Why exactly are people so anti-LFR?

[Feral Druid ist Op]

Let me be clear: If people enjoying the LFR experience triggers you so much, that isn't LFR's fault, it's yours. And I am not even saying this because I have any kind of vested interest in LFR. I don't.

Dude... is not the LFR that triggers me its the people who spend more/same amount of time in the game than me and claim that they are not able to raid normal or HC because they have no time and playing the "im casual "card instead of admitting that they dont feel like they want to improve...
Apart from the fact that you now have a flex lockout in which you can kill bosses in your pace anytime even @ 3am if you want to. And this behavior is promoted by x realm and lfr, the cancer destroys the game from inside.

I personally dont give 2 shits about lfr aslong im not forced into like in legion

[Aucald]

Dude... is not the LFR that triggers me its the people who spend more/same amount of time in the game than me and claim that they are not able to raid normal or HC because they have no time and palying the "im casual "card instead of admitting that they dont feel like they want to improv...
Apart from the fact that you now have a flex lockout in which you can kill bosses in your pace anytime even @ 3am if you want to. And this behavior is promoted by x realm and lfr, the cancer destroys the game from inside.

I personally dont give 2 shits about lfr aslong im not forced into like in legion

I am actually one of those people who feels like they can't really raid Normal or Heroic because of time constraints. The ability to auto-queue (usually as a Tank) and have a raid built for me out of other randos is a huge time-saving step for me, and means I can get started on a raid both efficiently and on a somewhat erratic schedule. My playtime in WoW is generally limited to an hour a day, perhaps 2 hours on a weekend, and there's a lot I want to do in any given session. I will occasionally jump into a Normal raid if the opportunity presents itself, but that generally happens very early on in a given content patch and well before the barriers to entry solidify to the point that my lower general iLvl or lack of AotC achievements becomes an issue.

For me, LFR ensures I can raid to some capacity and also gives me a window into the seeing the content for myself. I'm grateful for its existence as another mode of play on offer. I was, as a younger man, a hardcore raider in a progression guild back in the day - being among the first on my server to take on Illidan in the Black Temple and even Heroic ICC back in WotLK. But my career eventually ensured that level of disposable time went the way of the dodo, and LFR was pretty much all I had left by the time WoD rolled around.

[Daffan]

Pretty much this, yeah.

It's really fucking pathetic really.

LFR is just another part of the welfare game design in Modern WoW. What's actually good about content being invalidated by LFR (Also acknowledging other parts of the game do the same)

SO yeah, not the only reason.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

It is reward for nothing. A game should never have a system in it where you just join, watch Netflix, and progress because you wanted for the que.

[kaminaris]

Dude... is not the LFR that triggers me its the people who spend more/same amount of time in the game than me and claim that they are not able to raid normal or HC because they have no time and playing the "im casual "card instead of admitting that they dont feel like they want to improve...
Apart from the fact that you now have a flex lockout in which you can kill bosses in your pace anytime even @ 3am if you want to. And this behavior is promoted by x realm and lfr, the cancer destroys the game from inside.

I personally dont give 2 shits about lfr aslong im not forced into like in legion

Oh wow, did you even read what you wrote? Your whole argument is based on your personal insecurities. Who the fuck cares how other can spend their time in WoW? Nobody should.

If some casual wants to spend 10h doing pet battles/ achievement runs it means it floats their boats, not yours.

Cancer is entitled and elitist mindset of players that dictates other how they should enjoy the game. Toxic community, worst thing in WoW, far worse than anything else.

LFR promotes nothing. People are already aware that if raiding is not their goal, they can experience it at least once, for story, for cool fights etc. If anything, it promotes game for everyone, even those unable or unwilling to play at any competitive level.

[Sansnom]

Yes it does because now my raid difficulty means less when every lazy bad can do the same thing for no effort. It devalues raiding on the entire board.

First. They are not doing the same thing. They are doing LFR. Second, it devalues your ego at raiding. I have seen this behavior across many other spectrums. The haves always attempts to keep what they have to themselves and refuse to share.

You do know that kind of thinking is general bad because we can takes this kind of prejudice further. If you cannot cook as 5 star Michelin chefs, you are not allow to cook at all. See how that works when you are on the other side of the fence?

Just because you are bad and lazy doesn't mean the game should be designed around your sorry ass. Even the devs themselves admitted LFR was a mistake.

And neither should the game be designed around yours. And you are over stating the "devs". I am sure some devs consider LFR is a bad idea, but they can have their own opinion. It was made because others at Blizzard think it was a good idea.

MMORPG give players a choice of style to play meaning you either do the raids properly or go fuck yourself. They don't dumb down and make extra copies of the top content in this way. Show me other mmos with lfr.

Interesting suggestion. How many are as successful as WoW?

You should have the option of playing your anti social stupid bubble but not at the expense of the entire game.
.

And you are not? Your attempt at exclusion can be considered as anti-social. Because you are essentially telling them not to play. If you equate people who only does LFR as anti-social, then I have to say your concept of social interaction of the player base is very limited.

[Raelbo]

Dude... is not the LFR that triggers me its the people who spend more/same amount of time in the game than me and claim that they are not able to raid normal or HC because they have no time and playing the "im casual "card instead of admitting that they dont feel like they want to improve...

That is not something you should be get triggered about. If someone would rather be doing LFR than normal or heroic, for whatever reason that's their prerogative, not yours.

Apart from the fact that you now have a flex lockout in which you can kill bosses in your pace anytime even @ 3am if you want to.

While it's great that flex lockouts give people more options, the simple reality is that real raiding is designed to be done within the structure of a guild. Yes, these modes can be pugged, but it's not the optimal way to experience it, and it certainly ends up being a very different experience. In all honesty, if I am going to pug, I'd prefer just doing LFR because it's so much less hassle

And this behavior is promoted by x realm and lfr, the cancer destroys the game from inside.

The only real cancer in the game is people who feel the need to act like dicks towards other players. And while it is true LFR exposes us to players like that far more so than joining a guild and raiding with them, the same, or worse, happens with regular pugging. It has always been this way, even before LFG and LFR. LFR didn't create these people. They were always there, and they'll still be there if LFR went away.

I personally dont give 2 shits about lfr aslong im not forced into like in legion

Lol. You were never forced into LFR, not even in Legion. Yes, I get that it was one of the more efficient of the "optional extra" resources at your disposal to farm for legendaries in a week, but come on, there were plenty of other ways to get those legiondaries. In practical terms doing LFR or not was almost certainly not going to make a meaningful difference, certainly not enough to warrant forcing youself into going there even if you hated it.

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What's actually good about content being invalidated by LFR

What content is invalidated by LFR? Opponents of LFR keep quoting this as some sort of fact, but when pressed to back it up with some sort of an explanation, they're either mystically silent, or come up with explanations that are easily dismantled.

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Yes it does because now my raid difficulty means less when every lazy bad can do the same thing for no effort.

How does LFR allow "every lazy bad" to clear your raid difficulty? I don't understand.

It devalues raiding on the entire board.

If anything it upvalues the higher raiding difficulties because you get to differentiate yourselves from the LFR crowd. If there was only one difficulty and everyone was successful at it, then no one would stick out as exceptional.

[Vorkreist]

And you are not? Your attempt at exclusion can be considered as anti-social. Because you are essentially telling them not to play. If you equate people who only does LFR as anti-social, then I have to say your concept of social interaction of the player base is very limited.

Yes I'm telling them not to play if them playing and getting w/e stupid shit they want will ruin the game as it HAS. Thats why retail is just a mash of fucked up shards and anti social bubbles. Safe spaces for everyone and free stupid shit for everyone. Sprinkle some rng over it so its no so obvious.
Blizzard I hurt my toe!!!! Nerf everything. Blizzard someone told me its not ok to do 0 dps. I felt so insulted and depressed. Please make some solo raids where bosses killed themselves so I can enjoy the game.

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If anything it upvalues the higher raiding difficulties because you get to differentiate yourselves from the LFR crowd. If there was only one difficulty and everyone was successful at it, then no one would stick out as exceptional.

It upvalues shit. Raiding means shit unless its mythic because of special needs diff like LFR.

[CrawlFromThePit]

Nonsense.

LFR gets you two things: the basic completion achievements that just award achievement points and gear that is subpar to what you can get from world content.

Meanwhile, anyone who thinks you can AFK in a normal raid is a) an idiot and b) soon to get kicked from the raid. Hell AFKers get kicked from LFR. Your hyperbole is flat out wrong.

It doesn't take away from "real" raiding in any measurable way other than people who really want us to think it does.

You're just looking at the material/physical aspect of it. There's a very strong psychological component to it. When people are allowed to do a dumbed down version of content they don't feel the real thing is worth it anymore. It's exactly like having someone spoil you a movie. You still haven't seen the acting, the camera work, the montage, the directing, basically you haven't seen shit but you still lose motivation to see that movie because a very tiny part of it is not new to you anymore. It's the exact same thing here for a lot of people, this coupled with how dumbass easy the game is as a whole, people have the unconscious reflex to think "why waste my time doing harder content? I already destroy everything in my path". Other people who are not subject to this, mostly because their drive is character progression so they keep going as long as there's better items forward unconsciously feel a different attitude in the world, they feel surrounded by lazy players who think they're on top of the world after doing their LFR.

It changes the ambiance of the game, we're not a collective of people all working toward the same goal anymore and it creates different clashing mentalities and belief about the game. We should all have a common goal, this was a thing before when the game was aimed at a specific target audience but once they started this bullshit to make the game for everyone they basically made it shitty for everyone, destroyed the RPG ambiance of the game and lost players instead of gaining players. LFR is ONLY bad for the game, objectively.

[tyrlaan]

Just come to terms with the idea that LFR is a symptom of a dying social game, in an attempt to siphon subs. The wing release staggered strategy is 100% for subs. The faceroll difficulty: subs. Everything about it is to squeeze a few more dollars out of a game that's more and more a relic. Where the field used to be a crowded market of many sub based games, there are what, maybe half-dozen any more (and that's counting the goofy "just give us money every so often as a donation but really its basically a subscription" models)?

Sure, maybe I guess. The constant complaint that Blizz does things "just to keep up subs" is an easy one to trot out and impossible to prove one way or the other.

But I'm pretty sure LFR has a staggered release to tend to the egos of the fragile raiders that hate LFR so much. So they can score their Normal/Heroic/Mythic kills before an LFR player can even see most of the bosses, and then complain that the game has no content.

LFR is a success because its the "ultimate disposable endgame for casuals"?
Thats setting the bar really low for what was the Blizzard's expectation out of LFR. I dont believe it, thats why i said "imo"

The problem is that many people in this thread refuse to accept having LFR in the game actually has downsides. They believe there is zero downsides. zero....
Im glad i have one of the creators of LFR in my back, sharing the same opinion that it has downsides. Otherwise i would be ripped a new one by everyone else.

In my book, "seeing LFR once and never stepping inside there again" is not a success...specially when there is downsides to it...that everyone refuses to admit there is downsides.

What are these alleged downsides? I've only seen you crap on LFR but provide zero explanation to back up your issue with it.

Removing LFR at this very moment in modern wow solves nothing though.
You think "raid prestige" will come back? Not in a million years...there is mythic+, there is emmisaries, there is Heroic Warfronts, Mythic cache, transmog, pvp gear, etc
At this point removing LFR is not the answer, it solves nothing

Yes, heavens forbid people can advance their character through multiple routes of gameplay. "Raid prestige" that you refer to was likely more detrimental to the game than any of these new paths. Its not like elitism died when these options came out, it just is easier for other people to ignore. Sounds like a win to me.

If you want gear (item level), LFR is the last place to look for it.
Unless you enjoy taking longer to get gear.
Mythic zero, Mythic +, PvP, Cache, Warfront all give better gear and are piss easy/take less time.

For a really active player who does a lot of assorted things in the game, yeah LFR is the worst place to get gear. But that's not true for all players. There absolutely some players who get gear from LFR, but that's their choice and I don't give a rat's ass either way if that's what they do to get gear. Doesn't affect me in the slightest.

Dude... is not the LFR that triggers me its the people who spend more/same amount of time in the game than me and claim that they are not able to raid normal or HC because they have no time and playing the "im casual "card instead of admitting that they dont feel like they want to improve...
Apart from the fact that you now have a flex lockout in which you can kill bosses in your pace anytime even @ 3am if you want to. And this behavior is promoted by x realm and lfr, the cancer destroys the game from inside.

I personally dont give 2 shits about lfr aslong im not forced into like in legion

Who are you do judge how people spend their time? Who are you to look down on someone that doesn't want to play the game the same way you do?

Your judgmental attitude is the "cancer that destroys the game", not people playing differently than you. It only affects you because you are imposing your expectations on other people's fun.

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You're just looking at the material/physical aspect of it. There's a very strong psychological component to it. When people are allowed to do a dumbed down version of content they don't feel the real thing is worth it anymore. It's exactly like having someone spoil you a movie. You still haven't seen the acting, the camera work, the montage, the directing, basically you haven't seen shit but you still lose motivation to see that movie because a very tiny part of it is not new to you anymore. It's the exact same thing here for a lot of people, this coupled with how dumbass easy the game is as a whole, people have the unconscious reflex to think "why waste my time doing harder content? I already destroy everything in my path". Other people who are not subject to this, mostly because their drive is character progression so they keep going as long as there's better items forward unconsciously feel a different attitude in the world, they feel surrounded by lazy players who think they're on top of the world after doing their LFR.

This only works if you assume enough people only raid to see the cutscenes and hear the dialog. I find this to be a dubious claim, and therefore any concept that significant numbers of players stopped doing higher difficulty raids because LFR exists is unlikely at best.

Character progression is the fundamental core of WoW. Sure, each person will decide how much progression they are willing to pursue based on their personal skill levels, time available, interests, and so on. But for most people, if you were committing to raids to progress before, LFR will not meet your needs. So no, not really buying this is a problem of any significance.

It changes the ambiance of the game, we're not a collective of people all working toward the same goal anymore and it creates different clashing mentalities and belief about the game. We should all have a common goal, this was a thing before when the game was aimed at a specific target audience but once they started this bullshit to make the game for everyone they basically made it shitty for everyone, destroyed the RPG ambiance of the game and lost players instead of gaining players. LFR is ONLY bad for the game, objectively.

Except this is just malarkey. How low a percentage of players even saw the inside of MC in vanilla? The player base has never been a "collective of people" all doing the same stuff. This is you deciding that the way you want to play the game must be the way everyone plays the game. This is unnecessary and incorrect, and certainly not an "objective" argument to claim LFR is bad.

[CrawlFromThePit]

This only works if you assume enough people only raid to see the cutscenes and hear the dialog. I find this to be a dubious claim, and therefore any concept that significant numbers of players stopped doing higher difficulty raids because LFR exists is unlikely at best.

Character progression is the fundamental core of WoW. Sure, each person will decide how much progression they are willing to pursue based on their personal skill levels, time available, interests, and so on. But for most people, if you were committing to raids to progress before, LFR will not meet your needs. So no, not really buying this is a problem of any significance.

I don't care if you don't buy it. At the end of the day it's what it did to the game. You're free to believe something different from reality, changes nothing in my life.

[Feral Druid ist Op]

You're just looking at the material/physical aspect of it. There's a very strong psychological component to it. When people are allowed to do a dumbed down version of content they don't feel the real thing is worth it anymore. It's exactly like having someone spoil you a movie. You still haven't seen the acting, the camera work, the montage, the directing, basically you haven't seen shit but you still lose motivation to see that movie because a very tiny part of it is not new to you anymore. It's the exact same thing here for a lot of people, this coupled with how dumbass easy the game is as a whole, people have the unconscious reflex to think "why waste my time doing harder content? I already destroy everything in my path". Other people who are not subject to this, mostly because their drive is character progression so they keep going as long as there's better items forward unconsciously feel a different attitude in the world, they feel surrounded by lazy players who think they're on top of the world after doing their LFR.

It changes the ambiance of the game, we're not a collective of people all working toward the same goal anymore and it creates different clashing mentalities and belief about the game. We should all have a common goal, this was a thing before when the game was aimed at a specific target audience but once they started this bullshit to make the game for everyone they basically made it shitty for everyone, destroyed the RPG ambiance of the game and lost players instead of gaining players. LFR is ONLY bad for the game, objectively.

this sums up everything pretty well, but the lfr community will not admit it and defend LFR until the last breath

[Black Goat]

You're ranting about a silly thing in a VIDEO GAME that will never be taken away - NOT EVER - just because you think it's doing things it's not, like dumbing down the game or causing people not to raid.

There's your real hard truth, sport.

LFR. Is. Never. Going. Away.

I'm not ranting at all. I think you're really confused about what's being discussed here. You seem... angry.

Good news for me, then. Classic doesn't have LFR. They actually gave me a completely different game to play that will never have an LFR. They gave you LFR, they gave me an entire game without it. #winning

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If people have left as a result of LFR then I'm glad they've left because they're obviously entitled children.

No, the game is actually catering to entitled children by giving them participation events and easier classes to play. You have it backwards, but it's my pleasure to correct you. You feel entitled to have the feature in the game, and I think it simply made the game and its players worse by and large. Sure, it helped a few raiders and guilds. But it spoiled so many others, and the environment in an LFR is toxic beyond belief. People know they can just AFK or outright wipe the boss to troll the other people with little or no consequence. And this behavior extends with those individuals into higher difficulties.

There's no entitlement in my perspective of LFR whatsoever. I would call it disdain.

[Daffan]

What content is invalidated by LFR? Opponents of LFR keep quoting this as some sort of fact, but when pressed to back it up with some sort of an explanation, they're either mystically silent, or come up with explanations that are easily dismantled.

LFR falls into the welfare category and is used as catchup, effectively skipping/trivializing/invalidating the previous content. LFR is part of why "Content Drought" is so prominent.

I hate welfare and content invalidation, therefore I must also hate LFR. I don't actually care that LFR exists to "see" the content or it's ease.

These type of problems are bad for player retention (content longevity) as well as sub satisfaction (no sense of reward and welfare as a whole = time/effort devaluation)

[Malikath]

"Your" raid difficulty's value doesn't change because lfr exists unless you want it it to change or if lfr is your preferred difficulty.

false, both dragon soul's pathetic difficulty and the scaling raid-wide debuff since ICC show that the raids were altered to appeal to the vocal minority.
the week2 nerffing of cata heroics is another prime example due to it being a knee-jerk reaction to complaints by people who only got into said heroics through LFG.

[Arakakao]

did you even read a word i wrote?

Every single word. To me, it seems you are the one who entirely ignored my post.

maybe all of this was true a decade ago but right now with flex rating you aren't really required to go to a raid yeah if you join a guild and you are scheduled a head of time to be at that raid it's kind of a dick move to tell them that you just don't want to show up because at that point is other people's time but they can just say okay and grab someone else heck you don't even need to join a guild nowadays

And to do a full clear of LFR requires more of a time commitment then doing of normal run does

just for an example my guild who is currently progressing on heroic and also pugs a lot because we have players who travel the world and other players who have medical issues we got 2 final boss after about 2 and 1/2 hours in normal

simply the wait time to get into LFR is probably that long also with voice communication there's a lot of banter going on and you can make friends and not be little f****** Jimmy off in the corner doing his own s*** not understanding what's going on

the argument that you don't have time to raid and that you don't want to treat a game like a job isn't f****** relevant anymore and people really need to get new ammo

No, doing a LFR takes less time and commitment than a normal guild raid. And if you want to see how the adventure's story end you have no option whatsoever. Also, during the wait time you can do other things, and if things go wrong in LFR (say, for example, the tank is really bad) you can leave at any moment, unlike in a guild run. Sorry, but that argument IS still relevant.

Yes it does because now my raid difficulty means less when every lazy bad can do the same thing for no effort. It devalues raiding on the entire board.
Just because you are bad and lazy doesn't mean the game should be designed around your sorry ass. Even the devs themselves admitted LFR was a mistake.

You raid difficult doesn't mean less. You have better gear (both in stats and looks), you have achievements that other people don't have, you have the personal satisfaction of doing a much much difficult version of the game. Also, in case you are a mythic raider (which I doubt), you have seen exlusive phases of those bosses that other players have not.

Only Ghostcrawler said he regreted LFR, and said it after not working in the game anymore and also admited to not have played WoW in a decade. I don't think his opinion is valid. And if you think people leave the game because LFR exists... maybe those people are straight up socyopaths and is better they are not here anymore.

The decline in players is expected in a 15 years old game, specially when online gaming is so popular nowadays and WoW faces sever competition in other fields.

If I manage to beat a game on its higher difficult, should I feel angry because some people do it on a lower one? Talk about ego here. Also

MMORPG give players a choice of style to play meaning you either do the raids properly or go fuck yourself.

That was completely uncalled for. Mind your manners, please.

[outflow]

I don't LFR at the moment but soon I will be a Dad and no longer able to commit to my raid team. I might dabble in LFR then without feeling bad for for leaving at any point.

[SirBeef]

false, both dragon soul's pathetic difficulty and the scaling raid-wide debuff since ICC show that the raids were altered to appeal to the vocal minority.
the week2 nerffing of cata heroics is another prime example due to it being a knee-jerk reaction to complaints by people who only got into said heroics through LFG.

You mean majority.

[Malikath]

You mean majority.

the numbers would suggest otherwise, as the subs dropped since LFG was added.

[Dellis0991]

They could just stop using it and form groups the old way.