Wildstar Launch Thread - Server: Stormtalon | Faction: Dominion

mkopec

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Im not saying that games like this should not exist, to me its just not a MMORPG anymore. I just dont think that its good for MMORPG to be heading down that slippery road of LFD and LFR and whatever else they decide to add to the queue.
 

Laura

Lord Nagafen Raider
582
109
People don't want to have to sit outside a dungeon jerking off while they wait for a group to fill out. LFD letting you instantly port to a dungeon when your group is filled up and ready lets you go out and play other parts of the game while you are waiting. That's pretty much the entire point of it.

Btw, if someone finds it impossible to make groups in a game with an LFD system they must have really atrocious social skills.
Why would anyone go to a dungeon before forming a group anyway?

I just think I'm lucky to have never really got that "LFG" problem on EverQuest or any other game. I wouldn't mind more sophisticated tools to find other adventurers for a specific dungeon. What I dislike is to be ported to the instance with other random players from other servers whom I will never see again.
 

Draegan_sl

2 Minutes Hate
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You can totally make social connections in a lfd tool as well. long as games allows cross server friends list. I mean look at games like dota 2 were most people are playing solo queue. I get tons of friend invites after a good game of people who want to play together again. LFD simply removes having to spam channels in front of dungeon when you want to do the group and broadens the amount of players you can grab making it start faster.
I believe Wildstar will allow cross server friends so. Fun times.
 

Myst

Peasant
294
36
while I did enjoy the LFD in WoW last time I played. It essentially turned WoW into a lobby game. All I did was stand in Org and spam LFD until I was 85. And while some of the earlier dungeons were cool, even the dummbed down versions of BRD or BFD...etc. the later ones were nothing but a few hallways of trash with a boss in a big room. And if this is the future of mmorpg, Im out.

There has to be another way to do lfg other than turning he entire game into a glorified lobby game. I mean, why even have the fucking world around you anymore? Just have a main city, LFD, and spend your time on making cool McDungeons you can run through in 15-30 min.
They need to find the balance between the two. As mentioned previously, we should have to discover a dungeon first, or complete a meaningful event/quest to be able to have that dungeon listed in our LFD.
 

Draegan_sl

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Im not saying that games like this should not exist, to me its just not a MMORPG anymore. I just dont think that its good for MMORPG to be heading down that slippery road of LFD and LFR and whatever else they decide to add to the queue.
Meh, discussions we've had before, but even without the dungeon finder, all you ended up doing was spamming chat channels with "LFM 1 Tank for DungeonB" and hope someone responds. Or you go to the who list and spam 10 people that are in your level range that look like tanks. Or you spam guild chat or bug your friend list.

At least now you just bug your friends and guildmates first, then if you don't have a full group you just queue up. The LFR really doesn't change much except that it automates the spam for you. It's incredibly helpful when you are playing a game and you don't know anyone.
 

Tmac

Adventurer
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Btw, if someone finds it impossible to make groups in a game with an LFD system they must have really atrocious social skills.
I don't think the point is that it's "impossible", but that the LFD system itself works against creating organic groups...
 

Draegan_sl

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What does organic groups even mean? That seems like a silly term.

I've seen and heard about people sitting in social hubs searching for groups of people to do specific dungeon runs or old raids etc. Last time I played at level cap was WOTLK and I remember people putting together groups the old fashioned way when they wanted to do like 5 dungeon clears as fast as possible so they made sure the people they were inviting weren't tards.

For the anti-LFG people, what you are looking is there if you want to do it. Also, while you can just sit in one place and level to max and never move, you don't have to do that either. You can mix up your content type.
 

Tmac

Adventurer
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Meh, discussions we've had before, but even without the dungeon finder...
Yeah, we've gone in depth into the subject, but I don't think the answer is no LFD. The answer is a better LFD, one that promotes organic groups and doesn't create a placid, watered down version of grouping.

WoW's version of LFD: Instant grouping with random mouth-breather A, B, C and D. Zero communication, zero care to get to know the people in your group... Mindless.

A better version of LFD: Quick grouping with people you've heard of or grouped with before. A desire to get to know the people in your group.

Maybe it's impossible. Shrug. But, I'd like to at least see them make some changes to the system, so that it's not such a heartless system.
 

Caeden

Golden Baronet of the Realm
7,774
13,058
Man, the videos of this game are nice but I'm not sure I like the art style when its standing still. Feels too much on the cutesy side of Warcraft art, but it does look good in motion.
 

Tmac

Adventurer
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For the anti-LFG people, what you are looking is there if you want to do it. Also, while you can just sit in one place and level to max and never move, you don't have to do that either. You can mix up your content type.
Some here might be anti-LFG, but I'm not one of them. I would just like an improved system that doesn't promote getting into a dungeon at the cost of human interaction...

Why can't there be a mix of the old-fashioned way and LFD? That's why I mean by organic. People coming together and forming a group. Giving them tools to do so on the fly, so they don't have to sit idle, is what I envision when I think of LFD.

I hate solo'ing in MMO's. I've always hated solo'ing, even in WoW. However, the one thing that turned me off more than solo'ing was when LFD started going cross-server. Sure, instant access to 5-mans was convenient, but when you can do an entire 20 - 30 minute dungeon run without saying a word or caring about the people in your group, it just seems...kind of...meh.

Yeah, you get to finish a dungeon quickly and easily, but at what cost? I'm not being dramatic when I ask that question. I'm just making a point. I'm not sure if cross-server LFD helped WoW more than it hurt it, at least in my eyes.
 

Draegan_sl

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Yeah, we've gone in depth into the subject, but I don't think the answer is no LFD. The answer is a better LFD, one that promotes organic groups and doesn't create a placid, watered down version of grouping.

WoW's version of LFD: Instant grouping with random mouth-breather A, B, C and D. Zero communication, zero care to get to know the people in your group... Mindless.

A better version of LFD: Quick grouping with people you've heard of or grouped with before. A desire to get to know the people in your group.

Maybe it's impossible. Shrug. But, I'd like to at least see them make some changes to the system, so that it's not such a heartless system.
I think you're missing a huge point in that WOW dungeons really don't need communication and most people are doing them for points while they watch movies. I think your issue, and mine, is really about how simple WOW dungeons are.

And no matter how awesome your tool is (haha), you will never get people who have no desire to talk to you, to get to talk to you and be your friend.

However, there is definitely ways to promote cross server grouping to build small friendships. Zehn and I have both described this before but you essentially create circles of friends within the database. So when you jump in the queue, the system should pair you up with people with this priority:

Friendslist
Guildmate
People you recently grouped with.
People you recently communicated with (tells, trades, duels etc.)
People you recently interacted with in the open world. I.e. that player is in your combat log somewhere, or people you were walking next to. (i.e. match your server and zone)
Random.

This is essentially creating circles of people that get bigger and bigger as you go down the list. Essentially the game is creating Google Circles for you automatically behind the scenes.

What this does is put the same people in front of you more often and the more you recognize people the more likely you are to talk to them, even if they are on another server.

I wish they would also take this method and put it towards making a mega server. Essentially you are placed in a shard or phase of a zone and populate it with the people in your circles. The more shared circles, the more likely you are going to see those people again. But that's for another thread.
 

Kirun

Buzzfeed Editor
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I think you're missing a huge point in that WOW dungeons really don't need communication and most people are doing them for points while they watch movies. I think your issue, and mine, is really about how simple WOW dungeons are.

And no matter how awesome your tool is (haha), you will never get people who have no desire to talk to you, to get to talk to you and be your friend.

However, there is definitely ways to promote cross server grouping to build small friendships. Zehn and I have both described this before but you essentially create circles of friends within the database. So when you jump in the queue, the system should pair you up with people with this priority:

Friendslist
Guildmate
People you recently grouped with.
People you recently communicated with (tells, trades, duels etc.)
People you recently interacted with in the open world. I.e. that player is in your combat log somewhere, or people you were walking next to. (i.e. match your server and zone)
Random.

This is essentially creating circles of people that get bigger and bigger as you go down the list. Essentially the game is creating Google Circles for you automatically behind the scenes.

What this does is put the same people in front of you more often and the more you recognize people the more likely you are to talk to them, even if they are on another server.

I wish they would also take this method and put it towards making a mega server. Essentially you are placed in a shard or phase of a zone and populate it with the people in your circles. The more shared circles, the more likely you are going to see those people again. But that's for another thread.
All of this. With how big social media and such is nowadays, there's no reason a MMO couldn't incorporate this sort of functionality.
 

Draegan_sl

2 Minutes Hate
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Some here might be anti-LFG, but I'm not one of them. I would just like an improved system that doesn't promote getting into a dungeon at the cost of human interaction...

Why can't there be a mix of the old-fashioned way and LFD? That's why I mean by organic. People coming together and forming a group. Giving them tools to do so on the fly, so they don't have to sit idle, is what I envision when I think of LFD.

I hate solo'ing in MMO's. I've always hated solo'ing, even in WoW. However, the one thing that turned me off more than solo'ing was when LFD started going cross-server. Sure, instant access to 5-mans was convenient, but when you can do an entire 20 - 30 minute dungeon run without saying a word or caring about the people in your group, it just seems...kind of...meh.

Yeah, you get to finish a dungeon quickly and easily, but at what cost? I'm not being dramatic when I ask that question. I'm just making a point. I'm not sure if cross-server LFD helped WoW more than it hurt it, at least in my eyes.
This happens already, right now, in most games that have a LFG. People put groups together the old fashioned way, and then use the LFG tool to fill in the rest of the slots. If you care that much about chatting with people in your group, I don't know what to tell you. Due to the nature of dungeons these days, the slower you make me go because you want to talk about whatever is just irritating. Especially if you're a stranger. Especially if I'm on skyp/vent talking to other people.
 

mkopec

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Im not anti LFG either, its just the way its set up in WoW sucks, and it sucks the life out of that game. come up with something different. How bout when you enter an area the dungeon is in, you turn on the LFG switch and you are then automatically put into a group based on your class. Problem solved.
 

mkopec

<Gold Donor>
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Due to the nature of dungeons these days, the slower you make me go because you want to talk about whatever is just irritating. Especially if you're a stranger. Especially if I'm on skyp/vent talking to other people.
See, this is the fucking problem. why do you want to group then? Why not just have solo McDungeons so you dont ever have to be social again. Then you wont be bothered when your skyping.
 

Draynar_sl

shitlord
80
0
See, this is the fucking problem. why do you want to group then? Why not just have solo McDungeons so you dont ever have to be social again. Then you wont be bothered when your skyping.
Or games could do like any game where 5 people are playing against something up and group people up by skill level as much as possible. Just because you need to be slow to talk doesn't mean i can't type/voice chat and own whatever content I'm facing. Allot of the ignore you type mmo experience imop comes from fact you're being partnered with people either way better then you or way worse one is bored at the pace your pulling/playing other who's trying to move his mouse to hit all dem skills and cant look at chat at same time.

THATS what lfd currently. Generally when people group with people again they're grouping with people of similar skill level because it's far more fun as everyone feels on same page and thats when some good goofing around can occur.

(Some method of making dungeons not a grind for rep/items might help too after you've done something 10 times you're not interested in it you're just trying for a pinata of some sort. Personally I don't run content multiple times anymore which is why I gave up raiding long time ago. But for people that do they end up wanting efficiency because they know how many more times they have to run that content)
 

Draegan_sl

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See, this is the fucking problem. why do you want to group then? Why not just have solo McDungeons so you dont ever have to be social again. Then you wont be bothered when your skyping.
There are a lot of reasons. Some people like the group dynamic but don't really care about chatting with you. I mean I know there are plenty of times I just want to listen to music and do dungeons. I'm not there to be your friend, especially if the experience is 30 minutes.

I'm not sure why you're so hard up for people on the internet to talk to you about random shit. I'm not sure what you're expecting honestly.
 

Ambiturner

Ssraeszha Raider
16,162
19,768
Anti-LFD people are delusional. It's not the reason why some people are jackasses. People were jackasses in MMOs long before LFDs came around. TSW is an MMO with no LFD tool, and people sit in the Agartha and just spam their LFG macro over and over until they get a group, which can be a very long time for DPS. When they finally get a group, they are just as hit and miss as the WoW LFDs as far as peoples social skills go. LFD does not ruin "community" or whatever the hell organic groups is supposed to mean. It just allows you do other things than sitting on your ass spamming LFG over and over.

You're fully free to not use LFD. The excuse that it's impossible to form your own groups because everyone else just uses LFD has it backwards. It exists BECAUSE it can be a PITA putting together groups sometimes. You're also free to add people to your /friends list and send them messages to put groups together before you queue up. That way you have your precious community that you think LFD is robbing you of.
 

Abefroman

Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
12,597
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I have zero interest in being social during dungeons, For those dungeons to be social you need a lot of down time. Fuck that! Fact is the majority of us are socializing in our guilds with our friends. We have no interest in hearing you talk about how you are drunk, high or have girlfriend agro. The be blunt, we just aren't into you.