LFR loot restriction, why so selfish.

Our very own “Crabby” recently tweeted (#1 #2) about loot options in Flexible Raids. Just in case some of you missed it, we’re considering the possibility of having certain pieces of loot drop only in Flexible, Normal and Heroic raids.

We know that Tier and Legendary items are both very appealing to all types of raiders, but removing either of those from LFR at this point in time would tamper with the consistency of this expansion, there are a lot of players that rely solely on LFR to get those items and they are expecting LFR to continue to have the same sort of philosophy and design until at least the end of the expansion. Drastic and unexpected changes that impact negatively on parts of the player base is something we should try to avoid as much as possible.

So, for now, instead of making tier pieces exclusive to F/N/H raids, we’re considering the possibility of giving exclusivity to F/N/H on certain valuable pieces that don’t belong to any Tier. We know this isn’t exactly what some of you have been asking for, and that is doesn’t solve the issue of players going into LFR for a chance to get a piece of Tier, but it does provide more value and exclusivity/prestige to raids other than LFR without undermining players that have been relying exclusively on LFR as their main endgame progression experience since the start of the expansion.

I’d also like to point out that LFR content has always been staggered, and FR follows that same pattern but at an accelerated pace; that will probably make it less likely for raiders to run LFR in search for Tier drops, unless of course, they still prefer the accessibility of LFR over Flexible raids. I know that being time efficient is what drives many players, and having tier bonuses at the cost of a lower ilvl might still look like a better option than having to organize a Flexible raid. In the end we like to give players more options, and despite what some might say, I don’t think they will be overwhelming with the addition of Flexible Raids.

May I ask what the reason is for the stagger in Flexi? Makes sense in LFR, but not so much for Flexi imo!

You didn't exactly say the reason for flexi, only LFR, but maybe its one and the same?

Same reason as LFR I would say. We want to make a distinction between Normal and Heroic from the rest, players shouldn’t feel very compelled to go into LFR or even FR if they’re into more serious raiding, it’s still ok if there’s some appeal to them just as long as it doesn’t feel absolutely mandatory, especially a few weeks after LFR has opened.

I don’t like to generalize that much and I think that sometimes I inadvertently fall into the trap of extreme generalization. What I mean is, not all raiders are the same. There’s players raiding normal at a very slow pace, others that clear content as fast as it opens, so I can’t really say FR or LFR will be appealing to normal or heroic raiders, I can only imagine that guilds with slower progress will probably go into FR and LFR to help with their progression much more often than a guild that clears all normal content in a week, so I suppose we can say that FR and LFR shouldn’t be very appealing to anyone at a moderate to fast progression rate, but it’s ok if others that are struggling a bit more or those that can’t commit to guild raiding schedules for more than 1 or 2 days a week feel more inclined to try FR and LFR.