First, I am an LFR player. That is my main source of end-game. So this is in no way a “remove LFR” thread and I actively advocate against removing LFR, not just because Blizzard has told us they can’t continue to make raids without LFR, but because I enjoy them for the most part.
I do not have the sources for these statements, as they were YEARS ago and on the old forums or on possibly defunct gaming websites, but if someone happens to and can link the source, feel free to tell me. This is from memory, and although that can be hazy at times, it’s usually on point for gaming related things. The things we’ve been told about LFR by Blizzard:
- LFR is made so the casual player can experience the story of WoW, because the WoW team was told by the higher ups that raid engagement was too low and they wouldn’t greenlight more raids being created unless they got engagement up, and thus LFR was born. If I recall, the term “Sightseeing Mode” was used.
- We were told when they revamped raids to be Normal/Heroic/Mythic at the end of MoP that Normal or Higher raiding has less than 10-15% engagement (can’t remember which one), whereas at least 75-85% of the playerbase does at least one LFR run each tier, and as such they considered LFR a success.
- We were also in Warlords in an interview that they attempted to remove tier, armor recolors, and trinkets from LFR to make them closer to the original intent. But we were also told this was a colossal failure and the engagement dropped so much they were again given the ultimatum by the higher ups to get engagement up or no more raids. (I’m sure the Proving Grounds achievement requirement didn’t help engagement) Thus, they promised in Legion it would return, and it did. We were also told the unique armor set for each type of armor from Hellfire Citadel was done to encourage LFR engagement before they could re-add tier and such.
So there’s a few questions I want to put forth:
- If LFR is meant to be about seeing the lore, why are some of the fights tuned so hard some people never beat them? Most of the time, the LFR tuning is fine. But if anyone can look at LFR N’zoth and tell me with a straight face, they believe he was tuned fine, I will laugh. A cutting edge friend went on record unironically, stating that Mythic N’zoth was easier than LFR N’zoth, because in Mythic you’re coordinated. I have friends who never saw the N’zoth ending cutscene because of this and had to look it up in the Shadowlands pre-patch.
- Why are some mechanics where a single person can wipe the raid left in LFR? I understand the hope is everyone in LFR wants to be there and puts in their full effort, but sadly, that is not the case. People join JUST to troll. This was very evidence in Nyalotha when people would join N’zoth, then take off their cloak so they get mind controlled immediately. Instead of removing the “Mind Control without Cloak” mechanic, Blizzard required the cloak to queue. But they did nothing about the people who took it off after joining.
- Why is LFR timegated so horrifically? Just to use Sepulcher as an Example, the raid opens March 1st. LFR’s final tier won’t open until a month and a half later, on April 19th. That’s insane.
Things I would suggest:
- Lower the timegating on LFR. Having 2 weeks between wings serves zero purpose. 1 Week is WAY more than enough timegating. To put it in perspective, if a 1 week gap existed, that would place LFR’s final Sepulcher wing at March 29th, almost an entire month after the Normal/Heroic releases. 3 weeks after the last 2 bosses unlock in Normal/Heroic)
1a. To add to this, why timegate LFR at all? (I’m well aware it’s so the Mythic First Race isn’t impacted by forcing those raiders to run LFR for tier, please keep reading.) If the goal is to see the story, how does that help people when the full cutscenes are posted by wowhead and even the official WoW youtube account OVER A MONTH BEFORE the final LFR wing is open? I’m not saying just open the floodgates, as I know that would impact mythic raiding, as they’d feel required to do LFR for tier. Thus, a solution:
Open LFR fully at the same time as Normal/Heroic. (Or in the case of a staggered NOrmal/Heroic raid like this, the same week the same bosses unlock). However, with a caveat - Until adequate time has passed (aka the usual timegating on LFR) - Make no weapons, tier pieces, or trinkets drop. Leave it entirely to just drop armor. This lets casual players join for the story at the same time as regular raiders, as well as gives us a head start on picking up the LFR recolor of the armor, sans the tier set pieces. If you WOULD have gotten a weapon, trinket, or tier piece? Have it drop Augment Runes in its place.
Or you can do it another way - when the first guild received World First Kill of the final boss of a raid, those items will start dropping in LFR a week or two later. At this point, there’s no risk of impacting the mythic first race, and thus no reason to gate LFR.
- If you continue to leave mechanics unchecked and make some fights significantly difficult, add a way to view important cutscenes in-game, even if you haven’t downed the boss. Make them available when the final wing of LFR is available from an NPC.
2a. To add to this, for future LFRs: Why not make it so if you reach enough Determination stacks, specific mechanics are removed from the fight? For instance if we take the N’zoth fight and act like it’s new, say you hit 5 Determination stacks. Then his mind control ability is removed completely. If you hit 10 stacks? One less add spawns. If you wipe again with 10 stacks? The boss starts to lose maximum health. This way players still learn the mechanics, but if the 24 strangers they’re with can’t coordinate enough to do the mechanics, they’ll eventually get it down.
This essentially would act as a progression system and actually turn LFR into a place for learning mechanics. I’ve found mechanics are easier to learn when some are removed. It’s why I was able to do Heroic Nathria so well with my guild. LFR removed 1 mechanic from pretty much every fight, so learning Normal was easy, and I was even able to teach some of my guildies mechanics that were in Normal because they were also in LFR. Same with heroic, it added ~1 mechanic per boss, so if you learned progressively, the fights were easier than if you jumped straight into heroic.
- If Normal+ raiders feel forced to do LFR for tier pieces, why not simply make it so LFR tier pieces can only contribute to the set bonus for LFR pieces? So if you have 3 Normal Tier pieces and equip an LFR tier piece, you’ll still be at 3/4 Normal, you won’t get that 4th from LFR. Thus, no reason for Progression Raiders to farm Tier.
In short, it feels REALLY bad that casual players are forced to wait sometimes up to 2 and a half months after a patch drops to even have a chance to experience the raid’s story fully, and I’d wager 90% or more of those players got spoiled by Wowhead or the WoW youtube channel before then. Or General Chat. Or LFG Chat. Or Trade Chat. Or the Forums. Etc.
On top of that, a lot of the time, NPCs will spoil the outcome of the raid because once the first guild kills a raid, the story on the server tends to unlock.
And finally - there needs to be a harsher punishment system for trolls in LFR. There’s been so many times just in Shadowlands that I’ve joined an LFR and there’s 2 people who queued as tanks and troll the group. Pull 4-5 packs at once, die on purpose and watch the wipe. Repeat. Then when someone calls them out for doing it, they accuse THAT person of doing it.
I’m reminded of a specific tank duo that did this in Sanctum. I finally called them out and had to post a link to an image of proof of them doing it to get them kicked.
The worst part? When I finished that wing and queued the next one? Guess who the tanks were? Luckily I just posted the image again and the group insta-kicked them.
We need a way to punish people who troll. Not just people who get kicked. Being kicked has a punishment and you get kicked for a variety of reasons. (I’ve been kicked for just talking, for instance. Cause I was “annoying the group” and the tank threatened to leave if they didn’t kick me, so of course they kicked the dps over the tank)
Maybe add a way for us to report people specifically for trolling in LFR, maybe add it to the Report For Option. Then if enough people use this feature in a month or so, have a blue investigate what happened during those times and judge if they were indeed trolling, and if they were, ban them from LFR for an indeterminate amount of time.
We also need a way to change our role mid-run. A lot of the time, a tank leaves and we sit there for an hour looking for a replacement. I’ve pick-up tanked on my druid and paladin before, but I can’t change to the role of tank, so healing UIs don’t pick me up, and the raid finder still tries to find a tank to fill a hole, even though for instance I’m fine tanking the rest of the run.
On the topic of roles - if someone queues as a healer or tank, the game needs to force them into that spec, and not let them leave it (or put it to a group vote if they can change). Just like battlegrounds do for healers. The amount of DPS who queue as healers or tanks for faster queues is ridiculous, and most groups won’t kick them because they expect the other healers to pick up the slack.