Thread: Update 5: Instance Finder Developer Diary Feedback

Ransroth, I really hope you take the counterpoints made here into consideration. You guys are doing great, but the ultimate solution is gonna take not only more work but also a somewhat different approach to the problem.Thanks!

Originally Posted by ransroth

For now, Instance Finder is limited to the Instance Join encounters - and the only non-scaling ones that are included are the level-cap ones. So indeed, Tomb of Elendil is out-of-scope for Instance Finder at the moment.

So does that mean that we'll see Tomb of Elendil added?

Originally Posted by Lazlo_Hollyfeld

With unequal access to content, all that gets run is the lowest common denominator. So for now, the IF is better described as "Gondamon and Tuck Finder". Hopefully with the new system I'll be able to say "anything but tuck and gondamon"

If players now are able to exclude Gondamon and Tuck, wouldn't this make the pool smaller? Don't we want the pool to pick from larger?

Originally Posted by ransroth

However, in order for the tool to flourish, we need to try to make the pool of players available for matching as big as possible. If I say I want to do only Trouble in Tuckborough, and you say you want to do another skirmish and someone else says they want to do a third skirmish, we can never be matched for anything. As long as there's a pool of players who are willing to do the widest possible number of instances, players wanting to do a particular one will find a group faster. Thus the reward scheme trying to encourage wider selections.

Then temporarily unlock content if a majority have access?

Originally Posted by Bhoris_they_spider

Lets say there are always 12 people looking for a raid skirmish at any one time. 11 of them have access to every skirmish in the game, the 12th has acces to only 2. How will the 11 players ever get selected to participate in skirmishes other than the 2 owned by the 12th. Do you have any idea how to get around this obvious problem?

Did I miss any announcement that 12 person skirms will be available? Anyhow.....

One possible solution around the problem is to give access to content that players don't own. ONLY if a majority of matched players own the content. Obviously this only for 3 & 6 man content....and 12 if later supported.
Examples:
2 Players have access to Ford of Bruinen and 1 doesn't...match them up for a 3 man......
4 Players have access to Attack at Dawn and 2 Don't....match them up for a 6 man....

This would also act as a preview of the content before making any purchase.
Give players a notification icon every time they get selected into content they don't own....this also directs them to the store...
"You have been matched by the instance finder into this encounter because a majority of players own this content."
"To purchase this content and stop mooching off other players who own it please visit the LoTRO Store <Unlock> <Dismiss>"
Anyway, lol, I'll leave the wording up to you guys but perhaps limit to one or two non owned content matches per day?

Will there be players that will never purchase content...ofcourse...but please consider from my own personal experience that the instance finder has been hit and miss. Yes, all the matches were either Gondamon or Tuck...that's not really fair since I own all possible content.
Sometimes I've been matched up straight away and other times in a four hour session not a single hit. This was also not using a dps or support class. Long wait times even on a Guardian and Minstrel. So from the point of view of a player that owns all content please consider the above suggestion.

I like your concept a lot, but it sounds like it has the potential to be a bit of a coding nightmare. Still, if the IF is going to work (I still don't understand what was wrong with Instance Join, I don't recall anyone ever asking that content be chosen for them to play) then Turbine would either have to do something like that, or keep Instance Join along with the IF, with no penalty to those who opt for Instance Join.

My subscription expired in January. I had been planning to buy skirmishes, but the Instance Finder came along just before the sub expired, and I decided against it. I've got alts of all levels. I hate Tuck with a fiery passion, and can tolerate Gondamon only occasionally, but knew that that's what I'd be doing at least 90% of the time.

I did try the thing, and for every group save one, that was indeed what it was. The one time it wasn't was a 6-man Icy Crevasse (a skirmish I refuse to PUG), worse still, I'd put in for a solo-only skirmish and it matched me to a 6-man where the other players were several levels higher than my toon was and I was supposed to tank. Of course, I dropped group and bugged it. Then there's the still too high cost of levelling a soldier if you don't use the IF.

Which means I'm likely going to pass on the next quest pack as well, as my understanding is that we're going to need to use skirmish soldiers on the landscape with it. I didn't play at all for almost two months after the IF started, came back to level up one toon before the class is changed to a different kind of class, but even still, I don't enjoy the game the way I did. I actually liked a number of the skirmishes, they were a fun thing to do when you had only half an hour or so to play.

Are skirmishes going to be phased out entirely? I honestly can't think of another reason that Turbine would create such a strongly discouraging factor to customers buying content as the IF is.

For those who want it to be like WoW or Rift's instance tools, it can never be. Those games are played by people with subscriptions, who have all the same content open to them at any given level. In this game, that isn't the case at all. Going cross-server would, in the best case, simply reduce your wait time for yet another round of the two freebies. It also tends to destroy community - it did WoW no favours, I know that. And given the behaviour of some group leaders when the loot was invisible to anyone but the master looter, at least on the servers I play on here, it doesn't seem like making people less accountable for appalling behaviour is really a good idea.

Originally Posted by Kelleran

Did I miss any announcement that 12 person skirms will be available? Anyhow.....

If Instance Join is being demolished and replaced by Instance Finder, then yes.

@ Chanah

I'm not sure where you get the impression that the WoW instance finder has been a bad idea. It's actually been highly successful and popular, especially among those levelling alts, those not in the most active guilds and those who get to play at odd times.

I appreciate the problem with F2Pers not having access to all instances, but that could easily be solved by offering a random (non-F2P) option in the IF tool. Surely there are enough paid accounts across all servers to make up a sufficiently large pool of players for this.

WoW didn't ever have the greatest community, but to my view, anyway, it got a lot worse when things became cross-server. I bailed shortly after Cata came out, so I have no idea how it is now, and no desire to go back and find out.

Ransroth Why is it that when it's only me, myself, and I looking for a skirmish that it has to be a random one to get a decent amount of marks? That makes no sense to me at all.

I have a feeling that NO low lvls are going to use this at all since they're mostly either half-dead or don't know about it.. I even lose my confidence creating a fellowship because of player inactivity in any major city...

I am not a fan of skirmishes but I do enjoy them on occasion. When I am in the mood for a skirmish I have always picked the one that I feel in the mood for at the time and play it and this has always been enough to keep my soldier relatively close in level to my character.

My approach hasn't changed, however since the IF has come out my lower level alts are struggling for enough marks to keep their soldier levelled. I don't want skirmishes to become a chore and last time I did a skirmish with an under-levelled soldier (because of lack of marks to gear him up) it felt hard going and not really all that much fun.

I can't really see myself continuing with skirmishes at all with the current amount of marks I get for choosing the skirmish I feel like doing (solo). This isn't me saying 'well not enough marks for it to be rewarding' its me saying that there are not enough marks rewarded for my soldier to be levelled while playing skirmishes only for fun (I only use marks to level my soldier).

Randomness does not appeal to me. I can understand why you would want to encourage players to select multiple options for grouping but why are you trying to pressure me into being placed into a random skirmish when solo? Who gains from that?

At the very least, please change instance finder to give equal marks for solo players when skirmishing. I pay to play this game, I should be allowed to choose the content I play without having to be random.

No one else is gains or loses whether I choose my solo skirmish or select multiple skirmishes so why do I?

I like the changes to the instance finder, released with update 6. Now I can choose not to go to the icy crevasse.

Thank You!

Some very important info is missing:

- While waiting for a group, the dialog should indicate exactly what you're waiting for (all the selected conditions as well the bonuses), or you should keep the original selection tab accessible so we can tab back to see the details of what we're waiting for

- While waiting for an Isengard instance, a timer should be displayed

- Each instance and skirmish should indicate the min-max level range next to (before) the instance name