LFG

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Barugon, Nov 6, 2021.

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  1. Xee

    Xee Bug Hunter

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    thought groups already have group roll on all loot 1 gold value or higher automatically?
     
  2. Barugon

    Barugon Avatar

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    The overall gold value of loot, since they adjusted the value of many items, has gone way down for me. Loot really sucks bad now.
     
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  3. Cora Cuz'avich

    Cora Cuz'avich Avatar

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    No, I meant that each player gets their own roll when they loot. As opposed to one roll when the boss dies, the everybody gets that result. Maybe not what you meant, but I wanted to clarify exactly what I meant. My point being, if 8 players kill Suutak, that doesn't mean 8 recipes drop. It'll still be hard to get stuff, but you'd get more chances per hour, as opposed to getting (maybe) one chance per hour.
     
  4. Cora Cuz'avich

    Cora Cuz'avich Avatar

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    I've always found it terrible. Actual gold value is meaningless to me, it's "did I get something I wanted" or not. And the answer is usually "not." But that's a quirk of this system.
     
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  5. Barugon

    Barugon Avatar

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    "Adventuring" is how I get gold for everything else.
     
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  6. Bridge Troll

    Bridge Troll Avatar

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    I want to approach this slightly differently. The loot discussion really needs to be had, but this is about an empty LFG. I am curious, what is it that stops people from making a group? I think that if we could figure out how to address what holds YOU back from starting a group to take down the giant or whatever lofty goal you have...
    I have heard the following:
    1. Loot is unfairly distributed or "not enticing enough" for individuals on a team (for all but one, and that one is at the whim of RNGesus). << I would propose that this get tackled in two sections -- first fix the reward items like Phoenix and Ulfheim dragon to distribute to all who are qualified and need it, then fix the other overarching issues.
    2. People AFKing/macroing during team efforts discourages some from leading/participating.
    3. "Double" XP is the only enticement that makes groups happen.
    4. Server population is too low to support groups.
    I am just a guy with an opinion, but it is my opinion that groups don't exist because we do not make them. I have a psychological issue that stops me from leading, although I push through that often in order to make the game more fun for me and others. I am not alone, I guarantee you 3% of the game population has the same issue, and likely more because people with my disorder tend to congregate in videogame "alternate worlds". But there are many other personality issues and communication challenges that make it so challenging or awkward to run a team -- to make progress I think we should attack the challenge of being the group leader/instigator.

    ARE THERE TOOLS WE COULD ADD TO THE GROUPING PROCESS THAT WOULD MAKE IT MORE APPEALING TO LEAD A TEAM?​

    In relation to the observed issues above:
    1. There are some controls over the distribution of loot already. The issue that remains to be addressed is loot value to individuals on a team. (not likely to fix this with a UI change...)
    2. This is tough. I have watched people be accused of macroing that I know were not doing so, and it gets ugly. I do think that the devs should look into a method to ban an individual from a particular team. Maybe if each team had a temporary internal ID that lasted while the team ran, we could have a ban that was related only to that one team?
    3. I don't think double XP is the only enticement, but it obviously is the most effective one. (Many will shoot me for saying this, but I alwasy felt that this shows that gameplay in 1x reward times is not rewarding enough. (again, loot discussion/reward is needed)
    4. While it is logical and not arguable that a larger population should be able to support more groups. We are getting an average of ZERO to ONE groups running in 1x exp times. Our population can push many more groups than that; the most rewarding approach to the issue would be to identify what makes the people present right now are afraid to start a group.
     
  7. Cora Cuz'avich

    Cora Cuz'avich Avatar

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    A lot of people stopped making groups because nobody would join them. I've spent hours in a Suutak group without anyone joining. Eventually, you just give up trying. I don't think enticing people to create groups will be what causes group play to take off. It'll help, certainly, But I think low player population and low reward are still the bigger issue.
     
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  8. FBohler

    FBohler Avatar

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    The small population is the main root cause.
    Basically it's all about statistics:
    There's a probability Popen for each player online to start a public LFG group.
    There's a probability Plookup for each player to look up the LFG window (of which many aren't aware).
    There's a probability Pjoin, given the player looked up, that they got interested and clicked join.

    The probability to have a group in LFG would be estimated with an equation like this:
    PLFG = 1 - (1-Popen)^nplayers
    Where nplayers is the server population at any given time.
    Yes we can handle the probability of an individual to open a LFG party (P
    open) by increasing the rewards of playing in a party, but ultimately the term containing Popen is raised to the power of nplayers, so no matter how good is the reward, the probability will be low if there are too few players online.

    Second step is to assess the likelihood that the newly created group will have any attendance. Empty groups are useless after all. The simplified equation would be something like this:

    P
    not empty = 1 - (1-Plookup*Pjoin)^nplayers

    And ultimately, the overall probability would be approximated for PLFG*Pnot empty.
    As both equations rely heavily on number of players, I consider this is a case of low population.
     
  9. Alley Oop

    Alley Oop Bug Hunter Bug Moderator

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    if i see one person in a group for a high-level fight, i tend to assume that they've already done it and the last person left just forgot to close the group. maybe add a target time for the run?
     
  10. Bridge Troll

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    I guess I can word this differently. There is one sure cure to the lack of groups. Make a group! What is stopping you?

    I know Cora stopped cuz nobody joins. Is that the only reason groups aren't being made?
     
  11. Echondas

    Echondas Bug Hunter Bug Moderator

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    @Time Lord Ahh - Kinison and Rodney - classic!! You know Kinison used to be a priest? o_O
     
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  12. FBohler

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    Yes.

    The exception here seems to be groups for lower level stuff with new players.
     
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  13. Cora Cuz'avich

    Cora Cuz'avich Avatar

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    At least he got respect.
     
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  14. Time Lord

    Time Lord Avatar

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    Oh yes, a "holly roller" according to him. I think it gives us his dramatic flare to his performances, which he uses most within his punch lines like an explosion!

    :cool: My view of life is, If you're going to miss Heaven, why miss it by two inches? Miss it! :confused: (Sam Kinison) :D~TL~

    (ps: my taxes are almost completed and I get some cash so it's soon going to be time some more of that SOTA Pixel Crack from the COTO Store and playing more SOTA! :p)

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  15. Burzmali

    Burzmali Avatar

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    No one is interested. When I first played the game, around release, my guild used to take folks on tours of the paths beneath the map, we'd do 2 or 3 runs a night, meet some cool folks and maybe get a new guild member or two. Now, everyone knows about the tunnels and doesn't care because none of those scenes can compete with the ore per hour or gp per hour or xp per hour of other scenes. When I last played, every group I joined was doing control points with pets doing the lion's share of the work, folks just sat around and used bard abilities while pets killed everything that moved.
     
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  16. Tirrag

    Tirrag Avatar

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    i would very much like to see something like "A new public group has been created" messages whenever someone creates an LFG with maybe a reminder of ALT+F to see the available groups. maybe "hot" group messages or other ways to get the LFG groups in front of players. this alone could fix a lot of awareness issues by putting LFG at the forefront of everyones mind with the messages.

    i think there is a lot that can be improved for the LFG interface. i would really like a way to better indicate who the LFG party is for or to maybe forcefully restrict the group to certain level of players. a lot more options on the interface with checkboxes to give information would be nice but simply making the text box for the group name much longer would be a huge win as we can more properly describe what the group is for.
     
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  17. Barugon

    Barugon Avatar

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    Great ides @Tirrag!
     
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  18. FrostII

    FrostII Bug Hunter

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    Ok, here's my 2 cents on this topic:

    Of all the in-game, on-screen, available for all to see icons or in the drop-down menu under the stained-glass icon , LFG appears NOWHERE !
    It is unrealistic for Portalarium to "assume" that new (or even seasoned) players know that they have to hit Alt/F just to find the dang thing !
    It IS important enough (most especially for new players who are looking for others that they could "join") to have LFG as a separate icon, just like your inventory (backpack icon), character (crossed swords over a shield icon), or any of the other 6 icons - important enough to have it's own quick-click icon ON-SCREEN.

    Something like what I've added in the pic below:

    [​IMG]

    LFG is a very important "tool" for all, but especially for newer players to at least know there are people ingame looking for other people.
    It should have it's own icon... It wouldn't take up much screen space, and all of these upper-right screen icons can be already be hidden if desired .
    IMO
     
  19. Cora Cuz'avich

    Cora Cuz'avich Avatar

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    Ideally, it should also show the number of groups available, like the social one does.
     
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  20. FrostII

    FrostII Bug Hunter

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    Absolutely, Cora... good call !
     
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