Dungeon Finder Needed Badly

Yeah, the entire game is a giant labyrinth of instances, when the player bubble hits 50 this game is going to be barren

The problem then is one of simplicity and fragmenting the player base.

The more options that Bioware adds to a potential LFG tool, the more complicated and burdensome the tool gets. People who are just starting out won't understand the options that are presented to them and then may/will get frustrated by the group they get. Not to beat a dead horse, but another reason that WoW's LFD tool is just a select role and go is because then it's much easier to get into and use and understand. This allows more people to use it, thus more groups get formed.

And the more options that are available to form group types, the less likely you will get into ANY type of group. Whether it's a choice for same vs cross server. Or a choice for what loot types. The more ways that a community can be split up, the less ways they can be grouped easily and quickly.

Now I know some of you haters are gonna say "well I can handle complex ideas/tools" and that's great. But a lot of people can't or won't. Simplicity isn't always best, but it sure does work well a lot of the time.

The only con i find on this, is that maybe if is cross-server like.
People might want to start a cross server friend list (since you liked to dungeon with some cool guys from other server), that would lead to a cross server friend chat and party for LFG featuring cross server friends.
Kinda the thing they did on wow with the real id party (dunno if rift have it).

It's a normal human thing to ask more after having what you want.
Bad thing of this is that the chain wont stop here, pvper's will want some kinda of same features, people later will ask for not just flashpoints.
It's not a bad thing, but it leads to a high amount of work that isn't need it now (in my opinion, they should focus on doing/fixing other things right).
It would be more easy to improvise the LFG that is working right now, like allowing to select flashpoints that you want to do right now and showing in the list people from same server that wants to do the same thing.
Btw i don't think actual LFG is bad, people just don't use it so it seems quite useless since no one checks the list =/

I just stood in fleet station for 20 minutes LFG....no replies, not one. 88 people on my server in there....whats the freaking point? how is that social? im so bored with this game!

I guess I'm not understanding because it was never an impediment to me finding regular groups (ie a guild) after the addition of LFD.

This is the basis for your inability to find like-minded people. You can't talk to strangers.

No there doesn't. That's the point that you guys miss so profoundly. You don't have to be forced to interact with people in order to interact with them.

Do you guys really wonder why your 'community' was ruined?

Again, the lack of social tools may hinder you from finding your MMO soul mate(s), but cross server can and should include so much more than what was included with WoW's version.

I don't always have friends who are on-line, and when this happens there are two options (under both prospective scenarios):

1. Find a tank in LFG. Maybe he's really good. Maybe he's a cool dude. Maybe he gets on vent and we have a great time. So I friend him and the next time I'm on at that time we do another instance, and so on and so forth.

2. Hit the queue button. A tank magically appears. There's no difficult content (thanks to LFD skill dilution), there's no social attachment, there's no socialization (vent or otherwise). I don't know if this dude is cool, he's probably decent, but it doesn't really matter because everything is easy. He leaves and I don't really bother with him because I can just hit that queue button again next time.

I'm all for systems that brings player together in an environment where there are challenges to overcome, and where they can group together and interact conveniently thereafter.

Cross-server systems don't do that.

Automatic systems don't do that.

I personally liked unilateral kicking.

WotLK also disenfranchised a large swathe of people who really loved the game.

There needs to be a balance, but the balance isn't spoon feeding the "casuals" whatever they want, and screwing over the people who built the MMO genre in the first place.

I left WoW to escape the community corruption of LFD.

But apparently the LFDers aren't happy just having their one game, they need to have all the games.

It's like politics. The people who want to ban marijuana won't just not smoke marijuana, they don't want anyone to do it.

This is a faction balance issue, and needs to be addressed somehow.

Player A: I stood in the /fleet for an hour and couldn't find a group
Player B: You need to make some friends
Player A: How do I make friends without joining them in groups first?
Player B: /logs out to troll LFD forums

Isn't that what I'm doing now?

I can respect that. And for the present you are probably right. However playerspace is already fragmented anyway and there are already existing loot policies. You must just choose when to allow the fragmentation. Pre- by allowing like minded to easily find and group together. Or Post- and deal with the drama after the fact.

I imagine most groups would use the default loot policy anyway, so it would not become a significant burden on new players IMO.

Penny of prevention... yadda yadda.

http://ajs.com/ajsw/images/0/08/Bcprogression.svg

That is the progression path from the BC expansion of WoW, you had to do all those instances/quests to beat the expansion. It made it impossible to have alts and gelded guilds who lost key members who had put members through the entire process again if they lost someone.