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[Bisnic]

And yet probably more popular than Mythic tier.

Yeah, people love doing a raid while the game search for a group for them, so they can focus on other things during that time. That's the only advantage of LFR, and seems to be a pretty big one for a lot of people.

 

[Tenebrous]

One difficulty has to give, and for me, it's normal/flex.

Up the difficulty of LFR to Cata/MoP levels, have heroic/normal (whichever you want to call it) span a slightly wider range of boss difficulty, and keep mythic as is.

Oh, and put tier back in LFR, but make it share a lockout with normal/heroic/mythic raids.

 

[CelticKnight]

Get rid of LFR, it's the most meaningless tier.

Getting rid of LFR will kill the game stone dead for a lot of people.

They way they did LFR was fine this expansion. The rewards are crappy so there's an incentive to do Normal and higher, but a large amount of players still get to experience the raids and see the expansion's storyline develop.

 

[Apathy]

I wonder if Blizzard sees all the disbanding guilds in Warlords of Draenor and decides to take a serious look at Mythic in Legion. It's certainly not unbeatable, but the massive difficulty jump from MOP to WOD seems insane. It seems like something people clamored for but Blizzard thought ti was more people than it actually was. Mythic is the 'real' raid just looking at the appearances of items, the bonus bosses at the end and so on and the dwindling playerbase continues to not see it. There's far less Mythic cleared guilds on my server than there was on MOP And you combine that with their shrinking playerbase and you have to wonder if they'll actually dial back the difficulty of Mythic in Legion.

There's already too many raid difficulties as it is.

God I hope not. Mythics this time around were not hard. If guilds disband because they can't do it that's not blizzards fault. Sometimes mythics aren't right for certain guilds. It shouldn't just be "you killed heroic and got the gear, OK go do it again in mythic and expect the kill cause you have the gear". Mythics should he hard because they require proper mechanics and strategies to be done by everyone in the encounter. By and large gorefiend was the guild killer this time around. That fight, before the valor gear buffs had to be executed perfectly by the raid to get the kill. Dumb deaths, bad rotational DPS, not doing your job all meant that was not going to die and that's what a mythic type boss should be. If you have a person that can clear heroic and get gear but their DPS sucks and is doing like 50% less damage than the average someone in their class does (and it happens so much now) they shouldn't go into mythics and expect kills.

And yet probably more popular than Mythic tier.

Is popular because you can get the base legendary ring quest done while being afk

One difficulty has to give, and for me, it's normal/flex.

Up the difficulty of LFR to Cata/MoP levels, have heroic/normal (whichever you want to call it) span a slightly wider range of boss difficulty, and keep mythic as is.

Oh, and put tier back in LFR, but make it share a lockout with normal/heroic/mythic raids.

Weren't they thinking of dropping lfr, and making normal the new "lfr" like, where stuff is just slightly harder and mechanics mattered just slightly? Cause as it is, lfr is just a giant afk simulator. Yeah people see fights but they don't learn anything when nothing can kill you. None of the mechanics have any consequences.

 

[ZenaxPure]

i don't get the ashran hate. i finally did it and it was a blast

To be fair it's been redesigned completely like 3 times over the course of the expansion. I'd bet a lot of people that did it at launch and hated it probably haven't gone back to it now. It's not perfect but you have a way better chance of getting into a fun ashran now than you did then.

 

[Apathy]

To be fair it's been redesigned completely like 3 times over the course of the expansion. I'd bet a lot of people that did it at launch and hated it probably haven't gone back to it now. It's not perfect but you have a way better chance of getting into a fun ashran now than you did then.

Unless you're horde and then you're still going to have a bad time and not get your quests done unless you get really really lucky.

 

[ampere]

I wonder if Blizzard sees all the disbanding guilds in Warlords of Draenor and decides to take a serious look at Mythic in Legion. It's certainly not unbeatable, but the massive difficulty jump from MOP to WOD seems insane. It seems like something people clamored for but Blizzard thought ti was more people than it actually was. Mythic is the 'real' raid just looking at the appearances of items, the bonus bosses at the end and so on and the dwindling playerbase continues to not see it. There's far less Mythic cleared guilds on my server than there was on MOP And you combine that with their shrinking playerbase and you have to wonder if they'll actually dial back the difficulty of Mythic in Legion.

There's already too many raid difficulties as it is.

Mythic isn't harder than Heroic was in MoP

 

[ZenaxPure]

Mythic isn't harder than Heroic was in MoP

Honestly I'd chalk any sort of lower numbers up to the removal of 10 mans. Downsizing from a 25 into a 20 man guild is fairly easy, up-scaling from a 10 to a 20 man is near impossible. On my server there isn't a single 10 man heroic guild from the cata/mop era doing mythic in WoD, but, the couple of 25 man guilds we had are still kicking around doing mythics.

 

[Anoregon]

Mythic isn't harder than Heroic was in MoP

I can't really speak to that, but heroic WoD absolutely felt harder than normal in Mists, even though the two were supposed to be the same overall difficulty.

Or maybe I was just in a shittier guild.

 

[ZenaxPure]

I can't really speak to that, but heroic WoD absolutely felt harder than normal in Mists, even though the two were supposed to be the same overall difficulty.

Or maybe I was just in a shittier guild.

I feel pretty similar about flex -> new normal honestly. I did a lot of flex SoO and a decent amount of normal BRF and BRF felt way harder than SoO did.

That's not to say either of them were actually hard or anything but in SoO I felt like we could carry those not so great players that your group is too nice to kick because said people are nice and you don't want to hurt their feelings, in BRF I felt like they were actively slowing us down.

 

[MetroidPrimeRib]

The worst part about PUGs is getting kicked for "failing" mechanics that require assistance like Mannoroth's Gaze or Iskar's winds. I had one of the Gorebound Spirits get to like 35 stacks while chasing me before someone noticed and killed it.

 

[idlewild_]

I feel pretty similar about flex -> new normal honestly. I did a lot of flex SoO and a decent amount of normal BRF and BRF felt way harder than SoO did.

That's not to say either of them were actually hard or anything but in SoO I felt like we could carry those not so great players that your group is too nice to kick because said people are nice and you don't want to hurt their feelings, in BRF I felt like they were actively slowing us down.

I don't think normal and flex were that far apart, you had tier bonuses and the content was gated for SOO which helped a lot. If players had no access to tier gear and they opened all of SOO off the jump then the sentiment would probably be that they were tuned closer together. BRF also had the issue where Maidens and Furnace were a pretty big jump above the previous bosses in the wings, so if you didn't jump around between the wings you could easily get stuck.

In the end though, I do think they tuned normal and heroic a bit higher than their counterparts in previous expansions as a change in philosophy. Previous to flex you had fixed raid sizes, so the expectation was that you would move onto the next difficulty once you defeated the last boss. Now this is not really possible unless your guild was built around mythic in mind, so the difficulty should be high enough that you will have something to work on for a longer period of time.

 

[cdyhybrid]

10-person Mythic pls

 

[Tenebrous]

Weren't they thinking of dropping lfr, and making normal the new "lfr" like, where stuff is just slightly harder and mechanics mattered just slightly? Cause as it is, lfr is just a giant afk simulator. Yeah people see fights but they don't learn anything when nothing can kill you. None of the mechanics have any consequences.

You can't remove LFR. You can make it more challenging so you might as well be doing flex/normal, but removing it would be terrible marketing to casual players.

10-person Mythic pls

And this. Our guild would be 13/13 already if we weren't on a small server and had to take some... Lets say, mediocre players along.

 

[Peachpies]

10-person Mythic pls

Having mythic be flex would be much better than returning to the old style of 10/25 man heroic.

 

[Tenebrous]

Having mythic be flex would be much better than returning to the old style of 10/25 man heroic.

But would no doubt come with balancing issues unless they tackled every playercount individually, and even then you'll have instances where bringing one less player means you have one less interrupt CD to rotate. 10 man, 20/25 man, and flex for every other difficulty makes the most sense for me.

...

Well, as long as they don't revert to T11 10-man heroic raiding. That was ridiculous.

Ideal world, flex mythic would indeed be amazing.

 

[ZenaxPure]

Having mythic be flex would be much better than returning to the old style of 10/25 man heroic.

It would just cause the same problems that style had, so it wouldn't matter either way.

 

[EverythingShiny]

Horde NA. I already did mmy quest but will be doing them on and off today and the rest of the weekend if you still need them I don't mind helping you

I finished all 5 and probably won't do anymore because I hate the BC heroics, hah. But I'll PM you my battletag anyway for next time timewalking comes around.

 

[Data West]

Just realized the gold transfer cap increase means that all the low pop BMAHs are going to be pilfered now.

 

[ampere]

10-person Mythic pls

Then they couldn't do class specific mechanics. 10 really isn't enough when you have 12 classes

 

[HarryDemeanor]

Water Striders usable in Legion content once again.

After further discussion, we will be reverting these changes entirely, and Water Striders’ water-walking will not be restricted by location.

As noted in my earlier post in the thread, the genesis of this change was an observation that the Water Strider was being used disproportionately frequently, which led to a genuine concern on our part that the mechanical advantage of water-walking was stomping on the cosmetic choice of a player’s favorite mount. This is different from other utility mounts like the Traveler’s Mammoth or Expedition Yak, which are rarely used for any prolonged period of time or as a default mount; those are summoned specifically for the use of their vendors and then dismissed.

We don’t have any concern with water-walking as a concept, and the various player abilities and consumables that provide it are a great source of convenience. We’re not trying to make travel less convenient, or restrict player freedom. We observed what seemed like a potential problem, explored some solutions, and clearly the cure has proven worse than the disease. Thank you for your feedback.

 

[Tenebrous]

"As noted in my earlier post in the thread, the genesis of this change was an observation that the Water Strider was being used disproportionately frequently, which led to a genuine concern on our part that the mechanical advantage of water-walking was stomping on the cosmetic choice of a player’s favorite mount."

Gotta admit, it was my default leveling mount throughout Talador... But so what? I'm glad they did away with the restriction on old content. As for it being usable in Legion? Well, they've made their choice now, and while I don't really care either way, I'll be using it whenever it's advantageous to do so.

 

[Lomax]

The simple water strider solution is just to make them slightly slower on land. Then it's a trade off for the water walking, and you can choose if an area is worth using it or not. Honestly surprised they weren't designed that way from the beginning.

 

[cdyhybrid]

Then they couldn't do class specific mechanics. 10 really isn't enough when you have 12 classes

Class-specific mechanics kind of goes against their whole "bring the player, not the class/spec" thing they want, though.

Role-specific mechanics can still be a thing.

 

[Apathy]

Class-specific mechanics kind of goes against their whole "bring the player, not the class/spec" thing they want, though.

Role-specific mechanics can still be a thing.

That goes out the window for mythic raids. There they expect you to have specific classes

You can't remove LFR. You can make it more challenging so you might as well be doing flex/normal, but removing it would be terrible marketing to casual players.



And this. Our guild would be 13/13 already if we weren't on a small server and had to take some... Lets say, mediocre players along.

I don't recall where I read it, but they were maybe looking to cut back to 3 ranks of raiding difficulty, getting rid of lfr but making normal be the lfr. You still queue and everything if you want, it's just not a place to afk for loot and they would tone the mechanics to make them a but more challenging than current lfr but not as hard as current normal.

 

[ampere]

Class-specific mechanics kind of goes against their whole "bring the player, not the class/spec" thing they want, though.

Role-specific mechanics can still be a thing.

Sort of, but it's not extreme to want at least 1 of every class. It's extreme to require (wasn't intended though) class stacking like Feral Druids on Heroic Nefarian, but 1 of each is fine IMO.

 

[cdyhybrid]

Sort of, but it's not extreme to want at least 1 of every class. It's extreme to require (wasn't intended though) class stacking like Feral Druids on Heroic Nefarian, but 1 of each is fine IMO.

Yeah, I would agree.

I just generally get less interested in raiding the more people it requires.

Too old to deal with the drama and politics, and less people means less potential for that stuff.

 

[ZenaxPure]

Yeah, I would agree.

I just generally get less interested in raiding the more people it requires.

Too old to deal with the drama and politics, and less people means less potential for that stuff.

I'm with you, went to 10 man in wrath and loved every second of it. Mythic kinda killed my desire for raiding since 20 people doesn't interest me.

At the same time though this is why I am excited for the new dungeon system in Legion, perfect format for me and my friends (most of which can't or don't want to commit to raiding anymore).

 

[B-Dubs]

Yeah, I would agree.

I just generally get less interested in raiding the more people it requires.

Too old to deal with the drama and politics, and less people means less potential for that stuff.

Agreed. More people means more drama and that means less fun.

 

[Tenebrous]

I don't recall where I read it, but they were maybe looking to cut back to 3 ranks of raiding difficulty, getting rid of lfr but making normal be the lfr. You still queue and everything if you want, it's just not a place to afk for loot and they would tone the mechanics to make them a but more challenging than current lfr but not as hard as current normal.

That's kinda what I was saying, but I reckon removing the LFR name would be a disaster for them.

 

[ampere]

Yeah, I would agree.

I just generally get less interested in raiding the more people it requires.

Too old to deal with the drama and politics, and less people means less potential for that stuff.

Fair, there are a lot of people who prefer 10s for those reasons. From a design PoV it makes sense to only do 1 version of the hardest difficulty, but I wonder if they ever revisit multiple sizes etc

The drama is a reason why I'd never try being an officer again. I like being able to distance myself from the guild management stuff

 

[jaundicejuice]

You can't remove LFR. You can make it more challenging so you might as well be doing flex/normal, but removing it would be terrible marketing to casual players.

Speaking as a casual player who started with WoD and doesn't raid, I don't expect just because I bought the game and expansion that I should have access to every bit of content. Just like buying a Dark Souls doesn't entitle me to see the ending, you actually have to get good at the game to see that content.

I would rather join a casual guild and try to progress through normal raids with a fixed group of players and get better at the content than play it through LFR. What's the point of LFR if it isn't teaching you the mechanics so you can get better and play the higher difficulties? Just for the sake of content tourism? Your legendary ring?

 

[diamount]

Speaking as a casual player who started with WoD and doesn't raid, I don't expect just because I bought the game and expansion that I should have access to every bit of content. Just like buying a Dark Souls doesn't entitle me to see the ending, you actually have to get good at the game to see that content.

I would rather join a casual guild and try to progress through normal raids with a fixed group of players and get better at the content than play it through LFR. What's the point of LFR if it isn't teaching you the mechanics so you can get better and play the higher difficulties? Just for the sake of content tourism? Your legendary ring?

For someone who joined WoW with WOd you certainly are using the same old argument people have been using since LFR's inception. Firstly though, comparing a single-player and notoriously difficult game to a WoW is just bonkers - and I'm really struggling to find reasons why you thought it was a good comparison, because it really isn't. You pay a monthly fee for WoW, you don't for a single-player game - not to mention people don't play WoW for the difficulty, they play it for the story, which they don't want to wipe countless times to see the conclusion. Seriously though, Blizzard have said on the record many times that LFR is here to stay, because they don't want their investment being seen by a minority - because despite appearances raiding is still a niche activity.

 

[ZenaxPure]

Seriously though, Blizzard have said on the record many times that LFR is here to stay, because they don't want their investment being seen by a minority - because despite appearances raiding is still a niche activity.

This is really the only thing that matters, Blizz has outright said that LFR is the reason they can justify spending so much time/resources on making large and fancy raids.

It's not really an entitlement issue, it's simple economics, it's a waste of time and cash to make content very little people are going to interact with. The reality is though if Blizzard took away LFR and scaled back raid development and put that time into activities more people do the same people who whine about LFR would be whining about having shitty Dragon Soul quality raids every tier.

 

[Tenebrous]

Speaking as a casual player who started with WoD and doesn't raid, I don't expect just because I bought the game and expansion that I should have access to every bit of content. Just like buying a Dark Souls doesn't entitle me to see the ending, you actually have to get good at the game to see that content.

I would rather join a casual guild and try to progress through normal raids with a fixed group of players and get better at the content than play it through LFR. What's the point of LFR if it isn't teaching you the mechanics so you can get better and play the higher difficulties? Just for the sake of content tourism? Your legendary ring?

I've been through every phase as a WoW player. From that enthusiastic beginner, to seeing my first expansion launch with TBC, raiding hardcore and making it to SWP, raiding casually & still besting normal content (except LK in Wrath), not raiding at all, full on PvP, and now raiding again with mythic raids (and I WILL be 13/13 before the expansion ends).

I'm with you. If LFR didn't exist, and I wasn't raiding, thus leaving content on the table, I'd be alright with that. I mean damn, I never killed a boss in Vanilla Naxx (I got a toon attuned during TBC and went inside for a peak, but that's it). However, people want to see that content, and at this point, I don't see why not. I'm all for giving LFR players tier gear & trinkets - especially now the tier set bonuses are getting more and more ridiculous (compare any Vanilla/TBC/Wrath/Cata tier bonus to T18 (4) set) - They're literally gamechangers now, and might inspire people to get into raiding moreso than treating them like second class citizens.

LFR should definitely be harder, and they should try and incentivise that leap from LFR to normal, but I don't think removing LFR is the solution. It's a key feature at this point in the game, and, for numerous reasons, people do said content.

 

[HarryDemeanor]

For the first time in 11 years of playing this game, I have finally seen Deathcharger's Reins drop.

Too bad it was in a dungeon group while leveling my Tauren Warrior. Lost the roll. Maybe I'll see it again in 11 years.

 

[Data West]

i'ma draygun

 

[EverythingShiny]

Fair, there are a lot of people who prefer 10s for those reasons. From a design PoV it makes sense to only do 1 version of the hardest difficulty, but I wonder if they ever revisit multiple sizes etc

The drama is a reason why I'd never try being an officer again. I like being able to distance myself from the guild management stuff

I just stepped down as an officer in my Alliance guild because it was getting a little ridiculous in terms of the amount of time I was spending on WoW stuff outside of the actual game. I'm much happier just being a raider.

Finally killed Archimonde on Normal tonight and got my 4pc, so I'm pretty happy about that. Going to try to kill him on Heroic tomorrow which should be interesting.

 

[Tenebrous]

i'ma draygun

I was so embarrassed doing that - Especially when the NPC called out my character name.

 

[Peachpies]

It would just cause the same problems that style had, so it wouldn't matter either way.

Which problems?

But would no doubt come with balancing issues unless they tackled every playercount individually, and even then you'll have instances where bringing one less player means you have one less interrupt CD to rotate.

When done properly issues like that would be very few in number and the difference between +/- 1 person would be small enough that few guilds would be doing that on a per fight basis. There are a lot of problems with the flex scaling, especially at the start of tiers, because Blizzard doesn't put much effort into it. They come up with a nice new raid size method that would fix a lot of problems guilds have and then they ignore it and make a new raid size.

Sort of, but it's not extreme to want at least 1 of every class. It's extreme to require (wasn't intended though) class stacking like Feral Druids on Heroic Nefarian, but 1 of each is fine IMO.

Requiring specific classes is bad because it prevents people from playing the class they want to. You shouldn't have to choose between being the class you want to play and being useful to the raid group. When you start requiring specific abilities or class combos people will gravitate towards the classes needed on the hardest fights and if you are trying to play a class that isn't required much it is going to be a lot harder to find a raid spot since x spots are already being taken up by "required" classes. There is a reason they have stopped pushing that line.

Requiring specific classes is also very bad for recruiting because it adds yet another barrier to recruiting and it can even create new recruiting requirements if you need more of class x and you don't have the people to play that class. This also goes back to why a flex difficulty is much better as it makes constant recruiting much less important.

 

[jaundicejuice]

Demonology is a lot of fun, leveling in PVE at least. So much so I want to make it my main spec over Affliction. I guess the spec will lose Demonic Leap in Legion. I love how you can get around the environment with that, especially with the Glyph of the Falling Meteor. It's cheeky, like a warrior.

LFR should definitely be harder, and they should try and incentivise that leap from LFR to normal, but I don't think removing LFR is the solution. It's a key feature at this point in the game, and, for numerous reasons, people do said content.

They should make the LFR version of the raid sort of like the proving ground for the higher difficulties of that raid. Basically a tutorial for the mechanics you'll need to succeed in the higher difficulties, let people experience the content but also learn it.

 

[CarbonatedFalcon]

I dunno, I've always felt that organizing the proper comp is part of the challenge. You just have to make sure the fight isn't overly hard with sub-optimal classes. Have at least 2-3 classes that can fulfill important jobs - Black Hole soaking on Xhul for example.

 

[Shahadan]

They should make the LFR version of the raid sort of like the proving ground for the higher difficulties of that raid. Basically a tutorial for the mechanics you'll need to succeed in the higher difficulties, let people experience the content but also learn it.

Isn't that already the point ? It's just that people ignore the mechanics anyway.

 

[strafer]

i'ma draygun

you can still do that quest?

I can't get the quest to drop. :/

 

[Tenebrous]

you can still do that quest?

I can't get the quest to drop. :/

Go and kill a single mob in Firelands as a staff wielder.

 

[ZenaxPure]

Which problems?

Fight design. The whole point of going with a fixed raid size was so they could have full control over the mechanics for a fight. With 10 and 25 versions they were constantly having to change crap so it could work on 10 man, almost in every fight. If mythic was flex that problem would just be worse, they would have to make sure mechanics changed for 10 people and 30 people. Mythic raiding would instantly become a game of bringing the exact number of people to a fight to make it as easy as possible.

Pretty much defeats the entire purpose of mythic and flex at the same time.

 

[Apathy]

Isn't that already the point ? It's just that people ignore the mechanics anyway.

People ignore the lfr mechanics because there are no consequences. None of the mechanics that would normally kill you do, so there's no incentive to doing them right.

 

[Tenebrous]

Blizzard should make LFR Phantasmal Winds act like its normal/heroic counterpart, just for one week of LFR. It would be hilarious.

 

[Apathy]

Blizzard should make LFR Phantasmal Winds act like its normal/heroic counterpart, just for one week of LFR. It would be hilarious.

I don't know how it is on your side, but in every LFR i've been in, one person grabs the eye, and holds it, and never passes it. I don't even think people know you can do that. That is one of the reasons you can't add mechanics like that to LFR.

 

[Tenebrous]

I don't know how it is on your side, but in every LFR i've been in, one person grabs the eye, and holds it, and never passes it. I don't even think people know you can do that. That is one of the reasons you can't add mechanics like that to LFR.

Solo tanking Ultraxion because the other tank didn't know how HoT worked was always fun. People thought I was a god in LFR for pulling it off.

It worked in 2012, and it can work now.