What if: LFR Was Replaced by LFD 2.0

As the game stands how we recognize the LFD to mean a 5 man dungeon usually from the start of the expansion with low starter gear and the LFR to mean a 25 man raid that is now the new standard for the gearing up process.

I often complain about the LFR for various reasons but one of the most prevalent reasons why I no longer run it is because of the people in it.  Maybe some people do not mind a jerk here and there but I've about had as much of these assholes (excuse my language) as I can take.  Even if it is a good group with just a few "go go go" jerks and a few "I am gods gift" morons sprinkled with your regular AFK LFR heroes I just do not want to deal with them any longer.

The LFR has worn out its welcome as far as I am concerned.  Now, with no valor gear the only way to gear alts this coming patch is through the LFR.  So like it or not if I want to have alts at least at a minimal level of gear that I can bring them in to raid once in a while I have to subject myself to the horrible nightmare that is the LFR for gear.  There is no longer any way around it.  I can no longer just get whatever valor gear there is and work with that to get me up there a little until I get into an alt run for the real raid.  Blizzard has damned me to hell and made it so if I want gear I have to burn in the pits of anguish, otherwise known as the LFR.

So it had me thinking, what if there were no LFR but LFD 2.0.

All LFR wings would be 5 man dungeons instead of 25 man raids.  Designed to be done just like dungeons with one tank one healer and three damage dealers.

Lets look at some of the pros and cons as they might be.

Pro's for LFD 2.0:

• 5 man randoms usually have better people when compared to 25 man randoms.
• They would be easier for the masses.
• You could remove raid tier as it is no longer a raid.
• People still get to see the content.
• Premade groups would be easier to assemble.
• Tanks and healers could get baggies.
• They would fit better into the "bite sized" content people like.

Con's for LFR 2.0:

• Unlike LFD you can only loot bosses once a week which could confuse some.
• Some raid mechanics can not work with 5 people.
• Some like to raid and they would lose that "epic" group feeling.

I am sure there are more pros or cons that you can come up with, but what if they completely abandoned the LFR project and went back to using dungeons as the gearing up process.  But in a better way than ever before with updated dungeon gear with each new addition.  Each patch would release a new tier of dungeons that are mini versions of the raid with their gear as the catch up mechanic.

What if the LFR was replaced by LFD 2.0?  Would it replace all the problems that many people perceive the current LFR to have?

Difficulty?

- I often say the LFR is too hard for the masses it is made for.  While bosses go down most groups are filled with people that will never learn anything because the game can not create more difficulty to teach them without making it harder on the few that actually know what they are doing.  So I contend that making it easier is the better idea because the ones that do not want to learn will never learn anyway, so why have any difficulty there in an attempt to teach people that refuse to learn?

As a five man dungeon that becomes less of an issue.  As they will be easier to begin with because of five man design, some of the mechanics that actually cause problems for some, the ones that seem to never learn, would most likely be absent, so they can not screw them up.

Also, with the addition of flex, the argument that LFR can teach people no longer holds water.  While it is true a person that wants to learn to get better can use the LFR as a tool to get better the majority are there for quest items, reputation, gear and/or valor.  They are not there to get better.  That is now the place of flex, where you will be with a group that might actually teach you instead of a bunch of random people that all care only about themselves.

Wait time?

- Have you ever waited in queue for over an hour?  I have plenty of times.  I remember when the LFR first came out and the tanks actually had a wait time.  Myself and a tank buddy entered the queue together, one hour and 50 minutes later I said to him, we should be done with two LFRs already, not waiting for the first one, and I gave up and logged off.  It was also the last time I ever queued up as a tank with just another tank with me.  Now I will not tank the LFR unless there is a mostly full guild group there.

People only have a certain amount of time to play.  Even someone like myself who does play often I only have a certain amount of time to play.  It is partly why I no longer run the LFR.  I'll log on with the intention of doing one or two with an alt and do some auction house listings, some pet battle dailies, some rare hunting and maybe another quest or two.  If my queue does not pop, guess what?  I don't do the LFR.  I do not have an unlimited amount of time to sit around and wait.

Maybe, just maybe, if I could be assured a good group with decent people that will move at a fair pace I would wait it out but more often than not I will queue into a group were one of the tanks drop as soon as they zone in and after waiting 50 minutes I am now waiting again.  No thank you.

One of the worst parts of the LFR is the fact there is such a brutal wait time.  Would having five man versions of them alleviate that?  I think there is a possible chance of that actually happening, if the bribe bags are used correctly.

Being you can only get loot from LFD 2.0 once a week what real reason is there for a tank to queue more than once?  The baggies.  Make the baggies have a chance to drop a piece of loot that comes from that wing.  So while you can only get loot once a week, you can grind out as a tank to get a second piece or even a third or forth, if you are willing to put in the effort.  That is of course along with the goodies they already have a chance to get from baggies.

This would mean that, if done correctly, you have all but removed the wait time from the LFR by making them LFD 2.0.  My alt would never get through its first pet battle daily before the queue popped up and I don't know about you but if queue was that fast I would be much more likely to use the LFR (LFD 2.0) to gear my alts.  The excessive wait times of the LFR would not translate to the LFD 2.0.  I might even tank them if they were 5 man because it would remove the biggest reason I do not tank the LFR, the fact the other tank 99 out of 100 times is a complete jerk in one way or another.  If they even respond to you when you ask them if they want to take the boss first.

Community?

- I believe the 25 mans give the community a bad name.  No really.  Just look at some of the groups and the people that are in them.  I am not talking just the "go go go" jerks.  I am talking the whole bunch, the entire collection of the great unwashed, the undesirables.

Making groups has always been the best way to build community and just look at the success of the heroic scenarios.  I have not seen trade more active on my tiny server since the days of ICC with people looking for groups.  Looking for tanks or healers.  Admittedly I do not understand why anyone would need a tank or a healer for a heroic scenario but in lesser gear they could surely be helpful.  I've just gotten so used to going in my heroic scenarios with my 3 hunter team.  We rip through them like a fat kid at a cake shop.  We leave nothing behind and finish the stuff in record time.  Love capping valor in an hour.  But that is another story all together.

Making a group of 3 or 4 and getting the 1 or 2 you need from the random system is a lot easier than making a group for the LFR.  Heck, even getting all 5 for a dungeon is a lot easier than getting 25 for the LFR.  Even more so late in a patch like now.  If I can find even 3 or 4 people willing to do the LFR it is a miracle and my guild is a guild filled with alt-a-holics that all have characters that need stuff from the LFR but they just will not do it.  They would rather leave their alts under geared than to subject themselves to the hell that is the LFR and I don't blame them.

But with smaller groups like LFD 2.0 would bring, saying we have 4 and just need one more, the likelihood of getting that guild person to join us is better.  As is so much better I might as well just call it a sure thing.  We just need one for a 2.0 dungeon.  Me, me, me, I can see it already.  Full guild group.  I am in.

Whether it be making guild groups or trade groups, smaller groups mean the likelihood of more community and more people talking to each other to make said groups.  This is good for the game.

Toxic behavior?

- I would be hard pressed to believe there is any worse part of the LFR than the toxic behavior that seems to run rampant in them.  I could not even repeat some of the things I have heard in those groups or I would have to label this blog as adults only and it would still most likely offend someone that reads it.

Large groups bring out the worst in people.  As an old saying goes, a person is smart, people are stupid.  That is shown in a perfect example with the LFR.  I have seen people that were normally decent people get caught up in raid conversations that were bile being thrown back and forth and why is that?  Because they can and because blizzard does nothing about this sort of toxic behavior.

Before the LFR was ever introduced I made a post expressing my concerns on what could go wrong with it.  One of them was this, the toxic behavior thing.  I said, basically, you can not put 25 random people together and ask them to act civil to one another when there are no penalties for them becoming jerks.  Chalk another one up for the elf.  Sometimes it sucks being right.

LFD 2.0 would still have the chance of grabbing a jerk but that jerk would be less likely to act up without a huge captive audience.  9 times out of 10 a jerk in a five man the jerk will either find the fast path out with a boot to the ass or they will just shut the hell up and do their job because it will all be over in 15 minutes.

LFR 2.0 offers 2 things the LFR does not.  Smaller groups, were that one person has less of an audience to back him up and a quick run.  Most of the worst stuff in the LFR starts happening when people have waited for an hour to get in or waited for an hour while in there because tanks dropped or because there were wipes, or because there were any delays.  Smaller groups and quicker content means the chance of being exposed to toxic behavior is limited a great deal.  Not eliminated by any means, but limited a great deal.  For that one reason alone I would love to see the LFR wings turned into 5 mans.

End game?

The end game is different for everyone despite how hard blizzard is trying to push everyone into raiding, even more so the next patch with no valor gear.  For me my end game is normal modes, if I finish them I am happy.  Some of my readers are in the same boat as me with normal mode being our end game.  Some of my readers finish heroic modes, some of them fishing LFR and some of them never even enter LFR.  I even have a few readers that do not even do dungeons even if they have multiple 90s.  The end game is different for everyone.

Maybe it is time that blizzard starts to understand that and stops trying to push everyone into raiding.  LFD 2.0 would open the doors for a great many players where dungeons fit their play style, play time, and skill or dedication level much more appropriately.

With the addition of flex we will, hopefully, see a lot more pugging going on, so those former raiders or people that want to raid but play on off hours, could very well be served with having flex to run.  There is no longer a need for the LFR, at least not as much as there used to be.  But there is a huge open space for the vast majority of the players that do not want to raid that have absolutely nothing to do and no way to progress their character at all.  LFD 2.0 would allow them that.

Blizzard needs to understand that forcing people into content they do not like to do is bad for the game.  I was forced to PvP for my PvE legendary quest line.  I do not like to PvP and did not want to PvP.  I did it however because it was winning just two battlegrounds and once I was done with it I was done with it.  However, if I were forced to continually PvP to get my PvE gear I would quit the game so fast that the sound of me uninstalling the game would make a sonic boom.

This is exactly the place the vast majority of the player base is in.  They are not raiders, they do not want to raid, but they feel forced to raid if they ever want to feel any level of personal progression.  Dungeons 2.0 would be much more accessible to the masses and fit the type of bite sized quick and easy content they enjoy. 

Perhaps, to some small extent at least, the reason for so many lost subs is because blizzard is forgetting that the majority do not want to do the content blizzard is trying to force them into, just as much as I would not like to have to PvP all the time to get my PvE gear.

Let people have their end game.  Because now with no valor gear coming next patch, the end game for anyone that does not raid at all is going to be a year old soon.  Think about it.  If you do not raid, never raided and never had any intention to raid, your gearing process ended when the expansion came out.  463s from dungeons, 489s and 496s from valor and reputation.  Oh, and 1 522, isn't that nice.

They need to add something for those people that do not raid and turning the failed experiment of the LFR into LFD 2.0 might just give some of them something.

What if all wings of the LFR were changed into 5 man dungeons that you could only get loot from once a week called LFD 2.0?

What if indeed.  I think it would be a fantastic change for the game.