Taking Over LFG Parties

[Feuer Liebt Mich.8524]

The one thing I hate hate hate hate hate about the LFG interface is that someone else can create a separate party and then merge my party into it without my permission. Every other time I'm looking for a casual group for a dungeon path somebody does this to me and forces me into their party, which sometimes is even planning on a different path. Why doesn't this feature require permission from the group being grabbed?! GW1 had party invites/acceptance/denial in 2006!

[XatraZaytrax.2601]

Yea, this happened to me once. There was two of us in a group waiting. We were merged into a group and then immediately kicked for no reason given. If they were going to be picky about makeup, why merge with random group instead of just waiting for people who are willing to dance your tune.

[Rasimir.6239]

There's no such thing as "your" party in this game. They removed party leadership for good reasons, since people used it for all kinds of troll behaviour. The downside is that whoever joins your party (be it a single person or several already in a separate party) has as much "rights" as you do, including the right to put up or change an existing lfg listing, choose a dungeon path or fractal level, and initiate a kick vote.

It's really not a technical problem but a behavioral problem. Remove party merging, and other nuisances will pop up. Set up a party leader system, and yet other problems arise (that we have seen a lot of in the early years of this game). There really is no technical way to set up the party system that is immune to people's expectations clashing or downright trolling of others.

[Gop.8713]

@"Rasimir.6239" said:There's no such thing as "your" party in this game. They removed party leadership for good reasons, since people used it for all kinds of troll behaviour. The downside is that whoever joins your party (be it a single person or several already in a separate party) has as much "rights" as you do, including the right to put up or change an existing lfg listing, choose a dungeon path or fractal level, and initiate a kick vote.

It's really not a technical problem but a behavioral problem. Remove party merging, and other nuisances will pop up. Set up a party leader system, and yet other problems arise (that we have seen a lot of in the early years of this game). There really is no technical way to set up the party system that is immune to people's expectations clashing or downright trolling of others.

Pretty much this. Best thing to do is just drop and reform, can't take party behavior personally . . .

[rogermkiihl.1967]

@Rasimir.6239 said:... They removed party leadership for good reasons, since people used it for all kinds of troll behaviour.

I am curious: what troll behaviours there was before?

[Danikat.8537]

I agree that trolls, idiots and other annoying behaviour will happen no matter what - the format of the LFG tool just changes which behaviours are easiest or most common. I do think a confirmation on groups being merged would be helpful however. A simple "this group wants to merge" with a preview of their LFG listing and yes or no buttons so you can check if they're actually doing the same thing you want to do and would be a good fit. I'm sure some people do this innocently - e.g. assuming you don't really care which path you do, but whatever the reason it would be nice if both groups being merged got the option.

It wouldn't help with the variation which happened to me however. I was on my own advertising for a dungeon group - specifying the path but otherwise saying everyone is welcome - and one person joined, ended the search for new members and then immediately left again. Effectively they just took down my LFG listing and I'm not sure why, I was the only one advertising for that dungeon at the time and they didn't put up their own listing. It wasn't a problem, I just put the listing back up (and it was filled not long after that) but it was pretty confusing.

@rogermkiihl.1967 said:

@Rasimir.6239 said:... They removed party leadership for good reasons, since people used it for all kinds of troll behaviour.

I am curious: what troll behaviours there was befone?

If I remember correctly the most common ones were party leaders who didn't meet their own requirements effectively expecting the group to carry them because they couldn't be kicked, and leaders who would kick someone out the group at or close to the end of a dungeon so their friend could take the space and get an easy win...or so they could sell the spot.

Also in my other MMO - which has party leaders - some people expect that the leader will know the content they're doing better than anyone else in the group and will be able to instruct everyone else in the mechanics of every fight, have the perfect build for their role, know exactly where to go etc. even though the game doesn't check any of that before assigning someone as leader. So some people will accuse leaders of trolling if they don't meet their expectations.

[Seera.5916]

@rogermkiihl.1967 said:

@Rasimir.6239 said:... They removed party leadership for good reasons, since people used it for all kinds of troll behaviour.

I am curious: what troll behaviours there was befone?

There were also non-troll reasons.

If the leader disconnected for whatever reason the instance would close. If the leader wasn't aware that they were the ones holding the instance open and they got their rewards first and then immediately left, others who had not gotten their rewards lost out on them because they didn't have time to loot.

It's a case of which is the lesser of two evils and I'd take what we have now over what we had.

[Westenev.5289]

My 3 pet peeves with LFG parties:

1) Someone joins my party, takes it off the lfg and leaves (party = disbanded, meaning I have to rewrite the lfg)

2) Someone joins my party, changes the lfg, then proceeds to do whatever they changed the lfg to. I mean... really?

3) Someone joins my LFG, then merges it with a party who is doing something completely different. Usually this tends to happen with <500 ap newbs who I presume don't know the difference between story and explore mode, or that Ascalon Catacombs is not in queensdale.

It happens more often than I'd like, often to the point where I'll just solo dungeons for fear of someone screwing up my runs durring nights where the LFG is dead for 10-30 minutes.

[Linken.6345]

@rogermkiihl.1967 said:

@Rasimir.6239 said:... They removed party leadership for good reasons, since people used it for all kinds of troll behaviour.

I am curious: what troll behaviours there was befone?

Enter the dungeon first and going afk half way.

If you kicked the leader all got kicked out of dungeon losing progress so either you finished with 4 or started over

[Ashen.2907]

@Seera.5916 said:

@rogermkiihl.1967 said:

@Rasimir.6239 said:... They removed party leadership for good reasons, since people used it for all kinds of troll behaviour.

I am curious: what troll behaviours there was befone?

There were also non-troll reasons.

If the leader disconnected for whatever reason the instance would close. If the leader wasn't aware that they were the ones holding the instance open and they got their rewards first and then immediately left, others who had not gotten their rewards lost out on them because they didn't have time to loot.

It's a case of which is the lesser of two evils and I'd take what we have now over what we had.

This.

Having an instance close near the end because the party leader DCd was awful. The loot issue as well.

[Tiviana.2650]

I hate this lfg system, its so bassakwards its painful. No one should have the ability to disband your group, or merge it if you dont want to. The person who formed the party should have control of it in lfg. Nothing else makes any sense, going into 2020 like its 1999

[Westenev.5289]

@"Tiviana.2650" said:I hate this lfg system, its so bassakwards its painful. No one should have the ability to disband your group, or merge it if you dont want to. The person who formed the party should have control of it in lfg. Nothing else makes any sense, going into 2020 like its 1999

I'm not sure a single person should have control of the group - sometimes merging groups or changing the groups lfg is the correct thing to do (like changing a "new player - help!" LFG to "AC P1, anyone welcome" if the group is doing ac p1)

I think an lfg should stay up so long as a single person remains in the party though. Having a group disbanded by a troll is just frustrating, and too common in off hours.

[Perisemiotics.4579]

@Tiviana.2650 said:I hate this lfg system, its so bassakwards its painful. No one should have the ability to disband your group, or merge it if you dont want to. The person who formed the party should have control of it in lfg. Nothing else makes any sense, going into 2020 like its 1999

This. I'm tired of taking the time to start a fractal party and wait for everyone to get settled, finish their event, adjust their build, fix their gear... then if I dc for ONE MINUTE and come back, they've kicked me out.

[Calistin.6210]

I don't use the LFG very much but this seems like a silly system designed to troll far far more than a traditional system with one party leader that is in control. I mean you put up a LFM it should be yours...others can join or not as they choose, I don't see how anyone can troll that. People can choose or not to join your party according to what you want to run and how you will run it.

If anyone doesn't like the shape or form etc etc pf your party they are free not to join it and make their own. The current system however you have zero control as even if you politely try to make you own group according to your own wishes anyone can come in and just troll the kitten out of it.

In this system looks like you just want to stick to "private" groups and not rely on the LFG tool period.

[Calistin.6210]

@Ashen.2907 said:

@Seera.5916 said:

@rogermkiihl.1967 said:

@Rasimir.6239 said:... They removed party leadership for good reasons, since people used it for all kinds of troll behaviour.

I am curious: what troll behaviours there was befone?

There were also non-troll reasons.

If the leader disconnected for whatever reason the instance would close. If the leader wasn't aware that they were the ones holding the instance open and they got their rewards first and then immediately left, others who had not gotten their rewards lost out on them because they didn't have time to loot.

It's a case of which is the lesser of two evils and I'd take what we have now over what we had.

This.

Having an instance close near the end because the party leader DCd was awful. The loot issue as well.

That's due to backwards coding..... an instance should stay open until everyone in it is gone. I mean even DDO got that right.

[Tinker.6924]

It sounds like the big problem with "party ownership" was is the party leader left, everyone in the instance got kicked. That's not a problem with "party leader/ownership" in general, just with a really bad Anet implementation of it.

Other games have party ownership, but don't have that problem. If the leader quits/dc/whatever, leadership automatically goes to one of the remaining players and people can keep playing. That's if the party leader didn't explicit promote someone else to lead before leaving.

As far as all the bad "party leader" trolling behaviors, most of that can happen with the current system (kick you to invite my friend, etc...)

[Rasimir.6239]

@"EmmetOtter.8542" said:It sounds like the big problem with "party ownership" was is the party leader left, everyone in the instance got kicked. That's not a problem with "party leader/ownership" in general, just with a really bad Anet implementation of it.

Other games have party ownership, but don't have that problem. If the leader quits/dc/whatever, leadership automatically goes to one of the remaining players and people can keep playing. That's if the party leader didn't explicit promote someone else to lead before leaving.

As far as all the bad "party leader" trolling behaviors, most of that can happen with the current system (kick you to invite my friend, etc...)It wasn't just instance closing (although that used to be a big problem). There were many cases of people trolling by starting a party, then going afk once the team was invested in the dungeon/fractal, so you only had the option to carry them through to get your own loot, or drop your progess and start again. There were also a considerable number of incidents where people would post lfgs with all kinds of requirements (experience, meta builds, you get the picture) without filling them themselves to get easy carries. Just like with afk trolls, you often didn't find out until you had put considerable effort into the path/fractal. Lastly having one party leader able to kick whoever and whenever they felt like lead to a lot more troll kicking that today's system that requires three out of five party members to kick someone from a full party.

Don't get me wrong, I certainly see flaws in the current system, but like I said before, the solution is human, not technical. Having pugged a lot of dungeons in the early years of this game, I sure am glad they changed the system to remove party leaders, as things go a lot smoother these days when dealing with lfg.

[Luthan.5236]

System seems a bit weird from what I read hear and in the wiki. But I haven't really used parties/squads so far since I mainly play solo/open world PvE and use the squads only for "taxi".

So these in the lfg tool are open and anyone can join - makes a bit sense to have a merge option so a full party quickly can join another one. (Since the other ones is open and can't have a reason to complain.)

I see a problem with others in your party if everyone has just the right to force join to into another one. (They should just leave and then manually join the other one. Or it should be a vote instead of 1 deciding against all the others and forcing them.) From what I have seen kicking also seems to have votes. (Not just everyone can kick any other players just as he wants.)