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Adventures in Dungeon finding.
raystantz
Final Fantasy XI CorrespondentMember UncommonPosts: 1,237
I'm making this thread as sort of a diary. I see posts all the time saying how the Dungeon finder is the best thing since sliced bread and how people have had all these great experiences with it. I'm not saying that isn't the case, but I'd like to do a study to see how often I get dud groups with it during my way to 80. I'm currently level 63 and each night I play I plan to run a dungeon with dungeon finder that night. After the run, I'll post a screenshot of anything that happened of importance in the chat log.
Tonight's run, was Underbog. Me not having been here many times on previous characters, kind of got turned around after the Hydra. I was trying to loot a mob while the others blasted on ahead and left me. Noone had said two words the entire time, and were just blasting through the mobs like butter. I told them that I thought I went the wrong way, and was ignored for almost 2 bossfights.. apparently I wasn't very needed. This is a very good example of how people do not care what they say to you, when they know they'll never see you again. Tomorrow I will probably run another instance.. and hopefully my experience will be a positive one.
Finally the screenshot speaks for itself..
www.facebook.com/themarksmovierules
Currently playing:
FFXIV on Behemoth, FFXI on Eden, and Gloria Victis on NA.
Comments
Correct me if I am wrong here but you blurred out your characters name on the unitframe but not from the chat window ?
Edit: looks like you caught it there :P
Good ol' WoW.
Its too serious of a game for people to bother with socially acceptable behaviors.
Seriously, though, that was how all my groups went. Its not dungeon finder. Its the audience.
Right, but as you see the dungeon finder just seems to make it alot more apparent than it used to be.
www.facebook.com/themarksmovierules
Currently playing:
FFXIV on Behemoth, FFXI on Eden, and Gloria Victis on NA.
I guess we all need to go play shoots and ladders if we want to play with a friendly and helpful comunity. Too bad I don't think there is a Shoots and Ladders mmo out there, seems like a huge market is being missed.
I like that the OP acknowledges that this was just one example and he will reserve full judgement till he experiences more dungeon runs throught the LFD system.
Personally over the weekend I have run ten instances with the LFD system on my sub-80 Death Knight and all of them were a success where everyone was polite, professional and quite competent. So I am definetly interested in what other experiences the OP has with the system.
Going to chime in even though this more a log of what you encounter. Before I finally quit, basically due to playing to the sake of playing. I ran Heroics to farm emblems on my 80 hunter on SoE server then later on Wyrmrest Accord. I also had a preist who from level 20 to 65 I leveled sololy through the dungeon finder. The major positives are, fast grouping, good xp, and good source of equipment through boss drops.
The hunter being DPS was basically judged on pure DPS and attempting to kill mobs and get the dungeon as fast as possible. The 80 heroics almost became a literal race to beat whatever invisible clock the rest of the team was against. Words were barely said but on the whole I would say 75 percent of the groups were professional and knew their stuff. Had a few asshats here and there but thats life in general. I think that once you reach a certian equipment level it basically becomes a no excuses get the crap down as fast as possible. Which is what mostly everyone wants in the end, though it gets awefully boring.
The 20-65 priest saw the bigger diverangace. It almost became an equal match of good and bad. Playing a healer I guess was a bit of an eye opener. But it varied to people not knowing their class and not willing to learn. Others just griefing for the hell of it. While there were people who did awesome and those played smart but were still learning.
A few notables. In Mara - The hunter who had team leader took it upon himself when to tell others when to DAMMAGE. STOP. FOLLOW. HEAL. REST. Course no one paid attention to him, and repeated messages to him that the tank pretty much leads the party, didnt do much.
Scarlet Catherdal - Main part with Whitemane and the bunch. We cleared the front pews but still had the side rooms and the other mobs left. Tanked asked "Lets pull it all? Sure." I said. Was a bit close but we had managed to roll through the mobs and the bosses. Granted we were in heirlooms and popped a few cooldowns but it was still a very good team effort.
Its that time again! Queuing up as we speak. Lets see how long it takes to pop. I'll have my results up here shortly.
www.facebook.com/themarksmovierules
Currently playing:
FFXIV on Behemoth, FFXI on Eden, and Gloria Victis on NA.
Okay! Dungeon Finder run #1 for the night. I must say, its a complete 360 from last nights run. The particpants were talkative, and we got the dungeon done while we shot the breeze. It did help that 2 of the members were from the same server as me.. so I do attribute that to some of the 'niceness" as they had a reason to be nice. The ones from the other servers were the quietest of the group, and I don't think one of the members said anything at all.. but it sure beat the heck out of last night. Because I'm on a roll, I'm thinking about queuing for another one... we'll see how it goes..
Also, I'd mention one of the members was nice enough to let me know I was using a lower rank of a spell, and he wasn't sure I knew it or not. Was very nice about it. I tend to play "new" to see what kind of responses I get. Here's a screenie.
www.facebook.com/themarksmovierules
Currently playing:
FFXIV on Behemoth, FFXI on Eden, and Gloria Victis on NA.
If graphics made games fun, farmville would be out of luck. and so would UO.
www.facebook.com/themarksmovierules
Currently playing:
FFXIV on Behemoth, FFXI on Eden, and Gloria Victis on NA.
rofl my groups are all the opposite. No one every talks. And btw it isn't the audience i see this in every game you only see it more often in wow because it population is just so much higher.
Also kudos to what looks like a addon free client there. More power to those that can play without all the extra bells and whistles. Myself think I d/led an addon for just about everything lol.
Thank you for sharing your experiences with the LFD tool. I would like to chime in and add my own.
I recently came back to WoW after being gone for the most part for about a year. I started playing my pally again (who is 80) only to find out he's very undergeared compared to average WoW'ers these days.
All in all I've had about 3 groups where the tank wiped us within 2 minutes, 95% of the time the groups are professional, quiet, but polite, and only once was I told I wasn't performing to my dps potential.
The last bit threw me until I looked at the retribution tree and saw that at some point they changed Seal of Command (the ret specialty self-buff) to become a cleave when using damaging attacks. After I saw that I started using SoC and my dps went up significantly. (Prior to that I was using the Seal that tanks typically use)
Anyway it's been a good experience for me at 80, but not entirely good. Keep up with the sharing, it's very informative.
-Cym
Run #3 completed. We were back in Underbog tonight. This wasn't a terrible run, but not a good one by any stretch of the imagination either. The only social interaction was the initial hello.. We had one member go afk to grab a beer, and several people go afk at other points during the run for various reasons. I think the healer went afk once without saying anything. We had 3 wipes.. the first was due to a pat pull, that the tank refused to assist the healer with.. so healer dies = we all die. After the first boss, even though we had no issues killing it.. two of the members had to argue about how it heals itself.. like it mattered at this point. Later on, the tank rolled on a healing cloak.. and the shaman got mad about it. We had 2 more wipes later for the same reason as the first. We finished the run, and my random item wasn't even for my class (isn't it supposed to be?)
All in all, not the worst run ever.. but def. not a winner.
www.facebook.com/themarksmovierules
Currently playing:
FFXIV on Behemoth, FFXI on Eden, and Gloria Victis on NA.
Thats the thing though. i don't really consider saying your going afk, to be social interaction. Its just another "rule" of instancing you follow. I'm talking about people just chit chatting about anything. The only times people said anything was to either go afk, or argue about something game related. Not chit chat about it.. argue about it. But like I said, it wasn't the worst run I've ever done just wasn't the best either. I stayed with it mainly because I am doing this thread. I'm usually gone after the 3rd wipe. I will state that all I have done thus far is run instances with the DF. I've done no quests at all, I'm so far doing exactly what everyone else does.. I'm just sitting in shattrath instead of dalaran. I can understand why though, i'm getting tons of xp.
www.facebook.com/themarksmovierules
Currently playing:
FFXIV on Behemoth, FFXI on Eden, and Gloria Victis on NA.
My personal exp with the LFD tool..
It makes being an a$$hole that much easier.. It's one thing to be a jerk on your own server to the point that you end up with a bad rep (WHICH Blizzard is aware of and offer the ID change for a few bucks) but the LFD cross servers makes it that much noticable. I haven't done any level 1-70 dungeons, however the lvl 80 and heroics were terrible.
More then 50% of the hundreds of heroics I ran on multiple toons started off with "Hello all".. OK, that is a good start, then it goes into a "buff me" or "table please".. etc etc.. OK, I'll just pug along and not take this the wrong way..
As for the encounters, it's nothing more then how fast can we blitz thru this dungeon. There is little or no time to skin mobs, med up, pick a mine. Even looting is frowned upon by many. IF there is a death, then starts the insults. I can't even begin to count how many times I've seen healers and tanks leave group because someone died. I won't say most, but many pug members never talk more then 3 words after the initial "hello all".. I guess they're in too much of a hurry to spam their attack rotation, then to actually text something personal or just general chit chat.. ( I'm sure that will get flamed for being too social).. lol I"ve seen more ninja looting then ever with LFD, and not even get a kiss..
IF the LFD pug run ends in 15 minutes or less, with no deaths I'll see a spam of "Good run, thanks" that is immediately followed with "Billybob leaves group." POOF.. I understand that slightly if that particular person is in a real life hurry, and only needed that one dungeon and wasn't queued up for random.. However, I think we all realize that majority of the LFD are only there for the "daily" frost run.. This means most don't want to spend anymore time there then they have to.. I've actually had tanks and healers say , they wouldn't do their jobs in Old Kingdom if people wanted to take down all the bosses.. They only needed the achievement on the final boss and didn't give a rats ass what the rest of the group wanted..
This conduct is not rare and is increasing with each expansion and month.. The community is to blame for this, however Blizzard has some responsiblity as well since they provide the tools and the game mechanics for this behavior to thrive.. A school classroom my get loud, but I hold the teacher equally at fault..
Here is my question: what do you consider acceptable 'chit-chat'? Do you want people to discuss religion, politics, sports you do not follow, a rash they might have, etc ?
Do you want me to talk about stuff that you do not care about or want me to listen to stuff that bores me to tears just to be 'social'?
I returned to World of Warcraft three days ago, not having played it since burning out on the Burning Crusade (see what I did there?), and it was interesting to see the new stuff that has been added. I loved the Achievements panel where I could look up all crazy sorts of information but then I found out that the actual points you receive are usable for .. nothing?
So, I loaded up an old character, a level 16 priest, because he had received all the gold from my level 70 main. Then I saw the Dungeon tool. Clicking it, I was suddenly in queue. I thought it was quite nice at first - just click the button and wham into line. And in a few seconds I was in a group. I assumed it was because I was a priest and they are always handy to have around (in fantasy games, anyway).
Then I was automagically transported into a dungeon, I think it was Wailing Caves if that's a low level dungeon. With a few other guys. I barely managed to type g/ hello... before the group had downed the first elite enemy. And they just ran on.
"WTF", someone said, "the priest is res sick."
"Yes," I replied courteously, "I fought a terrifying Black Orc, outside Lakeshire, I believe they are trying to capture the town."
"Lol."
And that was it. The rest of the "adventure" was running through the mobs, hitting Need/Greed/Pass, and once the last boss was down, everyone zapped out without so much as a goodbye.
NOW I might add that I like to add a little RP talk for flavor and probably shouldn't have chosen a PvP server, but I wanted something different from the RP server I had been on (where my main toons are), and said RP server isn't that RPish anyway.
But it left me sour. It feels like the air is out of the balloon; there is no incentive to adventure; one of the greatest concept of fantasy literature is the heroic journey - so well realized in, say, The Lord of the Rings - and now you don't even have to travel to find the dungeon anymore. You click a button!
Of course, I am not gonna use that feature much; where's the fun?
Classic roleplaying adventures are all about getting there before going in.
**
I logged off my priest and rolled a new character on the Laughing Skull server (EU). Playing a dwarf hunter. Trying to talk to people, but I ignore anyone with a name that isn't proper in a fantasy setting. Which 99% of the players I have encountered on said server have. How hard is it to cook up a fantasy character name? /slaphead
I was infiltrating the Defias brotherhood in Moonbrook when a paladin came up and invited me to join. As I was pressed for time and wanted to finish my mission, I accepted. I tried talking to him but got nothing for the longest time.
Finally I got "Sup"
And I said, "So you do talk after all!"
"Yea"
"Well I've asked you a few times, what your mission here in Moonbrook is? Are you helping the People's Militia defeat the brotherhood?"
"..."
That being said, it is quite joyful to once again wander the streets of Stormwind, to climb up the mountain and see Ironforge's gate in all their glory ...
I've since uninstalled WoW from my computer. After the first week of the most anti social experience I've had in WoW since I started playing 5 years ago, I just can't do it anymore.
www.facebook.com/themarksmovierules
Currently playing:
FFXIV on Behemoth, FFXI on Eden, and Gloria Victis on NA.
What happened since your last post that triggered such a change of heart?
If you don't like the feature don't use it. If you like to socialize, find the aspects of the game or people that have that sort of thing in mind. Wow is a diverse game with plenty of people with many different playstyles. Find likeminded people and play with them. You get out of a game what you put into it.
If you go into a randomized tool that selects people with random playstyles and goals, that is exactly the results you are going to get. I'm not sure why the random results you get might be surprising considering the method you used.
Good luck in your next game.
I'm just waiting for the time when "henchmen" are added to dungeons. Hire your henchmen, and then tackle the dungeon solo. I really don't see a difference. If the LFD tool has taken the social aspect out already, then why not go that extra step. If there is no social aspects in a dungeon, why not give us the ability to do it solo.
The LFD tool is not a social tool at all unfortunatly. Its a means to an end and thats all.
If you want to play around and have a good time, get some friends get on vent and go wild. Queueing in LFD will never be social.
My general LFD runs were poping into the dungeon, saying "hi" and "fast or slow?". (I played a tank) Slow ment I would kill "optional" bosses and Fast ment I'd skip them. It had no bearing on how "fast" I actually moved though the instance. If my healer had ~30% mana I pulled and kept pulling. Most people actually loved this form of play so thats what I did as a tank. Playing with friends was alot different in that we'd generally kill everything and do achievements etc as we goofed off.
LFD tool it was a 15 min or lower run with very few words spoken. Generally I'd get a *nice tanking* at the end before the group dissolved.
Thats not to say this is my "prefured" playstyle. I would rather chat and have some fun but it soon became apparent that this was not the desire of most others using the LFD tool so I simply conformed. /shrug.
Pretty much it got to the point where as long as my healer was half awake it really did'ent matter what the rest of the group was doing. As a tank I was pushing 3K DPS avr across runs anyway (Which is a seperate issues I have with WoW - tanks should'ent do that amount of DPS its not our jobs) so the rest could pretty much AFK and auto follow for all I cared. Had some bad players and some awsome ones, did'ent really matter a great deal though its 2-8 min difference on run time either way so not really a big deal. I never kicked anyone for being bad, just carried them (Always gave benifit of the doubt that they were learning)
Pretty much LFD was for your two frost and some emblem farming to buy orbs or w/e for alts so nothing really mattered. All loot in there was auto-DE so meh.
LFD is a great tool for people wanting to gear up ASAP or farm for alts etc, for actually "playing" the game it suxs arse IMO.
WoW now is all about questing to 80, Grinding dungeons for T9 then hitting ICC for T10. Unfortunatly you can do this in about a month or two depending on your free time .. then all thats left is to drop $25 on a shiney mount and hit the "win" button. (Yer I recently quit again - 3rd time, but no doubt will be back again at some point)
I don't get why people say this.
The only way your going to do this is in a guild. And even then its going to be tough. Everyone uses the Dungeon finder. Why? Because just like everything else in the game.. its the easier way to do it.
The like minded people I am looking for don't exist in the world of warcraft, they are all gearing up in the dungeon finder. And, if there are any like you say.. there's not enough of them to warrant playing wow over another game where I don't have that problem at all.
www.facebook.com/themarksmovierules
Currently playing:
FFXIV on Behemoth, FFXI on Eden, and Gloria Victis on NA.
Saying "everyone" does this or that is being just a bit disingenious. Maybe a lot of people do some things, but there are still people who do groups without the random tool. I see people shouting for tank, healer or dps all day long for dungeons and raids. Perhaps you are at a disadvantage of learning dungeons in a 6 year old game in a level range where there are not enough people of similar level to form server only groups. It is still a huge step up in terms of multiplayer gameplay over soloing due to lack of players say 50-55 looking for dungeon partners. It isn't a "click to socialize" button as not everyone is going to be great at striking up conversations with 4 random people they have never met.
I think in all honsty your outlook is more of a self fullfilling prophesy than a fair shake of a game mechanic. You went into it your experiment expecting an outcome and it sounds like you found just that. You see "everyone" as using the random tool and nothing else. Things as being impossible unless you have a guild and even then being difficult. I can't say I've shared your experience, but maybe things are different on your server or level range. Then again maybe it isn't.
Wow is filled with a very diverse playerbase and there are plenty of people who share similar playstyles that you could play with. Something I don't understand that people say is "Everyone in wow does X".
I have to say I am probably one of the sort of people that you complain about, I have the luck to be in a very social guild and on easy dungeons I am usually chatting to them when running dungeons. Its only when everyone is offline, busy or when other people are chatty that I try and do much talking in group.
The BIGGEST reason that I and other people are anti social is that currently making friends with cross server people is sort of a waste of time because the chances of meeting them again are about 1000/1.
HOWEVER when battle.net 2.0 releases presumably alongside or before starcraft 2 people will be able to have cross server, cross faction and even cross game friends. When this happens I am willing to bet people will be a lot more interested in making friends with random people they meet in the dungeon finder.
I for one have met two people that I would have happily befriended socially and many, many more that I would have ran dungeons or raids with anytime.
The final thing you have to realise is that for about 90% of the population these dungeons are boring. Most people myself included are SICK of the WOTLK heroics, we've done them so many times (I think I hit 50 gundrak runs recently) and are so overgeared (t9 tank with 1 piece of t10) it takes no real thinking and stratagy.
I for one think things will improve in a lot with BNET 2.0 when people actually have a means to form cross server relationships and improve a LOT more when Cata introduces new dungeons and revamps old ones meaning people have to think and work as a team again.
PS: Have you tried a Roleplaying server? They are A LOT more social and many people on them will try to organize in server PUGS so they can run the dungeons "in character".
Dem hibbies! Dey be wrong!