To you, but you don’t speak for everybody. It’s easy to downplay what you don’t value, but that doesn’t mean nobody values it.
Many times since…? Give examples, because to be completely honest, I find this pretty suspect. For content offered by the dungeon finder, nobody builds groups manually for this content outside of specific, niche intents.
BSB isn’t even on that list, but it’s an RP server. I question why you are even playing Classic in the first place when player interaction is something that doesn’t interest you, but you’re also playing on an RP server.
I find this… difficult to understand. Nothing on RP servers, it’s just an odd take to be so against engaging with other players while also being on a server where the core thematic premise is an enhanced degree of engagement in role playing.
Anyway, I thought that was a super populated server. Did interest just tank after HC servers came out? Again, I’m all for better ways of connecting people, just not *automated* ways.
They do if they are looking for specific classes. Most times we’d invite from friends list and use the RDF to fill any gaps. You are able to use the feature with a full group as well, doing so to get the perks they offered in Wrath. I’d solo queue when the bonus bag for tanking was up and no one was available from my contacts.
I’m not sure why you think my intentions to play on Bloodsail are your business, and I never stated that I’m not interested in interaction. Bloodsail was a fantastic server, too bad the majority decided to either progress, or quit. It’s a very quiet place now, and Xrealm RDF would be helpful.
Fortunately, my preference align with Era’s design, not yours.
That’s not the same thing at all. You’re building a full or partial group from people you know, you’re not seeking people to group with outside of that circle. In Era, you have to advertise what you’re looking for and build your party. With RDF you click a button and it happens for you, but with that, nobody is looking at the chat channel anymore.
RDF removes that engagement in building a party outside your friend group entirely and it cannot be maintained.
Two things…
It’s my business when you’re using the combination of a less populated server and your lack of interest in engaging with players as the foundation of your argument to advocate for something that I’m against. You’ve made some claims that, on the surface at least, seem inconsistent and so I’m questioning that.
I have nothing against ways to connect players on lower populated realms with other players. I don’t think it should be your responsibility to pay a transfer fee and leave your community just to have people to play with. However, you’re fixated on only one solution… RDF (or a portion thereof). There can be other options that don’t undermine one of the core designs of the Classic experience.
Actually I am, the people that RDF adds to the group aren’t current friends. By the way, I added a LOT of people to my list because of RDF. People I would have never met otherwise. Who are you to tell me what I’m seeking, that’s a bit arrogant.
Party building is not engaging imo. You’ve never added ppl from RDF groups to your friends list? That’s a you issue pal.
There is absolutely no lack of interest in engagement on my part. Like I said, I am able to make friends through the RDF. Adding people to a group using LFG chat is not engaging interaction imo. The interaction comes when we play.
And you’ve offered no other method to dungeon with the folks on the higher pop servers. Please enlighten us.
Edit. I believe that if the tool were added to the game it could cut down on a lot of the boosting. Making dungeoning more accessible could help with this issue. People don’t want to spend hours watching chat scroll looking for a certain dungeon while sifting through all the other junk, they want to play.
It’s not arrogant, it’s factual. I said you’re not going to go outside of RDF to find people outside of your circle and you then proceeded ot tell me how great using RDF is to find people outside your circle.
I didn’t say I didn’t add people from RDF to my friends list, that’s not in question here. This is about how you engage with people you don’t already know. I do find party building engaging. I like that I have control over what classes and experience levels I invite to the party and I like having an opportunity to establish, and agree upon, goals prior to the start of the run.
You’re welcome to your preference to be sure, but the difference here is that I’m playing the game that was designed around this. You’re not, and you’re expecting it to be changed.
On the contrary, quoted from above…
I’m not against addressing this, I said as much several times in this thread. I just don’t want it to be automated.
Probably because they are outside my circle before I meet them? It’s no different than meeting people in the current LFG chat groups.
And again, you are welcome to build your own groups whether RDF exists or not, I know because I’ve done that. If you believe it’s impossible, that’s on you.
And I don’t find it engaging at all. You go ahead and fuss over your teammates if it makes you happy. I prefer random encounters, you get a variety of players, play styles, goals. Not just the ones you’re used to or that meet the standards you want to enforce in order to have the best run. That’s just boring.
I have no issue with automated, I still get to meet and play with new people. In the meantime I can go out and farm, fish, get some quests wrapped up etc. instead of having to focus on fast moving chat in hopes of getting a group going. And when I’m on the low pop server I’d have a much better chance of actually doing a dungeon.
It’s very different, because in one scenario the group is made for you and in the other you build the group. That’s the point of contention here.
No, I’m not, and that’s what you keep skirting. I asked you to describe how you’ve built groups without RDF and all you did was describe to me how you used RDF.
Hey, no problem, you don’t like it and you find it boring. Play a different game. You have options. I don’t. This is it.
You keep glossing over the things that we do agree on and stubbonly dig into what we don’t. I’m all for improving the experience around player discovery and connection, so long as it’s not automated.
By the way, even today you can do all the things you want to do while trying to find a group. Download the LFG Bulletin Board addon, set it to the dungeons you’re interested, and then just watch out of the corner of your eye for people building groups in the dungeons you want. You can also configure it to filter out keywords such as “boost” so you don’t see those advertisements.
You are still meeting new people, no matter the method. Good grief.
Because you know how people form groups without RDF, it’s what you’re pushing. I’m stating that we can still form groups manually, no one is taking that away from us.
You do have options though, you just forgo the RDF and make your group. Telling me to play another game is a flippant remark and very unproductive for someone who claims to be seeking solutions. No?
No kidding
So this bandaid is your solution? It’s not going to work on my low pop server, where there are no groups forming at all. What a crock of rubbish, like you guys used in Wrath so you could gatekeep. Don’t invite plate, don’t invite cloth, etc, I want to make sure I’m the only one rolling need if it drops…
Actually the community raised the pitchforks with it’s mention near Era servers… Just like with the token and any other cash shop services like name changes and people still argue server changes need to be removed for a more VANILLA experience.
So… it’ll never happen, even with classic+ the community will raise hell over it.
People are stuck using an addon to filter and block unwanted spam to just get groups going and it shows… You really only start getting groups with BRD, UBRS, LBRS and raids.
It’s mind boggling that you equate building a group with friends and filling the rest of your group with RDF as the same thing as building a group manually. It’s not the same and the Classic Era style of group formation (for PuGs) does not survive RDF. Your willful ignorance does not change this.
Ah, here we are, the real issue…
You feel that because you’re online and wanting to do a dungeon, you are entited to a group. You feel all you should have to do is press a button and a group forms for you, and it rubs you the wrong way that someone didn’t invite you simply because you want to be invited. Am I getting warmer now?
Sorry no. You’re not entitled to anything. That’s not how Era works and so telling you to go play another game that works how you want it to is the appropriate response. You want to change things to make things easier for you. We did that already, see retail for the result. See WotLK in about a week or two for a reminder.
I saw all this drivel about gatekeeping in Wrath and all it boiled down to was pure laziness. I’ve never had trouble building a group on any class/spec I play and I’ve never felt gatekept. You know why? Because I take the time to build my own groups and go after what I need. I also accept that sometimes a group just isn’t going to happen and I try again later. I don’t whine about how the world is unfair to to me and how everything should be changed so I don’t have to change my views.
Go play Wrath. You and those like you got what you wanted there. Leave Era alone.
How are you losing what you want? You don’t HAVE to use RDF, the option would just be there for the ones that did want to use it. You can still go about your time, creating your group and running to the dungeon, while others use the RDF feature. Simple.
While a combined system of both manual group forming and an automated system can and do work well in tandem with each other(FF14), Era doesn’t need RDF.
I agree with you that this doesn’t belong in Era (which I’ve made clear above), your point about the parallels with FF14 is interesting and I’d like to explore it further.
I recently had the opportunity to spend some time with FF14 so I think I know what you’re talking about and I don’t agree with your conclusion.
In FF14 people absolutely do manually create groups alongside using the automated system, they aren’t for the same content. If you just want to do a random dungeon, or a roulette, the only viable option is the matchmaking tools. However, if you want to go and try the content in a different way (minimum ilvl scale or farming specific targets) then manual group formation is appropriate.
FF14 actually offers a really robust system for it’s legacy content, one that I wish Retail WoW would adopt. You have the following three options (I believe)…
Play the content at your character’s current item level, what ever that may be. This is how all flavours of WoW that have legacy content work.
Play the content at the maximum item level scale appropriate to that content. This would be like taking on a dungeon/raid after you had gotten all the gear it offers.
Play the content at the minimum item level scale appropraite to that content. This would be like tackling the content at the previous tier’s item level (in WoW).
I spent some time with some friends working through The Binding Coils of Bahamut, which is more or less the equivalent of MC in terms of raid progression, at minimum item level scale and it was extremely rewarding! I also saw groups in the group finder for similar, folks looking to take on challenges that were outside of normal gameplay, though most of the groups were actually just mount farms.
What I felt was absent was people building groups that the regular duty finder offered. It’s worth noting that we also see this in Retail now today. There is nobody building groups to do leveling dungeons, or even Normal/Heroic end-game dungeons. There are, however, a plethora of players building groups to go back and mount farm older content that can’t be solo’d.
Evidence in both WoW and FF14 does seem to suggest that manual group formation and automated group formation for the same content are not able to operate in tandem. The automated processes tend to be the preferred choices for the content that is available for it, leaving manual group formation to be utilized by “everything else”.
This is what I’ve observed having spent time in both games, but I’m also willing to consider that those groups may have been there, I just wasn’t looking for them and didn’t see them. My sub for FF14 is no longer active, it would be interesting to know what’s available. If they are there and I didn’t notice them though, I think that is also part of my point. It would be exceptionally rare for people to actively choose to bypass the automated system in favour of a manual approach unless one were doing it simply out of protest. Since the latter would be very much in the minority, it tends to not be a viable option.
The ability to toggle how you consume the content is a big point. You can choose to walk into “old” content and steam roll or you and others can level synch to the correct level as if the dungeon was current. This is super popular and often requires manual formation to do, however the option is present in the Roulette system as well. My BF and I do semi regular level synched runs of Coils of Bahamut and get some randoms who choose to hop in with us as well as people we know already. This is done via an LFG style system similar to how the Retail LFG tool works for mythic+ dungeons and pug raids above LFR level.
While people mainly use the MM system to clear their roulettes and then will do things outside of it for similar content.
It comes down to choice and having those avenues open for the player base.
Regardless however, the game does feature and use MM systems much more than Retail does, or at least offers more options to. However the Social aspects of FF14 in general are miles better than retail WoW. It’s one of the reasons I use FF14 as an example of MM systems not being detrimental to socialization and place that entirely on players. Players choose to be/not to be social, not the systems.
For clarity on the sync’d coils runs, you are still ultimately using the FF equivalent of RDF, just finding other people to join you first, or are you entirely building your group manually and then heading there?
With that aside, I think what might be a more applicable question is to ask, have you ever manually formed a group for Copper Bell Mines, or do you just hit Join on the Roulette? Likewise, in Retail WoW, have you ever manually built a group for Maraudon, or do you just join it through the group finder?
It’s been my experience that the answer to this is no. I’m a massive opponent of RDF for Classic (both Era and WotLK), but when I play on Retail I absolutely use it because I know I’m unlikely to find a group any other way. I technically have a choice, but it’s not really a choice because I’ll sit there forever waiting for people to join me, but they won’t know I’m there because they don’t know to look.
Quick point of clarification, retail in M+ is entirely manually formed. There is no automatic matchmaking for this and it’s the same experience as building a group in Era today. The only real difference is a better UI for group advertisement/discovery, something that I am in favour of being a part of Classic. It’s what should have been used in WotLK instead of creating an entirely new and feature incomplete rework.
You’re right to point out the difference in player mentality between the two games. FF14 is very social, but I also haven’t really felt that exists in the roulette space. My experience doing daily roulettes has been almost identical to that of doing normal/heroic dungeons in WoW when the content requires it. The only key difference is that players in FF14 are generally a lot more friendly
It’s important to point out though that RDF isn’t detrimental to all socialization. Someone said above that you can still talk to people in your group and make friends. Absolutely true! However, it is detrimental to a part of the socialization experience, specifically revolving around group formation. All socialization is ultimately voluntary and each individual person has to decide how much they value it and want to engage in it. Game systems don’t necessarily dictate it, but they do provide opportunity for it.
Sometimes entirely from the LFG system, sometimes from friends hopping on. It’s almost entirely identical to posting your group in the LFG tool in Wrath/retail.
Not for mines specifically no, it’s not really a dungeon I have done more than once intentionally and sometimes get it on the roulette. I have been invited to groups for dungeons in leveling content outside of the roulette system and have made a few for things in mid-level zones as well. Mostly if it isn’t being formed through the roulettes I can find them via the LFG tool.
As for retail WoW, I haven’t leveled anything from level one in a long time so I can’t comment.
I think this is a player culture thing honestly. As the focus shifted to endgame over leveling content for the majority of the in game WoW story, FF14 does most of that via basic MSQ lines and not raids, beyond the obvious of facing the BIG BAD boss for that content. With Retail WoW it’s a race to endgame and that generally means the easiest routes will generally be taken over others while leveling. As we know in retail most if not all endgame is not available in RDF and is done via the LFG interface tool.
It’s a player culture thing.
(If you want a good example of what I mean by that, check out videos or articles of when SL was tanking and Shadowbringers had a lot of Retail WoW players jumping to FF14. It was a time to say the least)
Yes, I am not using LFG and RDF interchangeably.
The interface for manual formation in FF14 is “similar” to the WoW interface for manual formation.
I see this as a “you get back what you put in” situation. There will always be groups that just don’t care to talk, which is fine, but putting forward an opening for that socialization is on all members of a party.
I think this may be why people are more willing to be social in FF14 over in groups in WoW of all shades. WoW has a stigma around it’s player base while FF14 has won awards and such for how friendly a community it is.
I don’t think this can be used as a constant or a overall generalizaton. I think this is entirely based on the individual, as shown in your above convo with another poster. some find group formation to be very imporant in regards to being social in group as you do, and to others the socialization is more important once the group is formed and underway. Neither is an incorrect view at all, but it’s important to remember that different things and parts of things are of varying importance depending on the player(s).
while systems do have some level of effect on player behavior I really think its more on the games culture. FF14 has fostered a community with very little open toxicity and set up social events entirely outside of intended game systems. Bars, clubs, etc. Wiping in a roulette or manual group is given a bit more patience and you aren’t instantly berated or kicked. There are obvious exceptions for high end content but that is present in WoW as well. Even in savages and extremes I feel people have more patience compared to raiding/mythic+ in WoW.
Whereas WoW is known, sadly, for the opposite. WoW has more open toxicity and is stacked with short fuse players. Wiping in a dungeon is a good example, generally wiping in WoW is a death sentence to any group calm from Deadmines to Dragonraid #3. Very rarely do I see people be patient in WoW dungeons, both RDF and LFG. zero chill to use the vernacular. I won’t discount the great groups and friends I have made in WoW, as we both know the game has good people in it.
