Thursday, January 12, 2012

Looking for Raid vs Guilds

With LFR making raiding the easiest it has ever been, we seem to now be back at the stage where being in a guild isn't much of an advantage.

Sure, guild perks help, but I could join a level 25 levelling guild and get the same perks without having to join a raiding guild.

On the one hand, I think it's great - everyone gets to see end-game content, I can raid for 15min if I don't have time for anything more and if you want to stay with a guild of friends rather than an anti-social bunch of overachievers, it's fine.

On the other hand, it isn't so great when you're in a guild trying to recruit more for your raiding team - nigh impossible, in fact.

I'd be interested to see whether Blizzard thinks this issue is important enough to do something about it in the next expansion, or whether they believe that the LFR-casual-friendly approach outweighs the need for mid-level raiding guilds. I'm not sure I'm liking the fact that there are less than 10 people in guild chat these days (thank you, SW:TOR) and even though we may have a couple of regular PuGs that join our guild raids, it just isn't the same.

4 comments:

TheGrumpyElf said...

I think the perfect balance for the LFR and guilds will be added a 10 man version of the LFR.

I understand their reasoning for not doing it to start out with. I do not agree with it, but I understand it.

I've noticed some of my part time raiders, the ones that we used to fill in from time to time that used to be fairly decent players are not getting the job done.

They come into the real raid and think that it will be like LFR and it is not. So for people like them, the part timers, the LFR is all that is left.

They are effectively no longer part time raiders, they are just guild members there for the level 25 bonus because they can no longer help the raid team on a fill in basis and they no longer want to because they are content with just doing the LFR version only.

Omogon said...

I run LFR every week for the points and an occasional loot drop, but I've noticed that the LFR groups seem to be getting worse and worse as more people who have very few skills manage to reach the gear level to allow them to join LFR. Just like the dungeon finder, LFR has allowed more people to "see content" but IMO has eroded some of the social aspect of teh game.

Jaeger said...

I'm in the biggest alliance guild on my server. We have 2 or 3 10man raid teams but my schedule is not regular enough to be on one of those teams, so the LFR is the first time that I've done lvl appropriate raiding.

I killed the lich king the first time at lvl 85, I tried to fill in once during T11 raids but we gave up that night after 2 hours of wipes, and I've killed shannox and beth in FL, but I've killed DW in LFR. I don't feel the same sense of accomplishment as if I had done it on normal mode but I'm gearing up more and am somewhat familiar with the mechanics so that I could potentially benefit a normal raid team (if I can find the time). So really like LFR. It is clearly designed for the casual players; the raiders can keep doing their thing.

The only thing I think Blizz should do is open up LFR after a period of time instead of at the beginning. Let the top raiders get their first kills in normal and maybe even heroic before enabling LFR for the casuals.

Scugger said...

The reason there are not 10 players on at a time in a guild is not the fault of the LFR. There are too many guilds left over from a time when there were much higher levels of player participation.

I agree that Blizz should add a LFR 10 man but that both 25 and 10 man should always be available at the same time as the normals and heroic.


What Blizz needs to offer is the ability to Guild Merger without loss of reputation. If you combine weak guilds you might see more capable of fielding normal mode raid groups.