Dungeon Finder

[Murugan]

First, I can do without the condescension to "my generation". Do you even know how old I am? I've been playing games for over 20 years, I'm not an impatient 13 year old who needs to get talked down to by the grown ups about how great the good ol' days were (they weren't, and nostalgia is an evil thing). I have a job, I have friends, I get out, and that is EXACTLY the reason I want these changes--I want to have fun in this game in a timeframe that doesn't invade time spent with my friends or my responsibilities. If the game tries to make me choose, the game is at fault because you should never put a game before real life.

I would, in fact, contend that it's just the opposite. The game forcing you to spend hours putting together a group, getting to the target area, and possibly having nothing to show for it because you didn't get through by the time limit all exclude those of us with busy schedules who are still gamers in a way that other games don't. Games, especially these days with gamers who are older and have families, should accommodate those who don't have 8 hours to spend on a single xp party but still want to actually play the content they're paying good money for.

Now I'm not opposed to making the dungeon finder single server, but it can also lead to some issues. For instance, if you're still learning your class (which you will be doing the mid-level dungeon) and you don't do well the first time, you'll get blacklisted by them even after you learn how to play. This is part of why I liked the dungeon finder in WoW, I could take on a new role for my paladin (playing tank when I'm used to DPS, for instance) and not worry about how idiotic I look to people I'll need to deal with later. Then when you learn your class and the dungeons, you run with your guild.

It has absolutely nothing to do with time. A proper party search function (which really only needs a party seek function/seeking for party list right now as well as a better comment box with auto translate functionality) would work just as fast a dungeon finder without the need to have the server randomly put people together.

Also accountability does not automatically mean someone is "blacklisted" for making a mistake while playing. In all my time playing FFXI I never once did this to someone, and I always formed parties myself if I could not find one quickly (I still do). People are fully capable of understanding others limitations in pick up groups, if they truly can't deal with that then they will play exclusively in statics anyways.

With automatic dungeon finders instead of getting help to learn how to play your class in a party you are more likely to have the people simply abandon you there and requeue to try to find a group with someone who does know how to play (unless the content is so broken that it doesn't matter how you play). They'll still tell their linkshellmates about you, and they'll still laugh at you only maybe you can hide behind the chance that you'll never run into each other again. But I don't think that that sounds like a very good solution to your problem though.

You should always care about how you look to others, you are sharing in their time as well. Your time is so important to you that you want to place all these limitations on the game, well chances are other people value their time just as much and don't want it wasted by you so that you can "not worry about how idiotic you look" before you play with your linkshell. Next time you don't know how to play your class in a certain situation ask for some pointers, 9 times out of 10 in a pick up group people will be more than willing to help you out. Especially in a game like FFXIV where most people play multiple jobs.