I had ample opportunity to use the new LFG system yesterday. While I think there are a few updates that need to be made to it, the current changes are heads and shoulders better than what it was replacing. The main problem with the older LFG was that you either allowed the auto-group feature, which would pair you with anyone that also had the option enabled, or you didn’t and would then have to build your own group. Enabling the auto-pairing function often made for interesting groups, to say the least, as you would find healers who were not actually healers, and tanks who were often more squishy than the DPS was. And it would only pair you with people who were looking for that specific instance you were looking for as well. And those are the two reasons why people, by and large, never used the pairing option at all. Yet trying to build a group manually was often frustrating, unless it was the daily heroic or normal dungeon.
The new system not only enables you to select specific instances, and pair you with others who have similar gear levels as your own, but the new system also enables a “random” choice that replaces the old Daily Heroic and Daily normal dungeon quests. Not only does this new system fix the issues that perplexed players with the older pairing mechanism, but goes even further by enabling players to enter a theoretically limitless number of normal and heroic dungeons on a daily basis. If you participate in a “random” heroic dungeon, the lockouts are ignore by the system. I was able to run H-TOC twice last night as an example. Even better, for each random dungeon you participate in you get two badges of frost for the first random dungeon of the day, and two badges of triumph for each dungeon after that. And 13 gold. For each. How cool is that? I started the day with 39 badges of Triumph, was able to spend 35 on a new Idol, and still have nearly 50 afterward. If you want a full set of Tier 9 232, have no fear, you’ll get it in short order.
There are, however, a few changes I would like to see. One of the issues I saw right away was that the new LFG system does not allow you to queue for groups and raids at the same time. Or random dungeons and specific dungeons at the same time. Or dungeons/raids and battlegrounds at the same time. I’m having a hard time comprehending why Blizzard would have erected those barriers because I would think that anyone interested in running a random dungeon might still have specific dungeons they want to run and would rather run whichever popped first, rather than waiting longer. And if others are like me, they’d like to be able to queue for a raid and a dungeon at the same time. Other wise you could be sitting in Dalaran for lengthy periods of time queued for a raid that may never occur. It wastes time and opportunities. The same can be said about the barrier preventing you from queuing in battlegrounds while also queuing in dungeons.
I was telling my wife last night after getting through several dungeons that I really like the new system. Given some updates like those I just mentioned would make this new system absolutely perfect. Props to Blizzard for a job well done.
