Dungeon Finder Needed Badly.

[subrosian]

I find it amusing that the people who are pro-LFG literally have to argue for WoW to push their point. World of Warcraft has died in NA and EU. If you disagree, go back to playing WoW: genuinely ask yourself why you're here.

 

I've played WoW, probably at a level beyond what 99.9% of posters here have played at (3-healing 25-man Heroic Ragnaros pre-nerf):

 

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/stormreaver/Subrosian/advanced

 

-

 

I can tell you for a FACT the combination of difficult dungeons + LFG = disaster. People don't want to invest time in teaching random people how to play the game, and the lack of any investment into the grouping process create the majority of problems from launch.

 

Blizzard's half-hearted solution of massive dungeon nerfs combined with a 15% buff to players (from random grouping) combined with massive nerfs via inflated iLevel made it so people stopped using any form of CC entirely and just DPS'd down dungeons.

 

This, combined with new dungeons in 4.3 that literally don't require anything besides DPS, changes to tanking in 4.2 that eliminated Tank threat as a thing from the game (if a tank hits it, they have threat, you cannot pull off a tank anymore). They then did across-the-board 20% nerfs to Firelands and Heroic Firelands, and are now doing the same in Dragonsoul.

 

 

-

 

WHY?

 

-

 

Because subscriber numbers are in the toilet, and they don't have any content, so they are nerfing the content they have instead of creating appropriate content for gamers who don't like the difficulty of group end-game content.

 

-

 

The REALITY of the situation is that cross-realm dungeons, raid finder, all of the "finder" tools create the problem. As soon as you introduce these tools, you kill group forming, because players will take the easy way instead of forming groups, meaning even players who want to form their own groups can't.

 

You then force players into groups with random people who have zero barrier to entry, and those people then don't feel any need to communicate, work together or complete the content properly, so they come right back to the forums and QQ about the difficulty of the content: it quite literally can't be done when no one in the group gives a crap about the success of the group, or has any investment in the group.

 

-

 

And once the massive nerfs come in? Players complain that there is nothing to do in the game, as they breeze through every dungeon, raid, etc... and are now sitting there bored, doing the same fights over-and-over again.

 

-

 

THE COMMUNITY WILL ALWAYS WHINE, THEY WILL ALWAYS WANT IT EASIER, THEY WILL ALWAYS WANT THINGS NERFED. A SMART DEVELOPER HAS TO RECOGNIZE THAT THE WHINERS ARE NORMAL AND IGNORE THEM.

 

...fail to do so and you flush your game down the toilet.

 

-

 

As for the "dungeon finder was around in Wrath" people... Wrath was the beginning of the end for WoW. The second half of Wrath with easy mode gear, iLevel inflation, gearscore and jokes of a dungeon was what made it so that when Cataclysm launched with actual content, they had a massive forum QQ. If Blizz had stuck it out and actually kept the game challenging, it would have been another 7 years of WoW.

 

Instead, they gave in to the QQ and now are down 50% in the US and EU. The majority of the WoW subscriber base is now in Asia, where the game is new and costs far less to play. The reason Blizzcon 2012 was cancelled in the US isn't that the dev teams are "working too hard to take a break"... the programmers have nothing to do with organizing Blizzcon, the reason it was cancelled is that there's nothing to announce and the US / EU audience is now evaporated - they want to move to China and Korea (where they are hosting the WoW Arena and SC2 finals) and focus on that audience, because they know they can't recover what they've lost.

 

-

 

SWTOR needs to learn from WoW's downfall. The "finder" tools make things too easy for players and kill the community.

[Umbral]

I find it amusing that the people who are pro-LFG literally have to argue for WoW to push their point. World of Warcraft has died in NA and EU. If you disagree, go back to playing WoW: genuinely ask yourself why you're here.

 

I've played WoW, probably at a level beyond what 99.9% of posters here have played at (3-healing 25-man Heroic Ragnaros pre-nerf):

 

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/stormreaver/Subrosian/advanced

 

-

 

I can tell you for a FACT the combination of difficult dungeons + LFG = disaster. People don't want to invest time in teaching random people how to play the game, and the lack of any investment into the grouping process create the majority of problems from launch.

 

Blizzard's half-hearted solution of massive dungeon nerfs combined with a 15% buff to players (from random grouping) combined with massive nerfs via inflated iLevel made it so people stopped using any form of CC entirely and just DPS'd down dungeons.

 

This, combined with new dungeons in 4.3 that literally don't require anything besides DPS, changes to tanking in 4.2 that eliminated Tank threat as a thing from the game (if a tank hits it, they have threat, you cannot pull off a tank anymore). They then did across-the-board 20% nerfs to Firelands and Heroic Firelands, and are now doing the same in Dragonsoul.

 

Sorry, but you are not geting away with posting what are at best half-truths, and at worst complete fabrications. If you want to flex epeens, best be careful who might be in the room. Just saying for now.

 

With Cataclysm came the return of having to use CC in dungeons, not the elimination of using CCs. It was Wrath that brought the elimination of CCs and the simple "just dps em down".

 

Furthermore. and as I stated previously, Blizz is not doing anything different from what they've pretty much already done all along. They nerf just before any addition of new dungeon/raiding content to allow for more of the general population to gear up for the upcoming stuff. It's has absolutely nothing, nada, zilch, zip, the big goose egg, to do with the cross-server LFD tool.

Edited January 27, 2012 by Umbral

[Umbral]

Instead, they gave in to the QQ and now are down 50% in the US and EU. The majority of the WoW subscriber base is now in Asia, where the game is new and costs far less to play. The reason Blizzcon 2012 was cancelled in the US isn't that the dev teams are "working too hard to take a break"... the programmers have nothing to do with organizing Blizzcon, the reason it was cancelled is that there's nothing to announce and the US / EU audience is now evaporated - they want to move to China and Korea (where they are hosting the WoW Arena and SC2 finals) and focus on that audience, because they know they can't recover what they've lost.

And your link to proof of these statements is where? I must have missed it, sorry. Edited January 27, 2012 by Umbral

[Vlacke]

And your link to proof of these statements is where? I must have missed it, sorry.

 

Why do you need links for something that is so blatantly obvious?

[subrosian]

I have research firm reports on both companies as I own a significant amount of EA and Activision stock. I've been investing in the game industry since college, it's actually going to pay for my retirement. There is public information available (try Google) if you're interested in seeing people following XFire and the like... sometimes it's right, sometimes it's a little off - if you want the actual reports yourselves, you can get them from investment research firms, though they are not free.

 

Currently, in the NA and EU regions, SWTOR actually has more active players than WoW... which isn't to say SWTOR is a massive success (it's a new MMO, we expect subscriber activity to be low) but rather that WoW has absolutely tanked.

 

If it weren't for their other IPs, and the fact that Bob Kotick (love him or hate him - as a gamer I hate him, as an investor he makes me a lot of money) is literally the savior of Activision (no troll, financially he is the only reason they are still around) I can keep my money there, but on the developer call on February 9th, I'm looking forward to hearing Blizzard scramble and try and announce release dates to cover up their sliding numbers.

 

I'm not an idiot, I know about the annual pass and how they're going to claim those numbers... I also know how many of those "subscribers" are going to fail to pay in a few months, as they weren't charged up front, and I don't like being lied to as an investor. It has been a rough year for my portfolio already, I only saw 1.5% growth this year, compared to 11% last year... and I'm not keen on hearing excuses.

 

I can guarantee you no other Activision investor will be either.

 

-

 

SWTOR has nowhere to go but up, but decisions about accessibility affect the longevity of the game. You can call things "half-truths" all you like, because that's how people who want easy mode content operate. They dismiss the opinions of more experienced players who have done more difficult content, they dismiss the insight provided by persons such as myself, who have an academic background in this sort of thing (go ahead for the "then you make an MMO" line - I've worked in the gaming industry, I don't any more, but I know what it takes and how much time and money is on the line here).

 

I have hundreds of thousands of dollars staked on this industry (gaming in general, not specifically Activision or EA) and I'm not some millionaire - that's every dime I have going into what I believe is a growing, creative, exciting industry, and I'll be damned if its design is going to be dictated by the lowest common denominator.

 

-

 

Continue to whine.

 

Bioware can show their credibility as a developer by ignoring it or saying "no". You may not like it, you'll continue to whine, call people like me "liars", "elitists", etc... but you won't get you raid finder, and the game will be better off because of it.

Edited January 27, 2012 by subrosian

[ZeusThunder]

You will find very few people against a "dungeon finder." Two things though:

- By "Dungeon Finder" do you mean some sort of auto-grouping and zoning tool? You should be clear on what you mean because the title sounds like a tool that finds dungeons for you.

- A auto-grouping/zoning system would be fine, just no cross server anything, ever.

[AeonWeapon]

You probably aren't on one of those packed servers, whose fault is that?

 

To avoid repeating myself, here's a quote of what I said to the last person who told me this "your fault for being on a low pop server" nonsense...

 

Yeah... I specifically chose to be on a low population server. Um, when I joined my server in early access I was waiting in queue to join a full server.

 

Oops, you're right, it's all my fault, I forgot to consult the oracle, to rub the crystal ball and read the tarot cards, so I could get a glimpse into the future and find out which servers would decline in population the most. Thank you for showing me my regrettable failings as a human being.

Edited January 27, 2012 by AeonWeapon

[Seuria]

I find it amusing that the people who are pro-LFG literally have to argue for WoW to push their point. World of Warcraft has died in NA and EU. If you disagree, go back to playing WoW: genuinely ask yourself why you're here.

I am still in WoW, and my server is just as full as it ever was. I'm there because my friends are there, because I really enjoy the content of 4.3, and because I still enjoy playing the game.

 

Is there something I'm missing? Should I not be enjoying the game even after playing it for over six years now?

 

SWTOR needs to learn from WoW's downfall. The "finder" tools make things too easy for players and kill the community.

I'll skip the crap and get right to the point. SWTOR is learning from WoW's mistakes, but certainly not in the direction you think. The simple fact is that the longtime MMO playerbase has "out leveled" their own gaming experience. They consume content at a rate not even the large, well-funded studios can can keep up with outside of the first year of so of release. Once the glut of planned, half-finished content is released it all slows down.

 

Blizzard tried to bring us back to an era that no longer exists, and it cost them dearly. Now, they're jettisoning the minority hardcore players in favor of folks like me -- those who consume content at a slower pace and prefer a diversity of material to play with. We prefer things like transmogrification, new daily hubs, lore filled 5 mans, queuing in LFR with our friends, PvE scenarios, new pets, new mounts, and the upcoming scenarios and pet battles to more bosses and hardmode raiding.

 

In short, we're easier to please with less work, and if you don't think SWTOR isn't going to throw you under the bus in favor of people like me then you're dreaming.

 

So, back on topic, no LFD tool may slow people down, but it also creates frustration and lost subs, and the very bottlenecking of content that the current direction at Blizzard suggests lost them a lot of subs. With other options out there and numerous other MMOs on the horizon it's not unlikely that people will move on rather than bash their head against this sort of wall anymore.

[Vlacke]

As I said before...

 

You have said and repeated your whine about the lack of this tool more than once, that is true.

[BlueSkittles]

I find it amusing that the people who are pro-LFG literally have to argue for WoW to push their point. (wall of text)

 

I understand your frustration with nerfing "hard" content to please casuals like me. And I honestly think that sucks for you AND for me. We've made some suggestions earlier in this thread (in which I got from DevoLore on Tankspot) that WoW should have made Normal level 85 dungeons in LFD for Cata and then kept Heroic modes out of LFD, similar to what LFR is doing. This way, you keep casuals semi-happy by allowing them to experience content and get shinies. And you keep hardcore people happy by being able to do actual hard content, away from us whiny/sucking casuals.

 

 

I have research firm reports on both companies as I own a significant amount of EA and Activision stock. (wall of text)

 

And what does this have to do with a dungeon finder and not WoW being a VERY old game?

[MalignX]

I have research firm reports on both companies as I own a significant amount of EA and Activision stock. I've been investing in the game industry since college, it's actually going to pay for my retirement. There is public information available (try Google) if you're interested in seeing people following XFire and the like... sometimes it's right, sometimes it's a little off - if you want the actual reports yourselves, you can get them from investment research firms, though they are not free.

 

Currently, in the NA and EU regions, SWTOR actually has more active players than WoW... which isn't to say SWTOR is a massive success (it's a new MMO, we expect subscriber activity to be low) but rather that WoW has absolutely tanked.

 

If it weren't for their other IPs, and the fact that Bob Kotick (love him or hate him - as a gamer I hate him, as an investor he makes me a lot of money) is literally the savior of Activision (no troll, financially he is the only reason they are still around) I can keep my money there, but on the developer call on February 9th, I'm looking forward to hearing Blizzard scramble and try and announce release dates to cover up their sliding numbers.

 

I'm not an idiot, I know about the annual pass and how they're going to claim those numbers... I also know how many of those "subscribers" are going to fail to pay in a few months, as they weren't charged up front, and I don't like being lied to as an investor. It has been a rough year for my portfolio already, I only saw 1.5% growth this year, compared to 11% last year... and I'm not keen on hearing excuses.

 

I can guarantee you no other Activision investor will be either.

 

-

 

SWTOR has nowhere to go but up, but decisions about accessibility affect the longevity of the game. You can call things "half-truths" all you like, because that's how people who want easy mode content operate. They dismiss the opinions of more experienced players who have done more difficult content, they dismiss the insight provided by persons such as myself, who have an academic background in this sort of thing (go ahead for the "then you make an MMO" line - I've worked in the gaming industry, I don't any more, but I know what it takes and how much time and money is on the line here).

 

I have hundreds of thousands of dollars staked on this industry (gaming in general, not specifically Activision or EA) and I'm not some millionaire - that's every dime I have going into what I believe is a growing, creative, exciting industry, and I'll be damned if its design is going to be dictated by the lowest common denominator.

 

-

 

Continue to whine.

 

Bioware can show their credibility as a developer by ignoring it or saying "no". You may not like it, you'll continue to whine, call people like me "liars", "elitists", etc... but you won't get you raid finder, and the game will be better off because of it.

 

This made me laugh harder than anyone. You get em! You show em!

[subrosian]

Why do you need links for something that is so blatantly obvious?

 

They don't. They know it's true, they argue against it because of the fact that people will always want things to be easier. When I played WoW, I raided 8 hours a week. The guild I'm in did Heroic Rag before he was nerfed into the ground, on 8 hours a week, they're sitting at low percent wipes on Heroic Spine, without class stacking, on 8 hours a week.

 

It takes exceptional skill to complete end-game content on a limited amount of time. That's the point. If you want to clear content and you can't raid 50+ hours a week (and outside of the top guilds in the world, no one does that, and in fact you can't be unskilled and join those guilds, so it's a moot point) - the literal path to clearing content is to get better at the game.

 

-

 

What people who are struggling want is a way to break down that system, so they come to the forums and ask for steps along the path. Yes, it's a slippery slope, but it's unavoidable. Once you introduce LFR you have to introduce content nerfs, because the content intended for an organized group is now being done by a random group. And that random group now has no barrier to entry, so the average skill level is lower.

 

Once you start nerfing, there isn't a stopping point, as the content is dumbed down and made increasingly accessible, it pulls a lower and lower common denominator until you wind up with what WoW has with the 4.3 LFR: content so bad that a friend of mine, who is an ultra casual "weekender", came up to me and said "LFR is too easy, I feel like I'm just being handed gear, I didn't even know the fights and we downed it"... and he's tanking.

 

-

 

WoW's subscribers are in the toilet, and it's not that Cata was "too hard", as people so often like to whine, it wasn't, it's that Cata was only hard for 3 months, then decided to turn back into Wrath. We are literally sitting in the GearScore 2.0 era with DPS meters and iLevel wars in the LFR, that's it, that it what the game is reduced to now, and it's not going to get any better with the progressive nerfs encouraging the LFR players to go do Normal and Heroic mode raids.

 

At the end of Wrath the subscriber numbers went down as well... because that model doesn't work, players get bored quickly with easy games, they always do.

 

-

 

I don't want to see SWTOR go down that road, because if it does, it's going to *kill* the subscription model for the MMO market, and we'll be sitting around, well those of us who actually care about MMOs and knew they existed before WoW... going "well this sucks", which the era of expensive content tossed in the trash in favor of dozens of F2P games with bad communities.

 

Bioware just has to say "no", that's all there is to it - and they have to be smart enough to *keep* saying no, because the whiners will keep paying their $15/month, they always do, but they will keep whining. Just tune it out Bioware, and the game will stay healthy.

[AeonWeapon]

You have said and repeated your whine about the lack of this tool more than once, that is true.

 

Yeah ok, my arguments are whining... and your posts are meaningless bashing, and attacks based in nonsense, which is why I stopped reading any lengthy post by you 5 pages ago.

 

You saying "you should have joined a high pop server is complete BS and you know it. During early access, we were all joining full servers and waiting in queue, there was no way to know if our server was going to be one of the ones with a large drop off in population. You're just making yourself look like a fool making arguments that hold no basis in reality, then following up with insults when you're shot down for making no sense. Move along boy, you can't handle my kung fu.

[Seuria]

WoW's subscribers are in the toilet, and it's not that Cata was "too hard", as people so often like to whine, it wasn't, it's that Cata was only hard for 3 months, then decided to turn back into Wrath. We are literally sitting in the GearScore 2.0 era with DPS meters and iLevel wars in the LFR, that's it, that it what the game is reduced to now, and it's not going to get any better with the progressive nerfs encouraging the LFR players to go do Normal and Heroic mode raids.

 

At the end of Wrath the subscriber numbers went down as well... because that model doesn't work, players get bored quickly with easy games, they always do.

And, again, no supporting evidence. You're essentially suggesting that a multi-billion dollar company responded to sub loses because the game got "easy" by making the game even more easy.

 

All this despite the fact that they went in the opposite direction and, for years, all the data they've released and we've managed to gleam is that a HUGE percent of the playerbase never even completes the content after the nerfs in question.

 

Am I reading this right?

[subrosian]

I understand your frustration with nerfing "hard" content to please casuals like me. And I honestly think that sucks for you AND for me. We've made some suggestions earlier in this thread (in which I got from DevoLore on Tankspot) that WoW should have made Normal level 85 dungeons in LFD for Cata and then kept Heroic modes out of LFD, similar to what LFR is doing. This way, you keep casuals semi-happy by allowing them to experience content and get shinies. And you keep hardcore people happy by being able to do actual hard content, away from us whiny/sucking casuals.

 

It's literally the laziest possible road to content development.

 

You have these players who ENJOYED their 1 ~ 85 time of leveling. They liked questing, they liked exploring, they liked learning professions, crafting, playing the AH and chatting with people. Then all of a sudden they hit 85 and they are forced into group content because "that is the end game".

 

Don't get me wrong, all MMOs have this problem to a fair degree, but the solution is not to nerf down end-game content and try and make it some "one size fits all" gaming. The solution is to *create more content for players who enjoyed questing, solo content and bite-sized content*.

 

Trying to force those players into dungeons and raids is just bad design - I would applaud Bioware continuing to listen to that audience on what kind of non-raid content they want. Do we want swoop racing? Do we want some kind of questing? Do we want more revisions to the crafting system? That's fine, that's GOOD CONTENT.

 

 

But trying to make a "find an operation" button with easy-mode Operations? That's a path to disaster.

 

 

 

 

And what does this have to do with a dungeon finder and not WoW being a VERY old game?

 

There's nothing that magically makes it so that a 5-year old WoW was doing fine while a 7-year old WoW is dying. Players have played evolving games, like WoW, for years, people played Call of Duty games going on 9 years now. Being "old" isn't what caused the problem, if it was, those players would have been jumping ship to new MMOs with far more regularity.

 

What we're seeing is that Wrath introduced the idea of "easy mode" content for dungeons and raids toward the end of Wrath. This introduced the "GearScore" era, where players were doing the same content multiple times per week, and players with vastly inflated iLevels were generally not facing any difficult content at all.

 

Cata came along and tried to reign in the terrible, terrible design, but it ran into a problem: raid finder. Because the difficult content of Cata was being put to random groups, it wasn't doable, a whole host of "bad" players were being put into inappropriate content and expecting it would be like Wrath, where dungeon finder = easy win, drop group if you get Occulus.

 

Instead, it became "drop group no matter what, OMG we're screwed, we have to CC? No one is communicating?"

 

-

 

The raid finder was the culprit, along with bad decisions during the latter half of Wrath. Now we've returned to the Wrath model, added LFR, and lo-and-behold subscriber numbers are at the lowest they have been in years. Raid finders fault? You bet, because half the players are complaining the content is too easy, and the other half of the players are sitting there frustrated at how bad the community is.

 

-

 

-

 

You need barriers on both sides. You need a barrier that makes it so that forming a group takes some amount of effort, so that players who don't have any interest in learning how to do a dungeon don't bother with it. You also need a time barrier in replacing a player, so that "elitists" (which I'm sure people will call me... waiting for it) like myself can't just kick that player. If I have to sit there and say "I could take 15 minutes to replace them, or 3 minutes to explain the fight"... it will always make more sense to teach the casual player the stuff I have learned in my greater hours of player.

 

And since I am not grouping off server, if I treat that casual player like crap, there's a consequence on my server, same if I treat them well. I have an INCENTIVE to be a positive contributor to the community: it helps me get through dungeons. The people who run around playing like jerks won't get groups any more.

 

-

 

They will, however, come to the forums and demand an LFR so they can have a tool for being jerks to people without consequence.

[Vlacke]

Yeah ok, my arguments are whining... and your posts are meaningless bashing, and attacks based in nonsense, which is why I stopped reading any lengthy post by you 5 pages ago.

 

You saying "you should have joined a high pop server is complete BS and you know it. During early access, we were all joining full servers and waiting in queue, there was no way to know if our server was going to be one of the ones with a large drop off in population. You're just making yourself look like a fool making arguments that hold no basis in reality, then following up with insults when you're shot down for making no sense. Move along boy, you can't handle my kung fu.

 

You are the one resembling to a fool constantly repeating yourself, but alas you fail to see it.

Once you embrace the fact that you apparently made a poor server selection it will be much easier.

If you want to stay on a dead server it's nobody's fault but YOURS.

And yeah, your kung - fu nerd rage is impressive to say the least.

 

Much anger i sense in you.

[AeonWeapon]

They will, however, come to the forums and demand an LFR so they can have a tool for being jerks to people without consequence.

 

I'm demanding the tool because I don't have the time to waste an hour getting a team together.

 

Has nothing to do with content difficulty or any of the other nonsense you people are talking about for the last couple pages. It's about real life time, and that's it.

 

If I have 2 hours a day to play, I want no more than 15 minutes of it spent getting into a team to play.

 

Since you're unable to understand what it's like in another person's shoes, I say: get a job, then you'll be in my shoes and you'll want this too.

Edited January 27, 2012 by AeonWeapon

[subrosian]

Am I reading this right?

 

No, you are building strawmen.

 

Feel free to link to your WoW character with a pre-nerf Ragnaros kill if you want to talk about the difficulty of content in WoW though, and its impact on the community. What Blizzard has run into with the combination of the LFR and nerfs is a disaster. Having a dungeon finder and simultaneously introducing difficulty content killed the game, but it wasn't the difficulty that was the issue, it was the raid finder.

 

The wrath model doesn't work, if it did, subscriber numbers would be at a record high right now. It has NEVER BEEN EASIER TO DO DUNGEONS OR RAID IN WOW THAN IT IS NOW. The game is the easiest it has ever been, and subscriber numbers are the lowest they have been in a long time. If it weren't for the annual pass, the February 9th numbers would be significantly below 10 million... as is, they're going to gloss over numbers because they're not looking good outside of Asia.

 

-

 

I don't want to see SWTOR become the next WoW. If people want easy mode, go play WoW, it has all the easy mode you can want. Bioware doesn't need to turn SWTOR into WoW.

[MalignX]

It's literally the laziest possible road to content development.

 

You have these players who ENJOYED their 1 ~ 85 time of leveling. They liked questing, they liked exploring, they liked learning professions, crafting, playing the AH and chatting with people. Then all of a sudden they hit 85 and they are forced into group content because "that is the end game".

 

Don't get me wrong, all MMOs have this problem to a fair degree, but the solution is not to nerf down end-game content and try and make it some "one size fits all" gaming. The solution is to *create more content for players who enjoyed questing, solo content and bite-sized content*.

 

Trying to force those players into dungeons and raids is just bad design - I would applaud Bioware continuing to listen to that audience on what kind of non-raid content they want. Do we want swoop racing? Do we want some kind of questing? Do we want more revisions to the crafting system? That's fine, that's GOOD CONTENT.

 

 

But trying to make a "find an operation" button with easy-mode Operations? That's a path to disaster.

 

 

 

 

 

 

There's nothing that magically makes it so that a 5-year old WoW was doing fine while a 7-year old WoW is dying. Players have played evolving games, like WoW, for years, people played Call of Duty games going on 9 years now. Being "old" isn't what caused the problem, if it was, those players would have been jumping ship to new MMOs with far more regularity.

 

What we're seeing is that Wrath introduced the idea of "easy mode" content for dungeons and raids toward the end of Wrath. This introduced the "GearScore" era, where players were doing the same content multiple times per week, and players with vastly inflated iLevels were generally not facing any difficult content at all.

 

Cata came along and tried to reign in the terrible, terrible design, but it ran into a problem: raid finder. Because the difficult content of Cata was being put to random groups, it wasn't doable, a whole host of "bad" players were being put into inappropriate content and expecting it would be like Wrath, where dungeon finder = easy win, drop group if you get Occulus.

 

Instead, it became "drop group no matter what, OMG we're screwed, we have to CC? No one is communicating?"

 

-

 

The raid finder was the culprit, along with bad decisions during the latter half of Wrath. Now we've returned to the Wrath model, added LFR, and lo-and-behold subscriber numbers are at the lowest they have been in years. Raid finders fault? You bet, because half the players are complaining the content is too easy, and the other half of the players are sitting there frustrated at how bad the community is.

 

-

 

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You need barriers on both sides. You need a barrier that makes it so that forming a group takes some amount of effort, so that players who don't have any interest in learning how to do a dungeon don't bother with it. You also need a time barrier in replacing a player, so that "elitists" (which I'm sure people will call me... waiting for it) like myself can't just kick that player. If I have to sit there and say "I could take 15 minutes to replace them, or 3 minutes to explain the fight"... it will always make more sense to teach the casual player the stuff I have learned in my greater hours of player.

 

And since I am not grouping off server, if I treat that casual player like crap, there's a consequence on my server, same if I treat them well. I have an INCENTIVE to be a positive contributor to the community: it helps me get through dungeons. The people who run around playing like jerks won't get groups any more.

 

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They will, however, come to the forums and demand an LFR so they can have a tool for being jerks to people without consequence.

 

I'll give you that at least you took the time to explain your position against it. Though you haven't really said anything that hasn't been said before.

 

But basically, you want them to keep certain content a certain way so that you are not inconvenienced by people who aren't as good at the game as you are, but still want to be able to play the same content that you do.

 

The constant "The game will be to easy" "people will be jerkier than usual!" "It's going to DESTROY THE GAME!" is just getting silly.

 

Take your tut tuts and call your broker and tell him to sell all your Activision stock. That'll show em.

[Dedaol]

What this game really needs at this point...is a Dungeon Finder. It was a huge success in other MMO's, no reason for it not to be in this game.

 

Pros:

 

1. Can continue questing while waiting for group to form.

2. Prevents trolls from sitting there ruining General Chat while they are bored trying to fill a group.

3. Proves that BioWare can do something like this. Buys street creds.

 

Cons:

 

1. Some people think it ruins the community...but I think they are wrong. They obviously have not sat for an hour trying to fill a Flashpoint group.

2. People who think like that are probably in a huge guild and have no trouble filling groups. We're usually filling 2-3 of 4 and just need that last role.

 

Just responding to the OP. No i did not read all of the 150 pages of posts in this particular thread.

I agree. Adding in a LFD/LFG feature would ( for me ) be a big plus.

 

Why?

 

When i log into the game i usually only spend an hour or two playing ( per session ). I have no max level toons, my highest is Lvl 30'ish. While leveling you inevitably get the droid quest sending you to an FP. At first, i would accept the quest, hop over to the fleet and try to run the FP. I think ive run BT twice and Athiss and MR once each ( at the appropriate level ).

 

For me the experience was less than desirable for the time that i have to spend on-line playing the game.

I have felt the pain of spamming general chat on planets and in fleet trying to assemble groups for FP's and for 4M and 2M heroic quests. I use the LFG provided in game. I list myself, my role and my goal. Very few ppl use this and ive found that spamming general until a group is formed is the most effective way to assemble a group.

 

For me running FP's ( while i'm leveling ) is something i just dont do anymore. The time involved has proven to not be worth the benefit for the time that i have to be in game. So i usually just quest on the planet im currently on and run the 4M and 2M heroic quests that i can get a group for. But even then i usually leave the planet with a heroic quest or two not completed or even attempted in my log.

 

I'm not in a guild and for the time being i dont think i will look to join one. I dont think im anti-social. The groups im in im the one thats usually chatty. But as usual most folks dont even respond in group.

 

Before i get burnt to the ground for my opinion, just remember that this is my opinion based on my experience in the game so far. I understand that folks may not have encountered the problems ive had ( in relation to forming groups ). I wish i was you in that case. But im not. I list my opinion here as a vote in the affirmative that i would like to see some sort of an advanced LFR/LFD implemented.

 

/cheers

[AeonWeapon]

We don't want easy content, we want easy, fast methods for getting a team together, on any server, at any time... stay on topic. You people are way off in god knows what tangent. Edited January 27, 2012 by AeonWeapon

[subrosian]

I'm demanding the tool because I don't have the time to waste an hour getting a team together.

 

Has nothing to do with content difficulty or any of the other nonsense you people are talking about for the last couple pages. It's about real life time, and that's it.

 

If I have 2 hours a day to play, I want no more than 15 minutes of it spent getting into a team to play.

 

Since you're unable to understand what it's like in another person's shoes, I say: get a job, then you'll be in my shoes and you'll want this too.

 

I work 60 hours a week.

I have a wife, a house, and two cares.

I care for younger siblings due to the recent death of my parents.

 

I have paid for my retirement already by busting my hump.

But I still work, because I have bills to pay.

 

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Your style of play is exactly the problem. You demand a dungeon finder because you "don't want to take the time to find a group". Next you're going to be on the forums complaining "the content is too hard, my groups keep failing, I only have 2 hours a night to play and these fail groups mean I log in and just wipe for 2 hours!".

 

You can deny it, but you'll be here posting that you want nerfs to the "ridiculous difficulty of dungeons" a week after dungeon finder is introduced, and random groups fail consistently to complete them.

 

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This is EXACTLY how WoW went downhill, if you want that, go play WoW.

[MalignX]

We don't want easy content, I want easy teaming... stay on topic. You people are way off in god knows what tangent.

 

Shhhh. Let 'em rage. Who cares if they continue to miss the point? It's fun to read all these people foaming at the keyboard.

[MalignX]

I work 60 hours a week.

I have a wife, a house, and two cares.

I care for younger siblings due to the recent death of my parents.

 

I have paid for my retirement already by busting my hump.

But I still work, because I have bills to pay.

 

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Your style of play is exactly the problem. You demand a dungeon finder because you "don't want to take the time to find a group". Next you're going to be on the forums complaining "the content is too hard, my groups keep failing, I only have 2 hours a night to play and these fail groups mean I log in and just wipe for 2 hours!".

 

You can deny it, but you'll be here posting that you want nerfs to the "ridiculous difficulty of dungeons" a week after dungeon finder is introduced, and random groups fail consistently to complete them.

 

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This is EXACTLY how WoW went downhill, if you want that, go play WoW.

 

Hey, at least you get the medal for the most narcissism I've read on here yet.

[BlueSkittles]

Shhhh. Let 'em rage. Who cares if they continue to miss the point? It's fun to read all these people foaming at the keyboard.

 

Exactly what I was thinking. NOT GOING TO ADDRESS THE TROLLS! Gotta keep telling myself that.