LFG for raids is awful

[Skylite.9180]

Seriously, I love how unique GW2 is I've been playing for 10 years on and off and participate in most content including raids on and off back in HoT release.  Fast-forward to a few weeks ago andI've been working on my envoy armor for raids and it's awful. I don't mind the grind and learning the raids at all, they've been super fun but man I despise the lfg system so much. Not only is it clunky as hell but I have to either command a group or suffer Commander kitten merging my group and then recruiting in MY group for a whole separate wing, then when I tell them to buzz off I get kicked out of my own group. So then I'm left with commanding, I bought that stupid glorified boy scout badge only to avoid that but now I'm expected to know EVERYTHING in the raid for every role. Like I don't give a kitten about what letter of the alphabet dps you are or what every class that isn't the one I play does, I just care if we have a tank (for some fights) a healer and some dps. Why do I have to care if you're doing a condi off heal/support/alac/mocha frappe/whatever build and have to know if it's compatible with the rest of the team comp. 

 

I completely understand that the commander tag IS for being a raid leader, but man why are my only options 1) to not command and leave myself to the mercy of dickhead commanders. 2) command and then get kitten for not knowing what everyone else needs to do. Or 3) Use a 3rd party app (discord) and go into one of the training raid groups and basically use it as a better LFG. 

 

Raids would definitely have been more popular if the devs just made it more accessible. Even in games without LFG as long as you know your own role and the mechanics for your own class you'll be fine. The raids aren't even particularly hard or impossible 

 

Cryposting done. LFG can suck on my big toe.

[Mistwraithe.3106]

I can see it isn't great but I'm curious about what sort of solutions you would be looking for? From what you have said it might be more player behavior and expectations that's the problem rather than what the devs have done?

Edited August 10, 2023 by Mistwraithe.3106

[vares.8457]

I wouldn’t recommend the LFG tool when you are new to raids, take your guild mates and friends and start your own raid group. 

[Skylite.9180]

46 minutes ago, Mistwraithe.3106 said:

I can see it isn't great but I'm curious about what sort of solutions you would be looking for? From what you have said it might be more player behavior and expectations that's the problem rather than what the devs have done?

Mainly just some type of role queue or role selection inside of LFG so people can stop whining when they don't get their abcdefghdps in the group and immediately drop the group cause 'this person is playing X class with Y build and I don't consider that viable'. I'm not a raid logger. I just wanna be able to get into the raids, get loot, get out, not spend 30min figuring out what roles everyone else needs to play.

[Skylite.9180]

40 minutes ago, vares.8457 said:

I wouldn’t recommend the LFG tool when you are new to raids, take your guild mates and friends and start your own raid group. 

I been doin HoT raids for awhile. I know what I need to do as an individual. I have no friends, also wtf is the point of the LFG tool if it isn't even recommended to look for a group?? I thought that's the point of it.

[kharmin.7683]

6 hours ago, Skylite.9180 said:

Raids would definitely have been more popular if the devs just made it more accessible.

The devs aren't the ones who are making raids more or less accessible.

[Tharan.9085]

Ok so you don't want to put effort into it and expect to be cartered to?

[maxwelgm.4315]

Raids are a deeply social activity. You can't "no-friend" it or avoid that aspect, GW2 just doesn't try to mask this like other games do with raid finders and such. It must really be stressed to the point of being redundant, raids are a social activity. The fights are indeed not hard and you may know everything that you have to do as an individual, but you still need a group of regular people to play with and enjoy the mode to its fullest. PUGs are to be seen as a temporary, hack, or short term solution and will never replace the quality of actually joining some discord or whatever you want to do to become buddies to a minimum of 9 other people you can raid with. 

Other than that fractals are designed to be very pug-friendly and if you want armor you can wait for the next mini-expac which comes with a solo friendly open world PvE armor.

[Cuks.8241]

LFG in general is very lacking. I dont mean I want raid finder tool, just some quality of life. Like preassigning roles so people can apply for specific role so you don't need to keep info who can do what (these could be completely custom by the commander). It's not just for raids. 

[Skylite.9180]

5 hours ago, kharmin.7683 said:

The devs aren't the ones who are making raids more or less accessible.

Who made this horrendous LFG then??

[Skylite.9180]

3 hours ago, Tharan.9085 said:

Ok so you don't want to put effort into it and expect to be cartered to?

If putting the effort means having to completely organize every aspect of a quick wing 1 run, then yeah I wanna be pampered like a prince lol.

[Tharan.9085]

23 minutes ago, Skylite.9180 said:

If putting the effort means having to completely organize every aspect of a quick wing 1 run, then yeah I wanna be pampered like a prince lol.

Just join an already existing group in lfg

[Sobx.1758]

44 minutes ago, Skylite.9180 said:

If putting the effort means having to completely organize every aspect of a quick wing 1 run, then yeah I wanna be pampered like a prince lol.

You can make any group you want and if other players have similar expectations to you then they'll join your group. If you add an auto-finder and think it will somehow make other players change their expectations then I'm not even sure what you're basing that on. The players who want a/qdps (or other sideroles) in their squad would use that whole glorified solve-it-all autofinder, join your squad, see you don't have [whatever role or siderole] and still leave your squad. Why would you think this will go any different than that?

Just describe your squad for what it is and people with similar expectations will join. Hiding your expectations won't magically make other people stop leaving your group when they notice it doesn't match their expectations.

Edited August 10, 2023 by Sobx.1758

[Cuks.8241]

45 minutes ago, Sobx.1758 said:

You can make any group you want and if other players have similar expectations to you then they'll join your group. If you add an auto-finder and think it will somehow make other players change their expectations then I'm not even sure what you're basing that on. The players who want a/qdps (or other sideroles) in their squad would use that whole glorified solve-it-all autofinder, join your squad, see you don't have [whatever role or siderole] and still leave your squad. Why would you think this will go any different than that?

Just describe your squad for what it is and people with similar expectations will join. Hiding your expectations won't magically make other people stop leaving your group when they notice it doesn't match their expectations.

He didn't even ask for auto finder (well he did as an option but not really as a primary option) but just a LFG tool that doesn't look like it's from 1995 (and we had better tools even in 1995 but mostly third party).

[sumpwa.1849]

You will have a much more enjoyable time if you pretend the LFG tool doesn't exist at all.

[Sobx.1758]

29 minutes ago, Cuks.8241 said:

He didn't even ask for auto finder (well he did as an option but not really as a primary option) but just a LFG tool that doesn't look like it's from 1995 (and we had better tools even in 1995 but mostly third party).

...you clearly are aware that he did, so why attempt telling me he didn't? 😄 
Whether it was supposed to be a main solution or one of the things he thinks would solve anything, the question still stands: how is it supposed to solve what he's complaining about here?

And my response didn't somehow just address the autofinder either, the first sentence is addressed at current state of lfg when OP has tag, but doesn't want x/y/z roles because it's too much organizing or w/e: You can make any group you want and if other players have similar expectations to you then they'll join your group.

Edited August 10, 2023 by Sobx.1758

[Skylite.9180]

1 hour ago, Cuks.8241 said:

He didn't even ask for auto finder (well he did as an option but not really as a primary option) but just a LFG tool that doesn't look like it's from 1995 (and we had better tools even in 1995 but mostly third party).

Yes exactly someone who gets it. I think LFG works fine for most things but man they really make it annoying with raids trying to PUG content. I just want to be able to make groups without being forced to command or hope some other commander who merged my group actually has use for me. 

[Skylite.9180]

55 minutes ago, Sobx.1758 said:

...you clearly are aware that he did, so why attempt telling me he didn't? 😄 
Whether it was supposed to be a main solution or one of the things he thinks would solve anything, the question still stands: how is it supposed to solve what he's complaining about here?

And my response didn't somehow just address the autofinder either, the first sentence is addressed at current state of lfg when OP has tag, but doesn't want x/y/z roles because it's too much organizing or w/e: You can make any group you want and if other players have similar expectations to you then they'll join your group

That's not what I said. I'm crying that I have to care about what the dozens of classes and builds provide to a run. I don't WANT to even tag up on the first place. People who enjoy it, more power to you. I just don't wanna get hijacked..I'm perfectly fine with people seeing what's in the party beforehand and thinking "this party ain't for me" and just dipping. To clarify, I HAVE NO PROBLEM FINDING MEMBERS, but I'm either expected to be in charge of those members or to see some kitten from another raid merge groups and recruit from WITHIN MY OWN SQUAD. It's just so disrespectful lol.

[Skylite.9180]

1 hour ago, sumpwa.1849 said:

You will have a much more enjoyable time if you pretend the LFG tool doesn't exist at all.

I like LFG for overworld content especially finding groups for events and world bosses, I think LFG is okay for that. But it's god awful when I wanna do something instance based 

[Skylite.9180]

2 hours ago, Tharan.9085 said:

Just join an already existing group in lfg

Majority of those groups are run sellers lol and the ones that are recruiting typically I can't find for the raids that I want to do. Which isn't a bad thing, I'm not complaining, but I've played enough MMOs to know just making my own group is typically faster than waiting for someone else to come by doing the specific content I want. Also having to constantly tab in and check in the middle of me doing something overworld is clunky and kitten

[Sobx.1758]

10 minutes ago, Skylite.9180 said:

I don't WANT to even tag up on the first place. People who enjoy it, more power to you. I just don't wanna get hijacked..I'm perfectly fine with people seeing what's in the party beforehand and thinking "this party ain't for me" and just dipping. To clarify, I HAVE NO PROBLEM FINDING MEMBERS, but I'm either expected to be in charge of those members or to see some kitten from another raid merge groups and recruit from WITHIN MY OWN SQUAD. It's just so disrespectful lol.

Then that isn't as much of an issue with lfg as it is with squad ownership. And yeah, that is in a weird place currently.
Although know that just because you tag up, it doesn't automatically mean you're supposed to organize your squad however other people want it to be. In fact, it means that you're free to make that squad however you want. If you think a/b/c isn't needed then build a squad without a/b and c.

Merging squads by comanders of another wing is extremely weird -and probably super rare?- considering how counterproductive it is. They don't know who's in the squad they're merging with and chances are people in your squad wanted to do YOUR wing, not "the other wing that they didn't join, but now someone merged your group into". Maybe it was an accident, maybe it was a troll, but it's not something that often happens as far as I'm aware?

[Zohane.7208]

14 hours ago, Skylite.9180 said:

Mainly just some type of role queue or role selection inside of LFG so people can stop whining when they don't get their abcdefghdps in the group and immediately drop the group cause 'this person is playing X class with Y build and I don't consider that viable'. I'm not a raid logger. I just wanna be able to get into the raids, get loot, get out, not spend 30min figuring out what roles everyone else needs to play.

"Role queue" or "role selection" seems to be sort of the same as an auto group finder or whatever people want to call it. For reasons discussed many times, latest in another thread (linked below) that's not practical. (TL;DR for it: roles aren't defined by Anet so Anet can't really build them into the tool.)

 

[Skylite.9180]

6 hours ago, Zohane.7208 said:

"Role queue" or "role selection" seems to be sort of the same as an auto group finder or whatever people want to call it. For reasons discussed many times, latest in another thread (linked below) that's not practical. (TL;DR for it: roles aren't defined by Anet so Anet can't really build them into the tool.)

 

Yes it is practical, anet didn't design these fights without an idea of what roles to utilize, this isn't just some random mod tacked on the game. Hell that's why they made Toughness the aggro stat in the first place. They had a specific design philosophy in mind. They didn't just throw random bosses at the wall with no testing. They saw what they needed to make these bosses work internally and released them. Yeah players are going to make their own meta, that's fine, but still there should be like some bare minimum reqs for a group that anet can just recommend. If players deviate from that then that's perfectly fine and if anet wants to encourage that, cool, bonus brownie points. But let me just queue up as a general role and/or let me make a pf for general roles that all players can see coming in. The command system can go kick rocks. 

 

I didn't even put my post in this jive kitten sub I wanted general forums to see it but big anet wanted me to get cooked by the status quo enjoyers in this sub so they moved it. 

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

you know, every time a thread comes up like this, a handfulof players defend the design of the lfg and all i have to say is, that's weird. we all know its bad, and any of us who have played another game know just how bad it actually is, not just that its bad. repeatedly replying to threads asking for some degree of progress in this way saying its not necesary isn't helpful, and this is becoming very common on these forums for some reason.

 

its no wonder arenanet ignores most of the feedback provided here, since its just the same players derailing threads repeatedly away from discussion of why a problem exists into a gaslighting discussion about how the problem doesn't exist and everyone else just needs to do better somehow.

 

who are they supposed to listen to, who are they supposed to believe?

Edited August 11, 2023 by SoftFootpaws.9134

[Cuks.8241]

1 hour ago, SoftFootpaws.9134 said:

you know, every time a thread comes up like this, a handfulof players defend the design of the lfg and all i have to say is, that's weird. we all know its bad, and any of us who have played another game know just how bad it actually is, not just that its bad. repeatedly replying to threads asking for some degree of progress in this way saying its not necesary isn't helpful, and this is becoming very common on these forums for some reason.

 

its no wonder arenanet ignores most of the feedback provided here, since its just the same players derailing threads repeatedly away from discussion of why a problem exists into a gaslighting discussion about how the problem doesn't exist and everyone else just needs to do better somehow.

 

who are they supposed to listen to, who are they supposed to believe?

I fully agree on this one. I made a few posts in the past how LFG could be improved. I often say we had better tools even 20 years a go and I am not kidding. 

I am also baffled how anyone would not want to have improved group finder. NOT auto lfg. Just a better interface for existing LFG with more and better options and better accessibility. Especially because this game is sliced in instances, including hub maps, there is no global chat channel where you could communicate with everyone. LFG is the only in game tool that can connect random players from the whole server. I would think having a strong tool for grouping in an massive online game would be top priority because playing with other players increases fun a lot. And guilds and discord is not the same. That's step 2 in forming a bond with other players. Step one is initiating the communications. And gw2 could make this much easier.