The best I can advise is getting a guild group to explore the instance. While it is true that you don't get to explore much, clearly the other players don't really want to, and they equally have the right to their preference. Personally I explored the first 2 times I went in with guildies, and also rush my pugs (Although as a tank I tend to wait till my healer has 75% mana before boss pulls and a few specific trash pulls)
 

> This is supposed to be a game, with
> some gameplay, and not just a loot
> pinata to get to as quickly as
> possible

Well, that's nothing new at all. It's been like this for years. Just vanilla and Burning Crusade were a bit different.
 

This exaclty describes my last time playing WOW, must be 4 or so years ago.

Hmm Im high level now, lets try this group dungeon finder thing.
WTH was that?
/unsubscribe.
 

The more things change....

That's a big part of why I hardly set foot in a Heroic in Cata and kept to the normals: no pressure for speed runs.

 

@Remi: if you want to play dungeons in "exploration mode" and at your pace, then the LAST thing you want is random people. Assemble a group with like-minded friends and go in there. Using the LFG is a bit like pulling random people from crowd into a restaurant and then expecting them to order the same food as you.....

 

To enjoy the content (lore, art, architecture, flora/fauna, ...) you are NOT supposed to use anything that involves "random" players obtained via LFD.

Of course nothing prevents you to look for fellow adventurers in /trade or /general and try to gather 4 people with the same interests.

I've been using general (and trade) to find nice players who were bored and/or interested in something different (completing weird achievements, mining together, etc).

There ARE good random guys, you just need to find them staying out of the "auto-gathering tools" provided by the game.

 

In other news, trying to tune a static dungeon to fit the whims of five random players with different interests is still a Sisyphean task. If only there were a way for players to organize according to arbitrary criteria.
 

This comment has been removed by the author.
 

This comment has been removed by the author.
 

Loque Nahak: "There ARE good random guys,"

"There are random guys that share your play style."
fixed, sharing fancy activities doesn't make one good or bad

Yes, after a couple of rounds through the MoP heroics there is not much left to do and it becomes a speed zerg fest.
While I jump in and help to kill any unnecessary packs or wait for the tank to pull easy packs/mobs one a the time, it doesn't mean that I don't loath them.
I'm in there for the loot/badges and any additional mob that we need to kill is wasted time. You get nothing for them.
 

@ Camo

By "good" I mean "that can fit your gameplay style".

In a virtual world made of random people I've never cared about age and/or real-life attitude, interests, culture and so on. I just focus on what they can share with me while I play online.

That's why I've got zero online "friends". I just meet people that fit my style and -overall- look like mature gamers.
 

This is what eventually turned me off DDO, the vast majority of the playerbase I encountered wanted to race through the content with little to know coordination, strategy or thought - if you were new to the game tough luck, you'd be chasing dots on the mini-map. Oh and DDO dungeons are by and large *much* more complex in layout than dungeons in WoW...
 

Yep, the zerg-rush mentality of so many players in MMOs these days is a real killer for me. I favor those games which provide enough content that I can enjoy it at my pace and not feel pressured to ram my way through stuff as much as possible.
 

Stacking battle fatigue debuff. Anytime you enter and exit combat too much, you lose 50% of your armor and you only get 75% of the heals thrown your way.

You'd need to tweak the timing a bit but that would get the tank interested.

As one of those tanks that just kept pulling you have to understand the flip side of the equation, which is that 4/5 people in the group view the dungeon as a chore and want it over as fast as possible. No excuse for pulling even when people are asking for mana breaks, but that style usually goes over well with random groups.
 

People will seek to optimize their time and effort to meet their own personal goals.

Your goal sounds like it was to experience the dungeon to its fullest. Your tank was there to grind another Heroic for whatever the currency is these days.

But I am sure you already knew that.

This is, however, exactly why I stopped running heroics via the Dungeon Finder. While I have had many fine DF groups running normal dungeons, heroics call to a different breed.

I don't think your simple speed bump would help. You will still get the tank in a hurry pulling the whole first room before you have fully loaded into the instance. And you will still be to blame for the ensuing wipe in his eyes.

I think, if any change were to be made, it would have to be some sort of mood, motivation, or speed flag on the DF, so that it could try to group you with people with like views on mood, motivation, or speed.

Of course, that will never happen. It would divide up the DF queue and make people wait longer for their instance group to pop, which in turn would lead to complaints by your impatient tank.


 

I continue to be mystified that people define WoW by Dungeon Finder experiences..

The DF is only a tool. It is an option to finding groups without actually talking to anyone. It is an ideal method to form quick, silent and efficient groups in order to get them done. Being shocked that those groups aren't very social or explore-y is ludicrous. And selfish. You put no effort in and expect to be randomized to people that want to cater to you.

Each person in a random wants it run their way. And the tank is the only one with any real control. If you want slower runs, you have to either tank, or ask the tank nicely to slow down. Make a macro. Drop group if they won't or give you crap.

The other and better option is look for a like minded tank on your own server to queue with.
 

The best advice I can give is to stop playing World of Warcraft. P.S. : RIFT has a much more mature player base
 

To quote one of your own comments from only a month ago: "If the design is such that a character will run the instance 10+ times to get all the gear drops he needs, and that *per alt*, [doing something that slows the run down] adds up to hours of time lost. I totally agree that for the first run you might want to take it slow and explore everything, but then you kind of need to find a group especially for that."
 

Am I the only one against this? There is enough hand holding in WoW now. Instances have been made easy enough.

The fact that your tank pulled before the healer was ready didn't result in a FULL wipe tells me the dungeon should be HARDER, not easier.
 

I apologize, as a tank who does tend to zerg these dungeons. I'm nearly completely geared up and only run a few heroics where I still need a random piece. I've ran these heroics every single day since 90, and they don't offer much anymore beyond one shot at one boss for one item, so I do like to get them over with quickly.

However, I am also a blood DK, and while I may engage mobs quickly, I am also at the point where I can start soloing certain pulls myself. When I charge forward with wild abandon, I don't expect you to be there with me, it's perfectly fine for you to be sitting back there drinking up to restore your mana. I always make sure to leave a little bit of time out of combat between pulls if healer mana is an issue so you can sit down. But there is no need for you to rush, I can live through a pull a long time.
 

Its not only players fault...game have become a job..everyday you have to complete some tusks. Daily, daily, daily. weekly..

Login in the game. Before anything else you have to do the "job"

Do the dailies
Cap your Valor
Cap your conquest

You have to spent 1-2 hours only to do what you "MUST" do before you do what you "WANT" to do. And if it happens to have alts which 90% of the players have then the "job" becomes longer.

It is normal for people to feel the pressure and rush rush rush...

But this is what we deserve as a playerbase..when you see million of people do the dailies every day, is like the rats you put on a wheel to run...what we did as playerbase to "demand" better experience? QQ on forums does not cut money from the companies...
 

Have to agree with the other tanks on the thread. If I wanted to tank significantly more slowly than is the norm, the vast majority of a WoW LFD group would curse me out, and probably leave on principle - even if the additional wait in queue for another tank actually exceeded whatever time my pulling style wasted.

When in Rome, and all that. SW:TOR remains, on average, superior in terms of the maturity of the average LFDer.

That said, in WoW, I watch healer mana, particularly before bosses, as one still sometimes gets the occasional entrant to heroics who struggles. And if a healer actually asked for a slower pace, I'd accommodate them without a second thought.

Hopefully, you'll soon be at the stage where heroics yield little benefit. With your aptitude for money-making, you could probably gear up quite easily with a combination of LFR (the ilvl required is easily jimmied), weekly world bosses and judicious purchases of craftable epics.
 

I too started out annoyed by the pressure to GOGOGOGOGO on using LFD, but the suggestions from everyone here about just ASKING for a group to go slow and appreciate the content might work for me, as a tank.

Pity about the DPSers, though.
 

I am sympathetic because on my priest, I do struggle for mana and it's annoying for me to tell the group I'm drinking, them to ignore it and plough into combat anyway and then complain when I'm not there.

(I don't care if it's DKs who don't need healing and decide to pull anyway, that's down to them.)

All that happens is that the instance ends up being on extra hard mode for the healer and lazy mode for everyone else. I think the answer is just for Blizzard to give healing priests better mana regen.
 

It's a cultural problem. It's not going to be solved by forcing people to wait. Imho, it's a symptom of the larger problem of the increased focus on obtaining loot as the only purpose of playing WoW, when originally it was also about socializing.

It's like how the restaurant I work at is in the business of selling food, but just as important is delivering good service to our guests. If we focus only on getting food out to them, they won't enjoy their experience as much.
 

I'm disappointed this wasn't about the famous Canadian prog rock band entering the world of online game development.
 

Hey Tobold,

I'll share you my POV and include a few gems which may help you get a better LFD experience.

"I was doing LFD the other day, chain pulling to get some quick XP to rush to 90 and this healer was really slow. We kicked him."

With LFD you can get any type of player. You can get new players, old farts. Goblin's who's time is money and min-max everything in-game. You can get bad DPS, hardcore fire dancers, beginners who are willing to learn, stubborn people who refuse to learn anything, you can get roleplayers, decent DPS, arrogant and good DPS. You can get healers who always HoT and shield up everyone, you can get healers who are OOM quickly, you can get healers who DPS while healing, you can get healers who want to relax while healing and you can get those who like to be challenged or want to rush to get more XP.

Now, Tobold, rushing can be very efficient but it isn't always efficient which depends on various factors (see above). I can fully understand it hasn't been efficient for you and can also imagine a priest healer w/o DS HC gear needs mana breaks and as a returning player isn't up to practice for challenge modes and someone who hasn't played beta and isn't a raider wants to experience the content to fullest while leveling. No problem!

The cure? 1) Communicate. Better sooner than later. The quicker you know what type of player you're with (and they know about your preference), the less drama and more fun the run will be. 2) Kick the minority, or leave yourself if you disagree with the playstyle of the majority. 3) Either accept the randomness of LFD or assemble your own group of like minded players. Remember you can do it x-realm, and after a LFD you can reinvite people from the group (even x-realm after you left the group!) for another run. 4) Did not like a certain player and you don't want to queue with them again? Type /ignore Nickname-Realmname and you will never meet them again on that character.

Personally, I usually run as healer. I like rushing, I like to DPS while healing. I like to use the complete package of my healer classes. However I cannot be bothered to heal DPS who keep standing in the shit (I expect 1 tick fo dmg from it from the avg player and 2 ticks I forgive, pref 0, annoyed by 2+). I sometimes say "move out of the fire or no heals" or reply to someone say "heal the mage" that person should follow the tactics.

"Each person in a random wants it run their way. And the tank is the only one with any real control."

Not completely true; the tank sets the rhythm, the healer maintains the beat. Its very easy to break the tank's rhythm as a healer: don't dispel, or be a little too late with your heal. The support (DPS) can also fuck things up by ninja pulling a pack to be skipped, or by CCing, or by simply playing solo-style if the tank is AFK for whatever reason. Some tanks believe they're God's gift on earth and simply go AFK or stop pulling because the pizza arrived or they disagree with loot issue or the height of the DPS or whatever. But my experience is that with good play you can do without a tank or an improvised tank or someone who respecs.
 

Random dungeon finder is random.
 

After the last boss is done, and everyone leaves the group, I go back and slowly retrace my steps. I enjoy the design, sometimes get forgotten loot. Being alone ads to the atmosphere of the place.