LFG - Cleric Hunting

[jellyfish21]

I play healers a lot.

I'd like to suggest making a channel for people to join to improve looking for a healer. There are probably several ways to do it. Any imput or suggestions?

Dockerman - Ghallanda

[Gkar]

Why? They can just put up an LFM

[jellyfish21]

The majority of players do not recruit. The LFM is a poor recruitment tool for clerics. My definition of recruiting is actively sending private messages to people to join a party. Most people choose not to do this; it doesn't even cross some peoples minds. The healer is the hardest spot to fill. Adding another system may improve this situation.

Please give constructive critisism. Ignoring the difficulty at having a cleric in the party has gone far enough.

[Phidius]

The majority of players do not recruit. The LFM is a poor recruitment tool for clerics. My definition of recruiting is actively sending private messages to people to join a party...

I don't like your definition of "recruiting". If you send any of my toons a blind tell "Hey, come run XXX", I'll automatically reply with "no thanks".

The Social Panel is an excellent tool - I glean more information from how you post your LFM than what you might expect.

Sending tells is no substitute for using the Social Panel correctly.

[Falco_Easts]

The majority of players do not recruit. The LFM is a poor recruitment tool for clerics. My definition of recruiting is actively sending private messages to people to join a party. Most people choose not to do this; it doesn't even cross some peoples minds. The healer is the hardest spot to fill. Adding another system may improve this situation.

Please give constructive critisism. Ignoring the difficulty at having a cleric in the party has gone far enough.

I am curious how you think tells are a better method then the cleric being able to see quest, difficulty, party makeup and level range for multiple parties to choose the one they want to join with a simple mouseover?

[LightInDark]

Easily solved..... Play a cleric.

[jellyfish21]

I play healers a lot.

As I have stated, I play healers. So, NO, that was not a solution nor an easy one.

[Phidius]

An additional thought - if everyone is in need of clerics, and you start a channel to find clerics, then wouldn't the entire server be participating?

It would be like standing around in the marketplace spamming "Need healer - STK elite".

[GermanicusMaximus]

I don't know what server you play on, but for my cleric a slow day is defined as logging in and being able to move my toon on the screen before I get my first tell asking me to join a group.

[NovaNZ]

Hi all
I tend to agree with Phidius on this issue. Sending blind tells (or recruiting as you term it) is not always received in the same spirit as you may send the tell.

When playing a cleric I tend to try and support LFM posts where applicable.

[smeggy1384]

If on my cleric i am always anonymous, that stops the blind invites. Not much more annoying that running along trying to pick up a quest, sell some loot, randomly wander.. when bam, lil annoying box from unknown people in my screen. Never minded a message about running a quest, so long as it included the quest name and difficulty. Some form of channel for finding healers might be a good idea, but throw in one for tanks and dps as well.

[EpiKagEMO]

LFM works as it is. They join when they want. Blind invites are stupid, since they might end up with someone that REALLY SQUISHY person that wont listen. usually the clerics that are good are taken, so...

I think popping a hireling is the channel. LOL!

[jellyfish21]

Definition:
A blind invite involves using the 'Who' tab on the social panel, using the 'Invite' button, all with out giving a private message before the invite.

Giving a private message to some one, requesting their assistance in a quest, honors their build. Those of you who are insulted, give thanks that people really appreciate your choices (of cleric).

Dockerman gets a blind invite about once a month; I usually join their party, explaining to them how I feel (not good about their ways), then find out what they need. He recieves a private message to join a party about once a week; I try to agree in helping as best that I can, usually joining their party.

THX for your input. I disagree with some of your reasonings (particularly your ideas on what a blind invite is). For those who have their first cleric, blind invites are an honor. If you feel overly chalanged, please communicate your doubts. Additionaly, communicate any feeling of being taken advantage of. People generally respond very good to either of those talks.

[Tobril]

Definition:
A blind invite involves using the 'Who' tab on the social panel, using the 'Invite' button, all with out giving a private message before the invite.

Giving a private message to some one, requesting their assistance in a quest, honors their build. Those of you who are insulted, give thanks that people really appreciate your choices (of cleric).

Dockerman gets a blind invite about once a month; I usually join their party, explaining to them how I feel (not good about their ways), then find out what they need. He recieves a private message to join a party about once a week; I try to agree in helping as best that I can, usually joining their party.

THX for your input. I disagree with some of your reasonings (particularly your ideas on what a blind invite is). For those who have their first cleric, blind invites are an honor. If you feel overly chalanged, please communicate your doubts. Additionaly, communicate any feeling of being taken advantage of. People generally respond very good to either of those talks.

Blind invites aren’t an honor, they’re a horror.

[azrael4h]

Blind invites aren’t an honor, they’re a horror.

He meant the pm was the honor, not the blind invite.

I don't mind PMs, as at least that's being nice and not popping a large honkin' box in front of my face obstructing my view. I get them all the time when I log on my FvS, and did on my Cleric as well, before she TRed. I oddly get some on my Monk as well, though at level 6, there's not much raid-wise she can run. If I had a nickel for every ToD invite I get on my FvS, I could retire.

The problem is on several levels:

1 - Some players are not looking for Clerics and Favored Souls, they are looking for nannybot healers who are better at healing than the AI hirelings, but don't cost plat, and don't stand around in traps all day waiting to die. This is not everyone who hits the Who list or posts an LFM

2 - Cleric and Favored Soul players, by and large, do not like being treated like a hireling. They play to have fun. And this leads to...

3 - Some players, the same ones as in 1 more often than not, are extremely abusive to "their healers". I've repeated the tale of my first horrific pug as a Cleric elsewhere, so I won't reiterate. However, it is the rare divine player who hasn't experienced the screaming, cursing, and blaming for the barbarian running through the same fire trap not once but twice, on an elite quest while under level, and went and grabbed aggro of about a dozen mobs that he couldn't handle before running back through said trap. This leads to...

4 - Many Divine caster players stopped pugging, running only with guildies or solo, or with a select group of known people. They've gone anon in the Who list to prevent spammed tells and invites and begging. This is addition to...

5 - The recent downgrades to the UI have caused many more divines to be retired, TRed into something else, or at the least temporarily shelved or reserved for guildies, solo, or a select group of known players. The Wing rape caused rage amongst the Favored Souls; my own has retired largely due to this, though I get a headache trying to tell who needs a heal scroll tossed at them while on my Sorcerer or Ranger.

6 - The raids being rebalanced for over-geared multi-TRs has driven even more into retirement.

7 - Not everyone even likes casters at all, or divine casters in specific. One guildy took nearly two years to start running a caster (a Cleric) at all, and another's was mothballed because she can't stand playing casters. She only built it because the group needed a divine, and I hadn't yet brought my Cleric into the ranks. I would expect that Clerics and Favored Souls are probably far less popular to play as than any melee. Even Paladins. Yet those are the ones that everyone looks for.

All told, it's not something that Turbine can really fix. The UI issues might bring some back, and so forth, but a large chunk of the problem lies with the players themselves.

[voodoogroves]

Definition:
A blind invite involves using the 'Who' tab on the social panel, using the 'Invite' button, all with out giving a private message before the invite.

Giving a private message to some one, requesting their assistance in a quest, honors their build. Those of you who are insulted, give thanks that people really appreciate your choices (of cleric).

Dockerman gets a blind invite about once a month; I usually join their party, explaining to them how I feel (not good about their ways), then find out what they need. He recieves a private message to join a party about once a week; I try to agree in helping as best that I can, usually joining their party.

THX for your input. I disagree with some of your reasonings (particularly your ideas on what a blind invite is). For those who have their first cleric, blind invites are an honor. If you feel overly chalanged, please communicate your doubts. Additionaly, communicate any feeling of being taken advantage of. People generally respond very good to either of those talks.

(1) I play plenty of healing-capable toons. Maybe what follows comes from having not a first cleric, but several capped, re-capped or in process of getting back to cap.
(2) None of my toons run anonymous. It's a thing I do, and I'm kinda somewhat proud of it.
(3) I respond very politely to conversation. I get tells pretty much every time I log on asking me to run (whatever); I join when I can, etc. and have no problem with that.
(4) However, I automatically decline all blind invites. I usually follow that up with an explanation of why as polite as I can.

[Gorbadoc]

There is absolutely nothing wrong with sending a tell to a person who you think might be willing to join your group.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with turning down or even ignoring such tells (a polite response is, well, polite; however, you haven't done anything *wrong* by ignoring).

It's a breach of etiquette to send an actual party invite to someone who didn't indicate a desire to join your group.

[Lunaris832010]

When I play my cleric I usually get a minimum of one tell a day, usually more. I try to help if I can but a lot of times I am already in a party which is highly annoying. I usually get a little irritated with that. "Why yes stranger, I will leave the party I am in to come help you out." Not so much.
I agree that a blind invite by someone who is unknown is rude and annoying, it does not take a huge effort to type "/t blahblah Wanna run blah blah?" I never respond to blind invites, maybe that makes me a snob... so be it.

[Corwinsky]

Totally agree with comments above.
Sending a tell to a non grouped cleric asking him if he wants to join your group in running quest x in y difficulty is not a blind invite and not rude and actually works quite regularly.
A lot of people are not checking the LFM 100% of the time. Maybe the cleric couldn't find a group then started doing something else (AH, crafting, etc) and forgot to check LFM again. Maybe he didn't see that LFM because there are too many in his range level, etc.

In any case I've found plenty of healers answering these tells and joining.
If he doesn't reply that's fine as well.

Sending an invite to someone on the other hand without a tell is rude and corresponds to a blind invite.
And sending a tell to a cleric already grouped is... dumb?

[GermanicusMaximus]

Sending a tell asking if my cleric would like to run a quest is never a problem. If you don't get an answer, its probably because I'm in the middle of a solo run. Gasp! Yes, my cleric can solo most of the game content.

Sending an actual party invite? Not a good idea if I'm in the middle of the afore mentioned solo run, engaged with a herd of devils who dislike me, and then have to deal with your party invite popping up in the middle of my screen. The name of your toon will likely be remembered, and not in a good way.

If I accept your invite, and you play like you haven't a clue, running in all directions and make healing you a pain in the...... Well, like you I play the game for fun, not to clean up the mess someone else makes. There's a big difference between healing a well played quest and healing a disaster. If I tactfully suggest that there are better ways to play the quest we are in, and you repeatedly ignore those suggestions, there is a good chance I will just recall and let you learn without my help.

Screaming, cursing, blaming? Yeah, you don't even want to think about going there, because I will change from your helpful healer to someone willing to just lay it on the line, and no one wants to listen to you cry in game. Its just embarrassing...