So patch 4.3 dropped about 4 weeks ago and I’ve been mucking around with my guild in the raid two nights a week. On off-nights some of us get together and step into LFR, hoping that our unity and skill can power us through what is admittedly the most painful experience I’ve had since Ret Paladins got buffed in the Pre-Wrath patch and farmed us in BGs.
I’ve stepped into LFR in every role (tanking on Raz, healing on Gabby,and DPSing on Azzy) and each time a little part of me dies inside. I’ve encountered good players, bad players, and everything in between. I’ve referred to LFR as “Looking for Retards” and “Looking for Regrets,” and sadly, they are both still spot on. Let’s discuss why:
You can lead a horse to water…
…but you can’t force them to drink. Welcome to LFR:
- 1/3 of your raid will have a clue
- 1/3 of your raid can’t bother to read mechanics and then dies on everything
- 1/3 of your raid thinks they know what’s going on but in reality they are as lost as the previous 1/3
You have a 50/50 chance of your tanks:
- Actually knowing how to tank
- Having a health pool that isn’t comparable to a plate healer
- Actually knowing the fight
Your goal is to find a tank who has at least 1 of the above skills and has the ability to learn. If you can find a tank with all 3 qualities, sacrifice something to the gods for giving you a lucky day.
You hope that your healers:
- Actually have healing spells bound to keys
- Actually heal the raid and not themselves full time
- Do more than 4000 HPS overall
- Are comprised of at least 3 who will do 80% of the healing, hopefully doing it well enough to carry the rest of the heal team
Your only prayers regarding your DPS team:
- Please out-DPS the tanks
- Please do more than 7K DPS based on the ilvl required to get into the raid
- Can understand simple directions
Sadly, I have experienced each and every one of the things listed above in LFR. I have carried players who can’t out DPS a tank to watch them win tier tokens, or the people who can’t avoid standing in something or attack the right target walk away with loot from Deathwing.
LFR does a great job of allowing people to experience the content, but it rewards mediocrity and asshole behavior.
My Raiding Hang Up
I’m old-school. I won’t lie. I may not have raided in Vanilla, but I kept up a 6-day a week raid schedule through BC only to watch 25s also be opened to 10s teams and more casual play.
I watched people get emo if a boss didn’t die in the first night of attempts. I watched people rage quit if a boss didn’t die in a week of attempts. Yea, I will get frustrated if something won’t die, but I spent a month (if not more) of working on Vashj 3 nights a week before she died. A week is a farking joke to me. Kills usually are delayed because people are perpetuating stupid mistakes, lacking raid awareness or communication skills, or are just downright bad. I benched people for this in BC. I was ruthless in my pursuit of kills, but people were always aware as to why their slot was negated–my team isn’t here to carry you–devote the time to improve your gear, your attitude, and your abilities, and then come talk to me again.
Raiding is business to me, plain and simple. If I see you fuck up repeatedly, I will call you out. I’m aggressive. I’m an asshole. I won’t deny this in the least. I raid to win and to succeed. Outside of raiding, WoW is fun. But in a raid? I’m going to be sometimes coldly professional. The shorter my responses are? The more pissed I am. I’m here for 3 or more hours, don’t waste my time and I won’t waste yours.
There were nights in BC that I would have benched myself because I fucked up. The challenge was that we only ran 2 hunters, and we both needed to be there with Misdirects. In Wrath I would have benched myself when I was tired, but I wasn’t RL and my GM wouldn’t have any of it. In Cata, well, sometimes it’s hard to bench one of the tanks when you only have 2. I’d like to say that I’m a thousand times better as a tank than a healer (usually), so there are nights (looking at you Heroic Alys) where I would have preferred to have been benched when I was performing badly in the healing department.
In a normal raid set, this made sense. You were a good player and thus you got to reap the rewards of your effort. Your dedication to developing yourself to be a dependable raider was highlighted by the shiny epics you earned. The raid finder just gives you the opportunity to go into Dragon Soul, be as good or as bad as you want, and still have an equal chance to roll against everyone else in the raid, no matter if they were better or worse than you were. We’re at the point where we’re now rewarding mediocrity (and in the process leaving out/screwing over the people who DO play their class well but don’t have the time for a dedicated raid team) with shiny, abeit lower ilvl (but who the hell really cares honestly), epics.
Why I LFR
In all honesty, I LFR for the same reason that a guild like Paragon did it. I want to grab pieces that will allow me to perform better for my raid team. Whether or not they are tiny upgrades, there are tier set bonuses and more gem sockets in play, things that I want so that I can push more heals or take more hits. I’m sure there are many raiders who do the same. In fact, until last night, my first pieces of tier on Raz came from LFR. My priest, who I will never raid on as a main, has 2 pieces, and amazingly, my DK picked up 3 on Monday before server resets. I’d like to say that I play each of those classes well in the role I play them in, so I am thrilled to be able to pick up pieces for my effort.
For some, LFR is the only chance they will have at seeing the content, and honestly, I can’t fault them for that. They pay just as much as I do to play this game, and they should have the chance to see all the content that is made.
But that doesn’t mean…
I like grouping with them. The good players, the players who can’t devote the time but stay current on their class and know how to use their abilities, sign me right up. I’m more than willing to explain a fight, to help someone if they want to be helped. This has always been my theory in LFD. I’m not expecting you to out-DPS me in normal heroics. I know that I out-gear you, and I honestly don’t mind carrying you and getting you some loot. This is why I never have an issue tanking for guildies’ alts. It’s something I can do for them and I hope that I get the same back in return.
I had the world’s worst shadow priest in one of my entry level heroics a couple weeks ago. Instead of demeaning him or kicking him from the group, I kept him for the next 3 runs I did. Why? Why not? I needed nothing through there, he wasn’t standing in fire or being an asshole in /p. So he stayed. The jackasses? Don’t worry, I have a /votekick lined up and waiting for you.
But the bad players? There’s a reason I’m in a guild and I run stuff in guild groups. It’s to avoid these players. You know, the ones who stand in fire, the ones who talk back, the ones who wait for a rez while everyone runs back. The players who are only there to grief the rest of the group.
Unfortunately, LFR dumps those good players who want to see the content in with the bad players who have no other plans but to make 24 other people’s lives miserable.
Improving LFR to Improve the Player
Why reward mediocrity? We see it today in the rearing of children–everyone has to be a winner. Everyone needs a participation ribbon. In my mind, it devalues the achievements of others who put forth the effort to be the best at what they do.
I know that Blizzard has admitted that there are some fallacies with the current configuration of LFR and I know that they are trying to improve it. So far they’ve set restrictions on some of the items (though if I recall correctly there were some BiS type items that now some classes can’t get out of LFR because it wasn’t locked to their class–I think it was a weapons and warriors thing), and have stated that they want it to be even more specific, as in, a Ret Paladin can’t roll and win a 1H sword off Deathwing (seen it happen).
The first step is admitting that you have a problem, and Blizzard has done that–and I applaud them for their honesty in saying that the design of LFR is a work-in-progress. But what are other ways we can improve it?
Setting a Performance Check
Right now, in order to get into LFR, you need to have an ilvl of at least 372. We don’t care if it’s equipped, we don’t care if it’s even your armor type, we don’t care if it’s PvP gear. If you have an overall ilvl of 372, you can go play in LFR. So we have this nebulous “gear check.” There’s so many ways to game the system, that people forget why it’s in place.
Only once have I had an LFR where every single DPS was above me as a tank. Half the DPS were guild mates, and the other have were quality PuGgers that we picked up in the LFR system. I’ve seen DPS as low as 7K, and I’ve seen them win loot over someone who did 30K. Does this frustrate me? Hell yes it does. There’s 2 sides to the coin though; with the loot win, could the 7K DPS improve themselves to be a valuable contributor to the raid? Or do you reward the person who has a solid grasp of their class and is basically carrying other members of the raid? I can see both sides of it. On Raz, I feel like I’m carrying because I know the correct way to handle the boss mechanics; I go in and deliver a smooth run. On my priest, I feel like I deserve the tokens and loot because it will make me a better player (Gabby’s gear was never great until this Tier, and it still needs work, but I do usually try to top the absorbs meter in LFR)–I’m not a bad healer, I just don’t have the output because I don’t have the gear to push the numbers to be as respectable as I’d like.
I’d love to see a DPS/HPS check. Blizzard has all the data from our combat logs. They know what the expected output of a class is, and if it needs to be buffed or nerfed. What if they set a range with a high and a low and an average expectation? In order to roll on loot, you need to fall between the two points. This would require players to better themselves in order to benefit from LFR–improving themselves helps to improve the overall raid experience, making them a better team player and more willing to not AFK and be carried.
Same for healing, though I know that some people will do meter padding just to up their chances for loot. Healing will always be a sort of gray area, so I’m not quite sure how I’d handle it–I’d love to hear suggestions though!
Performance Based Loot Weights
When bonuses roll around in my company, we are weighed and measured against everyone else in our role. Our performance weights for the year versus our coworkers is what sets our bonus ranking. The process is called “Weighting and Ranking.” The better you do, the higher chance you are to get rewarded. The best contributors walk away with a 1.5 modifier on the company bonus amount, which nets them some additional cash for their effort. What it the same thing was in play in LFR? If you fall within the DPS/HPS scale, you get a better chance at loot? If you hit the median expected for your class, your role maintains the +100 modifier. But if you are close to top, you get a +150 modifier or something. And this is an adjusting scale–you don’t want to pass a lot of loot to someone in all Heroic Firelands gear, or maybe even in some Heroic Dragon Soul gear! Percentile based roll modifiers could be an interesting mechanic, though probably more of a headache to code than it’s worth.
Roll Decay
My first weeks in LFR were plagued with people winning multiple tokens in one run. And let me say, I was really annoyed when 2 healing trinkets dropped off one boss and went to the same damn player. And then last week, I got lucky. I took my DK in for the first 4 bosses and picked up 3 Tier tokens and a BiS waist for him. Someone commented after we finished up Hagara, “Wait, did Azrael get 3 Tier tokens this run?!?” And honestly? I was rejoicing. I said in Mumble to guildies, “Well, I earned these.” And in some ways, I did. I maintained #4 on the Damage Done list for the entire raid. But then I thought back to the argument that I had made on Twitter early in 4.3: Once you win a token, your roll should be halved for any other class token that drops for you that run. If that was the case, I probably wouldn’t have made out like a bandit like I did on Azzy. Do I think it’s fair? Yes and no. I look at my performance (this was the run with the 7K DPS shadow priest) and say “I kicked ass and I’ve earned these tokens,” but how many other good performers lost out to me? RNG is a finicky mistress indeed.
Part of me thinks that this could be addressed with the performance modifiers I noted above, but I’m still unsure. One person shouldn’t walk away from LFR with 4 pieces of loot in 4 bosses, but there’s got to be a way to spread the wealth.
In Closing…
There needs to be a way to allow people who want to see the content on their own time, without a raid team, if they so choose. There needs to be a better way to police the ever growing list of griefers who are entering the LFR system specifically to mess with players. There needs to be a way to reward those who put forth effort. The old saying of “It’s my $15, I can play how I want!” can be easily refuted (in my mind) with the response of “Well, it’s the raid’s $360 so STFU and L2Play.” For progression, I have a raid team to run with. For my alts, I have LFR. I try to be a contributor not a hindrance.
I think LFR is a good concept, but it definitely needs work. I implore the WoW community to come up with creative ideas and share them with Blizzard so together, we can provide feedback from all different play styles to make the tool something we don’t think twice about using!
UPDATE: By the time I got around to publishing this, I’ve picked up 5 pieces of Tier on Raz in LFR: 2 pieces for Holy, and 3 pieces for Prot. I now run a 4pc Prot set and a 2pc Holy set for raids.
Guarded by the Light 
The only downside to output-based bonuses is someone is always going to be at the top, and someone’s always going to be at the bottom, whether or not they’re fantastic. I can be within 500 DPS of the top but still be several /hundred/ thousand damage below them in these raids. For my class, I can be doing fantastic, but the people with better gear or are FOTM or whatever the new term is for those who are painfully ahead of even other good players, will always, /always/ vaccuum up all the loot in this situation. Their current gear might not be relevant. If I’m side by side running a destro lock to A fire mage, as a random example, and both are excellent at their class that fire mage is going to get the loot, not the destro lock.
How would you weigh a tank being a worthwhile contributor? Taking less damage overall? (What if they’re the OT?) Or healers? Highest HPS, least overheal?
It’s a fine line definitely. I always watch Damage outputs over DPS numbers in any of my raids. I think the tool will need to take into account current gearing–I expect that someone sporting Heroic DS gear to do better numbers than someone who is just squeaking in at the 372 mark. The scales that I mentioned need to keep that in mind–output of a H. DS geared raider is going to be higher, but is it within the percentile mark of expected numbers for the gear that player is wearing? As in, is he performing at the 45th percentile or at the 95th percentile?
Scalable, I don’t know. Honestly, it probably isn’t. There’s so many things that need to be taken into consideration for something like this to work. I’m perpetually arguing with people at work about a solution not being scalable, and deep down, I feel that that’s the case with something like this.
Regarding the evaluation of tanks and healers, I really haven’t the faintest. Healers I could say overheal review, but that becomes a challenge with LFR. In my raid, I know which healers are going to be on the ball with their heals–I know that they are watching those little bars and healing as soon as they see a dip. I’m used to their play style. In LFR? Not so much–you’ve got 6 healers who are dumped together without much communication established. When I go into LFR, I don’t talk to the other healers at all. I just go in and heal–sometimes it’s the tanks, sometimes it’s the raid–it’s truly dependent on how I’m feeling when I zone in.https://wowmiri.wordpress.com/wp-admin/edit-comments.php#comments-form
It’s definitely a gray area, and since there’s not much in WoW to give you guidance to improve your play or learn your class, it’s problematic to ask something of players who may have never heard of anything like EJ or Maintankadin or any of the class specific websites. Is there a chance to educate the playerbase within the game? I think so! LFR isn’t the place to do it, but maybe it will spotlight some of the other issues within WoW and it’s learning curve 🙂
I like to think that I’m a pretty competent hunter. I keep on the Elitist Jerks articles, read the WoW Insider weekly hunter column, and check out the featured articles on WoW Hunters Hall. During the weekend, I’m messing around with Female Dwarf and Ask Mr. Robot, trying to up my DPS in some way or to plan out my gearing. I practice my rotation on a target dummy constantly while I’m waiting in a queue. I have every single pet buff/debuff covered. I have all the necessary addons as well for raiding. Sadly, my computer is the only things that’s stopping me from joining my guild in their runs. Luckily, since it’s winter break, I’m upgrading my computer. I also got a Razer Naga for Christmas, allowing me to improve my reflexes as I don’t have to bind as many abilities using modifiers. I also plan to get some more addons (mainly for PvP) as I’ve been meaning to for a while now but was too concentrated on just valor capping during the week to have time to setup a multitude of addons. Hopefully I’ll be able to gear myself up using LFR once the break ends and I have everything set up. Then I’ll be able to join my guild in their runs!
LFR is really unfriendly on some fights to PCs. One thing I’ve found is that Recount is the main issue (yet Skada operates fine)–there’s so much healing going out on some fights (Skittles on occasion and ALWAYS Ultraxion) that your PC slows down like molasses. Even my PC build has issues with the fight, and I’ve got a pretty solid build (build was to handle multiboxing).
Sounds like you spend a good amount of time practicing, which is great! I honestly rarely think to hit on a dummy and instead just derp around when I’m waiting on queues.
I tried to use my work laptop in LFR this last week while on vacation and the first try at LFR was absolutely horrible. Lowest settings and I was still only getting 3fps. Then, I poked around and I changed from Directx9 to Directx 11 and that MADE ALL THE DIFFERENCE. I played LFR again for the last set of bosses and it was easily playable.
So try tweeking your settings and see if you can get better performance.
I like these ideas, but the DPS/HPS weighted system scares me on an epic level.
To use my own experience as an example.
Jumped into LFR with my Mage. On Madness of Deathwing, I came in dead last on dps (above only the tanks/healers). This was consistent amongst the 4 wipes that occurred on this part. However, I was the only one – outside the tanks – who was switching targets correctly throughout the fight. The top dps? A rogue who would not leave the arm/wing tentacle once he was on that ledge. Who was the better player in that scenario? The one with the raid awareness or the one who mindlessly unleashed on 1 thing?
The main tank actually told the other dps to watch me since I switched almost immediately whenever the corrupted tentacles and elementium bolts appeared, and ended up calling for a boot of the rogue who was #1 in damage. Obviously, not every situation is going to be like this (and I was pulling 24k damage, as opposed to 7k), but there is so much more to a fight than dps. I fear a weighted system would lead to a whole lot more of the rogue’s behavior, as opposed to rewarding those that know what they are doing.
So you were stuck in a group where people didn’t know the basic mechanics of the fight and thus were holding your team back from success. I’m usually making calls in LFR to remind people what they need to be on, even if they know it, simply because there are a lot of players like the rogue in your group (and what it sounds like was the majority of your group makeup).
Part of me wishes that Blizzard would implement a /RW announcement automatically for the LFR fights. Just calling out the swaps and stuff. At least when you’re doing the fight with a guild/pug/non-LFR, you’re probably in Mumble/Ventrilo. I make ALL my calls in Mumble when we do the fight because I’m too busy tanking/healing to type. It’s more of an inconvenience for the RL, and I can definitely count on 2 hands the number of times people have pulled a boss for me while I’m trying to explain a strat. I’ve gotten to the point that my strats are about 10 words (if that) just because I’m trying to get to the boss before the Unholy DK that just Armied or the Hunter who’s just cast MD and is running towards whatever we’re about to kill. People probably think I’m just being an asshole, but it’s me trying to stay ahead of the 17 trigger happy DPS so I can provide a smooth run.
24K in LFR isn’t bad in the least! I’m usually in groups with people doing less than 20K. In fact, in my last run, I only had 6 people over 20K…
The loot concept definitely needs work, and isn’t the end-all-be-all. Really this post was more me musing over what I’ve seen and trying to hash things out in my mind. I’m prone to doing this on my blog–and I wasn’t expecting it to get highlighted on something like WoWInsider. My regular readers have seen my live commentary as I run LFR on Twitter and have expressed some of the same general frustrations. I don’t know an exact fix for the mess, but the realization that something needs to get fixed (prime example, WoE last night, rogue zones in, runs away, dies when I pull first boss (he wasn’t in the fire circle), we 4-man the boss, agi axe drops and he wins the roll, types “LOL” in party and drops group. He contributed 0 DPS to the run and walked away with loot. The Shaman in the group was pissed as hell) is all I’m trying to highlight.
I am tempted to say to the OP “get over yourself. It’s LFR. Deal with it”.
I am in a progression raid group that is successfully working on heroic Dragon Soul. The biggest impediment to my enjoyment of LFR runs has not been ‘bads’ or ‘nubs’ but so called good players who feel that their position on the recount charts entitles them to act like a rude butthole.
Weighting loot towards high recount would not only encourage people to do the wrong thing to pad their score, it would reinforce the arrogance of people like the author. Now maybe our hero the author doesn’t spoil the raids he is in by telling new players how terrible they are, but their are plenty of jerks who aren’t so restrained.
Having a low recount score isn’t the only way to ruin a raid.
Maybe instead of crying about the loot you ‘deserve’ because you are so amazing you could make LFR better by helping new players get better in some way.
So as a “progression” raider working on Heroic DS, you’re okay with mediocrity? As I mentioned early on in the post, I have a high expectation for my raid team(s). I accept that LFR isn’t going to be Top 100 raiders, but I don’t think it’s much to ask to out-damage a tank. ESPECIALLY if you’re not dead.
If you think that me being tired of carrying people is me being arrogant, then so be it. I have high standards for my teams in WoW, my coworkers in my company, and my clients. If you are a fucking idiot, then please don’t impose your idiocy on others. I am the first to call people out–whether it be in one of my raids or on a conference call with my team.
My theory is simple, don’t waste my time and I won’t waste yours.
If you ran with me, you’d actually discover that 1/ I don’t say much unless I’m antagonized, 2/ I don’t link meters. I usually stew in private, or I will initiate votekicks on our AFK healers or DPS, but otherwise, I say nada. I’m in the raid to get a job done and get out.
I already try my damnedest to help “new players” out. There’s a reason I streamed Firelands to the general public when it was progression, addressing questions during down time between wipes and publishing strat guides on the fights (which, based on hit data, are still being used today). There’s a reason I sat in other people’s Vents while they were doing the fights to help them address their issues. There’s a reason why I sit and analyze tanks and make recommendations for how they can improve themselves for their raid teams or just in general. There’s a reason that almost every person with a Paladin alt that I *know* comes to me and says “can you look at this and make recommendations.” I’m good at what I do and I’m more than willing to help. But when you come into a raid and haven’t done any prep, you’re not my problem. Read the dungeon guide, run a query in Google, IDC.
If that makes me arrogant, if that makes me full of myself, then so be it. I do a lot of “community” stuff outside of the game to help others, which is more than I can say about most of the WoW playerbase.
I don’t mind new players get better but the players I believe Miri to be addressing are those that have no clue. Today for instance, I’m healadining the second half of LFR. Not terribly difficult fights but I had two tanks.. one ENTIRELY stam stacked warrior and a pally that had no clue. Neither took the portal in Ultra, knew how to taunt etc. Topped off by the fact that minus that fight (lets face it its a computer killer) our highest dps was 18k. We had ranged dps with no gems and enchants, people that were afk, etc. Even if we’re God’s gift to raiders that’s freakin’ ridiculous. We live in an age of the big bad mighty interwebs. You can easily google your way to fight mechanics and how to gem and enchant your items without having to get into the EJ theory crafting of it all. ITS NOT THAT DAMN HARD and your LFR run will be amazingly easy.
But those people that can’t be assed to goggle the basic fight mechanics and how to enhance your toon should be allowed semi-end game raid gear before those that have? I’m torn. I’m in the camp of everyone should get some sort of reward but one side of the token I think its kinda ridiculous that some folks will get to items that are for end game content and probably won’t step into “real” end game content at all, while the rest of us get shit on. On the other side of the token, back at the end of BC I began raiding and just having the opportunity to see the content is what lit a spark under my ass to learn more about raiding and such. Sadly, I don’t think everyone in LFR has that approach.
The Piper’s gotta be paid. If’n you wants 384 loot on either yer main or yer alts, and ya wants the convenience of 8 bosses with no need fer ta organize a raid of yer own, then yer gonna have ta play with non-raiders. Some of them suck. That’s life. LFR was created fer them, not you, so askin’ Blizz ta award loot based on performance is a complete waste of oxygen. Besides, nobody’s been able fer ta come up with a reliable way of rating healers since the game shipped, and rating tanks is such an obvious fantasy what nobody even considers tryin’.
As fer decayin’ loot rolls, why? Seriously, why? Everyone rolls, the roll is automaticallies fair. Sometimes yer gonna win three in a row, sometimes yer gonna lose twenty in a row. Enforcing a more uniform distribution makes sense in a guild, where ya don’t want folks gettin’ pissy and takin’ they’s marbles and goin’ home, but we’s talkin’ pugs here. Everyone’s done gonna leave in an hour or so anywho, so you gains nuthin’.
“In my mind, it devalues the achievements of others who put forth the effort to be the best at what they do.”
This is a video game. Hopefullies ya enjoyed the process, but yer achievements ain’t worth spit. If’n yer feelin’ devalued by this, I’s sure I can find a tiny violin fer ta play for ya.
I’m accepting that LFR can have the LCD, but my theory that if you can’t pull more than a tank’s DPS, then something needs to be addressed. Either the player is lazy and DGAF or there’s an education opportunity in the game that Blizzard should reconsider (a guild discussion about how great the old class quests were because they required you to use your abilities).
In entry-level 5-mans, I don’t mind carrying people. In fact, I expect to. I do roughly 20K as a tank in a 5. I’m okay with people being below me. I have issues when I step into the new 5s and no one is breaking 10K but me. There’s an ilvl limit set, and the number of people who game the system really piss me off.
Really all I’d love to see in LFR is 1/ people who aren’t trigger happy and can listen to instructions without “Your Mom” being a response, 2/ people who can actually FOLLOW instructions put forth by the RL, 3/ Griefers being perma-banned from LFR. I’m sure there’s more, but that’s what’s standing out in my mind right now.
The loot decay idea was something that I’ve seen proposed from many sources. Even in a guild raid, the wealth is spread across the team–it is highly unlikely that 1 player will win 2-3 tokens, a weapon, and a trinket (just pulling these out of thin air), in 1 guild run. And honestly, if I won all the loot I needed in 1 run, I’d go back to running the 5s with guildmates and never set foot into LFR again. And it’s getting close to that on some of my toons. I’m okay with slow gearing–I’m used to that from many years of raiding. The loot decay concept is a way to get people to keep coming back into the system (see how LFD had to result in CTA because once tanks/heals got all that they needed with VP/JP, they stopped running and thus the queues were almost intolerable for DPS) instead of abandoning it within 5-6 weeks of it dropping.
[Ratshag, your comments give me headache to read. Couldn’t you come out of persona on other blogs than your own? It’s entertaining but it was really hard not to interpret in a different way than you meant it.]
I feel your frustration. For me, the worst scenario is that an afk player who can be seen to stand motionless for an entire fight can then walk away with the loot from the boss. Discovering that you can’t kick them during combat only to have them make the first roll on loot is teeth-grindingly bad. A few weeks in I’ve just resigned myself to treating it like an extra-long heroic and assuming there will be some intolerable people – this is easy but a genuine shame because I had hoped (against all signs) that there would be less jerkage than I’d expected.
There are four groups of people in LFR runs:
1. High-performing players with a good attitude
2. High-performing players with a bad, entitled attitude
3. Low-performing players with a good attitude
4. Low-performing players with a bad, entitled attitude
Note that I’ve said high/low performing, not “good” or “bad”. I’d rather run with a mix of people from groups 1 and 3 any week. Hell, I’d take an entire run of group 3 to avoid running with any of group 2. The OP isn’t part of group 2, that much I’m sure of. Me, I’ve never run with this player and have no evidence to judge but it just seems that they aren’t fond of group 4 – low-performing, entitled people. I’m with them on this. Those are the ones that get my back up. It’s not wrong to resent those people getting loot.
Ultimately, like the OP it’s why I run things in my guild as much as possible. The people I feel for are those without the time to raid in that way, who are stuck dealing with the imperfect system that’s in place. If the LFR was really created for “them”, the non-raiders, some of those poor souls are getting a really bad deal.
“The people I feel for are those without the time to raid in that way, who are stuck dealing with the imperfect system that’s in place.”
Agreed. Those people got the short end of the stick. I’ve either had combinations of 1 and 3, or 2 and 4. And 2 and 4 are usually when I just toss my hands in the air and drop group.
I’ve seen kills where boss fights were 3-healed (I’m not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing honestly). Which means that those other 3 healers, who did absolutely NOTHING the entire fight, got a chance at loot. I’ve had Paladins queue in as “healers” only to be Ret and not willing to swap their gear. And then when they get called out on it, they pull the boss and quit the group.
Like my 5-man runs, I try to deliver the best run I can. I go in, qualified, to do my role in the run. I don’t think that’s asking for much for the other 24 people to have some level of competency to perform their role at a decent level too. When we get the griefers and the general asshats, they ruin it for those who will never see the raids beyond LFR. And that pisses me off more than anything.
Here’s my thoughts: if it’s good enough DPS to down the boss, is it really a carry or mediocre? Yes, 7k is low, but really, it’s a PUG and you get what you get. I’ve never been fortunate enough to tank LFR (the queue always puts me in as heals or DPS) but I try. I know I fail at DPS but i gotta be honest, Id rather kitty/fury/ret it up than sit around in a long queue and it’s nice to know I’m not going to be a huge drag on my group if I’m not breaking 30k. I can usually pull about 18k in LFR. Is it below my gear? Yes. Am I a failure, non contributor, dragging the group down? That’s up to you.
I prefer to not heal in LFR unless I am on the one character who only heals, so I will sit and wait (or get a guildie to queue as a healer, on the character they heal on, to speed the queue up). When I do decide to finally try out Ret (collecting gear now), I won’t step into LFR until I know that I can contribute. A lot of this has to do with my mindset about how I play and how I want to be seen by other players.
I’m okay with DPS being at the low end of the scale, but if you can’t outperform a tank or even do somewhat okay in the gear that you’ve acquired for the role, I would say to take the time to practice (either on a dummy, in a 5, whatever) so you can be better.
I’m a Type A personality–I realize that that (along with my OCD) makes me a bit more of that person that people don’t want to run with, but it’s my play style and I try to avoid groups that may or may not play to my standards. I keep my mouth shut unless someone is being a jackass to me or another player in LFR, and I don’t say a word when I run 5s. Last night the only thing I usually said was “thanks for the group” or I would chatter if the group was social. Otherwise, I keep to myself. And I spent about 12 hours in 5s yesterday for Call to Arms…
I find that if i go into LFR with little expectations towards loot and the performance of others, it is far more enjoyable. It wasn’t designed to function the way a lot of people think it should. It was implemented simply to let more players experience more content. Period. If that’s not something you (not specifically you) can work around and be happy for those people being given that opportunity, then just don’t queue and save your blood pressure. You can’t hold LFR to the same rules and expectations that you can your guild’s raids. It’s just not plausible.
Though I do agree there should be a loot cap so that one person doesn’t walk away with everything. 🙂
I would be totally okay if the system said “You can win 1 tier token this run and have a chance to win 2 other random pieces of loot (boots/waists/off-hands/rings/etc). But when I see 1 person win 2 of the same item of Tier and then not be willing to trade it, I get sad for all involved 😦
Unfortunately, in order to assist my guild in progression, LFR is a must in my mind. Interestingly enough, I am the only tank in my guild with a 4-pc bonus–and I don’t even tank full-time for our guild runs. I’ve collected a good amount of Holy gear from my guild raids (and some in LFR) so that I can be prepared to make the push into the Heroics that we’ve unlocked.
A good raider *should* care about LFR–the tier set bonuses, more gem sockets, slightly better stats (but let’s be honest, it’s the sockets and set bonuses that put me in there), make it worthwhile. i also like the ability to be able to pass on loot in our raids to other guildies because I’ve picked up LFR pieces and don’t need the upgrade as bad as another teammate might.
I’m not saying that LFR needs to function at my raid team standards, but I feel for the people who are in there, playing their best at their role, and losing stuff to people who aren’t even auto-attacking full time. That’s crappy for all involved.
One thing they can try is that there are other rewards, like the geode currency. Blizz could reward the top dps on the main goal of each fight, like:
Top 5 dps and top 2 heals:
1. Take less than a certain damage cap on morchok
2. Have top 6-8 damage on skittle blobs
3. Have top 6-8 damage on on frost elementals and live
4. Take less than certain damage cap on Ultraxion
5. If the ship takes less than a certain damage cap (and this could be everyone!)
6. Ths spine in tough, maybe have a timer on it.
7. Top 6.8 damage on tentacles
And, this needs to be explicitly mentionned in the dungeon guide notes, as well.
Also, It would kinda like Justice Points awarded per boss killl.
This week was the first time I saw a a flawless Hagara fight where NO ONE died!
” I’m old school.”
You are not old school. **I** am old school! That is, not only have I, ‘raided’ in ‘vanilla’ World of Warcraft, but I’ve raided full time, competitively in the game that started MMO raiding – EverQuest. You know, those 82-player true raids! Not the watered down 40-player, oh wait, 25-player, oh wait, 10-man dungeons that Blizzard considers raiding. Anyway, aside from your old school comment, nice post. 🙂