Is LFR heading for the chopping block?

[Lacryma-wyrmrest-accord (Lacryma)]

This sums LFR up nicely.

~https://www.darklegacycomics.com/250

[Gnomenclatur-detheroc]

I think LFR isn’t good for the overall game, but I also think it isn’t going anywhere as it is a band aid they don’t want to rip off.

Just my opinions, of course.

[Reeven-thrall (Reeven)]

@Spellchaser-ravencrest

because guilds were able to control who could and who couldn’t.

These conspiracy theories about guild mafias are insane. Guilds are any group of friends. In today’s WoW any core group of 5-6 people that can field a tank and a healer are able to get a Normal/Heroic guild rolling, or join/merge an existing one.

We’re not talking about exploiting/gatekeeping Silithus for Scarab Lord, or behind the scenes Rank 14 honor capping shenanigans here. We’re talking the basic task of stepping foot in the portal and doing the raid.

Guilds have not been a barrier to access for anything but the cutting-edgiest of content (competitive e-sports level Mythic race) for the past 15 years.

Not being able to play in a competent guild would require either utter dedication at one’s own expense to being a lone wolf who’s not inclined to join a group environment, or being so terrible in play or attitude no one can stand them, or both.

[Esimpure-whitemane]

@Turnberry-illidan

As someone who did Heroic back in the day and current Mythic, no it’s really not. At least when you compare it to 25 man. I could see the argument that 10 man Heroic was easier than current Mythic.

Old heroic was a lot more forgiving. Perhaps it’s encounter design, but I notice a lot more one-shot and instant failure mechanics in Mythic than I ever did in Heroic. I recall being able to recover far easier on Heroic. Plus with the addition of flex raiding, there’s not really an ability to tune as tightly on anything but Mythic.

10 man Heroic was easier in most cases, but harder in others where class stacking trivialized mechanics. IE: 25m Thok. I didn’t really have any difficulty in either difficulty setting though.

[Esimpure-whitemane]

@Lacryma-wyrmrest-accord

Ego. That’s why. People hate Voidform too. Is it staying?

Why yes, yes it is. Blizzard does not apologize for bad designs, nor do they backtrack from them. It will eventually doom the company, because if you really think most people are going to give a WoW II a fair shot? They won’t because they will remember how their time investment was treated in WoW I. The biggest thing keeping this game going in spite of the Developer mal-practice, is the player’s time-investment.

The only reason Blizzard takes action against their own is if they represent bad PR - like really bad. And in this case, the original designer of Warlocks in MoP (you know, hailed as the golden age of Warlocks and we’ve never gotten close since) was fired because he spoke out rather strongly about Blizzard. I imagine it was because Blizzard wanted to step in with Warlock design and bring them down to the level of other classes instead of trying to improve every other class.

[Turnberry-illidan (Turnberry)]

@Esimpure-whitemane

Old heroic was a lot more forgiving. Perhaps it’s encounter design, but I notice a lot more one-shot and instant failure mechanics in Mythic than I ever did in Heroic. I recall being able to recover far easier on Heroic.

I think it’s a different kind of difficulty. Old Heroic in Cata/MoP was more numbers based, so you needed really good dps/hps while dealing with decently difficult mechanics. Now, outside of the top world guilds obviously, you can get by with decent dps, but the boss mechanics are way harder. I just know Heroic Ragnaros or Heroic Lei-Shen took just as many pulls as current mythic end bosses.

[Esimpure-whitemane]

@Turnberry-illidan

I think it’s a different kind of difficulty. Old Heroic in Cata/MoP was more numbers based, so you needed really good dps/hps while dealing with decently difficult mechanics. Now, outside of the top world guilds obviously, you can get by with decent dps, but the boss mechanics are way harder. I just know Heroic Ragnaros or Heroic Lei-Shen took just as many pulls as current mythic end bosses.

That sounds about right. I recall a lot more DPS races, or healing checks in the old system. Raids today seem more mechanically tight. Though I would also say that because Mythic is tuned so tightly, the similar amount of pulls makes sense because not a lot has changed for the top end guilds anyway.

[Haavi-barthilas (Haavi)]

@Esimpure-whitemane

Old heroic was a lot more forgiving. Perhaps it’s encounter design, but I notice a lot more one-shot and instant failure mechanics in Mythic than I ever did in Heroic. I recall being able to recover far easier on Heroic. Plus with the addition of flex raiding, there’s not really an ability to tune as tightly on anything but Mythic.

I think the big thing was encounter design, even going back to Vanilla. Older encounter design generally focused on a few abilities that were really make or break for a fight but otherwise the fight was standard.

In modern raiding there are tons more encounter abilities and interactions going on making them more intense, by the time you get to mythic each of these mechanics then has the ability to determine success or failure of a pull.

There is also a lot more design gone into maintaining things like pressure etc as some encounters will be designed around to having unavoidable raid damage so that there is always something being done and a sense of urgency, whereas a lot of past designs had peroids where if the mechanics were done right the healers could basically sit there and wait.

[Reeven-thrall (Reeven)]

An interesting thing I did with a friend a week or two ago, was duo-ing Normal dungeons at the end of Kul’Tiras zones when we made new alts. We were sent there to cap zone storylines anyway, and were in 400+ ilvl gear by then, so why not?

I found this rather enjoyable, to be honest. Bosses with mechanics you need to deal with but not really in much danger of dying. I treated them like scenarios, a cool extension to cap the zone’s questing experience, with time to listen to the dungeon’s RP.

Considering Normal dungeons are pretty much useless past leveling anyway, maybe turning Normal into free form scaling end zone scenarios would be an interesting idea. It was a much better experience than getting a random 5-man in LFG and just GoGoGo-ing through, to be sure.

Heroic could stay as the LFG iteration (though it’s somewhat useless too, tbh), and Mythic as the real deal.

The same logic could apply to LFR as story mode, really.

[Dexterworgen-nordrassil]

@Reeven-thrall

Mythic as the real deal.

Honestly I feel like mythic was introduced to kill random dungeon a bit. They like to introduce dungeons which are mythic only and not put them on the random dungeon list until a patch later. I often wonder if someday in the future if they might introduce Mythic only raids, that lower tiers won’t get until a patch later. And if they might introduce Mythic+ Raids with this endless key type mechanic with all the new added mechanics to it. I can only imagine what a Raid would be like with Tyrannical and stuff.

[Valdenroth-dalaran]

@Dexterworgen-nordrassil

Will he eventually chop these systems and find some rug to brush it under?

Only if he’s a moron that likes seeing subs and profits drop.

[Silverleigh-drakthul]

He was just using it as an example of changes that made the game easier but removed deeper play. Here are the actual words. Nothing in there indicates there is any thought of it being removed.

Ion: Going all the way back to something like the random group finder and LFG and sure it’s super easy and convenient to be able to push a button and have a group of groupmates to run a dungeon with but did that do some things to erode a sense of community and fellowship; sure it did.

And my opinion on the whole subject is: If you don’t like it , don’t do it.

[Sonicgott-feathermoon (Sonicgott)]

LFD helps me quite a bit because players in my guild aren’t always online at the same time as I am, and since my work schedule is completely random, I can’t always participate in groups raids.

My boss doesn’t give me days off to “raid in a video game.” I get the days off I get or I request vacation time, which that isn’t always guaranteed, either.

So LFD/LFR helps fill gaps for me.

[Spellchaser-ravencrest (Spellchaser)]

@Haavi-barthilas

if we even have evidence that 8.3 has actually caused people to leave

The “evidence” we have is that a lot of people said they were going to take a break and come back to check out 8.3, because of the hype. They came back, and then a lot of people said they were very disappointed and were letting their subs run out.

Absolutely no one said that they had come back because of the hype and were really impressed by the content.

[Dexterworgen-nordrassil]

@Haavi-barthilas

if we even have evidence that 8.3 has actually caused people to leave, and if that evidence doesn’t include the simple embarrassment that BfA has been.

I know it’s not evidence of a lot of people, but I do count my self as a player. And I left at 8.3. Only subbed for this month for forum access. I disliked 8.3 because the gearing options felt bad for me. All the patches previous to 8.3 felt okay. But this just felt bad.

[Esimpure-whitemane]

@Spellchaser-ravencrest

The “evidence” we have is that a lot of people said they were going to take a break and come back to check out 8.3, because of the hype. They came back, and then a lot of people said they were very disappointed and were letting their subs run out.

Absolutely no one said that they had come back because of the hype and were really impressed by the content.

Speaking of someone who reinstalled live WoW and quit pretty quickly without even finishing the patch content, yeah. I was supremely disappointed and not at all interested in another grind for bare minimum content.

Thankfully I didn’t spend anything, as I had a sub with Classic.

[Soulebreaker-hyjal]

Probably make improvements but not remove it entirely. I never understood the complaints against it. I don’t like mythics, but I just keep my behind out of them and let people like what they like.

[Faelimere-frostmourne]

Its like flying it just isnt worth the effort, even if Blizzard did a 180 and thought LFR/LFD should go they wouldnt do it.

Imo LFR and Mythic should both go, too many modes, creates to much gear inflation which in turn invalidates gear to the point that WoW feels like seasonal content. 2 modes Ulduar style is still imo the best version of WoW raiding.

[Zelestriana-wyrmrest-accord]

He never said that. Don’t you start trolling as well.

@Arcinon-stormrage

All I’d like is either lfr difficulty to just become normal level or just lower the ilvl rewards to heroic dungeon level. It makes 0 sense to me that people should get a shot at m0 level loot for pretty much being afk (just look at all the people still trying to get trinket from wrathion and count how many die to the flames.

This from someone who can barely complete one LFR.

[Haavi-barthilas (Haavi)]

The minority players that actually come on the forums at all are exactly that, a minority. It’s not evidence of anything.

@Spellchaser-ravencrest

They came back, and then a lot of people said they were very disappointed and were letting their subs run out.

Probably because BfA was unimpressive as a whole?
Probably because if they were returning after taking time off they didn’t get essences from 8.2 that are a huge deal and were probably forced to go back and do that content?
They probably also didn’t have access to flying and would have needed to do that as well.

8.3 reduced the required hours grinded by each player across the board, 8.3 added completely new unique content type to the game, 8.3 added the highest available ilvl rewards for casual players the game has ever seen.

Sure people might not have liked corruptions, but that has nothing to do with the available high level rewards which is what you said it was.