The misconception about dungeon finder

LeagueTroll

Honestly i feel too many ppl don’t appreciate dungeon finder enough. Some would even say remove it all together, i agree some ppl can definitely benefit from removing it, like the ppl sell carry in zone.

My point is, problem is not with zos’s coding, it’s how the community developed a huge tolerance toward people take advantage of the system too much.

There is an example how 4 man content works without group finder, Vdsa. Is it easy for a mediocre dd to get in a vdsa group? Clearly not. Decent tanks will just spam zone chat ‘need 3 40k+ dps for vdsa’ and it’s not hard to form a group, and there are few capable tanks want to do it. It’s not even about ‘pull ur own weight’, it is more like “the tank’s preference.” Mediocre dd will only get to play with ‘tank who die too much’, if they get lucky.

The fact dungeon like vmhk any one with nuf cp can get into a group from que is already giving mediocre players a lot benefits, and this is very under appreciated. Because once u are in the group, it’s not the “tank’s preference”, it’s about ‘do ur part’.

And what make pugs bad is how people who just don’t do their own part often get carried. Because most people rather carry them than argue with them. Even fewer will actually post something on forum. And it’s like free food, attracting more free loaders. And people say ‘u want good team then don’t pug’, it’s adverse selection at this point.

Honestly, I don’t believe zos need to change any code on dungeon finder. Problem will not get better unless this tolerance is lowered and people constantly kick damage dealer who is doing little damage. Stop the adverse selection.

Btw I play a tank more often than not. Obv I don’t see much fake tanks much.

dazee

You don't need to kick anyone unless they're preventing you from clearing or being a jerk. there are no problems with group finder aside from the terrible buggy code.

chaz

I disagree.

So, dungeon finder has always been akward. Never really worked, until I figured it out. So, as a dps, wait time can range from 45 minutes to over an hour. However , if you pick up one other dps then wait time ranges from instant to 3 minutes. No big deal.

mairwen85

@LeagueTroll

Let me digest this a second... What you're advocating here is to stop what you see as the negative reinforcement of lesser skilled players joining group content.

You believe that allowing individuals/strangers who are less skilled than you (or who don't meet your standards) to play in group content is providing them encouragement to repeat that content -- ergo, encouraging them to force skilled players to endure their ineptitude; you believe that these lesser skilled players are intentionally less skilled? That they are somehow, maliciously queuing in order to spite higher skilled players...

Personally, I think it's more a case of people wanting to play all aspects of the game, whether aware of all the facets and nuances required to competently run content or not. Group content is a social experience, intended in part for communication.

The problem with text is that many of the nuances of speech are lost -- and its easy to take the printed word with the wrong tone. It's hard not to write in a way that comes over patronising or blunt (especially if providing a lot of detail); (mis)communication plays a large part in these types of experiences.

You don't need to go chapter and verse, but you can discuss weaknesses in your group -- you can explain mechanics; if you choose not to, that's on you; if someone chooses not to listen, that's on them.

Based on your vdsa analogue, perhaps a system that would work is that you outline your requirement for a group, a series of drop downs and radio buttons; everyone queuing does this, and the system matches players up based on compatibility, like some dating service -- would that suit you?

Kombinator

chaz wrote: »

I disagree.

So, dungeon finder has always been akward. Never really worked, until I figured it out. So, as a dps, wait time can range from 45 minutes to over an hour. However , if you pick up one other dps then wait time ranges from instant to 3 minutes. No big deal.

The solution is so simple. Switch to heal/tank. In this game any class can do any of it. If you are magicka class, then changing into healer is just a matter of skillpoints, and a resto staff. If you are stamina, then you have 2 options.

You can alter attributes to half health, and get heavy armor+shield+onehanded for tanking.

You can alter attributes to half magicka, and get light armor+resto staff for healing.

My characters goes with half magicka+half stamina. If i were patient enough, and get all the skyshards, then switching into any role would be just a matter of gearing, and different food.

Kombinator

The primary problem is that it's buggy as hell during top playing times. Sometimes i simply can't qeue the pledge dungeons, and other times it takes forever even as tank, because someone "declines". I know they don't decline, and it's a bug, but accepting the group forming for the 20 time is annoying.

Huyen

The biggest was and still is the 99 dps vs 1 tank / 3 healers. Unless more people are willing to tank waittimes will continue to be really long for dps. I dont think there is anything wrong with the coding for solo queueing.

Ash_In_My_Sujamma

The issue here is COMMUNICATION. Group finder can't guarantee that all group members are capable of it. And some group content, believe it or not, requires some of it. So the issue is neither the group finder nor the eso community but rather the expected lack of communication that someone will encounter when using a tool like the group finder. From the unspecified objective to the lack of coordination of all the group members.
And try to understand something. Group finder is not a tutoring tool. It is not meant to introduce new players to the mechanics of each dungeon. Instead it's a tool that can speed up the grouping process by breaking the barriers of instances. Most people fail to understand that. Of course most people would rather spend their time composing a tantrum thread here on the forums, blaming the community, rather than asking about the mechanics (not talking about your thread, relax).

daemonios

Oh wow. You've single-handedly solved the issues with group finder. Except not really.

Regarding the group finder itself, it's still ridden by bugs and/or lack of capacity to deal with demand. On prime time PC-EU it's normal to not be able to use the finder unless you spam the queue button ("you are unable to queue at this time"), followed by inability to actually get a group and be ported to the activity ("someone declined the invite"), even after the UI reports all group members have clicked "ready" and that a group is being formed.

On the issue of group members, yes, you do get bad dds. And you get bad/fake tanks. And bad/fake healers. And people who don't bother to say "hi", let alone respond to you when you say that a tank with 23k hp and a healer with 12k hp in vet hard mode blessed crucible is probably why we've wiped 5 times and have they eaten their food (this actually happened to me yesterday). The community is toxic beyond belief. I spent 2 years away from ESO and don't remember it being anywhere near as bad before I left. Ask if everyone's comfortable in the dungeon and you get crickets, then after a wipe someone says it's their first time there.

Your solution of kicking players only adds to the toxicity and frustration, and in any case it already happens now but still the issues remain. It would be better if ZOS seriously considered the learning curve in the game. VR levels were useful to teach players that high level content is dangerous. Now you can do anything, any time as far as overland content is concerned, then you drop into a veteran group dungeon without a clue.

VileNord

I still wanna see healing and tanking certification/training quests that characters must complete before being allowed to que for those roles. It wouldn't solve everything or keep the trolls out but it would help the players who can't even be bothered to watch a youtube video.

The other thing that helps often when I'm PUG tanking pledges (on console here) is if I'm on the mic explaining the mechanics to the rest of the group. They don't need mics on console to hear me through group chat voice channel.

zaria

Kombinator wrote: »

The primary problem is that it's buggy as hell during top playing times. Sometimes i simply can't qeue the pledge dungeons, and other times it takes forever even as tank, because someone "declines". I know they don't decline, and it's a bug, but accepting the group forming for the 20 time is annoying.

Agree, that I don't understand is that after you press accept the finder gives up unless it can create an instance in seconds.
Why don't it just give an creating instance message and try for a couple of minutes, then it can trow an can not create instance message. and you are back in queue.
Yes it require an pending flag in queue who are players who will not be invited to groups.

Pevey

Kombinator wrote: »

chaz wrote: »

I disagree.

So, dungeon finder has always been akward. Never really worked, until I figured it out. So, as a dps, wait time can range from 45 minutes to over an hour. However , if you pick up one other dps then wait time ranges from instant to 3 minutes. No big deal.

The solution is so simple. Switch to heal/tank. In this game any class can do any of it. If you are magicka class, then changing into healer is just a matter of skillpoints, and a resto staff. If you are stamina, then you have 2 options.

You can alter attributes to half health, and get heavy armor+shield+onehanded for tanking.

You can alter attributes to half magicka, and get light armor+resto staff for healing.

My characters goes with half magicka+half stamina. If i were patient enough, and get all the skyshards, then switching into any role would be just a matter of gearing, and different food.

This is why so many healers from GF suck now and the queue for real healers has gotten much longer. People have switched from fake tanking to fake healing. No, you are not a real healer with half of your points in Magicka and just spamming healing springs. You are just a wasted slot.

For any class reps wondering about the 1 tank and 3 dps problem, it has nothing to do with shields. Nothing to do with self heals. I’d rather be doing damage than healing myself. It does have a little to do with one-shot dungeon design. And it has a LOT to do with people like this guy (half stam/half mag, sheesh) who are just taking up one of four spots and getting a faster queue and a carry.

Dubhliam

This "problem" is consistently ruining the dungeon experience in almost all MMOs.

There isn't a simple fix to it because the problem are the players, not the game.

The only thing ZOS can actually do here is to implement a sort of a MMR ranking for dungeon goers, similar to the Battlegrounds ranking, pairing people with similar scores for dungeons.

This ofc, is not a simple solution and definitely isn't flawless, but still it is better than what is currently live.

Imagine if football players were randomly paired for each match, where Messi gets paired with some 2nd league and 3rd league players for a Champion's League match.

I mean, it's CHAMPION'S LEAGUE!
Who even lets 3rd league players apply for that?!

oxygen_thief

Honestly, everything is fine with df except one thing. it does not work.

LeagueTroll

Huyen wrote: »

The biggest was and still is the 99 dps vs 1 tank / 3 healers. Unless more people are willing to tank waittimes will continue to be really long for dps. I dont think there is anything wrong with the coding for solo queueing.

That’s the result of adverse selection

LeagueTroll

daemonios wrote: »

Oh wow. You've single-handedly solved the issues with group finder. Except not really.

Regarding the group finder itself, it's still ridden by bugs and/or lack of capacity to deal with demand. On prime time PC-EU it's normal to not be able to use the finder unless you spam the queue button ("you are unable to queue at this time"), followed by inability to actually get a group and be ported to the activity ("someone declined the invite"), even after the UI reports all group members have clicked "ready" and that a group is being formed.

On the issue of group members, yes, you do get bad dds. And you get bad/fake tanks. And bad/fake healers. And people who don't bother to say "hi", let alone respond to you when you say that a tank with 23k hp and a healer with 12k hp in vet hard mode blessed crucible is probably why we've wiped 5 times and have they eaten their food (this actually happened to me yesterday). The community is toxic beyond belief. I spent 2 years away from ESO and don't remember it being anywhere near as bad before I left. Ask if everyone's comfortable in the dungeon and you get crickets, then after a wipe someone says it's their first time there.

Your solution of kicking players only adds to the toxicity and frustration, and in any case it already happens now but still the issues remain. It would be better if ZOS seriously considered the learning curve in the game. VR levels were useful to teach players that high level content is dangerous. Now you can do anything, any time as far as overland content is concerned, then you drop into a veteran group dungeon without a clue.

Make free loaders frustrated is exactly how u stop adverse selection

Ogou

I think you're missing the point of the GF. It's supposed to be a tool allowing you to backfill groups.
You have no control over the competence of the players you get paired with. And no amount of flaming and kicking is going to change that because we all have that nasty tendency to always blame others and never ourselves.
Funnily enough, you do have the solution in your OP. Nothing is stopping you from going in zone chat and asking for people to run the dungeons with you.

chaz

Kombinator wrote: »

chaz wrote: »

I disagree.

So, dungeon finder has always been akward. Never really worked, until I figured it out. So, as a dps, wait time can range from 45 minutes to over an hour. However , if you pick up one other dps then wait time ranges from instant to 3 minutes. No big deal.

The solution is so simple. Switch to heal/tank. In this game any class can do any of it. If you are magicka class, then changing into healer is just a matter of skillpoints, and a resto staff. If you are stamina, then you have 2 options.

You can alter attributes to half health, and get heavy armor+shield+onehanded for tanking.

You can alter attributes to half magicka, and get light armor+resto staff for healing.

My characters goes with half magicka+half stamina. If i were patient enough, and get all the skyshards, then switching into any role would be just a matter of gearing, and different food.

Sorry but my way works 100% all the time, without me having to fake change a role swap. That advise, that I have been giving for years, always falls on deaf ears. When I pick someone up, and its another dps role (DD) , and Queue, the Queue initiates immediately or timer is less than 3 minutes.

I've even streams/recorded and published countless videos with proof. And even took the long road of streaming solo Queue for 30 minutes, then picking someone up, reQueue, and getting into a dungeon instantly.

As for everyone elses problem, this method being random dungeon finder, ergo meaning random pugs, and having to play with people that others may consider no very skilled, leads into Dungeon rage/trolling and having some jerkjuice start kicking people after causing a flame war in chat.

My view on that is, who are those to even do such a thing. Who do they think they are kicking people that are experiencing the dungeon for the first time? Who are they to troll bash asking "have you done this before" and start kicking people.

If people like that want experience players, then get a friend or go to your guild. They have no business, rights or privileges knocking the new player at all and judging them, because that troll, at one point, was also a dungeon noob and someone tolerated them long enough for them to get their experience.

XxCaLxX

Pevey wrote: »

Kombinator wrote: »

chaz wrote: »

I disagree.

So, dungeon finder has always been akward. Never really worked, until I figured it out. So, as a dps, wait time can range from 45 minutes to over an hour. However , if you pick up one other dps then wait time ranges from instant to 3 minutes. No big deal.

The solution is so simple. Switch to heal/tank. In this game any class can do any of it. If you are magicka class, then changing into healer is just a matter of skillpoints, and a resto staff. If you are stamina, then you have 2 options.

You can alter attributes to half health, and get heavy armor+shield+onehanded for tanking.

You can alter attributes to half magicka, and get light armor+resto staff for healing.

My characters goes with half magicka+half stamina. If i were patient enough, and get all the skyshards, then switching into any role would be just a matter of gearing, and different food.

This is why so many healers from GF suck now and the queue for real healers has gotten much longer. People have switched from fake tanking to fake healing. No, you are not a real healer with half of your points in Magicka and just spamming healing springs. You are just a wasted slot.

For any class reps wondering about the 1 tank and 3 dps problem, it has nothing to do with shields. Nothing to do with self heals. I’d rather be doing damage than healing myself. It does have a little to do with one-shot dungeon design. And it has a LOT to do with people like this guy (half stam/half mag, sheesh) who are just taking up one of four spots and getting a faster queue and a carry.

I agree 110%. I've always said that they're are actual support healers and spamaheal healer. Having an actual healer can add almost as much dps to a group as a 3rd DD with all the buffs and debuffs then theres the heals too. Too bad there's more role fillers than the other which is why, like you said groups choose to run 3 DD.

Huyen

chaz wrote: »

Kombinator wrote: »

chaz wrote: »

I disagree.

So, dungeon finder has always been akward. Never really worked, until I figured it out. So, as a dps, wait time can range from 45 minutes to over an hour. However , if you pick up one other dps then wait time ranges from instant to 3 minutes. No big deal.

The solution is so simple. Switch to heal/tank. In this game any class can do any of it. If you are magicka class, then changing into healer is just a matter of skillpoints, and a resto staff. If you are stamina, then you have 2 options.

You can alter attributes to half health, and get heavy armor+shield+onehanded for tanking.

You can alter attributes to half magicka, and get light armor+resto staff for healing.

My characters goes with half magicka+half stamina. If i were patient enough, and get all the skyshards, then switching into any role would be just a matter of gearing, and different food.

Sorry but my way works 100% all the time, without me having to fake change a role swap. That advise, that I have been giving for years, always falls on deaf ears. When I pick someone up, and its another dps role (DD) , and Queue, the Queue initiates immediately or timer is less than 3 minutes.

I've even streams/recorded and published countless videos with proof. And even took the long road of streaming solo Queue for 30 minutes, then picking someone up, reQueue, and getting into a dungeon instantly.

As for everyone elses problem, this method being random dungeon finder, ergo meaning random pugs, and having to play with people that others may consider no very skilled, leads into Dungeon rage/trolling and having some jerkjuice start kicking people after causing a flame war in chat.

My view on that is, who are those to even do such a thing. Who do they think they are kicking people that are experiencing the dungeon for the first time? Who are they to troll bash asking "have you done this before" and start kicking people.

If people like that want experience players, then get a friend or go to your guild. They have no business, rights or privileges knocking the new player at all and judging them, because that troll, at one point, was also a dungeon noob and someone tolerated them long enough for them to get their experience.

Normal is meant for first time, veteran (what we are talking about) is for the extra rewards... learning a dungeon is fine, but not on vet difficulty.

Parrot1986

I’d rather not have a LFG tool and promote more people to join guilds and interact with each other. This is a MMO and at times Dungeon finder can be totally soulless and no one speaks.

That’s more a bug bear for me though, especially when DLCs are much easier with voice communication which PC doesn’t automatically provide.

The issue with your point is your tolerance might be totally different to mines. If I was to say that every tank I get has to have alkosh and maintain 100% uptime, provide a high uptime of War Horn and never make a mistake and stack adds perfectly every pull or they get kicked you might view that as totally unecessary. And quite right, None of that is actually needed as long as you can clear the content though.

The same applies to DDs if they do 20k and I do 50k then I don’t actually care as long as I get it done. I won’t ever use DF for DLCs unless it’s to pick up the 4th person but if I do I’ll give the person a shot and as long as they aren’t actually stopping us from progressing by constantly dying and not following instructions who cares.

The games social and people shouldn’t be looking for more reasons to just kick people if they don’t meet the standards they are self imposing. If you want to do this set up your own group and then everyone’s happy.

fred4

[snip]

LeagueTroll

Huyen wrote: »

chaz wrote: »

Kombinator wrote: »

chaz wrote: »

I disagree.

So, dungeon finder has always been akward. Never really worked, until I figured it out. So, as a dps, wait time can range from 45 minutes to over an hour. However , if you pick up one other dps then wait time ranges from instant to 3 minutes. No big deal.

The solution is so simple. Switch to heal/tank. In this game any class can do any of it. If you are magicka class, then changing into healer is just a matter of skillpoints, and a resto staff. If you are stamina, then you have 2 options.

You can alter attributes to half health, and get heavy armor+shield+onehanded for tanking.

You can alter attributes to half magicka, and get light armor+resto staff for healing.

My characters goes with half magicka+half stamina. If i were patient enough, and get all the skyshards, then switching into any role would be just a matter of gearing, and different food.

Sorry but my way works 100% all the time, without me having to fake change a role swap. That advise, that I have been giving for years, always falls on deaf ears. When I pick someone up, and its another dps role (DD) , and Queue, the Queue initiates immediately or timer is less than 3 minutes.

I've even streams/recorded and published countless videos with proof. And even took the long road of streaming solo Queue for 30 minutes, then picking someone up, reQueue, and getting into a dungeon instantly.

As for everyone elses problem, this method being random dungeon finder, ergo meaning random pugs, and having to play with people that others may consider no very skilled, leads into Dungeon rage/trolling and having some jerkjuice start kicking people after causing a flame war in chat.

My view on that is, who are those to even do such a thing. Who do they think they are kicking people that are experiencing the dungeon for the first time? Who are they to troll bash asking "have you done this before" and start kicking people.

If people like that want experience players, then get a friend or go to your guild. They have no business, rights or privileges knocking the new player at all and judging them, because that troll, at one point, was also a dungeon noob and someone tolerated them long enough for them to get their experience.

Normal is meant for first time, veteran (what we are talking about) is for the extra rewards... learning a dungeon is fine, but not on vet difficulty.

Exactly, even learning mechanics on vet is fine, expect to finish it with sub 10k potato dps is not.

LeagueTroll

Ogou wrote: »

I think you're missing the point of the GF. It's supposed to be a tool allowing you to backfill groups.
You have no control over the competence of the players you get paired with. And no amount of flaming and kicking is going to change that because we all have that nasty tendency to always blame others and never ourselves.
Funnily enough, you do have the solution in your OP. Nothing is stopping you from going in zone chat and asking for people to run the dungeons with you.

This is encouraging adverse selection, you are suggesting a tool designed to give everyone convenience should not be used.

Ogou

LeagueTroll wrote: »

Ogou wrote: »

I think you're missing the point of the GF. It's supposed to be a tool allowing you to backfill groups.
You have no control over the competence of the players you get paired with. And no amount of flaming and kicking is going to change that because we all have that nasty tendency to always blame others and never ourselves.
Funnily enough, you do have the solution in your OP. Nothing is stopping you from going in zone chat and asking for people to run the dungeons with you.

This is encouraging adverse selection, you are suggesting a tool designed to give everyone convenience should not be used.

I am suggesting you use the tool the way it was meant to be used. If you go into the Group Finder expecting only good players then you're doing it wrong.

Ermiq

I think they just should call Group Finder a Group Filling Roulette, so people like OP wouldn't expect only experienced players to queue in their group.
The diversity of players in GF is absolutely fine, and I honestly even get fun playing in PUGs. It's always a different experience, and every dungeon run feels different, and I actually have learned a lot of mechanics which I didn't know even exist, because when you get a good players every run turns into a boring straight forward run, while bad players group makes you and your group mates to pay attention to mechanics and share knowledge.
Yes, sometimes you get jerks and silent people and really bad dps (which is only the problem in dungeons like CoA2 actually). But it's a fair price for a convenience.
By the way, thinking that those bad players are queuing in GF only to get carried it's a bit stupid, to be honest. People just exploring the game, they want to try out hard content and look if they capable enough to do that, and just like you they have two options: find good players in zone/guild/friends to help them or try their luck in GF, and, as I said, it's absolutely fine.

PS: forgot to say that GF is really bugged, and it's definitely a coding issue, and ZOS have to fix it, because it's just broken. Some bugs which are definitely bugs:
- "Someone declined" bug,
- from 30 to infinity queue time for DDs (as @chaz said it's a bug),
- when you get queue time more than 5 minutes as a healer then you got a bug, if you re-queue you'll find a group in less than 5 minutes next time (happens to me all the time),
- "The instance is full" when you can't port into a dungeon, after group is ready you see a loading screen but you don't get ported into a dungeon, you try to port through a group interface and you get a message "instance is full" and you just stay where you are.

Iccotak

imo dungeon finder is great for beginner players to get a feel for things and once you have enough experience you'll probably have found a guild and won't need to use the finder anymore.

Huyen

Been using the groupfinder for over a month now to do my vet pledges, and so far only one bad group ( Im the tank). No other issues in the past month, so I do think people are overreacting as OP said.

LeagueTroll

Iccotak wrote: »

imo dungeon finder is great for beginner players to get a feel for things and once you have enough experience you'll probably have found a guild and won't need to use the finder anymore.

They should que on normal. Also cap cp heavy armor dd is not exactly new player.

redspecter23

I do my part. I vote kick fake tanks... even in normal FG1. It's the principle of it.

Uryel

LeagueTroll wrote: »

My point is, problem is not with zos’s coding

Yeah, because obviously a system that repeatedly auto-declines for the whole group, even when the group was constituted beforehand, is perfectly coded and works as intended.