Revisit the 'Public Group' option: it's currently more annoying than valuable

[Visik]

Public groups can be a great idea if you're soloing, but would happily welcome others to join you, or if you're simply not interested in updating your LFM over and over after each quest.

That being said, they have issues:
1) If ANY member of the party has the flag set, the party leader gets an annoying message interrupting them mid-quest when that player enters the quest, asking them to approve the flagging. This has killed me more than once.
2) The flag is permanent until changed; that is to say, it persists from quest to quest and even through logouts.
3) The only way to change the flag is when a quest entry dialog is encountered.

First, imo there's no reason for the flag to ever persist through logout. Some days I want to post LFMs; some days I want so solo; some days fall in between, when the Public option becomes valid. If there are players out there who always want it on, turning it on at the beginning of their questing day doesn't seem onerous.

Second, ONLY the party leader's Private/Public flag should be checked or apply to a group. Other party member flags can either be reset to Private when they join a group/enter a quest, or at least be ignored until they're again leading a party. Idk how tough it would be to update the LFM screen if the star is passed to another player in the group mid-quest, but I can't think of a reason why it would be impossible to either generate an auto-LFM mid-quest or eliminate one, depending on the new party leader's Private/Public flag.

Third, it seems to me that one of two things needs to happen:
1. If the flag is meant to be persistent (except through logouts), it should be presented somewhere other than quest entry dialogs: somewhere it can be changed mid-quest or when one is in a public space. The best options would be a button at the bottom of the LFM screen or as an option when right-clicking on any party member (including oneself) in the party HP area (where one changes to/from raid groups, hands off the star, etc). This would also have to work when solo, ofc.
2. If the flag is presented during quest entry dialogs, it should apply to ONLY that quest, and be reset to private on completion.
There's probably nothing preventing implementation of both options.

What do you think? Is the Public group flagging working for you? Would my suggestions improve it? Have I overlooked something?

 

[Krelar]

In the year or 2 since it was implemented, I've literally never seen it used on purpose lol.

You misspelled decade+ Public groups were added with the Menace of the Underdark expansion in 2012.

 

[Visik]

I definitely think the public grouping needs to be harder to accidentally enable. In the year or 2 since it was implemented, I've literally never seen it used on purpose lol. I can see it being handy for something like orchard/thunderholme slayers where people come and go and you don't want to deal with it.

The problem is, 99.9% of the time, vets don't want to use it. And 99.9% of newbies that might benefit, don't know what it is or how to use it. So 110% of it's use is accidental.

Well, that's clearly not true (and not just because of the math). I've used it quite deliberately.

The issue is that even I (a vet) forget to turn the thing back off when I join a group after having been running Public for a while. Which means that I myself have been that person who enters a group quest with it turned on and annoys the group leader.

There has to be a better system, or implementation.

 

[Visik]

There's one additional wrinkle that takes this from annoying to maddening.

Since you get the notification that someone has their Public Group flag on when they enter, that's likely when you mention it to them (Could you please turn that off for the next quest?). Ofc, the next quest doesn't occur till the current one is over, so by the time the group moves to the next quest, BOTH the party leader AND the offending party member have forgotten. Which leaves a choice between enduring it for another quest and hoping one of you remembers THIS time.. or making everyone leave the quest, reset it, and have that player re-enter and turn off the flag.

None of that is conducive to a positive group experience.

 

[Visik]

A related question: Why do Public Groups expire their auto-accept of new members?

Is it because you could be very near the end of the quest and the new joiner would either miss it or create an obligation to wait for them to enter?

If so, wouldn't it be nice to have the option to set an expire timer yourself or to hit a button to expire the quest rather than have it automatically do so after 5 min (or whatever it is)? (It'd be like unchecking the "Advertise as looking for more players" checkbox in the LFM Creation screen, but easier to access.)