What purpose does LFR have?

31/07/2012 10:30Posted by Foxierowan

However, LFR does make a person get sick and bored of DS extremely quickly... running it lfr and normal on multiple chars each week has removed alot of peoples passion for raiding DS

If you are running LFR and normal every week on multiple chars, I don't think it should be a surprise you eventually lose the passion for raiding the place... After so much of doing the same, you'll get tired, be it LFR, HC raiding, dailies... anything, really.

31/07/2012 10:30Posted by Foxierowan

Yes i could skip LFR altogether, but the tier bonuses are something most players want and are needed to become competitive.

You get the same tier bonuses (and higher item level) from Normal and Heroic DS.

31/07/2012 10:52Posted by Sihino

and yet, you guys have made running older tiers obsolete, with forcing (by gear i mean) to chain run the latests tier raid.. feels kind of silly, yes?

You can run older tiers whenever you want. Not just for experiencing the content these days, also for the gear for transmogrification (if you like a particular tier set that you're missing), achievements and so on.

31/07/2012 11:18Posted by Volrag

Any game that cannot pose even a slight challenge before completion is pretty messed up development wise.

And even with the 30% debuff on DS, the game poses a challenge (perhaps not to you, but certainly to others).

31/07/2012 11:18Posted by Volrag

appease people who think that paying for a game entitles you to see all the content

And why are they wrong on that thought? On which basis should someone think that he can not see the content even if he's willing to pay the subscription for it?

31/07/2012 13:34Posted by Monkylord

Why not just mail everyone the BiS items and rarest mounts?

Is that what the players are demanding? I'm yet to see someone ask for that (that is not trolling, either).

01/08/2012 11:13Posted by Weasol

Raiders complain they have to raid LFR to get the improvements.

They don't, really. The set bonuses are there in normal and heroic as well, and the item level is even higher.

Actually, in Mists of Pandaria, each new LFR tier will have an increased minimum ilevel requirement, so there'll be a natural progression path as the expansion goes on. This means that players will start running Heroic dungeons in order to gear up to hit the minimum ilevel for the first tier of LFR, then get gear from this first LFR tier to access the second, and so on.

However, it won't be mandatory to go through the LFR system if you're raiding normal or Heroic raids.

And since you'll probably ask, I'll answer pre-emptively, at this moment the developers are not ready to talk about possible 5-man Heroic dungeons with higher requirements that might come in future Mists of Pandaria patches.

I think this is an extremely sensitive topic and I would like to approach it very carefully.
First I think we have to realize that WoW is not just any game, it unleashes very passionate feelings on its players. It’s been a part of everyone’s life for so long that it has acquired a status that sometimes can rival many things in real life, it’s an amazing game, it really is, and you know this, otherwise you wouldn’t be here wasting your precious time discussing about how to improve it.
But you do take that time to help us improve our games, and you deserve to be heard, more so, we really want and need to hear what you have to say, you are the reason we have a community department. One of the biggest advantages of having this level of interaction is that we can act as intermediaries between you and the developers, and this is where your feedback comes in.

We realize that LFR is a controversial feature and you can rest assured that we are paying full attention to the impact it has over our community. Some of us do share a lot of your concerns, but as always, we’re all different players, with different perspectives and objectives, so opinions on the matter will vary greatly.

What I really want to emphasize here is that we really do hear all of you.
As a company we obviously need to have a common vision, planning, strategy, and goal, but understand that individually, most of us play our games just as passionately as you do. We all experience what you experience and this includes developers, game designers and project managers, and most importantly, we all have our own different opinions. It’s from the gathering and discussion of these opinions and the ones from our players that together we can reach a common vision with the common goal of making our games the best that they can possibly be.
Still you must realize that game designers can’t take in all feedback and apply it directly to the game, that’s why they were selected as game designers, they are great at making decisions, and these can be really tough to make sometimes, which is why changes usually cause controversy.
When LFR came out I too had quite a few concerns about it, just like I’m sure many of you had, and obviously, still have to this day.
LFR is still considered a new feature, we’re constantly evaluating its receptivity and its role on filling the gap between casual players and raiding without having it ruin anyone else’s game experience, it’s currently being tweaked for MoP and I’m sure it will continue to be adjusted until devs are completely satisfied with it.

Having said that, I would like give a few updates about LFR and its future in MoP.
We know that currently some guilds will feel that they aren’t maximizing their potential if they don’t run LFR to get particular pieces of gear and tier set bonuses when they’re starting to progress through DS, but for MoP you can expect LFR to provide very little competitive advantage (if any) to those guilds and here’s why:

• We’re delaying LFR by one week, we don’t think there is a real need to delay it further than that. It would be an unnecessary punishment to players not in organized guilds because chances are that the real hardcore guilds out there will be able to clear Mogu'shan Vaults on normal difficulty within the first week of its release, which by the time they will be eligible to run LFR, they will also be eligible to start progressing on Heroic mode.
  So within a couple of weeks, LFR should serve almost no purpose to any hardcore raiding guild.
• We must not forget that there is also another reason why those guilds feel that they’re currently “forced” to run LFR, and that reason is, because they can increase their members' chances of winning items by playing the loot system, which they won’t be able to do anymore in Mists of Pandaria with the changes we’ve introduced to the looting system.

Also here’s a brief plan about how raids will open on the LFR:
- Mogu'shan Vaults will be split into two tiers, and each tier will have three bosses. Both of those tiers will be available one week after the release of the normal raid, and you will have to clear the first tier before being able to queue for the second one.
- Heart of Fear will work in a similar way and will be split into two dungeons for LFR, each with three bosses.
- Terrace of Endless Spring will be one single dungeon queue.