Guild Wars 2

Nice tool so far, but too bad most people don’t know they have access. It will get better when more are using it.

Things I would consider changing:

+ Allow us to accept/reject incoming members. Anet probably wants to reduce discriminatory grouping, but it is way too easy to have undesirables and griefers join. Especially when you consider that you are advertising more elite content like fractals 40+ and team arena, the group creator (another distinction Gw2 unfortunately fails to make) should be allowed some discretion.

+Sometimes you simply want to advertise an event (say, in wvw or open world pve). Like “need more help at Balthazar”. Your primary intent is probably to advertise this to your entire server, rather than just to have 4 people join and remove the event advertisement from the LFG tool. But I think this would be solved by letting us accept/decline incoming party requests.

+The tool should not prevent you from browsing other groups while advertising one of your own. Two groups could be advertising for something similar but not realize it due to this restriction. Or, I may begin by advertising for a certain activity, and then notice someone else is advertising for something that seems more fun…etc. Please remove this restriction if possible.

+Reword the “Living World” section to sound more inclusive of general open world PvE, and not just Tequatl/other 2 week event farming.

+Give the option to reveal all of the LFG listings, rather than clicking through each category over and over again.

+Upon mouseover, display the zones that the group members are in (might be more difficult).

+*Annoying*: Message suppression occurring after making several LFG posts/edits in a short time.
What are your thoughts so far?

I do not have access to the lfg tool yet, I would like to know if it keeps track of dungeons completed on a daily bases and also for the dungeon master achievement.

but i agree if you post for a group it should allow you to keep exploring others, but i understand them not allowing it.

Add a dps meter or allow 3rd party ones. so sick of dps debates

Not sure. Seems to only want to work when I’m at the entrance to a dungeon. By then we’ve used GW2LFG to get a group together. It doesn’t work from the contact menu though, which is a bit odd. So…meh? Maybe when it’s fully implemented is a better time to talk about it.

I’m in the Beta, but haven’t yet joined a group. Seems to function just as the devs wanted – anyone can join. It’s hilarious because I saw a group that was “Looking for more zerk warriors” fill up with necros and thieves.

Just looked over the beta and unless they add the ability to find players wanting help with the dungeon story modes, I’ll pass. I like finding players that need help and hopefully this beta is only half done atm.

a queue system was too much? is it still like lfg.com but in game?

Amadan.9451:

a queue system was too much? is it still like lfg.com but in game?

Pretty much. Except you can hit join on any group and immediately be in their party.

You can also click merge to pick up others that have posted for the same dungeon. IE a group of 3 can merge with a group of 2 with 1 click.

I wish there was a queue.

saw your post thanks conncept. Need more people using it for sure.

Well thus far, from the lack of posts, I seem to be the only person on my server with access to it…

EDIT: To the above, from an earlier dev post it does cross-server for dungeons (including fractals), and PvP. It is per server for personal story, WvW (whenever that gets added, as I don’t see it now), and open world. I have no idea why it is per server for open world content, that makes no bloody sense what with the guesting system and all.

I bet most people don’t even know they have access to it yet.

This is my other account and I don’t even have a 80 on this one and I have access to LFG. So I assumed everyone had it.

I just looked, didn’t even realize I had it!

Seems very intuitive at a glance, I’ll give it a whirl tomorrow.

Devils.3679:

I do not have access to the lfg tool yet, I would like to know if it keeps track of dungeons completed on a daily bases and also for the dungeon master achievement.

but i agree if you post for a group it should allow you to keep exploring others, but i understand them not allowing it.

Add a dps meter or allow 3rd party ones. so sick of dps debates

Me too. I hate DPS debates. Please do not add a dps meter to this game.

Worthless ATM.

Only 1 or 2 post in some categories. People with it don’t even know it.

In other words: Impossible to give an opinion yet.

Xista.7391:

I’m in the Beta, but haven’t yet joined a group. Seems to function just as the devs wanted – anyone can join. It’s hilarious because I saw a group that was “Looking for more zerk warriors” fill up with necros and thieves.

As funny as it might seem at first glance to ruin speedclear groups, in my opinion it is griefing just as much as going to a fotm10 relaxed run with a zerk mindset. This has to be fixed.

Btw, in case there’s still doubt, I just logged in and found that I had the option to it. In case someone’s wondering:

• I am not a part of any guild
• I have never done any PvP
• I have done a total of 7 Fractals
• I have never used gw2lfg
• Am not associated with some inner ANet circle

It’s currently quite early in the EU, so it’s pretty empty. Gotta say though, at least it’s a “here’s a party with spots”, rather than having to put yourself up as a specific profession/spec. That’s good.

Honestly, I would give it some time. Right now, there’s Tequatl and it’s a new thing not yet available to all. Even when it’s available to everyone, it’s gonna take a while before people can get out of their habitual gw2lfg.

marnick.4305:

Xista.7391:

I’m in the Beta, but haven’t yet joined a group. Seems to function just as the devs wanted – anyone can join. It’s hilarious because I saw a group that was “Looking for more zerk warriors” fill up with necros and thieves.

As funny as it might seem at first glance to ruin speedclear groups, in my opinion it is griefing just as much as going to a fotm10 relaxed run with a zerk mindset. This has to be fixed.

The function of the new LFG tool is to find groups as fast as possible, which it seems to be doing. It’s not there to find specific comps to do dungeons. If people are looking for all zerker groups, I think they’ll have to look elsewhere to form groups.

I’m not stating this as a good/bad thing. This is just what the devs intended. I guess you could call it griefing, but it’s nothing that’s reportable. It’s just rude as I think it would be common courtesy to not join those groups.

I’d definitely prefer to have the “Confirm join” button, instead of ppl flooding in the party w/o notice.
Falso, abside being annoying, it’s open to griefing imo.

Keep in mind if you already have a party of multiple people, you won’t see everyone looking for a group.

Like I’m in a party with my guild now of four people, so I’ll only see posts of a single person looking for a group. If there’s a group of two looking for a group, I won’t see their posts.

Stumbled upon it by mistake.
Found 2-3 parties with 1-2 players.

Would be nice to see all lfg areas like Dungeons, PvP, PvE already open and not needing to click to unfold.
It is not like they are too many of them to loose yourself searching through the list.

As far as I can tell, the status resets when you relog. Not good.
A list of players by profession, level, PvP rank, purpose, etc would be nice.

I have it as of this morning, you get a small update which seems to activate it.

Groups seem to fill really fast, like in a few seconds…barely have time to read what they are looking for…

Loads of people looking for speedruns and zerker only gear…lol

I have to say that I’m not very impressed.

The categories (particularly for fractals) seem odd.

The description is limiting.

Once you use the tool to ‘advertise your party’ you are permanently advertising apparently. It never shuts off. We finished fractals, two pugs left our group, and the thing started posting our party as looking for fotm 40+ again! We were on to other things at that point. So you have to completely disband just to get it to stop? They MUST add a way to disable your advertisement. Maybe I just couldn’t find it (which, if the case, is a whole other issue with usability).

It also links to a ‘party leader’ whom no one really ever knows who is until it starts making announcements to you about what said leader has done in the tool. Usually the leader doesn’t know they’ve done it because, well, they didn’t. Someone else in the party did.

Everyone I played with this evening all agreed they would likely just continue using the lfg website as it, even in it’s simple, unintegrated, form is much better to use.

This tool just doesn’t feel very thought out. Maybe it’s just buggy, lacks polish or something but it’s definitely no where near ready for prime time yet.

Its good, don’t get me wrong, but i hope they will improve it. (Its only a beta, so i guess they will)

Stuff that is missing:

1. WvW. I do alot of WvW so finding roaming groups to take camps, bloodlust buff etc. would be great!

2. Story mode or Explorable. Right now its just “dungeons” there is no way to change between story or explorable, but it should be.

3. Fractals… This is strange. It has 4 sub categories: Scales 1-9, Scales 10-19, Scales 20-39 (What?) and Scales 40+. Why 20-39 and not 20-29 and 30-39?

Everything seems good to me, but it sucks that not many people have it yet, to hard to find a team ATM ;p

Is the LFG tool cross realm or just our own server in dungeon,fractal search?

ordeal.9145:

Is the LFG tool cross realm or just our own server in dungeon,fractal search?

Open world and personal story are your world only. Everything else is cross realm.

cross server, and i like it.

Hello, I also now have access to it, so here are my 2 cents :
I will obviously begin with the flaws :
1) People can join (alone) or merge without any notice. This is bad, not sure if intended or not but this is the biggest flaw and HAS to go away. You sometimes look for some professsions only or anything but this profession and the wrong guys could invite themselves and you would have to kick them … no control of your own group, it’s bad.
Also, it makes griefing much more easier. Two guys spot groups who are at the end of a dungeon, or 2d/3rd map of fractal for example. They merge, they insta kick leader and they successfully trolled poor people.
The tool should be removed before it gets fixed imho.

2) Second flaw : no distinction between story and explorable. You will have to read what you’re looking for. Bear in mind that atm there are few posts, but in the end, there will be tons of posts so it makes it very boring.

3) Third flaw, similar to 2nd one : bad handling of fractal levels. We have 1-9, 10-19, 40+ and why on hell 20-39 instead of 20-29 and 30-39 ?
Also, an option to filter would be nice as it exists on gw2lfg (like only from 34-39 for instance). Again, keep in mind there will be tons of posts and you will want to filter, especially that the UI won’t show so many groups without scrolling.

4) More options ? Not really a flaw, but I think it could be improved further with special options as gw2lfg (experienced only, speed run, language preference etc …). Not really mandatory, but could be cool. Could be added months later.

Other than that, at the moment, I find it pretty good.
However, number 1 MUST be fixed for it to be useful, and would be very cool if #2 and 3 could be adressed too.

It does the job
too bad I don’t really use it :P

- Important: Don’t release this until you allow players to accept/decline, no auto-join / auto-merge.
It’s very exploitable and grief-inciting, plus it leads to embarassing situations where you get classes you don’t need etc. Mandatory.

- Fractal levels need all level brackets.
20-39 = No. 20-29, 30-39 = Yes.
Dungeons need Exp/Story distinction.

I will make this short and sweet. I like the accessibility and found it effective and efficient at grabbing up one person for CM P2 and 3. Took about 10 seconds to find someone both times I tried it.

However, there is no mandatory distinction on what exactly the group wants to do in the dungeon. I think this is a major problem because unfailingly I immediately found a notice in which the person was hosting a party in Sorrow’s Embrace and left no description. What the hell good is that?

Need to have a check-mark system for people to hit what they intend to do in the dungeon. Otherwise you can get a party of people with varying opinions and that may ultimately lead to the destruction of the party.

Nova.8021:

However, there is no mandatory distinction on what exactly the group wants to do in the dungeon. I think this is a major problem because unfailingly I immediately found a notice in which the person was hosting a party in Sorrow’s Embrace and left no description. What the hell good is that?

Need to have a check-mark system for people to hit what they intend to do in the dungeon. Otherwise you can get a party of people with varying opinions and that may ultimately lead to the destruction of the party.

This is the fault of the user, not the tool. The tool has a box for you to enter whatever you want for your group, which path in a dungeon, any specific details you want to add. If someone chooses to not even bother to fill in what path it is….then thats likely only going to be their problem as it’ll be harder to get ppl to join. And if the person is too lazy to fill out a little box with minimal detail….doesn’t sound like someone I should join anyway.
Check mark system would be too rigid, IMO, except for dungeons could just have one for paths. An open comment box as it is allows you to put whatever details you need (New to dungeon/path, speed run, we’re elitist so you better have zerker, multiple runs in specific path order, and on and on)

I think it looks great and I’m sure more functionality and tweaks will come.
The first ones that should be taken care of have been mentioned by other already:
-a way to stop advertising (I don’t see a way to)
-some kind of confirmation or accept button, rather than auto-join/merge

Agree with most of your posts, so far the biggest problem is that people can auto-join with no confirmation. Anet probably wants to reduce discriminatory grouping, but it is way too easy to have undesirables/griefers join. Especially when you consider that you are advertising more elite content like fractals 40+ and team arena, the group creator (another distinction Gw2 unfortunately fails to make) should be allowed some discretion.

Some other things:

Sometimes you simply want to advertise an event (say, in wvw or open world pve). Like “need more help at Balthazar”. Your primary intent is probably to advertise this to your entire server, rather than just to have 4 people join and remove the event advertisement from the LFG tool. But I think this would be solved by letting us accept/decline incoming party requests.

Also, reword the “Living World” section to sound more inclusive of general open world PvE, and not just Tequatl/other 2 week event farming.

But as others have said, the majority of people still do not know they have access to the tool.

(Updated OP to consolidate my thoughts)

so far the biggest problem is that people can auto-join with no confirmation and the majority of people still do not know they have access to the tool.

I would like it if I could whisper or somehow communicate with the prospective party I am about to join before I join so I don’t get hit with the rate limit.

More feedback may be found here: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1mrn86/my_main_issue_with_the_ingame_lfg_tool/

Why fractals are the way they are is explained in why they may have just done a autojoin is also explained in:
http://youtu.be/YfbP6AQq1Kc

Basically to summarize. Fractals between 20-39 do not scale too much. They do autojoin because they want you in and out of the tool as fast as possible. There is already systems in place to prevent some griefing. However…. I do agree that it should allow the party to accept and decline using the existing rules for joining a party from a /join.

Cool tool so far, but they have to set up the instances to be tied to everyone, not just the party leader. Party leader left and kick us out of fractals (on the third area) and this can get really annoying if people rage quit etc.

Another note, I did the merge party thing since we had two people in my party and three in theirs. Shouldn’t matter since three of us were left over after being kicked out of the instance.

They should remove class icons from lfg list to prevent elitists, and seperate every section to looking for group and looking for member tabs for a tidier and easier to use ui.

marnick.4305:

Devils.3679:

I do not have access to the lfg tool yet, I would like to know if it keeps track of dungeons completed on a daily bases and also for the dungeon master achievement.

but i agree if you post for a group it should allow you to keep exploring others, but i understand them not allowing it.

Add a dps meter or allow 3rd party ones. so sick of dps debates

Me too. I hate DPS debates. Please do not add a dps meter to this game.

DPS meter would lead to people not doing what they need to do for dungeons and events. DPS meters are horrible. I love to just know what mine is, but the problem is the people who will not care about anything but max DPS to make their kitten bigger.

People are saying you can’t get to it from contacts, but at the entrance of a dungeon. I don’t follow. Does something pop up when you go to enter the dungeon? If so, haven’t seen it yet.

Once they are happy with it…hopefully will send all players a ingame mail to let them know it actually exists…95% of GW2 players never visit the forum after all…

Meglobob.8620:

Once they are happy with it…hopefully will send all players a ingame mail to let them know it actually exists…95% of GW2 players never visit the forum after all…

They really screwed up by releasing this way. Adoption rate of it, once it’s even available to 100% of the players, is going to be poor because of the issues with autojoin and the fact that people have given up looking for it since we were expecting it on Tuesday.

Overall it’s a great tool, ready for release. I could make and join groups easily, and find additional party members within seconds of listing my group. It works very effectively for the specific dungeons and events that are on the list already.

A few improvements could be nice though:

• The tool currently has rather strict categories. You can’t make a group for WvW or open world, because the closest categories for that are Living World or Personal Story. What if I just want to group for a difficult skill point challenge marathon? Or WvW roaming on a specific borderland? There could also be a commander squad LFG option.

• The current categories could have numbers indicating how many advertisements are currently active. Right now we have to click on each dungeon to see if there are any parties, not very convenient.

• The tool should show what server everyone is on, before joining the group.

• As others said, we should be able to browse groups while advertising our own. Don’t make them grey out.

• The tool got stuck once and I couldn’t list the party on LFG, so there are still some bugs (I was in a fractal with the Fractal Transit Query window open if that is related)

TexRob.5183:

People are saying you can’t get to it from contacts, but at the entrance of a dungeon. I don’t follow. Does something pop up when you go to enter the dungeon? If so, haven’t seen it yet.

Even people who don’t have access to it generally seem to be able to get it to come up by going near the entrance of a dungeon.

I have the LFG all the time since last night and am in no way special, so it may be random.

I just realized I had it. I tried to join a Manor story group on an alt and got removed moments after.

There should be an option to accept or decline someone who’s trying to join. As nice as it sounds to force myself into groups, it feels a little rude, and if the party just doesn’t want my class then there’s nothing I can do about that.

I think it would be nice to have an option to advertise ourselves, not a party. Like, I still need to do Arah story on my main, I’d like to just put myself up on a list with a little description. Something short like, “Unfamiliar, but I know how to not stand in bad stuff”, or nothing at all. A party leader could browse through the list and pick out people.

I understand if they don’t want a queue system, but it definitely needs improvements.

Well you could yourself as a party up with that description and another party could then choose to merge with you.

Anyone who hits “Join” enters your party without you being able to select who you pick? Lol. That’s just.. lol.

1. Accept/reject incoming members!
2. View party member info before joining (class/lvl/names)

Other than that it looked pretty good. Just used it once real quickly tho – will play with it more tonight.

It would be great to see the AP score.

I agree with the subsections story / explorable. Currently there are very few listings but soon there will be dozens and it will get more difficult to find what you are looking for. Also, fractals 20-29, 30-39. Difficulty may not increase too much 20-39, but the required AR rises quite a bit.

A few bugs in relation to dungeon / fractal groups need to be fixed still:
- Instance tied to the person who first entered, if he quits the group gets kicked out (also an issue if the instance opener leaves before people could grab the boss chest)
- Sometimes you end up in a different instance than the rest of your party. Sometimes zoning in and out or relogging fixes that, but sometimes it doesn’t

Also I think there should be some regulations to kicking, like a kick vote cooldown if you use it too often (so it makes you think twice about using it and only use it on griefers) and remove ability to kick someone in the last fractal / before the last boss to counter trolls.

Sorcerer.3095:

A few bugs in relation to dungeon / fractal groups need to be fixed still:
- Instance tied to the person who first entered, if he quits the group gets kicked out (also an issue if the instance opener leaves before people could grab the boss chest)

This is a problem with the instance system. The LFG tool can’t change that, unfortunately.