Dungeon FinderNo more having to wait in order to kick players, but the biggest change in my opinion is that if you drop a group you will now be penalized with a 30-minute lock out instead of the current 15-minute penalty. Apparently people are still dropping group, and Blizzard is all set to punish them for doing it.
- The Deserter debuff given to players who leave a dungeon prematurely when queuing via the Random Dungeon option has been increased to 30 minutes, up from 15 minutes. The cooldown for using the Random Dungeon option remains 15 minutes.
- The Random Dungeon cooldown is no longer displayed as a debuff. Instead, players will see the cooldown time remaining displayed in the Dungeon Finder window when Random Dungeon or Random Heroic Dungeon is selected from the pull-down.
- If a player in your party has the Deserter debuff, or is on cooldown from the Random Dungeon option, his or her character name will be displayed in the Dungeon Finder window listed as "On Cooldown," preventing the group from queuing.
- Anyone in a dungeon party can now re-queue their group for a dungeon, as players will still be prompted whether or not to accept their chosen role.
- Players who use the Vote Kick option will now be prompted to provide a reason for kicking a party member. This reason will be presented to everyone in the party except for the person voted to be kicked.
- When joining as a group, more generous level requirements will be used instead of Random Dungeon level requirements so that players of different levels joining together will be eligible for a greater number of dungeons.
- World Event bosses (such as Ahune for the Fire Festival) will now be accessible through the Dungeon Finder. Players must use the Dungeon Finder to access these bosses.
- Parties randomly created via the Dungeon Finder will always be arranged in the party interface from top to bottom in the following order: tank, healer, damage, damage, damage.
- If a random party is created via the Dungeon Finder and a player cannot roll Need on an item, a reason will now be provided.
So lets talk about that a little bit. Why do people drop group? First and foremost people drop groups when dungeons pop they don't want to run. The two I hear most about are Occulus and the Culling of Stratholme. I don't mind Occulus, but I really detest CoS. Luckily
Culling of StratholmeThat might clear up the problem with people want to drop group for that instance, but regardless of what is done with Occulus no one can make people who play inattentively play any better ina three dimensional space. Nor can you make people understand the necessity of organization on the final boss. People quite rightly load into these dungeons (or others they don't like) and simply leave right then and there. After all, they're playing for themselves and not others.
- Players may now skip the initial introduction dialog to this dungeon once they have completed it at least once.
The second reason people drop group, myself included, is when they load in and see either the tank or the healer horribly undergeared. I've commented in the past on this subject. Undergeared DPS is one thing, but critical elements of the party like the tank and the healer are quite another. I've dropped group when I see tanks load in that are still wearing heirloom items. I kid you not. At this stage in my characters lives I am not that much interested in the social side of dungeons and groups. I'm on a mission and just want to get in, get my badges, and get out. I find I have very little tolerance for anything that might cause wipes or significant delays. And quite honestly I'm not all that happy that Blizzard, knowing these two points, is taking the line that people need to be forced to group together.
Blizzard, you provide the tools to us and leave the rest of it to us to work out.
