Put back Extreme trial on raid finder again...please

[Vidu]

More important than any of that, though, is that my point is not that new players should be able to "slip into old content queues and get carried." It's that if you give players the option to exclude new players, they will take that option, thus reducing the pool of players available to help them get those important first clears. You need to look at this problem deeper than just on the surface.

First off I'd like to point out that there are certain achievements in this game, mostly PvP related that are very difficult to achieve now because the content you get them from is dead. I am, ofc, talking about the wins in old level 50 frontline content - no one does that anymore, because people have moved on to the level 60 versions. And even there you can notice how a new version often kills the others. Now, the achievments could be easly adjusted to let every frontline-win count for example instead of making it extremly difficult to ever get them (some have tied gear, monuts and titles to them); infact its probably way more difficult to get those wins than to get any of your EX-primal clears.
So there is actually something in place thats screwing those who are late to the party.

Now, to the point I quoted here... I'll repeat again: This is a game, that everyone plays for their enjoyment. It should give us the option to actually make sure we can enjoy the content we want to do. And if enjoying it means not teaching it right now, the game should give me the option for that. I dont take that option because I dislike new players - I take this option because I want to enjoy the game I'm playing. By "forcing" me into a queue with people that simply make my game less enjoyable (without that being their fault, really) you turn this game into stressful, frustrating "work" for me. My hobby shouldnt make me do things I dont want to do. I might sound very selfish right now, and even more selfish than I am or would like to sound, but you really have to understand that asking people to do something they dont want to do (if they want to teach people, they'll queue for that option) is bad - specially when its happening in a game.

Your fix for people not wanting to teach/help new randoms in DF is simply forcing them to do so by not allowing them to avoid an experience they dont want to make. Thats really not a good solution - specially not when it involves taking away the option they previously had to make sure they could play the game the way they wanted.
A new players person experience and enjoyment of the game is NOT more important than that of a person who has been here since 1.0. Their first clear is not more important than my 99th that will give me the token to get my bird - their first clear is ofc very important to them, as is the token very important to me.
Both sides need to be emphatic (...okay, that word seems wrong, if someone can suggest a better one, I would be thankful - not native, sorry >.<) here and have an understanding for the wishes of the other side. You are basically saying to everyone who has cleared the fight yet "Well, yeah, to bad that you still want drops from here and be rewarded for your knowledge of the fight now - get back to square one, please, because its more important that stranger XY learns the fight too than that you get what you want now"
You are currently looking at the problem only from the side of the new person, because you decided that they are more important and that can not and should not be the case.

I totally see the problem of people not queueing for "learning" - but the solution for that problem is not to take that away from them but instead give them a better reason NOT to do that.
Besides... we really need to get rid of the idea that you can clear EX-primals in DF. The game is very missleading in my opionion when it suggests that you can just go on and queue for them solo. I dare to say that it is impossible for a party of 8 random people to get a clear of any EX-primals when they all go in blind - those fights take more than 60 minutes to be understood and learned. By just letting you queue for them like you're used to from dungeons (all CAN easly be cleared within thegiven timeframe of 90 minutes, even with everyone going in blind) the game is giving you false hope and a wrong idea of this content.

[aleph_null]

No, you don't have to clear coil for any mechanical reason, but coil in particular has a very good story, and a new player might want to experience that. Extreme primals are generally a tougher argument to make, since the only practical benefit are the mounts and possibly weapons for glamour purposes, but some people might just want to complete them for the sake of doing so.

I did coil undersized, I meant that doing coil the proper way isn't necessary to progress in current contents. I think it's important to draw the line somewhere, some contents are just way too hard to teach/carry people through it, which is why queues for some contents are completely dead. For easy contents like 24 man raids or normal trials/raids people won't mind teaching/carrying new players.

I actually don't think the difficulty gap is as extreme as you present it, at least not for primals. Certainly there are terrible players that can barely clear a basic dungeon, and should be nowhere near extremes. But most of the "skill" involved in completing the hardest content is just learning the fight. Of course someone who's never done the fight is going to be worse at it, but given teaching, you can get most decent players through an extreme. (I've never actually done savage or original coil pre-echo, so I'm not going to presume to comment on how hard they actually are.) That's not a skill gap, it's an experience gap; indeed, the fact that it's an experience gap is why an "I've already cleared this content" button is useful. There are plenty of people without clears who are much better players than some people who've been carried to a clear.

The gap is much lessened since 3.4 since the devs decided to bring the roof much lower, so instead of filling the gap(s) they just brought all the contents closer by lowering the difficulties of the latest ex trials and savage raids. I'm not going to argue whether that was a good or bad decision, that's for a completely different thread.

The main problem with some of the previous fights is that there are some mechanics that must be executed perfectly by all 8 people in the group, or otherwise you'll wipe. From all of them a8s is definitely the one most guilty of this. There are many mechanics that'll bring down half or more of the party if one person messes up, and in some parts of the fight, someone's death will give a damage up buff on the boss (stackable), making the final phase unmanageable. Even the video guides for this fight were over half an hour long. Of course that's a very extreme case, compared to some of the easier floors like a1s, a5s, a9s, a10s, but such mechanics are also seen in other savage floors and even some ex trials have really punishing mechanics (thordan last few phases, though overgearing allowed us to kill him before those parts, then sephirot's last phase with buffs, towers and knockbacks).

More important than any of that, though, is that my point is not that new players should be able to "slip into old content queues and get carried." It's that if you give players the option to exclude new players, they will take that option, thus reducing the pool of players available to help them get those important first clears. You need to look at this problem deeper than just on the surface.

You may think that, but the only players who benefit from the lack of clear filter are those who "slip into old content queues and get carried," either with or without their knowledge (new players may now know how difficult the thing they're queuing for is). Those who want to actually learn the hard fights won't be able to do it. The queues will be dead since for those hard fights it's impossible to clear while teaching new players. In that case the only people who queue for those fights are those who want to practice early parts, and those who have cleared and want to help, which is exactly what the RF non-cleared queues are right now. Someone who's intending to farm, not teach newbies most likely won't suddenly change their mind and spend 90 minutes wiping to teach the newbies. Even in JP servers if you slip to difficult old contents via DF without knowing anything, they'll give you one or two pulls and then either kick you out or disband, or even instantly leave.

[bswpayton]

Even if certain mechanics are more an individual effort there were mechanics way before Seph Ex that required the whole party to pay attention - and if one person messed up, it could mean a wipe.

Ill give you some of those trials with maybe ramuh being the most team focused , but the others had very few one mistake everythings over mechanics. I have seen lots of people kill spiny but its still not as bad as the towers in sep, nor the stacks in sophia and def not soar. But I get both sides I understand where people who farm dont want others in their party I totally get it because some people can perfectly do these trails so with such tight mechanics sometimes you cant afford to have someone in your group who makes a mistake. But at this point the content is basicly two months from going unsync and everyone will deem the content is dead so I see no reason why at this point its not ok with op for them to be in df.

Let people who want to get their clears before unsync have them, with the ability to buy birds with totems it will be far more easy to get the birds in hw as opposed to the still rng base horses in Arr primals. So the op really doesnt have an argument there I think a two month window last chance for sync clears is pretty fair. But to the others complaining here I have to say Vidu you were right people join learning groups very fast Ive seen it with almost everyone of mine. The thing I worry about is closing that gap how do you go from learning, to farming I dont know that answer and settle with my clear alone, but I think think thats the bigger question. Because most people will join a learning party from what Ive seen , I just wish it was a way to make it more anonymous I think thats another thing that people like about df , who wants to plaster their name on their whole data center every time they wana do some content.

[Rongway]

I don't see what the problem is here. People who can farm trials don't want to play with people who haven't cleared the trial. I think that's fair - it'd mean potentially wasting seven other people's time because one person has questionable skill or knowledge of the fight in question.

...

Long-term, I would like to see a merge of the RF functionality into DF so that everything is in one place. There are so many people wondering how to even queue for the things that used to be in the RF because they don't know it exists.

Thank you, that's what I've been trying to express here. I'm not trying to change anyone's mind about social constructs or conventions. I don't care that farmers want to farm, and I'm not shaking a "shame on you" finger at anybody. None of that is relevant to anything I've said here.


What I am interested in is interfaces.

The Raid Finder is (1) a Duty Finder (2) with a "no new people" option. This is exactly what it is. The different phase settings for "have not completed yet" are not enforced, and so the only option that offers any guarantees is the "no new people" option.

party finder and premades are completely irrelevant at this point... the raid finder exists to help indiviuals not premade parties find players that fit there skills and abilities....

And yet, whenever someone starts a "put EX back in RF" thread, there are people who want this specifically so that they can use the "no new people" button when they queue with their premade farm party, to ensure that no new people can sneak in.


Any features of the raid finder that were novel or necessary at the time of its implementation have since been introduced in the form of a data center -wide party finder. The only feature that isn't available in the party finder is an enforced "no new people" option.


So, rather than having two entry interfaces -- a duty finder and a duty finder MkII with a "no new people" option -- and a party finder for forming premade parties, we should just consolidate all duty entrances into the duty finder. Then give the premade parties (a) the ability to self-enforce a "no new people" option by giving them a bonus indicator in party finder and/or (b) the option to have Party Finder enforce a "no new people" option for them.


How people want to spend their time is not in question. But we don't need three interfaces that do the work of two. Just remove the raid finder and move its "no new people" function to one of the other interfaces.

[Brill_]

You guys make it sound as if people who want to farm content are such monsters because they dont want to hold every newbies hand

Because people think that everyone who hasn't cleared something yet is looking for a carry. That is simply not true. Some people just want to get up to bat. Raid finder wasn't working because queues never popped because once people get a clear, they choose the duty complete option. People can't learn if they can't even get a group of 8 to enter with. Duty finder gives people a bigger pool of players. If playing with mere mortals is unacceptable, then don't use DF.

People joining the wrong group for the goals is something that goes both ways. Players that don't have a clue what they are doing shouldn't be joining farm parties. Players that join a learning party shouldn't expect perfection. I've seen too many learning parties fall apart because someone rages over a wipe in a learning party.

[KingXRay]

I dont think it should go back as people that looking to clear arent able to get in at all as most people dont do uncomplete anymore, adding it to duty finder helps everyone to have chance to clear and people that are cleared can help them clear as well

[Vidu]

I dont think it should go back as people that looking to clear arent able to get in at all as most people dont do uncomplete anymore, adding it to duty finder helps everyone to have chance to clear and people that are cleared can help them clear as well

People can help other people to clear in RF aswell. The difference with DF now is that they have to help, even if they dont want to - and that is bad for both sides.

Because people think that everyone who hasn't cleared something yet is looking for a carry. That is simply not true. Some people just want to get up to bat. Raid finder wasn't working because queues never popped because once people get a clear, they choose the duty complete option. People can't learn if they can't even get a group of 8 to enter with. Duty finder gives people a bigger pool of players. If playing with mere mortals is unacceptable, then don't use DF.

People joining the wrong group for the goals is something that goes both ways. Players that don't have a clue what they are doing shouldn't be joining farm parties. Players that join a learning party shouldn't expect perfection. I've seen too many learning parties fall apart because someone rages over a wipe in a learning party.

Playing with mere mortals is totally acceptable, since we all are that :P Dont try to make this sound as if people who got the clear and want to farm now are all so high and mighty that they dont want to be associated with "peastens" anymore. If DF is only working because it forces people who want to farm into learning groups, than thats broken. If people can only get experience or even kills in DF because people who'd rather not be there but had to swallow that bitter pill, were but into that group, thats not right.
Why are you also so willingly to screw over the experienced people and make the easy matchmaking tool the game gave us, useless for them? Because that is what happend right now: DF is useless for everyone who'd like to farm primals. Its probably great to the see the first two minutes of a fight but thats about it (depending on the fight, ofc). And yet you think its okay to ask of experienced people to throw themself into those first two minutes over and over again because maybe one day, there will be a party who can get the clear?
You're saying DF should be for everyone - when right now its NOT, because it is not useful for those who want quick clears anymore. You're saying that you shouldnt expect that in DF - but RF allowed us to do excatly that!

Sure, farm parties are more useful most often (specially when you do solo-tank or solo-heal strats like on Zurvan), but telling everyone to just make a farm party in PF and not have an option to check "cleared" in DF/RF (I really dont care about the menu it is in...), because you're hoping for those few who dont want to join farm parties right now to hop into DF and get a bunch of strangers to minute five of a fight, is just not... right.

Its a game - it should allow us to have fun! If fun to you means: wiping in phase one of any given EX-primal: Hooray, grats, you can do that by going into DF! If fun means however to clear that fight in less than 30 minutes you are screwed now.

[Dzian]

So, rather than having two entry interfaces -- a duty finder and a duty finder MkII with a "no new people" option -- and a party finder for forming premade parties, we should just consolidate all duty entrances into the duty finder. Then give the premade parties (a) the ability to self-enforce a "no new people" option by giving them a bonus indicator in party finder and/or (b) the option to have Party Finder enforce a "no new people" option for them.


How people want to spend their time is not in question. But we don't need three interfaces that do the work of two. Just remove the raid finder and move its "no new people" function to one of the other interfaces.

What about people in NON PREMADE parties....

with the raid finder people could queue solo. they could queue as a part group 2-3 people if they wanted to or a full group.....? are you going to give players not in full parties the same options in duty finder that they have in the raid finder..

could be pretty bad if you did that to the duty finder cos might find a lot of people checking that option even for 24 man raids and daily roulettes....

[Vidu]

could be pretty bad if you did that to the duty finder cos might find a lot of people checking that option even for 24 man raids and daily roulettes....

They could just not make it an option for anything except Savage and EX-primals. Its really about the function, not the interface.

[Rongway]

What about people in NON PREMADE parties....

with the raid finder people could queue solo. they could queue as a part group 2-3 people if they wanted to or a full group.....? are you going to give players not in full parties the same options in duty finder that they have in the raid finder..

If you want to be picky about the people you play with, there's already an interface for that. It's the party finder. That people want to queue as an incomplete party is unimportant, because no matter what interface we use, it comes down to waiting for the party to fill. Functionally, there is no difference between waiting for a randomly matched party to fill and waiting for a party finder party to fill. It's all cross-world at this point, and using the party finder gives you the added benefit of deciding before the duty starts if you don't like any of the people in your party so you can drop party without whining about a 30 minute penalty. So "I want to be picky about the people I play with, but I don't want to form a full party" isn't a serious argument.

Whether or not people want to use the party finder in its present form is irrelevant. If it included the cleared-only option, there would be no compelling reason to use the raid finder anymore which would lead to more interest in using the party finder.

could be pretty bad if you did that to the duty finder cos might find a lot of people checking that option even for 24 man raids and daily roulettes....

This doesn't even apply to anything I said, because everything I've said about DF functionality has been about self-enforcement in a pre-made party, not applicable to roulettes or alliance raids.