Re: Recent changes to party search function

I did a bit of digging and saw nothing on this, my apologies if I missed an existing thread.

The recent changes to the way the Party Search menu functions are a very interesting concept, not a bad idea at all, namely to automatically post in Party search when someone posts certain messages in trade/all chat, and vice versa. While I know Anets heart was in the right place with this update, a few points really stand out to me as things that should be tweaked in the near future to make this function more enjoyable to the community. The Problems I have with the update are as follows:

-Being cut short. If I post anything including "LFG, WTB, WTS, etc.." in all or trade chat the post is automatically put in the party search menu, however the post in all/trade chat is cut short, down to the size of the text in the party search menu itself. This seems completely unneccessary and will only cause people to avoid using "WTS, WTB, LFG" so that their post will not be interrupted. If, for some reason, it is not possible to add more characters to the text available in party search, in the least please allow our entire post to be seen in the chat window as it was typed.

-Inadvertently Trading in All Chat. I make it a point to never trade using the all chat tab, and I'm sure many people do, especially considering the recent notice that doing so could result in a ban. I find it somewhat silly when I have to explain how my wts post in all chat was caused by the recent update and was not intentional. What happens is, if you have a post in the trade tab of party search and "re-check" the box to bump said post down to the bottom again, your post is automatically put into the "mission" tab and a post is automatically put in all-chat on your behalf. This could easily be fixed by making it so that the party search catagory is not automatically reset to "mission" each time that box is checked/un-checked, but instead is only changed when the user himself goes in and changes it.

-"Party Search -" added to posts. This is a handy feature for putting into chat what has been posted on the party search menu. However when it is applied to the opposite, when it is added to a post I typed into chat to illustrate that said post is being added to party search, it becomes somewhat of a nuisance. Not only is my post in chat being cut short, but out of the extremely small amount of characters my post has been reduced to, 14 of those characters have been devoted to this standard message that is also making my post harder to distinguish from the other posts flying by in the trade chat window. This is another case in which I, and im sure alot of other players, am going to have to find ways around typing "WTS, WTB, LFG, etc...".

The fact that people are going to have to find ways around making use of this update isnt the end of the world, it's not even that big of an inconvenience on an individual basis, it is simply unfortunate that work was put into this update to improve trade and interraction, and because of these quirks people are going to avoid making use of the update altogather. It is a new update and I'm sure anet is still working out the kinks in it now, but jic I hope someone sees this or another, similar post and makes these small changes so that we can all enjoy the work that has been put into the Party Search function.

From Tyria, with Love,
Punches Del Gado

/signed on all 3 parts, yes i love this new idea anet put in its great but yes these were some little quirks i was thinking about too, would just all in all make it nicer.

/signed on everything, after the update I simply don't use those abbreviations anymore so if they want to make the system better, they have to make it work properly first.

/notsigned. nothing wrong with it. works fine with everything I have tried so far. Make descriptions smaller and descriptive. remove the OBVIOUS coments.

LFG :[Mission name]
LFG Qst: [name]
LFG MM
LFG Orders
LFG Monk

GLF monk
GLF Mes
GLF Rit sp wpn
GLF MM
GLF BP (yuck)

ect ect ect...

/signed.

I see what you mean =HT=Ingram, but that's what the chat was for...to give more details; and now the chat automatically puts it in party search which means the details of the party are cut short.

Nothing wrong with putting small, succinct searches in the party search area, but chat should still be able to give more details.

I agree with all the OP's little suggestions. The system is great, but it does need just these few little tweaks.

If all three of those problems are fixed, it's a brilliant system.

You are absolutely right, that when looking for a group or building a party the posts usually are very short and to the point, so I can see how these things would be much less of an inconvenience in that respect. I play almost exclusively with guildies and heroes and had not considered that.

When selling, Buying or Trading items however, there is a great need for more space. Not just to put in the usual irritating ">>>Godly!!!PERFECT!!!OMG!!!<<<" (I hate it when people do that), but simply to post the stats of the item for sale, or to post several items in one post. It can still be done by going around the abbreviations altogather, but that is the point of the thread, that it is unfortunate so many will have to work around using the update because of these few small kinks.

While I would love if they let you type more into the Party Search, it's not possible.

Gaile has already stated that they cannot and will not be increasing the number of characters (as in letters) allowed in Party Search.

I understand that, but it's really not what we are talking about.

Yeah. The idea was good, but it has to be fixed.

/signed. They need to cut the "Party Search" out. We already KNOW it's going to Party Search. No need to eat up nearly half of our already short message.

LFGs and so forth can easily be done in one PS line, but what about people selling an item with a lot of mods on it?

in ha though GLF cant always fit, cause if you need a myriad of diff classes then it will not fit...... especially if you are not doing a FotM so yes these really are needed.

I test this out every time I log in now and alas, still no change. I see people's posts in all chat and trade chat being cut short constantly and it really makes me wonder. I mean I don't believe anet would have a reason to intentionally cause our chat posts to be cut so short, but at the same time it seems like one hell of an oversight. Anyway, wanted to bump this back up a bit, if you are having problems with these issues as well please don't hesitate to sign here. The more people who do the more likely, I'm sure, someone is to notice in a position to make a change. On a side note, this is not at all a thread about more characters being added to the party search menu. If you missed the original post I reccomend you read it before posting, but here is a brief synopsis of the suggestions it included:

- When an abbreviation is used in all or trade chat that causes it to be automatically added to party search, don't cut our actual post in chat down to the party search posts size. Allow it to be posted in chat as it was typed and cut off in the party search window itself

- Only add "Party Search -" in chat to posts being typed into the party search window and added to chat, not vise versa.

- Make the catagory button in party search stay on the same catagory when the box is checked/unchecked, as opposed to automatically being reset to mission.