Why is "Duty Roulette" a solo feature?

[Taekrys]

I've been playing MMOs for years with the same pattern: me and one or more than my friends, grouped together, making a party.
I did that before they even implemented the idea of LFD-like feature years ago and I kept doing it afterwards, never playing alone.
Reason is I have no fun playing MMOs with just myself, while I enjoy having some friend to talk, chat and comment with while we do it together.
For me, MMOs, are a chance to play a Co-Op game in a free roaming environment. I can count really a few console games, today, where that happens. And I already played all of them through.
MMOs, thus, have this nice thing: they don't finish. Ever. At worst, they stop being enjoyable.

So, when I discovered they prevented premade groups (even 2 out of 4) to join the queue for Duty Roulette, I was basically left out from the feature.

Don't get me wrong, I know it's not a matter of randomness. I can check all istances with my Group and queue for all of them. That way I get them random anyway (we still prefer doing WP over and over, nevertheless).
The problem is that, with this feature, people PREFER to play alone, since they can cap Mythology much faster and earn bonus prizes while doing it.
So when I login searching for my FC friends to play together, I often find them already into a Duty roulette without waiting me. And obviously, since they cap earlier, they see no reason to doing more istances.
Most of my FC buddies don't dislike playing alone, after all, so it's obvious they prefer this, over doing 5 more istances for week just to get to 450/450 with less money and much slower.
But to be honest, this kinda killed some of the bound we had inside the game.

I supposed this was some kind of "We want people to hang out with strangers more!" message from SE.
Then again, if that was the case, why is 2.1 about "*Free Company* Housing"?
Is this a patch to promote FC's bond, or to wreck my loved family-like kind of gamestyle?

I'm asking this both for hearing your opinion, than to know if any of you know the official reason SE gave for that.
Cause if they explained the reason somewhere, I really missed it.

[eagledorf]

It is solo because they want to put people into slots that are empty in lower level dungeons so new players can progress in the story and content and they don't want preformed groups just blowing through dungeons or pressuring the new person to hurry through it. I think the hope is people will no longer end up in the queue for 2 hours for a single dungeon waiting for that healer/tank to pop.

[Taekrys]

It is solo because they want to put people into slots that are empty in lower level dungeons so new players can progress in the story and content and they don't want preformed groups just blowing through dungeons or pressuring the new person to hurry through it. I think the hope is people will no longer end up in the queue for 2 hours for a single dungeon waiting for that healer/tank to pop.

That is the official reason, or your opinion?
And how queuing solo increases the amount of healers and tanks in queue?
Then again, if they want people to help "solo" the leveling players, why didn't they leave level-50 queues doable by a party? Even 2 out of 4, I can't imagine where the problem was.

[ispano]

That is the official reason, or your opinion?
And how queuing solo increases the amount of healers and tanks in queue?
Then again, if they want people to help "solo" the leveling players, why didn't they leave level-50 queues doable by a party? Even 2 out of 4, I can't imagine where the problem was.

Someone in another thread posted something that might help illustrate why it would be a problem. Take a deck of cards, Diamonds are Tanks, Hearts are Healers. Spades and Clubs are DD. Now shuffle the deck, and make 13 groups by pulling single cards and putting them in random groups. Do that a few times and find out how many are valid groups. Now do the same with two cards at a time. It's not a perfect example, but works fairly well.

[Tupsi]

Because people requested a heavily solo based MMORPG because they hated having to play with other people.

[Skotie]

Because people requested a heavily solo based MMORPG because they hated having to play with other people.

Which pretty much defeats the purpose of a game like this, if people want to play a game solo they already have tons of those.

[ispano]

Which pretty much defeats the purpose of a game like this, if people want to play a game solo they already have tons of those.

You do know that there's a huge difference between playing a single player game and playing solo in an MMO, right? They are FAR from the same playstyle.

[Skotie]

You do know that there's a huge difference between playing a single player game and playing solo in an MMO, right? They are FAR from the same playstyle.

So then what's the difference that you can show off to other people your gear which they have as well since it is basically an RPG where you can interact with other players? If you want to play solo what's the point? Are you going to all brag to each other about how epic you are in a tavern or something?

[ispano]

So then what's difference that you can show off to other people your gear which they have as well since it is basically an RPG where you can interact with other players? If you want to play solo what's the point? Are you going to all brag to each other about how epic you are in a tavern or something?

You just said it yourself. You have the ability to interact with other players. You can't do that in a single player game. Just because you can't see why one would like that, and not be forced to group for everything or most everything, doesn't mean it's wrong.

[ispano]

It's to counter people like you and your friends. When you queue as you do with your friends, you remove potential participants from normal DF queues. Get some people needing Sastasha together, but no tanks are queuing because they only go in as a group? That is what it's for. To get people OUT of the premades at least a little, to help populate DF groups. Because we know many of these people, not all, but many wouldn't do it without some sort of incentive.You queuing in a roulette as a group of 2-4 doesn't help these people at all.