Dungeon Finder Needed Badly.

[Sickleh]

No....

[raidyr]

+1 for dungeon finder

 

There won't be a community at all if there is no one running content.

[Skaara]

By the time you do anything about it, it will be too late.

 

^this^

 

It is going to be like rift when they finally release the tool after too many people had already left the game with zero intention of returning. It has been funny though watching Bioware make all the classic mmo mistakes by listening to the wrong people. The cycle is so predictable now.

[Soultranna]

The cross-server LFD is what killed WoW world questing and punted entire server populations to the cities.

 

Bored and impatient, the people turned upon each other, trolling the trade channel with inane crap, dancing on mailboxes, and standing around offering 'commentary' as opposing faction waltzed in and killed the NPC's.

 

I fully support Bioware's decision to limit any implementation of the LFD to local-server-only.

[Malsidius]

I play... that's right... PLAY the GAME for enjoyment, I do not consider having to stay in one zone spamming a chat channel for a group enjoyable. The improved convenience other games have afforded players in MMOs through LFG Tools had made the process of grouping with like minded people easier and much less mindlessly boring. The feature should come standard with any MMO release in today's market.

[raidyr]

The cross-server LFD is what killed WoW world questing and punted entire server populations to the cities.

 

Bored and impatient, the people turned upon each other, trolling the trade channel with inane crap, dancing on mailboxes, and standing around offering 'commentary' as opposing faction waltzed in and killed the NPC's.

 

I fully support Bioware's decision to limit any implementation of the LFD to local-server-only.

 

This was happening before, and since LFG came out I can actually go out in the world and do stuff while waiting to do content, unlike before, where I sat in Shat/Dal spamming for group runs.

[Skaara]

The cross-server LFD is what killed WoW world questing and punted entire server populations to the cities.

 

Bored and impatient, the people turned upon each other, trolling the trade channel with inane crap, dancing on mailboxes, and standing around offering 'commentary' as opposing faction waltzed in and killed the NPC's.

 

I fully support Bioware's decision to limit any implementation of the LFD to local-server-only.

 

Your perspective does not equal fact. LFD personally got me go out in the world and do stuff like work on my achievements or professions because I was just able to queue up. Before LFD I never left the cities because I had spam chat macros to find a group which was usually filled with way more nasty people than I ever encountered in a lfd group. Even if there was a problem that is what vote kick or leave group options are for.

[brusthoden]

The cross-server LFD is what killed WoW world questing and punted entire server populations to the cities.

 

Bored and impatient, the people turned upon each other, trolling the trade channel with inane crap, dancing on mailboxes, and standing around offering 'commentary' as opposing faction waltzed in and killed the NPC's.

 

I fully support Bioware's decision to limit any implementation of the LFD to local-server-only.

 

WOW is dead? It was still going strong last i looked and where you think all the people who are pissed about a dung finder are gonna go when it takes to long to come out. WOW isnt dead by no means.

 

Now saying that this game in the beginning i thought had the potential to kill WOW but after experiencing all the bugs and lvling and hitting 50 i can confidently say NO it wont. It saddens say that cause i had really hoped this game would! But it lacks a bunch of the bare Minimal things MMO gamers Expect. Guild bank, LFD tool, Arena, UI Customization, Chat bubbles for heavens sake. MMO's that come out should know if they dont have these things at launch they arent gonna make it.

 

If you can't exceed WOW at launch you dont stand a chance. Sorry and i had high hopes for this game i wanted it to kill WOW.

[Sendrel]

The cross-server LFD is what killed WoW world questing and punted entire server populations to the cities.

 

I see this assertion all the time in these threads. I'm just curious what kind of mental gymnastics you have to perform to arrive at this conclusion.

[Xanadoo]

1. There is _NOTHING_ social about: "/1 Heals/Tank/DPS LFG/LFM Random Flashpoint"

 

2. Sitting in Fleet, spamming the above every 30 seconds for 2 hours is probably the least fun thing you can do in this game. People don't give a crap who is the tank/healer/dps as long as they can get a group together. As long as players meet the recommended level requirements and are suited to fill their role, the Flashpoint begins immediately, and nobody gives much thought to any social interaction besides completing the Flashpoint.

 

3. LFD Tools have not ruined any MMO, and will never ruin any MMO. All this does is make time spent on the game more enjoyable. There is nothing enjoyable about spamming general chat, and there is nothing social about it.

 

4. The same logic applies to Warzones, where you are automatically placed into a group, as well as crafting, where companions go and do the work for you. These have been implemented into the game to save time and trouble for the end-user.

 

5. The LFD Tool DOES NOT need to insta-teleport us to the Flashpoint location.

 

6. The LFD Tool DOES NOT need to be cross-server.

 

7. The LFD Tool will however allow us to do homework, read forums, watch TV, while we patiently wait to be placed in a group, without having to keep staring at general chat for an absurd amount of time.

 

I cannot relate to anyone who says this is not a much needed feature. It takes away nothing, and gives a lot to the game.

 

Disclaimer: This is all my personal opinion. Thanks for reading.

Note: I was 100% in support for not having an LFD tool at first, until I experienced what finding groups was like without it.

[Kelticfury]

I don't see any real need for a dungeon finder in this game at all.

 

Its easy to get a group together to do anything, pugs happen easily, and if you want to do harder content you should be in a guild anyway.

 

I just don't see this desperate need that some people seem to be trying to make this trivial thing into.

[zolthie]

Indeed it is needed, a server wide LFD tool, what's wrong with that? Nothing.

 

Implement asap.

[Xanadoo]

I don't see any real need for a dungeon finder in this game at all.

 

Its easy to get a group together to do anything, pugs happen easily, and if you want to do harder content you should be in a guild anyway.

 

I just don't see this desperate need that some people seem to be trying to make this trivial thing into.

 

1. There is _NOTHING_ social about: "/1 Heals/Tank/DPS LFG/LFM Random Flashpoint"

 

2. Sitting in Fleet, spamming the above every 30 seconds for 2 hours is probably the least fun thing you can do in this game. People don't give a crap who is the tank/healer/dps as long as they can get a group together. As long as players meet the recommended level requirements and are suited to fill their role, the Flashpoint begins immediately, and nobody gives much thought to any social interaction besides completing the Flashpoint.

 

3. LFD Tools have not ruined any MMO, and will never ruin any MMO. All this does is make time spent on the game more enjoyable. There is nothing enjoyable about spamming general chat, and there is nothing social about it.

 

4. The same logic applies to Warzones, where you are automatically placed into a group, as well as crafting, where companions go and do the work for you. These have been implemented into the game to save time and trouble for the end-user.

 

5. The LFD Tool DOES NOT need to insta-teleport us to the Flashpoint location.

 

6. The LFD Tool DOES NOT need to be cross-server.

 

7. The LFD Tool will however allow us to do homework, read forums, watch TV, while we patiently wait to be placed in a group, without having to keep staring at general chat for an absurd amount of time.

 

I cannot relate to anyone who says this is not a much needed feature. It takes away nothing, and gives a lot to the game.

 

Disclaimer: This is all my personal opinion. Thanks for reading.

Note: I was 100% in support for not having an LFD tool at first, until I experienced what finding groups was like without it.

[Naethion]

Same server LFD is fine. Regardless I will still be out questing because stuff will start to get expensive as I go. Besides, eventually with the LFD grouping up the same people every time because it only chooses people on the same server, we will all get to know each other anyway.

 

*Bob Q's for LFD and meets jim, katie, mike.*

 

*dungeon finished*

 

*Jim, katie, and bob meet again and the exact same thing happens again* Because you KNOW the person, and you KNOW what they are capable of after running with them again and again.

 

Just what I think

[shoryushoryu]

I remember a couple of weeks ago, most people here would literally jump down your throat for saying this game needed a LFD tool badly. These days the ratio of pro-LFD to anti-LFD is what, 10 to 1? I wish all the fanboys didn't blindly defend this game and maybe we'd already be able to form groups by now.

 

Because of this BW is still convinced that their position is correct and it will takes weeks for a decent tool to come out -by then there won't be very many people to group with...

Edited January 14, 2012 by shoryushoryu

[DarthHogger]

I agree 100% along with cross-realm warzones.

[brusthoden]

if you spam trade for 2 hours and dont get a group on your server what diff do you think a same server lfg gonna do! Cross server isnt gonna make people ninja or be douche bags they gonna do that anyway it amazes me at the people who want same server lfd ignorance is amazing cross server lower queue time duh. it wont make people ninjas or douche bags they were already that way before. you might see more yeah thats because your getting in dung faster duh.

 

and to the guy who said you can watch tv read forums do homework while waiting. why would i play a game so i can queue and wait and do those things i play a game to do exactly that play a game. i dont play a game so i can watch tv or read forums or do home work. Grow up!

 

People want to queue for a dung an get in and do it get it over not wait around. People have lives where they have to wait around whether at work on in a car why would they want to log on a game and do it too.

[Bald_Haliaeetus]

The lfg tool already in game is all we need... People just need to learn to actually use it. The amount of "lfg" spam in the general chat is just sad.

 

It's like people were given a hammer to pound nails into wood, but opt to use their foreheads instead; then complain because it hurts, and want a carpenter to do it for them.

[Breeti]

The LFG tool in the game is a POS. Then need something better. This is 2012, not 2004, get over your hate people.

[Introvertus]

I don't see any real need for a dungeon finder in this game at all.

 

Its easy to get a group together to do anything, pugs happen easily, and if you want to do harder content you should be in a guild anyway.

 

I just don't see this desperate need that some people seem to be trying to make this trivial thing into.

 

 

The main reasons why this game needs more LFD support.

 

This assumes the following:

 

You are a mid-end level player (30-50).

You are unguilded or in a small or unsociable guild.

You are trying to level or are interested in doing other things while waiting for a group

You are interested in dungeons and enjoy the social and gaming aspect of it.

 

1. Problem: There is no world chat channel other than trade. Spamming your LFG requests on Trade or PvP is both irritating and ridiculous, since this is not what their intended usage is.

 

Effect on players: Doing either of the above annoys players who are using those channels for their intended usage. Moreover, the only way to talk to people who are a similar level to you is in /general, and that only applies to the planet in question. Most of the people who are LFD are sat in Fleet, spamming general, which is not an enjoyable or a social activity. This creates the choice of questing, pvping or sitting in Fleet trying to find a group, since the latter cannot be done while doing either of the former. For players who wish to level and enjoy the story, getting a Flashpoint group can be a huge waste of time spent levelling - I myself outlevelled many flashpoints because it took far too long to get groups for them. In Rift, i did almost nothing but dungeons to level, and loved every minute of it.

In order to successfully find a group, you need to either spam general on what planet you are on and hope for the best or spam fleet and hope for the best. Alternatively, pming people the same level as you who have set their status as LFG.

 

Solution: implement global channels that target level ranges. 1 - 10, 11 - 20, 21 - 30 etc. You can have the option to turn off any channel you do not wish to see. Or, invent a LFG channel that is worldwide, similar to how Vanilla wow did. (No chuck norris jokes please)

 

if a LFD tool is not implemented, this is the ABSOLUTE MINIMUM that needs to be done.

 

2. Problem: In order to actually get a group, one must be very attentive to the general chat channel and reliant on pms in order to form a group.

 

Effect on players: Often there are several people who want only one available spot. This means that DPS will inevitably spend hours and hours trying to find a group.

 

Solution: A LFG tool would do the mind numbingly boring job of placing you in a group whilst you level or quest or pvp or even do your homework, browse the forums or check out the lore of the game. You can enjoy the game without worrying about finding a group for a Heroic Quest or a dungeon because the LFG tool will do it for you. Staring at general chat or pming 30 people in a row to plead with them to join your group is annoying and painstaking.

 

4 major Reasons why a LFG tool is needed.

 

1. There is not enough class flexibility to not have one. Rift offers role changes and huge class variation. You could carry up to 5 roles which you could swap any time. Even WoW did a dual spec function. While I'm not suggesting that SWTOR do the same, finding a dungeon in Rift is easy even without a LFG tool because you can swap specs so 3/4 classes can all do the same role of tank/healer/support and ANY class can dps. In SWTOR, few people level in healing spec, and with no quick way of changing your spec (it requires a trip to a skill mentor, and an often costly fee) you have the radical outnumberment of healers/tanks:dps ratio. In SWTOR you have 3/8 classes who can heal or tank on your side. This is sufficiently ample, but, with no easy way for these classes swapping from their desired levelling spec, to a healing or tanking spec, it means there are far less available healers. It forces those who want to play these roles to level in that spec. Some (like me) are prepared to do that. Others are not.

 

2. The lack of a global LFG channel it hard enough to form a group manually. Coupled with the poor class flexibility, this is exaserbated tenfold.

 

3. Once a group is formed, if somebody disconnects or has to leave it can take hours to find a replacement. Companions can make up for a DPS loss, but a healer loss can mean the end of the group unless someone is prepared to leave the instance to respec or a replacement is quickly found.

 

4. A LFG function is a standard expectation for most MMOs. WoW invented it years ago and Rift revolutionised it 8 months ago - anything less than what WoW provided is a serious step backwards. SWTOR feels like a huge step back in time because of its lack of several mandatory functions (LFG system, multi-role Class flexibility, . I believe that if it wasn't a Star Wars game and didnt have the Star Wars brand to sell it, the game would not be very enjoyable at all.

 

- My design for a LFG system -

 

You queue in a similar way to you do for Warzones (which is essentially a LFG function - you don't spend hours and hours looking for a group to Warzones, do you? It should be the same principle for PvE). You select which instance you want to go to, which role(s) you are able to play and and you're put into a queue. The dungeon finder will filter people into a group and (maybe) offer a shuttle to the appropriate instance hub in the imperial fleet. The least it should do is group players. It doesnt need to be X-server, it just needs to match you with people in the same server.

 

If a player leaves mid-instance, the LFG tool will offer to find a replacement and that player will receive an invitation to join the group. This invitation will inform the player of the current progression status of the group before they join, and offer them the choice to accept or decline. If they decline, they'll be put to the back of the queue.

 

Final thoughts

 

People who are anti-LFG need to stop living in the past and accept that they do not ruin any aspect of the game. To simply say "you should be in a guild" is simply not acceptable. There should be more support for players who are not guilded. The game is very new, and good guilds are yet to be established on most servers.

 

A function that allows for more role flexibility (a multi-spec feature, for instance) and more global channels would make the LFG chore far more bearable, but they would be band aids at best. The real problem is the absense of a working LFG tool.

 

I have noticed a small decline in player numbers since launch. No longer am i queueing to get into my server. No longer am i frequently seeing "Very Heavy" or "Full" servers. It's mainly "heavy" or "standard" in peak times, and "standard" or "light" otherwise. i feel this is in many ways due to the extremely poor LFG support and this is an issue that Bioware MUST address now.

[Touchbass]

Hello new poster here, really good post Introvertus Edited January 15, 2012 by Touchbass

[Touchbass]

Here is my reasoning why this game needs a LFD that is cross server ... I know these experiences are from WoW but every reasons is 100% valid and i'd welcome discussion on any points that you view as invalid (which is fine to disagree)

 

Dr. Blizzard or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the LFD

 

 

Before we begin our discussion, I'd like to start off with two extremely positive things LFD has brought to the MMORPG community. I'm not saying these two particular benefits make the LFD mandatory, but for us to have any kind of a civilized conversation you need to first recognize the inherent benefits LFD has brought to these two issues.

 

 

1) The saviour of low population servers

 

The global LFD tool basically prevented low population servers from hemorrhaging players and salvaged a ton of communities from what a lot of players had previously written off. For those who are unaware, there are currently servers (especially alliance) with less than 30-40 players at max level at a given time during peak hours. You can literally spam for hours and not receive any replies, its quiet depressing in fact. To be an unfortunate individual stuck on one of those servers, you tend to have one out of three options: spend real life money to transfer off, quit the game, or play the game in a limited capacity. I don’t have the numbers for each of those three options but I’m sure to some of those left on the server felt as if they were on a ‘sinking ship’. When the LFG hit, populations took surges and people came back again. Players could gear themselves up independently of the server being in shambles and guilds were allowed spend their time tackling raids instead of searching for the elusive member(s) to fill out the dungeon group.

 

 

2) Access to low level content

 

I’ve seen some servers with more naked BE’s running around Orgimmar begging for doubloons than the entire max level base of other servers, even with these massive populations problems can still exist. While the good times were rolling (or dancing on mailboxes), hardly anybody was running low level dungeons. The problem wasn't lack of interest (as inherent of how easy it is now to get a group for lower level dungeons regardless of your group role), the issue was that it is time consuming and a pain in the butt to track down people and fill out the trinity for content that you could of probably leveled out of by the time you finished the bloody dungeon in the first place. With the addition of LFD, leveling became less of a pain if it wasn't your thing and created access. I don't think a lot of people realize that with the LFD a lot of players for the first time got to see these dungeons within the appropriate difficulty parameters.

 

 

The next section is some insight into why the whole LFD crisis came up in the first place

 

1) Gaming demographics have changed

 

The average face of a MMORPG gamer has changed dramatically over the past, we are melting pot of veterans, power games, stay at home dad/moms, the unemployed, the mentally ill, casual gamers and multi-platform gamers. Due to the mass appeal, subscriptions have soared like never before and have brought unforeseen consequences when the play styles of some of these gamers have clashed. The challenge is how we accommodate players of differing extremes: some want tight-knit communities that encourage and require players to work together, players who support grouping within same server but demand working reliable tools to facilitate the process, and finally players who frankly just want access to the game they paid for at their convenience.

 

2) Why should we be catering to these different crowds?

 

Money. The things money buys is good for an MMORPG, it allows it to evolve and address the concerns of players in a reasonable amount of time. The wheeled engine of WoW costs a tremendous amount of money to run, if we got rid of all those players that didn't fit 100% into our ideologies of what a gamer should be we'd see substantial loss of customer service, R&D and free content patches to just name a few things. More importantly, life sometimes makes you transition your availability due to work/school/annoying wife, if a game you truly enjoy is built around one play style you'd be up the creek without a paddle if you can't obligate that time anymore. All of us are probably guilty of taking advantage of the benefits brought to us from our fellow gamers; we need to be more sympathetic to their plight.

 

 

3) This isn't Kansas anymore

 

Don't let anyone fool you, traditional MMORPG's were built on the concept of ludicrous grinds that basically required an obscene amount of time to reach max level. Now don't confuse my words, this isn't a discussion of how long the leveling process should take or am I advocating the hitting of max level of not being an accomplishment - what I am trying to say is the gaming atmosphere of old which doesn't exist in any practical sense to the target markets Western MMO's are trying to reach out towards. We are spending countless resources trying to redo the leveling process and making it alt friendly, why would we do that when the hard cores spend most of their time at max level? We do this because they are no longer the majority of the player base and the genre has evolved for better or worse, the pockets of the many out weight the pockets of the few.

 

 

4) The Rise of the Titans

 

The height of MMORPG's are communities (think of the name itself), they are living bustling entities that evolve even when you aren't logged on. One of the most efficient and memorable ways of binding a community is the requirement of other players to facilitate something, whether a crafting ingredient or his/her help in a group for example. This created an atmosphere were people who put any resemblance of effort to becoming actually integrated into server and those who caused any problems where chastised and shunned. Imagine advertising your group intentions in whatever deemed appropriate channel and being able to categorize all of your responses with the notation of whether that person is worth grouping with or a waste of time. Don't underplay the notion that servers felt distinctly different from one another and had an identify, rolling need for an off spec item if that was taboo on the server could literally blacklist you. Wait, why is any of this deemed a problem?

 

5) Square peg meets the round hole

 

I'd like to take a moment to introduce myself at this point, hi my name is Charles and I'm a tank. I was the living breathing personification of the aforementioned lifestyle, I'd log to receive a plethora of tells to clear up dungeons for friends on off nights and raid like men on main nights. Everything was going great until I had my son; life and my game time started to change drastically for me at this point. No longer could I commit set chunks of time to play due to child raising duties and I was conversely dropped off the guilds active roster as the tank. I was still able to complete dungeons and occasionally fill in to OT but something fundamentally changed, getting premade groups became difficult for me. What changed wasn't that I become unpopular or my skills had waned to the point of “noobery”, what had fundamentally changed was how much of a hassle everything had become. Before I’d plan to play only 3 hours due to other obligations, I’d log on, see who’s on and we’d negotiate when we’d start. This would allow me to delay my set chunk of time to later or start it immediately and get off, now when I tried to get groups together it was a one shot deal and if people were indisposed at the moment I was unable to get anything done. After weeks of incomplete game time I regrettably said my farewells to my server top guild and only came back for expansion releases (when groups are easy to find) and permanently when the LFD came out.

 

This next part I attempt to highlight why certain situations paved the way for the LFD in the first place, I’ll be making some assumptions but anyone with a dog in the fight (aka has a job and/or family life) will understand that they are reasonable and fair.

 

 

1)Not everyone has 24/7 availability

 

If you work a full-time you only really have between 3-4 hours of playtime a night before you are significantly affecting other areas of your life. Weekends are a different story, sometimes you get to play a lot and sometimes you have less time then weekdays, but let’s say you squeeze in 10 hours total across the weekend. I’m being very generous with the above allotted times, if you have any outside obligations, hobbies, studies, other games of interest or a family, those times allotted are going to skyrocket down. That equals 25 hours of playtime roughly week for a medium to borderline hard core gamer, where I personally think most people are between 11-16 hours. Some people think spending an hour to form a group of “friends” online is acceptable gameplay, while I won’t say that they are wrong but I’m going to say a lot of others disagree strongly.

 

 

2) Think LFD causes problems? The old model was worse

 

Now picture you log on for your daily bread (I mean hours) and instead of going out and enjoying the world you have to stand around a capital city to ask for a group. You just got off work and already you’re not having fun, you’re being forced to work to enjoy yourself. Under the old model it used to take around 20 minutes at minimal for assembling the group and arrival at the instance, some people could get it done faster and others, well couldn’t get it done at all for various reasons. Now imagine someone has to go, god forbid it’s a tank and that means someone has to leave the instance to ask again, by this point another player may drop and your run could be over. Having a run collapse can eat upwards of 2 hours of someone’s play time, if not more. Losing that time may not be a big deal to someone but if they only have 11-16 hours to play a week, not being able to get a dungeon off the ground is going to cost them a significant chunk of their playtime for the week and not including the time it takes to assemble another one.

 

3)The solution that worked for most gamers

 

With the addition of the LFD tool, gamers where finally given a tool that could maximize a person’s time in an efficient manner. When you click that button you know you have roughly between 10 and 30 minutes at longest before you group starts. This gave players the option of doing some dailies, farming some particular items or doing something quick in real life, regardless of their choice they were finally using their time to something they wished. This isn’t as much about the length of time but the expected duration of how long a particular task will take which is important. If I know I that when I log on and I have 3 hours to play and I can calculate it’ll take me 30 minutes to assemble a group, 1 hour to complete it and 45 minutes to do my dailies afterwards I’ll be a happy customer. Now imagine I log on, spend over an hour trying to find a group and can’t complete the group, by the time I reach the point where I can no longer finish the dungeon due to time constraints I’m going to rush through my dailies in a bitter mood. This doesn’t have to happen many times for people to throw up their hands and say to “hell with it”.

 

4) Work odd hour or strangely irregular hours

 

One of the biggest groups that got punished were those who didn’t game when the rest of us were online. Think you got issues assembling a group in the pre-LFD days, trying being online when there aren’t even 5 people online at your level. For years they were told to relocate to a server that best fits their needs, ignore the content entirely or quit. I shouldn’t have to go into why there is something substantial wrong with the above helpful advice and in fact I won’t.

 

5) The player level bubble

 

This sort of ties within an earlier point but I just wanted to expand on it quickly. Group content is great when it’s accessible now imagining having no one around you to complete it. If the majority of players are at max level how are you supposed to perform group activities prior to the level cap? The old model was beg in /1 or coerce a guildie into feeling bad enough to run you through it. This is the reason WoW removed the majority of elite group quests, not because people weren’t interested in them but because people couldn’t get them done in a reasonable amount of time.

 

The next section is my attempt to reconcile the two crowds and try to break the ignorance that is plagued towards us “second class citizens”

 

1)The LFD destroys communities rant

 

This is the biggest and loudest argument and deservers the most attention, we need to think about what the perspective is of the person who is advocating this and what are his intentions. His premise is very understandable, why on earth would you want anything you cherished to be besieged? The players from this perspective are happy with their current gaming experiences and view anything dramatically changing as threatening their positive experiences. They may claim they are community individuals, but they aren’t in fact they really only looking out for their own interests and have no regard for the majority of the player base.

 

2)The LFD killed WoW (or severely crippled it)

 

This has to be the most erroneous statement I’ve heard in the debate and I have to applaud who came up with that conjecture for how much is has swamped the MMORPG community. First off, how would you analyze this statement for any shred of truth? I’m not going to take your anecdotal evidence as fact, because quite frankly the LFD tool brought me back to the game and I know countless others who came back to the game because of it. In fact, the only evidence we can look at that is considered fair is how many subscriptions came back with the addition of the LFG feature versus who left the game at the same time. I wonder who’s going to come out on top of that one

 

3) The majority of these people opposing the LFD are hypocrites

 

The only thing that changed was that we could no longer force people to communicate with others when they didn’t wish it or it wasn’t convenient. If you had a laundry list of friend’s pre-LFD to always do groups with, you should have seen absolutely no change at all in your gameplay experience. What could have possibly changed? You would log on, talk to your guildies and friends and come up with a time to run dungeons as you always did prior. If you were unable to facilitate a group as it sometimes can happen, you’d ask if anyone knew anyone or you simply just ask in trade. When someone refers to bad experiences with the LFD tool, I ask myself how they found themselves interacting with the tool in the first place. You clearly couldn’t find anybody to group with so instead of sitting around in Orgimmar spamming for groups you realized what the rest of us realized years ago that it that wasn’t fun. You then took the approach of joining a queue intended for a different gaming experience and got upset when it wasn’t to your liking. I can’t be the only one who is baffled by this, can I?

 

 

4) Ask not what your server can do for you but what you can do for your server

 

With every major patch people leave and quit which swings servers into mayhem. One of the servers a buddy of mine played on was Smolderthorn, it had a top 100 guild and a fair balance till WOTLK server instability issues forced transfers. Within a few content cycles the server was completely damaged and people jumped ship. If someone quit during TBC and came back after the LFD was introduced he’d logically think it killed the server when it fact did not. Become part of the solution and not the problem, post your attentions on the server forums that you want to participate in a server event. You don’t even have to do know what to; you can usually leverage someone with ideas that has no warm bodies to fill them. Start small and work your way up. There is tons of information on Google on this so happy hunting!

 

5) Players have diminished in quality since the LFD for reason X,Y, and Z

 

No, what has happened is people are of different skill backgrounds and you’ve just never realized just how many of them take up your player base who keeps your game running. This isn’t the days of yore when everyone who plays strongly understands the genre, blizzard has opened up the market for different crowds and it’s their playing experience too. Think of it from the other side of the coin, how do you think it is for us more casual player base to deal with you people on a more regular basis? Don’t got 100% optimized gear and talent spec for an encounter that don’t require it, get ready to get instructed on the values of life and potentially booted. Ask to a do all the bosses to a geared tank, better believe that’s a vote kick.

 

6) The Z in “X,Y, and Z” is for laZy

 

One concern is that queue based systems will make people lazy and lethargically spend their time throughout the game world. We’re living in the country that works one of the most hours per person in the world and has severe time poverty and you’re confused why people are trying to take shortcuts? You’d have to be insane or unemployed not to take every time related advantage that doesn’t spoil your own experience in a game that soaks them up like nothing. Being lazy has no discrimination for which it strikes, whether it’s elites afking in bg’s for High War Lord titles or Johnny McNoob /afking in the raid finder

 

7) People are ******es in the LFD

 

This is the only argument I particularly agree with, it is true that anonymity breeds people to make actions that may have not made in a different situation. Blizzard has given us a tool to deal with it; it’s called the vote kick. If you DO NOT abuse the vote kick, it is available almost every time you’ll ever need it. The majority of incidents that I’ve personally witnessed have been people taking someone’s words to seriously or someone “ninjaing” something. Now, for the latter it’s impossible to ninja in this game, I need you to understand that. “Ninjaing” for the sake of this argument is taking something that didn’t belong to you, entering into a rolling chance with someone when both parties legitimately want an item is not stealing. If someone has the same armour class or item proficiency, then casually speak to them in public or private to get their intentions, you’d be shocked in how people are civil once you make that communication leap and instead of assuming. For the attitude part, that is everyone’s job to try and keep a cool head. If you see people fighting over something in game, first off don’t make it worse by saying who’s right and who’s wrong. Secondly try and defuse the situation, I’ve been able to do this a few times or at least get to the point where everyone agrees it’s best to move on but be silent. Lastly, if else fails, Blizzard has given us the vote kick for these types of measures, use accordingly though or be warned it may not be there when you require it.

 

 

Thank you for taking the time to reading my ideas and hopefully contributing to a positive discussion when it's difficult since we all think so differently

Edited January 15, 2012 by Touchbass

[Vincethejedi]

Am I the only one who has no trouble finding groups? I'm not in a guild, but whenever i need to do a heroic or flashpoint, i just open general chat and toggle LFG and keep questing. When i see a message LFG and the quest i need i whisper that person. Bam and there's a group It's easy really

 

It will depend on what server you're on. You're comments do little to help the rest of us on servers where your experiences are not common at all. So, unless you'd like us all to jump on your server and overload it, I think other solutions should be considered.

 

Personally, I've only seen 10-15 level 50s on the fleet at any one time (far less at night), and I'd guess about half of those players are AFK at any given time (I've never seen anyone with LFG flagged, not once). So, yeah, I think LFG would be a good thing to consider for future patches.

 

The arguments about "Server community" or "Ninja Looting" holds no water IMO, the alternative for many is to just AFK after becoming tired of spamming, or just logging off completely.

Edited January 15, 2012 by Vincethejedi

[BlueSkittles]

If the design team is philosophically opposed to the Looking for Flashpoint Tool, allow me to offer my experience as a player. I don't think my experience is uncommon, and it might help the dev team see why a Looking for Flashpoint Tool better serves the playerbase.

 

I am a group-oriented player. I prefer flashpoints to questing, and I only feel fulfilled when I'm contributing to a team. As it stands, though, the only flashpoints I've been able to do were a few black talons with my IRL friends. Why is this? Because there is no way to get a group. I've occasionally put myself as LFG, but I've never gotten an invite, despite being a healer. I'm too focused on leveling to spend my time finding people for a group, and to get my team-play fix I've been PvPing through the queue system.

 

 

Also, group questing is different than group flashpoints. It serves a different purpose, players experience it differently, and it deserves a separate tool to make it work. Group questing gels much better to your philosophy of community, since people who quest as a group tend to banter and talk more, but that's because it's usually something that guildmates/IRL-friends engage in. Group questing is free-form. Players decide on the way their quests will progress on their own, and have to explore to find where they are going next. This is very different from flashpoints, and doesn't lend itself well to automatic group creation. Moreover, since most heroic quests are designed for two players with their companions, it doesn't really matter what the roles are, because their companions will fill any gaps just fine.

 

Flashpoints, on the other hand, are like Disneyland rides. You are on the rails, everyone knows what they have to do, and they are there to do it. There is very little for the players to decide, and no one has to say a word to get through one 90% of the time. The most important metric for success is group composition. If the group is made of properly geared players with the right roles, the group will be successful. This lends itself VERY well to automatic group finding.

 

 

But the proof of the pudding is in the eating. When WoW added the cross-realm dungeon finder, the number of dungeons being run shot up immediately. That means there was a huge audience for dungeons who weren't running them because of the poor UI and lack of incentives. And it wasn't because they lacked a tool. WoW iterated no less than four times with group finding tools. Zone LFG channels, dungeon finding through the Meeting Stones, capital city LFG channels, LFG pane (That one no one used in BC where you picked the dungeons you wanted and check marked your roles), World LFG channel while in the LFG pane, and finally the automatic cross-server LFD tool. Note that every other tool failed in direct competition with chat channels, but the LFD tool has managed to make that channel almost completely obsolete.

 

 

Don't let a misguided fear that you'll lose your community stop you from serving your playerbase. Community doesn't benefit from not having the tools to efficiently find groups, but instead depends on offering tools for those seeking community to find it. Build guild rankings and recognition into the engine, have forums for individual servers, have some galactic chat channels that help everyone on the server communicate. Forcing players to manually build groups is not on that list.

 

 

Also, as one of Google's lead engineers once said: Accessibility is everything. Not accessibility for the disabled, but accessibility for everyone. A feature that no one uses is a feature that may as well not exist, and right now all of the flashpoints count as that feature.

 

Change your minds, please.

 

+1 And then some. Thank you! /1:General: Looking For Flashpoint/Operation Finder Tool!

 

Edited to add: Holy crap Touchbass! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! For doing what I was too frustrated to do. Put together all of the arguments against LFD and killing them dead with logic. You are my hero! +1million for you. Please devs listen to Touchbass and give us what we NEED, and what any modern MMO should have. (also ty Touchbass for mentioning the mentally ill in your list of people who play MMO's. The Dungeon/Raid Finder in WoW allowed me to bypass my Social Anxiety and actually play group content, and in fact, has helped me gain some sense of personal accomplishment by engaging other people in conversation and completing objectives with them.)

Edited January 15, 2012 by BlueSkittles

[Moricthian]

Here is my reasoning why this game needs a LFD that is cross server ... I know these experiences are from WoW but every reasons is 100% valid and i'd welcome discussion on any points that you view as invalid (which is fine to disagree)

 

Dr. Blizzard or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the LFD

 

 

Before we begin our discussion, I'd like to start off with two extremely positive things LFD has brought to the MMORPG community. I'm not saying these two particular benefits make the LFD mandatory, but for us to have any kind of a civilized conversation you need to first recognize the inherent benefits LFD has brought to these two issues.

 

 

1) The saviour of low population servers

 

The global LFD tool basically prevented low population servers from hemorrhaging players and salvaged a ton of communities from what a lot of players had previously written off. For those who are unaware, there are currently servers (especially alliance) with less than 30-40 players at max level at a given time during peak hours. You can literally spam for hours and not receive any replies, its quiet depressing in fact. To be an unfortunate individual stuck on one of those servers, you tend to have one out of three options: spend real life money to transfer off, quit the game, or play the game in a limited capacity. I don’t have the numbers for each of those three options but I’m sure to some of those left on the server felt as if they were on a ‘sinking ship’. When the LFG hit, populations took surges and people came back again. Players could gear themselves up independently of the server being in shambles and guilds were allowed spend their time tackling raids instead of searching for the elusive member(s) to fill out the dungeon group.

 

 

2) Access to low level content

 

I’ve seen some servers with more naked BE’s running around Orgimmar begging for doubloons than the entire max level base of other servers, even with these massive populations problems can still exist. While the good times were rolling (or dancing on mailboxes), hardly anybody was running low level dungeons. The problem wasn't lack of interest (as inherent of how easy it is now to get a group for lower level dungeons regardless of your group role), the issue was that it is time consuming and a pain in the butt to track down people and fill out the trinity for content that you could of probably leveled out of by the time you finished the bloody dungeon in the first place. With the addition of LFD, leveling became less of a pain if it wasn't your thing and created access. I don't think a lot of people realize that with the LFD a lot of players for the first time got to see these dungeons within the appropriate difficulty parameters.

 

 

The next section is some insight into why the whole LFD crisis came up in the first place

 

1) Gaming demographics have changed

 

The average face of a MMORPG gamer has changed dramatically over the past, we are melting pot of veterans, power games, stay at home dad/moms, the unemployed, the mentally ill, casual gamers and multi-platform gamers. Due to the mass appeal, subscriptions have soared like never before and have brought unforeseen consequences when the play styles of some of these gamers have clashed. The challenge is how we accommodate players of differing extremes: some want tight-knit communities that encourage and require players to work together, players who support grouping within same server but demand working reliable tools to facilitate the process, and finally players who frankly just want access to the game they paid for at their convenience.

 

2) Why should we be catering to these different crowds?

 

Money. The things money buys is good for an MMORPG, it allows it to evolve and address the concerns of players in a reasonable amount of time. The wheeled engine of WoW costs a tremendous amount of money to run, if we got rid of all those players that didn't fit 100% into our ideologies of what a gamer should be we'd see substantial loss of customer service, R&D and free content patches to just name a few things. More importantly, life sometimes makes you transition your availability due to work/school/annoying wife, if a game you truly enjoy is built around one play style you'd be up the creek without a paddle if you can't obligate that time anymore. All of us are probably guilty of taking advantage of the benefits brought to us from our fellow gamers; we need to be more sympathetic to their plight.

 

 

3) This isn't Kansas anymore

 

Don't let anyone fool you, traditional MMORPG's were built on the concept of ludicrous grinds that basically required an obscene amount of time to reach max level. Now don't confuse my words, this isn't a discussion of how long the leveling process should take or am I advocating the hitting of max level of not being an accomplishment - what I am trying to say is the gaming atmosphere of old which doesn't exist in any practical sense to the target markets Western MMO's are trying to reach out towards. We are spending countless resources trying to redo the leveling process and making it alt friendly, why would we do that when the hard cores spend most of their time at max level? We do this because they are no longer the majority of the player base and the genre has evolved for better or worse, the pockets of the many out weight the pockets of the few.

 

 

4) The Rise of the Titans

 

The height of MMORPG's are communities (think of the name itself), they are living bustling entities that evolve even when you aren't logged on. One of the most efficient and memorable ways of binding a community is the requirement of other players to facilitate something, whether a crafting ingredient or his/her help in a group for example. This created an atmosphere were people who put any resemblance of effort to becoming actually integrated into server and those who caused any problems where chastised and shunned. Imagine advertising your group intentions in whatever deemed appropriate channel and being able to categorize all of your responses with the notation of whether that person is worth grouping with or a waste of time. Don't underplay the notion that servers felt distinctly different from one another and had an identify, rolling need for an off spec item if that was taboo on the server could literally blacklist you. Wait, why is any of this deemed a problem?

 

5) Square peg meets the round hole

 

I'd like to take a moment to introduce myself at this point, hi my name is Charles and I'm a tank. I was the living breathing personification of the aforementioned lifestyle, I'd log to receive a plethora of tells to clear up dungeons for friends on off nights and raid like men on main nights. Everything was going great until I had my son; life and my game time started to change drastically for me at this point. No longer could I commit set chunks of time to play due to child raising duties and I was conversely dropped off the guilds active roster as the tank. I was still able to complete dungeons and occasionally fill in to OT but something fundamentally changed, getting premade groups became difficult for me. What changed wasn't that I become unpopular or my skills had waned to the point of “noobery”, what had fundamentally changed was how much of a hassle everything had become. Before I’d plan to play only 3 hours due to other obligations, I’d log on, see who’s on and we’d negotiate when we’d start. This would allow me to delay my set chunk of time to later or start it immediately and get off, now when I tried to get groups together it was a one shot deal and if people were indisposed at the moment I was unable to get anything done. After weeks of incomplete game time I regrettably said my farewells to my server top guild and only came back for expansion releases (when groups are easy to find) and permanently when the LFD came out.

 

This next part I attempt to highlight why certain situations paved the way for the LFD in the first place, I’ll be making some assumptions but anyone with a dog in the fight (aka has a job and/or family life) will understand that they are reasonable and fair.

 

 

1)Not everyone has 24/7 availability

 

If you work a full-time you only really have between 3-4 hours of playtime a night before you are significantly affecting other areas of your life. Weekends are a different story, sometimes you get to play a lot and sometimes you have less time then weekdays, but let’s say you squeeze in 10 hours total across the weekend. I’m being very generous with the above allotted times, if you have any outside obligations, hobbies, studies, other games of interest or a family, those times allotted are going to skyrocket down. That equals 25 hours of playtime roughly week for a medium to borderline hard core gamer, where I personally think most people are between 11-16 hours. Some people think spending an hour to form a group of “friends” online is acceptable gameplay, while I won’t say that they are wrong but I’m going to say a lot of others disagree strongly.

 

 

2) Think LFD causes problems? The old model was worse

 

Now picture you log on for your daily bread (I mean hours) and instead of going out and enjoying the world you have to stand around a capital city to ask for a group. You just got off work and already you’re not having fun, you’re being forced to work to enjoy yourself. Under the old model it used to take around 20 minutes at minimal for assembling the group and arrival at the instance, some people could get it done faster and others, well couldn’t get it done at all for various reasons. Now imagine someone has to go, god forbid it’s a tank and that means someone has to leave the instance to ask again, by this point another player may drop and your run could be over. Having a run collapse can eat upwards of 2 hours of someone’s play time, if not more. Losing that time may not be a big deal to someone but if they only have 11-16 hours to play a week, not being able to get a dungeon off the ground is going to cost them a significant chunk of their playtime for the week and not including the time it takes to assemble another one.

 

3)The solution that worked for most gamers

 

With the addition of the LFD tool, gamers where finally given a tool that could maximize a person’s time in an efficient manner. When you click that button you know you have roughly between 10 and 30 minutes at longest before you group starts. This gave players the option of doing some dailies, farming some particular items or doing something quick in real life, regardless of their choice they were finally using their time to something they wished. This isn’t as much about the length of time but the expected duration of how long a particular task will take which is important. If I know I that when I log on and I have 3 hours to play and I can calculate it’ll take me 30 minutes to assemble a group, 1 hour to complete it and 45 minutes to do my dailies afterwards I’ll be a happy customer. Now imagine I log on, spend over an hour trying to find a group and can’t complete the group, by the time I reach the point where I can no longer finish the dungeon due to time constraints I’m going to rush through my dailies in a bitter mood. This doesn’t have to happen many times for people to throw up their hands and say to “hell with it”.

 

4) Work odd hour or strangely irregular hours

 

One of the biggest groups that got punished were those who didn’t game when the rest of us were online. Think you got issues assembling a group in the pre-LFD days, trying being online when there aren’t even 5 people online at your level. For years they were told to relocate to a server that best fits their needs, ignore the content entirely or quit. I shouldn’t have to go into why there is something substantial wrong with the above helpful advice and in fact I won’t.

 

5) The player level bubble

 

This sort of ties within an earlier point but I just wanted to expand on it quickly. Group content is great when it’s accessible now imagining having no one around you to complete it. If the majority of players are at max level how are you supposed to perform group activities prior to the level cap? The old model was beg in /1 or coerce a guildie into feeling bad enough to run you through it. This is the reason WoW removed the majority of elite group quests, not because people weren’t interested in them but because people couldn’t get them done in a reasonable amount of time.

 

The next section is my attempt to reconcile the two crowds and try to break the ignorance that is plagued towards us “second class citizens”

 

1)The LFD destroys communities rant

 

This is the biggest and loudest argument and deservers the most attention, we need to think about what the perspective is of the person who is advocating this and what are his intentions. His premise is very understandable, why on earth would you want anything you cherished to be besieged? The players from this perspective are happy with their current gaming experiences and view anything dramatically changing as threatening their positive experiences. They may claim they are community individuals, but they aren’t in fact they really only looking out for their own interests and have no regard for the majority of the player base.

 

2)The LFD killed WoW (or severely crippled it)

 

This has to be the most erroneous statement I’ve heard in the debate and I have to applaud who came up with that conjecture for how much is has swamped the MMORPG community. First off, how would you analyze this statement for any shred of truth? I’m not going to take your anecdotal evidence as fact, because quite frankly the LFD tool brought me back to the game and I know countless others who came back to the game because of it. In fact, the only evidence we can look at that is considered fair is how many subscriptions came back with the addition of the LFG feature versus who left the game at the same time. I wonder who’s going to come out on top of that one

 

3) The majority of these people opposing the LFD are hypocrites

 

The only thing that changed was that we could no longer force people to communicate with others when they didn’t wish it or it wasn’t convenient. If you had a laundry list of friend’s pre-LFD to always do groups with, you should have seen absolutely no change at all in your gameplay experience. What could have possibly changed? You would log on, talk to your guildies and friends and come up with a time to run dungeons as you always did prior. If you were unable to facilitate a group as it sometimes can happen, you’d ask if anyone knew anyone or you simply just ask in trade. When someone refers to bad experiences with the LFD tool, I ask myself how they found themselves interacting with the tool in the first place. You clearly couldn’t find anybody to group with so instead of sitting around in Orgimmar spamming for groups you realized what the rest of us realized years ago that it that wasn’t fun. You then took the approach of joining a queue intended for a different gaming experience and got upset when it wasn’t to your liking. I can’t be the only one who is baffled by this, can I?

 

 

4) Ask not what your server can do for you but what you can do for your server

 

With every major patch people leave and quit which swings servers into mayhem. One of the servers a buddy of mine played on was Smolderthorn, it had a top 100 guild and a fair balance till WOTLK server instability issues forced transfers. Within a few content cycles the server was completely damaged and people jumped ship. If someone quit during TBC and came back after the LFD was introduced he’d logically think it killed the server when it fact did not. Become part of the solution and not the problem, post your attentions on the server forums that you want to participate in a server event. You don’t even have to do know what to; you can usually leverage someone with ideas that has no warm bodies to fill them. Start small and work your way up. There is tons of information on Google on this so happy hunting!

 

5) Players have diminished in quality since the LFD for reason X,Y, and Z

 

No, what has happened is people are of different skill backgrounds and you’ve just never realized just how many of them take up your player base who keeps your game running. This isn’t the days of yore when everyone who plays strongly understands the genre, blizzard has opened up the market for different crowds and it’s their playing experience too. Think of it from the other side of the coin, how do you think it is for us more casual player base to deal with you people on a more regular basis? Don’t got 100% optimized gear and talent spec for an encounter that don’t require it, get ready to get instructed on the values of life and potentially booted. Ask to a do all the bosses to a geared tank, better believe that’s a vote kick.

 

6) The Z in “X,Y, and Z” is for laZy

 

One concern is that queue based systems will make people lazy and lethargically spend their time throughout the game world. We’re living in the country that works one of the most hours per person in the world and has severe time poverty and you’re confused why people are trying to take shortcuts? You’d have to be insane or unemployed not to take every time related advantage that doesn’t spoil your own experience in a game that soaks them up like nothing. Being lazy has no discrimination for which it strikes, whether it’s elites afking in bg’s for High War Lord titles or Johnny McNoob /afking in the raid finder

 

7) People are ******es in the LFD

 

This is the only argument I particularly agree with, it is true that anonymity breeds people to make actions that may have not made in a different situation. Blizzard has given us a tool to deal with it; it’s called the vote kick. If you DO NOT abuse the vote kick, it is available almost every time you’ll ever need it. The majority of incidents that I’ve personally witnessed have been people taking someone’s words to seriously or someone “ninjaing” something. Now, for the latter it’s impossible to ninja in this game, I need you to understand that. “Ninjaing” for the sake of this argument is taking something that didn’t belong to you, entering into a rolling chance with someone when both parties legitimately want an item is not stealing. If someone has the same armour class or item proficiency, then casually speak to them in public or private to get their intentions, you’d be shocked in how people are civil once you make that communication leap and instead of assuming. For the attitude part, that is everyone’s job to try and keep a cool head. If you see people fighting over something in game, first off don’t make it worse by saying who’s right and who’s wrong. Secondly try and defuse the situation, I’ve been able to do this a few times or at least get to the point where everyone agrees it’s best to move on but be silent. Lastly, if else fails, Blizzard has given us the vote kick for these types of measures, use accordingly though or be warned it may not be there when you require it.

 

 

Thank you for taking the time to reading my ideas and hopefully contributing to a positive discussion when it's difficult since we all think so differently

 

Seriously BW, can you sticky this? Better yet, can you print this out and read it to your design team? Ever better yet, can you stick it on that little fridge in the break room so everyone has to read it?