Feldon From Rothgar on the EQ2 Forums:
Hey guys, we understand that many of you feel strongly against this change. This is why we put things on test, right? We still have a couple of weeks before GU61 hits live. We’re busy finishing up GU61 and fixing bugs, so don’t expect daily responses from us on these issues, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t discussing them internally.
UPDATE: We have added an additional quote from Rothgar.
Alenna@Guk wrote:
and still the Devs see fit to ignore the concerns of the majority of the comunicating playerbase on this issue.
Can we get an acknowledgment here from a Red please.
give this to us as a OPTION or roll it back do not put it as is in the live servers.
Rothgar continued:
To the contrary, we’re listening and we’ve decided to remove this restriction for now. We might bring it back as a dungeon-finder restriction in the future if we see negative behavior regarding loot in these dungeon finder groups.
Atan@Unrest wrote:
The lack of response can be translated to the devs didn’t want this change as it is either, but their management didn’t give them a choice.
Atleast, historically thats what it means…
Rothgar continued:
Not really. I’ll admit that I was a supporter of this change. Mostly in part to the large number of people asking for it to be this way from day 1 that NBG was implemented. That coupled with the fact that I know when you are in a random PUG there will be many times that people will take an upgrade from you so they can transmute it or sell it. Sure, you can boot them and not group with them again, but after they take an item you’ve been trying to get for months, it’ll be too late.
So to recap…
1. We put changes on Test server precisely to get this kind of feedback from the community.
2. We watch and read the forums and are aware of your concerns even if we don’t respond frequently.
3. We always discuss your feedback internally and are willing to re-think our decisions.
4. There’s no reason to insult or disparage the dev team for something that we are trying on test or for not responding frequently to a post. As you can see, your feedback on these forums is all that is required to get your point across.
Thanks for being passionate about the game and taking the time to try these features out on Test!
Here is a followup quote from Rothgar in the same thread:
The idea isn’t being scrapped, we are just back-burnering it. (Is that a word?)
The change was a simple one and undoing that change is fast. Implementing entirely new group options that require saving those locally, communicating them with the server and working with the “Default Group Options” controls takes a lot more work. We don’t have the time to implement it as an option at the moment. If it becomes a problem in the future we can carve out time for an option or to enforce it in a DF group.
Not to mention EQII already has 2,543,345,756,234,754,961 options and I try to scrutenize every new option very closely. New options are great for people that already have a good grasp on the game, but so many options can be very daunting to new players that don’t understand why those options are there.
Also with the dungeon finder, how do you determine which option setting gets chosen? Say that 6 people all queue up for a dungeon separately, 3 of them have the option on and 3 have the option off. When the matchmaker assembles the group and throws them into the dungeon, which option does it choose? The “group leader” of the matchmaker group should not have any more power than any other member of the group and that’s why we are adding the “vote to kick” option, so it can be handled democratically. If a single person in the group possessed the power to set the options and kick players, he could easily boot people to set himself up to be in a better position to win loot.
Things like loot options will be fixed for the dungeon finder because I’m sure people wouldn’t like being thrown into a group with “Leader Only Loot” turned on and they aren’t given any upgrades.
Commentary
I think the Need Before Greed change, as announced at Fan Faire, was a great idea to stop some of the problems in Pick-up Groups (PuGs). However players have expressed their concern about how disruptive and unnecessary this change would be for Guild Groups, or otherwise Groups where the members know each other, or Raids. A middle ground would have been to add it as another choice beyond Need Before Greed.
What was the change that was made on test?
This makes me laugh a little because I can play in groups all night and never win an item in an instance zone due to having the most horrible dice in the game. My rolls are always on the bottom of the barrel so to speak, but I do come away with having a good time (usually) with the group and that accounts for something.
speedycerv,
They reverted it back to regular Need Before Greed.
I think he meant, what was the original change to NBG on Test. If that’s the case, it’s this: When using Need-Before-Greed loot options, players will no longer be able to select “Need” on equipment, spell scrolls and item patterns that they cannot use.
Silly thought, but to save a ton of programming later, wouldn’t the obvious answer to;
“Also with the dungeon finder, how do you determine which option setting gets chosen? Say that 6 people all queue up for a dungeon separately, 3 of them have the option on and 3 have the option off. When the matchmaker assembles the group and throws them into the dungeon, which option does it choose? ”
be to simply ahve the dungeon finder only pair up people with the same options checked? Problem solved….
I am looking forward to Dungeon Finder. We’ve needed an upgraded LFG tool for a long time.
i find it interesting.. people have been whining on the official forums, but all the people in my guild, have found no problem with this when assigning guild or alt loot…
how about a loot option specific for dungon finder that at the begining it asks you to pick a class that you will be looting for (reguardless of your class)and then that is the only class you can loot for just in case you wanna loot for an alt that idea would work?
I just never saw (and still don’t see) the need for this change. Appaently there are TONS of jerk players out there in groups that steal every piece of loot that hits the ground. *shrug*. Personally, I’ve never seen this as a serious problem. If a player in my group takes a piece of loot he/she shouldn’t, or without an explanation IE: “I’m going to roll for my bruiser if that’s ok with everyone” (which in my experience is always asked before a group gets rolling)… that player better explain why or *poof*, they’re kicked out. This is generally how it goes when someone wants to roll for something other than the class they happen to be playing. Putting the new ‘No Need’ option in would require players to ask EACH group/raid member: “ok, i’d like to get that for my wizard, can I please get everone to hit decline??” Just seems like it’s adding more hurdles than helping.
I only hope we even get a dungeon finder,you have to understand not everyone likes guilds or has 20 friends online,or even wants to,so this tool is important to us, I don’t enjoy spamming trade for a groups,that’s why it’s named trade chat,not lfg chat.
I think they should have both options, so you can choose NBG and then ad like “PUG option” and “Ally Option” or something stupid like that, just so you can pick between the two.