An LFM experiment

[MorningStarSE]

I would have liked to take this test but I can`t play during evening... >.>

[mobrien316]

Personally, I don't mind if someone hits the LFM and then asks where the quest is, or what quest we are doing, or what difficulty we are doing. It only takes a second to answer.


What does irritate me a bit is when I post an LFM for Hard and someone hits it and then, as we enter the quest on Hard, they start complaining that they have an elite streak going and they don't want to break it.

That's when I tell them, "You ought to read the LFM. If you didn't want to do anything but elite, you should post your own LFM or hit an elite LFM."

[Dracey]

Clearly the OP cares enough about how people use the grouping in DDO to make a thread about it. What I'm saying is if you really want to do a proper test things should be a little more clear. IMO the way the OP has posted his LFM is similar to this photo

http://i1161.photobucket.com/albums/...he-mistake.jpg

I personally haven't had all of the trouble the OP is describing he has with his LFM's. You personally might decline people for failing to read the quest difficulty in the LFM however, I played for 1.5 years without ever using that portion of the LFM and didn't have any problems with getting declined or kicked if I asked the quest difficulty. So it's not like I would have ever learned to even look there. In addition there are so many who don't even bother to change that portion it's useless to even look there (not to mention there is no epic option so at best it's inaccurate a large portion of the time).

Let's try a new experiment. Go up and down the LFM's of the day and see how many party leaders have the correct information in the LFM from quest selection, to progress, to level range and more. This is why most people prefer to send a tell to the PL before joining a quest to verify difficulty.

IMO the OP's LFM was plenty clear enough. If the person can read the LFM to know what quest they're running then the person can hover their mouse over to view the difficulty. If they did not know that you can do that, then they probably shouldn't be questing with the OP for both their sakes.

Just because certain people can not bother to look at the mouse over doesn't mean it's useless. It's defaulted on Normal, therefore if the leader took the split second to click on Elite then the quest is going to be on Elite.

Epic is irrelevant as I am going to assume here that OP would take special attention on the description had he incorporated Epic into his experiments.

I completely disagree that most people prefer to send tell. That's an unnecessary step that can be avoided entirely. People simply prefer clarity, and that's where your argument to type the word "Elite" in your description is arguably valid.

As for your idea of a new experiment, it's not a bad idea - Go for it!

[Guenalicious]

What level is your ranger?

[Postumus]

I think what the OP posted is kind of funny, but I don't see the need for such a test myself. My experiences have been closer to Mobrien's I suppose.

I post an LFM and I accept any who applies. If they misread or didn't read the LFM (or if I forgot to update it) and they find out we are running a quest or difficulty they don't want to run (or can't run) then 99/100 they usually apologize and drop with no hard feelings on either side.

[morticianjohn]

If they did not know that you can do that, then they probably shouldn't be questing with the OP for both their sakes.

As I said, I was doing playing for a year or more before I discovered that function in the grouping panel. I was running epics and while I have never been one of the best players I can certainly contribute to any party at any pace. I guess it's not the norm to send tells but a lot of people do send tells to party leaders when browsing through the grouping panel. I don't want to say the OP is being negative towards those players because clearly that isn't the case although I've been a part of many discussions on the forums about this topic where people have gotten very upset because they get so many tells when they post an LFM. If you post an LFM you're going to get tells and specifically quest difficulty is one that gets a lot of tells (if you don't put it in the description) for good reason.

Just because certain people can not bother to look at the mouse over doesn't mean it's useless. It's defaulted on Normal, therefore if the leader took the split second to click on Elite then the quest is going to be on Elite.

And we've all joined that group where the PL had gotten done with a quest on elite and didn't change it back for the next quest. LFM says "mindsunder" description "in progress" and the mouseover says "elite". Really the PL had gotten done with I dream of jeets elite but he'd rather farm mindsunder on normal. So you make your way over to IQ and find out the guy is in on normal. Waste of time when it takes 2 seconds to verify.

This is why I say the mouseover (sometimes the description also but less often IME) is useless. Many people don't bother and the ones who do are frequently negligent.

[Ilindith]

what level is your ranger?

11

[Postumus]

And we've all joined that group where the PL had gotten done with a quest on elite and didn't change it back for the next quest. LFM says "mindsunder" description "in progress" and the mouseover says "elite". Really the PL had gotten done with I dream of jeets elite but he'd rather farm mindsunder on normal. So you make your way over to IQ and find out the guy is in on normal. Waste of time when it takes 2 seconds to verify.

This is why I say the mouseover (sometimes the description also but less often IME) is useless. Many people don't bother and the ones who do are frequently negligent.

No kidding. I think part of the problem is that you have to manually type the quest in the LFM. It would be nice if the LFM just displayed whatever quest you were in. Yeah I know you can do that by looking at the party members, but a lot of people don't bother with that either.

[Dracey]

As I said, I was doing playing for a year or more before I discovered that function in the grouping panel. I was running epics and while I have never been one of the best players I can certainly contribute to any party at any pace. I guess it's not the norm to send tells but a lot of people do send tells to party leaders when browsing through the grouping panel. I don't want to say the OP is being negative towards those players because clearly that isn't the case although I've been a part of many discussions on the forums about this topic where people have gotten very upset because they get so many tells when they post an LFM. If you post an LFM you're going to get tells and specifically quest difficulty is one that gets a lot of tells (if you don't put it in the description) for good reason.

You misunderstood me, I meant the potential applicant would have been incompatible with the original poster in game at that particular time due to play style differences among other things. Not that the LFM-negligent-applicant would know, but OP has a no hand holding policy. That is what I meant when I said that the applicant probably shouldn't be questing with OP for both their sakes.

And we've all joined that group where the PL had gotten done with a quest on elite and didn't change it back for the next quest. LFM says "mindsunder" description "in progress" and the mouseover says "elite". Really the PL had gotten done with I dream of jeets elite but he'd rather farm mindsunder on normal. So you make your way over to IQ and find out the guy is in on normal. Waste of time when it takes 2 seconds to verify.

This is why I say the mouseover (sometimes the description also but less often IME) is useless. Many people don't bother and the ones who do are frequently negligent.

You have not explained why it is useless but you have instead explained how it is misused and neglected. If you're going to insist that it's useless then please be more precise as to not include me. It is useless to you and a number of people but not to every single person. Likewise it is useful to me and a number of people but not every single person.

we've all joined that group...

Not me. I'm sure many have, but you can not claim all

[morticianjohn]

You misunderstood me, I meant the potential applicant would have been incompatible with the original poster in game at that particular time due to play style differences among other things. Not that the LFM-negligent-applicant would know, but OP has a no hand holding policy. That is what I meant when I said that the applicant probably shouldn't be questing with OP for both their sakes.

I'm telling you that there are many players out there who could help the OP speed up the quest, and be self sufficient who still send a tell asking for verification on quest difficulty. They either don't look at the mouseover purposefully or they don't know how to view the quest difficulty via the mouseover. I am telling you that I was one such player for months. You say that "they probably shouldn't be questing with the OP for both their sakes" but you don't know what the probability of that is. In my experience that is a false statement and so I was sharing that so that everyone could see both sides of the coin rather than the very negative light that puggers get put into based on reading the OP.

I haven't taken a 3-5 hour snapshot of this so everything I'm saying is based upon the experiences I've had as group leader over the past 2 years on Cannith. I've done a little for favor on Sarlona too but for the most part my experience is cannith. I do doubt that the server has any relevance to this matter but just wanted to make it clear.

TLDR: Pugging is not as bad as it's being represented in the OP. If you remove some of the more obscure elements of this experiment you will get drastically different results. This is my opinion based on the experiences I've had in the game.

[Ilindith]

ITLDR: Pugging is not as bad as it's being represented in the OP.

It is for me. Or maybe I'm just an ******* and no one really wants to group with me.

[Dracey]

I'm telling you that there are many players out there who could help the OP speed up the quest, and be self sufficient who still send a tell asking for verification on quest difficulty. They either don't look at the mouseover purposefully or they don't know how to view the quest difficulty via the mouseover. I am telling you that I was one such player for months. You say that "they probably shouldn't be questing with the OP for both their sakes" but you don't know what the probability of that is. In my experience that is a false statement and so I was sharing that so that everyone could see both sides of the coin rather than the very negative light that puggers get put into based on reading the OP.

I haven't taken a 3-5 hour snapshot of this so everything I'm saying is based upon the experiences I've had as group leader over the past 2 years on Cannith. I've done a little for favor on Sarlona too but for the most part my experience is cannith. I do doubt that the server has any relevance to this matter but just wanted to make it clear.

TLDR: Pugging is not as bad as it's being represented in the OP. If you remove some of the more obscure elements of this experiment you will get drastically different results. This is my opinion based on the experiences I've had in the game.

Okay, I'm going to state this one final time. In the specific case of Distributed at the time of his initial experiment, any person who cannot understand his LFM and requires to send him a tell has an extremely high chance of being in Distributed's way (Getting lost, dying, rage quitting, whatever the case). You may be fine, but you are in a small pool of whom Distributed is less likely to bump into. You won't understand until you've ran with him.

It is for me. Or maybe I'm just an ******* and no one really wants to group with me.

Nah, you're not an *******, at least not with my encounters. I think you just hate to waste time waiting for a group to fill. So while you're solo-ing half way past xxx quest, the good players who would have liked to run with you decide not to because they don't want to incur late xp penalty -> leaving a higher ratio of bad players to hit your LFM. This is just speculation.

[Kages]

It is for me. Or maybe I'm just an ******* and no one really wants to group with me.

Must have gone to the same ******* school as me. What year did you grad.?

[Ilindith]

Must have gone to the same ******* school as me. What year did you grad.?

I learned on my own.