If you watch forums nowadays, there are lot of threads asking to remove LFR. The reasons, howsoever, arent really worth a discussion, as its mainly about exclusivity and greed against those who see the raid content without playing in premade groups. LFR is just a scapegoat for many to argue why a game they play for years has become tedious and offers nothing new at the end of its lifecycle, when people already played every mechanic, every single quest and every class available.
Even tho, i dont think that LFR was a good addition to World of Warcraft. Not because it took away exclusivity from some few raiders. Not because it gives items “on a silver plate”, which is just another stereotypistic “casual-hate”-nonesense.
My reasons are about the fact that LFR offers close to zero intrinsic reward to be played by those it was created for. The only real benefit from playing LFR is to see the story once, which wont keep players playing for months. The gameplay literally is limited to “Follow the group and push some buttons.. or even not, if you dont like” without any game mechanic that engages the players it was meant for.
Does it have to be a challenge? No, as most people do not play computer games for challenges. At least not those who play PVE MMORPGs. If you take a look at participation statistics (as like those from MMO-Champion based on Blizzards armory database) you see that a large group of people stick to the most convenient gamestyles, which need no organization and which do not offer challenges.
So how should a game component for the masses look like, which would address a large variety of gamers as like LFR should have done?
I believe, the answer to this question just is not to try to address everyone, because thats just not possible. You will always have a large mix of everything that doesnt suit every group of players (and i dont mean stereotypes) fully. Groups of players i talk about would be engaged players, occassionally playing players, friend and family players.. PVE players.. PVP players..
In the case of LFR, blizzard tried to adress millions of players with the same cup of tea. While it was derived from a traditionally organized playstyle which literally lived and breathed based on preparation and choreography, on the words of a raid leader and a disciplined group that had a common target.
LFR actually cant deliver that. What, if blizzard would move the story from raids into quests, and put back raids into the niche they once had, without any lore content? What, if LFR players would get dedicated content for their myriad of different playstyles instead of that easy catchall?
Imagine solo player content especially made for solo players. Imagine a PVE-Ashran where players could play events, kill world bosses and opt in into the PVP-Version (comparable to Tol Barad)? What if PVP was all about competition but PVE wasnt, as the typical RPG PVE is just not about that?
Probably i ask more questions than i answer, but i am also probably not the guy to find all the answers to this problem. LFR, tho, is a pandoras box you cant close anymore.. without the loss of people who got used to it. So removing LFR would be wrong. Still, blizzard could diversify their gameplay way more than just trying to get everyone into raids.
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