Was just playing on PTS and I got vote-kicked from a group expressly for not spacebarring through dialogue. This is a deal-breaker to me in a game so focused on story. The only way this is going to work is if the ability to kick in an LFG group is entirely removed.

I put this in the suggestion box yesterday. They need to some how make a way for people to specify "story run" when they queue. Otherwise, players will either have to skip the story or run the risk of being kicked.

If adding the "story run" parameter is too difficult, then make it harder to boot a player.

There currently seems to be no gear check with the group finder.

 

This means that fresh 50s can que for the hardest flashpoints regardless of their gear.

 

This will lead to many people being kicked and many groups being formed that are undergeared for content.

 

I hope this is only a bug but after 4 groups last night with only one able to actually get anywhere and 3 that had to be completely disbanded due to not being geared enough for Denova, I suspect this is by design.

 

Might want to rethink that...

I am glad I never ran with you then. I had a not so fresh 50 who for the past few months has never had a chance to run with other players, thus I was only geared with level 50 gear for the run. I was playing my sith juggernaught and I was tanking pretty good and people were leaving because it took a while to kill a few bosses, but nobody was complaining about my lack of gear or about my tanking ability. In fact they were thanking me for doing such a good job, and I wasn't wearing the top tear gear. Sometimes games are not won by your gear, but by the way you play your toon. When a group can coordinate and are willing to just strategize with each other, even those of us who don't have all that wonderful gear can have a great time and get geared up. It's people like you that make the game un-enjoyable for those of us who just like playing a game and playing with other people.

Within moments of trying to use the group finder I ran into issues with it.

First there is no indication of how many player are actively looking for a group. More troublesome is there is no indication of how many players within my level range are actively looking for a group, Its a safe bet there are level 50 players out there, but when your level 15 or 39 you have no way of knowing if anybody in your level range is online, let alone looking for a group. Sitting around waiting for a que that is never going to pop isn't any fun.

Second there is no indication of the number of players roles looking for a group and what roles they can fill, When I pull up the group finder I'd like to see that there are currently (5) Damage, (2 Healer) (0 Tank) looking for a group.

Third I'd like to see some kind of minimum equipment rating required for the group finder. For Example If you want to Run Hardmode Eternity Vault or Hardmode Kragga's Palace you need to have an average equipment rating of 136 (Columni). There is nothing worse that wiping over and over because players in your group are under geared for content.

Fourth the group finder should give players an incentive to sit around and wait for the group rather than going and doing something else. For Example giving a temporary buff to stats relative to how long they were waiting for the group. Alternatively a group buff to increase the loot drop rate/quality would give incentives for near full groups to use the group finder and meet knew players rather than going through their lists of friends.

Fifth It would really be useful to opt to search for players that speak languages, more useful on European servers, but still useful none the less. Being able to search for players with filters for spoken languages will make life a lot easier for non-english speakers.

Sixth the group finder really demands a ready check system to go with it. People who form groups via the group finder tool are far less likely to converse than those who form a group using the chat menu.

Seventh you should consider renaming the Group Finder tool to something more akin to "Quick Group" or something along that lines, the social system could still benefit from a more standard LFG tool that doesn't que content but displays available players with relevant information. City of Heroes has a great example of a group finder that allows you to pull up players and sort by level ranges, class, role, planet, and minimum equipment rating. The "Who" system currently in the game isn't nearly extensive enough and lacks the ability to filter members. If I have for example a guild group of 7 and need one more, I'd like more control over the random player

Eighth you should consider lengthening the Logout time while qued for group content. I've been logged out twice on the test server while using the group finder tool before it found a group.

Sometimes games are not won by your gear, but by the way you play your toon. When a group can coordinate and are willing to just strategize with each other, even those of us who don't have all that wonderful gear can have a great time and get geared up.

You're simultaneously right and wrong.

You're right that skill overshadows gear in many instances. But you're wrong by discounting the fact that gear checks are part of the treadmill that keeps people playing MMOs. They are built in by design, whether you like them or not. Long before the days of crap addons like Gearscore, we had inspect. If we saw a player whose gear was clearly not up to par, we didn't take them.

For instance, in classic Warcraft, you didn't realistically take a Warrior wearing full dungeon set 1 gear (Valor) and expect him to be able to tank Blackwing Lair. Ok, apples and oranges there, I admit, talking about dungeons to raids so let's try this: You wouldn't take a tank wearing level 30 dungeon gear into a level 58 dungeon because he's ignored 28 levels of incremental gear up- and side-grades, and wouldn't be able to tank the instance without frustrating everyone else.

No one is asking for a gearscore style setup where players can see specific "score" quantifiers; However, an internal check is necessary because gear gating is a critical design of MMO progression AND end game. Ergo, you can't have a tool that ignores gear gates. The gear check has to be completely internal and invisible to players to prevent exploitation but it has to exist, otherwise you're just setting up a situation for players to be frustrated.

I'm sorry Bioware, but this group finder seems really half baked so far.

 

1. No gear check for level 50+ FPs/Ops will equal frustration and bickering.

 

2. You can't pick up FP quests without going to fleet, which negates being able to queue from any where.

 

3. Exit area doesn't put you back where you where before the FP. Which means you'll have some people dropping just to get a free fleet pass.

 

4. level 10 2+ Esseles and BT requiring a full party with tank and heals.

 

5. EC being included in the same tier as the other Ops.

 

6. Planetary quests don't include individula heroics, making it's use very limited.

 

7. Same server means that it will only work well during peak hours.

 

 

 

And that's not mentioning the bugs people have encountered. These things need to be addressed if you want this to succeed.

 

 

My ideas...

 

1. Add some sort of gear check that will only allow queuing into certain FPs and Ops if you meet that score.

 

2. Allow the daily conflict quest to be accepted through the GF tool. Also, make the individual quests come through the players personal comms upon arriving at the FP. Have the comms come back up after the last boss so the quest can be completed.

 

3 Make leaving the instance or using "exit area" put you back to where you were when you entered. In the very least, put you back to the nearest med station in the place that you were originally.

 

4. Make Esseles/BT only require 2 players of any type.

 

5. Make EC it's on seperate tier so it's not included with the other two SM ops.

 

6. Make each planet have a sub category that includes individual heroics. I'd love to queue up for "Enemies of the Republic" before leaving Coruscant, but the LFG tool currently doesn't allow this.

 

7. I know you won't make this cross server yet, but you guys should probably work on it just in case. 1.3's only real show stopper is the LFG tool. If no one can find a group... well, people won't be happy.

I agree with all of this excpet cross server part.

For EC SM,i think there should be a check for those who queue for it, codex for finishing story mode EV/KP or maybe hard mode EV/KP for example. Since EC SM is a tier 2 operation,the players should have finished SM EV/KP before entering this operation.

As others have said,i would love to see how many Tanks/DPS/Healers are queuing at the moment,most players have 2-3 characters so they can switch char to fill the role that is needed.

Love it so far. But, as the OP mentioned, being dropped outside of the instance instead of back where we ported from is annoying. I won't complain about the travel cost, but the travel time to get back to what we were doing is frustrating. At this point, it seems like we just stay on Fleet and queue - which is hardly different from staying on Fleet and spamming "LFG!!!" in chat.

Agreed, the problem, I believe, is that low level Flashpoints require the player to turn in the mission at a terminal outside of the entrance of the instance. I don't think that moving these dialogs to a mere holocom (so that you can port out of the instance ending up in the previous place you were and still complete the quest) is an easy task for Bioware. Perhaps they should make a "teleport to previous location" available once the quest is completed (some, like low levels, complete at a terminal, others like Lost Island complete inside of the Flashpoint itself), rather than just once the Flashpoint per-se is done. All of which should require much coding and unless already being worked on, probably not a system coming anytime soon.

In a way, I agree with the fact that quests should be given for a flashpoint if you're using the group finder. However, there still needs to be some social aspect to the game, and it's not impossible to go pick up the quests, then plop yourself in the group finder and go do dailies or something. At least you can pick them all up at once, yeah?

Even so, for ease of use, I would definitely not complain if I could pick up the quests right from the group finder.

I'd kind of like to discuss additional incentives for putting a healer or tank in the queue... An additional commendation, for example, instead of cross-server.

Please excuse my insistence on cross-server yesterday. I was severely frustrated. XD

OK so then the tool is really crap, they keep limiting the number of ppl that can join a group, really understand how they think now... again ...

 

dps LFG The Red Reaper never done before, someone up for? ....

It's to prevent level 50's from joining a group that doesn't want level 50's in their flashpoint! Content needs to be appropriate for the right levels. I would be pissed off if i always got some 50 in my group for Black Talon.

Same feedback here. As a L20 it only lets me queue for Athiss. What if I want to do BT for social points?

That's the problem. You just want to farm it for social points instead of for the appropriate intention of it. You want content trvialized because you want social points. That's just silly.

I'm sorry Bioware, but this group finder seems really half baked so far.

 

1. No gear check for level 50+ FPs/Ops will equal frustration and bickering.

 

2. You can't pick up FP quests without going to fleet, which negates being able to queue from any where.

 

3. Exit area doesn't put you back where you where before the FP. Which means you'll have some people dropping just to get a free fleet pass.

 

4. level 10 2+ Esseles and BT requiring a full party with tank and heals.

 

5. EC being included in the same tier as the other Ops.

 

6. Planetary quests don't include individula heroics, making it's use very limited.

 

7. Same server means that it will only work well during peak hours.

 

 

 

And that's not mentioning the bugs people have encountered. These things need to be addressed if you want this to succeed.

 

 

My ideas...

 

1. Add some sort of gear check that will only allow queuing into certain FPs and Ops if you meet that score.

 

2. Allow the daily conflict quest to be accepted through the GF tool. Also, make the individual quests come through the players personal comms upon arriving at the FP. Have the comms come back up after the last boss so the quest can be completed.

 

3 Make leaving the instance or using "exit area" put you back to where you were when you entered. In the very least, put you back to the nearest med station in the place that you were originally.

 

4. Make Esseles/BT only require 2 players of any type.

 

5. Make EC it's on seperate tier so it's not included with the other two SM ops.

 

6. Make each planet have a sub category that includes individual heroics. I'd love to queue up for "Enemies of the Republic" before leaving Coruscant, but the LFG tool currently doesn't allow this.

 

7. I know you won't make this cross server yet, but you guys should probably work on it just in case. 1.3's only real show stopper is the LFG tool. If no one can find a group... well, people won't be happy.

Finally a worthwhile post with actual feedback, even though i disagree with some points. It's up to Bioware to implement some of these ideas now, especially #6.

That's the problem. You just want to farm it for social points instead of for the appropriate intention of it. You want content trvialized because you want social points. That's just silly.

The Problem is the tool not you not me, it should let you see all the groups forming and join the group you want, I am sure the tool doesn't looks at your "ignore" list.

Here are a few thoughts:

• I wish there were some sort of indication of the relative difficulty of the flashpoints. For example, Directive 7 is a level 50 flashpoint in Story Mode, but it's also a Tier 1 Hard Mode. I'm going to assume that if I'm using pretty unimpressive level 50 gear, I'm probably not equipped to do HM Directive 7. But something that makes it clear would be nice, because I think it's probably true that all Tier 1 hard modes are not created equally.
  
• I wouldn't mind if there were some visual indication of how many other people are in the queue. I don't know...some nights I'm really torn about whether I should bother logging in or not, and if I do and I put myself in the queue, I'd like to know if it's looking even remotely possible I could get into my desired Flashpoint.
  
• Also, some indication of which roles are queued. If I have a level 50 DPS Juggernaut and a level 50 healer Sorcerer and I notice the queues are light on healers, I might want to log in my healer.
  

It's to prevent level 50's from joining a group that doesn't want level 50's in their flashpoint! Content needs to be appropriate for the right levels. I would be pissed off if i always got some 50 in my group for Black Talon.

You're going to an extreme. There are plenty of 50s that haven't done mid 40s FPs due to lack of population. Denying them access is silly via the Group Finder is silly. Denying a lvl 15 from doing BT is silly. Denying anyone from doing any lower level content due to a lower level range is plain silly. You want MORE grouping and socializing, not less.

While it's true having a 50 in a normal BT run will trivialize it, it doesn't mean that the 10s-12s in that group will be unhappy. In fact, I'm sure many will appreciate a fast, safe run with one less person rolling Need on gear. And it means that 50 (if farming social points) might be running BT all day, which in the long run, ultimately helps people starting new characters.

The fringe case of a people not wanting a higher level to "triivialize" their content is probably a much smaller group than those folks that would be happy to have a higher level if it simply meant that the group can actually happen.

Just my 2 cents.

I noticed the very neat new tutorial system earlier. The LFG system could really benefit from having one such tutorial for each boss in an instance to lay out how the fight is supposed to go and what to look out for.

(It would also put another game's similar system really to shame, which is always a nice bonus.)

I noticed the very neat new tutorial system earlier. The LFG system could really benefit from having one such tutorial for each boss in an instance to lay out how the fight is supposed to go and what to look out for.

 

(It would also put another game's similar system really to shame, which is always a nice bonus.)

Wouldn't that unfortunately dumb down the encounters too much?

When the Dungeon finder was introduced in WoW, I seem to recall that Dual Spec already existed, so it was a trivial task for people to queue for whichever role they had the gear and talent sets, and if you happened to enter a Dungeon and you weren't in the right spec, you could, within 30 seconds and with zero cost, switch to that other role.

Here, we are "permitted" to list ourselves as being available for 2 separate roles, but, especially at 50, if you are in a dps role and get selected as a healer, you will need to come out of the instance, travel across to the main space station, re-spec at a fairly major cost -- I believe it will still cap out at something like 150k? -- then travel back into the instance.

Yes, technically that can work. In practice, it won't -- you will actually have people trying to use the 10 points or so that they have in the appropriate tree to do the job of the 31 points, and a great deal of frustration will result.

TL;DR: Dual (or Multi) spec is needed, and quickly; you can already achieve this by giving the Field Respec perk to everyone for free, and removing its' cost.

You're going to an extreme. There are plenty of 50s that haven't done mid 40s FPs due to lack of population. Denying them access is silly via the Group Finder is silly. Denying a lvl 15 from doing BT is silly. Denying anyone from doing any lower level content due to a lower level range is plain silly. You want MORE grouping and socializing, not less.

I don't think he's going to an extreme at all. If you're going to kill my experience for doing a Flashpoint, I don't want you in my group. If I really want to do a social run, then I can always try to arrange it the old fashioned way--by simply asking. I honestly wouldn't bother using the group finder at all if it were putting higher level characters into my Flashpoints.

Now if BioWare want to code in a "social run" toggle, that'd be fine. But I'd never use it.

Wouldn't that unfortunately dumb down the encounters too much?

The information is already out there in YouTube videos and guides, so not really. Having this information available in-game, having it be always up-to-date and having it coming from the authority that should know it best would eliminate problems that arise when someone in the group is operating under information from an old or incomplete or misunderstood guide.

Add checkbox to group finder:

"Allow grouping with people outside my level range."

Done. NEXT!