I have a real healer and pug with her when I pug because she enjoys the challenge of never knowing what kind of group she'll get and having to respond to whatever she's faced with. As a 'pug healer', she has extra survivability for dealing with fake tanks etc.

I have a real tank but that character does not pug. Unlike the healer who enjoys responding to the unknown as she tags along with a group, my tank wants to lead/control the fights - at least the opening pulls and pugs routinely frustrate that effort.

My dps characters are mostly soloists so, like the OP, carries more survive/sustain than a pure dd built for grouping would. Plus, dd's have long queues. So I don't pug on them either.

So although the system works okay for my healer and she enjoys reasonable queue times, I can certainly sympathize with and support providing a choice of two queues. One for 'classic tryad group' and another of 'first four/mixed group' for those who prefer. Might help dd queue times.

The group finder is badly made tbh.

GF should be like this :
A list with people making group and a message to write what they look for and which content they wanna run.
Would be more simple imho.
Can work for raid too.

You pick a role because Groupfinder is designed to throw four random players together who might be everything from brand new to dungeons to players who could run the dungeon in their sleep. Roles bring a modicum of order to what's inherently chaotic. Everyone knows what you are "supposed" to do based on the role you picked.

If you want to play with a non-standard group composition, male a premade group where everyone knows what to expect. Then you can select whatever role you want.

AlnilamE wrote: »

Linaleah wrote: »

we used to be able to select more then one role. but too many people would just click everything without being able to actualy perform all of those rolls which made it much MUCh more difficult to have successful completion of a dungeon... and so.. ZoS changed it so that you HAVE to pick one. even if you CAN do more then one role (as in have the gear/skills ready to be swapped as needed)

It wasn't even that they couldn't perform the role, but that they didn't check what the role was once they were in the dungeon. I would queue as healer and someone would queue as DPS/Healer and then get into the dungeon and start healing, when they were supposed to function as a DPS in that particular run.

Muizer wrote: »

I get that if you want to assemble a standard tank-healer-2damage-dealer group it is helpful to know preferred roles, but it is not as if that setup is in all cases necessary to clear the content. So why does the group finder obligate us to fit that pattern or lie about our role. Should there not be a 'none of the above' option for non-role-specialized players (e.g. solo PvE and PvP players) who just want group at their own risk to run a dungeon casually?

To be frank, I do not know much about the group finder use, because believe it or not I've always stumbled on that hurdle of having to specify a role I'm not specialized for. I suppose most people use 'damage dealer' as the default, but as I said, for me that would be a lie, because I tend to sacrifice a lot of damage for survivability. A specialized player would rightly be dissatisfied about being grouped with me.

Am I overlooking something? Am I being too scrupulous? What do you think?

I think you are overlooking what the roles actually mean.

Sacrificing damage for survivability doesn't make you not a DPS.

In short, the roles mean in very broad strokes:

TANK: I am going to taunt the important mobs, and generally control the fight
HEALER: I am going to heal and buff my group members
DPS: I am going to point the pointy end of my sword/arrow at the mobs and kill them (and perform mechanics as necessary)

It's absolutely possible for someone to perform more than one role, and this often happens in pre-formed groups where everybody agrees on that.

But unless you can actually perform the basic function of a role, you should not queue as that role.

Being a tougher DPS doesn't make you a tank if you are not going to taunt anything.

some yes. and some outright couldn't perform a role, in part because they were not set up for it, they either wanted to get a pop as quickly as possible, or in some cases didn't realize that they queued up for all those other roles (which explains at least some occurrences of a person healing even though they were slotted as dps etc)

and great writeup on what roles actualy mean in a nutshell.

Muizer wrote: »

I get that if you want to assemble a standard tank-healer-2damage-dealer group it is helpful to know preferred roles, but it is not as if that setup is in all cases necessary to clear the content. So why does the group finder obligate us to fit that pattern or lie about our role. Should there not be a 'none of the above' option for non-role-specialized players (e.g. solo PvE and PvP players) who just want group at their own risk to run a dungeon casually?

To be frank, I do not know much about the group finder use, because believe it or not I've always stumbled on that hurdle of having to specify a role I'm not specialized for. I suppose most people use 'damage dealer' as the default, but as I said, for me that would be a lie, because I tend to sacrifice a lot of damage for survivability. A specialized player would rightly be dissatisfied about being grouped with me.

Am I overlooking something? Am I being too scrupulous? What do you think?

then why dont you go an do it solo? because surely you are talking about normal dungeons and not vet. so frankly, if you are a solo PVE player why would you need a GF-tool in the first place?

as for your suggestion: since it throws random people together, the standart 1/1/2 setup is the easiest, as someone else allready stated. if this would be a thing, the GF-tool could only match "noroleguys" with other "noroleguys", because i am enjoying the standart setup for my PUG Vet dungeons and i dont want to deal with the self proclaimed Solo-PVE player that doesnt know what role he is...

Feature is fine as is.

Muizer wrote: »

I get that if you want to assemble a standard tank-healer-2damage-dealer group it is helpful to know preferred roles, but it is not as if that setup is in all cases necessary to clear the content. So why does the group finder obligate us to fit that pattern or lie about our role. Should there not be a 'none of the above' option for non-role-specialized players (e.g. solo PvE and PvP players) who just want group at their own risk to run a dungeon casually?

To be frank, I do not know much about the group finder use, because believe it or not I've always stumbled on that hurdle of having to specify a role I'm not specialized for. I suppose most people use 'damage dealer' as the default, but as I said, for me that would be a lie, because I tend to sacrifice a lot of damage for survivability. A specialized player would rightly be dissatisfied about being grouped with me.

Am I overlooking something? Am I being too scrupulous? What do you think?

because the group isnt about you or us higher ranks its about making sure everyone can stand a chance, including the new guys.
healed 3 dungeons last night and all 3 had at least 2 players pre 100 champion points, if i wasn't healing they would have been wiping, sure i could have slapped on my heavy damage stuff but i wanted to make THEIR run more enjoyable so i went max healing and let them do the dungeon with their max imput

Tnx for the input all. Not going to respond to all, but will pick some.

@AlnilamE Valid point about the role not being about what you built for, but what you actually do. Of course, how you built is intertwined with how you play, so the fact remains an all-rounder is not optimized for any role and will perform worse than a specialist.

@Xuhora Why don't I solo? I do indeed do some dungeons solo, but there's quite a few I readily admit I'm not good enough to do (yet) and of course some have mechanics that make it impossible. However, I'm quite sure that with even 2 or 3 players similar to me I'd be able to complete a lot more of them. It won't be fast. It will be messy. I don't care about that.

@VaranisArano About pre-mades. The group finder is a tool to bring together strangers on an ad-hoc basis. It's inherently a tool for casuals! It makes a lot more sense to expect of specialists to form their own groups. But certainly, if there were an option that allowed me to queue without any expectation of what role I'd be playing, then I'd accept the same would apply to those who I get grouped with, and that the consequences would be ours.So yes, behind the scenes you'd only be matched to other 'non-rolers'.

@Muizer kinda sad that you answerd to my sidenote, not the actual questions and concerns i had regarding your proposal

Xuhora wrote: »

@Muizer kinda sad that you answerd to my sidenote, not the actual questions and concerns i had regarding your proposal

Right. Some issues were raised multiple times. I think I addressed that bit in my answer to Varanis. Apologies if not tagging you for it made you sad

Updated the OP to address some concerns and suggestions. It seems a lot of you are very eager to discuss this at the level of implementation, so I've obliged!

zaria wrote: »

Yes, unspecified will be 4 DD in practice.

That's because DD is apparently already thought of by many as the 'other' category. Is that fair though? What I am saying is that 'other' should be an explicit option. That is both fairer on those who queue as healer or tank (they are specialized and get grouped with specialized DDs) and people who can't really be bothered to specialize. See? The case can be made from the specialists' pov as well. Must be something to it.

I just wish they would fix the "Dungeon finder" and force it to find groups faster when solo queuing as a DMG-Dealer..

I moved to Magplar healer/dps.. due to ridiculously long wait times of solo queuing as a DMG-Dealer.. (40+min per queue on normal and vet) It take me less time to solo most dungeons on VET.

Muizer wrote: »

Updated the OP to address some concerns and suggestions. It seems a lot of you are very eager to discuss this at the level of implementation, so I've obliged!

Now this will probably work pretty well for random normal dungeons, yes you might end up with some very weak groups who will fail even on II dungeons and an generaly <160 group in harder dlc will be interesting.
Much the same in vet as quality of players are better, the easier vet dungeons will work well, and this will work worse and worse as dungeons get harder.

Muizer wrote: »

@VaranisArano About pre-mades. The group finder is a tool to bring together strangers on an ad-hoc basis. It's inherently a tool for casuals! It makes a lot more sense to expect of specialists to form their own groups. But certainly, if there were an option t allowed me to queue without any expectation of what role I'd be playin, then I'd accept the same would apply to those who I get grouped with, and that the consequences would be ours.So yes, behind the scenes you'd only be matched to other 'non-rolers'.

You've got it backwards. A tank, healer, and 2 damage dealers aren't some specialized deviation from the norm. They ARE the the norm. Dungeons are literally designed and balanced around having a tank, a healer, and 2 damage dealers. This is not invalidated when some people want to replace the tank or healer with another damage dealer.

So what does that mean for the whole "well, what about a separate non-role queue?"

Well, its asking the Devs to either:
A. Offer an official "at your own risk" queue to play group content in a way for which it was never designed
B. Make an official no-roles queue, and thus take official responsibility for making sure dungeons are balanced for no role as well as role groups.

Meanwhile, there's absolutely no benefit to the Devs here. Players can already get your desired effect by forming premades in zone and guilds. However, there are downsides:
1. You (and most people who suggest this, to be fair) assume that this separate queue will only be used by people who really are competent enough to complete all the dungeons with no tank or healer. LOL. No, a good number of poor to average players will use the queue hoping for lower wait times and fast, easy dungeons. The result will be more dungeon failures on harder dungeons and more complaints about the quality of group members.
2. In the case of A., the Devs now have to deal with the certain segment of players who do not understand that "at your own risk" in fact means you take responsibility for a bad experience. See the players who whine that the Daily Random Dungeon is not always the Daily Guaranteed Quick and Easy Dungeon.
3. In the case of B., that's a big development change for future dungeons and might require updating older content. Its rather hard to balance the same content for a group that may or may not have a tank or could have anywhere from 2 to 4 damage dealers. But if they don't, players will have a bad experience, as dungeons will be dramatically easier or harder than originally intended.
4. Groupfinder development: it took ZOS most of a year to get Groupfinder reworked, and even then several months to get it in working condition after the rework. They just finished it up at the beginning of this year - and we're talking about adding a whole second, parallel queue?
4. Another point of the Groupfinder is to backfill partial groups in dungeons. When you split the dungeon queue, people have to wait longer for replacements.


What this boils down to is asking ZOS to spend an enormous amount of time and effort to do properly something that you can already do with a bit of conversation in zone chat or your guilds. That makes it really unlikely.

The only current solution (and for the foreseeable future): you don't want to play the roles for which group dungeons are designed? Make a premade group.