to understand...

[Zafire]

I don't really play WoW anymore because it is not fun to me. PvP was the main reason I kept playing, and every class is so similar to one another now I can't really get into the "immersion" of my character.

Also, I LIKED the fact some PvE gear was better than PVP gear, because that gave me a huge reason to PvE, while now I don't really have one at all. Want to know a little secret? I pretty much never got any of the good PvE gear, but I got to see a lot of raids and I had fun because I had a purpose.

[Ronduwil]

let me try to explain how Im feeling:

Amateur League: 1st Place Prize - 900 950 Dollars
Pro Leagues : 1st Place Prize - 1 million Dollars

Why should I put myself trough such a big punishment, facing Myke Tyson/ Rocky Balboa on the ring nearly killing myself out there...if the amateur leagues give almost the same prize money ^^ But again...this is how I perceive it because I don't care about the mount/achievement and slightly different colors.

The problem with that is that no one will pay a dime to watch you do heroic raids while Mike Tyson will draw several millions of viewers to his fight. Blizzard isn't a raiding league with huge payouts. It's a game that people pay to play. Very few people care whether or not you're in heroic gear. Very few people ever cared. If this is really causing you so much angst then your problems are solved because it's been all in your mind the whole time. Welcome to the real world.

I really believe that if the gear dropping in LFR had the same ilvl but the designs of the 5 man heroics gear...people would have all the incentive in the world to keep raiding.

Sure. That's why 5-man challenge modes are all the rage. They drop exclusive transmog gear that's supposed to be better looking than anything else in the game but I've never seen it. Know why? Because no one does challenge modes. Know why? Because they don't give you better ilevels. Ilevel is all anyone cares about, and more difficult raid modes are already providing that.

< This I think is the equivalent of speaking the word "Voldemort" in Harry Potter. The SIMPLE TRUTH no one admits is that no one is doing LFR for its main purpose which was to see the content (said by devs and even titled it "tourist mode").

Blizzard stated what LFR was for before they even released it:

Q.Who is Raid Finder for?
A. Raid Finder is primarily intended for players who don’t already raid consistently. These are players who may not have had the opportunity to take part in raid content due to scheduling conflicts, playtime constraints, limited access to other raid-capable players, or a lack of experience with higher-end content. These players may want to experience World of Warcraft’s raid content and storyline without being able to commit to the additional time investment of a raiding guild. The Raid Finder is also a great way to quickly and easily gear up alternate characters without having to worry about raid lockouts.

It's always been for gearing because gearing is also part of content. Saying that LFR was meant to just let people look at the raid is like treating some friends to a restaurant where they get to sit at the table and admire the plates for thirty minutes before being asked to leave without getting served.

They are doing it to get the epics...and not only epics, but the best looking tier this game as to offer. The same design of normal, flex, heroic or any other content in game. Same designs.

Seriously, MoP has the ugliest gear ever. Everyone transmogs it anyway. No one is doing LFR for cool looking gear. They do it to boost their ilevel and to farm the 608 ilevel cape.

The very basic source of incentive in this game died right here, at least for me...but I cant speak for everyone. It seems some people find the final achivment/mount an outstanding reward. Not me, I could never become a flex/normal/heroic raider just for the sake of an achievement and mount.

I feel sorry for you that your enjoyment of WoW was exclusively derived from the idea that you would someday get a piece of ugly gear. If that's what you were raiding for, then it was for the wrong reasons. The experience of a challenging kill is the reward in and of itself. The gear just brings your team a little closer to getting that kill. Gear is basically a cumulative weekly nerf. That's it.

[Mormolyce]

You have an interesting definition of what 100% of content is. Can you afk through 5 mens or even lfr? Yes, since these things were made for players without a plan of what they do, so if a couple of players actually know, what to do, they can easily carry those afk-ers.

Come to think of it you could get carried AFK through Molten Core back in Vanilla, or even ICC in Wrath with the full buff in place if your group was strong enough. Didn't mean it was a good idea.

[brunnor]

You have an interesting definition of what 100% of content is. Can you afk through 5 mens or even lfr? Yes, since these things were made for players without a plan of what they do, so if a couple of players actually know, what to do, they can easily carry those afk-ers.

Are you thus able to do 100% of the content? Simple answer: No. Even if you exclude heroic modes (which is just a plain stupid thing to do, as every difficulty is part of the content) there are several other thing, you can't do with only being afk. Try to find a group for challenge modes. Try brawler's guild or proving grounds without doing anything or playing just really bad. Pet battles anyone? Or try to get a flex group, I promise you will be kicked. So, the only thing you actually can do no matter how bad you are is extremly outgeared content like 5 men heroics or lfr (which is outgeared from the moment of its release).

So, what your point? First excluding the content, which is per definition not easy, so all that is left IS per definition easy and then saying "oh no, everything is sooo easy, what a silly game"? That is, again, just plain stupid, sorry for those harsh words. Are you looking for a game, which has difficult content, which is not overly accessible to everyone who is able to turn on his computer, where you need to find other players to conquer the badass bosses after trying it for several hundred times, because it's so difficult? Yes? So play WoW, cause it just has this content besides easy content for people who want to do easy content. It's seems very hard to understand...

Challenge modes are the same as heroic compared to LFR. There is nothing new or special in them, besides purely cosmetic rewards. So I'd toss C modes in with the LFR/heroic issue. It is the reason you don't see tons of "LF CM groups". The reward isn't worth it to normal players. There are those people who will do them to get the challenge, like you and I are judging by your progress, but that isn't 99% of the players.

What Preach and others like him are saying is that the game is over after LFR for a vast majority of players because going farther isn't worth it at all. There is nothing more to the game past that. Maybe some Timeless isle or Isle of Thunder quests, or even pet battles, but all of that is solo easy stuff.

To all the people saying "if not for LFR I wouldn't see DS/MSV/ToT/SoO/etc" you are wrong. You would see them like everyone used to see raids, in pugs. Pugs would have never left if Blizzard didn't try to change everything around.

"But Brunnor, if we go back to old ways, I won't get to see all the content!" Do you see it now? Is 1% of players seeing and finishing the final boss of the final tier in an expansion any better than 1% of players doing the first raid of an expansion? Blizzard changed they way they did raids in the name of "we don't want our work to go to waste and only be seen by xx% of players" and yet that is exactly what they are doing. Unless you have played the whole expansion, you aren't going to see MSV, HoF, ToES, ToT. There is ZERO reason to do those as a newer player. The same can even be said for 5man heroics. Blizzard keeps trivializing all their own content making it so players won't ever go there and think that it is a better idea than the way it was.

[Ronduwil]

TBH I have a hard time believing noone raided to begin with. It's what Bliz would lead us to believe with their stats. But anyone who played back then knows that raiding/PuGing was quite popular, even if it was just Kara.

Those pesky stats and their irrefutable truthfulness!!! Yeah. Anyone who was in a raiding guild back then would know that raiding was quite popular, just like every curler in the Olympics knows that curling is quite popular. I imagine that every member of a fraternity knows that binge drinking is quite popular too. Five 40-man groups spamming LFM on trade chat at any given time meant that 200 players on your server were raiding that night. Out of how many in the game? Most players never even hit max level back then according to Blizzard and their inconvenient stats. For every raider you saw there were nine other players who were engaged in other pursuits. Just because the people you raid with raid every week doesn't make the activity popular. I was in math club in high school, but I was never under the delusion that math was actually popular.

[Zenko]

I dont get it. 36 pages of people arguing that LFR = WoW?

[Theendgamelv3]

Challenge modes are the same as heroic compared to LFR. There is nothing new or special in them, besides purely cosmetic rewards. So I'd toss C modes in with the LFR/heroic issue. It is the reason you don't see tons of "LF CM groups". The reward isn't worth it to normal players. There are those people who will do them to get the challenge, like you and I are judging by your progress, but that isn't 99% of the players.

What Preach and others like him are saying is that the game is over after LFR for a vast majority of players because going farther isn't worth it at all. There is nothing more to the game past that. Maybe some Timeless isle or Isle of Thunder quests, or even pet battles, but all of that is solo easy stuff.

To all the people saying "if not for LFR I wouldn't see DS/MSV/ToT/SoO/etc" you are wrong. You would see them like everyone used to see raids, in pugs. Pugs would have never left if Blizzard didn't try to change everything around.

"But Brunnor, if we go back to old ways, I won't get to see all the content!" Do you see it now? Is 1% of players seeing and finishing the final boss of the final tier in an expansion any better than 1% of players doing the first raid of an expansion? Blizzard changed they way they did raids in the name of "we don't want our work to go to waste and only be seen by xx% of players" and yet that is exactly what they are doing. Unless you have played the whole expansion, you aren't going to see MSV, HoF, ToES, ToT. There is ZERO reason to do those as a newer player. The same can even be said for 5man heroics. Blizzard keeps trivializing all their own content making it so players won't ever go there and think that it is a better idea than the way it was.

Not everyone saw it then....If lots of people saw it then there would be little reason to have LFR.

You say that content they worked on goes to waste even now. While what you do say is true, it isn't true in the same way how only 1% saw naxx. MSV, ToT, etc are now wasted the same way older expansion raids are wasted, time just past by. Only 1% saw Naxx when it was relevant. Are you gonna argue that only 1% saw the raids in 1st tier of MoP when it was relevant? Are you gonna argue that 1% saw the 2nd tier of this expansion when it was relevant? The answer is no. Enough people saw the 1st and 2nd tiers to justify that contents creation unlike Naxx according to Blizzard. That 1% is for heroic Garrosh and the only new thing players saw was a another phase if you did heroic if I am correct. I am willing to bet that more than 1% has experienced SoO in any difficulty.

You say there is ZERO reason to do the older MoP raids now. That is not true. First off if you are new and want to do the legendary quest, it is in your interest to do the older raids as you get more shots at getting the sigils of power and wisdom. Also you need to loot the last boss of ToES. Also if you want to get VP to gear up faster if you get unlucky in drops or to upgrade gear. This also helps if you are doing the legendary quest. I did old raids last night so I can get to the 3000 VP faster and I still got upgrades from the Shado Pan assault vendor using some VP.

[Uvwaex]

Did you saw the video from min 3:35.......he did absolutely NOTHING and was always the DPS with the most damage taken...in the end he was full epic and seen 100% of the content in the game.

This game was once a symbol of respect and considered the ultimate challenge/ social experience and the best design in the gaming industry...and now this is the wow we have?

If full LFR epics (which, by the way, thanks to the dramaticly lower ilvl and little tag that says RAID FINDER is not PRESTIGIOUS) is your goal/definition of 100% content in the game, then yes. But its the same thing as someone having full greens/blues in bc or vanilla.

[nekobaka]

If full LFR epics (which, by the way, thanks to the dramaticly lower ilvl and little tag that says RAID FINDER is not PRESTIGIOUS) is your goal/definition of 100% content in the game, then yes. But its the same thing as someone having full greens/blues in bc or vanilla.

Gear isnt content, it is a reward for doing content. If all you care about is item level then the gap wouldnt have been that large of a gap in the first place if LFR wasnt placed in-between non-raiding alternatives and normal mode. Players used to be able to not raid and get normal mode level rewards, but that changed with LFR and the developers attempts to shove players into it and continual failure to make it a long term grind. WoD is supposed to resolve this regret of Blizzard and tighten the gap between normal mode raiding and alternatives with LFR no longer being above the alternatives. Also LFR gear isnt shitty and is far better than the greens and blues players would have been wearing in Classic and BC compared to raiders in epics. Dont be comparing players doing sub 50% of the potential in LFR gear to players pulling over 90% in normal and heroic.

[Deleted]

Challenge modes are the same as heroic compared to LFR. There is nothing new or special in them, besides purely cosmetic rewards. So I'd toss C modes in with the LFR/heroic issue. It is the reason you don't see tons of "LF CM groups". The reward isn't worth it to normal players. There are those people who will do them to get the challenge, like you and I are judging by your progress, but that isn't 99% of the players.

What Preach and others like him are saying is that the game is over after LFR for a vast majority of players because going farther isn't worth it at all. There is nothing more to the game past that. Maybe some Timeless isle or Isle of Thunder quests, or even pet battles, but all of that is solo easy stuff.

To all the people saying "if not for LFR I wouldn't see DS/MSV/ToT/SoO/etc" you are wrong. You would see them like everyone used to see raids, in pugs. Pugs would have never left if Blizzard didn't try to change everything around.

"But Brunnor, if we go back to old ways, I won't get to see all the content!" Do you see it now? Is 1% of players seeing and finishing the final boss of the final tier in an expansion any better than 1% of players doing the first raid of an expansion? Blizzard changed they way they did raids in the name of "we don't want our work to go to waste and only be seen by xx% of players" and yet that is exactly what they are doing. Unless you have played the whole expansion, you aren't going to see MSV, HoF, ToES, ToT. There is ZERO reason to do those as a newer player. The same can even be said for 5man heroics. Blizzard keeps trivializing all their own content making it so players won't ever go there and think that it is a better idea than the way it was.

First, there is actually something really special in challenge modes or heroic raids: the challenge (and speaking 'bout heroic raids even better rewards in form of better items). But that is just not the point. The content is there, and just because someone says "I don't wanna do this" it won't disappear magically, it's still out there for everyone who is willing to do it.
Saying the game would be over after clearing LFR is like playing a game like God of War on the easiest difficulty just to say "that was easy, gimme my money back!". I understand, that there are players around, who are not interested in the challenge or better items, but that does not mean there would be no content per se, it's just no content for them, 'cause they don't want to participate.

My problem with such statements is, that these players exclude themselfs by their own choice from the major part of the content and then are complaining about the lack of content. I do fully understand if someone isn't just interested in doing scheduled raids and is just fine with clearing LFR or Flex, but he then has to accept, that it is his own choice to not see the whole thing, not that there would not be more.

Shadowpunkz' point was that anyone could see 100% of the content without having any plan or even doing anything and without any needs to interact with others on a social level. That is simply not true, it's appears only to be true due to the mistake to regret a huge amount of content and declaring it as "no content".

[Not Againnn]

i wouldnt really consider difficulties as extra content.

its's a spin on current content. challenge mode mogushan palace is just rly fast mogushan palace

[Adoxe]

If you call LFR 99% of the content then I don't know what to tell you... I haven't touched LFR a single time in the last 6 months and yet I'm raiding, see where I'm going with this? The world doesn't turn around LFR, it is not the end game and never will be, sure it is for some players but anyone with basic idea of how to play the game properly without mashing 1 button and getting away with it will progress further than that.

[Deleted]

I will never understand why people quit because players with less time or skill, gain access to the same content.
If you complete a single player FPS game on hardcore, would you tell the players on easy to stop playing?

I can understand the bit with less social interaction, but do you really miss spending ages in /trade to find players for dungeons, and then travelling there?
I don't.

[Kathranis]

Maybe instead of basing whether or not you play a game on how other people play the game, you should base it on whether or not you actually enjoy the game...

If people play LFR and get LFR quality gear to see LFR content, how does that affect anyone but those who want to play LFR?

If you don't want to play LFR, play Flex or Normal or Heroic.