Group Finder Feedback

YffresTrill · October 2023

[I have updated the OP to include some suggestions from other players, as well as a couple more of my own. These have been appended to the bottom of the post.

]

I tried the new group finder today in order to form a no rush-RND group. I specifically titled it "No-Rush, Chill RND".

Unfortunately, the character limit for the description is miniscule (only 100 characters), and I was forced to type in a really curt manner in order to get my point across.

So, my first bit of feedback is: Please at least double the character limit for the description. I would personally make it 500-1000.
Sometimes you are looking for something really specific. Some of us prefer to type in a colourful manner, to attract others who appreciate that sort of thing and we are more likely to mesh with.

The group filled fairly quickly, but though I did set the auto-accept feature to off, I realised that none of the applicants had left a note. I asked later in my trade guild if you are able to do so, and it seems not. I feel like this is a pretty blatant oversight -- you can leave a note when you apply to a guild, why not a group?
Therefore, my second bit of feedback: Please allow group applicants to leave a note. Maybe even add a checkmark to require one when creating the listing.
The group rushed, despite the title of the post. I am not sure if they even actually read it. If I was able to require a note before joining, it might have helped avoid this.

Lastly, I find the categories for playstyle to be very limited. I chose "standard" as none of the others at all fit what I was looking for. Where are the "story", "exploration" and/or "RP" options? I would be happy if these were added as a single additional category.
So, my final bit of feedback would be: Please add a "story/exploration/RP" option to the playstyle dropdown.

I believe this tool has a lot of potential, and it was by far the new feature I was most looking forward to, but I think the implementation really needs some improvements in order for the tool to be as useful as it could be.

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[Edited for further suggestions:]

Add a default "all" category that shows all currently active groups. This should allow groups to fill faster, as some people are just looking for something to do without something specific in mind. (Courtesy of @Twohothardware)

Add a category for Bastion Nymic. I suggested this could be in Zone > World Events > Apocrypha/Telvanni Peninsula (a category which currently does not exist), while @MidniteOwl1913 suggested this could be under Dungeons or its own category. Personally, I am fine with any, but this should have its own category and not be relegated to Custom!

More generally, make sure all world events are represented, including dragons in Northern and Southern Elsweyr. Like Bastion Nymic, these Zone > World Events categories do not currently exist. (Courtesy of @erdYrrson)

Disallow blocked members from joining your group. Bit of a no-brainer -- if you are forming your own group, it should at least be flagged to indicate someone from your ignore list is attempting to join. (Courtesy of @Vynera)

Increase the length of time you have to accept an applicant to the group before it is autodeclined. I have not checked this myself, but per @Vynera, there is only a three-second cooldown, which is not enough time to hover over the application and decide if you wish to accept or decline.

Allow us to link our group finder listings in chat. As pointed out by @Twohothardware, the reason zone (and guild) chat is so effective for filling groups is because, unless you have it turned off, it is very visible and does not require you to jump through any menu hoops to view it. Being able to share our group finder listings in zone chat would allow most of the information to be within the listing (and might even entice more people to try the group finder when they hadn't done so thus far) while still "getting it out there" in the same way as posting in chat directly.
This would also be helpful in some niche cases where we might want to share our listing with friends or guildies.

YffresTrill · November 2023

@ZOS_Kevin Tagging here in hopes that this will at least be looked at and taken into consideration.

While my post did not receive any responses, I did get a few agrees, which indicates that I am not the only one who would like to see such improvements to the group finder.

My suggestions would not detract from anyone else's playstyle, simply allow for more options.

A customised group finder has a lot of potential to be particularly helpful to players with niche playstyles. Please do not waste this opportunity.

Necrotech_Master · November 2023

i havent had a chance to use it much yet (too much endless archive lol), but i assume like with all new systems theres going to be a little bit of growing pains with it

as you noted theres likely some parts of the system which needed to be expanded by the devs, and some of it might be in part of the players

100 characters would probably be good as a title, but i would assume it would allow for more detailed description at least

Twohothardware · November 2023

You were trying to get a group for a random normal dungeon and needed more than 100 characters to get your point across?

Jaimeh · November 2023

I've only used the new finder once and it was a pretty straight forward search, but I agree that the description space needs to be bigger, because on the one hand there aren't many options in the filters, hence the requirements have to be written, and on the other, most players will likely have specific runs in mind, and will need to outline the details to avoid misunderstandings about objectives and to also save time.

NoticeMeArkay · November 2023

Twohothardware wrote: »

You were trying to get a group for a random normal dungeon and needed more than 100 characters to get your point across?

It might sound ridiculous at first in regards of seeing 100 usually as a high number but your comment for example holds exactly 120 characters. It's a single sentence. If somebody wants to create a group for a more "casual or laidback" kinda run through a dungeon, their likability of using short terms as "LFM" or "RND FG1 No Rush"might be low as these are usually often used in a different partition of the community. While the title should peak one's interest, the description should be able to clear the majority of questions popping up right upfront.

So I assume that OP wanted to write a casual but short description to give the interested ones a brief idea of what the run is going to be and then struggled due to the character limit not matching the amount of characters necessary to form full sentences without sounding odd.

Edit: Removed a typo. If you happen find more tell 'em to go to bed. As I'm about to do so right now. Good night!

YffresTrill · November 2023

NoticeMeArkay wrote: »

So I assume that OP wanted to write a casual but short description to give the interested ones a brief idea of what the run is going to be and then struggled due to the character limit not matching the amount of characters necessary to form full sentences without sounding odd.

Yep, basically this!

For anyone who does not believe a greater character limit is necessary, and anyone who is satisfied with the current iteration of the group finder as it already suits their needs: that is great, and I am happy for you.

Nevertheless, it lacks versatility for those of us with different requirements -- versatility which could be easily increased with some very basic tweaks.

Paralyse · November 2023

Always nice to see a post where all the suggestions are reasonable, well thought out and clearly written. 100% agree with OP that all of these features would be very helpful for the Group Finder.

I don't like the "Twitterization" of language -- sometimes 140 (or 100) characters is not nearly sufficient to get your point across or explain something!

YffresTrill · November 2023

After trying to use the group finder to form a group for Bastion Nymic today, I have an additional bit of feedback:

Please add a specific category for Bastion Nymic. I would expect this to be under Zone > World Events > Apocrypha/Telvanni Peninsula.

The World Events category simply does not exist for these zones, and there is not a separate Bastion Nymic section somewhere else.

With no other option available, I attempted to form a group via the Custom category. In the time I spent fruitlessly waiting for the group to fill, I could have soloed the instance, which, if I wanted to do, I would not be trying to form a group.

Having to resort to LFM spam in zone chat, when the group finder is specifically meant to alleviate just this, is quite disappointing.

Twohothardware · November 2023

Just seen the new Group Finder in-game today on console. The biggest change it needs is to just display all active groups available unfiltered when you open Group Finder and then if you want to filter your selection to something more specific you can.

Having to manually look through each category of Dungeon, Arena, Trial, Endless Archive, PvP, Zone, and Custom and then having to select between normal and veteran to see if a group is available makes it more difficult than it needs to be to quickly pull open Group Finder and check for new group listings.

Right now there's more categories than there is active groups.

Vynera · November 2023

Also please add on option that players on my blocklist cannot join my group. I had yesterday a listing up for endless archive and someone joined and left imidiatly which resulted in my group being unlisted since it was full (2 player content) and I had to relist the group again. He did that over and over till I just gave up after 20mins.

On PC/Eu / German Client or just my account:
When I set the group to not auto accept, if someone applies there is running a 3 second countdown till it auto declines that person, I dont know why but thats not even enough time to look at the class, hover over and decide to accept or decline, makes that feature unusable for me.

erdYrrson · November 2023

Hm, Northern and Southern Elsweyr are not showing up in the zone list, *if* I want to create a group for the world event dragons. At least here on XBOX. Using world bosses, both regions are in the list. Have I missed a meeting, which declared dragons world bosses instead of world events?

My steps:
create group -> zone -> world events -> any zone to n or s elsweyr - well, not in the list

Intention: grouping for dragon hunt. Of course I could do the bosses route and write a relevant comment. Just wanted to know, if it is a platform thing or just my misinterpretation of boss vs event.

MidniteOwl1913 · November 2023

ComradeBiscuit wrote: »

After trying to use the group finder to form a group for Bastion Nymic today, I have an additional bit of feedback:

Please add a specific category for Bastion Nymic. I would expect this to be under Zone > World Events > Apocrypha/Telvanni Peninsula.

The World Events category simply does not exist for these zones, and there is not a separate Bastion Nymic section somewhere else.

With no other option available, I attempted to form a group via the Custom category. In the time I spent fruitlessly waiting for the group to fill, I could have soloed the instance, which, if I wanted to do, I would not be trying to form a group.

Having to resort to LFM spam in zone chat, when the group finder is specifically meant to alleviate just this, is quite disappointing.

I would expect to find it under dungeons, or maybe its own category. But yes it should be the poster child for why we need a group finder. What a pain getting a group together is!

YffresTrill · November 2023

Twohothardware wrote: »

Just seen the new Group Finder in-game today on console. The biggest change it needs is to just display all active groups available unfiltered when you open Group Finder and then if you want to filter your selection to something more specific you can.

Having to manually look through each category of Dungeon, Arena, Trial, Endless Archive, PvP, Zone, and Custom and then having to select between normal and veteran to see if a group is available makes it more difficult than it needs to be to quickly pull open Group Finder and check for new group listings.

Right now there's more categories than there is active groups.

Great idea -- sometimes people are just looking for something to do with no specific goal in mind. I definitely agree this would help groups fill much faster.

YffresTrill · November 2023

erdYrrson wrote: »

Hm, Northern and Southern Elsweyr are not showing up in the zone list, *if* I want to create a group for the world event dragons. At least here on XBOX. Using world bosses, both regions are in the list. Have I missed a meeting, which declared dragons world bosses instead of world events?

My steps:
create group -> zone -> world events -> any zone to n or s elsweyr - well, not in the list

Intention: grouping for dragon hunt. Of course I could do the bosses route and write a relevant comment. Just wanted to know, if it is a platform thing or just my misinterpretation of boss vs event.

I'll need to check when I log in, but considering that Bastion Nymic is missing, I would guess it isn't just you. They made some really odd choices with regards to what to leave out.

BenTSG · November 2023

These all are great suggestions, I'm all for them so I'll place my +1 here too. The Group tool is a good start, it just needs a little bit more to make it great

Twohothardware · November 2023

I'm sorry but this new Group Finder is a flop. This was the feature I was most looking forward to this year and noone is using it and the couple of groups you even see on it aren't filling.

And I think the reason for that is it being hidden too deep with too many options and categories you have to select to even see if a group is available. It's easier to just post in zone chat in Craglorn.

The reason zone chat works so well to find groups is because it pops up on every persons screen and is in your face. We need a group finder that's one window with all groups listed and alerts you in chat or something.

Or better yet just get rid of the Group Finder and add an actual queue for all of this content to the existing Dungeon Finder. The only content in the game that's too difficult for just a queue is Vet Trials and to be honest if you want to run those you should be in an organized clan.

Jaimeh · November 2023

Twohothardware wrote: »

I'm sorry but this new Group Finder is a flop. This was the feature I was most looking forward to this year and noone is using it and the couple of groups you even see on it aren't filling.

And I think the reason for that is it being hidden too deep with too many options and categories you have to select to even see if a group is available. It's easier to just post in zone chat in Craglorn.

The reason zone chat works so well to find groups is because it pops up on every persons screen and is in your face. We need a group finder that's one window with all groups listed and alerts you in chat or something.

Or better yet just get rid of the Group Finder and add an actual queue for all of this content to the existing Dungeon Finder. The only content in the game that's too difficult for just a queue is Vet Trials and to be honest if you want to run those you should be in an organized clan.

If anything, it has too few filters (and the description box should be bigger). It takes about half a minute more to fill the categories than typing in zone chat. And one of the points of it was that people wouldn't have their chats spammed anymore with LFG messages. Once, more players get used to it, it will become more populated, give it a moment...

Twohothardware · November 2023

Jaimeh wrote: »

Twohothardware wrote: »

I'm sorry but this new Group Finder is a flop. This was the feature I was most looking forward to this year and noone is using it and the couple of groups you even see on it aren't filling.

And I think the reason for that is it being hidden too deep with too many options and categories you have to select to even see if a group is available. It's easier to just post in zone chat in Craglorn.

The reason zone chat works so well to find groups is because it pops up on every persons screen and is in your face. We need a group finder that's one window with all groups listed and alerts you in chat or something.

Or better yet just get rid of the Group Finder and add an actual queue for all of this content to the existing Dungeon Finder. The only content in the game that's too difficult for just a queue is Vet Trials and to be honest if you want to run those you should be in an organized clan.

If anything, it has too few filters (and the description box should be bigger). It takes about half a minute more to fill the categories than typing in zone chat. And one of the points of it was that people wouldn't have their chats spammed anymore with LFG messages. Once, more players get used to it, it will become more populated, give it a moment...

I don’t think it will but that’s just my opinion.

There’s no notifications when new groups are created. You have to go 5 selections deep into Group Finder every time to check and see if there’s a group and most people after they look a couple of times and see no groups found they’re going to stop looking because it’s easier to just post in zone or guild chat.

Necrotech_Master · November 2023

the few times i have used it ive see no issues, though the only times ive used it so far was to fill trial groups

i would list the normal trial and it would usually take ~5-10 min to get enough players to fill, and it would auto de-list once the group filled

i havent tried using it for anything else, but for common things like zone, trials, arenas i regularly can see between 4 and 6 listings during prime time gameplay

dungeons and archive i usually see between 0 and 2 listings on avg

other categories like pvp i never see listings

YffresTrill · November 2023

Thanks to everyone who has posted their own excellent suggestions here! I have updated the OP to include these.