Patch 5.3 interview with Ghostcrawler
Mystery of the Unborn Val'kyr
The latest patch 5.3 news
All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBreakfast Topic: I get by without a little help from my friends
by Mike Schramm 
Feb 21st 2008 at 8:00AM
Lane is facing a problem I face quite a bit in World of Warcraft, and I bet you have, too: she needs a group but doesn't have one. I don't care how many friends you have or how awesome your guild is, there are just going to be some times in game where you have a quest to do, or you have something that needs to be done, and you don't have four other people to do it with.So how do you get things done? Me, I usually just sit in LFG while grinding or doing something else, and then just hope I get a group together eventually. But my Hunter has had to run Ramparts for a long time, and no one's jumped up to take me, so I may start offering incentives soon. You'd think the incentive to get some loot and have a good time in a group would be enough, but no -- if you're trying to do a quest that's months old in game and happen to be on your own on a server, you're often times out of luck.
So how do you get a group together when you don't have one? Do you ping the major cities and try to pull an expedition together? Do you just ignore the quest and go without? Or do you have to have a guild or friends on the same server to get certain things done? What do you do when you need a group, but just don't have one?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Breakfast Topics, Instances
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 2)
rzzr Feb 21st 2008 9:14AM
I generally don't use the LFG for quests but do for instances. I hate the fact that the best way to find a group is to hang around in Shattrah and watch the trade channel. I wish I could have it on whilst questing in Shadowmoon or where ever I am.
95% of the time I PUG instances. I do use the LFG for that but go into the "Looking for more" bit and turn off auto join.
This allows me to see all the instances.
I find that some are much easier to get a group for than others. Slabs is very popular but I have yet to get a group going to Shattered Halls.
For group quests it is hard and they start to pile up. Sometimes hanging around the general area you will meet up with another party. When you have 2 people I will then whisper people in the area in a polite way.
I wish Blizzard allowed you to put your spec on the "who" list that pops up as I can fully understand warriors, priests, druids and Pallys etc getting fed up with people asking them their spec only told be brushed off if they do not fit the requirement.
Maybe there should be an option to go ex-directory so if you want to be left in peace you can be.
Being in a large guild with players who have been around for a while sometimes helps, otherwise I find that often everyone is trying to get enough gold for their epic mount and unless they need the quest as well they can be reluctant to help unless they are in the area.
I also put out LFG on the general channel of the area but for the most part I get totally ignored! If I get desperate I have been known to fly around the area looking for players and beg them for 5 minutes of their time! This can work well and I always offer to tip them afterwards. Often people won't take gold so I give them food. Being maxed out in cooking and doing the daily means I always have a supply of crunchy serpent or whatever.
I also look at Wowhead to see if the group quest can be soloed. Some of them can if they only need 2 or 3 people.
Zarzuur Feb 21st 2008 9:23AM
A lot of times it is possible to just level past earlier dungeons, and concentrate on end loot instead. Level 70 can be reached solo without going in a single instance. (This is good for an alt .. maybe on your main you would want to experience everything more).
Lilboo Feb 21st 2008 9:52PM
I've never used LFG channel... it's been off since the scourge invasion introduced it.
I'm in a decent sized guild, that is allied with another guild... between the 2 of us we share an alliance channel that usually creates several heroic groups per day.
We actively post on each other's guild forums, and it helps the communication.
I've leveled a number of 70's and can count the number of pugs I've been in that were successful on ... one hand. It's not that I don't like strangers, but after 3 years of playing this game, I can tell if a group will survive in about 5 minutes.
It seems to me the people usually saying they can't find a group are dps. On our server, tanks are the limited resource. You find a tank, you find a healer, then fill it in with 3 dps. I prefer range over melee, frost mages over crazy boomkin, healing paladin/shaman over tree druids in heroics, and a smart shadow priest over a poor trapping / sheep breaking / pet aggro on hunter any day.
Druids who say they are " low dps" and don't offer to tank, yet willing to spend 5g on an epic mount, should perhaps consider a better place to spend the gold... how about gear that will make you do more dps if cat form is your only willing spec? What's the use of crappy dps getting to the instance 280% faster?
Cynra Feb 21st 2008 9:29AM
For group quests, I'm on my own. I've never been able to snag people to help on a group quest using the LFG tool. Ever. I rely instead on people looking in that zone and when my guildies need it.
For instances and Heroics, I rely entirely on the LFG tool and various channels that I lounge in due to the fact that I raid with the people in them. As my healer, I don't think I've ever run into problems getting into instances (other than that one time a group kicked my 1800+ epicced priest for a 1200 Restoration shaman before even steppingi nto the instance because they thought that their healer needed more armor); a quick LFG note and ten minutes later I'm usually in a group.
The hunter lanuishes. Forever. In LFG. Hunters are, unfortunately, dime-a-dozen and even if I were one of the best hunters ever in the entire existence of the game (I'm not, mind you), people tend to pass over hunters because there's no way to gauge performance through LFG. I occasionally snag a group from those carefully cultivated channels, but they tend to want a healer over a DPSer.
LostOne Feb 21st 2008 9:30AM
Opening the LFG system on my server is a waste of time. No one uses it, except as a means to enable the LFG channel. :( Gotta spam general and the LFG channels to find help. I abandon most group quests that I can't solo after a few levels. Exceptions being ones that have gear rewards that are a big upgrade for me, and the chains into Ogri'la and Netherwing rep.
Zone99 Feb 21st 2008 9:46AM
I log out.
Maybe it's my server but it seems very hard to put groups together (even bad groups). The last dozen or so times I've tried, I've had LFG on, been grinding and then it seems to take a couple of hours to find everyone we need. By the time we do, someone has to bail.
When a group does (miraculously) come together, there's always one idiot who messes it up.
So, I get bored and log out. Personally, I think it's a problem Blizzard needs to fix. Give us bots or something we can purchase to do groups with.
rick gregory Feb 21st 2008 8:53PM
They did. It's called a guild.
FireStar Feb 21st 2008 9:49AM
ppl actually use the lfg on Illidan server. This brings up a god point though. I have 12 characters on that server (2 accounts). I'd Really like to be able to have a way to put any of my characters in any type of instance queue I want (and specify the type of role i want to play), then have some way for them to know the character that I have logged on and to contact that one for the group. I.e. i'm on my 60 rogue and someone needs my 70 druid for tanking a heroic or my 28 mage for SM GY. That would be kewl. One thing i hate about the lfg system is it doesn't have any type of "role" in there, and for druids/pallies that's a real bane to our existence.
Tuberon Feb 21st 2008 12:44PM
Yeah, I'm on Illidan too, and LFG actually gets a bit of use. Some days trade is full of it too, but if trade is spammed, lfg is going nuts.
Probably helps that the realm is quite old and players are too lazy to go to a city sometimes (as opposed to the masses who sit in IF and SW, etc for the entire day)
JR Feb 21st 2008 10:27AM
I've hit 70 last week for the first time, and I'm having a very hard time getting groups for instances. Even in my guild, most people are insterested more in heroics and BG premades and no one does regular instances. So I just use the LFG tool and keep watching the channel while farming or questing. Sometimes I get a group of 3 DPS and we wait forever for a tank and healer to show up until we give up. It doesn't help that I play a hunter, which is the most expendable class in the game (maybe this changes when you're in T5/T6/whatever, but for people in quest gear, this is the harsh truth).
I'm seriously thinking of rerolling a tank or healer.
GuruClef Feb 21st 2008 11:19AM
I'm with several of the people here. I find LFG on my server (Quel'Dorei) to be completely useless unless you are looking to run through a dungeon. The few group quests that I have come accross I have left sit for several levels because I can never find a group to do it with (and usually solo when they are in gray just to get rid of them). But that's not to say I'm completly put off on the whole group thing. I recently grouped up with a random priest that was working on the same Battle for Hillsbrad quests and in the 2 hours that we groupped up, we completed 7 or 8 quests. Had I tried to solo all of that it would have taken the better part of a Saturday. I think the problem is that people just spam General and Trade rather then using the LFG function, even tho that is what it's there for.
Usu Feb 21st 2008 11:35AM
Group quests, heroics, normal instances - I ask in the guild channel, and usually a group comes together rather quickly. Of course playing a tank makes it easy to find a group, and helping guildies out with their group and instance quests builds up a lot of "favors owed" over time. I try to avoid LFG unless we're one DPS short at an impossible time of the night (1am heroic runs ftw) - just had too many bad experiences with really clueless / badly behaved people there. Hint: if you're looking for repeat grouping, be polite, curteous and leave the potty mouth at home.
Rydolomo Feb 21st 2008 11:48AM
Yeah, I often abandon or out-level old quests.
Also I've never done Arc beyond the key frag part, Just never comes up.
I also remember the quest in SMV where you have to kill the 5 ppl who become demons and the last one is quite difficult. But the reward (IMO) is the best spell sword until you do BM and get the CoT rep reward.
On my lock it took forever to get the guild to help me with it. The strat is to talk the healer and tank into it and the dps will come if you already have the heal and tank.
To help is quests are ustally ok, like Durn because they take 10-15 minutes and it's not several hours in an instance.
Rydo
Dave Feb 21st 2008 12:22PM
If it's a group quest, I think the absurdly obvious idea is to just ask in the general channel of the zone you're in. If you're a shy passive person, farm ore/herbs/skins/etc and hope someone else asks in the channel. Usually once you're LFM instead of LFG, you can fill out a group of 5 for almost anything very quickly. There are always people rolling alts, rerolls or (like me) slackers who are just farming and left a lot of group quests in their logs.
If it's for an instance, I don't know if you've heard but there's this LFG interface in the game where you select an instance and put a note at the bottom and people will magically see that if they're looking for a group with the same interface and they'll probably invite you to a group. If not, then you've got a pretty bad server. It's pretty rare that I can't find a group for almost any instance that way. Heroic, non heroic, PUG raid, whatever. It's all good, it actually works and if you're not using it, I really don't think there's any help for you at all.
Dave Feb 21st 2008 12:46PM
Lilboo, you're really the epitome of what's wrong with WoW.
There's nothing wrong with the LFG channel. The fact that you don't use it, really doesn't add much credit to anything at all really.
IF you're a competent player, the fact that you're segregating yourself from the rest of the game only adds to the problem of whatever server you're on stereotyping against players who are in need of one more player for their group or just happen to be on at a time when there's nobody else to run something with or whatever.
Are the only competent players in the game in your guild or your friend guild? I doubt it. Are there some terrible players in the LFG on a regular basis, yeah totally. However, we've got the Armory now and it's real easy to weed out terrible players with bad specs, bad gear, or just plain liars. I personally have a mod that reports the spec of anyone who joins my party. If a "tank" shows up and they're not prot they're put on a real short leash. I don't tolerate wipes on trash, and I'll be honest with a group if there's trouble.
If you're one of those passive people who can't stand to be honest with a group and just come out and say "sorry guys, this isn't going to work for me" or some sort of response that's polite yet effective, then I guess it's better to stick with your guild who will most likely tolerate you even if you're not really as good as you think you are.
Myself, I don't have a problem with evaluating people on the fly and deciding if it's worth sticking with random people. For the most part, I think all the horror stories of bad PUG groups are exaggerated or in a lot of cases a lot of people are pushing their own failures onto other people. Lots of people (as well said in a previous post this week) have an incomplete understanding of classes they don't play. (and in some cases their own class) and so they judge failure based on their limited knowledge.
With the new daily quests for heroics and regular instances, I've found a LOT of competent people on a regular basis just looking for a quick run through the daily. You have to be picky and you have to check the armory before you get going a lot of the time, but it's nowhere near a dire situation and I think a lot of people are way too melodramatic for their own good with this game.
Don Feb 21st 2008 12:50PM
If its a group quest with the suggested players to be 2 or 3 then I will either wait a few levels and try again or lookup on wowhead some tips for completing the quest. Alot of times your required to kill a specific mob that is elite and if you read up on them you may be able to purchase a potion that will absorb a lot of the damage the mob is dealing out, in addition to using up all my long cool downs I can usually solo the quest with that strategy.
One example I was having a hard time getting my whirlwind weapon for my warrior so I looked it up on wowhead and found out that the elemental I had to kill; dealt out nature damage so I bought a nature absorbing potion from the AH and completed the quest on my own.
Lab Monkey Feb 21st 2008 2:29PM
As an alchemist who sells a lot of wares on AH I couldn't agree more with your comments. Thank you!
Jelement Feb 21st 2008 1:27PM
I think a lot of this just depends on the level range you're looking at, as well as the ability to recognize good players and keep in touch with them. For my currently active characters this is how it seems to go:
70 Priest (shadow) - I can get in on pretty much any run I want to, and most anyone who knows me also knows better than to ask me to heal anything with her.
67 Shaman (elemental wearing resto gear) - I quest with my GF's lock (68) to level this one up, so I always have at least one person with me, and I'll heal for an instance run as long as she can fill a DPS role. If I get a whisper asking for a healer and they're otherwise full, I'll pass.
31 Paladin (prot) - I thought I'd find it hard to get groups in Azeroth, but it seems like there's a lot of people working on alts these days. I've tanked RFK 4-5 times in the last few days, and just took a group to Gnomer of all places last night (and we're horde!). Healer DC'd halfway though and we lost our rogue soon after, so we finished it 3-man, with a prot pally, arms warrior, and feral druid. Anytime I find people competent enough to pull off something like that, I add them to my friends list and they're the first ones I turn to for another run. In the last week I've built up a decent list of DPS and healers that are active around my level to group with.
Felwrathe Feb 22nd 2008 8:27PM
It sucks that nobody ever uses LFG, though.
It's only a little easier to get a group in WoW than it is in EQ, which is sad considering WoW is now 63% of the MMORPG market, and Everquest is 1.1%.
Everyone's so centered in their guilds and high level raiding and they seem to forget all about the experience of working your way up from the bottom.