Give me a legitimate reason to NOT have a LFD tool.

Can you name one that has?

Nevermind that the point is still utterly irrelevant, as difficulty of content and difficulty of preparing for content are mutually exclusive concepts (though one could argue that it's a bit screwed up when getting a group together for a flashpoint can be more difficult and time consuming than actually running the flashpoint)

ah. I initially skipped reading that because the formatting was so messed up.

You're not correct about the amount of improvement it makes. Just increasing the number of people hitting the queue significantly improves queue time.

two cases

First case: 3 servers, single server lfg tool

• server A: average wait time is ~15 minutes; so it forms a group every 15 minutes, on average, or 4 groups of people every hour.
• server B: average wait time is ~20 minutes; so it forms a group every 20 minutes, on average, or 3 groups of people every hour.
• server C: average wait time is ~30 minutes; so it forms a group every 30 minutes, on average, or 2 groups of people every hour.

Average wait time across servers = 20 minutes.
best average wait time across server= 15 minutes.

Second case: same 3 servers, cross server lfg tool.
Same people queuing as previous.
Across all 3 servers, 9 groups* of people form every hour.
Average (and best since it's only one) wait time across servers = ~6 minutes 40 seconds

You always need a group if you want to experience some of the best content in the game: the flashpoints. As you pointed out, you always need a group of some kind at the level cap. In the end, forming groups is an essential part of this game. Why do we need a barrier to something that essential?

And I don't know where your comment about the inability to communicate in FFXI was coming from. All of those problems existed in spite of good communication. (With the auto-translator, you could even group with europeans and japanese, but that's neither here nor there). In any case, I was simply using FFXI as a concrete example of how less accessibility in a grouping system is a bad thing.

No, it's speculation. Pointing at another game where it has happened is not proof; it's a common logical fallacy.

Wow and rift.


They are not exclusive, because they are a solution to the same issue. Access for more people to content.

Actually, I'm pretty sure that, at best, you can show that in those 2 cases, that nerfs happened after the dungeon finder went into the game, not that one caused the other. In rift they had already nerfed the content before lfg went in; in wow, they had a long history of nerfing content as time goes by.

Not that 2 cases by different developers means that it will always happen.

I disagree with your method, here.

When you add servers to the same queue, you increase the population size in the queue. So, if there is a 1000 players per server, that means 3000 players total need groups. That 9 groups/hour is now tackling three times the number of players, which means it is only as good as 3 groups per hour on one server, which was your median average. All the LFD tool does is even out the waiting times across all servers. This means it will never be very good or very bad, just so-so.

Hardly..

Nice attempt at bastardizing terms to establish intellectual superiority like a good little narcissist.

Every mmo I've played that added auto grouping tools has been followed up with complaints about content difficulty which was followed up with content nerfs.

Again, point me to the game that what I've said isn't the case. All you have is talking points and you cannot even answer the question.

No it is logical reasoning.

If you want MORE people to have access to content you must A) make it easier for them to get into and B) make it easier complete.

If you give them A without B what is the the point, since you will not be achieving your goal of MORE access. You will only have slightly less limited access.

Except WoW released the easy content first.

You're wrong on the second count too. Only one of the two addresses the issue of access to content. The ability to complete said content is entirely separate.