IDEAS FOR RYZOM

While picking Psykoplas earlier I pondered the long-standing lack of team-search functionality in this game, peoples approach on the matter and possible impact.
Currently all we have is general means of communication we can utilize for team finding.
I consider this a given and essential, not an asset. I'm sure the game would die were they to deactivate the chat. So don't make the mistake of thinking this is enough.
Also do not misunderstand me: I'm not saying talking to people is wrong or bad, just that it is an imperfect team-finding mechanism.

MORE RATIONALE
(you might want to skip this)

Since the population has fallen well below what was expected by design players in many cases did not have an easy time consistently finding a team.
The situation since the merge certainly is no low-point looking at the old servers individually.
In any case, the lack of team-search makes it difficult for people to progress into the realm of the veterans, which, I think, is an important prerequisite for them to stay with the game.
Many do not even start to actually play the game:
They run a free account, leave Silan, find no teams easily and quit. No one can fault them.

Like advertising this is a matter that is and has been both important and neglected.

I'm no MMOG expert of any repute, but I believe in most MMOGs, Ryzom included, teaming is an important part of the game and should be assisted and encouraged.
A common, general means of doing so is "looking for team" channels, which would help here, too, but due to the games classless system team arrangements in general are more cumbersome via chat. Allow me to make an example:

Warlock 55 LFT
vs.
Sword/Dagger 205/198, Heal 142, Ele 175, 2H 103, Def.Aff. 73 LFT

The first is rather conclusive, the latter only gives good coverage of skills and levels.

To make matters worse: Ryzom has no LFT channel, while the other game in this example (and virtually every other game we might want to talk about) does have a LFT channel of sorts, and a conclusive LFT inquiry can be as short as a dozen letters (14 in the example, including spaces).
On top of this most other games provide an additional layer of team search functionality and this is what my suggestion will be about.

Other games make for easier arrangements via chat, less typing, have special chat channels and also have special functionality to find a team (like a search window or the like).
Ryzom has none of these things and you have to converse people instead of spamming a few letters, which exacerbates problems with, for or of:
- Uncommunicative people
- Language barriers
- Effectiveness & amount of effort expended
- Size of the player base

SUGGESTION STARTS HERE
(this will be the short part, promise)

Allow players to tag the skills they would like to train with a team as "in-training" in the Action Progression window.
Have these skills (and their level) show in the players info and profile.
Additionally, add a search window to browse the people with tagged skills and search them by level of by using ones own tagged skills as a filter.

I arranged for two illustrations to be fabricated:




Other filters could be a "Teamed" checkbox, hiding people already in a team and a "Region" checkbox hiding everybody not in the current region.
These ideas came too late to be included in the illustration.
Added. An opt-out option would be great. Untagging all skills to have an hour of peace is cumbersome.

If such a feature is to be included it should be explained as part of early Silan teaming quests.

Love this idea.

The only detrimental effect I could think of is people might not find anything on the team finder and give up. When players sometimes ask in uni there aren't any who want to train skills their level however high level players can often assist people out of team. Maybe a "willing to help" tab could enable players be displayed on your team finder without having the need to have something to train?

I'm actually working on a LFG app for the webIG. If I have enough freetime it should be available at the end of this month.

Hello Kaavi.
I am glad to hear this and am looking forward to your App, especially if it comes around at such short notice.

However, I have one concern and it makes me think a fully integrated system should still be created ultimately:
Adoption rates.

Especially beginning and mid level players are required to participate in the teaming and team search (for their own good, really); but they're the group most ignorant to advanced features like available Web Apps.
A fair numbers of veterans probably don't bother with Web Apps either; just like many don't read the forums or don't care about the whole app.ryzom.com thing.
Creating something in any of these feature subsets has limited audience.

This can be avoided through integration into the game and tutorials/missions.
I believe the only thing that makes team-search truly viable is making it very easy for everybody to participate and use it.

I believe that this is a good idea in theory, but some people have the skills at the proper level but may not want to work at them at that time. If so then that person will get spammed with team invites and will aggrovate the player instead of making them happy that they will be getting team invites. But, if the player does want to do it, it is good for them. As a result of this I believe that they should have an ability to hide themselves from the list.

About the adoption rates: yes, an app would need a good number of people to use it before it reaches a tipping point. There was a player initiative to create a separate channel LFG, with exactly this purpose; however, explaining to people what to type in order to join and leave the channel was too much, and eventually it just faded out.

Also, about the point Toak raises: finding training partners is a problem only at low(er) levels. Once I got my harvesting to 70 and I could dig solo most of the time, I stopped training anything else for a good while. To have people constantly asking for a partner would drive me nuts in two days. The proposal is good, as long as you could opt out of skills you want to partner up. For instance, I'd tick to have a constant stream of careplanners if possible ...

And ultimately, I'll add that having team partners is a matter of patience, like with everything else in Ryzom. With time you go from knowing 1 person to 3 persons, to meeting their friends and guildmates, to making a long and useful contact list. Much more important than getting those levels grinded NOW.

I added it to the OP.

I like the idea of ticking boxes on the skill tabs to show what you want to level and then this would show up in the webIG application. I assume this would have to be integrated into the game by the devs though?

This is a great idea, as the uni/regio/faction channels are often ignored.
I really hope this idea is taking off.

Nicely done with the pictures too Faye.