I had my first real experience with the LFG tool tonight, and I also found it restrictive, un-intuitive, and all in all hard to work with. My situation is my level 55 paladin alt. I was looking primarily for a BRD group, or maybe a LBRS group. Firstly I had to stop pvping on my main to be able to look for a group in the first place. Then after entering the necessary information, I sat there for a while. I then got a blind invite by some random level 55 hunter.

I decided to bail on the group after the druid (with both a druid and a pally in the group) demanded that we get a healer, as we couldn't go without one. The hunter firmly agreed. The druid then said "oh, but we only have 1 slot left, and we need a tank too". When they started /who 60 warrior and just inviting random people and asking them to "please help us do LBRS" I decided it was definitely time to move on.

A few things really need to happen with the tool.

Firstly, it needs to be a lot less restrictive. A simple list of the currently formed groups, with filters, would work fantastically. You could see the group leader, which instance the group was for, what they think they need, and any other descriptions, such as "jailbreak only". Having *optional* filters also allows me to see if there's an LBRS group going while I'm still on my main pvping. Or a lower level instance, for a lower level alt.

From here you can either select a number of groups and have the LFG tool assign you accordingly, or you can message the leader of the different groups and perform a manual idiot check and confirm that your role is required in the group.

If anything, this requires less processing and automation than the currently implemented system. It allows players the flexibility they need. It removes the spam from the global LFG channel.

Whenever I open it on my level 22 priest I go to the LFM tab and of the 5 or 6 instances I can see there are only ever people looking for Deadmines. SFK, WC, BFD, Stockade, are all 0 people looking for them. When the expansion hits most people on the server are going to be on Outland and whoever doesn't have guildies on (or levels slower/faster than them) will be looking for groups again. The LFG tool was designed for leveling specifically, and not for current live WoW.

Instances by level (numbers listed are the monster levels):
The Mechanar 69-72
The Botanica 70-72
The Arcatraz 70-71

Hellfire Ramparts 60-62
The Blood Furnace 61-63
The Shattered Halls 70-72

The Slave Pens 62-64
The Underbog 63-65
The Steamvault 70-72

Auchenai Crypts 64-66
Shadow Labyrinth 65-67
Sethekk Halls 67-69
Mana-Tombs 70-72

Breaking it down by level
60-62: 3
62-64: 3
64-66: 3
66-68: 3
68-70: 7
70-72: 5

With the exception of level 68+ there are 3 instances that one can do at the level of mobs in the instance. Which is the number of instances you can be searching for at one time. Now if you wanted to do Botanica, Arcatraz, Shattered Halls, Steamvault, or Mana-Tombs, than yes the LFG tool is going to miss 2 of those instances. It seems like it was quickly put together to handle leveling, without much room for topping out at 70.

I will readily admit that I haven't paid much attention to the new LFG setup as Ursin is an extremely low pop server and running instances, without guild assistance, can be an exercise in futility, nor have I done much work on coding any interface modifications of my own; however, is there any way a mod like CTA can be rewritten to take advantage of the new LFG system (are there any hooks built into the LFG UI that CTA can plug into?) as well as maintain a superset of options that appear to be desired by a good number of people?

I think many of us can agree that the LFG UI is a good starting point; it has a comment slot, allows you to select a small number of instances that you would like to run, allows you to be auto-grouped if you so desire, etc. etc. Could a Super-LFG UI be created to plug into that, and manage it, as well as provide the ability to display an additional list of things one might want to do--be it more instances, farm, broadcast a list of alts and THEIR preferences, etc.--without having to scrap the new tool and its built-in communication with the server's LFG 'pool' entirely?

I think the actual order for this will be...
Mana-Tombs
Auchenai Crypts
Sethekk Halls
Shadow Labyrinth

I can't remember the levels off hand, but Mana-Tombs, was definitely the lowest and Crypts 2nd. I am not sure of the levels for Sethekk Halls or Shadow Labyrinth can never find a group for now that everybody is running BGs on live.

Recommended player levels below
Mana-Tombs 63-65
Auch Crypts 64-66
Sethekk Halls 66?-69 (got a pretty huge buff in the last push, before that it was easier than Crypts)
Shadow Lab 68-70 (68 is iffy)

EDIT: Should I be amused or disturbed that 50% of the complaints in this thread could be easily resolved if the aggrieved parties had notice the "Click here to enter a comment" field in the LFM tool before posting?

The point is to find a group for your main while playing an alt, not to find a group to run your alt through an instance.

Just a thought, but I don't think more options or more filters are necessarily a good thing. One of the strongest points of WoW is it's simple, intuitive, and clean interface combined with robust UI customization--so noobs aren't confused and experienced players aren't limited.

The LFG system should be, above all, effective, and secondly, easy to use. In that sense default auto-join, 3 dungeon selection, etc. are probably not bad things. The power and flexibility of the tool is also important, but it's a far lower priority. The game has to be designed towards the larger needs of the playerbase; and ideally at the same time partially satisfy the desires of minority factions as well. I think the LFG does meet those conditions, at least in theory. Noobs can auto-join. More experienced players can turn off auto-join and use the LFM comment window and whisper people. Simple, clean, but still quite powerful.

Obviously, of course, the true test is the test of time. We'll see in a few months, and particularly after the release of the expansion, whether or not the new LFG system has succeeded. I think Blizzard's made a good effort, and I hope it does work as intended.

The hell they would. :-/ People get used to a pattern. In one guild I was, getting people to read the forums was like pulling teeth. In my current guild, only about 3/4ths of the raiders use the signups system (which is very simple to use), the rest just show up. Getting people to forego habit is ridiculously difficult, and since they're used to the LFG channel, it's hard to expect them to be all excited about a new interface.

Especially considering they can't chat in it. :P

Exactly.

The ONLY problem with the new LFG interface is that people are going to be slow to pick it up. When it's actually used, it's great - this is coming from someone who has used it extensively in beta, probably 40+ instance groups and 60+ groups total. The only times it's failed are when there just weren't enough people using the system.

I don't have feelings about the LFG tool so far, but I am annoyed that meeting stones only work if people are within a specific level range.

One thing you have to remember about the new LFG system is that if it is doing its job well (i.e. forming 5-man groups fast) then you won't actually see many people in the system because groups have already been formed. Maybe if you could see the groups formed in the last 30 minutes it might give a better idea of how well it is working.

My experiences with it so far have been on my alt priest, in which I have had a good Scholo group and an absolutely woeful Strat group. Both groups formed very quickly and had a decent class mix, but PUG quality problems is something that no system will overcome. Such is the nature of a PUG, sometimes the people in it are great, other times they suck.

This would be fine if it wasn't for the random joiners then leavers. Sometimes it automatically re-queues you and sometimes it just drops you out of the system.
Meaning you have to remember to go and re-queue for all the instances you want to run.
Also when it matches you with one person for one instance it automatically takes you out of all the other queues. So you now sit and wait for 3 more people to join, missing any potential other groups forming for other instances.

I agree with an earlier poster. This system has been designed first and foremost with Outlands in mind. I've used it on Beta and it works very well because there are lots of people wanting to do the same thing, and very little alt levelling going on.

The system in it's current design is hopeless for pre-TBC WoW, which is why our server (and a lot of others) are going back to a global LFG Channel. Plus side is at least this time you can /ckick idiots and their Chuck Norris talk.

Caveat: I'm still using both systems on my Alt to maximise chances of finding a group

Most of the things you listed are absolutely irrelevant to determining if a player is good. They're all more dependent on the quality of players you're up against. Terrible players die less to other terrible players. But a good player pugging is still going to die to a zerg swarm.

I'm thinking Dwargue meant for PvE instance groups. It's still very much dependent on the group even in that case though.

So far I have had much better luck with it on my mid 40's druid alt compared to a 60 hunter alt. A lot of that is probably the pvp factor. A chance at a level 52-58 blue compared to a % towards a level 60 pvp blue/epic.

There is no LFG tool that could ever possibly filter idiots. You had two hybrids in the group that could have both functioned as tanks, you and the druid. If the players are too dumb to recognize that, and start sending unsolicited /invites to random warriors they don't even know, then it's time to leave the group, no matter how the group was formed. Your bad experience had nothing to do with the tool.