Hello,
The LFD tool has certainly sparked some controversy around it’s exclusion. It appears that many in the classic community believe that the original LFD tool marked a turning point in WoW. The pressure to include it back into Classic, from a different section of the community, is not insignificant. There may be a way to please both sides.
The following is a specific example of one way this could be accomplished, but I am not advocating specifically for it. I am just using it as an example for a course of action that I would be happy with, as someone that believes LFD did great harm in the long term to WoW. I believe that the WoW classic team with their dedicated resources can find an even better solution.
The reason the LFD tool is damaging to the social experiences of WoW is that it promotes a mentality of players being interchangeable and disposable. For example, people would be kicked from a group for playing poorly instead of being guided by their group in a social experience. In another, less dramatic example, a group would run through a heroic dungeon without saying a word to each other or having to communicate at all. In my opinion, poor social experiences like these are so undesirable, they warrant game design specifically to prevent them.
The WotLK Classic team could implement LFD tool, but it would take several additional changes for it to be satisfying for those that see the change in direction that LFD introduced to the original WotLK, and dislike it for that reason:
Penalties for creating negative social experencesr,
-Incentives to play with the same people repeatedly over a long period of time
Changes to the content to promote player communication.
“Penalties for creating negative social experiences” like what? For dps players (most players) just the idea of going back to another queue is itself a potential punishment for negative behaviour. Sure, they “might” get away with it… but they also might just get kicked and back in the queue. There’s also the debuff (though it was added later? maybe? /shrug) that prevents players queueing again. Are we talking more extreme punishments, like those (theoretically) brought on by reporting players?
“Incentives for playing with the same people repeatedly” A big incentive for a lot of social people, I would imagine, is playing with friends. Something that LFD itself doesn’t prevent. If anything, it makes it easier. There’s no “I’m locked, sorry” for example. Another incentive would be knowing the level of players you are going in with… If you’re looking to do the achievements, probably still best to manually find people or (again) play with friends.
“Changes to the content to promote player communication” mmhm… what are we talking here? Making it harder? Using WoW’s ingame voice comms as actual mechanics? Making it easier, so people can just relax and not stress about perfect gameplay, if that’s what they so desire?
I’m not a game designer so any specific suggestions I give would be inherently flawed, I think.
Instead, I’ll give further thoughts on each issue:
I think the penalties should be specifically to make the social experience of working with a lower performing player preferable to kicking them and requeueing for the faster clear. I think the “deserter” debuff was good to stop people from leaving. I think there is design space to make kicking someone less preferable than working with them.
Incentives, playing with friends is fine and desirable. Making friends is even better and in line with the WotLK Classic pillars. I think there is room for design that promotes repeatedly grouping and doing content with the same players. Playing with people repeatedly could give a bonus to emblems earned, or something similar.
Making it harder might accomplish more communication, maybe. But retail dungeons are harder than wotlk ones were and there is still not a lot of communication there, partly because it’s so easy to outgear the instance. The WotLK Classic team suggested some kind of increased difficulty or challenges for heroics later in the patch cycle, so I think they might already be thinking about game experiences that promote teamwork and communication.
I really do think people blow the “underperforming player gets kicked” idea out of proportion a lot of the time. I like going fast. I’m not gonna slow down for you, or wait if you feel like going afk halfway through the dungeon. I’m also not going to kick you except in the most extreme of circumstances like if you’ve been afk since we loaded in and we’ve been in the dungeon for 10 minutes asking what you’re doing.
penalties for kicking lower level players further incentivizes 2) grouping up with friends, which yes is a good thing, but also means less chances to “make friendships”. There definitely is room for promoting repeated grouping, but there’s already systems in place that benefit this. I do a lot of dungeons with a few friends of mine because one of us is an enchanter, so he collects all the materials from the run. (I still just buy the mats, but the others get taken care of. Just personal preference). It also tends to be much smoother because I’m used to healing them, they are used to my healing… we click well [is that the saying?]. I’ve found the same to be true for random dungeons too. I have done [literally] thousands of random dungeons. Timewalking is some of my favourite content in retail - admittedly, having “god tier” gear definitely helps. Especially as a tank (or lesser extent, healer) people tend to want to regroup… and if they don’t, well, that’s fine.
I agree, increasing difficulty doesn’t have the intended effect of increasing socialization, but it might result in more communication. Personally this is what I’ve loved about raiding (most of the time) is that the bosses tend to require communication and planning, but trash (and some bosses) tend to result in more banter/chill conversations … and as you improve and familiarize yourself with the fight and the players you group with, there’s less needed comms. and more banter/chill conversations.
There is no compromise needed… there is no change needed.
Dungeons do not matter, their loot/rewards do not matter.
Playing with 4 randoms from your server especially if you on a mega server is the same as playing with 4 randoms from other servers.
If you want a social gag-reel / simp fest for a crappy player… create your group on your server.
Making finding a dungeon feel like going to the DMV or dentist is literally one of the dumbest things I have ever heard.
RDF is a time saver on a part of the game ( forming a dungeon ) that is annoying.
Nobody wants to be your friend… were not gonna become life-long friends in a dungeon. Why are people acting like the norm for the past two classic expansions is some social oasis in dungeons… its been the msot toxic thing that it literally made Boosting through the entire 60-70 level range a thing… BECAUSE PEOPLE DONT WANNA RUN DUNGEONS ALL DAY.
The real middle ground would be just making the tool they have in retail be in WotLK. Its a great tool. Sure, RDF is better but I am willing to compromise a bit. But its hard to say… hey… I will get it a try… when the tool provided I consider a waste of time even looking at.
I don’t see anything ignorant about it. RDF is the way to go. I mean if 5 mans don’t matter then why does it matter if RDF is there or not. Really only if they have major impact would you need to remove it IF it actually caused damage.
Really good point. Its hard to sit around saying we don’t need RDF because 5 mans don’t matter as a case point. I mean if they don’t matter then just put in RDF to keep people busy doing nothing. No harm no foul then. It is pretty clear to me removing RDF is just a means to time gate the situation.
Its a little worse too. Because what is really the net goal here?
All 5 mans that aren’t of the current expansions get used much less. So tons of assets basically there just turning wasting space when other wise they could be HIGHLY used. Is this a goal? If so accomplished.
Fewer 5 mans being ran over all. Yeah, that is what this will do. Is this really a desired goal? If so accomplished.
Everyone becomes friends and enjoys each others company. LOL, yeah… that will be an F.
The net goal is to push more people toward buying a 70 boost.
With RDF you have the option of questing and queueing with all the other servers who are leveling 1-80 to run dungeons and make that grind from level 1 a little easier / more fun.
The only clear reason to remove RDF is for this purpose… to act like it isn’t Blizzard goal is ignorant.
RDF doesn’t hurt a social experience that doesn’t exist in WoW… Raids and Arena are the end-game… Dungeons / BG’s are stepping stones toward these, and ultimately DO NOT MATTER.
DO NOT MATTER = If you can run 1,000 dungeons a day… it literally does not matter. Your character will not be the richest person on the realm, your character will not be the best geared character on the realm.
Toxic unsocial players don’t understand the need to build and preserve a good community because they are largely selfish and unsocial in their behavior. Its like getting a known criminal to agree on new laws to protect a neighborhood from crime.
Their botched LFD tool is garbo. The only way to make if functional is to literally make it a carbon copy of retail’s LFM tool.
This is literally just a massive waste of Dev time, energy and resources, and is likely causing a plethora of bugs, because every time new-blizzard changes anything in the older expansions they manage to make dozens of bugs and other problems crop up.
By being obnoxiously obstinate on a dead point they are actively making the game worse.
There is literally nothing they can do to the LFG Tool they “Designed” to make it better, than either RDF or retails LFM.
That’s not even touching the ridiculousness that is “Preserving the social aspects of classic”.
If I simply refused to play with every bad or toxic player, I’d be soloing.
Not everyone in my guild is available to run my preferred content on my schedule, and my server (the only oceanic PVE server) is relatively small on horde side.
It’s worth the risk of either a hardcore player that I need to keep up with, or a casual player that might need some coaching. I can socialise with these players as much or as little as I want during and after a dungeon with either my battletag friends or my ignore list.
I really don’t understand anyone who is up in arms about the mere suggestion of RDF- but that’s my 2 copper I guess.
so would RDF be better if it was like UBER and we rated our experiences and if we rated them highly we would be more likely to end up in a group together again?