Discussion about LFG

@Devs there are constant claims about DCUO being dead, especially on the villain side or EU servers. Although I don't think it's dead, it's apparent that the population isn't booming either. So, I think it's time that LFG be set to default. If not, then at least making it more clear on how to activate it.


The argument for turning off LFG (if I remember correctly) was because of spam. I have two suggestions here. Either make the wait times between commenting longer or introduce a better LFG system. For example, instead of having to recruit people via chat (which gets bloated with gold bots or trolls anyways), implement a system where there is an 'LFG tab' and under this tab you have Duos, Alerts, Raids, and PvP. Under each tab you can promote whichever mission you want to do (and why you want to do it). This already eliminates the spam in the chat and would be easy to access if you make an icon that opens this tab visible somewhere on the screen. Multiple games do this and it seems to be far more efficient and less problematic than trying to fish for a group via a chat that seemingly more than half of the population has inactivated.


If this system can't be implemented, then I suggest at least making a tutorial for new players and helping them turn on this very important chat. It doesn't even have to be a big (and potentially expensive) tutorial. You could simply create a quick video and then upload it to the launcher so that players could at least view this before entering the game. This seems relatively inexpensive and easy.

Naturally a game would appear to be dead if new and old players can hardly communicate with each other in an MMO and they have to rely on matchmaking. This also turns off other players from continuing to play this MMultiplayerO because it feels lonely and/or empty.


Thoughts?

Not only does it need to be default...

But for crying out loud, Enable it back on for F2P Players. They don't deserve to have one of the most essential chats be shut off for them just because Gold spammers are in the game.


yes, I hate gold spammers. But literally...... If I want to talk to anybody new about joining DCUO I have to be blunt.
"Hey, you wanna join DCUO? It's F2P game that demands you pay $5 to use every single chat channel but it's fun."

Sure...

It can be argued that F2P players don't Support DCUO and therefore don't deserve to have the ability to use the chat, but on the other hand..

This really discourages any newer people who maybe trying out DCUO for the first time, and they can't really do anything about their poor que times unless they are in a helpful league.


Honestly, the simple solution to deal with the gold-spammer problem would've been to keep a chat restriction; but make it so that players reach level 30 before they use LFG. That would greatly identify the gold spammers as none and I do mean none of them ever level up their toons.


And to the OP.. I support this thread completely.

Enabling F2P on LFG will turn LFG into Spam Bot He!! all over again.

Well said. I especially agree with the second paragraph.

One thing worth pointing out re EU server. I was running 10 characters through the Halloween event. In the beginning it would pretty much insta pop, & even a few weeks in you'd wait maybe a couple of minutes & in you went. Even allowing for seasonal alts, it suggests the game isn't as dead as lfg sometimes makes it appear.

So there are players.

Therefore some changes to the lfg/queuing system could help significantly.

Lfg on by default - yes.

There is ofc a language barrier which definitely exists in EU. The main language in lfg is typically English, & fortunately a lot of continental Europeans appear quite well versed in basic English, but that's not to say they all are. Some way of forming a group without the need to type in lfg could help. Lfg could supplement this ofc.

With random queuing, if there was some way of showing in the queue system how many players were queued for that instance, & what roles those queued, that could encourage players also. Ever notice when trying to get a group for old content, if you're 2/8 you struggle for replies, but 6/8 (providing not looking for a tank) you fill up pretty quick.

Well then the new idea I suggested would help with that. It's absolutely unfair to punish new players who truly want to enjoy the game because of bots. The fact that there are bots in a subscription game alone can turn off new players, let alone punishing them via collateral damage for trying to shut the bots down.


Also this isn't even just for F2P. There are a lot of subscribed/premium players who are unaware of LFG. The fact that it's also a chat isn't very efficient and there are better ways to go about forming a group.

Good points. I agree.


I think that the game is like me in the morning. I look dead but have plenty of life. Not fixing the perception players have on this game is what's hurting it as well. I mean this game isn't even advertised. Making it seem empty via letting new players stay ignorant about LFG and other ways of communication isn't helping.


Also, I believe the idea I'm proposing would help with the language barrier. Even on American servers there are a lot of Spanish speaking players (Brazil/Mexican) and it would be more fair to these minorities to be able to assemble with other players via this tab.

Nope, if you're F2P you don't need LFG you can play enough to the point of endgame before you even remotely need LFG in any meaningful way.

And by the time you get to level 30 you'll have decided if you're going to consider subbing or spending $5 by then.

I completely disagree and I will never support this kind of decision.

"By the time you get to level 30 you'll have you'll have decided if you're going to consider subbing or spending $5 by then" Nope.

The game undergoes a completely different transformation when you reach level 30. When you are leveling, it's completely self-doable. But when you finally get up to level 30, you need LFG or a league, because there's group content and group content becomes a priority after you reach level 30 in this game.

If players don't end up with a league, then they got to try and hope that content will que. The problem is: Old content is dead and for how much you guys constantly champion LFG as a solution for players to enter into old content.. Well....
How is it a solution when It's completely shut off for F2P players in the first place? You're missing out on que times, missing out on revenue, and missing out on so much more because not only is LFG disabled for F2P but it's also not the standard chat.

LFG needs to become the standard and it needs to become open to everybody like it was. Regardless of how you see F2P, LFG was open to them all the way until they did that hotfix.

And even Mepps has stated that they'll be continuing to look for better solutions than the ones they have now.

Sorry i disagree.

The game is free to play, but only some of it, it gets to a point where you have to make a decision as to whether you are going to personally invest more time and thus money in the game, i subjectively believe that appropriate time is level 30 otherwise learn to make do with limitations

Can I have an option to ignore all free to plays?

Would be just better to have it disabled until you hit a certain point, like level 10 or when you can first queue up for the first alert.

Have LFG set to default, keeping the rest the same.

While having any additional chat channels would work for you and those who visit the forums or look at threads like this one, it would be making something that seems simple to you and those who see your idea as great. It would be even more confusing and will not play out as described, just look at how a majority handled the initial tutorial of the game that had to be changed as well as other content that give hints and clues as to what is needed to complete certain raids and missions.

If I had a dime for everytime I suggested to turn the on duty tab into an active browser functionality to join groups in the makes, join groups already in content, start building a group of your own etc. by choice and with good browsing/searching options, I... 'd maybe have 4 dollars by now But it was suggested a lot of times still and always the devs ignored it. It had been literally laid out step-by-step for them in at least 2 very detailed posts (and one of them was not by me so even back then other players were already thinking about the problem).

The idea is good. Their implementation could as always turn out to be just mediocre but still an improvement. Point is, they will not do it. Basically I think they fear players could use the browsing/searching options to collect more detailed numbers about the real activity there is in queues in the game. And nothing kills a cashcow game faster than actual solid numbers for declining player numbers.

I agree. I didn't know about LFG until a couple months ago and I've been playing for about 15 months. I was group leader and shouting in Doomed Metropolis for more to help with Hank/Biz bounty and one guys said "spam LFG too". Not knowing what he was talking about, I had to quickly go to the google machine as to not look like an idiot to him, lol.

Off topic...People always talk down on F2P's but free samples are a big part of how many businesses attract new customers. Without new customers businesses die. That'd be bad for all of us. You don't look down on the person walking by your favorite bakery, sandwich shop, coffee shop, etc who takes a free sample from the employee out on the sidewalk, do you?

First of all I definitely agree that the LFG should be a default. Sadly the game has in the past managed to leave new players out there in the cold with no idea about any number of things in game. I started 7 years ago and had to run back and redo A pile of missions below 30 level because there was absolutely nothing mentioned anywhere telling a player.. OH yeah we have special feats in missions and those give you feat points which add up to skill points which can be used to make your stats higher.

The LFG is the same way and basically after any player gets to level 9 they gain access to the alert (4 man team) Now personally I have never had a but of a problem finding a team to do any of those with a blind que............ BUT THE GAME HAS CHANGED.

A 10 level player can be running missions on Titan island and even running a duo, alert and 2 raids stat clamped to CR 230. That same ten level can join ANY holiday team doing that alert for more holiday cash. Now I have never seen anyone on the LFG building a stat clamped team to run The Hive raid BUT I have seem players forming holiday mission teams. If you deny those 10 levels access to the LFG and wind up spending more time standing around TRYING to form a team to battle Klarion during the Halloween event you have no one to blame but yourself.

Now if they really want to make any sort of change to the LFG make the dang thing Cross Faction. You want 8 players to run a raid. Get off your high horse and a play on teams with heroes and villains. Heck without even getting into duos, alerts and raids....LOOK at the outdoor daily stuff... Heroes and Villains have the exact same missions with the exact same objectives in Amazon Fury 3, Age of Justice, Riddled with Crime, Earth 3.... getting the idea here?.......... and all the way through Titan Island and Doomed Metropolis. Heck I have even "joined" groups of Villains in taking out a bo0unty in many of those zones and while i was a solo player as long as I did DAMAGE I got credit for the defeat. the absolute best way to increase the number of potential team mate is to make just about anything above level 30 cross faction so everyone on line can join your team.

I thought it was on default. It was when I started, but I separated it a long time ago, because I found it useless chatter until I got up to a higher level. Who is using LFG to team up for leveling missions or very low level stuff? Shout in the WT or HOD is better for that anyway or in a PD/Club as that's where the low level players are. Assuming it does start not on default tab now, I'd say there could be a tab for LFG from the get go...sounds like an idea that would do no harm either way. Also documentation on how to use chat would be nice, but there are a dozen things that should be documented for DCUO that are more important (like how to play a role).

Now adding back in F2P for Trade/LFG posting...that's another story. The spam was out of control (not sure if you were on then, but it was 10x worse than today) and requiring premium for that access has helped tremendously as the spambots aren't going to be willing to spend $5 on 100s of accounts....just a few, which is why we still have a few spambots out there in these channels. How about a 2nd LFG for F2PLFG, where F2Ps can post if they'd like...but they would also have to put up with the hailstorm of spam?

BTW (for Jacob Dragonhunter), when I used to tell people about DCUO (and gave that up a year or 2 ago anyway) I used to mention the fact that you can spend $5 one time and get premium benefits as a good thing. Additional chat features is a selling point of the $5 spend, not a detriment of the F2P game if you ask me. When I get a 'free' game I normally understand there are features that I cannot use.

Reinheld

I don't understand why it hasn't been implemented. Sure it may be expensive or time-consuming but in the long term it would actually retain players. Even if they can't do this, at least making a two minute video tutorial showing players how to access LFG and posting it on game launcher. I really don't see what's so wrong with this. I've suggested this for the last two years.

If they were working at some point to massively improve the on duty tab, it was probably cancelled with shelving the UI update roughly 2 years ago IIRC. And, as I stated above, if they fear such a tool could hekp tracking/narrowing down the actual number of active players any game company nowadays would stay away from it. Simply because even players in still functional league/friendlist environments could easily go "wow, it's just that few? we should really consider relocation" when facing a "low" active population number as a result.

Now, for the LFG, it's not just the spam. The legit messages usually contain instance, roles needed, min requirements etc. - all in acronyms. So the new players would just read columns of letters and numbers with no meaning to them until getting used.

The process of getting used to that however is, thx to the social "quality" of the community, probably full of insults - "look it up noob!", "google [REDACTED]!" "youtube [REDACTED]!" etc. The only time when it wasn't that way was around the server merge when PS and PC population learned of each other that they had developed a lot of different "established" acronyms on their respective platforms.

Now add the swearing and blacklisting and teenage drama "discussions" and that sums up the image of a socially dysfunctional community. That image is what the devs wanted to hide from new players to give the game some time to persuade new players, and so "LFG" and "Trade" where taking out of the standard chat tabs.

So to say the "community" brought this upon themselves by going "get over it it's just words" when dealing with the bad apples because no matter how many of us "got over it", a large enough number of new players found it repulsive enough to force the devs' to hide it from new players. No one knows however if getting rid of the bad apples back then instead would have yielded different results.

Welcome back! (feels like ages since i've seen you post!)

My opinion is unpopular - I say turn LFG on as default, but only those Level 30+ can type

<30 can see it and send tells but that's it (for those <30 who want to join event raids etc)