LFG System Enhancement Ideas

Community WoW Community Council
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Evening everyone!

I frequently use LFG to find raids, m+ keys, and PvPers. I know Blizzard has been working on enhancing the LFG system, so I wanted to offer a few other suggestions that I believe would help the community. I would like to preface this post with the understanding, that for some reason (which could spark an entire different discussion), most players do not decline undesired players from their LFG queue. I’ve asked a few why do they do not, and the response ranges from them believing it’s rude to decline people in queue, or they just don’t feel like they need as more will keep queueing in. So many players sit in a LFG queue (which also has a cap for how many you can queue into) unnecessarily for a large amount of time.

PVP LFG:

Currently, individuals LISTING queues can set a minimum PvP rating requirement and iLvL requirement. Unfortunately, those SEARCHING the LFG queues are not offered the same courtesy of being able to filter your desired PvP ratings and iLvLs. I believe it would be beneficial to those SEARCHING to be able to add a filter of which PvP rating requirement minimums and maximums they wish to view. For example, someone searching for 2.4k+ rating teams has to manually review each listed queue to view the lister’s rating and ensure it is compatible with their desires. Considering the rating, there are not a lot of desired results so the searcher spends a lot of wasted time. Therefore, I would propose that the system give the searcher an option to add a criteria to only show teams with PvP ratings above and below a certain thresholds. This also assists in lower rated players from having to sift through higher rating players who they would not likely queue with. It also alleviates players from being dependent on the truthfulness of the LFG subtext and/or having to inspect everyone upon joining.

Additionally, I believe the PvP LFG system should provide information on the SPECIALIZATION of the class in the queue. For example, right now you can hover over a queue, see “(0/1/1)” with the icon for “Priest” and “Druid” in the group. The searcher is unable to determine whether that is a healing priest or healing druid, and whether the druid is Feral or Balance if it is a DPS build. I propose that the LFG system showed the specialization of the player rather than the class. Those wanting to play certain compositions would need to either whisper the leader or wait to be accepted and inspect before determining whether it was a waste of time or not.

PVE LFG:

Currently, players are forced to hover over teams listed to discover which of the raid’s bosses are already dead. It can be rather obnoxious when you simply want one boss. I propose that Blizzard offer a search criteria wherein you can “checkbox” the bosses you want available when searching. This should then only populate the raids in LFG with those bosses available.

Furthermore, players also have to scroll and hover through teams to discover which positions the listed raid still requires. I propose that Blizzard also allow the searcher to list their role (tank/healer/dps), and listing raids to select what is needed, so that players can make quicker connections to apply.

Mythic Plus LFG

It’s frustrating when you’re queueing into a team that has a slot open, only to not realize that team is waiting for a few specific classes. (IE: Wanting a Mage, Shaman, or Hunter for Bloodlust/Heroism). As a result, I propose that Blizzard offer an opportunity for listers to select which classes they desire, and searchers to list themselves so that they do not spend time applying to teams who have no interest in them.

Additionally, currently players have to list the level of their key in the subtext when creating the raid. Searchers are able to search by either key level, or dungeon type. So if a player wanted to pursue a +20 Sanguine Depths, he/she would either have to search all the Sanguine Depth key+ queues, or search all of the +20s (which actually populates all the +19-+21s) in queue. I propose that Blizzard add a function allowing players to give the option to list the key they current have and its key level, as well as search for specific dungeons and their key levels. With this filter, a player who has a +20 Sanguine Depth can list that they have their key, and desire +20 Sanguine Depth members. Anyone searching for that specific key and dungeon would have that player listed. Alternatively, if that player did not want to run his/her own key, he can just search that he/she wants to view +20 Sanguine Depths and only have those queues populate.

Everything above I believe should be added as an option, not a default. I believe it would be appreciated by players who do not want to shuffle through a lot of irrelevant data just to find the PvP team/Raiding Team/M+ Team that meets his/her desires.

Let me know your thoughts :slight_smile:

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I like these ideas especially the PvP LFG stuff. I wish we could see which specialization the player earned the rating on too. I think ive run into teams where it is almost extremely obvious that a Dps is a Healer just for the sake of being in the group/so they can Q effectively ruining the teams chances of ever winning. It would obviously help people find someone more qualified and trust that LFG person joining without creating a “can we trust this random” tension.

It could be like a win rating per spec/role

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I think I’ve run one or 2 M+ ever. I’d run more of them but I’m a solo player and finding groups “manually” using the “premade groups” selection in the dungeons and raids tab is more trouble than it’s worth for me, especially with having no prior rating or anything.

I’m a pretty good healer and if someone who is smarter than I am in regard to M+ could figure out a way to add an “M+” option to the “Dungeon and Raids” tab the group finder I would definitely queue for them pretty regularly.

In other words an M+ finder a lot like the existing Dungeon Finder. Just randomly match people based on rating IN A ROLE and make the keystone part more automated and behind the scenes. In any case I know almost nothing about this and someone smarter than me should think this over. I’m pretty sure there are a lot of people that think of M+ like I do.

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The only thing I feel I can think to add to this right now:

Add m0 to the random dungeon finder. At this point, there’s no reason not to. m0s were originally excluded as they were tuned to require coordination, and thus were made to be “endgame” for dungeon players. However, M+ now covers this nowadays, and for the most part, m0s go unrun by most of the community after the first month or so of an expansion.

That said, I do recognize being able to queue for m0 every day would ruin raid gearing at the start of an expansion - at which case I suggest locking the m0 queue behind the same week LFR unlocks. As at that point, raiders will have had 3 weeks to do m0s, as well as one for M+ and Normal/Heroic raids, so they would have no reason to spam run m0s. This would also go for dungeons added mid-expansion - lock those from random LFG until the LFR of the new raid unlocks.

As it stands, just getting into a m0 as a casual player sucks, from personal experience. I had to farm De Other Side god knows how many times for my legendary powers on my hunter/warlock (I literally gave up on my warlock after 30-50 attempts, I lost track, and ended up just spending 105 Memories buying it through RNG lol), and I was denied over and over, just because I played Survival or I had no io score. (Yes, there are people who for some reason check your io for m0s) In a perfect world, this wouldn’t happen, but this is hardly perfect.

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This is an interesting idea. Blizzard would have to incorporate a rating system similar to RaiderIO for each specialization. I can definitely see the pros and cons to this, as you can definitely play a class and have a lot of knowledge about all it’s specializations, yet not always climb rating with it due to team needs. IE: A druid could climb 0-2099 as feral, then strictly do 2100+ games as restoration. Obviously the restoration games would be more complex than the prior feral games, so the system would need to be complicated to account for that experience differentiation.

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Would actually let you attempt other specs without worrying about being punished with rating loss for PvP

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Ah I see what you mean - a specific specialization rating for each class rather than a class/character rating. I would be on board with that actually.

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Both could work honestly

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This is awesome! Blizzard implemented part of my recommendation of showing the specialization in the Arena LFG by adding the text of the class specializations when hovering over the queue. Thanks Blizzard! :smiley:

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LFG should also let the person stay in battleground Qs/Brawl/Soloshuffle Q AND look for LFG groups to join and sing up instead of dropping all the Qs to attempt to join a group that may not end up taking you and ruin your time spent waiting for BGS

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I agree. This would be a nice addition. It’s so frustrating when I drop queue to attempt to join a pre-made just to be declined. Made my entire time in LFR queue a waste.

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Improving Group Finder Language options

Reason

Currently for group finder there is a certain limitation among the options to find a better suited group for your gameplay, which among them include a systematic problem that has been present for quite sometime now: language barrier and discrimination.

Although this problem is more towards non-english speakers, among the america server for instance where we usually share space between Oceanic, Brazilian, Latin American and American servers, it should serve as a base for a problem that grows in excluding specific people from certain servers (Ragnaros, Quel’thalas, Azralon, etc) due to a language barrier and regardless if they are actually good players or don’t have issues with a language barrier as they are more than proficient with english language, they are still kept away from playing with other servers (we are not even talking about some now forbidden add-ons that allowed players to exclude certain servers).

However, time and time again it has been proven that a good amount of non-American players are able to speak English freely and vice versa, making it a more inclusive and fun environment when given the chance. So, it kept me thinking that is not a server exclusive problem, as many players from South America or other regions play as well in NA Servers, like myself.

Possible Solution

Although this may not entirely solve the issue, it could help to refine search and allow players to opt for better language options: A simple inclusion of a language option while forming up a group or searching for one. Some other games have already included this option. Long term, could help several players, i.e players currently playing in latin american servers or others could opt to form a party with both english-spanish, english and portuguese but if don’t feel like it and feel that language could become an issue, opt for only spanish speaking but allowing both party leaders and those looking for a party to have better options.

This also leads up to a suggestion in improving the search tool for group finder, as it is now just currently limited to searching through text based options which are not optimal. There should be an Advanced Search option which could add certain filters which are not limited to but could include: dungeon, goal (completion, beat timer, etc.), min ilv and more that are already present on the “Start Group” option but are not able to filter properly or at least it doesn’t feel as it for both new and veteran players. The language option could be included as well here allowing a more flexible and robust search for a party, while not limiting it to just default filters, or text based ones.

There are other filters that could be added on the group finder options, but that should be for another topic, for now I would like to focus on this one. Any thoughts?

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I think this applies to EU as well as a I know a few people who really had a hard time playing when they moved to EU realms because the russians and the language barrier makes it extremely hard to coordinate in a extremely punishing game when we cant understand each other and its basically the same for the NA servers with Spanish/Portuguese speakers so im all for some kind of changes

2 Likes