Party Finder

[Notackan]

Ok I've been talking to a lot of people in linkshells and posted this on reddit. I honestly think this game needs a Party finder that's similar to the way FFXIV but a little simpler and without the auto join feature. The Party Finder in FFXIV serves as pretty much a bulletin board for whats going on around server at that time and makes doing content a lot easier. No longer would you need to sit in town and yell uncontrollably to get a party for any event. You could throw together a couple people put it up in party finder and go do a quest while you wait for people. Oh no your Abyssea party is down to 8 people, no worries just put up that PF and you won't have to leave the zone.

Yeah I know you put a search feature in that can look for a comment that coincides what you are looking for but honestly I don't know anyone that uses it and it's pretty awful (I'm sorry I don't want to sound rude but really it isn't that great). I believe if you put a command under the party menu (Find Party, Party Finder, Bulletin Board, what ever you wanna call it) that pulls up a simple window. Open opening the window you will have 2 options: Post your party or search for parties available already. In the search window you will have 3 columns Event / Location / Party Leader. Maybe even a 4th option for level.

The Event needs to be first to catch that persons eye and will only be selectable items so all languages can read it (There could be an Other selection if it's something completely different). Upon pressing one of those items a Bazaar message window will pop up that will explain the event in the players words. under the message will be a tell command and a cancel command. Upon using Tell you can talk to the leader and he can invite you. No Auto joins...

I think with this simple addition you could breathe a lot of life into this game and people would be a lot more active instead of being afk 80% waiting for a good shout or hawking FFXIAH shout feature, and you wouldn't have to stay in the town so much so you can go out and explore a whole lot more. Not only that it will making grouping up fun again and bring people together a lot more often for all sorts of things. This is a MMO after all.


PS: I 100% DON'T think Duty Finder should be in this game at all, so please don't mention it. Matchmaking will not work in FFXI.

[Dale]

Ok I've been talking to a lot of people in linkshells and posted this on reddit. I honestly think this game needs a Party finder that's similar to the way FFXIV but a little simpler and without the auto join feature. The Party Finder in FFXIV serves as pretty much a bulletin board for whats going on around server at that time and makes doing content a lot easier. No longer would you need to sit in town and yell uncontrollably to get a party for any event. You could throw together a couple people put it up in party finder and go do a quest while you wait for people. Oh no your Abyssea party is down to 8 people, no worries just put up that PF and you won't have to leave the zone.

Yeah I know you put a search feature in that can look for a comment that coincides what you are looking for but honestly I don't know anyone that uses it and it's pretty awful (I'm sorry I don't want to sound rude but really it isn't that great). I believe if you put a command under the party menu (Find Party, Party Finder, Bulletin Board, what ever you wanna call it) that pulls up a simple window. Open opening the window you will have 2 options: Post your party or search for parties available already. In the search window you will have 3 columns Event / Location / Party Leader. Maybe even a 4th option for level.

The Event needs to be first to catch that persons eye and will only be selectable items so all languages can read it (There could be an Other selection if it's something completely different). Upon pressing one of those items a Bazaar message window will pop up that will explain the event in the players words. under the message will be a tell command and a cancel command. Upon using Tell you can talk to the leader and he can invite you. No Auto joins...

I think with this simple addition you could breathe a lot of life into this game and people would be a lot more active instead of being afk 80% waiting for a good shout or hawking FFXIAH shout feature, and you wouldn't have to stay in the town so much so you can go out and explore a whole lot more. Not only that it will making grouping up fun again and bring people together a lot more often for all sorts of things. This is a MMO after all.


PS: I 100% DON'T think Duty Finder should be in this game at all, so please don't mention it. Matchmaking will not work in FFXI.

I'm going to risk your ire here

I used to be a huge supporter of tools like Duty Finders and Group Finders. But after seeing the long term damage they end up doing to MMORPGs - I have come to the conclusion I was wrong about them.

Now I recognize your idea is separate from these. And it doesn't sound bad. But I feel MMORPGs work best when players are encouraged to make friends with one another and do group content together. The MMO experience is just so much more satisfying as a result. But perhaps your idea would make for a good starting point for these kind of social beginnings to occur. Also it would help make it easier for a smaller group of friends to gain access to larger content by adding temporary members. So I can definitely see some good in your proposition.

But in the end I'll have to oppose it. I've just seen the negative effects tools similar to this end up having and how players tend to become overly-reliant on them. Also I worry it might start a step in the wrong direction and lead towards something worse.

I know it can be inconvenient and a pain often times - but I've decided group content on MMORPGs needs to be kept a friendly affair, and not done through generic means. Though I do support large scale content being made public

[Ris]

I think a party finder (not a duty/dungeon finder) would actually help the social side of things. Unless /shout spam is really that great for making friends..? Once you're in the party everything else is the same...

[Maikeru_Sylph]

Party Finder {Yes, Please}
Duty Finder {No, thanks}

[Notackan]

I'm going to risk your ire here

I used to be a huge supporter of tools like Duty Finders and Group Finders. But after seeing the long term damage they end up doing to MMORPGs - I have come to the conclusion I was wrong about them.

Now I recognize your idea is separate from these. And it doesn't sound bad. But I feel MMORPGs work best when players are encouraged to make friends with one another and do group content together. The MMO experience is just so much more satisfying as a result. But perhaps your idea would make for a good starting point for these kind of social beginnings to occur. Also it would help make it easier for a smaller group of friends to gain access to larger content by adding temporary members. So I can definitely see some good in your proposition.

But in the end I'll have to oppose it. I've just seen the negative effects tools similar to this end up having and how players tend to become overly-reliant on them. Also I worry it might start a step in the wrong direction and lead towards something worse.

I know it can be inconvenient and a pain often times - but I've decided group content on MMORPGs needs to be kept a friendly affair, and not done through generic means. Though I do support large scale content being made public

Have you played FFXIV (not trying to be rude it's a serious question). I haven't played very many MMOs, only FFXI and FFXIV and I understand the bad rap that party finder gets in a lot of MMOs but in FFXIV it's called a duty finder (matchmaking, auto connects you with people) and Party finder is honestly just a bulletin board. It's only server base so or more less it's not different from shouts and yells, in making friends aspect. I would say it's even more personal.

I'm sorry I've been thinking incredibly hard about it and though I respect your concern with it I can see no downside to the community that's left in FFXI. With only 1000-1500 people on at one time on the busiest server (I play on Bahamut now) I find it very difficult to make new friends when I was close to my old ones in my fantastic linkshell Nightmare Brigade. With them mostly gone now and me switching servers I got into a new linkshell but they already have set groups for higher level content and if I wanna do a PUG I have to stay in town to listen to shouts which is utterly boring and counterproductive.

I can see maybe one downside and that is a lot of towns would be a lot more empty. If you see that as a downside then so be it but for me that an upside, plus all the bazaar people will still be there.

[Maikeru_Sylph]

Have you played FFXIV (not trying to be rude it's a serious question). I haven't played very many MMOs, only FFXI and FFXIV and I understand the bad rap that party finder gets in a lot of MMOs but in FFXIV it's called a duty finder (matchmaking, auto connects you with people) and Party finder is honestly just a bulletin board. It's only server base so or more less it's not different from shouts and yells, in making friends aspect. I would say it's even more personal.

I'm sorry I've been thinking incredibly hard about it and though I respect your concern with it I can see no downside to the community that's left in FFXI. With only 1000-1500 people on at one time on the busiest server (I play on Bahamut now) I find it very difficult to make new friends when I was close to my old ones in my fantastic linkshell Nightmare Brigade. With them mostly gone now and me switching servers I got into a new linkshell but they already have set groups for higher level content and if I wanna do a PUG I have to stay in town to listen to shouts which is utterly boring and counterproductive.

I can see maybe one downside and that is a lot of towns would be a lot more empty. If you see that as a downside then so be it but for me that an upside, plus all the bazaar people will still be there.

I really like the way the party finder was implemented in FFXIV. Finding people for content would be so much more easier if it were somehow implemented in FFXI.

[Dale]

Have you played FFXIV (not trying to be rude it's a serious question). I haven't played very many MMOs, only FFXI and FFXIV and I understand the bad rap that party finder gets in a lot of MMOs but in FFXIV it's called a duty finder (matchmaking, auto connects you with people) and Party finder is honestly just a bulletin board. It's only server base so or more less it's not different from shouts and yells, in making friends aspect. I would say it's even more personal.

I'm sorry I've been thinking incredibly hard about it and though I respect your concern with it I can see no downside to the community that's left in FFXI. With only 1000-1500 people on at one time on the busiest server (I play on Bahamut now) I find it very difficult to make new friends when I was close to my old ones in my fantastic linkshell Nightmare Brigade. With them mostly gone now and me switching servers I got into a new linkshell but they already have set groups for higher level content and if I wanna do a PUG I have to stay in town to listen to shouts which is utterly boring and counterproductive.

I can see maybe one downside and that is a lot of towns would be a lot more empty. If you see that as a downside then so be it but for me that an upside, plus all the bazaar people will still be there.

I've played it and you're right, it's basically just a bulletin board for the server. I've used it several times - for things like hydra and chimera. I think once for a coil run. Stuff like that.

It's a nifty tool for getting a group. But the problem with tools like this is it discourages social interaction among players and people just end up relying on quick fixes to get groups rather taking the time to get to know one another and organize events among themselves. And having played other MMORPGs for many years with tools like this, such as FF XIV and WoW etc... I've just come to the conclusion that the harm these types of tools do outweighs the good.

You make a good point that FF XI is an older game and many of our friends have stopped playing. It can be a real pain sometimes to find enough friends to do an event with. But for all of that difficulty, I still find it worth it in the end.

MMORPGs are at their best when creating and maintaining a social foundation is the key to success and friends or allies can't be taken for granted. Because the minute they can - the atmosphere of the game quickly deteriorates and the player base becomes spoiled and no longer appreciate one another. They instead begin to obsess over spread sheets, dps, hps, efficiency etc. and start looking at other players as job applications rather than individuals. And the game ends up suffering as a result, both in terms of gameplay and the quality of its community.

As I said, I used to be a huge supporter of tools like the one you advocate. But no longer. Now I think if players want to defeat something they can't do alone - they need to do it the old fashioned way and go out and make a friend or enlist an ally. Is it hard work to make friends and have to bother with all of the social complications and time involved? You bet it is. But it's also the best insurance that players appreciate the investment involved and respectfully treat one another as potential allies. There are always exceptions to this of course. But generally I believe it to be the case.