Should LFD have ever been implemented?

[Deleted]

So getting a group is a part of the game now?
You may complain that the game is about queue'ing now, but even that would be better than a game that apparently is about spamming chat.

Getting the group together isn't part of the journey.
So if you want to compare it with anything, compare it with an obstacle blocking your door that prevents you from going on a journey.

Hahaha, what a load of crap. You NEVER had to socialize in World of Warcraft!
It was all about "LFM XXX" and linking our attack, healing or spell power or telling them your unbuffed HP.
Most PUG-raids and dungeons contained no communication except the CC-targets.
Claiming that everyone was having fun and chatting or making jokes with each other is just a lie.

LFD was implemented because it sucked if you had to wait for over an hour before you got a group.
LFD fixed that and that was the only thing it changed to the game, it did NOTHING to the community; the community was always this socially retarded.

Yours is a completely delusional, onesided and fundamentally wrong point of view that isn't really going anywhere.

Yes getting a group and going there was part of the journey. Only lazies spammed chat and thank god they were rightfully ignored by most of the people.

Again, getting a group together (10-15 mins max at 10 pm in tbc) wasn't much of an issue for normal, polite people. Social awkwardness shouldn't be rewarded you know?

You never had to socialise in wow? Ah I see you must have been one of them. The ones that didn't say a single thing apart from "Rez pls" and were rightfully kicked and ignored. Yes for people like you lfd is a great success of course.
For normal people that cared about their character instead, having a good reputation server wise was as important as having good gear. It got you groups faster, a better chance to get into guilds and raids if you wanted to, and generally it made you feel good. Same reason why if in real life someone tells you "hi" you reply "hi". Same feeling.
Again, social awkwardness shouldn't be rewarded, it's no your fault you're born that way but it definitely isn't mine.

Edit: and yes I knew exactly who was reliable and who wasn't server wise. I know it might sound strange to you but people cared about the social aspect of wow when there was one.
Maybe that's why people avoided you?

[Roose]

I hate LFG as is. I do think it was needed, but I would much prefer a same-server concept where social interaction was still important. I would have also kept heroics difficult enough to make communication in heroics mandatory. I hate aoe fests.

[Deleted]

I hate LFG as is. I do think it was needed, but I would much prefer a same-server concept where social interaction was still important. I would have also kept heroics difficult enough to make communication in heroics mandatory. I hate aoe fests.

Yes. Maybe adding one server or two. And DFINITELY add a bit of challenge back in the pot. One shot if you grab aggro and need for cc's.
"They tried in cata but people left", yes well people aren't running back now are they?

[SidheKnight]

LFD is one of WoW's best features.

The problem with current dungeons is that they're too easy, but that's not the tool's fault. Remember early-Cata? It was heaven. Then the Wrath babies complained..

[Deleted]

LFD is one of WoW's best features.

The problem with current dungeons is that they're too easy, but that's not the tool's fault. Remember early-Cata? It was heaven. Then the Wrath babies complained..

That's true, you're right. Once you make communication a vital part of the game again, then I am sure there would be a different kind of lfd around.
There are other issues that lfd brings though, mainly the fact that one can behave as he pleases anyway he won't be able to be kicked, and loot issues. But I think those can be addressed as well somehow.

Lfd is a great tool, but a developer should know better and avoid giving in to people complaining. Efficiency is an ugly beast that needs to be balanced properly in my opinion.

[Lord Blackmore]

Yes getting a group and going there was part of the journey. Only lazies spammed chat and thank god they were rightfully ignored by most of the people.

No. It wasn't part of the journey. I didn't feel like some sort of adventurer going starting an epic quest when I was trying to get people for a group. On my server, it was a big pain in the ass. I had lots of in game friends and a healthy friends list. But that doesn't mean jack when people aren't on or there isn't the right set of classes to run dungeons or whatever.

And I have no earthly idea what "Only lazies spammed chat" means. People looking for group members in chat were the furthest thing from lazy. Lazy is sitting around hoping someone is looking for people.

Again, getting a group together (10-15 mins max at 10 pm in tbc) wasn't much of an issue for normal, polite people. Social awkwardness shouldn't be rewarded you know?

Your experience was your experience. It wasn't a universal experience that all players had. Especially since everytime this comes up there are people such as myself who's experiences differ markedly from your experience. Servers all had different personalities and for some servers, I presume it was easy to get groups and on others no so much. Have some respect when people say their experience was different from yours.

People having a hard time getting groups had far less to do with the "social awkwardness" that you look down your nose at, than a myriad of other factors.

For normal people that cared about their character instead, having a good reputation server wise was as important as having good gear. It got you groups faster, a better chance to get into guilds and raids if you wanted to, and generally it made you feel good. Same reason why if in real life someone tells you "hi" you reply "hi". Same feeling.

Can you explain what "normal people" means? Because it sounds like condescending BS to me.

Edit: and yes I knew exactly who was reliable and who wasn't server wise. I know it might sound strange to you but people cared about the social aspect of wow when there was one

I don't believe that for a second.

[Deleted]

yes - but playing with a premade from your realm or bnet list should be rewarded better. lfd should be the last resort kind of thing when you just can't find that last player or are playing on off hours on a small realm.

therefore the new heroic scenarios go in the right direction.

[Lord Blackmore]

I hate LFG as is. I do think it was needed, but I would much prefer a same-server concept where social interaction was still important. I would have also kept heroics difficult enough to make communication in heroics mandatory. I hate aoe fests.

The only benefit of a same server LFG would be that people wouldn't be tied to a major city while they wait for a group to form. Queues would be extraordinarily long, except on the most highly populated servers. Same server LFG also penalizes smaller servers.

[Deleted]

Too bad that my delusional, onesided and fundamentally wrong point of view is actually a pretty precise picture of how things went back then.
But people were okay with that "anti-social" stuff.
They had the occasional stranger that became a friend, real friends and guildies to talk with and to do all that stuff with.
The only problem was when you wanted to use general chat for a dungeon, then you had to wait for an hour.
Main issue being: Ask friends > ask guildies > ask general chat for an hour.
Now they fixed this by making it: Ask friends > ask guildies > join LFD for 10 minutes.

What part of having your friends offline is considered lazy nowadays?
5 minutes of chat contained hundreds of people looking for a tank or healer.

No, you were never forced to do anything like that.
I've been on the EU biggest servers and its social contacts were mostly kept between IRL-friends and guilds.


People never avoided me.
But hey, I'm not the one who is incapable of talking to people.
That's why I don't have a problem with the new system: I STILL TALK TO PEOPLE. I didn't let LFD or LFR change that!

It's quite ironic that people like you are calling others socially awkward while at the same time being the people who cannot communicate with anyone.

It isn't precise at all. It's purely anectodal. Same here, anectodal experience but I too played in the busiest eu realms, always late and never had a single issue.
I can't understand what you're saying in the rest of the first part of your post so I can't reply to that.
You had IRL friends in game, good for you. I didn't, many I knew in game didn't so try to stretch a little bit and see the other side of the point you're making too. Regarding guildies. Were they ok if you acted like a dick around the place?
In argent dawn, guilds were renowned for having immature members and doing nothing about it.

Guess what, I talk too in lfd. Well I used to before I left the game. I recently started again and I'm levelling a warrior from scratch no heirlooms in one of the busiest pvp servers in eu. I tank so people do what I want to do, and I always try to avoid the rush in and out aoe fest. I try to talk to people but hey THEY DON'T ANSWER BACK.
It's ok because anyway THANKS TO LFD once the dungeon is over its back to reque and fuck everyone you met.
THIS I don't like.

[Drilnos]

It should have shipped with Vanilla WoW, right out of the box.

[Deleted]

No. It wasn't part of the journey. I didn't feel like some sort of adventurer going starting an epic quest when I was trying to get people for a group. On my server, it was a big pain in the ass. I had lots of in game friends and a healthy friends list. But that doesn't mean jack when people aren't on or there isn't the right set of classes to run dungeons or whatever.

And I have no earthly idea what "Only lazies spammed chat" means. People looking for group members in chat were the furthest thing from lazy. Lazy is sitting around hoping someone is looking for people.



Your experience was your experience. It wasn't a universal experience that all players had. Especially since everytime this comes up there are people such as myself who's experiences differ markedly from your experience. Servers all had different personalities and for some servers, I presume it was easy to get groups and on others no so much. Have some respect when people say their experience was different from yours.

People having a hard time getting groups had far less to do with the "social awkwardness" that you look down your nose at, than a myriad of other factors.



Can you explain what "normal people" means? Because it sounds like condescending BS to me.



I don't believe that for a second.

You're taking my post out of context. It was an answer to a previous post that had extremely personal anectodal experiences put in and marked as truth. I was doing the same to counter his points. So read it in that way.

Laziness in my opinion when looking for a group is sitting there spamming "LFM MT" again and again and again and again. His is laziness and this is what I meant. The times I was short of a tank or healer or DPS I would kindly address the rest of the server as you do in real life when you talk to people and they would more then often reply happily.
Have you heard of "if your short of please is pls my short of yes is no"? Or was it different i cant remember.

What is it you don't believe? That I knew which guilds were known to have mature members? Which ones didn't give a fuck? Which ones were elitists pricks? Which ones were time wasters? Which ones had great rpers? Which ones had a bit of all? Who were the ones you could pug with? Who was rude?

It's not that hard you know? That was argent dawn in tbc and wrath for me. Although the end of wrath was already affected by it.

[Batix]

Knowing now what the results of the implementation were, I'm going to say no.

I miss the old days when people from the same server had to get together, and go and do something. You built friendships back then.

[xixixviixiiii]

Yes, LFR & (especially) LFD serve a purpose. I feel like the game was better when LFR did not exist because it causes burn-out among normal raiders 2-3 times as fast, following mechanics is mostly optional and the experience, generally, is (and has always been) pretty awful. Now that it is here to stay seemingly, I feel like the incentive for normal, heroic & (soon) flex raiders to run LFR should be removed and the LFR gear should be equal to last tier ilevel.

With LFD, I can sympathize with people who proclaim they miss the older, harder dungeons, the social aspect of it all and whatever but realistically, LFD was one of the best things that have ever happened to this game. Finding a group could be a serious pain sometimes (especially for alts-- can you imagine trying to find dungeons on a level 45 alt you have now, it would be nearly impossible!) and I really liked the Wrath / Cataclysm style catch-up system with JP buying last tier items.

[Osmeric]

GC himself said he might well have quit without LFD.

[FenrisUy]

'cause they are, in practice, mutually exclusive, as explained in the post just above yours.

- - - Updated - - -


No, it's not part of the game anymore. It was at the beginning, and it should. The very fact that you consider it bogus, while playing a MMO, shows how fucked up WoW has become.
Let me repeat it again : you're playing a MMO and are going to play a team-based part of the game. And you find it ridiculous that finding the group with which you'll play is part of the game. Do you even realize what you're saying ?

That's probably the real reason why you had so much trouble finding/running groups and why you're so happy about LFD.
It's funny how often it's the people who couldn't manage to socialize who support LFD. Maybe there is quite a bit of causality.
(and yes, the "maybe" is completely rhetorical)

I socialize with my raid group. Or with the people that I pug raids with. But that doesn't means that I want to bother them to come with me on my second or third alt to do a heroic dungeon. They have other things to do, and other play hours when we are not raiding, and as such I end needing to pug the dungeons, now with LFD I can do other things while I queue that dungeon.

[Deleted]

A "Remove lf tools!"
How original

[Lord Blackmore]

Y
What is it you don't believe? That I knew which guilds were known to have mature members? Which ones didn't give a fuck? Which ones were elitists pricks? Which ones were time wasters? Which ones had great rpers? Which ones had a bit of all? Who were the ones you could pug with? Who was rude?

Knowing guilds is different that knowing people. My point was that it's impossible to know everybody on a server and there were a lot of people who never showed up on anybody's radar.

Sorry that I took the rest out of context. That said, it bothers me when so many people seem to assume that people who didn't have the greatest time getting groups are somehow lacking in the social skills department or assume that their experience getting groups easily meant others had the same experience.

[Odina]

There is no correct answer and most will be based on personal opinion.

However I believe Yes and No.

Had they had the new CRZ and virtual realms that they will have now then the feature would not have been needed. However at the time they released it and how it was implemented it was very much needed. Finding groups and getting one to finish had become a very hard task on some servers and the need to be able to have players actually play what was being developed had to be resolved. As such the LFD was a very success full tool but it also came with the negative side efect of lowering overall inter server community as many of the groups that would run dungeons and form them were no longer needed. Another thing that went out ht edoor was accountability of behavior in the dungeons because lets face it chances are you were never going to resee the players again VS the all server groups where you could get blakc listed FAST not only from pug's but potentially from guilds who didn't want to be a ssociated with you.

So there was a plus and a minus but blizz released a feature that was needed at that time and though there are negatives it was a needed evil to get peoepl to be able to see the content! Too bad virtual realms were not tossed out first to solve this issue

[Deleted]

It's quite easy to understand.
People are acting as if classic was a paradise where you had little chats and made friends everywhere in general chat while getting groups within minutes.
That is false, most players did not have that experience. That is why they implemented LFD.

As you can see, I joined this forum in 07/2008.
Before that I have read endless complaints on how long it took during TBC to get a group, it was an even hotter topic than "WoW is dying"-threads.
The fact that they got this feedback from every one and their granny is the reason they implemented LFD.

Your point? I wasn't a dick and I had enough friends.
My point is that when I needed to do a dungeon without them, I had to jump in the gigantic ocean of "LFG dungeon!"-people and it took at least an hour no matter how friendly and socially capable I was.

So in short: You are blaming LFD for people not responding to you?
Maybe it's time you blame the people instead of LFD.

I didn't mean you specifically as "being a dick"

Oh yes I do, I do blame the people, very much so. And I repeat, under the right circumstances, lfd would have been a great tool. I just think the current mix of aoe fest, younger audience (my opinion), and lfd is an atrocious unholy mix an experienced dweller (developer* you stupid fucking iphone) should avoid like the plague it is.

[MagicBanana]

LFD is awesome, if you dont like it go make your own pugs? I dont see the problem here.

Removing it would just be a big step backwards in convenience and piss more people off.