Dungeon Finder Needed Badly

[BlueSkittles]

I think they actually expected it to work like the FFXI system did when I was playing (and believe it still does). Remember I don't really care for x-server, but I don't have too many issues with it being put into play. Though I would prefer seeing options with it and things that encourage community... It won't hurt me if they do 'just' x-server since I'll be looking into guilds more at that point, but it will help me with LFG a bit till I find one that suits me. As with WoW, if they do x-server, I'll use it to augment my play, and refuse to let it run how I do things/group.

*SNIP*

Oh, anyone not familiar with DDO's system - they have a LFG interface that displays the quest you want, level range, and who's in the group and lets you pick the jobs you want to join you. They also let you pick and choose which classes are shown as 'needed' which lets it filter who sees it (though the people being 'filtered' can turn it so they can see anything they're not eligible for). We frequently put up warnings in the 'comments' it allows that state it's a 'zerg' run, or 'all optionals' etc. I've half been wondering if they're looking at a system similar to that for the one they're developing now since it mentions flash points AND heroics using it.

 

That was an amazing post, Mana. Something akin to a thesis statement for a Masters or Ph.D. (not joking, very informative) I remember trying out FFXI back in the day, and just not being able to get into it due to the grind. You've gone WAY beyond that, which is kinda amazing. And again, your information just keeps bringing me back to how anti-LFD people think. Not that there is anything wrong with it. And it's very much a cultural thing. I just hope Bioware knows what they're doing and is able to make a tool that either pleases both camps, or pleases the people who hate grinding (aka westerners?).

Edited February 1, 2012 by BlueSkittles

[BlueSkittles]

With x-server... rift actually put in the free server transfers - you could only use it once every 7 days, but it was there. Right down to an entire guild being able to make the move - bank and all - to another server. Anyone that was in the guild would get the notice that it was done and told which server - and upon transferring servers they would be put back into the guild that had been moved. The issue I saw was, no x-server friends list, if we end up with x-server I want both the free transfers and the x-server friends lists. I doubt I'll get the first because of micro transactions, but we might get the second.

 

More amazing insight. And I wonder if WoW had not charged for server transfers, if they would have even needed a cross-server LFD?

[Neiloch]

The longer SWTOR goes without some sort of LFG upgrade, the more the game will need a cross server LFD tool or at the very least 'liberal' use of server merges or transfers.

[MalignX]

The longer SWTOR goes without some sort of LFG upgrade, the more the game will need a cross server LFD tool or at the very least 'liberal' use of server merges or transfers.

 

It's not like we've gone well over 400 pages on this subject. When's the next major patch?

[Nitewolfe]

This is in reference to BigGun. I rather nor quote the entire post so ill just state a few things here.

I like to thank you for your well thought out post.

 

One of the points i would like to cover is your part on server forums and blacklisting.

Even if this forum gets server based forums the forum policy is a no name and shame one.

If you were to call some one out by name and server you would risk forum actions against your forum accounts and the info would be deleted. This includes links to screen shots or vids that have the player name and server listed for the purpose of naming and shaming.

This is done because naming and shaming is to open for abuse!

 

I would like to address your bad personal experience with the cross server lfd.

Thank you for at least saying they are your experiences.

I can counter with my own, my wifes, my 2 sons and my daughters personal experiences with the WoW and Rift cross server lfd tool where the 5 of us have consistent good experiences with the systems and currently still do!

Just myself alone have thousands of wow cross server lfd experiences and can not remember any that were so bad that i ended up hating the tool.

Yes thousands of runs in the wow system alone and my best guess would be thousands with the rift system.

 

The real issue at hand here is options. The more the better IMHO.

Options for single or cross server

Options for need/greed (as you stated a pet meed would help).

Options for cross server friends list and ignore list.

Options for roles

 

I think whats been highly overlooked here and a reason for the success of lfd systems is you dont have to take on a leadership role. Very few people are leaders and its a big hurdle and deterant to forming a group.

As a example some times when i do try and spam DPS lfg for XYZ i get some tells saying "ill go invite me" I generally respond with i am not forming the group i am looking for a group.

You see many of use view the person who forms the group as the leader and i dislike being a leader. I take it that the person who responded to my spam feels the same way because they never turn around and invite me instead and them form the group.

Say what you will about my dislike of leadership it is my issue and that is not going to change.

Now enter lfd systems and it forms the group for you. No one has to take on that leadership role. And my own personal view is that groups happen more often because of that.

 

Perhaps that is one of the big divides between the people who clam spamming works and those that say it doesnt. Pure speculation but are the anti lfd people take charge types of people? If so great for them but they need to realize most people have no desire to lead and a lot actually are repulsed by being a leader.

Now just because i wont lead doesnt mean i wont offer advice in a zone. But i refuse to lead the group. WoW, rift and swtor the zones are straight forward as are the boss fights. No real leadership is needed. Every zone tells you where to go and ever boss fight is a simple kill x while you stay alive (yes that is Wolfe's leet strat for any boss! kill boss stay alive!).

 

 

Personally i discount personal experiences because by nature they are biased.

Just the same as my own personal experiences are biased towards all the good i seen happen after the cross server lfd in 2 games that i played with similar systems (wow and rift).

So taking out personal biased views we can fall back to the facts i listed in another post i made.

[navarh]

but I have my experiences with the Wrath LFD tool, which were the vast majority of the time unpleasant.

…i'll answer

 

i know people like you and reason why they all have unpleasant experiences in LFG

players spoiled by guild or friend-only party where you babysit by others, they forgive you lack of skill/gear, often afk and other stuff

OR

you and all players in group are actually good and you never run in any trouble and you can't even imagine that "trouble" even exist and not "someone" (mommy?) but you need to deal with them

 

when such people enter LFG they surely will have "unpleasant experiences"

how dare those people not love me?

or

how dare those noobs even exist?

and so on

 

in LFG they suddenly experiences cruel truth of real world: every man for himself, eat or be eaten

name it as you like

Edited February 1, 2012 by navarh

[xenofire]

My problem with LFG is it made them more accessible so people complained far more about their difficulty. Anyone remember Arcatraz in TBC? Yeah, barely anyone ran it cos it was so hard. They ran it to gear up, and that's about it.

 

I liked that level of difficulty. I think LFG would be fine as long as they continue to make the hard modes challenging. I also think you should still have to walk to the instances to zone in.

[navarh]

But i refuse to lead the group.

yup

when you take leadership on the group you also take responsibility… and i prety much fed-up from that stuff at work and don't want to get this pain in the a** in the game…

 

if group fail that is my fault, i can't "take it easy"

[HavenAE]

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.

 

This game doesn't need a dungeon finder.. it just needs a more robust LFG tool. Something that developed beyond just flagging yourself in the social menu.

 

 

I'll add another CON

 

Any automatic group management tool removes the social aspect from any game, it makes players lazy and completely bypasses the initial focus of social interaction in an MMO.

 

 

This is why people need to be asking for a better developed LFG tool that still requires that you manually put the group together, not an automatic cross-server dungeon finder.

 

In fact if Bioware does anything cross-server I'd expect to see a lot of people go bye-bye, just like WoW, the difference is WoW could survive a mass exodus, SWTOR can't.

[Touchbass]

This post contains the reasons why the current LFD tool in WoW should not be implemented in this game and an alternative that I believe would be better.

 

Now for a brief intro, let me give you a little bit of background on my MMO experience. Quite simply, I played WoW since Vanilla, quit shortly after Cata, and now play ToR.

 

 

*SNIP*

 

To conclude this post I will say this, a LFG tool is needed, but a copy and paste of WoW's is just not a good idea. I believe my version would address the issues players are having while not making one group angry and the other happy.

 

I look foreword to constructive feedback on my ideas.

Thanks for reading.

 

Good post Big Gun, Rachel, I don't agree with some your early assertions but I think you wrote it very fair and this post is going to contribute to our discussion.

[Ethern]

This post contains the reasons why the current LFD tool in WoW should not be implemented in this game and an alternative that I believe would be better

I can agree with the content of that sentence.

 

 

However,

 

-I don't understand what your point four is supposed to address. Gearscore is independant from a LFD tool issue per se. The point is that GS makes quicker a process already used today in TOR: stats calculation. Personally I never looked at people's stats before running a dungeon, I just do not care, and luckily so far, no one required that someone was fully epicly geared for running the BT HM.

 

On to the issue of sever vs. cross server...I firmly believe that it should be server only and that cross server ques should only be used as a last resort. The game is still growing and the general population is still only around levels 20-30. Give it some time. If this system were to be implemented months from now and ques were still really bad then I would be a proponent of making cross server an option but nothing mandatory.

 

- I disagree with that server only stance, particularly since you have not specified why it should be server only, what it would achieve, what do you fear if it is not server only. Actually that stance does not make sense.

 

* Why waiting? The problem to find a group has emerged since the EGA period, and will continue until a proper LFG tool is implemented. It is live, and this wait for the general population to get higher level, just moves the problem to different level categories, but it does not solve it at all.

Players LFG are already gathered in the fleet. A server only LFG would only help reaching the players who are spread across other planets.

You can already see the problem:

*it is too much dependent on the server's population:

If you're X level, a server only LFG would help you reaching all the players in a X level bracket, but what if the whole population of X players is very low?

Add to this the fact that may not be interested in doing the precise and exact same content as you.

Add to this the fact that your characters may be incompatible

etc.

 

So no, I strongly disagree, and I think a cross server is indispensable at any single time.

It helps you reaching a larger player's base at any single time, regardless of your own server population.

If you are in X level bracket, and there is too a few of players in the same X bracket on your server, then you have the cross server saving the day, gathering all the few X players across all the servers.

 

I honestly think that this paranoia against the X-server aspect is ridiculous, since plainly irrational, and hiding it behind a delay of implementation, does not make it appear as different. It is still irrational and ridiculous.

Edited February 1, 2012 by Ethern

[Touchbass]

My problem with LFG is it made them more accessible so people complained far more about their difficulty. Anyone remember Arcatraz in TBC? Yeah, barely anyone ran it cos it was so hard. They ran it to gear up, and that's about it.

 

I liked that level of difficulty. I think LFG would be fine as long as they continue to make the hard modes challenging. I also think you should still have to walk to the instances to zone in.

 

 

Yeah, if they are going to be accessible they have to be done with coordination, to me this is the biggest flaw with the X-LFD

[Touchbass]

I can agree with the content of that sentence.

 

 

However,

 

-I don't understand what your point four is supposed to address. Gearscore is independant from a LFD tool issue per se. The point is that GS makes quicker a process already used today in TOR: stats calculation. Personally I never looked at people's stats before running a dungeon, I just do not care, and luckily so far, no one required that someone was fully epicly geared for running the BT HM.

 

I only ran into Gearscore problems while trying to gear up alts before the X-LFD came out. People farming badges demanded people out gear the heroics before they let them in. If this happens in this game again I'm out

 

- I disagree with that server only stance, particularly since you have not specified why it should be server only, what it would achieve, what do you fear if it is not server only. Actually that stance does not make sense.

 

Yeah, I personally think a X-LFD will cause some server cohesion problems or adjustments but the issue is someone needs to lose in this scenario, we either have people in their perfect utopia or quitting in mass because they don't have access. If we just had some data so to see how much of an issue the whole thing was it'd be easy to make a decision.

 

* Why waiting? The problem to find a group has emerged since the EGA period, and will continue until a proper LFG tool is implemented. It is live, and this wait for the general population to get higher level, just moves the problem to different level categories, but it does not solve it at all.

Players LFG are already gathered in the fleet. A server only LFG would only help reaching the players who are spread across other planets.

You can already see the problem:

*it is too much dependent on the server's population:

If you're X level, a server only LFG would help you reaching all the players in a X level bracket, but what if the whole population of X players is very low?

Add to this the fact that may not be interested in doing the precise and exact same content as you.

Add to this the fact that your characters may be incompatible

etc.

So no, I strongly disagree, and I think a cross server is indispensable at any single time.

It helps you reaching a larger player's base at any single time, regardless of your own server population.

If you are in X level bracket, and there is too a few of players in the same X bracket on your server, then you have the cross server saving the day, gathering all the few X players across all the servers.

 

I honestly think that this paranoia against the X-server aspect is ridiculous, since plainly irrational.

 

In my large post on the front page, I talk about this as the "player bubble". Nobody notices a problem because the majority of players are moving with them towards the same goals. However, when the bubble has moved ...

 

1) In the upcoming months when leveling has stopped and people do it mainly for alts which will become exceedingly rare, you won't find a FP or group heroic while leveling up

 

2) When the population of the server moves past regular 50 instances, you won't be able to gear up for HM flashpoints, essentially a rung on the character progression ladder is going to be removed unless your guildies/friends help you

 

 

Morning Ethern

Edited February 1, 2012 by Touchbass

[Ethern]

Morning Touchbass,

 

I only ran into Gearscore problems while trying to gear up alts before the X-LFD came out. People farming badges demanded people out gear the heroics before they let them in. If this happens in this game again I'm out

I'm sure this is already happenning. The game does not need GS to allow players to refuse others based on their gear. That's not the point? The point, is that GS and LFD are separate issues, and as such, GS has little place if not none, in this discussion. Screening players' gear happens, regardless a LFD tool is implemented or not.

 

Yeah, I personally think a X-LFD will cause some server cohesion problems or adjustments but the issue is someone needs to lose in this scenario, we either have people in their perfect utopia or quitting in mass because they don't have access. If we just had some data so to see how much of an issue the whole thing was it'd be easy to make a decision.

Can you expand on these cohesion and adjustments problems?

 

In my large post on the front page, I talk about this as the "player bubble". Nobody notices a problem because the majority of players are moving with them towards the same goals. However, when the bubble has moved ...

 

1) In the upcoming months when leveling has stopped and people do it mainly for alts which will become exceedingly rare, you won't find a FP or group heroic while leveling up

 

2) When the population of the server moves past regular 50 instances, you won't be able to gear up for HM flashpoints, essentially a rung on the character progression ladder is going to be removed unless your guildies/friends help you

That's accurate, and I can only agree. A more mature server will move the difficult of finding groups to other level categories. Currently we have little difficulties to find groups for the BT/esseless. On a more mature server with more leveled atls and levels 50, that won't be as true. Edited February 1, 2012 by Ethern

[Racheakt]

The problem isnt cross server or not, the problem is that there never was any choice of grouping.

 

People must be able to choose with whom they want to play. A casual should never end up with an elitist, just like a progress player should never end up with a baddy.

 

At wow the player has no influence at all, where he wants to go, with whom and how the run or loot rules should look like.

This then ends up in all that chaos, where people get kicked, insulted or groups disband.

 

You can not have a game where an automation does build the groups, MMO´s today have too many different kind of players, you can not throw them all into 1 pool.

 

Its really not that hard to understand if people would look a bit further than just the usual "we want the tool".

 

Nothing is keeping you from guild or friend list runs? Just because I have a nail gun to help build a privacy fence does not mean I can use the old fashion hammer an nails....

 

RA, sorry you had problems in WoW, I played WoW to WotLK, the vast majority of the runs I did were great. sure i had one or two stinkers.

 

I have been divorced 3 times, it is not the dating pools problem, it is me -- I tend to be a jerk. Why did I bring this up? Maybe the problems you are having/had in wow is not a problem with the LFD tool?

Edited February 1, 2012 by Racheakt

[Touchbass]

Can you expand on these cohesion and adjustments problems?

.

 

When you change the system for doing something there bound to be adjustments that may or not cause internal strife. When they added X-pvp and X-LFD there must of been some impact for a certain portion of the playerbase. My personal opinion is some players lost their sense of importance and direct contribution to the world and tight knit groups were not longer necessary in the same capacity.

 

Are those issues for certain people? Hell yes, I don't think people are complaining just to complain, well most of the people anyways. That being said, the amount of good the X-LFD and X-PvP did for WoW grossly outshines any negative onsets that may or may not have been brought on by the X-LFD/PvP. We keep hearing these generic "I quit" posts, personally I think they just wanted to quit WoW for the "right reasons" to makethemselves feel better about their decision to leave it.

 

I've been skating around the issue, thanks for barring with me. Currently there is no way to quantify any damage, if any the X-LFD/X-PvP did to the WoW community. Feelings of community are personal subjective stances that are highly susceptible to human error. People are telling us that quit because of the X-LFD in one paragraph, but yet if you follow them into their later posts they admit to playing the next expansion, so clearly it isn't a very big issue as people say it has become. If someone can demonstrate subscriptions went south after the implication of the X-LFD then they'd have their evidence, frankly everyone tries to avoid that evidence and goes straight to anecdotal evidence.

 

When examining the X-LFD issue, all we have to do is notice that Blizzard didn't scrap it, they expanded it's function and other games have adopted it. This makes it a success, there is no way to look it other than a massive success. Why on earth would people be posting in another game forum asking for a feature if it wasn't a massive success? People are more concerned with making it seem like a failure than presenting arguments to convince us that it may not work in SWTOR. Who knows, not all games are similar to each other, maybe there are specific reasons why a X-LFD tool wouldn't work in this type of a game, they should be spending more time trying to look for those kind of reasons instead of trying to discredit a known market hit.

 

Now, I'm willing to compromise and implement the X-LFD in stages so server stability and cohesion isn't affected, whatever that means. I was fortunate to end up a very populated server so whether it's X-LFD or internal won't it affect me all. Well actually that's a bit of a lie I can't find anything in the day hours, I doubt anyone can either. The only reason I am advocating is for the other players who will probably just quit without voicing their concerns and leaving the rest of the population on their backwater server in a terrible state.

 

/rant off

Edited February 1, 2012 by Touchbass

[Touchbass]

Nothing is keeping you from guild or friend list runs? Just because I have a nail gun to help build a privacy fence does not mean I can use the old fashion hammer an nails....

 

RA, sorry you had problems in WoW, I played WoW to WotLK, the vast majority of the runs I did were great. sure i had one or two stinkers.

 

I have been divorced 3 times, it is not the dating pools problem, it is me -- I tend to be a jerk. Why did I bring this up? Maybe the problems you are having/had in wow is not a problem with the LFD tool?

 

I wouldn't recommend trying to have a logical conversation with that person. If you scroll back a few pages in the thread I've listed some blatant lies she's committed and not owned up too.

[Moricthian]

This game doesn't need a dungeon finder.. it just needs a more robust LFG tool. Something that developed beyond just flagging yourself in the social menu.

 

 

I'll add another CON

 

Any automatic group management tool removes the social aspect from any game, it makes players lazy and completely bypasses the initial focus of social interaction in an MMO.

 

 

This is why people need to be asking for a better developed LFG tool that still requires that you manually put the group together, not an automatic cross-server dungeon finder.

 

In fact if Bioware does anything cross-server I'd expect to see a lot of people go bye-bye, just like WoW, the difference is WoW could survive a mass exodus, SWTOR can't.

 

I'm going to keep making this point. LFD do not make people lazy nor does it remove the social interaction in this game. Do you know how I know this? We have a PvP que. It finds a group for you and guess what, people still talk, chat, even coordiate when they all get grouped up. The social landscape of the game has not been destroyed and people have not gotten lazy.

 

Expanding this feature to include flashpoints will have the same effect the PvP tool is already having....allowing people to enjoy the game while out doing stuff rather than just sitting around in fleet all the time.

[Rowein]

LFD tool in WOW was used at your own risk. If you "had" to do a dungeon you used it. 50% of the time there was a least one jerk yelling "hurry, let's go, don't do it that way do it this way...." Sometimes I got a good group and we ran several more dungeons together because the chances of getting another "good" group was slim.

 

In SWTOR I have all but given up on 2+ quests. Public chat has proved to be less than useful. The Who feature works, but very slowly. I am not one of those people that have four hours to wait for an answer. I guess if I played eight hours a day it might work out well.

 

You have to decide if you can put up with the 12 year old jerks in LFG so that you can get your 2/4+ quests done. I think putting up with the jerks is worth it.

[MalignX]

I wouldn't recommend trying to have a logical conversation with that person. If you scroll back a few pages in the thread I've listed some blatant lies she's committed and not owned up too.

 

Round and Round we go, eh? /Ignore is as amazing on forums as it is in game!

Edited February 1, 2012 by MalignX

[MalignX]

When you change the system for doing something there bound to be adjustments that may or not cause internal strife. When they added X-pvp and X-LFD there must of been some impact for a certain portion of the playerbase. My personal opinion is some players lost their sense of importance and direct contribution to the world and tight knit groups were not longer necessary in the same capacity.

 

Are those issues for certain people? Hell yes, I don't think people are complaining just to complain, well most of the people anyways. That being said, the amount of good the X-LFD and X-PvP did for WoW grossly outshines any negative onsets that may or may not have been brought on by the X-LFD/PvP. We keep hearing these generic "I quit" posts, personally I think they just wanted to quit WoW for the "right reasons" to makethemselves feel better about their decision to leave it.

 

I've been skating around the issue, thanks for barring with me. Currently there is no way to quantify any damage, if any the X-LFD/X-PvP did to the WoW community. Feelings of community are personal subjective stances that are highly susceptible to human error. People are telling us that quit because of the X-LFD in one paragraph, but yet if you follow them into their later posts they admit to playing the next expansion, so clearly it isn't a very big issue as people say it has become. If someone can demonstrate subscriptions went south after the implication of the X-LFD then they'd have their evidence, frankly everyone tries to avoid that evidence and goes straight to anecdotal evidence.

 

When examining the X-LFD issue, all we have to do is notice that Blizzard didn't scrap it, they expanded it's function and other games have adopted it. This makes it a success, there is no way to look it other than a massive success. Why on earth would people be posting in another game forum asking for a feature if it wasn't a massive success? People are more concerned with making it seem like a failure than presenting arguments to convince us that it may not work in SWTOR. Who knows, not all games are similar to each other, maybe there are specific reasons why a X-LFD tool wouldn't work in this type of a game, they should be spending more time trying to look for those kind of reasons instead of trying to discredit a known market hit.

 

Now, I'm willing to compromise and implement the X-LFD in stages so server stability and cohesion isn't affected, whatever that means. I was fortunate to end up a very populated server so whether it's X-LFD or internal won't it affect me all. Well actually that's a bit of a lie I can't find anything in the day hours, I doubt anyone can either. The only reason I am advocating is for the other players who will probably just quit without voicing their concerns and leaving the rest of the population on their backwater server in a terrible state.

 

/rant off

 

Amen.

[BigGun]

Thank you all for the constructive feedback. I would like to know explain better some points that I made that have been called into question.

 

I actually used gearscore off and on. Partly to see how I stacked up vs my group, and partly as a healer or tank to see if I was likely to have issues keeping someone up/if they'd have issues keeping me up.

The issue isn't always the tool, it's the tools abusing the tool that made it undesirable.

 

This is exactly why I used it as well, I don't deny that I used it, it's just I feel that the negatives the system brought outweigh the positives. This is highly opinionated though and everyone experience could be different. Thus we now move into why I brought Gear Score up in the first place. On my server back in WoW, GS only came around when Bliz added a built in gear check to the LFD tool. People now needed to know their score and how it was compiled in order to improve it so they can run instances. People started downloading the addon and everything went downhill. Elitism was horridly rampant.

 

I'm not saying people weren't kicked due to gear before GS. I'm just saying, in my personal experience, that it got worse and blown out of proportion. In my mind due to this experience Wrath LFD and GS were something that walked hand in hand. I didn't even think that this wasn't true on all servers. I do now see how they could be separate issues and will drop this tangent.

 

 

 

I think the only reason for teleportation is because people will decide to hit quests and things along the way to a heroic or on their way back to the FP. I know the majority aren't likely to, but you will have some that feel their role is 'vital' enough that they can do it. Mind you... reducing CD on the emergency fleet pass to 1hr would solve this issue to a point. That combined with the 30min port would discourage the behavior a little by making it easier to get back.

 

I could see putting in a tool that would allow you to accept (with the auto port) but not have the port work while in combat or conversation. This would allow you to finish what you're doing, port you back to where you were when you're done, but not make you drop/reque. A group shouldn't have to wait for you to finish a mini-instance for a quest, but on that same note, they shouldn't care about letting you finish one fight and then porting to the instance manually using the LFG tool.

 

 

As I stated, you don't even need to reduce the CD on the Emergency Fleet Pass, although I don't know why they felt the need to increase it by so much, because there is already a FP shuttle on almost every planet. However I do realize that so people wouldn't want to even do that so the best option is to make it so you could accept the group invitation and not be immediately teleported. When you are ready to go you just hit a "Travel to FP" button and away you go. Of course a timer, maybe 5min, would have to be put on this so somebody doesn't hold the group up for an hour.

 

 

 

 

I think tools to encourage friend/guild groups would be a good idea as I mentioned before.

 

I wholeheartedly agree.

 

I actually believe the biggest reason the BC LFG tool for wow was scrapped wasn't so much because of people using /trade, I think it was actually us complaining about lockouts. I might end up in a group with 3 other people that want to keep running HM, however, each of us has different dungeon timers. We couldn't q for random - which meant if we were too spread out on lock outs we had to disband as it all had to be specific queue or nothing. I didn't hit the issue too much, but when you did it was always later in the day. Randoms bypass the lock (though they also put it into place) specific q you're looking at whatever specific dungeons you did being locked + any limitations from other people's locks... which is why a random on top of specific may be a good addition.

 

Now that you mention it I do remember this being issue from BC to Cata. I wouldn't be against having a random option that could by pass locks. I do think having my specific ques like I previously described would be a vast improvement over only random ques. We should have the best of both worlds!

 

One of the points i would like to cover is your part on server forums and blacklisting.

Even if this forum gets server based forums the forum policy is a no name and shame one.

If you were to call some one out by name and server you would risk forum actions against your forum accounts and the info would be deleted. This includes links to screen shots or vids that have the player name and server listed for the purpose of naming and shaming.

This is done because naming and shaming is to open for abuse!

 

You bring up a valid point about the fear of it being abused. I could see how people could go Batman on trolls and ninjas but at the same time someone posts "LOL LOOK AT THIS N00B!!!!!" and shame people for the wrong reasons.

 

Thus I open it for discussion: What would a better reporting tool look like/be?

 

I firmly believe that if a LFD tool is implemented that a better reporting system is needed.

 

"Why? Just suck it up and get over."

 

For the same reason people have locks on doors. It isn't to keep bad guys out, bad people will still break into your house regardless of a lock if they really want to, it is to keep good people good.

 

If there were some sort of consequence for being a indecent person than normal people would be discouraged from becoming trolls just because others are trolls.

 

 

The real issue at hand here is options. The more the better IMHO.

Options for single or cross server

Options for need/greed (as you stated a pet need would help).

Options for cross server friends list and ignore list.

Options for roles

 

Here here! These are indeed great options and ideas. i would love to see a xserver friend and ignore list. I don't know how feasible it would be but we can hope! As I also stated i am a for role options and I will accept, expecially after reading more of the constructive posts in these forums, that the option for xserver ques may be an inevitablity. It NEEDS to be an option though, or they could pull from the server first and then after 10min or so start to pull from xserver.

 

Keep the constructive feedback coming!

Edited February 1, 2012 by BigGun

[Touchbass]

I'm going to keep making this point. LFD do not make people lazy nor does it remove the social interaction in this game. Do you know how I know this? We have a PvP que. It finds a group for you and guess what, people still talk, chat, even coordiate when they all get grouped up. The social landscape of the game has not been destroyed and people have not gotten lazy.

 

Expanding this feature to include flashpoints will have the same effect the PvP tool is already having....allowing people to enjoy the game while out doing stuff rather than just sitting around in fleet all the time.

 

Amen, it works in pvp which have a worse crowd it'll work in pve

Edited February 1, 2012 by Touchbass

[Sendrel]

You bring up a valid point about the fear of it being abused. I could see how people could go Batman on trolls and ninjas but at the same time someone posts "LOL LOOK AT THIS N00B!!!!!" and shame people for the wrong reasons.

 

Thus I open it for discussion: What would a better reporting tool look like/be?

 

I firmly believe that if a LFD tool is implemented that a better reporting system is needed.

 

"Why? Just suck it up and get over."

 

For the same reason people have locks on doors. It isn't to keep bad guys out, bad people will still break into your house regardless of a lock if they really want to, it is to keep good people good.

 

If there were some sort of consequence for being a indecent person than normal people would be discouraged from becoming trolls just because others are trolls.

 

The biggest reason pro-LFD advocates harp on the ignore function is because its the only way (and i can't stress enough the one and only way) to ensure you don't have to mess around with people you've had a bad experience with in the past. Server blacklists don't get it done. And mostly I'm just not comfortable with the more punitive suggestions people make - its always too open to abuse. Ignore fixes the problem in a more permanent way. Barring something truly obnoxious, you don't have to report someone you'll never group with again.

 

I think a better way to go about this is to put more control (even via cross server) in players hands regarding who they group with using an LFD tool. Its been suggested multiple times (some of them in this thread) that along with cross server friends lists/chat, you should have the option to rate players that you've grouped with previously. A purely personal rating that only serves to rate your preference for grouping with that person again in the future and isn't in any way attached to the player being rated. You'd be able to rate people up or down and the LFD system would then attempt to place you with people you've previously rated up while avoiding those you've previously rated down. Yes, you'd still be subject to bad behavior while you're populating your lists, but it avoids the possibility of abuse that would come with a more public rating system.

[mdobrowney]

How i would do it is leave things the way they are. Allow players to group up within chat or there guild to run a flashpoint. Then add A thing called Group finder. This would just group 4, 8 or 16 players up. You would pick if you wish to be a tank, DPS or Healer and what Flashpoint or Op you wish to run. From their make them get themselfs to the Flashpoint or Op.