121888-some-problems-with-and-solutions-for-the-current-group-finder

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First of all I'd like to say thanks to Carbine for their hand work with drop 4; easily the best drop to date and hopefully a sign of things to come; however there are still many problems with the game that urgently need addressing. PvP and the poor Group Finder tool are, in my opinion, the worst offenders; I'll expand on the problems as well as some solutions with the group finder tool:
 
Problem:
Players can only queue for one type of content at a time: Obviously this is the biggest problem with group finder at the moment, especially when you consider that PvE content is split into 3 different categories(Shiphands, Adventures and Dungeons) and that PvP content is split into 5 categories. If I want to queue for Veteran Dungeons, Adventures and Warplots at the same time; I oughta be able to. 
Solution:
I know that Carbine are currently aware of this and are most probably working on a solution at this very moment so I won't go into too much detail. Just let people queue for up to five different things at once, and remove them from all queues if the accept or decline any pops, pretty simple stuff (though I'm sure it's a lot of work behind the scenes.) 
Problem:
Low level PvE content takes a long time to find a group for, discouraging for new players: The problem here is that everyone has gotten to endgame now so there aren't that many leveling players. Shiphands alleviate this problem somewhat since they can be insta pop'd solo and don't require the holy trinity. I spent an hour queueing for the intro dungeon as a healer at 8pm and still didn't get a pop; and this is only going to get worse as the novelty of it wares off. 
Solution:
Reward high level players for completing a random low level dungeon/adventure each day, say 50 glory and a goody bag for the instance and a further 50 glory if any of the players are new to the instance. The idea here is to reward high level players for helping lower level players with the boss mechanics and the rest of the logistics involved in group content, the new player bonus encourages people to help each other out for mutual benefit. 
Problem:
Dailies are in the capital cities: While most everyone is happy that game finally has daily quests for endgame players, it's a pain in the ass that we have to go to a specific NPC to pick up the quests. Imagine that a player has around an hour to play and wants to do an adventure quickly, but also wants to continue with its public quest or regular solo quests until the queue pops. You guys know as well as I do that the average player only plays in short bursts so it's your duty to give them the best time/reward ratio as possible.Solution:
Build the dailies into the group finder UI so that players can easily see what dailies they haven't done and free up a little space in their quest log. Additionally; give players a stock of daily quests for that week instead, make it more fair for the players that have irrelular schedules and can't log on each day to complete a daily quest. 
 
 
Additional things to consider: While I'm 100% certain that if the above solutions were implemented, group finder would be a substantially more active, rewarding and enjoyable experience for everyone; there are some more things that could possibly be added to further enhance it. 
 
Raid finder/Trials/Casual level raid content - Community opinion is both strong and divided on this, however similar systems are becoming so commonplace in mmos these days that they're practically expected for new players. Personally I'm not to fussed about having raids for casuals since they generally tend to be zerg fests with little strategy involved; however Trials would be an absolutely excellent addition. I can say with little doubt that Trials are the best content ARR has to offer so to ignore this type of content would be plain stupid.
 
GW2 style classic group finder interface: I've heard that WoW implemented this on top of their already feature complete group finder and it's not difficult to see why. Perhaps the most difficult part of getting any group content done is 'breaking the ice'. This tool easily allows players to advertise their group to others without spamming the LFG channel every 2minutes, and what's more, the community would be very happy to see it.
 
 
 
 
Anyway keep up the good work Carbine; I look forward to seeing more great improvements in the future.	
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Solution:
Reward high level players for completing a random low level dungeon/adventure each day, say 50 glory and a goody bag for the instance and a further 50 glory if any of the players are new to the instance. The idea here is to reward high level players for helping lower level players with the boss mechanics and the rest of the logistics involved in group content, the new player bonus encourages people to help each other out for mutual benefit.
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			pretty sure the problem with low level dungeons leans more on the lack of random queue, something that offers extra exp to make it worthwhile basically. I know I'm leveling an alt right now and I can't see any reason to queue up still compared to questing. Questing has a lot of advantages still, it's going to be faster and less of a headache, I'd rather wait till level 50 to do veteran dungeons than slow my exp down.I'll just add that 50 glory wouldn't get me into a low level queue either, would stick with veteran if I wanted glory.	
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pretty sure the problem with low level dungeons leans more on the lack of random queue, something that offers extra exp to make it worthwhile basically. I know I'm leveling an alt right now and I can't see any reason to queue up still compared to questing. Questing has a lot of advantages still, it's going to be faster and less of a headache, I'd rather wait till level 50 to do veteran dungeons than slow my exp down.
 
I'll just add that 50 glory wouldn't get me into a low level queue either, would stick with veteran if I wanted glory.
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			I think the major problem with low level ques are the fact that there is very few tanks and healers while leveling.  Getting that second set of gear most people wont do.  So you have a ton of dps queing, but no tanks or healers.	
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FFXIV employs daily random low level dungeon incentives for level capped characters, and it (though I won't deny the dramatically bigger population also helps) has made sure that there's no real difference in wait time between queueing for leveling dungeons or endgame dungeons.
 
Another PROBLEM:
 
Why am I getting the deserter debuff when leaving a shiphand when I am the only person who ever entered that shiphand? It really shouldn't work that way.	
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Problem is that having a level 50 dps run a level 20 dungeon completely trivializes it, even with the scale down. It doesn't scale down enough.
 
I have been known to queue for random lowbie instances on my level 50 tank just for grins- it's not quite as trivial because dps still has to do their part (healers probably get bored, though).	
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Problem is that having a level 50 dps run a level 20 dungeon completely trivializes it, even with the scale down. It doesn't scale down enough.
 
I have been known to queue for random lowbie instances on my level 50 tank just for grins- it's not quite as trivial because dps still has to do their part (healers probably get bored, though).
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This could be solved by forced rallying to the instance level.  Admittedly, even a scaled down character still has many advantages over a pure level 20 (for instance), but would not be wholly trivialized.
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			Oh sorry, yeah I missed the phrase there.  	
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			I should have said "rally"- my fault for poor communication.	
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Problem is that having a level 50 dps run a level 20 dungeon completely trivializes it, even with the scale down. It doesn't scale down enough.
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			Please stop trying to turn this game into World of Warcraft.  You don't realise that asking to place more and more things into the queue finder removes a HUGE amount of player interaction.  You might think that it's more convenient and therefore better for the game;  I'm here to tell you it's not.  If anyone played WoW Cataclysm you'd know that pumping more and more things into queue finder turns the game into a queue simulator.  It absolutely destroyed player interaction and is something the game never fully recovered from.  Looking for Raid is a tool that no game should have (I even despise Looking for Group). Regarding the suggestion in your post of 'putting dailies into the ground finder UI'. I disagree. If you want that to happen why not just put every quest into a 'quest finder UI' so you don't have to travel anywhere or explore anything.  May as well just be an option for all quests:  'Do you want to kill mobs for this quest?  Press A.  Or not?  Press B.  Both options will have the same reward.'
			
				
	Edited February 7, 2015 by CRB_Sunshine
	
		Inflammatory content	
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The most obvious solution is to tighten the scaling more.
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Please stop trying to turn this game into World of Warcraft.  You don't realise that asking to place more and more things into the queue finder removes a HUGE amount of player interaction.  You might think that it's more convenient and therefore better for the game;  I'm here to tell you it's not.  If anyone played WoW Cataclysm you'd know that pumping more and more things into queue finder turns the game into a queue simulator.  It absolutely destroyed player interaction and is something the game never fully recovered from.  Looking for Raid is a tool that no game should have (I even despise Looking for Group).
 
Regarding the suggestion in your post of 'putting dailies into the ground finder UI'. I disagree. If you want that to happen why not just put every quest into a 'quest finder UI' so you don't have to travel anywhere or explore anything.  May as well just be an option for all quests:  'Do you want to kill mobs for this quest?  Press A.  Or not?  Press B.  Both options will have the same reward.'
 
 
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So basically your argument is "please disregard good feedback that would benefit the health of the game because WoW does it and I hate WoW"
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Nothing of the sort.  'Good feedback' is entirely subjective.  'Benefit the health of the game'?  Again very subjective and something I don't agree with at all.  
 
I still play WoW because I enjoy it to a degree.  The worst thing that game did was put the majority of grouping content into queues.  Just because you want something (convenience) does not mean it is necessarily good for you, and queue finder tools are a prime example of that.  It removed a huge amount of player interaction in WoW and I don't want that to happen any further in this game (I dislike the group finder tool in this game too).
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So you still play WoW, and you might have noticed that it has probably 300x the amount of players that Wildstar does. The reason it has that many players is because, as far as mmos go, it does everything right. It has content for every type of player imaginable, all of the UI systems work and work well, players are rewarded the second they log into the game etc... You can disagree if you like, but the numbers don't lie, the majority of people want these things in the game.
 
At this point, the only thing I'm really bothered about is this game closing/going f2p; which is pretty much guaranteed unless they turn this boat around. There's no shame in 'borrowing' the best parts of other games and implementing them into your own game. Blizzard does it all the time; FF14 did it to WoW and now enjoys a very healthy playerbase. We don't need to re-invent the wheel here, just use what is proven to already work which up until now, Carbine has been doing the exact opposite.
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You are the only person I've ever seen say a single thing about dailies in capital cities being a problem.
 
Adding dailies to a group finder UI isn't anything WoW has done by the way (for good reason) and the reason it has more subs has more to do with the launch of this game, the bugs, the PvP, itemisation etc etc all of the problems that have been stated 100 times over on the forum (many things that have been fixed or somewhat fixed in Drop 4), not dailies being accessible from the group finder UI, which is the worst suggestion I've ever read on any gaming forum ever.
 
If you want to sit in a Garrison with nothing to do except sit in multiple queues waiting for something to pop, only to never talk to anyone inside the instance because the content is so easy, go play World of Warcraft; it seems to have what you're after.
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So you still play WoW, and you might have noticed that it has probably 300x the amount of players that Wildstar does. The reason it has that many players is because, as far as mmos go, it does everything right. It has content for every type of player imaginable, all of the UI systems work and work well, players are rewarded the second they log into the game etc... You can disagree if you like, but the numbers don't lie, the majority of people want these things in the game.
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ROFL what!?
 
1. The reason WoW has so many players is because Blizzard put out some brilliant RTS then slapped that name and face on a piece of garbage.
 
Sure it is. I'm not sensing any bias at all here.
 
2. It absolutely does not have content for everyone. Thinking it even comes close to is completely delusional.
 
10 million players would indicate otherwise. Far more than any other mmo has, I wonder why.
 
3. Players being rewarded the second they log in, for not doing a damn thing, is in no way a good thing.
 
But they are doing something, they're just being rewarded for it (ie: given incentives.)
 
4. I want to see these majority numbers of people actually wanting these things; not just speculation that people play WoW because it has these.
 
The proof is in the pudding and in this case the pudding is the insane amount of people playing WoW. The next most popular mmo FF14 has most of these features but don't just take my word for it, speak to other people, go to other mmo forums etc and ask people what they like about those games. Ask your offline friends why they're playing WoW instead of Wildstar.
 
The only thing in your OP I can agree on is the combining of Dungeon/Adventure/Shiphand Qs. The rest just makes me cringe.
 
Well lucky for you then that they have only confirmed that they're working on the first one.
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			I played wow back in the day and still do.  I can tell you Ive had more social experiences when I was actually in the instance doing group content then when I was sitting in a city spamming 'LF tank for UBS then gtg.'
			
				
	Edited February 6, 2015 by Quuarm	
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The most obvious solution is to tighten the scaling more.
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I played wow back in the day and still do.  I can tell you Ive had more social experiences when I was actually in the instance doing group content then when I was sitting in a city spamming 'LF tank for UBS then gtg.'
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If they tightened down the scaling and gave rewards for normal dungeons, I'd queue for them.
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The easiest way to accomplish that is to reduce the number of AMP points and LAS slots, block any level gated abilities and force a respec.  How many people do you think will tolerate something like that?  Developing a scaling algorithm to avoid that is stupid hard and not to be mean, but IMO beyond CRB's ability.
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The easiest way to accomplish that is to reduce the number of AMP points and LAS slots, block any level gated abilities and force a respec.  How many people do you think will tolerate something like that?  Developing a scaling algorithm to avoid that is stupid hard and not to be mean, but IMO beyond CRB's ability.
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The easiest way to accomplish that is to reduce the number of AMP points and LAS slots, block any level gated abilities and force a respec.  How many people do you think will tolerate something like that?  Developing a scaling algorithm to avoid that is stupid hard and not to be mean, but IMO beyond CRB's ability.
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I think it's pretty much beyond anyone's rational ability.  It may be possible, but it would take a LONG time, and probably isn't worthwhile.  I mean, Carbine might be able to actually do it, but it would require individual class and ability balancing at multiple levels for each dungeon.  And this is in a game where all the dungeons are essentially available in a more difficult level 50 version.
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Yeah you're probably right, I was unfair.  There's no general algorithm for this, every game would have to build their own and the cost-benefit just doesn't have the ROI.
 
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ROFL what!?
 
1. The reason WoW has so many players is because Blizzard put out some brilliant RTS then slapped that name and face on a piece of garbage.
 
Sure it is. I'm not sensing any bias at all here.
 
2. It absolutely does not have content for everyone. Thinking it even comes close to is completely delusional.
 
10 million players would indicate otherwise. Far more than any other mmo has, I wonder why.
 
3. Players being rewarded the second they log in, for not doing a damn thing, is in no way a good thing.
 
But they are doing something, they're just being rewarded for it (ie: given incentives.)
 
4. I want to see these majority numbers of people actually wanting these things; not just speculation that people play WoW because it has these.
 
The proof is in the pudding and in this case the pudding is the insane amount of people playing WoW. The next most popular mmo FF14 has most of these features but don't just take my word for it, speak to other people, go to other mmo forums etc and ask people what they like about those games. Ask your offline friends why they're playing WoW instead of Wildstar.
 
The only thing in your OP I can agree on is the combining of Dungeon/Adventure/Shiphand Qs. The rest just makes me cringe.
 
Well lucky for you then that they have only confirmed that they're working on the first one.
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The easiest way to accomplish that is to reduce the number of AMP points and LAS slots, block any level gated abilities and force a respec.  How many people do you think will tolerate something like that?  Developing a scaling algorithm to avoid that is stupid hard and not to be mean, but IMO beyond CRB's ability.
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Framing it entirely differently, I'm pretty sure Carbine is more than capable of this minor feat, but have thankfully chosen NOT to do so, because I personally would hate such a feature immensely. I suspect I am not alone in this.
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Whether this game needs a better lfg or not has nothing to do with the social interaction of players. Players will either choose to socialize or not regardless of whether lfg is involved or not and it is up to us as a player / playerbase to be interactive and social or not. WoW's lfg system did not make people any more or less interactive then they used to be but rather gave greater access to all parts of the game to even the least social among us.I have had some amazing groups that were incredibly social and not but in all games regardless of the lfg i rarely will talk with pugs besides the necesities. 
 
in fact if we were to place blame on any one thing that caused less social interaction among players i would say its vent, teamspeak, mumble, etc. I get plenty of social interaction with the guilds and groups i associate with that to the point when i pug i just listen to directions and chat away.
 
But getting back to my point. stop using this excuse that somehow people stop talking just because they lfg queued rather then sat around shouting "lfg "insert x" both end up being mindless ways to get into the group the only difference is do i keep pushing a macro for it while watching tv or do i queue while accomplishing other tasks. once in a group theres nothing preventing nor anything encouraging more or less social interaction but it does give access more easily and readily to more people keeping more people entertained (hopefully) longer.	
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			Personally I think removing the group finder would do far more good than harm.	
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Personally I think removing the group finder would do far more good than harm.
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That's all speculation. What leads you to believe that these features are what holds their subs and not the fact that they had huge IPs for over a decade before launching their MMOs? Warcraft/FF fanboys alike are going to play it because they always have. The simple fact that I'm sitting here disagreeing with you about WoW should tell you it does not have something for everyone. Lastly, I think I have a 13 year old cousin who plays WoW... my friends won't go anywhere near that pile of trash and with good reason.
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The denial here is crazy. 'Fanboys' don't keep a game going, nobody played FF14 before 2.0 because the game was crap simple as, it's not crap anymore and now tons of people are playing it. Perhaps the main reason is that it has content for casual and not so casual players alike. Meanwhile we have people complaining that they can't even complete the introductory dungeon over here and that's not going to change any time soon because the devs only believe in 'muh hardcore'. I'm willing to bet that over 80% of people that reach 50 have never completed a single dungeon.
 
You really don't need me to tell you this because everyone all over the internet is saying it; Wildstar is a 2014 game stuck in a 2004 mindset. I just want them to drag this game into this decade.
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ROFL what!?
1. The reason WoW has so many players is because Blizzard put out some brilliant RTS then slapped that name and face on a piece of garbage.
2. It absolutely does not have content for everyone. Thinking it even comes close to is completely delusional.
3. Players being rewarded the second they log in, for not doing a damn thing, is in no way a good thing.
4. I want to see these majority numbers of people actually wanting these things; not just speculation that people play WoW because it has these.
The only thing in your OP I can agree on is the combining of Dungeon/Adventure/Shiphand Qs. The rest just makes me cringe.
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Let people queue for anything anytime.
 
=
 
Shorter queues.	
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Nobody played FF14 before ARR because it was unplayable. No amount of fanaticism can help you play an unplayable game, so your logic here is just plain wrong.
 
People complaining that they can't complete the first dungeon is a huge draw, personally. It's a great change from the usual, "play while eating dinner blind folded," style, and if it's keeping those types of players out; good!
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Objectively wrong; the game was playable, just not worth playing. That's the distinction.
 
Also this game already has a dismal population as it is so the last, last, last thing on earth Carbine want to be doing is listenening to people telling them to keep other players out of the game for arbitrary reasons. It's almost like you want this game to die/ go f2p.
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Yeah... 6-10 players standing around a single spawn, waiting for it to pop just to get a smidgen of experience is playable. But you're right, that's not why the game died, it's because they weren't handing out rewards for nothing. You really believe that?
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That's a terrible strawman and I'm not even going to bother with it.
 
I'll leave you with this though; I've presented some idea's to improve the Group finder which are proven to work and work well in other substantially more successful mmo's and I've also pointed out how/why they would benefit the game. If you want to disagree then at least say why you think they're bad ideas, that's how adult arguments work.
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First of all I'd like to say thanks to Carbine for their hand work with drop 4; easily the best drop to date and hopefully a sign of things to come; however there are still many problems with the game that urgently need addressing. PvP and the poor Group Finder tool are, in my opinion, the worst offenders; I'll expand on the problems as well as some solutions with the group finder tool:
 
Problem:
Players can only queue for one type of content at a time: Obviously this is the biggest problem with group finder at the moment, especially when you consider that PvE content is split into 3 different categories(Shiphands, Adventures and Dungeons) and that PvP content is split into 5 categories. If I want to queue for Veteran Dungeons, Adventures and Warplots at the same time; I oughta be able to.
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Again, where is this proof? You see a big population and immediately draw conclusions as to why it's big... but you have absolutely nothing to support those conclusions.
 
As for adult arguments; you've personally attacked me every single time you've responded. The conversation thus far pretty much boils down to:
 
"I don't like these ideas and I think the reasoning behind them is extremely short-sighted."
 
"Yeah, well you're stupid."
 
Yup... adult argument. The problem with that tactic: it doesn't bother me. You're only making yourself look more foolish and providing me with loads of entertainment. Once you're ready to get off that high horse of yours and actually think about what you're saying, then, just maybe, a conversation can develop.
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The proof, as another user in this thread has pointed out, is that games with this type of group finder (such as ff14, WoW or even rift) enjoy a substaintially quicker pop time on queues. (this could also be WildStar one day)
 
The rest of your post is just an irrelevant attempt at trolling.
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I have nothing I can say about Rift as I've never played it, other than: this is the only example you've brought up that can't be easily refuted by taking a look at their legacy. But saying, "It's true because that other guy said it, too!" is far from proof. By that logic, we've both been proven right/wrong several times in this thread.
 
Handing out free rewards creates an expectation; one that has already spiraled out of control in other games; that loot should just flow in freely without having to work for it, which, in turn, then creates an expectation for easier content, shorter content, and ultimately turns the game into a giant ball of crap that has to open a cash shop because they have nothing substantial left for players to do other than browse cosmetics.
 
Upon taking another look at you're OP, there is one other thing I can agree on: trials. People need to be able to experience this game a bit longer than 7 days to decide if they're going to spend the next few months (or even years) playing it.
 
Anyone who disagrees with you isn't immediately a troll. Saying that you're basing your solutions on an false perception is not irrelevant. This is how debate works.
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This game is amazing and I hope it stays strong for a long time. Drop 4 has shown us that the DEV's are truly listening and want this game to succeed. So many improvements made to make this game more player friendly gets us on the right track. I personally like being bale to queue for multiple things and whichever one pops then I will give it a try. Rift has a pretty great GF community an they give substantial rewards for using so even end game raiders jump in and play in it quite a bit. 
 
I think this game in Drop 4 has gotten a lot of things right. I hope they continue on the path to getting more players in the game and spreading the ease at which they can get into good fun content. I enjoy the raiding here so much and I know other gamers would to if they got a chance to try it. 
 
One thing I hope to see in the future to make the game a little less burdensome is ease of life features for alts. Less Attunement less of a struggle to get full rep, full amp and ability points. People get tire of the same class day after day for eight months, problem is in this game if you want to switch it up you face gear/amp/ability problems. Not to mention a redundant attunement quest that in all honesty wasn't very fun the first time I did it. At they very least throw a couple more keys on Ohmna. 20 weeks is a long time for a raid team to wait for everyone to get one. 
 
Anyways seeing ideas like this for improvements is great. I know the DEV's keep an eye out for stuff like this and they will choose what they think is the most important to work on.
 
I'd also like to see something for Vet players to reward them for queuing in lower level content to keep that alive for folks. The biggest draw to this game when leveling was that you could do it only doing adventures, dungeons, or pvp. I say give a major boost to low level exp through these type of grouping events and when I say major I mean 50%  or double what it is now. Give the 50's a couple carrots increased renown, exp, glory something for helping out. Hopefully that will get people having fun in them again. There was a point in beta leveling in adventures was fun and rewarding then it got the nerf bat. Questing is the easiest and fastest way to go about it and always has been but come alt 4 and I'm starting to get tired of it. 	
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that said.... expanding the lfg to allow for queueing for multiple things so that people can hypothetically have more pops (since more people will queue for everything) is actually a net benefit for the game. it will allow the early experience a larger pool of pops quicker and gives the impression the game is more active a fuller at both the low end and max lvl of the game. there is no logical reason to be opposed improving the tools to get people into groups and into content together.
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