"Content Finder" - Please be careful

[Blarp]

The obvious fallacy in this is that dicks exist with or without automated cross-server LFG. It's really only a convenient scapegoat for a bad community. In FFXI, supposedly the most mature and lovely community ever, people would get tossed out of groups for wearing gear that wasn't "optimal." People didn't get invites because of the job they chose to play. JP players would literally tell NA players, "JP only" despite there being a completely serviceable translator. People jacked items regularly. Most of the bad behavior in an MMO has nothing to do with a system like the Content Finder.

[Wolfie]

The obvious fallacy in this is that dicks exist with or without automated cross-server LFG. It's really only a convenient scapegoat for a bad community. In FFXI, supposedly the most mature and lovely community ever, people would get tossed out of groups for wearing gear that wasn't "optimal." People didn't get invites because of the job they chose to play. JP players would literally tell NA players, "JP only" despite there being a completely serviceable translator. People jacked items regularly. Most of the bad behavior in an MMO has nothing to do with a system like the Content Finder.

Rose tinted nostalgia glasses my friend. I bounced from MMO to MMO after having played FFXI for half a decade, and I found that almost all of the problems other MMOs' communities supposedly had were actually much milder. And FFXI, by comparison, was extremely cut-throat and people were extremely elitist and mean spirited, but they never let it show on the surface.

[Blarp]

Rose tinted nostalgia glasses my friend. I bounced from MMO to MMO after having played FFXI for half a decade, and I found that almost all of the problems other MMOs' communities supposedly had were actually much milder. And FFXI, by comparison, was extremely cut-throat and people were extremely elitist and mean spirited, but they never let it show on the surface.

Tossing players out of a group or berating them for wearing bad gear or, worse yet, not inviting them at all based on the "wrong" job is the exact same thing as tossing someone out of a group in WoW for doing terrible DPS, and it happened pretty regularly in XI. LS leaders and officers jacked LS banks and transferred. If a merit group was going bad, people would bitch and moan and point fingers or simply leave without saying a word. I think it's you who wears the rose tinted glasses.

Those type of people will exist with or without a Content Finder.

[Frein]

The obvious fallacy in this is that dicks exist with or without automated cross-server LFG. It's really only a convenient scapegoat for a bad community. In FFXI, supposedly the most mature and lovely community ever, people would get tossed out of groups for wearing gear that wasn't "optimal." People didn't get invites because of the job they chose to play. JP players would literally tell NA players, "JP only" despite there being a completely serviceable translator. People jacked items regularly. Most of the bad behavior in an MMO has nothing to do with a system like the Content Finder.

Yeah, I think you should get kicked out of a group if you decide it's ok that everyone else has to carry your poorly geared ass. Showing up to a group as a DD with no haubergeon was a no no, but I don't think that's unreasonable at all considering everyone else went through the trouble of getting one. Sure, it was expensive but not prohibitively so like many other items that people (surprise) didn't expect you to have.

I want to know beforehand if you're gimp or not (or just a known douchebag/terribad), which is why I oppose any kind of automated group building.

The FFXI player search was almost perfect as it let you easily and quickly see potential group candidates and allowed said candidates to post information about themselves in order to attract group invites.

[Wolfie]

Yeah, I think you should get kicked out of a group if you decide it's ok that everyone else has to carry your poorly geared ass. Showing up to a group as a DD with no haubergeon was a no no, but I don't think that's unreasonable at all considering everyone else went through the trouble of getting one. Sure, it was expensive but not prohibitively so like many other items that people (surprise) didn't expect you to have.

I want to know beforehand if you're gimp or not (or just a known douchebag/terribad), which is why I oppose any kind of automated group building.

The FFXI player search was almost perfect as it let you easily and quickly see potential group candidates and allowed said candidates to post information about themselves in order to attract group invites.

This is the kind of mentality I never want to see again, and I'm so, so glad WOW and some other western MMOs have found a way to deal with it.

Please, enlighten us what's your definition of "not prohibitively". Because two of my friends that started FFXI with me had quit the game when they learned that they had to farm for a solid month just to continue leveling past level ~40, and I ended up buying gil because I didn't want to put up with that s***.

[smokymcweed]

WoW is a piece of cartoon shit

[Neptune]

I normally refrain from doom and gloom posts, but that bit about the Content Finder in the 2.0 blueprint stuck out at me.

I was a WoW player before I came here. (Quit for various reasons I won't get into). As most are probably aware, WoW introduced a "Dungeon Finder" queue about three years ago. At the time, I loved the idea of the dungeon finder. I thought it was the coolest quality of life improvement the game had seen since dualspecs.

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.

In XIV a couple months ago, I was looking for a Toto-rak group. I hadn't done any of the Grand Company stuff, but the group I found for it was kind enough to explain what I had to do and walk me through it, even though it delayed their dungeon run by more than half an hour. That was a kindness I had not seen in an MMO in three years, and I believe that WoW's Dungeon Finder is to blame for its loss.

Being assigned to groups makes mercenaries of us all. There is no incentive to be civil to people, because you can expect to never see them again. There is no incentive to pass the Gladiator shield that just dropped to the tank, even though its his mainclass and mine's still level 1 (because hey, I might want to level gladiator some day), unless the game forces us to do it. Those who try to be kind will only get screwed over by those who don't, and they will have no recourse for justice because (no matter what happens) selfish, uncivil players will always be able to enter the queue and get a fresh batch of people to screw over (with a wait time that's no longer than a civilized, kind player would have to wait).

For the last year I spent on WoW, almost every group was either completely silent for the entire run, or else singling out a single member (one who was less geared than the rest of the group - one who needed the gear that dropped in the dungeon we were doing rather than outstripping it by miles) to berate endlessly for "slowing the group down" simply by being there. I played a healer, so I avoided the worst of it, but it was dehumanizing to watch every day.

After hearing it enough, I came to believe it. That someone who was performing under what I would have expected from their gear level was "wasting my time" by "not bothering to learn how to play their class." On a good day, I'd keep my mouth shut. On bad days, well, by the time I'd calmed down, they were gone across the realm boundary and I wouldn't be able to apologize.

I don't want this community to become that, and I don't want to become that again.

Please, SE, whatever you do, do not make the game build parties for us. Make people talk to eachother. Let us see a list of names so that we can choose people we know to be good or avoid people we have had bad experiences with. Make it cross realm. Make it nudge people along when there's a group that can be formed but no one is forming it. Make it as convenient as possible for us to find people to form groups with, but do not make it build the groups for us.

Please be careful.

Thank you.

I think they can auto build the groups without giving up civility. If they put the right incentives into the experience, like the ones you mentioned are missing, I think it will work out. They could implement a type of loot system that only let's a player roll on loot if they are tied at the highest rank of the class in question, or even implement two different loot modes depending on what you select when you go in. The possibilities for ethical matching are limited only by the imagination.

[Cycloptichorn]

Honestly? I think people are completely exaggerating the number of jerks that are in DF groups.

I think this is probably true, if you are looking at a large sample size of players. But the ones who are jerks are bad enough to leave a lasting impression (as you can see).

'Jerkiness' is only the far end of the spectrum, though - there are just as many who are lazy, or unskilled, or uncommunicative. All of those make for a not so fun experience when doing content.

However, I'm not against the implementation of such a system, as you certainly aren't forced to use it. I would prefer it to be some sort of behest-style setup, though, where the group is formed at the site of the event or at an aetheryte, not some magical process of whisking you across the world to a dungeon from the middle of Ul'Dah.

[Frein]

This is the kind of mentality I never want to see again, and I'm so, so glad WOW and some other western MMOs have found a way to deal with it.

Please, enlighten us what's your definition of "not prohibitively". Because two of my friends that started FFXI with me had quit the game when they learned that they had to farm for a solid month just to continue leveling past level ~40, and I ended up buying gil because I didn't want to put up with that s***.

"Not prohibitively" as in less than 2 million gil (back in 2005). Scorpion Harness was 10 million, Charm was something absurd like 30 million and so on. There was a clear gap between "good" and "top tier" gear. I farmed a bunch for my Haubergeons, Ochiudo's Kotes, Leaping Boots, Emperor Hairpins and whatnot. Nothing was handed to me. If the rest of the group has some of these items, damn right I'm not going to join without also having them, as that'd force the the rest of the group to essentially carry me. Gimps can play with each other for all I care but in a team game you have to pull your weight or you will (and should) be eliminated as the weakest link.

[Cycloptichorn]

"Not prohibitively" as in less than 2 million gil (back in 2005). Scorpion Harness was 10 million, Charm was something absurd like 30 million and so on. There was a clear gap between "good" and "top tier" gear. I farmed a bunch for my Haubergeons, Ochiudo's Kotes, Leaping Boots, Emperor Hairpins and whatnot. Nothing was handed to me. If the rest of the group has some of these items, damn right I'm not going to join without also having them, as that'd force the the rest of the group to essentially carry me. Gimps can play with each other for all I care but in a team game you have to pull your weight or you will (and should) be eliminated as the weakest link.

Gear is always secondary to skill, especially gear that you can buy. I've definitely encountered the frustration of playing with a badly undergeared teammate - I've been that guy a few times too - but if they are good at playing, it usually doesn't matter all that much.

What's even worse, to me, is playing with a Fred; some dude in every top-level piece of gear out there, who for some reason won't get out of the fire...