Further improve the Team-Up Teleporter
By
Doctor Roswell,
Posted on: 2012-03-08 20:40 in Suggestions and Ideas
Quote:
I wholeheartedly agree that this would be the key to making the queue used much more widely, thus, making the queue more successful and the LFG system greater.
|
Originally Posted by Doctor Roswell
...
So here's what I propose: A checkbox on the LFG tab allowing a player to choose whether they want the "first available" team, or whether they'd rather wait for a full one. |
@Zethustra
"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
Uhm, If the teams already full (8 people) how would a person get added to it? Or am I misunderstanding how this would work?
Oh BTW /signed if it would work.
Quote:
I think you're misunderstanding. The idea isn't to add someone to an existing team of eight, it's to use the queue to assemble a full team of eight instead of just the minimum required for the event, therefore eliminating, or at least lessening, the need to pre-form teams at all -- the people who pre-form now could instead just queue up in LFG and still know they wouldn't be dumped into a four-man run when they wanted eight, but they could be doing other things while they wait instead of hanging around Ms. Liberty watching the leader paste "DFB has room for 4!" into his chatbox every 45 seconds or so until the team finally fills up.|
Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
Uhm, If the teams already full (8 people) how would a person get added to it? Or am I misunderstanding how this would work?
Oh BTW /signed if it would work. |
Using Death From Below as an example:
"First Available" would look for there to be enough people in the queue to start the trial. Once four (or more) people are queued up for the first available DFB, they'll all get a "Death From Below is ready!" pop-up and the big green and red buttons. This is basically how it works now.
"Full Team" wouldn't bother people with the pop-up at all unless the system were able to assemble a full team of eight (or a full league of 16/24/whatever, in the case of incarnate trials). So if there are four people in the LFG queue all looking for a "full team" DFB, they'll all stay in the queue until four more enter it -- or until a pre-formed team of four enters the queue without locking the event for their group. (And if eight totally separate queued people got the pop-up and two of them declined, the event would still be able to start because six is more than the minimum for the trial).
It's still a queue system, so everyone goes into it in a specific order and a pre-formed team of seven could still pick up an eighth man from the queue if they wanted to. All it does is allow people who want to go in with something more than the bare minimum number of people required for an event to have some assurance they'll have a decent-sized group, thus lessening the "need" to pre-form a full eight-man team before ever entering the queue at all (which is what people do now), and making the whole thing more useful for both "LFG" and "LFM" purposes. It would mean less standing around under Atlas waiting for a team to be massed and more time doing radio missions in King's Row, or crafting in Steel Canyon, or otherwise playing the game instead of standing around waiting to play the game.
FUN FACT: That burst of light when you level up is actually the effectiveness escaping from your enhancements all at once.
The first and only thing they need to consider is having it work across zones. Which it only does if you're camped out in the queue and accidentally join a league.
There are no words for what this community, and the friends I have made here mean to me. Please know that I care for all of you, yes, even you. If you Twitter, I'm MrThan. If you're Unleashed, I'm dumps. I'll try and get registered on the Titan Forums as well. Peace, and thanks for the best nine years anyone could ever ask for.
The problem with this suggestion is that it doesn't solve any of the real problems with the LFG queue.
Most people form leagues by hand instead of just queuing so that they can be sure they have the minimum required personnel for success. For example, BAF requires several characters to alternate holding aggro to avoid getting held. Most incarnate trials and TFs either require specific personnel or a balance of power sets to be successful.
Your suggestion would not remedy this problem. It will only exacerbate it -- people would queue for a BAF (or DiB), wait half an hour for it to become completely filled out, click accept to join, load the BAF, sit through the cut scene, and then quit in disgust when they see that it's lacking key personnel and can't succeed.
The only trial that your suggestion would help is DFB, and any team of four can easily finish that if they just move during the final encounter. Heck, I once finished it with two.
If the devs implement this they would use resources to make a change that would ultimately never get used. It would be better for them to spend their time making a change that would benefit everyone, such as not requiring everyone in a league to be in the same zone to queue.
tl;dr: A checkbox on the LFG tab allowing a player to choose whether they want the "first available" team, or whether they'd rather wait for a full one.
My Case For It:
The Team-Up Teleporter/LFG tab is one of those things that's a great idea, but just a hair shy of really being good for anything. Would most DFB runs really be any different if it started through a regular contact who sent the group to a regular door? Either way, formation of ninety-plus percent of them would still be exactly the same: Whoever's starting it spams Broadcast and any applicable global channels until they've got a full team, then they start. Kinda makes the "queue" part worthless, for both the people on the team and anyone waiting in the queue who just got bypassed by a pre-formed team. Your best option is still to stand around Atlas and wait for one to form.
And there's a lot to be said for running most trials and TFs with a full team. More support/damage, better XP, tougher spawns, whatever.
I've run Drowning in Blood twice now. The first time, I used the LFG tab and, after about five minutes, I got the prompt that the trial was ready. Clicked the green button, and so did two other people. One didn't, so we wen't back into the queue and continued to wait, because even a single person declining meant we were under the minimum required for the trial. A few miniutes later, I was placed in the trial with three other people. We made it to the end, then team-wiped twice before it became clear we weren't going to win and people started dropping out. The second time, I joined a pre-formed team in Atlas Park. Eight people altogether. We pretty much steamrolled it, though the bosses were still fairly challenging.
The point is, with the queue sending us in with the minimum number of players, it was a failure. When we basically bypassed the queuing system by pre-forming with the maximum number of players, it was a success. Does this mean every minimum-sized team is going to fail? Of course not. But it's certainly more likely than on a full team.
Letting us actually go do things while we're in the queue is a good start. The next step is to not make queuing obviously worse than pre-forming, even for pick-up groups.
So here's what I propose: A checkbox on the LFG tab allowing a player to choose whether they want the "first available" team, or whether they'd rather wait for a full one.
FUN FACT: That burst of light when you level up is actually the effectiveness escaping from your enhancements all at once.