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Do LFG System really ruin the community?

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  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775
    Originally posted by Tranceryp

    I truly believe cross-server LFD does. I believe that when it is cross-server it is chaos and anarchy and people have no accountability for their actions. I also believe that with a cross-server LFD system the DPS classes are usually screwed over because the Healers and Tanks can just get instant-queued into a dungeon as soon as they put their LFG flag up. They can then come into the dungeon, demand speed run or threaten to leave group (forcing everyone wait a long time for another again), they can ninja-loot items because they don't care, or they can do all sorts of other things that annoyed me when I joined a Cross-Server queue.

    I want to comment on the point about being demanding, and ninja-loot.

    The issue of tank/healer can be more demanding is because of the holy trinity and the lop-sided distribution of players who want to play tank/healer. So it is a LFD specific problem.

    In fact, such a problem is lessen in LFR where the group size is bigger. At the same time, you can always quit and requeue. And also note that you will be the one who has the power, if you play a tank or healer. It is a two-edge sword.

    Ninja-ing is only a problem because devs let it. In LFR, wow does away with ninja-ing by rolling individual loot (i.e. ninjaing is impossible, you don't roll on teh same item). That is, the same rule used in MP ARPG like D3 .. you will never ninja a legendary from another person because only he can see and pick up "his" legendaries.

     

  • TrancerypTranceryp Member Posts: 7

    Right, but I think the argument is that if there is community like there used to be in the old games, that people wouldn't ninja-loot because of respect for your fellow players and how you all overcame the challenges together.

    There's no denying that as successful as WoW was/is, they bred a whole need breed of mmo self-entitled player that you just never really came across in the "old days".

  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775
    Originally posted by Tranceryp

    Right, but I think the argument is that if there is community like there used to be in the old games, that people wouldn't ninja-loot because of respect for your fellow players and how you all overcame the challenges together.

    There's no denying that as successful as WoW was/is, they bred a whole need breed of mmo self-entitled player that you just never really came across in the "old days".

    First, i was there in the old days and loot drama was alive and well then. Also arguing about who is where in the queue for boss camp. So it is not all honey and roses. Don't tell me kill-stealing is not rampant in EQ. Sure, you may not want to ninja-loot your friend, but if you group ninja-kill the other group ... not a bad thing.

    Secondly, why even let people do it? Just make it impossible in the game mechancis. Problem solved.

    I would prefer a modern MMO that i don't have to rely on someone's good will.

  • TrancerypTranceryp Member Posts: 7

    Ok granted. But can we both agree that WoW definitiely brought a ton more trolls to the MMO genre with it?

    And this is coming from someone who loved WoW back in the Vanilla / BC days.

  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775
    Originally posted by Tranceryp

    Ok granted. But can we both agree that WoW definitiely brought a ton more trolls to the MMO genre with it?

    And this is coming from someone who loved WoW back in the Vanilla / BC days.

    Oh i didn't disgree that people, on average, are not nicer back then.

    But the point is that you don't have to rely on others being nice to have fun. That is, community is just not that important. Otherwise, people would have left WOW in droves long long time ago.

  • AeliousAelious Member RarePosts: 3,521
    Thank goodness there are titles coming out that emphasize, hopefully, a better community. I get that the majority of players may be selfish and self absorbed with thier own avatars and that the genre created them. Luckily they will have x amount of titles to play and pollute :)
  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775
    Originally posted by Aelious
    Thank goodness there are titles coming out that emphasize, hopefully, a better community. I get that the majority of players may be selfish and self absorbed with thier own avatars and that the genre created them. Luckily they will have x amount of titles to play and pollute :)

    I doubt it. You can't really change human nature. But of course it is your perogative to believe there will be games with "nicer community".

    Luckily there are games where its fun do not depend on it.

    And yes, most likely you won't see me in your games .. that should be of small comfort to you.

  • TrancerypTranceryp Member Posts: 7

    Oh comeon Nar, I'm sure you're not that bad. ;)

    In any event, I believe the IP Final Fantasy has some of the nicest community of players that come with it. I am hopeful that most trolls won't try FFXIV and that I'll be able to enjoy the friendly community I'm sure to meet on there.

  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775
    Originally posted by Tranceryp

    Oh comeon Nar, I'm sure you're not that bad. ;)

    In any event, I believe the IP Final Fantasy has some of the nicest community of players that come with it. I am hopeful that most trolls won't try FFXIV and that I'll be able to enjoy the friendly community I'm sure to meet on there.

    Oh i am sure you are quite right and there are games with fewer trolls.

    However, i don't particularly want to be "hopeful" about it ... why rely on hope when you can rely on a "quit" button? No troll is going to bother me for more than 1 min .. because they won't see me again in their lives if i don't like them.

  • AeliousAelious Member RarePosts: 3,521
    Maybe because instead of thinking about the negatives of a bad community you should imagine the positives of a good one.
  • AeliousAelious Member RarePosts: 3,521
    And I don't beleive there are better communities ou there, I know there are. Vanguard has a great community.
  • aesperusaesperus Member UncommonPosts: 5,135
    Originally posted by Aelious
    Maybe because instead of thinking about the negatives of a bad community you should imagine the positives of a good one.

    Interesting you should say this, because I had this exact discussion not too long ago w/ some peers.

    One of the things I think we've lost w/ online games (to a large degree, not entirely), is our sense of community. Somewhere along the line the idea of a community shifted from one you build, to one you are given.

    Now? Everyone expects to just be handed a community, and then complains about how it's lacking. Oddly enough, communities don't actually work that way. They are something you have to build, contribute to, and maintain. They aren't really a 'feature'.

    Good communities come from environments that promote cooperation. Things like LFG run directly counter to this, and promote anonymity.

  • ClaudeSuamOramClaudeSuamOram Member Posts: 122

    For a thousanth time.

    I don't believe any person who played old school MMORPG's (Or at least quite a bit of them) are asking for every single aspect of those old school games again. I certainly don't want original EQ with updated graphics without them overhauling the combat system, UI, and the excessive grind (although some is inevitable), amongst other things.

    I think this is what many think we want. Everything to be exactly the same. No...it's not. Not for me anyways. A mix of old and new rather.

    But it's near impossible to explain via a game site without making a novel that many are too lazy to read anyways...and pointless as developer's aren't reading it, nor care. Not to mention many don't want to try and comprehend what's said anyways. So hell with it. Wish I could discuss this in person with some of you, as it is SO MUCH EASIER to get across what you mean in actual face to face disucssion than on a website where things can be misunderstood or the otherwise. Although....that would require socializing too.

    It's just sad to see MMORPG's become another version on console gaming. What made them a seperate genre is now a faint line that is disappearing each year. They are becoming more and more single player RPG's that happen to have other people standing in as NPC's.

    I hope that if EQNext does it right...they won't have to listen to the moaning masses or change the game otherwise if people stay. As long as it is still turning a profit...but, we are talking about SoE too. =/

    Or even ESO/Archage. If they do...then I guess it will be time to give them up for good. May as well just get the PS4 at the end of the year. Same type of gaming for less money (Again, considering the road MMORPG's has taken).

     

    BTW....people still talk about EQ 14 years later. It again...still makes expansions..which it couldn't do if it weren't turning enough profit to do so, or if it weren't worth while to them/profitable to do so.

  • KuviskiKuviski Member UncommonPosts: 215

    I simply find LFG systems to have such a big anti-immersive factor to them.

    There's the thing about  not being able to choose who you take with you, which classes you wish to take. The fact there are no varying group leaders or actual group leadership at all.  Playing in an LFG group feels like playing a single player dungeon with 4 bot party mates, well, most of the time anyway.

    Another thing about these systems is that they usually automatically teleport you into an instance, meaning no travel time. While one might argue it makes the game more "fun" to not have the need to travel to an instance, I think it really makes the instance feel more like a trivial minigame, something not related to the world around it at all.

    I've lately been trying out Rift and I haven't left the main city for 30 levels now (I am level 45). There's an LFG tool for randomly generated quests (so called instant adventures), for PVP and for instances. And it just makes the game world feel like a lobby you use to queue to minigames from.

    That's what I would call tedious. And uninteresting. And boring. Really, I have no idea where any of these dungeons is even supposed to reside in the game world, if they even do reside there.

     

    And lastly, these systems make guilds less important, and I think guilds and the struggle between them should be a major thing in MMOs, even in PVE.

  • jpnzjpnz Member Posts: 3,529
    @kuviski
    Did any of those games force you to use the lfg system?
    Purposely not actually getting involved in a community and then complaining about the lack of one is funny. Can't have it both ways.

    Gdemami -
    Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.

  • KuviskiKuviski Member UncommonPosts: 215
    Originally posted by jpnz
    @kuviski Did any of those games force you to use the lfg system? Purposely not actually getting involved in a community and then complaining about the lack of one is funny. Can't have it both ways.

    They didn't but the fact you can do the content in such a way (and the game guides you to do it that way) truely trivializes the content. You have to remember that an MMORPG is supposed to feel like a breathing world where people share certain experiences in the world.

    I will note though that LFG systems often also provide you with extra loot as opposed to doing the instances in a normal group which doesn't provide you with anything. And  the truth is, in a multiplayer game, there really is no idea in gimping yourself just for you to feel more immersed in the world. That's because if these systems exist, then the game obviously isn't supposed to be immersive in the way one may want it to be.

    No, the idea of purposefully gimping oneself is a stupid one when the game mechanically doesn't support the way you want to play the game. It means the game is not for me.

     

    Anyway, I didn't necessarily complain about the lack of a community, but the way the LFG tool trivializes the game world and the feeling of living in it.

  • jpnzjpnz Member Posts: 3,529
    How dies it trivialize the game? Gimping yourself? I thought the topic was community?
    The lfg is a tool. How it is used is up to the player. But if you use it in a way that contradicts your point, can you really stand up and validate your point?
    If community is important than get involved, if not don't. If you make your choice at least try to live with the choice you made.

    Gdemami -
    Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.

  • KuviskiKuviski Member UncommonPosts: 215
    Originally posted by jpnz
    How dies it trivialize the game? Gimping yourself? I thought the topic was community? The lfg is a tool. How it is used is up to the player. But if you use it in a way that contradicts your point, can you really stand up and validate your point? If community is important than get involved, if not don't. If you make your choice at least try to live with the choice you made.

    I think the LFG system's impact is greater in other areas than community, hence I tried to bring those issues up. What the LFG system does is makes dungeons, that are supposed to feel like a solid part of the world, in fact feel like minigames you just queue to from a main city that in fact acts as a 3D lobby. This I think trivializes the game world, the lore, the story.


    One may say "Well don't use the LFG tool then", but it doesn't work that way in a multiplayer game. First off, MMORPGs usually have character progression involved and if you have a choice to make between an efficient and an inefficent method in progressing your character further, especially if the gap between the two choices is a big one, you almost never can accept yourself  to pick the less efficient one.

    A completely different issue then is the fact that many games now are so built around these features it would take some serious, serious effort to do as you would tell me to do and gather the people to do a dungeon any other way, so its not like there's really a choice anyway.

  • jpnzjpnz Member Posts: 3,529
    If the mere teleportation effect of the lfg make the game feel like a lobby game, then that should be be applied to all forms of instant transport.
    Does that mean games with instant teleportation system are all lobby games?

    You keep on about char progression but the game never forces you to use the lfg and we are talking about community.

    Gdemami -
    Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.

  • xeniarxeniar Member UncommonPosts: 805
    Originally posted by jpnz
    If the mere teleportation effect of the lfg make the game feel like a lobby game, then that should be be applied to all forms of instant transport.
    Does that mean games with instant teleportation system are all lobby games?

    You keep on about char progression but the game never forces you to use the lfg and we are talking about community.

    the community uses the LFD system not using the LFD ystem will get you yourself nowhere because with it in place nobody wil not not use it. so you are being forced into using it.

    tell me do you play wow? if so do you actually visit any zones? do u use the world they have created apart from questing? theres alot of work going into that world and it is being wasted by the instant teleportation. and lets not forget flying.

  • VengeSunsoarVengeSunsoar Member EpicPosts: 6,601
    Originally posted by xeniar
    Originally posted by jpnz
    If the mere teleportation effect of the lfg make the game feel like a lobby game, then that should be be applied to all forms of instant transport.
    Does that mean games with instant teleportation system are all lobby games?

    You keep on about char progression but the game never forces you to use the lfg and we are talking about community.

    the community uses the LFD system not using the LFD ystem will get you yourself nowhere because with it in place nobody wil not not use it. so you are being forced into using it.

    tell me do you play wow? if so do you actually visit any zones? do u use the world they have created apart from questing? theres alot of work going into that world and it is being wasted by the instant teleportation. and lets not forget flying.

    I restarted Wow last month, my highest is only 27 but he hasn't used lfd once so far actually.  I have actually run to the dungeons haha.

    And flying is awesome.  Games that don't have it, IMO are missing something great. 

    Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
  • kartoolkartool Member UncommonPosts: 520
    LFG tools are exactly that, they're tools. You can use them if you want or not. If the majority of players choose to use them it just shows that it's what the majority of customers want. You will never get back to the social days of EQ and other early MMOs. You were forced to play nice back then because there were so few people playing that the relationships were necessary to progress. I'm not saying this is a good thing, it's just reality. Devs are going to try to make their games as accessible as possible and that means including as many tools and option as possible to get people in the game and keep them there. 
  • jpnzjpnz Member Posts: 3,529
    Originally posted by xeniar
     

    the community uses the LFD system not using the LFD ystem will get you yourself nowhere because with it in place nobody wil not not use it. so you are being forced into using it.

    tell me do you play wow? if so do you actually visit any zones? do u use the world they have created apart from questing? theres alot of work going into that world and it is being wasted by the instant teleportation. and lets not forget flying.

    If the vast majority of the playerbase isn't interested in 'community' then the LFG certainly didn't destroy it in the first place.

    If you are interested in 'community' and 'world immersion' you don't have to use the LFG.

    If you do use the LFG, then don't complain about something you are actively working against.

     

    Gdemami -
    Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.

  • GreenHellGreenHell Member UncommonPosts: 1,323
    Originally posted by xeniar

    the community uses the LFD system not using the LFD ystem will get you yourself nowhere because with it in place nobody wil not not use it. so you are being forced into using it.

    tell me do you play wow? if so do you actually visit any zones? do u use the world they have created apart from questing? theres alot of work going into that world and it is being wasted by the instant teleportation. and lets not forget flying.

    The world was created for a specific purpose. Thats why the zones have levels. Blizzard does not expect you to have to go back to a level 50 zone when you are 90. It was never their intention. Once you have completed the quests in that zone or you out level the zone you progress on to the next one. The zones serve their purpose and that purpose is to level. They were never meant to be a highway.

    Since we are talking about WoW why doesn't anyone complain about flight points? Is spending time on a wyvern so much more fulfilling and rewarding than an instant teleport? I know I use that time to hit the bathroom or alt tab. Does the community fall apart if Im not on that Wyvern or is it falling apart because I am on it? Since you don't like flying am I to assume that in your eyes if I am not on a ground mount wasting 15 mins to get to my destination that I am once again destroying the community.? Hearthstones must be bad as well. What about Mages? They open portals and teleport all over the place. That should be removed too?

    So for some reason you are only happy when you see people on ground mounts riding past you? Why does this make you think the game has a better community? It was like that during Vanilla and the community hasnt changed since then. So if WoW has always had a bad community than all of your points are not valid.  It really doesn't matter how we get to where we are going.

  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775
    Originally posted by Aelious
    Maybe because instead of thinking about the negatives of a bad community you should imagine the positives of a good one.

    Again, imagine won't prevent you from randomly meeting bad people.

    Why should i imagine anything when i can easily play a game that prevents bad behavior? I don't have to imagine anything. I don't have to rely on "community". Sounds like a no brainer.

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