patch 5.4 Patch 5.4: Flexible Raid Preview

[Damien 1,514]

From Battle.net

Raids in World of Warcraft have a long history of not just challenging players, but changing and evolving as the years and expansions go by. As with everything in the game, we’re always thinking about what more we can bring to raiding to improve the experience for an even wider range of players. While Normal and Heroic Raids are a great fit for many, we feel there’s another gap worth filling—and to that end, we’re currently working on the development of a new type of Raid for the next major content update: Flexible Raiding.

One Size Does Not Fit All

While it’s impossible to fit every player into a neat, tidy archetype, we recognize that we could be providing a better experience to one broad category of raider: social groups comprised predominantly of friends and family, and smaller guilds that do their best to include as many members in their Raid outings possible.

During the Wrath of the Lich Kingexpansion, the 10-player Normal difficulty served these groups of players pretty well, but the unification of 10-player and 25-player into a single difficulty effectively eliminated that niche. While Raid Finder mode is extremely accessible, it doesn’t provide smaller groups with a tight-knit social experience while progressing through the content. In Patch 5.4, we’re planning to introduce a new mode of raiding that allows us to deliver the sort of experience that we think these players are looking for.

/Flex

To fill this void, we’re in the process of developing a new Flexible Raid system, which includes a new difficulty that sits between Raid Finder and Normal difficulty, while still allowing friends, family, or pick-up groups to play together. This difficulty will be available for premade groups of 10–25 players, including any number in between. That means whether you have 11, 14, or 23 friends available for a Raid, they’ll all be able to participate.

The Flexible Raid system is designed so that the challenge level will scale depending on how many players you have in the Raid. So if you switch between 14 players one week and 22 the next, the difficulty will adjust automatically. Keep in mind that unlike Raid Finder, no matchmaking is available, so you’ll need to make sure you invite people to attend—but if some can’t make it, it’s not the end of the world (or the Raid). You’ll also still be able to invite Real ID or Battle.net friends cross-realm. Who you choose to bring and what Item Level gear they’ll need to join your merry band is up to you, too—there’s no Item Level requirement for this Raid difficulty.

Dressed to Kill

A new Raid difficulty also means a new Item Level. Flexible mode will award loot with an Item Level that falls between Raid Finder and Normal quality, and will use the Raid Finder’s “per person” loot system, specialization choices, and bonus rolls, so you won’t need to worry about bringing the “wrong” person and having them win that piece of gear you’ve long been waiting for.

You Have the Keys

We plan to unlock the Flexible Raid difficulty in wings, similar to Raid Finder, but on an accelerated timetable. This new difficulty also has a separate Raid lockout from Raid Finder and Normal difficulty, allowing you to take part in all three if you so desire. You’ll also be able to complete portions of your “Glory of the Orgrimmar Raider” raid meta- achievement in Flexible mode as well as in Normal or Heroic to earn cosmetic rewards such as an epic mount. This will allow Raid groups the opportunity to switch off nights between raids to complete achievements. Finally, taking part in Flexible, Normal, or Heroic difficulty will provide access to additional rewards that won’t be available in Raid Finder.

Getting Down to Brass Tacks

As with any in-development feature, we’re continuing to refine how the Flexible Raid system will work, and we look forward to hearing your constructive feedback from your experiences on the Public Test Realm when the new system goes live.

(source)

Patch 5.4 will introduce Flexible Raids, giving players the possibility to raid with a group of any size between 10 and 25.

[areanu 16]

Oh wow. Nice.

But, I foresee double-pressure for non-elite, yet struggling for progression guilds: if new Flexible raid gear > current Heroic (it's a wide range from 535 to 549 though), then off-nights with flexible lockout clears will be somewhat mandatory during first month or so.

Edited June 8, 2013 by areanu

[Darkkonan 13]

I couldn't agree more. Our guild has been fighting the calendar boss, trying to make our two ten man teams into one 25man, and I saw this announcement as a blessing... Until I read that it would be a level between Reg. and LFR, which I don't think will completely satisfy anyone in our guild who wants to raid. So now we decide if we use Flex as another LFR for gearing while running our normal Reg. team? Or do we use it as another step of completion, one where we can include everyone, before going back to cutting people or pugging for Reg. mode? At least we have some time to figure it out.

[GreyGoomba 0]

I sort of don't see the problem.

If you're playing for the gear for your team, this is basically an improvement over LFR since you don't need to pug and you get potentially better iLevel than LFR, making you only more capable for when it's time to do your Normal or whatever.

[Stonesie 5]

I'm not sure I get why they needed this, not that I'm opposed though... Guess I'll watch and see.

[Cashmere 3]

Nice idea, but how about taking it even further to allow smaller groups of friends, less than ten, to join as a group with others. Possibly along the lines of 2 or 5 guilds worth of five peeps to make a 10 or 25 man raid? Most small guilds have at least a core of members that do HC dungeons and scenarios as a guild on a regular basis.

I'm a member of a guild with about 80 members, but in reality there are only seven of us. Yes we can join LFR but we are all pretty maxed out on LFR gear plus VP purchased gear and would like to try harder raids without having to leave the guild. We could all leave the guild and run the gauntlet of elitist numptys who make you fill in an application form and are far too serious for general 'gameplay', (let's face it, it is still a game), but then why should we lose something that we have had for the last 3 years?

[Stoove 347]

Nice idea, but how about taking it even further to allow smaller groups of friends, less than ten, to join as a group with others. Possibly along the lines of 2 or 5 guilds worth of five peeps to make a 10 or 25 man raid? Most small guilds have at least a core of members that do HC dungeons and scenarios as a guild on a regular basis.

I'm a member of a guild with about 80 members, but in reality there are only seven of us. Yes we can join LFR but we are all pretty maxed out on LFR gear plus VP purchased gear and would like to try harder raids without having to leave the guild. We could all leave the guild and run the gauntlet of elitist numptys who make you fill in an application form and are far too serious for general 'gameplay', (let's face it, it is still a game), but then why should we lose something that we have had for the last 3 years?

I think that what you stated here is possible, as long as you have a single organizer. My guild is planning to organize with other guilds (cross-realm) to form a large Flex raid. If your organization is good and you have friends elsewhere, then you can do that no problem.

About elitist numptys; some guilds are just full of idiots, but those guilds which are really worth joining (such as mine) use application forms to make sure that you're someone who will communicate with the rest of the guild and be friendly. Don't sneer at application forms! Our guild uses them to gauge the willingness of the applicant to chat to us about things, and it means that we get a very nice atmosphere from it. Anyway, I can't help feeling that I've drifted somewhat off-topic.

[Peelyon 416]

I think it would have been great to perhaps go a little further and even made it range from 8 - 25. Therefore in small 10 man guilds if you have a few no shows etc and you don't want to PUG you can still /flex the raid and perhaps just lower the requirements.

Personally with LFR already a main stay in WoW I don't really see how this can be detrimental. LFR already allows players to see content and comprises mainly of wasters but this new system will give those who currently struggle to begin or learn raiding a structured environment without being too taxing on the mechanics.

I understand that there is a large proportion of players that clear normal content very easily but if you are new to WoW it can be tough to actually learn anything in a LFR environment. This flex will allow new players and guilds with flexible numbers to have a more structured evening that can perhaps engage non core raiders (so socials or the odd friend who doesn't raid) to give them a bit more experience of what a raid night is all about, without fear of being one shot.

LFR - joke for scrubs and time wasters

/flex - for guilds with varying numbers and players that wish to learn and improve (great for raider trials maybe too)

Normal - average raider

Heroic - hardcore raiders.

I must admit as an ex GM and raid leader I would have loved this during Cata to not only include a few fringe players, but to help bring up to speed new recruits and under geared. It could also see a much larger proportion of guilds that would love to raid 25man but aren't close enough to full numbers to be encouraged to at least give it a try.

[Vladamyr 169]

I like the idea but not sure I care for how they are going to implement it. I see no reason why we need ANOTHER gear level. Why can't this share a loot lockout with LFR and provide the same ilvl drop? I like the idea of scaling between 8-25 that Peelyon brought up. I hope they expand upon this idea more towards scenarios and dungeons in the future and allow them to scale upwards to about 10-15 people.

[Zagam 1,982]

Alright, here is my lay of the land on this topic...

LFR should cease to exist. It's a debacle of an adventure and falls WELL short of delivering 'end-game content' for people who can't commit to a schedule. In fact, most of the people running LFR are people just starting or those trying to get into normal or heroic guilds. It's a gear collection place and no one killed Lei Shen in LFR and felt accomplished. Typical LFR Lei Shen's involve poor tank knowledge resulting in wipes and complete douchebaggery from the chat channel. It is horrendous.

IF, and it's a big IF, Flex replaced LFR, it could go to great lengths to give LFR what it SHOULD have been all along. LFR should never have been designed as a glorified non-heroic dungeon, which it is as it stands today. LFR should have helped in a situation where you have a 10 man raiding roster and a healer called off or didn't show. You "queue" for LFR and it finds a 10th person for you, perhaps some healer on a dead realm who all of a sudden gets to play with 9 other people in a group. IF, and again, a big IF, Flex allows this type of thing to happen, it will result in a GREAT success. Lesser progressed guilds can do a lower difficulty with as many friends as they want from WHEREVER they want. Now if you know a powerful friend, he/she can come help your group get some gear!

The ideal system, in my opinion, would be to allow you to designate how many people you want to queue for. Let's say 6 of you are online and you want to raid. Let's say you have 1 tank, 2 healers, and 3 DPS. Your friend's guild, on another server, has 1 tank and 4 DPS ready to go. Without Flex, someone would be left out. However, with Flex, you now have 2 tanks, 2 heals, and 7 DPS, or an 11 man team. Let's say you feel safer with one more healer...so you could queue and say you are looking for 1 healer. Bam, that lonely healer finds you, you clear content, and you win.

Pros:

Forces some sense of community back into this MMO. Face it...LFG has trivialized any sense of being nice to people. People are dicks and assholes in LFG and LFR and it's getting out of hand. Force some sense of community on people. If you're a well-known jerk, you won't get invited and your experience suffers. With Flex, you'll be raiding with people you are picking or chosen to raid with. Less anonymous faces behind screens being douchebags.

Better 'end-game' content in that it can be designed to have ALL of the mechanics of normal, but less painful. LFR has trivialized some mechanics of fights to the point you just ignore them, i.e Dark Animus. PULL ALL THE THINGS, KILL THEM, PULL MOAR, KILL THEM, KILL BOSS, LOL. Try that in normal and let me know how it works. It gives LFR players a false sense of how things are done in normal. Flex could require the proper strategy but maybe make the linking of the small golems much less painful, but still punishing if you ignore it. Another example is Durumu...LFR players think you have to find the Blue add and kill it. Try that in normal and see how that works out for you (hint: it doesn't)

Higher sense of accomplishment for lesser progressed players. Players will feel like they actually accomplished defeating a semi-challenging encounter rather than queueing, doing your DPS rotation, hoping for loot, and moving on.

There really aren't any downfalls if a system like this is implemented AND LFR is removed. If LFR is left in and they all have a separate lockout, then wow...will this game start to suck for those who care about gear. Every Tuesday, it'll be log-in, run LFR and HOPE you don't have a group wiping. After LFR, do your Flex raid and see the same content AGAIN. Oh, you raid at 730? Better finish all of that before then so you can see the same content AGAIN! You couldn't POSSIBLY leave a chance of upgrading gear behind, could you?

I think the direction they are taking with this is garbage. I can see it being a big success if they implement it the way I've laid it out, but that'll be a cold day in hell that we see that.

[Peelyon 416]

I agree about the comments on LFR and have voiced them elsewhere but it does look like it is here to stay.

I can't imagine they will share a lockout and gear level between LFR and /flex as then LFR would lose everyone who had any brain and it would become even more horrible than it is today. The only reason LFR functions now is the fact 'normal' raiders use it to gear up or play an alt for gear as well.

I do agree abut gearing though. Some players will take it to the extreme and literally farm LFR /flex world bosses etc all before their normal content just in the hope of getting that extra gear.

Blizzards 'problem' is that it is trying to please everybody, but a lot of the time it is alienating a lot as well. I'm not saying it is the reason why myself and a lot of my old guild have quit the game (that's real life tbh) but the fact I managed to kill a weakened version of bosses in LFR before I progressed through the normal modes did leave me with a sense of under achievement. Yeah the normal kills felt great, but it was never as exciting as getting the kill and moving on to a boss you had never seen before. Anyway I digress!!

8-25 man raids with a shared item level and lockout as LFR where you can 'tailor make' to your setup (so it registers you only have 2healers this raid because your 3rd healer couldn't turn up etc)

[Vladamyr 169]

To totally go off topic, I still wish LFR was 1 tier behind current content. It's purpose was to allow people to see raids. Leave Heroic Dungeons and Scenarios as the gear up method for normal or now flex raiding.

[Peelyon 416]

Yup totally agree, or to try and keep it on topic, have /flex as current tier that is weakened to allow flexibility for regular raiding guilds and weeks where numbers are different to normal and still have LFR 1 tier behind

[Stoove 347]

A note about sub-10 numbers; I saw one quote from one of the Dev's about 9- or 8-man /flex, and they said that they weren't happy with designing for less than ten players in a raid. This is because they think that it's important to have at least 2 tanks and 2 healers in the raid to design meaningful mechanics, and they won't be massively re-designing fights just for flex. ANYWAY onto talking about LFR and Flex...

I have no beef whatsoever with how LFR functions currently as a place for people with little time to go and experience raid content. I think it's a great idea and that it's important to the all-inclusive ethos of the current development of WoW. Moreover, having personal friends who enjoy LFR because they get to raid, I think that WoW would be worse if LFR just disappeared tomorrow.

What I do hate about it is the fact that I feel forced to do it in order to be "competitive" i.e. satisfy others' expectations of my gear. This is down to the ilevel and the ilevel alone. I don't enjoy LFR because I don't feel challenged or engaged, but I have to be there because otherwise I won't be meeting expectations. Given the opportunity, I wouldn't go to LFR. In fact, I still believe that those entering Normal modes (especially the first tier in an expansion) for the first time should not have epics, for two reasons; 1) Because that makes you appreciate them a whole lot more than gaining the same thing with a different number on it, and 2) because there is no better feeling than stepping into a raid with all-blues and coming out knowing that you achieved something against the odds.

One thing I fear for /flex raids is that this will turn into another mandatory gear-grind with no challenge or meaning, wearing away at my patience until I bite somebody's head off in frustration. Flex needs to be an interesting and social experience like Normals and Hardmodes are, not "LFR+" as some people have started calling it. In this aspect, I'm glad that there will be no queuing for Flex. I don't want random people coming into my raid, I want people who are socially connected to me - friends of friends, battletags; people who if they are dicks can't just get away with it. This is one of the major good points of /flex as I see it now.

Finally, I think that /flex is good for pugging. I don't know about the rest of you, but pugging on Ghostlands is dead. There are no raid pugs. I sincerely miss having that opportunity, and I think that /flex will bring back the on-server pug for low- to mid-pop realms like mine. This is undoubtedly a good step for the community in WoW.

PS: WALL OF TEXT!!

[Peelyon 416]

I totally understand that they don't want to restructure fights but I think it could still be possible to have 2 tanks 2 healers and say 4-5 dps, so if you are missing a dps or a healer (if you 3 heal) then they just tune the health and damage done by the boss accordingly. I think having a fight that always requires 2tanks should always require 2 tanks, and you can't really expect someone to solo heal a raid with 9 people in (I understand some people can do this but I meant the majority of the WoW population).

Having a aid setup for 10 people and 1 not showing up for a valid reason can ruin a raid (I understand you can pug etc but some people don't want to) so hopefully as long as there is a minimum of 2 healers and 2 tanks then it would have been a nice feature.

Sadly from your point of view Stoove (which I totally agree with) I think blizzard would be afraid to not give a gear incentive to those that do LFR like I mentioned. If you didn't need gear me and you wouldn't queue right? So who would? Scrubs afkers and the 1-2 genuine people who have no time for anything but LFR and let's face it, without regular raiders LFR groups wouldn't even down Morchok

[Zagam 1,982]

Yeah my Warlock's LFR groups will be missing my DPS where I beat 2nd place by 100k once I get my legendary cloak acquired and quit going in there. Usually me and a guildy Mage will queue together, decimate the bosses ridiculously fast and be done with it. When I go back through on my crap Shaman, no one in the group to carry me and the success of those groups is not nearly as fast or as fluid as with my Warlock.

There are only two motivational tools to get you in LFR if you don't need gear...

1) Legendary items

2) Satchels

When you finish legendary items, you only have gold and satchels to look forward to. In my experience, the satchels give me worthless armor potions and gold. I'd say I've gotten over 100 satchels between all my characters in LFR and have seen every bag contain only gold all times but two. The two that weren't gold I got a armor potion and a 483 BoE set of Agi Mail bracers. Thankfully, those sold for some nice coin, but I'm not going into LFR fishing for BoEs.

[Stoove 347]

I actually think that a severely reduced ilvl is the way to go with LFR. Hear me out on this one!

LFR without incentives would be awful, but that's not the only alternative; you can have incentives (i.e. upgrades from Heroic 5-mans) without giving out epic tier gear. In my mind, I have a situation where 5-mans give blue gear and LFR gives blue gear with a slightly higher ilvl - say +7 ilevels. Raiding (even /flex) would then be significantly higher ilevel and epic. Then, as new tiers come in, LFR can provide the player with gear which is sufficient for /flex raiding (perhaps on the previous tier's ilevel) but still be blue. Going from Normal or /flex T17 to Normal or /flex T18 is then skipping LFR mostly, and going from fresh to Normal is a progression; 5-mans, LFR, then /flex and Normals.

I think that the T11 model of raiding beginning with blues was really excellent, and I liked it like that. I'd be happy with a system that gave me catch-up gear which was just sufficient in the way that I've described, but realistically no better than the previous tier.

[Zagam 1,982]

It is a severely reduced item level. It's 20 item levels lower than normal stuff while the bridge from normal to heroic is only 13 item levels.

Where were you when MSV just came out and we all had mostly blues? This wasn't exclusive to T11. I know when I killed Feng and got my 489 chest piece, it was a HUGE upgrade from my 463 blue. Same with my shoulders when I killed Gara'jal the first week. I agree with you on the lowered item level of LFR. I think it should be a larger difference than it is today.

T7 Blues = 200

T7 Epics = 200/213

T8 Epics = 219/232 (10 vs 25)

T9 Epics = 232/245 (10 vs 25)

T10 Epics = 251/264/277 (10 vs 25/10 Heroic vs 25 Heroic)

This model was good...it made previous gear not awful to make it into the next mode. 232 gear was accessible and not HORRID for ICC, but you weren't going to tank Heroic Festergut wearing all 232s. This, however, had the separate gear for 10/25, so throw this one out.

T11 Blues = 346

T11 Epics = 359/372

T12 Epics = 378/391

T13 Epics = 397/410

Similar gap was used here where Heroic gear from a previous tier was just barely worse than normal gear from the next tier, but if your 372's were properly itemized, they could be better than 378s. However, eventually you wanted your 391s. Similarly between T12 and T13. If I were to redo Cataclysm with an LFR system, this is how I would have made it look:

T11 Blues = 346

T11 Epics = 378/391

T11 LFR = 359

T12 Epics = 397/410

T12 LFR = 378

T13 Epics = 416/429

T13 LFR = 397

This would have made LFR gear significantly better than dungeon gear but still nowhere close to normal/heroic gear. This model would also use similar item level of the current LFR gear to previous normal gear. This is because most raids were nerfed after a new one was released making its normal modes more accessible. This means that you could play at lady luck's RNG in LFR to get 378's in Firelands LFR or get 378's in normal Bastion of Twilight/Blackwing Descent. This would serve two purposes:

Gearing up would be fun. Today, if you don't get loot out of LFR, you probably don't go back and do normal MSV. Why? Because the item level of stuff is 489. Why bother when LFR can give 502 stuff? Even 496 stuff is frowned upon even if it's only 6 item levels lower.

It would also keep older raids relevent for an additional tier. It would make PuGs more numerous, increase the number of raids, and increase the overall skill of the playerbase because they wouldn't be pining in LFR all the time. This would create a more enjoyable environment for all. At least in my picture of how it would play out.

Similarly, here's how I'd redo Mists based on my model:

T14 Blues = 463

T14 Epics = 496/509

T14 LFR = 476

T15 Epics = 515/528

T15 LFR = 496

T16 Epics = 534/547

T16 LFR = 515

The item levels keep the consistency where the first Tier's epics are 33 item levels higher than the blues, but LFR is only 13 points above the blues. It also makes the jump in normal item level 19 item levels while keeping the previous tier's normal item level as the next tier's LFR item level. This model also would have prevented the HUGE inflation of DPS and HPS that we are seeing in the mechanics that, mark my words, will get TRULY out of hand in T16. We can get a bloody item level 608 cloak for crying out loud. Right now that seems absurd, but based on their current model, I would predict normal item levels in T16 to be 548 and heroics will be 561. Upgraded heroic gear will be 569, which is likely what we will end the tier at.

These are the ramblings of a lone theorycrafter and idealist that thinks things aren't as consistent, number friendly, or explainable as they could be. Others may wholeheartedly disagree, but I can't explain the differences in gear levels present or the lack of foresight that could have predicted the end of relevant raiding from the previous tier when I think I've provided a pretty reasonable solution to keep previous tiers of raiding relevant much like Burning Crusade did (or so I hear, since I didn't play then.)

[Stoove 347]

It is a severely reduced item level. It's 20 item levels lower than normal stuff while the bridge from normal to heroic is only 13 item levels.

Where were you when MSV just came out and we all had mostly blues? This wasn't exclusive to T11. I know when I killed Feng and got my 489 chest piece, it was a HUGE upgrade from my 463 blue. Same with my shoulders when I killed Gara'jal the first week. I agree with you on the lowered item level of LFR. I think it should be a larger difference than it is today.

My guild fell apart and I had to do LFR to get any kills. Then I took a break from WoW until just after ToT came out! I missed that kind of fun progression with low ilevel. However, when I came back and started ToT I was ilevels well below the minimum, and I enjoyed the challenge from that!

It would also keep older raids relevent for an additional tier. It would make PuGs more numerous, increase the number of raids, and increase the overall skill of the playerbase because they wouldn't be pining in LFR all the time. This would create a more enjoyable environment for all. At least in my picture of how it would play out.

No, I agree there. I think that flex has a good role to play here as well, since it's genuinely a step in difficulty from LFR (and I quote "closer to Normal than LFR") it can afford to reward that progression with some kind of middle ilevel. Remember that this isn't going to be some trivial raid (for the target audience rather than HM raiders). The only problem I can see with this is that there will then be three lockouts, making /flex to be the new "mandatory" tier. I would propose that /flex shares a lockout with Normal and Heroic to remedy this. GC stated that they weren't going to make LFR and /flex shared, and since it's closer to Normal anyway I'd suggest that it's a better solution. Of course, that will have it's own problems associated with it such as; what happens if I kill bosses 1-3 on /flex, then want to progress on 4 on Normal? Or what if I'm stuck on 4 and I use /flex to get past it?

We can get a bloody item level 608 cloak for crying out loud. Right now that seems absurd, but based on their current model, I would predict normal item levels in T16 to be 548 and heroics will be 561. Upgraded heroic gear will be 569, which is likely what we will end the tier at.

These are the ramblings of a lone theorycrafter and idealist that thinks things aren't as consistent, number friendly, or explainable as they could be.

I think that (based on my exp from Cata) we can expect massive inflation anyway, even without the effect of ilevel bloat! Anyway, idealism is a force for good :)

[Vladamyr 169]

...Similarly, here's how I'd redo Mists based on my model:

T14 Blues = 463

T14 Epics = 496/509

T14 LFR = 476

T15 Epics = 515/528

T15 LFR = 496

T16 Epics = 534/547

T16 LFR = 515

The item levels keep the consistency where the first Tier's epics are 33 item levels higher than the blues, but LFR is only 13 points above the blues. It also makes the jump in normal item level 19 item levels while keeping the previous tier's normal item level as the next tier's LFR item level. This model also would have prevented the HUGE inflation of DPS and HPS that we are seeing in the mechanics that, mark my words, will get TRULY out of hand in T16. We can get a bloody item level 608 cloak for crying out loud. Right now that seems absurd, but based on their current model, I would predict normal item levels in T16 to be 548 and heroics will be 561. Upgraded heroic gear will be 569, which is likely what we will end the tier at...

Hellz to the yeah! Exactly what I want!

[Peelyon 416]

Some really good stuff there, which for the most part seems common sense. It's a real shame /flex and LFR won't share a lockout. I would prefer it not to to share a lockout with normals as you are then torn between your basic progression and raiding.

So for example it's reset day and you have a raid planned but you are missing 3 of your best raiders. You have a few socials and fringe players online tht you could easily /flex with but then the majority of your raid are saved to bosses you kill. In that situation most guilds would still cancel the raid and just wait until the net raid night.

[Stoove 347]

Some really good stuff there, which for the most part seems common sense. It's a real shame /flex and LFR won't share a lockout. I would prefer it not to to share a lockout with normals as you are then torn between your basic progression and raiding.

So for example it's reset day and you have a raid planned but you are missing 3 of your best raiders. You have a few socials and fringe players online tht you could easily /flex with but then the majority of your raid are saved to bosses you kill. In that situation most guilds would still cancel the raid and just wait until the net raid night.

On the other hand, bear in mind that the main target audience is for people who LFR because they got pushed out of 10's when they got harder in Cataclysm. In this case, as GC pointed out, you don't want the situation where someone says "Hey dude, come join our flex raid" only to get the reply "sorry, I did LFR on Sunday".This is a good reason not to put /flex and LFR on the same lockout. However, you're right in that it would be a shame to have to give up on a week of Normal raiding due to being locked to /flex.

[Peelyon 416]

Didn't think of that tbh Stoove. I suppose the conclusion is Blizzard is wanting to widen the inclusion rates for all and there is no real best fit.

Let's just hope that the introduction of /flex can be a part solution to the trivialisation of LFR gear

[Stoove 347]

Yeah I think that the target audience for /flex are the people who got left out when the transition from 10s as casual to 10s as serious happened at the start of Cataclysm. That's a good niche to please IMO :) But yes, I do hope that it's used to improve the LFR situation too.

[Vladamyr 169]

On the other hand, bear in mind that the main target audience is for people who LFR because they got pushed out of 10's when they got harder in Cataclysm. In this case, as GC pointed out, you don't want the situation where someone says "Hey dude, come join our flex raid" only to get the reply "sorry, I did LFR on Sunday".This is a good reason not to put /flex and LFR on the same lockout. However, you're right in that it would be a shame to have to give up on a week of Normal raiding due to being locked to /flex.

This is why I would rather have a loot lockout (just like LFR is now) to where you only get one roll (+ any number of bonus rolls you have saved up) and have the ilvl's be the same.