Dungeon finder.

[Kouki]

Hello forum the following was what i posted in reply to someones thread.
About what he thought were reasons for lost subs in wow, this is one of the ideas i stick by to this day.
As it pertains to Swtor, i wanted to know what the current mmo champ swtor fans think about the dungeon finder.

What do you think about the Random Dungeon finder mmo's eventually come up with now?

What ive noticed is before the game gets a system if the game is multi server people have to find a common area or channel (swtor lacks a trade chat) and find ppl to run the dungeon with on the same server.

When the group does a good run people add the tank and healer to friendslist etc, sometimes even invite them to guilds.

Later people will use the friendslist to find people who like doing the same activity dungeons pvp etc.
Guilds were jokingly called the extended friendslist or friend channel.

After you add the Random system, initially its all good people talk chat get to know each other, till they realise they cant ever play again.
And then you go silent ignoring whats said /quit if you die too much or outright being insulting to people over your countless wipes.

Random Dungeon finder is now killing rift, I quit after the first month it was not in game, dungeons were /trade groups.
But then during the 6 month half birthday free week, I tried the random dungeon and just like in wow they are already at the silent stage.

SwTor currently has no /trade that links major worlds.
And in /who has a comment you use to say your looking for a group, and an icon by your name flagging you as looking for a group.
Is it perfect hell no, but you play with people on your server people you can play with again chat trade with and play the game together.

/cheer to bioware for knowing whats good whats bad and not caving in to the vocal minority.

[Tackhisis]

Do you realise that Rift has exactly 0 newblood now, and every player has been in every dungeon before? Why do they want to talk when they just need to push forward where actual fun is?

I was in many guilds but never happen to run dungeons with them, it's just not convenient. The automatic dungeon finder ensures fair play and is the best thing that can happen on game. If developers are lenient implementing it, they just shoot their product in the foot in the long run.

[pyrotemplar]

Do you realise that Rift has exactly 0 newblood now, and every player has been in every dungeon before? Why do they want to talk when they just need to push forward where actual fun is?

I was in many guilds but never happen to run dungeons with them, it's just not convenient. The automatic dungeon finder ensures fair play and is the best thing that can happen on game. If developers are lenient implementing it, they just shoot their product in the foot in the long run.

sir im going to have to disagree with you on that, it is actually one of the worst things that could happen to an MMO, DF kills community's another thing that is bad for MMO's are flying mounts. they destroy world pvp.

[TheConsumer]

Actually DF doesn't kill communities since you can still look for groups if you want to. All it does is save your time.I was a tank in TBC and I'd be damned if I had to return to the days of spamming trade for 2 hours just to find people for an instance.

[sleekit]

it doesn't have to be a black and white argument.
there is room for innovation

an opt in global chat perhaps
a single server player matching system for questing, instancing and pvp perhaps

[pyrotemplar]

Actually DF doesn't kill communities since you can still look for groups if you want to. All it does is save your time.I was a tank in TBC and I'd be damned if I had to return to the days of spamming trade for 2 hours just to find people for an instance.

really 2 hours looking for a group AS A TANK. that sound about right.

OT: agree with sleekit it could be place in a server style where everyone can still talk to each other and play with each other after the DF. but when u start adding cross servers and you know you wont see that person again, there is no need to speak or be polite to them since it wont matter.

[Thornstar]

I think if done correctly a Dungeon Finder could be a very valuable tool to use. I think for leveling instances being able to que up and continue questing is nice. I think having the same server only on your DF would also make the community stronger too. Top level stuff though and on I do not think should be in a dungeon finder. If Bioware added a DF 6 months down the road I think that would help many new people as less and less people will be rolling new characters ( or maybe even more people who knows lol, I know I plan to have all 8 classes max)

All in all it is a balancing act. Done correctly the system could strengthen communities and help you find people your own level. Done incorrectly it could very well destroy server communities. Only time will tell if they add a DF and if it will in anyway affect the communities.

[Kouki]

really 2 hours looking for a group AS A TANK. that sound about right.

OT: agree with sleekit it could be place in a server style where everyone can still talk to each other and play with each other after the DF. but when u start adding cross servers and you know you wont see that person again, there is no need to speak or be polite to them since it wont matter.

Like i said, its not perfect but it wont cause the problem atm.

I like that ppl at least in this thread have the idea for only using your server, thats good.

[-Ethos-]

I'll throw my own personal opinions into this.

What do you think about the Random Dungeon finder mmo's eventually come up with now?

It was actually one of the best implementations Blizzard have ever done. Back when Heroic dungeons were hard (like needing 2 healers to heal Arcatraz heroic), the worst thing that could possbly happen was losing a tank half-way through and having to get someone to hearth to Shatt and sit in trade waiting for a tank, if you were lucky enough to get one, you would run outside, fly down to the stone, summon, fly back up to the instance and then you'd find out the person who left was the one with the key to get inside....
So then the group would disband and if you wanted to go back, you'd have to form a group all over again.

When the group does a good run people add the tank and healer to friendslist etc, sometimes even invite them to guilds.

Later people will use the friendslist to find people who like doing the same activity dungeons pvp etc.
Guilds were jokingly called the extended friendslist or friend channel.

I'll definitely agree, this experience is the greatest loss with the LFD system.

After you add the Random system, initially its all good people talk chat get to know each other, till they realise they cant ever play again.
And then you go silent ignoring whats said /quit if you die too much or outright being insulting to people over your countless wipes.

This is not quite correct, there are some people who prefer to get in, kill the boss, get their stuff, and get out. Others however will try and make small talk or joke around, if its not happening in your group the only advice i can give is try and start it. Personally, when Cataclysm first came out, it was actually really enjoyable getting groups during the race to 85 because myself and a few guildies would often encounter the same tanks or DPS in dungeon runs (i presume because so many quested to 85 instead of dungeoning). It brought back some memories of the pre LFD experience but whilst still using the system.

I think if new games are to implement it, at least limit it to the single server at first (or at most, a couple - like battlegroups on a smaller scale). I think thats the best way to compromise between the experience, and the system.

[Deleted]

Actually DF doesn't kill communities since you can still look for groups if you want to. All it does is save your time.I was a tank in TBC and I'd be damned if I had to return to the days of spamming trade for 2 hours just to find people for an instance.

Let's look at the benefits of Dungeon Finder:

+15% buff to health/damage/healing
The potential for a bag containing gold and potentially rare loot if you're a healer/tank
Replacements readily available
No need to travel to instances

So of course, you 'could' make groups for instance, but the argument fails when the fact that DF groups having an advantage over manually made groups is brought into the occasion. It's like going to a restaurant and turning down the free dessert they offer you. Sure you could, but why would you? It's free, convenient stuff.

EDIT: I have discovered this is yet another SWTOR thread; those guys at Bioware must delight in fooling me with using about 90% of the same terms we use for WoW.

[Fencers]

@OP

I don't have any particular dislike or hatred of dungeon finder tools. The times when I do PUG are mostly during non-peak hours or for content that might be a bit out-of-date. In that respect, LFD-like tools usually work in my favor. However, I am not the type of player who is interested in MMOs as a social lobby first/game second. Thus I PUG so rarely that LFD nonexistence is of little overall consequence.

That being said, I have never noticed a greater or lesser degree of friendlessness (or vileness) on any given server pre/post LFD tools. From Warcraft, Rift. LOTRO, EQ2 and Aion- LFG features have mostly been pleasant for me.

Furthermore, I believe the non-talkyness phenomena is mostly due to the change in MMO culture. When LFG tools were introduced the 5 man experience became more of a daily task (LFG bonuses) rather than what you did for serious play vis-a-vis raiding. With raiding becoming more the norm of endgame and the rise of voice communication out-of-game, it simply came down to people don't have a lot to say in the 150th Iron Tombs or Nexus run other than "Hi."

To be honest, PUGing pre-LFG features only rarely were folks verbose during a run. Mostly they gave out quick strategies and asked, "R?". That's as far back original EQ1 for me.

SW:TOR devs have publicly stated they believe LFG tools work best as a game matures. They said they will add the feature in due time. So it will happened eventuality, we just don't know when. Meeting Sally Standsinfire out in the Barrens is not modern MMOing.

[Viertel]

sir im going to have to disagree with you on that, it is actually one of the worst things that could happen to an MMO, DF kills community's another thing that is bad for MMO's are flying mounts. they destroy world pvp.

Wrong.

Humanity kills the community in games. People like to think of WoW as some rose-scented game before the EVUL DUNGEN FINDUR came out and raped all your wives and children. Newsflash: the community in WoW was exclusive to the nth degree during all of Vanilla WoW. Good guilds were difficult to get into because of the forced progression of absolutely *requiring* you to gear your entire raiding force throughout the raid tier structure (MC > BWL > AQ40 > Naxx). AQ20 and ZG20 were designed to supplement missions slots and help gear up those raiders faster. You didn't group outside of the guild a lot, and you sure as fuck didn't raid outside of your guild. Communities were insulated and scared as shit of losing people because of the absolute *bitch* gearing was.

What did you do, as a whole 'community within the server' that was so god damned important? Answer: NOTHING. You didn't band together and sing songs around a campfire. You didn't raise awareness for gearing choices and hold public "What Not to Do in a Raid!" meetings in the middle of your capital cities. You didn't have this great sense of belonging so that people genuinely hurt when others quit and left the server. Stop trying to imagine this foolish and non-existant "magical server community" and looking stupid.

What did you do beforehand when you needed to find a group? You stayed in a city and spammed a LFG channel.

What did you do after dungeon finder came out? You harvested, quested, PvPed, and did random others things while waiting on a queue.

Dungeon finder doesn't do a fucking thing do your community. The people themselves ruined it; not a damn tool the developers created to make finding a group easier. What destroyed WoW is the fact that once arenas and heroic dungeons were put into the game (in TBC mind you), the entire game became nothing more than this gear race.

You want to blame someone for your community going to shit? Blame yourselves for contributing to human nature on the internet and blame Blizzard for being lazy as fuck with not ever creating different content once they got into their rut.

I'm so tired of idiots and fucking morons ranting about how "LOL DF KILL MUH SERVUR" when no one gave a shit who you were before the dungeon finder came out and no one gave a shit afterwards.

[sleekit]

Viertel, let me tell you a story

when i first started playing wow i rolled a Priest
i pvped as soon as i could and quickly found out i was the major target on the battlefield for a weird looking bunch of players with glowing swords and funny armor.

they were all in a guild called ET Phone Gnome...

later i asked the best pvper on the server resplendent in his unique armour standing next to our Scarab Lord in the Hall of Arms in Ironforge about them and he told me they were something called "twinks" and if i wanted to beat them i'd have to do what they do and research all the best stuff and and fight fire with fire...going away with this svengali like advice i did exactly that.

after much thought i rolled a hunter.

this was waaaay back before wowhead and the likes had really took off and you had find out loads of stuff yourself. it was so long ago that +nature damage on the fang set boosted the poison damge proc from venomstrike. its was sooo long ago i got the comment "twink hunter ? you don't see many of those" and the guy wasn't taking the piss

i got myself a boar and had a whale of a time hunting my nemesi for months possibly even even years, helping hapless teams of newbie dwarfs and gnomes in the occasionally glorious 2/3 victory and the like....and then one day they were gone.

point being i know for a fact what you're saying isn't true. i know it from this game and i know it from plenty others (not least LOTRO)

PS. and y'know those 5 day AVs ? i want that in SWTOR. gimmie a planet siege with bosses and loads of summonable crap that almost never ends :P

[pocky_rin]

I think DF is like LIDL, now everyone goes to the outskirts of town to shop in LIDL rather than the local shops, because they have more variety/cheaper easier to use etc. But before that in a town you would greet the shopkeep by name, and he back, perhaps ask you about your kids. DF is not the entire reason that the community is deteriorating but it is a massive help. The more anonymity you have online the more it seems to encourage most but not all people to act like idiots and jackasses. For the proof of how loving and caring a completely anonymous community can be, well u only have to look as far as... Meh if you missed out of the community that existed in vanilla you really missed out on something special. It wasnt just DF, it was more that nobody knew much about the game, so they were all humbled by that lack of knowledge. Thats not something you can really ever get back, the game has been made so easy to grasp everyone is an expert in too short of time, so they dont need anything from anyone, no reason for chat.

[Kouki]

Let's look at the benefits of Dungeon Finder:

+15% buff to health/damage/healing
The potential for a bag containing gold and potentially rare loot if you're a healer/tank
Replacements readily available
No need to travel to instances

So of course, you 'could' make groups for instance, but the argument fails when the fact that DF groups having an advantage over manually made groups is brought into the occasion. It's like going to a restaurant and turning down the free dessert they offer you. Sure you could, but why would you? It's free, convenient stuff.

EDIT: I have discovered this is yet another SWTOR thread; those guys at Bioware must delight in fooling me with using about 90% of the same terms we use for WoW.

A loot bag for tanks and healers never for dps is unfair already. ok fair to 2/3 of ppl so i guess it sucks being dps.
not to mention dps que times suck.

But after that the problem is you cant be a tank take even 1 guildie or friend and get that bag you need to play by yourself.

Play by yourself in a multiplayer mmo? wth.

---------- Post added 2011-12-31 at 07:22 AM ----------

I absolutely hate the dungeon finder dynamics. I can't even get people to reply with a "hello" in a group. Is it asking too much from people to communicate what's going on? One guy wants to skip a boss, one guy wants to kill the extra boss, etc. They won't type it out. They won't even respond if you ask them. They'll just hop around or wait in front of that extra boss until everyone else gets what he's waiting there for. It's just frustrating. I've become very non-hesitant to kick people like this now. If you can't take the time to type a simple sentence out to tell us all what you're doing, I don't have the time to figure it out.

Thanks for letting me rant.

Im glad im not the only one who thinks there is a problem here.

Well as has been suggested i think if Swtor And Guildwars 2 only do a server Que system, where you play with ppl you can actually interact with and quest with and do other in game things that it would be good.

But they need to ballance server and faction if there are factions in the game for population reasons better then just let low pop servers be low pop.

[SamR]

+15% buff to health/damage/healing
The potential for a bag containing gold and potentially rare loot if you're a healer/tank
Replacements readily available
No need to travel to instances

Most people who do form their own groups in WoW just queue the group up for LFD.

Even if you want to work a specific heroic for achievements, you can queue for a specific dungeon in LFD and still get the advantages of instant teleport and easy replacement should someone drop.

I bet now people are going to argue that spending an hour to find a replacement tank was what made the WoW community so awesome in vanilla/TBC.

The WoW community was already considered horrible before the LFD came in in December 2009. Anyone who thinks WoW had a great community in November of 2009, but a bad community in March of 2010 is full of it.

[TheConsumer]

So many misconceptions in here.

First of all world pvp was never good it was never important people just couldn't do a lot of things back then ( aka not a lot of people raided or even did dungeons) so they were forced into fighting in Soutshore or otherwise die of boredome.

Second community is the same , there was always mindless trolling and spamming in the trade chat and there were always idiots and jackasses. There were just less people and again dungeons were less accesible so you didn't meet that many people outside of those you befriended.

Also on the 5 day AV's those weren't epic those were bad design , why should any battle last for 5 days? what is the point in fighting it if nobody wins (note that most people don't care about HK farming or waisting hours on 1 bg).

[sleekit]

Also on the 5 day AV's those weren't epic those were bad design , why should any battle last for 5 days? what is the point in fighting it if nobody wins (note that most people don't care about HK farming or waisting hours on 1 bg).

i generally just hopped in and out for the fun

[SamR]

A loot bag for tanks and healers never for dps is unfair already. ok fair to 2/3 of ppl so i guess it sucks being dps.
not to mention dps que times suck.

The Call to Arms(loot bag) has increased the number of tanks and healers in the system and sped up queues for everyone. When I play my pure DPS character, I'm too busy appreciating the 10-15 min queue to resent the loot bags that make it possible.

[Kouki]

So many misconceptions in here.

First of all world pvp was never good it was never important people just couldn't do a lot of things back then ( aka not a lot of people raided or even did dungeons) so they were forced into fighting in Soutshore or otherwise die of boredome.

Second community is the same , there was always mindless trolling and spamming in the trade chat and there were always idiots and jackasses. There were just less people and again dungeons were less accesible so you didn't meet that many people outside of those you befriended.

Also on the 5 day AV's those weren't epic those were bad design , why should any battle last for 5 days? what is the point in fighting it if nobody wins (note that most people don't care about HK farming or waisting hours on 1 bg).

Hey For starters This is a Swtor Thread, And your talking about pvp when im talking about dungeon finder, so stop.

---------- Post added 2011-12-31 at 07:31 AM ----------

The Call to Arms(loot bag) has increased the number of tanks and healers in the system and sped up queues for everyone. When I play my pure DPS character, I'm too busy appreciating the 10-15 min queue to resent the loot bags that make it possible.

No it hasnt the que times are still bad, here is what is causing them, the dungeons are harder and longer, near end of wrath dungeons were short 5-10 min ques and 15 min dungeons in out loot, and ppl would run again because they werent tired, now ppl burn out in a few za zg's less burn out however in the new 5mans and im glad for that.