"Content Finder" - Please be careful

[Alhanelem]

It was something new and unpolished then, and its implementation permanently damaged the game in a way that could not have been predicted. The content finder feature has the potential to be great, but only if it's done better than WoW did it.

Could you elaborate on this bit? They almost suckered me back into the game with the idea that it would become easier to do dungeons (originally I found it impossible to do dungeons due to the opressive nature of that game's endgame community judging you by your "gear score."

[FestAkos]

Could you elaborate on this bit? They almost suckered me back into the game with the idea that it would become easier to do dungeons (originally I found it impossible to do dungeons due to the opressive nature of that game's endgame community judging you by your "gear score."

They introduced a Dungeon Finder which you would select what roles(tank/heal/DPS) you could fill and queue up. This would then find people across other servers to make a balanced group and put you inside of the instance. Many people thought this killed server community. I for one did not.

I played on 3 different well-populated servers at the time and the community of all of those servers were dead. People never wanted to do anything with anyone they did not know simply because they didn't know if they were any good. People also thought this new Dungeon Finder created more ninja looters and people who were jerks just because they weren't on the same server. I also thought these people were not created solely because of the Dungeon Finder. Those type of people were rampant on every single server.

In all honesty, the reason why WoW grew so much in WotLK(expansion in which the dungeon finder was released) was solely because of the Dungeon Finder. The majority of people who play MMOs play it to enjoy content and the Dungeon Finder made the content so accessible. The FFXIV devs want to make a good game, but they also want people to play their game. Content needs to be accessible for the game to grow. The developers realize this. The Content Finder is coming. People need to learn to deal with it.

[Misteyes]

I played on 3 different well-populated servers at the time and the community of all of those servers were dead. People never wanted to do anything with anyone they did not know simply because they didn't know if they were any good. People also thought this new Dungeon Finder created more ninja looters and people who were jerks just because they weren't on the same server. I also thought these people were not created solely because of the Dungeon Finder. Those type of people were rampant on every single server.

Yes, jerks and ninja-looters existed before the dungeon finder. The dungeon finder did magnify their impact (and, I believe, increase their number) by removing accountability.

Partial premades of 3 which were trying to gear up a guildmate would very often kick potential competition from the group before the boss which drops the gear they want. If someone rolled need on every item that the game allowed, intending to vendor them (and many did, at least in the Emberstorm battlegroup in the month just before Cata), the worst that could be done was kick them from that group. Half an hour later, they'd be in another group doing the same crap. Players who wanted justice were powerless to seek it.

Before dungeon finder, people would say, "Stay away from [that guy], he did [terrible thing]." After, it became, "[Terrible thing] happened to me today."

The community of WoW and the community of FFXIV are very different and the stories you're telling us tell us more about what your average WoW player is like and not what the adverse effects of the dungeon finder are.

The WoW community that I knew during classic and burning crusade was actually quite nice. It was sometime during Wrath that they really started to turn hostile. I blame dungeon finder for this, but as another poster pointed out, the Gearscore addon (an addon which would rapidly - and somewhat inaccurately - audit another player's gear and give the user a single number representing how well geared the target was) came at about that time as well - I might be misplacing the blame.

It might also be that I didn't do any of the endgame stuff until late in Burning Crusade.

[Frein]

In all honesty, the reason why WoW grew so much in WotLK(expansion in which the dungeon finder was released) was solely because of the Dungeon Finder. The majority of people who play MMOs play it to enjoy content and the Dungeon Finder made the content so accessible. The FFXIV devs want to make a good game, but they also want people to play their game. Content needs to be accessible for the game to grow. The developers realize this. The Content Finder is coming. People need to learn to deal with it.

The thing is, WoW didn't have a good LFG tool, so people had to shout for groups before DF was added.

[FestAkos]

The thing is, WoW didn't have a good LFG tool, so people had to shout for groups before DF was added.

That's a pretty good point. A good LFG system doesn't need to be cross server but I have yet to see a game implement one that's worth mentioning. WoW's Dungeon Finder is seriously the best solution.

WoW is currently in the process of developing a Raid Finder which will work like the Dungeon Finder. And with it they are instituting new roll rules such as tanks can only roll on tank gear, healers only on heal gear and DPS only on DPS gear. This will almost completely abolish ninja looters in these systems. The problem of jerks being jerks is unsolvable in all honesty. There is seriously no way to solve it other than not joining random groups.

I'd seriously be all for a LFG system that was not cross server as long as the wait time was as short as a cross server system would be but that simply isn't possible. Accessible content is what sells games. And FFXIV being more popular means more money to develop more content faster, best servers and a better overall experience.

[Frein]

The problem of jerks being jerks is unsolvable in all honesty. There is seriously no way to solve it other than not joining random groups.

It actually isn't. If the server community is strong enough, it will automatically police its members. If this is your goal, you should absolutely not dilute the populations by letting people jump outside their server.

Perhaps it's just me, and I realize we live in a "must get everything NOW!" time, but I'd rather wait for something worth waiting for than immediately get something not worth getting, even if it slows down my progression within the game.

[Zumi]

Only the FFXIV community would argue against something like the dungeon finder. Its a simple fast way to get a group together and not have to shout for hours on end in town and never find people.

Dungeon finder is one of the best features WoW has. Gives players a choice on how hey want to level, they can do quests for exp or they can use dungeon finder get exp that way. Before the duengeon finder existed people had to spam the trade and general chat to try and recruit people to do some basic 5 man dungeons. Could be looking over an hour to find everyone you need.

FFXIV currently has no good way of putting a party together to do anything. I have got level 34 gladiator started playing FFXIV at the CE launch have never joined a single party. Due to the fact the game has no way of finding other people to play with. Most of the main towns are pretty much ghost towns you see people around crystals a lot but a lot of people are pretty antisocial and won't talk to you. If pull all the 30 leves in Gridania then go to the crystal to do them and see other people there and say, "anyone want to team up to these faster," 9/10 times you won't get any response from people.

With cross server content finder there will always be people around your level to do instances with which in turn will make leveling and finding groups much less painful and leveling should be a lot easier.

[Wolfie]

Only the FFXIV community would argue against something like the dungeon finder. Its a simple fast way to get a group together and not have to shout for hours on end in town and never find people.

Arguing against user friendliness and accessibility improvements has been a common theme in the SE MMO community. Where have you been?

[HoolieWho]

Only the FFXIV community would argue against something like the dungeon finder. Its a simple fast way to get a group together and not have to shout for hours on end in town and never find people.

There is a middle ground between auto-grouping and having to shout for a group. That middle ground is populated by useful seek/search tools. Yes, these tools require some initiative on behalf of the people who use them, but good tools can minimize the effort involved. Let people seek for the content they want, with their character resume on display and let party leaders advertise openings. This is the system I want.

An auto-group option if fine for those who want to be in parties formed by such a system, but I'd prefer a mechanism based on communication between prospective party members utilizing tools more sophisticated than /shout.