Grouping tools need a lot of work

axer128 · March 2013

Played all 3 beta weekends, always grouped and yea the current grouping tools are the most broken part of an otherwise great game, they really need some attention. Sadly didn't see any improvement from beta 1 to 3 so hopefully they get some attention soon.

Major Issues:

1. Broken Instancing - Very frequently, we were not placed in the same instance as our party members. Even worse - upon attempting to switch to their instance - the # matching theirs most often does not appear in the list. So the only way for us to get together is often going through the list and finding a number that we all can get to, and doing so.. Then running back to whevever we were since it always telepots us to the nearest waypoint/zone-in/camp.

Further details: It seems like if we all enter a new area together, either with the instance selector option off, or just picking the default, as long as we enter within ~30 seconds of each other, it works ok and we enter the same new instance.. But any other scenario, it just fails and places us into a random instance, with seemingly no rhyme or reason to the # we get into.
EG: Any of the following results in us not being together:
- Crashed/Disconnected - log into a different instance (which happened very often for one party member, tho not others)
- Teleported to zone
- Entered some time later (greater then 30s after someone else)
- Invited after the fact (This should ideally give an option to instantly teleport to the party leaders instance, but does not)

So yea thats quite frusterating. But to make it worse:

2. Broken party bubble requirement: Most of the time, you cannot zone anywhere until you wait for your party members, even if they are in different instances. This is often not ideal.
Details:
Often, we are in protectors enclave, and want to go to a new zone/quest.. But we're all in different instances due to problem #1.. Yet maybe we just want to go quickly turn in some quests then return to the group going elsewhere. Or simply solo a very short quest while others are selling.. It's not possible without breaking the group.

Or if we do intend to group together and enter the same new instance, but want enter the same new area from different instances to save time - that should be allowed.

So while I do enjoy the aspect of forcing all players to be together for certain events (like zoning into boss fights, as ensures slower players can enjoy the end fight).. For these purposes, its a major flaw, not a useful feature.

While I think it should be left in, there needs to be some override option, at least while in public instances. EG: Party leader can rightclick himself and say "Allow solo zoning". This would allow the above scenarios. But not be available while the whole party is in a dungeon. (Tho those who may have gotten kicked out for whatever reason should always be able to re-enter, with the exception of perhaps some of the top lvl challenging content intended to be done in 1-go.)

3. Voice chat doesn't work on the "alt" mouse cursor screen or any other non-main combat screen.
Believe your aware of this and the other many issues with the built in voice chat like the multi-stacking party bar on the bottom if you enter multiple parties/voice rooms, or it just failing to work sometimes... Needs a lot of improvement, it should just work, all the time while in a party. Even on loadscreens.

4. Tools for forming a group, are completely useless
So the game does seemingly have an LFM (Looking for more) type system built in, but it's 100% un-usuable in it's current form for a few reasons:

-1. Limited to X groups, and every single group is automatically set to advetising and open party, thus it very quickly fills and most groups never show up.
EG: I asked my party members to try to click my party when we need to reform (as we often do, due to bugs).. They can never find it, as it simply doesn't show up due to hte limit.
-2. Automatiicaly set to advertised, open, public grouping is not ideal. Just playing with friend sand having some random stranger just join out of the blue screaming obscenities at you..
Or worse, some innocent player just testing the group tools seeing how they work joins.. Who you then kick - which causes that poor bloke to be kicked from the quest hes been working on for 50min. Yea, should default to off.
-3. Very limited options. Think I saw an option to let only my friends see me online... But no option to only let friends see my lfm.. Or only see friends LFMs.
4. Very bugged: The various options that are there, dont seem to work.
I tried the require requests with open group option, but people still got into my group without any requests. In addition, after changing that - I could not manually invite anyone either. No error, no message came up, just nothing happened upon invites, had to relog to clear.
Also tried putting a message in to list the dungeon I was setting up a group for.. But yea that never worked. One bug being it only allows 1 word, no spaces or non alphanumeric characters.. And another being it just never shows up for anyone anyways.

5. Group leaders have way too much power, and even worse - are randomly assigned when using the dungeon finder.. This is a major annoyance to me.. As I often have 1-3 friends, but you are required to have 5 players for the finder. So I might have just 1 friend on, and manually invite 2 others, so now we have 4 but no tank. So we queue up to hopefully find one, and after I spent an 20+ mins of aggrevatingly sending manual tells due to broken group system, I suddenly find the group I put in all the work to form, has a new leader in the dungeon.

We proceed, then at the end said new leader kicks everyone from the group right before the final boss dies, taking all the loot for himself.

... So yea, not much fun. Two required fixes:
1. If you queue with 3 or more players, and have the star, you should keep that star. 2 players and 3 solo queueings, same deal keep it. 2 vs 2, it should be random, however there should also be an option to opt-in to be a leader.. With it defaulted off, as some just want to play a dungeon with a friend, but not neccesarily lead it. Same goes for solo queuers, in 5 solo players queued, the only eligible leader should be one who opts-in.

2. Group leader should have the power to kick players in public instances, but not dungeons/private ones. In the case of those, it should allow a group vote.

Take a look at Dungeons and Dragons online for a very high quality LFM and built in voice chat system.. If you can replicate it's to some degree, Neverwinter would be a lot more awesome.

Group tools are critical to building a strong community, so this really needs a lot of attention. I've seen great MMOs like TERA flouder and do way worse then they could of, simply because they have utterly garbage group tools (EG the game has a lfm system, that 99% of the playerbase don't know how to use as its so cumbersome, and not unlike neverwinters vs DDO, where the LFM system is king and for the vast majority of players, the #1 way they group, if not the only way... Which creates a very strong pick-up-group community where anyone can jump in a play without having to worry about having the time to form/join a guild to get anywhere).

puppyzzwolle · March 2013

@axer128: Concise and comprehensive. Impressive writing skills and very nicely structured. You must be a pro.:cool:

Indeed the big problem with the game.
We played last weekend in a party of 5 and it felt like most of the time we were waiting for someone to swap instance or Walking as a group from "The top of the city" because we all had to relocate. One time we ended up in three different 'timezones' and often had to wait minutes to have a common instance available.

And we *are* a team of five. Why would we want to end up in five different teams? Yes that happened.

I can imagine this is a problem that is difficult to fix but the stress on a server of people constantly swapping instances is far greater than keeping them together as that is the goal in both cases.

This is a game killer.

kyllroy2 · March 2013

Agree, great points Axer128. Of course, I was the new meat puppet unable to find the chat tools within the group, a cleric with aggro magnetic personality and was caught in the vortex of the broken instance while they were about to attempt repairs.
My experience was better, being solo and just enjoying any chance to form up. People are so stuck up in their own little worlds and forget it is beta and several hundred rabid players need to experience the group hug after so long a wait to actually play.;)

mrvuk · March 2013

I had the same problem as Axer128. My prior posts didnt go into that much detail but , basicly the same thing.

Nice post Axer!

Thanks
WOLF

l1zardo1 · March 2013

The map issues are a big one in my mind. Someone should be able to restock, or you should be able to form the party and then have everyone meet up.

Even having a 'social group' sucks, if you have to be on the same map 100% of the time.

The intelligence of shard movement and zoning is nonexistent, and certainly needs to be looked at.

I found the party queue very quick in W2 and impossibly slow in W3. There was definitely something wrong. I did have a felling that if 50% of the players were GWF it would create that issue though ...

axer128 · March 2013

puppyzzwolle wrote: »

@axer128: Concise and comprehensive. Impressive writing skills and very nicely structured. You must be a pro.:cool:

Indeed the big problem with the game.
We played last weekend in a party of 5 and it felt like most of the time we were waiting for someone to swap instance or Walking as a group from "The top of the city" because we all had to relocate. One time we ended up in three different 'timezones' and often had to wait minutes to have a common instance available.

And we *are* a team of five. Why would we want to end up in five different teams? Yes that happened.

I can imagine this is a problem that is difficult to fix but the stress on a server of people constantly swapping instances is far greater than keeping them together as that is the goal in both cases.

This is a game killer.

Appreciate the kind words. Not really a pro when it comes to writing, but I definitely have a ton of experience when it comes to mmos/betas and writing feedback.

Here's a couple tips/workarounds we figured out (incase this still isn't ironed out for the next beta):
1. Options - interface - enable map transfer choices. This will bring up the instance selector anytime you try to zone, so you can all try to select the same number. However a fixed number won't work as all too often it won't appear. So instead say "always choose the lowest, even number".. And generally you should get to the same one, tho occasionally some will get 4 while others find 6 is the lowest ..
-- Also only do this if you're already spread out, as if you're all gathered and zone within 30s of each other, it should work to just select the default and all get in together.
2. If you just 2maning something - and in the same public area, but diff instance, but need to zone to a private map.. Simply drop group, have the leader enter, then re-invite.. Once inside the other should be able to join you without issue.
- Tried this with 3/4 players and had no success tho, as the 2nd got in, but 3rd/4th still got the "error you must gather your party".

axer128 · March 2013

l1zardo1 wrote: »

I found the party queue very quick in W2 and impossibly slow in W3. There was definitely something wrong. I did have a felling that if 50% of the players were GWF it would create that issue though ...

I think part of the issue with the queuing is they have unlisted, but hard-enforced class requirements. It absolutely wont work unless you have at a bare minimum 1 cleric and 1 guardian.

While I would love if the game was difficult enough to really encourage/require that.. It simply isn't. I pretty much outtanked every guardian I met on my GWF the whole weekend, and really in all the instances up to level30, you simply dont need a tank anyways, its too easy.

TERA had the exact same setup, and it created major problems early on where all the tank players - being the rarest type required as it was a single class in a game that had many, and allowed multiples for all other roles, including healer..
It lead to this huge problem with lots of young kids and otherwise grew a huge ego as they knew they could queue and instantly get any dungeon they wanted, while everyone else was forced to wait 15-30+ minutes minimum to get in.. So often they'd do things like demand the star, kick other players who used the same loot class, etc.. Because they knew they had that power over everyone else and if denied could simply drop and requeue, while the others would have to wait a long time.

So yea in light of that, imo they should allow non-standard groups.. But make it an opt-in option, so the newer/low knowledge players dont end up in a too hard situation by default. And perhaps disable the option just for lvl60/endgame dungeons that are intended to be very challenging, and near impossible without a certain group makeup.

ganndog · March 2013

Great feedback axer128 - constructive and positive; all of the issues you mentioned are important for the overall success of the game, especially for an mmo. I hope a dev reads this.

axer128 · April 2013

ganndog wrote: »

Great feedback axer128 - constructive and positive; all of the issues you mentioned are important for the overall success of the game, especially for an mmo. I hope a dev reads this.

Yea would love some dev acknoledgement that they are working on this. It's imo the most important issue with the game atm, and will heavily impact it in the long run if its released without strong grouping tools.

A huge part of any how any mmo community forms has to do with how good the in game interaction is.

It's a key factor that allowed otherwise very basic mmos trive for years, and NW on the whole is a great game, so it very much deserves to have the tools needed to build a strong, positive community around it. And the groundwork is definetely there having all the major features (builtin voice, lfm system, player search), they just need some improvement.

ganndog · April 2013

Couldn't agree more. Hopefully if we keep this thread alive it might get the attention it deserves and acknowledgement that these issues are a high priority to be addressed asap.

darakal · April 2013

absolutely agree with all points in here spent most of BW3 as a group of three and the amount of times we were in different instances and had an awful job trying to find a common one to meet up and then as stated having to run back to where we were from the respawn point.

The real big one for me is the social grouping as when two of us were online waiting for the third we were doing seperate things either on mains like shopping or skilling up or on alts doing some questing and wanted to be grouped so we could chat whilst we did then wham one of us wants to zone and cant because he needs the other person there. After breaking and reeforming a couple of times we just gave up as it being too painful

jetah · April 2013

I've mentioned on my thread that the person receiving the invite should have a popup asking if they wish to join the invitee's instance #.

kyllroy2 · April 2013

ganndog wrote: »

Couldn't agree more. Hopefully if we keep this thread alive it might get the attention it deserves and acknowledgement that these issues are a high priority to be addressed asap.

I would like to add to the already important points that: In addition to solving the private party or guild runs, Some thinking for the odd man out should be retained. If it is allowed, there will be whole sections of group play cordoned off into clicky little groups that new people or sometimes players, due to RL issues, are not invited.
I personally, do not like being the only stranger in a group romp.
Another thing is group invites per class / level are a superb idea if it can be added. If someone gains reputation as a party leader, for instance, their groups will always be a blast.

narkolethics · April 2013

I agree with all previous points. I thanks you all because I know understand something more: I opened a post before asking for informations about the grouping system here. Then, I agree on highlighting those kind of requests.

See you at official launch guys.

snorri30 · April 2013

totally agreed with improvements in grouping tools,
i would like to see the auto group into the same instance, or at least an option like that.

deohnoeh · April 2013

Grouping is (as seen in the beta weekend three) the buggiest part of the game.
I am at conflict with your point about the random placement of a leader. If you go into a dungeon alone and there are four players in a party one of them being the leader who kicks you and takes all the loot, it then its disadvantageous to the solo player, even if there is a voting system the advantage goes to the one with the bigger party.

I agree with the rest and also have some other issues as I have posted here.
and word for word.

The Partying system is very buggy.
1. While doing quests with a partner who has already finished the quest the quest may not be complete-able, you may have to repeat the quest, both may have to repeat the quest, or the one who wishes to finish that specific quest may have to exit the party to complete the quest.
2. The some NPCs wont get aggro.
3. Chest wont open.
4. Some gathering quests (where you do 5 activities. It looks like 0/5) will update as party members complete it and some update only when the player completes the quest. This causes confusion and breaking in parties. I was left stranded in the middle of the Chasm as this happened and my party leader decided to kick me and keep moving.

and
Group Quests have problems too.
1. The Throne of Idris Quest never ends as in you cant get the chest and cant get out of the door.
2. The Pirate King's Lair doesnt open the chestafter defeating boss.
3. The group quest on Icepeak Spire doesnt let you access the chest after defeating boss.
4. If you enter a group quest with a party after the quest ends the party persists and random people keep entering the party and you have to disband and rejoin to stop this from happening.
5. The return to instance button stays on many occasions after the quest has ended.
6. The Madness of the Chasm (or so I believe it is called...) quest blocks everyone from entering if the arena if they die. IMHO blocking the player from re-entering an arena of the group quest causes needless player anguish. It is very painful to watch your friends fighting and dying right infront of you. It would do a world of good if the player could spawn in the middle of the arena or has to accomplish some task to enter (spawn) back into the arena this way the player faces no anguish and has to accomplish something rather than waste time watching people fight and wait for them to die.
7. Sometimes you may enter an empty quest plane after being matched through the PvE system that might be the reason for 4.

jirodyne · April 2013

Indeed. Out of all the little tiny faults in the game that need to be iron out, the party systems sticks out as the biggest. There was even a point, I didn't notice you put up. Maybe not thinking it was broken, tho I felt it was. And that's chests.

While at the end of a quest there is usually a chest that everyone picks up, cause it has the quest reward in it. But I am not talking about that one. I am talking about the others that might be hidden all through out the quests. Those chests, only 1 person can open, and he gets every item in the chest no matter what the loot system is set to, and no one else in the party can get it.

To some, that might seem fair, whoever gets to it first, keeps it. Especially with some chests requiring a class only skill, like Dungeoneering and Religion and Nature. But the thing is, everyone can go out and buy, very cheaply I might add, Dungeoneering and Religion kits, so there isn't even any point to having the chests anyways. And still, the group can not share the loot.

Sure, in 2 man, even 3 man parties, it can be easy with nice people. You take this chest, then I get the next one. Then you, then me, and so on. But 5 man dungeon running around with 4 complete strangers for just this one run? Most likely at least 1 of those people are not going to be nice and loot everything before everyone else. And there is nothing anyone can do to stop him. Especially if he ends up the party leader.

Too me, they should fix/change that around too. Maybe have a chest for everyone, they can each open and get their own loot. Or even at least having it follow the group loot rules, so if it holds a rare item people can roll on it at least....

amorosy · April 2013

Grouping was also my number one complaint. As someone else who has played DDO, it's hard to put up with sub par grouping after seeing how well done it is in that game (although I haven't had much experience with post-expansion auto grouping and such).

Now I'm not referring to the bugs, as I'm sure they will get worked on (hopefully), just some of implementations that aren't so great.

ranncore · April 2013

They really need to mention the qeueing system in the tutorial somewhere. The flood of "lfg" spamming chat in the Cloak Tower district was unbearable. It takes 2 clicks to get into a group and most people don't know how to use it.

l1zardo1 · April 2013

To be fair, people were waiting 45min in that queue, and most groups started in zone chat were already full in a span of a few mins.

...maybe it had to do with less people hitting 'K', but more likely it was too many GWF in lower zones, as other classes were L30-40 from Beta2. Some people rerolled DC like me

axer128 · April 2013

l1zardo1 wrote: »

To be fair, people were waiting 45min in that queue, and most groups started in zone chat were already full in a span of a few mins.

...maybe it had to do with less people hitting 'K', but more likely it was too many GWF in lower zones, as other classes were L30-40 from Beta2. Some people rerolled DC like me

Yea the queueing system was very much broken for most of the beta weekend.

After the last server reset it seemed it work for the first hour or so - Me and 2 friends queued and instantly got in. But later attempts all failed again. Seems to get corrupt over time and stop working.

xcammi · April 2013

I had a crazy issue in BW2 when a friend and I queued for Cloak Tower. The queue worked, we got in a group, but when we were at the loading screen to get in, we were both disconnected from the game. Upon re-logging, our characters were "stuck" and we got to choose between a normal login and a safe login. Neither option let us back into the game. We had to re-roll characters for the rest of the weekend. By BW3, our characters were able to log back in, but it was quite frustrating. We both put in tickets so I'm hoping not to have that happen again.

Unfortunately that was the only time we could queue. We either sat in the queue for hours, or were repeatedly asked to join a group who always had one person not accept, putting us back in queue again. First impressions of grouping via queue: not impressed.

mothdrums · April 2013

Got a @handle for the creep who booted whole group. That rubbish is not on.

axer128 · April 2013

mothdrums wrote: »

Got a @handle for the creep who booted whole group. That rubbish is not on.

The solution is'n't to individually call out players for actions the game itself encourages.. It's to fix the game so such actions are not encouraged.

axer128 · April 2013

Seems most of this still isn't improved in open beta.

Still constantly ending up in different instances then my party members. Plus evne worse now there is a 32minute timer on changing instances, making it even more difficult to regroup.

Only notable fix was that everyone can loot chests now.

jetah · April 2013

My group mostly has a 2m timer, not 30 minute.

We cannot invite people into parties via the r-click menu in chat.

axer128 · April 2013

jetah wrote: »

My group mostly has a 2m timer, not 30 minute.

We cannot invite people into parties via the r-click menu in chat.

mm 32min for us. And worse yet the timer begins immediately upon entering a new zone.

Only way we found to reasonable fix it was to zone to a new area at the same time, then back to our previous area together. But any zoninng thats not within a ~20 second window of each other often results in wrong instances.

axer128 · May 2013

It's as I feared really.. No good way to form a group outside of auto-queuing is resulting in a really terrible community.

Last 6 dungeons/skirmishes I queued for - not a single typed person spoke a single word (cept for the 1 friend I was running them with sometimes). Almost feels like I'm playing with bots the devs just set up to fool me into thinking i'm playing an mmo. They have no emotion, no human feelings, no desire to interact, and importantly, no remorse as they constantly need on every item, regardless of what class it is for.

Plus these bot-players, often get the star even when I form part of the party manually, preventing any action on my part to try to take control and encourage more sociable play.

Really don't get it either, a lot of them have direwolves/panthers, thus they obviously paid 60-200 dollars on an mmo, yet they make no attempt to make friends or even communicate with others. It's quite strange to me.

I think the sad state of the games grouping tools encourages this kind of behavior tho. Really need some attnetion.

kyllroy2 · May 2013

axer128 wrote: »

It's as I feared really.. No good way to form a group outside of auto-queuing is resulting in a really terrible community.

Last 6 dungeons/skirmishes I queued for - not a single typed person spoke a single word (cept for the 1 friend I was running them with sometimes). Almost feels like I'm playing with bots the devs just set up to fool me into thinking i'm playing an mmo. They have no emotion, no human feelings, no desire to interact, and importantly, no remorse as they constantly need on every item, regardless of what class it is for.

Plus these bot-players, often get the star even when I form part of the party manually, preventing any action on my part to try to take control and encourage more sociable play.

Really don't get it either, a lot of them have direwolves/panthers, thus they obviously paid 60-200 dollars on an mmo, yet they make no attempt to make friends or even communicate with others. It's quite strange to me.

I think the sad state of the games grouping tools encourages this kind of behavior tho. Really need some attnetion.

I was looking over the guild announcements at the nature of the guilds that are becoming the community and I find huge numbers of longtime players from the action only/ headset/whisper/stealth types. They may be talking to each other since the chat feature is so mundane with both hands needing to be flipping constantly.
Bottom line is that some of the groups should be able to customize the party invite with a note on what might be necessary to have fun. There is a note section I haven't looked that close at in the party finder section.

axer128 · May 2013

kyllroy2 wrote: »

I was looking over the guild announcements at the nature of the guilds that are becoming the community and I find huge numbers of longtime players from the action only/ headset/whisper/stealth types. They may be talking to each other since the chat feature is so mundane with both hands needing to be flipping constantly.
Bottom line is that some of the groups should be able to customize the party invite with a note on what might be necessary to have fun. There is a note section I haven't looked that close at in the party finder section.

They were not. They were unguilded players that had no microphones, and barely knew how to the chat system even worked. I actually told many of them how to use tells and party chat after, and a few genuinely didn't even know. Poor group tools breeds poor communication.
Most gilded players that use third party voice system will at least acknowledge people and say hello in party chat.

axer128 · May 2013

Thread continued here because this forum got renamed and this isn't so much a bug report, as it is a serious general issue:
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?177562-Grouping-tools-in-dire-need-of-improvement

Grouping tools need a lot of work

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