LFR idea.. Why not turn it into a NPC Assisted Guided Tour?

Community General Discussion
1

I think LFR should be converted into a tutorial or story mode experience. Where you still have the same 20 players except also have a NPC(s) assist the players during the raid and boss encounters…

For Example if Ny’alotha had this, we could have had Magni, Wrathion, or random 8.3 significant lore characters of the Horde and Alliance fighting along side the real players, and these NPCs can serve as guides, and even yell out instruction/advice and what to do during boss encounters and between boss fights as we clear trash and before the boss pull, could tell stories/lore that’s significant or applicable to the raid.

And the way they can help players during boss encounters for example: if a boss is casting a deadly spell that the raid needs to move away from, the NPC(s) could simply yell out, “RUN AWAY!” and runs away for players to follow to safety, or times when the raid needs to focus and dps down the boss, they can charge straight into the boss and yell “ATTACK!!! TAKE DOWN THIS MONSTER!”…

I think this would be cool and make LFR more of an interactive and lore filled experience. Also I believe it can help out with the completely clueless casual, new players, and first time raiders who have zero idea of what to do by providing them simple, easy to follow instructions during the encounter itself (especially since it’s rare that any of these players look up any guide/tutorial/video on their own).

LFR has always been picked on or viewed as the bane of World of Warcraft, as players seem to hate it because either it’s viewed as way too casual friendly, requires zero skill to do, has heavily nerfed fights, promotes bad player habits and gameplay, etc.

Then the rare times when it isn’t nerfed to the ground and requires players to have a bare minimum of skill or actually read the dungeon journal or whatever (i.e. N’Zoth), players then now complain that it’s too hard and needs to be nerfed due to the sheer amount of clueless players who have no idea of what to do that end up ruining the experience for everyone.

Anyways long story short, LFR is a difficulty that isn’t for those committed to raiding, not for the type who look up guides, but rather chiefly for those who run it to just gear up their characters a bit, have no time for real raids, new players, or simply for those who want to complete the raiding kill quest in their quest logs. However issues arise often in LFR as a result of the lack of knowledge the average LFR raider has and their lack of know how so this often leads to many wipes, causes many players to quit thus forcing the people who stayed to wait over and over again for the group to refill and worse of all, potentially lead to the group falling apart completely. So this is where revamping LFR into a NPC assisted guided tour can be a good idea imo.

-edit-
Also an idea, I think that having up to three or four NPCs to tag along with the raid (variable depending on the encounter) that are specific to each role (Tank, Healer, DPS (melee/ranged), where for example the DPS NPC which only the DPS players see, follow around and attack what they are attacking, and see their messages. One that only the healers see and suggest when they should be focusing heals on the tank or raid or suggest using a healing CD, and a tank NPC which only the tanks see and lets them know when to swap threat or suggest when to pop a defensive cd…

Either these NPCs can either indirectly hint at players or directly tell players directly what to do through their comments or remarks during the encounter:
For example for the tanking NPC:
If the NPCs gave Direct commands: “Use a defensive! this beast’s attacks are starting to hurt!”
If the NPCs gave Indirect hints to figure out: "Ouch! this beast’s attacks are starting to hurt!

^Personally, I think the indirect method is best, as it’s as not immersion breaking and doesn’t just tell players what to do but just provides enough of a clue for players to pick up on and figure out through repetition/experience what they mean.

5 Likes
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NPC-Assisted sounds a lot like, “The raid plays itself,” to me.

I don’t think I’d be down for even more hand-holding than LFR difficulty already grants.

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Can easily make it so that the NPCs don’t really do much damage, healing, or whatever, simply are just there to serve as a guide for clueless players and to help LFR also serve as a basic raiding tutorial for new players.

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Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against it in principle – I just don’t think Blizzard could execute it in a way that wouldn’t be horrible.

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Blizzard has already demostrated that they can execute it in a way that isn’t too horrible.

It’s no different than the Warfronts, even though there are alot of NPCs that help and fight along side you, if the group doesn’t put in effort and/or too many players AFK, you will lose the warfront.

A good example is the Darkshore Warfront, The NPCs such as Maiev, is simply there to serve as a guide to follow and yell out instructions as you first push to the base and push to the end.

So essentially can have a LFR raid where you have a NPC who serves the role of Maiev that the group can follow, fight along side, and receive basic instructions from, while the players themselves have to provide the actual damage/healing/tanking and put in the real effort to clear the content.

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Ultimately the issue with LFR isn’t LFR itself, its the players.

If everyone who went into it did research, watched some helpful and instructive vids, read up on the encounters and did their best to follow the mechanics that actually exist in LFR relative to their class, there would be far less of a problem. I think most people would agree that the fights in LFR are far simpler and easier than in Normal.

The issue is that most people just dive straight into it the moment it becomes available with little or no understanding of what to do. The raid journal gives some very basic information but its not substitute for learning from watching or participating.

I don’t think your option would work because again, ultimately it depends on the player. You can instruct them, help them, tell them, as much as you like but if they choose not to bother or to afk or to just run around like a mad chook, then all that is wasted development time.

I don’t see any option beyond either leaving it the way it is or removing it altogether. The second option means that a percentage of players will never get to see those fights other than by watching vids because or paying for carries. You will be back to how it was prior to Cataclysm, this Have’s and Have Nots which developes into a sort of clique environment. My opinion is: just leave it alone. It is a matter of choice after all. If you don’t care for it, don’t do it, easy as.

2 Likes
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This is not what LFR is for, LFR isn’t made for players who research, players who look up guides, videos, etc… That’s what Normal and higher difficulties are for. LFR is chiefly for players who have zero experience with raiding, no clue of what to do, have no time or interest in learning to raid or being a raider (i.e. those who simply do it to complete a quest), and other various reasons and types of players.

Just think back to the very first time you ever raided… if like me, I doubt you looked up any guide or tutorial, in fact, you probably never knew any existed or where to look, and didn’t know of or have any helpful addons, etc (unless a friend told you), so you went into your first raid completely clueless and probably got booted out by the first boss (that was once me, my very first raid in Sunwell Plateau, booted out after causing a wipe during the first boss).

Anways, often a bulk of LFR players just simply assume other players within the raid will know what to do and will tell them what to do, figure it out as they go along, or assume that what they do won’t matter, but when neither one of these works, that’s when Bad LFR experiences occur (i.e. N’zoth or my first raid experience).

So due to these reasons, this is why a tutorial or story driven, NPC guided experience can be a good idea. As it will help with those players who are completely clueless about guides, videos, and those who are unwilling to look them up due to having zero interest in raiding but still need to complete their quests, and especially those players who have busy real lives and only have an hour or two to spare to play wow and researching each encounter would cut into their game time.

Give them a NPC(s) to follow through the raid, who can spew Lore and Story during trash encounters (if story driven), but chiefly who during boss encounters provides helpful instructions to the raid to learn to follow.

1 Like
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I would love this. I don’t raid anymore, despise doing LFR - raids with a bunch of random pugs is the closest thing I’ve experienced to Hell. If I could get the story just playing it on my own, I’d much prefer that.

Heck, you could even make them somewhat challenging for a solo player, though that’d take a little more work, essentially redesigning encounters entirely.

Whatever the case, some way to experience these parts of the story (a huge part of the plot is still locked behind raids, for some reason) would be very welcome. Though I’d much rather they just didn’t make the raid a complete necessity for story closure.

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They should make LFR into a cutscene with a captch that randomly pops up several times during the cutscene.
If you don’t type it in the game considers you afk and boots you.

You get free loot,don’t have to do anything,and get to see the story.

Perfect for the LFR people!

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Make it so people have to play a tutorial and learn the mechanics before queueing for LFR. Very simple solution.TBH id just prefer that they made raids insanely hard for solo but possible. I really want uncorrupted voidwing but i can’t raid heroic on my timezone.

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If players in LFR already ignore other players giving them tips on what to do or worse kick the helpful players for being such a bother, what makes you think they’re going to listen to an NPC telling them what to do?

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It would certainly be an improvement, but Blizzard design according to participation metrics these days. When they removed unique armor sets from LFR in WoW, participation in LFR dropped, so they reverted that change. There is no consideration given to big picture game design.

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Someone needs to start a remove LFR mega thread.

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FFXIV did this with Trusts in Shadowbringers for the dungeons since the main story makes you do dungeons for quests. It isn’t in place for raids or trials to my knowledge, just dungeons. They might expand it later. They really didn’t do too much and just avoided mechanics and typical stuff in their role. It was definitely a good way to do dungeons if you were afraid of screwing up or if you just wanted to do it now at a slower pace but screw waiting a queue.

They did it really well I’d say, it wouldn’t be hard for WoW to just do that, then we look at their AI for BGs and Islands and it probably isn’t within their capability.

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waits for the “LFR shouldnt drop gear” joke.

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It ought to be listed as a troll topic and suspensions incoming for anyone who brings it up again.

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" Q. Who is Raid Finder for?
A. Raid Finder is primarily intended for players who don’t already raid consistently. These are players who may not have had the opportunity to take part in raid content due to scheduling conflicts, playtime constraints, limited access to other raid-capable players, or a lack of experience with higher-end content. These players may want to experience World of Warcraft’s raid content and storyline without being able to commit to the additional time investment of a raiding guild. The Raid Finder is also a great way to quickly and easily gear up alternate characters without having to worry about raid lockouts"

Its pretty clear why LFR exists and who its actually designed for.
Everyone who doesnt fit that description should just stay out of LFR if they dont like it.
Its as simple as making a choice.

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That would be the case if they could stop rnging loot. I feel obligated to do low tier content like LFR with mouthbreathing plebeians with room temperature IQs just because I might get something big. My mage alt got infinite stars rank 3 on a Maut offhand first time I did it on them. Obviously I’m going to keep doing it.

But hey, this is what you get. People who sat in LFR as the peak of their PvE experience demanded that they too should have crazy good items and cried about it. It wasn’t fair that their gear had a capped item level below the other raiders so they were behind in power, so Blizzard put in titanforging, so naturally people who shouldn’t be in LFR will be there for bonus loot chances.

You ruined our fun, so now some us will ruin yours. Deal. With. It.

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Questing is more reliable. Do that instead.

sorry but I personally didnt ruin squat for you or anyone else. Try harder with the excuses.

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Have you been in an lfr? It’s tougher than mythic because players are so bad lol.