Guild Wars 2

It’s a bit ironic that GW1 is simultaneously more solo-friendly and has a better grouping tool. It’s much more player friendly to have a list of groups looking for more people and players looking for group than to force players to ask on map chat or even try their luck in Lion’s Arch. The current mechanism of placing a little icon on top of the player character’s head does effectively nothing as there is next to no chance that anyone, GW1 veteran or not, will group with some random stranger for some unspecified purpose. Not asking for much, just a simple list like the one GW1 uses with space for a short description—accessible as a window from anywhere, separated into tabs by dungeon—so I don’t have to regularly type in /map chat or scan it, a chat that is frequently cluttered by a few people’s private conversation or gold selling ads.

GW1 had a great system. People could see at a glance what opportunities are available, but no one is ever forced to group with another as both joining and accepting into a group are completely voluntary. GW2, like GW1, has no loot issue. Most importantly, it lets players play the way they want. Isn’t that the spirit of Guild Wars? What is the current system, or lack thereof, attempting to accomplish?

I believe you’re talking about the first two years or so of GW1 where there were no heroes? Well, half the missions were more impossible with randoms than the dungeons are now.

If you’re talking about world PvE, if you feel like grouping with someone to slow down your progress, be my guest. There are always people looking for a party. Join a guild, get a few friends to play with. That’s what the new system is trying to accomplish. You can always go help your friends and you’ll both get something out of it besides just playing with your friend.

Just my personal opinion ofcourse.

Inci.7560:

I believe you’re talking about the first two years or so of GW1 where there were no heroes…

I was not talking about the first two years of GW1, nor do I think I should be. It makes no sense for GW2 to retrace the early days of its predecessor, when a lot was still being worked out. I was talking about GW1 post-EotN, when as many mechanics as possible have become polished.

This is a dungeon discussion thread, so I am not talking about non-dungeon PvE. I didn’t fully understand the rest of your 2nd paragraph. Yes, there are always people looking for a group for dungeons. I just want something to make it easier on them. No, joining a guild or playing with a friend has nothing to do with the GW1 tool I am asking. I personally find joining a guild just so you can find people to play in dungeons to be poor taste unless your primary activity in GW2 is playing dungeons, and friends have their own desires and schedules. Your ability to play in a casual dungeon group should not be restricted by your guild or friends nor should the inability to play together in dungeons be a determining factor in picking guilds and friends.

I feel like the final part of your reply shares similarities with the “community” argument I frequently hear when it comes to any kind of LFG tool, even one like GW1 had. Please ignore if I was mistaken in this association. I just have 3 questions:

1. Exactly what type of “community” you think not having such a tool will foster?

2. Very closely related, just how do you think forcing everyone to lfg in world chat contribute to such a “community”?

3. Why do you think that everyone or even most people even want to be in the kind of “community” you are envisioning?

You are always free to form or join a community on your own in-game. You can completely ignore any LFG tool and just form your own group.

Forgive the increasingly accusatory tone of this post. I think nothing good about people who bring up “community” to counter a simple, voluntary lfg tool. Some people feel it’s not enough that they act or think a certain way but everyone else must also do the same. That notion offends me.

EDIT: If ANet polled players, preferably with pop-up window in game the next time a player logs in the game, and the majority favored no lfg tool of any kind, I would have no problem respecting the desire of the majority. Barring such a popular vote, any gameplay design, if applicable, should favor greater freedom and flexibility.

I fully support this idea. For example, I’d like to be able to simultaneously look for a group for any one of three instances (I have alts around the level of each of them), yet the only reasonably fast way for me to find a group would be to go to the map of the one instance I want to run, or (much longer) spam around in LA.
It isn’t always possible to find enough guildies or friends (especially if you play at offpeak hours) to field a 5man for any given instance.

Bottom line is: there is virtually 0 downsides to having an LFG tool