We need actual matchmaking in Duty Finder.

[Laphicet]

Creating a test of player skill, ability, and understanding of the game is 1 thing, but actually enforcing that in the long run in any way is not really feasible. There's nothing there to stop someone from being lazy in your roulette or instance after reaching your 'requirement'.

The idea is that if someone would put in the effort to pass said test they would at least have a better understanding of their class, as is needed to pass it, and would be using said knowledge.

A 0-dps cure-spamming healer, zero-mitigation tank, dps using skills improperly, dps that don't know how to AOE, etc, wouldn't be able to pass the test in the first place, that's the idea, to be a way of telling them their play habits are bad and need improvement. And someone who does pass the test would have to know about their class and how to execute their rotation somewhat well and handle role-specific duties properly, and thus would not be a detriment in further content unless they intentionally decide to grief, as you don't go from understanding these things and using them regularly to just, not doing such on a whim, at least not usually. These test instances would also have to be exempt from the echo buff system, of course, so you couldn't fail upward through them.

This of course, assumes that the community perspective of what classes do lines up with the developer perspective, which if one takes one look at the current state of healers and healer gear (piety on savage weps, anyone?), the devs clearly don't see at least one of the roles the same way the community does, and thus would probably make poor tests for such (a healer test with minimal or incredibly lax dps requirements, a SAM test that doesn't take into account the 60s loop and sets the dps requirement lower as a result, or a tank test that doesn't encourage double pulling, for a few examples).

[Kaurhz]

Snip

These are things that work well when written on paper but not so much when actually incorporated as an actual feature.

They would have a better understanding of their class yes, especially as far as passing the test is concerned, but actually maintaining that in the first place and not simply being lazy is an entirely different issue. Again, a player can pass the test, but whether they actually put that into practice is an entirely different issue. Someone doing 0-DPS on a healer, or doing no mitigation is often a serious case of being sloppy, or lazy as opposed to not understanding it, which is the issue a lot of players are having anyway. I've got a friend who outright refuses to even bother doing DPS in Expert roulettes or even normal duty finder content, yet in harder content, he's more inclined to actually do damage. Why does he do this? Because he can, because dungeon content is not really designed with people playing even remotely optimally, whereas savage and extreme at least tries to push this direction. The only real way you're going to address any of the underlying issues is by simply making it to where people are just outright required to perform at such a level at all times or at design unique and creative mechanics wherein it at least incentivizes healers to DPS, or tanks to actually mitigate (e.g. mechanics like Cursekeeper and Infirm Soul being incorporated into more casual content. Features like these just open their way up to potentially a lot of griefing.

Maybe you can keep it as continuous measurement, so each run is measured and you get an average across all of your runs, but that only turns your daily roulettes into too serious of activity for a vast majority of players. Besides, once you're in the rut of being on the 'bad' side, then it'll be very difficult to get out of when going in on a tank, or a healer. The less mitigation your tank does, the less opportunity you have to do damage as a healer since you're busy picking up that slack. Or the less damage your DPS do the longer a given pull goes on for you go closer to the inevitable wipe due to lack of CD availability, and then subsequent pulls just become all the more difficult. The more mistakes your DPS or tanks do the more vulnerability stacks they gain, and the more you're required to actually heal them instead of doing damage. Funny given the topic, but this is a team-oriented game, and the more your team works in harmony the easier it is to get through the content. The less harmoniously they work the harder it becomes, which is why splitting up matchmaking in this fashion just won't work, especially for the intended level/audience.

[HardcoreRaider]

Your attempt at harassment which you have conveniently deleted so as to dodge GM investigation is clear evidence that you know you have no grounds to stand on. Next time, I encourage you to understand the post properly before attempting to sow discord as you have done in this thread by attacking people and snipping their comments (which shows you didn't bother reading them at all). Everyone is telling you how you are wrong in this thread. We desperately need matchmaking in Duty Finder - it is good for both casuals and non-casuals. To deny this is to embrace casual-toxicity that we see too frequently on the forums.

[Kaurhz]

Your attempt at harassment which you have conveniently deleted so as to dodge GM investigation is clear evidence that you know you have no grounds to stand on. Next time, I encourage you to understand the post properly before attempting to sow discord as you have done in this thread by attacking people and snipping their comments (which shows you didn't bother reading them at all).

I deleted it simply because the time isn't worth it, and it admittedly came across as condescending. I just highlighted that you seem to find it okay or justifiable to increase the variance in queue time for many players simply due to your lack of intolerance of people not meeting your standards, and have you forgotten or did you not know that there's a 3000 character limit on the forums, just as is the case with the majority of forums, Bro Jobs?

I'm not embracing casual toxicity and in fact, I'm quite against it, I think it's a team-oriented game, and I think you should be expected to at least try when you're entering in the duty finder the issue is that this is just such an asinine solution which doesn't address the underlying issue, and only applies a band-aid to it, which isn't really sufficient enough.

As I mentioned in a previous post they could job lock content quests to ensure people have done their job quests adequately enough prior to entering in the content of a new expansion, especially when they are an expansion behind where their job should otherwise be. Or you can incorporate appropriate guides at both beginner and intermediate levels so players can understand the game better, and I don't mean the cheap and poor excuse that is the "Hall of Novice", and you can see an above post as to why I don't think it's suitable even as a band-aid.

once you're in the rut of being on the 'bad' side, then it'll be very difficult to get out of when going in on a tank, or a healer. The less mitigation your tank does, the less opportunity you have to do damage as a healer since you're busy picking up that slack. Or the less damage your DPS do the longer a given pull goes on for you go closer to the inevitable wipe due to lack of CD availability, and then subsequent pulls just become all the more difficult. The more mistakes your DPS or tanks do the more vulnerability stacks they gain, and the more you're required to actually heal them instead of doing damage. Funny given the topic, but this is a team-oriented game, and the more your team works in harmony the easier it is to get through the content. The less harmoniously they work the harder it becomes, which is why splitting up matchmaking in this fashion just won't work, especially for the intended level/audience.

On the note, if you want to at least say I should be reading the posts, perhaps you should at least understand the 3000 character limit imposed on posts, or read yourself. Being averse to such an asinine feature is not advocating for casual toxicity, it just expresses my distaste for such a feature.

[Packetdancer]

I don't think a skill-based matchmaking is in line with what SquareEnix wants, where the roulettes are intended to help folks fill out parties to let people who need the content get through it. Whether or not it would work, I don't think it's a feature they'd ever implement.

HOWEVER.

I think there is a strong argument to be made for matchmaking based on play-style, since there are very definitely two camps: the folks who'd rather play it safe (single pull, focus on healing, etc.) versus those who'd rather push for efficiency (pull everything, healer focuses on DPS and heals as-needed, etc.). And I'd argue that better than half of the Duty Finder complaints people have are a mismatch between those styles.

Image if you could set an option in Duty Finder configuration which is basically a radiobutton of:

As a playstyle, I...
[ ] ...prefer to be more cautious, with all members focused predominantly on their role even at the cost of the duty taking longer to complete; tanks pulling smaller groups of mobs, the healer focused predominantly on healing, and damage predominantly the concern of DPS.
[ ] ...prefer to be more efficient, with all members focused on maximizing damage even at the cost of increased risk; tanks pulling as large as they can, and healers maximizing damage when they don't need to actively heal.
[ ] ...am fine with whatever the rest of the party prefers.

Then if you pick the first, you're matched with other people who pick the first. If you pick the second, you're matched with others who pick the second. If you pick the third, you're matched with anyone. If you picked the third, it could show you upon zoning in what people had picked, so you knew if you were getting a wall-to-wall or a single-pull run.

[HardcoreRaider]

An increase in variance would mean that you can get exceptionally low queue times as frequently as longer queue times. It does not change the average. Maybe you would've known this if you supported the enlightened idea of matchmaking like every sophisticated gentleman.

Also, did you know you can bypass the 3000 character limit by just editing? Like in many forums? Maybe you would've known this if you saw the light in matchmaking instead of wallowing in heresy.

[Packetdancer]

and have you forgotten or did you not know that there's a 3000 character limit on the forums, just as is the case with the majority of forums, Bro Jobs?

Not precisely on the thread topic, but... FWIW, the forums don't actually have this limit.

If you try to initially make a post, yes, it will limit you to 3000 characters. However, it does not impose any length limit on editing posts, at least not one that I've ever run up against (and I can get verbose). So if I'm going to get Very Talky, I tend to just make a post reading something like "...editing to appease the forum post-length gremlins..." and then immediately edit it, pasting in the much-longer post and submitting.

[Ayuhra]

I slam my controller against my face when I play and hope for the best.

[Kaurhz]

Not precisely on the thread topic, but... FWIW, the forums don't actually have this limit.

If you try to initially make a post, yes, it will limit you to 3000 characters. However, it does not impose any length limit on editing posts, at least not one that I've ever run up against (and I can get verbose). So if I'm going to get Very Talky, I tend to just make a post reading something like "...editing to appease the forum post-length gremlins..." and then immediately edit it, pasting in the much-longer post and submitting.

I know you can go back and edit the post, just much prefer to quote it, snip the post down, then just write the essay. Really just 2 different approaches to bypassing the same issue.

An increase in variance would mean that you can get exceptionally low queue times as frequently as longer queue times. It does not change the average. Maybe you would've known this if you supported the enlightened idea of matchmaking like every sophisticated gentleman.

Also, did you know you can bypass the 3000 character limit by just editing? Like in many forums? Maybe you would've known this if you saw the light in matchmaking instead of wallowing in heresy.

Trolling doesn't work so well when you try too hard at it, Bro Jobs.

[HardcoreRaider]

Ironic given your replies after replies and your need to even go over the 3000 character limit. And you're clearly upset given your need to critique my infallible and perfect argument in various Discord servers. As usual, this is too easy much like the rest of FF14.