Party/Raid Finder Thoughts

Hello! I know that feelings are usually mixed on having a party or raid finder included (such as with WoW or FFXIV) as it can lead to players being less social, but I wonder if not having it will do more harm than good? I know plenty of people who would stop playing after they find out that they would have no choice but to reach out and find friends or join a guild to do most content. Would it be better to include it and keep those players even if they end up being less social?

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George_Black

No.
In my experience from L2, if there was a corner of the map that had mobs too tough to take down solo, people would go there, walk up to each other, or speak in shout, and form a group.
As for raids, two things. First there wont be much instanced content. Secondly, the open world raidbosses will be contested by orginized, skilled players that are good both in PvP and PvE.

People that just join group finder, even in other games, have no chance against organized players. They will eat dirt.

The players you know wont play AoC because of no groupfinder will also find other reasons not to play.

So why ruin the desired community feeling, by adding the GF, when there are no people that it caters to?

Tragnar

there will definitely be some ui tool to help find groups just to keep public channels clean from lfg spam, however that would be most likely manual usage only and probably even with node location filters

to not have any such tool just creates a madness and just calls for the creation of 3rd party parsing tool to look through public channels to sort the lfg messages

JamesSunderland

Interesting, could you elaborate the "I wonder if not having it will do more harm than good?" ?

Would you believe, "People who would stop playing after they find out that they would have no choice but to reach out and find friends or join a guild to do most content." is a demograph big enough to warrant such a drastic change, in contrast to people who would appreciate those social aspects?

Sylvanar

Steven: I want AoC to be a social game.
People with anti-social tool ideas: People would stop playing due to bla bla.
Steven: Read the FIRST LINE!!!

Noaani

Tools that assist players finding other players to run content are great.

Tools that assist players in finding groups to run content lead to players treating each other as disposable, and should be avoided at all cost.

fabula

Having to look for a group istead of the system automaticatically finding one for one means reputation and actions will matter when trying to engage with others.

Someone you PKed or wronged in some way is not likely to invite you to their group when you are in need and will likely veto your entry into the group if they can. This means that people will care about their reputation since those that treat others well will always be welcomed into any group.

AidanKD

i think that an exclusively theme park game like WoW with majority instanced content can suit a group finder environment. It's even suggested that going back might not work at all due to what the community is accustomed to. That might be considered a negative of *taking away* a feature i.e. group finder.

However as others have said, and to build on it - the game is going to be 80% open world and 20% instanced so group finder could only accommodate 20% of the content in theory and that 20% instanced content might even be some story based stuff that doesn't require grouping.

If the game begins without a group finder then naturally people will integrate. It's too easy to just do some afk tasks while queuing for a group - but when it's part of the activity, you invite people to the party, chat and get to know them. Build a rapport, lead up to the journey to the location together. And that whole interaction may lead to better long term contacts. I can remember little to no people however I have used a group finder with.

Also, yes it does require more time strictly speaking to make a group without a group finder, but I think that is what makes people respect each other and each other's time more is the fact that it requires it in itself.

And of course Steven has pretty much shot down the group finder, but that's my take on it.

Dygz

I think in Ashes we won't need a party/raid finder.
We will have open world homes and we will be living in Nodes that we are defending and progressing.
Which means we will be seeing and working together with other players who play at the same times we do.
And we will gravitate towards those who play the way we like to play and do the activities we like to do.

Traditionally, that doesn't happen because we don't have to defend the cities were we "live". And housing is typically instanced. As people level, they typically abandon the lower level towns and spread out across the map. We may no longer run into the same players we used to.

While the Ashes world is considerbaly more dynamic the worlds of previous games, our home locations will likely be more static and those local communities will be stronger as we work together to build and protect our (open world) homes.

WhoaUrTilted

Thanks for the replies everyone! My question came from a place of love as I would hate for AoC to get the reputation of only being for "try-hards" or "elitist" or whatever else people could try to label it as, and then it not get the attention it deserves.

Everyone brought up some good points and my concern has been quelled. I really had not considered how the world being centered around nodes wouid keep people together as opposed to other MMOs.

superhero6785

A group finder ends up turning the game into a single player experience with matchmaking. That's fine for games like call of duty where you want to be able to hop online by yourself, not talk to anyone, and just queue up to play in online matches. Games like that would suffer if you were only allowed to queue up if you already had a full party of friends online. But MMOs thrive on the social aspect, requiring you to seek out other players of similar level, form friend groups, communicate, and build a lively in game world.

CROW3

I'd rather have friend finders and guild finders to make it easy for folks to meet, then folks can find groups easier because they are already part of a group.

tautau

I think that taverns and town halls will have bulletin boards and that will function as the way to organize groups, rather than some technology which does not exist in Verra.

For example, if you want to take down the boss 'WoahUT' then you post in the BBs of your node and the surrounding Taverns to 'Meet Fri 7PM CST to have a run at Woah!' Many such raids will be organized in guilds, of course, but larger nodes will have 1 - 3 Sponsor Guilds which may work with each other and citizens of the node to make raid plans. Node mayors will probably be involved working with guild officers.

Personally, I think that is a MUCH more interesting system than some techchat that breaks world realism.

fabula

tautau wrote: »

I think that taverns and town halls will have bulletin boards and that will function as the way to organize groups, rather than some technology which does not exist in Verra.

For example, if you want to take down the boss 'WoahUT' then you post in the BBs of your node and the surrounding Taverns to 'Meet Fri 7PM CST to have a run at Woah!' Many such raids will be organized in guilds, of course, but larger nodes will have 1 - 3 Sponsor Guilds which may work with each other and citizens of the node to make raid plans. Node mayors will probably be involved working with guild officers.

Personally, I think that is a MUCH more interesting system than some techchat that breaks world realism.

Such a system would not work because it what is simpler... going back to town to see if anyone posted something on this board or just go to where people gather for the event and ask if anyone is looking for members?. Such a bulletin board system would never be used except maybe by RPers.

We already have group/area/guild chats, if you have these things it makes sense to use them because otherwise it wouldn't be realistic to use a bulletin board when you got the wonderfully better tech which is the area chats. This is a game and convenience is something that you should always try to include as long as adding that convenience doesn't change the experience you are going for.

Dygz

I mean, yeah, we will already have people in our friends lists with whom we like to play when we play.
Many of us will already be in some form of Discord voice-chat or Twitch chat.
It's unlikely we will need group finders.

I'd much rather have them added in after launch - if it turns out they actually are needed.

Caww

a PUG/LFG finder sounds good in theory but then group role balance issues appear, kicking others to substitute a different role or people dropping when the group isn't doing well are gonna sour the effort. They should try to provide a tool but most people already know the results can be iffy.

unknownsystemerror

As so many others have pointed out, we won't be getting a LFG/LFR random finder. It works poorly/has killed other games. The point I wanted to bring up is beyond all the "only get scrubs from it" arguments is that WoW as an example had to incentivize tank and healer participation for their 5 man groups. Imagine what the queues would be like for 8 man content. Also tailoring each instance to the dev recommended party balance. This one you just need a tank, but 3 healers and 4 dps. This one 2 tanks (but because of boss #3's mechanics, one needs to be a mitigation tank, 1 healer, and 5 dps. The balance, waiting on queue, the way Intrepid plans to do loot rules, and on and on. Way too much development effort to achieve a result they are not looking for. Get ready to hang out in those node inns boys, perusing the job board, cause that is as close as you are coming to LFG/LFR.

tautau

Also, if you are Really Good at doing what you do (healing, tanking, damage...) then before too long groups come looking for you.

If you haven't experienced this, you probably need to get better at doing what you do.

SirChancelot

tautau wrote: »

Also, if you are Really Good at doing what you do (healing, tanking, damage...) then before too long groups come looking for you.

If you haven't experienced this, you probably need to get better at doing what you do.

I mean, LFG kinda ruined that for me.

Varkun

My LFG finder is my guild.

There are some good points on why AOC may be somewhat different when it comes to the community though.

Zahie

I like the LFG tool in Guild Wars 2. It's not random or matchmaking. In the LFG toolpanel players can see groups that is looking for players and can easily click a "join" button, and the person that put up the group for advertise can type in what they are looking for.

I'd prefer that everyday over a spammed LFG-chat channel. So annoying. And people doesn't always restrict themselves to only spam their LFG's in the LFG-chat channel..

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