1.3 Group Finder

Once of the features that many people have been looking forward to (myself included) is a group finder tool that will allow us to queue from anywhere instead of having to stand in one place yelling out looking for a group.  I know many people are against this because it ruins the "social aspect" of the game - but personally, because I have a hard time finding groups that want to do the same thing as me, this is a huge bonus.

I mean - I don't want to spend 3 hours on the fleet looking for a Hard Mode flashpoint when I could be doing so many other things.

Things to Note:

• You can queue from anywhere
• You can queue for PvP at the same time
• No Gear Check for HMs or Ops (you could end up with anyone)
• You can group queue with a partial group
• The listed daily rewards are only given if you use the "default" settings - IE: take any flashpoint instead of picking a specific one

So how does it work?

Groupfinder in 1.3

On the upper left of your mini-map is a new button that allows you to set up your queue.  Clicking on it will open the main group finder window.  It will auto-select the role for you (so make sure you set it properly) - and you'll notice on my shot that "Heal" isn't an option, so don't worry about getting people for the completely wrong role because they didn't know how to set it.

By default the finder will queue you for any Normal mode FP and Tier 1 Hard Mode FPs.  

Selecting the icon on the right above the daily reward will bring up a sub menu with further options.

Subpage in Group Finder

This will allow you to pick and choose which specific flashpoints you are interested in.  It will also let you toggle the "match with in-progress groups" setting.  So if you're only interested in playing from start to finish make sure you hop in here and de-select that.  Just note that you won't be eligible for the daily reward if you make any changes here.

Daily Rewards:

Category	Reward
Normal Mode Ops	5 BH Coms
Hard Mode FP (Tier 2)	5 BH Coms
Hard Mode FP (Tier 1)	5 BH Coms
Normal Mode FP	5 Daily Coms
Planetary Destination	Nadda

Once you're happy with your selections you add yourself to the queue and wait for something to happen.  At this point you can happily go do other things while the queue does the work for you.  When it locates a group for you, you are presented with a "gather" screen where everyone basically has a ready check before the group is compiled.

Here you can mouse over and check out the group composition.  If you're a pickier person than me, this is where you can blow off the group if you don't like how they're set up or whatever.  The little icons on the right show you what roles the people have signed up for and at the bottom it lists how many people haven't hit the "ready" button yet.  

My first experience with the group finder was very positive, I selected my options and this appeared immediately.  Maybe tanks are lacking on the PTS currently but I was really excited.  If stuff happens like that on live my life will be complete.

Once everyone has passed the ready check you get a second pop up which will insta-port you to the designated flashpoint.  How convenient is that?

This actually teleports you inside the flashpoint, not outside so you don't have to do the double loading screen thing.  Great addition BW - excellent execution.

From there it's up to the group - the little indicators showing who does what are present in the group frame, it's actually pretty cool, and sure handy when you don't know people's names.

In my first group someone ended up leaving pretty quickly after we started - now that isn't a big deal generally, I mean stuff happens and it's only on the test server.  The tool indicated that we would be able to look for a replacement by re-queing as an "in progress" group.  Neat.  So I tried to do that, unfortunately it must have a bug currently because it kept telling me that my 1 tank 2 DPS composition was invalid and we couldn't re-queue.  In the end we all left the group to re-queue on our own.  This led to me having a lockout (which I guess is to prevent people from group hopping after they see the people in person).

It wasn't a long lockout, thank goodness.  But any time a bug prevents you from playing is a sucky time.

After the lock out expired I was able to queue up and got in another group immediately.  This time we actually completed the flasphoint and I eared the daily reward.

The reward popped up immediately after finishing the flashpoint, so it was pretty handy.  I've never said no to free rewards.  I'm looking even more forward to getting those BH commendations just for doing the same thing I'm always doing.  I'm a bit puzzled why they are offering a daily reward for doing story mode Ops - also not looking forward to all the complaining about gear and group composition for those, so I haven't even bothered trying.

Overall - good experience.  When it goes live I'm sure the bugs will be worked out and it'll be golden.