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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsPatch 3.3.5: Changes to vote kick incoming
by Alex Ziebart 
Jun 1st 2010 at 10:40PM
Zarhym hit the forums earlier this evening to announce a change coming to the dungeon finder in the upcoming Patch 3.3.5. For those who behave themselves, the cooldown for starting a vote to kick a player from your party will be removed. For those who kick players out of those parties more frequently, the cooldown will remain. The quote:
ZarhymWe have found that most players using the Dungeon Finder don't use the Vote Kick feature or abandon groups very often. For these players, we are removing the cooldown on voting to kick players from a dungeon party. In contrast, those players who tend to kick players or abandon groups more frequently will notice that the Vote Kick feature maintains its cooldown. The goal here is to make sure players who are generally patient can make use of the Vote Kick feature when they really need it, without giving a more powerful tool to those who try to kick others or abandon dungeon groups very frequently.
This functionality will adjust itself as a player's behavior while using the Dungeon Finder changes.
This functionality will adjust itself as a player's behavior while using the Dungeon Finder changes.
You might remember that they started tracking this sort of information as of patch 3.3.3. They have been tracking the number of times you kick, the number of times you are kicked, how often you've abandoned a party and a few other things. While this change is a new one, they have been collecting the data for some time. There's a Santa Claus is Coming to Town parody somewhere in here, but I'm not musical enough to pull it off. Help us out?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, News items
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 9)
michael.doucet Jun 1st 2010 11:37PM
@Bionic Radd - I'm in resto spec, in resto gear. You have no idea how the system works, so don't talk.
Lissanna Jun 1st 2010 11:41PM
It does weight off-set gear, but the hundred or so pieces of level 60 & 70 nostalgia armor in my bank still doesn't prevent me from getting into the dungeons... So, the ilevel calculation has at least some complexity built in. I still suggest not trying to go for random dungeons so often if there are dungeons you wouldn't want to do as a random (ie. get your frost badges for the day, and then do specific dungeons for the rest of the night).
Trido Jun 1st 2010 11:42PM
Then don't queue as a healer!
Oriflame Jun 1st 2010 11:58PM
Just needs a supplemental change to actually recognize what type of gear you have for each roll. Like only queue tanks who have somewhere in their possession vaguely appropriate +defense gear (druids excepted of course).
Indra Jun 2nd 2010 12:19AM
The problem is if you have both your higher lvl dps gear and your low level healing gear equiped or in your bags. Until you have better healing gear, I suggest you put your dps set in the bank when you que for a random as a healer. That way it doesnt see those item level things on you. Good luck!
SamLowry Jun 2nd 2010 12:26AM
It checks what gear you have in your bags, too, so if you really want to get into a higher-geared group then put all your i251 into the bank and wear your saronite pvp set while searching. Then if you have Jeeves or something similar you can retrieve your gear once inside.
(cutaia) Jun 2nd 2010 2:44AM
"So you expect the system to not only figure out your average iLevel* but see what specs you have and whether you have gear to support that spec?"
Honestly, that doesn't exactly sound impossible. Blizzard knows what stats are useful to each spec. If you queue for a tank, for example, it could just figure out what pieces would make up your best "tank set" and score that. Just think of all the nifty stuff mod designers have done in their free time. I'm sure the people who actually make the game could whip up an internal system to determine the "spec" of pieces of gear fairly quickly.
I can kind of see where doucet here is coming from, even if he started getting a little agressive about it. Advice like, "Don't queue as a healer," isn't particularly useful. He knows he can DPS his way to a full healing set, but it sounds like he's looking to actually do some healing as he gears up, which I can understand. Unfortunately, he finds it neccesary to drop group sometimes after getting queued for something his resto gear isn't ready for. I could see that being a pain, and I wouldn't be surprised if Blizzard does add in some better gear checking for Cataclysm.*
*Of course, I won't be surprised if they don't, either. :D
theRaptor Jun 2nd 2010 4:03AM
@(cutaia)
Except then you are getting into the realm of Blizzard deciding what is The Right gear and The Right spec. Which isn't what they want to do. Not to mention doing so would take several orders magnitude more computation than the current iLevel average system.
Right now they can just set an average iLevel to allow you to LFD an instance and then never worry about it again. If they changed it to what I am talking about they would have to constantly fiddle with it as they made changes to classes (eg right now some healers need spirit, others need Mp5, it wont be that way in cata). The point is that it would introduce more room for complications than it would solve.
The LFD does quick and dirty matching to save on computing power and queue time. All it says is "these guys have high enough gear that on average they should be successful".
TR Jun 2nd 2010 5:04AM
@michael.doucet
As you've probably guessed many people either didn't read your post properly or aren't paying attention to what the LFD actually does when you choose a random dungeon.
People, the Dungeon Finder CAN select the healer choice by default and WILL give you NO OTHER OPTION by calculating your toon's stats when you randomly queue. As many people have noted, the only way out of it is to choose a specific dungeon and choose a specific role. I don't play a healer, but many of my guildies who play druids, shamans, etc. have talked about dealing with this while currently leveling alts, and it was often a topic of Trade drama, and the official forums just after the LFD debuted.
Sheesh!
brammage Jun 2nd 2010 6:49AM
Queue naked!
Rob Jun 2nd 2010 9:17AM
As a fresh 80 tank I got queued for hFOS, then after I did that, hPOS. I did HPOS 5 times already and I only have 4 pieces of triumph gear, all through randoms. I started getting hFOS before I had single tier piece, if I recall (I had the 245 bracers, 226 boots, and 219 neck, and a smattering of 200/187 stuff).
I hate that place. I hate that blizz throws you into something you are way undergeared for. My tank set had avg ilvl 200, and my dps was probably ilvl 150. Not only that, but most of the group was ilvl 200 or so, even the healer. So, yeah, idk what the heck is going on. But a ilvl200 group is in no way shape or form ready for hFOS.
I also hate that if you leave you are a 'deserter' even though the game stuck you in something 2 tiers above your head. Now, granted, we got through most of those runs, and it was fun and challenging, but come on blizz, fix it! Just calculate the avg ilvl of your gear and stick you in something appropriate. Its not perfect but its much better than whatever system they have now.
Cyrus Jun 2nd 2010 10:06AM
In defense of the downvoted guy, he's complaining about getting picked to heal one dungeon specifically - Halls of Reflection on Heroic, the hardest 5-man in the game at the moment. Sure, you might be able to fly through them with your mains in raiding gear, but they are far harder than heroic UK or OK or HoL. This guy's resto gear might be good enough or even great for all the pre-3.2 Wrath heroics while still not being good enough for the four newest 5-mans, particularly the last and hardest of them.
What this guy should do if he wants to use the LFD system is apologize and drop group if the system puts him in HHoR. Or maybe take one shot just to give the group a chance but drop group and apologize if they wipe. He has to wait 15 minutes to re-queue for a random, and they only have to wait for a better-geared healer to come along, and he still gets the stat bonus and ending award for using the LFD system when he does any other dungeon.
HOWEVER, it's unfortunate at the very least, and arguably bad design on Blizzard's part, to put one really hard dungeon in randomly with all the rest. They could have done lots of things to prevent it. (Allow people to exclude dungeons from the random selection? Not putting people in the post-3.3 dungeons if they don't have pieces of T9 for their chosen role? Have a separate random selection that excludes the post-3.3 dungeons? Don't put HHoR in the random dungeon finder at all? Who knows. All options have problems, but there are options.) But as far as we can tell they have done nothing to address this issue, and the announced change to the vote-kick system would make it worse. That's not to say it's not worth doing overall, but still.
All this is assuming that his healing gear is good enough for all other heroics except for HoR (let's say no greens, average ilvl 187+ at the very least). If it's not, then yeah, he is the problem and shouldn't be queueing to heal.
Hoggersbud Jun 2nd 2010 10:49AM
>People, the Dungeon Finder CAN select the healer choice by default and WILL give you NO OTHER OPTION by calculating your toon's stats when you randomly queue.
Except...you can turn off the Healer Role when queuing up for a group. Why is he so resistant to that?
Probably because Healers have faster queues than DPS.
It's that simple.
clundgren Jun 2nd 2010 12:20PM
Yeah, I don't understand what is so hard about not checking the healer box. If all you check is dps, all you will get is dps.
Is it inconvenient for michael.doucet? A little. Is it inconvenient for the other 4 people to have to sit around and wait for another healer because he's decided to drop group, and there are no healers to be had for 10 minutes? Often very much so, at least in my BG.
What he is really saying is that his desire to play the way he wants trumps the fun of the other people he will be randomly queuing with. I don't have a lot of sympathy for his position. If you don't want to heal, don't queue as a healer.
(cutaia) Jun 2nd 2010 3:09PM
"If you don't want to heal, don't queue as a healer."
What? But he DOES want to heal. Unfortunately, the system puts him into heroics his healing set isn't ready for, simply because his DPS set is awesome.
"Is it inconvenient for michael.doucet? A little. Is it inconvenient for the other 4 people to have to sit around and wait for another healer because he's decided to drop group, and there are no healers to be had for 10 minutes?"
That's his point, though. If he only runs randoms as DPS, it's inconvenient for him (because he wants to heal). If he runs randoms as a healer like he wants to, it's potentially inconvenient for 4 other people (if he gets an advanced heroic like HoR). He doesn't want it to be inconvenient for anyone...that's why he's wishing the system worked a little differently.
kunukia Jun 1st 2010 11:15PM
I like it. The only person I have voted to kick in weeks was someone who DCed, and either could not or chose to not come back. Was a good person through 2 dungeons, so I suspect the former.
feniks9174 Jun 1st 2010 11:17PM
I'd personally really like the ability to kick mid-combat. The only time I've tried to initiate a kick is when someone has clearly DC'ed or AFK'ed and we're in the middle of a timed instance like Halls of Reflection or Violet Hold. The "You cannot initiate a vote-kick during or shortly after combat" thing gets annoying since it covers 95% of the time you're in the instance.
That being said, I don't care if hey track how often I leave group or vote-kick. I don't do it often enough for it t be a concern. The only time I have done it was (other than when people have DC'ed or AFK'ed) when a warlock spent the first half of Halls of Lightning -constantly- whining about how the tank wasn't moving fast enough. The rest of us could see that he was likely a new tank but he was doing a good job, just being cautious with his pulls. Shortly before the fire boss (what's his name again?) the warlock tried to vote-kick the tank. As soon as the vote failed I initiated the vote-kick on the lock. The hunter that replaced him was much more patient. =)
sfbuck415 Jun 1st 2010 11:21PM
ridiculous. I can't believe dev is wasting time on things like this.
feniks9174 Jun 1st 2010 11:27PM
Everyone will drop a group at one point or another. I don't think they're out to punish people who leave an average of once a week, but rather the people who do it on a regular basis (ie once a day on average). There was a guy in my guild who, in an attempt to get Needle Encrusted Scorpion for his DPS set, ran Forge of Souls once then queued for randoms as a tank until he got placed into Forge of Souls again. If it wasn't the right instance, he dropped group and hopped over to a bank alt until the (at the time) 15 minute debuff wore off and tried again. THAT is exactly the kind of douchebaggery they're trying to prevent.
And yeah, I've been in your exact place before. My resto set sucked, but the Enhance set in my bags told the dungeon finder I was geared enough for Heroic HoR and ported me in. You have 2 options. 1) Throw out a quick apology/explanation and leave or 2) give it a shot. Worst case scenario, you wipe and you can ask the group to kick you.
feniks9174 Jun 1st 2010 11:31PM
Seriously, screw this terrible reply system.
Was supposed to be in response to michael.doucet on page 1