Hello, after looking and using the WoTLK LFG tool i find it worse then the TBC one we have today which is hard for me to admit.
A solution to this is just implement the one you have for mythic plus in retail… Why do you try to invent the wheel over and over… This is one of the most common mistakes blizzard does and it makes me sad.
And people who think the game is social can bugger off, that ship sailed long ago. The social aspect is on discord these days not in the game itself.
ZGaidin made a perfect review on redit about the system and i will quite it since i doubt they allow links.
- The Group Browser makes no distinction between players looking for group and group leaders looking for more. Currently on the beta, most players are listing themselves for dungeons they’re interested in doing, and then just wait while they go back to questing. They’re hoping someone will take the initiative to start a group and invite them. That’s sort of working with the very limited population of the beta, but given the minimal filtering ability of the tool, on a live server with any decent population, I suspect the Group Browser tab will be so cluttered as to be almost useless. It will just be too hard to parse all the listings in a timely manner to find the group or individuals you’re looking for.
- The custom note feature is not nearly as helpful as it could be and as I think we were all hoping it would be. For one, you cannot see people’s custom listings in the base Group Browser list. You have to mouse over or select a specific listing to see any custom note. For two, you cannot do a custom text search or filter on custom notes. So, for example, I cannot search for listings with a custom note that contains “gdkp” nor filter them out.
- The Group Browser tab doesn’t auto-update. You have to manually refresh it regularly while looking for a group to join or members to invite to make sure they’re still available or to see if there are new options.
- The Group Invite button, which you might use instead of sending a whisper, looks (and is) exactly like a regular group invite. It gives no information about the person requesting the invite other than their name, and if multiple people request an invite to your group it just pops them up in first-in, first-out order without regard to even basic group composition. You could end up with an all dps group, or a group with 3 healers, or whatever if you just accept the requests in order.
- Since you cannot use /4 unless you’re listed in this tool, and there’s no indication that Blizzard is planning to add an alternative global chat channel, I think it’s likely that the tool will be further clogged up with what are effectively fake listings just so people can use /4.
Fundamentally, while this is a more functional and better looking tool than the completely ignored TBCC tool, I’m not sure what problems it really solves.
- I don’t think it will reduce the time it takes to find a group for the content you want to do by any meaningful measure. This is especially problematic in Wrath. The dungeons are so quick and easy that, at least if you’re dps, you’re likely to spend more time finding a group and traveling to the dungeon than you will spend inside.
- It doesn’t reduce the amount of attention you have to put into finding a group and therefore reduce standing around in the capitol spamming and staring at a tool; you’ll just be spamming the refresh button instead of /4 and staring at the Group Browser page rather than Bulletin Board.
- It doesn’t do anything to improve the efficiency of grouping tanks, healers, and dps in the appropriate 1:1:3 ratio nor to further incentive player to play tank or healer roles to reduce the disparity that leads to long search times for dps. Wrath itself may do that to some extent with the introduction of DKs, the minimization of the importance of watching threat, and dual-spec, but this tool by itself doesn’t contribute.
- It does nothing to encourage people to overcome their general tendency to not lead groups. Both in live and on the beta, lots of people are just sitting there waiting for someone else to start the invites and take charge.
- It does less to help you curate your group make-up and experience than LFG Bulletin Board, nor does it do anything to reduce the unpleasant and frankly unnecessary gate-keeping against certain classes and specs when forming groups.
- It doesn’t do anything to encourage more pro-social behavior. The times I’ve used it on the beta, there was very little communication as the group formed, absolutely no talking while we ran the dungeon, and then just “gg” at the end.
TLDR - The new LFG tool is just a prettier but less customizable LFG Bulletin Board. It doesn’t do anything to actually improve the process and experience of forming, finding, joining, or leading groups over what we have in TBCC.