LFR/Flex and heroic raiders

Darielle wrote:

But I do recall people in this very forum calling for LFR to have a completely different loot tablethan Normal/Heroic, including the removal of tier gear -- which kind of serves the same purpose.

Pretty much having Heroic trample on LFR so they don't feel like they need to do LFR, just because, as Teranoid succinctly put it, heroic raiders are special snowflakes.

How would a hypothetical situation where LFR has a different loot table than Normal/Heroic be the same thing as "a completely different loot table"? If it has a completely different loot table, it can even have its own unique sets and things like that even, so equating the two is completely senseless.

Perception-wise, it's the same thing. It puts LFR in a caste system simply on the desires of the HC raiders.

I swear if this was implemented, and the LFR trinket is actually better than a HC trinket, you would be crying that you gotta run LFR for a trinket that only exists in that mode and not in Heroic.

Regarding sharing lockouts: I wouldn't expect it. LFR is a different set of instance tech than normal/heroic, which is why they don't share lockouts. Since Flex uses the same individual roll setup as LFR, it's a good bet that it's on the same tech tree as LFR, which means it can't share a lockout with normal/heroic. It could probably share a lockout with LFR, but that would defeat the purpose.

I raid heroic, and I definitely think LFR should exist, as should Flex, Normal, and Heroic. They're four distinct difficulty levels. The people betting unusual sums of money on normal mode being eliminated in 6.0 are misguided. I'd take that bet, because it's basically free money. Flex caters to a very different group of players than normal does.

However, there's no question that Flex/LFR items (trinkets and tier specifically) provide an incentive for heroic raiders to run them. To argue otherwise is silly, because the incentive is pretty obvious. The question, as someone upthread mentioned, is whether it's worth doing anything about it.

Personally, I don't think so. If Flex is delayed by ~2 weeks and LFR by ~3 weeks, that gives raiders a reasonably long time to accumulate loot. The hardcore raiders that are clearing normal mode on week 1 will replace enough gear to make most of Flex irrelevant for them. You may have a couple people running a specific chunk of it to get a particular item they're after that hasn't dropped, but ideally that will only last a few weeks. So it's a temporary problem that gets worked out automatically by gear.

Keep in mind that this guild is killing 14 bosses, so they're getting 28 (10-man) or 84 (25-man) items each week. That's well over 2 per raider each week with room to spare. And that's before bonus rolls. So it's not at all unreasonable to assume that they will have better items to spend their valor on the majority of the time.

I'm not particularly bothered with it, but I also plan on mostly ignoring Flex/LFR on Theck, just as I mostly ignored it this tier. I may run it with the guild on an off-night a couple times in those first 2-3 weeks it's available, but that's about it. Again, temporary problem. Anyone who's in a serious hardcore raid group understands that, while more ilvls certainly help, the benefit of 5 ilvls on one piece of gear isn't going to make or break your progression. The vast majority of your progress on a boss comes from practicing and honing the execution. It usually takes 3-4 weeks of upgrades to simply brute-force a progression boss, at least in my experience. This tier we've been fairly consistently killing a new one within 4-5 hours worth of attempts.

I'm also really looking forward to running Flex on a few alts, because I think this might revitalize PuG and "ghetto alt" raids. To me, the minor inconvenience of having to run Flex on Theck a handful of times is greatly offset by the benefit of being able to raid on alts more often.

All of that said - the one idea I've heard so far that I like the best is the one about having Normal/Heroic mode automatically grant you the results of your Flex (and LFR?) roll on that boss. That does completely eliminate the incentive to run the content again without taking anything away from LFR/Flex raiders.

Alternatively, I wouldn't mind just getting a +20% chance on my bonus rolls if I haven't killed that boss in LFR/Flex that week. That also eliminates the incentive, because it gives me a higher chance to get the items I actually want.

Aren't people talking about the Flex raid scaling being applied to Normal and not the difficulty?

theckhd wrote:The people betting unusual sums of money on normal mode being eliminated in 6.0 are misguided. I'd take that bet, because it's basically free money. Flex caters to a very different group of players than normal does.

I'm not betting my money, I'm betting Aaron Rodger's money. If I lose, you can go up to him and ask him for the money. XD

Regarding sharing lockouts: I wouldn't expect it. LFR is a different set of instance tech than normal/heroic, which is why they don't share lockouts. Since Flex uses the same individual roll setup as LFR, it's a good bet that it's on the same tech tree as LFR, which means it can't share a lockout with normal/heroic. It could probably share a lockout with LFR, but that would defeat the purpose.

They ARE able to detect that you've killed a boss on any mode however - that's what applied to Legendary quest items. Hypothetical tech required would simply have to use that detection to enable whether your individual Loot Roll comes up the same way it does for having already killed the boss in LFR.

As a quick aside: If this bit is actually true, it's about the stupidest thing I've heard of in quite a while.

The power ramp-up is already dumb. My solution to the "Heroic raiders feel obligated to run LFR" issue all along has been that ToT LFR should have been ilvl 492 (i.e., just a hair below T14 normal), and have the ToT boss numbers be such that the first few bosses were at an "intended ilvl" of 496. That way, LFR is just to fill holes or catch-up for normal-mode types, not progression over previous-tier normal-mode.

Yeah, for specific specs, the trinkets are THAT powerful. UVLS and Feathers are the biggest outliers.
Part of the problem of course isn't just the trinkets. Snapshot mechanics really need to DIAF.

Perception-wise, it's the same thing. It puts LFR in a caste system simply on the desires of the HC raiders.

I swear if this was implemented, and the LFR trinket is actually better than a HC trinket, you would be crying that you gotta run LFR for a trinket that only exists in that mode and not in Heroic.

"Caste system"? Really? I'd like to know which kind of "caste system" in a game involves the ability to actually play the game and have every aspect of character progression, or even get the kind of return on effort that LFR has or still would in said hypothetical.
That's getting hilariously overdramatic - I don't even know how you managed to put that in words and hit Submit.

If they do manage to implement an LFR trinket that actually offers MORE than the ridiculous power boost that trinkets in ToT already do (which is REALLY not that hard to avoid, especially since there's a lot of wiggle room to work with for worthy upgrades that don't break classes or fights - the equivalent of UVLS being X crit rating proc instead of 100% crit rating proc alone would fall into that margin), then that would be a sign that they never understood what trinkets actually do. I have a LITTLE more faith in Blizzard than that.

Darielle wrote:"Caste system"? Really? I'd like to know which kind of "caste system" in a game involves the ability to actually play the game and have every aspect of character progression, or even get the kind of return on effort that LFR has or still would in said hypothetical.
That's getting hilariously overdramatic - I don't even know how you managed to put that in words and hit Submit.

If they do manage to implement an LFR trinket that actually offers MORE than the ridiculous power boost that trinkets in ToT already do (which is REALLY not that hard to avoid, especially since there's a lot of wiggle room to work with for worthy upgrades that don't break classes or fights - the equivalent of UVLS being X crit rating proc instead of 100% crit rating proc alone would fall into that margin), then that would be a sign that they never understood what trinkets actually do. I have a LITTLE more faith in Blizzard than that.

Again, the only ones complaining are heroic raiders, and they sound like special snowflakes while doing so. They also, proportion-wise, are pretty outnumbered by the people who do lfr and normal.

I'm not the one that is over-dramatic about LFR having the same, if less powerful, loot table than Normals and Heroics, you are. "Oh, woe is me! I gotta do LFR because Blizz is forcing me to."

And I still think you'd complain about LFR if, by accident, one of their LFR trinkets was much better than a heroic trinket. Even if you have more faith than that on Blizz.

Flex wrote:Aren't people talking about the Flex raid scaling being applied to Normal and not the difficulty?

Speaking for myself, yes. I'd like the flex tech on both normal and heroic difficulties, whilst preserving all four levels (LFR, Flex, Normal, Heroic) because it solves roster problems.

Adding Flex to normal mode only doesn't really do anything for guilds like mine, because as soon as we start working on heroics we have to start juggling the bench again, which leads inevitably to canceled raids when you're left with 11 raiders and two of them are unavailable one night.

The devs have point blank stated they do not think they will flex Normal and Heroic due to balancing difficulties. I think they see the problem of balancing raids for pure flex as being more intractable than addressing the problems guilds like mine have.

Want to raid heroic? Suck it up and find 10 people with 100% attendance, or a few people who are happy raiding heroics 60% of the time.

The split loot system is something they did in the past and never want to go back again specifically because raiders were having to run all lockouts to get all their BiS. The iLvl difference honestly should be enough to disincentivize running content below "your level."

If there's some trinket that is worth running three times a week for, well, gee, that just means you have three chances at what you want. I'm not seeing a downside.

fuzzygeek wrote:If there's some trinket that is worth running three times a week for, well, gee, that just means you have three chances at what you want. I'm not seeing a downside.

But LFR is soooo boooring~!

Again, the only ones complaining are heroic raiders, and they sound like special snowflakes while doing so. They also, proportion-wise, are pretty outnumbered by the people who do lfr and normal.

Not only are Heroic raiders not the only ones, who outnumbers who is irrelevant in this case.
LFR isn't going away. It isn't being made harder. Its loot isn't going away.
WIthin those parameters, any adjustment means that LFR will continue to exist for its intended audience, the character progression will continue to exist, the ability to run in whenever will still exist etc. An LFR player isn't going to be negatively affected by any such change that would involve Heroic players not being in LFR - unless you're claiming that LFR players NEED Heroic raiders in there for X reason, or even that they NEED 50k dps value trinkets to have any kind of character progression, and 20k, 25k will not do. I find that hard to believe.

I'm not the one that is over-dramatic about LFR having the same, if less powerful, loot table than Normals and Heroics, you are. "Oh, woe is me! I gotta do LFR because Blizz is forcing me to."

Hint: When have you actually seen me say anything about me being forced to do something? Hell, you've clearly missed me mocking people who DO use that kind of hyperbole right? I mean, I assume you're reading what I type, not what you think your fantasy hardcore raider types?

And I still think you'd complain about LFR if, by accident, one of their LFR trinkets was much better than a heroic trinket. Even if you have more faith than that on Blizz.

If they did manage to make an LFR trinket that was much better than a Heroic trinket, which would involve them completely dropping the ball, and would most likely only happen because a trinket was as badly designed as the Delicate Vial, there would definitely be something wrong going on to provide feedback on, right? I mean, we DO provide the same type of feedback when, say, an ilvl 200 Emblem of Heroism relic proved to be disproportionately powerful, when an LFR proc weapon winds up being better than Normal non-proc weapons, etc.

Or are we just finding excuses to throw words like "complaining", "special snowflakes" and all of that around because those evil hardcorez are so very, very mean?

Page 67: What is the reason they do things they don't want to do? Because incentive.

That sounds like they force themselves to do something they don't want.

And if there is a reason why we mock heroic raiders on this issue is because pretty much any solution is about diminishing the value of lfr to the point is not worth doing by anyone just because you don't want heroic raiders to ser any value in them, just happens that doing so also makes it useless for anyone else.

The solution that causes the least problems to the raiding population in general is the one Ion currently supports, you just happen to disagree because lfr is not devalued enough for heroics to complete ignore it.

Seems the discussion about lockouts and what not is getting to a stalemate, so I'll withdraw myself from that discussion.

As for the Flex technology hitting over to Normal/HC, I don't see that happening. It would work for a fight like patchwerk, but other than that, not really. Right now there are already constant discussions over which bosses are harder on 10 man, and which bosses are harder on 25 man. Imagine there being 16 options per boss, rather than 2... You'd have raids adding and removing members just so they get one add or one debuff less.

And if you wonder how they can balance it for Flex, then it's easy: They can't, either. However, for Flex it doesn't really matter. It's a much more casual environment. There won't be a race for who clears Flex first, as Normal/Heroic guilds should be able to steamroll each wing the moment they're released. Likely, the people for whom Flex is intended aren't likely the people that think "Oh, we really should get 1 more DPS in for the next boss, but then kick 3 DPS for the boss after.". If they were that focused and determined, they wouldn't be running Flex.

Now, they could apply the Flex technology for Normal, and things would still be mostly ok. After all, Normal is still likely to be steamrolled by the HCers, so there won't be much of a race either. However, Normal is closely tied to HC. You can swap from Normal to HC and back within an instance, and guilds that do manage to clear normal might try a HC boss or two. If they had a Flexible number of raiders, they would be forced to cut themselves down to 10.

What is the reason they do things they don't want to do? Because incentive.

That sounds like they force themselves to do something they don't want.

What it actually means is that the incentive is pretty strong. In the case of trinkets that can literally add 100k dps, which is NOT a small amount, that is exceptionally strong. No one here except you is really talking about forcing themselves. At worst is a discussion about return on effort, or whether it IS worthwhile to keep that incentive as strong.

And if there is a reason why we mock heroic raiders on this issue is because pretty much any solution is about diminishing the value of lfr to the point is not worth doing by anyone just because you don't want heroic raiders to ser any value in them, just happens that doing so also makes it useless for anyone else.

Again.

How does "UVLS won't be as overpowered in the LFR version", "Can only loot one mode at a time", "LFR can offer better gear since it's not trying to go for bare minimum", "LFR won't need gating as harsh", or anything of that sort translate in your mind to "LFR is useless for anyone else"?

LFR at the end of the day is still the mode that will be done by people who aren't in organised groups and want to queue whenever they want, and that's not going to stop just because their trinket isn't OP, or even in a hypothetical case where their 528 piece offers no set bonus, or a different set bonus that isn't the overpowered tier bonus, or hell, even though it's not what ANYONE is talking about, it wouldn't change if LFR's item level were lower.

Flex would still be the mode that offers flexible content that isn't too hard, and can be done by a casual group or easier to pug, and THAT wouldn't change anyway, so it's still the mode that would be done by its intended audience.

Are you sure that it's your imaginary hardcore raider that you seem to be talking to making up hyperbole, or are you?

The solution that causes the least problems to the raiding population in general is the one Ion currently supports, you just happen to disagree because lfr is not devalued enough for heroics to complete ignore it.

Correction:
What I took issue with is in specific things he mentioned that either don't work out the same way in reality, or violate their own stances on topics that they've made changes for.

And if you wonder how they can balance it for Flex, then it's easy: They can't, either. However, for Flex it doesn't really matter. It's a much more casual environment. There won't be a race for who clears Flex first, as Normal/Heroic guilds should be able to steamroll each wing the moment they're released. Likely, the people for whom Flex is intended aren't likely the people that think "Oh, we really should get 1 more DPS in for the next boss, but then kick 3 DPS for the boss after.". If they were that focused and determined, they wouldn't be running Flex.

In fact, I'd say they'll err on the side of making it easier with more people just because, even if it isn't a smooth flow.

I think there are a lot of points on both sides being ignored by each of you.

One point that I think is quite significant, Darielle, and that you are either ignoring, or have forgotten, is that LFR is now the intended catchup mechanism. A lot of the suggestions you are highlighting would mean a need for another catchup mechanism.

As I said earlier I've been in the shoes that Darielle is talking about, even though we weren't as hardcore in DS, the "need" to do LFR is a real thing. Also as said earlier, I just haven't seen any solutions that would actually help (different set boni would just mean that there is a very real chance that you would end up having to gather the LFR set because it would be better for that one boss.
Not having boni would also be a problem with the catchup functioning - "yay you are fully decked out in LFR and ready to be accepted, then you have to get full gearset anyway".

Any chance we can get this discussion moved to its own thread? I'd love to read about 5.4 news and thoughts without slogging through this mess for the 1000th time.

Ahem I'll try.

Try to not mess with this post until I'm done separating please

Split is done, enjoy the new topic.

<3

I understand there's a certain need to do something if the reward is big enough. I understand that you're kind of pushed to do that activity not only because the reward is pretty good, but also personal pressure and peer pressure.

But understand that you're asking Blizz to fundamentally change LFR over something relatively small, at least in the big scheme of things, because you don't want to be "incentivized" to do it without willing to admit that in doing so, you're also changing the value of lfr rewards for everyone else as well -- when in reality LFR is not really designed with heroic raiders in mind.

Now, that trinket is a end of expac thing -- and such brokenness is unlikely to be repeated for the next several tiers come the next expac, but you want to change it anyways.

LFR is giving you an extra chance at that shiny, and rather than seeing it as a curse, you should see it as a blessing that you have 3 chances a week, if you choose to take all 3 chances, to obtain that shiny.

Remember, this game is for everyone -- in the current setup, heroic raiders are the ones "affected" by LFR having desirable enough loot, I believe Ion does realize its a problem, but doesn't sees it as a big enough problem to be addressed (oh my! 3 chances a loot, how horrible!) -- I had mentioned this, but later so did Theck, sorry for the name dropping, quickly point out that the biggest chunk of heroic raiders are expected to clear normal easily, before LFR and Flex opens up in the first place. So that means a couple of weeks where you will get all your loot from Heroic/Normal chances to get your specific shiny. Now, not only is LFR and Flex broken in chunks, they're not released all at the same time - but you're also not expected to run them all at the same time.

Another solution could be to have Blizz neuter the trinket so it becomes meh, that way you won't be interested in the LFR version of it. How's that?

Remember, your solutions tend to be pretty heavy handed in that it ultimately changes LFR for the people it's really intended just for because some people will really value a specific trinket regardless of its source (LFR/Flex/Normal/Heroic).

So, if you want blizz to listen to you, then you need to come up with a solution that doesnt affect LFR/Flex for the people it mainly intended for, otherwise they will go with the lesser of evils and go with what they currently have, much to your chagrin.

Flex wrote:Aren't people talking about the Flex raid scaling being applied to Normal and not the difficulty?

The suggestion I saw was Flex replacing Normal, as in all you'd have LFR(25), Flex, Heroic(10/25). Which isn't going to happen.

I don't believe that Flex being applied to normal but not heroic (while keeping all difficulties) will happen either, personally. There's the balance issue, of course - it would be nearly impossible to make each fight equally difficult for any amount of players from 10-25, and it would just end up encouraging guilds to sit a chunk of players on certain fights to make them easier.

More important is the conversion issue, though. If you can flex normal-mode, what happens when you convert from normal to heroic and back for certain bosses? Specifically in a 10H situation, since it's irrelevant for 25-man. Let's say you have 14 people in the instance and you decide to do the next boss on heroic. Do you just disallow that change until there's only 10 in the instance? Or kick 4 people out at random? It's not so much a technical limitation as a social one, which is why I don't think Blizzard will do it just to normal. If flex tech comes to normal, it would probably also come to heroic. And that's why I don't think it will come to either.

Darielle wrote:

Regarding sharing lockouts: I wouldn't expect it. LFR is a different set of instance tech than normal/heroic, which is why they don't share lockouts. Since Flex uses the same individual roll setup as LFR, it's a good bet that it's on the same tech tree as LFR, which means it can't share a lockout with normal/heroic. It could probably share a lockout with LFR, but that would defeat the purpose.

They ARE able to detect that you've killed a boss on any mode however - that's what applied to Legendary quest items. Hypothetical tech required would simply have to use that detection to enable whether your individual Loot Roll comes up the same way it does for having already killed the boss in LFR.

Right, but that information is part of your character's stored data, not part of the instance tech. Hence why you can know that information outside of the instance (i.e. at the LFR queue interface), but LFR/Flex can't share lockouts with normal/heroic. It's a technical limitation.

In any event, I'm still waiting for feedback on my concept of automatically making LFR/Flex rolls on a boss in normal or heroic (or increasing bonus roll chance against that boss). It seems like that addresses the problem (Heroic raiders feel a strong incentive to re-run meaningless content and potentially cause burnout) without having any adverse effect on LFR/Flex raiders.

See? I like Theck's solution better! =D

Theck is stealing my idea now.

Though my suggestion was for Normal/HC to give the LFR drops as free extra (assuming LFR is available for that boss, and you haven't killed the boss yet on LFR). You basically get your LFR loot while doing Normal/HC. This way, you only have to farm 1 step lower than current content, just like it is now. You'd farm Flex next to Normal/HC instead of LFR. People that focus on Flex might farm LFR next to Flex.

I think giving Flex loot for free in Normal/HC is a bit overkill. Sure, it would remove all incentive to ever run Flex and LFR, save for helping out friends, but it's a little too much extra free loot...

The bonus on the charm rolls... That would feel odd to me. It would penalize me for running LFR/Flex with some friends before the raid night. And what about the bosses I'm not coining for? Can I still run those on LFR? (Though admittedly, I shouldn't be needing gear from more than 3 different bosses in LFR if I run Normal/HC.)

theckhd wrote:In any event, I'm still waiting for feedback on my concept of automatically making LFR/Flex rolls on a boss in normal or heroic (or increasing bonus roll chance against that boss). It seems like that addresses the problem (Heroic raiders feel a strong incentive to re-run meaningless content and potentially cause burnout) without having any adverse effect on LFR/Flex raiders.

I'm not sure I like the idea of getting a 'free' LFR/Flex roll just for downing the normal/heroic boss. The reason is because while it would definitely help make the normal/heroic raiders who don't want to run LFR/Flex not do thost things for the loot (and possibly make those on the edge swing out of it), it would literally be giving something to them for free: namely a chance at the 'lesser' reward from a boss you didn't kill (though in all likelyhood could quite easily), on top of the 'standard' reward chance simply because they are doing it on a higher difficulty. In other words, you'd be getting a cumulative reward - which seems kind of odd to me.

I think I'd rather see a chance on your bonus rolls (which would still require effort outside the raid instance in order to get coins, and be on an individual basis) to get the LFR/Flex loot *or* normal/heroic items (they'd have to have different chances, of course). That way you'd still have to do *something* outside of walking into your raid to see some increased chance at useful loot, but you'd not have to do LFR/Flex to get it. Heck, maybe even extend that down to Flex, letting it have a chance of LFR loot (if different ilvls).

The problem with your method theck, is that it would cut away "high skill" raiders from LFR. That means, LFR will not have those 2-3 key elements that carry the whole raid of bads.
You know it's always like that in LFR: 2-3 DPS/healers do pretty much all the job while most of the others can barely outdps a hunter's pet.