Ghostcrawler: "LFD with harder dungeons and NO LFR"

[hyphnos]

Is it the devs can't or won't do both, or they're constrained by time and budget?

Do you think, given a larger budget, and a 2 year time frame to build an expansion set, they could make large, engaging raids, AND plenty of engaging 5 mans and alternate progression paths?

It's no cooincidence the game started to change when they started leaning heavily on the "one expansion a year" nonsense. That to me is the reason why the game is being pruned down to a simplified shadow of it's former self. I don't think it's dev arrogance, or incompetence, I think it's all budget.

"Okay, we have one year, and 3/4 of the budget we had last time. What are we gonna keep, and what gets cut?"

In that environment, the devs chose to focus on raids, and cut dungeons. Not a popular choice, but it was theirs to make - that's where their favoritism to raiding came into play, I suspect. And, that's why multiple levels of difficulty have become "new content".

If you boil it all down, it's pretty obvious the game is the way it is, because that's what they can get done with less budget, and less time. How great would Legion be, if we were looking at another year of WoD (with associated patches with content and new raids) - and how bad do you think Legion will be with only a year to develop it?

You're right - we can't have nice things, because they don't have the luxury of time and money to make them. Want it to change? Start yelling at the people at the top, like Mike Morhaime, to give them more time and money to develop content - because otherwise, one year expansions is it - and we've seen how hard they had to prune to get CLOSE to the goal, time-wise - how much more do you think they'll cut, to hit the year mark?

You just admitted that it was the devs that decided to gut everything in favor of raiding due to limited resources and in the same breath blamed the financial side for cutting the resources back ignoring the fact that the devs are the ones who put all the eggs into the raiding basket.

In a perfect world, we'd get enough time and resources to have the stupid-large raid tiers we have now and content for other people that isn't raiding. The problem is we've lived in a world similar to that and at the time the money people were not happy with the return on the investment of resources into raiding. The solution was LFR and the devs shoveling everyone towards and into raiding without a choice, because they have already learned the lesson in the past that given a choice, players won't choose raiding in sufficient numbers to justify the amount of resources that go into raids.

It all comes down to the developers who know full well that they can direct players towards any type of content with the reward system, even one like raiding, that a great many people don't actually care for. As long as the money people buy the nonsense that sub losses are "cyclical" and have nothing to do with the type or quality of content that is delivered this is what we will get because the devs can make anything look successful with metrics if they really want to. The one thing they can't do is make people subscribe, but they by god can make sure any and everything they spend resources on, look on paper to be a "success" and they very much do that to the detriment of the game.

[emilylorange]

In a perfect world, we'd get enough time and resources to have the stupid-large raid tiers we have now and content for other people that isn't raiding. The problem is we've lived in a world similar to that and at the time the money people were not happy with the return on the investment of resources into raiding. The solution was LFR and the devs shoveling everyone towards and into raiding without a choice, because they have already learned the lesson in the past that given a choice, players won't choose raiding in sufficient numbers to justify the amount of resources that go into raids.

I'm confused why we're talking about LK but insisting LK didn't exist.

.....And making claims you have no data to support because no one outside Blizzard does.

Is this some sort of forum game I'm uninitiated on?

Because to me you're describing LK and the necessity to start cutting out content in the name of budget and 'shoveling' everyone into everything didn't start until Cata hemorrhaged subscribers. I mean I guess that's speculation on my part too, but why was the model apparently ok for ROI until that point with this hypothesis?

[MoanaLisa]

Eh, it feels a bit dishonest to me to take a snip of what I say out of context so you can parade it around for your own agenda like that, but then again, that's what the thread title is to begin with anyway so I guess have fun, lol

You're not the only one that says this though. And if raiding is to grow (again), people need to be invested in to expand the number of potential recruits. How to go about helping them up is one of those things. Back in Wrath our guild had two 25-person raid teams and a night where some of us would go along with new recruits and others that weren't quite up to being on the "A/B" team just to teach and try to bring people along a little bit. It's a rare thing to hear about anything like this these days. There are two problems here: 1) the overall population is smaller and 2) of the ones that are left many are actively anti-raiding for their own reasons. 25-man groups didn't used to be a problem, even on servers that were mid-range in population. Now it's apparently very difficult to even get 20 together and keep them that way for Mythic.

You saw snark in my response. I see a really serious problem with raiding that's only going to get worse now that Warlords has exposed the fact that raiding cannot and will never be able to carry player retention for an expansion. Perhaps you didn't mean "We don't invest" the way I took it but plenty enough do.

[Gadzooks]

You just admitted that it was the devs that decided to gut everything in favor of raiding due to limited resources and in the same breath blamed the financial side for cutting the resources back ignoring the fact that the devs are the ones who put all the eggs into the raiding basket.

I did no such thing, and you're putting words into my mouth to support your rant.

The devs had to make cuts, because of budget cuts. You can't have one without the other. The devs wouldn't have to pick raiding, if they had the luxury of time and budget to produce content like in TBC and Wrath, and do plenty of everything.

[Enitzu]

You're not the only one that says this though. And if raiding is to grow (again), people need to be invested in to expand the number of potential recruits. How to go about helping them up is one of those things. Back in Wrath our guild has two raid teams and a night where some of us would go along with new recruits and others that weren't quite up to being on the "A" team just to teach. It's a rare thing to hear about anything like this these days. There are two problems here: 1) the overall population is smaller and 2) of the ones that are left many are actively anti-raiding for their own reasons. 25-man groups didn't used to be a problem, even on servers that were mid-range in population. Now it's apparently very difficult to even get 20 together and keep them that way for Mythic.

You saw snark in my response. I see a really serious problem with raiding that's only going to get worse now that Warlords has exposed the fact that raiding cannot and will never be able to carry player retention for an expansion. Perhaps you didn't mean "We don't invest" the way I took it but plenty enough do.

Here's the problem with that.

I used to analyze logs and work with some guildies on rotations and things they could do better. Timing in fights, CD's, and all. Normally you would think it's a good thing someone was willing to do this ... yea it's not. People took it as an insult. Feelings get hurt and people want to QQ and rage quit because they think you are telling them they suck.

The problem isn't that no one wants to teach. It's that the community is most of the time not willing to accept the help. It's the mentality more than anything

[Seefer]

I've never been near the top in progression and will never claim to be, but apps for heroic guilds that I come across - even ones with no business pretending to be 'hardcore' - tend to read 'what mods do you have?' and 'what is your optimal rotation?'

Because why would you include the training manual on an application for a progression guild?

I'm not saying this expectation is reasonable, only it is common.

But maybe the issue is I'm talking about heroic and you are talking about normal, and the culture is different, idk.

My guild does heroic raiding so I dunno.

[MoanaLisa]

Here's the problem with that.

I used to analyze logs and work with some guildies on rotations and things they could do better. Timing in fights, CD's, and all. Normally you would think it's a good thing someone was willing to do this ... yea it's not. People took it as an insult. Feelings get hurt and people want to QQ and rage quit because they think you are telling them they suck.

The problem isn't that no one wants to teach. It's that the community is most of the time not willing to accept the help. It's the mentality more than anything

There is some of that of course but when we took people out on non-raid nights for just that purpose the people who went along were amiable enough about it. If they weren't they were out of the guild after a while. What kind of guild must you have when people get insulted and rage quit when you try to help them? Or are you actually telling them that they suck in so many words.

[Gadzooks]

Their excuse is going to be to point out what the community already does this work for them for free, with wider usage than their efforts for similar things (in-game voice chat, for example).

They would have 100% allowed the community to rely on oQueue for group finding functionality if the developer had been a more palatable personality.

I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm saying they're going to see that it's short-term cost effective to be lazy, and that's what they're going to do.



Raid leaders expect you to apply/show up for raid with these things already acquired. You have to go out of your way to seek raids that are willing to hold your hand.

Everyone was new at one point, but we expect to recruit veterans, we're not interested in investing in people.

And this is why raiding is more and more seen as elitist and toxic. Raiding is a cooperative effort, yet you want to put no investment in it. You demand seasoned recruits, but put no effort into creating them. You sneer at LFR, but then complain about poor recruits, because new players are forced to learn in LFR, because you won't even look at them as potential players.

Raiders are - and have always been - their own worst enemies. You expect perfection, but are unwilling to lift a finger to achieve it. This "I won't lift a finger unless it directly benefits me" is what has corrupted the raiding game, especially in the PUG world. "Screw you, I got mine" is the only rule.

It's easier to insult players and sneer at them and mock them in PUG groups. God forbid you help them, and make a better player, that you can recruit.

I'd hate to have to design into that mindset. It's one thing I feel sorry for the WoW Devs for - at least the ones that don't share the same mindset.

[Enitzu]

There is some of that of course but when we took people out on non-raid nights for just that purpose the people who went along were amiable enough about it. If they weren't they were out of the guild after a while. What kind of guild must you have when people get insulted and rage quit when you try to help them? Or are you actually telling them that they suck in so many words.

No actually I talked to someone in mumble and told them what I saw in logs and said they could get a bit more dps if they tried x, y, and z. From there it proceeded into 'who you think you are talking to? I don't need help my dps is fine' etc etc.

As you said it's not always that way and if someone asks me to look over their logs I will gladly do so. But unless I am asked, I won't waste my time

[Seefer]

There is some of that of course but when we took people out on non-raid nights for just that purpose the people who went along were amiable enough about it. If they weren't they were out of the guild after a while. What kind of guild must you have when people get insulted and rage quit when you try to help them? Or are you actually telling them that they suck in so many words.

In my experience it is people who run LFR and then try to come into a normal/heroic raid guild, LFR makes them think they are good when in reality most really are not.

- - - Updated - - -

And this is why raiding is more and more seen as elitist and toxic. Raiding is a cooperative effort, yet you want to put no investment in it. You demand seasoned recruits, but put no effort into creating them. You sneer at LFR, but then complain about poor recruits, because new players are forced to learn in LFR, because you won't even look at them as potential players.

Raiders are - and have always been - their own worst enemies. You expect perfection, but are unwilling to lift a finger to achieve it. This "I won't lift a finger unless it directly benefits me" is what has corrupted the raiding game, especially in the PUG world. "Screw you, I got mine" is the only rule.

It's easier to insult players and sneer at them and mock them in PUG groups. God forbid you help them, and make a better player, that you can recruit.

I'd hate to have to design into that mindset. It's one thing I feel sorry for the WoW Devs for - at least the ones that don't share the same mindset.

Nice broad statement you did there bud.

[Fang7986]

Thats how he really feels. If everything was out on the table, all the pros and cons, he would have chosen harder dungeons, keep LFD, NO LFR. I agree with him.

and the players would have bitched and moaned and even more would have left

[emilylorange]

You're not the only one that says this though. And if raiding is to grow (again), people need to be invested in to expand the number of potential recruits. How to go about helping them up is one of those things. Back in Wrath our guild had two 25-person raid teams and a night where some of us would go along with new recruits and others that weren't quite up to being on the "A/B" team just to teach and try to bring people along a little bit. It's a rare thing to hear about anything like this these days. There are two problems here: 1) the overall population is smaller and 2) of the ones that are left many are actively anti-raiding for their own reasons. 25-man groups didn't used to be a problem, even on servers that were mid-range in population. Now it's apparently very difficult to even get 20 together and keep them that way for Mythic.

You saw snark in my response. I see a really serious problem with raiding that's only going to get worse now that Warlords has exposed the fact that raiding cannot and will never be able to carry player retention for an expansion. Perhaps you didn't mean "We don't invest" the way I took it but plenty enough do.

These are all valid points and I think you and I are in agreement for the most part.

I don't think raiding is the 'backbone' of WoW and I don't think it ever was, though. Sure it's endgame and it's the 'goal' you were intended to reach for, but the game's retention relies on people. Pointing to raiding and saying 'this is unsustainable, look how it's ruining everything and wasting resources' overlooks a multitude of interrelated problems that cannot all be blamed on raiders:

-Refusal to consolidate small and struggling server populations into healthier ones in favor of charging them $25 to flee
-Refusal to moderate how the community interacts with itself beyond half-hearted 'penalty volcanos' for the most egregious cases
-Being lightyears behind with group-building tools
-Making a queue the obvious alternative to group-building, rather than a compliment to aid it.


WoW was a game you played because your friends played. Now it's just a habit your friends make fun of you for clinging to.

Whether or not you personally feel the community has gotten better or worse is subjective, but I think you'd have a hard time arguing it's nearly as robust as it once was.... and throwing more casual or easy content at that (or hardcore/difficult) is a temporary fix.

Raiders are - and have always been - their own worst enemies. You expect perfection, but are unwilling to lift a finger to achieve it. This "I won't lift a finger unless it directly benefits me" is what has corrupted the raiding game, especially in the PUG world. "Screw you, I got mine" is the only rule.

It's easier to insult players and sneer at them and mock them in PUG groups. God forbid you help them, and make a better player, that you can recruit.

What I like most about these posts is they foster and encourage the exact disgusting animosity and bile they claim to decry.

That's an especially nice pile of vitriol you left for me, considering I agreed there's a problem with current expectations. A+

[Fang7986]

And this is why raiding is more and more seen as elitist and toxic. Raiding is a cooperative effort, yet you want to put no investment in it. You demand seasoned recruits, but put no effort into creating them. You sneer at LFR, but then complain about poor recruits, because new players are forced to learn in LFR, because you won't even look at them as potential players.

Raiders are - and have always been - their own worst enemies. You expect perfection, but are unwilling to lift a finger to achieve it. This "I won't lift a finger unless it directly benefits me" is what has corrupted the raiding game, especially in the PUG world. "Screw you, I got mine" is the only rule.

It's easier to insult players and sneer at them and mock them in PUG groups. God forbid you help them, and make a better player, that you can recruit.

I'd hate to have to design into that mindset. It's one thing I feel sorry for the WoW Devs for - at least the ones that don't share the same mindset.

I think the biggest thing I have seen that proves this is that you will get into a LFR group and nobody will take 2 secs to explain any mechanic or to even say "make sure you kill x" and then when no one does it actually raiders will throw a hissy fit bitching about how nobody knows to kill x. and if you attempt to say "kill x" someone in heroic or mythic gear will reply with "STFU it's LFR we don't need to do that"

[Enitzu]

Raiders are - and have always been - their own worst enemies. You expect perfection, but are unwilling to lift a finger to achieve it. This "I won't lift a finger unless it directly benefits me" is what has corrupted the raiding game, especially in the PUG world. "Screw you, I got mine" is the only rule.

Most don't start out that way. Most recruiters get burnt out dealing with the constant liars and exageraters. People who will claim to do great numbers but the min you put them in raid it's actually less than half and there is always an excuse.

I am more willing to work with people who are straight forward and honest. For instance, I just came back to the game. I found a guild that has clear heroic and some of Mythic that I was straight with. I told them my back ground and told them that I don't have the gear even for normal. They didn't give me crap. They put me in raid and said don't worry about it we'll gear you just do the best you can with what you have.

There are a lot of guilds like that. Now if you are looking to jump from 8/13H to 7/13M well then yea that's a problem. But if you remain in reason and know what you can do then most guilds will work with you. Once you have the gear work on doing better. Then app to those better guilds if you feel you can compete there.

You can't go from working at McDonalds to being Donald Trump in a month. It just doesn't happen

[hyphnos]

I did no such thing, and you're putting words into my mouth to support your rant.

The devs had to make cuts, because of budget cuts. You can't have one without the other. The devs wouldn't have to pick raiding, if they had the luxury of time and budget to produce content like in TBC and Wrath, and do plenty of everything.

Having to make budget cuts is not the same thing as having to devote the resources that were left to raiding, nor even that all the remaining resources had to go primarily to one activity over another. In any event, the developers chose raiding and based on their past experience chose to offer no alternatives so that by default player activity in raids would be high enough to justify their decision. All evidence from the past pretty much shows that when people have alternatives they choose to ignore raiding entirely and so it is untenable to believe the devs will ever be allowed to return to making raids that 1-5% of players use, ergo they make damned sure that nothing (other than sub losses) drags down raid participation metrics which would plummet back to where they were when they had alternatives in the game.

[FattGuy]

And this is why raiding is more and more seen as elitist and toxic. Raiding is a cooperative effort, yet you want to put no investment in it. You demand seasoned recruits, but put no effort into creating them. You sneer at LFR, but then complain about poor recruits, because new players are forced to learn in LFR, because you won't even look at them as potential players.

Raiders are - and have always been - their own worst enemies. You expect perfection, but are unwilling to lift a finger to achieve it. This "I won't lift a finger unless it directly benefits me" is what has corrupted the raiding game, especially in the PUG world. "Screw you, I got mine" is the only rule.

It's easier to insult players and sneer at them and mock them in PUG groups. God forbid you help them, and make a better player, that you can recruit.

I'd hate to have to design into that mindset. It's one thing I feel sorry for the WoW Devs for - at least the ones that don't share the same mindset.

It is very difficult to help others get better in this game now. Not to mention, by Blizzard's own fucking hand, they made people not want to do raiding. I still remember how I got into raiding and I fell in love with the raiding even more. I do not think that LFR is the main culprit, but I think they fucked up with why they never add new incentives to go and do raiding now, but also mainly how its not fun going through the journey of the game anymore, since there are basically tier skip systems now. I made a thread a while 2 weeks ago and I hope they look at it in some point. Fucking annoying to login 6 months later and all of a sudden I don't get to experience Throne of Thunder anymore, even when there are so many ways to obtain gear vs what TBC gear catch-up mechanics had.

This game, regardless of what many say, does have an actual high skill set. I honestly think the Warcraftlogs is perhaps the main culprit of it all. It helped players figured out who was good at maximizing, but it also figured out who was good at padding, since damage or healing done could only be so limited due to the nature of fights being mostly execution. So its become very annoying to try and compare yourself to others when in reality there are so many other ways to win the fight.

[emilylorange]

Here's the problem with that.

I used to analyze logs and work with some guildies on rotations and things they could do better. Timing in fights, CD's, and all. Normally you would think it's a good thing someone was willing to do this ... yea it's not. People took it as an insult. Feelings get hurt and people want to QQ and rage quit because they think you are telling them they suck.

The problem isn't that no one wants to teach. It's that the community is most of the time not willing to accept the help. It's the mentality more than anything

Giving and receiving constructive criticism should probably replace calculus as a required course in high school tbh.

You have more energy than me though. I only had the spoons left to give help to those who asked by the end.

[Foj]

I am hesitant to post here again, since it's a long going topic and I don't think a consensus can be reached as long as people like yourself insist on treating WoW like a vocation, and not like an entertainment product.

But nobody seems to consider that the highest gap in personal skill, as well as relative difficulty, comes from the fact that the average player doesn't use the essential tools necessary for raiding:

- damage meters
- boss mods
- proc trackers
- class and encounter guides

You can praise the game and blame the players all you want, but WoW has done too little to integrate these into its default interface, and it does very little as well to guide players towards them, or explain to them how crucial they are.

The idea that players ought to be using addons to play the game is atrocious, IMO, in its disregard for immersion.

IMO the game would be much better if Blizzard removed the combat log and randomized encounter timing, to liberate WOW from the scourges of logging, theorycrafting, and encounter mods.

[Seefer]

It is very difficult to help others get better in this game now. Not to mention, by Blizzard's own fucking hand, they made people not want to do raiding. I still remember how I got into raiding and I fell in love with the raiding even more. I do not think that LFR is the main culprit, but I think they fucked up with why they never add new incentives to go and do raiding now, but also mainly how its not fun going through the journey of the game anymore, since there are basically tier skip systems now. I made a thread a while 2 weeks ago and I hope they look at it in some point. Fucking annoying to login 6 months later and all of a sudden I don't get to experience Throne of Thunder anymore, even when there are so many ways to obtain gear vs what TBC gear catch-up mechanics had.

This game, regardless of what many say, does have an actual high skill set. I honestly think the Warcraftlogs is perhaps the main culprit of it all. It helped players figured out who was good at maximizing, but it also figured out who was good at padding, since damage or healing done could only be so limited due to the nature of fights being mostly execution. So its become very annoying to try and compare yourself to others when in reality there are so many other ways to win the fight.

While I do agree there are too many ways to skip tiers, I loved how people could work on 1 tier at a time and not worry about anything in TBC because you didn't have to worry about the next tier being obsolete and going away quickly, I don't fully blame Blizzard because people who like to chew up content faster than they can make it are also a detriment to the game, so Blizz feels they need to push out content fast and have catch up mechanics to appease the players.

Also logs really weren't the start, that was gearscore that balled everything up in WOTLK.

- - - Updated - - -

The idea that players ought to be using addons to play the game is atrocious, IMO, in its disregard for immersion.

IMO the game would be much better if Blizzard removed the combat log and randomized encounter timing, to liberate WOW from the scourges of logging, theorycrafting, and encounter mods.

The outcry of the players would be HUGE if addons were removed.

[emilylorange]

The idea that players ought to be using addons to play the game is atrocious, IMO, in its disregard for immersion.

IMO the game would be much better if Blizzard removed the combat log and randomized encounter timing, to liberate WOW from the scourges of logging, theorycrafting, and encounter mods.

Every boss mechanic I can recall is accompanied by a telegraph or a warning through emote or /yell. It has to, in order to be fair. A boss that gives no warnings is not 'difficult', it's a quarter muncher.

Removing the combat log is one of those ideas that seems good on the surface until you realize you've hindered #1 the ability for players of ALL SKILLS to see why they died in an easy to read, irrefutable numerical format #2 the ability for us to locate and document bugs (my example being in LK there was a period where DK tanks were getting crit/crushed due to a bug in their presence and that was the most concrete way to prove it).