Yesterday, for the first time, I used the Group Finder.
I’m used to the tool from retail when doing Mythics, so it’s not new to me and I’m glad the tool looks like the one in retail. I was also following the discussions about why Blizzard decided to do it this way. Here is a short summary for Blizzards point of view:
People want to better social interaction when doing dungeons.
That’s it.
So, let’s see if removing the dungeon finder (and the functionality that comes with it like teleport) helped to reach that goal. I want to point out, that this is my personal experience and while (so far) it was consistent with the experience of literally everyone that I talked to and played with, it might still be different for others.
Before I listed the group, I was following (or trying to follow) the LFG channel. So many people asking for a group, it is almost impossible to find any. Its too much and too fast. Example:
LF healer to ramparts N
(few lines below)
healer LF group to rampars
And this repeats itself over and over.
But the fact that there was so much happening made me wonder if the Group Finder (GF) is even in use at all. I tried anyway.
It’s tidy and clean, the interface is pleasant. And there are players and groups listed. So far so good.
Now selecting the dungeon, wait, dungeons, plural. I want a random one. Easy.
Oh look, a message in the center of my screen showing there is an applicant. Good stuff. Mouse over the name. Class. Level. Role. Looks fine, Accept. Next popup. Wait, I don’t need another damage dealer, I need a tank. Why does this tool suggest me a damage dealer if the group only has one spot, that of a tank? Decline. Next message. This time a tank, but the level is low. If decline, will there be another one? Can I let my group wait and not take this one? Decline. Tank, again, level is just right, nice! Accept.
“Hello everyone”
(silence)
“So which dungeon are we going?”
(silence)
“OK, we have a good tank and healer, we can do SL for xp. Are you ok with that?”
(silence)
My partner who was with me in the group when listing arrived.
“So I’m starting to summon then for SL”
(first reaction in chat) “no daily?”
“oh ok, what is it?”
(silence)
(my partner) “what is the dungeon for the daily?”
(silence)
(finally reply) “what we doing?”
“waiting for you to say what dungeon you want to go to”
(silence)
At this point my partner and me wasted already 10-15 minutes, so I kicked that person.
Group Finder. A tank. Invite.
(me) “Hello”
(silence)
Summoning. No comment from anyone.
Dungeon finished. No communication, except maybe 2 sentences like “careful with pulls here”
Summary:
We wasted lots of time just going to the dungeon and even more waiting for people. Nobody wanted small chat or even responding to the question what dungeon we want to go go. Nobody even started to move to the summoning stone, waiting for a summon.
The Group Finder even makes it harder, since it does not simply teleport it to a random dungeon. you now have to discuss what you want. And how are you supposed to do this when nobody is replying?
Please tell us Blizzard: how does this go along with your thesis? How does this encourage social interaction?
From my pint of view, it makes me angry and it wastes my time. And I have about 2 hours during an evening. Is it worth spending it on this? I don’t think so. And if you say “what do I care about one player”. Well, It’s not one. Think about it.
People who want social interaction go to guilds, they participate in chats, etc… The Dungeon Finder has absolutely nothing to do with it. It is a convenience tool that you decided to take away after saying “as close to the original experience as possible”.
So here is my suggestion:
Every time I wait at the meeting stone, I will post a comment in this topic. Why? Because I have to wait anyway. And I encourage every player who shares my opinion on this to do the same.
Maybe then you see what people think about your “we value players feedback”.
They need to add more information to the tool. If I’m hosting a grp I want to see people que up to join just like in retail from where I can then invite them. A name popping up to the middle of the screen “Bob wants to join” is totally useless. I don’t know what class bob is, I don’t know what spec he is. I don’t know if he is communal geared or full t6.
I guess this is their idea of a great social experience when you need to whisper every joiner hello what spec u are and/or ask other questions. Instead, it seems like most people invite the ppl who ask to join, and then kick them if they are not what u wanted. No need to socialize and much faster than checking /who or whispering them.
Blizzard, please understand that there is nothing “social” about being forced to ask multiple standard questions from everyone who tries to join your group. Just show the information for us. Or enjoy the kickfest since you get that information by accepting their request to join and then you can kick them if they aren’t what you were looking for.
Looking in /4 the past two weeks, all i see is MGT HC/N, BT, Kara and ZA. Occasionally ramps/bf/sp etc show up but nowhere near as frequent as raids and MGT.
This has never been their main goal, it’s a smokescreen, a coverup for adding more time-sinks. The original dungeon finder allowed people to do the same HC’s multiple times when queued for them random. Now you can’t anymore.
The teleport that came with the original dungeon finder being removed is another time-sink.
Must be said that the dungeon finder as it was back in the day got added in the last months of WotLK.
Currently the mythic group finder as it has been put in the classic LK version is bugging for me, as soon as i list myself for a dung, the group browser goes on searching and stays there, iow, it keeps on searching, no interaction possible for me.
Edit: the chat Ion had with this women i don’t remember her name, it was so staged and scripted that it dripped off of my screen. They didn’t hire a lawyer for decorational purposes to do their communications.
Terribly sorry if you feel antagonized. It was not my intention. I merely wanted to correct the wrong time RDF was put in. Anti-RDF’ers love to throw in that it was put in towards the end of wotlk.
Yes, the rest of your post I for the most part agree with. Be it Blizzards hidden reasons is for the dungeonering to be more of a time-sink or something else.
Read a post somewhere the other day that explored the reason and stated one I’ve started to think more and more about.
It said one reason could very well be that Blizzard, now after having run classic for a few years (~4 after wotlk) they want to kill it off. Pulling more people back into wow through classic, getting them hooked again, then kill it off to make them move over to retail.
I dunno the real reason, but it wouldn’t suprise me if that could actually be it. It would explain alot of their mismanagement of classic.
i dont think it would work tho. many of those that came to classic from a “no sub” standpoint, like myself, would probably just find something else to play than retail. last time i brought an x-pack on pre-order was cata. i did try MoP for a few days, maybe a week, but retail just lost much of that feeling about it that vanilla through WotLK had.
maybe DF will “save” retail. maybe it wont. but i wont be checking it out untill after its release. and even then it must REALLY get me hyped for me to buy it.
a rough “guestimate” would be about 50% of the classic playerbase DONT want to play retail. and ANY affort to get them to it WILL fail. they, myself included, will simply look elsewhere instead.
i am sincerely hopen that classic will take another turn instead of cata after WotLK, i dont ixpect it to. but i hope so. for me cata was the beginning of the end of wow.
let the devs do a re-tuning of ulduar and beyond, to take us somewhere NEW instead of just following a “dead” horsetrail
They would probably introduce a transfer from Classic to Retail come end of WotLK. Preferably lining up with a new retail expansion or phase. Making WotLK a dead end incentivices people to continue playing their characters on Retail, or else they could potentially be lost or force transfered.
For example, we had no choice going from TBC to WotLK. They will be making the most out of this classic charity for sure!
I agree, most probably would.
But even if only say 10% of the people only subbing for classic would get drawn back in to retail it’s a win for Blizzard.
Imagine if they gain more then that. If 30%, or even 50%, of them would get in to retail.
I’ve not had this experience at all. Most groups I’ve played in have talked about summoning, who summons, what dungeon, tactics, quests, etc. Sure not many like to small talk but they still communicate.
I think something that would help your experience alot is to have decided what dungeon you want to do so people know what they sign up for. If you do make a group for several dungeons I would advise to be able to announce which dungeon you’re going to do for the group, to avoid the idling that seemed to be creating confusion and problems.
I do not want rdf as I think it ruins the community, especially with cross-realm and emptier zones, the group finder is great and still offers choice, and lfd/lfr is available on retail/live.
Thank you for your feedback.
I completely understand and respect that players like you don’t want the original Dungeon Finder. But here is the thing: if there is no Dungeon Finder, you have to use the Group Finder, but if there is a Dungeon finder, you do not have to use it. You can still do it your way. One is exclusive the other is not.
For people like me, who don’t have so much time to play, waiting for people to reply and especially travel to the location is a waste of playing time.
But it seems Blizzard decided a long time ago that this is how they want their game to be. Calling it “because majority of players don’t want it” is a simple lie.
Since it was announced, this was the major argument between WoW players. And this alone, the non-uniformity of players opinion, not to mention the fact that the majority wants the DF, should be enough to leave the experience as it was.
Thank you for your post. I’m so sick and tired of their hidden intentions, they take us for a bunch of fools and have us fight over the smokescreen reasons on the forums, i practically stayed out of the LFD discussions because they don’t see the real reasons. (and they’ve done this a lot of times, one of the bigger ones was the restriction on the maximum scroll out distance, that made me quit for nearly 2 years)
It’s all pure politics, give the public some stuff to keep them busy and they go on with the things they don’t want us to know.
Killing off classic i’m not sure about. I do however know someone who actually never played wow before wow-classic-tbc, she discovered retail and loves it more than the whole classic scene because she’s sick and tired over guild’s intrigues, i’m sure she’s not the only one. So in what ur saying could be a truth hidden maybe just not exactly how you put it it.
I don’t think they took classic as serious as they should have done, leading to less time and effort on classic perhaps. They made some really big blunders here in classic and i’m not sure they can fix those anymore.
Back in the day it actually didn’t, i grouped up with a bunch of friends, 1 would queue us and we were in a dung, we weren’t always with 5 so a random came in with whom we often had lots of fun, new friends were made so we practically rarely had randoms in that group.
In my experience, the ppl who were fed up with guilds, the ppl in tiny guilds and the not so experienced players might have been the ones with the not so fun experiences.
What ever happens to classic that one is for sure. They certainly haven’t taken classic very serious at all. If anything quite the opposite by the looks of it, and they just keep on going the same path. Neglecting basically every major issue going on.
Although I’m sure they could fix it, if they wanted to, I just don’t think they care enough to actually do it.
idd cause it’s just as random as the random dung finder, if i queue up i get invites from complete strangers and there’s not a lot of interaction going on in the dung.