Suggestion Regarding one of the Dev Team's Blatant UI Failures

PC General Discussion
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Especially when it comes to playing on Hardcore mode, it is plainly obvious for anyone who has eyes to see that the Group Finder / Party Finder tool is incredibly unused by a significant portion of active players.

(I personally believe a part of this reason has to do with its inherently dated UI design, not to mention of course the very-late implementation of it in the overall lifecycle of the game).

Therefore unless the devs want to spend all the manhours/resources etc. into completely overhauling the P.F. (they won’t), it is highly suggested that they need to find some creative way to incentivize more people actively being guided towards and using the P.F. tool, unless the devs do not care whatsoever at their game having a relatively-dead playerbase appearance (their current approach on it …which it seems to be_. BTW I’m not talking about the past 2 weeks, I mean even before that-- even before a ton of players left at midseason and/or left to play Path of Othergame.

Edit: So, not totally sure if '“trolls” would be the most accurate description, but, I’m noticing at least 2 repliers to my OP that keep twisting my words so I’m just going to stop replying to those kinds of replies now, have fun doing whatever you guys are doing down there lol

Edit2: As it currently stands in January of 2025, the present iteration of the Party Finder tool would be an AMAZING MODERN PuG-ing U.I.

if…

if the year was 2009.

Edit3: I should have clarified earlier as well:

I also believe there is plenty of anecdotal self-tested observation to suggest that something is messed up involving the filters / search functionality in the Party Finder rn because there have been plenty, and I mean puhhh-lenty of instances now in which various people I’ve witnessed (and also myself) keep claiming that their supposedly “Listed” group DOES NOT actually appear as it is supposed to in there. The group just doesn’t show up… aka the P.F.'s coding is borked somehow.

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how would a party finder look for you in 2025?

or rather, which aspects let you feel that the UI is dated? Especially when we are talking about Path of Othergame - i dont really get your point about a dated UI.

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Party finder is available, as requested. It would not be in their best interest to try harder to push people to party.

Some people only want to solo.

Some people want to party.

No one wants to party with people who only do so because they’re forced.

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I just want to make sure I understand, your line of though is:

  1. Party finder sucks
  2. Blizz won’t fix it
  3. Blizz should force convince people to use it anyway

Why is it anyone’s best interest to use something broken? Granted, I have no idea what the manpower would be in creating incentives versus overhauling it, or if it would even be the same team, but if you think they would create incentives for it, why wouldn’t they go a step further and make it better?

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good point by the way. i think they did a good middle way on the dark citadel so far.

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Your assessment / assumption isn’t fully correct.

I never said players should be “forced to party” - that’s your words, not mine in the OP.

I said they should find ways to perform incentivizations for players

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There’s a strike through on the word “forced,” it was very obviously a joke, but that’s fine, reply to me without actually responding to what I said, this is a good usage of both our time.

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They tried that with DC… and there was a big outcry against “forced coop”. So if they try to incentivize party finder, how do you think that’ll go over? It doesn’t matter if it’s ridiculous… there’s a host of players just waiting for the next opportunity to have a bigger “i told you so” fit at the slightest provocation.

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Hi I see you are having some trouble again in engaging in good faith with my words, so this may be my last reply to you as i say:

I am not implying they should re-hash the Dark Citadel approach at all. That is not what I am saying at all.

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While the PF may not be used as much in HC mode, this doesn’t necessarily indicate poor design or a failure of implementation. HC players typically go solo for obvious reasons. I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s because of the PF itself, or the UI of the system that makes people not want to use it in HC.

The LFG tool in WoW wasn’t introduced until much later after the vanilla game launched. It also has completely different content that requires groups in order to complete, where as most of D4, aside from the DC, you can solo, as I imagine most HC players do.

Now D4 does have XP bonuses when grouping or just basically being around other people, but that will only push people so far into grouping, or not grouping as the case may be. Again this is more of an HC issue, as SC doesn’t have this problem at all.

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While the PF may not be used as much in HC mode, this doesn’t necessarily indicate poor design or a failure of implementation. HC players typically go solo for obvious reasons. I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s because of the PF itself, or the UI of the system that makes people not want to use it in HC.

The LFG tool in WoW wasn’t introduced until much later after the vanilla game launched. It also has completely different content that requires groups in order to complete, where as most of D4, aside from the DC, you can solo, as I imagine most HC players do.

Now D4 does have XP bonuses when grouping or just basically being around other people, but that will only push people so far into grouping, or not grouping as the case may be. Again this is more of an HC issue, as SC doesn’t have this problem at all.

You speak a lot of truth here, and I agree with 99% of it.

I am currently a member of a few of the largest population Diablo IV discord servers, as well as a couple of other D4 Discords.

Per empirical statistical sampling standards, it’s pretty plain to see how there’s been a massive playerbase drop-off since almost right after VoH launch.

It’s no accident that so many other threads have been made on these forums pertaining to this phenomenon either directly or indirectly.

It is incumbent upon the developer of any given game to incentivize players to want to keep on playing said game, whether in a solo mode or whether in a group mode. Here’s the thing about PuGs - PuGs can further inherently incentivize players to “graduate” (so-to-speak) from a PuG onto a more organized group thereafter. This is but one reason why I said what I said earlier.

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You are absolutely right, the only issue is you need willing participants. While the LFG tool could use a touch-up so to speak, I still don’t believe it is what’s keeping people from using it in HC mode. Notice the stark contrast when you go to SC mode and there are plenty of groups available.

If some one screws up in SC mode it’s not a big deal, if some one does the same in HC mode, it’s a huge deal with the potential to lose your character and all the progress you just made. If I were to play HC, which I don’t, I wouldn’t use the LFG tool either, regardless of how pretty it looked.

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so far we are still missing your suggestions on how to “update” this “dated” user interface. especially when you mention that other game, which frankly has an user interface thats 20 years old.

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One of the goals re: incentivizing players to hop into the group finder tool and use it is just coming up with some ideas on how to provide little perks and bonus rewards for players for joining an activity, staying in the activity, and completing the activity with their P.F. PuG . A little sprinkling of goodies.

I’m about to make a comparison, and this comparison is probably NOT the best one to make , but: think about the Tree of Whispers / Bounties incentivization system that is currently baked into D IV – perhaps something similar to that would work? In any event, right now as it stands, the LACK of some kind of incentivization system is R E A D I L Y apparent.

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… okay so your issues are with game design decisions, and not with the user interface?

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Well yes, I personally would not join a PuG for Dark Citadel Wing 1 , or Tormented Echo of Lilith, or Tormented Andariel, or for a Pit group that is well above and beyond my current played character’s capability.

However,

If I just ignore all the “deathtrap” options, there are still a few game modes to choose from which are the “safer” PuGs, so-to-speak.

… okay so your issues are with game design decisions, and not with the user interface?

technically both of those aspects are problematic

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Oh agreed, I just think HC has a different mentality, and by its nature is more prone to solo players in general, or close-nit groups that always group, and therefor never use the LFG tool itself. It’s a not a very PUG friendly environment so to speak. You definitely have higher expectations of people playing on HC than you would in SC mode for example, regardless of the content.

Newer players, or even newer players to the HC mode would be hesitant to join groups in fear they would screw something up for a veteran they may or may not be grouped with. Likewise a veteran wouldn’t take the risk of getting a random newer player in their group. There’s a lot more risk involved from all sides joining a group in HC mode, especially when you don’t know the other person.

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Oh agreed, I just think HC has a different mentality, and by its nature is more prone to solo players in general, or close-nit groups that always group, and therefor never use the LFG tool itself. It’s a not a very PUG friendly environment so to speak. You definitely have higher expectations of people playing on HC than you would in SC mode for example, regardless of the content.

Newer players, or even newer players to the HC mode would be hesitant to join groups in fear they would screw something up for a veteran they may or may not be grouped with. There’s a lot more risk involved from all sides joining a group in HC mode, especially when you don’t know the other person.

Indeed. Now we’re kind of drifting into a different area , though… when it comes to the whole concept behind risk management and death and Hardcore mode, that’s something that I personally am not concerned about.

It’s pretty clear. Hardcore mode. You get clapped, that’s it. It’s on you, as the player.

But

This is kind of a tangent. This is drifting off-topic insofar as the main points I was originally making in my OP.

The whole HardCore paradigm is its own thing. I’m not concerned about HC or PuGging in HC. It’s fine. I love HC. I’ve grown to love HC.

People do have a choice whether or not they want to play in a group, whether PuG or other kind of group.

The issues still stand, however, regardless – dated Party Finder UI, and lack of incentivization to use it. I totally understand the logic behind why someone , depending on their character progression status, and depending on the type of game mode / content, either would or would not be likely to use it.

EVEN SO

EVEN SO

we still run into the root issues - dated UI, and lack of P.F. usage incentivization.

Hence

Why this is a problem which is ultimately on the shoulders of the game’s devteam.

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I was going off your OP which stated and I quote:

Especially when it comes to playing on Hardcore mode,

So that’s why I’ve been going off of that premise. As I stated previously, SC doesn’t have this inherent issue. I don’t know about right now, but 2 weeks ago and well before, the PF always had people in it, doing various activities. Now usually I found these people in T2 and T4, but they were there.

I agree to an extent, but I don’t necessarily see it as a problem for this game in particular. The option is there for people to use because people kept asking for it, unfortunately it also came with the caveat of having forced co-op content, obviously not a great incentive in my opinion.

I’ll just say I disagree that it needs an incentive beyond people wanting to group. D2 and 3 worked off this basis and have done fine. If you would like to group up, you have the option to do so. If anything D4 is more similar to D2 in its Party Finder, rather then the randomness of D3’s where it just throws you into a group regardless of their level. At least with D2 and D4 you have some control over who joins.

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The party finder in D4 has more features than party finder in many other games. I am not sure which features are missing until you consider the tool is a blatant UI failure. Maybe you should compare party finder in many other games like Dota 2, Call of Duty, division 2, Elden Ring and other multiplayer game and share with us how the party finder in those game has better UI and encourage players to use them.

Not sure you aware that in Elden Ring the only way to find party member is to use an item to craft a symbol on the ground outside the boss room. Then pray for a guy name “Let Me Solo Her” pop up to help you to kill the boss?

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