Group Finder is a large flaw for SWTOR

[sumuji]

Extra incentives is the only real quick fix. You can't expect people to just suddenly start playing more tanks and healers to make ques faster. People are selfish.

[althene]

FP's need to be retooled and rebalanced and make the groups set to 5 players:

 

1 Tank

3 DPS

1 Heals

 

LAWL!

 

No.

 

WoW is that way ------>

[Angedechu]

Yes, guys, mock WoW.

 

After all, WoW failed. WoW ''just,'' sold 2.8 millions copies of it's fourth expansion in the first week of release (1), after eight years.

 

We are WAY too intelligent and too bright, with our ''gone to F2P after six months'' approach to take a hint from WoW. After all, Blizzactivision are obviously not the model to follow when it concerns MMO player retention.

 

(1)I'm saying this to point out that as 25 september, there was at the very least 2.8 millions active western subs of WoW. You know, the only subs that count according to you.

Edited November 24, 2012 by Angedechu

[althene]

I agree with implementing an incentive for tanks and healers. I know no one wants to hear this, but WoW had a solid plan by using those "Call to Arms" bags for queuing in dungeon finder. I have noticed that, compared to the game no one likes to mention, queue times on here are much shorter for DPS. Maybe its just my server, I dunno.

 

WoW actually seems to have killed this idea. I only played tanks for the length of my stay there. I liked the bags at first, even though I rarely got anything remotely useable as a tank except the money (yay, another mana potion to fill up my rage bar faster...). But a few months after they started with them, I stopped seeing them at all. Even if I queued and was told I'd be getting a reward bag since there was a shortage of tanks, I wouldn't get a bag when the group finished and wouldn't be offered one when opening the group finder window again. Might have been a bug, might have been intended, but for me at least, it worked more as a deterrent once I'd gotten used to getting them. If I was going to queue solo, put up with the mongs from up to 4 different servers that know the likelihood of ever seeing each other again are slim, and not get anything but a headache from it, I usually chose to simply farm or grind rep. Maybe there wasn't a shortage of tanks in the game anymore was my first thought, but the requests for tanks and the wait in an instance if your tank actually dropped on you seemed to suggest quite the opposite.

 

All that said, if they could find a way to actually improve on what WoW did in this regard, it MIGHT work. But I'm not overly optimistic there. As far as improved queue times for dps in WoW... no. This is a myth. It was fact at the end of the last expansion since many many players took a break or stopped playing after the abysmally pathetic final raid in that tier, but with the release of panda land, dps is now in the 30 to 90 minute wait times again. Healers are slightly better being in the 30'to 45 minute timeframe and I've even had to wait up to 10 minutes (gasp!) as a tank.

[Aebrynis]

Cross-server will not be needed in this game. Give it some time.

 

Not quite true.

 

I have characters spread over all three regions. While flashpoints using group finder are rarely an issue in the US or EU regions, I can sit waiting on a flashpoint group finder pop on the APAC server at (Melbourne) prime time, regardless of role or class, and never get a pop. Our friends in Oceania are getting a serious shaft in this regard. I can always leave for another region (and do, when I can't get a FP or WZ pop), but some of these people have their entire game invested in APAC servers.

 

So yeah...cross-server is needed.

Edited November 24, 2012 by Aebrynis

[althene]

Tanks and heals will always be in demand compared to DPS in every MMO that has a trinity system of play. It has to do with the perceived "difficulty" of tanking/healing when compared to just blowing stuff up.

 

Even when World of Boredcraft offered additional incentives to tanks/heals to queue, there were still DPS' waiting 20+ minutes in a CROSS SERVER group finder.

 

Hand out mounts, pets, titles, additional credits, whatever, like candy.. and DPS will still have to sit and wait.

 

WoW handed out emblems like candy and it did nothing. They added trinkets, and it did little to assuage the wait time (from a pool of MILLIONS of players).

 

Do you really think adding fluff will make more tanks/healers queue? No.. it will do what it did in WoW: It will make those who traditionally ONLY DPS reroll/respec and queue up as tanks/heals... and suck horribly at it. Sure, some may stick to it and become AMAZING players. Unfortunately, most will continue to suck because they only do it for the freebies and will rely on the rest of the group to carry them, specifically decent DPS players that, for the most part, could solo the HM anyway.

 

The only flaws in the Group Finder have to do with the two person normal FPS and inviting another player when the group are already in queue, or when someone declines/drops. Any PvP/Group Finder queue conflicts are there for a reason. They don't want half a WZ group disappearing because their HM groups popped. On that note, I don't see why you couldn't join both queues and then accept whichever pops first while being dropped from the other. If it's already that way, then great. If it's not, then that needs to be fixed.

 

Making groups 5 man would do little to alleviate the wait on DPS'. There would still be the same amount of tanks and heals queuing up. There would be the same amount of DPS queuing up. DPS would still be waiting on a tank and a heal to be freed up to jump into the next HM. The only thing this would do is force a total re-balance of already trivialized content that can be downed by fewer than 4 players.

 

Unfortunately, the queue times in general will make people that suck at tanking either respec (ideally) and queue up with no idea what they're doing, or re-gear (less ideal, but plausible). I've seen many simply queue as all available roles and hope the group finder put them is a group with some overlap. This last problems compounded by the lfg tool auto selecting every role you qualify for instead of making you manually input your role, so errors are sometimes made by people not deselecting the role that doesn't suit them. Additionally, there's the prevailing notion (perhaps rightfully so) that most of the flashpoints prior to level 30 to 40 don't really require any dedicated roles and can be done with 4 random classes regardless of spec. This is certainly true of the the first one and possibly the next 2, but since it's fairly difficult to get any decent amount of tanking stats before level 20, I can say this is hardly the case of most of them.

[althene]

So yeah...cross-server is needed.

 

...for APAC servers this is true, evidently.

[Avatarless]

I don't think it's a problem with long ques, I just don't think the group finder works correctly.

 

I've tested the tool out and found that, as a healer, I can que up and wait for hours. But, if I sent out message in general chat about the flashpoint I was after I would get a group in seconds even when those same people had been sitting in the group finder que for the same flashpoint and nothing had popped up.

[chimex]

Problem is the horde of DPS players,when the wipe happens it is either the healer or the tanks fault and trust me as someone who does both healing and tanking it is so frustrating to have DPS pull stuff,run out range for heals,and asked to slow down a minute to get rude responses.

 

My tank has been retired and my heals are only with good friends,,period.

 

IDK, as a DPS i've seen some pretty shocking DPS play. The worse are the DPS who throw themselves at mobs like a tank!

 

Topic at hand tho, I wouldnt mind being able to add ppl to my group as well as tick the LFG tool. It's annoying having one or the other, especially when 2 ppl are looking for the same thing!!

Edited November 24, 2012 by chimex

[Graydon]

You do realize this would alter the balance of the instance itself? They are designed as 4 mans, and developers can't just go in a flip a magic tweek up button. The real answer is to be patient, or make friends with the people you meet so you can group with them again.

 

 

Reread my first sentence.

 

I have many friends, I'm in a very active guild. My main is a tank. My alts are dps and heals. Friends are not always online at the same time. Guildies don't always want to run instances.

 

Adding the 3rd dps would only help the queue. What again is wrong with that? Is it OMG go Play WoW mentality? Don't fear WoW, you just look silly.

[MariaD]

I've seen some improvement since respec became free. Kudos on that.

[Smashbrother]

Not quite true.

 

I have characters spread over all three regions. While flashpoints using group finder are rarely an issue in the US or EU regions, I can sit waiting on a flashpoint group finder pop on the APAC server at (Melbourne) prime time, regardless of role or class, and never get a pop. Our friends in Oceania are getting a serious shaft in this regard. I can always leave for another region (and do, when I can't get a FP or WZ pop), but some of these people have their entire game invested in APAC servers.

 

So yeah...cross-server is needed.

 

Or a merge.

[Aebrynis]

Or a merge.

 

I'd normally agree with this (and in truth, do not think it is an otherwise bad idea), but...

 

...with all the drama and uproar we saw concerning character names after the post-consolidation merges with NA and EU servers, there is perhaps a reluctance to do this. I could easily come up with smartaleck Legacy and character names post-merge, but some people are exceedingly attached to the beloved names of their characters, and simply cannot make that leap.

 

That and the fact that there is but one of each server type (Pvp, PvE, and RP) in APAC, and none of the previous merges combined 'types'. You could likely combine the latter two with no fuss (apart from names, of course), as everything about those servers is exactly the same, but there will always be PvP purists who will vehemently oppose the loss of their beloved open-world PvP...such as it is at the moment, anyways. I have to state that a cross-server group finder (in my opinion, of course), is the best way to resolve this issue.

[Doomsaga]

This is without a doubt one of the bigger things holding SWTOR back.

 

 

• Please put in better incentives for people to tank and heal.
  
• Give needed roles free respecs and guaranteed rewards.
  
• Make tanking more fun.
  
• Make the queue length visible to encourage more role balance.
  
• Fix the PvP->Flashpoint queuing.
  
• Heavily increase XP/rewards bonuses for sub 50 flashpoints.
  
• Get cross-server working.
  

 

Any of the above will create substantial improvements. I'm fairly sure at least some of them should be easy to implement. Make them a priority please.

 

1. The incentive to tank or heal is faster queue times.

2. Yea they need to add dual spec or a way to save spec settings

3. Tanking will always be fun to some and not to others not much they can really do about that.

4. This i agree with you on. there should be a queue timer with estimated queue time.

5. This makes no sense they are both working fine.

6. Want more xp from flashpoints? use legacy

7. This is debatable while i want cross-server some people do not.

[althene]

I don't think it's a problem with long ques, I just don't think the group finder works correctly.

 

I've tested the tool out and found that, as a healer, I can que up and wait for hours. But, if I sent out message in general chat about the flashpoint I was after I would get a group in seconds even when those same people had been sitting in the group finder que for the same flashpoint and nothing had popped up.

 

What you're seeing might be the subs getting placed at the front of the queue timer, too. Since I'm going to make a general assumption that most f2p players won't be interested in diving into the tanking mechanics, there's going to be a ton of them sitting in queue behind a subber. Long lines with the "pay to cut in line" model is gonna make some people have to wait a long time.

[Mazikeen]

• 
  [1]Please put in better incentives for people to tank and heal.
  [2]Give needed roles free respecs and guaranteed rewards.
  [3]Make tanking more fun.
  [4]Make the queue length visible to encourage more role balance.
  [5]Fix the PvP->Flashpoint queuing.
  [6]Heavily increase XP/rewards bonuses for sub 50 flashpoints.
  [7]Get cross-server working.
  

 

1) No. I like tanking because I'm good at it. Once you give incentives to tank outside the same ones everyone gets just for grouping, you get idiots that hate tanking, don't know what they're doing it and LOLROFLStomp through dungeons causing wipes every 10 minutes. WoW tried this and proved my point.

 

2) I agree only if they finally add a bloody dual-spec option. We can already get free respecs in the field, the issue is having to re-select every talent and remap the quickbars.

 

3) We get to bash multiple mobs in the face at once. If we die, most of the time the rest of the group/raid dies. People generally look up to us to lead them (unless we're new to a dungeon/raid). How much more fun do you need it to be?

 

4) There will always be more DPS than tank/healers. Always. The only way GW2 got around that balance issue is by making the game with NO tanks or healers.

 

5) This I agree with, though it'll cause PvP issue with people disappearing mid-fight because their FP queue popped. I think this is why they didn't allow it in the first place.

 

6) I do think we need more experience in a FP, though not rewards. The reason I say this, though, is because it was nice playing GW2 for a bit and getting a guaranteed 70% of a level once a day per dungeon. Every dungeon after that (same dungeon, same day) cut the experience bonus in half.

 

7) No. Just... no. This has been talked to death and the facts stay the same. If they add cross-server queues you will see more people ninja looting items (either for looks or credits) and the tank/healer/DPS ratio will stay the same. WoW tried this and it failed miserably until they added the tanking 'special rewards' which lead to the issues I listed in point 1.

Edited November 24, 2012 by Mazikeen

[Fornix]

Please put in better incentives for people to tank and heal.

 

There shouldn't be a direct incentive for tanking or healing by itself, but rather they should create a system in which bonus tokens are handed out for people who choose a role which deviates from the desired quantity.

 

In other words, ideally you'd like to see 25% healers, 25% tanks and 50% DPS in your pool. If rather you see only 5% tanks you could make it so that per run for every 10% deviating from the desired value, 1 token is handed out. Deviating by 20%, that'd mean 2 tokens at the end of the run for the tank.

 

However, if the community goes overboard and everybody suddenly begins tanking, and DPS is suddenly 20% in the pool, the DPS will deviate enough to warrant 3 tokens at the end of the run.

 

Give needed roles free respecs and guaranteed rewards.

 

Since 1.5, respecs have been made free (for subs) entirely I believe? Not 100% on it though.

 

Make tanking more fun.

 

Tanking is fun.

 

Make the queue length visible to encourage more role balance.

 

Amen to that, not just to encourage balance, but to also give us a general indication of whether it's worth it to wait or not.

 

Heavily increase XP/rewards bonuses for sub 50 flashpoints.

 

Agreed, currently you can run a single sub 50 flashpoint which tends to take around 40 minutes and gain roughly 20%. Whilst in the same time you can do around 4 warzones and easily gain up to 50%. This discourages people from running flashpoints during the leveling experience.

 

Get cross-server working.

 

Agreed, within the lower level ranges this will definitely help on increasing the speed of forming a party where ratio isn't so much an issue, but actual absolute numbers are just too low due to a lack of people running flashpoints. Most probably due to the aforementioned better exp gain in warzones.

[uniz]

a group finder is a flaw in any mmo. but the exwow player base never learned any skills on how to get or put a group together so now we have it. having a general chat non server wide also contributes.

 

i am sorry but there isn't any incentive you can now give me to queue up my healer in the lfd anything. i am beyond tired of stupid, badly speced and or ill mannered players who blame either me or the tank for their problems. some of these people listen and become better players others are just too arrogant or stupid to do so.

 

cross server anything will not 'MAGICALLY' make more tanks or healers "POOF" out of thin air. it will only propagate other problems we all know about and dont want. perhaps there are some non na servers that need to be merged still but for those of us in the states there is absoluty no reason to do cross server anything.

 

all mmos have roles that people have to wait for in making groups. this game is no different. the next game wont be either.

[ThrillInstructor]

I'd rather wait for a tank and a healer who like their roles than be stuck with a 'head on keyboard' DPS who hastily respeced for some dubious reward.

Simple truth remains: In a trinity MMO healing and tanking is not in your spec. It's in your blood.

The problem is that if you're a half-decent tank or healer you can pick and chose the people you want to play with. The DPS who know their trade will only be too happy to add you to their friend lists. Basically, with a minimum of social effort you more or less eliminate the need for the group finder altogether as a tool to find people to play with. If you really want to 'help' the vast pool of unattached DPS out there you'd have to remove the reward for tanks and healers who enter the group finder in a premade party.

Edited November 24, 2012 by ThrillInstructor

[tindin]

This is without a doubt one of the bigger things holding SWTOR back.

 

 

• Please put in better incentives for people to tank and heal.
  
• Give needed roles free respecs and guaranteed rewards.
  
• Make tanking more fun.
  
• Make the queue length visible to encourage more role balance.
  
• Fix the PvP->Flashpoint queuing.
  
• Heavily increase XP/rewards bonuses for sub 50 flashpoints.
  
• Get cross-server working.
  

 

Any of the above will create substantial improvements. I'm fairly sure at least some of them should be easy to implement. Make them a priority please.

 

the real flawed part in group finder is

 

ppl not coming to the flash point at all after accepting the group - yes you can kick them but what if there is some one that doesnt kick ppl

 

ppl queing as roles and not playing them - yes you can kick them/ignor so you dont get them again but what if some one doesnt want to kick them.

 

you can leave a crap party but you get a 10 min timer for ppl messing up the ques

 

there should be no option to travel now, it should just send you there, if you are not safe you have over a min to get safe or unque.

[Babyduck]

The community is the problem. If you want more tanks and healers you have to be willing to take up the slack and make a tank and a healer to help alleviate the problem. I have 3 level 50's, one tank, one healer and one dps.

[Roalmo]

... Therefore, it is a myth that cross server will make group finder pop more often. ....

 

Tell that to the APAC servers. They'll have a dwarf tossing contest, and you'll be the dwarf....

[InzaNe-]

I play a Sorc and Jugg both at 50, my queue times on my healer, generally are like 5mins-30mins. No biggie, I'll just do my dailies as I wait for it to pop.

 

My tank? Almost instant queues all the time. I queue, and within 5mins I'll be in an FP.

 

You have to find stuff to do while in the group finder. Go do your dailies, go level up your crew skills, or go farm materials, don't just sit in the fleet waiting for it to pop.

[Sorenia]

1. The incentive to tank or heal is faster queue times.

 

That's a logical falacy. Some DPS have an incentive to queue as tanks for faster queue. People who make up the vast majority of tanks are always tanks though.

 

What's needed is incentive for tanks to queue at all. Cosmetic rewards and other knick knacks work very well for this sort of thing. Give tanks a very small chance to get a white crystal every run for example. The queue times would be cut in half instantly.