Why Raid Finder?

A couple of weeks ago, Rohan of Blessing of Kings asked Why LFR? in a blog post based off of an MMO-Champion forum thread, the premise of which is that normal mode raiders are abandoning normal mode raiding in favor of the Raid Finder. I'm not going to go over what Rohan wrote, because his post is short and to-the-point enough that it's probably easier to click the link and read it for yourself than for me to rehash it here, but I do think there are a couple of other factors that are worth mentioning.

@Ixidane Most of the players doing LFR just didn't raid at all before. They were never really eligible for recruitment.
— Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) June 6, 2013

First of all, the above tweet by Ghostcrawler indicates that Raid Finder players and normal mode raiders tend to be two different sets of people. There's certainly some degree of overlap, but by and large, players running Raid Finder are brand new raiders as opposed to former raiders. This calls the entire initial assertion into question, and considering Blizzard has access to far more data on the matter than the playerbase does, I'm willing to believe they know what they're talking about.

So, if normal mode raiders aren't switching over to using Raid Finder as the sole fulfillment of their raiding desires, what's happening to them? As odd as it may sound, I think the answer lies within a nearly year-old article posted on GamesIndustry International just after the launch of Mists of Pandaria - Blizzard's success isn't magic; just hard work and open minds. The article isn't terribly long, and I highly suggest reading it in its entirety, but the key point is essentially that Blizzard has always aimed for accessibility, and as World of Warcraft becomes increasingly accessible the vocal hardcore players become flummoxed over the fact that Blizzard isn't treating them like the influential "whales" that conventional gaming wisdom tells them that they are, and so they begin to complain about this process. The Raid Finder and other systems that are perceived as "catering to the casuals" become the scapegoat for hardcore players' ire, and I think this following tweet shows exactly that happening, as well as posits a more likely explanation for where these normal mode raiders are disappearing to:

@IshayuG The fact is, WoW always lost lots of players. In the past, we tended to get as many or more new ones as we lost. Lately, less.
— Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) June 8, 2013

In other words, players aren't abandoning normal mode raiding in favor of Raid Finder, but rather the available pool of normal mode raiders is drying up as the overall playerbase contracts. However, even if World of Warcraft's subscriber base continues to erode, there are still upcoming features that will likely serve to boost normal mode raid participation. Flex Raids will allow Raid Finder players to get a taste of more standardized raiding, and hopefully convince them to move up to normal modes once bitten with the formal raiding bug; and Virtual Realms will consolidate player populations, allowing raid groups greater access to players who are interested and available for raiding, but unwilling or unable to transfer realms to do so.

Hope is not lost. Keep calm and raid on.

My Thoughts on Flexible Raids

Last Thursday, Blizzard announced a new difficulty level for raids called Flexible Raiding, which - similar to Raid Finder in Cataclysm - will premiere with the final raid tier for Mists of Pandaria. The Flexible Raiding system, as you probably know if you pay any attention to World of WarCraft-related news sites, will require pre-formed groups of anywhere from 10 to 25 players and will be set between Raid Finder and normal raiding in both difficulty and item reward level. Its primary attractions are its ability to dynamically tune encounters depending on the number of players participating and its immediate availability for cross-realm play (it's currently unclear if the existing restrictions barring cross-realm groups from undertaking the most current raid tier for normal and heroic difficulties will be removed).

Personally, I'm somewhat torn about the feature - not because I feel there's anything fundamentally wrong with it, but because it's yet another amazing-sounding feature which, like Pet Battles, Challenge Mode Dungeons, Brawler's Guild, and Heroic Scenarios, I probably won't be able to participate in to any satisfactory degree for the foreseeable future. It certainly addresses my primary complaint against Raid Finder, though, which is that Raid Finder groups often just feel like extra large Dungeon Finder parties due to the complete lack of camaraderie between most random groups of strangers.

That said, I do not think the Flexible Raid system is without its flaws. In terms of loot, for example, I think the upper level of PvE itemization is saturated to the point where adding an additional strata of gear between Raid Finder and Valor Point/normal raiding item levels is a detriment. At some point, the excitement and thrill of winning an item upgrade gives way to disappointment that you now have to spend so many resources to in order to maximize its utility for increasingly fleeting gains as the useful lifespan of items decreases within a single raid tier. Even if you never step foot into a normal mode raid, it is going to become progressively less fun to win a belt in Raid Finder only to have to reforge it, add a Living Steel Belt Buckle to it, and gem it, then have that belt be replaced by the Flexible Raid version, re-reforge, re-buckle, and re-gem the new belt, and then have to repeat the process a third time when the Flexible Raid belt gets replaced by the Valor Point version.

Honestly, I think Blizzard has a better template for itemization in the Korean version of WoW, in which items can be upgraded up to 4 times (compared to a maximum of twice elsewhere around the world) and certain raids drop partially upgraded gear. While the system is based on raid size in Korea, I think it should be altered to work for Raid Finder and Flexible Raid gear in North America, because it turns the above issue into a contemplative game mechanic. In the belt example, if you were to obtain a Raid Finder belt with 0/4 upgrades and enhance it properly, you would then have an actual decision if a 2/4 upgraded belt were to drop for you in a later Flexible Raid: since the Raid Finder belt and the Flexible Raid belt will become identical when they have equal upgrades, do you opt to save 500 Valor Points by applying appropriate enhancements to the Flexible Raiding belt; or do you choose to save ~1000 gold by keeping the enhancements to the Raid Finder belt and upgrading it with Valor Points? Furthermore, unless Blizzard shrinks the item level gap between Raid Finder and normal mode raiding loot (currently 20 item levels), the 8 additional item levels from 2 more upgrades will still put 4/4 upgraded Raid Finder gear below freshly-dropped normal gear, which means that normal and heroic raid gear could maintain their 2 upgrade maximum with minimal negative effect on game balance.

All in all, though, I'm looking forward to experiencing Flexible Raids for myself (if the opportunity arises), as well as seeing how Blizzard will adapt the new technology going forward. Flexible Scenarios, perhaps?

On Ragnaros and the Raid Finder

The raid group I run with is currently 6/7 in Firelands (normal). This means that of the 7 total bosses, we've only managed to kill 6 of them. The final boss, Ragnaros the Firelord, continues to elude defeat, and this annoys me to no end. One of the reasons we haven't downed him yet is time: we only raid 3.5 hours on one day per week, not factoring in the 15-20 minute break we take midway through the raid. Compared to many other raids, this is a pittance, but overall it's an understandable reason to be stuck on the final boss—people have other things to do and one of the accepted truths in the TRI family of raids is that real life is more important than the game.

The other reason is that the Ragnaros fight is a complex one, and small losses eventually cascade into bigger problems later on. Eventually, this can be overcome through practice, but given our limited time investment, our progress is slow. Part of this can be helped with things like addons, but not everyone uses or wants to use addons, and considering that I refused to use addons throughout raiding in WoW prior to the Burning Crusade expansion, I have no room to criticize. Still, the limited progression is frustrating to no end for me.

This, I think, is why I'm looking forward to the Raid Finder so much. Perhaps it will be a way for me to get my fill of progression without becoming increasingly and irrationally frustrated with my regular raid group. Perhaps it will allow me to get more practice on various boss mechanics so I'll be less likely to screw things up when time is of the essence. Perhaps it will expose me to new strategies so I can step forward with actual, concrete suggestions for improvement instead of just "this doesn't seem to be working".

I wonder, if at some level, I'm just drawn to the potential promise of the Raid Finder more so than its pragmatic realities. I still haven't had a chance to experience it first-hand yet, so it's quite possible. Maybe it will come out and I'll just be left with a sense of disappointment, or maybe it will allow for everything in the above paragraph and me a better, happier player. The mystery is exciting. I hope the wait is worth it. =)