Nils has been trying to work out ways that the Looking for Raid feature might work. Let me just start off swinging and say that I don’t understand at all why Blizzard is putting this system in. Because it is not going to work, it is only going to be a giant clusterfuck. The only benefit that I can see from this system is that it will contain all the random droolers in the one area.
To give you an idea of how it will function, think back to when you did the raid bosses in Wintergrasp or Tol Borad. I’ll talk about Wintergrasp because I only did the Cataclysm version a couple of times. The raid dungeon in Wintergrasp is the Vault of Archavon. In it there are 4 raid bosses. There is no trash. The bosses are located at each end of a grid shaped in a cross. The fights are so simple and easy to understand that voice communication is not required even on a 25 man raid. Whenever you did these fights after winning Wintergrasp you could be assured of a completely random set of players in the raid, much like what a LFR group would be composed of.
The only reason that these bosses went down was due to their inherent simplicity, not due to the raid itself. The first stumbling block is the position of raid leader. Good players understand that someone needs to do it, and also occasionally lead themselves, so they empathise with the player who is leading the raid. Thus, they cooperate, offering suggestions when needed but for the most part doing their job and staying out of the way. As a raid leader, every player that you don’t have to devote time to and worry about is a shining light in a dark system. However, morons, (or socials or trolls or whatever you want to call them), have the automatic response of wanting to challenge the leader every single time they come into a raid. Their attitude is one of, I’m not going to accept you as a leader until you prove yourself to me. The consequence of this is that the leader wastes a great deal of their time placating and attempting to win over the morons, just so that they will operate within the raid. Added to this they believe that they are a unique and special sunflower and that only they, the moron, knows what needs to be done in a certain fight. The result is a chaotic mix of 18 random morons saying what needs to be done all at the same time, a raid leader who is publicly going mad at the chaos, and a handful of good players standing back and waiting for the usual social chaos to sort itself out so that they can, you know, raid.
And all this on a single server, where your behaviour can still in some small way effect your server reputation. Make it a random cross-server function and you can expect the behaviour to be like, well like using the present dungeon finder tool, only on a much bigger scale. The fact that Blizzard wants to make this available on 25 man raids is either extremely optimistic or an example of complete denial.
Here is an experience of a player using the LFR system on the Public Test Realms as a raid leader, which I have cross posted from the Official Blizzard Forum on the subject:
… When we first reached the boss, I typed out roughly 2000 words of text explaining the fight and asked for volunteers to soak the orbs. Zero responses followed, so I asked my four friends in the group to help. However we still needed 2 more to help so I began to whisper individuals. Problem was, you can’t seem to whisper people off server at the moment on the PTR so this was getting annoying. I continued to ask for volunteers but instead people were just talking to each other and ignoring me. Soon after, a hunter’s pet charged in and pulled the boss and 4 people left and 4 people DCed forcing me to kick them, which took about 20 minutes to get them all out. After we get another set of players I started typing out another 2000 words and this time actually had some volunteers to help with the mechanic. Had one guy the whole time filling up chat saying I didn’t know what I was talking about and telling others to not listen to me… essentially just greifing… but the vote to kick UI informed me that I had “initiated too many party kicks.” so we tried again despite that fact.
We did better this time, had a few people actually stack on the crystal, but this time people that I didn’t designate to stack also did and left the group without much healing or enough stacked to split the dmg optimally. Eventually the tank died, and 8+ people left/dced leaving me back at the beginning of this story.
Moral is?
The raid leader has no authority at all. The concept of a raid leader in the current build of the game is to command respect and lead the team through the mechanics. However, when there is no reason the player actually has to be accountable for their actions there is no reason they have to listen to the leader. This coupled with the fact that a person leaving actually causes more trouble for the raid they left than anything makes me never want to queue as a leader again …
Why would any sane person want to do this? The answer is that they won’t. If Blizzard’s aim is to have the LFR tool as an actual feature which will make the game attractive then it isn’t going to work. If the aim is, as I mention earlier, to keep the retards in one place this will only be effective as long as there are good players to attempt to lead them. In other words, it will only last in the short term. So what’s the point of LFR? I don’t know, you tell me.
November 1, 2011 at 3:45 am
Anonymity runs counter to accountability. There are no two ways about it, and you’ve done a beautiful job illustrating the why’s behind the assertion. Accountability breeds responsibility. Responsibility breeds involvement. Involvement breeds, well, you know, a good game…
Good post!
November 1, 2011 at 7:11 am
Schadenfreude, my friend, schadenfreude
November 1, 2011 at 8:47 am
So what is the point of LFR ?
I entirely agree with your description of how it will work but to wonder what the point is misses a designer’s cultural influence. I truly believe that this is being done with the “Field of Dreams” attitude that “If you build it, they will come” and not only will they come but participate and be happy – Lovely shiny people working in harmony, it’s delusional.
Or if it’s not delusional it’s certainly desperation.
November 1, 2011 at 11:37 am
It’s downright scary, that’s what it is.
November 1, 2011 at 9:02 am
Thanks for the link, Adam. Well, I think it can be made to ‘work’. I just don’t think it will add much to the game. And it might harm existing raiding, which would be a big problem.
It’s not entirely impossible to make 25 anonymous players work together. They just need to have a stake in working together, a strong leadership with a strong incentive in leading, and enough time at their hands to work things out.
Still – raiding has always been 90% about wiping and enjoying your company., The LFR isn’t really raiding, because what the players actually do while in the riad is dramatically different from what they do in normal raiding. What’s going on in their minds is dramatically different.
Will Blizzard manage to get it working? I guess – yes – even though their first iteration was naive. Will it add a lot to WoW? I don’t think so. I will prove bad for the game in the long term.
November 1, 2011 at 11:36 am
Nils,
Enough time on their hands to work things out? I thought that the idea of LFD/LFR was to get things done quickly. One thing you are not going to find in there is patience.
You’re going to find, GOGOGGOGOGOGOGO!
November 1, 2011 at 11:09 am
> The raid leader has no authority at all.
Problem is if you give the raid leader authority, the position will just attract people who are after authority instead of people who are after leading a raid.
Inherited power corrupts.
UBRS didn’t need a raid leader. LFR can only be a success if they make the fight as straightforward as UBRS was.
November 1, 2011 at 3:19 pm
The raid leader position would need to be automated, and important positions during the fight marked. If some people need to stand in a certain location, and automatic raid warning booms out, “All melee move to the X.” Then when the mechanic is done another raid warning, “All melee return to attacking the boss.”
Raiding 101- this is where you learn how to do it. Once you know the mechanics, where to stand, what to look for, you can move up with the big boys (and girls).
November 1, 2011 at 2:01 pm
This is a way for the devs to pretend to their management they’re addressing the problem of casuals leaving the game, without actually solving the problem.
I’ve long though the devs actions can be best understood if you imagine some key people are secretly working for Blizzard’s competitors.
November 1, 2011 at 5:28 pm
Without defining what you mean by “casual” it’s quite hard to actually know what kind of players you are talking about. Are you talking about people who don’t play for many hours a week, but when they do they mostly raid HC content? They do so in a casual, no stress guild maybe, but aren’t aiming for server firsts. Or maybe you are talking about the people who spend several hours a day in the game, yet haven’t really touched raiding too much. These are only 2 extremes of what the term “casual” could mean.
In actuality, the players leaving the game are probably more likely to be veterans of several years, who just feel the need to move on to something else.
November 1, 2011 at 5:37 pm
The reason they said they chose to start with a 25-man raid for LFR is because filling the roles is apparently easier that way. I guess they are getting those numbers from some internal source. I guess it makes sense though. Tanks and healers in LFD are always in demand while DPS is a dime a dozen.
Making raiding more accessible is a good idea for a game this old. It’s kind counterproductive to spend so much resources on content only a very small minority of the player base has a chance to experience. They’ll have to of course tune raids for 3 difficulty levels, but I don’t think that’ll be a real problem. The idea is pretty sound itself. Problem is people.
As you point out, anonymity breeds all kinds of arseholery. Even if the unlucky sap who ends up with the RL title is on top of it, he or she will have to deal with all kinds of people, and not all of them will be co-operative. The UI needs to give the RL and RAs some actual tools to deal with the Human Resource issues in raiding. Raiding guilds, and even established PUGs have their own external tools and systems, but the game itself doesn’t really have anything to help with those issues.
I’m gonna be waiting to see how this turns out. Hopefully it’ll be a success, but I’ll remain very cautious. It’s not Blizzard’s fault some people are douche bags, but it’s not healthy for the game or gaming community, if they don’t attempt to address that.
November 1, 2011 at 7:48 pm
As Ben also said, 25 man raids will result in more players being able to raid versus 10 mans – due to the population imbalance between tanks/healers/DDs. DDs have like a 35 min queue or something for RFD on most live servers? Imagine how long the queue would be trying to get into a 10 man raid (that only has 2 more DD spots than a 5man group).
I agree with Adam – the only way this will work if the bosses are similar to VoA bosses. Maximum of 2 mechanics that the raid has to deal with – and no “special” roles (orb clicker, etc). Needing to type out a 2000 word explaination is about 1999 words more than the average LFR player will have patience for.
November 2, 2011 at 3:26 pm
did ya see the blue post where they acknowledged the fireland bosses were too dancey and hard and that they had taken that on board, but it was to late for dragon soul? As I predicted in my blog melee will get minimal uptime on the new raid boss, thus the dps boost (which btw makes them murderous in pvp) . This new LFR is gonna be exactly like the troll hcs were ie 3 phases: phase 1 we had some pros carrying groups but mainly wipes. phase 2 most raiders got it, it gets done but if your fking up we kick you. The pros have all left we have no slack to carry you. phase 3: nightmare the pros are long gone you got the alts of real raiders and the window lickers. Good luck! your gonna need it.
November 4, 2011 at 5:27 am
“As I predicted in my blog melee will get minimal uptime on the new raid boss, thus the dps boost (which btw makes them murderous in pvp)”
The melee boost will only be in affect in the raid. It won’t affect PvP in any way, since the buff is tied to the instance.
November 2, 2011 at 3:53 pm
Personally, I think the LFR will work out, but it will take some time. They will also need to put in a few checks as well.
My early experiences with LFD were pretty terrible. It improved as people learned the encounters or were able to just brute force them. Both will happen in time here as well. LFR will be nothing more than a group mostly comprised of a guild/trade pug and a handful of people from other servers for the slots that couldn’t be filled. (At least in the early days.) I’m sure everyone remembers the early days of LFD where people would be looking for a tank and healer before attempting to queue. (Preferably a full group.)
Since this only works for Dragon Soul, we won’t have the option to brute force this any time soon unless exceptionally well geared people continue to use it. If this had been rolled out in phases by starting with T11 content during this tier, it would’ve been deemed a success as Firelands geared people would still go back and do the odd T11 raid for a particularly elusive item. Tacking this on to current and only current content is a recipe for complaints.
The kick system will need to be revisited for the LFR. A cooldown on kicks is a recipe for disaster as well. (Too many offlines, language barrier, full blown retarded, etc.) I would much rather there be no cooldown on kicks and an auto-remove feature for people who have been offline more than 2-3mins.
There will be growing pains with this system. It’ll be great come next expansion, but right now, it’ll be a headache.
I am a progression raider, and while I may not use the feature much, I will try it out from time to time. Despite being normally pessimistic by nature, I’m oddly optimistic about this new feature.
Oh, and I hope Blizzard sticks to their guns about no achievements in LFR. I’d have to have morons trying to do drake achievements when they don’t have a clue about how the fight works.
Thanks for your wall space.
November 2, 2011 at 4:18 pm
I find Wintergrasp to be a poor comparison, based on MY experience on my server. We didn’t have much in the way of tards when it came time to actually enter VoA (I say that because as Alliance, it was far and few between). Perhaps it could be server luck.
Having said that, I simply look at the sheer level of douchery I see in the random dungeon finder and figure the raid finder will just turn the volume up to 11.