Dear Blizzard, I write this not to throw any type of shade or spark any arguments, but to provide a solution that I feel would make the most people happy in regards to the RDF/LFG issue. Note that anything marked with an Asterisk(*) will have additional comments/explanations about them down at the bottom.
The solution I propose is both something I think the majority of people will be happy with, as well as be low cost on the development end to implement. That solution is this:
Bring back the Dungeon Finder, but add in a 10% experience buff() to anybody/group that chooses to form a pre-made group of players and goes to the dungeon on foot with no use of the Dungeon Finder at all. I feel that this change is, from a development standpoint() relatively simple and cost effective to implement, as well as provide a comfortable middle ground for the playerbase as a whole. Though I do think that the Raid Finder(*) should stay out of the game.
10% Experience Buff:
I feel that 10% is a good, solid number for this particular bonus. I thought about it between 5% and 15%, and I feel that at 5% most players would feel it’s not even worth it after factoring in the travel time, the time it takes to assemble the group itself, so on and so forth. And 15% or higher feels like an objective handicap to anybody who wants to queue up for a random dungeon through the Dungeon Finder. However, this buff would only be applicable to those who formed a group outside of the Dungeon Finder and made the journey to the dungeon itself on foot, but joining the Dungeon Finder with the pre-made group would mark the buff as null and void. This way, players have an incentive to want to still form groups and traverse the world to go do their dungeon diving, but it wouldn’t be such a massive buff that people who still choose to use the Dungeon Finder are at a massive disadvantage. The player would essentially be giving up the 10% bonus experience buff for the convenience of being able to do other things while in queue, or be matched with other players and taken to the dungeon automatically.
Development Standpoint:
From a development standpoint I feel this is a relatively cheap way for you all at Blizzard to resolve this issue as it is right up your companies wheelhouse, given you all do this sort of thing all the time for other occasions. It’s also relatively simple to implement for the aforementioned reasons as well, and something that’s cheap and simple to do is cost effective.
Raid Finder:
From my personal experience, having my own views on the matter as well as seeing what other people have been saying since the end of the original Wrath of the Lich King expansion and going forward, I don’t think the Dungeon Finder is really the biggest issue here. I think the true monster in the closet so-to-speak is the Raid Finder tool. Raid Finder more than anything else gave people the biggest incentive to not have to join guilds or find pugs in order to do raids, and a lot of people, not just the super casual ones, would run a raid via the Raid Finder, get their lower tier gear and see the content and be content with that, and as a result that really hurt the raiding community. Nobody any longer had to form bonds and social contracts with others in order to see the end-game content, and running “Normal” and higher difficulty raids really began to be relegated to the realm of the “Sweaty” or “Hardcore” World of WarCraft player. Dungeons are just the start of a persons end-game journey, and as such it’s things you’re going to be doing A LOT of, but Raid Finder is sort of like the secret passageway through the bookshelves that leads to the final end-game experience. As such, I think a lot of people would be happy with a Dungeon Finder, but no Raid Finder. Myself included.
Additional Comment(s):
I know at first glance a 10% exp buff sounds like a game changer, but really all it is, is a convenience fee. If you do not wish to go through the hassle of having to manually form or look for a group, then go to the dungeon on foot, you don’t get the bonus 10% experience, but what you do get is the freedom to just alt-tab, switch to a second monitor, pull out your portable game platform, level a profession, work the auction house, etc., etc., while waiting for the game to match you with 4 other people and teleport you to the dungeon. Whereas people who want to have that experience of having to go to the dungeon manually after forming a group can still get that experience without feeling as if they’re screwing themselves over to deliberately go out of their way to do it the “hard way”.
Also, another reason why I feel 10% is a healthy number for this is because, in addition to the reasons I mentioned earlier, it wont conflict with your nerfs to the boosting problem that classic has been plagued with since its inception. If you’re in a group at level 16 with a level 70/80 player, who cares if you’re gaining an additional 10% experience bonus at that point, as losing 80% of the dungeon exp is still just as bad as losing 90% of it. Whereas if the amount was say like 20% bonus experience, then it might start to make some significant differences when it comes to boosting efficiency. So I think 10% is a comfortable middle ground between feeling like an insult and something not worth the players time at 5% and feeling like the Dungeon Finder implementation is completely pointless at 15%-20%.
Also, sometimes I don’t wanna have to go through the hassle of forming a group and going to the dungeon only to find the healer forgot to switch spec’s or the tank showed up with most of their gear broken or whatever. Sometimes, I just wanna kick back, jump in the queue, go farm some materials while a podcast runs in the background and take it easy. Other times I find it fun to get the buds or guildmates together and go running to a dungeon, seeing what kind of wacky PvP shenanigans we can get into along the way.
Well this of course is just my solution to the issue currently bounding the classic community at the moment. I do think that it’ll make both sides of the argument happy(for the most part, I mean you can’t please everyone after all), as either side won’t feel punished for choosing the way they wanna play. Anyways, if you made it all the way through to this part, whether you’re a forum user or a developer/moderator, thanks for at least taking the time to hear me out.