i like group finders, but it probs wont happen because we will have open world dungeons, not instanced.
what we might get is a menu option to make a group and then people can request to join and you just walk up to your farming spot
My thoughts too. As much as a comfort tool it is, idk how it’ll work with non instances based dungeons
i wouldnt be agaist the /LFG of all game where it pop a LFG text next to your name (could be an icon) just so people around know ur LFG for something nearby.
But bulletin boards in nodes/freehold that show everyone/Class LFG in the node zone of influence or withing x distance
There already is very limited fast travel, so you have to be within 10min of the area anyways or you'd get kicked as soon as you're invited. The LFG chat channel is going to be so spammed it'll be insane, which means there will be message limiting in place where you can only send one message a minute. Hundreds of people sending one message a minute is still a lot.
The real "socializing" only takes place once a person is invited. Even then the majority of decisions will most likely be made off someone's visible gear set since you most likely won't be able to inspect them. Things like "how high is your dps" or "have you ever done this before" is irrelevant because if you got kicked from your last group for saying the truth you're just gonna start lying.
The sheer fact that you can't inspect means that even with a group finder, you'll still need to do all the other things necessary to vet people if you really want to. But having to sit in chat waiting for your rate limit to reset to spam again, or scroll through dozens of messages to find one for the group you're looking for is just not interactive gameplay. It puts an artificial delay on gameplay.
In my own unbiased opinion, the idea of a bulletin board is a pretty good medium between either side of the spectrum (say, auto-grouping with a queue system vs walking up to people around you and asking them).
Bulletin boards are great if they're available at entrances to open world dungeons, but what if you're looking for a general mob farming group far away from a town node? Or a group for a world boss? Or even just to farm some gathering nodes? Do you have to travel to some random town to access it, hoping someone else had the idea to travel to that town even if that town is nowhere in the vicinity of the event you want to group for?
I think a better option is to have the bulletin system be accessible anywhere (like a GF) and you can apply from anywhere, but you can only post listings from a physical board. That way, if I want to form a group, I have to navigate to a board and post it (in the appropriate subheader e.g. "Dungeons" "Caravan" "Mob Farming"), but the pool of applicants isn't limited. And if I want to go to the tower of carphin, I don't have to wait around looking for a group or scroll through dozens of messages if I don't want to, I can just be in the area doing some casual mobbing and gathering while occasionally checking the bulletin board with a hotkey and seeing if there are any groups. Limiting downtime in a game that doesn't have real fast travel is important. Running for an hour to somewhere just to stand there spamming chat isn't interactive or social.
I think a better option is to have the bulletin system be accessible anywhere (like a GF) and you can apply from anywhere, but you can only post listings from a physical board. That way, if I want to form a group, I have to navigate to a board and post it (in the appropriate subheader e.g. "Dungeons" "Caravan" "Mob Farming"), but the pool of applicants isn't limited. And if I want to go to the tower of carphin, I don't have to wait around looking for a group or scroll through dozens of messages if I don't want to, I can just be in the area doing some casual mobbing and gathering while occasionally checking the bulletin board with a hotkey and seeing if there are any groups. Limiting downtime in a game that doesn't have real fast travel is important. Running for an hour to somewhere just to stand there spamming chat isn't interactive or social.
I don't quite see how "anywhere" works here. Because you'll still need to run for an hour if you find a group to some content on the other side of the world and the party whose place you took would have to wait for you for that hour. And if you're trying to find a group within your own node or within your current node - you're literally in the same local chat and can just talk to those people.
Group finder is useful when the content can be reached within a very short time, which will not be the case in Ashes. And small local group finders would serve the same purpose as a bulletin board or plain chat. Considering the game's design I doubt we'll have hundreds of people spamming the chat, unless that chat is global, but there's no reason to have global chat because player movement is not global, which is why I think that boards should concentrate on helping people plan future content, while local chat will help to pick up any randos.
I think a better option is to have the bulletin system be accessible anywhere (like a GF) and you can apply from anywhere, but you can only post listings from a physical board. That way, if I want to form a group, I have to navigate to a board and post it (in the appropriate subheader e.g. "Dungeons" "Caravan" "Mob Farming"), but the pool of applicants isn't limited. And if I want to go to the tower of carphin, I don't have to wait around looking for a group or scroll through dozens of messages if I don't want to, I can just be in the area doing some casual mobbing and gathering while occasionally checking the bulletin board with a hotkey and seeing if there are any groups. Limiting downtime in a game that doesn't have real fast travel is important. Running for an hour to somewhere just to stand there spamming chat isn't interactive or social.
I don't quite see how "anywhere" works here. Because you'll still need to run for an hour if you find a group to some content on the other side of the world and the party whose place you took would have to wait for you for that hour. And if you're trying to find a group within your own node or within your current node - you're literally in the same local chat and can just talk to those people.
Group finder is useful when the content can be reached within a very short time, which will not be the case in Ashes. And small local group finders would serve the same purpose as a bulletin board or plain chat. Considering the game's design I doubt we'll have hundreds of people spamming the chat, unless that chat is global, but there's no reason to have global chat because player movement is not global, which is why I think that boards should concentrate on helping people plan future content, while local chat will help to pick up any randos.
No, it still works, it allows people to easily form the 'rolling' party.
Discount the actual question of if the board even exists or not, because a guild could, for example, 'ask their other members to /shout in chat in an area'. Focusing completely on the arrangement. Then you just get etiquette.
"Let your party know X minutes before you know you have to leave if you can."
"Your party leader starts looking for your replacement and tells them how long the party itself will continue (other people tend to give their estimates as well)."
"The person who can fill the slot is told in advance."
There's other benefits too, that I've experienced. If you think your own party is going to disband or half-disband, you don't invite a replacement, you inform another leader who is forming their party at the time and 'hand off' the remaining members'. That group then can leave town with 4/8 instead of trying to get all the way up, and they get to meet new people who are already prepared, knowing that those people don't even need an explanation of the content.
Anyways, there you go. There's not much bias here, I think, because I barely used this system myself so I don't have 'fond memories of it' or anything, if anything the opposite because people suck, but it's because people suck and it's so obviously frustrating when they misuse it or don't try to use it properly that I can say it really was just good. It led to a lot of positive situations that aren't obvious.
Anyways, there you go. There's not much bias here, I think, because I barely used this system myself so I don't have 'fond memories of it' or anything, if anything the opposite because people suck, but it's because people suck and it's so obviously frustrating when they misuse it or don't try to use it properly that I can say it really was just good. It led to a lot of positive situations that aren't obvious.
I guess it's more about my own bias. Not only of constant/static parties, but also guilds. With L2 being all about guilds, you'd pretty much always be in one and any party that lost a player to sudden circumstances or who was just late - you'd always pick them up from the guild chat.
And with Ashes trying to concentrate on Node comradery (and still having guilds on top of that) I expect the game to have tightknit communities that work kinda like guilds, and the node chat would serve the same function as my guild chat did for me in L2. Which, for me, removes the requirement for a global group finder tool.
But as you know, I like to limit players in one way or another, so my bias would probably just not work here.
Anyways, there you go. There's not much bias here, I think, because I barely used this system myself so I don't have 'fond memories of it' or anything, if anything the opposite because people suck, but it's because people suck and it's so obviously frustrating when they misuse it or don't try to use it properly that I can say it really was just good. It led to a lot of positive situations that aren't obvious.
I guess it's more about my own bias. Not only of constant/static parties, but also guilds. With L2 being all about guilds, you'd pretty much always be in one and any party that lost a player to sudden circumstances or who was just late - you'd always pick them up from the guild chat.
And with Ashes trying to concentrate on Node comradery (and still having guilds on top of that) I expect the game to have tightknit communities that work kinda like guilds, and the node chat would serve the same function as my guild chat did for me in L2. Which, for me, removes the requirement for a global group finder tool.
But as you know, I like to limit players in one way or another, so my bias would probably just not work here.
I'll go ahead and say yeah, this time it's bias.
Sometimes your limitations create new gameplay types or 'shift the benefit/convenience', but this one is just exclusionary and not in a helpful way.
There's a lot of effort and emotional cost involved in committing to a new guild, especially in those periods where your old one just disbanded and so on. People quit games in those situations. Particularly in the current era of games where there is no equivalent of this.
When your guild shatters and you become a wanderer looking for a new home, you need the tools to find one by trying out many more, but 'Hey join our guild it's chill and nice and there's no problems!' shouts? Well, to each their own, but there's a lot of psychology at play here that makes your limitation style inappropriate.
When your guild shatters and you become a wanderer looking for a new home, you need the tools to find one by trying out many more, but 'Hey join our guild it's chill and nice and there's no problems!' shouts? Well, to each their own, but there's a lot of psychology at play here that makes your limitation style inappropriate.
This is why I just make my own guilds with blackjack and hookers This most likely just reinforced my bias over the years. Can never had guild problems if you're the one making the guild each time.
I don't quite see how "anywhere" works here. Because you'll still need to run for an hour if you find a group to some content on the other side of the world and the party whose place you took would have to wait for you for that hour. And if you're trying to find a group within your own node or within your current node - you're literally in the same local chat and can just talk to those people.
Yeah people joining not in the relative area might be an issue, but I think the increased pool of applicants + the better User Experience is much more of a benefit. For every person you have to kick because they applied across the world, there'll be someone applying nearby. Plus, just having "current location" under their name will weed them out. And if they're in a completely different area but 9 levels higher than you and you decide to wait the 30min for them to come for a free carry? That's up to you.
I just think that it's 2023 and the desire for more "social" interactions is great, but that doesn't mean to go back to Ultima Online era with zero improvements. The game itself is already built in a way so that people who are more engaging socially are going to benefit more, whether it's being in a really active guild or being friends with specialized crafters/artisans outside your specialty. Scrolling through a spammed chat is, in my opinion, a purely nostalgia thing. The act of doing it isn't particularly fun or interesting. It's just associated with some artificial "barrier" that people think is necessary in order to be a TRUE mmo. It's essentially a worse group finder. You're doing the same thing, parsing text visually until you find one post that you're interested in, and sending a message. Or from the group leaders perspective, parsing dozens of responses individually until you decide on the ones you want. It's just lacking every innovation done in the past 20 years lmao. That's not creative, engaging, or skill-expression. It's just the same thing with extra steps.
And about the chat not being spammed because it's local, I don't really think that's realistic. The game will have a fairly long levelling process (compared to recent MMOs). The game will also have major open world dungeon areas being PoI for many different goals e.g. gatherers farming, people Pvping, people farming exp, people farming elite bosses, people doing quests, people doing world bosses. These areas will be known and ranked by launch by multiple guides and content creators as "best spots to farm". And because of the slower levelling grind, plus the fact that these areas may accommodate multiple level ranges, there will be a buildup in the middle-end of levels where a lot of people will congregate. That's all to say that "local" chats in places where people want to group up will inevitably get very busy in the first several months.
Obviously a year later many of these issues will not be prevalent, but local chat being busy and populated is a given.
And also, just because an easier UI and accessible bulletin board exists doesn't mean people won't use chat to recruit. Same way people use chat to sell/buy things even with a marketplace.
These areas will be known and ranked by launch by multiple guides and content creators as "best spots to farm". And because of the slower levelling grind, plus the fact that these areas may accommodate multiple level ranges, there will be a buildup in the middle-end of levels where a lot of people will congregate. That's all to say that "local" chats in places where people want to group up will inevitably get very busy in the first several months.
'LFG' systems without auto-teleport are vital for avoiding this too. Players take the path of least resistance, which creates some organic things that you might not want, such as 'everyone congregating to a single node or general area because no global chat means they won't be able to find groups if they don't'.
Effect isn't huge, but it does snowball. It doesn't affect you or me @NiKr but there's no real benefit to letting the snowball even start rolling, the sort of person on the opposite end of the spectrum from us isn't going to 'force themselves to try to form a guild or static party'.
You can either give them some easier LFG or say 'this game is not for them'. Seems like a waste to me to say the latter, but if that's what the community wants...
Effect isn't huge, but it does snowball. It doesn't affect you or me NiKr but there's no real benefit to letting the snowball even start rolling, the sort of person on the opposite end of the spectrum from us isn't going to 'force themselves to try to form a guild or static party'.
You can either give them some easier LFG or say 'this game is not for them'. Seems like a waste to me to say the latter, but if that's what the community wants...
This is why I want the boards to be for "future content". I'm probably being a bit too idealistic and definitely quite naïve, but I feel like pushing people (even if just a bit) into groups would benefit the game way more than having a super easy pick-up environment. Help people make foe-statics as easily as possible, in hopes that they turn into real statics that then have potential to turn into guilds. And I'm probably wrong, but I just feel that, just as you said, people would always go for the path of least resistance and keep going to the group finder every day instead of trying to find a group of people that they could play every day with (or just every available to them time).
And about the chat not being spammed because it's local, I don't really think that's realistic. The game will have a fairly long levelling process (compared to recent MMOs). The game will also have major open world dungeon areas being PoI for many different goals e.g. gatherers farming, people Pvping, people farming exp, people farming elite bosses, people doing quests, people doing world bosses. These areas will be known and ranked by launch by multiple guides and content creators as "best spots to farm". And because of the slower levelling grind, plus the fact that these areas may accommodate multiple level ranges, there will be a buildup in the middle-end of levels where a lot of people will congregate. That's all to say that "local" chats in places where people want to group up will inevitably get very busy in the first several months.
I don't know it for sure, but considering that AoC's dungeon design will supposedly be somewhat close to L2's I feel like I'm not too far off with my estimation, but I think that those locations will always be dominated by people already in guilds and already in pre-established parties. Ashes won't have instanced dungeons that you could clear with a group of randos.
While you spend 20 minutes filtering out newcomers, a static party will have already taken your farming spot. While you waited for that perfect newcomer to come to you from the other side of the world - the same shit happened. And now if you want to contest that location you're supposed to be better coordinated than a static party, who then could even ask their guild for help.
Will this push away a ton of super anti-social solo players? For sure. I hope that the game can provide them some other content to keep them in the game, but I'm almost sure that majority of good-best content in the game will be utterly dominated by guilds. And what I want to do is to push those anti-social players out of their shell and help them experience that content by joining a guild or at least creating a semi-static party that would play together as often as possible, so they would get coordinated and would be able to stand up against other parties.
Azherae and I discussed this before and came to a conclusion that my approach is probably just a result of my survivorship bias, but I feel like current Steven's design will just lead to the same bias in the end. Maybe I'm wrong on that, but we wouldn't know until the game comes out.
While you spend 20 minutes filtering out newcomers, a static party will have already taken your farming spot. While you waited for that perfect newcomer to come to you from the other side of the world - the same shit happened. And now if you want to contest that location you're supposed to be better coordinated than a static party, who then could even ask their guild for help.
Will this push away a ton of super anti-social solo players? For sure. I hope that the game can provide them some other content to keep them in the game, but I'm almost sure that majority of good-best content in the game will be utterly dominated by guilds. And what I want to do is to push those anti-social players out of their shell and help them experience that content by joining a guild or at least creating a semi-static party that would play together as often as possible, so they would get coordinated and would be able to stand up against other parties.
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That's my point as well. The game already prioritizes people who are able to coordinate quickly and efficiently. Whether it's in a guild you just joined or with people you've known for years. A more user-friendly system isn't going to now make the these more coordinated groups on an even playing field.
As a mostly solo player myself, almost every MMO I've played recently I spent the time to find and join a group or guild of people and am socially adept enough to be able to make friends pretty easily. And one thing I've learned is that for EVERY guild (that isn't just 10 IRL friends but also has open applications) and for EVERY "tight-knit" community, there's always an "in-group" and an "outsider" classification. It can be developed over time just naturally based off those that login the most, the higher levelled people, the more active people, the more skilled people, or even those that just party up together the most. But it can also be the people who others enjoy playing with more, or even cringe reasons like there's a youtuber or a girl that weirdos think they have a shot with. Either way, it's easy to advocate for more social oriented systems, but just know that it's impossible for everyone who WANTS to be in an active guild or in a tight-knit community to actually be in it, and that's just human nature. People tend to value being "in" more if they can point at people who are "out".
Just look at how many times a guild discord starts having separate, split-off "static" discord that people afk in way more than their guild one. I can't count how many times I've joined a guild knowing no one, only seeing a few ppl in discord when I can obviously see entire parties doing dungeons and obviously communicating, and eventually getting valued enough to be invited to the "real" discord where there's a dozen+ ppl hanging out all day. And knowing that there are ppl in the guild who were there much longer than me that have no idea. It's sad and unfortunate, but it's unavoidable. They should still get to enjoy the game though.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
I don't quite see how "anywhere" works here. Because you'll still need to run for an hour if you find a group to some content on the other side of the world and the party whose place you took would have to wait for you for that hour. And if you're trying to find a group within your own node or within your current node - you're literally in the same local chat and can just talk to those people.
Right.
I'm expecting people to look for a group locally or group with the same bunch of people who are typically online when they are online.
And it's going to be for local content... so no real need for a group finder.
Taverns are also supposed to be spaces to find a group.
But... we have to test to see how well that works.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Just look at how many times a guild discord starts having separate, split-off "static" discord that people afk in way more than their guild one. I can't count how many times I've joined a guild knowing no one, only seeing a few ppl in discord when I can obviously see entire parties doing dungeons and obviously communicating, and eventually getting valued enough to be invited to the "real" discord where there's a dozen+ ppl hanging out all day. And knowing that there are ppl in the guild who were there much longer than me that have no idea. It's sad and unfortunate, but it's unavoidable. They should still get to enjoy the game though.
Yeah... I am typically in some version of Discord chat with community players I'm going to group with, but...
I'm enough of an RPer that players have to acquaint themselves with my character before I agree to join a group. Can't just Whisper me, randomly or LFG me.
group finder is really important for finding a group for running sites people don't even remember they exist
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
What?!?
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FantmxMember, Phoenix Initiative, Royalty, Kickstarter, Alpha One
A group finder within a limited area would be just fine. Help people connect that are close by. If we are supposed to find friends to play then this is a good way to do so. You also would not have to entertain fast or slow travel.
What is your mindset towards group finders, dungeon LFGs, and matchmaking with so much content not being instanced based? Do you feel there should a gear, weapon, or skill requirement to que as a tank if group finder is a thing? For example a tank may be required to slot a shield or at least one to two taunt/threat generator. How would you approach this?
They don't have match matching in the game you got to actually socialize and make groups.
Yea and that’s something I like, but I asked because I know there’s a lot of people who dislike that from what I hear
It's OK to dislike the system but I hope they never introduce a dungeon finder. I don't think you will see LF TANK/LFG messages in a public chat. I think they said they will have tools to organize or find a group for a specific purpose (dungeon or anything else).
I like this idea, it gives you something from both worlds. It helps you find people to do group content without minimizing the social aspect and/or travel time.
Group finders is what kills a MMO community. Just put a /world chat and a /zone chat. That's all a MMO needs.
WHen you add a group finder to an MMORPG. Everyone becomes super autistic and the game becomes no different than a single player game. MMOs need to add incentives for players to communicate and group up. Otherwise it stops being an MMO, it becomes a single player game where you pay a monthly sub for no reason.
That is how humans work in the real world too. If we didn't have incentives - sex, work, buying/selling/trading etc. most humans wouldn't really be talking with others.
Comments
My thoughts too. As much as a comfort tool it is, idk how it’ll work with non instances based dungeons
But bulletin boards in nodes/freehold that show everyone/Class LFG in the node zone of influence or withing x distance
LFG lvl26 Spellsword Abyss Dung
LFG lvl26 Spellsword Abyss Dung
LFG lvl26 Spellsword Abyss Dung
That's not socializing, that's just spamming.
There already is very limited fast travel, so you have to be within 10min of the area anyways or you'd get kicked as soon as you're invited. The LFG chat channel is going to be so spammed it'll be insane, which means there will be message limiting in place where you can only send one message a minute. Hundreds of people sending one message a minute is still a lot.
The real "socializing" only takes place once a person is invited. Even then the majority of decisions will most likely be made off someone's visible gear set since you most likely won't be able to inspect them. Things like "how high is your dps" or "have you ever done this before" is irrelevant because if you got kicked from your last group for saying the truth you're just gonna start lying.
The sheer fact that you can't inspect means that even with a group finder, you'll still need to do all the other things necessary to vet people if you really want to. But having to sit in chat waiting for your rate limit to reset to spam again, or scroll through dozens of messages to find one for the group you're looking for is just not interactive gameplay. It puts an artificial delay on gameplay.
Bulletin boards are great if they're available at entrances to open world dungeons, but what if you're looking for a general mob farming group far away from a town node? Or a group for a world boss? Or even just to farm some gathering nodes? Do you have to travel to some random town to access it, hoping someone else had the idea to travel to that town even if that town is nowhere in the vicinity of the event you want to group for?
I think a better option is to have the bulletin system be accessible anywhere (like a GF) and you can apply from anywhere, but you can only post listings from a physical board. That way, if I want to form a group, I have to navigate to a board and post it (in the appropriate subheader e.g. "Dungeons" "Caravan" "Mob Farming"), but the pool of applicants isn't limited. And if I want to go to the tower of carphin, I don't have to wait around looking for a group or scroll through dozens of messages if I don't want to, I can just be in the area doing some casual mobbing and gathering while occasionally checking the bulletin board with a hotkey and seeing if there are any groups. Limiting downtime in a game that doesn't have real fast travel is important. Running for an hour to somewhere just to stand there spamming chat isn't interactive or social.
Group finder is useful when the content can be reached within a very short time, which will not be the case in Ashes. And small local group finders would serve the same purpose as a bulletin board or plain chat. Considering the game's design I doubt we'll have hundreds of people spamming the chat, unless that chat is global, but there's no reason to have global chat because player movement is not global, which is why I think that boards should concentrate on helping people plan future content, while local chat will help to pick up any randos.
No, it still works, it allows people to easily form the 'rolling' party.
Discount the actual question of if the board even exists or not, because a guild could, for example, 'ask their other members to /shout in chat in an area'. Focusing completely on the arrangement. Then you just get etiquette.
"Let your party know X minutes before you know you have to leave if you can."
"Your party leader starts looking for your replacement and tells them how long the party itself will continue (other people tend to give their estimates as well)."
"The person who can fill the slot is told in advance."
There's other benefits too, that I've experienced. If you think your own party is going to disband or half-disband, you don't invite a replacement, you inform another leader who is forming their party at the time and 'hand off' the remaining members'. That group then can leave town with 4/8 instead of trying to get all the way up, and they get to meet new people who are already prepared, knowing that those people don't even need an explanation of the content.
https://ffxiclopedia.fandom.com/wiki/The_Importance_of_Search_Comments - Random data to add here I guess, only somewhat related.
Anyways, there you go. There's not much bias here, I think, because I barely used this system myself so I don't have 'fond memories of it' or anything, if anything the opposite because people suck, but it's because people suck and it's so obviously frustrating when they misuse it or don't try to use it properly that I can say it really was just good. It led to a lot of positive situations that aren't obvious.
And with Ashes trying to concentrate on Node comradery (and still having guilds on top of that) I expect the game to have tightknit communities that work kinda like guilds, and the node chat would serve the same function as my guild chat did for me in L2. Which, for me, removes the requirement for a global group finder tool.
But as you know, I like to limit players in one way or another, so my bias would probably just not work here.
I'll go ahead and say yeah, this time it's bias.
Sometimes your limitations create new gameplay types or 'shift the benefit/convenience', but this one is just exclusionary and not in a helpful way.
There's a lot of effort and emotional cost involved in committing to a new guild, especially in those periods where your old one just disbanded and so on. People quit games in those situations. Particularly in the current era of games where there is no equivalent of this.
When your guild shatters and you become a wanderer looking for a new home, you need the tools to find one by trying out many more, but 'Hey join our guild it's chill and nice and there's no problems!' shouts? Well, to each their own, but there's a lot of psychology at play here that makes your limitation style inappropriate.
Yeah people joining not in the relative area might be an issue, but I think the increased pool of applicants + the better User Experience is much more of a benefit. For every person you have to kick because they applied across the world, there'll be someone applying nearby. Plus, just having "current location" under their name will weed them out. And if they're in a completely different area but 9 levels higher than you and you decide to wait the 30min for them to come for a free carry? That's up to you.
I just think that it's 2023 and the desire for more "social" interactions is great, but that doesn't mean to go back to Ultima Online era with zero improvements. The game itself is already built in a way so that people who are more engaging socially are going to benefit more, whether it's being in a really active guild or being friends with specialized crafters/artisans outside your specialty. Scrolling through a spammed chat is, in my opinion, a purely nostalgia thing. The act of doing it isn't particularly fun or interesting. It's just associated with some artificial "barrier" that people think is necessary in order to be a TRUE mmo. It's essentially a worse group finder. You're doing the same thing, parsing text visually until you find one post that you're interested in, and sending a message. Or from the group leaders perspective, parsing dozens of responses individually until you decide on the ones you want. It's just lacking every innovation done in the past 20 years lmao. That's not creative, engaging, or skill-expression. It's just the same thing with extra steps.
And about the chat not being spammed because it's local, I don't really think that's realistic. The game will have a fairly long levelling process (compared to recent MMOs). The game will also have major open world dungeon areas being PoI for many different goals e.g. gatherers farming, people Pvping, people farming exp, people farming elite bosses, people doing quests, people doing world bosses. These areas will be known and ranked by launch by multiple guides and content creators as "best spots to farm". And because of the slower levelling grind, plus the fact that these areas may accommodate multiple level ranges, there will be a buildup in the middle-end of levels where a lot of people will congregate. That's all to say that "local" chats in places where people want to group up will inevitably get very busy in the first several months.
Obviously a year later many of these issues will not be prevalent, but local chat being busy and populated is a given.
And also, just because an easier UI and accessible bulletin board exists doesn't mean people won't use chat to recruit. Same way people use chat to sell/buy things even with a marketplace.
'LFG' systems without auto-teleport are vital for avoiding this too. Players take the path of least resistance, which creates some organic things that you might not want, such as 'everyone congregating to a single node or general area because no global chat means they won't be able to find groups if they don't'.
Effect isn't huge, but it does snowball. It doesn't affect you or me @NiKr but there's no real benefit to letting the snowball even start rolling, the sort of person on the opposite end of the spectrum from us isn't going to 'force themselves to try to form a guild or static party'.
You can either give them some easier LFG or say 'this game is not for them'. Seems like a waste to me to say the latter, but if that's what the community wants...
I don't know it for sure, but considering that AoC's dungeon design will supposedly be somewhat close to L2's I feel like I'm not too far off with my estimation, but I think that those locations will always be dominated by people already in guilds and already in pre-established parties. Ashes won't have instanced dungeons that you could clear with a group of randos.
While you spend 20 minutes filtering out newcomers, a static party will have already taken your farming spot. While you waited for that perfect newcomer to come to you from the other side of the world - the same shit happened. And now if you want to contest that location you're supposed to be better coordinated than a static party, who then could even ask their guild for help.
Will this push away a ton of super anti-social solo players? For sure. I hope that the game can provide them some other content to keep them in the game, but I'm almost sure that majority of good-best content in the game will be utterly dominated by guilds. And what I want to do is to push those anti-social players out of their shell and help them experience that content by joining a guild or at least creating a semi-static party that would play together as often as possible, so they would get coordinated and would be able to stand up against other parties.
Azherae and I discussed this before and came to a conclusion that my approach is probably just a result of my survivorship bias, but I feel like current Steven's design will just lead to the same bias in the end. Maybe I'm wrong on that, but we wouldn't know until the game comes out.
That's my point as well. The game already prioritizes people who are able to coordinate quickly and efficiently. Whether it's in a guild you just joined or with people you've known for years. A more user-friendly system isn't going to now make the these more coordinated groups on an even playing field.
As a mostly solo player myself, almost every MMO I've played recently I spent the time to find and join a group or guild of people and am socially adept enough to be able to make friends pretty easily. And one thing I've learned is that for EVERY guild (that isn't just 10 IRL friends but also has open applications) and for EVERY "tight-knit" community, there's always an "in-group" and an "outsider" classification. It can be developed over time just naturally based off those that login the most, the higher levelled people, the more active people, the more skilled people, or even those that just party up together the most. But it can also be the people who others enjoy playing with more, or even cringe reasons like there's a youtuber or a girl that weirdos think they have a shot with. Either way, it's easy to advocate for more social oriented systems, but just know that it's impossible for everyone who WANTS to be in an active guild or in a tight-knit community to actually be in it, and that's just human nature. People tend to value being "in" more if they can point at people who are "out".
Just look at how many times a guild discord starts having separate, split-off "static" discord that people afk in way more than their guild one. I can't count how many times I've joined a guild knowing no one, only seeing a few ppl in discord when I can obviously see entire parties doing dungeons and obviously communicating, and eventually getting valued enough to be invited to the "real" discord where there's a dozen+ ppl hanging out all day. And knowing that there are ppl in the guild who were there much longer than me that have no idea. It's sad and unfortunate, but it's unavoidable. They should still get to enjoy the game though.
I'm expecting people to look for a group locally or group with the same bunch of people who are typically online when they are online.
And it's going to be for local content... so no real need for a group finder.
Taverns are also supposed to be spaces to find a group.
But... we have to test to see how well that works.
I'm enough of an RPer that players have to acquaint themselves with my character before I agree to join a group. Can't just Whisper me, randomly or LFG me.
It's OK to dislike the system but I hope they never introduce a dungeon finder. I don't think you will see LF TANK/LFG messages in a public chat. I think they said they will have tools to organize or find a group for a specific purpose (dungeon or anything else).
I like this idea, it gives you something from both worlds. It helps you find people to do group content without minimizing the social aspect and/or travel time.
WHen you add a group finder to an MMORPG. Everyone becomes super autistic and the game becomes no different than a single player game. MMOs need to add incentives for players to communicate and group up. Otherwise it stops being an MMO, it becomes a single player game where you pay a monthly sub for no reason.
That is how humans work in the real world too. If we didn't have incentives - sex, work, buying/selling/trading etc. most humans wouldn't really be talking with others.