Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
LFD becoming a standard feature?
nariusseldon
Member EpicPosts: 27,775
WOW pioneer it. Now many games have it ....
It looks like TSW will have it too.
http://www.thesecretworld.com/news/group_finder_comes_with_digging_deeper
Now i am more interested to give TSW a try .. may be after it turns F2P.
Comments
I never use the LFD/LFG tool! I'd rather make friends ingame and to build a bond rather than insta-join a group based on my role!
More and More MMO's are becoming solo oriented, so folks can bypass the social part of gaming! people want to go from level 1 to gear the fastest way they can! forget the filling in between. I miss the days of doing fun stuff and actually earning it
Below is where we can disscuss and come up with new ideas for Sandparks!
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/5164689#5164689
The LFG feature is what killed my pleasure to be honest. It is why I havent played certain MMOs, why Ive stopped playing warcraft among other reasons..
There is so much potential that can be put into simply getting to a dungeon that is completely shrugged off with an easy alternative. It promotes rushing the same dungeon to repeat it again at times, as if people wouldn't care about anything but the loot, xp, or "armor currency".
I always preferred traveling to dungeons, especially when the zone itself contains pockets of PvP activity. I recall one of my favorite moments pre-WotLK was me and three other people (last didnt arrive yet) ended up meeting a 5 man horde party lookin ready to go in the dungeon too. We spotted each other and had a fun brawl that, even though ended with us losing they bowed and went bye.
As someone who spent 3 hours in Iron Forge to get a BRD group going on a weekly basis (anyone who played WoW vanilla probably experienced this. :P) , I for one love the LFD system.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
So do you take these people out for a meal with the wives, maybe spend a weekend at your lodge and then invite them into a 5man group? 90% I run deungons wih guildies but the LFG tool lets us fill in that last spot if no one else is around plus many live busy lives they dont have the time to spend half an hour spamming chat to find a group.
I remember those all too clearly. Spend 2 hours barking in chat trying to pull a group together. By the time there was a full party, try to get two people to the meeting stone to do summons, make it inside the dungeon, wipe on the first pull and everyone quits.
What I'm playing now has fully automated grouping. No party leader, no gear check. Just select a dungeon and enter. Wait a minute or two, the group is full (or close enough), and off we go. Dungeon scales based on the size of the group, so running with 3 or 5 makes no difference.
Blizzard doesn't really pioneer anything, they rip ideas from other games and integrat into their own. They didn't invent LFD, they didn't invent achievements (Warhammer Online) .. they didn't invent AOE looting, now with MoP. If you played other games you will see this.
Now Blizzard invents dynamic events in MoP .. Mmm Hmmmm.
Blizzard only exist because people won't change from WoW to another game, either by time invested or by their mental capacity to restrict change. But WoW gets older and older every minute, and Blizzard isn't upgrading the core infrastructure to keep this game afloat. WoW has fallen into the dead sea, where some people will still cling to it, but it no longer influences market shifts. I mean after SWTOR I doubt there will be another WoW clone since SWTOR failed so hard on an already failing game (WoW).
Want a nice understanding of life? Try Spirit Science: "The Human History"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8NNHmV3QPw&feature=plcp
Recognize the voice? Yep sounds like Penny Arcade's Extra Credits.
I'm in favour of having systems for streamlining finding groups to do things. I don't think the requirement of spamming in global chat is acceptable in this day and age. However there are some elements of group finding systems I dislike.
- Random assignment.
- Grouping with unrelated players (eg. from a different, unrelated server from yours).
- Teleportation.
The way I'd like to see it done is that you create a group for something, which registers you on a list in the LFD system. Other players can check that list and request the various group leaders to join. This way you have to chat at least a little bit to get a group. It should also be possible to the group leader to designate which types of classes/roles he's looking for, just to make things easy.
I dislike being signed up with players from unrelated servers because you can't bond and form friendship with them, and as a result you don't care about them either. They're just random no-names you'll likely never see again. You don't add them to your friends list after a dungeon and check up on them next time you log in. I can accept *some* cross-server type grouping if the alternative is grouping impossibility, such as low level dungeons in a game where everyone has outleveled that content.
I dislike teleportation since it removes the feeling of a world. This may not be important to everyone, but it is to me. Teleportation is OK as long as there's an explanation for it. For example a magic-user in the group being able to create a magical portal to a different location. That's reasonable and makes sense. Teleporting to the inside of a dungeon for no apparent setting-wise reason is jarring to me.
Most mmorpg's are about quite fast levelling and running instances (dungeons, arenas and battlegrounds).
Because of that those mmorpg's need LFG matchmaking. Streamlining gameplay into instanced dungeons, story
dungeons, arenas and BG and not offering matchmaking system does not make sense.
Actually imho WoW and most mmorpg's gameplay is actually beign hold up because they have mmorpg's features.
Like separation to servers and mandatory levelling in open world. (WoW kinda fixed that with levelling in dungeons
but did it very late and it is not common).
How to fix that imho? Severe ties connecting with old mmorpg concept.
Make questing and "open" world optional and throw old 'servers' concept.
Make players choose their "home city" instead. Make this city big and filled with fun distactions, mini-games,
place to socialize and show off their rewards from dungeons.
1. So players at start choose their "home city" (they can visit other 'home cities' with guesting if they are not
full and transfer if they want).
2. "Open world" is zoned like in AoC or GW2, but not each "home city" has it zone by it isshared by all "home
cities". If one "open" world zone is filled then it clones (usually it would be several clones of each zone fired
up propably). Players can use LFG to find pals to run quests in "open world". It is totally optional but filled
with fun cosmetic and maybe consumeables reward. Player can play and progress their character in dungeons only if
he wish.
3. Dungeons, arenas, BG, story dungeons, etc - all obviously instances and found by LFG/matchmaking tool that is
shared by all players. After all best content is in there and it is possible to progress only by those instances.
So no more rush levelling - questing that players don't want to do and find pointless.
All trade by global AH.
By 'holding back' on those last part of 'virtual world' of mmorpg concept games that are about running instances
are still filled with time-sinks, make cities and zones empty and generally hurt their assumed gameplay.
So those kind of mmorpg's should take one last step, free themself of last remanants of 'virtual, seamlees and persitant world' - it is obvious that most players want their CHARACTERS persistant and not 'open world' / 'zones ' persistant. By making thattheir gameplay will be better, faster to find people to play with and genreally more conveniant.
Besides by thoing that developers can make istanced content better, faster and in more quantity - so players are less starved for new content.
Finally!!
I agree with Oracle. While the tool is convenient, it also has many many drawbacks. First, it another step towards killing immersion. In one game, you meet with people in a town, and then venture out towards a dungeon. You walk through farmland, through thick forest. Some hermit might run along, tell you to not go any further, and run off. But you walk on. And there, hidden, you find a cave through which you fight your way into the mountain depths past piles of bones and skeletons towards your goal.
In another game, you click a button, and "poof" are suddenly not on a quest to kill some lizards in a desert, but find yourself in some dungeon cave. Where it is? Why? Who the other people are? Who cares. It makes no sense. It kills the idea of having a world you are a part of. It cuts the coherent game into many tiny mini games. It also kills communication. There is no need to talk to people anymore. Where in the past, you were chatting with people as you were on your way towards the dungeon, and noticed them to be nice, and maybe invite them to your guild, or join theirs, or form one together, that's all irrelevant today.
If I want some quick team action with some people I don't care about and without any story or setting or whatever, then I play a FPS.
Let's play Fallen Earth (blind, 300 episodes)
Let's play Guild Wars 2 (blind, 45 episodes)
Many value convenience of a fast, combat-centric adventure over being in a world. Being in a world is not that great anyway. I am in the real world and it is a drag to have to drive to work, have to drive to the grocery store. If there is a magic wand to teleport me there, i would jump at it.
I certainly do not want to walk 20 min before i can start my dungeon adventure, and certainly do NOT want to wait 20 min doing NOTHING for some other players to walk to the dungeon. Chatting for 20 min is poor substitution for gameplay. I am glad i do not have to suffer from force chat today.
So yeah, the game is becoming many mini-games (co-op dungeons, arena pvp, LFR raids ...) so what?
I hope LFD becomes launch-day standard in dungeon/instance-based MMOs. I definitely don't have the patience to spam "DPS LF X" anymore or hope that I can be online at the same time as 3-5 friends/guildies who all want to run the same content as me.
That said, while I enjoy the LFD feature, I hope these types of games do move away from making LFD the only way to progres your character outside of raids. The biggest problem for me with WoW in the current iteration and its past expansion (WotLK) was that both pre- and post-LFD, the only way to get top gear was to use Valor points to buy it, which were only rewarded by raiding and by running random dungeons. Outside of 3-4 pieces that could come from crafting, there were zero other options to realistically gear up. That limited reward structre promoted players sitting around in a city more than the LFD feature ever did.
I'm not sure if the new WoW expansion will fix this by rewarding valor points through open world content, but if it works, I'd like to see that concept brought with the LFD to WoW-esque games.
Speak for yourself.
Or more specifically, stop acting like you're speaking for everyone when you're speaking for yourself.
But you don't mind spending 20 minutes in the dungeon grinding out swarms who's only point is to be a mini-hurdle before the boss encounter.
And that's fine, I guess. Personally, I don't see the difference. To me, the trip to the dungeon is as much a part of the adventure as whatever crap lies inside between the entrance and the 'real fight' at the end.
The Looking for Dungeon feature, soved a big problem and then created a new one.
I played WoW for years and there were certain dungeons that I had never done. After the Dungeon Finder came out, I now hit every dungeon on my way up.
But you are playing with people on a different realm. People used to get reputations. If they were a ninja or a troll people wouldn't group with them after a while.
But when you are playing in a random dungeon finder group; you can be as big a troll as you want because you will never see those people again. You don't have to worry about your reputation on a specific realm.
So it is both good, because you see more content. And bad, it almost encourages antisocial behavior because there are no reprocussions.
There are better ways to implement the feature that can work for both sides, however.
Infact, before LFG feature was in WoW (Or some time after it) There was a LFRaid feature that only involved posting that you wanted to create a Raid or join one. It wasn't used because it was so unnoticeable by the mass crowd. If such a feature was better implemented and shown much more then it would have made forming a PuG much simpler.
As for travelling to the place, I really enjoyed that for those impatient ones, a Warlock could create a "dark door" with I believe five other people in order to teleport players to them. It requires some to travel but not all if they are busy.
Dude please. Stop trying to play MMORPG's and go to console gaming, were it seems you'd be more at home.
Again, they are (were) seperate genre's for a reason because one was meant for instant gratification (Console gaming incase you are unsure), and the other wasn't...ffs.
Anyone know what what he is playing now?
--John Ruskin
I assume this means looking for Dungeon?
If it is ,i don't want that in my games.We need a REALISTIC feeling game world,that does not mean running around instances to get loot.
I rather have my game revolve around great skills/spells/abilities than any kind of dungeon raiding.Instead of creating dungeons for loot,it should be done throughout the game,as part of the game,not as a side attraction.I also do not like a linear progression chain to get my loot,i like it to feel liek a ROLE PLAYING world,not a single player game.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Lol, what game are you talking about? Before dungeon finders and group matching was introduced, solo questing literally killed group content for 90% of the game. You had no motivation to meet virtually anyone. Group content as we once knew it in EverQuest, DAoC, and FFXI no longer exists, and the dungeon finder is just an innovative way to bring back some cooperative play into MMOs. Sure, it has its downsides, but I'd rather participate in a totally nonsocial dungeon finder group than no group at all.
Why should i stop? MMOs are like what i describe now. MMOs are obviously meant for instant gratification now. Otherwise, how can i go into a MMO, click a button, and have a group in a few min?
Why should i reject MMOs when this style of gameplay is in many MMOs? Don't get me wrong .. i don't only play MMOs. D3, Torchlight 2, Borderland 2 ... are all fun and i will spend time to play. But is there a reason i don't play Mist of Panderia just because it is a MMO?
I don't shackle my entertainment just because of genre labels. I look at the gameplay itself.
How do you know that?
I enjoy fun combat, so it depends on if fighting trash is fun. In D3, fighting trash (or normal mob) is VERY fun. Furious, large groups, all sort of abilties .. so i don't mind. In WOW, not so much.
In fact, one of my fav dungeon is WOW is tier 9 raid dungeon with NO trash fight. And Blizz has substantially toned down trash leading up to bosses.
Lastly, of course there *is* a difference. Walking is different than fighting, don't you think? Even if it is not a "real" fight, it is 100x more enjoyable than walking.