Yeah, but that’s no secret. Holly Longdale outlined the goal to improve the Group Finder in her blog post months ago. I’ll quote:
“As an even more specific example, we’re looking at improvements to how we connect in-game Friends, Group Finder, and better integration to common external social platforms that we know the community uses regularly.” A Word on World of Warcraft for 2025
So this survey falls well in line with that goal. And what the developers have been saying at Gamescom also harmonizes with a focus on the areas that Holly talks about in her blog post.
From my personal perspective I just see Blizzard acknowledging a problem with Group Finder – which is why they’re seeking to make improvements to it.
All I’m arguing in that regard is that I don’t think the changes they’ll make will improve much of anything, and that in the end the only solution that does offer real improvement is an automated queue system. And I believe Blizzard will ultimately arrive at that conclusion as well.
Feels like Draegor and Uda should get a separate lecture room with their wall of texts.
Will check this this tomorrow and hope my scroll wheel doesnt wear out reading through them.
No, look at solo shuffle. It’s an insane amount of wait time to get going as DPS and that’s 2 healers, not tank + healer.
If I wasn’t watching movies on netflix while I’m queuing solo shuffle as a DPS I would never play solo shuffle as a DPS due to the queue times.
Like, I’ve had 2 shuffle games since 23:50. The rest I’ve been sat in queue, it’s now 1:20 and I’m in queue for the 3rd game, which will likely take another 20 minutes with 10 minutes already spent in queue.
There’s nowhere close to enough healers or tanks to make an automatic system faster than just queuing manually to groups provided you’re somewhat decent at the game.
Yes. Yes I do. I believe what I do for the reasons I’ve outlined in this thread and other ones.
What you’re saying is that you believe otherwise, which is cool. To each his own.
Sure, but even before Solo Shuffle it would take a regular player an insane amount of wait time to get into a 3v3 group for Arena.
If Solo Shuffle hasn’t managed to make that process faster, it has at the very least managed to make it less demanding on the player. All you have to do now is click one button and wait – the queue system does all the rest.
Besides, for PvP, I think the problem is a bit more fundamental. Even if you removed Solo Shuffle so people would have to rely on the Group Finder again for 3v3 Arena, it would still be a wasteland. PvP has just fallen off the cliff in terms of popularity. That has nothing to do with a queue system or manual grouping. It just seems like WoW players don’t care about PvP anymore – at least not very many.
People are put off by people dying without having any agency in it. M+ is no different, bad groups are plentiful where people expect you to heal through any and all damage without them pressing defensives or interrupts.
PSF when tank goes right instead of left is a perfect example of this, DPS just die with interrupts and defensives off CD, constantly. Even though the right side is supposed to be easier this season than left.
A queue system invites just about everyone queuing. That includes the people that take 30 minutes to finish a heroic dungeon while overgearing it.
It’s going to be a nightmare for healers & tanks.
So many DPS don’t even understand what kills them. I’ve had countless of DPS that just sit there with their interrupt ready and then go “this tank sucks, i got aggro” when they die. The tank didn’t lose aggro, the DPS got casted on and only the tank is interrupting. Ofc you’re gonna die when you get hit by 4 spells at the same time, that’s not aggro.
Then imagine that these are people that make it somewhat far in the manual system. It’s gonna get a lot worse with an automatic queue when the people that only played queued content makes their way into it, failure rates will skyrocket.
The basic premise of an automated queue system in progression-based content is that you have to qualify for it before you can queue for it.
That’s really how it works in all games.
So the player who comes from having queued up for a bunch of Heroic dungeons and decides to queue up for a Mythic 0 would have to successfully complete that difficulty before they would qualify for being able to queue for a Mythic +2 (alongside having the minimum required item level). And if they can successfully complete that, then they can queue for a Mythic +3 (if they also have the slightly higher minimum item level). And if they can’t successfully complete a Mythic +3 then they don’t get to queue for anything higher than that.
So all the people who ultimately queue up for a Mythic +6 will be people who have proven that they’re good enough to do it by virtue of having been successful at all the previous key levels, and by virtue of having adequate gear for it.
So it’s pretty easy to eliminate failure rates by simply structuring the progression so that players will have to prove that they can crawl before they get to walk, and then prove they can walk before they get to run.
Very much a hand-holding experience, but an effective one.
You can do those key levels with a player being AFK. That’s no metric that will guarantee that they’re not going to cause massive headaches for tanks & healers.
Use WoD as a reference - the amount of people that couldn’t do silver trial was insane. It was easy as hell doing heroic dungeons. Then they removed it and heroic dungeons became a slog.
How can it be a fact when there is no evidence whatsoever?
Or they don’t queue on lower levels as often because they don’t want to play with people far below their level? Could that be possible as well?
Well that’s a wrong analogy tho?
The players are there. You just don’t want them to have it because YOU don’t want that. That’s not your phone lacking credit.
Well, I can. I just cba typing that much. The walls of text are already too crazy.
Because incentives is what makes people play.
Put like 3k gold reward for healer/tank in low keys if they time the dungeon and you have a huge lack of dps players.
Does not have to be 50/50 but somewhere around it. The actual meaning is that you can’t overcome a specific CR.
Basically the same? You can’t overcome a specific M+ score?
But while in PvP the issue usually is the own player skill level, it’s rarely the case in M+
Well, I don’t. Not if I want the key to be in time.
Checking for logs (raid and m+) and it turned out to be a much better source of information than rio and ilvl.
The main problem is that some players (especially the good ones) did not wait in queue as long as I was checking the data.
There are several issues people always go through. Most common is lack of interrupts and CCs and then maybe healing. I mean I am 100% sure this is not what Blizzard systems would do but you could see if someone has high interrupts but low or average dps (just as an example), then you put him with someone who has lower amount of interrupts but higher amount of damage.
A tank that struggles to live, is put with a healer who has high tank healing in his dungeons, statistically, rather than one who does not.
That’s like very abstract and short example but you can 100% measure it and match players this way.
I mean that’s what I do myself basically manually and it works. If I have a prot pala applying for priory (as an example) I check his logs and if I see they are low then I know he most likely gonna die on the first pull before it’s finished or he is gonna have crappy pulls. Now that’s not guaranteed but it turned out to be more often true than not. The logs give me a much better idea of player’s performance than rio, that’s for sure. Just right now I had a 3,1k MM hunter in Dawnbreaker 11 and he was least dps and got outdamaged by a fury warrior who was below 2,8k rio and had less gear than him. The hunter is also the only one who failed and that several times.
That does not mean he always plays like that but… well… by the logs it’s clear to say that the warrior is a better player and it was not a coincidence in this run.
That’s why I am saying that only going by M+ score is bad. But that’s what most people do nowadays and with an automated system, that reads more than just the score, we would probably all have much better experience.
Seems that Blizzard kinda realized that too going by the survey.
What way? They are failing basic stuff in a +2, why should this be acceptable in a +15?
If they are not supposed to learn in a +2, where else should they learn? Your comment kinda makes no sense.
No it’s not. I gave you a specific example and you completely changed the point and created a whole new scenario that was never the point in the first place.
Even if I would join this now and start explaining… what’s the point? You then say “ok you explained it for 50 but what about 100? it IS relevant!”… this has no end nor does it contribute anything to my previous statement and the example.
And maybe they will find it?
But what exactly is your logic? If we can’t make every single person play, then we don’t introduce anything? By this logic delete M+ and/or the entire game then? lol… this insanely wrong and pointless way of thinking.
Give 3k gold reward for tanking and healing and your entire tank/heal problem is solved.
But the main point of solo queue is not to do that, yet it still can solve that if it ever becomes a serious problem. It’s super easy.
No it’s because you once again fail to read.
I am talking about meta specs, you keep changing the topic and now you landed at meta COMP.
Not once have I said that everyone wants ONLY specific meta COMPS. I said SPECS.
Besides the fact that it’s clearly well know for everyone, it’s also backed up by the rio statistics what you keep linking. (with ret pala being an exception, as already mentioned a billion times)
Ye, that’s great. Nobody was ever talking about meta COMPS tho. You can bring it up 31542376125312 more times, it will literally not change my statement.
Lmao, now look at the classes and specs. If you actually compare it to now, you see a MUCH better balance between the CLASSES (and kinda specs too, for roles)
But still, what exactly does it have to do with my previous statement? You simply switched the topic from meta SPECS to meta COMPS? What’s the point? Did I ever say people are trying to play ONLY specific meta COMPS? No. I not once said it.
Something being stupid since Legion, will not become smart or a good thing in TWW. It’s not really a good argument trying to justify something that’s in the game, just because it was always there.
We had different affixes, different difficulties, no key level squish… like… can I have it all back too then if I have to do my “homework keys”?
Yes, and?
I say they are in LFG, you say they are not in raider io.
Now you say they appear in raider io and argue they don’t have to appear in lfg?
Like…??? You keep shifting things and try to argue for the sake of arguing. Just stay consistent on what was said.
What is with your 48 players then? Who is gonna boost them to the level where the players are playing the game? Because no depleted keys means, some people can not start playing the game if they are too late to the party. That means they MUST buy boosts. Sounds like a horrible idea to me.
I mean you literally brought PvP into this for comparison and now you tell me not to compare it… just don’t do it yourself, especially don’t start with it
What? This is the most weird take I have ever read.
M+ exists because people wanted replayable content and not to wait a whole week for a raid reset.
That’s like saying M+ failed that’s why Delves exist… lol no, that’s not the case. Delves exist for a different reason.
You can’t just claim random stuff without a spark of evidence.
Well, that’s factually wrong.
What you prolly did see in reality were a few names repeating in some dungeons, which absolutely makes sense because they player pool for pugs at this key range is EXTREMELY small.
I did open the link, you just seem not to be good with numbers lol^^
Right now it’s just really too late for me to make that effort to count for you.
Feed it in ChatGPT or something, take all your keys because you like it even tho it’s the worst way to apply these statistics to our discussion, then take 10s only and take 12s and up. And you will see, you remain wrong, just as I already told you.
Yes, math is fact. You are just wrong for failing to count it properly.
I mean… you just change the topic and create a whole other scenario that had nothing to do with my statement. What’s the point of discussing anything if you just ignore what’s being said and create something new and declare something a problem that’s a completely different topic? That’s not how discussions work.
This stupid thing helped me with my results.
I tried different approaches but I am 100% sure you again gonna say it’s a bad way because it’s not perfect and not 100% accurate. And I never said it is. But guess what, nor is rio?
But more important, you need more context to understand why it’s good and why it helped me. I am not saying it will help everyone in all situations but it helps so much more than just looking at ilvl, rio and highest dungeon completed.
Because I already know for a fact that’s not an indicator for anything. Especially not in specific key ranges. That’s just a fact.
Yes, you are right. Unfortunately that’s not always possible. So what then? Don’t play the game? As you can see, your solution is kinda unfinished.
I already was at a point where I had way too many people on my friendlist and the biggest problem was that almost all of them wanted to play with me but I simply can’t do that, physically. At some point people started quitting because they also had nobody to play with and the circle continued. It was always the same…
Since Blizzard is gonna remove stuff like detail and have own stuff, there we will have decent amount of information. Be it damage, healing, threat, interrupts (or fails), ccs (or fails), avoidable damage taken… and so on. You have a whole ton of information, it just all depends how much you want to take and proceed.
10% from 0 is still 0 tho? A dead dps on the floor is gaining exactly 0 from those 10% more. Maths and facts. What happened to that?
Ye but why do you ignore half the information?
A dead dps does nothing, regardless on which spec. A good player does always more than 0. That’s the whole point.
You can give a donkey a 100% performance buff, him being dead on the floor will still do 0.
A good player might not play the meta but has the brain and will do at least something, than just lying on the floor waiting for the fight to finish.
No, not really. You threw it once again into the round. You stared with 10s, then 12s and now you landed at 15s.
Because I claim a good player is always the better choice, not the good spec. You know it but you don’t explicitly say so, you want to argue against that with fictional and hypothetical scenarios. You even drifted so far away from it that at some point you stopped talking about meta specs and stared talking about entire meta comps.
Meanwhile my point is short and clear: A good player is always better than a bad player with a good spec, in every content on every key level.
You.
You literally dismiss the idea of solo queue for M+ because in your opinon and I quote: “the highest difficulty group activities require that”
“That” means a pre-made group and therefore M+ solo queue should not exist.
While you are right with what you said above (it’s just too long too quote) all of it still has much more value than rio, which means nothing but being in a group ONCE that finished the dungeon in time. It literally gives zero information of ANY value that could indicate the performance of the player.
All RIO says is “this guy spammed an unknown amount of this dungeon and timed the said dungeon once”. That’s literally it. It does not say anything about the players performance.
(obviously there is an exception: a 3,5k+ rio player most likely will know what to do in a +10, which translates up to like 5k rio player knows what to do in a +15 and so on… but the problem is that those players are not the ones being in your LFG player pool that you choose from)
Without any offense and I honestly mean it, I did not expect you to have a job that has anything to do with numbers and/or calculations based on how you read statistics. I expected you more to be a cook or a bus driver or something. (not diminishing these jobs or anything, both have huge value for society)
Unless you know how to read data properly and know how to utilize it in a specific context.
But I am not saying this has 100% accuracy. That’s why I have some dungeons tanked myself because there is no data that shows you that the tank knows an efficient route, unfortunately.
Absolutely agree. The only problem is that this is just fictional.
Because realistically you will never find someone who did ANY dungeon 20 times (or higher) in time before he queues for your +13
So we can not express experience like that. We need something else.
That’s obvious, it’s just not the “best” solution or helpful to most people.
Right now I have 7 people who want to play with me. I can’t play with all of them. It’s just not possible. I also don’t want any of them to feel bad because I like them all. Some of them know they don’t meet the skill level I am looking for but I still play with them. Some of them know that and are trying to improve. Some of them know it and don’t care but still want to play… and I will never put a game over a person just because the game is lacking options.
I rather want to see changes in the game, than changing my entire environment and friends, just to play a specific content in the game lmao…
Is it any different for pugs right now?
This will eventually change the higher you go. And even if it does not and is exactly like the pug scene, it’s still a win because you don’t have to sit there and manually apply for groups.
Who’s looking for guarantees? What guarantees do you have in the game today? Can you get a WoW insurance that covers bad groups?
“Buy this insurance from TooGoodToBeTrue and you’ll never ever get into a bad group again!”
Fact of the matter is that the key difficulties range from easy to moderate to hard to brutal.
And as you succeed at one difficulty you progress to the next one. That progression ensures that the least-capable players mostly do easy difficulties and the most-capable players do brutal difficulties.
That’s the case in any game with any range of progressive difficulties, queue systems or not. It’s how WoW works in all aspects of gameplay already. Scrubs are in LFR, pros are in Mythic, one has a queue, the other doesn’t, and yet they still divide according to their capabilities.
In Solo Shuffle the 2400 rated players don’t get matched with the 1300 rated players. The queue system knows how to keep the most-capable players separate from the less-capable players.
You’re trying to create a bogeyman that doesn’t really exist and wouldn’t really be very scary if it were to exist.
What exactly is the point tho? And what has rating to do with it?
You could get carried in RBG as well? I mean it was insanely common, especially during Shadowlands for the weapon upgrade.
And you can get carried in PvE with the current system as well.
I don’t understand the point you are trying to make against M+ solo queue if there is one.
He is saying people get queued with people of similar skill.
This is not the case in PvE queued content and will never be unless you make people lose rating for depletes.
In PvP the person that gets carried can’t sustain that rating and continue queuing against those people. In PvE, you don’t lose rating and could get carried and just stay there because you don’t lose rating in PvE.
(and kinda specs too, for roles)