The dungeon finder needs to be deleted from WOTLK classic

LFD was by far one of the most catastrophic features to ever have been implemented in World of Warcrafts history, and completely defeats the purpose of having classic servers in the first place. The core audience who fought for classic wanted them precisely to move away from the instant gratification, antisocial, and un-immersive features that have littered modern WoW. This applies to WOTLK as well. LFD did not exist for the vast majority of WOTLK’s lifespan, it wasn’t added until ICC and wasn’t a part of the original experience until the very tail end of the expansion.

A core part of the classic experience (and that includes most of WOTLK’s history), is that you have to make connections and build relationships to get things done in the game effectively. LFD kills this aspect of the game and forces everyone to sit afk in a lobby. Auto teleport to the instance further decimates the open world and is blatantly non-immersive; it reduces the game from being a full blown virtual world to a lobby. Cross-realm auto grouping destroys any accountability of the players, and 99% of the time you are never going to see any of the people in your group again. This notion that the game should cater to solo players who don’t want to find a guild or make any friends in the game is a modern retail mentality that has no place in the classic game, and retail already exists for these players. Furthermore, most of the time queueing as a dps really doesn’t take much longer to get a group than forming your own group. If you don’t have any friends to invite, then you have to whisper around on /who and eventually you get some takers. The only time you are really saving is traveling to the dungeon, but that only takes 5 minutes with epic flying mounts. Queueing in only a time saver for people on dead servers. Dead servers are of course a problem, but LFD only treats the ailment and not the underlying disease. The solution is to merge dying servers, not pull the plug on the core classic experience.

Blizzard has zero to gain by catering to the loud kicking and screaming minority who want retail features in the classic game. 99% of them will either continue playing while simultaneously whining about the lack of LFD as they have been doing the past 3 years, or move back to retail. Literally no lost customers by not catering to this audience.

On the other hand, if LFD is added into the game on launch, 99% of the core classic audience will quit. If these players are lost, classic wow is simply not profitable and the classic playerbase will die since they will have gone the route of catering to loud the minority who is playing retail or would play retail anyways if classic did not exist.

If the plug is going to be pulled on classic after WOTLK ends, or WOTLK is going to move on to cataclysm, then at the very least LFD can be put off until ICC as it was originally.

On the other hand, if we get the pipe dream of a WOTLK+ or classic+ expansion, LFD should never be implemented into the game. A tolerable compromise could be to add a more user-friendly group finder tool that already exists in the current tbc realms, but LFD will result in the mass unsubscriptions of the entire core audience of classic.

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LFD would be fine if it were server locked, and therefore Ignore lists would matter. The problem is not LFD, it’s the fact that people never see the same team members again.

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Why is that a problem

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LFD’s core problem is that there’s no punishment for bad behavior like ninja looting etc. Because even if a person gets ignored by a group and therefore never sees those 4 people again, the pool is so large that even without being ignored they’d never see them again.

So people know that they receive no punishment for bad behavior, and every other member of the party becomes a “Faceless NPC” no better than if you had a bot party to speed you along.

If you’re locked to your server, your reputation and actions in LFD will matter, because you’ll eventually get ignored by everyone on your server and have to do it manually.

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Server locked, and no auto teleport. Ideally, no auto-group either. Allow people to see a list in queue with their spec or even a description a person wrote, and they have to whisper or invite them themselves. Essentially just a more user-friendly group finder. A tool to make manual grouping simpler is fine, automation is not ok in classic.

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That’s not LFD though. You’re saying “Don’t have LFD, have something completely different”.

Also, I have zero issue with the teleport. Travelling to the instance is just dead time for most people, and the teleport allows them to stay out in the world instead of congregating at a transport hub until a dungeon is selected.

The authentic Wrath experience is LFD.

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The issue is that most people aren’t doing for gear they’re either leveling up or they’re getting badges.

I highly doubt the guy who rolls need on something he can’t wear is going to be blacklisted on his server because he stole a Scarlet monastery item…

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Incorrect, as I stated in the post. the vast majority of WOTLK’s history did not have LFD. It wasn’t added until ICC. LFD is universally hated by the core classic audience, and most will be happy to see that feature not appear. If classic is ending on wrath or moving on to cata though (no classic+), then yeah I guess if LFD is added in ICC and not on launch it’s whatever, relive the beginning of the end of WoW.

Auto teleport is bad, because it breaks the immersion of the game. It allows sitting afk in Dalaran all day, and does in fact reduce the population of the open world.

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Lol. I remember one time being queued for a dungeon. Attacked a thresher while I was waiting and dove under to skin him. The window popped up and, without thinking, I accepted it. When I came back to the world I was floating face down in the water. Talk about dead time . . . : )

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Occasionally seeing someone high up in the air flying over really doesn’t improve my experience, but in Wrath onwards my experience was the opposite because the teleport allowed me to continue questing, or farming, or doing achievements.

The biggest thing I wish I could do is queue on one character, then go out farming on another and have it switch back when I’m called for.

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An improved group finder would allow you to still do this, you’ll just be waiting for a whisper instead of an automated queue pop.

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We already have that, with things like LFD Bulletin Board, but people still complain about it all. Your solution isn’t far from what we have now, and it remains one of the biggest complaints from TBC.

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That post is massive. Creating a group and flying / summoning to a dungeon isn’t what players consider fun. What “destroyed” wow was grindy mechanics / time gating or metrics, class balance and or pruning . Lfd itself is fine

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It remains one of the biggest complaints from the loud minority of retail tourists who will continue playing or go back to retail. You only notice them more than the core classic audience because most of them aren’t whining in trade chat and reddit about the lack of retail features.

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Nah, dungeon finder is great. Bring it on Blizz

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WoW has always been a grind, it’s an mmo. The destruction of social and rpg elements are what killed WoW and what drove the movement for classic.

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No, it remains one of the biggest complaints from the vast general playerbase.

However, “NO LFD IT’S NOT CLASSIC” is one of the “loud minority” arguments. The general playerbase likes convenience, as evidenced by welcoming all the convenience that was added.

Lets face it, the “retail tourist” is still the one funding Classic. The ‘hardcore purist’ is a tiny tiny subset. Instead of railing against what was in Wrath, how about suggesting tweaks that make the experience better (like server locking).

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Because it’s “always been a grind” doesn’t mean some grinds aren’t worse than others. Bfa and slands are a great example of terrible time wasting rng grinds. Honor grind/ doing jc dailies/ getting exalted for an epic are grinds but one time understandable ones.

And it’s actually money which drove the movement to classic…

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Retail tourist, is in fact the loud minority. Before classic was released, you used to get 9000 downvotes for supporting retail features. Retail players, are in fact the minority. They are a customer that will play retail if classic doesn’t cater to their whims. The core audience who makes up the majority of the real classic playerbase, will be lost with LFD, which is real lost money.

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This is how social the game is without dungeon finder

Player 1 - LF1M DPS HR
Player 2 - whispers player 1 I’ll go
Player 1 invites Player 2
30 mins later
Group - tyfg

God Im gonna miss all that

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