I'm a tank through and through. Tanked since TBC. Tanked with every tank class out there so much so I lvled a lock first week to testdrive its new tanking capabilities only to find out I can't taunt in raid. Been to some UE BL top 3/10/20 guilds in progression grps. I was a frequent flier on LFR even though when coming after a break I asked what LFR was, got "its like lfd but with 24 casuals bitching about everything" I had my doubts for over 5 weeks before trying it. I stopped tanking LFR with my chars the day blizz introduced loot spec. Now I dropped LFR all together because compared to flex it offers little to no reward (last time I did it got LITERALLY ONE item on 3 chars and it was a downgrade) and A LOT more of the hardships both compared. What IMO killed tank attendance was a mix of ignorant pricks blaming ppl for not carrying them through, anonymity allowing ppl to be said pricks even when well behaving on a day to day basis, dumbing down every aspect depriving good players of any challenge and fun from besting it and introducing way too much side activities to be able to run lfr+flex+regular+rep+dailies+... on 3+ twinks over the week. Oh, and the last nail to tank attendance in lfr was introducing flex where you get better gear, all the pros of reg runs and lfr combined and none of the cons of afore mentioned thus forcing a less casual players to resign from some activities, namely lfr, in favor of flex also allowing to help guildies gear up. So... What you need is a trade - trade of goods/emotions/entertainment for players' time/expertise. Now in this grunts' humble opinion there are few possible solutions (some of them mentioned already) to bring back the better geared/experienced tanks back to lfr (cuz' lets face it lads - you don't want to just fill the spots with inexperienced rerollers - you want the good stuff):
- bringing back the challenge: lowering the tolerance of the encounters so that they might still be fun for better gamers and offer satisfaction if not on their well outgearing the content chars then at least on their twinks trading in their time for the entertainment - that move also requires to redesign kicking mechs so that one a-hole couldn't lock 24 other ppl on some simple mechanic because he got kicked too many times (Blizz, for gods' sake, if guy gets booted more then once it doesn't mean community is bad, mean, elitist and unfair, it means THE poor SAP is bad, either under-performing gearwise or being a rude prick or hoping for a handout or... well you've got to get the point by now).
- more meaningful rewards for completing the wing - maybe a 50/50 rare mount otherwise requiring long rep/dng/etc grinding or more gratifying raiding supplements (feasts/more SPEC SPECIFIC flasks and enough gold to actually COVER all the expenses say... multiple wipes in 560+ gear = n*30-40g/wipe just so you know
) cuz' yea! I said it! We DESERVE it having to deal with impatience, ignorance and overall toxicity of lfr. If you want to take an easy way out and ignore the state of lfr community "pay" us for entertaining your crowd since they pay you for the same service that you're just outsourcing.
- rewards unobtainable anywhere else like mentioned overcap VPs, BoA gear, tokens for old sets' cosmetics etc. - reasoning? Look up.
- reorganizing social aspects of lfrs - making ppl less anonymous/more responsible for their actions: account-wide thumps up and down system, where ups (visible) get you a higher priority in queuing leading to good dps (aka. player) getting instant queues and thumbs down (invisible - keeps you guessing
) at say 15 leading to 72h ban reseting every content or ban and lowering the requirement(15->72h ban->10->72h ban->5->72h ban->1->72h ban->1->144h ban->(...))? You don't want to participate? Fine, do your job, don't stand out, don't be rude and you're out with status quo(you get passed by a higher rep in queue=you get +1/+10/+whatever temp rep, you get passed again= another temp rep gain and so on until its your turn). Want quicker queues? Damn boy! Represent! Be helpful, respectful, perform and you're bound to be appreciated. Start bitching? Be a thorn in raids' side? Get a chillout break time. The stick part works WONDERS in WoT and you've got nice carrot PR wise.
Anyone agrees? Disagrees? Comments? Propositions?