A group finding pug system would be nice for fractals

[xo wayne.6045]

Honestly, the only thing turning me off from this game is that there is no automation system to group you with people for fractals. Everything else in this game is great, however, using the current manual "group finder" is a chore. Most of it is spammed with gold sellers or "selling runs for real money". Why do i have to go through hells half acres to find a group.

 

Now some might say having a guild is a huge boon for finding people, but the main issue at hand is that my guild is small and ive met too many great people to leave it. It is only because i had a guild willing to make a few fractal runs that i even had the opportunity to experience them. Im sure i am not the only one with this issue.

 

I reeeealy want to play this game as my main MMO, however, i know that i'll never be able to enjoy the endgame to its full extent without spending hours looking for the same randos  i would get using an automated system.

[Shikaru.7618]

5 minutes ago, xo wayne.6045 said:

Honestly, the only thing turning me off from this game is that there is no automation system to group you with people for fractals. Everything else in this game is great, however, using the current manual "group finder" is a chore. Most of it is spammed with gold sellers or "selling runs for real money". Why do i have to go through hells half acres to find a group.

 

Now some might say having a guild is a huge boon for finding people, but the main issue at hand is that my guild is small and ive met too many great people to leave it. It is only because i had a guild willing to make a few fractal runs that i even had the opportunity to experience them. Im sure i am not the only one with this issue.

 

I reeeealy want to play this game as my main MMO, however, i know that i'll never be able to enjoy the endgame to its full extent without spending hours looking for the same randos  i would get using an automated system.

You can block sellers to prevent them from showing up on lfg.

[Flapjackson.1596]

Does fractals really have an issue with sellers? I know raids do, but fractals get run quite often by pugs. As for a guild, you actually have multiple guild slots. You can stay in your current guild and join another. That has its own set of problems I don’t like but that’s the way it is. You can also join a discord like Mistlocked that posts runs for finding groups.

 

More generally speaking, a party finder doesn’t work with GW2. There are thousands upon thousands of build combinations. You could have healing gear but offensive traitlines, or a wrong weapon. You could be a condi dps Druid or a weaver in soldiers gear. How do you properly assemble a group? It’s not like in FF14 or WoW where you have very defined roles that don’t leave room for confusion on gear or purpose.

[xo wayne.6045]

9 minutes ago, Flapjackson.1596 said:

Does fractals really have an issue with sellers? I know raids do, but fractals get run quite often by pugs. As for a guild, you actually have multiple guild slots. You can stay in your current guild and join another. That has its own set of problems I don’t like but that’s the way it is. You can also join a discord like Mistlocked that posts runs for finding groups.

 

More generally speaking, a party finder doesn’t work with GW2. There are thousands upon thousands of build combinations. You could have healing gear but offensive traitlines, or a wrong weapon. You could be a condi dps Druid or a weaver in soldiers gear. How do you properly assemble a group? It’s not like in FF14 or WoW where you have very defined roles that don’t leave room for confusion on gear or purpose.

Appreciate the response 😄

 

I do need to highlight some points however.

 

-Might be my personal problem but i am loyal to my guild and I dont want to focus having 5 (honeslty where does one belong haha).

-It is a strong argument that guild wars is very unique in that all roles arn't really set in stone (tanks, healer, dps). Nonetheless, my guild and i were able to run up to fractal 20 (not saying thats high) having no concern of who had what build/gear. In my opinion, i would rather fail and find a new group within a few minutes than seek another manually for hours.

 

Just looking for the freedom to enjoy other content while i wait to be grouped with others and not deal with the in between.

[Freya.9075]

Am i missing something? I have not seen any lfg that sells fractals. It’s not difficult to join a group that you find fits your playstyle either. That’s better then ending up in a random group where ppl might have different expectations and it just becomes a toxic mess. And I usually found a party in less then 5 min. Never an hour
 

I found this lfg system intimidating at first cause I came from games with those random pug party finders. But when I got used to it I like this system better

[Farohna.6247]

Is this a thing?  Haven't ever seen anyone selling fractal runs.  Overall I like the system...usually people post a group description so I can get a reasonable idea of what they're doing, i.e. achievements, dailies, etc.  Makes it easy enough, or make your own group.

[Danikat.8537]

Is this a problem which only comes up on higher tiers, or only on NA? I've been doing a lot of Fractals in the last couple of weeks, all through LFG and I can't remember seeing anyone selling runs. But then I've only been doing T1 and a little bit of T2.

I suppose an automated group finder that dumps you into whichever group has a space does make it harder to sell runs, but it brings a whole load of it's own problems by forcing people together who have different expectations and levels of experience. I probably wouldn't mind if it was an additional option to what we have now, but having used both systems in different games I'd never use an automated queue if there was an alternative.
 

21 minutes ago, Flapjackson.1596 said:

Does fractals really have an issue with sellers? I know raids do, but fractals get run quite often by pugs. As for a guild, you actually have multiple guild slots. You can stay in your current guild and join another. That has its own set of problems I don’t like but that’s the way it is. You can also join a discord like Mistlocked that posts runs for finding groups.

 

More generally speaking, a party finder doesn’t work with GW2. There are thousands upon thousands of build combinations. You could have healing gear but offensive traitlines, or a wrong weapon. You could be a condi dps Druid or a weaver in soldiers gear. How do you properly assemble a group? It’s not like in FF14 or WoW where you have very defined roles that don’t leave room for confusion on gear or purpose.

Elder Scrolls Online has a similar-ish build system in the sense that roles aren't strictly tied to classes and anyone could be any spec or a combination of them and they 'solve' it by letting players manually select which role they queue as.

But that throws up it's own problems, like people queing as a tank or healer when they'e not just because they know it's a shorter queue. With a competent group in 'normal mode' (sort-of equivalent to lower tier Fractals) that works because you don't really need a tank or healer (partially because experienced players will know to expect this and bring their own healing skills or potions) but in other situations it can cause problems or even make it impossible for the group to finish.

I also realised as I was writing that it still wouldn't be that simple for GW2, because ESO gives players a lot of freedom about how a character is built, but party mechanics still work around the 'trinty' design of damage, tank and healer. Roles in GW2 are a lot more variable and often dependant on what other people in the group are bringing (which also means they shift over time as the meta changes) so I'm not sure it would even be possible to give sensible options to choose from.

[costepj.5120]

14 LFG entries under Fractals of the Mists at this moment (Europe) - none of them mention selling.

[Vayne.8563]

I want more control over my groups rather than less control. I personally don't like the idea of having no real say over who entered a group I make.  I don't find that better or more fun.

Full disclosure I always prefer to run with the guild than pug. 

As for not joining multiple guilds, I run a guild and I"m in multiple guilds. It's not disloyal. It's like having two different groups of friends from two different areas of your life. I used to have work friends and the friends I grew up with. Hanging out after work with work friends didn't invalidate my childhood friends.  It was just another group of friends.

 

The fact is, I can join a WvW guild and a raiding guild and their activities don't even cross over. I'd develop raid friends and friends that I WvW with. I really don't get the problem here.

[Flapjackson.1596]

1 hour ago, xo wayne.6045 said:

Appreciate the response 😄

 

I do need to highlight some points however.

 

-Might be my personal problem but i am loyal to my guild and I dont want to focus having 5 (honeslty where does one belong haha).

-It is a strong argument that guild wars is very unique in that all roles arn't really set in stone (tanks, healer, dps). Nonetheless, my guild and i were able to run up to fractal 20 (not saying thats high) having no concern of who had what build/gear. In my opinion, i would rather fail and find a new group within a few minutes than seek another manually for hours.

 

Just looking for the freedom to enjoy other content while i wait to be grouped with others and not deal with the in between.

Gotcha yeah for T1 you can basically beat your head against it with any build and probably get through. My suggestion would be just reconsider the hours you’re looking since one unfortunate part of the game is a lot of activity seems to be populated around daily resets. I also noticed you mentioned looking for a group rather than making one. Try posting your own group and you might be surprised.

[Khisanth.2948]

1 hour ago, Danikat.8537 said:

Is this a problem which only comes up on higher tiers, or only on NA? I've been doing a lot of Fractals in the last couple of weeks, all through LFG and I can't remember seeing anyone selling runs. But then I've only been doing T1 and a little bit of T2.

Never seen it on NA t1,2,4. The "for real money" claim makes it extra dubious since that is something that will result in a ban.

[Danikat.8537]

8 minutes ago, Khisanth.2948 said:

Never seen it on NA t1,2,4. The "for real money" claim makes it extra dubious since that is something that will result in a ban.

Somehow I missed that part. I agree it seems unlikely anyone would charge real money in an LFG listing, because if they were reported they'd be banned.

But now I'm wondering where the OP has seen people selling runs or what they've seen which looks like selling. I don't doubt people sell runs for gold sometimes, but not enough to be a problem. I've had the T1 Fractal LFG open a lot this evening, either looking for a group for myself or trying to spot selling runs and not only have I not seen any, I've seen 3 different groups specifically saying they're open to anyone and 1 offering to help with any achievements you want to do.

[mythical.6315]

There’s no need for a group finder when one can simply create their own LFG and state that everyone is welcome. 

[Vidit.7108]

On 12/13/2021 at 1:21 PM, xo wayne.6045 said:

there is no automation system to group you with people for fractals.

Some of the easier content in the game could work with such a system. Arguably all the way to tier 3 fractals, but it falls apart in the hardest content of the game for reasons that might not be obvious to a less experienced player such as yourself. 

I'm going to explain this as concisely as possible.
Higher level content needs the group to be supplied with certain boons to clear expediently. Sometimes they also need dedicated healers. In raids (10-player content) it's easier to find ways of doing this with a variety of builds and classes. Because you only have a group of 5 in fractals you have fewer ways of doing that.

It is possible to do high level fractals without healing, or without following the most expedient group composition. Doing so might mean a normal 30-60 minute daily fractal routine becomes 3 hours instead. Presently, because of certain quirks of the game's balance and design choices there are not a lot of options to just swap into a group and have it go well.

So what I am saying is if the choice is between a group of random players automatically sorted that might not be able to clear the content, or looking in the LFG to self-select into a random but properly organized group, then no one who knew what they were doing would want to be in the automated group. You would keep encountering the same people having a miserable time trying to do a daily t4 assuming they wouldn't give up.
 

On 12/13/2021 at 1:49 PM, xo wayne.6045 said:

Just looking for the freedom to enjoy other content while i wait to be grouped with others and not deal with the in between.

It is hard starting out because the lower tiers have the fewest players in fractals. Try making your own group, it will probably fill up if it's T1. T2 and T3 take longer but once you're in T4 there is almost always a group there. I've seen groups I started fill up in seconds there.

Be thankful it's not raids, where the LFG is pretty barren.

[Borked.6824]

On 12/13/2021 at 4:54 PM, Vayne.8563 said:

I want more control over my groups rather than less control. I personally don't like the idea of having no real say over who entered a group I make.  I don't find that better or more fun.

I'm totally in agreement, but consider the opposite and its "regenerative" effects on community behavior (particularly the kneejerk gating crowd with good intentions but stubborn behaviors).  If everyone is on the same field of play, everyone has something to relate to.  If randomness is the only way of gathering groups, it's the only measuring stick to doing group content.  There's no alternative, and no means for people to start ostracizing entire categories of players.  If you want your legendary, you group with 4 potential losers or else.  People temper expectations, and they start relating to each other more easily.  They might even start self-educating each other.  It sounds disgusting I know, but that's also part of the problem.  This is human behavior conditioning at work, not a gameplay problem.

This is anecdotally coming from playing many years of WoW in its earliest growing stages btw, which actually worked in keeping a healthy community.  The resurgence of Classic and was a direct result of this sort of implied handicap.  

[Vayne.8563]

55 minutes ago, Borked.6824 said:

I'm totally in agreement, but consider the opposite and its "regenerative" effects on community behavior (particularly the kneejerk gating crowd with good intentions but stubborn behaviors).  If everyone is on the same field of play, everyone has something to relate to.  If randomness is the only way of gathering groups, it's the only measuring stick to doing group content.  There's no alternative, and no means for people to start ostracizing entire categories of players.  If you want your legendary, you group with 4 potential losers or else.  People temper expectations, and they start relating to each other more easily.  They might even start self-educating each other.  It sounds disgusting I know, but that's also part of the problem.  This is human behavior conditioning at work, not a gameplay problem.

This is anecdotally coming from playing many years of WoW in its earliest growing stages btw, which actually worked in keeping a healthy community.  The resurgence of Classic and was a direct result of this sort of implied handicap.  

Not my experience. I generally post my own adds on the rare occassions I pug.  Casual fun run, all welcome. It keeps out the riff raff. lol

[Sobx.1758]

50 minutes ago, Borked.6824 said:

I'm totally in agreement, but consider the opposite and its "regenerative" effects on community behavior (particularly the kneejerk gating crowd with good intentions but stubborn behaviors).  If everyone is on the same field of play, everyone has something to relate to.  If randomness is the only way of gathering groups, it's the only measuring stick to doing group content.  There's no alternative, and no means for people to start ostracizing entire categories of players.  If you want your legendary, you group with 4 potential losers or else.  People temper expectations, and they start relating to each other more easily.  They might even start self-educating each other.  It sounds disgusting I know, but that's also part of the problem.  This is human behavior conditioning at work, not a gameplay problem.

This is anecdotally coming from playing many years of WoW in its earliest growing stages btw, which actually worked in keeping a healthy community.  The resurgence of Classic and was a direct result of this sort of implied handicap.  

I'm not sure what's the problem with people being able to spell out what they expect from players joining their party, as well as individual players being able to join party with goals corresponding their own. If anyone wants to play with "whomever random", all they need to do is create their own lfg group. Is there a reason you're unable to do that? And is there a reason someone can't "self-educate" right now"? Am I missing something here?

[Borked.6824]

4 minutes ago, Sobx.1758 said:

I'm not sure what's the problem with people being able to spell out what they expect from players joining their party, as well as individual players being able to join party with goals corresponding their own. If anyone wants to play with "whomever random", all they need to do is create their own lfg group. Is there a reason you're unable to do that? And is there a reason someone can't "self-educate" right now"? Am I missing something here?

The problem isn't with specificity though, it's with accessibility on a global scale.  I can go into LFG and type "LFG casual hot babes only for nude Cliffside, we're not doing an ounce of trying," and people will probably know what to expect there.  Probably a good indicator for a safe space.  But there's all kinds of ambiguity when you leave entry up to a system monitored by human behavior.  Any one of those criteria could leave somebody with a bad experience or a boot at their own expense.  Something globally defined has no ambiguity.  Like a fire alarm.  It's an inconvenience, it implies danger; without question people follow the protocol, but it is in the hands of nobody other than the entire group of people involved.

[Sobx.1758]

On 12/17/2021 at 11:41 PM, Borked.6824 said:

The problem isn't with specificity though, it's with accessibility on a global scale.  I can go into LFG and type "LFG casual hot babes only for nude Cliffside, we're not doing an ounce of trying," and people will probably know what to expect there.  Probably a good indicator for a safe space.  But there's all kinds of ambiguity when you leave entry up to a system monitored by human behavior.  Any one of those criteria could leave somebody with a bad experience or a boot at their own expense.  Something globally defined has no ambiguity.  Like a fire alarm.  It's an inconvenience, it implies danger; without question people follow the protocol, but it is in the hands of nobody other than the entire group of people involved.

Creating a squad in lfg is "accessible on a global scale". And the "bad experience" you're describing here will happen in those random parties as well, probably even moreso, because instead of "just some people refusing to join/create groups according to how they want to play", now it would be everyone doing that. You're basically trying to punish people that are able to organize themselves into specific groups (by either creating them or joining the ones they like/fit in) because some players refuse to do so and try to join squads that will carry them (because what other issue could it be?). It's such a backwards approach to what you're trying to achieve that it's hard to understand what positive outcome exactly you're aiming at. It simply makes no sense to me.

Comparison to fire alarm has nothing to do with it either, as far as I understand.

Edited December 19, 2021 by Sobx.1758

[Linken.6345]

3 hours ago, Borked.6824 said:

I'm totally in agreement, but consider the opposite and its "regenerative" effects on community behavior (particularly the kneejerk gating crowd with good intentions but stubborn behaviors).  If everyone is on the same field of play, everyone has something to relate to.  If randomness is the only way of gathering groups, it's the only measuring stick to doing group content.  There's no alternative, and no means for people to start ostracizing entire categories of players.  If you want your legendary, you group with 4 potential losers or else.  People temper expectations, and they start relating to each other more easily.  They might even start self-educating each other.  It sounds disgusting I know, but that's also part of the problem.  This is human behavior conditioning at work, not a gameplay problem.

This is anecdotally coming from playing many years of WoW in its earliest growing stages btw, which actually worked in keeping a healthy community.  The resurgence of Classic and was a direct result of this sort of implied handicap.  

People would just organise over discords instead ( or a web page like gw2lfg.com that was used before we had lfg in game) then invite the ones they have listed and do content.

This will not solve anything for you.

[Sobx.1758]

10 hours ago, Linken.6345 said:

People would just organise over discords instead ( or a web page like gw2lfg.com that was used before we had lfg in game) then invite the ones they have listed and do content.

This will not solve anything for you.

That or even just go back to calling out "lf x" in map chats, which would be current lfg with extra steps and without global reach. Overally I don't see how his idea brings anything positive to the game.

[Krzysztof.5973]

I'm curious. How many tries have you tried public instances for strikes/drms OP? Not trying to be mean, but have you tried similar system that is already in the game yourself? 

[Cuks.8241]

When I started this game I was also all for automated fractal and raid finder. The more I played those modes, the more I see they don't really suit the game.

It's not just the technical build stuff other mentioned, it's also the community in this game. The public strike option worked for exactly one day after launch. After that it never worked again. Why? Because people that are used to grouping used LFG. So you were left with people that usually don't play instanced content. And what happened, no one in public had even 1 minute of patience and incentive to cooperate and make it work. So on day 2 most groups never even started let alone downed the boss and after day 3 it was deserted and players that wanted to play used LFG.

Truth be told for T1 and T2 fracs a random group finder would be just fine. But based on my experience getting a group on LFG is easy, fast and players are very nice. Never have I've seen fractal run seller. 

Even in Wow when they introduced LFD and LFR and they almost completely took over pugging, I found myself missing the old way of spamming chat with LF2M for X. Yeah it was cumbersome and lengthy at times but at least you had people in party that were able to type at least "hi resto here" and "ready" and "gg" and you didn't have a feeling like playing with AI.

[Chrysaliss.8720]

Automated group finders wont work here because of insane class imbalances in PvE. People would just queue up, get matched, see there is no heal FB / alac, leave the party and queue again. And it would take you 10 times longer than manual matchmaking.

[Hume.2876]

Heal FB and Alac must for tier 4?  Maybe they could add some automated role requirement to the LFG.  And then balance the game around that..

 

So every "support" spec could have equal value (assuming they are done right) and every healer would have equal value (assuming they are done right).

 

This would be making it less random not more - but it seems needed for tier 4.  Tier 2 and 3 don't seem to need any special classes.  Seems for that all scourge necros is really good.. LOL.