Party matching tool shouldnt be that bad of an idea

I get that Ashes is aiming to be social, massive, interactive and all that stuff old MMOs gave us back in the day, but i still don't know what's the point on refusing to implement something to find people easier.

From my experience, sometimes you just can't play with your guild (lvl disparity between players, not many mates online at that moment etc…) so you just gotta go and spam LFG or create your own party with whoever you find.

Then I ask myself, where is the social interaction when doing that? What's truly the point on spamming in chat instead of having a simple party tool? You know, imo, adding some QoL features doesn't always go against the game's philosophy. Even Lineage 2 had a party matching system.

Of course, I don't want teleports or matchmaking, just a simple, easy interface where you can create or join groups.

For example: min lvl, max lvl, roles required, party description.

Thats all, they could litterally copy-paste L2 system and I would be happy (never played L2, I just know the system existed).

Finding a group right know isn't social or immersive, it's just tedious and a pain in the ass.

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Ludullu

L2's system got added later on exactly because the entire game started revolving around instanced dungeons AND that game had TPs.

The social part of no-lfg tools comes not from spamming a fucking global chat (that shouldn't even exist btw), but from actually coming to the location that you wanna farm and asking in local chat if there's an opening in one of the groups there.

This is just yet another example of Steven not understanding his own designs. He gave people a global chat, cause they whined about it, but now everyone complains that they can't find a group in it, because it's not only spammed to all fuck, but it also doesn't help when you're 30 minutes away from the group you might've found and they ain't waiting for your ass to come there.

But also, there's plans for a bulletin board that's meant to help with grouping. But we're obviously too Alpha to have that feature. I'm sure it's "on the priority list for the beginning of 2026".

https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Bulletin_boards

fabulousfei

We don't need tools, you need to socialize

Atomiku

https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/comment/513304#Comment_513304

I know what you mean, but 8 times out of 10 going to a location and finding a group there just doesnt happen. It does happen when questing, but that's just the 1-9 leveling experience.

The map is massive, no one's going to spend that much time and effort to go to a location and maybe getting the possibility of finding a group, which is more likely not going to happen in a reasonable amount of time, even if you ask in local chat. Or at least that's been my experience in all phases, including this early access.

But I didnt know anything about the bulletin board, thanks for the info! I would be more than happy to have something like that implemented in the game.

Mileane

https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/69692/party-matching-tool-shouldnt-be-that-bad-of-an-idea

There are basicly two camps on this issue. The ones who want chat recruitment only, and the the people who want a party finder like WoW or FFXIV offers currently, with a queue you wait in while you do other stuff until you get a ping and get randomly matched with random people to do some dungeon. Both are bad solutions to a basicly problem, but people rarely bother thinking off alternative solutions to this issue. It is entirely possible to have streamlined party searcing / matching tools and not loose the social aspects of a game. It's a bit of an immersion issue in AoC, seeing as the game aims towards a "we do this manually"-kinda feel in its mechanics and world design. But that doesn't mean there can't be a solution for this.

Global Chat is btw. not the solution for this. A global chat only serves to gather spam and request that ought to be in other channels into one channel, because people are to lazy to, for exxample, switch from global to the recruitment channel, and use that one for its actually purpose. Instead, as most will have noticed, recruitment chat is mostly unused and recruitment calls get spammed in global all the time. Global chat is pointless.
Instead, what you want is channels with purpose, so local, for your map, recruitment for guild recruitment etc., trade, for trading obv., and so on. This lessens the load on the channels, reduces spam and thereby make it possible for people to actually read chat und react to requests, before they get buried under the next wave of spam.

But i'm going Off-Topic. A simple UI where you can open a "looking for group" channel or look for open searches is easy enough to build. Instead of auto matching and queues you will still need to socialy interact, chatting up the group leader, asking if you can join and rather or not your role is needed or suited for the content. This is the best of both worlds. Easy to find people who want to do the content you are interessted in, but still social, in the need of you actually getting over your social anxiety and chatting up the group before they manually invite you, should you fit their plans.

So no auto matching, no party finder in the WoW style or FFXIV style, but basicly a UI list of open requests for assistance, which a player can check. If he finds a group for content he needs, or just some request where he can help out for a bit because he or she is bored, the player could simply right click on the group → Chat with leader → say hi, ask for an invite or clarification on the type of content as needed.

The good thing about this solution is that it is more casual friendly, without removing the need for social interaction, acting as a gateway to get people who maybe aren't as used to the old ways of MMOs to "relearn" talking with people without fear. This can lead to friends in game, guild invites and so on, thereby serving as onboarding of a new player into the game and its community, where not having an easy way into social interaction would otherwise frustrate the player and maybe make him quit all together. It also would remove the requirement to spam so much in global or the recruiting channel, basicly reducing the recruitment channel to raid and guild recruitment.

The old school players tend to forget that there was sometimes good reasson to add more casual friendly functions into MMOs and often react with stunend horror if someone suggests that there might be a good half way point between modern handholding for babys and old school difficulty by bad design.

Atomiku

https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/comment/513313#Comment_513313

Exactly, this is what I mean. Queues, automatching and all that stuff doesnt belong to this game, but making things tedious just for the sake of it, isn't social at all.

A middle ground where you have a tool to find people easier is more than enough. Just like your example.

I've heard they are planning to implement Bulletin Boards at some point, which is basically similar to what we're talking about.

Sathrago

They have a way to do it supposedly inside taverns like @Ludullu mentioned. So matchmaking WILL be a thing and theres no point in arguing for either side. The problem is its gonna take forever for them to put it in the game.

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