Sunday, December 18, 2011

Looking For Raid

I rather enjoy Looking For Raid.

It's quick, it's pretty easy, but it also "feels" like regular raiding.  The large group, the controlled chaos. It's tuned almost perfectly, I think. It does feel like the group needs to do things correctly, but there's definitely a lot of slack.

The way Blizzard has handled people dropping and joining groups is perfect too. It's seamless, and almost invisible to the group participants.  It is gloriously transient, and I think, pitched perfectly at that demographic.

What I've found is that so long as the group has one person who looks like they know what they're doing, one leader, people will follow.  Most of them anyways. For some reason, target switching seems to be very hard for people. It's one thing to switch late, or not as fast as you could, but to never switch at all?

It's also interesting to see what mechanics Blizzard changed, in order to make the fight possible. The one mechanic that has caused the most problems in my LFR experience is the ice walls on Hargara. Almost every time, the first attempt sees half the raid dead. Oddly enough, the second attempt usually goes well, as most people get the hang of it.

But that's pretty much the only "Do X or die" mechanic. Everything else is healable, and the healers can basically carry the group if there's a decent tank and a few decent DPS. Ultraxion is especially funny, because every special, you can see the people who should have died, but that you can heal up in LFR difficulty.

Loot-wise, the current system is "good enough". To my mind, it just illustrates the difficulty of loot distribution, especially when you have to take off-specs into account.

I wonder if all the people who confidently predicted that this would be a total failure are willing to reconsider. In my view, Looking For Raid is another bold success for Blizzard.

Edit: I was thinking about it, and LFR really reminds me of raiding Molten Core, back in the day. It just has the same sensibility as the raids back then.

9 comments:

  1. The people who confidently predicted failure are very very quiet on their blogs about the subject :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yep, LFR is a great way to gear all toons and alts. The rolling system is still a bit wonky though. Losing Soul Drinker to a Blood tank as a pally tank, and losing an agility trinket to plate was not fun. Luckily they fixed the 2nd issue and blue posts say they're going to fix the issue of one person winning multiple items off the same boss.

    ReplyDelete
  3. "the controlled chaos. "

    Haha, you've been lucky then, there is no such thing as control in my groups. But on the other hand it only makes me even more satisifed whenever some guy decides to take matter in his own hands and make sure things are done properly, and when we still succeed. I quite enjoy the LFR too

    ReplyDelete
  4. I don't see nearly so many people dying on ice walls as the first 2 weeks, the biggest problem now is always spine of deathwing. You think target switching is hard for people? It's nothing compared to "stop dps". Half the raid keeps attacking the amalgams before they get their 9 stacks, people keep killing tentacles and summoning new amalgams. With the exception of one glorious group that 1-shot it on my DK, every LFR group I've been in has had to do 4+ attempts before people realize what to do, even when explain the fight beforehand and do raid warnings.

    Spine is hands-down the hardest fight for pugs. At least on madness of deathwing you just kill the newest thing to show up, there's no holding back or waiting for an add to get close to another before you kill it.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I find it too easy.

    All the "When I was a lad, we went uphill both ways" aside, it's a bit silly how easy it is. You practically can't fail even with a horrible raid.
    And I mean really horrible.

    My alts are showered in 378+384 gear while my main (doing FL hc before) still had 1-2 359 left.

    Even speed-clearing FL normal with a semi-alt guild group felt harder than LFR.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Looting wise, I approach LFR in the same grain as BH, most likely I wont get a thing but when I do, it's a pleasant surprise. When I think of it that way I don't get all angry when something I want drops and not get.

    I too think LFR have been a great success so far, I wonder how it will be in a few months when the majority of the actual non-raiders get in there. It will be interesting for sure.

    ReplyDelete
  7. At first I found LFR a pain, mostly because people did not do any research on how to do the fights, that first raid I did was painful. Now that we have had a few weeks for to learn the fights it is getting much easier.

    There is still a few irritating people who feel the need to pull the boss before the trash is dead.

    I really like your blog, I am currently doing a WoW blog as well please check it out. wowhunterneytiri.wordpress.com

    Neytiri

    ReplyDelete
  8. I must admit I use my off specs frequently currently ilvl 377 prot pally and ilvl380 holy pally this makes it very very difficult to level both specs like you would an alt. since blizzard gives role bonuses in lfr I think it would be beneficial to roll once in each category: tank, healer, and damage. Though I also know this must be balanced with the encouragement to make alts

    ReplyDelete
  9. After close to 6 years playing WoW, I've become a dormant player but your post made me want to try the LFR mode. Here's my own post on what happened: http://bit.ly/ynrQl4

    Thanks for having shared!

    ReplyDelete