LFR Being Phased Out...is this Possible?

[DeadmanWalking]

'People' absolutely are source-able. It's called a poll. You said a lot of raiders feel that way. Where is your source that a lot of raiders feel that way?

You don't have one? Then you don't know a lot of raiders feel that way, making your post bullshit. And I never claimed Blizzard said anything, so for the FOURTH time this thread, STOP CONFUSING POSTS.



Funny, that's exactly what someone who doesn't have a response would say.



Again; source.



This is called the "I can't believe you don't know this, you must be stupid" defense. It really has no merit whatsoever.



I don't smoke. And it's not warping; It's called 'reality.' Something you should probably acquaint yourself with since you can't seem to tell posters apart let alone what's real and what isn't.

We all know people exist that think raiding should be reserved for raiders, if you can't recognise that without a source than you are either willfully blind or blindly evading. I don't need to source it. I'm sorry if that gets up under your grill but I am sure we will both live with it. Even polls are flawed as it is only a poll of those who take the poll and not representative of wow players as a whole. You really are good at grasping at straws though and your desperate evasions just help me prove how right I am.

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Why do people assume that Blizzard is purposely doing things that will lose them money?

Because it is impossible for someone to accept something that goes against their skewed worldview.

[Otimus]

Except raiding is the main point of the game. The fact that people don't do it is a problem that Blizzard needs to fix (and one they have been trying to fix for years). They don't need to add "other stuff" they need to make raiding appealing to the people who aren't doing it. You can't design two games - one for raiders and one for people who don't want to do it. That's insane (especially when you throw PvP on top).

I read your post and honestly all I can see is the fact that for years and years you have been too lazy to find a guild that fits your play style.



"The issue?" What issue? Can you elaborate on what the issue is?



Okay? You're just describing what LFR is. You're not explaining why that's an "issue" we should care about. What difference does it make if this scaled down version of the raid exists? How does it effect you in any way if you're not doing LFR?



Better than it was 98% of the population were not raiding?

Yes. It is obviously better now.

Could they lose a few difficulties? Probably. But going back to 1 or 2 is not the answer (obviously).



Uhh, no. That's why they're taking one out.



They did that. It's called LFR. It works fine. You still haven't explained why it's "an issue."

I don't really understand how you got that out of that. If anything, I agree with you. No need to be ready to attack there, champ!

[DeadmanWalking]

'People' absolutely are source-able. It's called a poll. You said a lot of raiders feel that way. Where is your source that a lot of raiders feel that way?

You don't have one? Then you don't know a lot of raiders feel that way, making your post bullshit. And I never claimed Blizzard said anything, so for the FOURTH time this thread, STOP CONFUSING POSTS.



Funny, that's exactly what someone who doesn't have a response would say.



Again; source.



This is called the "I can't believe you don't know this, you must be stupid" defense. It really has no merit whatsoever.



I don't smoke. And it's not warping; It's called 'reality.' Something you should probably acquaint yourself with since you can't seem to tell posters apart let alone what's real and what isn't.

I put up a poll since you suggested it and within a minut soneone already voted that raiding content should be for raiders not casuals. http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...nd-not-casuals
So you guys can stop being willfully blind or blindly evading now.

[Deleted]

Before LFR, this is what happened:

(I can't speak for Vanilla)

BC: Got to 70, ran random BGs till you got bored. leveled an alt till you got bored. Then you quit.

WOTLK: Got to 80. Ran dungeons till you got bored. Eventually there was a point when ICC was fairly puggable, but you rarely ever got past the first four bosses. You got bored then quit.

Cata: Random BGs, random dungeons, got bored then quit. Then LFR got added. Did that till you got bored. Then quit.

MoP: That, but with more stuff..

Take a closer look at this analysis of what players did in each expansion... take a real close look.

I think we are witnessing the story of a player who didnt socialise much.... a player who didnt engage in the MMO part of Wow, or at the very least reluctantly did so.

And tbh I can see why this player would see the current Wow model as much better, loads better in fact... well, im the kind of player who enjoyed the MMO and RPG part of Wow and thats why i think the current Wow model is worse than it was.

Your analysis of what u did at endgame in each expansion is completely different to mine. I had loads to do, loads of different groups of players to mix with, I knew most players on my realm and every single time i logged on i would get at least one /w with an offer to join something. And hey on the rare occasions i didnt get a /w i would organise something myself and send out /w to get a team together to do so.

U mention bored alot in your analysis... i dont remember getting bored during the time i played.

It saddens me that Blizzard has designed the game to cater for the player u describe above... cos that was someone who didnt enjoy the whole game as much me. And now the tables r turned and i dont have a game i enjoy anymore yet the player u describe, the one who got bored easily, now he has a game which is perfect for him.

[Sansnom]

Take a closer look at this analysis of what players did in each expansion... take a real close look.

I think we are witnessing the story of a player who didnt socialise much.... a player who didnt engage in the MMO part of Wow, or at the very least reluctantly did so.

And tbh I can see why this player would see the current Wow model as much better, loads better in fact... well, im the kind of player who enjoyed the MMO and RPG part of Wow and thats why i think the current Wow model is worse than it was.

I do not recall the post mentioning anything about a failure to socialize. Yes, it was a player that failed to experience the MMO aspect of the game. If we talking about raiding, then how many players actually raided? The minority or the majority? We do not know. I have no doubt your experience was different.

I started playing during the middle of TBC. The guilds by then already had a raid team, progressing. Dungeons. Remember before LFD, it was spamming the trade chat. I was new. No one knew me, and I knew no one. Judging from the trade chat, I was not the only one looking for groups for dungeons. On the off chance of finding a group, there was the chance of being drop because of their friends just logged on and so you replaced. Building a reputation? How when you only get to run a dungeon or two per week if you are lucky.

Maybe the guild can help? The guild is busy raiding. They have their teams, they have their bench raiders. Why run with someone completely new when there are people in the queue hoping for a chance too?

Your experience is different. Good for you.

Blizzard is definitely helping these players by introducing LFD and now LFR. Why? Maybe because they noticed a problem and you did not. Why should you? You had your groups and is experiencing content. Blizzard probably noticed there is section of players that is not the same situation as you and therefore rectified the solution by introducing LFD and LFR. Remeber when LFD was introduced, there were complaints about that too when it arrived.

Blizzard has not removed any of the old elements from the game. You can still group with your friends for raids and dungeons. Yes, Blizzard has helped people to get more into game without having to form the large groups required. And nothing was taken away in doing that. So you have not lost nothing.

[Deleted]

Your experience is different. Good for you.

And when i was enjoying the game 12mill others were also playing... and now only half of that are playing with this model which caters for that guy, the one who got bored easily.

To me not much was wrong with Wow back then, it was great... im guessing 6mill others who left might see the game the same as me... better back then than it is now.

Which model was better?

Ofc the guys still playing will agree that the new model is best, theyre the ones being described in Otiswhittakers analysis... they got the game changed to how they wanted it... they just lost half the playerbase in the process.

[Sansnom]

And when i was enjoying the game 12mill others were also playing... and now only half of that are playing with this model which caters for that guy, the one who got bored easily.

To me not much was wrong with Wow back then, it was great... im guessing 6mill others who left might see the game the same as me... better back then than it is now.

Which model was better?

For me this one. The game is more accessible, which I consider a good thing. The old raiding model has not been removed. It is still there. The game is has not gotten easier. Players has gotten better.

They lost 6 million players. Unless you know something that the general player base does not, and I certainly do not, is what was the cause of the 6 million player sub lost.

Some has claimed it was due to the change in the Asian market after WoTLK, some claim it was due LFR. Some claim due to the "casual" that is WoW now.

WoW subs grew in TBC, and soared during WoTLK. Neither had LFR. Since then it has lost subs in Cata and MoP and since both had LFR, I guess it does not take a genius to link the two together.

[Ulfhedinn]

I put up a poll since you suggested it and within a minut soneone already voted that raiding content should be for raiders not casuals. http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...nd-not-casuals
So you guys can stop being willfully blind or blindly evading now.

31 people said yes... wtf?

I am a pretty hardcore gamer in general. I don't raid in wow anymore and play other games instead but I used to raid. I am one of the very few people that actually downed bosses in Naxx40. My guild beat Nef in BWL using my strat and not something we saw some other guild do... I was a raid leader and an class officer for both Priest and Warlock. I have 4 pvp title achievements. I spend far to much time playing video games...

That being said I would never ask that content be removed from a game because it is to easy for me. That is a special kind of ignorant. Here is what I do when something is to easy for me... I don't do it or if I get bored I will do it to help other people out. Sometimes I do normal MoP dungeons just because I can solo them as a tank and the people leveling enjoy it (I do this for randoms in DF btw). I know I am not the only one that does this. I see people in BiS or near BiS gear running LFR often. They have no reason to be there but they do it anyway to help out a friend or just for the faceroll of it.

At the end of Wrath I used DF and ran into a BiS fury warrior. He queued as dps but said "Sorry tank I'll be doing the tanking here." I said Ok and changed my gear. Sure enough the dude wrecked the place and the 5 of us kept queueing for awhile like that.

This isn't an RPG btw... its an MMORPG... massively multiplayer. Why is everyone trying to ruin that for the average player?

[Firebert]

Ok then heres a challenge for u.

Name me ONE part of Wow which has had more discussion than LFR.

"TBC was the best era of WoW".

[Deleted]

For me this one. The game is more accessible, which I consider a good thing. The old raiding model has not been removed. It is still there. The game is has not gotten easier. Players has gotten better.

u say that as if the game wasnt accessible back then... 12million players say it was fine and accessible back then.

They lost 6 million players. Unless you know something that the general player base does not, and I certainly do not, is what was the cause of the 6 million player sub lost.

Some has claimed it was due to the change in the Asian market after WoTLK, some claim it was due LFR. Some claim due to the "casual" that is WoW now.

WoW subs grew in TBC, and soared during WoTLK. Neither had LFR. Since then it has lost subs in Cata and MoP and since both had LFR, I guess it does not take a genius to link the two together.

The point is that its impossible to know the exact reasons why players left... hell even the form u complete on the Blizzard site when u quit doesnt cover much, the form sucks. I know cos ive done it.

But i think its safe to say that when the game was at its peak, from TBC through to Wrath, the game was doing something right and since then something went wrong. I dont subscribe to the bullshit that players just got bored and the game got old. Im confident if Blizzard had made better decisions for the games design direction they wouldve had a much better chance at holding onto a bigger playerbase than they have now.

Im sure they regret certain decisions theyve made.

[Anzaman]

This isn't an RPG btw... its an MMORPG... massively multiplayer. Why is everyone trying to ruin that for the average player?

I'd only want viable alternative way through heroic dungeons. Actually, I'd even prefer them to keep the LFR in-game, so they can adjust it's difficulty down instead of normal mode.

And how does one determine "average" player? :d

[ComputerNerd]

Raiding was never meant to be done "on your terms," It was always meant to be the ultimate large group content for the game, and just because people CHOOSE not to participate in the large group content for whatever reason / excuse they could come up with, did not mean it had to be dumbed down and given out on a silver platter in terms of LFR.

By all means, I really do hope they completely and utterly remove LFR from existence during and after WoD. I hope it dies off like Wargames died off from arenas. LFR has no place in this game anymore. IF you are not up to the challenge of getting attuned, gearing up, and finding a group to raid with, you are not worthy to see it in the first place.

That is just arrogant assuming that because it isnt organised that it isn't raiding.
Always these arbitrary definitions people come up with for the the sake of bashing LFR when they completely ignore the fact that if there is only one complete raiding experience, Heroic.
If you want to start adding in arbitrary measures of what defines it to be real or not, then you should be, but aren't bashing the other formats before heroic.
The fact you aren't doing that proves that your entire argument is simply bias.

Lol LFR can stay as long as it's not mandatory for character progression. That's the true problem, I could care less if people get good gear from them, they still don't know how to use it properly and it shows. Much like how PvP gear is accessible to all but it's clear who is actually a good PvPer.

Give us Mythic Dungeons plz as an alternative.

It isn't MANDATORY, as you can avoid it as a gear source.
It is just CONVENIENT, and FASTER if you include it.
VERY different.

u say that as if the game wasnt accessible back then... 12million players say it was fine and accessible back then.



The point is that its impossible to know the exact reasons why players left... hell even the form u complete on the Blizzard site when u quit doesnt cover much, the form sucks. I know cos ive done it.

But i think its safe to say that when the game was at its peak, from TBC through to Wrath, the game was doing something right and since then something went wrong. I dont subscribe to the bullshit that players just got bored and the game got old. Im confident if Blizzard had made better decisions for the games design direction they wouldve had a much better chance at holding onto a bigger playerbase than they have now.

Im sure they regret certain decisions theyve made.

Making an assumption that blizzard's decisions are why people left, when by your own admission we don't know that.
The community has gone downhill, and it is very hostile now to new and inexperienced players.
That is a fact, and I believe to be a much larger problem than many like to admit.
If anyone is going to judge the game from the public opinion on forums, then they won't get an accurate representation.

It has been stated by blizzard that the game is not attracting new players as much as it used to.
Changes made to the game aren't going to influence the decision of potential players as it would influence the decisions of longer-term players.
Therefore it is something else.

[Zagnut]

Ok then heres a challenge for u.

Name me ONE part of Wow which has had more discussion than LFR.

The only reason LFR gets talked about is because there are a few thousand noisy content-exclusionist raiders on the internet, and now that MMO game design has moved on and left them behind, they've decided to congregate on forums like this and throw an endless years-long tantrum in stupid threads like this one.

They are exactly like the old player killers in Ultima Online. When that game finally nerfed it's insanely open mandatory full-loot PVP, the exiled player killers spent years shitting up every forum they could find on the topic. And yet no revolution ever occurred, no wave of hardcore full-loot PVP games took over the market, nothing happened. Everyone had moved on.

[Deleted]

The only reason LFR gets talked about is because there are a few thousand noisy content-exclusionist raiders on the internet, and now that MMO game design has moved on and left them behind, they've decided to congregate on forums like this and throw an endless years-long tantrum in stupid threads like this one.

So by your logic any complaint or criticism is never worth listening to cos its only ever by a handful of loudmouths... personally i like to listen to what everyones got to say.

Methinks the fact LFR receives such a large hostile response is because there is a large section of the current playerbase that have issues with it. Nobody knows the exact percentage of the playerbase who hate it but i think its safe to say that LFR would win any poll hands down for the most hated part of Wow ever.

Good companies dont ignore complaints they make efforts to fix them... and im sure Blizzard are looking at ways to change LFR to make it more accepted among the players.

[Firebert]

Vanilla & TBC had 1 level of difficulty... Wrath had 2 difficulties... now in WoD we are going to have FIVE difficulties!!!

LFR, Flex, Normal, Heroic and Mythic.

There's only going to be four in WoD, exactly like some of WotLK was (ToC, I believe).

LFR, Normal (Flex), Heroic (Flex) and Mythic.

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What dungeon did they change?

All of them; Luck of the Draw increased your stats if you used LFD to fill a group.

[PrairieChicken]

LFR is hated because it is so integral to character progression.

If it is fully optional then 90% of complaints would disappear.

[Radish Spirit]

So by your logic any complaint or criticism is never worth listening to cos its only ever by a handful of loudmouths... personally i like to listen to what everyones got to say.

No, but if those loudmouths fail to demonstrate that their complaint is shared by more than a tiny minority of people and most, in fact, largely and strongly disagree with it, then you can dismiss their criticism out of hand.

His is very obviously one of those cases. 99% of the people in the game have absolutely no problem whatsoever with LFR's presence in the game or the purpose it serves. Literally the only people who have ever complained about it or angrily demanded it's removal from the game (or attempted to blame WoW's downfall on it) are angry forum warriors at MMOC or Tankspot or /r/wow. That's it. It's an isolated, fringe group of nutjobs who refuse to admit that their only problem with LFR is that the people they got used to pretending were lesser than them can now see raid content and it's no longer something they can pretend makes them a special little snowflake.

Methinks the fact LFR receives such a large hostile response is because there is a large section of the current playerbase that have issues with it.

Methinks your inability to understand what a "large response" would look like in the context of WoW's player population makes you think this response is large when it is laughably small. You guys are a minority within a minority. A fraction of a fraction. Just because you spend time at places like MMOC or whatever you think it's a widespread consensus when 1% of 1% of the player population visits sites like these let alone participates in the conversation.

Your ideas about LFR are irrelevant and misguided to the point of humor. LFR will be a part of the game forever and that's just cold fact.

Good companies dont ignore complaints they make efforts to fix them...

No. Good companies do not hop-to and get to work every time some jackass bitches to them. They evaluate the complaints. They count and categorize and analyze the complaints. If enough complaints from enough valuable customers accumulate, then and only then do they take action. As a company you have to decide where to spend your money and overhauling LFR to please 10,000 angry forum whiners is not a financially sound decision.

[Deleted]

99% of the people in the game have absolutely no problem whatsoever with LFR's presence in the game or the purpose it serves.

A claim based on nothing but your own opinion... feel free to post real data to prove this statement.

Guessing doesnt prove anything.

Basically u have an opinion that everyone loves LFR except a handful of loudmouth troublemakers, and i have an opinion that the number of players with issues about LFR is very significant. I base my opinion on the fact that no other aspect of Wow has been discussed, argued about or mentioned more than LFR on Wow forums, its head and shoulders above anything else. That is enough for me to form an opinion that there is a problem with LFR.

[Alroxas]

If you read my other reply in this thread, then you would have realised that many, if not most, people I have met in the past year have never been able to get into Flex because of other peoples demands on achivs and itemlevel. Simply put, Flex is shait. Screw Flex outright.

Not true. There are flex runs for lower ilv. A simple search on openraid will verify that. I believe they are called Flex raids for beginners and yes despite SoO lasting this long, there still are those kinds of raids. Not many but they are there. Also, you realize you could always put together your own flex raid... unless there's some reason preventing you?

[PrairieChicken]

No. Good companies do not hop-to and get to work every time some jackass bitches to them. They evaluate the complaints. They count and categorize and analyze the complaints. If enough complaints from enough valuable customers accumulate, then and only then do they take action. As a company you have to decide where to spend your money and overhauling LFR to please 10,000 angry forum whiners is not a financially sound decision.

They are making rather big changes to LFR (no tiers and trinkets, no as much mandatory as it was), so I would not say it was tiny forum minority whiners.