I urge you all to let me know if I forgot any "pros" or "cons", but please stay mature and on-topic.

 

p.s. Instead of merely stating things like "It ruins community!" you should state why that is.

 

 

Pros:

 

• It allows everyone to partake in the Flashpoints, regardless of social skills.
  

 

• It can decrease the time it takes to form a group and start playing.
  

 

• It increases the chance that your average player would have both seen and played most, if not all, Flashpoints.
  

 

 

Cons:

 

• It takes away the incentive for players to "physically" meet up inside the game-world(s).
  

 

• It removes the necessity of being polite/nice to other players.
  

 

• It "promotes" absconding and rage-quitting, and by extension, opposes teamwork.
  

 

• It reduces the importance of Guilds.
  

 

• It makes Flashpoints a less appreciated event.
  

In my experience the will to do these flashpoints are not that strong, people are used to the WoW dungeon tools and cba to actually make an effort to get into a flashpoint.

 

Weather a similar flashpoint tool should be implemented I don't know, as it is only those who actually care about doing the flashpoints who are doing them atm, which is good, but maybe there's not enough of those players to achieve these flashpoint runs at a reasonable time-window.

 

I am conflicted about this, but on low servers in particular it could be a severe pain in the @ss to get these groups.

The other pro you forgot to mention is on imbalanced servers. If a server is predominantly empire or republic, the minority side has a much more difficult time finding groups due to the smaller population to pick from.

"-It takes away the incentive for players to "physically" meet up inside the game-world(s)."

 

All but two of the flashpoints in the game are located in the respective side's fleet, and those are located inside the respective faction's Ilum base so it's not like there's currently any incentive whatsoever to physically meet up inside the game worlds for flashpoint content.

 

You left out probably the most massive pro of an actual, working, LFG tool. With one it would be possible to look for a group without having to completely stop anything else you are doing. With the current system in place it's so inconvenient to be looking for a flashpoint group while not on the fleet that players practically have to shuttle over and spam general chat looking for one rather than spend that time getting their quests completed.

Edited January 16, 2012 by Poirot

Personally I think there is no need for a Dungeon Finder in ToR. In WoW and other mmos it kinda made some sense because the dungeons were spread out all across the game world. And lets be honest, that's a lot of running. In ToR, however, all instances are in the largest populated area, the fleets. If you need a group just pop in general, at any given time there are a good amount of people to see it.

 

It is not ideal I grant you this. Maybe a looking for group tool where it would find people of the same level or looking for the same instance. From there you can meet up and head on in would solve most of the pros and cons, I feel.

 

Just my thoughts on the subject. It would also seem that the cons of the Finder tool bet out to pros,

i see your points but still think a dungeon tool would be good i on a server that at peak times usally have 250 people on the fleet and almost 90% of those would rather get gear though pvping then trying to find groups for Flash points at the very least we could get a channel that goes cross planet so if im on like say voss while im questing i could see in the LFG channel if people are putting togther a group for a flash point on the fleet

there is already a lfg feature in game, under social tab. If everyone would use this that was looking for a group = problem solved.

Con for not having a lfg tool:

 

General chat is useless on the fleet, its spammed with lfg comments

Edited January 16, 2012 by OMGMYNAMEISTAKEN

For me, personally this is the biggest reason I am in favour of an LFG tool:

 

I loathe having to waste time either on fleet (see below), or sitting around trying to get a group, when I can be doing something more fun like xping, it's one of the reasons I mostly don't do the heroics on planet either, or come back to them when I'm five levels higher.

 

My play time will be shrinking soon as I am doing a part-time uni course and with assignments due in a month I will have less time to play so I do not want to waste it sitting around twiddling the proverbial thumbs.

 

I rarely go to fleet as I tend to either go from planet to planet or only to fleet to pass stuff from the bank.

"-It takes away the incentive for players to "physically" meet up inside the game-world(s)."

 

All but two of the flashpoints in the game are located in the respective side's fleet, and those are located inside the respective faction's Ilum base so it's not like there's currently any incentive whatsoever to physically meet up inside the game worlds for flashpoint content.

 

You left out probably the most massive pro of an actual, working, LFG tool. With one it would be possible to look for a group without having to completely stop anything else you are doing. With the current system in place it's so inconvenient to be looking for a flashpoint group while not on the fleet that players practically have to shuttle over and spam general chat looking for one rather than spend that time getting their quests completed.

 

we are currently encouraging people on our server Niman to all use the chat channel LFG, this way you can still do what ever u want and dont need to be restricted to the fleet to look for groups as its a global channel.

 

to join it simply type: /cjoin LFG

 

to leave it simply type: /cleave LFG

 

get as many people using this channel as you can and you will find improvments.

We've made our own global chat LFG as well. But that does bring up a good question......why in the hell is one not already provided to the player base?

 

Also people take shot and say that LFG will shoot the community in the foot, but they forget that one of the main reasons it was implemented was to make it so the less populated servers could actually take part and do the dungeons and not sit around twiddling their thumbs. Add the fact that all dungeons are in easy to get locations around the main hub and that a PuG group is still gonna have random unpleasant people in it that will roll on loot not for their class or just make an *** out of themselves and really the argument against it breaks down rather quickly.

 

However, I will admit setting up cross-server stuff like this probably does take a while to code and get working properly. So even if they do plan to add it, It will be much later on. Consider the major things they need to fix: Ability Delay, UI, Bugged/Overtuned Bosses in OPS/FPS, crafting professions....etc I can go on.....

The point is they have other bigger problems that need to be adjusted before they start really rolling major extra features out, and to be honest I just don't believe that new FP and OPS could possibly be ready for mass consumption, especially after seeing how current endgame PVE is.

cross server is the death of decency.

 

as far as there not being a lfg channel implemented. i believe they are simply learning from wows mistake. while good in theory, a server wide LFG give a large forums for trolls and that is all it will consist of. basically boils down to, we cant have good things bc the best things require responsible use.

We definitely need a more efficient way to find a loot than chat spamming.

 

Chat spamming sucks as a way to find groups, not only for the inneficiency of it, but also because it pollutes a chat that its not made for that.

 

Now, even if they dont want to create a dungeon finder (which i would lovge to be implemented but i can understand others dont) at least they need to make a proper LFg/LFM tool.

 

Something like this:

 

You open a window where you can select either LFG if want to set in it alone or LFM if you are in an incomplete group.

 

Then you can select either heroic missions, flashpoint or operations (you must have the level to do them), you chooose your role, or in the case of LFM mode the role/s you need to fill the group.

 

You also can, in the same window, see other that are LFG/LFM for an specific heroic mission, flashpoint or operation (with proper search functions and all that, better implemented than the GTN please).

 

Finally, you have a wisper button beside those the list shows, so that you can whisper them.

 

This is the MINIMUM we need, so we can stay away from chat spamming hell.

there is already a lfg feature in game, under social tab. If everyone would use this that was looking for a group = problem solved.

 

 

No it wouldn't, it sucks, its just a place to put an icon and a COMMENT. Its not a lfg freature, no matter how BioWare named it. We need a proper LFG/LFM tool.

Edited January 16, 2012 by GengisKahn

We definitely need a more efficient way to find a loot than chat spamming.

 

Chat spamming sucks as a way to find groups, not only for the inneficiency of it, but also because it pollutes a chat that its not made for that.

 

Now, even if they dont want to create a dungeon finder (which i would lovge to be implemented but i can understand others dont) at least they need to make a proper LFg/LFM tool.

 

Something like this:

 

You open a window where you can select either LFG if want to set in it alone or LFM if you are in an incomplete group.

 

Then you can select either heroic missions, flashpoint or operations (you must have the level to do them), you chooose your role, or in the case of LFM mode the role/s you need to fill the group.

 

You also can, in the same window, see other that are LFG/LFM for an specific heroic mission, flashpoint or operation (with proper search functions and all that, better implemented than the GTN please).

 

Finally, you have a wisper button beside those the list shows, so that you can whisper them.

 

This is the MINIMUM we need, so we can stay away from chat spamming hell.

 

I could get behind this idea, and in a way the building blocks for it are already there, I just think it may need to be in obvious place like the Warzone button is.