Regardless the stability problems it has caused in the past days, I think many will agree that Duty Finder is one of the greatest feats of this game. After the times when it was necessary to criticize the problems on the servers time has come to praise the great work of the development team devising this system. Obviously isn't perfect and I'm sure many of you can think of several ways as any system could be improved.
One of the main flaws inherent to DF by the fact of not being a regular playteam, is that in most cases the system matches players with varying degrees of experience in a particular instance. And there come some recurring problems discussed at the forum: Legacy haters, little patience and explanations to inexperienced players, tanks and healers blaming each other...
On the opposite side, which is equally annoying: having to spend eternity explaining to each new group which is the strategy and hope they be able to understand and apply it.
What is the current alternative to this? The only one I can think about is to keep shouting "experienced people only". And obviously to have a FC/LS.
But as the game has been developed to give greater individual freedom to the player in order to adopt casual playstyles, and as it has devised a system like the DF, would be good to polish it as much as possible as long it do not affect game stability nor alter the gaming experience for those who wish not to use it.
I do not know if Devs. have thought about it.. What I propose is a player's rating system based on the experience the player has in each instance individually.
What this means basically is that every time a player attempts a Duty earns veterany in that particular duty. Same way the server knows when a player is entering a inscance by first time or keep track of how many particular mobs have you slashed, it can keep count on how many times a player has done that.
This score system is not intended, in any case, for self nor others to see. Would be just an internal count, another parameter on server calculations when creating groups.
Score system
Could be based on something like a coefficient (7.56) based on hoy many times have the character attempted that instance, always meeting minimum requirements for it to count as an attempt, like a minimum stay in the instance or to have been engaged in battle. In addition, could be displayed as stars score (★★★☆☆) on self DF list as veterany earned on that duty (with no benefits beyond the mere optimization of groupings).
How could work
Given the coefficient of every player signed for Duty, the system would try, if possible, to match players with similar scores on that duty beside player's role criteria.
What would happen if some players with different scores for that duty start a DF?
Well, here may be criteria. It could stablish an average score to look for the members remaining, or could consider the higher experienced players are just helping the lower and so look for lower scores.
Risks on DF stability
Obviously implementing this would increase the number of operations the server has to do on it's routine. A simple mathematical calculation of tenths of a second for a machine, the number of connections that have to handle would be the same. I don't think it would represent infrastructure problems, but a problem of time for devs implementing this.
This would improve experience for everyone. Unexperienced players could play with the comfort of knowing that no partner will try to blame them for their lack of experience. All the opposite: would lead to empathize with peers and collaborate to learn the strategy.
On the other hand, experienced players could continue to enjoy the game without having to be explaining how you should make a battle after having done it for hundreds of times, which is not only frustrating but uncomfortable with others.
I used to have a more detailed and elaborated idea when I thought about it, but this is all I can remember now.
Leave your opinions and feelings about!