Debunking the "Anti-RDF" arguments!

WoW Classic Cataclysm Classic Discussion
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After reading so many post, it is clear that people like to put “false information” about the RDF and its functionality. So, I thought here, I’ll debunk some of these:

RDF Removes the social aspect of the game.

First of all, it actually doesn’t. You, as the player, have a choice, to choose to be social with others or just ignore the chat completely. I made many friends in the past through Dungeon Finder as well as before Dungeon Finder was even added, and I have noticed no change in this. In fact, even today, in Retail, I still chat and have a friendly laugh with random people in Dungeon Finder.

RDF destroys the communities.

No, it actually doesn’t. Back at WoW’s peaked, the servers were pretty much, at large, almost impossible to keep up with on who was on your server. At its peak in Wrath of the Lich King, WoW had over 10 million subscribers, estimate. And with that many people, it was basically near impossible to keep up with who was on the server. The only communities that did matter was who was within the guild, which still holds today.

You can’t make friends in RDF

This one is entirely false. You have the power to make friends, in or outside using RDF.

RDF is what made people quit the game.

I think people really need to post a source before making this claim. People quit the game for all different reasons. Some think it may have been time to move on, some just got bored during content droughts and left, and even some may have had to quit due to stuff happening within there lives. There is a lot of different reasons to why someone may have quit the game, but I highly doubt it was because of a tool added.

RDF makes the game easier.

All RDF does is makes grouping for a dungeon little easier. It doesn’t mean the dungeon will be easier as to manually forming a group then walking to the dungeon entrance. I’ll put it this way, what do you think is supposed to be the hard part? The dungeon or forming a group for the dungeon?

RDF means we can’t pick who we want in our group.

People should know RDF is “Random Dungeon Finder. If people don’t know what “random” means, please grab a dictionary. All it does is randomly fills you in with 4 other players to complete a dungeon. If RDF did get added, there is nothing stopping you from manually finding a group with your friends or guilds, or just other randoms out in the world.

People will just sit in a city instead of exploring the world if RDF is going to get added.

People play the game in all different ways. Me personally, I usually quest while in a queue, exploring the world while waiting for a dungeon, as I found it faster that way. If all you’re going to do is sit inside a capital city while queuing for a dungeon, then that is your own fault, not others.

Also, I’d like to add with this, with the current LFG system, most people actually do sit in a city or in one spot while trying to form a group.

RDF is why retail is in a bad state it is in.

Sorry, but this is an entire false accusation. Retail is in a bad place at the moment because of things that have been added over the course throughout Legion, Battle for Azeroth and Shadowlands, were poorly implemented. The intense RNG of Legion, the broken warforging/titanforging of Legion and Battle for Azeroth, the removal of tier sets from Legion up to Patch 9.3, just to name some. Dungeon Finder had nothing to do with the current state of retail World of Warcraft. Even Warlords of Draenor was at a massive sub decline, mostly due to it was abandoned before it had its first major patch.

This one is entirely false. Dungeon Finder isn’t designed to add more loading screens, it is designed to be a tool used for grouping easier and getting to the dungeon easier. I’ll use this as an example, lets just say RDF was in the game, I was sitting in lets say, Strattath, and a Dungeon Pops after queuing for one. And lets say the Dungeon is Escape from Dumholde. How Dungeon Finder would work would just teleport you to the instance, and that is it. Only 2 loading screens total, one for entering, one for leaving. Now lets say at the current moment, I’m in the same location, and I join a group for the same dungeon. Portal from Strattath to Darnassus, Another pinkish portal from Darnassus to the base of Teldrassil, flight down to Tanaris. Run to dungeon entrance and port into the dungeon. RDF does not add more loading screens. (This is irrelevant, but I am putting from my Warlock, which is a Human on Classic)

UPDATE: Someone in another thread made a comment towards this and I wasn’t looking at from another point of view. The fact is, someone in a loading screen wouldn’t effect you playing by any means.

RDF caused WoW Subs to decline

Seen this so many times, and this is actually inaccurate. As posted up earlier on people claiming RDF made people quit the game, it is the same thing with this. People quit the games for all different reasons. Plus, RDF was added in patch 3.3.0 on December 7th, 2009. A year before Cata was released. Just before Cata was released, WoW Sub numbers peaked to 12 million, before steadily declining after the release of Cata.

Closing Statement: These are just some of the things I have seen on the forums about RDF that people seem to make false claims about. If anymore pop up, I’ll be sure to update this post.

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The anti rdf crowd is so strange to me.

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Theres nothing wrong with LFG. People are just lazy and don’t want to use it.

It works fine.

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^ Or we could have RDF which is superior in every way.
#RDF.

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So I can just say you made false claims too and am right? Cool. Because in fact you don’t know more than anybody else. You got nothing to back up, nor does the other side.

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You can call what I posted “false” all you want. I never once said in my opening post these are 100% facts.

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I can speak for myself and say it commodified dungeons and was a large factor in it, and fundamentally changed the dungeoning experience.

Not alone, no, but it is a contributing factor and has changed the way WoW is played.

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No one is out exploring anyways…when the game first came out there was an element of mystery…we all know the entire map and everything it holds and there is no reason whatsoever to go “explore”.

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Well, it is possible. But honestly, I never met one person who decided to quit WoW because of a tool made available for people.

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I personally made more friends using RDF than I did with LFG spam on private wrath servers I can tell you that.

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Random Raid Finder made it even worse for me, then, after

You used to have to work to experience the end game content. They then made it so everyone could see it in a watered down way that gave you not as great loot and congrats you just beat the Lich King on ezmode (or whoever it was)

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So the 4 strangers i get in LFG is somehow different than RDF?

The dungeon magically changes if i use RDF?

Yall are actually insane.

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That’s a long wall of text to try and pretend retail doesn’t exist. Sorry but the less slippery this slope is the better.

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So what is wrong with blocking people from queuing for Heroics using Dungeon Finder? And Normal Dungeons aren’t the “end-game” content.

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Yes, because it made them more abundant. If you read my post about Wintergrasp’s abundance, too, it makes sense.

Access to everything easy all the time waters it down.

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there’s nothing wrong with the horse and buggy

ppl r just lazy smh

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make RDF server-bound and doesn’t teleport you to the dungeon for TBC+Wrath dungeons. it actually would improve the social aspect of the game, but if it’s cross-server absolutely no one will care who they team up with it might as well just be a group of NPCs you will never see that character again. blizzard absolutely has the means to make RDF fit into classic content. this idea “you don’t have to use it” is dumb considering it will kill LFM groups one of the very few avenue you have to see more people from your realm will die overnight

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The social aspect of forming groups has nothing to do with whether you chat with your party members while in the instance. It’s worrying that people seem to genuinely believe this is what is meant when they discuss how Dungeon Finder impacts social experiences in WoW.

While leveling over hours, days, and weeks, it’s not uncommon to run into the same person or people from time to time, be it for group quests or instances. This shared experience over time can lead to a form of social bonding. Heck, I still remember during the original TBC leveling a Priest with a friend of mine on a Warrior. We would often run into this shaman while questing in the open world or in instances, so much that it felt as though we were leveling together, and we became friends (Hey Zarth! Wherever you are now).

With Dungeon Finder, while it’s possible that you’ll run into the same person or people in instance groups, you won’t run into people who aren’t on your server outside of those instance groups, and even if you can befriend them, you cannot cross-realm party or queue, so this is somewhat impactful for some people’s social experience in the game.

It depends on what you mean by communities. If you consider guilds that are focused on Dungeon Leveling, then I can see a compelling case being made. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Already addressed in the point above.

I haven’t seen this point raised in an anti-RDF context. WotLK Classic is already far easier than WoW Classic or TBC Classic, to the point that it’s a lot closer to Retail, where there’s little fear of dying while pulling lots of stuff.

We can definitely pick who we want in our groups. You can form a 5-person party and queue for random or specific dungeons with Dungeon Finder.

This is quite subjective anyway. Retail, as far as I can tell, is far more popular still than the Classic series, so just because some people who play Classic like to bash on Retail doesn’t really mean it’s in a bad state. Further, while the peak population of WoW may have been during Cataclysm, that doesn’t necessarily mean that something suddenly changed with the game that caused people to leave, but who knows?

I personally think that the Dungeon Finder did and does reduce shared social experiences, which can be seen as a negative, especially for those who may be drawn to this type of game specifically seeking shared social experiences.

Cool post! Glad you’re thinking about these things and sharing them with the community. :heart:

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So you think making things less abundant is better for the game?

This is what leads to retails AP grind systems and why retail has been bad.

MMOs now are designed about respecting players time.

If i want to log on and spam dungeons i should be able to, the dungeon should be the hard part not the group forming.

This is why FF14 has done so well.

You can log on and do the things you want without wasting time.

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I wish I could give you a million likes just for this comment here :heart:

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