Duty Finder++

I'ld like to see the Duty Finder allow more creativity -- or give some kind of auto-grouping mechanism to the Party Finder.

A few days ago I ran Hullbreaker with 3 WHMs and myself as a SCH and it was fun and pretty normal playthrough.. not even particularly slow. I've also run Longstop normal with just 3 people (tank d/c b4 the first fight lol) also pretty fun.

While I now have the luxury of the healer queue time on my scholar main, I still remember waiting forever on arcanist and summoner for parties. Sometimes I'd wish I could duty finder for alternative parties that dont fit the normal balance and might not even work.

---

I think there should be a couple options besides 'Join Party In Progress' like:

- Number of 'free' slots for classes, replacing one of the current slots like in PF
- *Option to only run a duty with people who have cleared the duty OR people who have run it more than the current mean runs per person before clearing..
- Ability to 'auto-commence' so you don't miss it after waiting an hour
- Low level party roulettes, probably already mentioned elsewhere
- Option to be placed in non-standard parties whether in progress or not


* So imagine you're running T5. Once you've ran duty finder with new people til you wanted to rip your hair out enough, you'd eventually pass the threshold where half the people queuing have already run it X number of times or more. Now you are in the pool of people that already kinda know the fight and you no longer have to explain divebombs and conflags. More tiers of this == more effective DF for raids and trials.

I don't completely disagree with this but that would just dig an even deeper hole for the people currently six feet under as it is.
I am a fan of non standard partys though. not even my fc will give into my whims of solo tank Titan or 7 sch rumah

For the auto-commence, they'd have to have some way to automatically change you to the correct class/job, which might get tricky if you've got multiple gear sets for that job.

There's also the issue of someone going on unexpected extended AFK with this running (or just being a jerk). So they auto-accept, and some unsuspecting party is stuck with them AFK until they can waste a kick. Granted, jerks do that now, but at least now they have to sit there long enough to hit Commence.

And yeah, if you give people the option to not run with newbies, newbies are going to get screwed so hard. Yes, some people will start out still running with newbies, but building frustration is going to diminish that more and more; a lot of people are cool with newbies in small to medium doses, but would start opting out after being the only experienced player several times. Which just tilts the ratio that much more for the ones who're left, and so on.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by StealthPaladin

- Number of 'free' slots for classes, replacing one of the current slots like in PF

---

I don't think it would work for four man content. The only way to cover all the roles and still have any additional slots is to replace the second DPS slot with an open "any class/job" slot. But DPS is already the one that's overloaded with players, so that open slot would still effectively be a second DPS slot anyway. It doesn't make a lot of sense to fill that open slot with a second tank or healer if other groups still need a tank or healer to make a complete group.

But maybe for some eight man content it might work. Have it require at least one healer, at least one tank, at least two or three DPS, and then three or four other players that could come from any job. It might require some re-thinking of what constitutes "standard" tactics for certain instances, since you can't count on things like always having two tanks to swap off between, but that might be a good thing. Content gets old if you run it over and over using the exact same pattern every time. A system that would require players to adjust their strategy to fit the circumstances can keep each run interesting as you need to coordinate with each other in deciding what that strategy should be.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by StealthPaladin

- *Option to only run a duty with people who have cleared the duty OR people who have run it more than the current mean runs per person before clearing..

---

This one would be a complete game-killer. It's essentially a system for ensuring that no new players can ever join the game, because you cannot run any content unless you'd already cleared it prior to the new system going into effect.

The experienced players need a continuous stream of new players joining the game because without them there would be fewer and fewer people to game with until the servers feel deserted. And shortly after, they'd be shut down completely, since SE has an even greater need of those new players joining the game, because without them it wouldn't be economically feasible to continue running it. So I'm pretty confident that SE ins't going to consider implementing any features designed to prevent new players from being able to start.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by StealthPaladin

- Ability to 'auto-commence' so you don't miss it after waiting an hour

---

The "Commence" button is there for a reason. It's so that you're ready to enter the dungeon when you enter it. And you can't very well miss it unless you're AFK at the time (in which case, you shouldn't be entering anyway). If you're in battle at the time, you need to get clear. If you're in the middle of a dialog or cutscene, you need to complete it or exit out of it. If you're on a different class/job, you need to switch to the one you'll use for the dungeon. And so on... And if you're momentarily AFK, you need to return to the game before you can start an instance.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by StealthPaladin

- Option to be placed in non-standard parties whether in progress or not

---

Now this one I actually like. We could use some more flexibility for non-standard parties. It could make for some fun challenges if you check a "non-standard group" option in DF and it would just take the first 4 or 8 players who chose that option and put them together regardless of class/job, leaving you to sort out who does what once you see who you wound up with. It could also fix the problem of not being able to replace a member who drops in mid-run if the group started out with a full non-standard party.

The more options they add, with stuff like non-standard parties, the worse selection and queue-times get. If they were to add an option to tell DF you want non-standard parties then those people choosing that option would essentially be picked out of the pool of players to be put in a separate queue with only non-standard party applicants. Both of these pools would have worse queue times because there would be fewer applicants in each pool than there would be if there would only be one joint pool. The more options like this you add, like only being put up with people who have previously cleared an instance, the more you segregate the queues and the worse queue-times gets for everybody. There is already an option for non-standard parties and that's via PF, your FC, a LS or /shout.

Anyone play Rift? The dungeon finder system for rift let you pick any of the roles you were qualified for (needed to have the appropriate class/souls to fulfill a role), and queue for the dungeon. You could queue just for a DPS role, or a tank role, or all of them if you were qualified, and would be assigned one of your chosen roles upon entering the dungeon. You could switch souls inside the dungeon once you entered, something that was really nice. If the healer was having a rough time, someone could switch to a support or healing soul to help out and still dps a little. Or maybe you had a new tank who didn't know some of the more advanced mechanics, so someone could switch to a tank soul to show them how to do a certain part. All the switching of course done outside combat.

So in FF14 if you have a SCH and Bard, you could queue as a DPS and Healer, rather than having to pick one or the other. This would probably speed up QT by lightening the load on DPS.