SoO LFR Raid part one was ok

Sunday daytime a few weeks ago I had an unexpected few hours to waste online and I finally got the queue to pop for SoO part one, after a 1 hour 10 minute wait.

I am so very late to be just doing LFR Siege of Orgrimar, that it is sort of scary to think about how “behind” I am. It was Jan 19th when the Part One achievement ping’ed on my main character.

It gets me thinking that the concept of behind is funny in MMO terms. The folk who are setting or breaking records were done with this patch in Hard mode content months and months ago. The guild (Insidous Nagrand-US) has been doing hard modes for ages, and with two darn healthy 10-man raiding teams they are kicking Garrosh and his cronies in the groin on a regular basis.

As a section it is OK. I didn’t have my socks blown off by the strats or by the difficulty. I saw a heap of people die to the HUGE BLACK SWIRLY BEAM in whats-his-name-in-the-middle. I guess it was too tricky that it can go in one of two directions VERY VERY SLOWLY. I kept my well-fed buff through the entire run, which means that I’ve kind of let the noob-DK team down.

Anyway, I don’t mind being behind. I’d like some magic wand to make the queue times less than one hour, but I also feel like an absolute troll for even saying that. A player who logs in during the odd blue moon doesn’t like waiting one hour for an LFR? Cry a river rookie-boy. As a wise-crack, but altogether wise guildie suggested – or roll a Tank and man up!

I think the last thing the “LFR community” needs is my DK strafe tanking a Boss as a noob. I’m almost certain that after my Tanking an LFR run for the Lei-Shen fight a few players left WoW  in disgust. I could almost taste their tears and hear the breaking keyboards.

I love tanking, it’s not that it’s not fun at all, it’s that others don’t seem to love watching me learn. Grin.

Happy raiding, you dedicated folks. Very jealous. I’ll see it all eventually.

Tankn for lolz

Last night the guildies were one man short, and I was lucky enough to be able to Tank for them.

It’s kind of post worth because I could play in a real raid with friends, which happens rarely and also tank. Rare indeed for a player who is more used to standing behind the big-bad and deeeeps’ing, more often in LFR.

In around 3 hours which included the special trash boss for the week and also a few bathroom breaks; we killed the first three bosses in Throne of Thunder. Then poked the huge turtle in the eye a few times, but he’s a tad chaotic. First time that I’d died to those swirly floating trolls who kick you off the bridge, shamefully I took an OS trinket for Tanking from a kill, and as I expected these were no Titan Runestones to be seen. It is a shame that these only drop from the last 6x bosses.

Once again I learnt a lot about these bosses that I didn’t know, and loved it. Makes me ponder nudging the regular tank in the side and flooding his connection so I get a spot (kidding).

As an aside I wonder if gearing a Tank set as priority is a better option for Patch 5.4 than Dps. I don’t think I’ll be able to keep within distance of the regular raiders for gear level in 5.4; but a tank is something when needed by role as much as output. That might mean a set that I can switch with between the raid groups.

Not sure.

Ps. Sorry about the title, it made sense at the time.

FlexRaids in 5.4, and LFR is apparently killing wow?

I’m reading about the Flexible Raid feature which is likely for patch 5.4, and I really dislike where the community is already taking it.

Ultimately, my guess is that in the next expansion, as long as there are no technical difficulties with the Flex Raid system, is that it will replace LFR completely.  I sure hope it does.  LFR is a stone around WoW’s neck and needs to be killed as quickly as possible.  For this reason I welcome the Flex raid system with open arms, and hope that it succeeds.

WTF!

While LFR might be killing the game for some, you are the not the entire player base.

If not for LFR I could not see the raid content. I don’t have a huge social network of raiders with RealID to sync with, and therefore I need LFR for the game to be viable.

I would not have some of the gear I have which allows me to sub-in to help our guild’s regular raid team. I am a pitch hitter who helps fill gaps, and removing LFR only makes that a shitty experience to try and keep up with where our raid team is. Our Guild raids three nights a week and is about as social a group as I have ever played an online game with – because I know a bunch of them from real life and have played with others for years. Years and years in fact.

So this new system is designed for social…good. What I will then need to do is open up and connect with new folks to form irregular raid times to try and suit my irregular schedule? Nah, I’ll just keep doing LFR when I can.

I love that the Flexible Raid feature is being added, it is a great step that will benefit the game, but to say that this renders LFR obsolete is plainly wrong. It might be true that many players who begrudgingly play LFR now will only do Flexibel Raids, but I doubt that too.

Many players will try to do all three, and that is a bad thing. It means burnout and boredom are present faster. i.e. Weekly LFR, Flex, Normal on the same content? Nope, no time. Bah, move on.

Links: I Like Pancakes – Flexible Raid Preview. and MMO Champ’s article.

UI overloaded in 25 mans

I love a good 25 man roflstomp run, and also can’t help but share my ingloriously poor UI layout. In the screenie below you can see why. I can hardly see much of the screen without my own UI elements getting clogged, and then the amount of malarky in the floor and flying through the air has my character somewhere in the middle of the red fire, green fire, blue beam, and near the grey/blue crystal. I think.

This is the twin consorts in Throne of Thunder, or the fight I like to call “Wheeeee, chase the girly swirly fire, opsie! Anyone got a rez, lol”.
LFR, Love it. I could probably remove the dps meter, and I should move some of the non-essential buttons on the middle bottom to the right, after moving the stuff on the lower right to some sort of radial menu. But it is LFR and doing 80-90k dps is fine in there.

Shallow needs for loot

Whine. Every time I use a coin and miss on a reward I feel like I’ve wasted a coin. When I don’t get loot in LFR I get the feeling too. Yes, we should not get gear every kill, and yes I know I’m on a treadmill.
Still the system needs to ramp up on rewards, perhaps so that I don’t get another of the same reward. eg. getting a third set of 502 PvE legs from LFR was frustrating.

A week later I got a 522 Leg item from Nalak too. Pants!

Related articles

• LFR Fun and Loot (typhoonandrew.wordpress.com)
• wow Loot Specialization Menu (typhoonandrew.wordpress.com)

Is LFR progress?

It is funny to think that LFR can grant players “progress”.

Strict progression is typically for normal and especially for hard-mode guilds, who are focused not only the hardest content, but also getting through the hardest content faster than their peers. Server rankings, kill times/strats, and sometimes even achievement points are ranked against each other to see who is first, and who is the best. LFR however is generally accepted as being easy, or scrub mode.

I ran a lot of LFR this week and was able to kill each boss in the current tier in LFR raids. It took more than the four nominal run through, as sometimes I joined mid way through, or the groups disbanded amid the raid.

That does not at all mean though that LFR does not have a place in terms of “progress”. Perhaps it is just progress for me, but I think there is merit in the system.

LFR and Random Boss loot luck

A small amount of luck goes a long way. Yesterday I got the LFR shoulder token, and today some Pvp boots. Rewards make the loot treadmill less crappy. Happy for this week, and hording my Valor points for a while to see what the cool kids buy at Revered rep with Shado-Pan.

LFR Fun and Loot

Across a week or so I’ve done some LFRs, and thought I’d share two things – LFR is still a place to be horrified at the sub-human types who feel they are mighty and powerful in World of Warcraft (screenshot #1), and despite my gut feel LFR does grant loot. Sometimes (screenshot #2).

Overall I’m going to struggle to raid casually with the Insidious raid team and also get any LFRs done, especially when there are 4x different queues to do. That said, having more choice and more options are better than less, and three bosses in LFR certainly take long enough.

The LFR behaviour is still poor.

I won’t retype what the silly angry Shaman said, but it was dismally uninspired as far as insults go.

Tier 14 leg token from an LFR run. Wait what?

A bit of loot is a nice way to end a run. Thank the LFR gods that the reward was there. My next goal is to get something apart from gold from the coins.

Happy Killing, TyphoonAndrew

Killed by Council – screenshot

A quick screenshot of my Death Knight being dead during an LFR. Regardless of the deaths, I’m glad I’ve seen council dead. Good times, great memories.

Thundering LFR thoughts

I did a LFR for Throne of Thunder (or ToT as it is being called in the off-channels) and it was ahem interesting…I was unlucky enough to joining a run already in progress and on the final boss of that LFR session – Council. What I saw was expected and I’ll share a little.

For starters, the LFR mini-game has not changed and is still present, meaning:

• an idiot still trolled the raid by pulling with missing players/roles, and left before being kicked. I feel there should be a way to make that player’s life worse somehow because he wasted 10 minutes of 20-ish people’s time.
• an impatient player still yelled and whined about “just pull” and was a general pain through out the encounters. These people make me not want to read /raid channel.
• nobody “knew” the strat, despite the raid leader explaining it really clearly,
• many Dps did terrible jobs of staying alive and also actually doing damage. We sat around 80k dps for most attempts, did about 105k on the kill, but 5-7 players were doing less than 40k, and some less than 20k dps. Doing 20k dos with a 30% buff is unthinkable.
• gear level was low for some characters present, but honestly how they played was far more a factor.
• I battlerez’ed another character in each attempt, but I think the attitude is to wipe and reset rather than push in LFR.

Oh, but we have new enhancements to the system to help:

• the new 5% buff for each wipe is interesting. I joined the Council attempts at +15% so knew they’re already suffering. When we killed it we were at +30%. I was around 3rd on Dps for most of the fights, sometimes getting to 1st. The buff is not stopping people from leaving, and is not stopping situational awareness, or lazy players.
• the new buff system will help reasonable players carry bad ones, which is why I fully support it as a concept. The max value of 50% might not be enough if the player base cannot learn about staying out of sand-traps, but it is a help.
• We will have four of these raids by end of April to do each week. I do not have the time or inclination to repeat that repeat wipe experience 4x a week in addition to dailies and trying to get a raid spot. I find wiping like that totally frustrating. It is not progression when nobody stays to learn, or refuses to learn how to do the fight properly.
• Oh – and my Mogu coin and luck remain consistent with the previous tiers, meaning NOTHING DROPPED for me BUT A SCRUB DPS GOT A TWO HANDED WEAPON at item level 502. I wanted to throw my laptop at that point, or go out and buy a cat so I could kick it.

To be fair a single boss kill in not enough to say that the sky is falling, and in fact I like everything I’ve seen in Throne of Thunder. The trash, the bosses I’ve seen, and the physical construction is very good so far. I am pleased to say I will return there, and even keep trying to offload my lucky-mogu-coins for something other than gold.

Arrrg loot in LFR and the Useless Ordinary Legendary Gem

This post is brought to you by the word: Random.

I was going to whine about loot in LFR, as a run through Terrace and the first part of Heart of Fear saw nothing. But then I got lucky in the second part of Heart of Fear LFR, and got the Gloves token which I’ve now had drop 4x times. Arrrrg. No weapons, side grades, other drops for ages. Oh, working as intended? Random rewards are fun. /sarcastic

On an actual positive note I have now handed in and completed the first stage of Wrathion’s quest-line for the “Ordinary Legendary Gem“. Now the slow grind up to 6000 Valor points has started, and we’ll see how far behind the curve I am. I doubt patch 5.2 is 6-7 weeks away given the news and press flying around.

I love the fact that the Legendary quest line is a pain in the arse and bloody difficult for a casual player. Blizzard got this right. it should be driving those players crazy, and should not be something that we feel is deserved; earn it. I get a good quest line and the promise of more great stuff to come.

Not that the “Ordinary Legendary Gem” is actually useful as it requires a Sha Touched Weapon to be slotted into, which is also RANDOMLY DROPPED. So the Ordinary Legendary Gem” is actually a “Useless Ordinary Legendary Gem“. I’ve decided to treat the gem like getting the Left Binding in Molten Core. Now begins the stupidly long path of getting the other random thing to drop.

My Death Knight could really use a Sha Touched weapon for Tanking. Really, really, handy. Random and hard for LFR upgrades is poor, random and hard in a Legendary quest is perfect. Its like the two are the same now. Just saying.

Related articles

• LFR Sha of Fear – Tank’n for laughs (typhoonandrew.wordpress.com)
• Time for Tokens to die (typhoonandrew.wordpress.com)
• Elder Charms, LFR loot, and perception of the doubly random (wow.joystiq.com)

LFR Sha of Fear – Tank’n for laughs

I queued for LFR as dps hoping to get a sub-40 minute wait. Wish granted – but the group was staring at the Sha of Fear, and we were one tank down. Damn it, I hate waiting.

So I grabbed my Tank set, chatted to the current heavy, and we pulled. One Dead Sha. And I think my meter is broken in that fight, as it has my 8th on Dps – which cannot be true.

I think I’ll do more tanking in LFR now.

LFR run in Heart of Fear and Terrace

here are a few random screenies of a Looking For Raid run within the Heart of Fear and Terrace of Endless Spring. This run only had a few bosses before I had to leave.

LFR Gearing Hyperboost in Mogu’shun Vaults

After getting to the right ilevel I joined an LFR run of Mogu’shun Vaults. It was interesting. I saw a few bosses, but due to the reset I was unable to see a complete run. That said, I gained 2x epic items (raid finder 476s) in that run through a combination of loot drops and using the extra special roll tokens. My gear is still poor though, being that I have a terrible trinket and three  ilevel 450 items. I’ll dance a jog when I can get all slots to 463, and probably scream like a pansy when I’m epic’ed out.

The gearing plan is to continue to get Valor until I can afford to buy a new Trinket (must buy or craft a Dragonling asap), and craft either the Chest or Gloves. Also continue the dailies for rep and the minor tokens, and perhaps the gear that is unlocked. Bloody motes. That is a long road. Perhaps I’ll get another shot at the Sha of Anger too.

Fight styles in LFR and mechanics are self-evident most of the time. eg. the burning chain that joins two players is obviously bad, so stay next to each other. Or bad stuff in the floor, or announcements before AoE effects, or don’t stand in front of the boss as your dps drops and it breathes, cleaves and makes mince meat of characters.

The overall performance of a player in LFR is as per previous, and strat wise LFR is not teaching much about the fight mechanics properly. The Doggies were tanked and nuked, which is not how I think its supposed to be.

Related articles

• With 460 ilevel, now for LFR… (typhoonandrew.wordpress.com)
• Mogu’shan Vaults LFR Requirement (typhoonandrew.wordpress.com)
• All LFR bosses. (ownedcore.com)

With 460 ilevel, now for LFR…

I finally got to average 460 ilevel last night just after midnight, and I’m now drooling for an LFR run. On the same night I was able to turn in the quest to make 3 magic tokens, to increase the loot chance. Getting to that gear level was totally random luck, with a Gloves from from SC heroic. I’m up to the bit where I enchant and gem the gear, which is expensive but really worth it.

Next challenge is explaining to my wife why I want to login on a non-wow night to do an LFR run, just because it resets today. That’s a tougher boss than Alganon when you’re wearing nothing except Northrend blues (ok, bad wife joke. sorry).

Related articles

• Mogu’shan Vaults LFR Requirement (typhoonandrew.wordpress.com)
• What a few nights a week can do? A lot actually. (typhoonandrew.wordpress.com)
• LFR Loot System (typhoonandrew.wordpress.com)
• Gearing can take a while for some (typhoonandrew.wordpress.com)

Mogu’shan Vaults LFR Requirement

If you’re slowing building gear for your fresh level 90 (like I am) you might be interested in the LFR requirement for the Mogu Vaults. The official word is:

You need to be level 90 and a minimum of 460 average ilvl if you wish to enter the first part of Mogu’shan Vaults LFR that will be opening tomorrow.

Go get those Scenarios and Heroics folks – 460 is tough but doable for a freshy. By example I have 7 of 15 item slots that are 460 or higher, playing fairly casually although luckily – with an average of ilevel 452. A few upgrades in 3x 437s and my level could be there quickly.

I wonder if that will nudge the pvp gear prices and supply a bit as people sherk the system to add higher level gear?

I wonder why the last gear roll in every instance has everyone rolling need?

Tears over Tier Tokens

Death Knights waiting for a token not shared with bloody Mages or Druids.

Because of a Guild Officer’s meeting I was pondering the loot tables, gear distribution systems, and the associated mods that raiders use. Of course the loot reward system was discussed, and we once again chatted about all sorts of options. Silly ones, great ones, in an ideal world, and also very much in the world we have to play in. That might make it sound like I didn’t want to chatter about it; not so. In fact we’re pondering all sorts of useful stuff for the teams, and considering carefully what the game will feel like in WoW version 5.1+. The question that came to my mind outside of those discussion was:

What if the tier tokens were made universal for all classes?

I suggest removing them, and making them just “shoulder token” or “helm token” with no class restriction. And here is why:

• Essentially most raiding guilds have loot policies and systems to handle gear distribution. Therefore the token is adding a layer of restriction which is actually inhibiting the guild’s progression, because it limits options.
• Some groups have actually implemented separate bid lists or systems specifically fro tier gear, due to the importance it has on the character and raid. Well no change there one way or the other, only that the skew of classes in your raid group will be affected by the random token that drops. i.e. Good luck being a geared Shaman if you rarely see that token drop.
• Random LFR runs now have no loot need/greed anymore. You either get look or you do not. The token is moot now in LFR.
• The tokens have the positive change of allowing a character rewarded with one a choice on what particular item they choose from the vendor. This is a huge positive as it means that classes can pick the best gear. Druids for example can pick any of their types of gear fro one token. No change as either an advantage or disadvantage here.
• The tokens helped when you didn’t want to compete against everyone in the raid for loot, which gave an illusory feeling of hope. But once again that is a mechanic which raiders can handle. It still comes down to which Token dropped, and then who you roll against. So essentially is a two step random process (which token, then roll against other classes) better than a one step random process (what was your loot roll)?
• The tokens at times were useless due to not having enough of a class range, or they could not benefit the raid the most. Huge problem, just ask anyone doing Wintergrasp, et al.
• The only situation where these have some limited value as implemented now is for pug runs which are not in the LFR system, and that is only because they keep the illusion of two random events alive. That is a thin line.

So there it is. I can’t see a reason to keep them anymore.

Related articles

• Need Before Greed Looting Protocal (evalandor.wordpress.com)
• LFR Loot System (typhoonandrew.wordpress.com)
• LFR Post Patch (bubblesofmischief.com)

LFR Loot System

The new loot system gives an approx 15% chance to each participant to get loot. The “community” is happy, delighted, excited, angry, whingy, upset, and everything else.

Zarhym – The new system won’t have a record of your loot history or check your inventory. In your example, Bob might win the same item off of the boss every week (assuming he’s running as the same spec each time).

The only thing the system looks at is 1) if you are eligible for loot (have you killed this guy already this week?), and 2) what your current spec is.

It does not favour your current gear. It looks at the roll to see if you win something, and then gives a random item based upon your spec. This means that folks might have a slightly higher chance to get anything because you are not competing against the need/greed rolls of others; and the system cannot be gamed. Previously the system could be spun to try to get a specific item to a toon, or share an item between characters in the LFR.

It is as positive as it is negative, and it is designed to get rid of the selfish drama of need/greed. It introduces a new set of drama, as people get items they already have, or do not want.

Overall I think this is better because the asshats can’t spike my rolls.

That one perfect item was a snowball’s chance in hell anyway – so what really changed except dumb luck not being influenced by other players? Nothing. LFR remains a once a week random small chance to get a better item, and a source of Valor/Justice points, and I’m fine with that.

My suggestion would be to alter the drop so that I am less likely to get an item I already have in bags, equipped, or banked. This favours removing unneeded gear, and means that each run will be more rewarding. I guess too that too many people have such a wide variety of wishlists when it comes to loot (for main, offspec, transmog, vendor) that anything except a basic approach will crate a whinge fest. Checking this at time of award is potentially a hassle which is perhaps why such an obvious tweak was not done.It will however be an irritation to people looking for two of the same weapon for dual wield or for dual specs.

The new system looks to be a quick and dirty solution to loot distribution in random groups, and I am confident that over time a better set of tweaks will be added; later rather than sooner.

(Ps. I’ve written heaps on gear, and a fair amount on new rules that would be handy).

Related articles

• Reminder: Raid finder loot rules change applies even to guild runs (wow.joystiq.com)
• LFR Post Patch (bubblesofmischief.com)

LFR Tool…shrug

The LFR tool has some more details announced, but really its as expected. You’ll be sorted into a 25 man raid team, and given an easier version of the current content. Game By Night posted about it, and asked why it is not creating more of a stir, after all it should affect the entire MMO Community.

I made a comment to him:

“Why aren’t bloggers talking about it?!”
Because I think it will fail, but my blog is almost a Blizzard bashing blog anyway, so I don’t want to be too negative.

We have a raid finder tool already, and nobody uses it. Maybe making this across a series of realm is good, but as I said in my blog – it is almost pointless for current raids, but fantastic for older ones.

An old raid can be stomped by players who have no clue, but current tier content will be difficult regardless. I hate pugs, this will be like pugs on speed, wielding chainsaws.

Yup, Chainsaws. Speed freaks yelling gogogogo, and pointless wipes. I hope I’m wrong as I really need something like this so to support my progression, and I am planning to use it a lot.

To give it any less than an incredible amount of patience and time will be a poor review, and impact poorly for MMOs in the future. Blizzard is trying a new thing here and that should be applauded. Lets raise a glass to 25 man random Raids, and hope that the people joining them are useful, informed, and tolerant.

If they really wanted the feature to be a 100% seller it would be available for old school raids too. That would meet the transmogrification needs too.