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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBreakfast Topic: Has the Raid Finder changed the way you raid?
by Fox Van Allen 
Jan 18th 2012 at 8:00AM
When I first got into raiding, it was just a casual thing. One night a week for a couple hours. Then, when Icecrown Citadel opened, it got far more serious. I was raiding several nights a week, several hours a night. I was grinding hard modes, wiping on heroic Lich King more times than I'd care to remember.
But something changed. That something: patch 4.3. The advent of the Raid Finder tool made it possible to get a group whenever I wanted. I could raid on my own schedule. I could have a life again. Sure, it's harder to get loot via Raid Finder, but I don't care about that. I'm just in it for the fun.
How about you? Has the Raid Finder changed the way you raid? Has it freed up more of your time? Or are you just as serious about raiding as you were before the Raid Finder came along?
Filed under: Breakfast Topics
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 4)
Thundermug Jan 18th 2012 8:26AM
It's convenient, I'll grant you that. But it's basically a long dungeon with 24 silent, narky or underprepared others. There's very little pleasure or sense of accomplishment. And in addition, it's removed a huge chunk of fun from the normal mode as I've seen it all before. Maybe if they kept the raid finder a tier behind the main event it might keep the new tier fresh.
Great for alts, but killing my enjoyment of raiding.
eric Jan 18th 2012 3:48PM
I sure does not kill my enjoyment of the normal modes becuase I don't have the oportunity to run them. The differance is you have the ooption to pass on LFR if you choose to. I think keeping LFR a tier behind would be bad for the community at large.
Stilhelm Jan 18th 2012 5:08PM
They should keep the loot a tier behind so those of us running normal and heroic modes don't feel obligated to run it on our raiding mains to help the guild raid group.
Thundermug Jan 18th 2012 8:29AM
It's convenient, I'll grant you that. But it's basically a long dungeon with 24 silent, narky or underprepared others. There's very little pleasure or sense of accomplishment. And in addition, it's removed a huge chunk of fun from the normal mode as I've seen it all before. Maybe if they kept the raid finder a tier behind the main event it might keep the new tier fresh.
Great for alts, but killing my enjoyment of raiding.
Martin Jan 18th 2012 12:50PM
How dare you have a negative opinion when asked a question.
Automan2k Jan 18th 2012 8:29AM
No change for me. My aging computer can't handle 25 man raids very well so its not really an option for me.
Philster043 Jan 18th 2012 2:02PM
My computer can barely handle it too, so I feel your pain. I suspect my healing is suffering from the lag, too. I'll have to get an upgrade before MoP comes out.
Dominic Jan 18th 2012 8:29AM
I quit raiding in a hardcore guild just before 4.3 in anticipation of Raid Finder. RF allowed me to finally switch mains so I could DPS instead of heal for a change. I love RF. My marriage is even better because of it! No more staying up later than my wife means she's happy that I'm going to bed with her again.
Gendou Jan 18th 2012 8:30AM
Yes, since it allows me to continue raiding while our guild looks for replacements for members who left for SWTOR.
Jamison Banks Jan 18th 2012 2:08PM
If Bioware doesn't get their crap together and fix some major issues with SWTOR, those raiders may actually come back (some of them, anyway). Quite a few people are very displeased with SWTOR's gameplay (ability delay, anyone?) and general bugs. Not saying they all come back, maybe none of them will. SWTOR was a good attempt, but the the drop in execution is stunning to me.
Daranon Jan 18th 2012 8:31AM
I've actually gotten to raid current content, while still relevant, for the first time since joining back in TBC. And actually want to do normal mode before Mists comes out!
The other plus, is I'm seeing a lot more pug raids for DS being formed, which is kinda neat. even though it has its snags, I would say LFR is having a positive effect on the game.
hovediah Jan 18th 2012 8:39AM
killed it for the most part, its more of a disturbing chore, LFR is like running a raid in barrens chat. "Rampant moronic comments, political discussions on par with Jersey Shore, oh and racism" ....
"wait...how did the shammy die on trash he's wearing 397 gear refusing to rez, is afk, still manages to get to roll on gear, takes tier piece, miraculously comes back and blames it on lag then leaves" .... !!!!!
Then you just have the random trolls that try to see how many bloods they can get to spawn on the spine fight.
"only one tentacle per plate guys...Hey! get your pet off that! OH MY GOD!" (raid wipes to overzealous hunter and rogue friend successfully taking down all tentacles)
Philster043 Jan 18th 2012 2:04PM
The Spine of Deathwing is the most telling part of the entire raid as to what kind of people are in the raid, that's for sure.
Everclear Jan 18th 2012 8:48AM
To be quite honest, to me personally, LFR has taken away a lot of the magic of the "real" raids. I know the intent for LFR was to get casuals to enjoy current raid content and to give them a taste of what high-end gear looks and feels like, and to that degree it's largely succeeded.
The problem with that though, is that it succeeds only after the first time around. Once you beat every boss an clear the raid, every consecutive time after that it becomes about loot, not the story, lore and content itself. And once you make loot the primary incentive among 25 random strangers where there is no consequence for being selfish - coupled with a lot of serious loopholes, exploits, and mechanic abuse that hasn't been addressed - and you're looking at some misery and griefing for a lot of players. Every week is just an unenjoyable grind of kids shouting, yelling, trolling and insulting each other for hours. And you're just trying to keep your head down because 8 or 10 of the people in the raid are all in the same guild (hogging all the loot), and you don't want to get kicked.
Then, from an achievement standpoint, killing Deathwing now on normal mode just doesn't... feel as satisfying. Maybe you can chalk that up to the less-than-impressive final fight as it is, but I've been raiding for 7 years now. My guild had the server first Naxx40 kill, and the second AQ40 kill. This is the first time in my WoW "career" that when the final boss of a raid (and expansion, no less!) died, there was no cheering in guild. I simply shrugged and right-clicked the chest and calmly "gratzed" everyone in Vent. We had all seen Deathwing die and the cinematics dozens of times before. Outside of the simple accomplishment of doing it yet again in a normal setting, it didn't feel special. Maybe future iterations of LFR can include everything *except* the final, final boss?
I'm not an elitist by any means, and I'm ecstatic that LFR exists now and I can't wait to see all of it's improvements in 5.0 and beyond. I think it's a wonderful tool and as a GM of my guild it certainly helps with planning strategies for fights and getting my raid members prepared. LFR is here to stay and overall I'm content with it. But I can't deny that it's removed a lot of the steam out of hardcore raiding. But maybe that was the point.
Wellsee Jan 18th 2012 9:15AM
"Maybe future iterations of LFR can include everything *except* the final, final boss?"
I have been talking about LFR with a friend this week and I wondered the same thing. However, and maybe even tellingly, I come at it from the opposite side: My guild could never field a team, so I've never done current tier raiding. With LFR, I killed deathwing on two toons the first week it opened up. I enjoyed doing it, no doubt, but it did feel a bit trivialized... So I wondered if I'd be upset if the final boss wasn't in the LFR? As of now, no, I don't think I would be, and it would give me some extra incentive to get into normal modes. I would also get my guildies more interested in doing it on normal too.
Shrikesnest Jan 18th 2012 9:44AM
No, the whole point of LFR is that people who can't raid normally get to experience the story. It's status as an alternate method of VP generation for people who already play four hours a day is incidental. Cutting the story off just before the ending would be a huge "screw you" to the first group, in addition to completely missing the point of LFR in the first place. Keep in mind that, as far as experiencing the story goes, most of the story occurs with the last boss anyway (you can summarize most raid boss stories as "You've never met me before and have no idea who I am, but let's fight to the death - generic combat taunt, HOOO!").
I know it's kind of a pissy cliche, but if LFR is ruining normal modes for your guild, maybe you guys should decide as a group not to do them. They're really meant for other people anyway, and you could gear up without it just like you always used to in every patch before his one.
Smashbolt Jan 18th 2012 11:45AM
"No, the whole point of LFR is that people who can't raid normally get to experience the story. It's status as an alternate method of VP generation for people who already play four hours a day is incidental"
Sorry Shrike, no. If it were really about letting people "see the content," they'd run it once or twice and not want to do it again. If it were really about seeing the story, there wouldn't need to be loot or VP dropped from it at all. It's all about the experience, right?
Loot and VP were added to give every player all the way up to heroic mode raiders a valid reason to run it. This is necessary to smooth out the experience. Without repeat players in there, most RF runs after the first couple weeks would ever complete. The loot dropped has to be better than normal T12 gear/heroics gear for the same reason or else people just won't do it.
You have every right to say "don't do it if you don't want to spoil things" and that works for the hard mode raider who was already decked out in FL heroic gear, and the player who (for whatever reason) does not commit to a scheduled raid group.
In this case, it's the casual raider of previous patches that's getting screwed. For the groups out there that got to but never killed Ragnaros or Nefarian on normal and are struggling in normal DS, Raid Finder is presenting an exceptionally low-hanging fruit giving them a very easy shortcut to several very desirable results.
It provides seriously good gear (T13 and proc weapons) to help you gear up enough to overpower whatever you're stuck on. It provides practice at mechanics you'd have a hard time learning in a normal raid group.
For a group struggling with Zon'ozz or Ultraxxion normal, it becomes really hard to justify not doing Raid Finder when it, as it's currently designed, very easily provides some of the very things you need to succeed: gear and practice.
So basically, it comes down to whether your desire to keep your experience of the content pristine is more important than doing what you can to help out your raid team. That is an absolutely shitty position to put people in.
Spellotape Jan 18th 2012 2:16PM
@ Smashbolt
It can be about "seeing the content" and gear/valor at the same time.
Shrike's remarks seemed more like a direct option and not a general suggestion for everyone - I didn't get the impression they were saying everyone who thought the story was ruined should skip LFR ... just the one person who commented and inferred killing Deathwing felt cheap. I am yet to hear of a single person who struggled clearing content in the previous tier skip LFR because it made the normal mode feel unimportant.
Smashbolt Jan 18th 2012 3:56PM
Fine. I was being general while covertly being personal. So, yeah, people DO feel like that.
I'm in a guild that still hasn't cleared Rags. We're 2/8 in DS Normal. I haven't gquit because they are the only ones I've found yet that raid on a schedule that I can work with.
I was hesitant to try RF because I knew it was designed for almost guaranteed success. I can't take pride in beating a boss that would have died just as easily had I walked out of the room for most of the fight.
So back to my guild. My options: a) work with what we had, b) get gear through RF/VP to do whatever I could to improve my throughput. I went for option b). I ran RF. I killed Deathwing. It felt cheap and left me jaded as to whether I even cared about wiping for months to finish it on normal, likely somewhere within three weeks of MoP coming out. Had I not gone through RF, I'd still be interested and excited about the new fights - and would scarcely even care that I was still only 2/8. But then my raid team would think I wasn't trying hard enough to help the team out. Lose-lose.
I doubt I'm the only one who was in that position. Next time I avoid RF, or find a guild that progresses at my pace, I guess.
And in regards to the first point Spellotape... of course RF is about story AND loot. While most admit it now, there were many who adamant on Blizzard making a fair way to "see the content." And once they can, they do. Every week... until their tier set drops. Because they have the exact same motivations as the raiders they claim to decry: loot.
Shrikesnest Jan 18th 2012 7:05PM
Smashbolt does have some fair points here. Obviously, the loot in LFR is better than the loot you can get from the heroics (albeit worse than VP gear) and grants weapon procs and, most importantly, T13 set bonuses. That last bit alone is enough to make it feel mandatory for some raiders, and I can respect that, to an extent. Depending on your class and spec, your set bonus can be a massive upgrade, and an extra shot at completing a set bonus each week is nothing to scoff at, especially for people in raiding guilds that don't have normal DS on farm a few scant weeks after it launched and therefore won't be filling out even their A-team's set bonuses very quickly.
My point is simply that gearing up the old-fashioned way is still an option; guilds have been doing it for years now. If the magic moment when you finish the big expansion boss off is important to you, it's possible to get that moment without sullying it via LFR. I can agree that it sucks that they've put you in such a position, at least. Blizzard should know by now that any advantage they can offer a raiding guild will become mandatory, much more something as significant as a shot at a set bonus. It's just that, if it's important to you and your guild, the magic can still be yours.