If the system can auto-invite a player to group that clicks Join in the LFG tool then please add an option to turn it off as well.
I much prefer the tell that says "Hey will you take a summoner as your offtank? Mastery3 in Titan"
I can see people that feel that is a waste of time but it feels more organic to me and allows player agency as opposed to everyone relying on the algorithm to fill your group Blech!
Porygon said:Feyshtey said:As a person that played WoW heavily during WOTLK, and who saw how dungeon finders operated, I'm with most others here when I say Please, for the Love of GOD no.
Click. Wait. Accept. Run dungeon with near-zero communication. Loot. Exit. Repeat.
The number of reasons the WoW dungeon finder broke MMO's is long. Off the top of my head....
- Instant port to the dungeon. (travel becomes meaningless)
- Zero need for reputation. (you can be a badass or a loser, and your group is stuck with you regardless unless they want to boot you and start working on finding replacements)
- Zero need for communication. (impersonal and socially meaningless)
- Zero need for community involvement outside that passing occasion. (no encouragement of developing a network of allies)
- System-defined measurement of player capability based on level and gear in order to group people "appropriately", with no consideration for player skill. (trash, all the way around)
Give people tools to advertise that they want a group or have group availability. Let players do something completely insane, like, talk, plan, compromise. I know, it's nuts. But don't just build systems to circumvent actual human interaction. .
The fundamental flaw in your entire post is that youre comparing how a auto dungeon finder impacted a largely solo game. WoW and for that matter EQ have vast differences that make your entire point meaningless.
In WoW you entered the dungeon and were done in 30 mins, thats barely time to start a conversation while still playing the game. In EQ (and to what i would also imagine pantheon) you will likely be grouped with the players you meet for at least double that time.
Reputation doesnt mean anything in EQ anymore, 15 years ago the majority of players were "morally good people" with a few exceptions per server. Nowadays every MMO that you play you will find entire guilds of players who dont really care about reputation, its much harder to blacklist an entire guild, especially when those guilds tend to be in the top 1-2 on the servers usually. Reputation is not going to mean what most people on these forums want it to mean in Pantheon.Travel was already meaningless in WoW with epic speed flying mounts and meeting stone summons.
Im by no means condoning a dungeon finder in Pantheon, but to say it wont work because it didnt work in WoW is just a flawed arguement.
So explain that to the OP who said:
Grimseethe said:2. Just make it a literal dungeon finder WoW WOTLK style (which everyone used throughout the games existent even to this day)
As for the comments about EQ 15 years after release, I wouldn't know. That's long after Sony and then DayBreak put nails in the coffin of the game with the same issues you seem to have a distaste for as well. I was long gone by then. I certainly dont wish for those mistakes of so many studios to be repeated by VR.
I want a robust LFG tool but don't want any kind of dungeon queueing / porting. The LFG tool should allow players and teams to indicate what they're looking for and where. I don't really get the objection to a basic tool that's just an improved version of having to look through LFG chat spam.
What I would like to see with a LFG tool:
Grimseethe said:Jothany said:I think it's the best suggestion I've ever heard, if your goal is to minimize the development of social connections and friendships between players.
Been playing MMOs for 23 years and never have i formed a bond with someone while forming a group.
I already went over this.
LF tank
Im tank
This isnt a conversation.
In games where forming social bonds is unimportant, like most MMORPGs after classic Everquest and the like, sure, no one makes an effort. Yes, you could, even back in EQ, just spam "WAR21 LFG" and eventually get a group.
But in games where grouping is necessary and is challenging, the need to get to know other players, even if just their capabilities, is much more important, so people tend to try harder, or they have a lesser experience. Sure, some are happy to be unsociable and just observe the bare minimum interaction needed to 'play the game', but most would at least learn to fake some social nicety, responding to queries at least, even if just in order to play more productively.
Things, in my experience of classic Everquest, that would often get talked about while forming groups: -
1) The routes to get to each other
2) The time it might take to get to each other
3) The expectations you have of the each other
4) The particular needs you might have from the session
5) Whether your level/class/gear/skill/experience combo is appropriate to the group's planned activities
6) How long you have to play
That's just a few off the top of my head and all of those could and would often lead to discussions, compromises, kindnesses, and other social interactions that can, yes, lead to forming social bonds, sometimes just enough to get you the group spot over other applicants, sometimes making an impression that would stand you in greater stead for longer.
Of course, what happens during grouping together is probably more important, but first impressions - when inviting and accepting groups in this case - as most people know, are still very important.
The fact that this hardly ever happens any more is fundamental to why a lot of backers are here in the first place: We don't want more massively multi-player games that may as well be solo. We want to need other real people to play the game and not just because that makes for a technically more challenging experience, but because it makes for a socially more stimulating experience. We want as many aspects of the game as possible (that will benefit from it) to encourage social interaction.
Thankfully, we know VR want that too. It has been made abundantly clear many times over the years, by Brad especially, that the vision is for a "social game". Brad also made it clear that he really wanted to make extra effort to help players get together above-and-beyond what MMORPGs 'normally' to do, almost like a 'dating service' matching up players with compatible aims, attributes, schedules and more.
As what happens so often disposalist you have come in and eloquently delivered many of my thoughts which were far more jumbled when I was going to post them yesterday and in a way quite ironically gave up half way through lack of bother.
Creating a group without the auto finder scenario even offers opportunity for people to work together before the fighting even starts. Maybe you all need to deep dive into your friends list to try to get that illusive healer to join the group so badly needs but is not on a lfg flag. In the meanwhile there are opportunities for people to give their ideas about how they think we could progress without a healer by using x and y skills in combination to reduce damage but slow down the time to kill (ie: fear kiting from eq1 for instance) I had to convince people to try it early on in eq when we couldn't find heals because few believed it could be as effective as it was (mind the adds of course haha)
Lots of interesting things can arise while a group is forming. You can definitely sit quietly and wait as though your in a que and no one will mind or your can try to bust out and get to know some people while faced with the ultimate downtime of LFMing that key role.
I sincerely enjoyed the time spent filling spots in groups.. Sometimes even just randomly /t someone I've never met before in the most polite way I can muster and try to sell them on a spot in our group while wearing something similar to Roeniks +5 Cha helmet of patch notes :p And if all went well, that was another name in my friends list and the cycle continues
I would hope their LFG tool is for location, factions, and playtime. Show me tank|healer|CC|DPS who plan to be on for two hours and are lfg in this zone... no one... surrounding zones... ok whole continent... whole world? ... sigh... 1 hour? I don't get why no one wants to help us slaughter these halflings...
People will still focus on the zone they are in which is ideal, but when your zone doesn't have enough people a finder system can expand the range smoothly without needing to memorize zone names for what is close by.
/LFG on "string of text" is all we really need for the most basic version but having a bit more is not game breaking. I hope the game avoids a group finder and only has a nice lfg search option to help players find eachother but forcing them to still talk.
I know from experience from playing WoW, LOTRO, and maybe even EQ I've learned some systems can be flawed and some can be good.. So, I'd have to say that the LFG tool window has its' pros and cons and I'm going to explain briefly why it could be tricky to make groups and what comes with it.
Pros: It's a good tool to use because it lets you choose the players with said gear level, experience and all around knowledge of the game which leads for better execution.
Cons: This is the pinnacle of what separates the community based on people trying to get that perfect group to get things done and could possibly make some people to be hostile towards each other for game play style differences that it becomes a huge problem within the community as there has been countless numerous times people tend to be keyboard warriors and complain about how one persons skill level is subpar and separates the community to work together as a team, making the community have a trifle effect of wanting to be a bit self centered on advancing and leaving / separating each other from the game and making a said personality type that destroys the social aspect of the game.
Blade and Souls has probably one of the most efficient LFG tool systems that I've ran into and I think doesn't have many issues with it.
And lastly, IMHO, don't make any instanced dungeons where you need to travel far if it involves having the chance of delaying or running into blocks to get the groups going. I think if all dungeons were joinable by just queueing up, it would make the game feel like it's fast paced and leaves out any negative effects like gathering a group and still have to travel AND wait a bit longer to get the dungeon going.
I'm not even sure this game will have dungeons designed where that kind of dungeon-finder queue makes sense. I got the impression that dungeons will be sprawling with multiple levels of difficulty, multiple objectives, suitable for a range of levels/gearing. Running an entire dungeon would be a long process that most pick-up groups would not be suited to complete in one-shot.
Because of this, I expect that most of my grouping will be of the 'adventuring' variety. Flexible and willing by necessity to not just "run dungeon X or bust" because it would not be a realistic expectation until I begin to make those social connections for a 'regular' cohesive group that knows each other. This group once established will then utilize an LFG feature to fill in the occassional gap, and then - maybe - aim to kill a particular boss in a dungeon or something if things are going well. Conversely, I may use it myself to be 'picked up' by another adventuring group if my usuals aren't online, in hopes to get some xp and kill some bosses or something.
So yeah, an LFG tool where you can checkmark things you want to do would be great (like: goals: "Dungeon of Blah Blah", quests, xp, etc) would be great, but a tool only for dungeon grouping I don't think would work well for how this game is designed.
*old man voice*
All of you younglings have had it too good... back in my day we had to type "/who all LFG 25 28" to see who was looking for a group in our level range. And this meant you'd never get any druids or wizards for your groups because all of them were /roleplay so their class would be hidden on account of all the "Can you port me!" spam they would get. Even half the Clerics were /roleplay due to the "I need a Rez!" spam.
*end old man voice*
All joking aside. While I doubt we will get the feature rich LFG tool that Brad dreamed about where it was almost a dating app, I do look forward to what they will eventually make for us.
I doubt that there will be auto-form group option. Due to the fact that social contract is the goal, this means it would also need to be tied to the 'friend' and 'ignore' systems to prioritize players who you have flagged as 'I like this person and want to play with them again' and avoid the players who you have flagged as 'I never want to see this person again and will leave any group they join'.
Brad always wanted the LFG tool to be something that helped you find new friends, not just randoms. The point was not to simply help you find somebody to fill the empty spot in your group/party, but rather a tool to help you connect with like minded people who you might enjoy gaming with again and again. Obviously you won't make friends with everyone you join up with, but Brad's vision for the LFG tool was much like a dating app where the goal is to develop relationships that will last into the future and not just 'one-group-stands' as it were.
We may never see Brads full vision LFG tool, but hopefully the Pantheon team can get as close to it as they can.
I am all for a tool that helps players connect with each other. I don't see how removing the part where you actually spend time looking for those people helps with the connection. I can understand how it might save time though. Saving time isn't always my goal though, it actually rarely is. I'm also not really sure a "dungeon finder" is a good comparison or tool idea for Pantheon. Players will be grouping for all kinds of things that have nothing to do with dungeons.
So, I guess if i'ts called something other than "dungeon finder" and it doesn't automatically fill the group from a queue of players that have been waiting, I'm all for it.
Just let me /shout and interact with players near me.
LFG tools and finder systems severely negatively impact social interaction, pretty obvious.
I would much rather prefer tools promoting players to join guilds and build small communities hosted outside of the game than any form of dungeon finder. In-game dungeon finders have absolutely negatively impacted MMO communities. I understand there can be a frustration in having to search for groups in the LFG channel of chat, but in my experience it isn't that bad even in older MMOs, unless the population is so totally in the gutter there is barely anyone online anyways.
I think one option I would be open to is a "community center" in certain towns where someone can list themselves as an adventurer for hire (not really "for hire" for gold, but available to adventure). This could become a spot where people aggregate to form their adventuring parties either using the bulletin board or shouting in the area.
That type of system paired with a global LFG channel would be more than sufficient to enable people to find adventuring groups while still retaining the positive aspects of forcing player interaction, versus using a dungeon finder which traditionally has degraded community interaction.
Based on newer games LFG tools I completely get anyone that dose not like them. But have you experienced what an LFG tool was like in EQ? Or considered what it might be like based on what VR has talked about?
Susurrus said:Based on newer games LFG tools I completely get anyone that dose not like them. But have you experienced what an LFG tool was like in EQ? Or considered what it might be like based on what VR has talked about?
Players typically take the path of least resistance (not saying this is the right thing or the best thing, it's just historically what we've seen demonstrated). From my experience, games that have had "lightweight" LFG tools like EQ (or even EQ2) largely have those tools ignored since it's just easier to type "LFG 18 Dire Lord for Black Rose Keep". Or, if you're the extroverted type/leader type who's willing to put the group together (like I am): "Tank LFM Black Rose Keep, DPS/Heals/Support" and quickly throw your group together with all the tells you get.
If you can somehow get community buy-in from the beginning with those tools, then that's great and they'll probably work decently well. I just haven't really seen that coming to fruition. I guess one way to force it would be to just ban LFG channels or sending LFG messages in /general or /area, but that would be difficult to enforce.
I find your prospective on this to be really interesting. I do not think you are wrong or anything I just think our prospective are very different.
When looking for a group in EQ I always used the LFG tool. It was my path of least resistance and it worked really well. I would also never argue for banning any LFG channel or from people using chat channels to find groups. That would just be silly. The LFG tool should not be forced on people but be adopted or not on its own merits. Just like how it was introduced and successful in EQ. The better they make it the more people will use it.
The LFG tool should be part of the original launch so that people do not get used to a system without it. But that is just common sense. I mean the chat channels are also really important and should also be part of the original launch.
I should be clear that my main issues are with automatic LFG/dungeon-finder tools that matchmake or automatically form groups. If the LFG tool is more focused on just displaying who is looking for a group or formed groups looking for more and you can send that person/group a message, then that's fine in my perspective. I would just hope it's done in a way that feels somewhat immersive, like interacting with a bulletin board in a town or outpost to activate the tool. But again, as long as it's not an automated tool I'm accepting of it.