Give me a legitimate reason to NOT have a LFD tool.

[Raansu]

Fear mongering and ignorance is a great thing isn't it? Sorry senatsu, but out of the few months I played WoW I never came across any of that, and my roommate still plays WoW and he never comes across any of that and he has been playing for years. Once in a blue moon he may come across a random jerk, but simply kicking them and putting them on /ignore means he will never get queued with him again.

 

All the little negatives people bring up and all the fear mongering DOES NOT outweigh the convenience of a LFD and its such a rare occurrence that its negligible anyways. If it's happening alot for you then clearly YOU are the instigator to begin with. I'm sorry, but I hate sitting on the fleet spamming chat trying to build a group and then look over my should and see my roommate has done several dungeons in the same time frame of which I've managed to MAYBE get one FP done because the amount of time I spent on the fleet trying to get a group together when I COULD have been out doing other things while waiting for the queue to build a team.

 

And before anyone tells me I don't know anything about a community I have been around the block long before WoW ever even existed with FFXI being the longest I played a MMO which was for 8 years. While yes FFXI had the best community I had ever experienced, this is no longer 2003. The days of spamming chat and spending hours in a main city is long gone. It's time for swtor to move into present time. A community CAN AND DOES exist with a LFD in place. People still chat in the main chat channels, people still build guilds, people still make friends, guilds still do events together. The only thing that changes is that for people like me who play at odd hours due to work can still run the content during the week while on the weekends I can run it with my guild.

 

The negatives DO NOT outweigh the positives of a LFD. This isn't 1999 anymore, the community will not change, so take off the rose colored glasses and stop with the fear mongering. Have you ever heard the phrase nostalgia's a *****? Nothing is ever what you remember. Your precious communities had the same trolls/jerks/ninjas back then as they do now. The difference? Doing the content more often makes it seem like they are more common. The reality? It really isn't and it just appears to be when it actually happens, which is extremely rare. People who claim that it happens a lot are clearly the ones instigating everything, so in reality you are the problem then.

Edited February 13, 2012 by Raansu

[Chaede]

Just because you anti-lfders walked butt-naked in a blizzard to school doesn't mean the rest of us have to.

 

This isn't an arguement between casuals and hardcore gamers. It's an arguement between different generations of gamers. The days of waiting are over Gramps! Look at society today. The days of waiting are over. Any company that allows their customers to wait are at a severe disadvantage to the competition these days.

 

Nothing wrong with sticking to the classics either. My dad still listens to records.

 

I lolled at this. To me it says 'I am 14 and have the attentions span of a fruit fly.'

 

The problem with LFD, particularly cross server LFD is it destroys what little community MMO's have these days. OMG spending 10 minutes to find a group for an FP (because you didn't socialise of make friends while levelling) is too much!!! LFD means that there is little to no point in creating guilds, there is no need for them. LFD just makes the game more single player or non social coop where you are thrust together with people you don't talk to just so you can do an FP so you can get an arbitrary sense of achievement.

 

LFD tools remove what little social accountability people have on MMO's. You can be a complete ******* with no negative repercussions because you are just a random dealing with randoms. WoW's community went into the toilet the more cross server stuff they implemented. No longer did people make friends through PvP or have to communicate to work as a team. No longer did people actually care to socialise with people or play their best for the group so they could have a good reputation to make grouping easier.

 

LFD bred a group of people that play MMO's as a means to self glorify or troll other people without consequence. We have forums for that behaviour.

 

I don't mind a server only LFG tool where you can advertise without spamming general.

 

Even WoW's glorified LFD tool could have long waits attached to it since people stopped rolling tanks or healers because it was easier to coast as a DPS class or basically get carried through instances without having to do any work. Some DPS still waited hours to get a group. It ulitmately caused at least as many problems as it solved. LFD never fixed any problems for people that were social and halfway decent at their class. I have never had to wait more the 20 minutes to find a group if I was looking as I socialise, befriend people and help them out in return when they need a group.

 

If you need LFD then maybe oyu need to stop and ask yourself why you are playing an MMO if not to play and socialise with other people while playing. You can get the same sense of false accomplishment playing single player games of pvping in FPSes online.

[Ortof]

Here's a legitimate reason: I'm a fanboi with my head in the sand and I'm terrified of change because I came from SWG. Also, I hate WoW (although I've never played it), and someone on Reddit said that every idea WoW has ever had is stupid and that the LFD specifically killed the WoW. That's why they lost 100k subs. Seriously, within a few years, WoW will have less than 5 million subs because of this.

 

How long did it take you to think of that? I'm guessing since around December of '11. Just a hunch. Back to the if you like the game you're a fanboy, if you don't you're cool.

[Darkulous]

I can't be bothered explaining it to you anymore you are clearly unable to understand simple logic.

 

Logics arch-nemisis is.......logic?

 

Listen, if you want to go play a game where you had to wait around with nothing better to do than go play one of your classics that gave you that awsome experience. For me, TIME is money. When I log in it's go time. I don't wait around for one single service I pay for today so why should I in my games? BW is out for money. Letting their customers wait on certain content puts them in a disadvantage to other games.

 

Maybe business is logics arch-nemisis?

[DarthKhaos]

A fully automated cross server LFG tool that acts just like WoW will not be used because it is better. It'll be used because it's the path of least resistance. Because no matter how much gamers claim they want better, how much they claim they want challenge, how much they claim they are "hardcore" they'll always look for the cheat, exploit and the easy way out.

 

Take Ilum for instance. They will kill trade and look for the easiest way to get valor then complain that they're bored. that World PvP is dead, that there's no challenge. Yet they avoid it like the plague.

 

What I find interesting is you all claim you want to find parties easier and yet you wish not to entertain a server only option. Every game is different. Some people come here because they're bored or disgruntled about how things were done in another game. So why do you expect a server only LFG to fail off the bat?

 

Let me ask this. If a server only LFG Tool allows everyone to find parties easier EVEN on low population server/facrions will that be cool with you?

[usblues]

We really need something. I love this game to no end but the one thing that is bugging me like an itch you just can't reach is the lack of any useful means to find a group.

 

This isn't just about flashpoints either as this game is so heavy on the world quest grouping with heroic missions.

 

And we don't need a mindless queue system like a clone of WoW's finder.

 

What we need is a setup where we can flag ourselves as looking for a specific heroic mission, flashpoint, warzone, or operation and have it show in a server wide list where people can send you a whisper asking you if you'd like to join a group.

 

No LFG chat channel as that becomes a place for pointless chatter having nothing to do with finding groups.

 

It's starting to feel like LotRO, where they had all these awesome quests to play out the story but if you joined the game a little late, or were already levelled up, and you didn't have a cadre of RL friends that you played with then you had a snowball's chance in hell of actually finishing that quest and truely experiencing what the game had to offer.

 

That was a big deal which ended up ruining the key selling point of that game.

 

Do I really need to sit in the fleet for two hours to find a group for ESSELES? How is that not a waste of my time and energy? If anything causes me to quit it will be the amount of time I sit and petition for a group with no response. And no, guilds are not the answer. You could petition your guild for just as long and end up just pissing them off in the end.

 

Give us a real solution please.

Edited February 13, 2012 by usblues

[Ethern]

The problem with LFD, particularly cross server LFD is it destroys what little community MMO's have these days.

No it does not. Your old community is still there. You still do not bother interacting with it, since you have transferred your social approach ingame to a matchmaking tool. The one to blame is you, not the tool, for being misused.

 

And even if it does destroy the community, which is totally false, it is not a bad thing. The genre has evolved, catering to players who have limited playtime, solo'ers, self sufficient crafters, etc.

The age in which all the community needed to work for one man is over.

[Ortof]

If you need LFD then maybe oyu need to stop and ask yourself why you are playing an MMO if not to play and socialise with other people while playing. You can get the same sense of false accomplishment playing single player games of pvping in FPSes online.

 

Well said. Is it a "must have" as some LFD'ers are putting it, hell no. If you can't find a group within 10 minutes of typing LFG blah blah blah then make more friends or get in a guild. I understand that it would make a very simple and easy task even more simple (seriously we are developing cars that drive themselves, next on the block we no longer need to wipe as the toilet does it for us.)

 

LFD can and might have long ques and STILL not fix the problem you guys are complaining about. At what cost though? I love getting into a PVP match and seeing locals there. On both sides too. "Oh GOD so and so is there, get him" so to speak.

 

Why oh why do we need an even EASIER function? Probably the same reason people want to boil the game down to a spreadsheet with Gear score, recount etc etc.

[Darkulous]

I lolled at this. To me it says 'I am 14 and have the attentions span of a fruit fly.'

 

 

Really? How do u read your news? The newspaper? Look at society today and the need for having information ASAP. Cell phones? 3G, 4g, 5g? People waiting in lines for the next smart phone that is 2% better than what they have? Instant downloads, internet speeds, remotes to start your car from the house?

 

If I'm a 14 year old because of my attention span than I guess the world is turning into a bunch of teenagers.

[Senatsu]

Really? How do u read your news? The newspaper? Look at society today and the need for having information ASAP. Cell phones? 3G, 4g, 5g? People waiting in lines for the next smart phone that is 2% better than what they have? Instant downloads, internet speeds, remotes to start your car from the house?

 

If I'm a 14 year old because of my attention span than I guess the world is turning into a bunch of teenagers.

 

Too late.

Edited February 13, 2012 by Senatsu

[EWJunkie]

Let me ask this. If a server only LFG Tool allows everyone to find parties easier EVEN on low population server/facrions will that be cool with you?

Of Course. I personally don't give a bantha poodoo if it's cross-server or not.

[Tuscad]

It's wasted development time that could have been used on things that I actually care about.

 

Didn't actually see one thing I actually had to have and care about get implimented in the game with the exception of the fact that it is Star Wars.

[ispanolfw]

I love it when anti-LFDers readily admit that everyone will use it if it gets implemented and THAT is the reason it shouldn't be implemented. O.o

 

No, the real reason is the people for it, not all of them of course, like to state it's optional. Sure, it would be. But because some amount of players will ONLY use it, it reduces the amount of people that can be found locally to group with. In some cases/servers to a point where they cannot find groups. At that point it's not really optional if they want a group, now is it? Oh wait, that actually turns around and makes the "Everyone will use it" a valid argument.

 

Again, I stated earlier, i'm neutral towards this. It comes, it comes, it doesn't, it doesn't. I don't care either way. But I can see what would happen if it does come quite easily, and what happens if it doesn't.

[DarthKhaos]

Of Course. I personally don't give a bantha poodoo if it's cross-server or not.

The response to my question is staggering. Makes me wonder if they're truly concerned about the game as a whole.

 

I'd quote my previous post because people always like the cop out then complain.

A fully automated cross server LFG tool that acts just like WoW will not be used because it is better. It'll be used because it's the path of least resistance. Because no matter how much gamers claim they want better, how much they claim they want challenge, how much they claim they are "hardcore" they'll always look for the cheat, exploit and the easy way out.

 

Take Ilum for instance. They will kill trade and look for the easiest way to get valor then complain that they're bored. that World PvP is dead, that there's no challenge. Yet they avoid it like the plague.

 

What I find interesting is you all claim you want to find parties easier and yet you wish not to entertain a server only option. Every game is different. Some people come here because they're bored or disgruntled about how things were done in another game. So why do you expect a server only LFG to fail off the bat?

 

Let me ask this. If a server only LFG Tool allows everyone to find parties easier EVEN on low population server/facrions will that be cool with you?

[peaceandpassion]

People have noe reasons. They just jump on the train with all the other people complaining they dont want something usefull. HM's are dead outside my guild on the "hidden bek server"

 

I have a tank/dps and a healer/dps at 50 so i cover all slots and i still cant find a pug group for HM's as people are sick to death of spamming chat, yea i made an assumption....deal with it.

 

LFG is coming and is badly needed. I love hm's but when i HAVE to fill a slot such as tank (3/5 rakata with rakata relics/implants/earpiece) it gets alittle annoying. Duel spec and lfg will bring this game up a notch and people who disagree simply do so because there sheep.

 

Water boy - "Momma said....."

[LordTie]

Water boy - "Momma said....."

 

 

SWTOR rules and the rest drool.

[Nitewolfe]

No, the real reason is the people for it, not all of them of course, like to state it's optional. Sure, it would be. But because some amount of players will ONLY use it, it reduces the amount of people that can be found locally to group with. In some cases/servers to a point where they cannot find groups. At that point it's not really optional if they want a group, now is it? Oh wait, that actually turns around and makes the "Everyone will use it" a valid argument.

 

Again, I stated earlier, i'm neutral towards this. It comes, it comes, it doesn't, it doesn't. I don't care either way. But I can see what would happen if it does come quite easily, and what happens if it doesn't.

 

if the only argument that can legitimately be made is that if its put in to many people will use it so i cant find groups the old way then the ones against it are such a small minority that the lose of those players would not be missed!

[oursacrifice]

cross-server lfd breeds idiots who can get away with anything

 

intra-server lfd is fine, people are still accountable

 

The amount of people that actually give a damn about "server community" is amazingly small.

 

People just want to play MMOs - they want to experience the content at their own pace on their own time. Only basement dwellers and soccer moms care that someone stole their item or called them a doodoo-head while running a FP.

[Nemmar]

I don't care about ninja loot. It's pixels. I DO care, however, about my overall game experience. In no game that I'm aware of (WoW, Rift) has it improved the game experience other than to speed up queues. As soon as it was introduced, instances had to be "tuned" to enable brain dead keyboard turners the ability to speed-run them.

 

That is why I am leaving Rift, although I'm in a good guild and rarely have to pug.

 

They aren't myths. They are experiences. You can dispute my experiences all you'd like but they remain as factual to me as they are mythical to you - and perhaps that says a bit about your overall perceptiveness.

 

This is exactly the problem.

 

People that only think of themselves. You're not the only one playing the game dude. Its more than just YOUR needs.

[oursacrifice]

When 60-70% of a game's subscribers are casual gamers that has so little time to play that it's basically a waste of money anyway, see a feature like this, they will of course use it. So what happens to those 30-40% that didn't want it? Their pool of available players just got cut immensely. What options do they have now? Wait EVEN longer to do it the way they want to, or just jump on the bandwagon? They jump, and they jump fast and reckless into the bottleneck of retarded elitists and people who feel overly entitled since they also pay $15 a month.

Now you have 99.9% of the server (leaving only you as the rest of your anti-LFD friends have jumped in) using the LFD tool, you are then forced to jump into the cesspool of arrogant elitists and whatnot to get a group.

 

So because you feel you are entitled to force your game preference on other people, those people should not be allowed the comfort of running content on their own time?

 

Oh wait, you're angry that you might have to deal with a jerk a few times a week, possibly making fun of you because you mess up or have a bad rotation, or perhaps even break CC? Guess what, that happens, it's life. People are jerks. That's no justification of championing an ancient and FAILING system of spamming chat looking for a group for hours on end.

 

Without an automated grouping system, you will have your own choice at the group composition.

Let's say you're doing Directive 7. That FP is filled with droids, and very few classes have CCs that are for droids (Sith Warrior and Jedi Knight only as far as I remember). When you have the choice of selecting which classes are in your group, it's easier to pick a composition that will have abilities like CCs that will make the FP easier. I see people often spamming in chat such things like: LF1M tank/dps/healer (whatever) for FP XXXX pref class XXXX.

 

Here we have a prime example of why a LFD tool is needed. People getting excluded because of their chosen class.

 

With an LFD tool it will all be randomized. You can get a group with 4 Sith Inquisitors; 1 Sith Assassin tank, 2 Sith Assassin DPSers and 1 Sith Sorcerer healer. In a FP like Directive 7 you'll have no CC at all against droids, which will make it harder. Therefore the content creators have to make the new dungeons with this in mind, causing them ultimately to become easier across the board.

 

Unless Bioware utterly fails at copying WoW's LFD tool - this is not an issue. I highly doubt they're going to be stupid enough to not code in a class selection priority for the group to minimize looting headaches of having 4 people competing for the same gear. I'm sure the system will prioritize class balance such that it has as big of a mix as possible instead of just saying "HERE YOU GO! FOUR THE SAME CLASS ENJOY!"

 

It has nothing to do with stacking classes, it is about the difficulty because some classes might be better suited for tasks. No content should be so difficult as to making it a NEED to have 3-4 people of the same class to make it easier, it's the fact that the randomized group composition will cause most players to complain that content is too hard, so the developers will have to keep it in mind when designing content. They should always have it in mind that it shouldn't be a necessity to stack classes, but removing the extra little help you get from being a class with a special ability to make it a tad easier, is actually ruining a little of the fun. It gives you something to always keep an eye out for when you're in a specific FP.

 

The correct implementation of LFD (WoW) doesn't use randomized groups.

 

Now, to the loss of community (even more copying here):

 

There is no community in a MMO. There's the illusion of community by a small percentage of players that care about unimportant aspects of a MMO.

 

Servers will get "THE server troll" that always talks in general and trade, servers will get "the seller guy" who floods the GTN with auctions, servers will get "the best PvE guild" that always gets the first boss kills, servers will get "the best PvP" guild that dominates Warzones, servers will get "the PUG guy" that, for some unexplained reason, always has successful PUG raid groups, servers will get "the show off guy" who always stands in the middle of a popular area to flash his full tier XX gear, servers will get the joker, the casino guy, the achievement guy and the list goes on and on and on.

 

Oddly enough, WoW still has all of these unimportant labels for almost all of the servers, despite the LFD tool.

 

Dooming a server's future community before it has even started is stupid and reckless. All of the "The X Guy" people I have posted existed on most of WoW's servers in Vanilla and TBC. They even lived a few months after LFD, but eventually died out because no one could care less, simply due to the horrible side-effects of an LFD/LFR cross-server tool.

 

They never died out - the few people that cared before still care now.

 

You all say that "No SWTOR server has a community, so stop talking about how an LFD feature will ruin it!" Well, if you implement an LFD tool before the community has even had a chance to form, then it would cause no damage. But for those of us who wants to have a server community where there are guild vs. guild competitions on boss kills, whatever kinds of PvP events and such, then it will destroy such a future for any server.

 

"Server community" is not "DPS LFG HM FP!" for 45 minutes. "Server community" is not "LF TANK HM FP!" for 45 minutes straight. That's not "community". What "community" is there, will always be there, in the form of guilds and chat socializing.

 

It doesn't exist right now, but why does the LFD-lovers seem to not want it to form at all?

 

People because want to play the game way more than they want to sit in fleet spamming the same message over and over and over again?

 

Back before the LFD finder came into existence, playing MMO's required you to interact with people on your home server. To actually do anything (other than solo quest) you had to establish a rapport (connection) with individuals in your COMMUNITY (this may be hard to understand still for some of you, but the community i refer to here is YOUR SERVER COMMUNITY), you had to join a guild or make a large number of friends and add them to your friends list.

 

That's a completely and utterly stupid way to design and play a game. "Sorry, don't know you can't take you in my group!" That speaks volumes for the "server community" that you hold so dear. Or wait, even better. "Sorry can't take you, so-and-so said that you broke CC on a pull once and myself and anyone I group with are infallible players only."

 

Sounds to me like you want to breed elitism more than anything else. A sense of self entitlement.

 

For those of us that work long hours and have limited game time we had to find a guild and friends that were active during our normal play times.

 

Did this take effort? Yes.

 

I have two hours to play today, what should I do?

 

a) Level?

b) Sit in chat for a while to try and make imaginary internet friends so that when I'm of the appropriate level they might grace me with their presence and group with me?

 

When we met someone that was a griefer we would inform the server community through trade/global/general chat of the offenders name and what the offender did to warrant an ignore. This, in turn, would make it harder for griefers to get groups and they would end up having to play nice or switch servers. Once you said "so-and-so ninja looted such-and-such" in chat, most people would go ahead and /ignore that person to prevent having to suffer their griefing in future groups.

 

LOL No it didn't. People like you think the game revolves around them and only them. Sorry, but the majority of MMO players don't care about stupid stuff like that. They're going to take what they can when they can so that can just GET ON WITH IT, instead of sitting there for another 30 minutes spamming chat while praying their tank/healer doesn't leave from boredom.

[Eszi]

LFD tool? Yes pls.

 

Cross-server LFD tool? LOLGTFO

[mothear]

This is my experience of what happens if you follow the WoW model;

 

1. Introduce server only LFG - doesn't do enough for lightly populated servers

2. Make them cross server - still doesn't work because of either lack of certain roles or light populations.

3. Provide incentives (commendations?) - People feel obligated to join and want quick runs starting much QQ

4. People demand a kick function to deal with AFKers

5. kick function is abused as it is used to kick the less able

6. Kick function nerfed so that griefing is easy.

 

I'm ok with (1) but it won't help.

 

Perhaps the OP should give a legitimate reason other than 'I want'?

[CptBrit]

LFD tool? Yes pls.

 

Cross-server LFD tool? LOLGTFO

 

This is pretty much my thoughts exactly.

 

X-server will breed constant ***** and we will have more "I'm looting this for my Companion and there is sod all you can do about it."

 

Why should people care? their chance of seeing you again is minimal...

[ispanolfw]

if the only argument that can legitimately be made is that if its put in to many people will use it so i cant find groups the old way then the ones against it are such a small minority that the lose of those players would not be missed!

 

There are other arguments that can be made, and have been made. Legitimate to who? You? The person who made it? Bioware? People have been saying a cross server tool can kill communities, and it can. Will it? Who knows, depends on the server, the people and whatnot.

 

And that last part is where another problem lies with the argument for cross server. "The other side is small so we won't miss them" Ok, show me those numbers, please? I bet you can't. The thing with "taking one for the team" or "dying so others may live" doesn't work nearly as well if you're not the one taking the hit.

[DarthKhaos]

Unless Bioware utterly fails at copying WoW's LFD tool - this is not an issue. I highly doubt they're going to be stupid enough to not code in a class selection priority for the group to minimize looting headaches of having 4 people competing for the same gear. I'm sure the system will prioritize class balance such that it has as big of a mix as possible instead of just saying "HERE YOU GO! FOUR THE SAME CLASS ENJOY!"

I wonder if anyone else sees the error in his logic? As much as people say this is a WoW clone it is a different game with a different player base. Yes there's overlaps but the mix breads a different group. That said copying another game entirely is never a good thing and so is coping World of Warcraft automated cross server looking for group system completely.