Raid finder vs duty finder

Before 3.4 patch i practiced thordan a lot bcz it was so easy to queue, even i could queue to ravex at the same time. So i reduced the waiting.
But now that thordan and seph ex are on raid finder its almost imposible to queue.

I know that i could rely on my fc and stuff but thats not the point. I feel that giving too many restrictions when using raid finder reduces playing time and makes players wait more and play less.

Maybe im not using it ok, but it seems very restrictive.

Your thoughts?

Agreed. I've gotten most of my Ex primal clears and mounts in DF.
I'd rather have the option to queue in DF and get more runs in thanks to the bigger pool of players than have to wait for 7 other people to pick the same Raid Finder options as me.
I hope SE moves old Ex primals back to DF and just leaves the newest one in RF.

Yeah, I'm having the same problem as well, I don't understand why they would put content such as thordan EX which is completely doable in the duty finder imo, and put it into a system that just doesn't work, thus locking people from being able to do the content, I have yet to clear some of the EX primals they decided to put in the raid finder and I find I may never be able to as I hate creating pre formed parties due to rage quitters, and surplus of salt. I hope they fix this even if they just put them on both raid finder and duty finder.....

Everyone is doing Sophia Extreme right now. Once that's farmed out there will be more demand for Thordan and Sephirot again.

It has nothing to do with Sophia being out, lets look at the past, When Sephirot came out you could still join the duty finder for Thordan and get some runs in with out waiting for 30+ minutes, When Nidhogg came out, there was no change there either, could still get runs in duty finder. But with this new patch out where all high end ex primals being in raid finder, i have done more sitting around waiting for players for Thordan in both party finder and in raid finder than actually doing the fight. It was an colossal mistake, it looks to me like they wanted to satisfy the raid statics by doing that but completely forgot about the 90% of casual players. What they should have done is put in both, that would have satisfied everyone. That can still be done because the programming that had them in the duty finder is still there. This has made me angry just thinking about how im locked out of content. I bet that if they were to put in back in duty finder, the high end ex primals would be busy

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by BelraugFire

snip

---

We must have had very different experiences, because I'd be waiting an hour + for Thordan in DF on a good day - and even if I managed to get in, the likelihood of getting a group that had any clue what they were doing was very low. While it's certainly easier than it was at release, it's hardly a pushover fight, especially at PuG level - the mechanics are pretty unforgiving, and at least with RF you can specify what part of the fight you're at instead of getting put with newbies and never seeing past 60%. After a patch or two and our ilevel turns it into a joke, I imagine it will be moved to DF. Plus, as the above poster said, queue times for older duties go down the drain when there's fresh content out anyway, give it a week or two and things will go back to normal.

RF has been a lifesaver for me this patch, it took me three weeks to find a decent group to down Nidhogg in PF; I cleared Sophia this evening.

Well from 5 people, 3 have waited a lot (i havent queued once on raid finder this weekend), and 1 accepts it but says its temporal. 1 the one who got fast must be bcz its doing newer content.
Nid its still new but thordan and seph should be for df.

How was the wait time for your RF Nidhogg??? Cause I spent the entire day trying to do that fight, 12 hours of my day wasted, do you know how many runs i got in???

1.

I used to get ~20-30 minute Thordan/Sephirot Ex queues about every day (as tank/healer, but honestly most of the time we were waiting on dps). Now it's pretty much impossible. The already small player base queuing for these has been fragmented across several options. Even worse is I can't multi-queue for anything.

I wish the Raid Finder had more flexibility. I don't particularly care if my group has cleared before or not, I'm happy to teach. I just want to spend my time fighting bosses, not sitting around waiting in a queue. At the very least, allow me to queue for multiple fights and put me in the one that pops first. (Even better would be to queue as multiple classes and assign me the one that's needed most.)

Also, it'd be nice if the Raid Finder defaulted to whatever tab I was on the last time I used it. I don't run savage, I'm not even meeting the ilvl req, so constantly having to change the tab is kinda annoying.

You have to do primals when they are new and valid or completly outdated. Now everybody is in Alex or at Sophia. But i think they will add some bird super mount when you collect all birds from 3.0 primals so wait a little bird farms will start in 3 months.

Outdated trials like Sephirot and Thordan are probably fine in DF at this point. Sophia no. Nidhogg maybe.

The fight phases I feel are a necessity for raid finder in some fights. Nidhogg Ex for example. I started raiding mid-August and none of the PUG groups I tried could figure out Fang and Claw even with explanations, videos, and a shotcaller in voice chat in the time we had.

That would be miserable in DF and it's why we have fight phases. It's great if people want to teach, but sometimes that's not how you want to spend your night. People who've cleared and want to help can always join learning parties via PF like I do with Sophia EX, or just queue for first phase.

Honestly, a lot of people I meet in game don't know about raid finder. There should be a button on duty finder to access raid finder.

Really i think this should be adressed quickly. im not wrong when i say that the total number of runs have dropped significantly these days.

Its affecting the QoL of the entire data center.
Hope they realize it soon and patch it.

If Sophia is the new ex primal and everyone is doing it, then im missing something cause i spent the entire day today trying to run Sophia in the raid finder and guess what, it was a 30+ minute wait every time. This is horrible. I have been telling you that raid finder is a terrible system, but all i get is its because Sophia is out and everyone is running it, well its week 2 and i cant even get a run in raid finder for Sophia or even any of the other high end EX primals for that matter. SE better fix this atrocious mistake fast cause im starting to think about ending my subscription. I hope they fixed the monumental mistake with this maintence they should be doing today.

I do see the game from a different point of view. I will admit this during the day in EU on a work-week it seems that the RF has longer queue times. Especially at peek when raids are running.
And comes late evenings like 11pm (GMT) onward the queue times are less -queued up within 8min.

I personally see the RF for Sophie fits my needs, I needed to farm my weapon fast, and within a day I got that done. I can't talk for the other primals, but on the PF there are loads of bird farmers for trials in HW.

Yeah RF works best with newer content but its pointless to have older raids in it.
It splits a medium size base of players on fragments of options or restrictions.

Ive put a ticket on this, i dont want to wait until 3.5 to see seph and nidh ex on df.
Hope SE hear my pleads. As an active subscriber.

i spend 3 days more than 15 hrs with out 1 single primal fight, yes im new because i was quitting since 3.1 , SE are you kidding me? who ever introducing this type of garbage system should get fire immediately .

I've had relatively quick queues with sophia. I just tested this out on sophia, at 10 in the morning on a sunday (certainly not primetime). I had a roughly 5-10 minute queue as a black mage with duty completed selected.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by BelraugFire

If Sophia is the new ex primal and everyone is doing it, then im missing something cause i spent the entire day today trying to run Sophia in the raid finder and guess what, it was a 30+ minute wait every time. This is horrible. I have been telling you that raid finder is a terrible system, but all i get is its because Sophia is out and everyone is running it, well its week 2 and i cant even get a run inraid finder for Sophia or even any of the other high end EX primals for that matter. SE better fix this atrocious mistake fast cause im starting to think about ending my subscription. I hope they fixed the monumental mistake with this maintence they should be doing today.

---

Before raid finder it would have taken 3 months for Sophia Ex to be available in DF. Before Raid Finder there was no less-than-8-ppl queuing for any current ex or savage content.
Also on EU datacenters it's quite more common to use PF still. And it's an MMORPG which makes most things easier when done with friends/acquaintances. Queing as a single role makes your que times dependant on ammount and role composition of every other random queuing player.

The only things which got farmed in DF quite frequently were Ravana&Bismark (after being overgeared by 40-100 ilvls; soonest 3+ months after being released), maybe Thordan (earliest again 3+ months after release).
Sephiroth and Niddhog (even 3 months after release) were pretty uncommon and I heavily doubt that raid finder doubled the time towards duty finder.

Que times for sophia ex on JP servers average 5 mins or less with duty completed selected. Around 7 mins for incomplete. And this is during the daytime of a weekday when people should be at work.

There are a lot of people using RF over here and RF has been great; Sophia is the first HW ex primal I've done, since forming a group with other english players is incredibly difficult thanks to our low numbers and different availability's, being spread out across multiple servers, and there's no chance of you getting into a JP party finder group without speaking the language. And yes, of course I play on a JP data centre being from Aus.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Neophyte

Before raid finder it would have taken 3 months for Sophia Ex to be available in DF. Before Raid Finder there was no less-than-8-ppl queuing for any current ex or savage content.
Also on EU datacenters it's quite more common to use PF still. And it's an MMORPG which makes most things easier when done with friends/acquaintances. Queing as a single role makes your que times dependant on ammount and role composition of every other random queuing player.

The only things which got farmed in DF quite frequently were Ravana&Bismark (after being overgeared by 40-100 ilvls; soonest 3+ months after being released), maybe Thordan (earliest again 3+ months after release).
Sephiroth and Niddhog (even 3 months after release) were pretty uncommon and I heavily doubt that raid finder doubled the time towards duty finder.

---

Nidhogg was never available in DF for less than 8 people queuing so we can't compare.
As a DPS I had about half hour queues for Sepirot and successfully cleared it.
I have yet to have a pop for either in RF.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ash_

Que times for sophia ex on JP servers average 5 mins or less with duty completed selected. Around 7 mins for incomplete. And this is during the daytime of a weekday when people should be at work.

There are a lot of people using RF over here and RF has been great; Sophia is the first HW ex primal I've done, since forming a group with other english players is incredibly difficult thanks to our low numbers and different availability's, being spread out across multiple servers, and there's no chance of you getting into a JP party finder group without speaking the language. And yes, of course I play on a JP data centre being from Aus.

---

Sophia works because it's new and lots of people are queuing for for it.
The problem is the older ex trials which have fewer people queueing and the Raid Finder splitting up those that are interested.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by BelraugFire

If Sophia is the new ex primal and everyone is doing it, then im missing something cause i spent the entire day today trying to run Sophia in the raid finder and guess what, it was a 30+ minute wait every time. This is horrible.

---

What role are you queuing? I have upwards of 50 clears though raid finder. Solo or partied with a few people, my queue is nearly instant. I queue on tank.

Ppl you are missing the point, rf is efective with newer content.
Bcz everyone are at the same spot.
Ppl saying that rf with soph ex is great are Just using it for 1 content.
From like 8 avaliable, i bet those queue times multuply if you do thex or seph ex.
Ive never waited more than 30 min to get HW content now im waiting more than am hour!

Feel like I am just repeating the majority of people but figure having more people say it cant hurt

Raid finder for Sophia is awesome. I've gotten a lot of queues, and wins with raid finder. Farmed almost all the weapons.

For older content Raid Finder DOES NOT WORK.

Previously me and my group (usually 3 of us) used to queue for Thordan & Seph and just do whichever queued first. The queue times weren't great, not a lot of people farming but they happened about every 15 minutes. These parties contained new people and experienced people. Wins were not guaranteed but we helped many people get their clears. Typically about a 60-75% clear rate, which we were happy with.

Now there are no queues at all because
1) We cannot queue for multiple things (so half the people might queue for one and the other half the other)
2) You divided the playerbase into those who have beat and those who haven't, decreasing the amount of people available to fill a duty. For harder/new content I know why this is a good thing. But I liked helping people, and I knew queuing in the DF I would get new people. Even people who had no idea... but at least getting in with new people is better than never getting to even try.

Please just keep raid finder to the newest or 2 newest primals.

What a dont understand is how SE doesnt react on numbers. I supose they track the how many times content is played.
The must know that numbers have dropped, is that they dont care?
Older content in raid finder isnt helping anyone.

Never tried raid finder yet, can you just do it solo, as in cannot use it if with a friend?
I have not been able to try Sophia EX yet. All pf groups are farming or must know to a certain point.
And if have to wait until SE adds it to df, it usually is obsolete by then ....

I would think SE would have tracking system that tracks the amount of traffic flow for each primal server, but it sounds like they dont care or dont have it at the moment. It seems to me that the reason they moved all these primals into the raid finder is to satisfy the player base on the japanese servers without considering the EU or NA servers at all. Im on Gilgamesh, a very high traffic NA server and i can say even when nidhogg came out you could get a run for Thor ex in 10-15 minutes at most, but now your lucky if you see the que fill up after hours of waiting, same for Sephirot or nidhogg. Its completely dead as far as i can see. SE needs to return all older ex back to duty finder. I bet you the traffic flow for them will go back up.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Maero

Never tried raid finder yet, can you just do it solo, as in cannot use it if with a friend?

---

You can queue alone or with a friend (or many friends). You can queue for practice phase 1, practice last phase or aim for clear. Other than that, it's not really different from Duty Finder. But the queues on my data center at least are really awful (even when queueing with 2 healers).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by albertopin

What a dont understand is how SE doesnt react on numbers. I supose they track the how many times content is played.
The must know that numbers have dropped, is that they dont care?
Older content in raid finder isnt helping anyone.

---

If people don't que up for older primals then sophia you wouldn't get entry in DF either. It doesn't matter if it is in RF or DF, as long as people que up for it. And there is still the option of using the PF what most people do with the level 50 primals anyway.

Its not as simple as that, Rf has certain rules, duty finder doesnt.
First by separating non completion with completion. Just by that if 8 ppl queue for a trial where 4 ppl have completed and 4 ppl dont. they will never form a party on rf but in df they'll do.
Escalate that to party composition( ranged dps melee dps) and practice vs completion.
You split the matching in more than 5 pieces. While in df is just one big group, even the algorithm allows múltiple choices.

I also want to say that in jp servers situation is different. Most player base queue in an range of 2 hour (GMt system) while en na/eu geographically are ranges of 5 or 6 hours that damages grouping.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Taika

You can queue alone or with a friend (or many friends). You can queue for practice phase 1, practice last phase or aim for clear. Other than that, it's not really different from Duty Finder. But the queues on my data center at least are really awful (even when queueing with 2 healers).

---

Ahh thanks for that info, much appreciated

PF on Mateus is dead, queueing in the Raid Finder has been the only way for me to get efficient Sophia queues. Since yesterday I've cleared it 15 times and gotten the weapons for my go to classes that I play. I love the RF now! To those complaining about queues though I've noticed something, so far the Practice queues appear to be dead, it seems that people are queueing for "Duty Completion" regardless of their level of practice on the fight itself and just sort of learning as they go. It's been a bit rough trying to help my friends to get a clear since a lot of the people that have cleared it are queueing for the "Completed the Duty already" option for the matchmaker so there are no new players when they go in.

Once I got my clear, I only queued in the Completed Only RF option, as a tank my queues are always instant or near instant and I've been able to clear it pretty consistently in the RF thus far.

Most people citing positive experiences with Raid Finder are only mentioning Sophia.
Most of the complaints are regarding queues for the older primals in RF: Thordan, Sepirot and Nidhogg. These fights have fewer people queueing for them at all and the RF makes it worse by splitting up the people interested.

Raid finder was never meant to be a perfect system. It has always been meant to hold us over until the cross duty party finder was implemented.

In all honesty, party finder is not a solution for raid finder, fixing raid finder or returning the older primals to duty finder is a solution. They have currently seperated everyone based on premade mandatory settings. (ie duty complete vs duty incomplete) they could fix the raid finder by implementing a third choice, like a "both" button, which will allow the player to chose if they wanted to be queued with complete, incomplete, or both. That puts the player in control of what he wants to do. Not everyone wants to form a party in party finder to do every single thing in raid finder, so it will never be a solution to raid finder, its just an improved party finder system and that's it.

I think raid finder really should just be for current content (Sophia, in this case). At the very least, Thordan and Sephirot shouldn't be there anymore since it's already how many patches old. At least Nidhogg is just one patch off (but still very doable on DF probably). Look at it this way, Midas (Savage) is already off RF and Thordan's older than that.