Dungeon Finder Needed Badly

[Skann]

Back in BC, as an active player, you were part of a community of people. Your name got "out there" and people knew you, or knew of you. You had people on your friends list just because they were a good tank, or healer, and you could hit them up if you needed a tank or healer.

 

You are just looking to be the big fish in the small pond.

 

Please, get thru your head that not everyone that plays a MMO is seeking social recognition in a virtual environment that has zero meaning in their lifes.

 

A lot of people see MMOs as simply group/co-op games, that only has entertainment value. Nothing else.

 

This is not real life. This is a game. Most people just want log on and play a game. Is that so hard to understand?

 

Besides, servers aren't meant for breed communities. This is a fallacy. Servers are meant to enable hundreds of thousands of players to enjoy the game because current level of technology forbids more than X number of players in a single server.

[Touchbass]

An MMORPG where all the content is effectively single player is no longer an MMORPG.

 

There are RPGs full of single player content, they are simply called "RPGs" because you don't need other people to play them so they're not "multiplayer", massively or not.

 

How is this concept difficult? I gave you an example. BioWare makes squad-based RPGs where you have a party of entities that are under your control and available for you 24/7/365, no LFD needed!

 

Then why are companies making more and more of the content single player orientated? Space missions took up considerable development time, single player feature. Legacy system, again single player feature for doing more single player stuff.

 

The days of spending 4-5 hour sessions to get stuff done in games is dying, do you know why? We can't appeas the 4-5 hour crowd sustainably but we can appease the casual crowd and that's exactly what's going to happen. I'm sorry you don't agree, I really am. I wish we could both win.

 

That is why I want a X-LFD for players like me and a working intra-server dungeon finder for players like you. I don't want ot to eschew too much towards the X-LFD but that is something we should be working on, not you fighting over what's inevitable.

Edited February 8, 2012 by Touchbass

[TarikGur]

Exactly which letters of the acronym does it violate?

MM = Lots of Players, Check

O = Online, Check

RPG = Game Style, Check

 

An FPS in Deathmatch mode could almost qualify. You're attaching your own meaning to it.

 

He said that earlier too, and I could never figure out what he meant.

[Drainedsoul]

You are just looking to be the big fish in the small pond.

 

How do you figure that?

 

I enjoyed a game where I could be part of a community, as opposed to a game where I played alone.

 

You don't see me on the Skyrim forums trying to get them to add on-line feature to that game, do you?

 

Please, get thru your head that not everyone that plays a MMO is seeking social recognition in a virtual environment that has zero meaning in their lifes.

 

And who said that I was?

 

Wanting to do something with other people on a recurring basis is not "seeking social recognition".

 

You're projecting attributes onto me that do not exist. I'm looking to have a good time and meet people. It's like going to a bar or club except the medium is a video game rather than a venue.

 

A lot of people see MMOs as simply group/co-op games, that only has entertainment value. Nothing else.

 

Except they aren't.

 

There are "group/co-op games". Like Call of Duty and Halo...

 

You're trying to make this genre something that it isn't, that's the problem. You're trying to fundamentally change the genre because you have some conception that it is something that it isn't.

 

If it was a "group/co-op game" it'd be a "multiplayer role-playing game", there would be no need for it to be "massively" so.

 

You're complaining not because of something missing from this game, but because this game isn't the game you want at all, i.e. it's not the right genre.

 

This is not real life. This is a game. Most people just want log on and play a game. Is that so hard to understand?

 

What did I say that goes against this.

 

The issue isn't that one of us wants to "just [...] play a game" and the other doesn't. The issue is that we fundamentally disagree on what playing this game entails.

 

I think this game is supposed to be on MMORPG.

 

You don't.

 

Besides, servers aren't meant for breed communities. This is a fallacy. Servers are meant to enable hundreds of thousands of players to enjoy the game because current level of technology forbids more than X number of players in a single server.

 

I don't oppose servers growing, but I do oppose people being selected from basically a different universe, where I can't interact with them in any way, and being plopped into a group with me simply to serve as a warm body.

[Touchbass]

To be honest, I do understand where you're coming from. I only blame Bioware again for not anticipating these type of problems. I wish they made Servers that had a cross queue and servers that had no dungeon finder at all on them, sort of like PvP and PvE servers. Unfortunately it's too late for them to implement this without causing chaos.

 

Bioware has essentially forced us to "dual" each other for popular opinion and these debates are just poisoning the community. This thread has well over 150K views and I highly doubt half the unique ones went away learning something and felt enriched with their community

[BlueSkittles]

From DDO, I love putting the group leader in charge and would be uncomfortable with an automatic fill.

 

Except when the group leader puts it into a state where he chooses who gets what loot and only gives loot to his friends. Or never to a specific person because for whatever reason they don't like them. This happened in WoW and was why they forced the Need/Greed paradigm in LFD groups. Bioware needs to improve their Need/Greed paradigm and make it mandatory for the LFG system.

[Drainedsoul]

Except when the group leader puts it into a state where he chooses who gets what loot and only gives loot to his friends. Or never to a specific person because for whatever reason they don't like them. This happened in WoW and was why they forced the Need/Greed paradigm in LFD groups. Bioware needs to improve their Need/Greed paradigm and make it mandatory for the LFG system.

 

I'm willing to get that "the Need/Greed paradigm" has been abused more than it's helped.

 

I couldn't count the number of times people have just stolen other peoples' gear, but I can only think of one instance where someone wilfully denied me gear.

[EyeRekon]

Except when the group leader puts it into a state where he chooses who gets what loot and only gives loot to his friends. Or never to a specific person because for whatever reason they don't like them. This happened in WoW and was why they forced the Need/Greed paradigm in LFD groups. Bioware needs to improve their Need/Greed paradigm and make it mandatory for the LFG system.

 

DDO didn't allow that either. It is helpful, I think, to allow the leader to select from one of a number of standard loot policies that are automatically enforced. Potential group mates can see that loot policy for the group and apply or skip as desired. Much less drama when it's all declared up front. If you object to a currently-forming group's loot policy, make your own group - it is just as easy.

[Sendrel]

I think maybe 1 out of a 100 maybe care about that stuff anymore. Besides all pug content is so easy these days that reputation doesn't mean crap if you're a skilled healer or not. The only skill part of a healer currently that I'm seeing in pugs is if the guy is heal specced.

 

The only reason anyone cared about it at all was because there weren't any other options available. Instanced content did much more to 'ruin communities' than cross server ever did.

[Touchbass]

Back in BC, as an active player, you were part of a community of people. Your name got "out there" and people knew you, or knew of you. You had people on your friends list just because they were a good tank, or healer, and you could hit them up if you needed a tank or healer.

 

I agree with this, that's true i was one of thos players. Problem is this is such a fractional population that it doesn't work orientating the game towards them.

 

It wasn't just "oh we need a tank let's just hit the queue button" as it is now, and don't try and tell me that isn't the way it is now. I've tried to form PuGs from my server before, and in all cases the people just want you to hit the queue button instead of actually waiting to find people.

 

I thought you said you friends to group with? You have friends when people are forced to group with you but you don't have friends when they aren't forced to group with you.

 

Ergo you never had any friends to begin with

 

So since you can't select players for quality, everyone suffers from the lack of quality in the player base, which means that content is nerfed endlessly so that groups made without regard for composition or player skill, and without the ability to effectively exclude terrible people (or preferentially include good people) can get through the content.

 

I completely agree with this, this is one issue that needs to looked at. The votekick does help the majority of the time but it can be improved.

 

It's a net drain on the game as a whole. There's a reason BC and vanilla are looked upon fondly by the WoW community, whereas WotLK (and even Cata) are eschewed. It's because the game was fun and engaging, as opposed to a chore-filled grindfest.

 

Most people didn't like Vanilla's "Raid or Die" mentality and the 50 plus hours you had to put in a week for pvp. Not enough players wanted to do that type of game play so they changed it by downgrading raids and streaming PvP.The burning crusader wasn't fun and caused a lot of players to quit. If you lost a tank, you had to key the guy up for a week to get him up to speed. WOTLK was the most successful expansion so yeah ...

 

BC heroic 5-mans were like nothing that's been put into the game to date, even the hellish Cataclysm heroic 5-mans didn't come close to BC heroic 5-mans. The only reason the outcry about Cataclysm heroic 5-mans was so great is because people had been conditioned to believe (by WotLK) that they should be able to just slap 5 people together (with the assistance of the LFD, of course) and steam roll it.

 

BC heroics where intended as off night content for raiders to farm badges for resistance gear and maybe a couple slots they'd missed in the loot tables. The dungeons could take upwards of 3 hours to clear and were tuned essentially for people with Tier 1. Cataclysm heroics where fine, they aren't suppose to be harder then raids.

 

 

If you like rewarding, challenging game play, you can't want an automatic, cross-server LFD, because those two are mutually exclusive. The latter leads to the elimination of the former.

 

I've made some friends through the X-LFD and my team of 5 across the battletags system can take on any content you and 5 of your server only people can take on. Bring it on baby.

 

If you like meeting people, making friends, and playing with the same people over and over, you'd better either have a large base of established friends before automatic, cross-server LFD hits, because meeting people in LFD groups is nigh impossible (I haven't managed to actually meet anyone in them to date, whereas I met new people constantly in BC).

 

Again, I feel for you here. It's more difficult to meet people but unfortunatly we have to push it through so I can see some content. That's more important then a potential online friendship to people.

 

But if you want to treat TOR like it's Call of Duty or Counter Strike, and you want to throw a little tantrum because the genre won't conform to your time constraints, then by all means, agitate for it.

 

That's a straw man. having a set schedule to playing a video game is not productive. Maybe MMORPG's are not for you?

 

Because heaven forbid you should have to make intelligent decisions. Heaven forbid that a game which relies on the involvement of other people -- i.e. an MMO -- should be contingent on other people being around when you feel like it.

 

There was 7 people when I logged onto hoth last night, I still haven't seen a republic player and I'm almost 40. I dont feel anything reallly

 

While we're at it though, why don't we petition the government, to develop a tool, to group people together at bars, or the movie theatre, in case all your friends just happen to be busy? After all, if you don't have someone to go out with, or go to the theatre with, whenever you want, that's a travesty, and you're paying for the food (at the bar), and the tickets (at the theatre), so you ought to have people to do these things with!

 

We pushed you guys out of WoW and we'll push you out of here too. It's not a issue I got all the time in the world over 2 hour players sessions in the upcoming months/years

Edited February 8, 2012 by Touchbass

[Touchbass]

The only reason anyone cared about it at all was because there weren't any other options available. Instanced content did much more to 'ruin communities' than cross server ever did.

 

Yeah, the entire game is a giant labyrinth of instances, when the player bubble hits 50 this game is going to be barren

[BlueSkittles]

DDO didn't allow that either. It is helpful, I think, to allow the leader to select from one of a number of standard loot policies that are automatically enforced. Potential group mates can see that loot policy for the group and apply or skip as desired. Much less drama when it's all declared up front. If you object to a currently-forming group's loot policy, make your own group - it is just as easy.

 

The problem then is one of simplicity and fragmenting the player base.

 

The more options that Bioware adds to a potential LFG tool, the more complicated and burdensome the tool gets. People who are just starting out won't understand the options that are presented to them and then may/will get frustrated by the group they get. Not to beat a dead horse, but another reason that WoW's LFD tool is just a select role and go is because then it's much easier to get into and use and understand. This allows more people to use it, thus more groups get formed.

 

And the more options that are available to form group types, the less likely you will get into ANY type of group. Whether it's a choice for same vs cross server. Or a choice for what loot types. The more ways that a community can be split up, the less ways they can be grouped easily and quickly.

 

Now I know some of you haters are gonna say "well I can handle complex ideas/tools" and that's great. But a lot of people can't or won't. Simplicity isn't always best, but it sure does work well a lot of the time.

[Victlin]

The only con i find on this, is that maybe if is cross-server like.

People might want to start a cross server friend list (since you liked to dungeon with some cool guys from other server), that would lead to a cross server friend chat and party for LFG featuring cross server friends.

Kinda the thing they did on wow with the real id party (dunno if rift have it).

 

It's a normal human thing to ask more after having what you want.

Bad thing of this is that the chain wont stop here, pvper's will want some kinda of same features, people later will ask for not just flashpoints.

It's not a bad thing, but it leads to a high amount of work that isn't need it now (in my opinion, they should focus on doing/fixing other things right).

It would be more easy to improvise the LFG that is working right now, like allowing to select flashpoints that you want to do right now and showing in the list people from same server that wants to do the same thing.

Btw i don't think actual LFG is bad, people just don't use it so it seems quite useless since no one checks the list =/

Edited February 8, 2012 by Victlin

[TarikGur]

I just stood in fleet station for 20 minutes LFG....no replies, not one. 88 people on my server in there....whats the freaking point? how is that social? im so bored with this game!

[Sendrel]

What are you talking about?

 

The people I "may have run with routinely" I never would've "run with routinely" had there been an LFD system...

 

...how are you not understanding this.

 

I guess I'm not understanding because it was never an impediment to me finding regular groups (ie a guild) after the addition of LFD.

 

In order to meet people, you need a way to have recurring interaction with them. When you're thrown into a random group with someone for 30-60 minutes, that's rarely a basis for recurring interaction.

 

This is the basis for your inability to find like-minded people. You can't talk to strangers.

 

Interpersonal relationships don't just grow out of nothing. You don't get on the same bus as someone and instantly become friends. There needs to be something that forces you together as a precursor to the relationship developing.

 

No there doesn't. That's the point that you guys miss so profoundly. You don't have to be forced to interact with people in order to interact with them.

 

Do you guys really wonder why your 'community' was ruined?

 

Again, the lack of social tools may hinder you from finding your MMO soul mate(s), but cross server can and should include so much more than what was included with WoW's version.

[Drainedsoul]

I thought you said you friends to group with? You have friends when people are forced to group with you but you don't have friends when they aren't forced to group with you.

 

Ergo you never had any friends to begin with

 

I don't always have friends who are on-line, and when this happens there are two options (under both prospective scenarios):

 

1. Find a tank in LFG. Maybe he's really good. Maybe he's a cool dude. Maybe he gets on vent and we have a great time. So I friend him and the next time I'm on at that time we do another instance, and so on and so forth.

 

2. Hit the queue button. A tank magically appears. There's no difficult content (thanks to LFD skill dilution), there's no social attachment, there's no socialization (vent or otherwise). I don't know if this dude is cool, he's probably decent, but it doesn't really matter because everything is easy. He leaves and I don't really bother with him because I can just hit that queue button again next time.

 

I'm all for systems that brings player together in an environment where there are challenges to overcome, and where they can group together and interact conveniently thereafter.

 

Cross-server systems don't do that.

 

Automatic systems don't do that.

 

I completely agree with this, this is one issue that needs to looked at. The votekick does help the majority of the time but it can be improved.

 

I personally liked unilateral kicking.

 

Most people didn't like Vanilla's "Raid or Die" mentality and the 50 plus hours you had to put in a week for pvp. Not enough players wanted to do that type of game play so they changed it by downgrading raids and streaming PvP.The burning crusader wasn't fun and caused a lot of players to quit. If you lost a tank, you had to key the guy up for a week to get him up to speed. WOTLK was the most successful expansion so yeah ...

 

WotLK also disenfranchised a large swathe of people who really loved the game.

 

There needs to be a balance, but the balance isn't spoon feeding the "casuals" whatever they want, and screwing over the people who built the MMO genre in the first place.

 

maybe MMORPG's aren't for you anymore?

 

I left WoW to escape the community corruption of LFD.

 

But apparently the LFDers aren't happy just having their one game, they need to have all the games.

 

It's like politics. The people who want to ban marijuana won't just not smoke marijuana, they don't want anyone to do it.

 

There was 7 people when I logged onto hoth last night, I still haven't seen a republic player and I'm almost 40. I dont feel anything reallly

 

This is a faction balance issue, and needs to be addressed somehow.

[Touchbass]

I just stood in fleet station for 20 minutes LFG....no replies, not one. 88 people on my server in there....whats the freaking point? how is that social? im so bored with this game!

 

Player A: I stood in the /fleet for an hour and couldn't find a group

Player B: You need to make some friends

Player A: How do I make friends without joining them in groups first?

Player B: /logs out to troll LFD forums

[Drainedsoul]

You can't talk to strangers.

 

Isn't that what I'm doing now?

[EyeRekon]

The problem then is one of simplicity and fragmenting the player base.

 

I can respect that. And for the present you are probably right. However playerspace is already fragmented anyway and there are already existing loot policies. You must just choose when to allow the fragmentation. Pre- by allowing like minded to easily find and group together. Or Post- and deal with the drama after the fact.

 

I imagine most groups would use the default loot policy anyway, so it would not become a significant burden on new players IMO.

 

Penny of prevention... yadda yadda.

[Touchbass]

http://ajs.com/ajsw/images/0/08/Bcprogression.svg

 

That is the progression path from the BC expansion of WoW, you had to do all those instances/quests to beat the expansion. It made it impossible to have alts and gelded guilds who lost key members who had put members through the entire process again if they lost someone.

[TarikGur]

player a: I stood in the /fleet for an hour and couldn't find a group

player b: You need to make some friends

player a: How do i make friends without joining them in groups first?

Player b: /logs out to troll lfd forums

 

hahaha

[TarikGur]

Easily finding a group is the MOST social thing that can happen in a game!! Looking for a group all day isnt social! its just boring and a waste of time.

 

So you get some bad apples in your group? kick them out! We did it all the time in WoW! Everyone in the group knew they were bad, so we kicked them, case closed, back to running the dungeon and having fun and being social!

 

This argument is completely stupid.

[Skann]

There's something else that does that.

 

It's called "real life".

 

Other people are not tools for you to use to accomplish your ends. They don't play the game for your benefit. If you want this play a squad-based game. You don't have to go through all the trouble of paying a subscription or waiting in a queue.

 

As if a LFG won't force anyone to do anything. I'm as much as tool to the rest of the group as the group is for me. There is no imbalance.

 

I'll play this game whatever way I want. You want to force people to play however you believe is best. I want the option, you want to deny me that option.

 

Yes because "non-geared" people can't become "geared".

 

Also I played with plenty of "non-geared" people who geared up quickly in BC. The barrier was mostly getting raiding gear, which the proposed situation doesn't address anyway.

 

They, can, but it becomes harder and harder. Back in BC, the time you so much cherish, the gear ladder was abysmal. Any guild past Gruul/Mag would hardly accept players not wearing their current gear level, be it from SSC/TK or Hyjal/BT. Not to mention, BC had Sunwell which is probably one of the most elitists expansion in the history of MMOs.

 

So what you're basically saying is that you have a right to negatively impact someone else's gameplay, and that if they don't want to play with you, they should be penalized for it?

 

Negatively impact what? I want a tool with a checkbox to allow people with your mind set to say "I want to group with people from my server only" while I can leave that box unchecked and just play a dungeon as soon as possible.

 

Let the "tools", like me, use each other to play their co-op game. Let the people with social interest play their social game. Look at the bright side, this system will seed out both groups of players. It's a win-win scenario.

 

If most people let that checkbox unchecked, I'm sorry, but that means you are part of a vocal minority that wants to force the majority to play however you see fit.

[Drainedsoul]

Easily finding a group is the MOST social thing that can happen in a game!! Looking for a group all day isnt social! its just boring and a waste of time.

 

So you get some bad apples in your group? kick them out! We did it all the time in WoW! Everyone in the group knew they were bad, so we kicked them, case closed, back to running the dungeon and having fun and being social!

 

This argument is completely stupid.

 

The argument is stupid when your over-simplify it the way you have.

 

The argument isn't that getting groups easily is bad, or that it's asocial, the argument is that the side effects of an automated, cross-server system, which groups people who have no connection (i.e. exist in the same game world because they're on the same server) creates a massive disincentive for social activity, and also creates a massive move towards "dumbed down" content, because the group cohesion and co-ordination just isn't "there".

 

This starts a downward spiral to where the game because totally asocial and formulaic, and nothing is a challenge, and nothing is therefore rewarding.

[Moricthian]

The thought that the current system of finding a group is what makes this game social requires such stupidity I don't now how people function. The current system does not require people to be social, it requires people to be patient.

 

The current system isn't social, it just isn't.

 

Spamming LFG general isn't social.

 

Flagging yourself in the useless LFG tool we have now isn't social.

 

Whispering some random person is kind of social but the conversation lasts about 10 seconds as they tell you they can't go.

 

Even when people respond to your request they usually respond with something like:

 

"Sure"

 

"I'll go"

 

"Invite plz"

 

"If we don't get another person soon, I'm going to log."

 

"Are you a healer?"

 

This is not social activity. The above is the process of finding groups. Its no more social than asking some stranger int he supermarket if he'll hand you the bread that he's closer to.

 

This is an MMO. I'd like a system that would actually enable me to play with other people.