Reduce raid difficulties to 2 and add keystones for raids.

[Chilela]

IMO, raid difficulties should be reduced to 3, not 2.

LFR has its reason for existing, and absolutely should stay. At most, the "outlier" loot (e.g. tier pieces) should be changed, but that's it. While a tourist mode, it should at least give some semblance of reward.

Next up would be Normal, which would retain a "flex" raid size, which makes it easier for more casual guilds whose rosters have spottier attendance to form groups on any given raid night. Tuning-wise, it would go from current Normal mode encounters to early-mid Heroic encounters.

Finally would be Mythic, or Heroic if you REALLY needed to rename, and it would keep the current static Mythic raid size, for sake of easier tuning. Early encounters would be similar to current late Heroic in difficulty, as they have been for some time now. and bump up to the equivalent of current late Mythic encounters, so effectively no different from now.

[RobertMugabe]

jesus fuck people they won't remove LFR, it's the most populated raiding format. Mythic would get the axe way sooner since almost no one does it, it's only good for twitch views and the esport meme - which is why it also won't be removed, activision drinks the esport koolaid like water, making esports before making games.

If this RWF stuff didn't start back in BfA, they most likely would've removed mythic for good in maybe Dragonflight (or at least rebranded heroic raids as mythic).

But yeah, LFR is as you said of course never going away. Most people here just refuse this simple fact that it's not only the most popular raid difficulty, but possibly even the most popular one by a huge margin.

[thunderdragon2]

IMO, raid difficulties should be reduced to 3, not 2.

LFR has its reason for existing, and absolutely should stay. At most, the "outlier" loot (e.g. tier pieces) should be changed, but that's it. While a tourist mode, it should at least give some semblance of reward.

Next up would be Normal, which would retain a "flex" raid size, which makes it easier for more casual guilds whose rosters have spottier attendance to form groups on any given raid night. Tuning-wise, it would go from current Normal mode encounters to early-mid Heroic encounters.

Finally would be Mythic, or Heroic if you REALLY needed to rename, and it would keep the current static Mythic raid size, for sake of easier tuning. Early encounters would be similar to current late Heroic in difficulty, as they have been for some time now. and bump up to the equivalent of current late Mythic encounters, so effectively no different from now.

fair i can work with that but i disagree with no tier in lfr raiders do lfr to get the tier that they couldn't get in their main raid, remove that and it'll take ages to get a grp going and those that only do lfr will complain about queue times

[Rageonit]

Reducing the number of raid modes will not work in a game as old as WoW, with such immense stratification of players in terms of skill. Tuning the hard mode for best players will make it undoable for most of the playerbase; tuning it for the average player (or even above average) will make it trivial for the good players. With only two raid modes, you'll have content that's either: 1) inaccessible for huge part of the playerbase (which is bad); or 2) trivial for the other part of the playerbase (which is not perfect either). Blizzard knows this, and that's why every recent raid tier it's the same story: release it tuned harshly, slowly nerf it afterwards. By being such an old game, WoW has very diverse demographics - and if you don't want to alienate portion of your own playerbase, you need to give them all something to strive for, without making it frustrating. A self balancing keystone mechanic would achieve just that.

[Firann]

I would personally keep 3.

Normal, Heroic and Mythic.

Normal and Heroic could have an LFR mode, so you can either que for LFR or own party while Mythic only parties.

This would make the raid structures the same as dungeons.

[shade3891]

Even with keeping all difficulties, I think it is more fun having a mythic+ (keystone) option for at least the raids. Also that way all content stays relevant during at least one expansion other then transmog reasons or a broken BiS item.

[Chilela]

fair i can work with that but i disagree with no tier in lfr raiders do lfr to get the tier that they couldn't get in their main raid, remove that and it'll take ages to get a grp going and those that only do lfr will complain about queue times

I don't think it would completely kill LFR. The gear that normally drops from it would still presumably be a step above other casual-level content, so a decent number of people will still have incentive to run it for power progression. The rationale behind neutering tier pieces is to make LFR feel less mandatory for low-mid level raiders.

[thunderdragon2]

I don't think it would completely kill LFR. The gear that normally drops from it would still presumably be a step above other casual-level content, so a decent number of people will still have incentive to run it for power progression. The rationale behind neutering tier pieces is to make LFR feel less mandatory for low-mid level raiders.

you take away any incentive for those people to queue=less queueing which means longer queues as there's fewer to no tanks/healers as they dont need anything, remember its easier to run m+ than it is a raid the incentive to raid is the teir atleast it was be4 the catalyst, there needs to be an incentive to do something like gold gear or mog.

heck if it wasn't for the ensentia, mog and the vault i wouldn't be setting foot in lfr on my toons which are all 275+

yes at this point im just turning my vaults into extra gold, take away the incentives and less people that do it which means longer queues for those trying to gear from it.

also remember that because lfr uses a match making system to build the groups you cant cross faction it.

and as for your 2nd point removing the teir form lfr would remove those low-mid level raiders that are helping clear lfr so no1 would be there to help teach the rest the fights, it would be a real mess, i personally see no issue wiht tier sets in lfr

[anon5123]

6. We are still fighting trash and running back to our corpses in 2022.

You want every single raid to be like ToC? lmfao

[NineSpine]

You want every single raid to be like ToC? lmfao

Let me wrap my head around your argument here: You would have had a blast in ToC if they added trash between the fights and made you do longer death runs? Seriously?

[huth]

Let me wrap my head around your argument here: You would have had a blast in ToC if they added trash between the fights and made you do longer death runs? Seriously?

No, that's not the argument. The argument is that other raids would be worse if they were like ToC, not that ToC would be better if it had trash.

[NineSpine]

No, that's not the argument. The argument is that other raids would be worse if they were like ToC, not that ToC would be better if it had trash.

If no trash and short death runs aren't what made ToC bad, why are we talking about ToC in regard to trash and death runs?

[huth]

If no trash and short death runs aren't what made ToC bad, why are we talking about ToC in regard to trash and death runs?

Because it's an example why not having them doesn't make raids good.

[NineSpine]

Because it's an example why not having them doesn't make raids good.

So, it's irrelevant to the discussion and you wasted our time by bringing it up?

[Chilela]

you take away any incentive for those people to queue=less queueing which means longer queues as there's fewer to no tanks/healers as they dont need anything, remember its easier to run m+ than it is a raid the incentive to raid is the teir atleast it was be4 the catalyst, there needs to be an incentive to do something like gold gear or mog.

heck if it wasn't for the ensentia, mog and the vault i wouldn't be setting foot in lfr on my toons which are all 275+

yes at this point im just turning my vaults into extra gold, take away the incentives and less people that do it which means longer queues for those trying to gear from it.

also remember that because lfr uses a match making system to build the groups you cant cross faction it.

and as for your 2nd point removing the teir form lfr would remove those low-mid level raiders that are helping clear lfr so no1 would be there to help teach the rest the fights, it would be a real mess, i personally see no issue wiht tier sets in lfr

If I wanted to take away all incentive from running LFR, I'd call for any items from them to be purely cosmetic. Taken to an extreme, you'd be correct in your assertion: Non-current raids (In SL's case, Nathria and Sanctum) are all but dead on LFR, and even on higher difficulties, finding groups for them is relatively uncommon. However, I do believe there actually is precedent for LFR being similar in some degree to my proposition. Back in WoD, LFR had item sets that had wholly separate, objectively-inferior bonuses compared to their tier set counterparts. Despite this, LFR was alive and well back at that point in time, though the legendary ring quest may have played a part in that. I have every reason to believe similar would occur if such a system were re-implemented, provided the loot wasn't made completely nonviable, which would obviously have disastrous consequences. Could queues see a bump? Entirely possible. But it wouldn't outright kill LFR, IMO.

[Swnem]

I'd say LFR, Normal & Mythic (with Mythic still being base difficulty level, like m0). Other than that, yeah, I'd love to see some kind of raid keystone mechanic. It would, I think, completely change the current raid design dynamic: tune it for a handful of wf guilds, then nerf it to the ground week after week. There would be no such need; people would simply push for as high as they can in their respective groups.

Also, the raid equivalent of +15 should be quite achievable for the average player, just like +15 is. For flexing rights you can go as far as you're able to.

Can't have mythic. It's a fix raid size that is different from the others. It's the odd one out.
Honestly... mythic is just there for the world first race and it's a humongous waste of resources.

Something like the OP suggests kind of solves that issue partly. It makes it content for all and still allows the try hards to flex.

[Pratt]

All they had to do was make raid gear upgradeable.

[ohwell]

There is nothing wrong with the raid design, stop trying to change it.

LFR has a reason to exist, the same way Mythic has a reason to exist, just because every now and then they overtune Mythic on purprose to delay things, it doesnt affect anyone but 40-100 people , and maybe 500 other players after the first fixes, and the rest kill completely different bosses, like with the latest changes where the nerfs are simply too much.

This tier wasn't even overtuned. It was the only tier this expansion where we weren't steadily increasing in player power weekly beyond normal item level. But hey I would bet money the same people talking about the nerfs to this tier or the difficulty are the same people who sit and cry about "systems" because they don't know the real purpose of them.

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Can't have mythic. It's a fix raid size that is different from the others. It's the odd one out.
Honestly... mythic is just there for the world first race and it's a humongous waste of resources.

Something like the OP suggests kind of solves that issue partly. It makes it content for all and still allows the try hards to flex.

Humongous waste of resources when the top end are actually the ones pulling in the money these days? I'm so glad to know that Joe Casual is bringing in views to the streaming and videos on Blizzard's channels. I'm so glad to know that Joe Casual has such a large following on platforms that him simply playing the game is stronger advertisement than any video or poster could ever do....

[Swnem]

This tier wasn't even overtuned. It was the only tier this expansion where we weren't steadily increasing in player power weekly beyond normal item level. But hey I would bet money the same people talking about the nerfs to this tier or the difficulty are the same people who sit and cry about "systems" because they don't know the real purpose of them.

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Humongous waste of resources when the top end are actually the ones pulling in the money these days? I'm so glad to know that Joe Casual is bringing in views to the streaming and videos on Blizzard's channels. I'm so glad to know that Joe Casual has such a large following on platforms that him simply playing the game is stronger advertisement than any video or poster could ever do....

Really? You think bringing views once every 6 months to third party websites is what makes money and brings players in?
Not new expansions, sub revenue and shop purchases?
Pretty humorous! You should do stand up.

[czarek]

Imo there is sick imbalance in loot and reward between low key m+ and normal raid. Low m+ are way way far lower in its difficulty than normal raid at the same time m+ has better rewards loot and vault xd