LFR Questions Revisited

Today I would like to revisit a post I made on September 22nd, 2011, LFR Questions and see if we can answer some of those questions and concerns I raised back then before the looking for raid came out.

The question asked then:  Will LFR kill LFD off?

I originally said that I believe it would kill off, for the most part, the looking for dungeon because it was a better option.  I was half right.  I was wrong in the fact that it was a better option.  Many of the reasons I stated it would be better for ended up not being so.  I was right however in the assessment that it would kill off LFD to a good extent.

It seems common place now to use craftables, PvP gear, BoEs from the market and valor BoEs when you get a new character hitting 85 and effectively skip all the dungeons.  Or, at the least, skip the original heroics, the zul heroics and get into the HoTs until you can finish the quests for a few pieces or get lucky with a few drops.  Then you just do looking for raid until you are geared and ready to raid.

So, to many, the looking for raid did indeed kill of the necessity of the running dungeons.  It looks like I was half right there.  I was only half right because people like me, the actual raiders, abandoned LFR unless we were with a lot of guild mates and if we need valor we just do dungeons because we know we can get right into the real raid and the stress of LFR is not worth the reward of gear we are going to replace in one run of the real raid anyway when it was only minimally better than HoT stuff.

The question asked then: How will loot be handled?

I was worried about how loot will be handled and it looks like I had a good reason to be worried.  The first time I ran it two bows dropped and two rogues won them.  I then needed to run it for well over 20 weeks before I ever saw a bow drop again.  The rogues should have never been able to roll on them.  I might not have won them but some hunter should have, not a rogue.

They later addressed that adding classes to certain items but that did not fix the problem completely.  A shaman healer or holy paladin could not roll need on the offhand with spirit even if they were capable of equipping it.  The makers decided that they should only be using shields.  What is the difference between a shield and an offhand?  The armor.  Lets face it, the armor does not matter to a healer, or at least it shouldn't.  This is only one example of how their fix, fixed only part of the problems.

Then there is the DPS label giving the roll bonus to boomkins on agility leather.  Giving elemental shaman the roll bonus on agility mail.  Giving plate wearers the roll bonus on intellect damage dealing trinkets.  Wow, my worries were 100% correct.  The loot system was, and remains, and will continue to be in mists, a total pice of crap.

The question asked then:  Bad Players and Kick Options?

I was right and wrong again here.  I asked for less kick restrictions because there would be a need to kick more people because people could not be carried through mechanics and would need to be removed if there was any chance of success. 

I was wrong on so many levels there.  People not going out on ultraxion will show you that one.  I've had the amazing group here and there were nearly everyone went out, but usually it is the other way around and most don't.  I said, we needed to kick more people because we would not be able to carry them and I was wrong.  Dead wrong.  We carry people all the time, like it or not.  And sadly those are the people that always seem to win the loot.

You are indeed capable of carrying people and everyone seems to want you to carry them.  So while I was wrong about the why, I was right about us needing to kick people more.  If anything I think this is the reason the looking for raid has become so horrible.  There are too many players looking to get carried, the don't know how to play at all, the griefers, or the just flat out make life hell on everyone people. 

I still do not kick people, I leave that to others to deal with but if I were to kick everyone I ever saw that actually deserved it, we would be 8 manning most of these 25 mans.  Yeap, that is my assessment of looking for raid.  On average 17 of the 25 players should not even be there in the average group.

The question asked then:  Why No 10 player option?

It was answered.  It was a horrible answer.  Because they wanted to do 25s because it is easier to deal with people making mistakes in 25 mans as it is not as tight as a 10 man and it will help with the DPS queue times.  Okay, I buy both those ideas.  It did help with the DPS queue times and as anyone that raids knows 25 man raids are always much easier than 10 mans.  Always have been and always will be.

But while both those statements are true they still never gave us a reason why there is no 10 man.  Just because 25 man makes more sense doesn't mean there should not be a 10 man.  PvPing in PvP gear makes more sense but they let people do it in PvE gear.  PvEing in PvE gear makes more sense but they let people do it in PvP gear.  So even if 25 mans make more sense, we should still have a 10 man option.

If anything, I think a 10 man option would really fix a great deal of the looking for raid problems.  Most guilds are running 10 mans now and they will fill their own 10 mans and the world will be good because we will not need to deal with the 17 out of 25 players being horrible in a random world.

Perhaps that is why they do not do it.  If they made a 10 man version the only people in the 25 man version would be people looking to get carried and a group of 25 people all looking at the other person to do all the work would never get anywhere.

That is the true reason there is no 10 man.  They want those 10 good people to carry those 15 bad people and if we could do it on our own, we would not be there to carry them.

Now lets hear blizzard tell us that and try something they have absolutely no experience in, telling the truth.

The question asked then: Who Decides Who the Raid Leader is?

Well, we figured that one out.  No one decides, it is completely random.  I've been in groups where people got leader and said it was their first time in there.  People that had never raided in once in their life got leader.  Oddly enough, on all the characters I ran, none of them got leader except one, my shaman and my shaman got it near every time she was in there.  I think it is completely random and I think that is completely wrong.

They never developed a good way to decided leader and quite honestly, they never will.  The reason for that is, even if you choose the best person to lead it doesn't mean they want to lead.  Another reason is, no one listens to the leader.  I've seen many groups where someone tried to be the leader and no one listened to them or even worse, abused them for everything they said.

If someone would ask for someone to explain the fight, the leader might be a nice enough person to do so or they could insult them.  It was a coin flip really.  They never even made an attempt to try and put the people in a leadership position that should be.  My concerns were surely justified.

The question asked then: What about communication?

Seems like I had another right and wrong one.  I was right that no one would communicate or even try to do so effectively.  I was wrong in thinking that it was needed.  Quite honestly I think the only time I ever wanted to communicate in there was when I was tanking and we were on ultraxion so we could get the tanking switch down.  But the first time I tanked it and the OT was a total moron and kept dying and we ran out of resurrections and I solo tanked it I never worried after that.  From that point on when I would go in, I solo tanked everything because there was really no need to communicate.

However, the lack of ability to communicate was horrible, if you wanted to.  You could not even whisper people sometimes if they were on a server with two names like Khaz Modan.  It just would not whisper them.  You could try clicking on their name, you could try clicking on their image.  Doesn't make a difference, you can not whisper them thanks to bad coding.

Thanks blizzard, not only do you make something without a way to communicate but the one way we did have to communicate, text, we couldn't do sometimes.   At least the need to communicate was not as high as I expected it would be.

The question asked then: Role Checks?

Looks like this one got answered easier then it would have been if the raid had more difficulty.  They just used one set up of two tanks, six healers and the rest damage dealers.

My concerns were that not everyone does things the same and it seems my concerns were for nothing.  They made it so easy that a simple breakdown would work no matter what.  I guess I missed on this one big time, there was no need to worry.

However, you could call this a right and wrong one as well.  Because while it was designed for one build to beat all, there were tanks DPSing because the damage dealer queue was shorter.  There were damage dealers disguised as healers because the healer queue was shorter.

So the role check for breakdown was wrong, but the role check worries were right in a way.  Too many people in the wrong roles, the role check was not handled correctly.

The question asked then:  What About Gear Requirements?

I went out on a limb on this one and said I believed there would be a gear requirement.  I was right, but I'll admit I was not really taking any chances, it was a given they would do that.

I did ask if they would make the gear requirements a little more solid with this however, and I was worried about it.  Looks like I was dead on here as well.  They did not change it to make sure that it was gear equipped.  They did not change it to make sure it was gear appropriate for your spec.  They did not change it to make sure you were not using PvP gear.  They did not do anything they should have done.

If the gear requirements for heroic had taught them anything, they should have fixed all those problems with looking for raid but instead of fixing them they decided to play ignorant.  If they pretend like they do not know there is a problem they don't have to fix it.  Head in the sand syndrome at its finest.  Good going blizzard.  Ignore the problems as obvious as the nose on  your face, maybe we won't notice.

The question asked then:  DBMs Anyone?

I wondered if it would be required or if at the very least they would add something themselves.  I can see them not requiring an outside addon but they could have at least made it more user friendly for the non-raider that went in there.  They didn't.

There was no check to make sure someone was capable of doing the content at the minimum of having an addon to help them.  They did not give any additional in game information that someone without DBMs would need or that a non-raider would need.

They just said screw it, let them figure it out, and that is a horrible way to do things in a system that has no real gear requirements, no real communication, no real leadership and no real way of teaching people.

They just said, here is the sea, jump in, don't worry about all those shark fins you see, they won't hurt you.  Damn blizzard, if you really wanted to prove you do not give a shit about your players you sure did so here.  Nothing what so ever to make sure the people in the raid had any clue how to do it.

The new question we ask now:  Will It Get Worse?

I had such high hopes for it even if I did have a lot of worries or questions but I have no hope now.  It will only get worse as blizzard continues to try to push everyone into the barn like cattle.  There is a reason people did not raid before looking for raid and it is because they are not raiders.  If they wanted to be raiders there are several thousand guilds out there at all levels of progression, even from the starting point of never having raided before.  That is where people that want to raid used to go to learn. 

Looking for raid serves no purpose in the game and should be removed.  It's only use to to give non raiders the belief they are raiders and that is wrong.  You would not tell an elephant they can fly so stop telling non-raiders they can raid.

Trust me when I say this blizzard.  If someone wants to raid, they will raid.  They will find a guild that suits them.  They will learn how to play their class.  They will learn how to work as a team. They don't need you to make looking for raid into this horrible experience it is in an effort to turn everyone into a raider.