Would you like a trial finder?

Dr_Con

this would be a nightmare for vet trials.

limit it to HRC and AA for vet options, even though for AA it's easier to train some monkeys or rats to stand on the pads than to get certain randoms to stand on the pads. Otherwise it's fine to implement.

Kappachi

Yes - for both vet/normal trials

Feels like ZOS really needs to take note of this, right now 81% of people want trial finder, and it's literally the only thing stopping me from getting into that content or group arena content.

TinyDragon

No - for both vet/normal trials

I personally feel very skeptical about it; but perhaps normal trials would be ok, most craglorn pugs I'm in have managed mostly. However, you loose the transparency of knowing the group is empty/halfway/fullish that you get when people are LF 1 dps etc etc in chat. I usually join almost full groups; I can imagine queueing for the not-so-popular trials would result in very long wait times, with no end in sight.

For vets, I think it's a bad idea. The vet pugs I've bene in where a hot mess, and that was with someone choosing who should run/had clears etc. The amount of co-ordination required for gear sets/jobs and dps levels is just a bit high for me to want to throw it in to chance.

N00BxV1

Yes - for both vet/normal trials

There should be an option for those who want to use it. And for those who don't want to use it they can just ignore it. No reason to try and gate-keep other people from having access to something.

FelisCatus

Yes - for both vet/normal trials

Kappachi wrote: »

Feels like ZOS really needs to take note of this, right now 81% of people want trial finder, and it's literally the only thing stopping me from getting into that content or group arena content.

Honestly if ZoS is all about "casuals" then this would be an ideal feature for casuals. By definition guilds are not casual you cannot just drop in when you want, they make you sign up weeks in advance.

Supreme_Atromancer

No - for both vet/normal trials

Yeah, trials are meant to be highly coordinated gameplay. I'm not opposed on principle, but I've seen what pugs are like. No one wants to coordinate, no one even wants to talk.

Personally, I think that if you want to do a group activity, you need to be prepared to be a little bit social. I don't think you can always program away the need to just talk to another human being.

Amottica

No - for both vet/normal trials

N00BxV1 wrote: »

There should be an option for those who want to use it. And for those who don't want to use it they can just ignore it. No reason to try and gate-keep other people from having access to something.

There are no gates keeping people from raiding. Heck, if anything, someone can form their own raids. There are a lot of guilds that raid with guilds at pretty much all levels of player abilities. Heck, I have run with some groups that are "training" groups helping players learn the raid and get to where they can clear it. Granted, the more skilled a player is the better the raid group they can get into, but that is the way life works.

Dr_Con

Amottica wrote: »

N00BxV1 wrote: »

There should be an option for those who want to use it. And for those who don't want to use it they can just ignore it. No reason to try and gate-keep other people from having access to something.

There are no gates keeping people from raiding. Heck, if anything, someone can form their own raids. There are a lot of guilds that raid with guilds at pretty much all levels of player abilities. Heck, I have run with some groups that are "training" groups helping players learn the raid and get to where they can clear it. Granted, the more skilled a player is the better the raid group they can get into, but that is the way life works.

going to have to agree here. for vet, the idea that something is being gatekept implies it is exclusive, but no one is stopping 12 randoms from getting together, learning a trial, and mastering it. It's easy and bearable enough to carry people through normal trials, but vet trials is a whole different league which requires a whole different ballpark. We already have pages upon pages of people crying about fake tanks, fake heals, and even fake dps (healers who queue as DPS because the heal queues are longer than the DPS queues). The outcry will be worse than the current dungeon matchmaking system. What's needed is a trial finder, where custom inputs for what people are looking for may be put in, and can be accessed either via board near the belkarth(craglorn) Wayshrine or from anywhere, it doesn't really matter. This would still allow trial leaders to have some semblance of control over the group rather than a majority rules sort of mentality. If a player is known for rocking their heavy attack build to do 8k dps on their warden/healer build while queued as a dps in vet trials, they're just going to get kicked from each group they join without receiving feedback. Same with the people who wear pale order and refuse to take it off (these people do exist and they are the bane of all healing). At least with the current system you have some say in what the group composition is and you can choose to not group with repeat offenders who drag the group down - which is more likely in a matchmade group of 12 than it is in a matchmade group of 4 or a hand-selected group of 12. There also comes a point where a player has to say they can't do something (whether it be heal, tank or dps) and they have to change roles. You can't do that with the current system easily, you need to reinvite people and have them slotted to the proper roles or else matchmaking won't work.

True story, I asked why a DPS and a tank had pearlescent on in a vDSR run ran by pugs, and the DPS (who had 43k hp) replied . Imagine this amped up to 10 in matchmade a pug group.

fizl101

Yes - for both vet/normal trials

i'm all for it, it doesn't have to be designed the same way as the dungeon finder with set roles etc.

It could be like a group designer function where someone decides they want to run a VCR for example, and designate they want 2 tanks, 2 healers, 4 portal dd, 4 parse dd and people can choose which of those roles etc. A previous completion checkbox will check for the relevant achievement and so on.

hrothbern

Yes - for normal trials only

I only see this working when groupleaders are calling the shots.
Starting with normals only the sensible approach to launch.

Then a "trial group finder" should be a replacement of Craglorn zone chat. Making that match making chat process easier.

It could consist out of two lists, accessible from anywhere.
One being a list showing group leaders + trial + team so far (incl roles), seeking candidates. You can whisper to a group leader to apply.
The other being a list showing candidates + trial + role(s), seeking a group leader. Group leaders can whisper to a candidate to recruit.

OnnuK

Never ending request... Devs do not listen or at least give us a roadmap. We only speculate here, this is countless topics about dungeon/pledge/trial finder with suggestions but who listens? That is why I give up suggestions... BTW would be perfect to have a tool like this...

KlauthWarthog

Yes - for both vet/normal trials

The blooper reels for vet would be fantastic to watch.

M0ntie

Yes - for both vet/normal trials

This would be equivalent to picking up people in Craglorn except people would t be stuck there waiting. Trial Group inclusion is controlled by the Raid lead in any case so people who don’t meet their requirements can be kicked anyway.
Often we’ll have a group of 10 or 11 ready to go and just need 1 or 2 dps so this would be an easy way to get them.

LesserCircle

Yes - for both vet/normal trials

Yes, and anyone saying no is not only against casual players that don't have the time to form a group but also in denial, craglorn is a pug just like finder would be, any serious progress in trials will always be done in guilds.

dsalter

Yes - for both vet/normal trials

im being generous and saying both but just normal will be fine, but if we DO plan to go for VET we need an in game way to tell people boss mechanics besides word of mouth.
Warcraft has its dungeon guide so i dont see why elder scrolls wouldnt have a Psijiic mage at each encounter "scribing/archiving what we are doing" and explaining to us how boss mechanics work when asked but only appears after a first wipe so not to be a buzz kill for those who know them.

Ksariyu

Yes - for both vet/normal trials

Yes, yes, yes, yes, and. . . oh, yes. The only catch is it cannot be the automated bs that the dungeon finder is. It needs to be a proper LFG board, where the leader can specify exactly what they're looking for. Hopefully soon we can see the new features team working on this instead of shiny new harvesting animations.

DocFrost72

Yes - for both vet/normal trials

While I don't hate myself nearly enough to queue with a random group of players for a veteran trial, the idea is neat and I'd use the normal trial finder often.

Who knows, maybe it'll motivate me to clear vMoL

gronoxvx

No - for both vet/normal trials

I say this every time this gets brought up. But if you think that fake tanks and healers in dungeons are bad, then in a trial finder it will be infinitely worse.

Edit: but then again it would be interesting to see the threads. So zos please do it.

Ksariyu

Yes - for both vet/normal trials

gronoxvx wrote: »

I say this every time this gets brought up. But if you think that fake tanks and healers in dungeons are bad, then in a trial finder it will be infinitely worse.

Edit: but then again it would be interesting to see the threads. So zos please do it.

And the obvious counter (and I do mean obvious if you've ever seen a real LFG system in another game), is to give the group leader control over who they accept into the group. This would mean something a bit more like the Guild Finder than the current dungeon finder.

PrimusTiberius

No - for both vet/normal trials

This would be an absolute train wreck and I wouldn't touch it. Players can't queue for the correct roles for dungeons, just imagine for a minute, a fake tank jumping in a trial with no mic, trying to DPS a trial boss, it would be laughable and a complete wast of time. After a few days of this, you would have players demanding the developers to make changes on how the system picks and chooses a 12 player group because players are either too low of a level, using the wrong gear, taking too long to get into a trial, using the wrong skills, etc ...etc. You'll have players wanting to do the content, having to deal with those players trying to speed run the trial so they can (try to) fight the Main boss and after all that, the forums would be on fire over this, leaving the moderators to contend with the fallout on the forums.

Yeah, its just not ever going to happen.

My suggestion is, find a guild who are open to helping players learn the trials, there's a ton of them out there and most people in those guilds are willing to teach. They're mechanic heavy and even on normal, you can wipe if everyone is not doing the right thing.

Good Luck!

Hlaaluna

Yes - for both vet/normal trials

If WOW can do it, then ESO should also be able to do it.

WhiteCoatSyndrome

Yes - for both vet/normal trials

I would like to see a Trial finder and have no issue with it being both for normal and vet - if it becomes a problem on vet I can always choose not to use it. Full disclosure: I usually heal so the risk of fake healers is halved for me compared to what it would be for someone who is usually DPS.

Hagrett

I'd love there to be a group finder.

Not like the current dungeon finder with auto matching, just a board where you could post your group details that people could browse and apply to join. This would cover everything then, trials, arenas, Cyrodill/IC groups etc. and save having to stand around barking in zone chat.

BlueRaven

No - for both vet/normal trials

LesserCircle wrote: »

Yes, and anyone saying no is not only against casual players that don't have the time to form a group but also in denial, craglorn is a pug just like finder would be, any serious progress in trials will always be done in guilds.

Don’t straw man.

I am voting no because it will be a train wreck. And personally I am tired of all the complaints about fake tanks/healers, and low dds already in the forums. Only to compound it with complaints about people not stacking, stacking too much, not going in portals, wrong people going in portals, spreading poisons, etc.

I will change my vote to a yes if a new subcategory dedicated to complaints about the automated group system can be made. So I can just not see the absolute explosion of complaints about other players on these forums.

Varana

Yes - for normal trials only

There's no major difference between forming a group out of random people in Craglorn, and random people through a group finder. There's not much communication in most Craglorn PUGs.
And people are okay with that.

Ingenon

Yes - for normal trials only

It might work for normal trials. I would expect more posts complaining about fake tanks, fake healers, and folks not following mechanics. But folks have used Craglorn zone chat for years to put together groups for trials.

dmnqwk

Yes - for normal trials only

Amottica wrote: »

N00BxV1 wrote: »

There should be an option for those who want to use it. And for those who don't want to use it they can just ignore it. No reason to try and gate-keep other people from having access to something.

There are no gates keeping people from raiding. Heck, if anything, someone can form their own raids. There are a lot of guilds that raid with guilds at pretty much all levels of player abilities. Heck, I have run with some groups that are "training" groups helping players learn the raid and get to where they can clear it. Granted, the more skilled a player is the better the raid group they can get into, but that is the way life works.

Hi there!

Over the past 20 years I have been involved in a whole buncha raiding across games
Guild Wars - Solo Fissure of Woe healer as well as playing my ranger in a lot of fun roles (I did love trapping)
World of Warcraft - simultaneously held 2 dps records as a bear (not bear number 1, world number 1, on world of logs) and had a cute amani war bear wearing t4/vendor gear. Ran an entire servers Naxx 25 pugs because of the 'gearscore' stupidity trying to deny people places to run it. (Finished the place from a LF24M position before another group going for gearscore started).
Dungeons and Dragons Online - Put together an elite Tower of Despair run with a Monk tank (back then everyone insisted they couldn't tank Horoth, while I used my AC tank Rogue on Suulo) from friends list and a casual guild with people who'd not even been in on normal.
Marvel Heroes - Raided as Black Widow, not only during the periods she was insanely powerful but when I had to work three times as hard to bring comparable dps.
Star Wars The Old Republic - Completed the raids on an old, decrepit pc that couldn't even handle 16 person content well haha. Played on release until 1.5, completing the stuff including solo tanking Foreman

Now, I bring all this up to try and highlight two things. 1) I know what I am doing in a raid, but also 2) There is was and always will be 'gate-keeping' in raids. People who ask for the achievement - are gatekeepers.
In ESO, I have done vet AA hm because a friend asked me to help out, and I pulled about 70k dps (18% of the group I think) with minimal explanation. I had done normal AA ONCE before that. In fact my first Trial in ESO was nAS+2. It was fun, but crazy.

People who are good are still kept out of raiding in ESO by lazy people who don't want to help others. It's what 99% of people do - they only want to run with people better than they are, with more experience. They want to be the worst so it's easy, and having no Trial Finder doesn't help people try raiding to see if they want to join an organised group.
There are also people who don't wish to go beyond a 'story mode' but still would like to experience raiding at their level. Judging others will always occur in groups, and it's never a good sign to suggest people need to 'be enslaved to others' to raid.

Yes, there will be problems with fake tanks, fake healers and the like - and that's on the community for accepting that in the first place. If people didn't accept fake tanks anywhere, they wouldn't have to accept them everywhere. Tanking is not hard, never was - ESO it's literally slot a single skill and bam! You're now a tank. Will it cut it in trials? Maybe, maybe not - but if there were no fake tanks queuing it wouldn't matter, because as we all know from simple maths - if you have 1 tank to 3 others in group content then jumping to 1 tank in 6 for trials means 50% of the tanks have no spot.

Until the attitude of people to form the lowest common denominator stops (link chiev!), there needs to be a place where you can't gate keep people out of trials - and a trial finder would be such a place.

Ragnarok0130

Yes - for normal trials only

tonyblack wrote: »

aaisoaho wrote: »

By my experience, trials require way too much organisation to really be viable for a group finder.

1. Group composition
The required group composition varies from trial to trial, and sometimes even on what you are aiming for. Usually it is 2 tanks, 2 healers and 8 damage dealers, but Asylum Sanctorium you might opt for 1 tank instead. In Cloudrest, on normal you might be fine with 1 tank, but on vet you need 2 or 3 tanks depending on how many bosses you fight at once.

2. Portal Mechanics
Most of the trials have portal mechanics, that requires 1-4 players to enter a portal and kill something in there, or else the group wipes. With finder group, these would be destined to fail, because understandably not all want to carry the weight of "pass or fail the whole group". Sometimes even with normal Cloudrest +0 zone chat groups the groups don't have willing people for the portal mechanic (and too low of a group dps to skip it) making the trial impossible - it'd be a disaster on finder.

3. Specialised roles in tactics
Without organising, how could the finder groups decide on which healer is the tomb healer, the kite healer, the group healer, the main tank, the off tank and so on and so forth? Some fights requires some specialisation in the role rendering generic roling near impossible. Like for example, in Lokkestiiz fight in Sunspire, you want to assign one healer to be the tomb healer whose purpose is to heal players entering the frozen tombs mechanic to prevent group wipes while the other healer heals the group and looks after the tank(s). The tomb healer needs to pump out strong healing, and it'd be waste for all the healers heading to sunspire to spec to be a tomb healer, but if no one specs for it the tombs have a high chance of failing and thus a high chance of wiping the group over and over.

I just do not see how a group finder for trials would not end up in a disaster. Taking organisation away from the content requiring organisation does not sound a recipe for success, and thus I'm not rooting for it.

Normal trials and craglorn vets barely require any communication, most of mechanics could be easily done by random groups. No harm in adding more convenient option as opposed to standing in craglorn and spamming in chat.

2 tanks, 2 healers and 8 dds is fine for all but certain hm dlc trials, which you won’t do through finder so this point is irrelevant.

All mechanics could be quickly explained through communication within the group if it’s even necessary, same for assigning specific roles for each players. Craglorn pugs essentially have the same tools as group finder ones and clearing all trials on normal with no troubles, occasionally even getting them done on vet.

Don’t like it, don’t use it.

Exactly this! In SWTOR we had a normal Operations (trials) group finder and it worked well. They even had an Operation of the week. Now this wouldn't likely work for vet trials due to the mechs and DPS required but there's no reason not to have one for normal. A normal trial finder may also give people who haven't raided the opportunity to see what it's about and encourage them to find out more.

tonyblack wrote: »

Don’t like it, don’t use it.

This part is important too!

Agenericname

Lillutu wrote: »

If WOW can do it, then ESO should also be able to do it.

WoW has gear scores and locked roles as well, ESO has neither of those. Its an entirely different game, and many of us are thankful for that. If this were just like WoW, I probably wouldnt play it either.

The way that WoW did theirs, which its been about a decade since I played, it was a different tier of rewards in LFR. Slightly less than the regular trial. That would roughly the equivalent of a normal in ESO.

Personally I wouldnt have an issue with normals, but if theres any misgivings about this helping new players or casuals, take a look at any of the weekly "fake roles" posts. This would be just another extention of that.

Ragnarok0130 wrote: »

tonyblack wrote: »

aaisoaho wrote: »

By my experience, trials require way too much organisation to really be viable for a group finder.

1. Group composition
The required group composition varies from trial to trial, and sometimes even on what you are aiming for. Usually it is 2 tanks, 2 healers and 8 damage dealers, but Asylum Sanctorium you might opt for 1 tank instead. In Cloudrest, on normal you might be fine with 1 tank, but on vet you need 2 or 3 tanks depending on how many bosses you fight at once.

2. Portal Mechanics
Most of the trials have portal mechanics, that requires 1-4 players to enter a portal and kill something in there, or else the group wipes. With finder group, these would be destined to fail, because understandably not all want to carry the weight of "pass or fail the whole group". Sometimes even with normal Cloudrest +0 zone chat groups the groups don't have willing people for the portal mechanic (and too low of a group dps to skip it) making the trial impossible - it'd be a disaster on finder.

3. Specialised roles in tactics
Without organising, how could the finder groups decide on which healer is the tomb healer, the kite healer, the group healer, the main tank, the off tank and so on and so forth? Some fights requires some specialisation in the role rendering generic roling near impossible. Like for example, in Lokkestiiz fight in Sunspire, you want to assign one healer to be the tomb healer whose purpose is to heal players entering the frozen tombs mechanic to prevent group wipes while the other healer heals the group and looks after the tank(s). The tomb healer needs to pump out strong healing, and it'd be waste for all the healers heading to sunspire to spec to be a tomb healer, but if no one specs for it the tombs have a high chance of failing and thus a high chance of wiping the group over and over.

I just do not see how a group finder for trials would not end up in a disaster. Taking organisation away from the content requiring organisation does not sound a recipe for success, and thus I'm not rooting for it.

Normal trials and craglorn vets barely require any communication, most of mechanics could be easily done by random groups. No harm in adding more convenient option as opposed to standing in craglorn and spamming in chat.

2 tanks, 2 healers and 8 dds is fine for all but certain hm dlc trials, which you won’t do through finder so this point is irrelevant.

All mechanics could be quickly explained through communication within the group if it’s even necessary, same for assigning specific roles for each players. Craglorn pugs essentially have the same tools as group finder ones and clearing all trials on normal with no troubles, occasionally even getting them done on vet.

Don’t like it, don’t use it.

Exactly this! In SWTOR we had a normal Operations (trials) group finder and it worked well. They even had an Operation of the week. Now this wouldn't likely work for vet trials due to the mechs and DPS required but there's no reason not to have one for normal. A normal trial finder may also give people who haven't raided the opportunity to see what it's about and encourage them to find out more.

tonyblack wrote: »

Don’t like it, don’t use it.

This part is important too!

If it were as simple as that, nobody would care. It isnt though. How often do we see a suggestion to penalize real tanks for what "fake tanks" do in random normals.

How many threads to nerf x content because it isnt puggable?

Soarora

Yes - for normal trials only

I think it'd go horribly wrong, but who knows? At least with normals, communication isn't as necessary since most mechanics just get burnt through. Having a finder instead of making people talk to others to get into a group for vet trials seems like recipe for disaster. It's already frustrating enough in dungeons when people don't ask for mechanics when they don't know them, imagine several people causing group wipes and refusing to talk until several deaths in, if even then...