The Daily Quest: Dungeon Finder fun
by Robin Torres 
Apr 23rd 2010 at 8:00PM
Last night, the Choose My Adventure gang ventured into their first random dungeon groups. Our experience was mixed bag, with really great tanks and healers. There was also a greedy, fear-using, DPS priest guy who ended the night by telling us he loved us, but not in that way. This is why today's TDQ is all about the Dungeon Finder.
- The Mana Obscura talks about Escaping the Vortex of Suck.
- Forever a Noob chronicles Using the LFD to level.
- Troll Racials are Overpowered is sick of people whining about bad PUGs.
- The Hunter's Mark complains about How LFD Killed Navigational Awareness and includes a comprehensive, map-filled guide for getting to instances.
Filed under: The Daily Quest
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Fletcher Apr 24th 2010 4:49AM
Spam spam spammity spam
BoB Apr 23rd 2010 8:04PM
I LOVE DUNGEON FINDER!!!!! Noob's favorite in my opinion, I tried to do SFK before...no one that wasn't demanding 50 gold to run me would do it...And you can meet nice people who have problems question alone and stuff. In the lower levels, you can just make a toon on that realm and then you (might) end up playing that toon with your new friend than on your main! It is awesome!
BoB Apr 23rd 2010 8:06PM
*'more' between friend and main*
bennet Apr 23rd 2010 8:30PM
BoB's comment is interesting: it would be instructive to compare the LFD "love-hate" metric against the "not 80 - 80" metric. Forcing people into LFD for daily frost emblems may increase the use of the tool, but it also increases the number of people who are there for something that has little to do with actually running the instance (beyond killing the final boss). It's kind of like the difference between going to a wine tasting or the supermarket - are you there for the experience, or to get the experience over with and go do something more fun?
Eg Apr 23rd 2010 9:11PM
Fully agreed... I can tell you that in my experience it is wonderful at lower brackets, and horribly painful at level-cap. Granting gear through these instances that vastly surpasses the gear needed to run them has created an ugly run nine times of ten. Even running the normals from 70-79 is a semi-enjoyable experience, and seems to cause Pugs to work together. Heroics at 80 has devolved into whine fests and ego contests... and there is really no need to do anything but throttle through them.
Artificial Apr 23rd 2010 9:50PM
"How LFD Killed Navigational Awareness"
/eyeroll
"Hey, I leveled up under the old system, but it's completely obvious that anyone leveling up nowadays is having a different experience than I did, and that's very bad for them. I better speak up for these poor players who don't know what they're missing, not being forced to play the game in exactly the same way that worked for me. Horrible problems must arise if their experience varies from mine. They're not *ever* going to learn all the same things I did if they don't do it *exactly* the same way I did..."
Robin Torres Apr 23rd 2010 9:53PM
I see what you're saying here, but did you click through? It's really an awesome guide to learning how to get to instances in case you die and stuff. I bookmarked it.
Fletcher Apr 23rd 2010 10:52PM
I read it ... useful, but not as useful as it could have been. Places like Maraudon and Deadmines are impossible to find one's way back in; you may get to the front doors of Maraudon or the barn in Moonbrook, but actually finding the instance entrance requires a map and GPS. I'm hoping Blizzard moves the instance entrances in Cataclysm ... and provides actual maps for *all* dungeons, not just northrend ones.
theRaptor Apr 23rd 2010 11:17PM
Except it is true*. WoW could now become a completely instanced game like Guild Wars and you would miss almost nothing. The Dungeon Finder and the PVP queue really remove a lot of the sense that you are in one continuous world and that all these instances actually have a real location in that world (which is actually something WoW has over a lot of competing MMO's).
I think they make the game "efficient" to the point where you start to lose sight of the integrated whole of the game.
Also I think they are going to have a detrimental effect on community formation. In nearly every guild I have ever been in I was either recruited based on a random encounter in a 5-man, or recruited people based on a random encounter in a 5-man. And now those interactions happen a lot less regularly. This won't effect srsz bznz guilds, but I think over the years it will affect social guilds**.
* I got lost trying to corpse run to the Occulus because I could never get a group for it before LFD.
** Ask how many people quit Star Trek: Online because the total instancing destroyed any feeling of community that results from seeing the same people all the time.
Possum Apr 24th 2010 5:22AM
It's all fun and games until the corpse run.
Zulfiqar Apr 24th 2010 2:31AM
I am 80, decked out in ICC 10/25 and frost badge gear, and i still love running heroics with the LFD tool, even if it always puts me in Gundrak with freshly-turned 80s. Why? Because it's fun to help people get gear so they can see endgame, and most freshly turned 80s aren't jerks (and if they are, a quick inspection shows they are usually wearing BoA gear.)
And if I am grouped with an elitist jerk who thinks you have to have the Kingslayer title to take on King Dred--well, I get pretty sarcastic. I also love queuing for non-heroic dungeons every once in a while just to help out a random group of people level up a bit faster. I dunno, it just is fun to me.
But the LFD has definitely changed the way the game is played, especially for guild recruitment. In BC, I made friends and joined a guild based on my tanking heroics for people. It was easier to build a reputation that way, and it was harder to get away with twit behavior. That, and BC heroics were a bit harder than Wrath content (HoR being the exception), so you couldn't really zerg through them. I still play with some of the people I met through LFG in trade. The same cannot be said for groups built with LFD, and that's kinda sad.
It would be cool if the LFD looked first for people on your server before pulling from other servers. I don't know if that's possible, but it would definitely alleviate the alone-together direction the game is starting to take.
philster043 Apr 24th 2010 3:12AM
I thought not being able to continue playing with people from other realms would be sad as well, but truth be told, I've been using DF for quite a while now and I haven't really met anybody in these groups I've been dying to talk to again. It almost feels refreshing that you don't necessarily have to ever see these people again if you don't want to, you're just there to get the job done, and that's that. It's kind of like being grouped up with real-life mercenaries and you're just there to do your job. I can deal with it.
So far, I think DF has been a great new little tool, definitely. Before, I had to join a guild just to get some instances done. Now, I don't really have to ever ask for help again.
Possum Apr 24th 2010 5:24AM
I'm especially glad to not be on the same server as the pugger pretending to be Old Gregg from the Mighty Boosh. No I do not want to see your Mangina!
Bossy Apr 24th 2010 4:05AM
The LFG tool is just another excellent new system to play WOW in a different way.
Here is how I use it:
I level through questing in the early brackets of X, everytime I run upon a dungeon quest I save them. Whenever I reach around X6 or X7, I shut down experience and do at least 3 dungeon runs of each dungeon.
When I think I have enough blues gathered, I put on experience again and go to the BG's to level my character and save the reputation points to go for the Conqueror/Justicar PvP title.
So much more fun !! It is the combo of ALL the new systems: SHUT DOWN experience, cross server LFG tool in both dungeons and BG's !!! What a game !
I LOVE IT. When they will add CATA and the new archeology profession for everyone(world gathering of artifacts), WOW will be perfect for every kind of player.
I cross my fingers for that new world PvP zone.
Possum Apr 24th 2010 5:31AM
Can anyone spot the cunningly hidden Blizzard Marketing employee?
Kidding, kidding!
Dave Apr 24th 2010 7:57AM
LFD is a mixed bag for my group of friends. It has allowed a group of us to gear up and earn frost badges despite most of our guild being social in nature and not wanting or being geared to run heroics. That said it has also force a couple rerolls and for me to move my character from another server to this server to tank due to the sheer arrogance of the people using LFD.
I have never in the 5+ years of playing this game faced such arrogance as the current ego trip of tanks because of their "instant queue" ability. Tanks have always been the top level of in demand in the food chain, but the current ego trip causes speed runs where the healer must be icc 10/25 geared or geared solely for mana regen because they will never be allowed to sit between pulls. Tanks feel free to make statements like "I can requeue and don't need this group, so shut up and do what I say or I'll drop, doesn't matter to me." I have yet to have a single Azol Nerub group that doesn't want to violate TOS and "glitch" the Hadronox encounter, and refusing to do so earns you a vote kick. This discussion wouldn't be complete without mentioning the GS addon's effect on these groups as well, where the tank looks at each person in turn and says "Your gear scores are too low, I'm out, you're a waste of my time". Mind you all of my quotes are in english as opposed to the usual u r stoopid you actually get in game.
It's a great tool, but it also highlights that in a mmo, you get just as many asshats as you get in any gathering of people, and you highlight the need to stroke their epeen to their captive audience.
gilren Apr 24th 2010 8:02AM
Plus you forget the ever popular group kicks when the tank pulls too much and decided to lay blame on one of the others (usually healer) and demands they go, or he goes.
Kind of makes you want an e-peen hammer.
theRaptor Apr 24th 2010 10:25AM
It depends on what your battlegroup is like. I am on bloodlust and so far haven't really seen that extreme of behaviour. The worst I have seen was when we picked up a new healer (the old healer dropped himself because he couldn't heal well enough) and he immediately kicked a DK for being under-geared. I couldn't really fault him too much though as the DK was pulling sub-1k DPS when any decent player can pull 1.5k DPS by the mid-70's.
A-hole tanks have always been around and I don't think the LFD tool really changes that. I remember tanks demanding to be paid to tank stuff in BC and early Wrath and throwing tantrums when things didn't go there way.
styopa Apr 26th 2010 12:56PM
"I have yet to have a single Azol Nerub group that doesn't want to violate TOS and "glitch" the Hadronox encounter"
FWIW Blizz has had AMPLE time to fix it if it bothered them.
To bring it up as a "TOS" issue is rather douchey.
I have 4 tanks. Usually, I just want to get in, grind my frost badge (since I'm already totally in T9) and move on to the next toon. I'm not there to be your friend. I'll do my job, you do yours. The only time I'll vote to kick a healer is if we wipe 3 times and he's got full mana and it's NOT an issue of me letting mobs get to him.
Want to solve the tank shortage and reduce DPS queues? Blizz could solve it instantly.
Look at the queues. If tanks wait 30 seconds (in my experience that's about 28 seconds longer than usual, but it makes for easy math), healers wait 3 mins, and dps wait 15 mins, then:
- allow DPS 1 frost badge-worthy run per day (the current system)
- allow healers 5 per day
- allow tanks 30 per day.
Every week, look at the queues and adjust. Within 2 weeks you'd have lots of people rolling tank alts and almost as many running healers.
That said, you will ALWAYS have more DPS than tanks/healers. Tanks and healers are inherently positions of greater responsibility. That's not a slam, that's just fact. I'm a month-2 player. My main is a hunter, and it was embarrassingly obvious when I started leveling tank alts that I'd done all the content with embarrassingly little knowledge of what was really going on in the trenches. I knew my class and how to max dps while avoiding gaining aggro, but anything beyond that was, essentially, trivia.
Healers are more important because if they don't play whackamole just right, tank dies and its a wipe. Tanks are more important because they are expected to not just lead the party, but know EVERY fight, every mob, every nuance. The best know every other class as well (hey shammy, recall your totem or you'll grab aggro when the boss phases in; hunter save your MD for when the 3 mobs come in from over there).
I love playing my main, but rarely do now that dps queues are 15+ mins constantly. That doesn't stop me admitting that DPS classes (for most fights) don't need the level of focus healers or tanks do.
Dameblanche Apr 24th 2010 10:28AM
My personal belief is that a big reason for unpleasant behavior is the lack of responsibility players have in the AoE-fest that instances are nowadays.
A tank is only good when he chain-pulls, a healer is only good when he never needs to drink and a DPS is only measured by the damage he does.
The success of a run is not determined by using more abilities then pew-pew buttons, so DPS simply never feel responsible for wipes. And the success of a run is not dependent on any form of communication, because there is no need to discuss tactics, so we can all blame the healer when we're dead, because we are not given a special task to prevent wiping.
A good example of this is the waves before the first boss in HOR. There is no reason whatsoever why these waves should cause wipes, apart form the fact that nobody is even considering using CC. Or offheal a bit when the midden hits the windmill. No dps will ever keep an eye on the healer to see if he has aggro. So when I heal I do fine, because I totally outgear the encounter and spam aeo heals until I have blisters on my fingers. Not because the group as a whole makes an effort to not die.
I truly hope that Cataclysm brings CC back. It will force people to talk to each other again (who sheeps/traps/saps what mob) and every group member will feel responsible for wiping, because they will have a task apart from spamming aoe spells. And even although I dread the idea that healers will have to watch their mana again, it might be a good thing in the end. Cause no way you'll be able to chain-pull; you'll have to be nice to your healer and let him drink.
And any hunter that does 2k dps but saves the day by misdirecting, putting traps around the healer and have his pet on clothies protection duty, will put an end to making only gearscore count.