City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

Any plan to make LFG more useful?

Father Xmas

By Father Xmas,
Posted on: 2012-03-19 24:14 in Suggestions and Ideas

 

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Originally Posted by Molehill View Post
I'm not seeing why they would have to give up that ability. Maybe I'm misunderstanding you.
No I think you understand what you've been told, but you don't like it so you're going to continue to dismiss it.

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I'm simply suggesting giving players some control over the creation of those teams.
Players already have and exercise control over the creation of their teams.

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And make the rest of the team wait while the team lead socializes individually with every person who may or may not be interested in what's being run?
Yes. That's exactly what we want to do, and demanded the devs allow us to do after they first added the LFG queue.

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I find that having social interaction in a team while the event is being run is worth more.
Screening teammates for an event is not "social interaction".

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The help channel is the main carrier for teaming requests, several random conversations, and people actually looking for help.
Which is working exactly as the devs intended.

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I think there's room for improvement.
Opinions of what is an improvement vary.

 

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Originally Posted by Forbin_Project View Post
Players already have and exercise control over the creation of their teams.
While using the LFG queue? Don't leave that part out. It's sort of important to what I'm talking about. The times I've used it, it seems I got lumped with a bunch of random people.

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Yes. That's exactly what we want to do, and demanded the devs allow us to do after they first added the LFG queue.
What has been presented in this thread that would take that away? You're still able to do all that outside of the current LFG queue. I'm suggesting modifications to the LFG queue without touching what people are doing outside of it. We are talking about "Any plan to make LFG more useful" right? My short response to that is to give players who would use it some control to improve the teams that are created. It may attract more people to use it.

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Screening teammates for an event is not "social interaction".
My point exactly.

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Which is working exactly as the devs intended.
This is the suggestions and ideas forum, right? Where someone might post ideas and opinions that may be contrary to what's been intended?

 

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Originally Posted by Molehill View Post
While using the LFG queue? Don't leave that part out.
Who left it out? This thread is about the LFG feature. What do you think I'm talking about. Players control who gets invited to their trial teams by closing the teams and screening who they invite, rather than allowing the queue to assign random players that they don't want on the team and forcing the team leaders to kick said uninvited guests off of the trial. Which in turn will result in the person being kicked having a bad experience with the queue and quickly they stop using it.


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I'm suggesting modifications to the LFG queue without touching what people are doing outside of it
You're suggesting something that is most likely to be seen by the devs as a waste of time and resources to develop because they can easily use datamining to determine how many players use closed teams in the queue vs open teams. When the former drastically outweighs the latter it's just not in their best interest to invest time and resources developing something that won't get used.

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This is the suggestions and ideas forum, right? Where someone might post ideas and opinions that may be contrary to what's been intended?
Not sure what the point you're trying to make is. Are you implying you've been told not to make suggestions? If so where exactly did anyone tell you that you should keep your suggestions to yourself?

If you're just talking about suggesting changes to the game that differ from the devs intentions, then you should be aware that posting contrary ideas and opinions works both ways. When you post a suggestion you are going to get both positive and negative feedback from fellow players. People will both agree and disagree with you. What you do with that feedback is up to you.

You should also be aware that there are topics (not this one, but others) that have been suggested a plethora of times but are flat out refused and/or ignored by the devs because they don't want to allow it. Sometimes their explanations make sense to us and other times they don't make any sense at all. Arguing those are just an exercise in futility.

 

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Originally Posted by Tenzhi View Post
Indeed. They should take away the ability to enter the queue as a team and make it pure PUG land (after all, if you're on a team you're not really LFG). And anyone who didn't want to do that could always rely on Dark Astoria for their Incarnate advancement.

Of course, at this point that'll never happen.
That just sounds silly. I almost exclusively play with a team of friends. If we wanted to do a trial, we would like to all be in the same group.

I think your thinking is counter productive. I think to make LFG work, you need to facilitate how people want to use it, not force them to use it in a way that's no fun to them. Forcing players into behaviour that's not working for them is not going to solve anything.

I don't know how the LFG system works, but I see lot's of people not using it, so its not doing it's job right now.

 

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Originally Posted by Forbin_Project View Post
Players control who gets invited to their trial teams by closing the teams and screening who they invite, rather than allowing the queue to assign random players that they don't want on the team and forcing the team leaders to kick said uninvited guests off of the trial. Which in turn will result in the person being kicked having a bad experience with the queue and quickly they stop using it.

...

You're suggesting something that is most likely to be seen by the devs as a waste of time and resources to develop because they can easily use datamining to determine how many players use closed teams in the queue vs open teams. When the former drastically outweighs the latter it's just not in their best interest to invest time and resources developing something that won't get used.
In its current form, the LFG queue isn't being used much. It's a safe bet that the dev's datamining supports that. You say (and I agree) that having random players that the queue assigns results in people getting kicked and deciding that they won't use it.

Now I'm assuming that these people are getting kicked because their build doesn't meet the criteria that the team leader is looking for. I propose that given the ability to set criteria to join an open team would result in less people getting kicked and an eventual increase in the usage of the queue.

I don't know if you think that the suggestions I'm making are bad, or if you think any work on improving the LFG queue is no longer worth the effort. It's fine if people don't like my suggestions. But to say the LFG queue isn't worth any more time and effort is a bit premature. I further assume that before the latest expansion of the LFG queue to include task forces and non-itrials, datamining would have yielded the same conclusion of open teams being under utilized, and as you say a waste of time and resources.

But the expansion did happen. Personally I'm hoping that that points to continued development of the queue.

The help channel is the only way for free players to communicate as far as I know. It's one of the most practical avenues for them to find teams. If an improved queue helps them to find teams and leaves the help channel less cluttered for conversations and asking for help, I think it's worth the effort.

 

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Originally Posted by Forbin_Project View Post
What you don't seem to grasp is that nearly all of the player base prefers using closed teams and forming up before entering the queue.
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Originally Posted by Forbin_Project View Post
And you shouldn't try to speak for the people that play this game.
...yeah.

 

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Originally Posted by Forbin_Project View Post
The problem isn't with the tool, nor is it with the players. The problem is assuming that our player base doesn't want control over who they team with.

We will control who we team with.
Well, from my observations, there are plenty of people on Broadcast in the RWZ and now in Dark Astoria saying "any Trials forming?" or "50+X [AT] LF any Trial".

Likewise, when a Trial does start forming, it is my observation that many leaders tend to announce it on Broadcast and Global channels, recruiting freely both those people who are Broadcasting for invites and those who send them tells. I have asked to join many Trials in forming and have only ever been refused for lack of room. During off-peak times, when playing on my level 50s, I have even gotten /tells asking me if I am interested in a trial.

Neither of those situations appears to speak of "wanting to control who they team with" - on the contrary, it seems to value getting into the Trial as soon as possible. They are both quite frequent and I do not often see the same character name twice.

So, based on my observations, I conclude that there is a significant amount of players in the game who want to experience the Trials with a minimum of fuss and waiting, not really caring who they are teamed with. I am assuming that the intended use of the random queue on the LFG tool is to help that particular class of people get into Trials faster. Please feel free to point out any errors you see in this line of thinking.

So, if the random queue is intended to help people who don't care about team composition and want to get into the Trial faster, and the random queue is *not* actually helping people get into the Trial faster, then the LFG tool is not working right for those people and could use an improvement.

If the majority of the players who run Trials care about proper team composition more than expediency, or if the LFG queue is intended only to let pre-made Leagues run the Trials, then of course everything is working correctly.



Character index

 

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Originally Posted by Silver Gale View Post
Well, from my observations, there are plenty of people on Broadcast in the RWZ and now in Dark Astoria saying "any Trials forming?" or "50+X [AT] LF any Trial".

Likewise, when a Trial does start forming, it is my observation that many leaders tend to announce it on Broadcast and Global channels, recruiting freely both those people who are Broadcasting for invites and those who send them tells. I have asked to join many Trials in forming and have only ever been refused for lack of room. During off-peak times, when playing on my level 50s, I have even gotten /tells asking me if I am interested in a trial.

Neither of those situations appears to speak of "wanting to control who they team with" - on the contrary, it seems to value getting into the Trial as soon as possible. They are both quite frequent and I do not often see the same character name twice.

So, based on my observations, I conclude that there is a significant amount of players in the game who want to experience the Trials with a minimum of fuss and waiting, not really caring who they are teamed with. I am assuming that the intended use of the random queue on the LFG tool is to help that particular class of people get into Trials faster. Please feel free to point out any errors you see in this line of thinking.

So, if the random queue is intended to help people who don't care about team composition and want to get into the Trial faster, and the random queue is *not* actually helping people get into the Trial faster, then the LFG tool is not working right for those people and could use an improvement.

If the majority of the players who run Trials care about proper team composition more than expediency, or if the LFG queue is intended only to let pre-made Leagues run the Trials, then of course everything is working correctly.
Since you are specifically referring to Itrials I'll respond with the methods being used to control Itrial recruitment in your post.

1. Incarnate Trials can only be run by VIP's (this one is out of the hands of players but still counts)

Incarnate Trials being restricted to VIP's controls who can join those trials by eliminating all F2P and Prem players from participating.

2. They are using Broadcast in zones that are known for gathering spots for Incarnate Content so they are most likely to get responses from VIP's interested in doing that content.

3. They use Global Channels. Global Channels are small communities of players that know each other at least casually and they only contain members that are either VIP's or Prem's that have earned enough reward tokens to unlock global channel access. So recruiting from them means you know the respondents are more likely to be interested in running the same content and that they have experience doing that content. Furthermore many of the global channels are dedicated to doing certain types content. for example: TankHQ is dedicated to people that like running tankers.

4. Requiring people to respond with tells effectively eliminates people that haven't unlocked the ability to send tells by acquiring at least 2 reward tokens. Another method of controlling who responds

5. The new DA is level restricted (like Eden still is) which also adds a level of control as to who can enter and join those teams. By recruiting in the restricted zone only qualified players can enter to be recruited.

6. I noticed that in your post you didn't say that you got on those trials by simply joining the queue. That indicates that the Itrials you saw recruiting, joined, or were simply invited to were either pre-formed or closed team/leagues which validates my point that players prefer controlling who they invite rather than letting the LFG feature assign random people from the queue.

 

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the LFG tool in 'that other game' worked great, aside from unavoidable issues with occasional teams full of dipsticks.

The CoH version stinks and could use a makeover, wherever you lay the blame for its failure.

The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.

My City Was Gone

 

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How about my take on this whole thing...

I've been coming and going playing CoH for a while now, primarily because virtually everyone I know that played CoH is gone, and the global channels I knew that were active (including generic server channels) are largely silent.

This leaves me with little options beyond PuGing if I want to play the game (I solo, but that's "when I can't/aren't willing to find a team" time... or if I'm playing content for the first time).


From my point of view, the "LFG" system is largely useless from the point of view of "looking for [a] group", because it's ineffective at that. A change I would like is the "willing to join in progress" checkboxes to check if the group is full not under the minimum (the leader should still be able to lock/make the team private... which I doubt most of the ones I've been with would bother to do, since they're basically just PuGs).

I've been on countless TFs/Trials where one random person simply leaves early on... it would be nice if the LFG system would (for willing teams) automatically add someone looking for that TF/Trial and willing to join one in progress. When I occasionally lead anything, I never care who joins (I've never said 'no' to anyone in all my years here... not counting "full"), but I rarely have the time to re-add people on the fly if it's just one or even two.

Earlier someone mentioned about getting the rewards with less work... how does the current system work WRT that? If that's a concern of the Devs, then I'm sure they could come up (the idea- implementation is another question) with a way to prevent it from being 'gamed' (such as proportionally scaling them down as the team is further along progress through it). I, quite frankly, wouldn't care if I joined a team half way through a TF and only got half the reward merits at the end.


As it stands now, the "LFG" system is largely just a way for team leaders to teleport everyone to the contact/into the mission automagically. Nothing wrong with a system that does that, but "LFG" it is not.

Edit: It would also be nice if the "First Available" buttons would work even if one item wasn't available... after all, they already limit it to what you can access based on your level!

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Originally Posted by ShadowNate
;_; ?!?! What the heck is wrong with you, my god, I have never been so confused in my life!

 

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Originally Posted by Forbin_Project View Post


5. The new DA is level restricted (like Eden still is) which also adds a level of control as to who can enter and join those teams. By recruiting in the restricted zone only qualified players can enter to be recruited.
DA is NOT level restricted. I've taken several non-50's into the new DA.

They can't get missions in DA but they can get in the zone.

EDIT: I currently have a Level 23 Blaster on my Premium account in DA, so not only is it not level restricted, it isn't restricted from Premiums either. His level and the account status both make him unqualified to be recruited.

If the game spit out 20 dollar bills people would complain that they weren't sequentially numbered. If they were sequentially numbered people would complain that they weren't random enough.

Black Pebble is my new hero.

 

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You know what I would like the LFG to have?

An interface like the arena has.

It can go into more detail about the trials, including rewards, recommended levels, badge progress.

It would also list which events were forming at any given time. It lists the leader's name, the remaining slots, and a note from the leader. (sLam, Master's Run, etc.)

It would give people a better visual of what was going on, anyway.

 

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Originally Posted by Texas Justice View Post
DA is NOT level restricted. I've taken several non-50's into the new DA.

They can't get missions in DA but they can get in the zone.
You're right Texas, my bad. I double checked and I was confusing the new DA with Echo DA which you can't get into unless your level 21.

 

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Originally Posted by Forbin_Project View Post
Since you are specifically referring to Itrials I'll respond with the methods being used to control Itrial recruitment in your post.

1. Incarnate Trials can only be run by VIP's (this one is out of the hands of players but still counts)

Incarnate Trials being restricted to VIP's controls who can join those trials by eliminating all F2P and Prem players from participating.

2. They are using Broadcast in zones that are known for gathering spots for Incarnate Content so they are most likely to get responses from VIP's interested in doing that content.

3. They use Global Channels. Global Channels are small communities of players that know each other at least casually and they only contain members that are either VIP's or Prem's that have earned enough reward tokens to unlock global channel access. So recruiting from them means you know the respondents are more likely to be interested in running the same content and that they have experience doing that content. Furthermore many of the global channels are dedicated to doing certain types content. for example: TankHQ is dedicated to people that like running tankers.

4. Requiring people to respond with tells effectively eliminates people that haven't unlocked the ability to send tells by acquiring at least 2 reward tokens. Another method of controlling who responds

5. The new DA is level restricted (like Eden still is) which also adds a level of control as to who can enter and join those teams. By recruiting in the restricted zone only qualified players can enter to be recruited.
Since the queue only allows VIPs to join iTrials, and all VIPs can use /tells and Global channels as much as they want, none of this changes if a player uses the random queue to put them in an iTrial instead of inviting the first 24 VIPs who show interest, and then launching an iTrial.

Actually it even *prevents* the situation where a level 50 Premium player who has access to Tells/Globals joins your iTrial League, and everyone experiences a delay because the leader can't launch the iTrial and has to kick the offender and find another person.

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6. I noticed that in your post you didn't say that you got on those trials by simply joining the queue. That indicates that the Itrials you saw recruiting, joined, or were simply invited to were either pre-formed or closed team/leagues which validates my point that players prefer controlling who they invite rather than letting the LFG feature assign random people from the queue.
My interpretation was that nobody uses the queue to randomly team up because nobody *else* ever uses the queue, so it's easier to randomly team up by Broadcasting "LF any Trial" in the proper zone.

Maybe it's personal bias: I have led Trials before, because there were a lot of people "LF any Trial" in Broadcast and nobody forming one, and I knew that using the random queue was a last cause, so I went around inviting anyone who seemed interested until I had a full Trial, and then launched and led it. It wasn't difficult, but it was full of tedious busy work, since I had to individually send out invites, and sometimes people were in the wrong zones and I had to ask them to come to the RWZ, and sometimes someone would ask me to save a spot for a friend who was switching. And of course, if it took more than 15 minutes to assemble a full League, people would start quietly vanishing, I assume because of a lack of time or patience. A simple way to just say "accept the next 23 people who show interest in an iTrial" would have helped me immensely.

The queue has some problems from the point of view of someone looking to get into an iTrial team as soon as possible and not caring about who they team with: it doesn't show how many people are waiting, the "typical wait times" are skewed by pre-made teams, and there is no guarantee that someone will be giving a clear strategy to follow.

Joining a "pre-made team" has at least the illusion of clear waiting time, since you can see how many people are needed to reach the maximum, and an illusion of leadership, since the person doing all the invites can be expected to dictate strategy. (There are cases where a person will invite 24 people from Broadcast and then ask "okay, who wants to lead?", but at least in my experience, they are rare.)

You could say that "wanting a clearly defined leader" is a type of "preferring control over who they team with", but if the queue had some way for people to volounteer for League leader, what exactly would be lost compared to the method of recruiting the first 23 people who show interest and then launching a Trial?



Character index

 

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Originally Posted by Silver Gale View Post
... A simple way to just say "accept the next 23 people who show interest in an iTrial" would have helped me immensely...
In trials like DD I've often seen a qualifier that only +2's or +3's are wanted. And most likely with good reason. People may have other requirements for other trials. My suggestion's goal (whether or not it got there is debatable) is to sort of expand on your statement I quoted.

For example, it would be nice if there was...

A simple way to just say "accept the next 23 people (who are +2 and +3 and) who show interest in the (DD) iTrial" would have helped me immensely.

Or not ... use of qualifiers (filters) should be optional. Obviously more filters reduces your chances of finding people to fill the slots.

In the case of trying to start a TF one might want to: "accept the next 7 people interested in STF who are level 50. One of them needs to be a tank and another needs to be a healer."

It's sort of a bastardization between completely open and pre-formed closed teams.

 

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Originally Posted by Silver Gale View Post
My interpretation was that nobody uses the queue to randomly team up because nobody *else* ever uses the queue, so it's easier to randomly team up by Broadcasting "LF any Trial" in the proper zone.
No that isn't accurate. If you were here when the LFG queue was first implemented you'll remember that players chose to start pre-forming leagues because they didn't want to use the queue, and they came to the forums demanding the option to form closed leagues/teams. The reasons they gave for this was quite simple. They didn't like having random people thrust upon them, and they didn't like being forced to form full leagues/teams to prevent the queue from adding unwanted players to their teams. And it was in response to the player demands that the devs added the closed teaming option.

 

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Originally Posted by Molehill View Post
In trials like DD I've often seen a qualifier that only +2's or +3's are wanted. And most likely with good reason. People may have other requirements for other trials. My suggestion's goal (whether or not it got there is debatable) is to sort of expand on your statement I quoted.

For example, it would be nice if there was...

A simple way to just say "accept the next 23 people (who are +2 and +3 and) who show interest in the (DD) iTrial" would have helped me immensely.

Or not ... use of qualifiers (filters) should be optional. Obviously more filters reduces your chances of finding people to fill the slots.

In the case of trying to start a TF one might want to: "accept the next 7 people interested in STF who are level 50. One of them needs to be a tank and another needs to be a healer."

It's sort of a bastardization between completely open and pre-formed closed teams.

You're going to need a lot more than that to get players to use it. (just a few examples to follow)

You'll need a filter to block anyone in the queue that is on someones ignore list.

You'll need a filter to screen the players Notes so they can choose to block people they've blacklisted from joining.

You'll need a filter that will check AT's for players that want to hold events that are open to anyone running a specific AT. (see Tanker Tuesdays)

 

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Originally Posted by Forbin_Project View Post
No that isn't accurate. If you were here when the LFG queue was first implemented you'll remember that players chose to start pre-forming leagues because they didn't want to use the queue, and they came to the forums demanding the option to form closed leagues/teams.
Some people came to the forum. Some people demanded the option to form closed leagues/teams. Which is a feature they should have had since they made it so 'LFG' was the only way to do iTrials.


The problem is using the LFG system for an individual trying to join a team is a joke. It's called the "Looking For Group" system (or at least that's what the button says!), so one would presume that its intended function is to look for a group. It's used, though, pretty much exclusively to start a trial for a pre-existing team (I'd bet most of which are largely PuGs). It's just replaced the old contact-that-you-click-on system. How is that an improvement?

The Devs should, really, either work to improve the whole 'LFG' aspect of it, or change its name (even 'Team Up Teleporter' suggests it's for 'Teaming Up' as the name says...). Using the /help channel is... quite frankly, pretty horrible (the S:N ratio is utter crap...).


I still think that making it so when the team isn't Locked/private, that a single open slot should allow someone with 'willing to join in progress' checked to join, would go a long ways towards that. That'll make it more likely that you'll be able to get on a team in a reasonable amount of time, which will get more people to use it... which will further decrease the wait time. They should also ditch the whole 'Avg Wait' (at least until they fix the major issue with it), and maybe instead show either the number of open slots on teams, or the number of people queued for that event (although that should basically never rise above 3-8 before a team is started, except for iTrials).

I'm currently queued in 6 different Trials/TFs (all that I can, except for DFB, Synapse, and Posi pt 1 which I'm tired of). I doubt I'll actually get on anything anytime soon using this method.

Actually being able to find a team easily and quickly, IMO, is the most frustrating aspect of this game, and really is what has driven me away. If you have friends in the game, it's much easier... until they quit the game. Then, you're pretty much cursed with PuGing the entire time.

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Originally Posted by ShadowNate
;_; ?!?! What the heck is wrong with you, my god, I have never been so confused in my life!

 

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Originally Posted by Kitsune Knight View Post
Some people came to the forum. Some people demanded the option to form closed leagues/teams.
I didn't say everyone. I just said players, plural. As in some not all.


If the devs decide to change the LFG system the biggest hurdle the devs have to overcome is creating something the players will want to use instead of the methods they prefer to use now.

 

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Originally Posted by Forbin_Project View Post
I didn't say everyone. I just said players, plural. As in some not all.


If the devs decide to change the LFG system the biggest hurdle the devs have to overcome is creating something the players will want to use instead of the methods they prefer to use now.
For quite a large number of players, the "method they prefer to use now" is spamming /local in AP, /broadcast if they have it, and /help until someone invites them to a team... making a better system shouldn't be incredibly hard... the hard part, though, is to get the initial critical mass off the channel spamming method, otherwise players will try it, not get on a team, and then never use it again (i.e. what happened with LFG, just like the "Looking for *" statuses), resulting in a vicious cycle.

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Originally Posted by ShadowNate
;_; ?!?! What the heck is wrong with you, my god, I have never been so confused in my life!

 

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It might help if being in the queue caused members to automatically be added to the largest group in the queue without launching the trial/TF. That would make queueing akin to what advertising in Help and global channels does now, a way to build the teams instead of launching them. Make launching a separate action from queueing, so teams can queue up to collect a few extra members while going over the strategy or take care of things like collecting inspirations or clearing out their inventories for the drops during trials.

 

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Originally Posted by Kitsune Knight View Post
Actually being able to find a team easily and quickly, IMO, is the most frustrating aspect of this game...
This. In 7 years I haven't posted in the forums more than 50 times. But I have a thing or two to say about this topic.

If, as Forbin says, control of team formation goes beyond level and build, then having the game implement a large number of filters on an ever changing set of data becomes burdensome. Basing automatic invites without enough refinement would leave a number (large or small I can't say) of people abandoning an LFG tool.

So I'll turn my suggestion around a bit ...

1. Have the players that are LFT join the queue for multiple, specific events. Leave a space for a short note to be included. (e.g. Have Clarion for UG). Have a list of events that are in progress and are open to them joining (minus those being led by people on the player's ignore list).

2. Have the players that are starting teams or LFM see a list of players LFT for the event they are leading minus everyone on their ignore list.

3. That list should include character information sortable by: toon name, global name, level, AT, primary set, secondary set, notes that the leader may have on the character, LFT note, and status (more on status below). A button to invite is next to every name that shows up.

4. A person who gets an invite will have a pop up message show up "<leader> has invited you to <event> running at level <difficulty setting>. You are <x> of <max number of players>. Do you accept?." There is a <15> second window to reply yes or no.

5. The status column on the LFM screen would show "considering other offer, refused, accepted, no response yet, timed out." If a person refuses then the name is greyed off the list and can't be sent another invite from this tool for that particular event to prevent people getting spammed with invites. If it was refused accidentally, then an invitation can be sent using /invite. A refresh button to update the list might be needed.

6. After the requirement for the minimum number of people is met, A button can become active to start the event. Options to leave the remaining slots, if any, open for people who want to join in progress events are available.

As I write this, it sounds like a modified version of the "Find Member" feature under the Team tab with a bit more focus and refinement. Instead of getting a blind invite wondering what the heck it's for, all that information should be given on the opening pop up for an event that was signed up for. If someone joins the queue for a particular even they should be open to receiving a pop up for an invitation to that event.

Basically the tools for easier filtering beyond ignore lists and sending invites is given to the team leader. So for example, Silver Gale wanting to start a UG would see all the people wanting to join a UG whom she hasn't ignored and who hasn't ignored her. She can randomly click invite for 23 people, or sort to her heart's desire and meticulously select who she wants out of that list to invite.

 

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Originally Posted by Kitsune Knight View Post
For quite a large number of players, the "method they prefer to use now" is spamming /local in AP, /broadcast if they have it, and /help until someone invites them to a team... making a better system shouldn't be incredibly hard... the hard part, though, is to get the initial critical mass off the channel spamming method, otherwise players will try it, not get on a team, and then never use it again (i.e. what happened with LFG, just like the "Looking for *" statuses), resulting in a vicious cycle.
Part of the spam your describing is peoples aversion to having the star. Far too many people prefer letting someone else lead.

For 8 years I've frequently watched a dozen people stand around the Statue in Atlas park spamming LFT for the same mission but not one of them will take the initiative and form a team.

I've even gone so far as to form the team for them, set the mission up before giving one of them the star and moving on to the next group and before 30 seconds pass they are again spamming LFT messages because none of them wanted to be the leader.

Forgive me if I don't believe the LFG queue is going to stop that from happening in randomly formed groups.

 

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Originally Posted by Molehill View Post
This. In 7 years I haven't posted in the forums more than 50 times. But I have a thing or two to say about this topic.

If, as Forbin says, control of team formation goes beyond level and build, then having the game implement a large number of filters on an ever changing set of data becomes burdensome. Basing automatic invites without enough refinement would leave a number (large or small I can't say) of people abandoning an LFG tool.

So I'll turn my suggestion around a bit ...

1. Have the players that are LFT join the queue for multiple, specific events. Leave a space for a short note to be included. (e.g. Have Clarion for UG). Have a list of events that are in progress and are open to them joining (minus those being led by people on the player's ignore list).

2. Have the players that are starting teams or LFM see a list of players LFT for the event they are leading minus everyone on their ignore list.

3. That list should include character information sortable by: toon name, global name, level, AT, primary set, secondary set, notes that the leader may have on the character, LFT note, and status (more on status below). A button to invite is next to every name that shows up.

4. A person who gets an invite will have a pop up message show up "<leader> has invited you to <event> running at level <difficulty setting>. You are <x> of <max number of players>. Do you accept?." There is a <15> second window to reply yes or no.

5. The status column on the LFM screen would show "considering other offer, refused, accepted, no response yet, timed out." If a person refuses then the name is greyed off the list and can't be sent another invite from this tool for that particular event to prevent people getting spammed with invites. If it was refused accidentally, then an invitation can be sent using /invite. A refresh button to update the list might be needed.

6. After the requirement for the minimum number of people is met, A button can become active to start the event. Options to leave the remaining slots, if any, open for people who want to join in progress events are available.

As I write this, it sounds like a modified version of the "Find Member" feature under the Team tab with a bit more focus and refinement. Instead of getting a blind invite wondering what the heck it's for, all that information should be given on the opening pop up for an event that was signed up for. If someone joins the queue for a particular even they should be open to receiving a pop up for an invitation to that event.

Basically the tools for easier filtering beyond ignore lists and sending invites is given to the team leader. So for example, Silver Gale wanting to start a UG would see all the people wanting to join a UG whom she hasn't ignored and who hasn't ignored her. She can randomly click invite for 23 people, or sort to her heart's desire and meticulously select who she wants out of that list to invite.
I'll admit if I could do all that I'd be a lot more willing to run open teams/leagues. The question is do the devs think it's worth the effort. Far too often (for reasons we don't understand) they seem to prefer to take the easy route.

Look at the market interface for example. Instead of making something that fit perfectly with our game they bought a pre-made system from a third party and patched it onto our game.

 

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Originally Posted by Forbin_Project View Post
Forgive me if I don't believe the LFG queue is going to stop that from happening in randomly formed groups.
TF/Trials work differently, though. The leader only has to go click on the contact (and only for the old ones, the new ones like DFB and the iTrials don't even HAVE a contact). You obviously know that... my point is that in a normal mission team, the leader has to do a lot more management, such as deciding WHOS mission to pick, setting the difficulty, recruiting people, etc.

The things I hate most are deciding on which mission to pick (I always feel selfish if I pick my own mission, even if it's just a radio), and trying to recruit people from a search window that's a pile of crap (why can you STILL not filter out people on teams? seriously, wtf!). I don't care at all if I have the star on a DFB since it really means nothing, and for old-school TFs that's just going and clicking the contact after a few missions, then just using the cell phone. Also not really a big deal.

I have a feeling a lot of people are of a similar mindset to me. They don't want to have to do all that micromanagement, especially going through that awful search window, through name after name that's on a team, sending IMs to the occasional person asking if they want to join, only to never get a response from the majority of them. Having the annoying part of the process automated would be nice. It wouldn't help regular mission teams, but at least something is better than nothing.

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Originally Posted by ShadowNate
;_; ?!?! What the heck is wrong with you, my god, I have never been so confused in my life!