Guild Wars 2

As the title says.

What do you call “improve”?

Improve would imply such a ‘tool’ exists.

Last I checked there is no LFG tool in GW2 short of asking in open chat.

Instead of a pool of people with “LFG” statuses, perhaps a description next to their name like “LFG for AC Exp 3rd path”

Unless I just don’t know how, it’d be nice to be able to leave an optional note by your name saying what you’re LFG for.

Something like what Rift implemented would be awesome. I really enjoyed puging in Rift because of how easy/quick it was to form up a group.

The game is less than 2 months old and it’s already taking forever to find groups so I can’t imagine not implementing some kind of lfg tool to the game. otherwise dungeons will be dead in a matter of months.

Well, as long as they don’t create a LFG tool like the one in that-other-mmo-we-don’t-talk-about because that killed the social part of grouping for dungeons.

People would just open LFG, wait a few minutes, run the dungeon as fast as possible and leave. That’s not how an MMO should be played.

Last sunday I was chatting with another player while we waited for other people to join our group and he/she invited me to join his/her guild which I accepted. This would never happen with a LFG tool.

draylore.2837:

Something like what Rift implemented would be awesome. I really enjoyed puging in Rift because of how easy/quick it was to form up a group.

What did Rift do?

Calavera.1086:

Well, as long as they don’t create a LFG tool like the one in that-other-mmo-we-don’t-talk-about because that killed the social part of grouping for dungeons.

People would just open LFG, wait a few minutes, run the dungeon as fast as possible and leave. That’s not how an MMO should be played.

Last sunday I was chatting with another player while we waited for other people to join our group and he/she invited me to join his/her guild which I accepted. This would never happen with a LFG tool.

On the contrary today I spend 40 min lf 1 last person for dungeon and we disbanded and stopped playing the game for the rest of the evening highly annoyed. yea that’s such a wonderful thing.

QSatu.1586:

Calavera.1086:

Well, as long as they don’t create a LFG tool like the one in that-other-mmo-we-don’t-talk-about because that killed the social part of grouping for dungeons.

People would just open LFG, wait a few minutes, run the dungeon as fast as possible and leave. That’s not how an MMO should be played.

Last sunday I was chatting with another player while we waited for other people to join our group and he/she invited me to join his/her guild which I accepted. This would never happen with a LFG tool.

On the contrary today I spend 40 min lf 1 last person for dungeon and we disbanded and stopped playing the game for the rest of the evening highly annoyed. yea that’s such a wonderful thing.

Tough luck, I still wouldn’t want it.

For Faux Sake.8457:

draylore.2837:

Something like what Rift implemented would be awesome. I really enjoyed puging in Rift because of how easy/quick it was to form up a group.

What did Rift do?

Rift had a cross-shard LFG tool. You could queue up as any role you currently had (tank/dps/healer/support) and it would throw together a group and port you to the dungeon.

They should make a dungeon finder, pick the dungeon you want to do from a list and get grouped with 4 others… surprised something that simple isn’t in from the start to be honest.

Calavera.1086:

People would just open LFG, wait a few minutes, run the dungeon as fast as possible and leave. That’s not how an MMO should be played.

…what, that’s exactly how it should happen, quick and easy, my time should be spend actually playing the game not spamming lfg.

Shinzan.2908:

They should make a dungeon finder, pick the dungeon you want to do from a list and get grouped with 4 others… surprised something that simple isn’t in from the start to be honest.

For the reason I mentioned. It’s not something everyone wants.

Calavera.1086:

Shinzan.2908:

They should make a dungeon finder, pick the dungeon you want to do from a list and get grouped with 4 others… surprised something that simple isn’t in from the start to be honest.

For the reason I mentioned. It’s not something everyone wants.

I don’t get what your reason is though… waiting around to get a group is a good thing to you? You could still not use the system if they made one, too.

Shinzan.2908:

Calavera.1086:

Shinzan.2908:

They should make a dungeon finder, pick the dungeon you want to do from a list and get grouped with 4 others… surprised something that simple isn’t in from the start to be honest.

For the reason I mentioned. It’s not something everyone wants.

I don’t get what your reason is though… waiting around to get a group is a good thing to you? You could still not use the system if they made one, too.

People have this fantasy notion that the LFG tool in WoW somehow “killed the community”. What it really did was shift dungeons from a 2-3 hour experience (one hour spent looking for a group, 1-2 hours spent replacing people when they were bad) into a 1-hour minute experience (30 minutes in queue, 30 minutes for the dungeon).

The social aspect “died” because they made the dungeon content easier with the expectation that randomly matched groups wouldn’t be able to complete the dungeons if they were too hard. So, there was no longer any need to communicate or devise strategies. Dungeons became lifeless and boring.

I think that Blizzard miscalculated when they made dungeons too easy. However, the LFG tool is fantastic.

Improve would imply such a ‘tool’ exists.

Last I checked there is no LFG tool in GW2 short of asking in open chat.

There is indeed such a tool, it’s found in the contacts menu. However, it may as well not be there, since all it does is flag you as lfg to people in the same zone. Using zone chat is more effective because it lets you advertise what content you want. To be useful, it needs to be realm-wide and content specific.

People have this fantasy notion that the LFG tool in WoW somehow “killed the community”.

Well, it kinda did. Dungeons were fine and terribly hard even, until gear progression trivialized them. The dungeons were never truly nerfed. What gave the RDF a social impact was that it matched you with random people from different realms, who you then never saw again. This made building communities on your own server unimportant (er, less important) and gave anonymity and immunity from consequences to everyone. And then the Penny Arcade Effect (http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19) takes over. This had much more impact then any perceived changes in game difficulty.

Calavera.1086:

QSatu.1586:

Calavera.1086:

Well, as long as they don’t create a LFG tool like the one in that-other-mmo-we-don’t-talk-about because that killed the social part of grouping for dungeons.

People would just open LFG, wait a few minutes, run the dungeon as fast as possible and leave. That’s not how an MMO should be played.

Last sunday I was chatting with another player while we waited for other people to join our group and he/she invited me to join his/her guild which I accepted. This would never happen with a LFG tool.

On the contrary today I spend 40 min lf 1 last person for dungeon and we disbanded and stopped playing the game for the rest of the evening highly annoyed. yea that’s such a wonderful thing.

Tough luck, I still wouldn’t want it.

Then don’t use it. You don’t have the right to tell other how they should play their game.

Join or create a cross server LFG guild. I know there are a few out there already. Should help fix the problems of not finding players for dungeons.

Rhyse.8176:

There is indeed such a tool, it’s found in the contacts menu. However, it may as well not be there, since all it does is flag you as lfg to people in the same zone. Using zone chat is more effective because it lets you advertise what content you want. To be useful, it needs to be realm-wide and content specific.

SW:TOR made this same mistake. Actually, that tool was slightly better because you could leave a small note next to your name on the LFG list. But, nobody used it. It wasn’t convenient enough.

Well, it kinda did. Dungeons were fine and terribly hard even, until gear progression trivialized them. The dungeons were never truly nerfed. What gave the RDF a social impact was that it matched you with random people from different realms, who you then never saw again. This made building communities on your own server unimportant (er, less important) and gave anonymity and immunity from consequences to everyone. And then the Penny Arcade Effect (http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19) takes over. This had much more impact then any perceived changes in game difficulty.

No, that isn’t true. Blizzard intentionally made dungeons easier to accommodate LFG groups. They’ve said so numerous times. Today’s dungeons aren’t in any sense of the word challenging, even before you gear up. Neither were Cataclysm’s dungeons. There’s really no ambiguity, here.

With regard to building realm communities, well, GW2 is already just about as cross-realm as you can get with guests, cross-realm guilds, free transfers, etc. I don’t see how a useful LFG tool would negatively impact the community in such an environment.

Yeah, this is a huge missing piece. Huge gap in the game. Big one.

Please address.

They shuld add a system similiar to the one in AION that one was pretty good.

Kwami.4356:

No, that isn’t true. Blizzard intentionally made dungeons easier to accommodate LFG groups. They’ve said so numerous times. Today’s dungeons aren’t in any sense of the word challenging, even before you gear up. Neither were Cataclysm’s dungeons. There’s really no ambiguity, here.

Wrong. Cata dungeons were pretty challenging on release and had to be nerfed significantly before people stopped complaining

A lot of people fail to realize that a lot of vanilla WoW wasn’t that hard, they just had no idea how to play.

Either way people pretend a grouping tool effects a lot more than it actually does. It’s a good feature, dungeons in this game are already dead.

And during my last few runs, we only talked strategy (plus hello and thanks for the run at the end), even after the initial LFG and invite none talked for the 45 minutes that getting a full group took, and I haven’t seen any of the players I did them with again either, so it’s not like not having a LFG tool forces people to socialize,

GW2 content is already balanced with random groups in mind so making grouping easier shouldn’t impact difficulty… an as an added bonus map chat wouldn’t be spammed with LFG messages either.

niea.7504:

For Faux Sake.8457:

draylore.2837:

Something like what Rift implemented would be awesome. I really enjoyed puging in Rift because of how easy/quick it was to form up a group.

What did Rift do?

Rift had a cross-shard LFG tool. You could queue up as any role you currently had (tank/dps/healer/support) and it would throw together a group and port you to the dungeon.

And then someone in a healer spec got added to your group only to switch to a dmg spec right after and refuse to run as a healer.

This hapened in PvP as well, the game balanced teams for the roles they que’d up with only for them to change it as soon as they were thrown into the group.

some days, i wish there was a quicker way to find members instead of hopping from LA and ascalon spamming map chat. however, some days, i find it more fun esp when the people you find are cool people. also, the pre-dungeon talk is pretty nice :P (hey what’s up, have you guys done this before, oh no worries its ok i can guide you, omg that’s a cool looking sword where did you get it, how has the power/prec/tough stat working out for a necro/etc/etc)

For Faux Sake.8457:

draylore.2837:

Something like what Rift implemented would be awesome. I really enjoyed puging in Rift because of how easy/quick it was to form up a group.

What did Rift do?

Automatically pulls LFG members from any server and throws them in the dungeon by role. Quick and easy. Not sure it could be used here though, because I’m uncertain – with the lack of defined roles – what criteria, if any, would be used to create a group.

I haven’t run any dungeons (well, one that imploded and didn’t finish out of frustration. Although credit to this community, very polite frustration) so I’m unclear if they could be run with, say, all Elementalists. I suspect not. And auto-grouping taking professions in account, implicitly admits all roles can’t do all things. So I can’t see that happening.

MrThebigcheese.2014:

Kwami.4356:

No, that isn’t true. Blizzard intentionally made dungeons easier to accommodate LFG groups. They’ve said so numerous times. Today’s dungeons aren’t in any sense of the word challenging, even before you gear up. Neither were Cataclysm’s dungeons. There’s really no ambiguity, here.

Wrong. Cata dungeons were pretty challenging on release and had to be nerfed significantly before people stopped complaining

They were slightly harder because people complained that Wrath dungeons were too easy when Blizzard introduced the LFG tool. Since then, the developers have said numerous times that dungeons and LFR-level raids are intentionally tuned to be easier than was older content to support the random group finders. I really don’t know why anyone is arguing this point.

A lot of people fail to realize that a lot of vanilla WoW wasn’t that hard, they just had no idea how to play.

It was significantly harder than Wrath or Cataclysm.

Either way people pretend a grouping tool effects a lot more than it actually does. It’s a good feature, dungeons in this game are already dead.

Indeed. And since we’re already in a cross-server environment, I really don’t see a downside to a LFG tool.

We do not even need those fancy autogroup tools (which I do not like quite frankly), just some type of “message board”. DDO uses a rather nice social panel, you select a content you want to run and your lfg is advertised for all who open the panel, you apply to join to the party leader if interested. It has more functions like select/deselect classes, level range and the like, but we don´t really need this (well, perhaps the level range as not everyone cares to read up on dungeon level eg). We do not even need a preselection of content, a simple text line would be sufficient, like “lfg 3 people for COF story”. The advantage is that the ad is displayed continously and serverwide, no more areahopping and spamming that desperate lfg and lfm in zone chats.

@Algreg.3629: That’s essentially what SW:TOR launched with. Nobody used it. It’s just not good enough.

EDIT: I mean, SW:TOR launched with a board where you could put a message next to your name (e.g. “lfg 3 people for COF story”) and it would be displayed to anyone who looked. The problem is that nobody bothered to look.

Calavera.1086:

People would just open LFG, wait a few minutes, run the dungeon as fast as possible and leave. That’s not how an MMO should be played.

So your totally not gonna mention speed runs in GW2 dungeons that the developers had to take a nerf bat to?

Seriously, I run dungeons as fast as possible w/o dungeon finder. WHY would I sit around and do the dungeon as slow as possible?

Even games that came out in 2001 have added a server-wide LFG tool. I understand if this is being held off for when cross-server Guesting is implemented, but even a basic LFG interface with your name, character class, level, and a blurb about what you’re LFG for on your own home server would be an absolute godsend.

Spent 2 hours waiting for an Ascalon Catacombs Story group on my new alt when he hit 35. Found 2 other people, but we gave up after an hour of not finding anyone. Mind you, 5 explorable mode groups cycled through in the same time. I’ve only even done AC Story on my main because I wanted to run through the Dungeon storyline in order to get the full experience, but haven’t found a group for CM story in the month I’ve been looking. This is on a high-pop server as well.

Agreed, we need a LFG tool. This is like SWTOR all over again. I just hope they add one BEFORE everyone leaves. It is a really simple concept, I just don’t understand why gaming companies can’t seem to grasp it…

People want to play the game with people, not spend all their time looking for people to play the game with.

It is even easier in GW2, you don’t even have to fill roles. Dungeon→ Path→ group done.

I mentioned Rift’s tool as a example……GW2 would have to do something similar but not exactly……..due to the way professions work and the lack of trinity which is exactly what the Rift tool depended on.

But some sorta auto-matic group maker that would send group to dungeon could be done in GW2 I would think. Hell I really have not seen much ‘specifics’ in people using chat to find groups……..its usually LG2m or LFG….implying that all you need is 5 and due to the way professions are designed and the lack of defined roles it would work unless you end up with some really oddball mix of 5 which is unlikely. Now if they would allow us to re-trait on the fly (perhaps only in a LFG tool formed group or something) it would make things even better since we could adapt if needed.

All that said….its is 2012…… like it or not ….people just are not going to live with the days of spending hours in chat trying to find or make a group. Something is needed.

Personally i would like there to be an option at least for a grouping tool for dungeons. Yes i know some of you hate the idea of being able to queue for a group.Something about killing the social aspect.I never found that to be true in any other game I’ve played that has one.In fact in other games i made many friends doing this.

The game is barely out and finding groups can sometimes take 2 hours already.No one really seems interested in sitting at the gate hoping someone will come along and accept their request to group up.I know i don’t want to do that.

At least a queue option would allow you to continue to explore and do other things while you wait.It should at least be an option i think for those who want it.

Calavera.1086:

Well, as long as they don’t create a LFG tool like the one in that-other-mmo-we-don’t-talk-about because that killed the social part of grouping for dungeons.

People would just open LFG, wait a few minutes, run the dungeon as fast as possible and leave. That’s not how an MMO should be played.

Last sunday I was chatting with another player while we waited for other people to join our group and he/she invited me to join his/her guild which I accepted. This would never happen with a LFG tool.

Please don’t post things like they are fact when in reality it is only your opinion. LFG finders DO NOT KILL the social part. Not having a LFG tool forces people to sit in a major city and spam chat LFG. Not having it in Rift really ruined the level process for me because I love to switch it up and run dungeons but there was no LFG at the time so I only got to see 1 whole dungeon my time.

You say “you found a guild because 2 of you were talking while LFG”. Well guess what? You can do that too but just chilling in a major city. GASP What?? Nooo way? Yep.

The casual far outweigh the hard cores now. People want to level and be able to que for LFG so while they are questing they can level and see the dungeons. Oh and get this, you can still be social because you are meeting new people also once your que is up. Spamming “LFG” in chat channel isn’t very social to me.

So please know what you are talking about first before saying it killed the social part because in actual it didn’t. Also please don’t tell us how mmo’s need to be played. You aren’t the almighty. You aren’t paying for our subs. So please, don’t tell us how we need to play because your way shows how clueless you are.

“That’s not how an MMO should be played.” -Calvera

I’m not sure a tool is the right solution. It seems to me every game that tries to make a tool, even the tools that are really well designed, don’t get used. I remember in GW1 one of the biggest complaints was finding groups to do missions etc. Long down the road they added a party search that worked only in the town (by district) the problem with that is unless there was enough people around the feature was useless. The solution to that was embark beach. But I’m not sure it was a solution because it seems to me it never really got used. Even though it was a good idea and the perfect way to group in the constraints of GW1. After all everyone who wanted to group for something only had to go there so that everyone looking for a group was in the same place.

But anyways, back to the topic of LFG improvements. Honestly the best idea I have seen for making grouping be much better is a global chat channel that reaches everyone everywhere. For example when lord of the rings online added custom user chat channels one of the first ones made was for LFG. Granted players abuse the chat for other subject matter and, in general it is a love hate relationship, but it hands down improved LFG to do stuff in the game. Even though at any one time there may only be a few 100 players out of the many times more than that online at the time in the channel. Also the abuse of the channel is because it is a custom user channel it side steps any rules about chat so there is no real say in the matter what people use the channel for except for the whole of the community. An official LFG channel however would have at least garnered respect from the community to use if for what it was meant for. Unfortunately the custom channel isn’t always respected in the same way the official channels are. Anyways I only say all that to give full perspective on the example.

Which brings me to my point. No need for any fancy tools or UI setups. For the reason already stated. All you need is a global chat channel for the sole purpose of LFG and let players say LFG for such and such and players can respond to that. Right now we have only one chat channel “map” which is over clogged with all sorts of messy chat that LFG and advice (stuff I classify as important chat) gets lost in the messy chat (stuff I classify as mostly pointless chat). And you all know that kind of chat: the crazy religious, politics, chuck norris vs bruce lee, debates, arguments, flaming, trolling, and anything else that makes you want to turn off chat. I’m sure lord of the rings online isn’t the only MMO which has found multiple chat channels to be very successful for topic specific stuff like LFG. But when it comes to LFG global is better especially when level is removed from the equation so that doing lower level content, especially when helping others, isn’t a one zerg. Everyone who may want to do a particular thing are never all in the same area at the same time. And for the previous stated reason much more content is still desirable to do which makes the fragmentation of players by zone all the more problematic to LFG.

That would just ruin the community, you know, the great community we have in game… high levels just spaming low level zones that they only want other high levels to join their dungeon runs… and refusing to even answer questions from new people…

My LFG tool is logging onto my lowbie trade post alt, spaming LFG in /map chat while posting and buying items on the trade post, all the while trolling with the other people about what ever random topic people off their ritalin talk about, getting an invite an hour later, then logging on to my main I have parked in that dungeons zone.

I would love an LFG tool. But hey, not having one builds more of a community right?

It’s called a dungeon finder, Something that Anet needs to put into gw2

not necessarily restricted to dungeons though, Rizzy, just make it free form. I haven´t the slightest idea if there are people who want to look for exploration, event or farm teams, but why not have the option of putting up a “who wants to farm skelks in xx with me?”-lfm.

@bojangles.6912 if I wrote something of course it is my opinion duh!!

I stand by my statement, LFG killed WoW dungeons and I hope they never make it into GW2. PERIOD.

People who blame LFD for all of their problem just performed badly in dungeons, got yelled at and never got over it. That’s it.

Good players love the tool because it allows them to play the game, bad players fear it like the plague and lie to themselves and everyone else because they want others to be forced to play with them. They want it to be difficult to find people so groups will carry them. They could just step up their game and stop causing problems for their groups, but that would involve admitting they aren’t very good so they point the finger instead of learning to play.

Anyone claiming WoW was this paradise of good behavior and cooperation before LFD is just being ridiculous.

Also, Vanilla was for the most part very easy. Raid fights in Cata and Wrath were much more complex than most of Vanilla and Wrath had the hardest boss to date (algalon). It’s funny but most people weren’t even good enough to see him.

People pretending content got easier because of LFD aren’t even good enough to judge what is really difficult.

Kwami.4356:

MrThebigcheese.2014:

Kwami.4356:

No, that isn’t true. Blizzard intentionally made dungeons easier to accommodate LFG groups. They’ve said so numerous times. Today’s dungeons aren’t in any sense of the word challenging, even before you gear up. Neither were Cataclysm’s dungeons. There’s really no ambiguity, here.

Wrong. Cata dungeons were pretty challenging on release and had to be nerfed significantly before people stopped complaining

They were slightly harder because people complained that Wrath dungeons were too easy when Blizzard introduced the LFG tool.

The changes to Cata’s heroics were some of the biggest nerfs ever. They even removed abilities from bosses. If you think Cata heroics were “slightly harder” on release you didn’t play them on release.

Why are people so afraid of lfg tools anyway? Why can’t you just talk to people once you’re already grouped up? I find that spamming “LFG/LFM + [required spec]” can hardly be called social activity.

Xocolatl.6890:

Why are people so afraid of lfg tools anyway? Why can’t you just talk to people once you’re already grouped up? I find that spamming “LFG/LFM + [required spec]” can hardly be called social activity.

I don´t understand it either – well, unless we are talking about these “pack 5 people in a queue together and throw them into an instance”-travesties, those I would actually hate – and I am honestly surprised to hear that in some games people didn´t care to use them apparently. The only game with such a tool I played had heavy use of the group finder

Algreg.3629:

Xocolatl.6890:

Why are people so afraid of lfg tools anyway? Why can’t you just talk to people once you’re already grouped up? I find that spamming “LFG/LFM + [required spec]” can hardly be called social activity.

…“pack 5 people in a queue together and throw them into an instance”-travesties…

That’s the one I’m talking about.

I met more people…….that I added to my friends list ………from which I was able to pool from later to form groups, raids etc using Rift’s LFD tool than I ever could have standing around Meridian or whatever using chat.

Xocolatl.6890:

Why are people so afraid of lfg tools anyway? Why can’t you just talk to people once you’re already grouped up? I find that spamming “LFG/LFM + [required spec]” can hardly be called social activity.

I can’t speak for anyone else who replied but I’m not afraid of an LFG tool/feature. Only that the devs will have wasted their time and money on making something that doesn’t get used like the number of MMOs I’ve played including GW1. The tool/feature was well designed and definitely would have made grouping easier yet they didn’t get used and people stuck to the hard to get a group chat spam to a much smaller reaching area than the total possible people who would group up. Which is why I suggested the most cost effective and simple solution a global chat channel for LFG where people state their grouping desires. I’m not familiar with the WoW feature but if it is all that and a bag of chips and everyone uses it then perhaps it is something to consider for implementing in GW2. In the mean time the chat channel thing would be so easy to do we could have it in a week or two tops assuming they take their time with just one or two devs working on doing it.

Lord of the Rings online added a more or less random group forming tool where players specify what instances they want to do (as many or few that they want) and then the game builds the group. A healer, tank, and the rest of the group any classes. The feature does not get used at all. You could have all instances selected and add your self to be picked for a group and remain in game for the whole day and never end up in a group. However it does get used once players have manually formed their group for the reward bonuses. Since it is a gateway to enter the instances and the group is full it doesn’t have to look for players to fill the group.

The lacking of a LFG tool is the main reason I’ve stopped playing.
I did quite a good number of exp runs, but I cant’t stand anymore wasting my time spamming “LFG CoF exp” (or similar) while sitting in areas I’m not interested in and also having to cope to a flawed antispam. Not in 2012.
I’ll get back to the game when (if) they add an automated LFG tool.

Calavera.1086:

QSatu.1586:

Calavera.1086:

Well, as long as they don’t create a LFG tool like the one in that-other-mmo-we-don’t-talk-about because that killed the social part of grouping for dungeons.

People would just open LFG, wait a few minutes, run the dungeon as fast as possible and leave. That’s not how an MMO should be played.

Last sunday I was chatting with another player while we waited for other people to join our group and he/she invited me to join his/her guild which I accepted. This would never happen with a LFG tool.

On the contrary today I spend 40 min lf 1 last person for dungeon and we disbanded and stopped playing the game for the rest of the evening highly annoyed. yea that’s such a wonderful thing.

Tough luck, I still wouldn’t want it.

Then don’t use it.

Having no automated LFG tool is bad, very bad. SWTOR lost a lot of PvE people due to not having one.
Its an MMO requirement and I was really suprised to find out that GW2 doesn’t have one. Considering that the rest of the game (except WvWvW) is tailored towards accessibility and convience.
After playing years of WoW I’m not that interested into instanced dungeons anymore, seen it all, though I still would’ve taken a look at GW2 dungeons but not without a LFG tool.
No LFG tool and no UI customization are the worst two things about GW2.