Stop backfilling me for failed groups.

Mureel · September 2017

chodenode wrote: »

The group finder function needs a "New Group Only" checkbox for people who only want to start a dungeon from scratch.

The amount of free time I have is very little these days. Sometimes I only have time to login, run a dungeon, and be done for the night. I'm getting frustrated how too often I'm serving as backfill for a failed dungeon group where somebody got frustrated and left. Not only do I miss out on rewards from bosses already killed, but a lot of times one of the leftover groupmates went AFK figuring their backfill would take several minutes. So my options become 1) Wait it out, lose loot, and hope we pull through the rest (a crapshoot at best); 2) Leave the group, wait for 10 minutes in hope of not getting backfilled in another group; 3) Give up for the night and go do something else. At this point, I'm opting for option 3.

I know some people don't have a problem with backfilling groups - they just want the "Activity Complete" message at the end. Personally, I just want to maximize the entertainment value in the short amount of time I get to play some nights.

So much this! I used to always volunteer my healbot services in case a group was stuck, but lately it's forever last boss vrom, 3rd boss vbf, and other things like this...omg. If you have 3+ people bag out, time to consider coming back another day!

Not saying this is always the case, but geez.

iiYuki · September 2017

I think it's fine for random but I really think there should either be a pledge "playlist" or an only new groups on the specific finder. Was in the same boat the other day, spent nearly 45 minutes in queue to get put in on last boss, did that and had to re queue again for another hour to get put in a fresh group, and that was my first one of the day.
I hate starting stuff too since it always seems to pop at the worse times so it turns into a waiting game in my home or just walking around the world nuking the odd mob that comes in my path.

Mureel · September 2017

Slick_007 wrote: »

f047ys3v3n wrote: »

Group finder needs to better enable bailing on failing groups, filtering players by achievement, and automatic matching of more experienced players with more experienced players. It is not the right of bad players to be carried by good ones. Attempts to make this so such as group finder timers, vote to kick, back-filling, and an absence of filter settings or experience based player matching ultimately just lead to a more poisoness group finder. On the rare occasion I do pug something I still use zone like it is 1.5 so I can have a real group, with an omnipotent leader, and some scanning of players by gear, CP, or achievement linking. Group finder is just terrible in it's function and results. You want to have a bad night gaming, dial it up.

what ? better bailing on groups? this all sounds like elitism crap to me. and no, that wasnt a compliment.

Oh stop. It's not 'bailing on groups' if you get slotted in on last boss somewhere. Pls.

I have a 3 wipe rule in these situations: I'll go 3x but you kick me after that or I'll leave now.

Alaztor91 · September 2017

Like some people already said, this could be easily fixed by making pledges require only the final boss kill. I can't recall a single dungeon that allows you to just rush to the end boss, most if not all have some kind of door or passage that requires you to kill one of the other bosses/minibosses to advance.

This could even encourage people to help groups that are stuck at the final boss because 1 or more members left, dced, went afk,etc.

Mureel · September 2017

f047ys3v3n wrote: »

Typical ZOS, their philosophy of not letting people do what they want because it is against their idea of what the social community should look like always just blows up in their face and results in precisely the opposite effect. Don't let folks be picky in group finder, get a group finder that nobody of any skill uses. I should note that this does more than just make group finder a deserted realm of noobs that don't know any better. It also prevents the sort of social connections that would be formed with a vibrant group finder from ever happening leading to an absence of a reliable path from starting players to raiders. Their endgame community might actually survive their idiotic balance decisions if not for this.

Group finder needs to better enable bailing on failing groups, filtering players by achievement, and automatic matching of more experienced players with more experienced players. It is not the right of bad players to be carried by good ones. Attempts to make this so such as group finder timers, vote to kick, back-filling, and an absence of filter settings or experience based player matching ultimately just lead to a more poisoness group finder. On the rare occasion I do pug something I still use zone like it is 1.5 so I can have a real group, with an omnipotent leader, and some scanning of players by gear, CP, or achievement linking. Group finder is just terrible in it's function and results. You want to have a bad night gaming, dial it up.

@f047ys3v3n holyyy shiz mah niz! 47! It's Islyn from NA! Whasssuppp! I just came back and here you are!

(Watch he doesn't remember me and now I look like a right prat!)

Mureel · September 2017

AlnilamE wrote: »

I love joining a random group and only having to kill the last boss.

If they can kill it then sure! However, it's often not the case.

Everstorm · September 2017

Talking about limited time: I find it annoying that I can't join any World Boss dailies groups when queued for the group finder. As dps it can take a while and there are just not that many worth while solo activities left for my main.

Enemy-of-Coldharbour · September 2017

This recently happened to me; hated it. I got pulled into veteran Direfrost Keep because they could not kill final boss on HM and they kicked one of their DPS and got me as a replacement. We pulled it off, I never died, but ended up dividing my time as DPS and off-heals/rez since their healer was struggling (they just kept standing in the stupid). It was a lot of work and wore me out for the rest of the night. Too much work for just one piece of gear.

Lasinagol · September 2017

The only real problem I have with my Tank or my brother has with his dual healers is people not knowing mechanics...like using Blood Rain in Bloodroot on the Earthgore amalgam instead of the lava pools wiping the party insidiously...these are the same people that either can't or won't listen...

Mureel · September 2017

Enemy-of-Coldharbour wrote: »

This recently happened to me; hated it. I got pulled into veteran Direfrost Keep because they could not kill final boss on HM and they kicked one of their DPS and got me as a replacement. We pulled it off, I never died, but ended up dividing my time as DPS and off-heals/rez since their healer was struggling (they just kept standing in the stupid). It was a lot of work and wore me out for the rest of the night. Too much work for just one piece of gear.

And that's not even hard! Omg and hugs to you hunny!

zaria · September 2017

Alaztor91 wrote: »

Like some people already said, this could be easily fixed by making pledges require only the final boss kill. I can't recall a single dungeon that allows you to just rush to the end boss, most if not all have some kind of door or passage that requires you to kill one of the other bosses/minibosses to advance.

This could even encourage people to help groups that are stuck at the final boss because 1 or more members left, dced, went afk,etc.

This, its impossible to exploit if you solo queue. and as you say it will encourage people to take some wipes for an fast run.

NordSwordnBoard · September 2017

I have to admit lately I get qued into Dungeons on a DPS almost as quickly as I do on my tank and healer. Wait times have gotten progressively better for me (PS4NA, also, knock on wood).

I am however finding myself being placed into "in progress" groups more than ever before. The easiest solution to me is judge the possibility of finishing after a few wipes/mechanics fails and leave if its bad.

Oh Akatosh, I beseech thee to bless this PUG:
On my dps, I pray they can handle mechanics...
On my tank, I pray they can dps enough to not take all night...
On my healer, I pray they can do enough of both to not blame me.

Bryong9ub17_ESO · September 2017

Last night I waited only about 10 min as DPS doing a random queue. Put me into a City of Ash 2 that wasn't even have done and two had already left. So it was me and two others. Couldn't tell what they were because both had queues as all three roles...

When I got to them they were mindlessly trying to kill the first boss and failing measurably. I dropped out and logged into another character to avoid my timer.

Tan9oSuccka · September 2017

As a tank main, this happens to me a lot.

Original Tank leaves because he's grouped with three dummies.

Pass.

platonicidealgirlfriend · September 2017

I'll sympathize with the people who can't finish pledges because of the requirement to get more than one boss, but.... do y'all just want groups that have a drop or one bad member to have to scrap and start all over?

Ardan147 · September 2017

Krayzie wrote: »

I just had to leave 2 fungal 2 groups and a mazzatun group because they didn't want to do mechanics.

This is a serious issue with dungeon finder, people shouldn't be forced into failed groups or face a 15minute timeout

I was in a group doing Fungal Grotto II (vet) and was the only one in the group not at 660CP (yet; I'm "only" at 420+ so far). So first I'm thinking "great, I'm probably going to get kicked for not doing 'enough' damage quickly enough." (also wasn't even at the beginning, but close enough). To make things worse I hadn't replaced the enchantments on the Defiler's Rings I had equipped with Weapon Damage giving me lower weapon damage than I could or should have had (I ended up switching to a set of Agility jewelry that did have the proper enchantments on them

So when we got to Ciirenas the Shepherd, the rest of the group either didn't know or didn't care that you're NOT supposed to kill the spiders. Before I could even say in group chat "don't kill the spiders", all three were already dead. While we did (eventually) kill the boss, it ended up taking a lot longer.

All that being said, by the end of the dungeon I was just relieved that I'd somehow managed to contribute enough to not get kicked (despite dying way too often).

zaria · September 2017

NordSwordnBoard wrote: »

I have to admit lately I get qued into Dungeons on a DPS almost as quickly as I do on my tank and healer. Wait times have gotten progressively better for me (PS4NA, also, knock on wood).

I am however finding myself being placed into "in progress" groups more than ever before. The easiest solution to me is judge the possibility of finishing after a few wipes/mechanics fails and leave if its bad.

Oh Akatosh, I beseech thee to bless this PUG:
On my dps, I pray they can handle mechanics...
On my tank, I pray they can dps enough to not take all night...
On my healer, I pray they can do enough of both to not blame me.

This should be an tooltip

Mystrius_Archaion · September 2017

Grouping in this game is a chore because not all content is worth doing, it's hard to find people, hard to find good people(because it's required of the bad design), and generally just not designed to be fun.
The last part is the worst. It's not designed to be fun. It is designed to be a "challenge" and "rewarding", but, because it can't be unbalanced above anything else, it can't be "rewarding", and a "challenge" is only described as that word if it is desired by the person doing the content. Every other time something is "challenging" is always actually described as "frustrating" because it's more like "you've overcome tremendous 'challenges' in your life and we're all surprised you never gave up" because failure and giving up is expected and common.

Now think about my gaming experience in a game where grouping was designed better versus this game:

I played City of Heroes where all group content was minimum 8 player limit for the small stuff and maximum 50 players for raids, only because they hit the performance limit of the zone and regularly crashed servers with even that "small" number.
I joined those 50 players raids regularly and they formed often and fast. Why? They were easy to form because anybody was welcome, they rewarded better stat items than anywhere else in the game and the only "challenge" to the raid was knowing what target to attack first and how to follow the group like dumb flocks of birds or schools of fish. There was no "block this or die" and "interrupt that or die" or "you can't res yourself until the boss is dead" punishing frustrating elitist mechanics that wouldn't make it past the first focus group.
Grouping was literally easier than soloing because of stacked always on "toggled" buffs everyone in the group had because they were easy to acquire and obviously desirable to use. That was like giving every "noob" the Ebon Armory set and letting all those health bonuses stack additive(which was how buffs worked in that game) so that 8 players had 40% health bonus.
What was fun about that? We had big flashy effects from our attacks and buffs and we mowed down armies and fought bosses that were 5 stories tall that would kill us solo(or be a challenge for those that wanted it) but were easy with the group buffs for anybody to defeat.
If we wanted "challenge" in City of Heroes we would solo the content. If we wanted fun we would form a random PUG the majority of the time and just "wreck face!"

So, if they want to make me and many others group then they need to make it "fun", which means "challenge" needs to be toned down while making it easier for anybody to be competent in a group so long as they know how to play like a mindless bot.
You can't demand that people never make mistakes, because they always will. You have to design to forgive mistakes to make things fun otherwise everyone will hate it eventually.

But who am I kidding? They probably will never read this wall of text and they certainly will never alter the design enough to make it happen even if simply toning down the numbers on boss attacks would do it. It's funny that this is what they've been doing in pvp to make that less frustrating and try to entice people with the "battle spirit" mechanic trying to make fights take longer and have less one-shots.
Maybe they should apply that aspect of pvp balance to pve to improve the fun. There has to be a reason people mostly solo "easier" content while still playing a MMO over choosing a single player game. We like playing with others, but we hate having to depend on them to not suck.

Edit:
I plan to avoid veteran content like the plague, except maelstrom arena.
The only reason I can see to do vet content would be for the one run I need to get the monster helm or the exclusive skin or other cosmetic item they (unkind descriptive adverb) decided to lock behind a "challenge". They can kiss my...if they think I would like to do that content or find it at all rewarding.
Hard modes are just insanity beyond that. It's all a numbers game, and the number is often "requires ZERO mistakes and health drops from 100% to 0% in 2 seconds" which is only fun if there is worse to judge it against, like deciding if you would like to eat a ghost pepper whole or literally light yourself on fire. Neither of those is "fun" or desirable but at least one is less deadly.

Mystrius_Archaion · September 2017

platonicidealgirlfriend wrote: »

I'll sympathize with the people who can't finish pledges because of the requirement to get more than one boss, but.... do y'all just want groups that have a drop or one bad member to have to scrap and start all over?

It's usually more of a problem than "one bad member" if they can't finish the content.
Yes, it is possible to be just "one bad member", but that bad member is usually a key role like the only tank or only healer when such is required by the content and can't be overcome by more healing or durable dps or just burning crap down before they can hurt enough.

The main problem is usually unforgiving content. Make a mistake and you get one-shot from full health by the boss.
I'm looking sideways at Blacksmith Zifri from Shada's Tear in Craglorn with her room wide 100% death-blossom every 25% health she drops, or more common. Luckily, I was able to solo that whole place, first time ever entered there on any character, on my templar because after one death from not knowing the mechanics I had the right skills(luckily) and knew how to use them and avoided dying by a sliver each time and healed right after, but that's unacceptable levels of sweating so I'm never doing that again on my templar, or maybe any character. I won't even do it in a group because it won't be any easier on my health bar.
Straight PASS on that mess.

Edit:
FYI, I still don't know the right way to beat Blacksmith Zifri. I had to brute force that fight because her "death-blossom" ignores line of sight, so the pillars near the entry didn't block it(thanks, but no thanks, dev run on ESO Live of Domihaus), and I'm still not quite sure how I had any health left after it. I'm just glad I decided to craft the Whitestrake's Retribution set that saved my life several times. I'm never changing that set out.

Robby94 · September 2017

A nice way to fix this problem would be for pledges only requiring last boss as defeated.

exeeter702 · September 2017

The most offensive issue with this is that there are always a number of failure groups that continue requeuing for replacements because they are either oblivious to the fact that they are the cause of the problem or they acknowledge their ineptitude and continue to roll the dice for someone to carry them.

Anecdote time - a while back i was trying to get vet dlc pledge done via group finder as my usual mates were unavailable. It was CoS, i get into the group i notice the damage is abysmal (i was healing) and generally i can pick up the slack for poor dps since i heal on magnb. After first boss i suggest a few things. We get to the second boss and it jusy isnt working. No bashing, no gap closing, no brazier lighting, tank getting 1 shot. It was too much so i left. I get out since 15 mins has passed and i wait a little while to requeue. I figured i do a random vey to tey and gey bonus and pledge in one go. I get vet fg2, easy money, quick group done fast. Afterwards i manually queue again for vcos and it was the same damn failed group i was in before! I dont say anything and i leave, eating the 15 min penalty. I *** you not after 15 minutes i queue AGAIN and its the same group... needless to say i let them have it. They were actively screwing over people in their shear obviousness. I told them to disband their group and stop *** players, and that no one will be able to carry them.

Queuing for new dungeons only should absolutely be an option. I do understand however that the system was put in place for those times where a good group simply has a member get wife, kid, job, isp, electricity aggro and a replacement is needed. If an option such as queuing only for new dungeons was in place, those groups would have no hope of getting a replacement unless queuing for backfill had an addeded incentive like bonus exp or something.

pepsi104104 · September 2017

I think it depends. Most of the time I see one person being blamed for a group failing and usually unfairly.

Today I was in a PUG trying to beat Captain Blackheart in Blackheart haven. Two of the players start abusing the healer, the healer cracked it and left. Then there only 3 of us and the same 2 players started blaming me for not being able to revive them fast enough every time they died.

They decided they would go and find 'better' players and left. I got 2 new replacements and the 3 of us smashed out Captain Blackheart in one turn. No one was abusive - and getting the replacements worked perfectly. I suppose the point being that it can work well.

Curragraigue · September 2017

I have 9+ Undaunted on all my Vet characters and I'm over cap for CP so I only really do dailies if I want something from the dungeon. So last boss first boss doesn't really matter to me. If I get the last boss I treat it as a quick crack at the monster helm and weapon (usually what I am after).

I can understand DPS being annoyed by it though with the long ques. Heals and Tank characters ftw!

Make2k15 · September 2017

chodenode wrote: »

The group finder function needs a "New Group Only" checkbox for people who only want to start a dungeon from scratch.

The amount of free time I have is very little these days. Sometimes I only have time to login, run a dungeon, and be done for the night. I'm getting frustrated how too often I'm serving as backfill for a failed dungeon group where somebody got frustrated and left. Not only do I miss out on rewards from bosses already killed, but a lot of times one of the leftover groupmates went AFK figuring their backfill would take several minutes. So my options become 1) Wait it out, lose loot, and hope we pull through the rest (a crapshoot at best); 2) Leave the group, wait for 10 minutes in hope of not getting backfilled in another group; 3) Give up for the night and go do something else. At this point, I'm opting for option 3.

I know some people don't have a problem with backfilling groups - they just want the "Activity Complete" message at the end. Personally, I just want to maximize the entertainment value in the short amount of time I get to play some nights.

Yes, it can be annoying. Already happened three times today in a row (once blackheart last boss + 2x vWGT last boss). Was able to finish the fights about in time what it took for me to get to the last boss though, but a bit annoying nonetheless cus I have no interest for the loot or the xp gained.

"New group only" check box would definitely be nice to have, but ofc not many would leave it unchecked so nobody would be there for those failure groups

Well, maybe some tank/healer would do it for random dungeon xp boost.

IMO "daily pledge" check box would be needed at least. In practice if you have undaunted daily pledge quest on you quest log for the dungeon selected in that case there would be daily pledge check box available next to it to select which would guarantee new group. That would guarantee that you get to do the daily pledge from the start at least.

f047ys3v3n · September 2017

Mureel wrote: »

f047ys3v3n wrote: »

Typical ZOS, their philosophy of not letting people do what they want because it is against their idea of what the social community should look like always just blows up in their face and results in precisely the opposite effect. Don't let folks be picky in group finder, get a group finder that nobody of any skill uses. I should note that this does more than just make group finder a deserted realm of noobs that don't know any better. It also prevents the sort of social connections that would be formed with a vibrant group finder from ever happening leading to an absence of a reliable path from starting players to raiders. Their endgame community might actually survive their idiotic balance decisions if not for this.

Group finder needs to better enable bailing on failing groups, filtering players by achievement, and automatic matching of more experienced players with more experienced players. It is not the right of bad players to be carried by good ones. Attempts to make this so such as group finder timers, vote to kick, back-filling, and an absence of filter settings or experience based player matching ultimately just lead to a more poisoness group finder. On the rare occasion I do pug something I still use zone like it is 1.5 so I can have a real group, with an omnipotent leader, and some scanning of players by gear, CP, or achievement linking. Group finder is just terrible in it's function and results. You want to have a bad night gaming, dial it up.

@f047ys3v3n holyyy shiz mah niz! 47! It's Islyn from NA! Whasssuppp! I just came back and here you are!

(Watch he doesn't remember me and now I look like a right prat!)

I remember you. Sorry it has been a week since you mentioned me in this post. I haven't played much since they wrecked light/heavy attack scaling with morrowind (I've literally done one raid and one vMA run). I've mostly been playing other games and spending my time on other activities in life.