Devs admit Dungeonfinder destroys the social fabric of the game

[Void Priest]

If you boil it down to typing LFG for X, sure it doesn't seem social. What it does, however, is get someone to invite you, and to start talking. Old WoW dungeons were rarely ever quiet affairs. People talked throughout the experience. Part of why is linked to that initial ice breaking moment when you go through that typing based ask and invite phase of the grouping encounter.

The dungeon finder's implementation represented the first time I ever encountered a quiet group. It also represented the first time people blew through dungeons like they weren't there, just an unending stampede toward the boss. So, while I do think the dungeon finder prevented that ice breaking situation, there's another component here. The dungeons could be blown through without much thought. They no longer required communication. There's a variety of reasons for this, but the end result is that dungeons just became quieter experiences.

[TJ]

Except it doesn't, people "destroy the social fabric of the game" even without it now in TBC there's no social fabric, the people you join in dungeons may as well be randos as no one says anything beyond a "hi".

Gameplay matters more and late wrath is going to end up like it is now, impossible most days to find groups for leveling and non-popular heroic content.

This. I've had 1 maybe 2 dungeons in the whole of TBC where people have had some conversation and a laugh. Most of the time it's just "hi" at the start and "thanks" at the end, if that. Some people don't even reply to the party greetings.

The worst thing is the self entitled tanks that think they're god's gift to the game because of the role they play, they make every dungeon awful with their attitude and generally being bad players themselves.

Good times.

[facefist]

Because in retail we have both options, which is great. Low end content with dungeonfinder and high end with premade groups.

[Usernameforforums]

The worst part of no dungeon finder is waiting hours for a heroic, creating or joining doesnt matter. Cries in Rogue looking for heroic black morass.

At least with dungeon finder i could be waiting hours without spamming chat.

[Glorious Leader]

I mean they don't really have a clue so im not surprised. And it's all talk on some level. Please by all means take out the dungeon finder ill wait right fucking here. The Swtor guys felt the same way and stuck to their guns for quite a bit until they eventually caved as well.

[Graywolfofmibu]

IMO It really sounds like a lot of you don't see the difference because you relay on PUGs to do the content. But most groups in classic are done in guilds. Dungeon finder killed the reason for guilds to do content together. When LFD came out there was no reason to be social in your guild/community outside of raids. No reason to do content you out gear to help a friend gear up because they can just go queue up. Blizzard has realized the classic community as a whole does not what LFD because it will kill their guild runs.

I think it's the main reason blizzard doesn't have M+ in a queue. Yeah there are a lot of pugs that can clear high but there are a lot of guilds who use it to do their runs too. Keeping things within their communities. If the content is queueable then its really hard to justify the existence of a guild.

[Darkke]

The normal dungeon finder didn't destroy the social aspect, the cross-realm dungeon finder is what did it.

[Gratlim]

IMO It really sounds like a lot of you don't see the difference because you relay on PUGs to do the content. But most groups in classic are done in guilds. Dungeon finder killed the reason for guilds to do content together. When LFD came out there was no reason to be social in your guild/community outside of raids. No reason to do content you out gear to help a friend gear up because they can just go queue up. Blizzard has realized the classic community as a whole does not what LFD because it will kill their guild runs.

I think it's the main reason blizzard doesn't have M+ in a queue. Yeah there are a lot of pugs that can clear high but there are a lot of guilds who use it to do their runs too. Keeping things within their communities. If the content is queueable then its really hard to justify the existence of a guild.

True in many cases. But in my experience from Classic is that is you join a guild late you won't get to do the content that is obsolete because GM + Offs are decked out with lastest tier. Most don't care about guild members beside the GM + officer core. Rest members are just there to fill numbers to feed them with loots in raids (yes i was in terrible guilds).

And the amount of guild running dungeons or for instance Kara is reduce a lot. LFD helps with that. It helps counter the meta mindset too (which was never as bad as now back in the OG vanilla / BC). It lets you play outside of the meta at least for dungeons.

[Izzyfurious]

The normal dungeon finder didn't destroy the social aspect, the cross-realm dungeon finder is what did it.

Can 100% agree in that. **** that bollocks system so much, i wish i could erase it from exsistence since End of Cata times, since the last 11+ years!

[stansted12]

They outright admitted it as part of not having dungeonfinder in Wrath Classic, but they're still gonna leave it in the current game. Why? If it destroys the social fabric of the game it does so in all versions of the game. So what kind of a game do you want to have? An antisocial one?

They are aware of how bad dungeonfinder is and still refuse to remove it.

I'd like a game where petty autocrats and elitists can't exclude people arbitrarily. I don't want to have to deal with arseholes.

[Biomega]

Many people are okay with trading "social fabric" away for increased convenience. A lot of people just want to sit down and play, not spend 45 minutes talking to randos and walking to a dungeon. That's content to some, but to a lot of people it's stuff that takes away from ACTUAL content, which is doing the dungeon itself.

Does that reduce the social element of the game? Absolutely. But that's not a bad thing to many people. There's still guilds and whatnot, the regular mundane activities don't all have to be gated through a social mechanism.

We'll have to see how WotLK turns out with DF removed. My personal expectation is that people will very soon realize it wasn't such a bad thing at all, and that having to fly to your daily heroics every time after hanging out in chat to find a group is not actually a very smart use of your time. There'll be the usual adherents, of course, but I would not be surprised if somewhere down the line this issue comes up again in a whole different perspective.