Do you think Raid content should be a reward for Raiders and not casuals?

[Huggykaze]

Of course... It worked this way in TBC and part of WLK and guess what... 12mln subscribers. Right now raiding is not that rewarding except for title/gear (which still looks the same as LFR/Flex [ingenious invention] counterparts) you are just another person who simply spends more time to see same content.

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Anyone playing an MMORPG for longer than 3 months at 10 hours a week is not a casual.

So that's the complete player base of WoW really.

I laugh at people when they define "casual gamer"

Go out on the street and tell you are a "casual" by playing a single game for 10 hours per week and 99% of the people will say: "You are nuts".

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So to answer to the OP: there are no casual subscribers in WoW: only hardcore playing at several hours per week and no lifers who lost hundreds of days of their lives on playing WoW ...

Choose to which of the 2 you belong...

There are people who can play Angry Birds for 20h a week. 1,5h per day is really little. Also it's not time you spend in game, it's dedication. I knew hardcore raiders who logged in only during raid time. They had shitloads of pots, flasks, buffs etc. in their banks thanks to earning with AH. Are they casual for playing 7 or 8h a week? Don't think so.

[fixx]

Understand the following: The 10bucks/month grant you the right to play the game. What you do with that, is your own choice.

Understand the following: Different content costs different amounts to make. If something costs 5% of the budget and gets used by 50% of all players (something like quests for example) it has excellent value for money. On the other hand if something costs 20% but gets used by 2% of all players (something like raids perhaps) it's bad investment and losing money to make.

Developers need to think about the big picture and the money too.

[Deleted]

If you bought a FIFA/PRO EVO game, would you ask a question if football content should be reward for people who bought a football game and want to play it or to all gamers of all games?

Dunno if i made it clear. This game is raiding/pvp game. Raiding should be reward for people WHO WANT TO RAID, and pvp reward for people WHO WANT TO PVP. If u don't want to do any of these, change game. Simple as that

Raiding should be exactly like in TBC was. 1 level of difficulty. You killed a boss? ok you go next. Right now u are forced to kill same boss over 1000 times from COMPLETELY-TARD-DIFFICULTY (my cat healed through 4 LFRS topping healer meters) to somehow-hard difficulty. Killing garosh on HC will be never as epic as killing Kil'Jaeden or Illidian for ALL gamers. Period

Its the only way to bring wow playerbase back. 10m ppl wanted to raid, not to kill epic boss like lets say garrosh on buk.ake mode

[Vash The Stampede]

Understand the following: Different content costs different amounts to make. If something costs 5% of the budget and gets used by 50% of all players (something like quests for example) it has excellent value for money. On the other hand if something costs 20% but gets used by 2% of all players (something like raids perhaps) it's bad investment and losing money to make.

Developers need to think about the big picture and the money too.

As a player you want to be rewarded for what you do in the game. For the effort put into the game. For example, LFR requires 0 effort and yet players walk away with epic loot. Flex and normal get harder sure but Heroic raiding is really hard and the rewards are very little. Sure you get higher ilvl gear but what can you do with it? Walk into a BG and the ilvl drops bellow that of PvP gear, as opposed to LFR or Flex gear which may not make a difference at all. World PvP is a joke, especially depending on realm.

Point is self entitled players are ruining the game, and it's no wonder why subscriptions are dropping. Part of that problem is the subscription fee, which does entitle a player to what they pay for.

[Jessicka]

No. At what point does anyone, anywhere think this would be good for the game? How the hell do you even define raiders from casuals anyway?

[Deleted]

As a player you want to be rewarded for what you do in the game. For the effort put into the game. For example, LFR requires 0 effort and yet players walk away with epic loot. Flex and normal get harder sure but Heroic raiding is really hard and the rewards are very little. Sure you get higher ilvl gear but what can you do with it? Walk into a BG and the ilvl drops bellow that of PvP gear, as opposed to LFR or Flex gear which may not make a difference at all. World PvP is a joke, especially depending on realm.

Point is self entitled players are ruining the game, and it's no wonder why subscriptions are dropping. Part of that problem is the subscription fee, which does entitle a player to what they pay for.

When I was still a 'hardcore' raider, the actual defeat of the boss was always the reward for me. Gear has always been just the means to an end. (Hell nowadays I put more effort in gear that looks good for transmog that iLvl )
The actual goal and reward was always progression, not trinkets. Now I just do the LFR to see the sights/story, I have completed SoO a grand total of 1 times!

I concur entitled players are a menace... I just don't share your view on who those entitled players actually are.

[-Superman-]

If LFR is raiding and people in LFR are raiders, then people who attend war reenactments are real soldiers.

If they wear the costume in the re-enactment, they are a soldier

[Osmeric]

Understand the following: The 10bucks/month grant you the right to play the game. What you do with that, is your own choice.

And one of those choices is "play something else and stop sending Blizzard money". This is the iron grip the average customers have on Blizzard's private parts. No, Blizzard has no legal obligation to provide the content those customers want. But yes, Blizzard has a de facto obligation to do so. When a developer foolishly ignores this, disaster awaits, as Wildstar has recently demonstrated.

[melodramocracy]

It's really not.

You are guaranteed to down the boss, all you have to do is throw your body at it until you get enough stacks of determination to brute force it. In Flex, Normal, and Heroic, you do not have a guaranteed kill until the boss is on farm. You need to know the mechanics, you need to know how the handle them, you need to know the basics of your role and you need to practice until it's perfect. In LFR you don't need any of that.

The best analogy I can think of is:

If LFR is raiding and people in LFR are raiders, then people who attend war reenactments are real soldiers.

Difficulty has zero bearing on the legitimacy of a raid. LFR is indeed raiding, that is, the gathering of a large group of people to down an enemy.

[Merpish]

This horse has not just beaten to death, it's been turned into an unrecognizable pulp of flesh and red coagulated mush...

[Asiel]

So long as I don't have to deal with the lower difficulties when I clearly don't want to - I don't honestly care. The problem lies in the gearing path where LFR is, by necessity as a raid, above 5-man content (which used to be the pre-raiding content) and under the Normal (Flex), Heroic (Normal) and Mythic (Heroic) difficulties. That creates an expectation to use LFR to fill slots and upgrade where possible to be at the best you can. This will be FAR less prevalent in WoD due to the changes, but I suspect there will still be at least one or two pieces per spec that are sought after, even in LFR difficulty.

[Debased]

Do you think that Raid content should be a reward for dedicated Raiders and not for the Casual player? If raid content were not accessible to casual players would that make raid content more of a reward for you as a raider?

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No it wouldn't. Normal is a joke anyhow, the only satisfaction for me is downing Heroic bosses. However I have always thought LFR shouldn't be rewarding the same items as organized raids and it looks like Blizzard finally agrees in Warlords.

[The Flavour Cat]

It really depends what you define as casual. A casual raider could be someone who runs normal all the time with a guild, maybe for 2-3 hours (If it's the latest raid). Raiding is like the highest progress you can participate in for the endgame. For those that don't have time to raid, they can still easily get gear. Take 5.4-if you're not interested in SoO, a non-raider can go to the Timeless Isle and farm the 8-piece set, and upgrade them to Timeless versions with Burdens of Eternity. Once they have that, they can just fight the Celestials once a week and get the two tier pieces. I don't even see the need for LFR. It shouldn't drop gear if people supposedly want to see the final raid of the expansion (WotLK solved that problem with the addition of 10 and 25 men raids, and normal modes available.).

While I'm glad they removed tier from LFR, it'd be best if it was scrapped entirely. In the past it has been easy to get gear from external sources, which can then be used to join a normal mode (PUG or not) and experience the raids. If I have a look at those final major patches, then there were alternatives to getting geared up for the raid:
4.3--3 dungeons with gear. There were also the 3 pieces of previous tier gear that you could purchase with VP.
3.3--Also 3 dungeons, and a weapon from the Battered Hilt chain. Trash runs could also be done, so getting the Ashen Verdict's friendly ring was possible.
Both these patches also added a new boss to VoA and BH, so getting 2 new tier pieces was much easier.

[Simmias]

I spend more time pet battling than I do raiding. Am I considered a casual? How do you define that? If someone does a job in a few minutes compared to someone who does it in hours/days... it simply means they are better. Hardcore doesn't even come into it.