LFR Is Now Somewhat More Idiot Proof

If you had not heard many of the items in the Dragon Soul raid have now been reclassified for LFR purposes. The issue was that many players were unsure if an item was either and upgrade or if it was supposed to be used by them at all. And with how fast LFR moves it became an issue. This is the Blue Post on the matter.

As a part of the on-going evaluation of Looking For Raid and the loot system, we have recently implemented a change to the Looking For Raid Need Plus system. Weapons, trinkets, rings, neck pieces, shields, offhand items, and the Robe of Glowing Stone are now class-restricted to their intended users. With the speed at which a Raid Finder group moves through a zone, we’ve found that it makes it challenging for players to evaluate loot decisions – by class restricting these items, we hope that the natural behavior will have a more positive set of results for everyone involved. This change will not apply to normal or heroic raid or dungeon loot rules.


Raid Finder and Need Plus are both very new systems, and we’re working to iterate on these systems rapidly to ensure that everyone has the best possible experience as we learn more about how players are using the system. Please keep in mind that this system is not considered complete and we have further plans to improve upon it within Mists of Pandaria.

If you looted an item from Looking for Raid which replaced another and you need Game Master assistance to recover your old item, please place a petition with the new item name, that you can no longer use it - and the old item name you need restored. For more information on the affected items, please visit the Customer Support forums here- http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3729953854#1

We apologize for the inconvenience.


So what does this mean? Well if you look at the list of items that are now classified by class I think you would be quite surprised that these items were ever in question. Seeing something like this always makes me think about the people rolling on such items. Now I understand that LFR is supposed to be at its core a way to get the now raider interested in raiding, and I agree this is a great way to do it. But there is a big BUT if you have absolutely no idea what kind of gear your class uses should you be raiding at all? If you don't know what stats are good with you, how will you understand basic concepts of DPS, stopping DPS, moving in and out of crap, stacking up, spreading out, and so on and so forth. Now you would think that a raid is the only place these people can learn such a thing, but I would say instances are the best place to learn these basics. I am of the opinion players like this would make the people who are first trying out raiding dislike it because it will not give them the experience Blizzard hopes for.

You expect there to be morons, idiots, and such and such in Heroics, and yes LFR is not going to be perfect, but Blizzard if they want to expand their raiding base of players have to do everything they can to deter players who will ruin the experience from new raiders from partaking.

LFD Hotfixes Coming

So these are the current hotfixes in the works for the LFD system

We're making a number of hotfixes to address use of the Dungeon Finder and vote kick tools. The following hotfixes will require realm restarts to implement, which are likely to be next Tuesday's weekly maintenance.

Players who are outside a dungeon for more than a few minutes are now immediately able to be kicked.

If queuing as a group with a tank or healer, and the tank or healer drops group (or is kicked) soon after joining, those that queued with them will also be removed from the dungeon.

If three or more players group queue with each other it will require an additional vote for them to kick anyone they did not group queue with.

If a group queue of 4 kicks the one person that they did not group queue with they will each receive a more severe penalty to their ability to initiate future kicks.

If someone initiates a vote kick for someone they group queued with they will not incur a penalty to their ability to initiate future kicks.

With these changes we hope to reduce some undesirable behavior and annoyances, and encourage greater patience when using the Dungeon Finder. In addition, keep in mind that both initiating and agreeing to vote kick have always carried the same weight to your ability to kick in the future. It's always best to save your votes for when it really counts to ensure your ability to kick is available when it does.

So what does this mean?

1)Well you wont be able to bully people anymore out of your group.
2)People who are idiots and stay out of the instance will be able to be removed.
3)You can no longer sell your ability to queue to other people.

One change they still need to put in. If someone is absolutely horrible there has to be a way to bypass the timer. I hate having to put up with someone for 40+ minutes if they are the worst player in the history of WoW players. Or the other option just results in you making them feel worse to make them leave as to spare yourself the pain and suffering of playing with them any longer. Other than that the changes aren't bad and I think they will be for the better.