Group Finder

[AFadedMemory]

Please issue a 15 min ban to people who decline a pop/invite, and a 30 min ban to peeps who quit part way through a quest. I acknowledge that peeps want to avoid the long beginning FP, I'm often that person, but FP are the fastest way to level and low level toon can't queue for anything else. This type of behavior hurts new or returning players. "Here is an awesome MMO to bad nobody is willing/wants to queue with ya."

 

Other suggestion

Allow low level toon to queue for Hammer Station. Some might argue that their gear is two low, but you can skip a lot of mobs, and the bosses are easy enough to handle if you kill the weak foes first.

Have completing Beginning FPs through the group finder (all mission must be checked) as a permanent repeatable conquest objective that's worth 10k or more

Give a generous Daily and/or Weekly Bonus for completing the Beginning FP in group finder. Example, Daily: Credit Chip, Jawa Scraps of players choosing, and WB level of exp. Weekly: Credit Chip, event currency of players choosing/level based gear, and WB level of exp.

Edited December 1, 2023 by AFadedMemory

[Char_Ell]

19 minutes ago, AFadedMemory said:

Please issue a 15 min ban to people who decline a pop/invite,

Disagree.  I do not want 15 minutes lockout added if a player declines a group finder invitation.

20 minutes ago, AFadedMemory said:

and a 30 min ban to peeps who quit part way through a quest.

Do not see the need for any changes here either.  There is already a 20 minutes timer that starts when the group forms.  If a player quits before 20 minutes post-group formation time has elapsed then that character is locked out of group finder until 20 minutes has passed from group formation.  I think this is sufficient.  Some servers already have a fairly long wait for group finder groups as it is.

[AFadedMemory]

48 minutes ago, Char_Ell said:

Disagree.  I do not want 15 minutes lockout added if a player declines a group finder invitation.

Do not see the need for any changes here either.  There is already a 20 minutes timer that starts when the group forms.  If a player quits before 20 minutes post-group formation time has elapsed then that character is locked out of group finder until 20 minutes has passed from group formation.  I think this is sufficient.  Some servers already have a fairly long wait for group finder groups as it is.

I queued not to long ago. Every single pop was declined, there were at least 4 or 5 of them.  There was  "fairly long waits" between each pop. I had many potential opportunities but couldn't act on any of them because someone didn't want to play.  If you aren't ready or don't want to play you can wait 15 to 20 mins to get ready or want to play. (note I thought quitting the quest gave you a 15 min ban. My intention was to have queue declines inherit the current ban and that quitting have a harsher penalty, thus not losing its potency)

 

Now I acknowledge that adding this ban could damage player count in queue, however allowing constant declining would also lower queue count or damage the people who sit waiting for beginner FP to pop. If I'm gonna be honest the only ways I see this being fixed is to increase the penalty for declines while greatly increasing the reward for the FPs players don't want to play, (I'm not sure if this could be done without damaging other aspects of the game) or inconveniencing other players by allowing low level peeps play in FPs they're not geared for.

Edited December 1, 2023 by AFadedMemory

[DeannaVoyager]

1 hour ago, AFadedMemory said:

Now I acknowledge that adding this ban could damage player count in queue

Not "could", it would. 

You want to force people to carry low geared newbies without any abilities through Esseles/BT, Athiss and HS all day with a threat of penalty if they decline. No thank you. If that would happen, the veterans would abandon group finder and they would only play with their friends in premades. 

There are so many good flashpoints that will never pop if there is just one lowbie in the queue, you can't force people to just play the three dumbest ones. Might as well rename it to Esseles/BT, Athiss and Hammer Station finder. Well okay, Athiss isn't bad, it just pops too often. 

 

 

[DragoslavRadanov]

^
Totally agree with Deanna above, but in addition to that

2 hours ago, AFadedMemory said:

greatly increasing the reward for the FPs players don't want to play

regarding this, people absolutely despise having to go through something like BT because of how cutscene dense it is. No skipping makes that FP take an hour+, that's roughly the time it'd take to go through a SM DF/DP run, depending on various factors (group formation time, explaining mechanics, etc). So strictly keeping to time investment you get much much better rewards for doing the dread ops than BT, you'd need to increase the rewards BT gives to be at least equivalent so people would put up with it. 4000 tech frags minimum, 10 gear drops minimum, and (if weekly mission is applicable) 40 activity currency, plus two guaranteed higher iRating crates. I don't see them doing that for BT (or any FP for that matter)

Edited December 1, 2023 by DragoslavRadanov

[AFadedMemory]

1 hour ago, DeannaVoyager said:

Not "could", it would. 

You want to force people to carry low geared newbies without any abilities through Esseles/BT, Athiss and HS all day with a threat of penalty if they decline. No thank you. If that would happen, the veterans would abandon group finder and they would only play with their friends in premades. 

There are so many good flashpoints that will never pop if there is just one lowbie in the queue, you can't force people to just play the three dumbest ones. Might as well rename it to Esseles/BT, Athiss and Hammer Station finder. Well okay, Athiss isn't bad, it just pops too often. 

 

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, Isn't it an option to filter out flashpoints you don't want to play? Wouldn't that also decrease if not eliminate the need to carry low level characters?

[AFadedMemory]

40 minutes ago, DragoslavRadanov said:

^
Totally agree with Deanna above, but in addition to that

regarding this, people absolutely despise having to go through something like BT because of how cutscene dense it is. No skipping makes that FP take an hour+, that's roughly the time it'd take to go through a SM DF/DP run, depending on various factors (group formation time, explaining mechanics, etc). So strictly keeping to time investment you get much much better rewards for doing the dread ops than BT, you'd need to increase the rewards BT gives to be at least equivalent so people would put up with it. 4000 tech frags minimum, 10 gear drops minimum, and (if weekly mission is applicable) 40 activity currency, plus two guaranteed higher iRating crates. I don't see them doing that for BT (or any FP for that matter)

Not to mention the potential to get dragged to DK and be forced to either use your starship or drive out of the spaceport to stronghold jump. I wonder if it would be possible for Broadsword to have the cutscenes auto skipped for the for ES/BT in group finder?

It would definitely be hard to make beginner flashpoint worth it without making other activities less valuable or rewarding. 

Edited December 1, 2023 by AFadedMemory

[xxSHOONYxx]

I don't like fps so whenever i had to do them i had no issues with low levels, i don't need anyone else to do them so idc their level.
But if i ask for spacebar pls and someone wants to watch all that stuff i had to watch for millions of times i cancel the conversation and leave, don't care about the 20 minute penalty.
There are so many issues with fp ranging from difficulty, no reason to do them and having to watch the same cutscene for the millionth time that the slightest penalty added to them will finally kill flashpoints. 

[Gamer_Auto]

Honestly, I don't think this is a good idea. Sometimes an unforeseen emergency pops up and you need to bail, or your connection flubs and you disconnect from the group. I wouldn't want to be punished because something was sprung on me last minute. You could potentially try to account for trolling by implementing this ban if you intentionally leave too many times in a row, but again, sometimes unforeseen events happen in quick succession.

Making FPs happen faster by disabling story cutscenes on Vet and Master diffs would be a far better use of the dev team's time.