the issue is, people dont wait for the group to fill before starting the quest

[Hobgoblin]

you play your way. i will play mine.

and never the twain shall meet

 

[Nickodeamous]

This thread has taken some wild twists and turns. How about if you don't wanna zerg, you can make your own lfm? People dont wait for others if they can solo quests. Honestly, if I put an lfm up, I like the company and it does help when splitting the quests up. I can solo fairly easily, but that's boring.

Im in the camp where I tell people start as soon as they get to the quest. I wanna be efficient and dont want a wall of toons sitting outside the quest when they can start. I do the same thing. If im there first, im moving and im going as fast as humanly possible. Odds are people are running xp pots. No sense in wasting time.

 

[Guntango]

Everybody is impatient and wants to zerg.
Proof: I put up LFMs stating "no zerg sperging"(lol?) and no one joins. I put up an LFM on a different day and don't put anything, and people join.

Call it selection bias or whatever but this happens consistently. So what I do now is, if i wanna be carried as a weak as wet toilet paper first lifer (which I hate btw, but im sure the reaper 5000 crew hate it more when I ride the soulstone express) I join r1's. If I wanna take my time I either dont put up LFM's or put up the no zerging thing or put up something BELOW r1 (hard/elite).

Hard take: everyone zergs/impatient and only wanna run r1.
I rarely see new people or people that are first lifers or learning the game like me doing LFMs and they rarely if never join mine (even when I don't put other info in the LFM).

Probably unpopular af opinion but I wish a NEW server opened, so everyone can start off fresh. I dont think this is feasible because so many people have items and reaper points/PLs they dont want to lose, so it will end up just being new people (first lifers) joining the new server any way.

So make it a (first lifer only) server. Probably never gonna happen, and I get it. It's basically leagues at that point, and being completely honest when I, at 220hp at level 14ish join with other 14s with 1400 hp - in an R1 do definitely feel very out of my league. The current meta is not new user friendly at all, more like oppressive than anything.

I kinda feel like the game got too easy for people with lots of PLs and tomes/reaper points what-have-you and the head scratcher is it feels like current non-reaper content got tuned to be more difficult for reaper/PL people, but where does this leave newcomers like myself or people learning the game?

What I do is try to run hard or reaper ELITE ONE LEVEL above mine or AT LEVEL and some quests feel extremely hard in that endeavor and if anything, all quests BELOW reaper should be cut in half in difficulty. Leave the XP as it is, but tone the diff way down. Reason being, no one runs hard/elite like hardly ever. It wouldnt impact PL/reaper runners at all as far as I can see, and if anything it would help newcomers. Worried about people farming favor? Then lower the favor rewards by half. But only do it for norm/hard/elite quests. Or let people run dungeons without a quest (walkup/red door) with lowered ZERO favor, but half the diff just so they can level and progress.

Could just be a bad build im running or I could just be bad at the game, and both might be right - but in order to get good and learn the game you have to progress, but to be honest lag in fights/boss fights doesnt help. Not saying lag is 100% the problem but it does contribute to the frustration sometimes. Especially when you are already having a hard time with a quest, trying to go slow, kill every mob, get every single trap, and then when you get to the end and you've invested over an hour into the quest and die any way???????? (IM LOOKIN AT YOU BLACK AND BLUE!!!)

Like I said its oppressive and not very new player friendly.

Zerging is a right of passage; you will too.

 

[SpartanKiller13]

No argument, but if you run quests like that when you have the star, tell people in lfm, not waiting on stragglers or some such thing. Zerging is fine and not helping slow players is a choice, but you can warn people with a short lfm comment.

I will start myself lol, but finishing is different; when people join I'll indicate quest progress (just started, about 1/3 in, near end please hurry) but I'm not gonna leave someone out to dry unless they haven't said anything and aren't making progress towards the quest for a few mins (they're still in the marketplace etc).

For that matter I close LFM's for long/gather point quests near the end to avoid having to wait for people. Like last night I ran a VoN group in heroics - we started with three people, ended with 9, and I closed the LFM when we got to the air jet pipe. VoN 2 I grabbed all 4 items because I was zooming, but I made sure everyone was in before finishing.

I always help party members. In my groups, no one is left behind. But no, I don't wait until the group is full to start the quest. Waiting is boring, and I don't see the point. People join when they want and leave the group when they want.

And if anyone doesn't know how to get to the quest, I hope they tell me, because I'm not a diviner.

Yeah, exactly. If you go AFK or DC for like 5+ minutes without saying anything I'll probs finish, but if ya say something I'm happy to help.

Can stalk them via the Who tab, and for weird quests I'll ask (Chains being an obvious one) but communication is the key for me.

 

[Redtalktree]

This also contributes to that late penalty which is such an out dated mechanic. Back in the day level cap was 10 and there were too few quests, level penalty was there. Now a days not many will join a group if they see 5-10 minutes into the quest on the LFM. :(

yup can't see anyone joining when the said quest is like 10 min long unless they are there for the loot, as late penalties wipe out the xp gains

 

[Wizard]

yup can't see anyone joining when the said quest is like 10 min long unless they are there for the loot, as late penalties wipe out the xp gains

afaik it's not only about time expired but also quest progress, additional quest objectives completed after entry can remove late entry penalty.
Also entering late may get less xp but good xp/min still since you were less time in the quest.

 

[minamber]

How is that an issue? The fact is, most people post LFMs for stuff they can solo anyway. More people can make quests faster, sure, but waiting 5 minutes for the group to fill to save 1 minute in term of completion time is just not efficient (using random numbers here).

The only time I might wait for more people before starting a quest is for those that are much faster if there are enough people to split up like Bloody crypt or Shadow crypt.

 

[Anurakh]

afaik it's not only about time expired but also quest progress, additional quest objectives completed after entry can remove late entry penalty.
Also entering late may get less xp but good xp/min still since you were less time in the quest.

What's the problem? If they enter a quest late, at most they'll have less experience on one quest; there's no reason for them to enter the others late, and therefore they'll get normal XP. There's a lot of XP in the game; earning less on a quest isn't the end of the world, and it's more than compensated because you'll get the XP almost immediately thanks to others doing the work for you.

Also, if you see an LFM for a quest in progress that takes more than 10 minutes and that worries you a lot, then don't join the LFM. But most people will. Earning less XP on a quest you enter late is nothing (you can think of it as free XP, since you haven't worked for it), and the speed of earning XP in a competent group on subsequent quests makes it worth it.

 

[mikarddo]

yup can't see anyone joining when the said quest is like 10 min long unless they are there for the loot, as late penalties wipe out the xp gains

Joining Crucible, Madstone or the Pit at the very last second disgrees strongly with your statement. Those are winning scenarios for me. Even an 80% penalty matters little - and when you are getting 430% -> 350% its not even that big a deal anyway.

 

[minamber]

I have to agree that with all the boosts to xp we get these days, late entry penalty is not that big of a deal. The only risk is if the group finishes before you get in, in which case you can just join the next one.
And most people will wait for you to enter before finishing unless you take 5 minutes to get there.

 

[Oliphant]

More circumspect are the folks that only join if quest is in progress. One reason why folks commonly start quests is to pull in the mini-pikers.

 

[Jack Jarvis Esquire]

Plenty of people complain about balance but then want every class to be able to do everything. D&D was always great because of the lack of balance. DDO used to be that way...now, with a dip of one level into rogue/arti/dark hunter..............

I'll wait until the couple/few 'usuals' call me a contrarian/White Knight/Paladin/etc.

Well, don't be such an etc. then!

 

[Jack Jarvis Esquire]

More circumspect are the folks that only join if quest is in progress. One reason why folks commonly start quests is to pull in the mini-pikers.

You mean gnomes, don't you? Pikin wee b******s!

 

[Grimscore_Riffstorm]

gnomes

Lawn enforcement?

 

[saekee]

People have potions running while in wildernesses between quests, hence another reason why they do not wait.

If I see people standing around a quest without entering and there is an lfm, I assume some are afk…And I am not waiting for a late bus in a game.

Only for raids (except H and EE Chrono) do folks wait around.

 

[bluphenix316]

I only start started posting LFMs because I usually solo. I solo because finding groups is a pain sometimes. Here are things you have to consider when joining a group or starting a group.

1. What level range? Some people like doing quests at level, some like being 2 levels over. People complain
2. What quests are you doing? Depending on the quest chain if people aren't with you since the beginning then you're stuck because of flagging. i.e Can't start a group for Battle of Eveningstar if people haven't done the first 3. Then you can offer to just repeat quests but the person or two you might have found to group up with you doesn't want to repeat quests
3. Doing the wrong difficulty? People either won't join or complain. i.e I do quests on Elite solo most of the time. I start a quest on what I can solo because I have no idea when people will join my LFM. Then someone joins and says "Why no reaper?" Then quits immediately.
4. To zerg or not to zerg? I've started LFMs and then finally someone would join and zoom right on past me.

I guess you can be a bit more choose whom you group with but with as difficult as it is to find a group, sometimes you feel like you have to adapt to them because the only other choice is solo.

 

[Driaza]

there is a change in mindset from the game back in 2006 to now. there is no perfect make up of a party. The goal in most pugs is to get in as much content as possible for the time the user can be logged in.

Sadly this. You get older, have more family and work responsibilities.

If i only have 1 hour to play in the evnings i CANNOT wait 15 mins for a grp to fill when i know i can do twelve 5 min quests.

Its all about finding people who share YOUR play style but please dont impose yours on me.

 

[TrinityTurtle]

Sorry, but no one else is required to sit and wait for a group to fill, if it even does. This is a game, peolpe want to play, not to sit and wait for other people. And a lot of groups never fully fill at all, so those people should just what...sit and wait forever we're kind enough to post lfm's in case others need the favor/xp/flag/gear item/whatever? No thank you.

 

[Justfungus]

This game discourages PUGs. I don't think that is intentional.
For years SSG has made an effort to never do what other mmo's do ... even if they have a better system.
This game's often bizarre game mechanics is the result 'gotta be different' mentality.
The best system for creating PUGs 'Pick up Groups' that I have seen is used by NWO, Neverwinter Online
Basically, you sign up for an available dungeon based on your level and when enough players
have signed up for that one, it teleports everyone to the beginning of the dungeon.
Quick, clean everyone ready to go.
Doubt DDO will ever have that ..... BECAUSE
'someone else does it.'

 

[mikarddo]

This game discourages PUGs. I don't think that is intentional.
For years SSG has made an effort to never do what other mmo's do ... even if they have a better system.
This game's often bizarre game mechanics is the result 'gotta be different' mentality.
The best system for creating PUGs 'Pick up Groups' that I have seen is used by NWO, Neverwinter Online
Basically, you sign up for an available dungeon based on your level and when enough players
have signed up for that one, it teleports everyone to the beginning of the dungeon.
Quick, clean everyone ready to go.
Doubt DDO will ever have that ..... BECAUSE
'someone else does it.'

One of the best things in DDO is that you dont have to wait till you have a full group.
You can meaningfully run quests solo, duo, or 3-6 man.

Implementing the system from NWO (and I believe WoW) that you mention would be a complete disaster for DDO.
That said - the LFM certainly isnt perfect.