The reason the game became more anti-social had nothing to do with RDF

[Vynez-faerlina]

You’re not wrong about a lot of what you say, but you are wrong in that RDF tools didn’t ruin community.

I tanked in OG through BC and ran dungeons as dual spec fury prot in LK. Even then finding groups, much less GOOD groups, was difficult. When you found good people you wanted to stick with them and run multiple dungeons back to back. You added them to your friends list and I made many IRL friends that way.

With the LFD or RDF or whatever it completely ruined that dynamic. I would always tell people, “do NOT leave group after we finish. We’ll queue for another.” Even after people agreed and were even seemingly excited at the prospect and we had a fast, clean run with no deaths, someone would leave group to queue again just out of habit or something, then the group would fall apart. Like 9/10 times.

Tge problem with LFD/RDF is there is no investment to forming a group, so people have no incentive to try and create something that lasts.

It also makes the dynamic toxic because people will leave if a tank or healer lets them die even once, much less if you get a wipe. This becomes even more prevalent later into the game when you’re gearing up alts or for people who start late. If you’re an undergeared tank and dps is used to end game geared tanks that let them just zug before the pull even gets in position and the tank in blues is struggling to hold agro they just drop group without saying a word.

You also get more people who can’t be bothered to even type in chat because these random strangers that took no effort to find aren’t worth talking to.

What’s more, instantly teleporting to dungeons then right back to your original location makes overland travel pointless.

It just detracts from the overall experience and makes it feel like much less of an MMORPG and more like an action RPG, which is the problem with retail.

RDF mechanics, 25 daily quests, no attunements, face roll endgame content, and multiple tiers of the same content all introduced in LK were the beginning of the end of WoW.

Edit: Oh, and 15 different currencies with new ones coming out every major patch

[Croofus-remulos]

Spending time in LookingForGroup is a social experience… it just isn’t a good one, IMO. Trolling. Politics. Stupidity. Macro-ed ads for boosting services and GDKP raids.

Actually getting a group together for a dungeon isn’t much of a social experience. For most people, it’s a purely functional/utilitarian exercise. 1 tank, 1 healer, 3 dps. That’s all there is to it.

Don’t get me wrong, I USED to hold the idea that LFD was responsible for the deterioration in the social experience in WoW… until I played TBC Classic. What I learnt in TBC Classic is that if players want a social experience, they will create a social experience. And if players don’t want a social experience, they won’t. That’s all there is to it. LFD never had anything to do with it.

[Zaalg-mankrik]

@Croofus-remulos

Don’t get me wrong, I USED to hold the idea that LFD was responsible for the deterioration in the social experience in WoW… until I played TBC Classic.

This 1000%. I don’t know if WoW Classic devs actually read this forum, but I was one of the people saying Wrath would be better off without LFD…for years. I would make posts about how Wrath was the peak of WoW, if not for dungeon finder. So if Blizz was actually listening to ‘the community’ then I was one of the people influencing their decision. And I was dead wrong.

What opened my eyes? Same as you: I played TBC Classic. Specifically on Mankrik. The LFG channel is atrocious. It’s endless buying and selling dungeon runs. Boosts after boosts. GDKP after GDKP. This is what Blizz cares about preserving? Please, this needs to die and LFD will make it so players don’t have to resort to that terrible system.

[Hennesscee-remulos]

@Croofus-remulos

Don’t get me wrong, I USED to hold the idea that LFD was responsible for the deterioration in the social experience in WoW… until I played TBC Classic.

YEP THIS LOL…
/4 is a god awful nightmare of boost selling and trolling. Whats so bad is that there are no tools in the game to report people for actually trolling in LFG. You can ignore them, report for name or something minor. But nothing to stop people from being straight up jerks. Now it isnt everyone, but every server has that group of 5 or 6 players that do nothing but make everyones else life a living hell.

[Bloodythorns-whitemane]

@Zaalg-mankrik

The only problem with the dungeon finder is it’s cross-realm.

I’d argue that the problem is that the rest of the game isn’t cross-realm. Back in the day there were many people I met through RDF that I would have loved to group up with again, but they were on different servers, so…

That technical hurdle doesn’t really need to exist any more, but “the spirit of muh community” crowd would absolutely flip if Blizzard started down that path with classic.

[Zaalg-mankrik]

Well, if it wasn’t cross-realm then you would be meeting people on your realm.

It’s the forming of the party that is the big initial hurdle to overcome. Once that’s done players find it much easier to relax and socialize. And that’s what lfd provides.

[Bloodythorns-whitemane]

@Zaalg-mankrik

Once that’s done players find it much easier to relax and socialize. And that’s what lfd provides.

Absolutely.