Leo “Ransroth” Zelevinsky wrote a great Developer Diary about the new Instance Finder coming up on Update 5. Actually, it’s not so much a traditional Developer Diary as much as it is a tutorial similar to Goldenstar’s about how to use the Instance finder utilizing a system of questions and answers that he has received from the community. Although this is a unique format for a Developer Diary, I think it is quite suitable considering how many questions were posed on the forums once the Instance Finder was announced. Although it makes for a bit of a long read, I think that most people will gain a good perspective on what the system is and is not able to to do when it is released in Update 5. For example:
Q: Why are some roles grayed out?
A: For each class, our system design team has decided what roles they think that class should be able to select, and the other roles are grayed out. For example, the screenshots above could be from a Rune-Keeper.
Q: How do I use Instance Finder to get matched up for a 6-man Tier 1 skirmish?
A: Open the panel by hitting Shift-F or using the Main Menu. Select the roles you are interested/able to perform in a Fellowship at the top of the panel. Select only the “Skirmish” button on the left, only the “6″ button in the middle, and only the Tier I on the right. Once all of your choices are locked in, click on the “Join” button. The Instance Finder will go to work trying to find a group and a skirmish for you.
The list of questions is really invaluable in my opinion and should go a long way to answer any concerns and/or questions about the upcoming system. Some of the informational highlights include:
- When you use the Instance Finder you will
- Earn more of the new Instance Currancey (Marks/Medallions/Seals)
- Have a small power and morale buff.
- You will need to be level 20 to use the system.
- You may use a pre-built (partial or full) group with the Instance Finder
- Once you enter an instance there will be text placed in the chat area indicating each player’s name and the role they were assigned.
- Group makeup will be enforced using the following rules:
- 3-mans will have at least a healer or a defence player (tank)
- 6-mans will always have a healer and a defence player
- Level 75 players should only be put into level 75 encounters; players of other levels may be matched to encounters within 4 levels of theirs.
So, in case you can’t tell I am really looking forward to this tool’s release and I think it will be a good step forward for LOTRO. Although, I fully reserve the right to change my mind once it has been finally been released; I think the Instance Finder will really give me a good opportunity to try some new dungeons out and perhaps even give me a shot at running some with my alts as well.
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December 6, 2011 at 4:20 pm
Instance Finder? is it me or is this going to be PUG blender?
December 6, 2011 at 7:32 pm
Well, it depends. Considering that it’s not cross-server there’s going to be a lot more accountability than other games. Also remember that you can use it with a pre-made group.
December 6, 2011 at 4:54 pm
I usually enjoy the dev diaries (although I’ll admit that the pre-Isengard diaries made my head explode). However, this seems bizarre to me.
I’ll admit, I’m not target audience: I’ve got characters at the level cap, and a Kinship, and time to find groups. This is clearly aimed at people who want to get started within a couple of minutes, irrespective of the quality of player they get grouped with.
I’m all for supporting casual players: I’m quite happy that they might be where Turbine’s money comes from, and this is intended to give them easy access to group content (which is a good thing, since so much of the original group content has been removed from the game). However, I can see potential issues with the way they’ve done it.
For example, if there’s an uncooperative player in the group, they can’t be punished: the fellowship leader (who is chosen at random) can’t boot them, or affect the loot rules. The only choice is for the people who object to leave the group (and for doing so, they’re very explicitly punished). Of course, this isn’t a problem as long as you don’t have badly behaved players. But with increased casual access, you also have an increased quantity of… people who should be taught the errors of their ways.
And if you’re an established player, but can’t completely fill a fellowship (for example, you’ve got 4 or 5 players already), you’re now *forced* to group up with a random person (possibly even somebody on your ignore list!). Which might be mutually shocking, if you’re a Guardian and get assigned to a group of 5 Minstrels! (I’m presuming the Minstrels wouldn’t necessarily want a Guardian, but might be trying the content without, just for giggles).
Of course, if you don’t want to use the Fellowship Finder you’re not forced to. You can voluntarily decide to reject the bonuses that the Finder would give you. Or, to put it another way, accept your punishment. ‘Cos, y’know: you’re just not doing it the Turbine way.
December 6, 2011 at 5:09 pm
I disrespectful disagree with your opinion. While there’s a chance that said uncooperative player may appear, I have never encountered such person in year or so playing. So people that actually may be troubled by this obviously won’t use the Instance Finder since they can find groups of people by themselves, the causal audience (such as myself) won’t have troubles with it
December 6, 2011 at 5:10 pm
I forgot to add, they should add a voting system to kick uncooperative or AFK players
December 6, 2011 at 5:20 pm
That’s fine. I may be wrong (and I hope I am!). The tantrums I see daily on GlobalLFF are not a representative sample. But they are a public sample. See also Bryandt’s post below: this is a demonstration of somebody who’s invested enough to be on the beta server, but still manages to be a PITA. *Some* kind of feedback system would be preferable.
December 7, 2011 at 7:30 am
You have been lucky! Some of us have had to put up with selfish, grasping uncooperative players who only think of themselves and been know to get the entire party wiped!
December 6, 2011 at 5:11 pm
I managed to get into a group via Instance Finder on Bullroarer. I was playing my healing-specced minstrel and it paired me with two Lore-Masters. We were successful to a degree. We went and downed the first boss. One LM one a necklace, went “Oooo, shiney!” and then dropped group. Me and the other LM wondered what that was about for a second and then went on to beat the second boss. We didn’t finish the instance, though. Didn’t even try the last boss because the E&G had just opened back up and the logistics of two squishy classes trying to deal with that many ravens was less appealing.
So, I can only conclude from my sole experience running with an IF group is that once this goes live it should be interesting. In the Chinese sense.
December 6, 2011 at 6:14 pm
“May you live in interesting times” or maybe “instancing times” in this case.
December 6, 2011 at 6:05 pm
Having never played a game with this feature, I still don’t understand what it is for. If they wanted people to try more instances, couldn’t they have just cranked up the rewards in the lesser-run spaces or nerfed the rewards in the School and Library?
December 6, 2011 at 7:38 pm
Wouldn’t work. Once the community finds the easiest path, more people do it, so more people know and understand the instance so more people do it because they know it and know that others know it… and it all becomes a self fulfilling circle.
Already in the moria cluster there were instances that had a better time/reward ratio than grand stairs (specifically skumfil and forges HM) and which weren’t particularly hard if you’d been in there before. But the community knew and understood grand stairs. So that’s what got done. over and over and over and over agin.
In short, the barrier to people playing other/different instances is more than just time/reward. It’s the fear of the unknown and the real challenge of getting to a position of knowing the instance so that it becomes less feared and more likely to succeed.
December 6, 2011 at 10:45 pm
Ah. Good to know. I do hope it works as intended.
December 7, 2011 at 12:42 am
school/lib is already taken care of anyway- in the builds that had been on bullroarer neither of them were dropping seals. the isen 3 mans do though so they’re already a better option from a loot perspective (not to mention the sigil fragments for the necklaces which only drop from the new instances afaik).
December 6, 2011 at 11:53 pm
I”m looking forward to it. Makes it easier to just jump into things and encourages people to spread out a bit.
December 7, 2011 at 3:01 am
As long they allow me to choose the instance and to either raise or disminish the level of it depending of the wayu i want to play (easy or hard mode), i have nothing against. If not then i will simply not use it.
December 7, 2011 at 7:28 am
It doesn’t encourage them, it punishes them if they don’t!
December 7, 2011 at 10:14 am
Well, I’m not sure that I consider not buffing someone a punishment. It’s exactly how it is now and it’s how it would be if this never existed.
December 7, 2011 at 1:05 pm
It’s about as much of a punishment, though, as wanting to run the same instance more than once in the current system. My play times can vary terribly, but on short sessions the incentive currently is to run the shortest/easiest daily rewards and on long sessions I can find myself out of dailies on the content that I like.
I personally really abhor the concept of dailies, as it boils down to incentivizing when you play the content. I’d rather have incentive on what you play (even if it is random) then when you play it. U6 hopefully will be the next step in the right direction and allow us to “uncheck” the content that we don’t care for while still remaining a random, unlimited selection among content we like.
December 7, 2011 at 4:08 am
Well, can’t deny I won’t be using the pug blender myself. Laurelin has had a dwindling player base (no doubt will be worse some swtor) so it will be handy. Am worried though at what it will do to the players though. Either everyone will learn to be more tolerant (can but hope) or the less may occur. It is just a worry and one we can but wait and see…but can but hope we can all get along better with now being blended together more randomly.
December 7, 2011 at 7:26 am
There has been a lot of moaning about the instance finder already amongst my kinship. In particular about the way that players are punished for not using the instance finder because they want to play specific instances. If you allow the instance finder to put you into a random instance of its choice you get the bonuses. If however you want to play a favourite instance you cannot use the instance finder and your rewards are slashed as punishment for not doing what Turbine wants.
December 7, 2011 at 12:29 pm
I look forward to at least trying this out, and agree with Merric that this is a good step forward for LotRO. IMO, all dev diaries should be written like this, as a Q&A or roundtable.
December 7, 2011 at 12:45 pm
There was a comment on the forums that really crystallized for me why this new addition to the game seemed problematic to me: Turbine has created an “Instance Finder,” not a (better) “Group Finder.” That is, it seems to be trying to fulfill a need that isn’t really there, when what is needed is a better way to look for other players to group with for specific content. I will definitely give this a try and see how it goes, but I am skeptical.
December 7, 2011 at 1:16 pm
I’ll give the Instance Finder credit. It’ll be good for those, “HNT LFF any instance.” people.
December 7, 2011 at 1:14 pm
Tinfoil hat time.
While I think Turbine should have held off on this new system until the ability to select the instance you wanted was available, my conspiracy sense tells me they were told to push this out. One of the two big complaints I’ve heard about RoI not being an ‘expansion’ versus a ‘quest pack’ is that RoI didn’t give us a new ‘system’. MoM gave us Legendary Items, Mirkwood gave us Skirmishes. Well, now RoI gives us the Instance Finder. Just a few months late, like the instance cluster. Now RoI is officially an expansion. If the Instance Finder was pushed back an Update to allow them to fully flush it out, it would have been harder to claim that it was supposed to be part of RoI.
But that’s just my paranoia speaking. I’m looking forward to it myself. My kinship on my main server is all but dead right now so this would give me the opportunity to run instances that I might not have otherwise.