Duty Finder Reform

So, this thread is to compile some ideas to help the Duty Finder match better. Obvouisly, iLVL score is being brought to the table so that should help out quite a bit, but there are some downsides to that, the details of which escape me at the moment. Perhaps someone could comment and bring that up.

Little anecdote: In 1.0 I farmed Garuda Hard Mode for all the weapons and did it with 0 deaths for the relic quest. So I know my way around the fight. Now, since everyone's schedules are different my FC has all done this fight at various times of the day or night and it's bound that FC members will be pugging things from time to time. So I queue up and wind up in a party of people wearing AF and this is their first time doing the fight. Needless to say, the party is wiped up by Aerial Blast over and over.


I mean, I think you should be able to queue with AF; there's nothing wrong with that unless the dev team thinks otherwise. But perhaps the DF could actually queue people so that their iLVLs cluster together. Chances are if I queue with people who have an average iLVL that's closer to mine we'll have a better chance of winning since we'll have closer to the same amount of experience. Just a thought.

Also I think it goes without saying but the fact that same server instances are tied to the DF is a major flaw. At this point doing same server content comes with a wait time. So I think we're going to need some attention to the instance servers or perhaps move instances back onto the world for same server groups.

Currently the join a party in progress feature is interesting. If you check that box, there's like a 99% probability that you'll wind up in a group of people wearing AF who have wiped to the first or second boss for 70% of the time allotted for the whole dungeon. I'm not sure what there is to do about that but the checkbox might as well be called "Waste your time with a bunch of nubs in AF with 15 minutes left on the clock." Surely there is a way to make replenishing a party a better proposition for someone, perhaps tied back to those iLVL tiers suggested up above.

Anyone else have any thoughts?

In my opinion, it's not always the gear, but it's the player's personal skill. Which, sadly for the most part in DF is almost nonexistent. You can heal wounds, you can resurrect the dead, but you can never fix stupid. There's people who remain silent when asked if they're new, and when told how to do a boss they do the exact opposite. That's about 60% of every DF. Then you have the other 40% who actually listen, and know what they're doing/learn something in less than 3 attempts. For instance, Demon Wall AKA the Cock Block of AK... Obviously the most simple boss in the game, and even when explained people still either get hit by the grape flavored death panels, or get Falcon Punched of the damned bridge. Imo, there needs to be a "Personal Skill Ranking" system that rates you on damage done, damage avoided etc. That way it nets you with people in your own skill range for DF. Let the bads play with the bads, and let the actual skilled players play with others of their own range.

Grouping people together by gear is a selfish idea. It groups all the experienced people with good gear together.
Meanwhile all the new people with bad gear will be grouped together, failing over and over, and never get a chance to learn from experienced people.

Duty Finder makes pugs. Sometimes you get good people. Sometimes you get bad. Changing it so that you're always grouped with good people, and other people are always grouped with bad people is selfish and bad for Duty Finder.

DF is going to have gear check for some content, which is fine. Players who meet that check should be grouped randomly, not put together if they have elite gear and make things harder for other DF players.