A way for non-farmers to find one another...
By
Amish_Justice,
Posted on: 2009-05-17 18:40 in Suggestions and Ideas
Step 1a: Set your "looking for team" flag to... "Looking for any."
Step 1b: If that nets no results, try sending tells to people in your level range, either teamed or unteamed. Form your own if you don't get invites.
There is no step 2.
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"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."
I do already.
"/t playername, Hey, running missions, level X. Want in?"
Mission arcs in AE? Look for SFMA (Story Focused Mission Arc.)
And there's always "Add the like minded players to your friends list, form a SG with them, and keep having fun."
I started putting NO FARMS in my search comment, and that really cut down on the LFF invites, blind invites, and fill requests. A good 85%.
I get 8-10 tells an hour during peak hours from people LFMT, on a range of levels from 10-50. Seeing FARM 1500 times an hour in broadcast doesn't mean mission teams aren't running.
There is a green button in the search window that flags you looking for missions, instead of looking for all, so the game already has it. Many players don't use it.
I turned down teams all weekend trying to work out how to play a new corruptor solo, to the point I went on /hide.
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I just wanted to make a joke about how you have to love farming, you're Amish. But it turns out there are a large number of Amish that don't work on a farm.
I hate this thread now.
And considering the number of times people with "No Farms Please" in their search comments get invited to farms or asked to pad I doubt anyone would see much of a change with your suggestion. Just go with Bill's advice.
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Well, what I'm looking to do isn't to get invited to teams, but rather to find a method to get people who are already on farms, off of them, and onto content that's more to their tastes.
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Well, what I'm looking to do isn't to get invited to teams, but rather to find a method to get people who are already on farms, off of them, and onto content that's more to their tastes.
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So... Let me get this straight here.
People are on farms, but you don't like that because you don't like farming, so you're looking for a way to invade their privacy by asking for a way to ask them if they want a team, even when they're on a team in the first place, and quite possibly content with just farming?
No. It's invasive, and it sounds damn vindictive against farmers. No.
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Set your "looking for team" flag to... "Looking for any."
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I wonder what percentage of the playerbase uses the LFT flags. I'd guess it's pretty low...the approved alternate method seems to ask for a team in broadcast every 30 seconds.
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If there's not already a global channel dedicated to story arcs, why not make one? I know I find many of my teams through various badge and strike force channels, and server chat channels, and the teams send to be running story arcs or story-driven AE content.
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Set your "looking for team" flag to... "Looking for any."
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I wonder what percentage of the playerbase uses the LFT flags. I'd guess it's pretty low...the approved alternate method seems to ask for a team in broadcast every 30 seconds.
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I found that "looking for any" might not get what you want. I put no farming in my search comments, and I don't get farming requests now. However, if I turn on "looking for any", I start to get farming again. Apparently, "looking for any" means that I'm looking for farms as well, and override my search comments.
To the OP: There have been quite a lot of suggestions regarding the search. Most suggestions are centered on some efficient ways to put people together. In particular, lfm is a very popular suggestion. I think what you want is a step beyond lfm actually, because you're suggesting to group together people with similar interest, not only grabbing random people together.
I think a better discussion of this topic is not to put it in the context of farming and non-farming, but to suggest an interface that can enhance putting random people together with similar interest. Discussions with farming usually don't go anywhere. The replies here already mentioned several existing tools like joining SG/VG, chat channels, and the search functions.
My feeling is that the existing tools are doing their jobs. I think they are not as efficient as some people wish them to be. For example, if I logon and just ask in the SG and chat channels whether I can join a story-arc team, probably my request will be like going into a blackhole with no response, unless I'm lucky that day. Very often, one needs some sort (not a lot actually) of social skills to get things rolling.
I think a slightly enhanced in-game search can potentially do what people want, just that it is under-utilized. And then it's just a vicious cycle. Team leaders can't find people through the search, so they are not using it. Then people find that team leaders are not using it, so nobody set the flag.
If we're speaking of general improvements to the team search function, I'll support an improved search function every time, including "Looking for Member," ability to hide a team, to see who's a team leader, to seeing enemy factions in co-op zones, to any other reasonable suggestion.
Oh, farmers do look at the search flags. I was on my Scrapper hanging out in Atlas and decided to flick on "Looking for TF" since I wanted a TF but was feeling too lazy at the time to actively search or form one. About ten minutes later I get a tell that went something like, "Want to join a MA TF Farm?"
I know that there's no way that CoX is gonna stop farming. It's prevalent in every XP based MMORPG around, and farmers will always find a way.
Unfortunately, the extent to which the farmers are prominent thanks to AE means that their teams are the easiest to find, and offer the easy (if amazingly boring) opportunity to level.
Fortunately, there are plenty of people on COX that don't really enjoy farming. Sure, they'll join a team to gain a level, or for a mission or two, but they consider farming dull and repetitive. The problem is that it's often difficult for these people to find one another. Often if feels like Farming is the only game in town.
What I'd like to suggest is a way for non-farmers to identify themselves. Ideally, a filterable way method of searching.
If you actively dislike running those same missions over and over, then you'll be more likely to find other like minded people. Farmers will also know that people they invite that are so-tagged won't be likely to run more than a single mission with them.