Your experience with the group finder?

[Glzmo]

Here are a couple of thoughts on the current implementation of the group finder:

 

The group finder is pretty good, but it's far from perfect.

 

One thing I find annoying with the group finder is that you can't form non-group finder groups while you're in queue. Why not make it like when you are queued for warzones and allow outside grouping? I usually do dailies while waiting for the group finder queue to pop and I like to invite other players that are on the same quest to help them/ensure that we don't "steal objectives" from each other. But if any of us is queued for the group finder, this doesn't work and the process of doing dailies is unpleasant.

 

Also, once the group finder is complete, there should be a dialogue to travel to the location you travelled from (again, after you're done with a warzone, you get transported back to the spot you started from, so it should be possible to re-use that code).

 

Also, it's most annoying that one's group role settings sometimes reset and you inadvertedly get into the group with a role you aren't geared and specced for.

I think it would be a good idea to popup the update group role dialogue immediately after you and the group enter the queue so everyone is prompted to check if their role is set properly.

 

Also, I would like to see Warzone and Ranked warzone groups added to the group finder (you could give out 100 warzone and ranked warzone commendations for the daily group finder Warzone missions respectively).

Also, I'd like to see Hard Mode Operations to be added to the group finder.

 

As I've recently started levelling another character, I would also like to see every single Heroic in the game to be available to be queued for separately in the group finder.

 

There also needs to be a function added to allow people to queue for content they have outlevelled (perhaps their stats and level should be temporarily reduced to the recommended level of the content, just like regular Warzones adjust your stats while levelling - but make sure that players receive full experience while grouped with such "downgraded" players so their levelling experience isn't ruined.

 

One other thing. The sound when the queue pops up (for the group finder as well as warzones - /tell and /whisper sounds are also affected as are many other sounds in the game - the background audio feature is totally bugged when using proper full screen mode) is not playing if you run your game in proper full screen mode! When you're waiting for the queue to pop and are tasked out to surf the web or similar things, you don't notice that your group finder group is ready, even with Background Audio enabled!

On a side note the "Background Audio" option is completely bugged when running the game in real full screen mode (and no, running in Full Screen (Windowed) mode isn't an alternative for AMD/ATi CrossfireX users, as CrossfireX only works in proper full screen mode by design).

Here are the issues.

1. When "Background Audio" is enabled and playing in true Full Screen mode, ALT+TABing in and out of the game causes the game to crash or even the whole PC to freeze and become unresponsive with only a hard reset to get it going again. This appears to be independent of hardware configuarations, as I've experienced this on four different computers with all different Hardware (including various new and older video cards from Nvidia and AMD/ATi and audio cards of the Creative X-Fi series with all the latest drivers - the OS was always Windows 7 64 bit, however). Disabling the "Background Audio" option or playing in Windowed or Full Scren Windowed gets rid of these crashes - it is very possible that the stupid loading screen you always get when ALT+TABing into the game when using full screen mode and the client unloading/loading assets when tasking in/out of the game is responsible for this - just keep everything loaded like you do in Windowed and Full Screen (Windowed) mode!

2. Several Sounds are not playing when tasked out of the game (ALT+TAB) when "Background Audio" is enabled and playing in proper Full Screen mode. This includes /tell and /whisper sounds, Group finder queue popups, warzone popups and more. Sometimes wrong sounds play in this situation as well.

Edited July 12, 2012 by Glzmo

[iamthehoyden]

LFG has been mostly positive. Couple issues:

1. People declining groups once it has popped. There has to be some reason why you'll have to go through such a large number of pops before you get a full group. A couple I could see, but there it times it gets ridiculous.

 

2. Assigning people who queued as dps the tank role. Thank goodness when this happened to our group the dps-turned-tank knew enough about tanking to pull us through.

 

Why I don't use it more:

1. Return to original position. It's been mentioned by many, but it's one of the reasons I don't queue while doing dailies. The amount of travel time (and loading screens) to travel from wherever you've been stranded back to wherever you were doing dailies isn't worth it.

 

2. Estimated wait time. If I'm doing dailies, and I decide to queue, I have no idea if it's going to take 30 seconds or 30 minutes or an hour and a half for a queue to pop. So when I get an opportunity to join a group to do a heroic or team up to release hamsters into the wild, I'll drop the queue. If I knew it was likely that LFG would pop in 1-3 more minutes I'd wait, run the fp, (hopefully get ported back to where I started), and continue on my merry way.

 

3. No specific heroics. Planetary destinations are pretty useless without specific heroics, and it would make the daily heroics much much easier to pull together a group.

[DarthPierce]

Not sure if it has been mentioned, but if you disconnect and rejoin your group that is part way through a flashpoint, even if 0 mobs were killed in the meantime, you no longer receive the black-hole comms from the daily mission.

 

This has happened to me all 5 times I have tried the groupfinder. (yes my internet was spotty). Until I see a pach note about this issue, I'm not using the groupfinder again. 5 completely useless runs though HM FPs with noobs and no usable reward is enough punishment.

[Momotunde]

does anyone know how the lock out timer works? Each time I leave a group my timer gets longer and longer. Was 6 minutes when group finder first came out now I'm at 15 minutes. Does it ever reset? or will I be looking at eventual 1 or 2 hour lock out timers?

[Mallorik]

Not sure if it has been mentioned, but if you disconnect and rejoin your group that is part way through a flashpoint, even if 0 mobs were killed in the meantime, you no longer receive the black-hole comms from the daily mission.

 

This has happened to me all 5 times I have tried the groupfinder. (yes my internet was spotty). Until I see a pach note about this issue, I'm not using the groupfinder again. 5 completely useless runs though HM FPs with noobs and no usable reward is enough punishment.

 

Yeah this needs to be fixed asap, i just did a painful sm kp with a pug, the leader had to leave right before the last boss, we replaced him and nobody got bh coms for the run.

[RickAdams]

1. When our guild has used the group finder for OPs, one time only the OP leader got black hole commendations and 2 other times, no one did.

 

2. Would be really nice if the group finder shuttles you back to where you were when you accepted the group.

 

3. Group finder needs to remember what role you've selected previously and use that as the default. Would be nice if it defaulted to the role of your current spec. I don't think, as has been suggested, that the tool should prevent you from queing in a different role from your current spec. Sometimes, you're doing things in one spec but want to do group things in a different spec (pvp for example, or doing dailies in a dps spec vs healing spec).

 

4. Some kind of gear check would be nice, especially pvp gear vs pve gear. I mean the check shouldn't be set too high and maybe do the check at the time you queue (that way you can still switch over to different gear while you wait). But it is highly annoying to start a difficult flashpoint to find out your tank is in pvp gear.

 

There are a few bugs with it as well when people leave and replacements need to be found. The other day we lost one person on a EV run and the group finder found a new person who accepted the invite but that person was different than the person that was showing under the group finder window. Also, when we did this, the tool asked everyone in the operation if they wanted to be ported to the operation, even though we were all inside at the time. (incidently, nobody got black hole commendations on this run).

[rgsmith]

I have had several good experiences as a healer and as a tank on Shadowlands and Jedi Covenant. I wish people chatted a bit more, but that seems to be a SWTOR problem in general.

 

I think the improvements pointed out by others would be nice to have, but for now I am happy with it.

[Cordelia]

I have had several good experiences as a healer and as a tank on Shadowlands and Jedi Covenant. I wish people chatted a bit more, but that seems to be a SWTOR problem in general.

.

 

Not just a SWTOR problem, more of a modern MMO problem. I've noticed chat down significantly since I started MMO's back with original Everquest. Most people who group now just want to get the run over, which I understand but some don't even say Hello.

 

BTW where did the forum join dates go or have I altered a setting?

Edited July 12, 2012 by Cordelia

[DarthTHC]

Angry much? Have you consider the possibility sometimes the LFG tool sticks people in roles they never clicked? It happened to me and a few guildies once when we decided to run SM EV/KP for some easy BH commendations. I'm tank spec, geared in mostly Rakata tank items, and I always have "tank" selected and "damage" unselected.

 

Guess what?

 

The LFG tool put me as a DPS Guardian. A Commando healer got placed as DPS as well, even though he's only chosen the healer role.

 

Read my post. I'm a Sage. The two DPS were Smugglers. The tool let the DPS specced Guardian enter as a tank. It's wasn't a bug. It was a tool queuing as a tank (he told us he did it) and the tool letting him do it.

 

If I had to prioritize features to add to the tool, it would be a spec + gear check before letting anyone queue. This wastes far more time and causes far more frustration than traveling back to wherever you were before the shuttle picked you up.

Edited July 12, 2012 by DarthTHC

[HKtheindomitable]

Statement: I've used it for the first time and found it useful. It's not good when players que up and then decline because then it cancels.

[DjDigiD]

I use the group finder as a Fleet pass, works Great!!! Que as a healer and pops every time. Load in, leave and BAM I'm at the Fleet!!!!

 

LOVE THE GROUP FINDER

[Gaoree]

Only issues I have had is where I am on my Assassin and get flagged as a tank even though I am not a tank and did not have tank selected. Though I wish more people would do the same thing I do and look at what role the queue selects you as and if it isn't correct, decline to go in. Had a friend tell me about a run with 3 healers and a tank, didn't go so well.

 

The other one I have had is the fact that it doesn't seem so random as to which hm you get. I have done Black Talon and Directive 7 so many times, but rarely if ever get the others. The last 4 days I have done 8 queues and gotten 5 black talons and 3 Directive 7's.

Edited July 12, 2012 by Gaoree

[GalacticKegger]

We usually use group finder to fill in the blanks but tonight was my first true PUG. Ran my 50 Marauder and it took less than 5 minutes to group up. The party was a good one too. If I have anything to suggest it would be to (a) add an option that allows us to exit back to where we came from and (b) have a late joining player auto-port to where the party is. Otherwise it worked great. Edited July 12, 2012 by GalacticKegger

[Mallorik]

The reward of black hole comms for tanks and healers needs to be double that of dps, this will allow for more groups to fill instead of 100 dps in qeue

 

I think giving tanks and healers more dailies would help even more, let them do dailies twice. After they figure out how to not let dps speced people que as tanks and heals ofcourse.

[Darth-Malice]

It's a buggy piece of garbage that needed to be tested longer then a week on the test server. It's bugged so many times on groups I've made where half the people don't get blackhole com's or rewards and are forced to contact CS who give copy paste replies of your doing it wrong.

[Hizoka]

honestly its been about 95% terrible. The group finder allows for people to queue as something they are not, the number of DPS queeing as a healer and as a tank is beyond terrible. On top of that i have been in more then one flashpoint on my Powertech Tank only to have tanking loot ninjaed away from me by a mercenary, Mercs cannot even use a shield why is it they can need on gear with shield and absorb on it.

 

 

More often then not the groups are horrendous. All it is doing is allowing undergeared underskilled bad players to be carried to free loot by better more geared players.

 

 

It would of been better to merge the servers first then see if such a tool was needed, as it stand it just allows tools to screw people over.

 

 

Allowing bad players to see content, while good from a poketbook point of view, its what is ruining the MMO genre. MMOs were once a game where you dedicated time and effort to making your "toon" something great, now its "gimme everything now and i don't want to have to be good to get it"

 

PvP loot, it takes time no skill needed what so ever to get ANY OF IT, so you get people who sit in a warzone doing the bare minimum to get handed loot then expect to use that loot to get dragged though PvE content by people better then them to be handed that lot instead of learning how to play. You guys copied lots of stuff from wow, but the stuff you copied were teh worst aspects of wow. PvP gear, non social grouping, the ability to skip content though being handed loot, the GAME would be better if you would go back to the old school MMO model where you EARNED everything and had to work for it, you might lost the FOTM players but they leave regardless, you would keep the people who will play the game for the next decade. Not to mention from a business standpoint a constant 1mill subs is better then 1.5 this month and .5 next month because you nerfed a class and the QQers quit.

 

 

Please stop compromising what could be a great MMO by bowing to forum QQ. The forums are less then 2% of the population.

Edited July 12, 2012 by Hizoka

[Grinstone]

1. I'd definitely welcome it if the group finder reliably rewarded the Black Hole commendations, especially since I generally only have time to run one HM FP a day, if that. (And I'm sure the CS people would appreciate having one less reason for players to send in tickets. )

 

2. I'll just steal this one from RickAdams: "Would be really nice if the group finder shuttles you back to where you were when you accepted the group." Being parked on Fleet after the random group is a bit of a kick in the shin of the whole "queue up while doing something else" concept.

 

3. Let us invite people to join the group! If I'm doing a random and someone drops, and I've got a friend or someone in the guild who'd be willing to jump in, let me invite that specific person. This is especially annoying for guild ops if someone ends up having to leave early.

 

4. Corollary to #3, let us group up while in the queue. Being forced to choose between staying in the queue or joining a group (especially for HC missions) is not what I'd hoped for from the LFG tool. Again, bit of a kick in the shin.

[Fardarter]

people who leave a group upon arriving for a quick trip to fleet shall immediately be sucked into a black hole permanently deleting the character.

[Jacerunner]

This feature was something I was greatly looking forward to after server transfers and I have been doing every single daily on my Tanking Juggernaut, and my Healing Operative. Queue times for my tank are short to instant, and my healer takes maybe 5minutes for HM Flashpoints. Operation queue times are much longer and clearly are getting a smaller pool of people doing them.

 

My main issue is with the craziness of replacing people in Operations. First off people like to manually find replacements. The current system heavily punishes this with requiring an instance reset once you leave the queue, which is unclear to the operation leader from the UI. Ideally I would like the system to allow for manual replacements through normal invites without having to leave the queue. This is because with the operation queue you can never be sure if when you tell a friend to fill a spot that they will join your operation.

 

To people who are disappointed with the amount of chatting going on during Flash Points this is not because people are trying to be rude. It is simply because to complete the FP in a timely manner there is no time to type. I have seen runs without any chat, to runs with only yellings about how much of a scrub a person was, to enjoyable, helpful and fun.

 

Also for a character that is in the leveling process the inability to shuttle back to place you queued from is a huge hindrance. I enjoy doing flash points a lot, but the amount of time lost to traveling back to whatever crazy corner a quest chain has taken me makes me want to not accept a queue that I waited 30min for.

[Hizoka]

 

Also for a character that is in the leveling process the inability to shuttle back to place you queued from is a huge hindrance. I enjoy doing flash points a lot, but the amount of time lost to traveling back to whatever crazy corner a quest chain has taken me makes me want to not accept a queue that I waited 30min for.

 

That is huge right there. I was leveling my powertech only to get transported to the FP just to have people quit because of the healer being a DPS on top of that being in PvP gear. so i get removed from the planet i am on to go to fleet just for nothing.

 

Honestly the LFG system has for more downsides then upsides (for good players who earn their stuff)

[Gaoree]

The only reason I am against manually being able to invite people is due to the fact you could have 3 guild mates running with a random 4th. Once a 4th guild mate logs on, they could vote to kick and manually bring in the 4th.

[Chicktopus]

There are some minor annoyances for me with the group finder; to list them: The leader cannot manually add a player to the group, you cannot re-queue to find replacements more than once, the 'group-found' acceptance screen needs a loud, clear sound effect when it appears, there is no indication of the roles filled so far by the group finder, there is no indication of the time-in-queue.

 

Another thing that irks me is that under-geared players can queue for the harder Flashpoints/ops, though realistically this is less a fault with the group finder and more an issue with inconsiderate players.

 

On to the issue of the time it takes to find a group, as has been said, it's simply a lack of Tanks. I recently respecced Tank as I was fed up of waiting all evening to find a group (I once spent all Saturday looking for a LI HM group, had 3 groups pop, twice a player declined and the group that got in was undergeared and had no idea what they were doing [don't get me wrong, I'm fine with people not knowing content, but after I'd wasted most of the day it can be *extremely* infuriating]), which has a 50/50 chance of containing undergeared and/or unskilled players.

 

After respeccing, groups pop the instant I click 'Join Queue', with my longest wait so far being in the region of 30 seconds. As with my earlier point, this isn't a problem with the group finder, but a problem with class distribution, milti-spec will help with this, cross-server LFG more so.

 

And for those who thought "TL;DR": Ever played QWOP? Fun game. More of this in SWTOR.

[Hizoka]

There are some minor annoyances for me with the group finder; to list them: The leader cannot manually add a player to the group, you cannot re-queue to find replacements more than once, the 'group-found' acceptance screen needs a loud, clear sound effect when it appears, there is no indication of the roles filled so far by the group finder, there is no indication of the time-in-queue.

 

Another thing that irks me is that under-geared players can queue for the harder Flashpoints/ops, though realistically this is less a fault with the group finder and more an issue with inconsiderate players.

 

On to the issue of the time it takes to find a group, as has been said, it's simply a lack of Tanks. I recently respecced Tank as I was fed up of waiting all evening to find a group (I once spent all Saturday looking for a LI HM group, had 3 groups pop, twice a player declined and the group that got in was undergeared and had no idea what they were doing [don't get me wrong, I'm fine with people not knowing content, but after I'd wasted most of the day it can be *extremely* infuriating]), which has a 50/50 chance of containing undergeared and/or unskilled players.

 

After respeccing, groups pop the instant I click 'Join Queue', with my longest wait so far being in the region of 30 seconds. As with my earlier point, this isn't a problem with the group finder, but a problem with class distribution, milti-spec will help with this, cross-server LFG more so.

 

And for those who thought "TL;DR": Ever played QWOP? Fun game. More of this in SWTOR.

Cross server will do NOTHING to help with tanks, infact it will make it even worse. say you have 10 DPS for every tank. Its like that on EVER SINGLE SERVER, so all you do is remove all accountability for people acting civil in a random group. There is already little to none of that now, making it so people know they will never play with that person again will make it even worse, WoW already proved that.

[bassfu]

It's been good, haven't come across any ******* and people have generally been helpful towards those who need it.

[Darzil]

Still pretty good, though I am a tank, so usually get fast queues.

 

There's been a few oddities, like the day I queued up for any HM Flashpoint, got a group in 2 seconds, one dps didn't click Accept, so went back to the head of the queue and waited 30 minutes without a group before logging. I forget how many I've done, probably 2 a day on average since groupfinder arrived.

 

Only got a couple of poor situations, like the group with 2 expertise stacked dps that couldn't beat enrage timers (especially jumping around rather than standing hitting monsters - pvp habits I guess), but they soon rage quit and the replacements walked it. Had a group recently with a healer who'd just respecced from dps to healing, and it was their first group since (why try a HM for learning your skills!). Still managed it, though I spent more time one hit from death than I've ever spent in a quest!

 

Still a 100% success rate. Am seeing more groups wanting to spacebar through, and more groups wanting to avoid monsters and bonus quests where possible (indeed, most of the wipes I've seen have been as a result of someone squishy trying to avoid monsters and accidentally pulling a group). I guess this is just a sign of many more groups being run. Would love to see the figures on flashpoints run over the last few weeks/months.

Edited July 12, 2012 by Darzil