Petition: Don't implement Content Finder!

[Wolfie]

I made this post the other day regarding easy ways to fix issues with a "content finder" - simple solution. Allow players to give feedback on other players, vote up, or vote down, more/less likely to get paired up with them in the future.
Set a new loot system for content found games, where as you pay you earn credits, and use those to bid on drops after the event.

These are just two simple ideas, and I'm sure their are a hundred more.

I'm all for this for instanced, dungeons, PvP, etc.

I have some better solution that are not so complicated and require a lot less dedication to use properly.

When you leave, you can't re-use it for 20 minutes.

When you get booted, you can't re-use it for 40 minutes.

You can only boot twice per group, and it requires 7/7 (or 3/3) votes to pass.

Bonus exp, seals, lower res sickness and lower raise timer given for parties that are formed before using the content finder, per party member (numbers to be tuned, but 2% bonus per member sounds good).

That way people must carefully choose who to boot and it's harder to abuse, it makes people want to play better and not be jerks, and it makes people want to pay more attention to their local community.

[Chezen]

I made a post about this back in November, and rather than make a new post, I'll just copy it.

This comes from the perspective of extensive experience in the WoW LFG.

Pros:
-allows people to find a group very easily and quickly
-makes it easier for low levels

These are admittingly good things. Making a party within your guild can be very tough, with people constantly on different schedules.

Cons:
-easy for people to act however they want because of anonymity
-breaks down server community
-breaks down common courtesy
-breaks down use of the "world"
-forces the idea of set roles and set ways to play (tank, healer, etc.)
-easy for people to take advantage of others (4 people que in with you, do almost the whole dungeon, and then drop you to bring in their friend so he can get the credit. Also ninja loot, etc, etc).

I consider LFGs to kinda be like mmo welfare. If you want quality play, you really need to find your own group. Otherwise, it's just a gamble on what you will end up with. If it didn't affect the rest of the community, I wouldn't be too concerned about it, but the truth is it does. And this is coming from someone that would benefit from it.

A typical random in WoW goes like this: You cue in, and quickly try to orientate yourself on where you are and who you are playing with. If you are lucky, the tank grunts to see if everyone is ready. However, usually he just takes off and half the DPS or more follows. We run through the dungeon at a breakneck pace. There is no chance for anyone, much less someone new, to get a chance to take in their surroundings (in the timed dungeons we have here, this might not be a bad thing though).

If someone gets a chance, and is brave (because people new at things typically aren't), they might pipe up and say they are new and need help. This might get them some patience from the others, or it might get them kicked. You must be very careful to do what your role requires. If you don't play like everyone thinks you should, you might get kicked. If your dps isn't high enough, you can't take every monster in the room as tank, or you can't heal entire health bars in one shot, you might get kicked. If they don't like your gear, you might get kicked (I'm leary of addons for these reasons as well). I have witnessed examples of all of these, usually without a single bit of warning to the kickee.

If we make it through to the end (I've been a part of more failed starts than I care to remember), and if there isn't a fight over ninja looting or some such, then everyone leaves. They usually do not say goodbye. If anyone does actually say anything through the whole thing, it's usually very rude, if not downright vulgar. Of course, it's not like this every time, but the higher level you get, the worse it gets.

This attitude I described, eventually does leak into the game. WoW notoriously has one of the worst communities of mmo gaming. Is it directly because of the LFG? No. But does it feed it? Yes. After getting done with one dungeon, people immediately que up for another, like running back in line for a roller coaster. It is completely unnecessary to interact with a single person, or step outside a single city, to make it through the game.

If SE doesn't want to see this kind of thing plaguing their game, they will need to come up with ways to counteract it. I think there is a such thing as being too convenient. At the very least, I think a blacklist is needed. I'd even like to see the opposite, a "green list" for people you enjoyed playing with, so that if you both que up again, you would get joined up in the same group. I also think maybe there should be a lockout after successfully completing a dungeon, or a limit on how many randoms you can do in one day perhaps. This would cause people to need to actually do other things, and would be healthier for the game environment overall, I think. The aid of the finder would be there for people needing it, but it would cut down on the abuse of it, plus help keep people from completing content too quickly, which is a growing problem in mmos.

[fusional]

Maybe on Rabanstre Durandal.

Community over here is pretty great.

i'm basing our community sucking on these forums and how much people will find an excuse to cry over absolutely any/every tiny little thing, not my own server

[Wolfie]

Hope you don't mind me breaking down your post, but there are a lot of misconceptions about content finder and WOW's dungeon finder that I have to dispel. Omitting things that I agree with.

Cons:
-easy for people to act however they want because of anonymity

Not as often as you think. The kick and leave penalties for the WOW dungeon finder makes people want to cooperate, or be unable to use the tool for 40+ minutes.

-breaks down server community
-breaks down common courtesy

Anecdotal, but this was not my experience. People were more willing to group with same-server people, and I saw more LFG shouts in WOW after dungeon finder than before. The minor stat boosts that you received as a same-server group made people want to stick with their community.

-forces the idea of set roles and set ways to play (tank, healer, etc.)

This is not something that the content finder does, it is something that has already happened before it was implemented. All of WOW's specs had a pre-defined role that they could not break out of. FFXIV's classes are the same. GLA and MRD are tanks, LNC, ARC, THM are DD, etc. These roles do not have a lot of wiggle room in a party setting as is.

-easy for people to take advantage of others (4 people que in with you, do almost the whole dungeon, and then drop you to bring in their friend so he can get the credit. Also ninja loot, etc, etc).

Totally not possible anymore with WOW's current iteration of dungeon finder. You can only kick ONCE per run, and main spec get a roll for their gear before off spec. There is no such thing as ninja looting anymore.

I consider LFGs to kinda be like mmo welfare. If you want quality play, you really need to find your own group. Otherwise, it's just a gamble on what you will end up with. If it didn't affect the rest of the community, I wouldn't be too concerned about it, but the truth is it does. And this is coming from someone that would benefit from it.

You take the same chances of running into morons when you do traditional grouping. You should take into consideration WOW's character model, where you can get a character to level 80/85 and dungeon-ready within a week. That is why the community is bad, why you run into a lot of poor players, and why there are so many problems with grouping outside of a guild.

In FFXI and FFXIV, when you add a player to your friends list or join a linkshell, those players are for all intents and purposes permanent.

A typical random in WoW goes like this: You cue in, and quickly try to orientate yourself on where you are and who you are playing with. If you are lucky, the tank grunts to see if everyone is ready. However, usually he just takes off and half the DPS or more follows.

In entry-level dungeons, agreed. In the hard ones and heroics, does not happen.

If someone gets a chance, and is brave (because people new at things typically aren't), they might pipe up and say they are new and need help. This might get them some patience from the others, or it might get them kicked.

In two years of using the dungeon finder, scouring the forums, and talking with friends, I have seen less than 20 incidents like this. That number is minuscule when you take into consideration the hundreds of thousands of dungeon runs that are made via the dungeon finder, and is much lower than the number of inexperienced-yet-friendly people who get booted out of traditionally assembled groups. More people get booted out of pre-made PVP and raid groups in WOW because of inexperienced, than they do out of random groups made via dungeon finder.

You must be very careful to do what your role requires. If you don't play like everyone thinks you should, you might get kicked. If your dps isn't high enough, you can't take every monster in the room as tank, or you can't heal entire health bars in one shot, you might get kicked. If they don't like your gear, you might get kicked (I'm leary of addons for these reasons as well). I have witnessed examples of all of these, usually without a single bit of warning to the kickee.

Again, this is absolutely no different than groups assembled by traditional methods. These things are happening now, happened in WOW before dungeon finder, and happened in FFXI. This is the nature of MMOs. It's not a problem that dungeon finder introduced or exacerbated.


Everything else you say, I agree with. Black lists, re-use timers if you get booted, only one kick allowed per run, etc. Throwing in a content finder with no limitations or protections against douchebaggery is a very bad idea, but you can add these limitations and protections with a little work and you can make it into an amazing tool for everyone.

[Chezen]

Good to see you back Wolfie. Missed you.^^

If WoW has taken measures to make the LFG better social-wise, that's great. I haven't played WoW since the start of Cata, and wouldn't know about recent changes. I was merely describing what can and did happen.

In entry-level dungeons, agreed. In the hard ones and heroics, does not happen.

Isn't that where it's the most important? Entry level is where people learn to play the game, and are introduced to the community, for better or for worse.

In two years of using the dungeon finder, scouring the forums, and talking with friends, I have seen less than 20 incidents like this. That number is minuscule when you take into consideration the hundreds of thousands of dungeon runs that are made via the dungeon finder, and is much lower than the number of inexperienced-yet-friendly people who get booted out of traditionally assembled groups.

Perhaps because you spent more time in the endgame groups, whereas I spent more of mine in the regular dungeons.

[Wolfie]

Isn't that where it's the most important? Entry level is where people learn to play the game, and are introduced to the community, for better or for worse.

I think it's arguable. Level up dungeons in WOW aren't important or hard, but are acessible enough for most players to get a basic understanding of how to group, what a tank, DD, or healer role is, and how dungeon etiquette is.

Anecdotal evidence again, but I got 3 friends on board with WOW at the start of BC. Two had their first dungeon at level 60, Hellfire Ramparts, and got smashed and kicked because they had no idea what they were doing. The third had his first at 70, and got kicked 3 times in a row for not knowing what he was doing. Had to console the poor guy IRL.

I got two firends on board with Cata, and they both used the dungeon finder as the quests directed them while leveling up. By the time they hit 85, both understood what it meant to be in a group, but not necessarily what the best strategies were for pulls, what items were best for them, or what each boss' abilities were.

I would say that making dungeons or any multi player content more accessible as a player levels up ends up providing the greatest benefit to the game. Players will naturally learn what to do and what not do to over the course of their game play, and mistakes are easier to get over earlier on in the game.

Perhaps because you spent more time in the endgame groups, whereas I spent more of mine in the regular dungeons.

Just did a quick search for my old character.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...st/qa/advanced

I think I only ever did 3 or 4 raid boss fights in Cataclysm? All of my gear is heroics + reputation gear, 90% of which I earned by random dungeon finder groups and not pre-made groups. The few things that I did with pre-made groups were achievements, and even a good chunk of those I convinced pick up groups to do.

[Wolfie]

Oh, and personal experience again, but I found that most people loved the groups when I talked and when I was nice. I was told it was a breath of fresh air, and most people cooperated well when I asked nicely and explained things. Being nice is what got me great groups with the dungeon finder... and being nice is standard for almost all players on FFXIV, which will make the content finder great.

[Chezen]

Just did a quick search for my old character.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...st/qa/advanced

I think I only ever did 3 or 4 raid boss fights in Cataclysm? All of my gear is heroics + reputation gear, 90% of which I earned by random dungeon finder groups and not pre-made groups. The few things that I did with pre-made groups were achievements, and even a good chunk of those I convinced pick up groups to do.

I did make that a statement when I really meant it to be a question, so I deserved that reply I guess.

Oh, and personal experience again, but I found that most people loved the groups when I talked and when I was nice. I was told it was a breath of fresh air, and most people cooperated well when I asked nicely and explained things. Being nice is what got me great groups with the dungeon finder... and being nice is standard for almost all players on FFXIV, which will make the content finder great.

If you mean to ask if I was rude, or the people kicked of whom I refer to, they weren't (nor I ). The point I believe I really made was that the LFG allowed rudeness to fester, which I then later gave examples of ways to counteract that. You've indicated that WoW has made it's own countermeasures since I have last played, which I hope would mean the community and LFG have gotten better.

It just seems like you're picking a point that doesn't need picked. I'm not arguing against a dungeon finder. I merely pointed out side effects from it, and proposed countermeasures for it.

Soooo tootles.