LFG is the opposite of Living World

[jaif.3518]

I really haven't been into the expansion as much as I'd like.  I think the aesthetics are wonderful, the events I've done are fun, etc, but I miss just knocking about the world, running into things, a big mass of us get together to bring the bigger things down, and so on.

I've realized that this is due to LFG.  Want to do the meta in <x>?  Answer:LFG.  Want the turtle?  Kaineng LFG.  etc..

To make matters worse, the LFG groups take over an instance, so when I login I'm in a very lonely instance - I can't count the number of times I login or zone in, only to have the game shove the "volunteer to leave" popup into my face 1 minute later.

 

Anet, please consider chill players who just want to chaotically get together in the world as stuff happens. 

[Hashberry.4510]

LFG is how its done.

[mythical.6315]

This has been how it’s done since the LFG was been added. 

Edited April 9, 2022 by mythical.6315

[ugrakarma.9416]

no.

 

[HotDelirium.7984]

The irony of getting what you want also can be solved with LFG is not lost on me lol

[dace.8019]

It's a valid complaint but I think it could be remedied a lot without butchering the purpose of the LFG by bringing the LFG up to speed.

The game didn't launch with the LFG tab - it was added much later. It's tacked on. It's functionality is basic and the interface and experience of using it is underwhelming and limitting. 

What ArenaNet should really do if they're taking a look at some core aspects of the game is really focussing on the LFG and making LFG it's own standalone item in the menu and making it industry leading and not some after thought. 

 

Instead of a dry list of text covering just about everything the people at ANet worked hard to deliver it ought to be a beautifully rendered  menu with evocative art for the matching content and packed with options. 

Edited April 9, 2022 by dace.8019

[Vayne.8563]

When I'm casually running around the world, I'm not generally working on or looking for specific content.  Then I hit things quite naturally as they come up.  But if I'm working on something specific, I'm going to use the LFG tool. It's by no means perfect it usually works for me.

 

It's better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness.

[Gibson.4036]

1 hour ago, Vayne.8563 said:

When I'm casually running around the world, I'm not generally working on or looking for specific content.  Then I hit things quite naturally as they come up.  But if I'm working on something specific, I'm going to use the LFG tool. It's by no means perfect it usually works for me.

 

It's better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness.

So, if one’s around for the start of a meta, make sure to post in LFG “taxi to meta”?

It feels like such a roll of the dice doing any of the EOD metas.

In HoT or Drizzlewood I can pretty much make sure to get a map with enough players to do the metas as long as I don’t show up late. In EOD, though, I’ll get there early, there seem to be enough players, we do the lead up, then we may or may not succeed at the end.

My most recent failed Echovald didn’t seem to be a mechanics problem. People were by and large doing the hide behind the junk, and staying out of the circles. But man each stage took forever, like the group had a combined dps of a down pillow.

So the thing to do is put up a sign saying “at least one person on this instance wants to do the meta” and count on players to jump on board?

 

Edited April 9, 2022 by Gibson.4036

[Vayne.8563]

5 hours ago, Gibson.4036 said:

So, if one’s around for the start of a meta, make sure to post in LFG “taxi to meta”?

It feels like such a roll of the dice doing any of the EOD metas.

In HoT or Drizzlewood I can pretty much make sure to get a map with enough players to do the metas as long as I don’t show up late. In EOD, though, I’ll get there early, there seem to be enough players, we do the lead up, then we may or may not succeed at the end.

My most recent failed Echovald didn’t seem to be a mechanics problem. People were by and large doing the hide behind the junk, and staying out of the circles. But man each stage took forever, like the group had a combined dps of a down pillow.

So the thing to do is put up a sign saying “at least one person on this instance wants to do the meta” and count on players to jump on board?

 

Metas have always been a crap shoot, The harder the meta, the more of a crap shoot. Easy metas and world bosses are no big deal because they're easy. But Triple Trouble, even Teq when it launched failed all the time.  TD used to fail all the time too.  AB used to fail in the old days sometimes. No one could even figure out how to do the Verdant Brink meta when it came out. Serpents Ire failed for ages in PoF.  Let's not pretend that this is a unique problem to EOD.

And a lot of players have returned for Cantha or even started playing so yes, the meta will fail sometimes.  Come back in six months that most likely won't be the case.  It's part of learning a new expansion for a lot of people.  

There have always been people in this game that do very low amounts of damage. The best way to make the game better is to join in the community of people that teach how to do better. It's something I do, and I'm no pro.  But I'm sure not doing less damage than most people, even if I'm not doing top damage.

[standardFoe.2983]

@jaif.3518 I'm with you, not enjoying the direction EoD took with open world events at all. In fact I went back to finishing up stuff in other maps I appreciate a whole lot more now and have only been back to upgrade my bot. 

 

And I hate LFG always have always will.

 

@Vayne.8563 It's completely possible to help people in open world without parties and discord always has been and I've been doing it for eight years.

 

Instanced content is not my bag and the casual randomness of being thrown together with a group for a fight or task (and to succeed b/c the event isn't designed like a raid) then to move on with my own adventure is exactly what I'm looking for.

 

GW2 has done a good job of keeping casual and hardcore players separate for years but based on the heated discussions EoD continues to drive it will be interesting to see the development of future releases.

[Linken.6345]

7 minutes ago, standardFoe.2983 said:

@jaif.3518 I'm with you, not enjoying the direction EoD took with open world events at all. In fact I went back to finishing up stuff in other maps I appreciate a whole lot more now and have only been back to upgrade my bot. 

 

And I hate LFG always have always will.

 

@Vayne.8563 It's completely possible to help people in open world without parties and discord always has been and I've been doing it for eight years.

 

Instanced content is not my bag and the casual randomness of being thrown together with a group for a fight or task (and to succeed b/c the event isn't designed like a raid) then to move on with my own adventure is exactly what I'm looking for.

 

GW2 has done a good job of keeping casual and hardcore players separate for years but based on the heated discussions EoD continues to drive it will be interesting to see the development of future releases.

Nah the casual have just been carried by the hardcore in every meta event so far.

It is just that this one need more of them then usual to be successful.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

You know, if you have a commander tag, you won't have to use the LFG.  The LFG instead uses you.

[Ryuk.6840]

Yeah i wish the company should collaborate with the Training Guilds and create a new auto LFG .

Leaders of those training guilds can right click and  "report" their  members (or strangers in Open world ) deemed as nice people  as "Friendly" , and those will be the pillar of the LFG community . The GW2 Moderators will be the ones to give the final"Ok".

 

Whatever activity they do  , an auto LFG will be enabled (they can deactivate it )  and shown in the map (like Waypoints)  and they will get some bonus reward (mats for a new Legendary Weapon?) .

If they spot an afk player , they can right click and a decaying-hp (Drum) will hunt them. If more people from that auto LFG perport him , then the drum will get bonus HP so he can last longer.

Same if , people are harassing people with "moar dps" or "gut gud noobs"

 

Some gems  for training Guilds per month , and  if they spot some1 miss-behaving , they can report him and they  get bonus gems if generally the LFG population is behaving "good enough" at the end of each  month .

 

The old LFG can stay ofc , to satisfie the rest of the community

Edited April 10, 2022 by Ryuk.6840

[Vayne.8563]

2 hours ago, standardFoe.2983 said:

@jaif.3518 I'm with you, not enjoying the direction EoD took with open world events at all. In fact I went back to finishing up stuff in other maps I appreciate a whole lot more now and have only been back to upgrade my bot. 

 

And I hate LFG always have always will.

 

@Vayne.8563 It's completely possible to help people in open world without parties and discord always has been and I've been doing it for eight years.

 

Instanced content is not my bag and the casual randomness of being thrown together with a group for a fight or task (and to succeed b/c the event isn't designed like a raid) then to move on with my own adventure is exactly what I'm looking for.

 

GW2 has done a good job of keeping casual and hardcore players separate for years but based on the heated discussions EoD continues to drive it will be interesting to see the development of future releases.

I get this completely. I simply joined a casual guild that does stuff that has people I like. I'm virtually never thrown into a random situation with strangers because I'm playing with friends.  Today we helped a 73 year old woman get her turtle mount by finishing the strike mission (along with 2 other guildies who had it). 

 

Finding the right guild might take some time, but being in a good guild has made this game not only a lot more fun but much more accessible to me.

[jaif.3518]

I don't mind fractals, dungeons, raids being supported by a LFG tool.  There's a strong part of the community that enjoys these aspects of the game.  The more enjoyment, the better for all.

But the living world was billed as chaotic place that felt alive, with events and map events helping to solidify that feel.  But this only works when there's enough people on the map, and too often all the people are turning to LFG to bring order to the chaos, and the truly casual souls end up on empty maps by the instancing algorithm, and the living world ends up feeling dead.

 

[standardFoe.2983]

@Vayne.8563 You do not get it and I really do not appreciate the patronizing tone. I've been MMO-ing since 2003 and am pretty good figuring out to how to have fun in games. I'm in a couple of guilds that I can do instanced content with I just do not want to, I ENJOY the random casualness of open world. Great so you helped someone I help people all the time just not on EoD crap like a mount that mostly exists to sell skins in the gem store.

 

@Blood Red Arachnid.2493 I have a comm tag and use it a lot to pull randoms together for brief open world events and then I move on, b/c I am disabled and cannot keep up with players that have a lot more energy than me.

 

@Linken.6345 You are not actually contributing to this discussion so.....go back to your T4's and Cm's. Open world is not a walk in the park. Learning how metas evolve and farming routes through large maps is not for people who want easy mode constantly.

Although I do self-describe as a casual since I don't want to be associated with players that think gaming is only fun when it's punishing.

[Razadune.9260]

21 hours ago, Hashberry.4510 said:

LFG is how its done.

    

For you, maybe, but I'd bet gold that it's not the norm for the average person playing. There's clearly way too many people that don't recognize how many players are just playing events organically rather than using the fairly terrible LFG tool.

   

Drop-in events and play like the "living world" the OP was talking about have always been the key strength and selling point of GW2, where you can move about freely and interact with the map as events unfold and change around you. Items like the World Boss Portal Device meant to drop you into these types of events don't put you in a group, as another good example.       

   

EoD doesn't actually require using the LFG tool, but it's an awful time attempting to do the metas without it and it's not a positive change for the game as a whole. I've pretty much quit playing EoD maps entirely because of it and I doubt I'm alone in that.    

 

9 hours ago, Linken.6345 said:

Nah the casual have just been carried by the hardcore in every meta event so far.

It is just that this one need more of them then usual to be successful.

 

10 hours ago, Vayne.8563 said:

There have always been people in this game that do very low amounts of damage. The best way to make the game better is to join in the community of people that teach how to do better. It's something I do, and I'm no pro.

    

And here we have the "casuals" insults and unprompted "I'm better than you" DPS rants as a good example of the elitism and toxicity behind why a lot of people don't want to use LFG, don't want to you join your Discords, and just want to play the game's maps organically...and aren't likely to play at all if they can't.

[Zaraki.5784]

Why can't you just use LFG yourself? It's not hard to use: for meta you join a LFG squad and try to join the map, if it's full either wait or try another LFG on a different map. After you join a meta map you're done, no more interactions with LFG until next meta. 

There is not actually any possible alternative.

Edited April 10, 2022 by Zaraki.5784

[Hashberry.4510]

Shrug, these folks think they can have entertaining open world metas without the tiniest bit of organization. They will always be disappointed, except the lucky few who happened on a working map.

[Cuks.8241]

Most metas are balanced around the organisation through LFG. It may not seem obvious if youre just there for the ride. Without lfg the failure rate would increase substantially for some metas to pretty much close to 100 % at least without having blind luck and stumbling on an organised squad.

Also most players are very familiar with older metas like Hot ones. Something like octovine seems like it almost never fails even without lfg groups. But it took time for players to be so familiar with it. And LFG groups were actually the ones that facilitated the initial learning and strategy setting and kept that knowledge through the years. You still see commanders explaining mechanics for Hot metas. It may seem trivial and useless to many players that have done it hundred times but its how new players learn. I see players that have no idea how to make vines vulnerable. Every time I command a Dragon Stand lane I will explain at least the Thornhearths and the tower phase. Because I know there are at least a few players in a squad that are newer and dont know  the mechanics. Yes we would succeed anyway but those few players now know and will perpetuate that knowledge.

Edited April 10, 2022 by Cuks.8241

[Erise.5614]

52 minutes ago, Cuks.8241 said:

Most metas are balanced around the organisation through LFG. It may not seem obvious if youre just there for the ride. Without lfg the failure rate would increase substantially for some metas to pretty much close to 100 % at least without having blind luck and stumbling on an organised squad.

Also most players are very familiar with older metas like Hot ones. Something like octovine seems like it almost never fails even without lfg groups. But it took time for players to be so familiar with it. And LFG groups were actually the ones that facilitated the initial learning and strategy setting and kept that knowledge through the years. You still see commanders explaining mechanics for Hot metas. It may seem trivial and useless to many players that have done it hundred times but its how new players learn. I see players that have no idea how to make vines vulnerable. Every time I command a Dragon Stand lane I will explain at least the Thornhearths and the tower phase. Because I know there are at least a few players in a squad that are newer and dont know  the mechanics. Yes we would succeed anyway but those few players now know and will perpetuate that knowledge.

Tags are mostly about filling up the maps. Not about success rate. If you're on the map ~20 minutes before you don't usually run into any trouble just entering the map. Never opening LFG at all.  

HoT metas have been learned a little but most of the difference to the original failure rate is due to nerfs. Or rather, rebalancing to adjust the event to players. Instead of demanding players to adapt to the event (e.g. AB, changing burn phase durations and surrounding mechanics to align with how players were already playing)

You can even do DS without LFG by being there early enough. Maps fill up fairly consistently and someone tags up.

The difference is that you need a handful of people who know the mechanics and most others can follow them. Or they can explain it on the go.

Cantha is extremely not like this. Even the high success rate maps (Saitung / Kaineng) depend a lot more on LFG. Maps fill up really weird. Not even considering the busted meta that isn't remotely consistent even with extensive explanations and extensive organization (to the degree possible in pugs). 

Edited April 10, 2022 by Erise.5614

[Cuks.8241]

2 hours ago, Erise.5614 said:

Tags are mostly about filling up the maps. Not about success rate. If you're on the map ~20 minutes before you don't usually run into any trouble just entering the map. Never opening LFG at all.  

HoT metas have been learned a little but most of the difference to the original failure rate is due to nerfs. Or rather, rebalancing to adjust the event to players. Instead of demanding players to adapt to the event (e.g. AB, changing burn phase durations and surrounding mechanics to align with how players were already playing)

You can even do DS without LFG by being there early enough. Maps fill up fairly consistently and someone tags up.

The difference is that you need a handful of people who know the mechanics and most others can follow them. Or they can explain it on the go.

Cantha is extremely not like this. Even the high success rate maps (Saitung / Kaineng) depend a lot more on LFG. Maps fill up really weird. Not even considering the busted meta that isn't remotely consistent even with extensive explanations and extensive organization (to the degree possible in pugs). 

LFG Tags are about filling up maps with players interested in meta. You have 200 players interested in octovine, you will fill 2 instances with those players with lfg and all will succeed.

You have 200 players interested in meta and no LFG they get scattered across 5 instances. 2 instances will still succeed, 1 will have a decent chance, 1 or 2 might fail. 

Filling up is actually non important. Many events scale and are even easier with less players. Filling up with players interested in meta is key here.

Metas have been nerfed. There is still some coordination needed. LFG and tags help.

You can do DS without LFG if you are early. But your success is guaranteed if you are in an instance where the comms will put up LFG. I have completed DSs without tags and without LFG at all. But the success rate for such instances is low. DS can even sometimes fail with organisation but a bad one.

For non Dragon's End (that one is just a different cake which I happen to like but get it why many dont), I think Cantha has weirdly low player caps. Or there are just many players doing other stuff. Can't tell. You barely get one full squad in and the instance is full. 

[Erise.5614]

29 minutes ago, Cuks.8241 said:

LFG Tags are about filling up maps with players interested in meta. You have 200 players interested in octovine, you will fill 2 instances with those players with lfg and all will succeed.

You have 200 players interested in meta and no LFG they get scattered across 5 instances. 2 instances will still succeed, 1 will have a decent chance, 1 or 2 might fail. 

Filling up is actually non important. Many events scale and are even easier with less players. Filling up with players interested in meta is key here.

Metas have been nerfed. There is still some coordination needed. LFG and tags help.

You can do DS without LFG if you are early. But your success is guaranteed if you are in an instance where the comms will put up LFG. I have completed DSs without tags and without LFG at all. But the success rate for such instances is low. DS can even sometimes fail with organisation but a bad one.

For non Dragon's End (that one is just a different cake which I happen to like but get it why many dont), I think Cantha has weirdly low player caps. Or there are just many players doing other stuff. Can't tell. You barely get one full squad in and the instance is full. 

The point is that tags show up. With timed metas, you are virtually guaranteed to have enough people if you are early in a map and it's not closing. And not just enough people, but also a few tags that show up.

That's what I mean with DS as well. Tags join instances too and since maps tend to be filled up before new instances are spawned tags often join your maps if you're early. 

Tags setting up minutes before the start don't have the best chances. Tags setting up early have a high chance of joining players who were early too. 

DS failing with organization is rare. I did two sets of commander runes and never seen it fail. I'm sure it happens, but I do believe of the ones that have a sufficiently populated map the failure rate ought to be in very low single digit percent if not below 1%.

Cantha had a cap of 60 people. Iirc they bumped it to ~75 on maps except DE a while back. Compared to HoT which has caps around 150. And I've heard of over 180 on core maps before. Both numbers aren't accurate. It's guess work based on average numbers observed in squads and assumptions about how many people do other things. 

There's also soft and hard map caps. At a certain point the game will spawn a new instance for people joining the map and only have party / squad members enter the same instance. Then they will stop doing that and reserve a few spots for explicit squad joins. This is staggered a little. Meaning players will receive the full message even if a few spots are still open. They will be made available throughout the next minutes. And only then is it entirely full.

ANet announced they wanted to make maps more populated and have more people see one another. I suspect this means they slashed the soft caps further reducing how easy it is to join as a squad and, counterintuitively, packing an unusual amount of players who are not interested in metas into those maps.

I suspect both the reduced map caps and the reduced soft caps contribute to making the open world experience significantly worse and making LFG more important than ever. 

[Cuks.8241]

2 minutes ago, Erise.5614 said:

The point is that tags show up. With timed metas, you are virtually guaranteed to have enough people if you are early in a map and it's not closing. And not just enough people, but also a few tags that show up.

The point of the thread was to remove lfg. Without LFG many players would be left on new instances without option to join the populated ones. The failure rate per player would increase and hence why I said that metas are balanced for lfg.

And what would actually happen would be even worse for people that just like to solo play without obligation to others, organisation would move to discord and guilds. Players that are just solo playing naturally would have a harder time to come in contact with organised maps. Especially for more obscured metas like Serpent's Ire or triple trouble.

[Erise.5614]

13 minutes ago, Cuks.8241 said:

The point of the thread was to remove lfg. Without LFG many players would be left on new instances without option to join the populated ones. The failure rate per player would increase and hence why I said that metas are balanced for lfg.

And what would actually happen would be even worse for people that just like to solo play without obligation to others, organisation would move to discord and guilds. Players that are just solo playing naturally would have a harder time to come in contact with organised maps. Especially for more obscured metas like Serpent's Ire or triple trouble.

I would caution for nuance. 

OP is talking about the current system overemphasizing LFG while underemphasizing open world ad hoc groups. And asks ANet to consider people who enjoy the second method of play.

This does not require removal of LFG. Generally speaking, extreme actions of any kind don't do the game or the player base any good. I'm with you on that front. But the experience certainly did change with EoD and I suspect it did so in a way not intended by ANet. Which also means there are ways to change the content format that can support "non LFG" approaches better without straight up removing it. 

And frankly. I'd hope for ANet to look at that too. It's not even that I avoid LFG in any way. I frequently tag up and explain the event to new players. Even try to cram in JPs or minidungeons into meta train rotations where possible to make the content more accessible to others. Yet I mostly play solo. Meaning no bureaucracy, no coordination for time, no guild stuff, no voice com. Especially in open world which is a huge draw to me. But the open world experience does feel a lot more empty and lonely. I like to play by myself but I don't play an MMO to feel lonely in the world. 

Edited April 10, 2022 by Erise.5614