The new Looking for Group tool is working out more like Looking for Waldo, and being color blind.
I was very excited to finally have pugging instances be friendly, and have a LOT more people involved. I mean, this is cross-server, and there’s, like, 110 million players. (Okay, 4-8 million in North America where I play.) That’s a LOT of potential party members.
Let’s ride!
Level 72 DK DPS looking to do any random dungeon. Sign me up.
…
Yep, I’m ready.
…
…
Let’s go. I’m here. Ready.
…
Hmm, how the group assembling? Lessee. Me. No Tank. No Healer. No other DPS. 10 minute average wait.
15 minute average wait.
19 minute average wait.
Um. Any freaking body needing to go to Utgard Keep, or Nexus, or any freaking anything?
…
I’m there. LFG.
Kinless Chronicles 
I had a very similar experience. I think people are more using it for Heroics. It takes me forever to find a group for a normal Dungeon.
Oh dear. it’s snowing in here.
I’m thinking that that issues is just because people are mainly playing their 80’s right now eating up as much new content as possible. I’m sure once things settle down things will go faster. Of course there is still the issue that few people level as tanks or healers… Queueing as a tank or healer gets you a group almost instantly.
I’ve also had times before where I’ve spent hours in lfg while questing without ever seeing another person pop up… if 20 mins is the norm that is still faster then 2 hours.
🙂
I got into a few battlegrounds with the 72 DK and then tested the waters with my 80 Arms Warrior.
The LFG Tool group assembled really fairly fast and off we went to Heroic Utgard Pinnacle. (That was what the RNG came up with for us. At least it wasn’t the Oculus.) I got lucky because the group was amazing. The Paladin tank was fast, knew the place, and we were running to just to keep up with her. The Resto Shaman kept us all alive without a death. Me, a DK, and a Mage provided the DPS. I’d never been in UP with my Warrior, much less a Heroic version of it, much less an instance cleared so quickly and effortlessly.
Yeah, I agree that it’s just that now the level 80’s are getting into the new stuff, Forge of Souls and all that, and level 80 alts are enjoying the pugging, and maybe level 72’s should worry about leveling up, not running instances.
And I think the new implementation of the LFG tool is working as intended, and very well. I give it a thumbs up.
Honestly, if you do the math, things are basically the same as they always were. You’re looking at it as your a dps, and you’ve got your whole battlegroup to find a tank and healer. The fact is, the percentages are probably pretty close to the same as they were if you were just looking on your own server. Theres dps on all those other realms too. Looking for heals and tanks. Once everything settles down, things might actually get worse. Once those tanks and healers get their pug achievements, they won’t have as much incentive to run the random dungeon. They’ll be back to running what they need, with their respective guilds. The newness will wear off, and it won’t be worth chancing getting poorly geared, or poorly played group mates. Let alone the chanes of ninjas/random buttheads.
Sorry for the wall!
Kinless, the awesome thing about the dungeon finder, though, is that you no longer need to choose between “leveling up” and “running instances”. Queuing as DPS on my level 76 alt, yeah, it took 10-15 minutes to get a group. But with zero effort, zero fuss, just me questing away merrily while I waited for it to pop.
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One little thing that’s actually made getting a group MUCH easier for me: checking the “Leader” box. By default, it’s deselected and most people don’t think to check it. So, if you have enough players for a group but none of them want to lead, the system will not assemble your group. Waiting for a group this afternoon as a L30 DPSer was brutal- until I left the queue and re-entered with the “leader” box checked. I was into SM Graveyard within 2 minutes.
Yeah, if you are DPS it takes 10 mins av. to get a group, but there’s a catch: ask people if they want to farm emblems, if they agree, once you finished the current one, ask the leader to queue for another random. Now it’s INSTANT! I farmed 13 or 15 heroics this way with the same group, I don’t even remember. So far I’ve got 2 tier 9,and a ring.
My longest waiting time for a dps was 3 minutes in the 20-30 range and I even specified the dungeons I wanted to do (WC, DM, SM, …).
Perhaps you didn’t “select” your role properly in the LFG mechanism. I see that you have to select a particular role.
Also like some dude said, I don’t mind waiting 20 minutes even, as I do my questing in the meantime.
Always the same morons who complain I guess (and we are not even sure the LFG was properly used).
I think the biggest benefit to the new LFG system is that it’s automatic. Before, someone had to look in LFG, find other people in the roles you needed, make contact, come up with a plan, go to the instance, all that. Now, all you have to do is put yourself in LFG, and the game groups you with other people of appropriate rules, and teleports you to the dungeon. I think the situation is actually much, much better than it was, because those tanks that actually are willing to tank PuGs are no longer locked out of an instance after running it once, and are thus much more available.\
I know that my experience so far, running just the normal 80 instances because the LFG tool doesn’t think I have the gear for heroics (and it’s right, btw), has been an average wait of about 15 minutes. I like that MUCH better than the way it used to be.
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I just posted my impressions regarding the new LFG tool, of course from the perspective of a decently geared 80.
http://wowalone.blogspot.com/2009/12/new-pug-tool-is-awesome.html
I was considering giving it a try with my 74 rogue or 67 shaman but right now I’m really excited to run as many heroics as I can with my hunter because I’ve been solo-ing for a long time now and this tool has finally allowed me to jump easily and quickly into these dungeons.
Finishing up loremaster/seeker, while chain running heroics…priceless.
A friend of mine is leveling his level 65 shaman right now. He says he has no problems finding a group, but that it’s miserable. It’s him and four clueless level 60 dks, none of which have a clue about tanking, much less aggro control or melee in general.
It wasn’t all bad, though, as he was able to answer the question, Where did all the huntards go? Guess what, they were in his group!
The Cross-Realm LFG is much more useful for tanks and healers, who there are a shortage off across all realms.
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