Is it necessary to have in game LFG/LFM lobby?

i11ionward

I'm wondering when the developers will add a group search lobby to the game? Is it normal when in 2023 players are looking for a group in the zone chat?
I'll just add a few screenshots from other games, for those who don't understand what I mean.



Also add a poll.

wilykcat

Yes, a lobby is required.

Yes please

colossalvoids

No, a lobby is not required.

For dungeons it's already the case with rdf, for trials open board might be a good idea especially when it's declining and for other content see absolutely no point. Also active guilds are the "lobby".

FeedbackOnly

It's already on agenda. We are getting premade group finder thingy

This was said on January twitch episode

i11ionward

Yes, a lobby is required.

colossalvoids wrote: »

For dungeons it's already the case with rdf, for trials open board might be a good idea especially when it's declining and for other content see absolutely no point. Also active guilds are the "lobby".

The lobby is not a special search tool exclusively for trials. With the lobby, you can find a group for EVERYTHING, pvp, pve, fishing, quests, etc. You no longer need to teleport to all zones in Tamriel and write to chat, or duplicate your message in guild chats. You create a room of interest in the lobby and cover the all population of Tamriel at once.
Not everyone can be in an active guild. And even being in 5 guilds of 500 people, you will not always find a group for the farm set that you need.
I understand that some people may not care about the lobby, but for people to be against this is the most strange thing for me.

Danikat

Yes, a lobby is required.

I don't think it's required, because the game has been going without it for years (and it's not the only one) but I do think it would be useful.

For me the advantages a LFG tool has over the current options are:

• It can be used for anything in the game, not just a few designated activities
• It lets players set their own specifications. For example you could specify that you want to do the quest in a dungeon (and actually watch/read it, not just click through ASAP) or want to speed-run multiple dungeons and form a group to do all of them, or want people to help you with a specific achievement, or anything you want.

Yes you can do that now with zone chat or guilds, but either of those will only reach a tiny sub-set of people on your server, whereas a LFG listing can be seen by everyone who is online at the time.

Anifaas

Yes, a lobby is required.

It is bizarre that ESO doesn't have a lobby/group-finder; a common feature in social games since about 2008.

Braffin

No, a lobby is not required.

While I think a lobby isn't required, I'm absolutely not opposed to such a tool.

peacenote

Yes, a lobby is required.

Required is not the word I would use, but picked the "in favor" option.

Mainly I think this because of player housing. I enjoy the idea of "hanging out in Crag" but you can't reach people not in zone chat and it's fun to hang out in your home.

the1andonlyskwex

No, a lobby is not required.

"Required" is awfully strong. I'm not opposed to adding something, but I also don't really think that it's "required", or that I would even use it very often.

jtm1018

No, a lobby is not required.

Just a lfg that can seen in all area.
Dont want to go to any lobby that will not be filled up for a long time.
Make lfg be seen in all areas.
Just make a world chat for eso.

kargen27

jtm1018 wrote: »

Just a lfg that can seen in all area.
Dont want to go to any lobby that will not be filled up for a long time.
Make lfg be seen in all areas.
Just make a world chat for eso.

it would need to be kind of menu like. You select what kind of group you want and what content you are doing, that sort of thing. If players could post typed out messages it would become a guild recruitment, looking to buy/sell and troll tab because it goes across all zones.

LunaFlora

Yes, a lobby is required.

it would be nice but not necessarily required

Lebkuchen

Yes, a lobby is required.

On playstation i can't even leave the zonechat. There is one small box with all the chats in it. Whispers, guildchat, groupchat, zonechat...Very annoying. Would be nice to have different channels. A search lobby for groups would be great too. Especially because at the moment you have to be lucky to port in the right instance of craglorn (or whatever town/zone you want to wait for countless hours) to find a group. If you don't want to deal with guilds and discord servers...

CiliPadi

Yes, a lobby is required.

This game needs to be modernised.

chessalavakia_ESO

No, a lobby is not required.

I was around for when Overwatch added it's LFG.

Initially, you had lots of celebration with significant activity but within a few weeks the activity plummeted.

The thing is, some of the population that went into LFG wanted to have easy wins and when they didn't get them they raged and they quit which gradually turned off other players of the function.

As you can see from your photo of Overwatch the group count ended up quite low and some of the groups were for things like exploiting.

Further, Discord has made it easy for 3rd parties to create light versions of LFG. If it was likely to actually work well, we would be seeing 3rd party versions of it that are already working well on PC.

SacredNym

Yes, a lobby is required.

The fact that the game doesn't have this is appalling and is probably the number one reason why content like trials, or even the new Bastion Nymics, are rather unpopulated. Zone chat is too limited. If someone is shouting in Craglorn to do a trial, any prospective recruits not only have to also be in Craglorn to see it, but they have to be in the same instance of Craglorn. What if I want to be getting surveys done while recruiting, for example? I can't really effectively do that. This is the only game I know of that has this problem and it's honestly dumb.

i11ionward

Yes, a lobby is required.

SacredNym wrote: »

The fact that the game doesn't have this is appalling and is probably the number one reason why content like trials, or even the new Bastion Nymics, are rather unpopulated. Zone chat is too limited. If someone is shouting in Craglorn to do a trial, any prospective recruits not only have to also be in Craglorn to see it, but they have to be in the same instance of Craglorn. What if I want to be getting surveys done while recruiting, for example? I can't really effectively do that. This is the only game I know of that has this problem and it's honestly dumb.

I've always thought that zone chat general for all instances of location. If each zone instance has its own zone chat, then everything is much sadder than I thought.

Amottica

No, a lobby is not required.

Is it necessary? The answer is a clear no.

Luckylancer

Yes, a lobby is required.

It is absolutely "required". I cant play the game I paid for because I cant find people that will play with me. The content I talk about is veteran DLC dungeons. I dont want to search many pve guilds, discord groups and all zone chats in the game etc. I want a in game lobby that people with me can group up. It is a simple addition to the game and it is REQUİRED.

Danikat

Yes, a lobby is required.

chessalavakia_ESO wrote: »

I was around for when Overwatch added it's LFG.

Initially, you had lots of celebration with significant activity but within a few weeks the activity plummeted.

The thing is, some of the population that went into LFG wanted to have easy wins and when they didn't get them they raged and they quit which gradually turned off other players of the function.

As you can see from your photo of Overwatch the group count ended up quite low and some of the groups were for things like exploiting.

Further, Discord has made it easy for 3rd parties to create light versions of LFG. If it was likely to actually work well, we would be seeing 3rd party versions of it that are already working well on PC.

The Guild Wars 2 equivalent has been in the game for years and is used a lot. You won't always see loads of groups listed for every activity, but that's partially because ones for little groups tend to fill up quickly. But it's one of the main ways players organise themselves (along with guilds) for anything needing more than 1 person, especially the big world events which need large groups. If anyone says they can't get a group for something it's almost always because they were trying to find a way to do it without using LFG and once they do they get a group quickly.

I've never played Overwatch but its a different genre of game, so I don't think it's surprising different tools are preferred.

To me Discord channels have the same problem as the other existing options - they're only going to reach the small sub-set of players who have chosen to sign up for that specific channel, whereas an in-game LFG tool can be seen and used by everyone on your server. The chances of finding someone to join in (or a group you want to join) are much higher when there's more people using the same system.