A request to review how SWTOR implements endgame raids, starring Group Finder

[ShadowShrike]

Introduction: Groupfinder: the savior of Eldergame

Endgame content right now is absolutely ridiculously exclusive to the guilds with prog teams who are gearing their prog raiders as fast as possible to compete with each other. Which is fine, because that's the design. But there's a problem with some aspects of endgame raiding that need to be addressed, especially in SWTOR.

 

We have countless guilds who are opinionated on class specs, and even full viability on specific classes. Either your class is viable as a DPS/Tank/Healer in the eye of your guild leader, or you aren't gonna raid. Simple as that. No amount of evidence you can grab from the top raiders on the internet is gonna help you convince them otherwise. Their opinion is law, and if you are someone who's out of a raiding job because your guild won't take you in, you've got option B. Groupfinder.

 

Groupfinder did two things:

• It allowed you as an experienced player to prove yourself, and your spec's viability. As a pug spot in a guild's raid night, or in a full pug group, this is a clean slate. You're given at least a pull or two to prove yourself, and even get some gear while you're at it.
  Like that time in 2.0 when shadow tanks were "unviable", "worthless", and "likely to wipe the raid", and you would go in, fully statted, and reduce more damage and pull more threat than your juggernaut tank partner and shut the doubters up?
  Or that time you went in as a sentinel in focus (now concentration) and did so much damage you pulled threat off of the tank and shut the doubters up? This is what group finder allowed you to do.
   
  
• It allowed new raiders to learn how to raid, and maybe even find a guild. It also allowed guilds to find players looking for raiding guilds. Go figure.
  

Why try to convince guild leaders they're wrong when you can join a group that will give you a chance instead? And this worked. At least, in 2.0 it worked, before 16m queues were implemented.

Right now, groupfinder is broken for raiding with the current 16m implementation, as well as the choice between only two of the hardest ops this game has to offer (yes, even on story mode). This post addresses the main issue in depth, and pleads to review how you implement the eldergame, so the elitist bigshots who control who raids and who doesn't, and have a bigoted opinion on class viability (and are also very wrong), don't prevent half the playerbase from even having a chance to prove themselves.

Perhaps the main problem is its 16m implementation.

 

8m vs. 16m Group Finder

Low population servers have already seen how difficult it is to queue for groupfinder for 16 man (if it even pops at all). With the difficulty of the ops, and the lag in the new ops when doing them 16m, is it any surprise as to why? And if you're guild doesn't let you raid because you're "unviable", even after you practiced parsing for hours on that target dummy and can reach 3.5k consistently (keep in mind, you probably don't have gear so that's pretty impressive), you're out of options if groupfinder isn't working. I'm highly convinced it's because it's 16m, instead of 8 man.

 

The Case for 8 man

In 2.0, back when 8m was the way groupfinder worked, a guild could easily pug that one or two replacements, and, if they were new players, help them learn to raid and learn the fights. It even helped guilds recruit new players (or new players find guilds). The bolster helped bring new players into the raiding experience, without making gearing a pointless endeavor. The comms given helped new raiders (and experienced raiders) to get the gear they needed, in case they didn't already have it.

 

Heck, have a personal experience. When I started raiding back in the summer, I was very fresh. I had an operative healer, and a gunslinger DPS. The only way I even raided was with groupfinder alone, and that was how I learned that I needed to read up on all the fights (because I sucked.... obviously)

One night studying dulfy later, and parsing to get the numbers expected, I go into groupfinder and proved myself and found a guild that accepted me. This was only possible with 8 man, where you can be noticed by that group of 7 guildies. The rest was history. I was a regular raider, and a regular sub (because I was gonna cancel my sub if I ran out of things to do)

 

What exactly is wrong with 16 man groupfinder?

For starter's, there's no choice. It's 16m or bust. A chaotic group of 16 individuals, probably (in a low population server) who aren't even in the same guild together, and probably many noobs who not only don't know the fights, but also don't know their roles or class well thanks to the 12xp we had earlier.

 

Worse still, if you're in a low population server (or a server that's labeled PvP/RP, where for some reason everyone thinks that means screw PvE), you won't get a groupfinder pop with 16 players. And what if you do? Are your tanks new? They won't stand a chance in 16 man: They have to learn mechanics, their rotation, and hold threat against the 1 in 10 people that may pull more threat than them. And not just that, do you expect 16 pugs to have the fight explained to them and expect all 16 of them to follow directions? Definitely not probable. I don't know if that's how it is in the PvE servers, but it's horrible in the low population PvP/RP server. Feel free to speak up in the thread if you experience the same so the devs can see that this is an issue that needs to be addressed.

 

Both guilds I was a part of refused to do groupfinder to find a couple pugs in 16m. Perhaps this is the gambler's fallacy, but this is what I see. Back when 8m was how groupfinder worked, my guild did this regularly: there would be 5-7 of us and we'd pug the remainder and either see how impressive they were, or carry/teach them. It worked very well. In the summer, we did this 4 times a week for all four raids (TFB, SnV, DF, DP), for two straight months. It was an amazing system, everyone got to raid regularly, pugs were always finding pops, and everyone was happy. 16Ms are just too big to do this.

 

How exactly is 8 man better?

When we had 8 man groupfinder, the groupfinder raids were more manageable. You could have half the raid composed of experienced guildies who not only carried the raid, but helped the other four pugs learn the raid. Not just that, 8 man pugs were actually quite doable provided a couple of the pugs were experienced prog raiders who could carry the group (expected for Storymode, right? I'd hope so... that's what "Story mode" implies). It also, like I said before, allows new raiders to find good guilds, and to learn how to raid. Finally, if you're, say... a scoundrel DPS who enjoys ruffian, but you're not finding a spot with the guildies who think you're not playing a viable spec, you'll find your chance in groupfinder to prove yourself as a DPS or healer in the eyes of the pugs who you're in GF with, or the guild that picked you up for a replacement.

 

TL;DR

Raids suck now, it's almost like story mode became the new prog with "class viability" and guild leader elitism.

The solution is groupfinder, where players are given a chance to prove themselves, but it's broken with its 16m queues that never pop, and are impossible to complete.

The solution there is to make them 8 man, back to the way they were in the summer. That way groupfinder will actually be used.

 

Even if you don't re-implement 8m groupfinder, you should review how elder content is handled. Those of us who work our butts off on the target dummy are tired of not having a chance to raid because our guild leader hates our class and spec and the groupfinder alternative is too broken to be the plan B that we need.

 

tl;dr;tl;dr

That plan B known as groupfinder needs to be fixed so raiding becomes possible again for those of us who aren't in a prog group.

[JouerTue]

it's not going to happen again, 8m didn't have enough room for carrying unexperienced players and the lower comms discouraged even the vendors aficionados.

 

since your/that guild leadr is obviously incompetent i'd suggest to change guild, class viability was a nim buff thing only concern and probably still doable if not competing for a world/region/server first

[Whojoo]

All raid leaders that cry about a certain class spec should be high five'd, in the face, with a lightsaber.

 

Now the 16m vs 8m thing. The 8m queue might have worked better for you but I have a feeling that the end results don't matter or favor 16m. Actually in both cases the groupfinder does not work.

People generally gather on the fleet and then queue with a full group. Every now and then you have a nearly full group queue for those last 2 people. This happened with both 8m and 16m.

 

Though I have 2 reasons why they should turn the groupfinder back to 8m.

1 - 16m requires some awesome cpu. Not all computers (looking at casual players, the reason it turned 16m) have that awesome cpu. A few guild mates of mine would see a slide show when doing a 16m operation. 8m is not as heavy for computers. More people will have decent frame rates (say 15 or higher, need to set a minimum somewhere) on 8m than on 16m.

 

2 - people were looking for both 8m and 16m content. In other words the community was using both types of content. If you went to the fleet then you would see people forming an 8m group for groupfinder and a 16m group for a different operation.

If I go to the fleet today, then all I will see is people forming 16m groups. There are people who prefer 16m and people who prefer 8m. Back then players could run their preference without having to rely on a guild. Right now people are forced to find a team, wait until raiding day to do an 8m on a regular basis. But then you cannot do that on multiple alts (or at least with the teams I'm in). Some people don't want to join a raiding team or they want to do 8m more often (on alts for example). Now when you are not in a team you are 'forced' to do 16m.

 

I beg Bioware to bring back 8m groupfinder for the reasons I mentioned. Do make the rewards near equal so people don't feel forced towards one option (another reason why not everyone does 8m, it does not drop ultimate comms but the groupfinder reward corrected that).

[rantboi]

I agree that they should change it back to 8man, but you really should find a better guild. Your leader is a dick and takes sm ops too seriously

[ShadowShrike]

Well what if groupfinder is how I would find those other guilds?

[DimkaLloret]

The only problem(s) I see, are the 12x XP kids with no clues of their class and/or boss mechanics. Some of them (comm gear heroes) try to prove you, that they are better having more HP. Edited December 30, 2014 by DimkaLloret

[Declan_Vee]

Surprised no one has mentioned the one thing which was a big driver for 16m in 2.x and presently. Commendations.

16m really became a thing not because of the low Tank/DPS ratio, and not because of the ability to carry/be carried; it was the mass of commendations that could be acquired and post 2.4 this number exploded.

 

Solution: bring 8m up to parity, or remove top tier comms from all sm operations (there is a precedent for such a thing). 8m would become a much more appealing option for sm operations; and with a rise in popularity making it the Group Finder option by default, or the only option at all... would be something Bioware would be able to consider.

 

This wouldn't do much for the Tank/DPS ratio in the group and wider community. Of course if the option of being carried were removed then people may even be compelled to "get good"... which in itself may inadvertently encourage people to roll tanks themselves.

[Doqtyr]

While I agree with many points what struck me most is how awful it must be to be in a guild like that. maybe you can run your own raids I would imagine it has to be a fairly large guild for your GM to be so picky. I would suggest starting your own guild, maybe one that is a little more open to a wide variety of classes and roles. However I would not join, it's one thing to ask your guildies to check their rotation to make sure they are maximizing DPS. If any wackjob ever told me to "practice parsing" I would kindly tell them they need a job, and where they can stick their raidgroup.

[venomlash]

I agree with the OP, mostly because of the difficulty of getting a 16m pop. I'm a groupfinder hero (I like to run endgame stuff but my guild is super casual), so I queue up while running dailies or whatever and make sure I've read the guides for whatever Operation is on the menu. I've gotten 8m pops plenty of times, but never a 16m pop, because there just aren't enough people queueing.

 

The rationale for 16m Ops was to alleviate the tank shortage, since tank:DPS:healer ratios are 1:2:1 in 8m but 1:5:2 in 16m. Well good job, BioWare. We've gone from it being hard for DPS to get a queue pop to it being near-impossible for anyone to get a queue pop. At least it's all equal now, right? Friggin' "Harrison Bergeron" kind of effect in groupfinder these days.

[RubiconJoshG]

I am a tank on the pub side of Harbinger. I have ran Ravagers with several different guilds and not once have I heard anyone talking about preferring or requiring one spec over another. I am not saying that is something that does not happen, but I have not seen it.

 

Aside from the GF rewards, what is the benefit of making GF 8 man? Before I joined my current guild I would go to fleet the type 'Tank LFG SM Ravagers', found one everytime. In fact that is how I met my current guild. We have picked up DPS a few times from general chat and a healer once. We do request they join our teamspeak. So far it has been working out great. Perhaps other roles will not be able to find a group in general chat as fast as me, but I would think the same would be true for other roles in GF.

[DomiSotto]

So, you are starting with saying how it is important to involve new players, and then move immediately to saying how 16 m attract total noobs who don't know anything. That's a new player for you. What chance does a new player have in an 8 man set-up when everyone has to know their role and the fight, or wipe?

 

I, however, agree completely that the way the Groupfinder is set up on L60, there is basically nothing entry-level, and leaves most entries to tiny levelling window that is closed in a matter of hours by just playing the levelling content, leaving you to go level the next character if you want to try the L50 and L55 Ops on SM.

 

And, the SMs should be, you know... SMs. For players who do not spend years refining their skill, as admirable as it is or hours studying the guides. A story arc should be accessible at some point at a low reward. All I want is to see the dread masters story. And the very first operation has some 7 or so bosses to study up on.

Edited January 7, 2015 by DomiSotto

[Methoxa]

We have countless guilds who are opinionated on class specs, and even full viability on specific classes. Either your class is viable as a DPS/Tank/Healer in the eye of your guild leader, or you aren't gonna raid

 

Often players who think certain classes aren't good are bad players, and cost more wipes than a bad raidsetup. I would understand some raidsetup concerns when raiding NM. But we are talking about SM here. Its a joke. Bosses aren't that hard, you just have to pay attention to the tactics, which might be new to some SM raiders. Raidsetup is not important. It doesnt matter if you bring 4 melees, you still can easily defeat the Wookie. But if you have players who can't see red circles, or who can not get out of those in time, youll wipe eventually. So :

 

Playerskill > Gear > Class

 

It doesnt really matter what class you play. But coming back to your raidleader... there is something called fairness. I mean one should always give someone else a chance to proof. Your raidleader seems narrow minded and only believing in his own theories. He doesnt give a damn about wwhat other say, he doesnt care about others opinion. Its your call if you want to raid with such a person. But in most raids, ppl like that are kicked, in our society, they are most likely ignored by other ppl and are commonly known as "selfish or self - centered".

[DawnAskham]

IMO:

 

Group Finder should be it's own difficulty, tuned (or with buffs) such that the average group can complete the operation with a reasonable chance of success.

 

Group Finder should award basic level gear (optimized), possibly with set bonuses (or special GF set bonuses), with the possibility of Elite commendations from the bosses and / or completion of the operation.

 

Group Finder should always start groups at the first boss, use personal loot, and have personal boss loot lock-outs.

 

Group Finder should be a place for the average player to find a group and have a reasonable chance of completing the content while seeing the story, not a tool for premade or guild groups to farm commendations.

 

Story mode should be renamed normal mode or something similar, offer both 8 and 16 man versions with similar levels of difficulty, and balanced per person loot rewards (same amount and type of commendations) and loot chances.

 

Story mode should allow the group to set their own loot rules, and should have similar lock outs as today.

 

Hard mode and NiM should also offer both sizes with balanced per person loot rewards / loot chances, while having ID based lock-outs that can only be used once per boss and do NOT allow groups to chain alts through final / individual bosses using one lock out.

Edited January 7, 2015 by DawnAskham

[ShadowShrike]

While I agree with many points what struck me most is how awful it must be to be in a guild like that. maybe you can run your own raids I would imagine it has to be a fairly large guild for your GM to be so picky.

 

The irony is the guild is tiny. They have no reason to be picky.

I've already left the guild, and probably will soon unsub unless something changes, because there's no reason for me to appeal to play endgame content and pay $15 a month if there's no way for me to get involved in anything other than Flashpoints unless I can find a guild that's actually good (which doesn't, to my knowledge, exist on Jung Ma, although I'm reserving judgement and still trying to look for one), or at the very least, a guild that knows what they're doing, and doesn't try to do prog elitism for a story mode op.

Anything else I can do in SWTOR, except for PvP, can be done without a sub.

Edited January 8, 2015 by ShadowShrike

[Karlbadmanners]

Not allowing someone to bring their presumably demonstrably sub-par dps character into a raid, instead of that someone's main spec/clas, who by the by was being brought for raids, is NOT being "picky", and you are most likely WAY over simplifying the situation, to assume that your raid leader not allowing your class is solely because of bias is often someone not looking beyond the obvious. I agree with a lot of your points here Shrike, and I get how frustrating it can be to have someone not seeing what you feel is apparent, but you cannot shovel all the blame to one side in any situation, and you seem to have absolved yourself entirely of blame and that's almost never true in any reality. Edited January 10, 2015 by Karlbadmanners

[ShadowShrike]

Not allowing someone to bring their presumably demonstrably sub-par dps character into a raid, instead of that someone's main spec/clas, who by the by was being brought for raids, is NOT being "picky", and you are most likely WAY over simplifying the situation, to assume that your raid leader not allowing your class is solely because of bias is often someone not looking beyond the obvious. I agree with a lot of your points here Shrike, and I get how frustrating it can be to have someone not seeing what you feel is apparent, but you cannot shovel all the blame to one side in any situation, and you seem to have absolved yourself entirely of blame and that's almost never true in any reality.

 

I'll admit that I am oversimplifying the problem I had, but that doesn't change how useful an 8 player queue is, because at the end of the day, an 8 player GF gave you a chance to prove yourself as a veteran raider in whatever the spec you wanted to do, and ignore guild politics in the process.

The problem in general honestly was never supposed to be a focus of my post, and I'm a bit frustrated that people jumped on it and started saying all the "you should leave your guild" and etc., when the real purpose was to discuss the preference of an 8 player gf queue in a low population server such as Jung Ma, where 16 player pops may happen once a day, if ever. That's what I wanted to focus the discussion on, and that was the wholehearted intent of the discussion. People just read into my example a bit much (and reading my post, I guess I'm to blame for the misinterpretation)

 

And even then at the end of the day I can just find one of the many guilds manually and hand search for people looking for an 8 man spot to be filled (which so far is working just fine, it's just tedious as all heck).

[AshlaBoga]

The irony is the guild is tiny. They have no reason to be picky.

I've already left the guild, and probably will soon unsub unless something changes, because there's no reason for me to appeal to play endgame content and pay $15 a month if there's no way for me to get involved in anything other than Flashpoints unless I can find a guild that's actually good (which doesn't, to my knowledge, exist on Jung Ma, although I'm reserving judgement and still trying to look for one), or at the very least, a guild that knows what they're doing, and doesn't try to do prog elitism for a story mode op.

Anything else I can do in SWTOR, except for PvP, can be done without a sub.

 

Republic:

Uncharted Space

Shots Fired

 

Empire:

Reign

Vicious

 

That's 4 decent guilds (although Shots Fired is more a Ranked PvP guild than an Ops guild).

[Karlbadmanners]

Lol dat Reign though

[ShadowShrike]

Reply in spoiler because of potential (although probably unintentional) derail

 

 

Republic:

Uncharted Space

Shots Fired

 

Empire:

Reign

Vicious

 

That's 4 decent guilds (although Shots Fired is more a Ranked PvP guild than an Ops guild).

 

Well I wasn't trying to imply those guilds are bad at all, please don't misunderstand me.

After that post, I was doing a little look around to see what guilds exist that are doing content, and I now take a 180 on that statement. I guess the only problem now is working my way up, which is on me now. That's a good bit of hope.

In actuality I only knew of a couple of them (one of which I just brought a toon in).

Thanks for the comment though. I appreciate having a visual.

 

Please focus the topic on 8 man groupfinder vs. 16 man groupfinder.

[Jenso]

It's not really off topic, he just decided to address the fact that you obviously don't play that much, are too ignorant, or are too bad of a player to be in a good guild such as those he posted and don't really care about anything you actually said are just using these forums to rant about how people didn't value you as much as you think you should, because obviously your ego is too huge, and you can't handle not being preferred. So stop being so blatantly ignorant and self righteous in w/e it is you think and just get off the forums and quit the game.