Guild Wars 2

So, many games including this one involves playing with other people to access and do certain content, to this end they they employ various systems to help players get together and play whatever content the group is meant to do, in GW2 this mainly means dungeons.

The presence of a system, of sorts, shows a willingness to help players achieve this but lets look at the horrible problem this current system suffers from.

LFG Tab
The system put in place to help grouping, clearly showing the will for players to have some sort a tool to help them find other people who want to group for some sort of content.

This currently shows you anyone who has marked themselves as looking for group, but that’s also where the assistance from this ends. There’s no showing what they want to do and it suffers from being only zone wide.

Now either you have to sift through the list of people and whisper them, asking what they’re grouping for and see if it matches your desires, a tedius process due to the constant whispering of people caused by not knowing what they want to group for and you only see players in the same zone as yourself which limits the candidates greatly, there could be three of four other people on the other side of the world with the same dungeon in mind, but you can not see them.

This can be leviated by players in on way, there’s some sort of gathering point for this grouping process to take place, a city or the zone in witch the dungeon itself is located, forcing players to be in either a city or a specific zone to have a reasonable chance to gather a group as the people wanting to do that dungeon are focused into this area.

- Doesn’t show you what people want to group for, this includes story/explorable mode of a dungeon, lots of tedius and time consuming whispering asking about what dungeon and type of run they want ensues

- Only zone wide, excluding an enormous part of the playerbase from your search unless players gather in specific zones, which then forces you to conduct the search in these specific zones regardless if you want to do content in another zone while you search.

In fact these drawbacks are so great this system has been deemed so bad it’s simply not used amongst the playerbase, the reason it’s still brought up is to demonstrate the flaws in the means currently supplied. This leads us to the system currently used.

Manual chat spamming

Chat spamming, as basic as it gets in terms of grouping tools and it speaks volumes that this has turned out to be more effective than the LFG tab in place.

While more effective it’s still as mentioned, as basic as it gets. The only thing it really leviates on of the horrid flaws from the previous system is that players can actively say what they’re grouping for. However it still suffers from being zone wide, which means either we exclude the vast majority of the playerbase from our search, or we gather up in specific zones.

The later is now unarguably the reality we have. We either sit in lions arch, or the zone which the specific zone is located in. You want to do content in Sparkfly fen while searching for people to a group for Twilight arbour? Well then you’re more than likely gonna have a tough time searching for people, that’s the reality, your options on what content you do between “I want to get a group and do Twilight arbour” and “I have a group and I’m going to do Twilight arbour”.

And now when in these zones you still have to engage in time consuming chat spamming to form a group, while somewhat more efficient than the LFG tab due to A) reaching more people with one written line and B) You can actively state what you want to do, dungeon as well as explorable/story.

- Still only zone wide, this limitation has basically forced us to actively be present in specific zones to search for people, or otherwise probably not finding much people to do a specific dungeon with.

- While suffering less than the LFG tab from this issue, the process of chat spamming can be time consuming as it needs to be repeated, people do as we all know come and go in zones so we need to actively make them aware of our presence and desire to get a group going and hope they’re interested.

These are the current systems and using the second one is the current situation we’re in, we have evaluated and identified the shortcomings and problems present in it. Now for the actual suggestion part and how it changes the current situation we’ve just covered.

cont.

Part 2

A modern, world wide, and automated dungeon finder

Now, let us first look at what this basically does, what does it change relative to our current situation with chat spamming and why it is better.

First off we have the problem of our current way of grouping only being zone wide in terms of who we can contact. As a world wide system instead of a zone wide this leads to a few things.

zone wide to world wide
- We are now connected with the entire playerbase who wish to get groups going for, lets say catacombs, instead of just anyone present in the same zone.

- In light of this we are now free to visit any zone we want in the world and do the content there while in the process of going from “I want to get a group going and do catacombs” to “I have a group and can now do catacombs”. So if you want to farm iron, mithril, continue your completion of a specific zone etc. etc. while in this process you are now free to do so unlike now.

Second, we had the problem (though not as bad as if we had used the LFG tab) of the potentially very time consuming chat spamming. Now how to this changes due to being automated.

manual to automatic
- Previously you’d have to type “LFG/LF(X)M Ascalon catacombs story/explorable”, possibly several times over a period of time. This process is simply automated, chat spamming is in a sense done by a program for you so you don’t have to chat spam, you are matched with people whos desires match your. Ascalon catacombs? Check. Story mode? Check. And from there your are automatically paired up with people who also want to do specifically AC and they want to do the story mode.

Heck this can be elaborated further, that much is obvious. For example we could if we wanted to, select a preference to have no more than 2-3 ( specific numbers not really important it’s the general concept) of the same profession unless unable to, in order to create a more varied group setup. It could exclude people who are blocked by you. We could go on about such examples but lets cut it short, the means to customization can certainly be implemented in many varied forms, that is the conclusion that we just saw some examples of.

And honestly people, hands on your heart now, why shouldn’t this process be automated? What on earth is there in the process of conducting manual chat spamming than you find so aluring and important that it simply cannot be allowed to be automatic and shortening the time between “I want to get a group going for AC story mode” and “I have a group and I’m now going to start doing AC story mode”?

This leads me to some “arguments” which are as common, as they truth be told, are outright dumb.

cont.

Part 3

No I don’t wanna

It ruins the community and isn’t social!
Now lets go back to what we took a look at earlier, what would the system change. It would be worldwide, basically anyone wanting to group would be connected to anyone else who wanted to do so regardless of what zone they are in. We can basically be anywhere we want in the world when we search for a group, now how does that affect the community within a game negatively, or at all for that matter?

Is it the process being automated? Well what would be changed would be that instead of chat spamming our preferences to these being input into a tool and them automatically match us with people who share them. So chat spamming is supposedly important for the community and/or a meaningful social activity.

Now how does manual chat spamming build a sense of community? Do we certainly feel we’re oh so connected and part of the same community because we say “LFG/LFM Twilight arbour explorable mode”, I know I certainly don’t, and if you can explain why it would using actual logic, please do. Is it a meaningful social activity? There is really no social interaction the process brings beyond someone saying “invite” to another person and them right clicking their name and clicking invite, maybe we add an “invite X” from a person already in the party but beyond that, the process brings absolutely no social interaction, and that can hardly be called meaningful social interaction at all.

You know what I’d consider more social than saying “invite” to someone? Actually playing together with people, something this system would make sure people can do faster than in our current system. And yes I know you people are out there itching to come in and scream “NO I SAW HOW IT HAPPENED IN WOW/RIFT/SWTOR etc. etc.” You know what? I was there, and it didn’t happen, all it did was make the grouping process faster and more convinient. Logically it doesn’t do anything negative to the community in fact it does nothing change it at all. And there is absolutely nothing positive about the current system in a social or community sense (unless you seriously want to argue chat spamming is a meaningful social activity that makes us all feel closer to one another) that it would take away.

People would just sit in a town and wait for their que to pop

Now lets look at this, why would I be sitting in a town as opposed to be in another zone doing content? Well, I can be sitting in the town because I need to, there is something I need there to do something, or something that forces me to be in the town despite me wanting to be out in another zone and do events/farm or whatever.

Well, we know it that isn’t the reason because with such a system we’d be free to be in any zone and do the content while the automated process matches me with other players. So the system clearly doesn’t create a need for me to be in a city for the grouping process to take place, which is what the system change afterall. And remember, this is actually a problem in the CURRENT system where we are focused into specific zones to have a reasonable chance to find people to create a group with.

Now why would I be in a city even if I don’t want to? Well here’s a reason, there’s nothing meaningfull to do outside the city, there simply isn’t any content out there that is interesting to do. However this isn’t something a grouping system affects at all, it’s merely a vessel to access some of this content (namely group content). So regardless if we use chat spamming, the LFG tab or have an automated world wide dungeon finder, the content remains the same, and if the content itself doesn’t warrant interest, players don’t do it. No grouping system will make uninteresting content interesting.

This isn’t WoW and it shouldn’t be

This pops up from time to time and it baffles me how some people seem to say this very seriously. Now this would mean a game like Tera, is in fact just the same like WoW/rift/swtor etc, because it has a near identical grouping system, lets ignore the player collision and other actual gameplay elements that differ between them, it’s basically WoW/rift/swtor etc. because they both use a near identical grouping system.

GW2 would also become the same, despite weapon skillsets and swapping along with player combos etc. etc. in fact by the same logic GW2 is already the same thing because there are warriors which can use one handed weapons and a shield which they can block attacks with as well as hit their opponent with along with their one handed weapon. This is an actual thing they have in common in terms of GAMEPLAY as opposed to simply a grouping system. Does that make GW2 and WoW/rift/tera/swtor etc. the same games? If not, then neither would a grouping system.

Part 4
closure

Now I realise this post has been fairly long, though that is because I wanted it to be reasonably clear and demonstrate the problems and shortcomings of our current situation and how it could changed for the better which I also wanted to demonstrate through logic. And quite frankly if you don’t use logic and show the logic which lead to your conclusion, why should anyone listen to you over someone who uses logic, and present their logic which lead to their conclusion? Which again, is why it became somewhat long winded.

Finally I’d like to say this. If you despite all logic in the world and having no real argument to show for, just won’t accept the implementation of an automated worldwide dungeon finder and absolutely hate the mere thought of it. You are perfectly free and able to use chat spamming, though I don’t doubt you’d find yourselves to be very lonely in doing so.

The end.

Edit: Now I realise we will get some people chanting how they possibly could accept an automated and worldwide dungeon finder, as long as it’s simply isn’t cross server. Well I have to say is this, welcome to the party, the party ended five hours ago. This is already a reality with overflow servers and even more so with the not yet implemented guesting system (assuming it arrives that is).

The real end.

Totally agre… good job!

I am fine with a dungeon finder, as long as you are not allowed to set specific class requirements.

This game is all about getting rid of the holy trinity and all that bullkitten that goes along with it. Therefor a tool as mighty and dominating as a dungeon finder shouldn’t allow to search for specific classes.

nachtnebel.9168:

I am fine with a dungeon finder, as long as you are not allowed to set specific class requirements.

This game is all about getting rid of the holy trinity and all that bullkitten that goes along with it. Therefor a tool as mighty and dominating as a dungeon finder shouldn’t allow to search for specific classes.

Why not? People might as well set up with a desired class beforehand before filling up with a dungeon finder. Any such problem would only be caused by class design enabling one or more classes to effectively fullfill, say a tanking role, on its own. That has absolutely zip to do with a grouping system and wouldn’t change at all regardless of what system you have.

All in all you make zero sense.