Suggestion: improvement to the party search function

HeroOfNone

This is a collection of improvements I feel many of us want in the current party system. Few of us use it now, it has quirky behavior (especially with the occasional cross faction pair up) and in some cases you can wait hours to find anyone willing to us it.

Stop the autopairing, let players invite those they see available
Let the users see who is available and invite them in from the party search menu. This should show folks what the class, level, location, faction, campaign, what content the player wants to do. This will lead to less surprises and require less ignores on people that troll join groups. I know of no one that has ever really liked auto pairing, but if some complain, give them a check box of "find best available match" when they hit search.

Check boxes for what you want to do, remove the party size box
Let folks use a multiple check box on what they want to do. Some days I want to use a dungeon, a trial, or DSA, which ever comes first, but I can only queue for one! Let folks select multiple and only restrict the size if the area the group leader is in (dungeon, instance, trial, etc) restricts it. Based on what is selected other players can filter for content they want to do. Selectable criteria include a list of normal dungeons, list of veteran dungeons, list of trials, World PVE (no need to select a zone, you can see where they are! ), PVP (again, the campaign they are in is listed), or social (strange I know, but some folks just like chatting or role playing a bit )

Allow cross faction joining for dungeons and trials
We've all been asking for it, we want it, please allow it in a restricted fashion for dungeons and trials. The simple function would be to allow party leaders to only invite if they are in the dungeon or trial and no other player is in Cyrodiil. If the party leader leaves, or if someone enters pvp, ever member that is not a member of the party leaders alliance will be kicked automatically and can't rejoin till after folks meet the criteria again. To prevent accident, warning prompts will be given before the leader teleports or exits a door, or to party members when they choose to load Cyrodiil. If the party leader drops then leadership will transfer to any in the same zone first, then by senority, to prevent lag issues causin a party disband automatically when the next leader could be out of zone. We'very had this occur by 'accident' with the party pairing function already, it's about time we allow a more direct way to do it. Added restrictions can prevent people from being listed in the search window until the leader and non-PVP requirements are met.

Highlight players in world, in guild window, and on your friend's list when they are LFG
Guild mates and friends should talk together, but sometimes text scrolls by too fast. When folks are looking for a group in you guild or friends list we should get a little high light or icon (like the online, away, do not disturb, etc icons) so you can give them some priority. Show a highlight in world would also allow for better pickup groups in PVE and PVP zones.

Display dungeon and trials progress in search function
If a group or player has already started and is inviting from a dungeon or trial then the progress should come up what bosses were completed on a mouse hover. At the very least a notification of 'dungeon already in progress!' So players don't lose out on quest or pledge requirements

Notes that can be set with the party or player
Allow a set of notes to be set on a player (a default that can be saved) or one that can be set on the group on the fly. This will give folks more detail before inviting or joining.

More LUA addon support with the recommended changes.
With any change we can't forget the addon community that further refine these changes. I'm sure with some of the suguested features they will make a few things (or maybe include a few ideas that are left out).


The party system does need some improvements. By focusing on how we search and form the group, I think I've covered one of the worst parts to the current system. Please give a like or a reply if like some of the ideas here or feel free to debate them. Hopefully we'll see a few changes a patch or two from now. Thanks for reading!

Edit: Moved to Feedback & Suggestions

Audigy

Everything that gives players control of the LFG groups which are formed is bad. People will exclude others because of their race, class, language or spec as in other games or in premade groups already.

Lets face it, the amount of dungeon grinders at ESO is small so those who want to go have to wait. Besides that a tank or healer seldom has to, its just the DPS and we all know why that is the case don't we?

In my opinion ESO should just get rid of instanced content, let people play together without limiting groups to 4 or 12 players.

MMOs without instanced gameplay and a party system never had these problems and a much happier and friendlier community as well.

HeroOfNone

Audigy wrote: »

Everything that gives players control of the LFG groups which are formed is bad. People will exclude others because of their race, class, language or spec as in other games or in premade groups already.

Lets face it, the amount of dungeon grinders at ESO is small so those who want to go have to wait. Besides that a tank or healer seldom has to, its just the DPS and we all know why that is the case don't we?

In my opinion ESO should just get rid of instanced content, let people play together without limiting groups to 4 or 12 players.

MMOs without instanced gameplay and a party system never had these problems and a much happier and friendlier community as well.

By that logic we should see no one being invited to groups already. There will always be preferred classes and builds, however most players are doing this in zone chat already since the party search function is pretty bad and since certain fights benefit from certain class abilities like negates, veils, or supernova. If you don't give players control it's not as if your forcing people to keep the player, so all your doing is letting them auto join, group sees it's not what they want or what they are doing, and they kick.

As for the amount of dungeon grinders there are quite a few of us out there. Before the 1.5 patch a lot of us were running all tiers of dungeons because we liked the content, but finding others that might have been interested was difficult dud to the party search function allowing only one search at a time. With 1.5 it has increases the likely hood to find someone in an up scaled dungeon on a pledge run, but still limited to one piece of content at a time

The party search function also covers more than just dungeons, please read through again and see that this doesn't improve just those.

As for the isues regarding instancing, that's more of a party and fundamental game play element issue. Almost every MMO has it in some fashion and that has less to do with the party formation mechanics than some of the core game mechanics.

Woolenthreads

* Let players flag that they are willing to group for dungeons in the zone and then mark them on the map for group invite (using, perhaps, a flashing blue circle visible to the Group Leader) * Flag the Group Leader who gave the invite, on the map, to the invitee * Have group invites open up as a box under the compass not at the bottom of the screen (It takes me a couple of minutes to notice invites as my eye height is at the top of the screen and I'm usually occupied) * Have a Group Leader be able to generate a general "named" call on the map (No questions Asked) which can be flagged on the map for all players within the zone to see.

I suppose that my list is much like the OPs in a simplified way

#edit: What I'm getting at with the first point is that many "casual" players would love to group but have no time to wait around because of IRL constraints, so they are likely to be doing something rather than waiting for a group.

Alexium

I don't use grouping tool because it useless for choosing of group goals. Not everyone who finding group in Craglorn will run to delves or special quests. Please, Zenimax, give us ability to chose group goals (targets) even for zone group.

HeroOfNone

Moved to Feedback & Suggestions