Question to players

[Tridus]

Well, I haven't gotten over ilevel 300 and completed Drowned City of Skalla yet, so am not even sure what's included in expert roulette. I haven't unlocked anything since a few level 50 things that weren't part of the msq, so I'm going to assume expert roulette is mostly or at least partly picking from things people had to do to get thtrough the main story quest. Imo, that's casual stuff, so my opinion is the same.

Expert right now is all four level 70 endgame dungeons. Two of them are MSQ required: Ala Mhigo and Drowned City of Skalla. The other two are optional (Kugane Castle and Temple of the Fist).

Expert changes as patches come and go, though. What's in it in 4.2 will change as they add two new dungeons to it, and some (or possibly all) of the ones currently in it will come out. Generally speaking it's "whatever the newest max level dungeons are".

[Vstarstruck]

Would your opinion be any different if this idea was only applied to Expert?

No, and I have a story someone told me as for why.

First off if new people only go with new people they will not learn or get to see what skilled players can do. Even at 70, entering expert has huge skill gaps. Now If this person in question entered the highest dungeon of expert, The drowned city of Skalla, that person would not be spoken to on how important having foul and at least i300 weapon entering an ilevel 300 dungon. The only way a person is going to learn it is not acceptable is to be told they need to do their level 70 quest and be removed from the dungeon since they are not ready for it. Other new players would be unable to explain and make a decision like that.

So this idea of trying pair up people with skill is no good, it does not help anyone other then newer players hitting unsub because dungeons take too long and is too hard. Here is another good post why it is a bad idea:

No. The idea of a preformed party is that you play with like-minded players. If you only want like-minded, go preformed, simples.

There's legitimate players who play with disability, or any other disadvantage, so they can't perform as effectively as other players even if they tried their best. So pairing them with someone who doesn't try isn't fair on a player who does try. As has been mentioned people do commonly play with several classes so it wouldn't really be an effective system based on that alone. What about friends that play together? One is of a 'bronze' ranking, and the other of a 'gold' ranking. Some people play simply to play with friends regardless of how skilled, or unskilled they may be.

More importantly, it's a casual gaming experience so there's no need to attach a ranking system which would only further divide a community of players very heavily. Again, if you only want to play with like-minded people then you setup a preformed party for the majority of content you take seriously, you save both sides of the party the unpleasant experience. I play to enjoy myself, and a passtime when I have nothing better to do, so whether a dungeon takes 15 minutes or 30 minutes, matters not. Whether I 1 shot a difficult trial, or whether it requires several attempts.

Again, the last thing an MMO needs IMO, especially one aimed for a casual playerbase is a divide in communities thanks to a leaderboard.

Do you supposed 'golden boys and girls' wish to divide queues? Bear in mind, that you'd be in the minority, and not majority. Have fun with that experience.

[Anienai]

I would like a setting like this since I do not raid.

[Ameela]

My main issue with this is how multiple classes would affect it.

Someone can be a 90th percentile Ninja but have no idea what they are doing on Scholar, so would they be paired with people who know what they're doing and expect others to do so as well, even if they queued up on a job they don't know how to play? That might make for unnecessary toxicity.
Also it would just divide queues and those are long enough as is for certain classes.

[Joe_Schmoe]

I wouldn't like it. Why?

• Lack of diversity. It's not that I like running with bad players, but one of the reasons I like random stuff is the wide variety of different types of people you get. Running with the same (type of) people every time, all the time, would get boring fast.

• Reeks too much of apartheid/segregation. This sounds too much like forcing bad players to "sit in the back of the bus", keeping them from associating with anyone else at all. God help the Bads and Mediocres if one could find their rank just by examining them. They'd all be shunned by the FF community, big time.

• Doesn't improve anybody. Bad players won't get any better if they run with other bad players. It'd be like the blind leading the blind. They need to run with players better than themselves so they can see/be taught how to improve. Presumably this was why the mentor system was put in place (although me, I think it's redundant though).

[Miksu]

We playin' Overwatch now, boys.

[Tempest222]

If poor players only ever got matched with poor players for storyline stuff and then none of them were able to clear anything, then they'd quit the game and SE would lose sub money. If someone is that bad then you can try for a votekick, otherwise, personally I really am not fussed at all if someone isn't playing well. I've been in instances where the healer or tank are struggling and sometimes we wipe, but it's not a big deal to me and in casual storyline content you are 99% going to clear anyway. I know some people get really mad about wiping or taking 3 minutes longer than they are used to to finish something or the idea of carrying someone aggravates them, and I get that, but I'm just more like eh whatever not the end of the world. Taking an extra 5 minutes isn't going to ruin my day.

Anyone who is picky about the types of players they play with or who can't stand being sometimes matched with someone way below par can search for like minded players via party finder or go with friends.

[Zeppp]

As amazing as this sounds for getting my weekly tomes, I wouldn't want it. It's an MMO and MMOs are about community, bad players are part of the experience. If someones performing poorly you can try give them a little advice if you're feeling up to it. Or you can do what I do and get a laugh out of watching them play like a fool.

[KaivaC]

I'd have to say no as well. Overwatch jokes aside, there's just too much that goes on in a battle, let alone a full dungeon run, that it's gonna be unfair no matter what automated metric system is in place. Plus it seriously promotes toxicity. Definitely not something we need.

[Sebazy]

Darrc above had some solid points, I might not agree with all of them but I can't deny his rationale.

Plus it seriously promotes toxicity. Definitely not something we need.

And then we have this little gem....

Please explain to me how a completely invisible and likely rather negligible prioritisation system that'll inevitably only ever really get to pair up like minded DPS is going to 'seriously promote toxicity'?

Seriously? What?

Well I'm sorry, but if you ask me, the only toxicity it'll promote is from you because you're less likely to get a free ride in one singular roulette.

Is that toxic enough for you? =P

*edit*

And before I get jumped on, despite my interest in this post, I do actually appreciate that in the grand scheme of things, it's a bit of a waste of time now compared to likely better things that SE could be working on.

However, I really can't stress how frustrating it is to continually see other often fantastic ideas around here immediately stamped on by the screams of 'but think of the kittens! it'll make them all toxic!'. Try thinking about it for more than a moment rather than just shutting down anything that might remotely shift the current status quo.

Darrc's post is an example of a negative post that's actually positive for the thread, it's a solid well thought out piece of discussion & I'll happily give that a like even if it is crushing my hopes and dreams

Your post above is just useless and shows you don't actually have a clue about what's being suggested.