Idea to make the LFG more popular - involves making dailies "stackable"

spoqster

(This is largely a cross post from a comment I made somewhere else, edited for this specific topic.)

This LFG improvement suggestion involves making daily quests "stackable". That means that not much would change to the current behavior: You could still only get new quests once per day and can still hand them in later. The only change would be that if you still have a daily open from before, you can now get the new one the next day without having to abandon the other quest first.

The LFG improvement idea is highlighted in bold.

The concept of stackables with respect to the status quo:

• Currently the daily quests can be done at any time, they just need to be picked on the given day they come out, but can be handed in later. I tested it yesterday with writs.
• Thus the driver you are all talking about, that dailies motivate players to do the quests on the original day currently does not actually exist. The main driver for doing the quests on the day that they come out is that it will be easier to find a group on that day. That's it.
• This driver would not change by making them stackable. You would still want to do your daily quest on the day it comes out because the chances of finding a group are higher on that first day.
• But if they were stackable you could keep picking up the new daily quests and do them on that given day, but you could also keep your old quests lying around until the weekend when you have more time.
• I am pretty sure that lots of people are in a similar situation and have more time on weekends. So stackable dailies would potentially create a culture of players finishing up all their missing runs on the weekend.
• In addition ZOS could introduce a quest timer, that runs out after 7 days (or every Sunday for all quests, whichever one works better). This would prevent quests from piling up and would create a second cluster day next to the first day - either the 7th day of the quest or every weekend. These two options would need to be analysed before a making a decision.
• In addition, ZOS could fix the LFG tool in a way that it offers an option to be matched into groups for any of the dungeons you currently have quests for (and others you select in addition), so that these matching requests do not have to be created separately and sequentially. As a user I mostly don't care which dungeon I do first. Whichever one has a group ready first, I'll go for that. This would increase your chance of finding a group with the LFG tool and might make it more popular with players. This way the LFG tool would offer a benefit over chat, because it creates additional value by a) searching for multiple dungeons at the same time and b) doing so automatically when you pick up a new dungeon quest. That would be a great user experience: You just tick "LFG - yes" and it will automatically put you in a group for any of the dungeons you have selected or have quests for. Then it turns off when you are put into a group and you can turn it back on (or it does that automatically) after you have finished your dungeon.

Here are the benefits of having stackable dailies with respect to increasing overall play time:

• With stackables, the power house players would still do the dailies on the first day, while the more casual players would get in as many as they can fit into a week.
• Players would still have to log in every day to get all the quests.
• We'd get rid of the negative experience that you have to abandon your old quest - that you haven't finished yet - before accepting the new daily. It's a bad feeling in terms of accomplishment to abandon something you haven't finished yet. Product designers should always try to minimize bad feelings in the user experience.
• I strongly believe that players will play more in total, rather than less.

Darthryan

on the na server the lfg tool doesnt work at all. it just sits there and looks pretty.

AlnilamE

I think ZOS needs to start by fixing the LFG group, period.

You can always give your theory a try by picking up the dailies on say, Thursday, and then trying to find a group for it on Saturday.

lestaudenmaierub17_ESO

You can make a thousand changes to the LFG and it won't help. People don't like to tank and they don't like to heal. Add to the equation the fact that most good tanks and healers get picked up immediately to join a static pledge group and you end up with 90% of the LFG que as DPS.

This is the same thing that happens in every MMO out there. If you want to finish pledges easily and effectively, tank or heal and spam by the undaunted camp. You'll get into groups and be happily dungeonering within 5 minutes every single day.

If that's not your thing, prepare to.....wait.....for....a.....very.....long......time.

Thechemicals

Darthryan wrote: »

on the na server the lfg tool doesnt work at all. it just sits there and looks pretty.

I doubt anyone would consider our grouping tool pretty. Reminds me of a program i used to date called disk operating system

PBpsy

Until they do that here is a step by step workaround the grouping tool.
Step 1.Plug on computer.
Step 2.Turn on computer,
Step 3.Start game.
Step 4. Log in game
Step 5. Find chat window.
Step 6. Type "looking for active pve guilds" in zone
Step 7. Accept invites from guilds.
Step 8. Press g and check if guilds are active
Step 9. If they have 10 people and only 2 have been in game this month leave guild and repeat from step 7.
Step 10. Repeat 7-9 untill you have 4 guilds where the last week active pop is above 30.
Step 11. Look in guild chat and if the guild selection was good you will see a lot of people asking for pledges.
Step 12. Get in group and do pledge.


Optional steps.
- Find out that some guild is filled with [snip] even though active. Leave guild and find another.
- Get an invite from someone that has done one or two dungeons with you.


Interestingly enough I have no problem getting a dps spot for pledges in my guilds or even just answering a call for dps in zone chat near an undaunted enclave.

kewl

Suggestions for LFG:

• Give a reward for using it.
• Expand the pool of players to all factions.
• Allow queuing for multiple dungeons at once.

spoqster

The point of this thread is not to discuss the current shortcomings of the LFG tool and the workarounds - yes, I consider using chat a workaround.

The intent is to discuss the specific solution I offered.

The idea is simple: If you want people to use a new technology it needs to make something simpler for them, it needs to solve a problem or offer an added benefit.

Currently the LFG tool is not being used for various reasons, but one of the fundamental issues is that you can only search for one dungeon at the same time. That is not much more efficient than using chat, and in chat you get quicker results if you are posting in the right zone. So people use chat.

If the LFG tool would track all your open quests, allow you to pre-select dungeons and then would find the first possible group across all of these different options people would start using it. Why? Simply because it will be faster to find a group that way than to travel to zone XYZ and ask there. This way the tool would abstract all the different searches, traveling to different zones, asking for different dungeons into a single click. That's added benefit.

baratron

I still want to know why group dungeons are alliance-locked. You're going into your own personal instance of them - why does it matter which alliance you and your group came from originally?

eventide03b14a_ESO

There is a lot the could do to make grouping including the LFG tool more robust. I find it funny that in an MMO grouping tools are almost an afterthought. Here are some basic grouping tools that I think should just be obvious.

• Automatic quest sharing.
• Being able to see shared quests that you have with people grouped.
• Everyone getting updates no matter who triggers the quest objective.
• Smart dungeon scaling, instead of scaling to leader, scale to the average group member level. For example you have a V1 a V5 a V4 and a V10 the dungeon would be V5.
• Integrated voice chat. Why any MMO wouldn't have this by now is just beyond me.
• Allowing cross faction grouping for dungeons.

I don't expect that everyone will agree with me on all points, but the way it's done now is just completely ineffective.

cazlonb16_ESO

People were using the lfg tool just fine when it, you know, actually worked.

Thechemicals

I woulsnt know where to start to improve the grouping tool. Probably just completely change it and pray it doesnt cause bugs...