How to Read an LFM

[Enoach]

It has come to my attention that the art of reading LFM's has become lost. So in hopes of helping our community I would like to point out a few areas that may help to enlighten people who do not know.

LFM is broken down into these Parts

1. Lists Leader's Name and Level as well as a sometime humorous or informative message about what to expect. Also displays other members names, class and level.
2. List the Quest. Holding your mouse over the quest box will list a few key details. Quest Level, Giver's name and when appropriatly used the Expected Difficulty the Leader has set for the quest. Changing this is up to the discretion of the party leader (other factors including Peer presure may be involved).
3. Lists the Classes that the Party leader sees that are needed to fill specific rolls to complete the quest. This can be overwritten by listed expectations in the first section.
4. Lists the Level Range that the Party Leader has set as a limit, either by excepting defaults or customizing it. Sometimes this is nagotiable, sometimes not.

Now if we could all do our parts as both Party Leaders and as Party Seekers in using the LFM system then I think life in Ebberon can become just a little bit sweeter.

The saddest thing is not the number of people that can't read, but the number of people that can and refuse to.

[Rumbaar]

Yes, I'm annoyed at times when they LFM doesn't have the quest displayed correctly or the difficulty it's going to be run at listed correctly.

Also I know people hate the 'share please' requests. But it does allow easier forming and faster gathering of random players.

So a simple click of the share 'if it's possible' and a simple "It's in House X" would help and if it's in an alternate area. I know of a few quests that have the quest giver in a different house to it's actual location, then more details.

Turbine certainly doesn't make it easy to find quest givers and quest at times.

[JakLee7]

sorry didn't read your post - but can you tell me - quick price check on a +5 silver khopesh of pure good?
thanks

[Enoach]

sorry didn't read your post - but can you tell me - quick price check on a +5 silver khopesh of pure good?
thanks

LoL, just LoL +1 for the humor

And in order for me to give you a good estimate you will need to send it to Enoach for apprasial. He will return it once he is sure it is what you claim it is along with an estimate. He did say to give it 6 to 9 months for return as he uses the Kobold Mail system and not Orion.

[Maugrim101]

All fair points. The problem is that anyone reading this thread probably has some LFM panel common sense (For want of a better term).

Not saying this to be mean or anything, but it's unlikely that the target audience will read this.

[SilkofDrasnia]

only one thing annoys me in lfm descriptions its when they don't put the proper difficulty level.

hey it happens you finish a quest n forget to change to new one amongst other things, what i dislike because it show sloppiness is when u start a lfm and cant use the provided tools to give all the relevant information where its suppose to be.

theres place to put name of quest AND what DIFFICULTY level it will be played, there a way to choose what classes u want to join and even a place to add small description of what you want or feel should be know

USE IT !!

[Schmoe]

On a related note, it seems that the LFM panel is bugged once again.

Many months ago, the LFM panel did not indicate whether your account could access a quest or not. It was very frustrating. Someone would put up a group for a quest, and people had no idea if the quest was f2p or p2p, and if it was p2p they had no idea whether they had already purchased it or not. It caused a lot of confusion.

Then, finally, the bug was fixed, probably sometime around Update 5 (give or take a couple updates). Quests which you could not access were clearly marked with a DDO Store icon to indicate you could not go on that quest without buying it first. The checkbox filter for the LFM panel would even screen out quests that you couldn't access.

Well, the bug is back. The DDO Store icon no longer appears for quests you have not purchased. The checkbox filter no longer screens out quests you have not purchased. The confusion is back, as people have to ask once again, "p2p or f2p?"

If anyone else has experienced this, please bug report it. In the meantime, please remember the following helpful tip when creating your own LFM:


1. Add a note indicating whether the quest is P2P (Pay To Play) or F2P (Free To Play).



.

[Enoach]

On a related note, it seems that the LFM panel is bugged once again.

Many months ago, the LFM panel did not indicate whether your account could access a quest or not. It was very frustrating. Someone would put up a group for a quest, and people had no idea if the quest was f2p or p2p, and if it was p2p they had no idea whether they had already purchased it or not. It caused a lot of confusion.

Then, finally, the bug was fixed, probably sometime around Update 5 (give or take a couple updates). Quests which you could not access were clearly marked with a DDO Store icon to indicate you could not go on that quest without buying it first. The checkbox filter for the LFM panel would even screen out quests that you couldn't access.

Well, the bug is back. The DDO Store icon no longer appears for quests you have not purchased. The checkbox filter no longer screens out quests you have not purchased. The confusion is back, as people have to ask once again, "p2p or f2p?"

If anyone else has experienced this, please bug report it. In the meantime, please remember the following helpful tip when creating your own LFM:


1. Add a note indicating whether the quest is P2P (Pay To Play) or F2P (Free To Play).



.

Thank you for the heads up on the LFM, I was wondering why I was getting alot of "Is it F2P or P2P?" tells over the last weeks.

There is only one problem with your suggestion... As someone that has been P2P from the beginning, I don't know which quests are P2P or F2P. I have an idea that any quest that is part of a chain (exception being Water Works) is P2P but outside of that rule honestly I don't know. I also don't have access to Purchase Packs section of the Store as I'm P2P.

[danotmano1998]

Agreed on that one!

It would be nice if DDO gave you a little icon or something noting whether it's P2P or F2P.
As a VIP member since about my 2nd week here, The only way I would have a clue whether something is P2P is if I opened up a browser window and researched it on the wiki. Is there a better way to do this from in game??

[gerardIII]

It has come to my attention that the art of reading LFM's has become lost. So in hopes of helping our community I would like to point out a few areas that may help to enlighten people who do not know.

LFM is broken down into these Parts

1. Lists Leader's Name and Level as well as a sometime humorous or informative message about what to expect. Also displays other members names, class and level.
2. List the Quest. Holding your mouse over the quest box will list a few key details. Quest Level, Giver's name and when appropriatly used the Expected Difficulty the Leader has set for the quest. Changing this is up to the discretion of the party leader (other factors including Peer presure may be involved).
3. Lists the Classes that the Party leader sees that are needed to fill specific rolls to complete the quest. This can be overwritten by listed expectations in the first section.
4. Lists the Level Range that the Party Leader has set as a limit, either by excepting defaults or customizing it. Sometimes this is nagotiable, sometimes not.

When you mouse over the LFM it also shows the party members current locations, very useful to determine party status (still in Stormreach/on Airships, going to the quest through a wildernes area, or already in the quest).

[Oolung]

Thank you for the heads up on the LFM, I was wondering why I was getting alot of "Is it F2P or P2P?" tells over the last weeks.

There is only one problem with your suggestion... As someone that has been P2P from the beginning, I don't know which quests are P2P or F2P. I have an idea that any quest that is part of a chain (exception being Water Works) is P2P but outside of that rule honestly I don't know. I also don't have access to Purchase Packs section of the Store as I'm P2P.

Ive become quite familiar with whats ftp and what isnt, and im in the same shoes as you, but i looked at the guest passes to try and figure it out, which helped me

[Letrii]

DDO Wiki shows if p2p.

[JollySwagMan]

I would suggest listing the difficulty in the note if you have room, the quest selection panel is often used incorrectly/ignored. Would echo the 'p2p' comment too.

[Vellrad]

Thank you for the heads up on the LFM, I was wondering why I was getting alot of "Is it F2P or P2P?" tells over the last weeks.

There is only one problem with your suggestion... As someone that has been P2P from the beginning, I don't know which quests are P2P or F2P. I have an idea that any quest that is part of a chain (exception being Water Works) is P2P but outside of that rule honestly I don't know. I also don't have access to Purchase Packs section of the Store as I'm P2P.

Has the big BUY NOW button stopped appearing when quest is properly chosen?
If yes, I can understand it, but if no, why answer to question asked by someone who just missed house-sized notice?


And saddly, many people don't care what you put in LFM description, for example:

Quest selected: under the big top
Lvl: 20-20
Description: Epic big top, talk to house P favor caster for jump, bring own invisibility potion.

Effect:
50% of people asks for jump and mass invisibility.

[Atree]

I'd just like to pipe in and mention that a badly written LFM is one of the best ways to recognize a potentially sub-par group.

When playing one of my many divines I will generally avoid parties with mismatched, badly typed or unfilled bits. Additionally if the group leader leaves the level range at 2 above/below his own yet wants to run an elite quest above his level my danger-sense starts to tingle.

I will only join such parties when I know I can pretty much solo the quest and in a mood for being amused by a comedy of errors. Sometimes this backfires when the leader and/or other party members whine vocally about how the healer isn't doing his job of staying in the back and playing nanny.

However occasionally I encounter new players earnestly trying to learn. Those runs can be incredibly fun and provide a real challenge of succeeding despite the stacked up odds.

[Schmoe]

Has the big BUY NOW button stopped appearing when quest is properly chosen?
If yes, I can understand it, but if no, why answer to question asked by someone who just missed house-sized notice?

Did you miss my earlier post?

Well, the bug is back. The DDO Store icon no longer appears for quests you have not purchased. The checkbox filter no longer screens out quests you have not purchased. The confusion is back, as people have to ask once again, "p2p or f2p?"

Back to your post...

And saddly, many people don't care what you put in LFM description, for example:

Quest selected: under the big top
Lvl: 20-20
Description: Epic big top, talk to house P favor caster for jump, bring own invisibility potion.

Effect:
50% of people asks for jump and mass invisibility.

Obviously there will always be people who don't care enough to figure out the information that is available to them. The OP has some nice tips for people who do care, though.

[Schmoe]

There is only one problem with your suggestion... As someone that has been P2P from the beginning, I don't know which quests are P2P or F2P. I have an idea that any quest that is part of a chain (exception being Water Works) is P2P but outside of that rule honestly I don't know. I also don't have access to Purchase Packs section of the Store as I'm P2P.

Yeah, I can see how that might be a problem. Generally, the quests that have to be purchased fall into these categories:

A.) Part of a distinct chain (Delera's, STK, Sharn, Tangleroot, Co6, etc.)
B.) Quests in a separate explorer area (Gianthold walkups, Sands walkups, TBC, etc.)
C.) Raids and their flagging quests and related explorer areas (The Vale, Subterrane, Amrath, etc.)

The free-to-play quests are almost always stand-alone and are 12th level or lower quests. There are only a handful of quests higher than 12th level that are free to play, and they are all stand-alone.

[anto_capone]

The saddest thing is not the number of people that can't read, but the number of people that can and refuse to.

What if I skim? No?

Can I get a condensed version please?


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