Ghostcrawler: "LFD with harder dungeons and NO LFR"

[PuffyPussy22]

Analyzing this response:
What you're complaining about, here, is not stacked content so much as the lack of an efficient catch-up mechanism--but at the same time you are apparently not motivated to raid for gear, as you're speaking of only beating a raid once or twice. Never mind that there's an alternate gearing path to the one you propose: dungeons/normal highmaul through LFG to BRF. Normal BRF. Normal/heroic HFC. Not to mention Tanaan Jungle and Kazzak. It has been illustrated in this thread multiple times now that in WoD there is actually no need to ever step into LFR, even for the legendary (as those alternate paths involve LFG/norm+, which nets you the quest items, from prior raids which will be fresh content compared to current tier!).

You don't seem particularly motivated by challenge from your arguments (if you were, Heroic+ modes would be a reward in themselves to you).

The experience is only good for you so long as it is "fresh."

So, if you take this all together, LFR should be the perfect solution for you so long as it includes the extra bosses: a chance to see the raid once and then move on to another game until more fresh content is released. The best part is, LFR's release is staggered, which will stretch out your enjoyment of the game over a few weeks/months!

Kind of and kind of not. Skipping to normal is kind of feasable, I mean you are right, I can actually skip it if I want to delay myself from gearing up. Most of the gear solutions you speak of are on a once a week gate. So lets say I do Kazzak and my Mythic for the week and im slowly doing Tanaan. Do you really not think that stepping into LFR to get a shot at missing pieces is completely insane? Is there no logic in going into something that offers upgrades when you have nothing else to do? Im not quite sure I follow your logic behind why that wouldn't be the case.

As far as LFR goes, again, its psychological motivation. Challenge for the sake of challenge isn't fun. Challenge for the sake of progression into fresh experiences is indeed fun. LFR doesn't offer challenge and later difficulties offer very little in the way of fresh. So in that sense, no LFR does not do it for me, nor do later difficulties, because the experience I want needs to be more tailor made as it was in Vanilla/BC/WoTLK and Cata. These all offered fresh experiences through challenging (except for Wrath to SOME extent, it was still a great middle ground) content.

Ill state again just so its clear. If a game like Street Fighter 5 offered Akuma as a secret character through beating the game on the hardest difficulty, required no deaths and 3 perfects I would be motivated to attempt that. I would be so motivated I wouldn't stop playing til I achieved it. That is psychologically stimulating for me as a gamer. However, why would I do that if it offered nothing fresh or meaningful? Personally, I wouldn't, because difficulty for the sake of difficulty I see as pointless and mundane.

[Jaylock]

I'm not in the camp of people who spread the conspiracy that Blizzard is trying to kill off the game intentionally, but their general apathy kind of suggests to me that there is a shift in the focus of the company. WoW isn't the cash cow, Hearthstone became the rising star (ever seen someone spend $200 in a single sitting on card packs? aonsrthofngijslnrgnsteglintslignlksngt), and the overall brands of SC and Diablo have remained pretty strong. They seem rather okay with turning people away from WoW now.

Actually there's a bit off egg on my face because I originally thought shrinking subs would cause them to try harder to retain the remainder. Shows what I know.

This makes me so tired because I like considering systems that would improve player experience - I once wrote out a proposal on how to make LFR reward and incentivize positive social behavior without giving out more loot or punishing the under geared - and then deleted it because I realized no one cared, and no one was interested in putting the effort to change things.

Because no one cares about LFR. Everyone knows its the cesspool of group content. And i specifically didn't call it raiding because it isnt.

Hearthstone is probably a huge money maker for Blizzard, no doubt about that, but I would hardly believe that it has surpassed wow in terms of top line revenue. 6 Million people still pay 15-20 in sub fees per month, not to mention all the race changes, faction changes, and realm hops that happen. I know a friend of mine still moves chars around all the time, and changes races all the time. He probably spends 100-200 per month just on WoW alone.