It's ridiculous how long the wait time is, we're faster at using chat to group. Common opinion seems to be 'not enough healers' that slows it down. Problem is, I have my level 50, mostly Columi geared, healer waiting over 2 hours for a single HM Battle of Ilum run. It's not very encouraging at this pace.

that's cause you are waiting for a specific instance. Time will always be longer if you queue for a specific dungeon.

Couple of things I noticed on my first couple of LFG tool uses.

I had defaults selected and went to first group.

1) One person didn't show right away (bio break) and another group member started the vote to kick. I did not vote (was trying to ask group member why he started this when it had only been a few minutes) but member was kicked anyway. A non-vote shouldn't be counted as a yes! I would assume a group vote should be unanimous in order to kick.

2) We ran into the "group is valid" issue after member was kicked and had to drop the group and rejoin queue. This is well documented by now I assume.

3) When queuing again, now my defaults were set to have HM FP tier 2 (Lost Island) selected even though it was deselected the first time around. As far as I could figure, my defaults were now changed to match that of other members of my first group. That shouldn't happen. I didn't have HM Lost Island selected because I am not appropriately geared for it and my defaults shouldn't change based on what other members of my group have selected.

Just throwing those out though I am sure others have already put more indepth info out there on these issues.

I'm really enjoying the LFG Tool with a few exceptions:

The Role Icon's seem to be random and I would also like to see something that tells you what role you were assigned when the queue pop's (yeah I can move my mouse over my role icon or look but something larger would be nice. But that's just the lazy in me speaking.)

My other issue with the LFG Tool is something I think may be just affecting me. First time I used the LFG Tool I got in an EV group. We ran it but I never got the rewards for completing the run. Now I can't use the default queue setup to join a group. I have to manually deselect EV (which prevents me from completing the daily reward) otherwise it'll NEVER actually put me in a queue. Now that I've done 4 in a single day and 8 total FP's this week I doubt I'm going to get either of the titles based purely on the fact I couldn't join the queue's unless I deselected EV....which is technically not leaving it as default.. Put in two bug reports but they aren't showing up in my list of tickets. wwwwwwwwrrrrrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyy

Two things so far:

1.) It's annoying as hell being dropped outside of the instance instead of back where we ported from, and having to travel halfway across the galaxy to get back to that location (to be able to pick up where we left off).

2.) Gear checks: I'm not trying to be elitist, but there are some instances (such as HM Lost Island) that a newly and undergeared level 50 is simply not going to be able to do.

I'm sure that we can all agree on at least this much - that being properly geared will allow a group a chance to beat enrage timers; survive hard-hitting abilities or area damage effects and the like.

Quite simply, there needs to be some type of minimum gear threshold that needs to be checked on a flashpoint by flashpoint basis. If not, it will basically defeat the purpose of the group finder. Folks will opt out of using it to prevent continual wipes from pickup groups using it.

I was dismayed today when I realized it would not let me queue for FPs I had out leveled.

In live I haven't been doing FPs due to being unable to find a group while questing on planets. So I've built up a bunch of FPs that I want to do but am horribly out leveled for. The group finder was my hope for finally being able to do the ones I had missed.

It should in my opinion let us queue for any FP we meet the minimum level for. Being over level should not prevent us from queuing. Now I do think it should try to match levels of the people queuing as closely as possible but I think after say 15min the level range for matching should be expanded and continue expanding until a group is found.

i gave it a go, not what I was asking for in the first place. I will probably continue to not group with anyone in the community outside of my guild until a proper Group panel is added to the game.

1) Who ever thought random grouping of people for enjoyment was a good idea, was probably loaded at the time.

2) How hard is it to create an extra panel in the guild/who window that lets us post a group looking for more players with the quest name/classes requested/ and maybe a small comment box to add group flavor (ie: companion looting ok/zerg run)

You spent all this time on a random grouping mechanism that a lot of us were against in the first place. We didnt want you to do the work for us, we just wanted a more efficient way to do it aside from spamming a chat box. It blow's my mind that people actually thought random grouping was a good idea.

edit:

There should be no queuing at all period. Im so dumbfounded after all the complaining that this is what we were given. I've supported bioware on most things so far, but I completely and utterly HATE this.

So AGAIN, I will refuse to use the tool, run the dailies related to it, and promote community growth until a proper group panel is added that lets *US* define what content/players/roles we want. You do that, ill play with people outside of my guild. If not then oh well, we will enjoy all the 4 player content we can.

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.

i'v had no problems with grouping weather it be in middle of the day, or when i get home from work at 12am, tho i'd like to see a cross server option at least, so to improve the lfg for the raiding partys, i'd agree with ald on the poping out of the group at the entrance of the flash point, its a real pain to be doing a qeust whale your waiting for the team to form, and u got like 7 out of 20 units to kill but ur group is ready and u gota join the instence or risk being thrown out by the leader, "KEEP THE LEADER SYSTEM" i'v gotten in so many warcraft groups where 3 guys were acting like a-holes but could't do a thing about it cuse THEY control the vote, or where my team would be all guild but 2, and one of them would talk trash to the other dps, and how i tank, and about any thing else just run his mouth off when i told him to shut it, he simply attack the boss and kept up attacks on mobs so we could't remove him from the group.

all n all tho the lfg system feels effective, learning neerly every flashpoint in a day

Liked

Wait time: Shorter than expected. I'm DPS, and on WoW group finder that gurantees me a half hour to an hour wait. So good for that. I was in a group in ten minutes.

Worked: I actually got to a Flashpoint. Truth be told I was expecting to go from load screen to, "Something went wrong so we kicked you off the server. Sorry!"

Wipes: I died, got put right back at the start point, went back in. No errors.

Disliked

Teleport: I was taken from Corellia to the Fleet and just dropped there. I wasn't expecting that, and found it inconvenient and kind of old-fashioned. "We put just enough work into getting you here and through it, after that you're on you own."

No gear requirement: We had a DPS in Recruit gear sporting an Expertise color crystal who thought he was in the right. Speaking as a PvPer, those kind of players are wrong and need to be told so. Work in a mechanic that won't let just any capped player waltz in and hold up his group. You have item rating on armor pieces already, how about that?

Grouping: This was a big issue for me. Tank died in Foundy against HK-47 due to mechanics and quit the group. Instead of just requeueing, we had to go into Fleet and recruit another one, which completely defeats the purpose of the Group Finder. Also, I noticed you can't queue for Hard Modes at least while in group. To be blunt, that was an extremely brain-dead oversight and I truly hope that's different for Operations, because I can guarantee the majority of the population wanting to use the Group Finder for Operation and even Hard Mode runs will be guilds or friends trying to fill holes in the team slots. And this is speaking as one of the casual players who actually wanted this thing. Seriously, that should have been what went into the PTS to begin with, not an afterthought.

TLDR: - You have the idea, but that's about it. Needs more work.

Not sure if this is possible or even desirable to some, but it would be something I would like to see. As a person with 3 Lv50 Characters (soon to be 4), I have 3 characters who can play any role in the game be it tank, dps or healer. It would be good if group finder could show how many of each spec are queued for certain content. I like doing flashpoints and ops and really don't care much whether it's as a Guardian Tank, Shadow DPS or Sage Healer. If there was some way to see that ok, we aren't getting pops because there are not enough tanks queued I can switch to my tank and queue or if there was a shortage of healers or dps, I could use one of the others. I know a few people with multiple 50's and most of us are happy to come as whatever just to make a group so this would be a godsend for us. It means that everyone gets a chance to try some content rather than just having 20-30 dps all queued waiting (and moaning probably) because LFG won't pop because there are too few healers or tanks.

I second this.

I second this.

Yeah great idea

cross server isn't going to make the queues shorter if you still don't have enough tanks and healers. Why can't people understand this?

What you say is only actually true for the most populated realms and even there probably only for doing random lvl 50 instances, ie. places where a queue actually forms in the first place. Even in those situations the queue is most likely so small that there will be a huge variation of different roles available at different times. So no it's not about roles at the levels of the tiny player pools this kind of single server LFD is going to have. To have the problem you say makes x-realm pointless requires a much larger pool of players at the first place.

I play on of the largest EU servers and even we struggle to have more than 30-40 people in the fleet at peak these days. You don't generate the kind huge pools to draw from that what you say would require. I've been leveling alts recently and there were less than 20 players from 30-40. How the hell do you think that kind of population is going to able to support any kind of grouping while leveling? And I stress again this server is one the highest populated left EU side.

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.

I'm sorry you feel like you can make such a judgment about my character from one simple post. I could turn this around on you and ask you why you would expect to be able to do the hardest content as soon as you hit level cap when the rest of us spent weeks farming gear that was content appropriate and then why you would force yourself into a group as a tank to try and tackle content your gear just cannot handle but I won't...

If you can't see why that is an imposition upon strangers then there's not much I can say to change your mind. It's nothing personal at all. I didn't gate the content using gear, that was Bioware and if your game has gear gating and believe me, this one certainly does, then you have a responsibility to take that into account when creating a group finder.

It's obvious, from your post and the tons of others that some people just don't "get" this concept and there will be many people who do exactly what you did. They will que for everything that is available (why wouldn't they) and then the group that gets them will be stuck with them. A run that would have taken an hour will now take double/triple that time if it is even possible to finish.

As a tank, you should be more aware of what your gear is and isn't capable of more than other classes. For example, why would a person join an instance with bosses that hit for 21k when they only have 18k HP?

You accuse me of being mean and the cause of you not having fun and I say exactly the same to you good sir. It is NOT fun trying to heal a tank that doesn't have the gear for an instance. You should try it sometime before you start raking people over the coals.

I would be happy to run gear level appropriate instances with you, I love playing with people too. I que for everything, even though I vastly out-gear everything in that group finder precisely because I am a group minded player that enjoys meeting/playing with people, just as you say you do.

Don't assume, just because I point out a huge flaw in an upcoming feature, that I have an elitist agenda, or that I think I am better than you because my gear is. That's ridiculous. Almost as ridiculous releasing a group finder with no gear check and then expecting the community to police itself in the matter...

First of all it´t working - I mean i got more runs and social points on the test server than i got on my main.

Issues:

1) Lack of information

What i dislike about the Group Finder, that i cannot tell what the current status is. Sometimes queuing takes seconds sometimes hours. I cannot tell, how many people are in the queue, if it does not have enough people to pair good groups, ...

I would like to see:

• Is the group finder missing Vital roles - E.g. does not have enough tanks
  
• How long it takes for an average Group to be assembled
  
• How long i am in the queue
  

2) Bugs

2a) Gathering does not seem to work

I tried to scavenge droids in Black taloon and Hammer Station and it never succeeded

2b) Replacements do not seem to work

* Once telling "invalid group composition" - with a group out if 1x dps, 2x dps/healers - so missing a tank

* Once unable to queue with a fresh group and one member leaving right away (free fleet pass?) - where the queue box stayes grayed out and told us - "already in group"

2c) Stuck in a dialogue

Were were starting the droid dialog in BT on the bridge and it would not start - We aborted like 5 times without any success or helpful error message

2d) Stuck in different instances

Upon group composition we ended up 3/1 in different instances - exiting and trying to reset did not work - either due bugs or player inabilities.

3) Travel Home

After Completing the FP i want to be able to travel to the spot i started - It is nice to be teleported to the Flashpoint for the start - but it is really annoying if you have to run back to the planet you are questing four times a day.

Sorry, I misspoke. I meant after such a long wait, Battle of Ilum was what I got. I'm default queued for anything.

Are you DPS? If so, I imagine that may be contributing to your queue wait =[

Because you shouldn't be pugging HC operations.

1.)

my own counsel i will keep on - what i "should" and "should not" should be my concideration, not those of BW...

2a.)

small guild: only 6 members available, just 2 DPS needed. why not picking them up from the tool? they dont have to know the OP, they can wear only tionese, they just have to do a little bit of extra damage, nothing more. WHY NOT picking up some fillers????

2b.)

only story mode - come on! on my server (in the older days having more pop than now) random pugs for HC OPs were STANDARD and no problem at all. so why "disallowing" them? you may go 1x through story mode, a 2nd time, maybe a 3rd time and THAT WAS IT.

Yeah great idea

Amazing idea.

One problem I see is that though I can take a quest that is above my level. But I can't use looking for group until I am at the right level.

I think that if you can pick up a quest then you should be able to use the find a group tool.

1) One person didn't show right away (bio break) and another group member started the vote to kick. I did not vote (was trying to ask group member why he started this when it had only been a few minutes) but member was kicked anyway. A non-vote shouldn't be counted as a yes! I would assume a group vote should be unanimous in order to kick.

It's here to let you out of situation where you have 2 afk players.

Only feature I think it desperately needs, is CD or anything to discourage people from fishing for easy 'random' flashpoints. 2 or 5 min sitout if you decline group or not accept it in time. Wouldn't hurt anyone that really can't get into instnce right now, but it would preven getting pop with same people over and over until thwy get 'random' flashpoint they like.

Some feature to transform your group into normal one after finishing content would also be nice, would alow to requeue quickly as group.

Cross Server Queues to get more healers / tanks

Cross server queues will only increase the sample size for the group finder. Healers and especially tanks are usually hard to find.

For one the tank and the healer usually gets the blame when things go wrong. As tank your group can work with you or against you, but it's the group that decides which way things go.

If you have a group finder queue with 10% tanks, 20% healers and 70% dps on average on a single server, a cross server queue will not change that. instead of 5 tanks, 10 healers and 35 dps you will have ten times of then but the lack stays the same.

You need to encourage people to tank / by being nice to them, not to pull aggro and please leave CC's alone.

On PTS i have had groups that worked perfect, that would mark and even leave unmarked CC's alone / other groups will simply AOE anything or just dot a mark.

Group finder only works with flashpoints??

what about Heroics!! OMG....we NEED it for Heroics more than anything!!

With the problems of finding people on when I play, I was really hoping that this would truly be a GROUP FINDER and not a Flashpoint finder... :mad:

I am unhappy with this....

If you queue up for a warzone and group finder at the same time, once one of them prompts you to queue up and you accept it it should remove you from the opposing queue to avoid receiving another queue pop-up once inside of an instance, and coaxing you to remove yourself from said instance and leaving your allies behind a man short.

When I selected travel now to Planetary Quests through the Group Finder from inside of a warzone (not sure if the warzone played any part in this) it took me to Coruscant by the crafting trainers where I already was before I accepted the initial warzone queue. It did not group me with any other players, didn't take me into any instanced areas, and the Ground Finder queue button showed a green dot on it, but would only display the 'Travel Now or Travel Later' dialog box when I clicked on it, thus not allowing me to leave the queue. I had to log out to get around this issue.

Also when I clicked the Group Finder multiple times, I would receive the Travel dialog box multiple times stacked on top of itself, thus forcing me to have to close each dialog box individually.