Proposal for group setup/matchmaking system

I posted this by mail to ArenaNet around the time of E3, but I guess it got lost in the confusion, so I'm posting it here now. Hopefully not too redundant

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Proposal: Party matchmaking system

Purpose

Making the task of finding party members easier, eliminating long waits and unnecessary shouting zonewide.


Feature overview

* Automatching
* Waiting lists for individuals
* Party start "wizard"
* Party position lists and filter functionality for best match
* Improved invitation functionality


Use-case overview

1. Start and fill new party
2. Register as seeking party
3. Automatch applicant with party


System overview

The system is a two part solution to the matchmaking problem in congested zones of the game, or where otherwise setting up a group by using the local chat channel is impractical. The primary component is the system for registering "player wanted" ads on a group basis. The ads can then be viewed by players seeking a group. The secondary component, meant as a more player centered variant of the same thinking, is a "group wanted" ad put in by an individual player.

One very appealing way of implementing the system is to make it accessible from a "Recruiter" NPC, present in all cities (and mission points) - Preferrably the group lising should span all districts with the same language, warping a player that joins a group in a different district to the one the group leader is in.


Main GUI components

"Open party positions" - A window displaying parties and the positions they want to fill with new players. Each position may be specified as to class, role or level. The mission or quest that the party wants to embark on is also listed here.

An example, using a "Recruiter" NPC as the entry to the system:


"Looking for party" - A window displaying players that are looking for a group. Here is listed class, level and the mission or quest that the player wants to embark upon. Players seeking a party may also choose to register their interest in this window, and thus list themselves for others to see.

"Party composition window" - A window accessible to the party leader. It lists the current members of the party, as well as the open positions and their criteria. The applicants for the positions are also visible here, and the party leader may accept or reject the applicants from this window.


Use-case elaboration

1. Start and fill new party

Purpose: Enables a party to be set up and positions to be set out for enterprising players to get. It is the bootstrapping process of embarking on a quest or mission, and imagined in this proposal to be the main recruitment process.

Actors: Party leader, Applicant(s)

Main sequence:
1. The party leader brings up the "Party composition window", specifying the purpose (quest he has active or mission starting from the current zone), the group charter, and any open positions.
2. When the party leader is satisfied with the defined criteria for the positions (which may of course include "anything goes") he publishes the positions on the "Open party positions" list.
3. An applicant that fills the criteria selects one of the posted positions.
4. The party leader may reject or accept the applicant. Iterate over 3-4 until all the positions are filled.

Alternative sequence 1:
1. As 1. in main sequence
2. The party leader brings up the "Looking for party" window, filtered on his posted positions and selected quest/mission.
3. The party leader selects an applicant for an invite
4. The applicant may reject or accept the invitation. Iterate over 3-4 until all the positions are filled.

Result: A full group, ready to set forth on the selected mission or quest has been formed.

2. Register as seeking a new party

Purpose: Enables an individual player to post an ad with certain criteria for party leaders to see. This makes for a more passive process than actively asking for invites to already formed groups, suitable for example for situations where you are engaged in some social activity, yet ready to take up arms should a good opportunity present itself.

Actors: Applicant

Main sequence:
1. The applicant brings up the "Looking for party" window, and selects to be listed.
2. The applicant selects among his active quests or the mission(s) starting from the current zone to form a list of acceptable tasks to solve.
3. The applicant selects to be listed as searching for a party, and is listed for all to see.

Result: The applicant is now easy to find for groups in the processof forming

3. Automatch applicant with party

Purpose: This is a very fast method of getting a group, and a bit like Googles "I'm feeling lucky". It simply applies to the first (oldest) party position around for which the player qualifies.

Actors: Applicant, Party leader

Main sequence:
1. The applicant clicks "Automatch" and a join request is automatically send out for the oldest position for which the player qualifies.
2. The party leader may rejact or accept the player. In the case of a reject, and automatic request goes out to the second oldest position for which the player qalifies. Iterate over 2 until there are no open positions or the player is accepted in a group.

Result: The applicant has quickly aquired a group, and the game may commence


List visualisations

There should be numerous ways to view the information. In the initial implmenetation, fairly crude filters are adequate, but a more elegant solution wil be more impressive

Filter on quest/mission - The person viewing the "Open party positions" may want to filter them on his active quests, as he is most likely looking for a party in order to complete some specific task. Likewise, a party leader viewing the "Looking for party" list will probably want to see only people willing to embark on the same quests as his group.

Filter on participants - Especially in the PvP mission, filtering on the level of the participants, the fame level of the participants and/or party leader, and so on might be interesting for the player viewing the "Open party positions" list. Of course, groups containing a person on ones ignore list should be well marked so one may stay clear of them.

Filter on own abilities - Seeing only the positions that one is eligable for might be an interesting feature. This might be the default, but should not be the only way. Ofttimes one can diplomatize ones way into a group by convincing the group leader that one can fill the task as well as the hypothetical character listed on the position requirements.

Filter on position requirements - For a party leader, filtering the applicants that are listed on the "Looking for party" list according to if they fill the requirements for the group positions might be valuable.

Further filters, such as "Filter on skill" and "Filter on age" and so on might be feasible, but seems impractical to me at this time.



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If you managed to read this far and liked this proposal, you might want to take a look at my player trust system suggestion

Sadly, it's too much text to read. If you want a lot of feedback, try something like 'i think finding a party SUX rite now arenanet should FIX dis ppl r quiting over this CRITICAL FIX NEEEDED'. Or suggest that Guild Wars needs mounts or ninjas, that always gets a few pages of feedback.

I think the main issue with the content of your suggestion is that you're not the first to suggest a system like this, and there have been several different ideas floated on the subject already. However, ArenaNet obviously put implementing a better grouping mechanism on the backburner, prioritizing other features. As recent interviews indicate they are aware of the current issues with finding a party, and I'm sure they have a wealth of ideas from the community stored for the moment when they begin implementing improvements.

That said, the concept is exactly as you'd expect it (and therefore good): people can flag themselves available for certain missions/quests, a leader can flag his party as taking (certain) players in, and there is some automation to speed the process up. GW would become better with it, and I hope we'll see a similar system implemented some day. But it's up to ArenaNet to decide when that day is.

I actually haven't seen any real grouping suggestions lately... Maybe people just gave up on them?

In any case, I think do believe something like this would be good for the Tombs and other places where people do have some quite specific requirements they want the players in the group to fulfil.

I should of course have added some graphics to it to spice it up to the casual observer. I'll get my non-exsistent drawing skills on it in due time

Hahaha how true. Yes very long indeed. I wasn't expecting to actually see a formal proposal like this when I came into the thread. Props for a well thought out system. It would be very nice indeed if some of these things were implemented.

Ok - so it was a lot to read - and I did end up just scanning - but definately an interesting idea....I would be for it.

I would also suggest adding filter options for certain things like mission type, mission only, mission + bonus, bonus only, and run only (for the Taxi Service)...

excellent post, I love it

What I would like to see is a recruiter NPC in a district. When you talk to him he'll ask you what you want to do. If you say "I want to explore the area with others," you are dropped into a random team without a specific purpose. If you say "I need help to complete quests," then the matchmaker window opens. If you say "I wish to join a guild," then a guild advertisement window opens. And so on.

Awesome. Well thought out but a little to much work for the noob character in all of us.

I think if you simplify the procedures to make the process look easy, it'll be more widely accepted by the public.

In my opinion, I think a central hub for party selection would be better as the users would still have control over which party they want to get in without making things to complicated.

Example:

1.) Have a "recruiter" at every town that people can talk to if they're looking for a party.

2.) At the recruiter's menu, people can select which missions/quests they want to do [the quests must be accessible and can be finished from those towns].

3.) Another window pops up showing the the groups available [including the current class/lvl members in the party] with customizable title text (for specific requests) at the top of each group.

(Looking for people to do Bonus run)
-[lvl 20 w/m : Apple Banana]
-[lvl 18 r/e: Charlie Brown]
-[lvl 19 e/me: Ben Dover]

(Guild looking for a monk)
-[lvl 17 r/w : Cometh You]
-[lvl 18 me/m : US Government]
-[lvl 20 r/e : Spirit Spam R I]

4.) Here, people can join the shown parties or a create new party.

5.) If you're creating a new party, you can add/change the title text. If you're joining, you just click the party and click join. Your name will be placed on the designated party list and your party window will update automatically . Obviously here, the party creator has the choice to accept/deny/kick anyone.

6.) Once the party is ready, the party creator can click "Done" (or some other straight-forward indicator) to close the recruiter's window.

That's it. Keep it simple. People can still invite and spam as usual but at least this way there's a central location that people can go to and look at the available groups.

Whether it be a party matching system as proposed by the original poster, or a recuriter NPC in towns, I think that either idea would be a great benefit to the GW community. Especially in the later mission areas and the Tombs, where going with henchmen or an ill-equipped group is nigh-impossible. I hope that ArenaNet implements something to this effect soon.

With the increase in chaos that we've seen in certain locations, I find it almost odd that nothing has been implemented to ease party formation. I've been in situations where I spent a good 8-10 minutes spamming to get a MONK only to have my team break apart because they couldn't wait any longer or minutes for some moron on my team to "/invite" specific users. As stated by shwitz, ANY system at this point would be good.

Have you guys seen continuous LFG spamming? Now that is truly the suxor in hotspot locations.

I find the idea about using "Viggo the Recruiter" as an entry point to the matchmaking system is an excellent one! The most appealing aspect is that the current grouping system could be left completely intact, the recruiter simply adding "group vendor"-functionality.

The recruiter idea is so good, in fact, that I'm using my sub-par graphics skills to make a small mock-up. People here seem to like graphics Hopefully, It'll show the basic functionality and give an idea about how complex/simple the GUI could be.

I see that you are a RUP user

BTW, I like either idea (recruiter or matching system), just anything other than what is there now. I hate waiting in a town and spamming for members. It can sometimes take up to 30 minutes in a busy area.

Maybe some sort of "queue" too, you could add in "auto" recruiting that automatically fills out the teams. Maybe that is already stated above and I just misread.

/signed

Hehe, well, the RUP-methodology is kinda nice on the inception stage eh?

Indeed, there is an "automatching" variant detailed in the original suggestion. As I see it, it's a bit like the random arena - Joining with a group before talking to them is a gamble, but on the other hand, there are people who value speed over quality, so why not accomodate them?

Still working on the pictures... Why, oh why, am I so inept at image manipulation? (Hint - Become famous by doing the dirty work for me. Draw your GUI for the matchmaking system today! )

I hate being monk or element those classes are too slow for me and I hardly ever get group with Warrior. I just dont see how you can sit and shoot magic or sit and heal people, gets boring doesnt it?
I dont suggest GW makes matchmaker system, because right now you can talk to people, and some people in HoH like it when you PM then and NOT say "ooo monk, we need monk" then invite them. I find it when you PM those people that want to be PM you can form group yourself.

I have read enof to know that this is a good party making systeme, no more lfg spaming by all player eveb I do it, and probebly most of you guys to( key word most) hope Anet puts into action a systeme similare to this, getting anoyed of how complicated it is to maikng a party

Well, this is the result of my feeble image editing:



I'll edit the suggestion above to reflect any changes that need to be done to make the system more "vendor" oriented

Some type of system would be nice, even a window listing all the LFG's by class would be fine, you could just send them tells. Something more complex would be great, but right now anything, no matter how simple, would help.

Any ideas that speed up the team building process in Tomb of Prim King is a good idea.

I think they made you choose your own players to join group for reason.

I think this is a very good idea, when looking for PUGs specially in the more sparsely populated outposts this would make it alot easier.

This is a work almost certainly written by a software engineer.

I approve wholeheartedly, right now LFG spam is tolerated simply because there is no other mechanism. Perhaps local will be for talking instead, as well as making finding a group less annoying.

OK that was 20 minutes longer than I expected to invest in this thread... but that is an excellent and only slightly insane suggestion. Love the GUI mockup! (The insane part being: How are you going to convince them to dedicate manhours to coding and implementing it? )

Also, if you're willing to put this much thought into it... What about player ability ratings? Your solution doesn't address the skill problem. Bob might think he's good, but Bob is a crappy player. We know Bob sucks, they know Bob sucks, only Bob and people who suck worse than Bob think that Bob is a good player. Aaaah. (This is a frustrating scenario in those "unforgiving mission" situations like LFG in Temple or Tombs.)

I have doubts that anything like this will be implemented, but it was interesting read.

Why would they spend manhours coding this? Because it holds up the charter of instant fun that Guild Wars delivers. A critical weak point right now is finding pick-up groups, and the necessary abuse of spamming local for group finding advertisements is detracting from discussion and other community building effects.

One problem at a time. If later on some sort of "player karma" system is implemented, that information can be displayed in some way on that gui. But for now, group organization is a much more pressing flaw.

Finally, besides being somewhat in line with what A.Net's general preferences for gameplay, it will also help keep people interested in the game and thus buying their expansions when they start to come down the pike.

I'm just amazed that someone can still join the Jackson Five.

Well, MJ has been kinda busy lately, but it should have gotten better now - It's an old screenshot

Actually I don't think the implementation complexity is all that high. The this is that the system does not interfere with any current systems, not even the grouping one. That means that introducing a limited variant is not unfeasible. Besides, the programmers need something to do when the spectator mode is all done

This is a good feature to be implemented into Guild Wars.

I support this idea all the way.

love the idea

/signed

I like the premise of the idea although some things could be changed.....cant explain...too long....but we definately need some new system. I feel sorry for the n00bs that come into post and cant find a group cuz they r muffled out from all the WTB and WTS crap.

I like the idea too. PUG can be a pain to find and this would make it so much easier.

I was thinking just a notice board system that people could look at and then message someone.

However this idea would be better,

/signed

This would be very efficient if it was implemented.

Coding being an issue? Lies!

It goes right on top of the original code and keeps the original LFG spamming intact. Sure it might tax the servers more but if it's beneficial on the long run, it's worth the investment. As stated before, this group setup system is long overdue.

All I'm asking is to keep it simple and easy to use. Don't make it too fancy with too many features. Make it focus and objective. I have no photoshop skills to illlustrate my vision but eh whatever.. and besides, as if anet comes around checking these forums.

I fully support this idea... in fact I wrote it almost a month after you in a much briefer fashion... Something needs to be done about how long it takes for an HoH group to form. That was a PERIOD. period.