Party Search Feedback

I'm not quite sure that this thread is about the new Party Search addition anymore. I think it's the entire party search issue coming to a head after quietly simmering in the background for the past year or so since its inception. Mostly the frustration of limited text space, and the fact that Arenanet didn't do anything about it. And, to my knowledge, never even acknowledged it until everyone here exploded about being forced to use it yesterday. And, becuase of that, it's also turned into a thread aimed at expressing how discontented people feel about a lack of apperant communication about new features, and what players really want vs. what Arenanet thinks we want.

That's just my take on it though

Now not only do we get less space in the Party Search window message box, but if we use the most common Buy/Sell phrases WTB and WTS we get less space in the trading channel too. Now "Buying..." and "Selling..." is taking the place of the crippled "WTB" and "WTS".

Ludicrous. Love the idea. Absolutely hate the implementation, even moreso than before. They actually made trading WORSE.

*sigh* Sorry, Lyra, there were so many posts with rude comments in them in this thread that i just picked yours at random to reply to :P

Gaile and ANet are not forcing people to use party search. It is useable. People just need to learn how to use it.

Things are rarely perfect. We know there are limitations within which we play the game, and indeed the devs and Gaile even work within certain limitations. That is life; I tend to find it more useful when people get on with it and work with it rather than against it. Constructive critisisim is useful, swearing and ranting saying things like, "retarded" "stupid" "bullshit" "worthless piece of crap", "lack of braincells of some "developers" from anet is starting to p#ss me off", arent useful, and in fact are insults and flames.

Traders can simply type anything other than 'wts' if they want more chars to describe their wares. They can use trade and party search if they wish.

That being said, remember that sellers need buyers... and buyers (unless they are just window shopping for a bargain) tend to be looking for something specific.
So if i am looking for a max axe or a +30hp shield mod etc.. i can simply look at party search for any text along those lines... 30 chars is plenty for that.
It helps the buyer out.. which in turn helps the seller out.

This update will mean that i will actually be buying from sellers (so more business for the traders), which i rarely did before because i would rather go and farm an item than put up with the trade spam.

Gaile and ANet are giving us more options and attempting to make party search more useful for a number of factors, not just trading.

I am seeing many more pugs being formed quicker and easier with less chat spam now. Over time more and more people will get in the habit of looking at party search before typing looking for a group, i know i am.

We can see the makeup of said groups - it tells location, and class loadout of the group, so that doesnt need to go in text.

I urge people to give it some time to settle in, work with the system, and see how it goes, then give some constructive critisim. We know that ANet listens to us, but i suggest that we make their visits to our boards here a more pleasant experience rather than one they may come to resent. That is simply common sense.

We also know that ANet do look to us for comments on the updates... appreciate that fact a moment.. and know that if we can show that something can be tweaked in a better way...that that actually does get listened to, sometimes very quickly. So i have confidence that if we can show that party search can be better tweaked, and if it is possible..then ANet will do its best to do so.

Of course we can say we dont like something, just dont do it in such an agressive manner, and do suggest alternatives that are feasable. Remember we are the ones that want listened to. Would you want to listen to a bunch of people rant on, some quite rudely? There are some good posts amongst this thread, the problem is that the poor posts can tend to mask those constructive posts. It would be best for us all if the constructive posts outweiged the poorly thought out posts.

EDIT- heh.. i just read, on the update thread, a reply from Gail addressing concerns already. Ive quoted the parts relevant to this thread re party search. Gail's full post is found here.

Here's one thing I noticed while fooling about with party search this evening, and it will probably sound pretty stupid to a lot of you! When you mouse over a message in the party window, it comes up with more information. Who the person is, what their message is, where they are, basically all the stuff it shows in the main window. How about if you typed in Trade chat;

"WTS Sundering Crystaline Sword of Fortitude, 15%^50, 20/20, +30, Req. 9, 100k+177 ectos" or whatever. That appears in normal trade chat, then in party search, it shows up as "WTS Sundering Crystaline Sword..." (observing the thirty character limit). Then when you mouse over it, it shows the entire ad. Those interested in a Sword of that manner could mouse over it for more information, those more interested in... I don't know, let's say beer could ignore it and look for another ad more applicable to their tastes.

enough said about the limitation of the the PS by everyone. I just want to add my 2c on how I have been using it
- PS is very useful now for item that needs short description like "WTS Dwayna's Grace 20K".
- For longer description items, WT S or W T S are what needed. Sorry Arnet you make us do so.

And oh the last thing I too don't buy it when Gaile said increasing char limit in PS is IMPOSSIBLE. Hard or time consuming is a more reasonable explaination to easily avoid customers from being upset.

I don't understand why ppl still keep spamming >>SHORT<< lines typing W T S to avoid the party search. Whats so bad about this systems that puts youre WTS line in the party search.

I really love the sytem. If i need some kind of mod i post i type it once and within a few minutes i have a pm from a seller! Before this update i had to spam for hours to get a non rare mod and my eyes got red from staring to the chat lines.

Give me 1 reason not to add youre item buy/sell line in the party search. Its clear that the line is too short if you want to add more item information. But thats the only reason i can think off. The advantages of the system are:

- you don't have to spam!
- youre WTS line is displayed in all districts
- you don't have to stare at the chat for hours to find youre item
- there is no extra work for adding a line to the party search
- you can instandly add ppl to youre party if they are interested in sell/buying even if they arent in the same district.

I did some research if you can call it like that, lol

I asked ppl who like the system to type 1, else 2

I got:

1: 395

2: 56

1 and 2 (yes some ppl who just said they want more space): 42

Clear enough for me :-)

good job Anet

(I just did this ingame in lions arch - kamadan)

Makes no sense to me, either.

The good thing about this update is that it got more people using PS, and the people who never looked at it before because there was never anything in there are looking now.

Because I've already got an item for sale posted in the window. That's it. Big deal, bypass the filter when selling other items and that's not a problem.

Alright, let's cut to the chase. My argument here isn't who thinks this is a good thing, who thinks this is a bad thing. My argument is simple: When people are using the trade system as intended, not being disruptive or bothersome to the general community, they don't like being forced to change the way they sell. You can include me in that. This is an issue of force, and I don't think that's right, period.

Pick your battles. If people aren't being a bother, leave them alone. Save your powers for when a situation requires you to intervene. I think that's what the devs should be focused on.

There are a number of issues that warrant comments.

First, the changes to trade chat haven't made a lick of difference. People have been using the Party Search, ineffectual or no, to buy and sell as well as spam Local and Trade chat. I don't know if ANet assumed PS would cut down on spamming but it hasn't and never will.

I think people are misunderstanding what Gaile meant when she said that changing the character limit was impossible. There's very little thats truly impossible to achieve with code. But with restraints on time and budget alot of things become impossible. I'm sure if we all paid a monthly fee ANet could hire a whole nother team of designers, dedicated to implementing stuff like an auction house and an increased character limit. But we don't and so what changes we get are entirely dependent on the budget alloted to GW and whatever time the design team has.

What's needed is some sort of trade system similar to Pokemon's GTS. You could post your item, name your price, and walk away. There'd be a window where you could keep track of what you were trading/buying/selling and who you did business with. This way there's be no scamming(let's not forget the Mursaat token debacle...) and everyone gets what they want. A system like this would probably be cheaper and easier to implement than an auction house. People would make less money but so what. *lol*

Maplestory has a system like that. Conquer Online has a system like that. Knight Online (trust me, never play that game) has a system like that. I also wonder why GW doesn't institute this kind of system. It doesn't seem like it would require near the level of work of an auction house, and while I'm sure some would be upset that it's not the perfect system, it would be alot better than what we have now. Perhaps that perfect system will take a long time to create, but in the mean time, we really do need something better than this. Instituting a short term improvement would probably be enough to hold most people over until a better long term improvement is feasible.

Fying, Kook~NBK~, Did you guys read any of the preceding posts at all? This entire thread has explained this numerous, dare I say, lots, of times.

Here is an example of why I would do it;

W T S= "W T S Sundering Crystaline Sword of Fortitude, 15-22 req. 9, 20/20, 15%^50, +30 PM OFFERS!!!"

WTS= "Party Search- Sundering Crystaline Sword of "

It cuts off the message in both normal Trade Chat (which is my main beef with it) and in Party Search. There isn't even enough room to type out the entire name of many items. WTS works great for small, named items that don't require explanation. For instance a Book of Secrets for 20k, or a Dwayna's Grace for 30k. But if you're trying to sell a Weapon, including some greens, there isn't enough space to type out the name, let alone include the neccesary information to attract buyers (I.E. Price and mods).

What's ironic about this is that I don't trade very much, yet I'm still advocating for it.

i like the idea of the party search thing, but the implementation is lacking, the fact is tons of sellers dont use it anyway so you still have to be swamped in spam in dist 1.

Limited text is obviously an issue but on top of that searching through it is quite a pain, if they can put them into categories automatically how about a new category (well 2) called Selling and Buying, that way you can minimise the other areas and just focus on the part your interested in.

Cross district trading would be nice aswell, as atm many people dont accept invitations, so you end up having to change district and find them anyway. Maybe is not possible with the way the system is set up considering you have to touch someone to trade, but would make the whole system a lot better imo.

Party Search -, is horrible and should be removed do we really need to know that it has been added to the party window?

I think you didn't read my post carefully;

I see ppl spamming lines like this:

w.t.s normal rit tomes
W TS +30hp scyte mod
W T B E C T O S

WHy o why don't they want to have those lines in the party search?! I really don't get that.

If you need to give move information, stats etc., i do understand that you wont use party search for obvious reasons(also said this in my previous post...). Some ppl feel they are forced to use party search now but noone forces you to do anything. Party search is to make trading ALOT easier but if you don't want to use it then use the spaces and dots to avoid the filter and nothing changed to what it was before.

Hey, they really should add two lines per message (in party search). Can't see a thing inside the box. We'll have trouble selling minipet or gold weapon.

Add two more lines will enhance our grammar/spelling writing skill rather than showing chicken sausage in the public

This is not what was being discussed in my post. The discussion was about short messages, like the ones you mentioned here:

I've been saying the exact same thing here (look at page 1 or 2 of this thread) and in other threads about the PS window (before the update).

well imma skip reading all the pages but i dunno what the OP's beef is with an update that had absolutely negative in it....a few bug patches the party search thing and now additional spamming for everyone in trade chat. its not a solution to the trade problem but it is an added bonus. seriously though a huuuuuuuge huuuuuuuuuuuge update which ide assume would take very minimal amount of time and work from a-net would just be increased text length in party search, or being able to post several times (of course make a cap of 3-5 or so just so you dont see: )

spammer1- WTS USELESS JUNK 100k +200 Ectos
spammer1- WTS USELESS JUNK 100k +200 Ectos
spammer1- WTS USELESS JUNK 100k +200 Ectos
spammer1- WTS USELESS JUNK 100k +200 Ectos
spammer2-WTS Something decent 40k
spammer1- WTS USELESS JUNK 100k +200 Ectos
spammer1- WTS USELESS JUNK 100k +200 Ectos
spammer1- WTS USELESS JUNK 100k +200 Ectos
spammer1- WTS USELESS JUNK 100k +200 Ectos

Ah, okay. Very sorry Fying and Kook~NBK~, I misunderstood what that meant . Yeah, now that you mention it, that doesn't make any sense. The only thing I can come up with is that they are trying to get rid of the "Party Search-" tag to make it easier for indistrict scanners

I think I suggested something like this elsewhere. The only problem would be for potential buyers to recognize templates worth looking into. Of course, that could be solved by having the viewer's client unpack the template and construct a formulaic string out of it for display purposes. (ie Potential seller creates template "12345" via the dropdowns, server receives and retransmits "Template:12345," potential buyers' clients see "Template:12345" and display "WTS: Icy Fellblade (15^50, req 11, not inscr) of Defense (+4) - 3k - OBO.")

Another option, if we can't increase the field length, is to increase the alphabet's character depth. Ideally, there could be mouse-over-able characters that would display the full stats for an item. Then your message could be as simple as "WTS: <symbol>." Barring that, we'd still be a hell of a lot better off than we are now if we had some 1-character symbols for weapon types (sword, axe etc), and some common mods.

I'm alright with making the party search box a pre-defined size if it makes it easier for the programmers to write up a fix for wrapping text inside of each expandable section.

If you use any of the new "filtered" phrases like WTB or WTS, you also now get bound by the limits of the Party Search message length. The chat channel will let you type a longer message (because it's designed to have a longer message, as normal), but when you hit ENTER it gets cut off, even in trade chat.

I'm sure as hell not putting up with that. Plus, what about people who like to sell multiple things at once? Even before it was hard to advertise lots of items at once, and with a shorter message it's even worse. There's no way to choose which line I want listed in Party Search so I'm back to adding things in manually. ANet thinks we should only try to sell one thing at once now? Yeah, right.

Keep fighting the good fight and get those resources allocated to come up with a reasonable solution to this mess.

I suggested a very similar mechanism in another thread here

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10178679

the system already exist if you think about how the skill/equipment templates are stored and parsed. Also the template code would be automatically parsed, much like emoticons are parsed in web browsers when you type : followed by ) giving you a smiley face.

Yes, I know. Please read my preceding three (or so) posts.

ANYTHING that looks really simple to the user is a real pain to code. The simpler it looks, the more difficult the programming. That's what being a good programmer is all about, making really tricky things simple and easy for the users.

I guess that says a lot for the ANet developers: their users think everything is real easy.

Also remember that the one line changes to code often require 5 compilations.

Gaile:

Reading your post is insulting. If it is a real limitation in the game engine or network code used, let's say that it is as nobody not in the dev team can't really know, it is still something the game developers CAN fix/enhance/update. We know they are probably busy as hell with GW2 or with GN:EN but come on, don't blame it on 'the programming'. You can stream updates of about 690megs to all players even if we are not using the content yet, download stuff on demand, etc. but you can't make messages on the PS larger? It is just like the "technical" limitation that prevents anet from giving us more storage. There's no such technichal limitation for storage and there's no limitation for the search panel.

I was selling diamond aegis yesterday.
WTS req9 Tactic Diamond Aegis +30hp +10armor vs fire *Dyed Black*
After a damn 10 minute of spammin I saw my post:
WTS req9 Tactic Diamo(maybe bit longer)
So what I did:
WTSq9DIAMONaegis+30BLCK DY

like this
BEACUSE:
WTS DIAMOND AEGIS
isnt informatif enought

Actually, Gaile, it is us that should be embarrassed by this comment.
Gaile, I'd like to tell you why I play GuildWars. I hate PvE. I think that PvE is boring, pointless and generally a waste of time. In every game I play, I look for the PvP aspect- PvP offers much more excitement, challenge and fun than PvE does. There is no other game that offers the same quality and level of PvP that GuildWars does. We have so many different arenas, types of matches, and of course the glorious GvG. Most RPGs don't offer more than 1v1 duels and huge tons vs tons, which are both somewhat lame.
There are people that play GuildWars for the PvE it offers, and you devs always give them new things and events, as you said in your post. But what about the PvP community? As a PvP player, I feel that I am just being ignored by ArenaNet. We, the PvPers, don't play GuildWars just because it doesnt have monthly fee (as opposed to another game which I won't mention by name), we play GuildWars because it's an amazing game, PvP-wise.
The amazing PvP that I'm talking about is rapidly diminishing and dying out. The PvP community is decreasing constantly. Almost every player I know has already left the game, because the PvP that GuildWars offers nowadays is a bad joke of what it used to be. Gaile, your game is FALLING APART.
When was the last time that any of you devs has been to Heroes' Ascent? Do you have any idea of what's going on there? Do I have to tell you that 80% of the groups use (abuse might be more correct) heroes, since the heroes' AI is much better than any human player at some cases? And do you know that the rest of the groups either use an incredibly overpowered build (ritspike) or a build that's running for 2 years (IWAY)?
When was the last time that any of you has been to Random Arenas? Why do I have to tell you that about 75% of the matches aren't matches because of people that leave since there is no monk / they want to play with someone specific? Do you think how to solve that problem? Do you even care?
We, and I'm speaking on behalf of many players, are PvP players. Gaile, we DON'T CARE about expanded storage. We DON'T CARE about Hardmode. We DON'T CARE about a new festival hat. We DON'T CARE about Domain of Anguish. And we ESPECIALLY DON'T CARE about a Double-Signet-of-Capture-XP weekend.
We care about SKILL BALANCES. We care about FIXING HEROES' ASCENT. We care about FIXING RANDOM ARENA. Do you?
Gaile, when we say that we're disappointed with ArenaNet, we're not talking about the limited amount of characters in the Party Search window. We're talking about the PvP crumbling and you doing nothing about it.
Well, I can't blame you. Your goal is profit (nothing wrong with that) and you realized that the true treasure lies in PvE. PvE sells. I still can't see why does it mean ignoring the PvP community. Do you remember the first months of the game? Do you remember how frequent skill balances were, compared to nowadays? Now, there is a skill balance every 3-4 months, which is usually a joke that doesn't balance anything.
You devs said yourselves that you define GuildWars as a CORPG- a competitive online RPG. I know that lately you are avoiding those claims, but in the beginning you said that GuildWars is about PvP. And it truly was. And it was great. That went for some months. In a long process, that started at the Sorrow's Furnace update and is still going on, you shifted GuildWars to a PvE game. You said it yourself- Hardmode, Nightfall (a pure pve campaign), DoA, festivals... quoting your own words- The list is darn near endless. We hear so much about the PvE in GW:EN. Correct me if I'm wrong, but we didn't hear a word about the PvP there. GuildWars is changing from the unique PvP game it used to be to another copy of that same other game which I won't mention by name.
Yeah, I know that you're going to mention Automated Tournaments and reconnects. Those, while being great, don't change the fact that the PvP in Guildwars is crumbling.
You will probably classify this comment as another childish, ungrateful and petulant comment. I just want you to know that there are many many players that think like me. PvP is dying. So, before you make some triple iron ingot drop weekend, make a skill balance. Fix the sick mechanics in Heroes' Ascent. Solve the RA problem. We both agree that this is more important, don't we?

It seems obvious that you're not playing PvP very much..?

Normally you don't just type "glf monks 6/8", mainly in PvE / low-skilled you do that.

More likely to type: "Guild group lf r6+ boon prot(or whatever is currently popular) /w vent+mic" It just doesn't fit in the party search. You see?

That would be a valid arguement if people actually put more then, "glf monk" or what ever. With the exception of HA (and not always there either) it is assumed that a healing monk is what's needed. Very rarely do they add what for. I've been in towns/outposts adding hench and hero to skill cap and some random person will click on me to either join me or to add me to their group, with no idea of why I'm there.

You can do all that, you just have to do it in shorthand, or txt spk. Most of you who play, do texting all the time and I see so many examples of it right here on guru. So take that and put it in your party search.

A few days? Try a few minutes, if even for that long. If people spent that time, trying to make it work, rather then trying to find a way around it, we wouldn't have half the problems we do now.

How long will it take before the players actually try to do it right rather then think of ways around it and whine here on the boards? The players are the ones making a mess of it.

If you had typed in the party search window as "wts elemental sword 100k + 80e" (and that will fit, I just tried it) then your whole message will get through.

The problem with party search is people refusing to even try it. They'd rather whine, "the character limit is too small" then even try to see if they can make it fit. You can type LF Mo/E-nuke/tank (who says tanker anyway?) for quest or LF Mo/E-nuke/tank 4 mission. There is plenty of room, you just have to think for a second to make it fit.

I like auto targeting, really.

Please Galie, please. Are you being serious or playing around here?
The list is near darn endless but where on it does it contain having Kill count removed from HA. Where on it does it even have removing relic runs from HA (Hall of Heros). Where on it does it have needed skill balances for today or banning heros from HA. Rather you havent given us what we want but what we dont want. Need i mention 6v6. If anet cared so much why is it the pvp community had to go 9 months of outcry before anet changed 8v8 back to 6v6. I this caring? Im sure if your road had a huge hole in it and the goverment neglected this for a year you wouldnt think of it as so. As for it being the current beef, in terms of pve yes you may do these things but in relation to pvp its not the current beef its the truth. If you ever played HA you would clearly see the problems which need to be fixed in order to fix it. This tells us no not many anet members HA. As for reading, yes you may read but that may be all you do. For months on end now the HA community have posted logical solutions to your problem. Then every 3 months we get the oh anet reads your posts doooont worry (because many people say your not as still no changes). 12 months later, look where we are still nothing has basically been done about the problems.

Tell me, is the HA comments like that inappropriate unfair and inaccurate. I would call unfair when HA has been neglected for over a year now and all you wanted to for it to be fixed which wouldnt even take long. Inaccurate? How. You may have alot of things on that list but according to many players *the HA and pvp players*. You havent got even half of the important stuff on it. The stuff that would bring HA players back to HA. The stuff that would make HA enjoyable. No Galie you dont hence why although the pve community may not be able to say stuff like this. The HA community and pvp community can say no anet you do not care about pvp. You do not care about what we say. In fact your not intrested. If this isnt the case, how come Galie i havent seen you nor many other guys from anet post on the HA section. Why is it even after how many years of gw the only huge changes to it have been bad ones and those where done about 1 year ago. Why is it basically HA is similar to how it was 2 years ago. With the little update once in a while such as added leaver to scarred earth. Id like to know how you can justify how we cannot complain and make these statements.

My particular problem with this update is its named PARTY SEARCH... yet half(if not more) only have intentions using it for trade, as was suggested before it ever got updated and never saw any real use... Its clear people dont consider finding a group anywhere near as important as making it easier to trade... cause lets admit it buying/selling in this game atm, sucks, 100% no fun. So when i see that 90% of the problem with this update is that everyone wants to use it for trade, and not actually to search for a party, i think to myself "hmmmm self: anet should really fix the freaking trade problem instead of wasting time on a party search thats just not needed." If theyre gonna implement WoW stuff in their game (yes WoW has a party search ;p) take the things thatll be most relevant to the current game... like a freaking auction house. I dont even like the idea of auction house really, but itd be way better than the 15 lane 10,000 car pile-up system of trade we got now. But youd 1st have to convice the company (and apparently the "PR" thats suppose to listen to and understand the fans) that defending something that wasnt needed in the face of something that is, well thats just not good buisness...