Party search feature useless?

[viion]

It is all good saying "i wish more used it", and "just read this guide on how to do it". You should not need to read a guide to do use it, it should be self explanatory, it should be simple, with less options and less clutter. The Search in Party needs to be removed as its confusing having 2.

They really need to step up and have this fixed on 2.0 launch otherwise it will blow up in their face again, but hopefully with this dungeon finder thingy ma bobby they have a good idea, and hopefully we dont end up with 3 completely confusing features that require a manual to use...

[Solonuke]

Thanks for the responses so far! The guide on Lodestone I was looking for was hidden beneath "Parties". If you want to read it yourself, here it is. After reading that guide it's a bit more understandable how the system works. I still think that there's too many submenus and the wording is confusing. Could "Search" in "Party" menu be named anything but "Search"? I think "Search for parties" instead of "Search" could help out with the confusion a bit. "Search" makes me think of the similar named feature in the menu.
I really hope they work more with this because of it could reduce shouting and the crowdedness in Uldah in the long run.

[Soukyuu]

It is all good saying "i wish more used it", and "just read this guide on how to do it". You should not need to read a guide to do use it, it should be self explanatory, it should be simple, with less options and less clutter. The Search in Party needs to be removed as its confusing having 2.

Well... no offense.. but I didn't require a guide to understand how to use both. People nowadays just stare at the screen for 1-2 seconds, say "I don't get it" and move on.

That's not the reason most people aren't using it though. At release, the recruiting system wasn't used because it was an unusual implementation, with people only having control over which classes can join, not who can join. So people resorted to shouts instead and invited manually.

Fast forward to the implementation of the party search system. People formed a habit of shouting, so even though now they got their LFG flags they whined about to SE, barely anyone uses it, because you can "just shout".

tl;dr: party search/recruit isn't useless, it's the community that chose not to use them. I do try to teach new players to first use search, then shout, but it's not changing much. I can imagine new servers will change that, in fact, when I tested Ragnarok, there were like 50 people seeking for party through it. On Hyperion, it's 0-5 most of the time.

[Skies]

Truth to be told, every game has a manual, and smarter, intelligent games teach you the intricacies of it's system as you play through it without you even noticing.
The party search feature goes completely unexplained and unadvertised in the game, so unless you decide to go hunting stuff down in your menus you won't notice it exist.

Hell, for all the discussions about anima all over, a friend of mine did not even KNOW teleporting existed the way it does until the day he was really pissed at having to make a gigantic trip and I told him "Why not just use anima?" and he went "Wait, what is that?"

(given, that friend is kind of spacy but even so)

[carlosx]

only way to make people use search is Abolish PL and add Alliance mode


soo people will need balanced PT setups and make level Gap exp at 5 ratio -5 = -50% exp, 0 = normal exp

[viion]

Well... no offense.. but I didn't require a guide to understand how to use both. People nowadays just stare at the screen for 1-2 seconds, say "I don't get it" and move on.

That is the problem and the reason it is not being used. You should be able to understand it in 1-2 seconds, thats how all new systems get used, because people understand it, its natural to them. Look at XIV launch, everything was so unnatural that people just stopped playing. Make things feel nature and you just "Get" and "know what to do", and it will be used all the times.

[Soukyuu]

That is the problem and the reason it is not being used. You should be able to understand it in 1-2 seconds, thats how all new systems get used, because people understand it, its natural to them. Look at XIV launch, everything was so unnatural that people just stopped playing. Make things feel nature and you just "Get" and "know what to do", and it will be used all the times.

No, it's not. Staring at something won't make you understand it if you don't turn on your brain while staring.

It was clear where to set your status (where else if not where it is displayed?), and the rest of the options is obvious.
Set your search criteria and press "search".

What exactly is not intuitive or unnatural about the search system?

[Alhanelem]

only way to make people use search is Abolish PL and add Alliance mode


soo people will need balanced PT setups and make level Gap exp at 5 ratio -5 = -50% exp, 0 = normal exp

Neither of these things have anything whatsoever to do with the party search function. They don't need to Abolish PL, for one thing that's impossible, and for another thing, you're assuming everybody PLs and that's simply not true. Large group content will be added post 2.0 but I don't see that helping the party search system either, especially considering it's to be replaced with the content finder anyway.

[Elexia]

It is all good saying "i wish more used it", and "just read this guide on how to do it". You should not need to read a guide to do use it

Yes because instructions were given to you as an optional thing right? You buy a car they give you a manual just for toilet reading I assume? Seriously. There is nothing wrong with reading a guide to learn how to do something...

...But this is the generation that hates to read books..especially given your overused "Learn how to read".

[Griss]

Its the age old catch 22 that has plagued these systems since the start. No body attempts to use them, because no body attempts to use them.

Why bother trying to wade into the sometimes scary looking options when you can /sh and /pcmd your way to a party?