How to make a Duty-Finder system that helps rather than hurts community

[Makeda]

Seems like this ought to be in 'Dungeons' but everyone's putting these kinds of threads in general so here I go...

My suggestions on how to make a Duty Finder system that would help community, and a call for others to post their own ideas after it.

Not a 'this community sucks/is great' or a 'the devs are/aren't making one' thread - but just suggestions.

1. Give the option to form same-server only randoms.
2. Give the option to make friends across servers.
3. Allow grouping of friends from any World. So you could just go down your friend list and invite/tell/linkshell chat with any friend on any World.
4. Make Vote-Kick a power ONLY the party leader has (see below for why).
5. Pass party lead in order joined group if party lead DC's or is AFK more than 2 minutes.
6. Allow random groups to stay grouped after completion, and re-queue together.
7. Allow cross-world blacklisting.
8. Make the blacklist account-based not its current character based. If I blacklist 'leetpwns' ALL of my characters should end up blacklisting ALL of 'leetpwns' characters.
9. Keep people from grouping with anyone in their blacklist. On accident or purpose.
10. Let people privately see the number of blacklists against them. Updated not more often than once/day (so you can't tell the moment a person blacklists you and thereby know who to send your buddies to harass). If you're starting to get on people's nerves, you can't know to correct yourself unless well, something is there to give you a clue.
11. Do all of the above in ADDITION to the MVP system.

Thoughts on why to restrict kicks to ONLY the party leader:

Frankly I know it was crueler, but WoW originally had a 'party leader can kick' fiat system... and it was less abused.

One dictator can often be less harsh than a mob tyranny... at least on a small scale like this.

If there is one person with power over these things - the person that formed the party - that person tends to have a vested stake in the nature of the run: They want it to be successful, and/or polite, and/or whatever... so when the kicks happen, they happen for consistent reasons - and people learn to set expectations.

Back in the old WoW, due to all grouping being same server only, and only leads having kick power - folks gained a rep. You knew to or not to group with 'leetpwns' as (s)he'd kick people for saying 'Hi' or being 1.23% too slow on hitting A+B and UP...

Or you knew to or not to group with 'ponyhugs' because (s)he'd kick people for saying anything that didn't have a smiley on the end, but would tolerate any noob that could get past the login screen...
- Expectations could be set based on server rep.

And when kicks are not random because one person holds the power - if you know that 'jerk' running the group is a jerk and kicks for jerkish reasons, its not griefing.
You just know... 'group with the jerk if you agree with how they kick' or 'avoid the jerk if you disagree with how they kick.'

[Zakalwe]

Entirely agree, even with the leader kick issue. Great set of positive suggestions.

[Crica]

1) players already have the option to play with random players on their own server, so there is no need to place undo stress on the Duty Finder tool which would cause it to form groups slower then needed by adding this option to it as well (as Yoshi-P has already explained)

2) players already have the option to add random players on their own server to their friends list, if there is no one on their server they want to be friends with, switching servers when the feature goes live in 2 weeks would be a better solution

3) you are asking for a tech to be implemented to a game that is very young - use "server transfer" feature that will go live in 2 weeks until the game has enough money to actually do this - WoW is the ONLY mmo that does this, and it is a game that brings in a TON of money compared to this one

4) there is NO party leader in a random Duty Finder group because NO ONE formed the group themselves, SE formed the group for everyone

5) see #4

6) that would cause the tool to become NON RANDOM - if you want to play with the same players over and over, form your own groups instead of using a tool that matches you with RANDOM players

7) again, a tech like this for a very young MMO just is not going to happen - take a break from using the Duty Finder and go play the rest of the game or play with your friends and family if you happen to be unlucky once in a while - personally i have yet to encounter more then 2 players that i could not just ignore and continue the run anyway

8) see #7

9) see #7

10) what? why does it matter if you know i blisted you or not? most players do it without telling why they do it just so they can avoid any ingame drama, so knowing whom blisted whom doesnt help anyway

11) stop using the Duty Finder as your SOLE means of player interaction and the game will be alot more fun

[GabrielK]

*snip*

I disagree with the "switch servers" bit. You mean we're not allowed to befriend people cross-server ?
The feature to be able to befriend and group on DF with them seems extremely nice to me and it would be a welcome and brilliant addition.

Also "stop using DF" for player interaction ? It's a nice tool that can be improved upon greatly, and there's little reason not to, in my opinion, at least in the long run.

[Crica]

I disagree with the "switch servers" bit. You mean we're not allowed to befriend people cross-server ?
The feature to be able to befriend and group on DF with them seems extremely nice to me and it would be a welcome and brilliant addition.

Also "stop using DF" for player interaction ? It's a nice tool that can be improved upon greatly, and there's little reason not to, in my opinion, at least in the long run.

read the ENTIRE thought instead of glancing over it

i said that the game is young and does not have the money for the TECH for this atm like the ONLY MMO that does this does, WoW...

i said stop using DF as your SOLE means of player interaction and the game becomes more fun...

[Makeda]

EDIT: Hit my daily post limit here right after this response. So any further comments from me will be... eventually... or maybe in the New Players forum. :P

SE, re forum posting limits... really? I mean I get it for really new folks, but once you've shown you're not a spammer... come on... :P

10) what? why does it matter if you know i blisted you or not? most players do it without telling why they do it just so they can avoid any ingame drama, so knowing whom blisted whom doesnt help anyway

11) stop using the Duty Finder as your SOLE means of player interaction and the game will be alot more fun

It looks like you misread almost all of my list, and in fact read number 10 as the exact opposite of what I said. I'm suggesting people be able to see how many times someone has blacklisted them. But not be able to deduce who.

And for 11... if that is a solution, we could just pull the tool out of the game. I'm looking at ways to make the tool work, on the assumption that removing it is NOT an option.

As for the money. They had the money to put the tool in there - they had better find the budget to make it work, or with a game this new, it could kill the game. WoW only survived its duty finder because people had 5 years prior to become addicted to the product, their characters, and the lore. Enough inertia to survive killing its community. Even now, almost a year from leaving active play in WoW, just thinking about it makes me fondly remember my Tauren Warrior and Druid... then I remember that for the last 2 years that I was there, once the last of my friends had given up on the toxicity, I was playing mostly alone despite being a raid tank in a guild of about 300-500 active people...

The longer they take to find solutions, ANY solutions - mine or those of others, the less likely this MMO will survive. People right now have a new shiny, but don't yet have 'vested time'... and could easily move on.

Maybe my ideas are all the wrong ones. But some set of ideas needs to be put in. So I'd love to see what ideas others have. Maybe suggest some low financial cost to develop ones?


EDIT #2:

I like the idea suggested after here to have a "vote to promote" option, as my party-leader idea is mostly about putting a check and slow down on kicks.

On preventing people from grouping with folks they've blacklisted - I was thinking of 'stalker avoidance' - so perhaps a popup saying:

To the person who did the blacklisting:
"[Insert name] that is on your blacklist is also queued for this group. Both of you must accept removing the blacklists or you will both be removed from this particular party. You will not be able to blacklist them again for 48 hours. [Yes/No]"

To the person who was blacklisted:
"Someone (name withheld for privacy) who has blocked you is also queued for this group. Both of you must accept removing the blacklists or you will both be removed from this particular party. You will not be able to blacklist them again for 48 hours. [Yes/No]"

Alternatively, just a checkbox, checked by default, that says "Do not group with folks you have blacklisted."

On seeing the number of people who have blacklisted you, I was thinking it would look like this on your social panel:

11 People across all Worlds have black listed you.
3 People on [insert your world name] have black listed you.

Period. No more detail than that. It would just tell me... "oh... I'm doing something that is getting people mad at me, maybe I should change..." (if I cared).

[Nilotec]

Wow Crica. Way to be a Debbie Downer... I hate when people have nothing to offer but extreme negativity and shoot down decent or good ideas.

1. Is about ease of use not about IF its POSSIBLE to create random groups on your own server. Sitting there shouting for 20 minutes is not nearly as simple as queuing up a dungeon and then participating in a few FATES while you wait.

2. Yes I want cross server friends and even communication! Some of my friends won't be changing servers, others will and I already have friends on the server I play on. The game isn't about pleasing just one person. If there's an option you don't like you can choose not to use it.

3. FFXIV has been in the red as well as SE for a while but that doesn't stop their development on other games. It shouldn't cease progress on this one either.

4. It doesn't mean they can't change it so it creates a party leader. I just see too much potential abuse for a kick function, especially after hearing about "blackmail" runs but we'll see.

5. Not having a kick makes this somewhat moot.

6. How on earth did you find a way to complain about this? It is completely random when the party is formed. How does the party staying together cause that initial selection of players no longer random? If a group of randoms like each other then let them stay formed. If you hate it... drop party.

7. I see an extremely rare need for this unless cross world communication were to start, but why not...

8. I would prefer a blacklist on a "by account" basis as opposed to singular characters. Whatever makes it easier to avoid gilsellers is OK in my book.

9. As if, in the 325k concurrent logins in FFXIV, a group of 4-8 players couldn't come together that hadn't blacklisted each other.... That's ridiculous. What is the point of limiting people's options? If a player chooses to exclude blacklisted players from their DF why not let them? No one said it had to be a policy applied to all. It could be made as a toggle.

10. Not sure that I see this one as necessary unless SE started taking action based on the number of times someone has been blacklisted. It could lead to abuse and then you might need to know if you were being targeted.

11. Uh, that response doesn't even relate to the OP.

Thank god for the ignore list on the forums... Crica added. Especially after seeing the tone of all his/her other posts.

[gamesmart]

4) there is NO party leader in a random Duty Finder group because NO ONE formed the group themselves, SE formed the group for everyone

Look again, one member of the party is in fact designated party leader, it just has little to no meaning right now, aside from placing the party back in Duty Finder to find a replacement.

[Zakalwe]

If we are keeping a cross-worlds duty finder, with all of its community-destroying tendencies, some set of reforms like the OP's are really called for or we're in serious trouble.

My preferred fix, however, is the simplest: make the DF one world only (and I'd throw in a kick as well, but it would become less necessary). All problems solved. There may be longer wait times, but maybe not. Sure, a smaller pool to fill positions but also fewer players competing for slots.

[GabrielK]

I agree with most if not all of your points. Great stuff.
Especially love the cross-server grouping with people in your cross-server friends list, that's brilliant and enlarges the community.

However the blacklist thing, I don't wish to be restricted from accidentally grouping up with blacklisted people for the simple fact that even if I have the person blacklisted, I may still wish to take part in that "24 man PUG raid" since I have no problem with the other 22 people. And many of the others may have no reason to blacklist the person I did blacklist, I can't possibly ask them to remove him from the party on account of my problems with him.
Sure, he may end up sabotaging me in that group, but it's a risk I might be willing to take but I simply don't wish to see what he says.
I'd prefer that the person I have blacklisted would show up as with a certain color or something that tells me "hey, this guy is in your blacklist, are you sure you want to be in the same group as him?"

Again, great post Makeda.