LFG Tool enabled on Test Server, thoughts and feedback

[Khelendross]

So the LFG tool on UI has been enabled on the Test Server. Some info:

The UI is very easy to use and quite similar to WoW. It selects one of four roles for you or multiple depending on your soul combo, As a marks/ranger/bard I was put as support/damage but if you don't wish to associate yourself with the second you can uncheck it. IE if you want to go full support or full damage you can.

Below this is a coin+exp reward setup like WoW has. Tier 2, Tier 1, and Normal randoms all give 9900 exp now but I imagine that will be modified in the coming days since there is no point in giving exp for tier dungeons. Tier 1 and 2 both award 50 gold but there is also a 7x modifier up in the corner and if you mouse ove it it says "Dungeon Bonus accumulates once per day, causing the reward for random dungeons to be augmented". I expect plaques or something will be added to this for rewards.

At the very bottom is the most interesting thing, you have a ability to switch between dungeon group/rift group (yay!) and quest groups. So the dungeon finder is more of a LFG tool and not a LFD tool which makes sense since that is what it is actually called. With this allowing rift and quest grouping I'm fairly sure that means that it is NOT a cross server LFG tool. I am not 100% sure obviously and I expect we will be seeing an official announcement soon from Trion about the full details behind this (probably why it was not in the patch notes). I hope I didn't steal their thunder, but it is on the test server so people interested in what we are going to get and care to give actual feedback should go check it out.

There is also an advanced tab in the main dungeon window that pulls up every dungeon and instance. There presently does not seem to be anything keeping you out of certain dungeons aas I stripped naked and still had access to all the tier 2 dungeons. So my only real feedback at this point is that they need to add that in some minor way to filter out people who have no idea what they are getting into. I don't think it should be a number, but more of an auto check internally.

Lastly I really really hope they add an invasion tab (or combine that with the existing rift tab) that allows you to join a force battling colossi and zonewide invasions, this combined with the new map indicator for invasions would be a huge bonus in my opinion.

Please lets try and keep this constructive, there are 8 million existing threads about why we should or should not have a LFG tool, but now that its here lets discuss what we actually have.

TL;DR LFG tool is here, its a good thing, deal with it and learn to read. (Sorry I hate that TL;DR crap)

[Kerin]

There presently does not seem to be anything keeping you out of certain dungeons aas I stripped naked and still had access to all the tier 2 dungeons. So my only real feedback at this point is that they need to add that in some minor way to filter out people who have no idea what they are getting into. I don't think it should be a number, but more of an auto check internally.

So having good gear means you have a clue, and less-than-phat-lewt level means you're clueless.

Yes?

[Iros Styx]

Good thing is, we get more duels in major cities!

[Qlippoth]

So having good gear means you have a clue, and less-than-phat-lewt level means you're clueless.

Yes?

Would you group with 4 naked people for a T2 dungeon?

[Pipra]

So having good gear means you have a clue, and less-than-phat-lewt level means you're clueless.

Yes?

Having the appropriate gear means that you won't be a burden to your group.

[Oggiefishier]

So having good gear means you have a clue, and less-than-phat-lewt level means you're clueless.

Yes?

Actually it does in the op's example..trying to skip progression and have people carry you to gear is a large indicator you need to learn to play the game. A fresh 50 is not mathematically able to contribute equally to a group regardless of their skill. You need both skill AND gear to do that.

[Khelendross]

So having good gear means you have a clue, and less-than-phat-lewt level means you're clueless.

Yes?

No it means you won't wipe your group on the dps checks in tier 2 dungeons. This internal check should be pretty wide, but otherwise you will have people coming right out of 50 thinking they can run expert CC and then when they wipe 30 times they will come cry on the forums about how its to hard. I'm not a fan of gearscore or even ilevel by any means but I do think some barrier needs to exist, even if its one the players can't see and use against people.

Especially with random dungeons and rewards. If people run a random tier 2 a fresh 50 (which you can bet that will happen) its gonna be disasterous for their group.

[Kerin]

even if its one the players can't see and use against people.

Why so?

You're so keen on having the game act as an arbitrary arbitor of who is and who isn't fit to play your 'special' T2 content, why are you afraid of allowing that information to be made available to group leaders also wanting to protect their runs from the 'incompetence' of mediocre level gear?

And yes, it seems you all think possessing purple pixels is a sign of skill it seems. If that's the case here the Rift is the first MMO to achieve that, where the clueless aren't able to leech their way to the phat lewt, while the skillful are guaranteed it.

[xtorma]

You just have to see how it works on live. If it helps...great...if its not enough then x-server. If x-server does not help then the problem is deeper then a simple tool can mitigate.

All we can do is wait and see.

[Tanay]

Given that having a crafted item or two gives you all the stats that you need to run T2 dungeon (sans tanks), I don't see how even gear can be used to quantify someone's knowledge/skill to complete them.

You could go by dungeons completed... as in, you must complete all T1 dungeons before entering T2... but even that can be skewed because running with geared folks can trivialize T1 to a great extent.

Ultimately, you ARE, going to end up in a dungeon with folks that have never run it before. You ARE, going to have a disparity in gear to the point where the DPS may out-threat the tank, or the overall group damage will overwhelm the healer's ability to keep pace. Wipes happen for a number of reasons, not the least of which is player contribution. And in that I ALSO mean, the guy in mostly T2 that is too impatient to reign in their rotation with a lesser geared group who ends up eating as much damage as the tank and leads to the healer not being able to keep up. Even geared folks can play stupidly. Having gear and knowing when to use it is a skill... most people don't get that because they think the only measure of success is in the form of damage meters. Success is finishing the damn instance, not the numbers you rolled on trash.

[goshon]

Why so?

You're so keen on having the game act as an arbitrary arbitor of who is and who isn't fit to play your 'special' T2 content, why are you afraid of allowing that information to be made available to group leaders also wanting to protect their runs from the 'incompetence' of mediocre level gear?

I think you're reading into his comments way too far. I'm not sure if you've experienced T2 content yet; however, from my experiences in them, they can be rather difficult, especially if players are not in a good amount of T1 comparable gear, those players will make the T2 run much more difficult, and in some cases very unsuccessful.

This is not an elitist-argument here, there is a reason the dungeons at the Expert-level are tiered, because it allows a scaling in difficulty that can be mitigated by tactics and gear. Naturally through the aquisition of gear and the learning of tactics, its assumed that the player will achieve more skill in their group roles. Therefore, if someone is suggesting some sort of filtering option for preventing players from immediately queuing for a T2 dungeon, its not a bad thing. Its making sure that players follow the path of progression, and do not adversely affect other's play time.

I'm quite sure that even the most patient player will eventually be discouraged from grouping for dungeons if he's constantly being placed in groups with undergeared players, and is unable to successfuly complete dungeon runs due to the real barriers which are enforced by the tiering system. Its not fun for anyone to have repeated failures in a dungeon, as it becomes very time consuming, and there is very little ROI for a four hour run which yields negative reward (in way of soul repair costs and irritation).

There is nothing wrong with people having to "cut their teeth" so to speak in order to move on to the greater challenges. I personally don't feel people should be limited in the content they can participate in, but I do feel that people should have the proper experience and gear, so they are not negatively impacting other people's enjoyment of the same content.

Feeling that a player should be allowed to zone into any content prior to this is selfish and doesn't account for the four other people which are in the same group and have to make up for the one person holding them back.

[kidbs]

Why so?

You're so keen on having the game act as an arbitrary arbitor of who is and who isn't fit to play your 'special' T2 content, why are you afraid of allowing that information to be made available to group leaders also wanting to protect their runs from the 'incompetence' of mediocre level gear?

And yes, it seems you all think possessing purple pixels is a sign of skill it seems. If that's the case here the Rift is the first MMO to achieve that, where the clueless aren't able to leech their way to the phat lewt, while the skillful are guaranteed it.

Do you not understand that some T2 encounters are strict gear checks? You can have all the skill in the world but if your gear is limiting your dps then your "skill" doesn't count for squat. I have seen quite a few pvp heroes try and get into T2 groups thinking that their pvp purples are all they need, meanwhile they have a whopping 40 hit and can't hit the side of a barn.

It's common sense that some gear checks need to be performed to keep from carrying people unnecessarily. At the very least there needs to be a group voting mechanic that allows people to be voted out of a party.

[Caeldan]

Why so?

You're so keen on having the game act as an arbitrary arbitor of who is and who isn't fit to play your 'special' T2 content, why are you afraid of allowing that information to be made available to group leaders also wanting to protect their runs from the 'incompetence' of mediocre level gear?

And yes, it seems you all think possessing purple pixels is a sign of skill it seems. If that's the case here the Rift is the first MMO to achieve that, where the clueless aren't able to leech their way to the phat lewt, while the skillful are guaranteed it.

There's nothing arbitrary about the requirements for T1 and T2 dungeons.
Tier 1 requirements:
Tank - 40-50 toughness, 7k+ hp, 7k+ armor.
DPS - 50+ hit/focus, at the very least have a weapon out of AP/CC (even if its just the quest reward).
Healing - this one is harder to quantify, and may actually be more spec dependent than anything.

Tier 2 requirements:
Tank - 95-100 toughness, 8k+ hp, 8k+ armor.
DPS - 100-150 hit, have some Tier 1 weapons.
Healing - at least be able to heal tier 1s :P

[Sals]

Do you not have to complete the specific dungeon in T1 to be able to start up T2?

If I haven't done a T1 then I should not be allowed to try T2 until I have been flagged, this would solve the problem of people queuing up for the wrong skill level in the LFG window.


I always figured a tier system was a step up after you did that last step.

[Calsedon]

There's nothing arbitrary about the requirements for T1 and T2 dungeons.
Tier 1 requirements:
Tank - 40-50 toughness, 7k+ hp, 7k+ armor.
DPS - 50+ hit/focus, at the very least have a weapon out of AP/CC (even if its just the quest reward).
Healing - this one is harder to quantify, and may actually be more spec dependent than anything.

Tier 2 requirements:
Tank - 95-100 toughness, 8k+ hp, 8k+ armor.
DPS - 100-150 hit, have some Tier 1 weapons.
Healing - at least be able to heal tier 1s :P

lol That is arbitrary. Those are the caps, at least for hit/focus/toughness. They are NOT required to do T1. You can absolutely do many T1s with 0 to all those stats, it will just take much longer and your goup better be damn good. But they are not mandatory.

Internal gear check is not a bad thing imo though.