Dungeon Finder Needed Badly

[xioix]

Something like this would be nice - http://i.imgur.com/57vZf.jpg

[TarikGur]

I already canceled my sub. this game sucks. done.

[grueber]

I already canceled my sub. this game sucks. done.

 

Just officially cancelled my sub this AM. I put the lack of a LFD tool as my major reason.

 

If the LFD haters want to play by themselves they are free to do so. I have better things to do.

[Noxsabe]

all i will say abouts the OP cry for a Dungeon find is .... GOOD GOD YES PLEASE ADD THAT NOWWWWWWW. thanks all is said

[Touchbass]

I already canceled my sub. this game sucks. done.

 

I can understand your emotions in the matter but remarks like this nothing for our side of the conversation and only deminish our POV. Try and keep the remarks more friendly.

[TarikGur]

I can understand your emotions in the matter but remarks like this nothing for our side of the conversation and only deminish our POV. Try and keep the remarks more friendly.

 

Oh sorry I didnt know this was a kiss-*** convention.

 

It shows the devs that we DO have emotions, and our emotions DO have consequences.

 

And if they only want to cater to the ultra-polite, then I dont want to play it anyway.

[TarikGur]

They sold us a car with 4 wheels and no engine. They just put a picture of an engine in its place and told us its real. And since we had no way of seeing it in person till we spent money, we are the suckers for falling for it.

[EyeRekon]

I have not cancelled my sub, but if things do not get better soon I'll have to. The game no longer serves as my escape from reality if I cannot really play the game because of the difficulty in group formation. I'm getting bored of solo & PVP which are things I do just to pass the time while waiting for a group. IMO not having an LFG is a serious impediment to group play.

 

I do not understand why the naysayers are hung up on some kind of "automated" bit, who says it is entirely automated? Other LFG systems (such as DDO) put the group leader in total control of defining who/what they're looking for, what they are running, loot policy, and even approval/rejection of individual group applicants.

 

This isn't rocket science. It has been solved and done before. Just do it already!

[TarikGur]

I have not cancelled my sub, but if things do not get better soon I'll have to. The game no longer serves as my escape from reality if I cannot really play the game because of the difficulty in group formation. I'm getting bored of solo & PVP which are things I do just to pass the time while waiting for a group. IMO not having an LFG is a serious impediment to group play.

 

I do not understand why the naysayers are hung up on some kind of "automated" bit, who says it is entirely automated? Other LFG systems (such as DDO) put the group leader in total control of defining who/what they're looking for, what they are running, loot policy, and even approval/rejection of individual group applicants.

 

This isn't rocket science. It has been solved and done before. Just do it already!

 

 

 

Agreed.

 

Just put out a basic one at least to begin with. Auto select a tank, and a healer and some dps. Later when the flashpoints get more tuned and tweaked and require better group adaptation, then make the Finder tweak and tune its own group placement parameters. Its not that big of a deal.

[Drainedsoul]

The solution to this problem is not an automatic, cross-server LFG tool that encourages asocial behaviour in a game that's supposed to be social, the solution to this problem is twofold:

 

1. Merge lower population servers.

 

2. Increase maximum server population.

 

3. Implement a server-wide LFG tool and channel which allows people to mark themselves as looking for a group for specific instances, in specific roles, with a note, and then allows other people to assimilate them into their group as needed.

 

It's clear that lower population servers are the number one issue when people cry for cross-server LFG, because they want to capitalize on the player base that their realm doesn't have. The solution to this is simply merge realms that drop below a certain average activity level.

 

Increasing server maximum population will also increase the odds of finding a group. This is felt harder Republic side, as even at times when the server is HEAVY there may be only 80 people or so on the Republic Fleet. But this is a problem of underlying faction imbalance, and cross-server LFG or not, this will not be fixed unless the devs address why people overwhelmingly roll Empire rather than Republic.

 

A server-wide LFG tool allows people to conveniently mark themselves as looking for a specific group, and allows other people to find them. The current tool is underpowered insofar as searching for and finding people, since people just type their own note, and can't categorize themselves.

 

The server-wide LFG channel also allows people to just go into that channel if they're looking for group play in general, and go into any group they see "spamming" which interests them.

 

The issues with cross-server, automatic LFG tools is that they represent a fundamental paradigm shift on the emphasis of the game. Instead of a game you play with other people, it becomes a game you play, with other people as the means to accomplish that end. Instead of the game being the means, and people the end, this relationship is inverted.

 

The ability to form a lasting connection with someone based on grouping with them once in a randomly composed group of people from all over the world is very limited. Your can't really contact them again for a follow up group, you can't really add them to friends, and attempts to encourage this (Real ID) have revolved around the disclosure of information (e-mail address) that people would rather keep secret.

 

There's also the fact that forming groups automatically is going to form categorically inferior groups to manual selection, which means lower skill, lower co-ordination, lower group cohesion, and certain social activities -- such as vent, which was standard for heroic groups manually formed in early BC -- are eschewed in favour of an assembly line style of group activity completion. You're there to get through it, get your rewards, and leave, the journey -- which was supposed to be the whole point -- is lost amidst this.

 

I played WoW for years before cross-server LFD, and for years afterwards, and I can honestly say that the game is much worse for it. Sure, the cross-server LFD tool is attractive to the "casual" player, who thinks that 90 minutes is plenty of time to do something in a game that requires hours upon hours of dedication, but at the end of the day, it just ruins everything that the genre had going for it.

 

It's like automatic game finding/joining in FPSes, except in FPSes you can always come back to a good server (assuming the game support dedicated servers), whereas with automatically-formed PuG groups, the group is lost and you can never really reform it.

[Yuuj]

I never understood the low pop server complaints.

 

I was on a low pop server in WoW. We might not have had many people on the server at any given time but it sure made it easy to find a guild that was on when you were (assuming your server hadn't been taken over by Portuguese speaking folks.)

 

There was very little competition for guild spots so we all came together and always had groups for dungeons and raids.

 

I get the appeal of a tool that just does all that work for you, but I'm beginning to see the "encourages anti-social behavior" point a lot of people are making.

 

A tool that is social for you shouldn't be the -first- and -only- option.

[TarikGur]

Many people dont have hours upon hours to play...many people only have 90 minutes. And you might be surprised, but its those same people with little time on their hands that keep their subs going.

 

If this is to be a hard-core, raid only game...then so be it, it saddens me, but so be it. I wont be playing it. I have neither the time, nor the state-of-mind to be hardcore. My life is hardcore enough as it is. I dont need the stress of a perfect raid run and clicking every single button at the exact right time in the exact right location. I want to be able to play with a general knowledge of the game and the specific environment im in.

 

 

 

Im a casual gamer and proud of it.

[Drainedsoul]

Many people dont have hours upon hours to play...many people only have 90 minutes. And you might be surprised, but its those same people with little time on their hands that keep their subs going.

 

And that's fine, just don't expect to actually get anything meaningful done in 90 minutes, and especially don't try and rain on the core element of MMOs -- i.e. the social aspect -- because you only have 90 minutes.

 

I seriously don't understand people who want to just log in for 90 minutes, kill a dungeon, and then log back out and go back to "having a life" or whatever they call it.

 

Why don't you just play KOTOR or KOTOR 2? There's a party always waiting for you!

 

You come to a genre of games that are absolutely infamous for their ridiculous time investment requirements, and expect to be able to do things without a ridiculous time investment.

 

It's like expecting to build a continent-wide fibre optic telecommunications network with $2.50 and a roll of copper wire.

 

If this is to be a hard-core, raid only game...then so be it, it saddens me, but so be it. I wont be playing it. I have neither the time, nor the state-of-mind to be hardcore.

 

That's a false dichotomy. WoW in BC wasn't "hard-core, raid only", I had casual friends -- very casual -- who were successful at heroics, PvP, and who even managed to scrape by in multiple successful raiding guilds.

 

The problem with this line-of-thought, is the fact that people expect the game to fit their timetable, rather than their timetable fitting the game.

 

But this game is full of other people, and other people aren't at your beck and call.

 

My life is hardcore enough as it is.

 

Roflmao.

 

Whose fault is that?

[EyeRekon]

The solution to this problem is not an automatic, cross-server LFG tool that encourages asocial behaviour in a game that's supposed to be social.

 

I don't buy into that argument at all. If it is meant to be so social then why have any solo ability at all? Socializing requires a time investment to build relationships and interact with others. Many just do not have much game time and cannot be bothered with that - and it shouldn't be a requirement. If socializing is what one enjoys doing, then they don't need to buy a sub for game to do that. They want to get into a group and get into the hack & slash ASAP, an LFG tool facilitates this.

 

If social butterflies that can monitor chat all day long have no trouble finding groups - good for them. The rest of us need some help.

Edited February 8, 2012 by EyeRekon

[TarikGur]

And that's fine, just don't expect to actually get anything meaningful done in 90 minutes, and especially don't try and rain on the core element of MMOs -- i.e. the social aspect -- because you only have 90 minutes.

 

I seriously don't understand people who want to just log in for 90 minutes, kill a dungeon, and then log back out and go back to "having a life" or whatever they call it.

 

Why don't you just play KOTOR or KOTOR 2? There's a party always waiting for you!

 

You come to a genre of games that are absolutely infamous for their ridiculous time investment requirements, and expect to be able to do things without a ridiculous time investment.

 

It's like expecting to build a continent-wide fibre optic telecommunications network with $2.50 and a roll of copper wire.

 

 

 

That's a false dichotomy. WoW in BC wasn't "hard-core, raid only", I had casual friends -- very casual -- who were successful at heroics, PvP, and who even managed to scrape by in multiple successful raiding guilds.

 

The problem with this line-of-thought, is the fact that people expect the game to fit their timetable, rather than their timetable fitting the game.

 

But this game is full of other people, and other people aren't at your beck and call.

 

 

 

Roflmao.

 

Whose fault is that?

 

 

 

*sigh* you just dont get it.

[Drainedsoul]

I don't buy into that argument at all. If it is meant to be so social then why have any solo ability at all? Socializing requires a time investment to build relationships and interact with others. Many just do not have much game time and cannot be bothered with that. If socializing is what one enjoys doing, then they don't need to buy a sub for game to do that. They want to get into a group and get into the hack & slash ASAP, an LFG tool facilitates this.

 

If social butterflies have no trouble finding groups - good for them. The rest of us need some help.

 

That's like saying that if bars/clubs are supposed to be social, why is it permissible that you go to one and drink/eat alone and not talk to anyone?

 

The idea of grouping with other people is intrinsically social. It is the thing that the game centers around. PvP is organized to be done in groups. PvE is organized to be done in groups. Solo activities -- crafting, levelling, et cetera -- are just drivers/time sinks for these other two environments.

 

And, in case you haven't noticed, the chat frame is constantly intrusive.

 

When you have "groups" that are just formed by a computer at the click of a mouse, all social meaning is gone. The incentive to make friends/acquaintances, the incentive to quid pro quo with other players -- i.e. helping them so they'll help you -- is gone, because you can just get people by clicking the mouse.

 

The LFD system -- from WoW -- unavoidably destroyed social expansion in the game because it made it so that people were easily-accessible tools to accomplish an end. It replaced people as the end and made them the means. Instead of playing the game to have a great time with your friends, and to meet and interact with new people, you play the game to get gear and do dungeons so you can...

 

...play the game. The game just becomes this circle of self-justifying activities, rather than an engine which cultivates inter-personal relationships.

 

WoW without the LFD was an engine that produced productive and enjoyable inter-personal relationships. I wasn't bored, wasn't guilded, and barely even raided for the first year or so of BC, I was too busy meeting people and doing heroic 5-mans. Some of those people that I met are still good friends, even though none of us play WoW anymore.

 

Since WoW had the LFD added, I haven't succeeded in meeting anyone, because the grouping mechanic which drove the fostering of inter-personal relationships is gone. People become cloistered in their guilds, with no incentive to go out and interact with other people. The people they need to get their dungeons done are provided out of thin air by the LFD system. These people will never be seen again, and their feelings are irrelevant. Making them like you is irrelevant. Making them want to group with you is irrelevant. Similarly, dumping all over them for some small personal gain -- whether it be ninja looting or making an unskilled player leave so you finish faster -- has no downside.

 

It turns the game from a social engine, to an asocial grindfest which actually actively encourages antisocial behaviour.

 

Note that "asocial" and "antisocial" have disjoint meanings.

Edited February 8, 2012 by Drainedsoul

[thewatcheruatu]

I agree that something is needed. Just because I'm on Nar Shaddaa doesn't mean I don't want to know about the group that's forming up for Mandalorian Raiders, or something, at the Imperial Fleet. Even a server-wide LFG channel would be nice.

[EyeRekon]

That's like saying that if bars/clubs are supposed to be social, why is it permissible that you go to one and drink/eat alone and not talk to anyone?

 

Yes. Except not at all. But whatever.

[Drainedsoul]

Yes. Except not at all. But whatever.

 

What a great and compelling argument!

[TarikGur]

If I want social interaction I can talk to people in the real world.

 

I play games for fun...not for social interaction. yeah its nice to make friends and chat with them along the way, im not arguing that. but I would rather be able to actually run a flashpoint without talking to another person the whole time, than never run one and have lots of in game friends that we all sit around and chat and do nothing.

[Drainedsoul]

If I want social interaction I can talk to people in the real world.

 

I play games for fun...not for social interaction. yeah its nice to make friends and chat with them along the way, im not arguing that. but I would rather be able to actually run a flashpoint without talking to another person the whole time, than never run one and have lots of in game friends that we all sit around and chat and do nothing.

 

Okay?

 

I don't understand your mentality. You're playing an on-line, "massively multiplayer" game, and yet you want to just do things without having to interact with people, when those activities are explicitly designed to involve other people.

 

There are games that let you do this.

 

KOTOR and KOTOR 2 are examples, they're even in the Star Wars universe too! You can fire them up and have your party of people whenever you want and they only exist to do exactly what you tell them to.

 

So, why are you playing this game instead of that one?

 

See, you don't want TOR to have a new feature, your real complaint is that they made TOR instead of KOTOR 3.

Edited February 8, 2012 by Drainedsoul

[HarassMe]

lulz

 

I NEED SOMETHING TO FIND AND MAKE ME A GROUP!! RIGHT MEOWWWW!!!!

 

jesus christ...

[TarikGur]

Okay?

 

I don't understand your mentality. You're playing an on-line, "massively multiplayer" game, and yet you want to just do things without having to interact with people, when those activities are explicitly designed to involve other people.

 

There are games that let you do this.

 

KOTOR and KOTOR 2 are examples, they're even in the Star Wars universe too! You can fire them up and have your party of people whenever you want and they only exist to do exactly what you tell them to.

 

So, why are you playing this game instead of that one?

 

See, you don't want TOR to have a new feature, your real complaint is that they made TOR instead of KOTOR 3.

 

 

 

Why do you care? I dont understand your mentality either.

 

You simply cant understand how people can have a different opinion than yourself, and therefore, you decide that they are wrong. Just because you dont understand, doesnt make the point any less valid. If you dont get it, then stop posting and go away.

Edited February 8, 2012 by TarikGur

[Drainedsoul]

Why do you care?

 

Because I like the way manual grouping works and I don't want the whole community to be sucked into the vacuum of automatic grouping.

 

You simply cant understand how people can have a different opinion than yourself, and therefore, you decide that they are wrong.

 

Yeah that's how opinions work.

 

If you didn't think all the other opinions were wrong, why would you have the opinion that you do?

 

Do you think people have opinions because they don't think they're right?

[EyeRekon]

I do not get how those who desire an LFG are characterized as opposed to socialization. Socialization will happen anyway it isn't like they've taken a vow of silence or something. They just want to form groups faster. See a list of groups, find one you want to do, click apply to group, maybe get accepted. Then into the action!

 

Intra-group dialog will still occur (this is productive):

"Thanks for accepting me to the group"

"Target X first", "Ok"

"Ready?", "Good to go"

"Anyone know a good way to do this?"

"Good job!"

"Good run all!"

 

 

Instead of (this is a waste - and is to no one's benefit):

/1 "Anyone doing normal Hammer Station?"

(Other spams from other people desperately trying something similar)

/1 "Anyone doing normal Hammer Station?"

(Other spams from other people desperately trying something similar)

(X whispers to you: Fine don't invite me! Jerk /ignore)

/r "Sorry didn't see your message in all the spam"

(Player is no longer online or is ignoring you)

/1 "Anyone doing normal Hammer Station?"

(Other spams from other people desperately trying something similar)

(X whispers to you: Hard mode?)

/r "No"

/1 "Anyone doing normal Hammer Station?"

(Other spams from other people desperately trying something similar)

(30 minutes later...)

/p "Omg this is taking forever."

/p "Sorry but I'm out of time to play now, good luck"

Edited February 8, 2012 by EyeRekon