Discussing the Multiplayer Aspect of Guildwars

I would like to point on "Increase X" if you group with real player, this is one of the better way to increase PUG that I can think of (as far as my experience on playing online mmorpg kind of style).

Example:
"Increase 5% own Golds drop, Item drop chances, and Experiences gain from kill, for every other player on your group"

re-phrase

"Increase Fun for every other player on your group"

Note: Henchman(s) and Hero(s) do not count for this bonus. (8 members contains 1 player with 3 heros and 4 Henchman do not get any bonus)

1 Player = 0% Increase
2 Players = 5% Increase
3 Players = 10% Increase
4 Players = 15% Increase
5 Players = 20% Increase
6 Players = 25% Increase
7 Players = 30% Increase
8 Players = 35% Increase
9 Players = 40% Increase
10 Players = 45% Increase
11 Players = 50% Increase
12 Players = 55% Increase

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This kind of behavior will motivate player to join/playing with others player

I don't hate guildwars players and i don't hate PUGs
What i do hate is people wanting to "force people to ....."

Sometimes i play with hero/hench, sometimes i play with PUGs. The world is not black and white because YOU think it is.

Alot of people play it like this, especially the casual players. They don't have a fixed playstyle, it changes with the goals for that moment and the time available.

Having a kick feature would only discourage random groups further.
It would take only once for a player to experience this:

A group of 6 is looking for an ele and a ranger disruptor to do a particular mission/area. The group fills in the 2 slots perfectly, proceeds to the spot in the mission/area where the ele and the ranger are needed most, completes that section with ease....then kicks the 2 unneeded players from the group to continue on with 6 people for better drop rates, or even a better chance at that special item dropped by that special boss wherever they may be headed.

After having this happen to a player even once would be worse than them not finding a group on a regular basis. And if you think kicking by vote would work, let's say all 6 were friends and were already planning to vote the other 2 out anyway?

In essence....soooooo not a good idea, as quoted by freekedoutfish.

Alright I came back a few month break hoping for some news about the amazingness of nightfall and the fact that heroes had finally fixed every little complaint i had ever had with the game.

This scares me

Im not to scared about the dieing out of the community, frankly, thats been happening since day 1 and wont get better any time soon, what scares me is the isolation of the new gw players as they enter a game only to find that the only way to play is solo, the only way to meet freinds is to enter a guild, and the only way to learn new builds is on an online forum.

Come on guys, we are talking about the stagnation of Guild Wars. And no one has givin a decent idea on how to solve this problem.

Sure, every one has been saying, fix the grouping system, but has anyone offered ideas on how to? You can't expect Anet to fix every problem and with this I agree with the author.

Anyways, here is my solution:

1. Implement a /lfg and a /glf command.

The /lfg would do 2 things: first It would spam your name, lvl, time played on that character, guild(where applicable), and Primary/Secondary Profession at predetermined intervals(like 1 minute between spam). Second, It would display a marker above your head and on the radar (only visible to people who use the /glf command). Example: /lfg "Luthain Tunavail{mad} lvl 20 Ele/Mo has played for 12 secs and is lfg for ..."
You need to state all relevent data so as to put yourself "out on the market" so to speak. Also, the marker above your head simplifies the looking for process of the group leader. It makes you a spamming henchman.

The /glf command would work similar to the /lfg command. First, it would spam the group leaders name, the number of players in your group, the average lvl of the group, name of guild hosting group (if more than 50% of the group is from 1 guild) and the purpose of your group.
Example: /glf mission/bonus "Luthain Tunavail leader of a 7 player lvl 20 group looking for more for mission/bonus"
Example: /glf "Feonor Morgorth{mad} leader of a 1 player lvl 20 group looking for more"
Second, It would allow you to see the lfg on your radar for that area (this is disabled once your group is filled or you join a different group). Similar explanation as that of the /lfg command. To state a group purpose just type something in after the space after /glf (leave blank if your just looking for more players)

I think this might be to much information and would cause a HUGE spam problem, so please, help me wittle away the extra or add something I missed so we can fix this problem.

Idea: Create a coop or 'community' title track for # of missions completed with a full group of players (or at least half real players). People who want to PUG can then wear this title when looking to coop with real people, and the further along the title, the more we can infer that this person can be trusted to play nice with others. Ideally this would be account based so if you did work on increasing it you wouldn't be restricted to a single character when using it to attempt to get groups. Awarding credit retroactively would be nice, but I doubt that would be easy even if they have that data somewhere. Unfortunately without retroactive credit, you'd likely see even fewer people working on this title if everyone has to start from scratch.

Another related, less favored idea: make masters reward require a full group of people. I'm not sure I like that idea myself, they might as well rename is masochist's reward if you try to earn that with PuGs.

Related request: If/when they do enhance the LFG system I'd like to have a way to put myself on standby for many missions at once, without having to wait around in the mission hub on a particular character. Like if I needed several different missions across different characters, I flag those on my account for other accounts/people in the network of people who had upped their coop title or something similar. So perhaps someone I trusted or who achieved some level of coop cred could see that:

Account 1
Character 1 W/Mo
Waijun Bazaar (Masters)
Unwaking Waters (Masters)

Character 2 A/N
Pogahn Passage (Normal)

People who bothered to look at that could either chat with me or use some auto group function to form a group.

The advantage I see to this is, upping the title is its own reward - if you enjoy meeting random people for mission hookups, you'll work toward this title. If you don't, you can totally ignore this title and it's unlikely to attract an element that would just be doing it for increased drops. And the title would presumably mean something to others looking for that experience (either your guildies helped you or you actually had to get along with random people to up the title). Sadly it doesn't really do anything to help the distribution problem (too many missions, not enough players, have to sit in one mission hub at a time to form groups) unless they add some kind of universal group forming feature that helps you find people working on the title. It would suck to work on such a title and then have it mean nothing (because you can't find anyone else who cares).

Excellent post, except I disagree with the inclusion of rank when you are looking for a group.

I liken the process to a prospective employee looking for work. You do NOT go around saying this is what you want, but what you have to offer.

In that spirit GLF can be implemented in such a fashion so the group can decide on the class of the new party member (ie: monk) as well as specify up to 3 skills that they require for their build (ie: divert hexes, protective spirit, mend condition) to do something (mission/quest/boss). A monk can then join the outpost, click on a button to see a list of groups seeking a monk, and the system will automatically sift through his list of complete quests/missions etc to filter out the groups that are unsuitable to you.

The specification of quests/boss can be implemented by a drag drop interface. You either drag the quest from your active quests to the GLF tab, or you specify that it is a boss cap, and a list of avatars representing bosses in the surrounding zones (up to 3 layers deep, say) will be available for selection. The avatars can be generated in much the same way as our player avatars are generated under the [H]ero tab.