Dungeon Finder Needed Badly.

[Iolanthe]

Please leave my server out of this. General Chat has been working just fine! I've made a few friends ta boot.

 

I vote against this idea.

[Varghjerta]

A nice user friendly LFG window sure

 

But leave the Automatic invite/teleportation out from it

[Umbral]

It's too bad we don't have an identifier showing what server the poster is on.

 

I already have a pretty good idea where most of the anti-LFG/LFD reside, but it would be nice if Bioware would pay attention to it.

 

It's very sad that .5% of the game's players are managing to dictate how the rest of us are going to play, even though they could leave their little playacting servers out if it.

[Maccaroth]

There are two sides of this - people are using general chat because they can't find LFG tool or they find it ineffective. I have two thoughts on the matter (I quoted them and changed a bit from my topic which seems to be redundant):

 

- Make chatbox more readable. Everything we say in any chat (save for the guild chat perhaps) is blue and only thing reminding us about that is a short note like [General]. We face the Matrix - the flood of information we have to sort on our own. It'd be good to create and destroy separate channels (like Looking For Group instead of writing it in general chat) with separate color schemes. It'll make life easier for those who are LFG via chatbox and those who try to RP (by switching certain channels off by simple commands).

 

- For now it is underused and people tend to use general chat, because it's more noticeable and easier. I've found myself how to use LFG tool after a few days of playing and found it less effective than simply asking people on general chat (because chatbox seems to be lacking any LFG channel yet). Something must be done with LFG tool or people will find other means to form groups. Make it more visible for everyone begining his journey, let us see (and set) who is looking for what flashpoint/quest/heroic and with whom.

 

Changing chatbox is easier to be applied and could give BioWare some time to develop more refined LFG tool than the one we have in game right now.

Edited January 7, 2012 by Maccaroth

[RachelAnne]

It's too bad we don't have an identifier showing what server the poster is on.

 

I already have a pretty good idea where most of the anti-LFG/LFD reside, but it would be nice if Bioware would pay attention to it.

 

It's very sad that .5% of the game's players are managing to dictate how the rest of us are going to play, even though they could leave their little playacting servers out if it.

 

0,5% wow where did you get this information from?

 

No offence, but if you want to find a group then you will find one. I totally understand if people say that it is hard to find the right guild and that not everything should be build around them.

But a simple 4men group, you will find easily.

 

Look I dont mind having a dungeon tool, I think its a great help and I did vote for the LFR at wow too and after 2 years Blizz really delivered it.

 

Unfortunately did I do this only, because the wow community was allready ruined by the LFG.

 

If you could design an LFG tool, which does not lead to kids that spam you with "GOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOG" when you enter the dungeon. That does not lead to "you suck noob". That does not lead to "you were removed from group" - then be my guest and I am fine with it.

Its the same situation like with addons, Dual spec etc. It does lead to a horrible community and games should be fun, and they are not fun if a small minority of elitist does dictate the rules on groups.

[Orisai]

If you could design an LFG tool, which does not lead to kids that spam you with "GOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOG" when you enter the dungeon. That does not lead to "you suck noob". That does not lead to "you were removed from group" - then be my guest and I am fine with it.

Its the same situation like with addons, Dual spec etc. It does lead to a horrible community and games should be fun, and they are not fun if a small minority of elitist does dictate the rules on groups.

 

You can't blame the tool for the douchebags and re.tards you meet using it, as they are only a fraction of the playerbase that uses it.

[zolthie]

No, everyone should /who 50 and ctrl+v "Hi, would you like to join our flashpoint hardmode group?" 50 times and pray that one guy is retarded enough to not put you on ignore list.

[Umbral]

 

If you could design an LFG tool, which does not lead to kids that spam you with "GOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOG" when you enter the dungeon. That does not lead to "you suck noob". That does not lead to "you were removed from group" - then be my guest and I am fine with it.

All those things are currently happening in many many SWTOR groups right at this very moment, so it's pretty clear that those issues have nothing to do with a LFG/LFD tool.

[Khoranth]

A nice user friendly LFG window sure

 

But leave the Automatic invite/teleportation out from it

 

Agree, a server only LFG tool would be nice, but never a queue automated system. and never cross server.

[Losikar]

0,5% wow where did you get this information from?

 

No offence, but if you want to find a group then you will find one. I totally understand if people say that it is hard to find the right guild and that not everything should be build around them.

But a simple 4men group, you will find easily.

 

 

I'm sorry, but on some servers finding a simple 4 man group, and especially on republic side requires hours of waiting. Sometimes, yes i find one rather quick, but most time it's literally hours.

 

Please don't go around saying it so easy for you and therefore every1 else on every server, because it's not.

[Putok]

0,5% wow where did you get this information from?

 

No offence, but if you want to find a group then you will find one. I totally understand if people say that it is hard to find the right guild and that not everything should be build around them.

But a simple 4men group, you will find easily.

 

Look I dont mind having a dungeon tool, I think its a great help and I did vote for the LFR at wow too and after 2 years Blizz really delivered it.

 

Unfortunately did I do this only, because the wow community was allready ruined by the LFG.

 

If you could design an LFG tool, which does not lead to kids that spam you with "GOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOG" when you enter the dungeon. That does not lead to "you suck noob". That does not lead to "you were removed from group" - then be my guest and I am fine with it.

Its the same situation like with addons, Dual spec etc. It does lead to a horrible community and games should be fun, and they are not fun if a small minority of elitist does dictate the rules on groups.

 

I have run literally thousands of randoms in WoW, and I have been kicked ONCE. I have never been berated for my performance, nor is it something I've seen.

 

You run into jerks from time to time, but it's really extremely uncommon. I think the people experiencing these issues to this extreme should stop, and think if there is something they are doing personally to cause these problems. I just don't experience them, and I have done A LOT of randoms, on a number of characters, and I'm not godlike with all of them.

[Kfab]

WoW was successful long long before it had a Dungeon Finder. It didn't implement it until the third major content patch of the second expansion. I'm not sure if Rift qualifies as one of the most successful MMOs since 2004. I'm sure there are others like Eve that have done better. I don't have numbers to back me up though so i'll let that one lie.

 

I didn't read the whole thread so sorry if some of this has been brought up before but the biggest problems with CROSS SERVER dungeon finders are

 

1.) No consequences. People can act like jerks and ninja gear and you'll never see them again. In WoW before the Dungeon Finder this behavior was rather limited because people who did it often were blacklisted and had a hellofa time finding a group.

 

2.) No socialization. I did read the first 40 posts or so and I saw a lot of " There's no socialization in spamming LFG" but what they don't realize or think about is that the socialization of a hand made group doesn't begin and end with the forming of a group like it does with the dungeon finder.

 

In Cata WoW socialization 90% of the time during dungeons is "Hi" at the beginning and "TFTG" at the end. That's it, because there's no reason to have more. You're never going to see these people again.

 

With a hand made group you're more likely to socialize because if you like the people and you have fun then you can add them to your friends list and next time you need a group instead of "spamming general" you can whisper your friends. Guilds and spamming weren't the only way to form groups pre 3.3 and the dungeon finder. People had extensive friends lists.

 

This ^^^

 

LFD is about 80% of the reason I left WoW behind. The community was in a downward spiral to begin with. LFD flushed it down the toilet completely.

[BadgeredMushroom]

There is already a group finding tool in the game. Hit O, go to the WHO tab, flag yourself as looking for a group, and set your comment. You can then search for other people using the search function in the tool and find folks who are flagged for a variety of things.

 

The problem with this tool is that very few people know it exists. If everyone used it we'd be in good shape. Could it use improvements? Absolutely. I much prefer the DDO-style group tool over this one. As long as we stay away from community crushing LFD queues I don't care what they end up doing as long as it works and they give it the exposure it deserves.

[Griminal]

Just relax, they'll add one eventually.

[Kazim]

There is already a group finding tool in the game. Hit O, go to the WHO tab, flag yourself as looking for a group, and set your comment. You can then search for other people using the search function in the tool and find folks who are flagged for a variety of things.

 

The problem with this tool is that very few people know it exists. If everyone used it we'd be in good shape. Could it use improvements? Absolutely. I much prefer the DDO-style group tool over this one. As long as we stay away from community crushing LFD queues I don't care what they end up doing as long as it works and they give it the exposure it deserves.

 

I tried this once. Flagged myself for the Belsavis dailies. I was the only one flagged for 2 hours.

 

Then tried doing the same for heroic BT, and in addition to that, spammed the general chat on the fleet every 3 minutes. 2 hours later, no group.

 

This game badly needs a LFD tool.

[Kormah]

I personally feel there should be a lfg system.

 

You don't have to use the system you could still spam "LFG". Of course on some lower population servers you would do this in chat for hours... looking for a tank or healer. Spamming LFG on higher pop servers only works if you have other people around your level.

 

After everyone gets to 50 yes you can do 50 instances but what happens to lower level instances? What if I wanted to do an instance on an alt but there was nobody my level to do it with?

 

For WoW players anyone who played the before WoW had their LFG system cross server knew that it was nearly impossible to get groups for lower level instances. I personally ended up having a friend who was max level run me through them.

 

Let me state it again in case my point was missed. You dont have to use the LFG tool, but I feel that for those who want a LFG tool there should be one.

[illutionz]

That's an argument against general chat, not one for the LFG tool.

 

A game with a good community would forsake world/zone spanning channels all together.

 

This would mean you MUST socialize and befriend people.

 

A lot of today's MMO players didn't play in the golden age of MMOs, where people made long term friendships and sometimes even met their future wives/husbands.

 

Two of my best gaming friends met online, moved in together and have now been married for 5+ years.

 

That kind of stuff doesn't happen in modern MMOs because of the push for LFD tools, world spanning LFG channels and other such community destroying mechanics.

 

There was a time when people used /say to talk to each other in MMOs, and it was a beautiful time.

 

Amongst all the reply here, I feel I need to respond to this one.

 

First of all, you mentioned that in old days "people made long term friendships and sometimes even met their future wives/husbands". Now, this is great and I am certainly happy for your friends. Unfortunately, your assessment that LFG tools destroy the community is clearly incorrect.

 

You must've realized what had transpired within the past 1-2 decades? Internet has become a common infrastructure and studies has shown that in the US alone, internet penetration has reached approximately 80%. This means there will be more "type" of people will have access to your MMO genre and it is not the niche genre it was once before. There will be more "hardcore" people who are all about world #1 boss or top PvP rank and there will also be more of "casual" people who only play the game 2 hours a week at max.

 

This is inevitable and LFG tools has no bearings whatsoever.

 

In addition to that, the advent of Social Networking such as Facebook and Twitter has made people more connected with their friends ever before. This has diminished the function of socializing in MMO when they can just do FaceTime, texting, some Facebook chat or Google Hangouts video chat to talk to their friends... With such connected world, MMO is not one of the few avenue for socializing it was once before... rather it's one of many.

 

In fact, I feel that MMO nowadays has become another avenue for people to be "competitive" over the internet. Look at the E-Sports scene nowadays compared to 1-2 decades ago.

 

Now, due to the changing demographics as I mentioned earlier (more people with internet access), businesses who want to be successful and profitable need to cater to the masses (a.k.a lowest common denominator). This includes easier and more accessible gameplay as well as making sure the quality of life in their MMO is up to today's standard. LFG tool is one of these quality of life enhancement and trust me, there are not many people who are willing to spam general chat for hours to find a group. These people will eventually get frustrated and leave... I'm sure in your opinion, it might be a good thing for these people to leave but unfortunately poor earning result due to SWTOR failure will just make EA/Bioware to cancel the game as it is their fiduciary duty to serve their shareholders. This means in the long run you will be forced out of this game too when they shut the server down.

 

Sorry, the world changed. MMO is not what it was once before. I don't know what the future of MMO will hold but I know for a fact that LFG tool has no bearing on the destruction of MMO community.

[RoaRawR]

destroy community? if it locked to server it not destroying anything......

 

rather have a LFG worldwide channel so I don't need to stand on the fleet and stare into space

 

there is a chance of trolls but to be honest the community (atleast on the servers) are a little more mature then most other mmos (from my experience)

[Deepmemories]

Dungeon finder to mmos is like toilet paper to you know what.

[HoneyBoy]

Sorry, the world changed. MMO is not what it was once before. I don't know what the future of MMO will hold but I know for a fact that LFG tool has no bearing on the destruction of MMO community.

 

First off, awesome post illutionz!

 

I'm tired of people trying to say "LFG tool destroys community!" when it's entirely anecdotal.

 

Hey look a WoW player did a community inspired event a few months ago that captured the attention of her realm and WoW's biggest blog site:

 

http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/12/08/the-broken-doll-roleplaying-storyline-chills-hundreds-on-moon-gu/

 

Hey here's more community stuff:

 

http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/09/22/15-minutes-of-fame-care-packages-spur-renaissance-of-community/

 

Of course this is anecdotal as well but as you can see it's up to each individual player to contribute to feelings of "community". The LFD just offers a nice convenience for people who want to experience the content. Obviously community and LFD can both co-exist.

[SOONERFREAK]

No at 4am my time 2am server I was able to find a group for a heroic on korriban. Yeah it's a starter planet but it still only had 35 people on.

[HoneyBoy]

No at 4am my time 2am server I was able to find a group for a heroic on korriban. Yeah it's a starter planet but it still only had 35 people on.

 

Translation: My 1 unique experience means everyone else experiences the same thing and all the posts about difficulty finding a group are negated.

[Antille]

i vote for a LFG system. Im sure eventually they will do one.

[schukara]

so far today iv spent 10h looking for a hm fp group sitting on fleet owell 4 more and i go to bed and im on a busy server

[HalusW]

You can also try every modern MMO made since 2004. They all have dungeon finders.

 

And yet you are playing SWTOR and not them....curious. This game was in development forever, they did not overlook this feature they chose not to have it.