Dungeon Finder

[giftforce]

LFD is only bad when it does the following.

Groups people cross-server which completely eliminates accountability.
Teleports people directly to the dungeon.

It's not fun shouting for a group or /lfg for hours. LFD is fine as long as it is server-restricted and doesn't teleport people directly to the dungeon. All it does is make the grouping automated so those of us who don't want to spend hours looking for a group don't have to. You're still more than welcome to group the old fashioned way, nobody is stopping you.

Basically you're asking for an improved LFG system, which I would distinguish from the typical LFD mechanic (as standardised in WoW and RIFT). And I wouldn't say no to such a system, actually.

I think a more streamlined and even automated LFG system would be good for the game, and not just for dungeons but for parties and NM hunts and any other situation that calls for a group.

[Dubont]

Basically you're asking for an improved LFG system, which I would distinguish from the typical LFD mechanic (as standardised in WoW and RIFT). And I wouldn't say no to such a system, actually.

I think a more streamlined and even automated LFG system would be good for the game, and not just for dungeons but for parties and NM hunts and any other situation that calls for a group.

FFXI had an automated group system and it sucked. 2 blms, a thf, a war, a bst and a drk....yeah, great group.

[giftforce]

FFXI had an automated group system and it sucked. 2 blms, a thf, a war, a bst and a drk....yeah, great group.

Must you people on this forum always nitpick?

Just because FFXI sucked at implementing an idea doesn't mean it's a crappy idea, it just means it's "back to the drawing board" to improve the idea and make it functional.

If the only problem was that it created illogical party setups then it's a simple case of more parameters being needed.

[mikefmc]

bad idea.

/signed

[Shipp]

Must you people on this forum always nitpick?

Just because FFXI sucked at implementing an idea doesn't mean it's a crappy idea, it just means it's "back to the drawing board" to improve the idea and make it functional.

If the only problem was that it created illogical party setups then it's a simple case of more parameters being needed.

I actually have to agree with this. The simple solution is this: Just like in WoW (I haven't played Rift since the LFD, but assuming it works the same), you queue up and you select your ROLE. You select tank, healer, and DPS. Based on the model in WoW, you're auto grouped with 3 dps, a tank, and a healer. There is no reason why this game cannot set up specific parameters like this to suit THIS game's typical party.

I never once used the auto-group feature in XI, but I have to say, even XI's lfg system was loads better than the one XIV has. You could just /sea all xx-xx and ask around if nobody was flagged in your level range. The slowness of that system was because of players wanting to QQ over certain classes, which really was part crappy mechanics for classes such as DRG, and part elitist community. An automated LFG tool which groups people based on their role and not class/job will greatly help alleviate that problem. It's not going to be fun for new players to not get invited to a group because job x isn't as good as job y.

bad idea.

/signed

Care to give reasons instead of participating in what appears to be bandwagoning?

[Mural]

a dungeon find is a great idea but don't teleport us to the dungeon half the fun is going there.

[rachelqueen]

i liked doing moblin maze mongers in ffxi buuttttttt because you was warped there it was a knightmare to get into absolutely horredous, u were in there like 20 mins but it could take hours to get in lol, so no warp to area please let us find it ourselfs if it will be like that..

On the point of lfp i agree it def needs be ALOT better then what we have at present, so we can at least look for party members easily and have a comments box,so people known what u after ie dungeons, raptor grind, leve link etc.......

I prefer doing stuff with people i know but it cant always happen lol, so an auto thing maybe ok if they balanced it so you would group if you had a minimum of healer and some dd etc

[Seif]

We have 2 dungeons soon. Two I think it's way too early to worry about how people find basically the only optional content in the entire game. Maybe when there are 20ish working dungeons around the game when people will actually need something like that.

[OJtheLIONKing]

I disagree with the OP on this, and on every single one of the things that was mentioned as a bad idea. There seems to be a culture from FFXI that any increase of playability, usability, readability or convenience is automatically a bad idea. I could (and have, in previous posts) gone on for ages about why this isn't a healthy attitude to have when developing a game that's desperately trying to attract new users after a disastrous launch caused by pandering to the people who most complain about the changes that have been made. However, I want to try and keep this reply shorter than an essay.

A Dungeon Finder system does have problems, yes, but they don't exist in games because the developers felt like screwing up balance. As an anecdotal example, when I played WoW along with some other friends in FFXI, we almost never did dungeons until the dungeon finder was implemented, and did them daily or more often afterwards. It's a great solution to people who want to do PUGs, but can't or don't want to spend hours finding groups for them as in FFXI. WoW's implementation also solves the problem with class favoritism that plagued FFXI for years and made finding PUGs a nightmare. Put another way, no one will force you to use a dungeon finder, but it can allow people who might not otherwise do this content to do it, and making content more accessible is the stated goal of the dev team.

That's not to say there aren't problems with it, but there are corrective steps that can be taken. Off the top of my head, a rating system for players that play nice as opposed to being jerks and leaving mid-fight that can result in them being placed higher in the queue in the future is one idea. This would incentivize good behavior while not completely excluding a paying customer from the content if they had a bad night, drunk-played, or what have you.

Lastly, I'm for a teleport simply because the content itself is currently time limited. Especially considering how long it takes to get from point A to point B without teleporting in this game, spending 30-60+ minutes to get to a dungeon that's less than an hour long is a phenomenal waste of time. It also gets annoying if you do the content more than every once in a while, having to walk to it every damned time.

[Sephr]

automatic dungeon finder on your own server good, automatic dungeon finder linked to several servers bad. I dont want none of that teleport to dungeon crap either >.>

Absolutely this. WoW's community (OMG SORRY) was slaughtered by the random dungeon finder, being as there was no accountability whatsoever.

I'd really like it if it was based on individual servers, however.