I want to compare the start of a new progression server versus an old latest expansion server. On a new server, there are tons of people online, and everyone is looking for a group. You can pick any zone you want, and within about 15 minutes be in a group, advancing towards your goals. This is EQ at its best. A game that forces grouping, and plenty of options to join a group. Compare that to an old server. There are still plenty of people that play the game (some servers better than others), but grouping options are very limited. Usually you have a couple of friends that you will group with, and maybe you arrange to meet at a certain time. But it is easy to get into a cycle, of you log on for 15 minutes, run overseer, don't see any friends online, and log off. Next day you might not even bother to log on at all, and if you aren't on, your friends don't group either. This is EQ at its worst. A grouping game with little options to form groups. I think EQ needs to do more work to facilitate grouping. In short, create a scheduling app inside the game. The app will link people together that have the same goal. Here are some ideas on what the app could ask: 1. Audience - public, guild, fellowship, friend's list - i.e. who do you want to see your request? 2. Expansion/Zone - what expansion or zone do you want to group? 3. Goal - experience, hunter, missions, partisan quests, mercenary quests, (maybe even raid?) 4. Time - When will you be online to work on the above? People can either add an entry for what they need, or search entries and pick one that they want to assist.
Forcing grouping doesn’t mean people group at all, look at the modern design and see how it fails. The big difference is everyone is looking to group and looking to play the game. It’s the major difference between servers. The people act completely different. Forced grouping only works, if people actually want to group but on Live servers the will and energy are basically dead.
Yup Biggest reasons I don't group are: IRL responsibilities. Sometimes You just have to have the ability to drop everything at a moment's notice... or you don't have a set schedule where to can dedicate X amt of time to static grouping. Combine the two and yup.. not really group-friendly. I want that drop! Yeah, 20+ years of EQ.. hitting content that gets harder and harder.. really rare drop/low drop rate.. I don't want to pick up rando's to loot and scoot. Sorry, but that's how it is. I didn't like it in old EQ, I don't like it in current EQ. I love grouping, but I really don't like some of the artificial difficulties added to EQ that merely waste time. I don't like multi-hour lockouts on group content either, when specific items are "locked" within those missions.
What a sad picture you have painted. Definitely not a reflection on how I or my guildmates (in 3 very different guilds) play. Most of my playmates do Overseer as a mundane routine, not a goal to log in. And almost nobody actively uses it to level up (it usually happens in some bursts, particulary for newly created alts, or level-increase expansion release). And most of the time everybody who is online are busy bees doing a variety of stuff, hardly ever going LFG, and even if anybody asks in guildchat about activities it is usually in search of a fresh ideas, not for a sake of grouping per se. Especially on weekdays. I barely play 2 hours between dinner and dog walk M-through-F. I got no time for LFG and dealing with strangers. I got a long list of things to do for my alts, a sizeable back-log. And on weekends many of my playmates doing actual group activities like mission runs, hunter, hard PL'ing, tougher errands etc. If anybody needs playmates - join a large casual guild. On BB the largest and the friendliest is The Dark Reign (no, my main characters and alts are not in that guild). There is always some activities the members participating in. Always some LFG and LFM happening. People are playing the game and socializing all the time. TDR has a strict policy of being nice and friendly, and it serves them well for ages. There is no need to reinvent the bicycle. Just play the game.
Either there are a lot of people "LFG" that don't get groups, which is a failing of those people to actually really look and connect with one another, or there aren't enough people playing that are LFG in the first place and anything done to encourage it is a waste of time. Its one or the other, and neither is Daybreak's problem outside of it affecting their bottom line in some way. The only way lfg works is if people go to zones to grind random stuff (outside of hunters, doesn't really happen in modern eq), or get together to do random missions (which the currency dropping missions do, but people don't use LFG tool for some reason). People scared to do anything without an optimal group makeup is part of the problem. So is "logging off after 15 minutes", as if the entire world is waiting around for YOU to log on and do something.
And so many LFG with no one wanting to START said group. My first real run on a progression server and this stood out more than anything. Either people log in, say they're LFG, then logoff when they're not immediately acknowledged or invited to a group.. or you see a dozen or so people in global/guild chat "LFG", including a tank, healer, CC/puller etc.. but none will step up to form a group. The other one is the "diva" who is LFG but only if the group is going to do exactly the content they want to focus on first.
This is DPG’s problem, this is the foundation of their whole business. Forming groups takes commitment and focus on doing something. EQ doesn’t really give an option to just run some quick dungeons and log out. I don’t blame people for not joining groups that they don’t want to do. I just box all the time. So, I’m part of the problem and there’s no way I’m going back to recruiting people for groups in EQ or even WoW and FF14. Group finder tool or nothing for me.
The first is why some want a 'matching' application that automatically makes the group so they don't need to take the initiative to start a group. (But then they would complain about the groups the matching thing makes based on the games I've played that do have one.) The second is why some will complain they can't find groups because they can't force others to group with them to do only the content they want to do and definitely won't do any content that others would want. (This, too, leads to complaints about a auto-matching feature in the games where it is available.) EQ actually does have a UI/tool for LFG (just type /lfg and it will pop open). You can set yourself as lfg or a group looking for more. But the tool doesn't automatically form the group. And, yes, the search just on one server but, in my opinion, that's better since someone you group with via the tool you can easily find again for future grouping. But, yes, I know, "no one uses the tool" and few have used it since it was introduced to the game because it doesn't show the gear, abilities, etc. of the players looking for group or extra members. It also doesn't specify what content the group or player are wanting (or willing) to do. There have actually been threads in the past, ever since the tool was implemented, with suggestions on how to make it "usable" or more used. Some suggestions involve instant travel, automating 'matching' to form a group, forcing its use by having it enabled by default when you log in, and even requiring going through a 'ranking' mission to be able to use it.
People used to use it all the time. You'd always see 20-40 people on there. And you can specify what you want to do in it. There is a notes section where you can enter that info. For whatever reason, people stopped using it.
It has been happening long before overseer was even thought of.. Long before Progression XP outweighed open world killing/farming... Long before progression arcs. It is the people, not the game, that are the issue for not finding a group. Either personal responsibilities, or just narcissistic players. The game has only driven a wedge between players and grouping when the DEV team thought/thinks it is somehow a good idea to lock the game behind arbitrary progression. Everything else is strictly on players either not taking initiative, feeling entitled to instantly have a group and/or a group to do the content they want, or not being able to go out and group "normally" because of real life responsibilities and issues. Don't blame this on Overseer.
I can do Overseers and/or a few tradeskill combines in the time I log on with breakfast before I start my work day (or if I am in a meeting I only need 3/4 attention for). I usually do not have time to get into a group or the ability to have my time online extended by something happening in a group (i.e. an encounter being more difficult than anticipated, a wipe, travel taking time, etc.) Sometimes, in that time, I am also able to chat with some friends and set up time to do some grouping later when we're both available (darn time zones and work schedules. ). So... should I not log on at all because I don't have that time to be able to group with a random number of strangers (aside from the fact that would give me major anxiety due to a stupid irrational social anxiety issue)? Is it more acceptable to you if I spent that small amount of time doing tradeskill combines, still not grouping?
personally i dont like grouping with people i dont know, i have my crew/fellowship and i rarely venture outside of that .. given the option of going LFG for pick up groups or just logging off and doing some house work, i prolly choose the housework.
I'm probably part of the probelm. The last of year or so my patience has run out with PUG groups, players who insist on reading a walk through rather than reading what the quest says. Frequently missing updates as they wander off, agro mobs because they cannot stay where they should be, ninja AFK, want to do something different to what the group are doing, etc. These days I log in do Overseer for collectables/TS items and see whos around. Then I either AFK if friends are due on or switch to a TLP server and do some stuff there. Friends message me in Whatsapp or Discord if they want to do stuff if I'm not logged in. When groups aren't full we generally don't pick someone up from general anymore as we don't want to deal with the issues they cause and go with a merc, which have their own problems!
Alternatively, one can play for a couple hours. Log in after dinner - do Overseer for 15 mins, chat with guildies. Form a group of 4, run Door mission, /taskadd 2 alts, pocket 25x6 AA's + 45x6 coins + chest loot (mostly rots these days, though Otherwordly invisibles still get looted) Form another group of 4, repeat Form another group, repeat Form the fourth group, repeat. Run to Shar Vahl Divided, reform the group, do Under Siege mission, /taskadd 2 alts, pocket 25x6 AA's + 45x6 coins + chest loot (mostly rots these days, though Otherwordly visibles still get looted) Form another group, repeat. Form the third group, repeat. After 2 hours of playtime, get ready to walk the dog, /camp characters after earning 1050+ AAs, 1890 NoS currency coins, several Otherwordly drops (if lucky) and a T2 weapon or two for some neglected alt if it drops. Do it 4 workdays (1 night is Open Raid on BB) and do something else (like past expansion progression) on weekends. Or group with guildies for other fun stuff. And yeah, don't forget about Overseer, it may slip your mind occasionally.
A couple of things I want to clarify: 1. What I am envisioning would not auto-form a group. More than anything it would tell you at what time a person is starting a group to work on X. 2. The main thing that this tool would have that the current LFG tool does not have is setting what time a group will be forming. Most likely the end result of my proposal would be additions to the LFG tool to support this. In general, for those that offered solutions in the existing world, thanks. Keep in mind that I have been playing this game since release so it isn't like I don't know how to form a group. And if your situation means you have all the groups you can ever want - great. That doesn't mean that there is not a problem for others on the server. For example, if your solution is to join a big guild (btw, I am in one), that doesn't mean that EQ doesn't have a problem. Small guild or larger guild, EQ is better when people can find groups. For me personally, I am usually the one that forms a group, as my bst is a group unto himself. Not so much my enc, druid and other char. I have seen various people who group with me, and as far as I can tell, I am the only one that they group with, or maybe they have one other person. If I stop playing EQ for a few weeks, they often stop playing the game. I have talked with friends who complain that they never get a group and are thinking that maybe if they joined another guild, they would get more groups, aka the grass is greener on the other side.
LFG tools are not going to solve the problem... hardly anyone groups 6 weeks after an expansion is released. This trend started with ToV. Prior to ToV, groups started dying after the super bowl on my server. They need to give a reason for people to group, otherwise this trend will continue...
Make a box group. Then find 9 friends who box. Once a week go raid older raids. Like grouping only better.
