Why I won't be purchasing a level 90

As soon as the first digital item went up for sale in the Blizzard store, many players feared---nay---knew where it would eventually end up taking the game. A game where achievement and prestige were no longer prized and the untamed lands of Azeroth became the viciously defended domains of casuals and bads. A game where skill and dedication were no longer championed attributes, but instead players with the largest pocketbooks were guided down the paths of least-resistance. Right then and there, the foundation of this once-great MMO began to shake and crumble.

Years passed, and things only got worse. The announcement of a free boost to level 90 with the next expansion's purchase and the rumor of additional purchasable level 90s from the Blizzard store has created a rumble so deep and so low one can't even imagine how Blizzard could recover...oh wait. Nevermind. That rumbling I'm hearing is just a garbage truck coming down the street. 

Nonetheless, here's why I won't be purchasing a boosted character.

You learn by leveling

Every player who is worth his or her salt knows the best way to prepare for end-game content is to do quests and kill bosses who are about as challenging as a training dummy...and thousands of them of that! Run from point A to point B when told to do so, wielding weapons and spells with deftness as you two-shot each of those 50 boars. Since class abilities don't change at all between level 1 and level cap, spending as much time as possible leveling your character will give you the requisite experience you need to join a top-notch raid, battleground, role-playing, or fishing team. 

Free boost = pay-to-win

Come on...you're telling me you don't remember when during the initial week of MoP's release, the first player on your server hit 90 and then promptly quit, taking half the server with them since all the remaining players could no longer be the first to win the game? Blizzard has done a really interesting thing in response to that player exodus, with the realm mergers and all. But the fact that a player will be able to buy Warlords of Draenor, choose a character to boost to 90, and then promptly log out declaring that "they've won the game," just makes me sick. When will it end? Pretty soon everyone will be a winner at World of Warcraft. You probably won't even have to purchase the game to win it when it's all said and done. 

Contributing to the bads

Given that LFR is one of the most painless, pleasant, enjoyable, fun, exciting, challenging, life-prolonging, personally enriching and rewarding content Blizzard has ever introduced to the game, most people would like to see it remain that way. By allowing noobs to purchase a near-max level character and level it up alone in the midst of vitriol launched by the likes of me; in allowing them to enjoy themselves by playing a game of their choice bought with their hard-earned money, we are contributing to the unavoidable downfall of a game we've all worked so hard to choke to death by vehemently disavowing any semblance of change we don't agree with!

Skipping content skips story

The mental dexterity required to comprehend the timeline shifts between expansions is necessary to decipher the commands and directions of most Battleground and Raid Leaders. Here's a test: Deathwing is both alive and dead at the same time. Dead he may be but owwwww does dat fire singe. It's Schroedinger's dragon all over again. And, whoa, wait here's Arthas but he's dead, and he's not dead. Same goes for Illidan the Villidain...holy hell Garrosh's evil twin from the planet Mookmagook is chillin' out in Nagrand and he appears to need some Xanax. 

*Bwah*

Just blew your mind, I know it. See what I mean? All part of the necessary prep to becoming leet.

So why won't I be purchasing a 90?

I think it's obvious.

Thinking about returning to World of Warcraft, starting fresh with a new class or a boosted 90 for Warlords of Draenor, or simply are looking for a fun, respectful community to join? Please consider Sapere Aude on US-Emerald Dream (RPPvP). 

Feckless Leader's Guide to Becoming a Good Raider [Updated 6.1]

Our guild has experienced a steady influx of players interested in joining our raids, and it's been fascinating to see the different levels of skill mastery between players. Many of our current raiders are former serious/hardcore raiders who were looking for a much lighter schedule.

Then, we have players who come in not knowing that it's more advantageous for melee to stand behind their targets vs. in front of them. Players who have hundreds of hours logged in on their character but struggle to remain above the tanks on the damage charts. Of course, we see everything in between as well.

That made me think: wouldn't it be nice if we had a sort of a raiding 101 thread in our guild forums? The truly veteran players likely wouldn't need such a guide, but for semi-casual or new players, there's still enough nuance to the raid game that you can't just drop in and expect a victory. On occasion, we've had to bench players who weren't prepared to pull their weight. Granted, we normally ask the player if they'd like pointers, but some people are too shy to request help and would rather work out the kinks on their own.

There is a base amount of performance that simply comes down to player ability: there are people who are naturally good at things, and this translates to video games. Still, accounting for that, my hope is that this information can be useful to players looking to first get into Normal/Heroic modes, whether pugs or guild runs, as most of these suggestions are regularly expected of raiders in Normal modes, and required in Heroics.

Consumables

Gems and Enchants: You'll want to make sure that all of your armor and weaponry has been enhanced to its greatest potential. All gem slots should be filled when you're lucky enough to get them. Gems can be purchased from the auction house or supplied by a jewelcrafter. The amount of enchantable slots has been dramatically reduced in Warlords, so it's even more important you enchant everything you possibly can.

Potions and Flasks: Flasks will boost your main stat for an hour and their effect persists through death. Plan accordingly depending on the length of your raid. Potions will boost a main stat for 25 seconds, and can be used twice during the course of a boss fight (see Pre-potting). Two stacks of potions should be more than enough for a two-hour raid, unless things are going very badly. 

Pre-potting: Ever wonder why oftentimes there will be a visual and audible countdown prior to a boss pull? Obviously it's to make sure the raid knows when things are starting out. However, the countdown also allows players to use a potion before entering combat, where they essentially consume the potion with 1 second left on the timer. Because the potion was used before combat, it doesn't count against the one-consumable-per-instance-of-combat rule, meaning once the minute-long cooldown has expired, you can consume a second potion. While more important for damage-dealers, doing this can still provide benefits for healers and tanks. 

Food: Feasts seems to be in abundance in Warlords, and purchasing a stack off of the auction house shouldn't set you back too much gold if you cannot make them yourself. For personal food, determine which secondary stat is your strongest and choose the appropriate food.

Class Knowledge

Rotation, Talents and Glyphs: For damage dealers, this is all about making sure you're doing as much as you can. For tanks, it's about putting up threat while maintaining survivability. For healers, knowing priorities and procs at least ensures you're getting the most out of your casts. There are many different guides and blogs out there. Find one you can trust (I've been a fan of the Icy Veins class and raid guides since WotLK and they've never let me down). 

It's not just about knowing which buttons to press and when. It's being effective with that rotation, which is especially important for damage dealers and healers. Doing 30k damage on the last boss in Auchindon does not allow you to make the claim you'll do 30k damage in raids. Not only do damage-dealers need to be comfortable with their rotation, they need to be able to sustain the output. Likewise, healers need to be intelligent with their heals so they don't burn through mana too quickly.

Talent and glyph choices can vary depending on preference, playstyle and encounter mechanics; it's up to the individual to learn what works best for their class in any given situation.

Utility: Every class brings some sort of helpful utility to the raid environment. I'm talking buffs, the ability to battle res, interrupts, crowd control, raid-wide heals or damage reduction, bloodlust-type abilities and the like. Know which ones you bring to the group and be prepared to use them.  

Fight Knowledge

Research: There are multiple places players can go to review boss fights. Good raiders will have some familiarity with the fight. Maybe they've read through a guide, or watched a strategy video. Perhaps, they even ran LFR just to see what the abilities looked like (this is not to be taken as an endorsement of LFR). The point is, they're not going in blind. 

Ask Questions: Even though you know the fight, the raid's leader may favor a different strat and have other ideas on how the fight should be executed. If there's something you don't understand, it's better to say something prior to the pull. Taking thirty seconds to straighten things out is better than having to redo five minutes of the fight because your failing to understand a mechanic has wiped the raid. 

Be Present

In for the Haul: It's always best to make sure you have the time to raid before you enter a raid group. Might seem like a trivial thing to say, but I'm saying it. While it is completely within the player's prerogative to come and go when they choose, leaving after the second boss because the player would rather be doing x tends to inconvenience the other 9+ people in the raid. 

In other words, don't treat these organized raids like LFR. Granted, when run outside of guilds, these groups can often look at lot more like LFR, with people coming and going. Still, if you're running with a guild group, the leader will likely expect you to be there for the full raid time unless you've made other arrangements ahead of the event.

Attitude: Attitude can play a big part in the success of the raid. If you're not running the raid, plan on sitting back and doing your job to the best of your ability. If you notice something's not right, whisper the raid leader or chime in at the right time, and with tact. You might think you're a head above everyone else in the raid group---and you may even be right---but that doesn't mean you need to let everyone know about it. Play your part, be helpful and patient and people will remember you. 

And sometimes, things just aren't meshing, and you need to bow out. You'll want to be careful about cutting out early when in established guild groups. However, in pugs, sometimes it's clear that things just aren't going to happen for the group. In those instances, the time may come to end your involvement. You don't need to type, "lol this group sux, see ya noobs," before dropping group. Bow out gracefully. "Hey all, this isn't working and I've got some other things to take care of tonight. Good luck."

Conclusion

As awesome of a game as World of Warcraft is on its own, I'm a huge advocate for experiencing the game in a group setting, whether that's via PvP, RP, or PvE. This post is meant to be a guide for the raider who is looking to transition out of LFR and join a Normal/Heroic group, and can also be used as a guide for the returning semi-serious raider to see what may have changed in the raid environment since they've last been around. 

It's not about LFR

Note: this caption has nothing to do with this picture. But if you'd like the shortened, TL;DR version of this post without the setup, scroll 4/5 down the page to the heading entitled "A Radical Way to Improve LFR."

I just haven't been able to make sense of it.

"It" being the feelings I get after the weekly raid reset, when I'm faced with the prospect of running LFR. Something feels...off this expansion with the auto-grouping facilitator of raid content. Even the temptation of an orange cloak wasn't enticing enough some weeks to pull me in. Wassa matter, Ross? It's 45 minutes, just grin and bear it. I'd try, but literally wouldn't allow myself to go through with it. I'd queue up as a healer for fast entry, it'd pop, and I'd decline.

When something like this bothers me to the point where I feel the need to be vocal about it, I require a secondary, simple assessment before I say too much: does the feeling persist? How exclusive to my own individual experience are these feelings? Where do my biases come in? I've allowed those questions to bounce around inside my head for the greater part of Mists of Pandaria. And I'm struggling still.

What is LFR? LFR is a grouping mechanism that matches players to create a 25-person group and places them in a reduced-difficulty raid environment. What is the purpose of LFR? I don't wish to abuse what lead systems designer Greg Street (Ghostcrawler) has said on several occasions, but I think it's important to highlight his words because it may provide a glimpse of how the Blizzard team views LFR. First, an answer taken from a pre-Dragon Soul interview on MMO-Champ about patch 4.3 features (bold emphasis mine):

Q: Do you feel like you are alienating any part of the player base when you make easier content or do you think the new three difficulty system might solve that?  

GC: We're hoping it solves it. I mean, generally this is an experiment for us. We're not sure how it is going to work out. We have a hugely diverse player base, and we want to be able to let lots of different players see the content. We felt in the past we were struggling too much to decide "Okay, heroic mode is for 5% of the population... that means normal mode has to be for 95% of the raiding population" and we were stretching ourselves really thin. So our hope is that by offering up an additional difficulty, it will free up normal mode to be targeted towards the kind of traditional guild it has been, where players who don't have a lot of time to raid or find the commitment too much can do Raid Finder to be able to experience the fights.

I don't think LFR by itself, or adding so-called "easier" content alienates players. Not so long as the challenging content doesn't get removed from the game. To each their own, right? But do you know what I think does alienate players? Being thrown into a group with 24 random humans and feeling no sense of community. That's alienation.

The "experiment" of LFR has failed. Isn't Blizzard admitting as much with Determination buffs, and now especially a brand-new difficulty level for raiding? It would look as if the re-targeting of normal mode didn't work out for a lot of "traditional guild(s)." While the goal of letting "lots of different players see the content" is most definitely accomplished with LFR, what value does that add in its current form, and what might it look like if it were changed to function in a completely different way? Because World of Warcraft, the largest multi-player online role-playing game in history can now be "beaten" as if a single-player game.

Don't think so? If you have the time, spend 11 minutes to watch this video of the "worst player in the world" leveling and progressing a character (Warning: NSFW language, English accent).



His stated objective is leveling up a new toon to kill LFR Lei Shen without the help of friends while striving to deal the least damage and take the most in every single raid group. An extreme example, I realize, but he accomplishes his goal with alarming ease, without much resistant at all. It's surreal to think that a fresh player could "finish" the game over the course of a couple of weeks -- without ever having to interact with another player or even correctly perform their role. Is that World of Warcraft?

The creator of the video raises good points, some which I won't touch here. But I want to be careful about devaluing casual players or giving the impression I think locking this content out of their reach is the way to go, because I don't think that at all (though one could argue the legendary chain may have accomplished just that). However, I don't know if you can argue with the notion that it may be difficult for a player to understand the value of end-game content if they can breeze through it without essentially having to try.

If you think LFR is meant to be challenging, you're fooling yourself. Once the devs realized, "Hey, when you throw 25 people together who are most likely using the content as a means to the end, they tend to see the other players they are with as potential obstacles to their goals. As a result, too many players don't often give a shit about others in the group, and that can create some nasty situations. Let's make it even easier!" That was the right call, but the devs didn't go far enough.

So LFRs were given the Determination buff which guarantees that if you are the unfortunate sap who gets placed in a group with all of the world's meanest, busiest (brb yo), most unskilled players, all you need to do is stick it out and you WILL kill the final boss of the game. If LFR was truly meant to be challenging, there wouldn't be such an I.W.I.N. buff. Instead of challenging, LFR is meant to allow players to see or experience the content -- some players bristle at hearing those words when describing LFR, but they're the truth. Blizzard wanted more people to experience the raid environment.

I'm not saying that a person can't feel accomplished after completing an LFR. However, what I am saying is that LFR has never been, and will never be akin to normal mode raiding. It's even pretty different from Flex. It's not about an elitist attitude. It's about the facts. It's about the numbers. It's about the nature of the game.

@elepheagle If you want to raid say on your lunch break, LFR works for that but flex may not.
— Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) September 11, 2013

I'll say it again: I don't mean to twist words here, but this isn't the first time I've seen this sentiment brought out by a member of the Warcraft team. If LFR is really an option for a lunch-time raid, then it's not only failed in this objective -- it's failed miserably.

Let's look at a friend of mine's reaction to running LFR for the first couple of times---he didn't have an active subscription during Tier 13, so he's literally brand new to LFR. Let's see what sort of value he assigns to his initial experiences.

The returning super-casual

Meet Chris. He's been a pretty relaxed World of Warcraft player. He's played off an on since Vanilla, was in a raiding guild for a while, most recently having cleared BoT, BWD and some of Firelands. He tends to be away from the game for longer stretches of time. When he returns to the game, there's always new content to experience in addition to figuring out class changes. The other night he sent the following text message:

Serious question: why is LFR so epically bad?

After his 30-minute queue popped, he couldn't find an explanation of fights or mechanics, nor were players offering anything up. A veteran player might be quick to shout Dungeon Journal, but I'm willing to bet 50k gold that Chris doesn't know about the dungeon journal, let alone how to access it. What else...oh yes. From his text:

Everyone is fighting and bitching at each other. Biggest epeen contest I've ever witnessed. Top dps whines about carrying the whole raid. And it's mandatory for me to progress my character which sucks ass.

Just three or four LFR runs and this "new player" has realized that he doesn't want to return and is dismayed at the fact that he'll have to if he wants to continue progression on the legendary cloak -- which of course, is his choice. Is that what a new player to this game sees? Why are players so hateful towards one another all-too-often in this content? Why is it possible to fail so terribly in LFR -- sometimes thanks to sabotaging raid members -- in content that's there simply to let players see or experience it, not to provide a true challenge?

This is partly why LFR is so epically bad, but I think LFR is just a symptom of a greater problem in the game itself. I alluded to it earlier, but first, I'm throwing in another perspective on LFR, injected with bias from the get-go by yours truly.

The chef who's never played

Meet Travis. If my last count is still correct, Travis is one of two people following me on Twitter whose knowledge about Warcraft is shaped only by my tweets. Travis is a chef, and a good one at that. He's never played the game, and if there's some interest there on his part, I'm not aware of it. In fact, he might even think I'm a little masochistic for playing after I explained to him (in my special way), while in the midst of a mini-rant on Twitter, what LFR is. I strung this response together over several tweets, embellished a bit here since I'm not limited by characters:

Imagine you're preparing food for a special event. You know what you're making. However, you're forced to work with 24 other chefs.  Some have no idea what they are doing; several think & tell you your glasses & the way you cut tomatoes is gay and your hat sucks. Others still insist on burning your dish as they don't give a fuck because there's 18 other cooks to get the job done. If you were left with the handful of chefs who actually care and know what they're doing, you'd be fine, cause they're on their game and know what's up. Unfortunately, because of the other chefs described, your chance of actually serving this meal is slim to none.

Ouch. I know that's harsh, but again, too often the experience. Travis' response?

"Yeah I wouldn't want any part of that."

Even Travis, the man who's never played, can see something's not working here.

But is it LFR? No, just a problem that often manifests in LFR.

The problem is the addition or alteration of game elements and systems that have made it so that WoW can be experienced in complete totality as a single-player game. And here's why that's bad.

In single-player games, every character we encounter are NPCs, or non-player characters. No matter how awesome the AI, these characters behave in specific, predictable patterns. Lines are clearly drawn between NPCs who will potentially get in your way (enemies) and NPCs who will help you on your quest, or at least not get in the way of it (friends/neutrals). When WoW's systems begin looking and feeling like a single-player game, suddenly all of the characters controlled by living, breathing human beings are relegated to the status of NPCs who are expected to behave in a certain way.

Other players, without you saying so, should know to do this much damage or heals. To not kill that mob you were trying to kill. To not steal your nodes. To pull the boss when you think they should pull the boss. Cooperation ceases.

The single-player has many faces: they could be new to the game. They could be in a large, active and social guild. It's about how they view other players they encounter out in the world, and consequently how they behave towards them. The single-player may be the top DPS in your LFR. It's an attitude more than anything. For example, three guildies and I were farming Warbringers and came upon a death knight who'd just wiped trying to solo one. We asked if he'd like to join us, but he ignored us, then called us scum. Then he wiped again and the four of us killed the Warbringer while he was corpse-running.

The death knight didn't wave and say hello, because we weren't human -- we were obstacles. Scum. Essentially, the real people playing World of Warcraft cease to exist when you think you no longer need them. They only begin to exist as people when they make the mistake of getting in the single-player's way. And then, those other players are only viewed as an obstacle to the individuals' success -- not a fellow human who's simply playing and enjoying the same experience.

It's an ugly, ugly picture.

So it's not about LFR?

Not really, but the consequences of the single-player mentality shouldn't ruin LFR or large aspects of this game, either. It's almost like World of Warcraft has dual identities in its attempt to cater to both the single-player and the MMO-player. It appears it's becoming increasingly difficult to do both. Cross-Realm Zones are a great example of this---Blizzard creates "forced" connections between players instead of working to cultivate organic ones, and this leads to that level 23 rogue from a different server you encounter mining while in the Barrens to be viewed as a nuisance taking your nodes. Because all the nodes are belong to you, right?

Back in the day, we used to /wave when we saw someone out in the world. Today, you call them scum and tell them to get the fuck out of your area. So how does it swing back the other way? How does that culture change?

I say isolate it.

Because I know there are millions of players who are thriving in-game within vibrant communities. They are everywhere you look, but the difference today is they are no longer required to experience the game to its "fullest," which makes the community somewhat disposable to the average new player, or to the tired, burned-out veteran. If you took the time to watch the video I linked above, you'll see that this game looks starkly, almost frighteningly different to today's new player than it did to the new player of even two years ago.

Accessibility will always be an issue, and I'm all for maintaining accessibility, despite what you may have gathered from my arguments thus far. But if we continue at this rate, Blizzard's going to be announcing Heroic LFRs at Blizzcon 2014 in a bid to allow players to experience heroic raiding. Accessibility needs some reconstructive surgery to allow players to see content, but not shit all over the group experience. Players were given too much, too soon, and they're allowing it to deteriorate what I'd argue is the single most important aspect in the game: the community.

A Radical Way to Improve LFR

While I probably should be running LFR on my raiding character to ensure he's poised and in the best shape for our 1-night guild flex raid, I won't. Not until changes happen. LFR fosters and incubates that destructive attitude that I've referred to as the single-player mentality. I've spent a long time thinking about what things could be done in order to tweak the LFR experience into a more positive and rewarding one.

First things first, Looking for Raid has ceased to exist. Gone. The devs have decided LFR is no longer achieving the goals they had in mind for it, so they change it into something that looks like a melding of features we currently have in-game, flex raids and scenarios.

The Flexible Scenario

The flexible scenario is just as it sounds: like a scenario, but with the scaling technology of flex raids so that group sizes can vary dramatically. The flex scenario looks just like LFR on the surface. It still has 25 characters working together to kill bosses. What isn't immediately clear, though, is the number of characters that will be controlled by human beings and the number that will be controlled by AI. That's where the flex comes in: for these, you'd be able to queue with up to 24 other players. Or, if you prefer to fly solo, then it's going to be you and 24 NPCs who are designed to perfectly support your chosen role. Likewise, all twelve members in your friends and family guild could queue together and join thirteen NPCs in the flex scenario and experience the content.

There'd still be loot and valor to be won just like the current LFR, though perhaps the trash would be reduced and some of the more punishing mechanics would be scaled back or eliminated completely -- LFR is for steamrolling, and that's what the Flex Scenario would provide: loot pinatas. Sure, there would be some sort of fight mechanics that if not heeded would cause your death, but it'd be trivial at the end of the day.

Sounds like this would be really easy, right? I know. It would be. In an era of insta-queues and endlessly replaceable humans, it would seem the player base on average is becoming less and less tolerant of wipes overall. They queue for group content, and any delay in reaching their end goal is perceived as a personal slight and a waste of their time. And boy are they all too happy to let you know about it.

Remove that attitude from the equation, the one that sees players as disposable. Because there's almost nothing worse than players getting on each other's cases in these groups, and it's often detrimental to success. Looking to avoid a nasty chemical reaction? Don't mix bleach and ammonia. Looking to avoid a nasty situation in LFR? Don't mix idiots and asshats.

The Flex Scenario fixes that.

If any given player does need some work on their rotation, they're likely going to get more help when they queue up with friends -- they'd be at risk in a random group. And if that struggling DPS queues for the Flex Scenario by themselves and solos the place, who does it harm?

It's a huge change, I know, and a completely different-looking beast than what we currently have. But I'll tell you one thing: if LFR looked more like what I've outlined above, I'd be running it with friends every week. On multiple toons even. In its current form, it leaves much too much to be desired and I rarely return from LFR with a positive report. If Blizzard made some tweaks meant to strengthen player responsibility, accountability and community, I'd be all for it. Without them, LFR will only continue to deteriorate these ideas and promote the single-player, community-crushing mentality.

And if there's no community in WoW, is there much else left?

WoW Weekly: Madness!

And stay down!

WoW Weekly is a biweekly-ish, self-absorbed look into the things I've been doing -- or not doing -- in the game. From auctioneering and pet battling to mount farming and raiding.

It's Tuesday! And there's no downtime...and since I'm currently Looking-for-Work and the grass isn't menacingly tall, I'll be spending at least part of the morning in-game. Where I once again absolute do not see Ashes and debate whether or not I should figure out how to solo the encounter on my warlock. Cause then I'd have up to four chances per week. Sheesh. That's dedication madness!

Additionally, I'm hoping this week turns out to be the week where I acquire the final three Runestones I need to move onto the next part of the Legendary Chain. I've been averaging approximately one per week -- the token Runestone you're guaranteed from Lei Shen. Keeping that average in mind, three is a lot to ask, so I'm not holding my breath.

Edit: I ran the first leg while editing this post and saw TWO Runestones drop. Looks like this week's the week...madness!

In other self-centered news:

• I spent some money and nabbed nine pets off the auction house, bringing my total uniques to 487. I've amassed 52 level 25 pets, meaning I should be in OK position for the Celestial Tournament come 5.4. If you'd like to see how that's shaping up, Liopleurodon has an excellent overview from her time spent on the PTR.

• In a rather serious post, I issued a subtle call to whoever would listen in the WoW community to stand up in the face of other players' negative/toxic/offensive language and behavior. 

• Yesterday Blizzard issued more information on how Virtual Connected Realms will work. From the sounds of it, the feature will be released sometime during 5.4 and will initially be targeted to a select handful of low-pop realms, dashing my dreams of 5.4 being the patch that packed the arsenal of tools I needed to finish filling a 1-night-per-week progression raid group.

• Speaking of raiding, our 1-night group is shaping up---just need to fill a couple more slots. With key positions filled I should be able to focus on playing casually while readying Elepheagle for patch 5.4

How to fix LFR beyond 5.3

Wait, what? There's something wrong with LFR?

Kind of, maybe. There's something wrong with it from where I'm standing. For a while, I thought it was my aversion to the most recent slog, the Throne of Thunder. But then I thought about Mogu'shan Vaults, the Heart of Fear, and Terrace of Endless Springs, and realized I pretty much have the same attitude towards them. As a novelty, they were great. I ran each twice or thrice immediately after their release, but didn't spend a great deal of time pursuing gear in the weeks following. Exactly the opposite of what I did in Dragon Soul. I ran that thing every week well past the time our guild raid had Deathwing on farm.

I've found MoP's LFRs to be time-consuming, sometimes confusing, and seemingly averse to rewarding players for running them. Please don't assume I'm complaining about "never getting loot" under the new personal loot system. In fact, I feel I've done pretty well. So what the hell am I talking about?

For starters, certain boss mechanics should be more clearly spelled out for players to increase the likelihood of group success. While the Determination buff is nice, I'd argue it's giving players the wrong tools for success. Secondly, at some point in each raid, there's tedious trash that should be reduced in number. Also, players should be given more flexibility when it comes to what wings and bosses they queue for. Lastly, players should also see -- and the key word here is 'see' -- more loot per run than they currently do. One suggestion I'd include here is so common amongst the player base, and coincidentally already slated to go live in 5.3, but ultimately doesn't address any of the issues I'm about to raise. So I'll touch on that last.


More Mechanic Direction and a Smaller Penalty for Failing

A guildie said it best: you'd be amazed at the power of a whisper in LFR. He was referring to a recent Durumu fight. He'd whispered a player who had been targeted by the red beam but clearly didn't know what to do. The short directive -- run in a circle around the boss to reveals mobs -- turned a likely wipe into a successful attempt.

Take my own experience: I had the pleasure of visiting Durumu with 24 similarly foolhardy folks on the day of his debut. By the time the group had accumulated eight stacks of Determination, at least some players in the raid had figured out where to stand and run during the maze phase. Kinda. Even though half the raid was dead by the time Durumu fell, we were jacked up so hard on the fail buff that there was no way we could, well, fail. To me, an hour's worth of wiping is acceptable---on normal and hard modes. In LFR, it's a bit ridiculous.

While Blizzard sometimes includes fairly blatant cues on what a player should be doing at any given time, not everyone sees them. There's a fine balance between ensuring a fight's mechanics aren't too punishing while preventing the fight from becoming an outright trivial button-masher, I get that. However, for better or worse, Dragon Soul's LFR -- and to an extent many of the fights from 5.0 raids -- taught players that most mechanics are safe to be ignored, and fights face-rolled.

Had a greater number of players been able to properly execute Durumu's mechanics, he she the thing would've died much sooner. The dungeon journal is a great resource to those who bother to look at it, but I'd bet most players don't. At the end of the day, LFR should be about one thing: experiencing the content. Most LFR groups aren't going at it with any semblance of coordinated strategy, so let's not make them do so. The players who want a challenge beyond LFR will naturally gravitate towards normal mode 10- or 25-player groups. What if the act of failing at mechanics was less penalizing, but players were granted a bonus to their Valor Point earnings on a given boss fight when they avoided a certain % of damaging mechanics? I'm not sure of the answer, but I don't like how the current system is shaping up.

I say a fight runs the risk of being trivial if objectively deemed 'too easy.' But that's not entirely true, is it? As long as players are still choosing to run the content, it won't be trivial. And if fights were tuned so that most groups saw boss kills within 1-3 attempts in LFR, that wouldn't be the end of the world.


Less Trash

Halve the amount of mobs players need to cut through in Throne of Thunder. MV? Do the same to the trash leading up to Gara'jal. Get rid of the group of mobs that sit directly in front of the console at Elegon. HoF? Garalon's trash could be reduced, though I'll admit it's not too bad. ToES is kind of an anomaly here, with its teeny-tiny amount of trash.

No trash isn't the answer, but less trash definitely is. Give players more boss time, since that's what we're there for. It shouldn't take a group longer than the average length of a boss fight to get from one encounter to the next. Granted, a large factor is the skill of the group. Still, Blizzard can design LFRs so trash isn't as taxing. Unless dealing with trash is made to be much more appealing than it currently is.


Queue for One, Queue for All

A 45-minute queue for Last Stand of the Zandalari with the goal of landing an item off of Jin'rokh is one thing. The prospect of another 45-minute queue after you've been dropped into an in-progress raid that has already killed Jin'rokh is mind-numbingly frustrating. While the system is supposed to prioritize players so that should they have to re-queue for a wing they've already completed, they're likely to see the bosses they haven't already, I've heard too many horror stories about players being consecutively dropped into in-progress raids. If you're unlucky enough to start at the Council fight four times in a row, I can't blame you when you say you're not convinced that the system is working as intended.

Solution? Allow players to queue for entire wings like they can now, or if they desire, for an individual boss. Yes, just one. The boss dies and you're given the option to stay (if bosses remain) or leave. There's already an incentive system in place in LFD's: players who can fill a role with low representation are encouraged, via extra loot, to enter the queue. The LFR system could function in the exact same way to avoid bottlenecks and ridiculously long queues.


More Loot

I'd argue that there's inherent value in seeing loot drop, even if you aren't the recipient of said loot. Even if someone else who doesn't actually need the loot rolls and wins it. At least you know the boss dropped something, and someone benefited. It's obvious many players still aren't happy with the way individual loot works in LFR. Tell me you don't see this happen in every LFR you run: boss dies and immediately a handful of players say something along the lines of, "Yay! I got gold!" Hint: they're not actually excited about getting gold.

Maybe returning to the old LFR loot system is the answer, though I'm not saying it is. But what I will say is that the negative psychological effect--at least initially--is greater when a player sees no potential reward vs. seeing a potential reward but not receiving it. The value is in the fact that there was a tangible reward to be had, one that could be seen. While with the new system your chances for receiving loot are actually greater -- given that you're not competing against other players for the same drop -- it feels like you're chances are much, much worse simply because you don't see loot after every single boss kill like you did before.

Maybe the middle ground is world drops in LFR. BoE blues or purples, raid mats, etc. Something to make the experience feel more worthwhile. While I mostly agree with how loot works in MoP's LFR, its negative psychological effect on players is too great to ignore. It needs some tweaking.


Queue to Receive Loot as X Spec - Incoming 5.3

This one tiny change might alleviate some of the issues I have with LFR, but I feel it doesn't change the core of the problem. Being able to queue in the healer role, yet still receive the gear I need for my main spec (enhancement) is a change I welcome. I get shorter queue times, and though I'll forfeit playing the role I'd prefer to play in doing so, the consolation is that at least I get gear for the spec I prefer to use outside of LFR. At this point, I'd really just like to get through all four ToT wings in a week without it encompassing 75% of my play time. But even this change doesn't guarantee that, as I've tried to outline above.

This could mean that, overall, more traditionally-DPS players will select the roles of tank or healer for the attractiveness of shorter queues, since they still receive loot for their off-spec. The risk, of course, is that players who traditionally choose the tank or healer role may now opt to DPS, electing to receive loot for their tank or healer spec. So while the change has the potential to help some players at the individual level, no part of this change is guaranteed to positively effect the overall LFR experience.

I was once part of the school of thought that decried the nerfing of this game. Not anymore. While this game is vastly different than what launched eight years ago, this argument isn't about the game being made easier. It's about there being more content options in game, and yes, some of that content is a ridiculously simplified version of normal mode raids. And that's OK. Get me in, get me a chance at some purples and valor, and get me out. 

But you don't deserve that piece, you didn't work for it. Blizzard might as well let you create a level 90 decked out in full purples.

No. Shut up. Shut. Up. I did work for that gear. If I want to spend 30-45 minutes of my time face-rolling content for a miniscule chance at one or two pieces of epic gear that will very marginally improve the likelihood of success in content of greater difficulty, that's my choice, and that's still working for it. If that doesn't please you, I would love to hear about how well your guild is doing on normal modes, or heck, maybe even heroics...and then I'll ask you why you give a damn about LFR, and how other players choose to play.

How has LFR treated you this expansion? Is it working well, and if not, what would you change?