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I Don’t Use LFG Tools Because No One Uses LFG Tools
By Cameron Sorden | June 29, 2007
The last game I played where a built-in LFG system was actually used with any real success or widespread adoption was EverQuest. Even back then it was a hit or miss affair. There were often people who were looking for groups, but your friends list was always the first choice. However, it was nice to have a backup. Your friends aren’t always on. Your guild isn’t always at the level of this particular alt. Maybe you need an extra healer because someone dropped. In any of those cases, you could usually get a pick-up group up and running in under 30 minutes. These days, it’s nigh impossible to use a LFG tool with any reasonable amount of success. Meeting stones in WoW? Decent idea, but it flopped horribly. Even the revamped LFG tool is pretty worthless on most servers if you’re trying to put a group together. It’s a similar situation on LoTRO… there’s usually no one looking for a group. Rather, there’s no one using the tool.
There’s often an explanation you’ll hear people give for this. They say, “Nobody uses the LFG tool, so what’s the point in using it?” This would seem to be the cause of the problem… if everyone thinks this way, then of course no one will use it. Then we’re back to the stone age, shouting in /ooc or /lfg about what we want a group for. Meanwhile, people will be complaining on the forums about how no one is using the tool. However, I don’t buy that argument. If the only problem was that people weren’t using it, people would start using it and we wouldn’t have this problem. I think there are a few separate issues that cause the problems we have with today’s LFG tools:
- There are a limited number of players within a given level range logged in at any given time. Quest-driven gameplay tends to fragment them, and chain-heavy quests make it even worse.
- An increased focus on solo-oriented gameplay removes much of the incentive from grouping. When it’s relatively safe to solo and viable for any class, greed beats out the self-preservation that would drive you to group in more challenging games.
- Since no one is forced to group, players often don’t learn their grouping etiquette or class roles well. It’s rare to find a pick-up group in LoTRO or WoW where you don’t have to remind at least one of the players to please not roll “need” on every item that drops or to be careful about their aggro radius mid-fight. This causes frustration for many MMO vets who become convinced that their server is full of morons, when in fact their server is just full of well-intentioned (usually) people who never had to learn these skills to play their MMO.
I want to explain what I mean with each of these. Take number one, for example. Lets assume that I’m playing LoTRO and there are 100 players on right now in the 22-30 level range. I’m level 25 and I want to group for a few quests that are giving me some trouble solo. Lets also assume that no one above level 30 is willing to do a grey quest right now, and that anyone under 22 would be too dangerous to bring because they’d pull extra adds. Now, lets say that of those 100 players, 30 of them are AFK, crafting, role-playing, or doing something where they don’t want to adventure. Of the 70 that are left, 20 of them are already working on stuff in a group with friends and don’t want company. That leaves us at 50.
In a game where the focus was on grinding with the occasional quest, those people would all be eligible for grouping, would want to group, and you’d quickly be able to assemble a fun xp group and play for a few hours. But in a game like LoTRO or WoW, the quest system fragments you. People generally don’t work on quests that they’ve already completed (it’s that whole “I’d just be grinding” stigma). Occasionally you’ll get a good Samaritan who’s willing to help out for fun, but not often. So lets say that for the quest I want to do, half of the eligible people have already done it. That cuts us down to 25 players. Lets further suppose that the quest I need is the third quest in a chain, and the first two parts are pretty lengthy. Most players take their group from the first and second parts of the (rather long) chain and immediately do the third, but my group broke up the other night. So of the 25 eligible players remaining, 15 of them are still on the first step, and I don’t have time to play through the first and second parts again this evening. That leaves just 10 players available on the server that have my quest and would be potentially interested in grouping. Here’s the kicker. Of the 100 players on the server in my level range, I have no idea who those 10 players are or if they feel like grouping.
Next, my second point. Sure, you could try to track down those measly ten players that need your quest and fall into your level range, but there’s no guarantee that they’ll want to group with you. Maybe they have the right quest but they’re in a completely different zone and don’t want to travel that far. Maybe they don’t want to spend 20 minutes getting those players together for that quest and leading them all to the quest objective. Most importantly, maybe they have other quests to work on and don’t care. It takes time, effort, and patience to group. You have to be considerate of others, play nice, share the loot, and wait until everyone is finished. If you can solo (even by grinding) just fine, with no risk and all the loot to yourself, there isn’t a lot of incentive to deal with all that just to finish one quest and get slightly more xp than you could solo. Really, the only incentive to do it is if the quest has a great reward. Lets assume that 5 of those last 10 players would rather stay where they are and solo than come and do this particular quest, because the pay-off just isn’t there.
Finally, everyone “knows” that pick-up groups are the scourge of modern MMOs. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen someone complain about “this awful pick-up group” or joke about how it’s dumb to even try certain dungeons in a PUG. That’s because many players really don’t play well in groups. They try to handle grouping like they handle solo play: rush in, kill stuff, take all the loot. It’s not their fault… that’s what the game has allowed them to do until now. Especially if this is their first MMO or if they’re somewhat immature, that whole “group mentality” thing hasn’t quite sunk in yet. These are the players you’ll often encounter in pick-up-groups, and there’s no way to tell them apart from players who will play nice in the LFG tool. As much as it’s our communal responsibility to educate new players on grouping, lets be honest: You groan whenever you wind up with one of these people in your group. Nobody likes to wipe six times teaching the hunter how to pull. Especially at level 50.
That means that there are 5 potential players on the server who are willing and able to group with you on the quest where you need help, and the odds of one or more of them being grouping newbies is quite high. Given those odds, who is going to use the LFG tool? What are the chances of those five people all using the LFG tool (maybe they have guildies around their level) and getting together? What are the chances of them all being a different class for that matter? You’d probably end up with three Champions and two Hunters.
The problem is that it’s much easier to just shout in /lff or /ooc than go through all that. That lets you know right away who’s in the area and wants to do a given quest. You get instant feedback, and know within minutes whether you can put something together or should just keep soloing. Remember, by the way, that this post isn’t about my dislike for quest systems– it’s about how LFG tools fails us as players in the design of our current games. We need to find players to play with sometimes, because it’s a social game. Shouting repeatedly for help is tiring and repetitive for everyone who has to watch it. LFG tools don’t meet our needs as players, which is evident from their disuse and caused by the reasons I’ve outlined.
So, with all that in mind, how do you fix LFG tools? How can you make it easier to do the thing that’s supposed to be the point of these games– playing with other people?
Topics: Random |
June 30th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
I’ll just repost here what I wrote on the LOTRO boards regarding grouping. Opinion follows:
“My situation: I solo about 40-50% of my play time. The other, let’s say 40%, I spent running around in a duo with my wife, since we’re both similarly leveled, have the same quests and she’s a good player to boot. Only 10% of the time or less I’m out either in a group or looking for a group. Only when I absolutely have no other alternative.
The reason, for me, is quite simple so I’ll just go ahead and say it: Grouping is a pain in the ***, and half the time not worth the hassle.
First we have the logistics of finding and putting together a group, which is often time consuming, unless you happen to need the quests that everyone else needs (hello, Dol Dinen). People are scattered all over the map - once in the Lone Lands I get into a group and I find one of the people in the fellowship was in Ered Luin. All the “I’ll be there in a moment, that may be five or fifty minutes long”, followed by the “I’ll just knock off this quest real quick since I’m here, then head over”, of course finished with a sprinkle of “Do you all mind helping Dumbar here get up to speed? He’s only like five or six steps behind us in the quest”
Then, if by the grace of god you manage to find five others and they are actually on the way to gather, it starts. “brb bio”. Just before the last guy arrives, we have of course “afk brb lol”. Then the guy who just arrived exercises his inalienable right to delay things by calling his own “gettin smth to eat, brb”, just as the second guy returns from the bathroom. And so on.
In the microscopically small chance you manage to get a group moving out reasonably on time, hopefully in the same general direction and maybe even close enough for every dot to be in the minimap, then of course come the regular stops by random members to mine a vein, chop some wood, peel a mob from the guy who’s so low-leveled that aggros the Witch King all the way from Bree, the stops to write a book, plant a tree, have a kid and several other colorful activities.
Let’s also take a couple of minutes on the way to try and share the quest, since for some god awful reason people have joined the group to do “Angmar Floral Arrangements” without actually having the quest. Many ‘lol’s ensue. Sometimes the quest can be shared, but don’t worry. Turbine is working to correct this bug. If, as it should be, the quest can’t be shared, then “sorry guyz lol” precedes the inevitable abandonment of the fellowship by one or more, depending on the general stupidity of your server. On average.
Which, naturally, brings us back to the beginning of all this ordeal. A moment I like to call “LFM Angmar Floral Arrangement - make sure you have the fraking quest this time”. At that point, after trying in vain to find more people, you either call it off or set out to do it anyway with an increased chance of failure, since the group might be underpowered.
Of the actual performance and skill of players in groups, I can’t say anything bad, because the few times I’ve grouped thankfully it was with good players. Nothing to say about that.
In contrast to all this, while I solo I’m subject to my own schedule. I can start and stop at any time without bothering anyone. I know where the quest is and I’m always in the appropiate area. I don’t have to wait for anyone, nor bring anyone up to speed in the chain. I don’t have to look after anyone, nor be subject to anyone’s mistakes but my own. I try to do every solo quest I can (even the ones mislabeled as solo, that I find about the hard way. Hello, Silent Judge).
I’m not anti-social, I’m anti-idiot. Personally I don’t think it’s too much to expect that when a group gets together, they all have the same quest or at least would check if they are at the right stage. Also, that they would even be in the same map area the quest is, and that they wouldn’t keep the group waiting while they go do something else, be that another quest, checking mail, crafting ceramic bunnies or whatever. But evidently for some people (in my experience at least) that’s just fine. I don’t like wasting other people’s time, so I don’t think it unreasonable to expect that others wouldn’t want to waste mine. And this is not about being a hardcore player, it’s common decency.
So that’s why I don’t like grouping and I try to avoid it like the plague. Because, like Sartre said, “Hell is other people”. And the biggest roadblock to progress is not the number of mobs you have to fight, how hard they are or how difficult your quests are: It’s group logistics.”
That’s why I don’t group. You can have a LFG or not, I couldn’t care less. I won’t use it because grouping to me is the last resort. Pretty much borderline to desperate measures.
Mark me up as anti-social if you wish. It’s really okay, and I don’t mind. I know internally that’s not really anti-social, just anti-idiot. I agree that we’re talking about social games but one thing is social interaction and another is forced grouping. The more you force me to group, the more I’ll try to avoid it.
July 1st, 2007 at 10:03 am
Ultimately, you’re totally right. My best memories from playing MMOs are from playing with my brother, usually in a duo, and not with some random group of strangers.
However, I still maintain that it’s a blast to sit with a large group and power through content or just level.
The real problem, as you indicate, is finding competent and serious players on the same page as you. This is where guilds can be helpful, but unless you have a large guild it’s unlikely that a core group of 5-6 players will remain close enough in level to play together (and have the same quests).
This, in part, is why I think games with difficult leveling structures are nice. You need to be good and serious about your leveling to get to any decent level. In pre-Luclin EQ, if you were 30+, you could be reasonably confident that anyone you grouped with knew their role and was serious about the game. Idiots who couldn’t play and wasted time were the exception and not the rule, because idiots became pariahs pretty quickly and weren’t generally skilled enough to solo.
However, that’s not palatable to me anymore. Or most others for that matter. Games with forced grouping, huge learning curves, and generally high barriers to entry simply don’t sell well. They’re frustrating for most players and many adults don’t have time for that. They might have a future with the indies, but the days of that style of gameplay are over.
I just want the moron quotient dropped down quite a bit without making my gameplay irritating and tedious. Hrrm. I need to reflect more on this.
July 2nd, 2007 at 4:39 am
This is an issue which I get a bit annoyed with in a number of MMOGs - there are quests that are group-oriented, with the idea that this in itself should encourage people to group. Some games have thrown in a lot of solo content, but not always adressed the issue with making grouping easier.
Of the different games I play or have played, the ones I group in more than others are City of Villains/Heroes - simply because it is relatively easy to get a group going there. There are a few factors contributing to that:
1. Sidekick/exemplar system. A character at level 10 or above can make another character which is at least 3 levels lower his/her sidekick, which effectively scales up that character to one level below the “boss” character. Or a lower level character can exemplar a higher level character, making him the same level as the lower one.
This pretty much makes level differences almost a non-issue, or at least a small one compared to other games.
2. Content scales with group size. More players in group means more and tougher mobs. The same content can be played solo or with a big group and still work out well in terms of challenge.
3. Difficulty setting. There are 5 difficulty levels, tied to a character and his/her missions. This setting can be changed between missions and difficulty of content can thus be adjusted depending on group set-up if needed.
4. Travel time. Super heroes and super villains have super power and that will include various forms of fast travel (superfast running, super jump, flying, teleport). Except for in the very lowest levels, travelling from any spot to wherever the group should go will probably take less than 5 minutes, in some extreme cases perhaps close to 10 minutes.
There are some noteable differences in what players prefer in missions - some players prefer newspaper/police band missions, which essentially are shorter and a bit easier than the story arc missions. The former are preferred for those that want to “grind” xp, the latter ones that find the story part more important than fastest possible xp.
Pretty much everyone probably have at least 1 or 2 story arcs going, but I seldom find that there much debate whether do some missions in a certain order or refuse to do a certain mission because thay have alraady done it.
With the scaling and difficuly settings a specific mission can become a quite different experience with a full 8 man group than doing the same mission solo, for example. So I think people are more inclined to do the same missions.
The most fun I had in groups have definitely been in the “City of” games. While ease of grouping is certainly not the only factor in that, it has contributed to it, I think.
July 2nd, 2007 at 10:24 am
Nice rant, Julian.
A lot of what slows group-forming down is the emphasis on complimentary archetypes and skills. If people could learn to have fun with just 2 tanks or 3 wizards, they wouldn’t be sitting around for one of each archetype. Even if you and I have the exact same skills, we could enjoy a fun and different kind of experience by teaming up. That sort of scenario was common in games like D&D and Diablo 2.
Are devs to blame for creating this obsession with one-of-each groups? Or is the culture of optimization something that grew in spite of MMO design? I’m inclined to believe a combination of both, but with more weight on the former.
July 2nd, 2007 at 11:06 am
I feel like that’s only a small part of the problem, though (especially in LoTRO). It’s not that you need one of each class to complete a mission in LoTRO. I’ve done runs with five champions, a mix of guardians and hunters, 2 lore-masters, a hunter, and a champion… you name it. You really don’t even need a healer usually, except for the elite quests with elite mobs.
The hard part is just finding enough people that want to go on that mission, happen to be playing right now, are high enough to complete it, and are on the same step you are.
I also should point out that in a game like D&D or Diablo 2 there’s less of an emphasis on roles, as well. The reason that two fighters or two sorceresses work well in those games is because in D&D you can splash a level of rogue or cleric into your build to cover the missing skills (or just bring potions), and in Diablo 2 every class has one focus, ultimately: different kinds of DPS.
July 2nd, 2007 at 1:45 pm
I use the LFG tool in LOTRO and have had par to sub-par experiences so far. These tools are intended to bring players together, but more often then not, we end up segregated.
Players get broken down by level and then zone, and then sometimes city. This makes the world seem so much smaller than it actually is and to newer players it justifies the “nobody is using it” rant.
LFG tools should be worldwide or have a worldwide option.
That said, if you find a great group of players, recruit them and hold onto them.
July 2nd, 2007 at 1:48 pm
Wait, the LoTRO LFG tool limits your search results by zone? Then it really is utterly pointless.
July 3rd, 2007 at 4:11 am
[...] July 3rd, 2007 in Dream game, General Design Cameron at Random Battle posted on the topic of the LFG functionality in MMOs, and I had a few thoughts and ideas I figured I’d post over here instead of eating up [...]
July 4th, 2007 at 2:03 pm
This issue is a whack-a-mole of design, because it’s complex. You can squash one angle of it and provide a solution for that angle, but then something else pops up.
Ever attempted to put the lid on one of the old, old Tupperware containers? It was an ordeal. If you managed to put enough strength on one corner, the other three popped out. It’s the same thing.
I think this problem of grouping has always been a constant in LOTRO more than in other games (particularly 40+ LOTRO, even after Evendim), because of the utter lack of solo quests in comparison.
My main is 43, and yes, yet again I find myself without *any* solo quests to do. All I have left are group quests, and pretty hard ones too, since all I have left is the very high end of the Trollshaws, Misty Mountains and Angmar.
So, find a group then? No. Fuck you, would be my reply. Other games, most notably WoW, managed this just fine. I had no shortage of solo quests at all all the way to 60. And even then, at 60 itself, I kept getting solo quests here and there. I also had a bunch of group quests, but it didn’t matter because it wasn’t the *only* thing I had left i my log.
I log in to LOTRO and I have no desire to play right out of the bat, because I know what’s coming. Grouping by default, because it’s either that or grinding, or crafting (which I hate).
I’m on the verge of canceling, really. There’s no point in keep paying for a game I don’t play as often. Last time I had logged in before today was 5 days ago. Of course the chicken thing might be the final nail in the coffin for me.
July 9th, 2007 at 11:47 am
[...] More LFG Talk July 2nd, 2007 by Brandon So, quite a while back I talked about how to re-work the WoW LFG system that was implemented to make it better. Apparently LFG tools, on the whole, haven’t gotten better. [...]
January 7th, 2008 at 9:06 pm
[...] with others, is to make it easy. While LFG tools are a step in the right direction - people don’t always use them. Clearly, there must be a better way. Autogrouping (a la WoW’s first LFG tool) was [...]
February 1st, 2008 at 12:48 am
[...] you can only have one decent excuse for not using the LFG flag… that no one else uses it. That’s a bad excuse. Bad player! [...]
May 27th, 2008 at 10:26 am
There are quite a few things that make grouping in Lotro even harder. For some quests, it’s worse then trying to get a Horde group for Gnomeregan…
For various reasons:
1) The stepped quests. The more steps there are, the fewer people are on the correct step. Unchained quests are easier because there are generally more players that want to do it.
2) Once you’ve done a specific quest, there’s very little need to do it again. The drops in Lotro aren’t that amazing usually and as said before, equipment isn’t as much of an issue as in WoW anyway. So once you’ve done quests X,Y and Z, you have no real reason to return to that area.
3) Instances just for one quest. Now they are great from a story point of view! When you go kill that tree (as a 4th part of a chain? ) in Evendim, that location is ONLY used for that quest. There’s no must have drops, XP isn’t better than just doing other stuff. So even though these are great for story advancement, for grouping they are hell. Noone who did it will want to go there, they have nothing to gain. Many want to, but need to do the stuff before. And then some people might have been interested but by the time they get to that quest, it’s gone grey.
That’s a big difference with WoW where, if you wanted to do a quest in instance X, you would do it with people on another quest in the same instance, or who are just doing the instance for the loot.
And then of course, you get a group of 5, and simply cannot get a Minstrel which is 100% necessary for the quest you’re doing…