Ghostcrawler: "LFD with harder dungeons and NO LFR"

[hyphnos]

Its an awful solution and yes lfr gear sucks for many reasons. Nowhere did I say that it was only cause of ilvl.inflation. ilvl inflation plays a big part in why it sucks but it's not the only. Ultimately all the reasons you list go back to the demands of raids and raiders being at fault. Raiding is why we can't have nice things.

That's not exactly true. We could very much have nice things AND raiding if Blizzard was willing to cut back on the development of eleventybillion boss raid tiers and use some of those resources for almost anything else, but most certainly if they used it for dungeon content.

Raiding at 4 lvls has destroyed the game for no other reason than there is no type of content other than raiding that isn't utterly untuneable because of a 50 ilvl gap in players. That 50 ilvl gap is only necessitated by the fact that the developers know that virtually no one would raid if they could get decent gear by playing other parts of the game.

So I'd say the reason we can't have nice things is not so much because of raiders and they're whining about having to do other things but more because the developers already know from past experience what raid participation looks like when there are alternatives available and they don't want to make alternatives, they want to make raids.

[Glorious Leader]

tbh most raiders don't give two hoots about LFR. I actually like LFR as an idea, I just think it needs some fixing to help it become a pleasant social experience rather than enduring 24 people with competing desires for 45 minutes to 2 hours (by 'fixing' I just mean rewarding good group behavior through game systems rather than trying to have other players single out and punish people that are miserable to be around). It's a thing that you maybe do a few times to fill a missing piece in your armor and then never have to look at again unless you have alts or you miss some weeks on your legendary - but even then, for most people you can ignore it entirely.

Whether or not you like raiding, you are playing an MMO, where the tying factor to play is the people you play with. If you're not going to reward people for coordinating in large groups, be it raids or dungeons or PVP or whatever..... why design an MMO? Why not be a single-player game?

You can hate on raidin' all you want but you may just be in the wrong genre.

As I pointed out earlier mmorpg =/= raiding.

I agree that most raiders don't give a shit about lfr. They simple ran the content to get the gear or didn't. A handful of whiny butt hurt mid core shit heel worlds 9999 did bitch because they wanted to raid log and here we are. It's not the sole reason but it's another nail in the coffin for lfr. Ultimately yes the developers are at fault but it's the developers quest to cater to raids and raiders that's the problem.

[threads]

tbh most raiders don't give two hoots about LFR. I actually like LFR as an idea, I just think it needs some fixing to help it become a pleasant social experience rather than enduring 24 people with competing desires for 45 minutes to 2 hours (by 'fixing' I just mean rewarding good group behavior through game systems rather than trying to have other players single out and punish people that are miserable to be around). It's a thing that you maybe do a few times to fill a missing piece in your armor and then never have to look at again unless you have alts or you miss some weeks on your legendary - but even then, for most people you can ignore it entirely.

Whether or not you like raiding, you are playing an MMO, where the tying factor to play is the people you play with. If you're not going to reward people for coordinating in large groups, be it raids or dungeons or PVP or whatever..... why design an MMO? Why not be a single-player game?

You can hate on raidin' all you want but you may just be in the wrong genre.

that's the failure of random matchmaking systems. they will always create toxic environments.

mmo can be more than just raiding. what wow really needs is to create more progression paths and stop forcing everyone into the same raid.

[Glorious Leader]

So I'd say the reason we can't have nice things is not so much because of raiders and they're whining about having to do other things but more because the developers already know from past experience what raid participation looks like when there are alternatives available and they don't want to make alternatives, they want to make raids.

Okay but that just goes back to we can't have nice things cause raiding. Like it's not clear the developers can produce raiding of the caliber and quality we've had recently and still make dungeon content in a reasonable time frame. Shit they can't even get raids out in a decent fashion, we're looking at an 6 months + gap between now and legion. Yea the developers want to make raid content. But people or a handful of them specifically raiders DID complain about being forced to do alternatives and that was criticism the devs listened to. The reason for the change needn't necesarilly only be one thing.

[emilylorange]

The game is significantly harder without addons, and a player should have no obligation to keep up with external software that smooths out the flaws in WoW's UI, just like someone who buys a car shouldn't be under an obligation to tune it himself. It's only proper that Blizzard at least provides content that is challenging for those who play the game as it was designed.

I'm not going to argue that addons aren't vital to raiding - instead I'm going to ask you what you think the implementation would look like.

When I started in vanilla I had no prior experience in multiplayer RPGs. I was confounded by simple game mechanics like how to make the character go underwater while swimming. I thought the concept of turning something into a sheep was silly.

Do you honestly think you could take someone with that little experience, and say here's 'how much damage you do per second'.... and have it mean anything to them beyond more sensory overload?

Sure the default interface is an ever growing mess, and the game could help a bit more to push you to the resources available, but the answer isn't overwhelm newbies with information they don't need.

Previously new max-level characters would have been introduced via guilds and other players, but the queue system has removed any incentive to be social or helpful to a person you'll probably never see again.... so......... do you just pop up a massive tutorial at 100?

that's the failure of random matchmaking systems. they will always create toxic environments.

mmo can be more than just raiding. what wow really needs is to create more progression paths and stop forcing everyone into the same raid.

You and I are in agreement. But people will always find it easier to blame other players that *gasp* have different playstyles than their own than hold Blizzard accountable for lazy design.

Damn you raiders, forcing Blizzard to be lazy!

I agree that most raiders don't give a shit about lfr. They simple ran the content to get the gear or didn't. A handful of whiny butt hurt mid core shit heel worlds 9999 did bitch because they wanted to raid log and here we are. It's not the sole reason but it's another nail in the coffin for lfr. Ultimately yes the developers are at fault but it's the developers quest to cater to raids and raiders that's the problem.

At this point it's pretty clear you're interested in handing out blame to your imaginary stereotype of a 'raider' and hurling childish insults instead of having a rational, reasonable discussion, so I believe this is where you and I part. Have a nice day.

[Ronduwil]

And have you forgotten what happened any time someone left a dungeon group before LFD? Someone would have to go all the way back to a city and start spamming trade and if it was a tank or healer you were missing the group often just fell apart because it took too long to find a replacement. Then you finally get back to the dungeon with your full group and you find that someone has gone afk in the ridiculously long wait to get going again... Oh back to the city again to find a replacement for them too and so it goes on for the next 2 hours.

But, hey! It's social, right?

[Seefer]

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.

While we do have some visual cues for ability procs, and some rudimentary encounter warning system, it's way below what is needed to make a player truly aware of his character and his surroundings.

The basic spec guides in game are sometimes teaching you the wrong thing (arcane says cast missiles when they proc instead of saving them for 4 stacks). The lack of built-in damage meters prevents people from experimenting (although ironically the game provides plenty of target dummies on the premise that you are using an addon), being competitive, or even realizing the gap between themselves and someone who carries them (so they won't worry kicking the mythic taxi from LFR).

Many raid encounters are designed assuming you have prior knowledge of when they will trigger to optimize a response, while the default interface warns you, at best, after the fact (Iskar's lasers for example). And a lot of your damage comes from correctly making use of your trigger procs, even though they are a tiny icon buried in a far away corner in the middle of fluctuating buffs, as per the default UI.

Not to mention that even a few of the existing features are not used by a majority of players, such as macros, and even keybinds.

The game does a great deal to keep up with addons in providing a challenge, but not in making sure players are up to the task without them. If they had, I'm convinced the average "skill" level would skyrocket.

The game is significantly harder without addons, and a player should have no obligation to keep up with external software that smooths out the flaws in WoW's UI, just like someone who buys a car shouldn't be under an obligation to tune it himself. It's only proper that Blizzard at least provides content that is challenging for those who play the game as it was designed.

Oh what a load of crap, the only thing they need is a boss mod and that is easy to get, you don't need a damage meter and they give you access to the dungeon journal and shit they track your procs for you with the blinking.

- - - Updated - - -

that's the failure of random matchmaking systems. they will always create toxic environments.

mmo can be more than just raiding. what wow really needs is to create more progression paths and stop forcing everyone into the same raid.

And if that happens then guess what? Much QQ on non-raiders part because they don't get to see the end of the story blah blah blah.

[A dot Ham]

and that disparity has been growing for years - only to reach its critical mass in WoD - this process is unstopable - the difference atm is way to huge to make new players even desire to get better.

Just to clarify though. This is a design problem... not a player problem.

Pro players already perform better because they are... pro players. They don't need pro player gear to make them perform EVEN better.

Its a prime example of giving us we didn't ask for. The elitists never wanted or needed better gear. They wanted to stand out, to look/be special. So just like the top tier of PvP is purely aesthetic, so should Mythic Raiding be.

This extra ceiling to the ilvl with mythic gear is also hurting performance balance.

Blizzard is doing all their class balancing up front at the beginning of the xpac according to the highest level gear that will be attainable at the end of the xpac. Its why we aren't seeing any major class changes throughout the xpac, and why it felt like certain classes have been underperforming until 6.2.

This is having terrible ramifications throughout the xpac and I think hurting subs.

Certain classes scale better with gear on a positive incline. Warriors, rogues, hunters


While other classes scale more like this.


Some of it is skill. Most of it is laziness on blizzards part to do a major balance one an xpac. Sure at the end everyone is on the same level (or should be) but throughout the rest of the xpac if you're unlucky enough to be playing a class that scales like the latter... well fuck you, reroll. Its why we have so many hunters and so little of everything else.

Personally if I could send a message to blizz developers it would be this.

(1) Change for the sake of change is bad. I don't continue to play a certain class because I am anxious to see how you are going to fuck it up this time... I play it because of its style, its uniqueness, its flavor. Changing that doesn't make me like it more... it makes me like it less. Major class changes each xpac, means you also have to balance WHICH YOU ARE NOTORIOUSLY terrible at. Why is a game like LoL so popular? Because it changes all the time? Because each season they rearrange abilities? Fuck NO! If anything its the lack of change that keeps it fun. Now granted when comparing WoW to LoL its like apples and oranges but there are design principals that transcend all games. Another example, how would you like it if every time you went to the grocery store everything was rearranged, your vegetables are a lot better for you and now should cost double. Also just to make sure you aren't stockpiling we are going to change the relevant currency once a month, some times we'll except bitcoin, some times only visas, sometimes only cash. Its like WoW devs can't seem to figure out what the best option is.

(2) Stop. Stop! STOP! Telling us how you think we should play. If we are playing a certain way and liking it (regardless of design intent) don't try and fix it and get us to stop... how the fuck does that make sense. Use your power of reasoning and see how you can make how we are using a feature better and more fun. If you can't... LEAVE IT THE FUCK ALONE. (I am of course referring to raiding in WotLK where shared lockouts didn't exist, and players progressed through content by 10n > 10h > 25n > 25h) Do you know how many AMAZING products became amazing because consumers used in ways that weren't originally intended? Where would those companies be if they tried to tell their customers they were wrong and we're going to change our product so you CAN'T use it that way... again where does that fucking make sense.

[Coconut]

I'm not going to argue that addons aren't vital to raiding - instead I'm going to ask you what you think the implementation would look like.

When I started in vanilla I had no prior experience in multiplayer RPGs. I was confounded by simple game mechanics like how to make the character go underwater while swimming. I thought the concept of turning something into a sheep was silly.

Do you honestly think you could take someone with that little experience, and say here's 'how much damage you do per second'.... and have it mean anything to them beyond more sensory overload?

Sure the default interface is an ever growing mess, and the game could help a bit more to push you to the resources available, but the answer isn't overwhelm newbies with information they don't need.

Previously new max-level characters would have been introduced via guilds and other players, but the queue system has removed any incentive to be social or helpful to a person you'll probably never see again.... so......... do you just pop up a massive tutorial at 100?

Not sure, tbh.

But the fact is encounters are designed around having them, and the game itself does not. Picking, finding and tuning your addons without a push from the community, or without some personal knowledge and interest, can be a surprisingly steel slope to overcome.

Simply having default damage meters and boss mods that you can activate, like they have a system for macros, would be a good start. Easing you into these things along the leveling process, the character boost experience, or the proving grounds, would be a good start. As well as a pop up linking to the keybind interface and a suggestion that you might need it as soon as you gain more than 5 abilities.

Oh what a load of crap, the only thing they need is a boss mod and that is easy to get, you don't need a damage meter and they give you access to the dungeon journal and shit they track your procs for you with the blinking

"Easy to get" when they don't know/don't care, and are reluctant to start raiding to begin with. The vast majority of games don't require addons and tuning. Dungeon journal is useless compare to a Fatboss guide, you need damage meters if you want to be aware of how the rotation you're using is working out for you, and they track your personal procs, not trinkets.

[hyphnos]

Okay but that just goes back to we can't have nice things cause raiding. Like it's not clear the developers can produce raiding of the caliber and quality we've had recently and still make dungeon content in a reasonable time frame. Shit they can't even get raids out in a decent fashion, we're looking at an 6 months + gap between now and legion. Yea the developers want to make raid content. But people or a handful of them specifically raiders DID complain about being forced to do alternatives and that was criticism the devs listened to. The reason for the change needn't necesarilly only be one thing.

I'm not denying that the actions appear to be the result of a subgroup of players complaining they have to do things that aren't raiding in order to remain "competitive" in raiding. What i'm saying is that those people aren't the problem - the developers are and not because they listen to those people but because their natural inclination as raid-addled dinosaurs is to do whatever it takes to keep the raid budget large. This includes distorting participation metrics via things like LFR and gutting all other content so that they can point to arm-twisted raid participation numbers to bully the accountants into letting them do what they want because they make it appear that it isn't costing Blizzard a fortune to gut everything but raiding.

[Seefer]

"Easy to get" when they don't know/don't care, and are reluctant to start raiding to begin with. The vast majority of games don't require addons and tuning. Dungeon journal is useless compare to a Fatboss guide, you need damage meters if you want to be aware of how the rotation you're using is working out for you, and they track your personal procs, not trinkets.

9 out of 10 raid leaders tell you what is needed to raid (especially if you are new) and how to get them, and who is reluctant to raid? Either you want to or you don't, damage meters are also not required to raid nor to see about your rotation considering again people in your raid group can point you in the right direction..........too damn many excuses as to why people "can't raid", everyone was new at one point to the raiding scene.

[emilylorange]

Not sure, tbh.

But the fact is encounters are designed around having them, and the game itself does not. Picking, finding and tuning your addons without a push from the community, or without some personal knowledge and interest, can be a surprisingly steel slope to overcome.

Simply having default damage meters and boss mods that you can activate, like they have a system for macros, would be a good start. Easing you into these things along the leveling process, the character boost experience, or the proving grounds, would be a good start. As well as a pop up linking to the keybind interface and a suggestion that you might need it as soon as you gain more than 5 abilities.

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.

9 out of 10 raid leaders tell you what is needed to raid (especially if you are new) and how to get them, and who is reluctant to raid? Either you want to or you don't, damage meters are also not required to raid nor to see about your rotation considering again people in your raid group can point you in the right direction..........too damn many excuses as to why people "can't raid", everyone was new at one point to the raiding scene.

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.

[Coconut]

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.

That's not entirely healthy though, it's making them too dependent of outside entities. Something they might have learned from oQueue and OpenRaid.

The problem is they're also very tacit about it. They don't take a stance on addons and they don't recommend them to players, because they don't want to assume responsibility and have to monitor them.

They may not even be 100% happy with them. It's not like they can ban DBM, but it does give you some specific advantages. The encounter plays out differently if you know in advance when an ability is about to hit, and that may not always be intended - since if they wanted prior knowledge they could just put a long enough cast time; but they moved away from long cast times now, knowing that players are already aware abilities and this much warning would make things too easy/dull.

NPCScan functioned for a long time, and they messed it up (probably happy to do it, since it wasn't the intended way to hunt rares). Prior to that, they specifically altered the Camel Figurines in Uldum to make them untargetable. It's hard to tell how well they manage to balance "what they intend" with the resulted gameplay allowed by addons.

[HeedmySpeed]

Raiding is why we can't have nice things.

Were there no nice things throughout Vanilla, TBC or WotLK?

[Seefer]

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.

Maybe top end guilds or hardcore, my guild has no application and will tell you what is needed as will most guilds, I don't know you where people get this idea.

[emilylorange]

Maybe top end guilds or hardcore, my guild has no application and will tell you what is needed as will most guilds, I don't know you where people get this idea.

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.

[Bapestar]

People have different experiences. It's not necessarily bullshit at all. It depends a lot on what your server was like, how large it was and other things.

Having different experiences is one thing, but to tell others the community in the past wasn't as good as people make it out to be is kind of bullshit, and very close to being dishonest.

[Gadzooks]

Okay but that just goes back to we can't have nice things cause raiding. Like it's not clear the developers can produce raiding of the caliber and quality we've had recently and still make dungeon content in a reasonable time frame. Shit they can't even get raids out in a decent fashion, we're looking at an 6 months + gap between now and legion. Yea the developers want to make raid content. But people or a handful of them specifically raiders DID complain about being forced to do alternatives and that was criticism the devs listened to. The reason for the change needn't necesarilly only be one thing.

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?

[MoanaLisa]

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

An excellent example of why the topic of this thread won't work and why raiding is marginalized to the point where the devs believe that LFR is the only way to keep it viable.

[emilylorange]

An excellent example of why the topic of this thread won't work and why raiding is marginalized to the point where the devs believe that LFR is the only way to keep it viable.

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


We were discussing how to introduce the necessity of raiding addons to new players and the unhealthy expectations seasoned players put on them to 'magically know' these things without being told (which, btw, I've seen plenty of in Ye Unreproachable Holy Land of LFR as well), if you felt like contributing