LFR should TEACH players to become better raiders.

[Amerissis]

I don't need to learn to become a better raider. I don't raid because I don't want to, not because I suck too much. I'm not mythic material, but normal is a cakewalk and heroic is fine. I just hate the people in there and can't adhere to a schedule. My real life is more important to me, so I need to be able to bail, without notice, last minute, or during the raid, and that's not fair on the other people. In LFR, it's no problem.

What annoys me is people expecting others to watch videos and read tactics about bosses in LFR, but refuse to give a little explanation so we can move on. I'm not a raider, I'm not using outside sources to 'learn to play'. If you are too lazy to tell everyone 'step out of red', 'kill adds first' and 'group 5 goes portal', then just leave and quit whining. We'll down the boss without you eventually.

[Ragingheadache]

The game should learn from FFXIV and how SE helps players get through the mandatory group & raid content that is compulsory to complete the main story quest lines - which is to make it hard but make it achievable. One-shots are telegraphed, mandatory positioning is flagged and avoided damage rewarded. However it is the mindset of the player base in WoW that will never be solved - in FFXIV I can queue up, play with people who are pleasant & reasonable and not have to endure the gogogogogo / wtf dude bullshit I find in WoW pugs.

As for the OP's suggestions, no issues with mandatory proving grounds. However:

- Raider "Bait". No. We had more than enough moaning from people in WoD where players felt compelled to run LFR and the bullshit that came from it. People should want to run LFR in order to help others, not as a means to complete obligatory goals.

- LFR Score. Absolutely not. The goal should be downing the boss and working with / beating the mechanics to do so.

- LFR Tuning. No issues there - but learn from FFXIV.

Lastly:

My goal is not to punish LFR player

I know the OP doesn't want this, but it's time the wider WoW player community grew up and accepted where the game is. We've had LFR for all raids since 2012 - that's half the life of the game. Accept it exists and move on.

[Clozer]

Blizzard has made comments about it many times.
Check out the Mike Morrhaime interview with Seth Schiesel. They were driving accessibility at all costs.

You mean the interview where he said that it's bad that the game become less and less social because I quote:

"I would also just observe that as World of Warcraft evolved over the years, it actually kind of became less social, because in an effort to achieve more accessibility, we kind of removed some of the reasons why you need to play with the same group of people over and over.

I think that it takes away some of the reasons for some people of why they play, and why they might want to continue to play."

I mean sure. He literally says it's bad for the game. No idea how you can turn that into a pro lfr argument. xD

[Ragingheadache]

LFR - Casual players that don't have the time or desire to do anything else. Outside of wow they a most likely to be playing a fast paced dungeon crawler.
Normal Raids - Social players that enjoy a quick blast with friends. Outside of wow they will be out socialising, working, living regular lives.

I will tell my wife and kids they don't exist. On Monday I won't bother with work as I magically get money for nothing....

[Clozer]

Shrug, it's not a pro-lfr argument. I simply said they were chasing accessibility to retain players.

You are stating the obvious - everyone knows they tried to make the game more accessible. That has nothing to do with your other claims. For example this:

"They didn't stick to the format because it was bad for player retention."

or this:

"The faceroll raid difficulty of Wrath was direct response to this. They started losing people because raids were unattainable to majority. They tried to fix that by making super-easy modes. It didn't help."

Now the Interview you said that proves your points is actually saying that the methods they introduced (LFR) to increase accessibility are bad for the game. Hm..

[Clozer]

Well ok dude. I wasn't replying to you though, as far as I know. You jumped in to my reply to someone else and started arguing.

Ok, then we can agree that they wanted to make the game more accessible and that lfr is very bad in doing so. Seems solid.

[Polarthief]

People running LFR will not aspire to do greater. They're generally not interested or do not have time to run organised raiding, and making LFR a worse or different experience than it is currently will not make them run higher difficulties.

Except there are people who are worried about messing up in a group setting and do LFR to start small. I definitely did this with the equivalent in FFXIV (which doesn't really have LFR and you will absolutely fail if you have no idea what you're doing). Some people definitely will run LFR to ease themselves into Normal and even Heroic.

OP: I'd love a Proving Grounds: Raider Edition where we still have LFR, but you can also practice at least LFR and Normal (maybe Heroic too?) encounters at your leisure. For LFR-mode specifically, if you mess up, it'll give you a hint: "Don't stand in <Void Zone>/<Fire Patches>/<Acid Puddles>!", "Defeat the <insert Mob name here> quickly before it <explodes/charges the boss/etc mechanic>!", "Interrupt the <XYZ> cast to avoid <what the XYZ cast does>!", etc tips after failing. Hell they could even pop up during fights like they do sometimes in dungeons and raids (my addons turn them off though because they're annoying in an actual raid setting).

FTR I'd also love the same for Dungeons too. Anything that gives you a practice mode that doesn't require a full group to just take your time to practice and get better at would go MILES towards making the community way better than being shit on because "OMG YOU DON'T KNOW THIS BOSS 2 MONTHS IN?! GET OUT OF HERE SHITTER!", or even just to refresh yourself on a fight. You'd have perfect NPCs who handle 2x of Tanking/Healing/DPSing (the third role is filled by you), and while you will definitely fail if you don't do your role, it's in a safe environment to let you git gud on your own time. This would be an insanely helpful thing to anyone who isn't a world top player, even if it's just to remind yourself on mechanics you've done before, but want to practice again.

[Bellamas]

Doesn't want to punish LFR players.

Writes very thick tome on how to punish LFR players.

[Gorsameth]

Any time LFR has required any sort of tactics or mechanics it has fallen flat on its face and required nerfing.

We have it right now with N'zoth which appears to be nigh impossible for LFR groups to complete and yet it is a very basic fight

[AntenoraDK]

All they need to do is stop creating LFR killers like N'Zoth, Durumu, Kil'Jaeden, Elegon or flat out remove the mechanic that kills groups in that level of difficulty.

LFR justifies the cost of developing raids.



I don't do LFR and the last time I cleared an instance on Mythic at current content was Hellfire Citadel.


This is my own choice, I have had absolutely zero interest in attempting any organized raiding since then.




These LFR threads have been going on in mass numbers for YEARS and yet the mode is still here.


Mythic raiders make up about 1% of the raiding community, you're a minority.


LFR isn't going anywhere, suck it up and deal with it.

[Clozer]

LFR is good for accessibility and therefore player retention.
LFR is not good for social play. But it can be argued that majority of players these days are not there to socialize.
LFR is not problematic, I don't really know why people get so bothered about its existence.

I don't really want to do a 12 round argument bout with you. Check my post history in this thread for my opinions if you're interested, but don't feel like you have to reply to me. It's ok if you don't like LFR. I don't really care and I doubt any thread here is going to change what LFR is.

From here are my selfmade facts to idc what you say about lfr lalalala i dont hear you - real quick.

Just stop making shit up in the future or this will continue to happen to you. xD

[Soeroah]

Here's my opinion:

LFR should be the easy mode where a PUG can kill any boss within 5 Determination stacks, mechanics be damned.

Normal should be the style of Flex raiding we got at the end of Pandaria; that is, harder than LFR, easier than Heroic, but still split into wings a group can queue for with a pre-made group.

That mode would then be a better teaching tool, because wings could be targeted, which means the relatively few LFR players who DO want to raid at a higher level but don't have the time for full 12 boss runs can at least PUG a wing or two when they can during the week, without having redo or miss bosses. Flex in MoP was the first time I did non-LFR raids since Wrath and it was genuinely fun enough that I was excited when Blizzard said in WoD "Flex would be the new Normal", until it turned out they just meant Normal would have the flexible group size concept, not the winged queuing concept.

[the0o]

Thank you all for your input. I like some of the ideas being throw around. Here are some of the more common responses :

1. -Didnt read anything here- I hate it and you, and you should feel bad
2. No, LFR is fine as it is.
3. LFR is bad and should be removed
4. LFR players dont want to improve and do more difficult content
5. IDC
6. I like it and want a better LFR experience
7. Some of these Idea were done in MOP/WOD and the results were lackluster
8. Raiders in LFR would be toxic
9. iF YoU dOnT LiKe iT, ThEn DoNt dO iT
10. More "chores" isnt a good idea
11. LFR is WOW's most popular content and messing with it would cause backlashes in other areas
12. your ideas suck
13. sToP tAlKiNg aBoUt lFr, tHiS iS tOpIc #4581111
14. Updating/changing LFR would be too costly (development time)
15. Your ideas punish players
16. -fighting-

[Spacewalrus2010]

You cannot teach those who are unwilling to learn. Everything that you do that incentives it will inevitably feel forced by those unwilling to learn and annoying to those who've already learned.

1. Proving Ground V.2

Making this a requirement will not "teach" players. Proving grounds was a failed experiment. People still wiped on heroic dungeon bosses despite the proving ground requirements. People will (begrudgingly) learn only if it is blatantly obvious that they have to do the work. Proving grounds was a solo experience that was a requirement to do LFG content. So they learned about the solo content, not the group content.

2. LFR Score

You criteria for how the scoring system would work is very flawed.

You are forced to make the content semi-difficult so the criteria actually means something. LFR today will almost never drop a tank below 50% HP unless someone is doing something wrong. There would be no point to the scoring system for healers if there wasn't any danger of the tank getting anywhere near 50% HP.

Having any sort of DPS breakpoint for gaining points is going to cause a riot. You either have to make it difficult, which means the class/specs that are flavor of the month will need to try harder than those that are. Or you make it trivial in which case we're back where we started.

3. Raider Bait

You only describe how to bait the raiders, not why they should be there in the first place. And I'm willing to bet it will be a poor reason, because you are essentially trying to give players who don't find LFR fun a power incentive to do said content.

4. LFR Tuning

This is definitely appearing to suggest that every boss should be one shot in a LFR experience? Regardless of the performance of the raid. I don't know else to take the phrase "Death and a wipe should not be the punishment in LFR". This would not teach people one bit.

Dying from a raid mechanic is a teaching tool like anything else in the raid. You look at what killed you and find out how to prevent that. The problem is that some people couldn't give two shits about looking at their combat log.

[WaltherLeopold]

Remove loot, make LFR an on rails experience, like with battle for the broken shore, battle for lordaeron and if you want to keep the appearances of a raid just make it so that you replace missing members with bots.

This removes all queue issues, it makes any reward cosmetic and it adheres to the original case for why LFR needed to exist "so that people can see the story content"

[sam86]

You're factually wrong. It's a well known fact that the organized raiding community has always been a very small portion of the player base.

Exactly
blizz released before LK kill count, i remember the number didn't even hit a million, and that was in the top peak of entire wow lifetime, when u had 12 million western sub (since china banned wrath), yet of 12 million, the number was pitiful low, can't remember what exactly but it was still lower than 1 million, in 1 digit of % of total player base
If wow at its best still didn't interest 10% of its playerbase to raid, it never will and we better accept that as fact

[Sansnom]

Conclusion

My goal is not to punish LFR player but to empower them to do better. With the above systems in place a player who queues into LFR would have some knowledge of basic boss mechanics (proving grounds), have a leader who has killed the boss on much higher difficulties (raider bait) and would push themselves to do well so they will have a high chance at loot (LFR score).

Why can it not be in normal instead? This LFR should teach players to be better at raiding is passing the buck.

Want people to get better? How about helping them rather than insulting them?

This is like other problems players created and passing it onto Blizzard to address.

[Xeenith]

I don't even have time or patience for LFR, much less higher difficulty raids, despite my guild clearing the heroic raid quickly after it's availability and playing around with a few PU in mythic
I also don't waste my time in brain dead repetition of dungeons in MM+
I play wow for the RPG part, not the MMO, just want to see the story and the little I can't see in the raids, I wait until I can legacy solo them a few years afterwards....

[SirBeef]

not that i disagree, i just have no clue what this have to do with my comment you replied it to

It was supporting your post.

[Ryuda]

I like some of this, I wouldn't hate having a reason to do LFR on alts, but I wanted to address the ups and downs of a few things:

1. Proving Grounds 2: Useless Boogaloo

Blizzard tried this with Heroic Dungeons in Warlords. In an effort to try to bridge the gap between the rather severely punishing Cata 5-mans at launch, and the dreadfully easy Mists 5-mans, they tuned the dungeons (slightly) harder than Mists, and enforced a Silver Proving Grounds requirement to queue. The problem was that, as players often do, people simply took the path of least resistance, and learned the muscle memory of the buttons they needed to push, but never *cared* to learn why they were pushing those buttons.

2. Raider Bait

I really don't think this is a good idea, nor would it accomplish what you hope. Trying to drag players from an "unintended" audience into content they don't want to do to begin with is a good way to introduce a toxic environment right from the get-go. Having a portion of the raid being there because they're forced to to stay competitive, rather than because they want to be there is only going to cause issues from moment one.

3. LFR.io

I've actually been a supporter of some kind of well, exactly what you mentioned in the OP. I actually have spoken to a lot of players in LFR, interviewing folks who frequently run it in an effort to see how something like this would work. As expected, the response was somewhat mixed across a spectrum from "Blizzard: Hire this guy" to "Take a Hike". I learned a few things that I think need to be kept in mind when designing any such system.

1) It's hard to assign blame for some mechanics failing. Most common example would be: Player A gets a bomb -> Player A runs away, finds a safe place, and plants themselves there. -> Players B, C, and D all panic with some other thing happening, or just aren't paying enough attention and walk into Player A's Ring. The system would almost need some AI involved to be able to learn what is happening and assign fault. In this case, Player A probably shouldn't have their score paused when they player properly. Such an AI afaik, has not quite been applied to an MMR-esque rating like this.

1.5) In the same vein, superfluously awarding points might not be a great idea, especially for soak mechanics. Again, let's say Mechanic 1 deals 3000 damage to anyone in the circle, or 3000 to the whole raid if nobody gets hit. This damage isn't split. Now, everyone, hungry to get their loot points is going to dogpile into the circle, resulting in the raid taking the same damage as if nobody had soaked, but being rewarded, rather than punished for it.

2)Probably the most important thing I learned from doing my interviews is that the LFR population is much more diverse than people give it credit for. For one, as a personal anecdote, I raided with a person from WotLK until WoD. Prior to around Throne of Thunder, they were one of the best players I had ever met, almost always top 100 in their class. A month or so into ToT, they started to mention that their hands were frequently cramping up to the point of needing to leave the group for the rest of the night sometimes as little as 30 minutes in. They were diagnosed with severe RA. I still keep in touch with this person, and they can perform their DPS rotation, but have a lot of trouble physically dealing with mechanics and dealing damage at the same time. As a result, they often perform middle of the pack, at best, even though this person technically "overgears" LFR. I've interviewed others as well who mentioned things like carpel tunnel/other nerve damage/injuries affecting the hands.

My point being that with a punitive score like this, it has to be forgiving enough to realize that although a bit cliche, everyone has a story, and it tends to be more diverse the lower in difficulty one goes. It's easy for us Mythic raiders to assume all groups are small in scope like us (18-30, usually male, usually a post-secondary student, or with a 9-5 job, life-long videogame nerd, Introvert, did I miss anything?)

Still, I think the basic framework of the score is solid, but I think those few things are always going to prevent that kind of system from every working on anything other than paper.