Group Finder And Matchmaking

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?

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Ludullu

Azherae wrote: »

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).

Aniion wrote: »

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.

Aniion

NiKr wrote: »

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.

Dygz

NiKr wrote: »

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.

Dygz

Aniion wrote: »

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.

BaSkA_9x2

Group finder/MM available for BGs and Arenas, nothing else. Regional LFG chat channel for all the rest.

Terrifying_Truth

group finder is really important for finding a group for running sites people don't even remember they exist

Dygz

What?!?

Fantmx

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.

Core4891

NyceGaming wrote: »

Mag7spy wrote: »

NyceGaming wrote: »

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.

Birthday

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.

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