Now that you’ve uncovered the mysteries of the Mogu in Mogu’shan Vaults, get ready to take on some more raids.
Delve into the rotting home of the Klaxxi and confront their sha-tainted queen in the Heart of Fear.
Chase the Sha of Fear to the Terrace of Endless Spring, where it has caused the guardians to devolve into fits of terror. Defeat it to restore peace to this sacred place.
We’re planning two raid weekends:
Friday, June 13 - Monday, June 16
Friday, June 27 - Monday, June 30
As before, raid weekends will begin at 1:00 p.m. PDT on Friday and end at 10:00 a.m. PDT on Monday.
The Klaxxi are the group of Mantid we’re helping take down the Grand Empress. Do you mean the rotting home of the Mantid? Though maybe we are going to go raid Klaxxi’vess instead of Heart of Fear.
Praise be. We get not just 1 day notice for raid testing, but 14 day notice. Let’s go. I will just say I appreciate this level of notice so I can plan and stuff.
Notice how all of the anti-LFR rhetoric is just insulting and projection and no one is capable of providing an actual reason for why it’s bad for the game. Especially now that H+ exists so even the almost argument of “I have to run LFR in order to stay competitive” doesn’t apply anymore
I’ll give you a real reason instead of insulting people. The issue with systems like LFR is that unlike other games, wow’s a mmorpg as you know. MMOs are dependent on, and enhanced by, systems that encourage or require player interaction. The more of it, the better. Now, as we all know, player interaction can often lead to toxicity, but generally if you ask any wow player, their most memorable moments are going to be the times they encountered or did something interesting by working with others/making connections. If you ever wondered why Vanilla Wow is so popular today despite it by almost any standards being a terrible game, is because it’s the version of Wow that encourages player interactions the most. So while yes in LFR you still play with other people, it’s going to people you barely speak to, likely never meet again, and it makes the content too accessible. You don’t have to join a guild, form a group with pugs on your server, or make any connections really to do the content, so LFR becomes even more of a meaningless grind. Even in Vanilla classic, despite the content being extremely easy and accessible, still mandates you work with people and most often join a guild. Now generally, making content accessible is a good thing, people don’t want a repeat of Vanilla Naxx from back in the day. But when content is gated behind being in a group, it mandates that people playing the game spend more time working with other people, and getting better at their classes so they can both clear the content and encourage other people to invite them back. LFR is one of the systems Blizz put in place to cater to more casual/solo players, which while doesn’t sound like a bad idea at first glance, hurts the game as a whole due to it being a MMO.
Counterpoint: FF14 is a game built on queue systems like dungeon and raid finder, and it is generally regarded as one of the most socially active games on the market
LFR and dungeon finder doesn’t kill the community, the community kills itself. There’s no pride in Vanilla having an active community, it’s pride in the game that forces people who otherwise are entirely uninterested in interacting with each other to do so
Another counterpoint, some of the most fun I had in OG MoP WAS from LFR. I had one of every alt, and raided on each of them. I was able to try out more classes, playstyles, and specs than ever before - in a format where I was able to get a better idea of how the class/spec played in raid, and if it’s something I wanted to further pursue. No one is saying LFR is better, necessarily, than other raid types - however, its inclusion from MoP forward is a no brainer. It was here originally, and allowed more people a foot in the door of raiding.
Yes, this is an MMO. Yes, the best memories I have from any version of WoW typically are the interpersonal, but also YES, LFR was fun originally. If anecdotes are gospel around here, pro-LFR anecdotes are just as valid as anti-LFR anecdotes.
So far, there hasn’t been a single person who has articulated a good reason for LFR to not exist. There are plenty of reasons why it shouldn’t replace any other version of raiding or gearing, but (and ESPECIALLY since the legendary was a for-everyone-legendary in MoP), it just doesn’t make any sense to remove this casual-friendly system.
Even today in Retail, I’ve run into a handful of LFR runs where there’s a toxic tryhard who complains that runs fail, but more than ever I’m seeing runs where there’s someone who becomes the cheerleader/RL, explains the run, and helps the run finish.
For everyone arguing against LFR, just don’t run it! You don’t have time to run LFR on top of your other guild runs, etc., fine! Don’t! But understand that your inability to find time to run LFR on top of everything else you want to do, is no less valid than those of us with RL responsibilities who don’t have time to sit uninterupted for 6 hours a week doing guild runs, and just want to play EZ mode for fun.
I have fond memories of spamming LFR with reroll tokens from timeless isle to get BiS CM gear on alts. I don’t play cata classic, but if H+ is just from LFG and you just spam that…what is the difference between them? I’d rather not spam MoP heroics, because I will be spamming CMs. CMs and H+ is a lot of dungeon content.
Will you guys have the Prepull stuff removed for this test? Please!! I was in a few different pug raids with several people that were abusing talent and glyph swaps pre pull as well as trying to use the pvp trinkets and other pre pull shenanigans. Please remove the buffs of things that aren’t currently equipped when the boss is pulled.
I can’t speak for FF14 since I’ve never played it, nor should anyone else who hasn’t played it. What I can speak to is trends in wow, and LFR is generally unpopular. There are ofc you and other players who enjoy it, but you will rarely find anything that has everyone who touches it either love it or hate it. Just because you enjoy/don’t enjoy something dictate if the content is healthy to the game or not.
Blaming the community I don’t think is going to get you anywhere. What we can speak to is the numbers of it, and Vanilla is one of the most revisited game modes, and I can assume it has nothing to do with the class balance. It’s for the community and accessibility, which LFR detracts from.
And if someone is playing a mmo and you are uninterested in interacting with other players, then honestly I think they are playing the wrong game for them. MMO’s are again built on player interaction, and the trend has been a drop off in WoW’s popularity, in part due to catering to people who want to play a MMO solo.
You enjoying something doesn’t mean it’s better for the overall health of the game. I’m glad you enjoyed it, and you enjoying LFR and it potentially not being around would be a bummer for you.
It allows people a “foot in the door” in raiding I think is misleading. What tends to happen is either populated by people having no interest in pursuing raiding further than LFR (which hurts normal/heroic raid groups) or by people gearing alts in an environment that does not encourage people to learn more about their class or working with others due to how easy LFR is.
False equivalence there saying that pro vs anti LFR anecdotes are equal. I’m not bringing up my personal experiences here - it’s understood that it’s not a popular game mode. You want to say no good reason has been brought up for no LFR - but I’ve seen no real refute to my points so far except “I like it, other people like it, and therefore it’s good for the game”. You say it doesn’t make sense to remove it, but again, it hurts mmos in the long term to have solo play be an endgame option.
Another bad take to say if you don’t like LFR, don’t run it. Because it’s become a viable gearing option, anyone who takes higher forms of raiding more seriously sometimes has no choice but to run it, and running LFR with people who don’t care to learn the game and hope others will explain/carry them is a toxic experience. It’s not a “I can’t find time thing” for everyone, so it’s in bad taste to sum it up that way. In fact, let me spin this to you in a way that makes sense to you “If you have RL responsibilities who don’t want to sit for 6 uninterrupted hours doing guild runs, then just quest and do dungeons, or join a casual guild that doesn’t have those time expectations!”
MMOs do better when people have reason to care and invest more time into learning their class and connecting with others. LFR runs directly contrary to that, and only exists to cater to people who want to play a MMO in a more solitary leaning direction, which hurts the game as a whole.