Forums » General Pantheon Discussion

What if you can't find a Group?

    • 363 posts
    August 18, 2018 10:14 AM PDT

    We're all assuming what? That grouping will be easy or difficult? somewhere in between?

    This question isn't really for the full guild ready to start playing at launch or groups of friends and family who have a built in gaming support system. This question is for the loners or couples that play games together. The people who enjoy playing games, but don't have a lot of friends who do. People like me. 

    Will there be a way outside of general chat or LFG to find parties looking for extra players? A group finder of sorts. Something like a UI list, that shows groups looking for more players or single players looking for a group so that it takes the spamming chat element out of it. Warhammer Online had it back in the day and it made finding group easy to locate. Scrolling through the wall of spam is one of my least favorite things. 

    Of course I want to hear everyones response for an idea. 

    Thoughts? has this topic been covered and I missed it? If so I'm sorry.

    Thanks

    :D


    This post was edited by Willeg at September 9, 2018 4:12 PM PDT
    • 1281 posts
    August 18, 2018 10:24 AM PDT

    From what I gather from previous streams, there will not be a group finder.  I, personally, think that group finders are a bad idea.  Group finders are too "Wow-ish" for my taste.  In addition, there will be things to do other than just fighting that will occupy my time, such as exploring, working on Keeper, things like that.

    • 198 posts
    August 18, 2018 11:18 AM PDT

    If this game achieves what it is setting out to do with a deep community, you'll make lots of friends! :)

    • 51 posts
    August 18, 2018 11:52 AM PDT

    Bronsun said:

    This question isn't really for the full guild ready to start playing at launch or groups of friends and family who have a built in gaming support system. This question is the for the loners or couples that play games together. The people who enjoy playing games, but don't have a lot of friends who do. People like me. 

     

    I have the same problem. I have exactly one co-worker friend who games. Husband and rest of family and friends have no interest. The only times I was able to really advance my character in Everquest and similar games were when: 1) I wasn't employed in a full-time job, and 2) I was a guild officer. I'll be honest, I'm not hopeful. I have a demanding full-time job now, so there is no way I will play enough to be a guild officer. I will do my best to find a large guild of casual players, but my experience has been that most of the character advancement in those types of guilds are limited to people in leadership positions. You might have a guild that claims to have hundreds of members, but 40 or less are logged in at any time, and many of those are afk or crafting. The other problem with casual guilds is that you can spend hours waiting to start a raid only to be told "we are cancelling because not enough people showed up."

    It might sound crazy, but I think I will take a week of vacation when this game launches and play a lot. After that, I will struggle to put in the hours for a while because I will be so excited about the game. But eventually I will just get too tired. Then I will fall behind my new online friends and eventually quit :(

    • 66 posts
    August 18, 2018 11:56 AM PDT

    They've stated there will be a somewhat minimalistic group finder in game. They said they will not be matchmaking people and teleporting them to dungeons for quick, stomp-on-everything-without-talking runs, but that there will be tools to help people form groups. If it's like EQ's, it will only be useful if other people are actually using it - whereas global/regional chat will probably be the go-to (maybe a global LFG channel would be nice too?). I'm not exactly sure why people tend to favor chat spam over an LFG toggle/UI... While they don't have anything like that in-game yet, they've talked about it at least twice in previous streams with Brad's "philosophy" on what he wants to see (paraphrasing: people having the tools they need to get together). I'd imagine it might be something more like Vanguard's, which was an improved version of EQ's. Dropdowns to select specific dungeons, a selection for anything in your level range, comments, etc.

     

    Edit to respond to Haus: If not being able to raid or keep up with your friends might ruin your experience, perhaps joining multiple guilds might be a solution? One that has scheduled raids you could set time aside for, another for leveling/alts with a more community feel - or one that covers both subsets? Guilds are hard work, so I don't blame you for not wanting a leadership position. They are out there though, even now before launch. And while any MMO/guild has issues with population/member fluctuations, you can typically find what you're looking for as they wax/wane with a little guild-hunting. Some have even been around for decades now. There will also be tools in-game to help find guilds.

    As for keeping up with your friends, perhaps the mentoring system will help? It allows higher level characters to scale down to another's level, as per the FAQ. Hopefully you have a great time playing and things turn out well for you.


    This post was edited by DagNabbit at August 18, 2018 12:16 PM PDT
    • 190 posts
    August 18, 2018 12:02 PM PDT

    Hauskat said:

     I have a demanding full-time job now, so there is no way I will play enough to be a guild officer. 

    Says who? Stupid guilds making you think that. Our guild had/has guild officers from all walks of life. Retiree's, full-time 9-5er's, people who work swing-shifts, full-time students, people from other parts of the world, and part-time home makers (like myself.) I'm sorry you have been made to feel like you have to be involved in the game 24/7 to be eligible to be officer material elsewhere.

     

    As for groupage... I like grouping with my friends and guild, but I also enjoy the random PUG and especially helping lower levels or newbies. You make lots of great connections and new friends stepping away from your comfort zone in MMORPG's. Now, granted, as a role player this can be both easy and challenging. Some find grouping with RPer's annoying and avoid us. Many others will find us entertaining and sometimes the spirit is infectious and they take a shot at RP themselves.

     

    Either way, I'm excited to meet new faces, start new stories and go on adventures with all kinds of people.

    • 51 posts
    August 18, 2018 12:35 PM PDT

    wildenightwolf said:

    Hauskat said:

     I have a demanding full-time job now, so there is no way I will play enough to be a guild officer. 

    Says who? Stupid guilds making you think that. Our guild had/has guild officers from all walks of life. Retiree's, full-time 9-5er's, people who work swing-shifts, full-time students, people from other parts of the world, and part-time home makers (like myself.) I'm sorry you have been made to feel like you have to be involved in the game 24/7 to be eligible to be officer material elsewhere.

     

    As for groupage... I like grouping with my friends and guild, but I also enjoy the random PUG and especially helping lower levels or newbies. You make lots of great connections and new friends stepping away from your comfort zone in MMORPG's. Now, granted, as a role player this can be both easy and challenging. Some find grouping with RPer's annoying and avoid us. Many others will find us entertaining and sometimes the spirit is infectious and they take a shot at RP themselves.

     

    Either way, I'm excited to meet new faces, start new stories and go on adventures with all kinds of people.

    Thanks for the encouragement on guild leadership. I think the key is playing on consistent days/times, so others know when to expect you online. In the past, I have met and formed bonds with a small close group that seeks each other out. That fails over time as people quit. I think it is important to keep forming new bonds all the time. Not my strong suit, but will make more of an effort this time around.

    Personally, I love RP to the extent that I like to be immersed in the game world. I just can't spend that much time and energy on RP-only chat.

     

     


    This post was edited by Hauskat at August 18, 2018 12:40 PM PDT
    • 122 posts
    August 18, 2018 1:22 PM PDT

    make friends.... your gonna need them to survive... and get ahead.. persoanaly I like this type of play when you help someone out and you are there for people when in the time of there need... people remember that and will usually help you in return...


    This post was edited by Nytman at August 18, 2018 1:22 PM PDT
    • 287 posts
    August 18, 2018 1:23 PM PDT
    As a wizard who struggled to get a group in EQ 1, I started making groups with the other undesirables. I would invite wizards, necros, mages, and rangers that I found LFG. These groups turned out highly effective and we all had fun and got experience. I plan on forming simpler groups with the Pantheon undesirable classes. Duoing may be an option in this game. You shouldn't need the holy Trinity for every group.
    • 1399 posts
    August 18, 2018 1:46 PM PDT

    Bronsun said:

    We're all assuming what? That grouping will be easy or difficult? somewhere in between?

    This question isn't really for the full guild ready to start playing at launch or groups of friends and family who have a built in gaming support system. This question is the for the loners or couples that play games together. The people who enjoy playing games, but don't have a lot of friends who do. People like me. 

    Will there be a way outside of general chat or LFG to find parties looking for extra players? A group finder of sorts. Something like a UI list, that shows groups looking for more players or single players looking for a group so that it takes the spamming chat element out of it. Warhammer Online had it back in the day and it made finding group easy to locate. Scrolling through the wall of spam is one of my least favorite things. 

    Of course I want to hear everyones response for an idea. 

    Thoughts? has this topic been covered and I missed it? If so I'm sorry.

    Thanks

    :D

    Brad on 

    Matchmaking systems, what we're up to, and why. Part 1

     

    • 363 posts
    August 18, 2018 1:59 PM PDT

    Kalok said:

    From what I gather from previous streams, there will not be a group finder.  I, personally, think that group finders are a bad idea.  Group finders are too "Wow-ish" for my taste.  In addition, there will be things to do other than just fighting that will occupy my time, such as exploring, working on Keeper, things like that.

    I'm not talking a Wow group finder. That would be too automated for me. I just want a way for players to see who else is looking for a group or a group looking to fill openings. 

     

    DagNabbit said:

    They've stated there will be a somewhat minimalistic group finder in game. They said they will not be matchmaking people and teleporting them to dungeons for quick, stomp-on-everything-without-talking runs, but that there will be tools to help people form groups. 

     

    Good to hear. I definitely don't want an automated match making system. I would however like a nice UI window that shows all the groups who  list themselves via LFG along with class and level. This way players can communicate with one another and connect without flooding the OCC chat channels. Here is what the Warhammer Online partie and warband ui looked like. Pantheon obviously doesn't have warbands, but it gives you an idea of what it could be.

    As much as I want this game to be old school with updated graphics. I don't see this as a game breaker. Its mainly just a bulletin board. If you don't like the idea of making it a hotkey item perhaps it could be a phyical location for players to look at near a town or city.

     

    • 363 posts
    August 18, 2018 2:00 PM PDT
    • 2756 posts
    August 18, 2018 2:14 PM PDT

    Yeah I don't know where anyone got the idea there will be 'basic LFG tools'.  It's almost a prime directive that there will be advanced matchmaking (group finding) 'stuff' in Pantheon and hurrah for that.

    This does NOT mean there will be a dungeon finder with instant teleports there and back, it means that there will be modern system to help you find and put you in touc with like-minded players to play with.  The days of spending hours wandering from dungeon zone entrance to dungeon zone entrance spamming /lfg messages are gone, thanks all the gods.

    • 52 posts
    August 18, 2018 2:41 PM PDT

    EQ's /LFG window is pretty simple and effective. 1) Not only are you tagged "LFG" so anyone can search "/who lfg all" when looking for a rep but 2) You can leave a comment in the LFG window specifying what camp(s) you're interested in and the window will sort the list via level range.

    Now if you want to localize a system like that or make it global is a another discussion.

    Stepping back and taking a wider look at methods that can help players find groups; I really hope we'll have class specific chat channels as I can't tell you the number of times I've searched for a rep for my group when having to log (especially as a Cleric) by asking in the class channel. I've probably found 80%+ of my reps just by asking in the channel. 


    <3

    • 1860 posts
    August 18, 2018 6:34 PM PDT

    The matchmaking system, from what I gather (details are limited), will be much more than just a LFG tool. 

    It will have the possibility of matching you up with like minded individuals in order to encourage a more long term social bond than just a standard group finder.  Things like play time and play style have been mentioned. 

    It's almost as if it's an online dating app that catagorizes people based on their similarities.  Things like location or hobbies could be used as determining factors at the players discretion.


    This post was edited by philo at August 18, 2018 6:35 PM PDT
    • 19 posts
    August 18, 2018 8:17 PM PDT

    It's also not just about finding a group, it's about being able to dedicate the time necessary to to achieve a goal within that time.

    I'm sure most of the people who played EQ/FFXI/whatever are much older now.

    I'm playing a private FFXI server right now that essentially is emulating the 2005 era. It's basically impossible for me to do group activities during the week.

    • 1714 posts
    August 18, 2018 11:08 PM PDT

    Solo?

    Harvest?

    Craft?

    Conversate?

    Roll an alt?

    Join a guild?

    Go do something else?

    • 178 posts
    August 18, 2018 11:21 PM PDT

    1 ) start your own group.

    2) while no "dungeon finders" will be in game, some kind of grouping advertisement board will be implemented.

     

    think of it as when you played pnp, your group would go in to the city inn and look at the "wanted' board at the wall and see stuff like "adventurers needed to clear the sewers from rats"

    just instead you will open the social tab and see: 

    *******************************

    post by: legolassSSss_DK   dark myr ranger 13

    looking for: LFM grvrd hnter wepun neeed haelr, haff key NOOBS NO APPLY

    in group:  spongebob leakypants dwarf paladin 9

    ............   tunedeaf leftyhands   human bard 11

    ............   I_AFK_ALOT             gnome summoner 12

    would you like to join?

    ***************

     yes ***    no *** 

    ***************            

     

     

     

    • VR Staff
    • 587 posts
    August 19, 2018 12:54 AM PDT

    Zorkon said:

    Bronsun said:

    We're all assuming what? That grouping will be easy or difficult? somewhere in between?

    This question isn't really for the full guild ready to start playing at launch or groups of friends and family who have a built in gaming support system. This question is the for the loners or couples that play games together. The people who enjoy playing games, but don't have a lot of friends who do. People like me. 

    Will there be a way outside of general chat or LFG to find parties looking for extra players? A group finder of sorts. Something like a UI list, that shows groups looking for more players or single players looking for a group so that it takes the spamming chat element out of it. Warhammer Online had it back in the day and it made finding group easy to locate. Scrolling through the wall of spam is one of my least favorite things. 

    Of course I want to hear everyones response for an idea. 

    Thoughts? has this topic been covered and I missed it? If so I'm sorry.

    Thanks

    :D

    Brad on 

    Matchmaking systems, what we're up to, and why. Part 1

     

    Thanks :)

    • 2138 posts
    August 19, 2018 5:21 AM PDT

    Yes Bronsun, I was worried about finding groups- with strangers! (albeit on-line strangers) initially in another game and when I read the manual about the classes the Magician stood out to me because of one line that said with the elemental you are your own group! so I went with it. Another cool thing was one day I got up really early in the AM and found alot of nice European players! so that was fun.

    I was also thinking about the matchmaking plan that VR has and, well, there are already established systems in cyber-world that track what you click on and where you go to and when you are on for advertising, even in basic email services, could something like this be used in Pantheon? but on a very toned down level. For instance- yes it would need a period of time to get data ,maybe during the FTP levels 1-10? so the program will have a small subset of data that established when you are online.

    Followed by a prompt to personalize it by asking broad  questions about play time from the averages you played that would automatically prompt a choice(dropdown?) for timezones. so if you played regularly in GMT evenings, but occasionally started early on a saturday you woud have a choice  for GMT and EST because when you logged in on the saturday you saw a bunch of people in EST PM times playingand met them.

    Likewise with unoffensive type questions to easily talked about liesure things like sports teams? or perhaps in-game interests like "I am going after spider silks" , or through perception hints "I want to explore Tower of reckless magician for a thing but its 5 zones away" that you can update regularly and easily. So where initially I was heading to ToRS a week later I change it to "In zone X and getting crushed in this cave, lots of people there, though"

    May be hard ot do but what I am getting at is something that communicates and at the same time broadcasts your  sandboxed in-game interest. In the first example you have a goal, in the second example your goal changed but as another player if I see you saying lots of people are at this cave, I would be drawn there as a choice if I hadn't yet decided on what to dop rather than old-school sitting with "LFG" up.

    Could also be a cool community or guild tool. A guild could advertise they are going to be in area X for a while and exploring, or the Skar "people" are taking on all challengers in arena, or one group of gnomes are intent on heading to the Human outpost, hoping to making the perilous journey without dieing.

    Heh, maybe they could flip-flop "#community matters" and say something like "#community matters- so tell the community!" to encourage people to use it. Maybe call it something else than matchmaking because I think of like a dating site when I see matchmaking and I'm not looking for dates, just adventurers...right now anyways.

     


    This post was edited by Manouk at August 19, 2018 5:27 AM PDT
    • 1399 posts
    August 19, 2018 6:06 AM PDT

    bryanleo9 said: As a wizard who struggled to get a group in EQ 1, I started making groups with the other undesirables. I would invite wizards, necros, mages, and rangers that I found LFG. These groups turned out highly effective and we all had fun and got experience. I plan on forming simpler groups with the Pantheon undesirable classes. Duoing may be an option in this game. You shouldn't need the holy Trinity for every group.

    This is my experiance as well, I leveled up a Wizard with a Mage and a Druid for partners. Was a rare occasion we could actually find JUST a tank and healer looking for more. When the time comes I'm hoping Brads plans will accommodate us misfits finfing a group and not just the "must have holy trinity" crowd. I will be playing a Wizard again, and grouping with my wife (likely an enchanter) as a partner and we'll  group with anybody, any class, and see what trouble we can get into. And also likely to only be on one day a week.

    Don't forget the misfits Brad.

    • 313 posts
    August 19, 2018 8:23 AM PDT

    Jhey said:

    It's also not just about finding a group, it's about being able to dedicate the time necessary to to achieve a goal within that time.

    I'm sure most of the people who played EQ/FFXI/whatever are much older now.

    I'm playing a private FFXI server right now that essentially is emulating the 2005 era. It's basically impossible for me to do group activities during the week.

     

    I'm sure there will be opportunities for you to jump into a group and farm exp for 30 minutes or longer.  If you want to go clear a dungeon and take out a named boss, it might take more like 2 hours.  And VR has said that they want there to be some solo content.  We just have to wait and see what they come up with.  

    • 801 posts
    August 19, 2018 9:43 AM PDT

    There comes a point in all MMOS when finding a group with some assistance is a good thing. Otherwise XXX dead zone becomes XXX dead zone. Yet you needed something in that zone somewhere down the line to progress. Having spells, items and stuff from that zone, may mean that after 5 years whats the use of re rolling a toon? your never going to find a group in that zone unless you box another toon.

     

    So dont break the system all down to making you work that hard for LFG.... you will regrete it somewhere down the line.

    • 287 posts
    August 19, 2018 1:44 PM PDT
    Putting your hobbies on a group finder is a great idea. I want to group with like-minded people. MMA fans unite.
    • 132 posts
    August 19, 2018 4:13 PM PDT

    I feel like I’m in the same boat needing to find a new friendly group to enjoy content with.

    A recruitment board in Thronefast would be nice.