Hi again everyone, my name is Toni Phillips and I’m a part of the production team here for Star Wars™: The Old Republic™. Now that Group Finder has launched, there are some areas that cause a bit more confusion than others and I wanted to give you a few more details and clarifications about how the feature works.

 

You may have seen some of this information in my PTS posts prior to the release of Game Update 1.3. It’s still all relevant, but a lot of the information in this blog is brand new! I want to focus on how the system works today, especially tied to how roles are selected and how groups are formed.

 

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Edited July 12, 2012 by AlysonBridge

What about expanding the Group Finder to individual quests and Heroic group content?

 

For quests a yellow button at the quest's title in the tracker to join a queue for that particular quest so i can group up with people on those same quests (and hopefully continue together from there),

 

For Heroics a player could group even if they dont have the quest, and much like Flashpoints players would queue for all heroic quests in a planet and be teleported to the HC quest location. That way players could engage in pve group content while leveling as an alternative to solo questing or warzones.

Edited July 12, 2012 by celldoom

It would be nice if you could /invite someone when you're in a FP through group finder and one of the members gets disconnected or parts the group. Right now you can only queue for a replacement and hope to find someone decent. The ability to /invite someone specific would be very helpful. Right now the only way to do this is kick all the members from the group and then re-invite them all as group leader.

The group finder fails to take into account true human behavior. Queuing for tier 2 flashpoints solo is useless right now, because dumb players who haven't ever completed them still join the queue, and causes the group to wipe and unable to complete the instance. It needs to have a system where if three random people have been grouped and the 4th declines the queue, those three people can stay queued and wait for another person to join instead of being placed at the top of the queue and have that same 4th idiot decline the queue pop.

What about expanding the Group Finder to individual quests and Heroic group content?

 

For quests a yellow button at the quest's title in the tracker to join a queue for that particular quest so i can group up with people on those same quests (and hopefully continue together from there),

 

For Heroics a player could group even if they dont have the quest, and much like Flashpoints players would queue for all heroic quests in a planet and be teleported to the HC quest location. That way players could engage in pve group content while leveling as an alternative to solo questing or warzones.

 

This Bioware.

Edited July 12, 2012 by Vespassian

i love this:

 

For example, if you are a Jedi Sage that is allocated to a damage tree and you are assigned to a healing role, you will have to travel to the respec vendor and reallocate your skill points before you travel to the Flashpoint or Operation.

 

yeah, because people who queued with a sage dps as a healer is gonna go respec.

 

no, they're just gonna pretend to be a healer and hope for an overgeared group. the difference in queue time between a healer and a dps is too great.

 

the group finder NEEDS to take AC talents into consideration. you need to have more points in a tree (tanking or healing) than other trees, to sign up for that role.

the group finder NEEDS to take AC talents into consideration. you need to have more points in a tree (tanking or healing) than other trees, to sign up for that role.

It also needs to take into account that I am not a Tank despite playing a Shadow

 

Edit: Or at least remember that I've clicked the Tank option off when it randomly decides to put it back on.

 

 

Also, there is a situation I'm not sure it takes into account. Today I queued for 1 Flashpoint specifically, the last one I needed for the mount achievement (other than Lost Island). A group finally popped but someone was afk so I was put in front of the queue. I then waited longer than when I first joined.

 

So I wonder if the group matcher could possibly be coded with the intelligence, using my example again, to make the next 1 or 2 random groups the flashpoint that I wanted since I was at the front and the people who clicked random wouldn't have minded getting the one I wanted.

Edited July 12, 2012 by AelixVII

I like the group finder, but it seems to rarely work at giving a reward. I wish it let us know more often if/when it's going to work. There's a lot of guess work for the player.

 

 

Group finder rewards are not dependable or predictable

For example, we did an 8 man normal mode operation. 7 of those individuals were in the group at start, 1 queued separately. (We did this because someone decided after the last time we didn't get blackhole comms that it must be because you're supposed to have at least 1 pug if you want your reward). Half way through this operation, someone disconnected and reconnected. At the end, nobody got a reward again. The next day, we did everything the same, no disconnect, but 1 of the 8 people did not receive a reward.

 

It's a huge gamble going all the way through content just to find out if it's going to work or not. The words "daily reward available" is not an indication in any way that you are going to get that reward in your current group for doing the content. It is difficult to run experiments to find the cause. For normal mode operations, you can only try twice per week to get rewards because the lockouts (unlike the rewards) are consistent.

 

Seeing the words "Daily reward available" is of little comfort when you're sitting in a group-finder group with the corpse of Soa in front of you. In fact, it's infuriating because that's supposed to be an indication you will get your comms.

 

Group finder has memory problems.

Group-finder seems to manually re-check and un-check boxes for me when I'm not looking. I will purposely NOT select DPS, because I'm a healer, close and re-open the window only to find that it queued me as both.

 

Group finder's security features break it

Someone disconnects and reconnects and I'm told it's a new group, that I should "travel now" to my new group's location. If someone wants to switch characters, it seems to break it. If someone drops and you need to find a new person, this seems to break it. It's 5 black hole commendations. Is it really such a crime if someone comes in half-way through and gets the reward for killing the last boss? Is it really better that it should break the group, thereby forcing everyone who already killed the first couple bosses to have lockouts and be unable to obtain rewards from any group finder group?

 

Look at this quote from the blog:

One of the greatest challenges when grouping in a game like SWTOR is losing people from your group. Group Finder allows your group leader to easily find replacement players.

To me the words "easily find a replacement" indicates the intention is for the group finder to allow you to still get rewards for a group in progress, not just queue up for it and go without rewards.

 

 

I'm left with questions.

If the group-finder is actually supposed to allow people to come in half way and complete the content, why doesn't it always? If group finder is supposed to allow you to queue a full group and still get the reward, why doesn't it always? I would be somewhat satisfied if they added the words "But not with this group" to the words "Daily rewards available" whenever the group finder has decided it won't give rewards. Waiting until the last boss to find out what group finder has decided to do today is frustrating.

Edited July 13, 2012 by Suzina

I can't help but think that if you have to make a blog post explaining how the LFG tool works, chances are you've over engineered the crap out of it.

I can't help but think that if you have to make a blog post explaining how the LFG tool works, chances are you've over engineered the crap out of it.

To me the biggest issue is: the people who need this guide most are the ones who are the least likely to read it...

Edited July 12, 2012 by AelixVII

To me the biggest issue is: the people who need this guide most are the ones who are the least likely to read it...

Funny but true.

 

That being said, group finding needs some refinements.

• Do not prompt group invite if a player is in a WZ.
  
• Option to port back to original destination (In the works but needed yesterday)
  
• Allow players to port back to origin destination if a player left the group so they can do other things while waiting. Then allow them to port back in.
  
• Allow players to port to destination more than one minute after invite.
  
• Check player gear before allowing them to queue for higher tier content.
  
• Check player specs before allowing them to queue as certain roles, especially tanks and healers.
  
• Access to a general LFG chat to players can replace/invite others more conveniently, instead of waiting
  
• Ability to browse players actually LFG
  
• Prevent players that left PUGS to re-queue for at 15minutes first time, +5 min cumulative after. Reset timer after 24h.
  

yeah, because people who queued with a sage dps as a healer is gonna go respec.

 

no, they're just gonna pretend to be a healer and hope for an overgeared group. the difference in queue time between a healer and a dps is too great.

 

the group finder NEEDS to take AC talents into consideration. you need to have more points in a tree (tanking or healing) than other trees, to sign up for that role.

 

Yep I had this problem last night commando was put into our group as a healer but was in fact DPS and had never played as a healer. Needless to say we had to disband. This seems to be the biggest problem with it at the moment and Bioware you have to fix it. Players should have to select 1 default role and not be able to queue for 2.

Edited July 13, 2012 by Morrolan

Hey, how about when people or yourself disconnect, and once they recconect it offers them a shuttle to a new HM, no matter how far you are in in your current. I Did 2 HM the other day, first time i got DC second time someone else, both time we did not get the reward. Can bioware fix this ussue?

Why doesn't it respect the role you have chosen???

 

I tried the Athiss FP twice through group finder, and twice we failed to complete, both times because we did not actually have a healer. The first time, I was assigned damage as I had selected, and someone else healer. They said they weren't that good at it, and the game automatically listed them as healer. We wiped 3 times on the boss, then gave up. I tried to take over heals after the 'healer' died, but died soon after, as I was not specced for or had practice healing with that toon. I assumed that the person had just forgotten to unselect healer from their role and blamed them.

 

The next day, I queued again. Only as damage, because thats what I'm specced for. Get a group, see that I'm designated the healer. Tell the group straight away and apologise, sayiny I only listed damage. One person doesn't even want to try without a healer, which I understand, I didn't think there was much point, so the group disbands.

 

What is the point of asking us to select a role if Group Finder is just going to ignore it anyway??? I would rather wait until there is a full group with an actual healer and an actual tank instead of expecting someone to respec for those roles just because they can.

 

Until this is fixed, my experiences lead me to believe that group finder is useless.

 

TL, DR: Even if you select only damage, Group finder can and does allocate you as a healer or tank just because your class can be that. Until this is fixed, group finder is broken and near useless.

Question:

 

If you are locked to a story mode EV and KP can you still que for a daily operation? Or can you technically only receive two daily rewards in a week for operations because there are only two possible operations in the group finder?

What I don't understand is why I get locked out for 15 mins if someone else broke up the foursome. Tonight someone left, then another guy quit, it was just me and another person. I had been in the queue for an hour prior. I figured I'd leave my teammate (we'd both exited instance) and we'd both requeue separately. 15min lockout.... what?

 

Seriously? Who thinks this stuff up?

lol, the "feedback has been great." While it quelled a lot of the hemorrhaging of accounts you put out something so buggy you took a month to fix it and it STILL doesn't work correctly. This is why you need to keep things on the PTS for more than a month and actually listen to people's feedback.

 

Honestly, besides all the bugs people are still complaining about, I'd love to see an estimated que time.

>The difference is that when your group enters the queue to find a replacement, your group's priority is much higher than when queuing to form an initial match - this is all to help you find someone as quickly as possible!

 

false.

 

if you kill a first boss you will never find a replacement and never be able to invite smbdy to your group.

 

so the ops via LFG is impossible

>The difference is that when your group enters the queue to find a replacement, your group's priority is much higher than when queuing to form an initial match - this is all to help you find someone as quickly as possible!

 

false.

 

if you kill a first boss you will never find a replacement and never be able to invite smbdy to your group.

 

so the ops via LFG is impossible

 

 

Agree, LFG shouldn't restart the instance just because you manually invited someone. That's BS

So if I was a pvp player and have never played through any pve content whatsoever, and i want those group finder rewards; mainly due to gear, i'm boned if i get stuck in ops through the group finder?

Funny Thing is this was all posted in the Group Finder feedback thread back on PTS.

 

So, some of you may have seen my posts in the forums and might have been wondering, “Who is this person?” Well, here it is! My name is Antonia “Toni” Phillips; I’m an industry veteran who has been working on SWTOR for the last two years, most recently with the Group Finder team.

 

A solid Group Finder system is very important to us and we have been keeping a close eye on the forums and your feedback. We are evaluating all of the feedback from the PTS and I wanted to take a moment to respond to the most popular topics we’ve seen.

 

Thanks for all the responses and keep it coming!

 

 

Shuttling to Starting Location:

One of the issues most commonly noted is that you are not returned to your original location when you end/exit a Flashpoint or Operation.

 

This is not a bug; let me explain that a little bit better!

 

In the game today, without the Group Finder, when you exit a Flashpoint or Operation you are NOT shuttled back to your original location - you're taken to the entrance.

 

Although this is currently how the Flashpoint and Operation exit technology functions, we understand the importance of modifying this functionality, especially for the Group Finder. We already have a plan to provide this as soon as possible. The moment we know what update this can be included with, we will let you know!

 

[...]

 

P.S.: I am still wondering what needs to happen, that I get a Planet Group pop. If FP >> Planet, then I need a tank and healer to queue only planet wise? I got a planet group once on PTS and ever after on 50's or 25's.

Edited July 13, 2012 by alrun

If I happen to DC during the HM FP, I shouldn't lose the reward for BH comms when I reconnect and continue in the same group, however, that's what happens.

 

Now there is no incentive for me to continue, I just wait 5 minutes and requeue leaving my old party to look for another, and hope it's not a slow day for tanks and healers...

Thanks for the post Toni. The Group finder obviously has some problems but I think it's clear that most players find it to be a great tool. I know I love doing my daily HM and racking up those BH comms. Been doing some FPs I haven't seen in ages!

 

Two points I would make:

 

1. Can you please rethink what determines who is allowed to mark targets? In PVP we can all do it, but it's limited to one person in PvE unless the leader makes someone a lieutenant. At the very least, tanks should always be able to mark. Maybe even everyone.

 

2. "Queue for replacement" sounds very easy to exploit. The way you explained it, you can queue with a friend if your AC supports a tank spec, leave or get kicked, and get your friend(s) to the top of the queue. I don't have a solution in mind, but I have a feeling people are doing this and more may follow.

I apologize if someone posted this already. I do use the Group Finder Daily.

 

But something it REALLY NEEDS is a louder sound effect/music selection when a group is found similar to the notification when a PvP match is avialable.

 

A lot of players could be alt-tabbed on a different window while waiting. Or doing a few real world items while waiting. Even with the SWTOR window right on my monitor the sound effect is so low I have to be looking right at the screen to notice it! Also if a player is in area like the fleet with a lot of sound effects they may miss it. Usually there is at least 1 group member that doesn't respond and it is probably due to that reason.

 

This would be an important fix as sometimes it takes awhile to match a group especially when choosing custom FP, etc.

 

Please look into this Bioware!

 

Thank you.

Edited July 13, 2012 by OPTIMUSP

My only question for this is why did you leave out queing for the Hardmode Ops and even for EC?