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Do you like the dungeon finder? and why?
raystantz
Final Fantasy XI CorrespondentMember UncommonPosts: 1,237
So far, the dungeon finder is a double edged sword for me..
- it allows me to get groups for about any instance, relatively quickly
- it allows me to level by running instances, when i get bored of doing quests
- it allows me to gear up, and not have to worry about going an entire instance without getting a single piece of gear..
however...
- it makes me play with random people who aren't even from my server, who half the time are douchebags, or ninja loot.
- I notice that everyone is doing nothing but running instances, over and over.. instead getting out in the world.
I think a few adjustments to the Dungeon finder should be made..
- I still think you should have to travel to the dungeons in order to be able to run them. Or at least require some sort of attunement to be able to use the dungeon finder to run them.
www.facebook.com/themarksmovierules
Currently playing:
FFXIV on Behemoth, FFXI on Eden, and Gloria Victis on NA.
Comments
Wait, I'm confused. You only give people who like the dungeon finder the option of posting in this thread, then you say its a double edged sword...?
I've used the DungeonFinder and I have nothing but praise, praise, and more praise for it. In fact, I've routinely been in groups that have been nice, couteous and good players of all shades and colors. I've been in groups with people who have 6k GearScore and in groups with people who have 2.5k GearScore, and not once have I ever been disappointed in a group. Nobody has ever ninja'd anything from my experience.
And as far as looting items is concerned, I've actually had a person nice enough to pass on the axe from ICC 5-man last boss (Can't remember what it's called) for no other reason than to be nice (Even though it was a very big upgrade for them).
I guess your mileage may vary. When I'm in a group I don't complain over little things. I don't get upset if they want to kill every boss even though I'm only interested in the last one. I don't get upset if they roll need on blues, even though they really don't need them. I'm just there to have fun, and I have to say I'm enjoying it quite a bit.
~Miles "Tails" Prower out! Catch me if you can!
Come Join us at www.globalequestria.com - Meet other fans of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic!
Great feature. It makes low level dungeons alive & worth running again.
Most fun is to use it with my 2 sons to round up 2 more for a dungeon crawl.
No traveling is great. Who has the time to trek 20 min to a dungeon? We can just keep running again and again.
DF is good for:
1) leveling up .. not to mention getting blue low level items
2) geared up so that i can start raiding.
I agree completely with your assessments, especially the lack of going out into the world to play, and I remember saying rather often that it is World of Warcraft, not Instance of Warcraft. Whatever we may think of Blizzard's decision to do this it is clear that it has rendered a great amount of content not simply optional and artbitrary but largely worthless. If, as you rightly point out, players had to be attuned to the dungeon in order to be able to reach it via the DF tool then we would see something at least a bit different, viz. the largely worthless content would become optional and arbitrary.
I don't think that people can make enough of this issue either because it really is a double-edged sword that seemed to be given birth to far too pre-maturely. Yes, much like Miles said earlier, you can encounter some absolutely outstanding groups and, like you say, you can encounter some absolutely atrocious people. No, saying that is simply the way it goes isn't enough and doesn't address the issue. The DF tool is incredibly powerful and incredibly poorly executed.
Blizzard really does owe it's players better and while attunement would be some help I don't think it would be enough. In addition to attunement Blizzard needs to provide some sort of real lock-out function to force players to take part in the Massive part of the MMORPG, it needs to get people out into the world and push them out of this disturbing quest to get to end-game as fast as possible and...do what? Merely rinse and repeat attempts at end-game content? As someone who isn't a developer I can't argue what the length or conditions of the lock-out should be but I can say that it needs to be there to encourage players to play more of the game.
Then again, and perhaps it's horribly pessimistic of me, but Blizzard doesn't really give half of a quarter of a nanodamn what their players do provided they still get their subscription money. Yes, a loaded statement, and one that I'm simply going to leave at that because it isn't germane to the argument.
(1)TL:DR must be your way of saying that thinking hurts. Then again, this may explain why it looks like you responded to the post without using your brain.
(2) It's not about community, is it? You just have nothing better to do.
I had quit the game for 6 months and came back this February to find the LFD system. Leveling a new character hasn't been this fun for a LONG time. Since TBC came out, you didn't really see a dungeon until you hit Outland (or Northrend in LK) and then you ran acoss a lot of people that had no idea whatsoever how group mechanics worked. This gives more people practice with their characters before they do "important" dungeons and raids when they hit current content.
Playing with randoms from other servers doesn't bother me. I have rarely had any problems with players. Yes, bads are there, but no more than I would find on my own server, and I don't have to waste time spamming Trade Chat for another run if it fails.
Yes, Azeroth and Outland are practically dead still, but I don't think it's because people are only running dungeons. That's a waste of time IMO. On my server/battlegroup the queue is around 20 mins average before level cap. Enough time to complete a few quests in between. Old content is dead because the main population is sitting on their 80s. This should be somewhat fixed in Cata with Azeroth being revamped though.
I thought I read (and I could be very wrong), that they are implementing a "visit the dungeon first" lockout to LFD in Cata? Not that you have to get there to run it every time, but to let people know where it is. My only beef with LFD is if there is a wipe and you read someone in /party say "Where is the entrance?"
I give LFD 11/10 mostly due to breathing life into old-world content and making grouping for 5 mans so much easier.
(note: I'm having problems truncating this quotation so I'm going to have to leave the whole thing up.)
Isn't that a bit of a problem, though, that the old continents are rather lifeless because people find nothing viable to do there? Granted, this isn't something to be debated on this thread but it's something that I thought deserving of a response because it relates to what I said about the DF tool. The DF tool was simply well conceived and terribly executed, much like content for level 80 characters. Why is there so little to do in respect to PvE at that point? Granted, content has to end somewhere and I get that, but it seems problematic that the content keeps going forward and yet not laterally as well, viz. there is nothing going on for higher-level folks in Burning Crusade and the original continents.
It seems that Blizzard is a great one for going forward but rather poor at maintaining what they have, having set up a system where the majority of players seem to be interested in blitzing to the end and little else. Thus, it seems the DF tool wasn't really implemented to get people to see more of these dungeons but to get them prepared to play the higher-end dungeons as fast as possible. As a former FFXI player I understand what it is like to have to climb a cliff to experience higher-end content and I can appreciate what Blizzard is trying to do and has done but, again, it comes down to poor execution and a lack of attention to the consequences of their actions.
(1)TL:DR must be your way of saying that thinking hurts. Then again, this may explain why it looks like you responded to the post without using your brain.
(2) It's not about community, is it? You just have nothing better to do.
I actually agree with you here. The problem is the "theme park" questing system, though, and not LFD. I enjoy WoW, and it is definitely an "on the rails" adventure, but yes that is it's main flaw. There isn't much gameworld replayability on a max level character (dailies arguably "solved" this, but just barely) and leveling an alt is very predictable. WoW's main strength and hook is the gear hunt, and to that point the LFD tool is spectacular. Of course I can understand why many people do not want to play WoW for that reason, but many also do like it.
On a side note, I am very interested in what GW2 is promising to offer as far as game world replayablity goes. We'll see if it actually works out though
I think they should redesign it a little, have the dungeon finder avaliable for old dungeons but not current ones, for example no dungeon finder for dungeons released as part of the Wotlk but do enable it for TBC and vanillia dungeons, then when cata is released enabled the dungeon finder for wotlk also but not cata dungeons.
This way players still have to travel to these new dungeons and for me on a PVP server half the fun of a dungeon is the meeting stone PvP appetiser. I think blizzards plan right now is new dungeons are not avaliable on the dungeon finder untill you discover them.
Or maybe the player has to unlock the dungeon in the dungeon finder by doing an attunement of sorts so atleat for a time players will still travel to these dungeons.
After 6 months the use of the tool has settled down to what it is supposed to do:
-- > Find a group within a reasonable waiting time limit to run a 5 man dungeon. DPS timing is perfect (15 to 20 minutes waiting times in almost all levels). Both as a "fill up" mechanism and as a solo join option.
It was adressed at two different groups: the leveling people and the end game attunement.
.
For the leveling crowd it allows to run group content on their own preferred way (skipping the dungeons/content/mechanics they don't like).
The vast majority of people who level use now a combo of different leveling techniques: questing - mob kills - dungeons - PvP in BG's (in order of EXP award).
For the end game mains and alts it is making the attunement process (gearing up) less painful as it is much better to play with others than "only " have a solo grind through gear upgrades.
.
Some changes will have to be implemented in CATA and some blue posts already suggested it:
- Dungeons will be locked until unlocked in the open world
- Some will have attunements attached to them (the new CATA ones)
- Archeology profession was going to be used to enhance world play (besides the mats gathering, professions and daily quest chains to rake in the much needed gold)
After the cut of Path of Titans, it remains to be seen how interesting Archeology turns out to be as an extra motivation besides gathering/questing.
- Some older dungeons have to be tuned down in timing and mobs to ensure a playing time of less than an hour.
The LFG tool was a success for the active players.So much so it made the earlier announcements of having "heroic" versions of Deadmines and Shadowfang Keep even less interesting as everyone runs them again with the new tool at the appropriate levels.
Its embarrassing when an NPC compliments you in an MMo, the only relevant, cool and epic things come from players whispering you Grtz, mate, we did it. copyright Pilnkplonk
You need not use the random part of the queuing system. You can select one or more and just queue up for those dungeons you want. Unless, you want to regulate what choices and dungeon other players run.
I've spent some time recently after being entirely bored of the gear grind that level 80 is, trying to capture some of that old school atmosphere that made the game fun. That meant new realm, no Death Knight, no heirloom gear with cash and bags, but a fresh and raw level one almost naked and very much alone.
It's not the same anymore. Most areas are fairly barren outside of the PvP gathering spots or cities. There's precious few random buffs, random comments, questions about where X or Y can be found. There is a whole new generation of gamers who are leveling without knowing anything about the game. They have 6k gearscore and often less than 250 quests done. You get level 80s asking how they can make money.
All this is down to Dungeon Finder.
And the downside gets worse using Dungeon Finder as most groups generally have 2 or more people with heirloom gear who want to rush every step of the way with no chance to loot or learn. Who see anyone not close to their dps/damage done level as failures (try shadow priest spec for very low dps) and kick and/or berate them.
What's worse is many guilds see no need to assist leveling members now and more and more do not take leveling players even beyond level 80, now expecting them to use dungeon finder to reach a certain gear level.
Dungeon finder even assists leveling bots who now have a whole new way to hide from detection, and who are almost impossible to kick as they constantly pull negating the ability to kick. Who has time during these epic marathons that dungeon finder brings to stop and write a report never mind take note of name, realm etc?
Talking of epic marathons, it's nigh impossible even to get full buffs below a level 70 group as people with heirloom gear are too much in a rush to finish and start the next instance.
If you're trying to level with it, don't you just love entering at the last boss, or during an wipe/battle, or as the group quits? Or better still as someone pulls a mob then leaves? Sure people were bad before, but when you'll never see them again as they are on another realm it's opened a whole can of nasties. People ninja more than ever, are more abusive than ever because they can get away with it. Who's going to go and create a new toon on another server and talk to to an abusive players GM? And will the GM care about someone else from another realm?
Dungeon finder is great if you have an 80 main which can subsidise a new toon. You know all the pitfalls, but it's fine as you don't want to quest, just get to 80 and gear up. Otherwise, it's just not a fun experience.
your post is why i get apprehensive everytime I think about playing. I know thats how it will be.
www.facebook.com/themarksmovierules
Currently playing:
FFXIV on Behemoth, FFXI on Eden, and Gloria Victis on NA.
Personally, I consider the Dungeon Finder to be one of the best ideas in years. I hope who ever came up with the idea received a big raise, and a promotion. That said, yes it has some down sides. Since you will likely never see those people again, way too many people are rude, and inconsiderate. It also fragments the community(such as it is).
If they had added cross realm chat, cross realm friends lists and the ability to form parties for the Dungeon Finder(cross realm) it would have added to the community, rather than fragmenting it.
Oh the wonders of world ganking...^^ Thats the main reason I switched to Silvermoon years back. I finally grew sick and tired of corpse camping and gank squads. Be that as it may, the Dungeon Finder is one of the best ideas Blizzard has come up with in years. I'm hoping they do NOT limit it, as its the only way many of us have of seeing the expansion dungeons.
I missed most of the BC dungeons because of the PITA that is involved in spamming LFG for just one run. With DF I can see all of them, and run them multiple times if I wish to.
And the downside gets worse using Dungeon Finder as most groups generally have 2 or more people with heirloom gear who want to rush every step of the way with no chance to loot or learn. Who see anyone not close to their dps/damage done level as failures (try shadow priest spec for very low dps) and kick and/or berate them.
Not my experience running low level dungeons. Of course i have heirlooms & am pulling my weight but people are not really rushing that much. We do pull fast but never skip loot. And people do lead the way when people don't know the dungeon.
What's worse is many guilds see no need to assist leveling members now and more and more do not take leveling players even beyond level 80, now expecting them to use dungeon finder to reach a certain gear level.
There was NEVER a need to assist leveling members. You mostly level by quests before DF anyway.
Talking of epic marathons, it's nigh impossible even to get full buffs below a level 70 group as people with heirloom gear are too much in a rush to finish and start the next instance.
You don't really need the buff.
If you're trying to level with it, don't you just love entering at the last boss, or during an wipe/battle, or as the group quits? Or better still as someone pulls a mob then leaves? Sure people were bad before, but when you'll never see them again as they are on another realm it's opened a whole can of nasties. People ninja more than ever, are more abusive than ever because they can get away with it. Who's going to go and create a new toon on another server and talk to to an abusive players GM? And will the GM care about someone else from another realm?
I LOVE to enter at the last boss. That is the fastest 5 min worth of xp/loot. I would love to run that again and again when i level. That is MUCH faster than killing trash, which i don't mind.
And being bad is a two way street. That means I don't have to tolerate others as much. If a n00b is causing wipe after wipe, now i can just hit the "quit" button without him spamming obsensities in the trade channels.
Dungeon finder is great if you have an 80 main which can subsidise a new toon. You know all the pitfalls, but it's fine as you don't want to quest, just get to 80 and gear up. Otherwise, it's just not a fun experience.
I found it more fun than quest grinding. And it is MUCH faster.
The green says it all.. its all about the loot eh. Easier the better.
www.facebook.com/themarksmovierules
Currently playing:
FFXIV on Behemoth, FFXI on Eden, and Gloria Victis on NA.
Pretty much, given that WoW is a gear chase game. The rest is all for learning how your class works, and how to work with other classes. The lore and such is nice(for what its worth, given how Blizzard tends to retcon its own lore at whim). But bottom line WoW is about chasing the new tier of gear for most people.
Using the dungeon finder you gotta have 1 mentality: "Who gives a ****, Im never even gonna see these guys again", roll need on everything, be as intolerant as you possibly can (WoW players do not learn through tips, so I invented a strategy called Blunt Constructive Criticism. Be as big of a **** as you can and they will learn, just make sure you are either good at the game or funny as hell so the other 3 members side with you and not the n00b). Roll need on **** you dont need, roll need on **** other people need. this works better if you are a tank or healer so they cant even think of booting you.
This is very successful as long as you are good or funny as hell.
World of Warcraft is the original creation of God. Real Life is in fact a WoW clone.
Or one could be polite and considerate. What goes around, comes around as the old saying goes. I've been in many situations where my being polite has kept me out of trouble. Its a trait not seen much in todays world, mores the pity.
I always pass on other classes blues, and if someone can use something more than I can, they are usually welcome to it. It makes no difference that I'll likely never see that person again. I follow my principles because they are MY principles.
Like everything else these days done by Blizzard
The players that still play WOW, love the dungeon finder. It was even elected as best patch ever by www.wowinsider.com
The others - mostly those year long players who left - always like to find a motivation or excuse to leave their old love.
"That blond wasn't a real blond after all and she was getting a little fat anyway ...". While the poor girl stands there aside ...
Just until they come back and realise it was their personal life cycle that blended the views.
In the meantime have fun playing.
Its embarrassing when an NPC compliments you in an MMo, the only relevant, cool and epic things come from players whispering you Grtz, mate, we did it. copyright Pilnkplonk
Responses like this make me question whether or not people really understand the term 'community' anymore and whether or not people are interested in playing a game or taking virtual viagra for the ED issue they have with their e-peen.
No, people do not need assistance in leveling but it is helpful and rather nice. These are MMORPGs, not merely MORPGs with the multi-player thrown out. I absolutely love to solo in games and think that soloing should be a viable way to play, but I enjoy completing quests with guild members and my girlfriend because I get to share the accomplishment with other people.
No, people don't absolutely need random buffs, but they are helpful and nice. Granted, the player's potential death is of little consequence within WoW but it is the gaming equivalent of watching someone get mugged without doing anything at all, saying something to the effect of it not being your business.
Lastly, if you are interesting in blitzing to end-game you need to ask yourself why you are playing or 'playing' because, in reality, you're not longer playing a game: you are min-maxing, crunching numbers in your head. It's amazing that people complain about a lack of content when, like you from what I have observed, they simply want to get to the end-game content.
I would argue that you simply don't have the right personality to play MMORPGs, people who think like you and are more interested in getting to the end as fast as possible and without any concern whatever for their fellow players should simply step out of the genre. It's not productive for anyone involved.
(1)TL:DR must be your way of saying that thinking hurts. Then again, this may explain why it looks like you responded to the post without using your brain.
(2) It's not about community, is it? You just have nothing better to do.
I enjoy the dungeon finder tool but I do notice its drawbacks. The tool for me, a rather shy and pesimistic person, makes doing dungeons alot easier. Before the tool I only did a few dungeons in all my time leveling my first character to 80 becouse I always had the nagging thought "What if I suck and we keep wiping becouse of me?" I guess I am just selfcouncious that way but doing a run knowing that I am brining everyone down is not what I call fun. The random nature of the new system is basically an assurance that the group will consist of people of different lvls and experiance. Since my generally all groups i have been in have been from good to awesome I have a mostly positive stance to the tool. Ninjas from my experiance are rare and so are assholes that just speed ahead. There were a couple of tanks that just plowed ahead but we dealt with that simple letting the shit die a few times.
The obvious downside of the tool is that people do less leveling and socialising. Whether this really destroys the community...I doubt it becouse there is so little of that in WoW. I like the game but there is no community just as there is no guild loyalty or anything of the sort. Quite frankly most mmos I have played simply felt like games and not virtual worlds.
I think that the dungeon finder is a convenient solution for one of the bigger problems WoW had (finding groups for low level dungeons). But I do not think it was the best solution.
There is no meeting up with people somewhere in the world, chatting with them while waiting for others to arrive, checking out each others equip, doing some fishing, exchanging tips and hints and information, to then approach the gloomy dungeon together, making your way through, and adding them to your buddy list, or in other words: to socialize, and make friends. The dungeon finder reduces other human players to more advanced bots. You don't care about communication, who they are or what they want. You only want them to do their job. You don't care about the lore of the dungeon either. Beeing teleported directly to it, you probably don't even know where the dungeon is or what it's about. You don't get to know the world because you don't know what is where, and you don't care, because you don't have to know it. The fast travel makes sure of that.
So yes: going into dungeons using the dungeon finder is better than standing around alone or search for hours and not finding a group. So it's a solution, agreed, but a bad one. They should have increased the chances of going into a dungeon with people from your own world. I don't care how, that would be another topic. But the dungeon finder solution... it is another step to kill the world in world of warcraft, and turn it into a bunch of minigames.
Let's play Fallen Earth (blind, 300 episodes)
Let's play Guild Wars 2 (blind, 45 episodes)
The dungeon finder is the most horible thing ever invented.
Back in they day like in any game we had to take millions of flypaths trough our open world to get from A to B wich is fine it gives a feeling of immersion. You are a part of the world and you have to put a little effort in tto get somewhere. Then came summoning stones, and people became lazy. Why fly there if u can camp the auction house and get summoned later into the dungeon so you can go at it right away. This lazyness is only supported by the dungeon finder tool. With the stones u actually had to go to the place or 2 out of 5 had to at least. now you dont even need to walk to a dungeon youl just stay there sitting at the auction house until a dungeon pops up wich instantly transports you.
This is what made WORLD of warcraft into world of instancecraft. there is no more world in the world because there is no point to be in it exept for leveling. This combined with flying mounts is what also has destroyed world PvP. It just does not exist anymore apart from flying around ganking people who are trying to level wich is not PvP, just ganking.
Another downside from the dungeon finder tool is the learning curve for new players, people rush trough dungeons in 7-15 mins where u used to take half an hour. People only care for those badges and just multipull and rape the entire thing. I really hope blizzard reforms to TBC dungeons where CC was a must and aoe tanking does'nt exist. (offcourse when we get top-teir gear we will rush trough them again but thats unavoidable).
There is a upside off the dungeonfinder tool tho, you get alot of badges from it, wich gets you..... yes gear in a very easy way. But this is the only upside i can think of....
So imo. Remove summoning stones and the dungeonfinder tool and let people put in some effort to get what they want. Just like in the old days...... wich are as always best
Edit:
Ah i forgot because the dungeonfinder is crossrealm based. You will never really get to know people or see them another time if your group disbands. So community wise there is no community.
I can understand where you are coming from. I was very apprehensive at first because, despite being rather good as an Affliction Warlock, I knew that there is a big difference in playing solo and with a group of any size. Because of this I honestly didn't make a real attempt to venture into dungeons and, to complement the problem, very few people wanted to actually experience the dungeons at most any level but 80. It wasn't until the DF tool came out that I was actually able to experience the vast majority of the dungeons that are out there. After the DF tool came out I took the plunge, jumping into dungeons and telling players that I was new to the dungeon so let me know what they needed me to do. I'll be honest and say that 9 times out of 10 I received very good responses and because of this I stayed in WoW a good bit longer than I would have without the DF tool.
You're right about the downside too, Blizzard sort of flipped their content around: now dungeons are arguably easier to access than stuff within the world. Welcome to Instance of Warcraft, eh? The DF tool, as you point out, isn't a community-destroying device because the community was so loose to begin with. I played from March '09-'10 what I found was what I found in every game, guilds that are far too cliquey and players almost exclusively out for themselves. It seems to me that we have to be better people to build better communities, in-game or in real life.
(1)TL:DR must be your way of saying that thinking hurts. Then again, this may explain why it looks like you responded to the post without using your brain.
(2) It's not about community, is it? You just have nothing better to do.