Does anyone actually use Group Finder???

[Swedguy]

It's taken me one and half an hour. Yup, that long.

[ImperialSun]

The wait time for being in group finder is rather dependent on what role you charecter is qued as, if you're a tank, chances are you will have a fairly short wait time.

 

Currently there is an ingame shortage of tanks, before that it was healers.

 

I remember before GF was introduced, the plethora of WoW fanboys who claimed that a Group Finder was a staple cornerstone of ALL AAA MMORPGs and that its introduction would resolve all of the long queue times and pop issues. Lol.

 

Group Finder works ok the times I have used it, could do with being fleshed out a bit in terms of functionality imo like a basic gear check and the ability to group whilst you are queueing...but all things considered it works fine.

 

A Group Finder never was going to solve issues with class pop though, despite what the WoW fanboys claimed

 

Driz

[Larity]

Eh nah, but then again already have a group to run stuff with.

 

(this guy is a dps and would never get in groups)

 

HI MAUCS!

 

just kidding, he's got his group spot.

[AsheraII]

I groupfind que all the time. Especially my healers and tanks usually get insta-queued, while my DPSes might have to wait upto 20 minutes, but I don't mind that really. Most of the long wait times occurs from people specifically unticking their healer or tank role, since I still run into plenty characters capable of those roles but playing DPS.

 

If people suffer longer queues as either a tank or a healer than my pure DPS characters of similar level, then the reason is pretty obvious to me: they must be on a few dozen ignore lists, for one reason or another. I don't care whether it's from spamming trades in general chat, or whining and complaining about other peoples performance, begging for spacebarring, or whatever. They didn't get on those ignorelists without reason, and they're getting what they deserve.

Edited January 31, 2013 by AsheraII

[Screaming_Ziva]

Nope, I don't use it.

 

No Chat Bubbles? No grouping.

 

Customize the "chat" box? Nope, sorry, that doesn't work for me.

 

Vent? Mumble? Nope, sorry, I'd rather listen to music.

 

Chat Bubbles + Voice Emotes would make grouping and communicating so much simpler (and more fun). Wouldn't hurt to have macroed chat as well so you can state your needs at the beginning of each run with a minimum of fuss.

 

Until then I'll solo.

 

Cheers...

How exactly would chat bubbles make grouping easier?

[Heezdedjim]

I remember before GF was introduced, the plethora of WoW fanboys who claimed that a Group Finder was a staple cornerstone of ALL AAA MMORPGs and that its introduction would resolve all of the long queue times and pop issues.

It is a basic feature of any minimally competent MMO game. People expect it because it's plain common sense to have one. It should have been in at launch, but instead it took them six months to figure out how to make one, and after that took them another four months to work the bugs out so it would actually function.

 

If you don't think it has solved the problems that people had finding groups before it came in, then you weren't here. Fleet general used to be 99% LFG spam non-stop, all day long, and it took ages for anyone to pull a group together, even if you were one of the "instant pop" roles. Now tanks and healers get instant pops, or nearly so, most times of the day, and only DPS (or people on tons of ignore lists) have to wait. And the fleet spam for groups is 1% of what it was, and of that, 80% of it is people looking for stuff that you can't queue for through the group finder, like HM/NiM ops. It's better by miles than what it ever was before we had the feature.

 

Nothing is going to ever fix the fact that far more people play DPS than heals or tanks, and people who do only that will always pay the price of waiting ages for groups, unless they only run with their guild (and even then you're likely to have to roll a tank or healer sooner or later, so you can get into a regular team, or fill in when the few regulars for those roles are out, so that an op can go). If you want faster queue pops, play the roles that are in high demand. If you do that, then group finder is your best friend all day long.

[ImperialSun]

It is a basic feature of any minimally competent MMO game. People expect it because it's plain common sense to have one. It should have been in at launch, but instead it took them six months to figure out how to make one, and after that took them another four months to work the bugs out so it would actually function.

 

If you don't think it has solved the problems that people had finding groups before it came in, then you weren't here. Fleet general used to be 99% LFG spam non-stop, all day long, and it took ages for anyone to pull a group together, even if you were one of the "instant pop" roles. Now tanks and healers get instant pops, or nearly so, most times of the day, and only DPS (or people on tons of ignore lists) have to wait. And the fleet spam for groups is 1% of what it was, and of that, 80% of it is people looking for stuff that you can't queue for through the group finder, like HM/NiM ops. It's better by miles than what it ever was before we had the feature.

 

Nothing is going to ever fix the fact that far more people play DPS than heals or tanks, and people who do only that will always pay the price of waiting ages for groups, unless they only run with their guild (and even then you're likely to have to roll a tank or healer sooner or later, so you can get into a regular team, or fill in when the few regulars for those roles are out, so that an op can go). If you want faster queue pops, play the roles that are in high demand. If you do that, then group finder is your best friend all day long.

 

First of all I never said it was a bad thing, my experience with it has been positive. What I was saying, in response to some of the "I wait 1.5 hours for a pop" type responses is that GF was never going to fix all the pop problems. That is true as you have stated.

 

Second, if a GF is a basic measure of any competent MMORPG why is it that only maybe 3 AAA MMORPGs had it as a standard feature? WoW didnt???? GF is about as cornerstone to a competent MMORPG as dual spec is.

 

They are both QoL features and the MMORPG genre survived just fine before QoL feature such as this became the trend.

 

Just because players have only ever played one or two MMORPGs and those MMMORPGs happened to have a GF does not make it a basic component of any competent MMO game...except maybe COD

 

Driz

[Manifoldgodhead]

GF is awesome. Tank and Heal ques are near instant. DPS ques are 15-30 minutes. This is dependant on server population. Why necro this thread to tell off people that probably are not even playing anymore?

[Galbatorrix]

I use it all the time. Low level FPs, HM FPs and SM Ops. Honestly, it's mostly been a real positive experience for me.

[Kalfear]

Im constantly seeing in the chat box "LFG" blah blah blah and when i try group finder it takes forever to find a group. In fact i have never found a group lol. Longest queue ive been in is 20 minutes and got impatient. I was excited when it got introduced into the game which is one of the reason i resubbed. Is it me or do people just not use it? :mad::

 

Group Finder doesnt work anymore for most part because this game has a huge shortage of Tanks

 

I have 4 healer characters

For the past 21+ years in MMORPGs I seen healers be the most requested class for groups and there is always a healer shortage

 

Till TOR

 

Now healers (spoken to others as well) sit for possible hours waiting on a single tank to que up in the GF

 

I know in my guild Ive suggested we ALL have at least 1 maxed out tank character so we are able to do HM FPs every day.

 

Cause there is no tanks to be had

 

So yeah, GF is getting used less and less and less

you see people calling out for people on fleet, create a group there, and then que a 4 man pre made into the GF for the daily rewards.

 

EA needs to fix agro control for tanks.

That alone would go a long ways into making tanks feel more viable for PVE and maybe just maybe get people playing them more.

[LogicalPremise]

Group Finder doesnt work anymore for most part because this game has a huge shortage of Tanks

 

Yeah, well, there's a short of tanks because people act like morons. Unless your playing with your guild, a tank queuing up for GF has no idea what he's getting. Half-spec healers and dps that won't focus.

[Newyankalt]

I'm a dps takes me 5 mins to get a group.

[Turshek]

Yeah, well, there's a short of tanks because people act like morons. Unless your playing with your guild, a tank queuing up for GF has no idea what he's getting. Half-spec healers and dps that won't focus.

 

Kinda funny how your role make you think differently about other people in a group.

 

I'm always afraid to use groupfinder as healer because I have no idea what I might get. DPS that don't focus, break CC, force me to heal them too much instead on letting me focusing on the tank and tanks that don't understand aggro in SWTOR or really care about it and thus I'm getting hit all the time in almost every pull with more than one mob.

 

The thing is there's bad ppl playing every role, there are bad DPS, bad tanks and bad healers.

 

Imo, BW failed in 2 ways about roles in group:

 

First, 1 tank/1 healer/2 dps as "normal" group composition is a mistake, it's been stated before launch and they didn't listened, there should be at least 3 dps per group, maybe 4.

 

Secondly, they still have pigeonholed the different responsabilities in group content to specific roles and classes instead of sharing them between players. I don't mean in anyway to remove roles or making everyone equal, just to give different classes tools to help when needed outside of their main role.

 

Instead of oversimplifying group dynamic and responsabilities which teach players to not care about anything outside of their main role, the goal imo is to teach players to share the responsabilities so group content becomes a true shared effort instead of being an effort of individuals playing next to each others but not together.

 

So yes, groupfinder is used a lot still it's badly advertised and many new players miss it. Queues with groupfinder just show there's a problem with roles distribution it's not a groupfinder problem.

[Blackardin]

Group Finder doesnt work anymore for most part because this game has a huge shortage of Tanks

 

I have 4 healer characters

For the past 21+ years in MMORPGs I seen healers be the most requested class for groups and there is always a healer shortage

 

Till TOR

 

The term, "tank shortage" was actually coined in Wow due to the extreme lack of tanks willing to run heroics. It was not actually a shortage but a shortage of tanks willing to have to deal with the many issues that occur.

 

Now healers (spoken to others as well) sit for possible hours waiting on a single tank to que up in the GF

 

I run the group finder every day on two to three toons. I've never experienced this. Usual wait is about 20 mins.

 

EA needs to fix agro control for tanks.

 

I'm a tank. I've seen no issues with HMs in regard to threat. If dps is not doing it correctly, its not the tanks fault and its not a threat issue.....which brings us full circle as to why there is actually a tank shortage in group finders.

[Mercathode]

As I pretty much play DPS only I sometimes expect the GF to take a while so I will queue up and then go about doing solo dailies and weekly's.

 

Use it mostly for HM FP's on geared Mara.

 

Never really used it during leveling. Haven't had too much trouble finding PU groups through the gen chat or standing near the entrance to some SM FP's. Never had more fun with 4 DPS's doing some easier Heroics and FP....makes you really work for it, but everything goes down super quick!!!

 

Most times GF has worked out well. The worst is when you get Rage quitter Tanks or Healers that can't be bothered to carry a group that has messed up for the most part b/c they haven't done the HM FP before.

 

What are you gonna do? Wait another 20-30 min for another group? Just try to burn through it and tell people what to do. You were a noob at one point too. And if you say you never pulled a mob by accident you'd be lying.

 

Anyway my $0.02.

[demotivator]

I think it's essentially impossible to get a group together in the group finder in under an hour or so if you're leveling a dps. On my healer, I get like 20 minute queues while leveling. Even then, it can take hours just to get a group that will stick together for more than a few pulls. I've gotten more idiots in this game than I think I've ever experienced in WoW. The DPS love to pull instead of the tank and they all love to LoS you as a healer and then complain they die. Or the tanks that pull everything in the room thinking they're superman.

 

Maybe I'm just unlucky, but it feels like randoms in this game are just so stupid.

 

And I must be very lucky because even as a DPS I never had an issue going through group finder for low level flashpoints. Granted it gets worse in the higher lvl FP like Red Reaper or Directive 7, it seems that in the lvl 45-49 bracket much less people are interested in running them so it can indeed take up to 1 hour for a group.

 

I use GF all the time for my dailies and weeklies including LI HM and I love it, the only drawback in that you can't group for other activities while you wait for a group.

Edited January 31, 2013 by demotivator

[Zeruhn]

I use it, but I've discovered no one else on my server does. You'd think it'd be easier to find 4 people that would like to do a FP. I *love* doing FP's.

 

I wish they would go Cross-Realm.

[Tsillah]

It's taken me one and half an hour. Yup, that long.

 

Ok you seem to have posted this around reset time of the dailies. As a general piece of advice, the couple of hours before reset are probably the worst time to go to the GF. It's not prime time, it's a weekday and it's just before reset.

 

Reset is important because people use it mostly for BH comms rather than anything else.

 

Then you need to consider that you are probable a DPS.

 

Word of advice to DPS players. If you piss off a tank or healer, they might ignore you and then you will be ignore in GF as well when they go to the GF. Since tanks are fairly rare, ticking off a tank while being a dps is probably the best way to guarantee yourself long wait times.

 

Now considering the timing I don't think that would be the issue here. I really think it's the timing cause you pretty much chose to use the GF at the worst time of the day possible, but the ignore thing is something to consider as well.

Edited January 31, 2013 by Tsillah

[Sathid]

DPS players have to understand that they are the one's expendable,too many times while tanking i have seen dps pull stuff because they lack alittle patience.

 

I also have a healer and when DPS spread out too much and too far away from the tank it creates another mess.

[SithKoriandr]

DPS will always have the longest wait, because DPS is just the more popular spec.

 

Also you then get people who instead of enjoying the game, can't enjoy the game because if it starts to go south, OMG nevermind that I'm playing a game, this is serious business and we're failing!

 

But yeah, Tank and Healer, those take mindsets that just won't be fun for most people.

[Defecter]

While levelling, I simply skip any and all Flashpoints as a tank. Just too many idiots running around and it´s just too frustrating to do whith a pug, because there´s *always* one blithering idiot that manages to attack a CC'd or non-marked mob. Now, if it happened once or twice in a run, we can all be friends. Hell, I certainly am not a perfect player and also make mistakes when playing my DPS toon (or any toon really). But not every single frikkin' pull.

 

And I'm not even talking about a 'newbie' who's still learning the ropes of playing an MMO, I'm talking about dimwitted players who refuse to take simple and polite advice (I don't like telling people what to do in a game, but can give advice). I'm talking about the people who can't possibly even imagine that they made a mistake.

 

And considering I play this game very casually since I resubbed, I haven't been able to find a guild that suits me. So it's either the GF or no flashpoints. I choose no flashpoints and I'll be enjoying the single player story content. It's not worth it to put myself through that agony.

 

It might sound like I'm some sort of elitist but I'm really not. My limit for 'bad' players is fairly high. It's not like I start screaming and kicking the moment anyone makes a mistake. Hell, I know I'm far from being an awesome player myself.

 

As such, the groupfinder in itself is not inherently bad. It's just that it seemingly feels some sort of perverse pleasure by grouping me with at least one person who simply doesn't know what he's doing and refuses to recognize that he's ruining a perfectly fun time for 3 other people. That's what kills the GF for me.

[Mallorik]

Second, if a GF is a basic measure of any competent MMORPG why is it that only maybe 3 AAA MMORPGs had it as a standard feature? WoW didnt???? GF is about as cornerstone to a competent MMORPG as dual spec is.

 

They are both QoL features and the MMORPG genre survived just fine before QoL feature such as this became the trend.

 

Many more than 3 mmos have a group finder, and many more coming out have them already.

 

Wow didnt have a group finder at first because they had to invent it first, since then mmos that have released without one have flopped.

 

I would say a group finder is way more of a conerstone to a competant mmo than dual specs are, but dual specs are still important and also something bioware cant seem to figure out.

Edited January 31, 2013 by Mallorik

[Izorii]

I might use it ce a week to get some easy daily comms. But there are 2 very important reasons I dont like it.

1) Group interaction is 0, with no chat bubbles and too much scripting there is no RP so its just kill be numbers

2) A lot of people are so bored of the missions they simply try to avoid as much content as they can and so try to sneak past everything making the run little to no fun.

[IBJammin]

I use it all the time with good results for FP's. Haven't had any success using it for planetary questing.

[Icebergy]

Nope, I don't use it.

 

No Chat Bubbles? No grouping.

 

Customize the "chat" box? Nope, sorry, that doesn't work for me.

 

Vent? Mumble? Nope, sorry, I'd rather listen to music.

 

Chat Bubbles + Voice Emotes would make grouping and communicating so much simpler (and more fun). Wouldn't hurt to have macroed chat as well so you can state your needs at the beginning of each run with a minimum of fuss.

 

Until then I'll solo.

 

Cheers...

 

Uh....what?