Thread: Update 6: Developer Diary Feedback: Instance Finder

Merging servers might well cost you things like your character's name or your house.

Unpopular instances and some lower level instances just don't get run anymore - I invariably have Tomb of Elendil in my quest log until I'm 75 and can suborn people into it. That's bad because it's a neat instance with one of the best lore scenes after it in the game but that's how it goes.

Even on a tiny pop server I've never seen a problem forming skraids, Moria instances or Turtle, Isengard stuff, and even School/Library gets run pretty often.

Yes, you have to put up with GLFF for ten minutes to half an hour to organise something, but it's still better than the IF - where you will end up waiting hours for either nothing or a group like mini-mini-RK, and chances are you won't know the people at all.

Originally Posted by Daschande

the endgame population on my server has dwindled so much that you can either wait and hope, or give up and do other content. Cross-server is the only hope I see for the IF to ever actually find a group for me.

Sorry to hear that Perhaps time for your kin to move server?

Originally Posted by Vilan

On Elendilmir, it's fairly easy to put together skirmishes or Isengard stuff. Older instances take a long time to find a group for, other than maybe GS and turtle. In particular, older raids like DN, BG, OD are extremely hard to put together. It would be nice to have cross-server matchups for these since otherwise you can spend weeks looking for a group.

Originally Posted by avengingbananaslug

I like the people on Silverlode and plan to stay there but the population is fairly low and it can be impossible to find groups on GLFF for stuff. We spent 2 hours last night trying to get a tank for a ToO group and eventually just gave up and went to bed. You rarely ever see ToO or even Draigoch advertised in GLFF there. My kin is pretty small so we can't do raids ourselves.

I think thats going to be true everywhere, its always going to be harder to put together pugs for older raids. We do see turtle advertised on glff. I'm not sure there would even be enough demand on any single server for one of these raids on an average day. The only way this would work via IF is if it was indeed cross server and you could view all the instances being queued for. That way people may see a DN on the list and decide to jump in.

TBH pugs isnt the easiest way to organise a 12 man raid like ToO. In the past we have created raid alliance chat channels, which was cross-kin and was an effective network to form pugs for raids. It takes a bit of networking, but can be effective. Maybe see if anyone is doing this on your server? Sometimes PUG raid leaders keep a network in their Friends list or create a channel that you could join. There are always kins in a similar position who would like to run raids. cap raid such as ToO. With a network at least you can orgainse in advance and make sure you have the right classes and enough people. If it were me I'd advertise regularly in Global and put a good cross kin network together. It would soon grow as people reccomended friends. Youd need around 15 regulars to ensure a good regular 12 person raid. Do it on the same nights every week and you will soon be up an running, We have had around 3/4 alliances in the past that worked very well and ultimately led to our kin growing. Our kin is actually formed of at least 5 kins that have raided together in the past.

Instance finder totally failed for grouping in Riddermark.

As i said many other times. if would be really good if we could SEE all forming groups at the moment and we could CHOOSE wich one to join. like getting a big list of 200 groups forming for something and you can sign for any of those.

But turbine, this really big ramdomize? seriously? when you know there's a really big amount of players that are not good enough to suceed the challenges it has no point into ramdomize the players you get.

Please just give us a list where we can see all Open groups doing stuff and if what classes they want.

Example:

Instance	Tier	Group Leader	Level	Roles/Classes Needed	Players Already Signed	Special Notes	Requeriments
Ost Dunhoth	1	Saelyth	65	1 Tank 2 Healer 4 DPS 1 Loremaster 1 Captain	Saelyth(Guardian) Aens(champion) Bleur(burglar)	I want only people with +6k morale or that has done this raid before.	Enedwaith Questpack. Discovery Deed.
Tower of Orthanc	1	Galadriel	75	1 Healer 2 Guardians 3 DPS	Galadriel(Rune-Keeper) Radagast(Loremaster) Gimli(Champion) Legolas(Hunter) Aragorn(Captain) Eomer(Warden)	We are only doing Lightning Wing.	Tower of Orthanc Raid. Discovery Deed.
Fornost - Wrath of Earth	2	Faramir	48	3 DPS	Faramir(Hunter) Gondorian(Healer) Ihavenomoreideas(Guardian)	We need an interrupter. Bring your own potions.	North-Downs Questpack.

If we as players could see that info the Instance finder would work 100% of the times. we would see if there is any group forming for Sammath Gul, Lost Temple or even Raids.

Only the Group Leader should be able to modify the info showing in the finder like "Special notes", "classes needed" or if the group is "Visible" or "anonymous" to the instance finder.

Got it Turbine? THIS is what we want inside the game.

Edit: added as suggestion in: http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...F-group-pannel.

Originally Posted by Saelyth

Instance finder totally failed for grouping in Riddermark.

As i said many other times. if would be really good if we could SEE all forming groups at the moment and we could CHOOSE wich one to join. like getting a big list of 200 groups forming for something and you can sign for any of those.

But turbine, this really big ramdomize? seriously? when you know there's a really big amount of players that are not good enough to suceed the challenges it has no point into ramdomize the players you get.

Please just give us a list where we can see all Open groups doing stuff and if what classes they want.

Example:

Instance	Tier	Group Leader	Level	Roles/Classes Needed	Players Already Signed	Special Notes	Requeriments
Ost Dunhoth	1	Saelyth	65	1 Tank 2 Healer 4 DPS 1 Loremaster 1 Captain	Saelyth(Guardian) Aens(champion) Bleur(burglar)	I want only people with +6k morale or that has done this raid before.	Enedwaith Questpack. Discovery Deed.
Tower of Orthanc	1	Galadriel	75	1 Healer 2 Guardians 3 DPS	Galadriel(Rune-Keeper) Radagast(Loremaster) Gimli(Champion) Legolas(Hunter) Aragorn(Captain) Eomer(Warden)	We are only doing Lightning Wing.	Tower of Orthanc Raid. Discovery Deed.
Fornost - Wrath of Earth	2	Faramir	48	3 DPS	Faramir(Hunter) Gondorian(Healer) Ihavenomoreideas(Guardian)	We need an interrupter. Bring your own potions.	North-Downs Questpack.

If we as players could see that info the Instance finder would work 100% of the times. we would see if there is any group forming for Sammath Gul, Lost Temple or even Raids.

Only the Group Leader should be able to modify the info showing in the finder like "Special notes", "classes needed" or if the group is "Visible" or "anonymous" to the instance finder.

Got it Turbine? THIS is what we want inside the game.

Edit: added as suggestion in: http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...F-group-pannel.

You are spot on. I don't understand why we ended up with an utterly useless Instance Finder when all we really wanted was something as simple as what you posted here. The only thing the Instance Finder has accomplished is making grouping more of a pain in the butt because you now have to use this complicated mechanism to get your preformed group a +50% currency buff.

Originally Posted by ransroth

We are considering removing Reflecting Pools and subsuming their functionality in Instance Finder, but it isn't something that we did for Update 6.

Has this functionality been reconsidered and not included on the current road map for updates?