Tuesday, April 29, 2014

No, Sorry, LFR is Not Raiding

The universe seems to have a sense of irony at times.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I am the guild leader of a 14/14H guild that raids two days a week.  My stance is that LFR as it currently exists is terrible and presents an awful experience for people looking to get into actual raiding who unfortunately don't know any better.  As a result, someone who has done LFR hasn't actually experienced the bosses in any meaningful sense and all too often LFR gives the wrong impression of raiding since new players assume raiding is generally the same as LFR (people running around like chickens with their heads cut off, no communication/coordination, people AFK on boss fights, toxic environments, etc).

It's not.

On the flip side, Flex (and by extension normal) is meaningful -- it's easier than heroic, sure, but that's a difference of degree rather than a difference of kind.  You still need to coordinate.  You can't have half the raid AFK.  There's social accountability for performance and behavior.  It's simply far more relaxed in terms of requirements.  Easy raid content in the form of Flex is great.  It's what LFR should have been in the first place.

Now, LFR as a pure tourist mode for people who can't guarantee being online for more than an hour at a time or for people who are truly bad is fine -- and this will apparently be the case in WoD where it will be abundantly clear that LFR is purely cinematic tourist mode.  If you want to experience the actual raid you'll need to do normal (which is currently called Flex).  Then Heroic and Mythic will offer steps up in difficulty if desired.

So where does the irony come in?

You see, I was recently involved in a series of comments at the blog of The Ancient Gaming Noob.  He was talking about being bored and having nothing to do in WoW after having run LFR a few times (and some other non-raid things) and I suggested he try Flex raiding as new stuff to do.  Mentioned that even if he didn't want to commit to an organized group he could still do most or all of Flex in PUGs at his convenience.  He claimed he had already done the raids. I pointed out how it was an entirely different experience than LFR due to social atmosphere, teamwork, and other factors.  I said he hadn't really experienced the content in LFR due to LFR's very nature.

I used the terminology "series of comments" specifically because, quite frankly, it wasn't a discussion -- it turned into him throwing a hissy fit, accusing me of insulting him, and ignoring my responses pointing out how I did no such thing.  He is incapable of distinguishing between "LFR is bad" and "People who run LFR are bad."  Disparaging the system was equivalent to insulting him from his perspective -- despite the fact I was even offering my time to help him get into Flex if he wanted the assistance.

I'd link to the exchange for those curious except he then decided to delete the whole thing claiming "Given that his comments were nothing beyond elitist 'LFR is shit,' they will not be missed."

Net result?  Added his blog to my blacklist, which brings my total up to three (the other two being Kurn's Corner and Big Bear Butt for anyone wondering).

"Yes, yes," you're thinking, "but where's this irony you mentioned?"  Glad you asked!

Blizzard has recently been posting a history of raiding (part one here) -- and today they posted part two of three which completely vindicates the point I was making to TAGN.  Some key segments...
We learned a lot from Dragon Soul about how to design content for Raid Finder. We endeavored to preserve encounter mechanics where possible, but had to significantly adjust unforgiving abilities—especially those that allowed a single player’s mistake to result in the entire group’s failure. In traditional organized raiding, a group of players generally learns from mistakes and masters content together, and they bring that collective knowledge with them in subsequent weeks.  In Raid Finder, which put players in random groups each week, there was a clean slate with regard to mastery of the encounters. Having to essentially redo progression each week is few players’ idea of fun, so we had to significantly accelerate the Raid Finder learning curve.

....

We knew that the Cataclysm changes had effectively removed a difficulty level from our game by raising the challenge of 10-player Normal to match 25-player, and that this change had left a group of players without suitable raid content. By adding Raid Finder, we had returned to three effective difficulties, and given the popularity of the feature, we assumed that this largely solved the problem. We were mistaken.

....

For the player who just wants to play with his or her friends in a tight-knit environment, solo-queuing was not a satisfying experience; even queuing for Raid Finder as a group wasn’t much better, since the presence of a dozen or more strangers transformed the nature of the activity. Besides, Raid Finder was tuned for randomly matched groups and generally lacked sufficient challenge for even the most casual of organized raid groups.

....

We’re tremendously happy with how players have received the new Flexible Raid mode, and we wish we’d implemented something like this sooner. We’re now back to three tiers of difficulty that cover all of the different kinds of organized raiders, while preserving Raid Finder for those who just want to experience the content on their own schedule.
So...yeah.  Even Blizzard has officially acknowledged that LFR is not a tier of difficulty and is a completely different experience from Flex/Normal/Heroic (soon to be Normal/Heroic/Mythic).  In fact, as they mention in that first paragraph, they have to design LFR in an entirely different manner than raiding.  They've said in the past they design normal first.  So then they'd increase the tuning requirements and add some mechanics for heroic.  And then relax some of the tuning requirements for Flex.

And then have to gut the encounter and redesign abilities entirely for LFR.

Completely different environment. Needing teamwork to beat the boss versus designing the boss so that a lack of teamwork isn't a problem.

Ultimately I wish TAGN wasn't so blind and would have listened to reason, but it's nice to feel officially vindicated by Blizzard.

P.S. Below is one of the comments I left if you're curious, only one I actually had saved as a draft (didn't expect him to decide to delete the whole exchange).
"Did you really come here to perpetuate the raider elitism thing? Because hearing that, in addition to whatever else, people are going to look down their noses at me because I ran LFR isn’t exactly selling your case."

I don't recall saying anything like "Unless you're 14/14H like me then you're a scrub."  Did I do so and forget about it?

And most people won't look down at you for running LFR, they'll approve that you're trying to go *beyond* LFR.  Tons of people will be willing to help you get into runs or learn things if you express interest, they WANT to see more people step into raiding.  I don't know a single heroic raider who would belittle someone doing Flex despite the fact it is zounds easier than heroic.  Why?  Because it's still raiding, just at a more forgiving difficulty level.

That isn't to say there aren't some trolls, of course, but there's always a certain percentage of assholes on the internet, unfortunately.

"That was the tourism part to which I referred. But now you are telling me I haven’t actually seen the raids"

Let's say there's a golf course with an average of par 4 and the usual sand traps/ponds/etc.

Heroic Raiding: you have average 4 shots per hole (par for the course) and all the standard rules apply.

Normal Raiding: you can average 6 shots per hole and you get 1 mulligan per hole for shots that go into a hazard or off the course.

Flex Raiding: you can average 9 shots per hole and you get 2 mulligans per hole for shots that go into a hazard or off the course.

LFR: you can average 30 shots per hole with 10 mulligans per hole.  Doable only using a putter.

Think of it this way: how many people look down on a person for having a golf handicap?  Not many.  That's normal and Flex.

How many people would look down on a person for playing a golf course using only a putter?  Quite a few.  That's LFR.
 Now, in retrospect, I could have rephrased those last two sections to be something like...
Think of it this way: how many people would agree that using a handicap in golf means you're not actually playing golf?  Basically no one -- all the same basic rules still apply and it's simply a relaxation of the requirements.  You're still trying to play the game correctly and doing your best.

How many people would agree that using only a putter on a golf course and establishing a par of 30 per hole means you're not actually playing golf?  Basically everyone -- you're ignoring the essence of the game.
But especially given the preceding 75%+ of that comment (and previous comments) it's pretty clear what my intent is -- which is that the problem is the rules/environment of LFR.  Was never saying everyone who does LFR is terrible or something -- if I thought that then I wouldn't be pointing out how plenty of people are willing to help others get into Flex or above (including myself).

Oh well.  Apparently I'm just an elitist jerk.


32 comments:

  1. I think a more apt comparison would be that LFR is like going on a cruise and raiding is like climbing mountains. While it's possible for someone to enjoy both, it seems rather pointless to try and convince cruise participants that they are doing it wrong and should upgrade to "real" mountaineering. They know they're not climbing mountains and most aren't interested in it either. (That was the gist of what I got out of that exchange between you and Wilhelm, or what I saw of it anyway.)

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    1. Hmm...more like going on a cruise versus sailing your own ship. In both cases you're technically on the ocean but in one case you're not really doing anything, just sightseeing.

      Wilhelm didn't seem to see any distinction between LFR and raiding, which was the problem -- he thought he WAS sailing his own ship in LFR.

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    2. Nah, he's talked about how he used to do more old school raiding many years ago in another MMO so I think it's safe to say that he's aware of the differences. I think you got a bit fixated on some wording you didn't like (which I've seen you do in various comment sections before) in favour of ignoring the actual message.

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    3. What do you think his actual message was? Perhaps I was mistaken.

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    4. That he felt he had got everything out of raids (the content, as per R's definition below) that he wanted and had nothing of interest left to do on that front since he's made it clear before that he's not interested in picking up more involved, "proper" raiding at this point.

      You seemed to get unnecessarily hung up on his use of the term raiding to describe his LFR experience, even though that wasn't really relevant in context.

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    5. I'm not sure that's the case -- he said

      "I’m not sure how PUGs with strangers really offers something superior to LFR with strangers. The “with strangers” is the downside to LFR in my eyes, and a different class of strangers I’ll see once doesn’t exactly change that. "

      which seems to indicate pretty clearly that he doesn't see an inherent difference between Flex and LFR, no?

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    6. From a social point of view - and there he isn't really wrong. (If you find pugging in general pretty meh, you're unlikely to suddenly enjoy it just because you're pugging a different kind of content.)

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    7. Please excuse the hijack, Shintar...

      ""I’m not sure how PUGs with strangers really offers something superior to LFR with strangers. The “with strangers” is the downside to LFR in my eyes, and a different class of strangers I’ll see once doesn’t exactly change that. "

      which seems to indicate pretty clearly that he doesn't see an inherent difference between Flex and LFR, no?"

      You're still stuck on raiding = the raid... try to take yourself out of that mindspace and treat the instance as separate from the activity. If his goal is to see the instance and kill some bosses, LFR DOES equal Flex (or Heroic, for that matter), requires less skill and has significantly less accountability. I totally get that, too, in BC when I was still a new player I'd have KILLED for a chance to do the raids in some sort of spectator mode (something I'd still love to see in-game and hope that the partial implementation that's coming will eventually be expanded) but had no interest in actually raiding... it sounded like a nightmare at the time and looking back on it now from the perspective of a heroic raider, it WAS a nightmare... if LFR had existed back then I'd have run LFR and would have considered myself done with PvE content. Sounds like he's of a similar mindset here.

      It also sounds like if a bunch of his buddies put a flex run together that he might be willing to join them... but that joining another unknown group, even a premade one, is just a different form of pugging an instance and killing bosses and the additional challenge isn't worthwhile and perhaps he wouldn't get additional satisfaction out of succeeding at something that's technically more difficult. Not everyone gets their jollies from competitive play, even lower-tier.

      Hell, right now I'd much prefer to be doing a weekly normal or even flex clear than heroic progression... I'm more of an "I mostly just want to kill bosses" person myself, there's a reason I hadn't done any real heroic raiding since Wrath until a few months ago... so I sympathize with his viewpoint to a large degree.

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    8. "From a social point of view - and there he isn't really wrong."

      I suppose I find that a curious stance. In LFR you're hoping no one starts shouting at or insulting each other and trying to pretend everyone else is a bot. In Flex you're on Mumble/Vent and having social conversations and chit-chat on trash at a minimum. Would seem to be a very different environment socially, even in a PUG.

      Has your experience been different?

      "You're still stuck on raiding = the raid... try to take yourself out of that mindspace and treat the instance as separate from the activity."

      I do understand that, I promise, but his whole angle was "I've done LFR 2-3 times and I'm bored." Like I said, if he was HAPPY with LFR then I wouldn't have said anything. But he was expressing dissatisfaction with it.

      What you're saying is that he's unhappy with the instance and doesn't care about the activity, no? Just seems to be like saying "I drove to the top of Pike's Peak and didn't feel satisfied but I have no interest in actually climbing the mountain."

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  2. Honestly, it just seems like two people with a valid point were in a situation where one didn't realize they weren't actually discussing the same point.

    I think it's simpler to separate "raiding" into two completely disparate elements:
    * Raiding (what the player does)
    * The Raid (the instance that the player has just run)

    Say a buddy signs up for a WoW account, makes an instant 90 and pokes me that he "wants to see one of these raid thingies". I could take him into LFR but that'd be too much out of the gate... so I take him with one of my 90s back to do, say, Black Temple. We stomp BT in an hour, walk out and he says "That was cool, pretty place, but it seemed pretty easy..."

    At that point, he has seen a raid... but by no useful measure has he raided. IMO, raiding should be more about overcoming the obstacles that the instance throws at you than overcoming the obstacles of the 15 mouth breathers who hit the Queue button at the same time you did.

    LFR is, to a first approximation, the same thing as running BT on a 90... it's certainly more legitimately raiding than soloing or duoing BT (as a RL choosing between two pug options I'd take the guy who has done the fights on LFR vs my imaginary buddy, having just "raided" BT on a 90) but it isn't raiding in the historical, pre-LFR sense... which I think was the meat of your point, except it may have been somewhat lost by not acknowledging that he had actually seen the raid.

    His claim that he has seen the raid is factually correct, and if that's all he was wanting to do (which I expect is what a lot of folks in LFR are there to do) then your argument won't get any traction... he's not looking for the challenge of normal raiding.

    If you'd said that he has seen the raid but hasn't actually raided and positioned the argument from that angle then you might have had better luck getting your (absolutely legitimate) argument across. It's a pretty small differentiation, though, and for what it's worth I had no issue seeing what each of you was trying to say... it's usually harder if you're in the middle, though, or feeling like you're having to defend yourself as he seemed to.

    I would be curious to see if he has any sort of an updated viewpoint now that Blizzard has posted those two very useful raiding paradigm entries... nothing groundbreaking but at least it's nice to see it all put in writing.

    C'est la vie. I'd be curious what led to your other two blacklist entries, too, if you're ever in a sharing mood... :)

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    1. "IMO, raiding should be more about overcoming the obstacles that the instance throws at you than overcoming the obstacles of the 15 mouth breathers who hit the Queue button at the same time you did."

      Indeed. You elitist.

      Even if the obstacles are fairly easy like Flex -- the point is that the obstacles exist.

      "as a RL choosing between two pug options I'd take the guy who has done the fights on LFR vs my imaginary buddy, having just "raided" BT on a 90"

      For the record I'd be more worried about other things -- a person in full 522 honor gear with gems/enchants would be more welcome in my raid (without doing anything but BT) than a person with full 528 LFR gear and no gems/enchants.

      The only time I'd care about the LFR "experience" is if everything else was identical and the person without LFR "experience" had literally never done LFR or raiding at any point while current.

      If your imaginary buddy had done Karazhan back in BC I'd prefer that over LFR experience.

      "which I think was the meat of your point, except it may have been somewhat lost by not acknowledging that he had actually seen the raid."

      Correct. And I was trying to emphasize that Flex was nothing like LFR -- I don't remember exactly what I said at this point and he deleted the comments, so perhaps I could have worded it in a way he could have understood better, but I was trying to make it clear there was a solid line dividing LFR and Flex/Normal/Heroic.

      "It's a pretty small differentiation, though, and for what it's worth I had no issue seeing what each of you was trying to say... it's usually harder if you're in the middle, though, or feeling like you're having to defend yourself as he seemed to."

      Not sure why he felt like he had to defend himself, though -- if you recall my original comment was literally something like "If you're looking for something new to do you could try Flex." To which he responded something like "I've already done the raids." Then it went off to "Not really" and so on -- I wonder if it would gone differently if he had come at it from the viewpoint of "Why are you suggesting I do Flex if I've already done LFR?" instead of "I've already done LFR, therefore there's zero reason for me to do Flex."

      "C'est la vie. I'd be curious what led to your other two blacklist entries, too, if you're ever in a sharing mood... :)"

      I'll consider it.

      They both happened over a year ago. The incident with BBB is what got me into blogging as he banned me from his blog (though when I contacted him to ask why he couldn't even remember what he found offensive about any of my posts) and sent me an email saying something like "Get your own damn blog, then." Kurn hypocritically refused to post a politely worded comment disagreeing with her despite claiming otherwise on her comment policy.

      That's all I'm willing to share off-hand, will think about whether it's worth going into more detail later.

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    2. Yeah, the only thing I can add (besides that I posted a comment over on his blog as well that may or may not survive &/or add anything useful to the discussion) is that, having read his blog for a while, I believe he's strictly a casual player... I don't think he has any interest or intention of organized raiding so that may be why he reacted the way he did, for him raiding is content, not a competitive endeavour, so "doing the raid" via LFR or flex or normal or heroic makes no difference, he's just there to see and experience the place, like my fake buddy with our hypothetical BT run.

      As for defending himself, I'm just going from your text clips above... he seemed defensive.

      Re: blacklist entries... heh, the reason I tend to get the "get your own damned blog" response seems to be more about using far too many words, not necessarily content, although I find myself pushing that content boundary more lately... I'm seeing more myopic viewpoints lately from folks who I wouldn't have generally expected it from, never quite sure whether it's better to just ignore them or to point out the myopia, especially since everyone has different tolerances and since a large majority of blog comments are extended "+1" comments so it's hard to get a baseline for criticism or discussion, whereas I tend to reply more when I have at least some minor disagreement so there's always a chance for a negative reaction. As I recall, the first blogger response to any comment I ever left on a WoW blog was, I believe verbatim: "Who cares what you think?" I'm still a bit surprised that didn't turn me off the commenting idea completely. That may be why I use so many words now, actually, trying to validate my opinion. Who knows. Psychology is hard.

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    3. "besides that I posted a comment over on his blog as well that may or may not survive &/or add anything useful to the discussion"

      Yeah, I got an email notification with that included, it's appreciated even if he throws another fit and deletes it.

      "As for defending himself, I'm just going from your text clips above... he seemed defensive."

      Oh, absolutely. I agree he was absolutely defensive. I don't understand WHY he was defensive.

      "the reason I tend to get the "get your own damned blog" response seems to be more about using far too many words, not necessarily content,"

      This one was absolutely about content. Based on Stubborn's suggestion below I'll probably do a post on my blacklist (those two bloggers are what caused me to make my own blog) without mentioning any names (P.S. you'll totally know who I'm referring to).

      "myopic"

      Hey, I just learned a new word today! Cool!

      "whereas I tend to reply more when I have at least some minor disagreement so there's always a chance for a negative reaction."

      I agree -- and those are the comments I find interesting. Maybe I'm just weird but I LIKE having a discussion about some point and trying to figure out the best answer.

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  3. Balk,

    I think both R and Shintar make good points; you and I have argued before, too, and there are times where perhaps as a very logical person your delivery leaves something to be desired. Like LFR versus raiding, there's both a similarity and a difference between delivery and message. Sometimes you get caught in the message a little too much and the delivery suffers. That's true of everyone, of course, at times.

    I think in this case the "tourist" word may have been an issue; I don't know if you or he originated the word, but it has a somewhat negative connotation. I completely understand what you mean by it, and I agree with the core principal, but often when people are called "tourists," it's not in a nice way. Guild Wars 2 calls their "easy" dungeons "Story Mode," which I think would be a nicer way to make the same point; you see the narrative flow of the raid and experience the dramatic conclusion of the story related to the patch.

    Welcome to my world, where people get hung up on small word choices and can't seem to get past it. We proposed a business writing class called "English 100" as an alternative to academic writing (101) that all the 101 professors were against because "they didn't want another developmental course." But, you see, it wasn't a developmental course. But since it was numerically below 101, they couldn't seem to get past the fact that it was a normal "business writing" course - an alternative to 101. I overtly asked them if the number was bothering them, but all of them said no. However, when I proposed we call it English 105, they were completely fine with it. It was the number that was bothering them, even if they couldn't or wouldn't admit it.

    People get hung up on weird things.

    Also, send me an email about your other banned list; I'm curious, too (;

    Sincerely,
    Stubborn

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    1. "you and I have argued before, too, and there are times where perhaps as a very logical person your delivery leaves something to be desired."

      Maybe when the rest of you become cyborgs things will be easier.

      "I think in this case the "tourist" word may have been an issue; I don't know if you or he originated the word, but it has a somewhat negative connotation"

      It wasn't even used on his blog that I recall, I only mentioned it here. I specifically avoided using it there.

      "However, when I proposed we call it English 105, they were completely fine with it. It was the number that was bothering them, even if they couldn't or wouldn't admit it."

      Amusing.

      "Also, send me an email about your other banned list; I'm curious, too (;"

      Brief synopsis in response to R above. Will consider more.

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    2. I do remember the BBB conversation we had, now that you mention it. I"ll check out the other comments below to see what's up.

      You COULD use the BBB thing, leaving out his name, as an "inspiration to write" post for the New Bloggers Initiative!
      http://www.newbiebloggerinitiative.com/

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    3. Might do that. BBB and Kurn were the exact reasons I created this blog in the first place (made it 1-2 weeks after those incidents in direct response).

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  4. I think I can understand the defensiveness. Despite your intentions, he probably felt like you were coming to his turf to tell him he's playing the game wrong. I know that's not what you intended, but for many folks LFR is sufficient. They have no interest in the bigger, organized raiding and frankly that's okay (and you even were about to mention that yourself in a roundabout way).

    Not knowing how your original comment was worded, I can only speculate. But once your message was either misinterpreted (by him) and/or poorly communicated (by you), I think you lost your audience.

    Something I've learned recently at work when trying to get folks to do new things in their software engineering process is sometimes you just need to stop pushing and come back another day. As Stubborn infers, raw logic is often not quite enough on it's own, even though we sincerely wish an argument could stand on the merits of logic alone.

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    1. "Despite your intentions, he probably felt like you were coming to his turf to tell him he's playing the game wrong. I know that's not what you intended, but for many folks LFR is sufficient."

      The part where I'm confused is that he was complaining about being bored. If his post had said "WoW's going fine -- doing alts, dailies, and getting my raiding fix in LFR" I never would have said anything.

      But instead he said "I'm bored in WoW -- done alts, dailies, and raiding via LFR." Hence why I suggested Flex as it was clear he was bored with LFR. So LFR WASN'T sufficient for him.

      "Not knowing how your original comment was worded, I can only speculate."

      It was literally something like

      "Have you considered giving Flex raiding a try?"

      One sentence. Not some lengthy diatribe.

      "you just need to stop pushing and come back another day."

      I quite literally did that -- I'd get an email that he responded to my post but didn't respond for half a day or an entire day so that he had time to calm down and absorb things. So that it DIDN'T seem I was constantly hounding him or something.

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    2. Fair enough. Like I said, missing context, and it's gone now. *shrug* Maybe he was just having a bad day? I don't know, and I probably should stop speculating. I like to give folks the benefit of the doubt (on both sides of the disagreement), so I doubt it really was anything more than miscommunication. Humans are tricky creatures to figure out.

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    3. Had a flash of inspiration. The automated emails I got include his responses (but Wordpress doesn't include my own) so I can reconstruct all of HIS responses at least (editing out some irrelevant stuff):

      ---------------------------------------

      "@Balkoth – I’m not sure how PUGs with strangers really offers something superior to LFR with strangers. The “with strangers” is the downside to LFR in my eyes, and a different class of strangers I’ll see once doesn’t exactly change that. Plus finding PUGs pretty much requires spending time devoted to the task, which falls under “more rigorous and regular” schedule, unless I just hope to get lucky.

      And, as I have said a few times in the past, I am very much the tourist. I saw the raids through LFR. Not sure I need to get on the treadmill to repeat that content.

      Basically, if I wanted to raid, I would find the time to devote to the effort. But I feel no inclination to do so."

      "@Balkoth – “Why did you do LFR, then?”

      That was the tourism part to which I referred. But now you are telling me I haven’t actually seen the raids. I must have dreamed it I guess. Not sure where the screen shots for those blog posts came from.

      Did you really come here to perpetuate the raider elitism thing? Because hearing that, in addition to whatever else, people are going to look down their noses at me because I ran LFR isn’t exactly selling your case"

      "And I was well served by my instinct, because I just see another comment saying I’m shit because I’m not doing what you think I should be. Blah blah blah.

      Is telling me that people who just do LFR and stop are shit and should be looked down upon really all that important to you?"

      "Trying to help me by telling me I’m shit because I don’t raid at a level at which you approve of? That is really an odd definition of help."

      "@Balkoth – Do you really think insulting people who just do LFR to somebody who did LFR isn’t insulting them? Oh, but the insult wouldn’t count if I just followed you advice maybe? So how is that different from what I wrote?

      Basically, if I would just play the way you do, I wouldn’t be shit."

      "Felt I had to remove a series of comments polluting this thread as the author felt he was entitled to the final word on things on my blog, literally telling me to stop commenting. Given that his comments were nothing beyond elitist “LFR is shit,” they will not be missed."

      --------------------------

      Note that I never claimed he should be doing Heroic raiding and I never called him "shit" or any other insult.

      The "final word" part was referencing how I would respond to his replies and try to explain how I wasn't insulting him and wasn't claiming he should be doing Heroic raiding or something. I said that if he wanted to drop the matter all he had to do was stop responding.

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    4. Now I'm more curious about your responses... thanks for that. ;)

      Either way, by about the "Did you really..." part of that discussion I'd have bailed as a commenter with a "Sorry, was just trying to give you an idea for something different to try" and moved on. Not blaming you for continuing but at that point the discussion had devolved to the point where it wasn't going to go anywhere.

      (and note, I'd have done the same thing if it was me and a buddy having the discussion, that isn't a faceless internet discussion thing)

      Also, having seen that I don't think I want to see what he ended up doing with my comment over there... and with a better picture now I approve of him deleting the thread, that wasn't a productive discussion on either side, looks like. Upside, we got to address it here, which probably makes more sense...

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    5. "Now I'm more curious about your responses... thanks for that. ;)"

      It basically consisted of me pointing out that he could PUG Flex without a time commitment to a schedule, that Flex was a very different environment and not the same content as LFR, and that I'd be willing to go with him to Flex if he wanted the help (as would many others).

      Which apparently infuriated him.

      "Not blaming you for continuing but at that point the discussion had devolved to the point where it wasn't going to go anywhere."

      I was being optimistic and was hoping he'd see the light. I figured it really couldn't get any worse at that point (and I was right).

      "with a better picture now I approve of him deleting the thread, that wasn't a productive discussion on either side, looks like."

      It was productive on my side -- I was calm and rational throughout, offering reasons to try Flex, and volunteering my time if he wanted it. He just threw a hissy fit and acted like an angry child. I was clearly wrong to assume he was a mature adult.

      I believe my responses would have been very useful for anyone wondering if it was worth doing Flex from LFR -- TAGN just hated them.

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    6. Oh, and if I might point out the obvious, he could have simply stopped responding at any point.

      The ONLY reason I kept responding is because he kept accusing me of calling him "shit" and I didn't want that accusation of an insult to stand without challenge as the last word in a public space. If he had simply said "Well, we'll agree to disagree" then I wouldn't have responded to that.

      But his childish insistence of accusing me of insulting him repeatedly (despite no such thing happening) and then deleting the thread because I would post something like "Actually, I didn't insult you, I simply said [blank]"...yeah, I want nothing further to do with him.

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  5. I agree that LFR doesn't give the experience of raiding at all. The easiest example is to try walking away from your computer. I bet you can't afk through heroic, normal, or even flex. You have some responsibility. You can get away with afk'ing LFR. Normally I'm not that much of a jerk, but I still don't give it my all. I usually Spirit Shell and then Prayer of Healing each group in the raid until Spirit Shell is over, then read a book or do something else until I notice I'm no longer top healer. I only need to Spirit Shell a couple times per fight to stay at the top.

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    1. Yeah, you could have half the raid AFK at any given point on a boss fight and it's unlikely anyone would even notice most of the time.

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  6. I think the difference is you were saying he hadn't seen the raids meaning the real mechanics and he was more thinking of just seeing the visual content. I agree that LFR isn't anything like "real" raiding, but as someone who has the ability to run heroic raids yet ran almost exclusively LFR this expansion I can say LFR does still hold a purpose. I personally wish they would go even further in just making mechanics hit hard at all so that those that wanted to learn could still see but everyone else wouldn't wipe because of it. LFR should never wipe in my opinion.

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    1. What's the difference between LFR and a cutscene that requires you to push a button every now and then to continue?

      That's not an idle question, it's quite serious. It would be like a sports video game where all you did was repeatedly press one button whenever you wanted to win. What in the world would be the point of such a game? Watch a YouTube video instead.

      Like I said, I'm not claiming heroic raiding is the only actual raiding. I'm including normal and flex into that category too. There are actual mechanics and you actually have to try -- even if Flex is massively easier, it still requires effort.

      LFR does not.

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    2. You are still playing your toon. The better players are still going to do the mechanics and try and analize and improve themselves (You probably would have to force yourself to not react to fire after raiding for years as it became second nature). Flex didn't exist for most of the raids so that wasn't an option till SoO, and at the beginning a lot of that was you had to be normal experienced to join a pug flex that waited around for hours to even fill a group. You are someone that has the time and the opportunities to run whatever difficulty you would like (mostly because you organize but still). If your options are limited to LFR only, sometimes something is better than nothing. Hence why I went from mostly playing one class with a semi-forced alt when I raided to playing every class in the game when I came back and was forced to be "casual". LFR allowed me to play classes and specs I didn't know at all in a "raid" environment as opposed to the world questing environment of two hits and it's dead. I still did the odd Heroic or Normal or Flex (when it was introduced) run when someone I knew asked me to, but the majority of the time I was playing solo. I'm sure you can recognize that Flex and Normal have real mechanics, but I'm also guessing that for you they require very little thought and are very easy even if you have never seen the fight.

      PS some of the coolest moments in game were just cutscenes (Like Wrathgate, LK scene after the fight, boss kill turn ins, etc)

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    3. "You are still playing your toon."

      That's like playing a soccer game by running your character around the field and ignoring the ball because you'll win anyway.

      "You probably would have to force yourself to not react to fire after raiding for years as it became second nature"

      Not at all -- was easy to just take the damage on Ultraxion LFR and there's often fights where you need to take SOME "fire" damage to achieve a goal.

      "If your options are limited to LFR only, sometimes something is better than nothing."

      I reject the notion that someone's options are limited to LFR only. Even if you literally cannot ever commit a few hours per week consistently you can still find PUG groups for Flex 99.9% of the week.

      If you're talking about prior to Flex, then you could do dungeons or prior raids or (when they became available) things like Challenge Modes, Proving Grounds, and Brawler's Guild which is definitely not "two hits and it's dead."

      Your argument seems to be "you CAN play LFR like it's serious"...but that argument can be applied to anything. Go 2-3 man dungeons, go back to older raids with a few people, try leveling against mobs several mobs higher, etc.

      "I'm sure you can recognize that Flex and Normal have real mechanics, but I'm also guessing that for you they require very little thought and are very easy even if you have never seen the fight."

      Let's say that's true. The mechanics still matter and you have to obey them or wipe endlessly. The same is not true in LFR.

      "PS some of the coolest moments in game were just cutscenes (Like Wrathgate, LK scene after the fight, boss kill turn ins, etc)"

      I agree. So how is LFR different than the Battle for the Undercity where you're guaranteed to win with a bunch of AI help? Guaranteed success either way and mechanics can be ignored. Still a fun experience...but you wouldn't call that raiding.

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  7. "That's like playing a soccer game by running your character around the field and ignoring the ball because you'll win anyway."

    No that's like playing on a bad soccer team where you try to play your best, but you can't play the game for 10 other people.

    "Not at all -- was easy to just take the damage on Ultraxion LFR and there's often fights where you need to take SOME "fire" damage to achieve a goal."

    If fire spawns under you on Maegara because someone didn't run out you wouldn't automatically move without thinking?

    "I reject the notion that someone's options are limited to LFR only. Even if you literally cannot ever commit a few hours per week consistently you can still find PUG groups for Flex 99.9% of the week."

    It's not the commiting hours per week that was my problem, but the when those hours were. And as I already said, Flex didn't exist until the last raid, and even on open raid most groups had pretty high demands for a long time after it did come out. There often exists a catch 22 in wow where you want to run the raids, but you can't because you haven't run them before. I did start doing flex when it came out, and even turned that into a couple months of regular normals with an alt group that ran early enough for me to attend, run by the same leader as the flex run. For most of the expansion though Flex wasn't an option and you weren't going to get into a normal run without normal experience.

    "Your argument seems to be "you CAN play LFR like it's serious"...but that argument can be applied to anything. Go 2-3 man dungeons, go back to older raids with a few people, try leveling against mobs several mobs higher, etc."

    Most of those things are not raiding either though. My argument was that you can get what you want out of LFR. You can still see most mechanics even if they aren't going to kill you. You can still practice your rotation. You can still get gear to help you prepare for trying to run the higher difficulties. If you don't care about those things then you don't have to do those things. It doesn't mean that it doesn't still serve a purpose for others.

    "Let's say that's true. The mechanics still matter and you have to obey them or wipe endlessly. The same is not true in LFR."

    Been in plenty of LFRs that wiped endlessly. I'm guessing if you run a normal with your guild you could ignore plenty of the mechanics and still win too.

    "So how is LFR different than the Battle for the Undercity where you're guaranteed to win with a bunch of AI help? Guaranteed success either way and mechanics can be ignored. "

    Rarely do you get a guaranteed win because for a lot of players they still can't handle it. Pretty sure I said in the original post I agreed that it wasn't real raiding. Just said that it still served a purpose. You seem to just want it removed. I probably would have thought the same way if I was still raiding heroics/hard modes, but this expansion my point of view was changed.

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    1. "No that's like playing on a bad soccer team where you try to play your best, but you can't play the game for 10 other people."

      But there's no requirement for you to play your best or even your average. It could just as easily be a soccer team where the 10 other people try hard and manage to win the game despite the fact you were sitting down in a corner doing nothing. You still get a reward.

      "If fire spawns under you on Maegara because someone didn't run out you wouldn't automatically move without thinking?"

      Nope. Just like I don't run out of the fire on Ordos. Like I said, I'm used to having to take SOME damage and judge whether the cost of avoiding the damage is worth it.

      "For most of the expansion though Flex wasn't an option and you weren't going to get into a normal run without normal experience."

      At the end of a tier, no, not easily. At the start of a tier, sure, you could even just make your own runs for the first few bosses. And could do nerfed t14 for gear if needed plus get 522 valor gear every week or two.

      "Most of those things are not raiding either though."

      Of course. But that brings me back to my original point of how LFR isn't raiding in the sense that Flex/Normal/Heroic are.

      "Been in plenty of LFRs that wiped endlessly."

      And each time you wiped you got a 5% stacking buff that essentially guaranteed you'd get it in 10 wipes or less. There's no bonus for failing or guarantee you'll get a boss in Flex/Normal/Heroic. Many heroic bosses take 100+ attempts, sometimes 200+.

      "Pretty sure I said in the original post I agreed that it wasn't real raiding. Just said that it still served a purpose. You seem to just want it removed."

      If you'll refer back to the fourth paragraph of the original blog post...

      "Now, LFR as a pure tourist mode for people who can't guarantee being online for more than an hour at a time or for people who are truly bad is fine -- and this will apparently be the case in WoD where it will be abundantly clear that LFR is purely cinematic tourist mode. If you want to experience the actual raid you'll need to do normal (which is currently called Flex). Then Heroic and Mythic will offer steps up in difficulty if desired."

      I agree that it serves a purpose. But it's horrendous when people mistake it for actual raiding and think Flex/Normal/Heroic are the same thing just with bigger numbers. LFR has no accountability, no coordination, and more.

      Nerf the hell out of it and give it worse gear and it'll exist for people who have no other option (which is being done and those people are a very small minority).

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