Group finder has become useless

Troponin · June 2014

So I am being kicked from the search while in the group finder all day and night long. What happens is, as dps, if you queue up, and you finally get grouped with someone and awaiting more, they drop group, kicking you from the system. There needs to be a way that it doesn't kick you when you finally get grouped with one person and they leave. It happened non-stop yesterday for almost 6 hours straight and never got a single run. I'd hate to say it, but, I am starting to like the idea of a penalty if you use the system and you drop group too. I am not talking about sitting in the system for hours at a time either. I am talking about people getting paired with me, then dropping with seconds or mins. Perhaps they are seeing I am dps and re queuing. Something tells me people have figured out a way to "work" the system, otherwise, there would be no reason to drop every few seconds.

I don't want to hear about joining a guild. I have tried that, and few guilds seem to be active enough. This thread is about a system in the game that appears to have many faults and isn't working well. This isn't about how I should avoid the party finder and join a guild or friends.

yodased · June 2014

The group finder is pretty bad at the moment. I find the best way to get people is to check all three types of players when you are looking for group.

Also, people drop group alot when they are placed into a PUG and they are not leader, they drop until they are placed in a PUG as leader for whatever reasons.

I've found that asking in chat to find one other person and queuing as a group is significantly faster in finding a viable group to play.

You may want to start befriending those that you actually do run with, I've created a whole PUG list of people this way. Using group finder worked to find those gals/guys, BUT I have dropped using it since I have a solid group of people to run with now.

someuser · June 2014

I feel your pain brother. Same has happened to me on many occasions. I have better luck spamming chat and manually putting one together than the group finder. Out of the many dozens of times I have used it, my experience has been the exact same. Que for a grp, get put into a grp with some other player, seconds or minutes later you are kicked and you have to start all over.

And the worse part is, even when that doesn't happen, I have maybe only two or three times been successful with forming a full group with the tool. Most times it either putters in finding a healer or tank or you get a full group of ALL dps'ers.

However, when I play my healer I can easily find grps and finish all the dungeons in my level. So I kind of think part of the problem may be there just isn't enough healers playing the game (tanks I could care less about as any decent dps'er with vampirism can plug in as the tank).

Troponin · June 2014

I am currently working on a spec, but have been trying to get healing stuff worked in. I am a Sorc though, so healing can be a little rough during the difficult parts of dungeons. I am just not specced well enough to be a dedicated healer, or sure, I would just do the same just to get the runs in. Until then, I am needing to run as dps.

AngryWolf · June 2014

Become useless? When was it working well?

Troponin · June 2014

AngryWolf wrote: »

Become useless? When was it working well?

Seemed to be ok doing level 12 dungeons. That's about where it ended.

crislevin · June 2014

it was never useful, endless searching w/o results.

Sakiri · June 2014

Worked fine for me on my healer.

The groups however, reminded me of why I really dont like doing anything that requires coordination with random players Ive never met.

Troponin · June 2014

Sakiri wrote: »

Worked fine for me on my healer.

The groups however, reminded me of why I really dont like doing anything that requires coordination with random players Ive never met.

Healers are the only specs that will get groups easy. The issue is, early in the game, going full healing spec is hard because with limited skill points, it's hard as hell to solo as a healer. Even on my tank I had issues finding groups because no healers.

With the spec I am making, I can just go back in 10 levels and solo the damn thing anyway

MasterSpatula · June 2014

Group finder has never worked well.

I strongly disagree that there should be a penalty for dropping group. If I get into a group with one other person, and that person is marked leader, and I get no communication from the guy no matter how much I try, I assume the other player went AFK while searching. I'm not staying in a group with that guy, and I can't kick him if he's leader. So I'm going to drop out and restart the queue.

If I get in a group with someone who's clearly a moron, someone who's clearly a jerk, or someone who plainly is too low a level for the dungeon, I'm going to drop group and requeue. If I get in a group where group finder doesn't assign a leader, I'm going to drop group and requeue (though I'll tell the other members what I'm doing so we can reform our group before queuing.)

There are lots of reasons to drop group and requeue, especially with a finder as poor as this one. It needs a lot of improvements, but this suggestion is not an improvement.

Evandus · June 2014

It would be good I think to expand the level range one can use groupfinder to que for. On all three of my characters, I was at least one level out of the range to run group content when I got there. In that situation, one cannot even try to use groupfinder.

Another thing I find annoying is the number of vet 1-6 characters one encounters when accepting an invite from using zone chat. This has been a problem particularly on my Templar. I've even asked what levels the other folks in the group are and been told similar levels to mine. Accept invite and zone to the quest and there are two or more vet 1+ characters expecting you to heal them. I might be mistaken here, however the one time I fell for that doing Banished Cells I got no xp.

Something between the extremes, like the 6 level limit in place with xp/ultimates/loot would be good. That way folks who tend to get ahead xp wise can still use the tool.

Evandus · June 2014

Also, I've dropped group any number of times after typing 'hello' or 'greetings' and not getting a response in several minutes. Can't think of a reason I'd want to group with people that can't even bother responding to a greeting.

NewBlacksmurf · June 2014

The tool works 100% fine.
The issue is that people are involved. People enter the que on accident, people don't want to play as a healer or a tank or they queue as roles that they cannot play well enough to group in an encounter.

Its people not the game.

I'm not trying to be weird, but its really just people who mess up this particular experience. Some people are grouped together and decide NOPE I'm disbanding the group.

Some people just are playing with features.

SFBryan18 · June 2014

Evandus wrote: »

Also, I've dropped group any number of times after typing 'hello' or 'greetings' and not getting a response in several minutes. Can't think of a reason I'd want to group with people that can't even bother responding to a greeting.

Some people enter the search without any intentions of playing a dungeon. I just don't understand these players.

Sakiri · June 2014

Troponin wrote: »

Sakiri wrote: »

Worked fine for me on my healer.

The groups however, reminded me of why I really dont like doing anything that requires coordination with random players Ive never met.

Healers are the only specs that will get groups easy. The issue is, early in the game, going full healing spec is hard because with limited skill points, it's hard as hell to solo as a healer. Even on my tank I had issues finding groups because no healers.

With the spec I am making, I can just go back in 10 levels and solo the damn thing anyway

My templar healer had 0 issues soloing even at low level.

UrQuan · June 2014

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

The tool works 100% fine.
The issue is that people are involved. People enter the que on accident, people don't want to play as a healer or a tank or they queue as roles that they cannot play well enough to group in an encounter.

Its people not the game.

I'm not trying to be weird, but its really just people who mess up this particular experience. Some people are grouped together and decide NOPE I'm disbanding the group.

Some people just are playing with features.

I disagree to a point. Part of the problem is people, for reasons that you state. Part of the reason is the tool itself, though.

Features which I think would make the tool more useful would include the ability to queue for content below your level (when you're going back to complete lower level dungeons that you missed the skill points or achievements for, you flat out can't use the grouping tool), the ability to set what roles a group is looking for (ie. if you think the group needs a healer, you don't want to end up with a group of 4 DPS), and the ability to set a level range for the group (if you're doing a level 20+ dungeon you probably don't want to end up with a level 12 in the group, and if you're looking for a challenge you might not want a level 28 in the group either).

Of course, I really don't understand why people don't want to play as a healer or a tank - tank is my preferred role, and I'll happily play as a healer on any of my alts that are capable of it. It's way easier to find a group as a healer or a tank, although of course there is a greater degree of responsibility that comes along with those roles. Personally I'll only ever play in a group as a DPS if I'm using one of my alts that really isn't capable of doing either tanking or healing. I guess people are more used to DPS playstyle in their solo play, so that's what they prefer.

UrQuan · June 2014

Evandus wrote: »

Also, I've dropped group any number of times after typing 'hello' or 'greetings' and not getting a response in several minutes. Can't think of a reason I'd want to group with people that can't even bother responding to a greeting.

My guess is that those people were AFK because they were waiting so long in the grouping tool...

OrangeTheCat · June 2014

There are numerous examples of well done group finders. All ZOS has to do is use one of them as a model of how to do it right instead of the garbage we got. It's almost as if the current group finder is a place-holder so that they could claim at release that the game has one.

Covyn · June 2014

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

The tool works 100% fine.
The issue is that people are involved. People enter the que on accident, people don't want to play as a healer or a tank or they queue as roles that they cannot play well enough to group in an encounter.

Its people not the game.

I'm not trying to be weird, but its really just people who mess up this particular experience. Some people are grouped together and decide NOPE I'm disbanding the group.

Some people just are playing with features.

The tool does NOT work 100% fine.....

You can Q for a specific dungeon, and reopen the window later to check and it has you grouped for a different dungeon.

It will form groups and leave them leaderless screwing your ability to manually add people from zone chat.

It does not automatically leave you in the Q when a group member drops (such as the OP mentioned), forcing you to start over in your search.

There is even some speculation that you are not Q'd any longer after a certain period of time as the tool attempts to "search" for members, forcing you to reset it. But this can't be proven. It's just noticeable that when you sit in the Q for 30 minutes and nothing happens and then you reset it, it all of a sudden fills up.....could just be timing, but too many people within the game have stated the same for it to be entirely coincidence.

Has nothing to do with "people messing up the system" it has everything to do with yet another broken system in the game.

someuser · June 2014

To those who que and drop:

Stop. I can understand if someone is under leveled, but because someone doesn't respond? Maybe their chat window is down until the group is up. Seems like a jerk? How would you know and what does it matter? I've gotten into groups where no one has said anything or some members are doing stupid things but we cleared the dungeon with minimal issues and all is right in the world. If you want friends, join a guild <sigh>

It's really uncool to get into a que and drop. It kicks the other guy out who may have been waiting for a while. When you do that it is YOU who is being the jerk and I think I need to start creating an ignore list for just such people.

Sakiri · June 2014

People dont like playing healers and tanks because of the responsibility/blame that goes around.

"Let the tank pull please."
"You need to move out of the red crap."
"Whats this boss do? Never been here before."

All met with silence and ignorance.

Followed by:
"WTF I died?" (Stood in fire)
"Tank sucks"(asspulled boss jerking around)
"Heals sucks"(died to a mechanic I was supposed to know already when I said 2 minutes ago Ive never been there)

Not worth it.

someuser · June 2014

I like playing healers and tanks, but I have thick skin and if someone give me crap I will go out of my way not to heal them or not to pull mobs off them (though I haven't really tanked in ESO).

However, sometimes you just can't do what you need to do if the group is under leveled... which is why I do understand dropping in that circumstance. But like I said, I have qued for hours getting kicked constantly because someone jumps into the group and then leaves 2 mins later. So uncool.

MasterSpatula · June 2014

If someone's not responding in chat while queuing for group, I am going to assume they're AFK and drop the group. Sorry, but that's perfectly reasonable. Don't queue for a group if you're not ready to be a member of the group. Period.

I've filled a group with group finder before, traveled to the dungeon, and discovered that one of the group members is AFK and never comes to join us. We end up having to drop that member and requeue. It's a pain. It takes a painfully long process and makes it even longer.

People have a limited time to play. They don't want to spend it queuing up. They definitely don't want to spend it requeuing after discovering one of the members isn't even going to turn up. I have zero sympathy for players who can't be bothered to prove they're actually at the keyboard.