Duty Finder Unveiled

[Aeni]

[Wise Donkey]

Re: Duty Finder Unveiled

I really like that you can be in a party with less than 4 and use the DF to fill out the party.

[Firewind]

Re: Duty Finder Unveiled

Cross server is a horrible idea. Basically I can look for a party, act like a complete and utter twat to everyone, take all of the loot and there will be zero repercussions because there's nobody around to warn people in my server about that. WoW also showed with the raid finder that adding zero accountability to raid loot distribution is the single dumbest thing ever. I can literally need on everything and there's nothing the other people can do. I can be a dick and trigger wipe mechanics deliberately and nobody will be able to do anything. I can show up with a group of friends and we can take all the loot for ourselves and there's nothing that can be done about it.

Plus as WoW, The Secret World and Rift have shown, there is no guarantee that the entire group will even speak the same language, rendering it impossible to explain boss fight mechanics or to communicate properly. I've lost count of the number of times WoW or TSW have stuck me with a bunch of Spanish or Polish players and I've been immediately kicked from the group for communicating with them in their server's default language and not their language, which is only spoken in their own country (Polish) or is only widely spoken in the Americas (Spanish).

Plus you get elitism against certain servers. WoW is notorious for this and one of the reasons why I stopped playing. Show up in a PvP match and you are tagged as playing on a a PvE server? Prepare for abuse and people instantly assuming you're bad. Queue for PvE and you're from a PvP server? Expect everyone to assume that you only have PvP gear and have no idea what mechanics are. You're from a Roleplay server? Prepare for the worst torrent of abuse you will ever receive no matter how good or well equipped you are.

There needs to be some kind of accountability in systems like this otherwise it completely destroys all sense of server community. FFXI didn't do this and had a close knit community. Bioware flat out refused to do cross server stuff for SWTOR for the same reason. SWTOR even takes into account your ignore list and will go out of your way not to match you with people you blacklisted. That is a nice improvement alone and with the combination of the ability for the community to create a global "LFG" channel means that finding groups in SWTOR is ridiculously easy.

I'm all behind a duty finder but cross server stuff is bad.

[DakAttack]

Re: Duty Finder Unveiled

Plus you get elitism against certain servers. WoW is notorious for this and one of the reasons why I stopped playing. Show up in a PvP match and you are tagged as playing on a a PvE server? Prepare for abuse and people instantly assuming you're bad. Queue for PvE and you're from a PvP server? Expect everyone to assume that you only have PvP gear and have no idea what mechanics are. You're from a Roleplay server? Prepare for the worst torrent of abuse you will ever receive no matter how good or well equipped you are.

lol

[Wise Donkey]

Re: Duty Finder Unveiled

They have language filtering on the DF, so that point is moot. Maybe, if it gets to be a problem, they can implement server filtering too.

[Malacite]

Re: Duty Finder Unveiled

Firewind, have you even played the beta? Because everything you said just now is 100% wrong.

The looting system in XIV is nothing like XI's. When an item drops, you have the option to hit "Need" "Greed" or "Pass". Only classes that can equip the item can use Need, and they're working on adding a restriction to how many times you can hit Need during an event so that no one's a loot whore. So the cross-server play is brilliant as it drastically widens the pool of players. Instant travel to the event from anywhere is another major plus.

And it's all 100% optional - you don't HAVE to use the DF if you don't want to.


This is sheer brilliance on Yoshida's part, damn.


EDIT: Also, forgot to mention that once an event like an instanced dungeon or w/e begins, you can not change classes - another measure to prevent people from taking all the good loot.

[Firewind]

Re: Duty Finder Unveiled

Clearly you haven't played an MMO not called FFXI or FFXIV. Need/Greed/Pass has been around since before FFXI.

Actually I've had Pugilist gear ninja'd from me. Most of it is tagged as a DoW piece and not a PGL only piece.

Plus you are missing out on the fact I was bringing up. Destroying accountability and making it easier to troll is what makes toxic communities. The DF will not be optional. Asking people if they want to group up WILL get responses of "luls hur dur justs uzes doody fynderasz111!111oneone". Even linkshells and groups of friends will use it to get to an instance instantly with a group of four.

Again. What is there to prevent someone from acting however the hell they want in a party when there is nobody there to hold them accountable for their actions? What is there going to be to warn other players about people you shouldn't be grouping with? What is there to stop me being kicked from a group "because RP server fag" (I've gotten this around 8 times on WoW). What is there to stop me from taking loot for my class that I don't even need but roll need regardless (happened all the time in Warhammer Online and which is why Bioware did away with class lockouts for loot in SWTOR).

They also need to introduce the ability to trade a won item for a limited time if it binds, similar to in WoW, Rift and SWTOR. There's plenty of occasions when some idiot loots a mob mid combat and you have to click an option to get your view of the screen back, or the Raid Leader gives the loot to the wrong person by mistake, if an item binds then having to option to still give it to who it should have gone to prevents a lot of frustration.

Cross Server stuff is something that devs like to throw out and players say that they want because it sounds good. But how many people who have actually played games that have cross server capabilities actually like it?

Groupfinder tools I'm fine with, they are a nice addition and I can do stuff while waiting for a group instead of being stuck standing in the main faction hub spamming for people. Cross Server stuff, I can not okay with due to the toxic environments and playerbases that they breed. SWTOR and STO are two of the few MMOs with good communities precisely because they refuse to force cross server bullshit on the consumer because WoW did it.

[Aeni]

Re: Duty Finder Unveiled

I'm all behind a duty finder but cross server stuff is bad.

I actually have to agree with Firewind. I was shocked watching this last night when Yoshi-P said it would be cross server (and apparently so did his pal next to him, although that part could've been a scripted response)

Language filtering isn't going to help, because as Yoshi-P illustrated, someone who just wants to get into a group w/o waiting can select ALL languages.

I'm wondering if they can or are willing to put into place a reputation tool like they've implemented in some Steam games (and Microsoft has this built-in with XBL I believe) Blizzard has a convoluted system with the whole "marking the player for AFK" deal, but they also implemented/instituted the "kick from group" which has worked well (there's additional mechanisms in place to keep you from being grief-kicked as well)

But where I agree was with cross-server. If they kept it to just server or within the "language regions", this might be a better idea. Cross-server, especially for raiding, destroyed WoW's vibrant community and have ostracized and alienated many players. If SE can limit this to just normal mode dungeons but require a "manually" put together group for "raids" or hard mode content, then that would be a compromise I'm willing to get behind.

I'm not as concerned about griefing as long as the support system is in place (I'm thinking they're going to institute a "report an RMT" feature which can be doubled as "report griefers") and that has yet to be unveiled.

[Malacite]

Re: Duty Finder Unveiled

That's why we're beta testing.

[jenova_9]

Re: Duty Finder Unveiled

it isn't like the Duty Finder is the only way to form parties.

Really mew, to put it bluntly, Duty Finder is just for lazies, people with no time, and social failures that need some grouping system to get parties started.
Naturally Duty Finder is a double edged sword, cross server or not (imagine a Free Company Finder, it would be a messy mix of members that might not even be qualified) Good thing it's optional.

I would take shout or tell advertising/requests/availability and Seeking Party flags over Duty Finder,
at least then you would know what language they speak, and get to know a little more about what they are after and stuff before grouping with them.

Duty Finder should be treated as a last resort for grouping, but that's my opinion.

[Aeni]

Re: Duty Finder Unveiled

That's why we're beta testing.

Mal, you do realize that there's only a couple of weeks left before we hit open beta, right? A system of reputation will take at least a month for them to set up, and various other Duty Finder restrictions. If anything, it won't be ready until the next major content patch, presumably a month or two after release.

You have to know that new content is always internally tested before it is released to public testing. Even if they've started to work on it, it won't be ready for testing during open beta, but would be ready at release.

- - - Updated - - -

I would take shout or tell advertising/requests/availability and Seeking Party flags over Duty Finder,

You throwing up your Party Seeking flag over Duty Finder is akin to a soldier throwing away his weapons and proclaiming he would use his fists to fight instead, citing that it's more manly to do so. In other words, really stupid. The tool is there, so learn to use it, because the game will be based around that tool. FYI, even if you did form parties manually (for raids aka 8-man or larger groups, where I think it's appropriate to do so), you would use Duty Finder to place you at the dungeon. Telling your group, "hey, lol, let's go take our chocobos to the dungeon instead", is a sure fire way to earn the reputation on that server as "the odd ball to be avoided".

[Firewind]

Re: Duty Finder Unveiled

That's why we're beta testing.

This one of is the biggest cop out excuses to white knight a terrible decision by developers. I'm going to be honest with you, I can tell you haven't taken part in many beta tests. As Aeni said, we are very close to release so the only changes that we will likely see won't be on disc, it will come from a day one patch. This will have already been tested extensively in-house and they will be using the beta testers for feedback on possible tweaks or bugs.

Also note that it takes a long time to implement this sort of system and make any needed tweaks. There is also the added complexity of additional servers to shunt character data to for the purposes of cross server stuff. It isn't a case of them being able to suddenly create a reputation system out of cloth. There is the coding and implementation plus all of the internal testing before they can even think of putting it out for public testing.

In addition to what Aeni said, I could get behind cross server stuff only being for "Normal Mode" dungeons for similar reasons. "Hard Mode" content and "Raids" need enough group coordination for you to want to be in a guild to play those anyway, especially since playing Endgame Content with random people you don't know is pretty much a lottery. You might get a great player one day and then someone who bunny hops around and refuses to learn the content of how to play their class.

[Malacite]

Re: Duty Finder Unveiled

Meh, I personally think ya'll are just doomsayers but we'll see.

[Firewind]

Re: Duty Finder Unveiled

It's less doomsaying and more pointing out how vibrant and active communities were torn apart by cross server terribleness forced upon the playerbase. The death of Rift was also in part to the community being destroyed by cross server stuff.

Basically the less accountability and more anonymity you give to the players of a community the more like XBox Live it becomes.

[Malacite]

Re: Duty Finder Unveiled

That's a fair point and I don't disagree with you guys, I just don't see it being the unmitigated disaster you're making it sound to be.