Even before I returned to the game I was finding no one else in the party finder doing the missions in my current mission bar.
I searched for a while as well.
Also, these were missions I probably couldn't do on my own.
Does anyone else find this happening?
Do people only play arcade now?
Missions
Depends on what rank you are. The issue with the party finder is that it finds parties in the lobby close to your rank. This means if you rank up high enough, you'll never see lower ranked parties. This mean veteran knights cannot help newer knights with their missions without being distinctly invited.
I would recommend you to ask around in Haven for some help with your missions. You may find some people needing to do their missions that way, or a vanguard who's happy to help a lower rank. I would recommend that if you get a vanguard to help you to make sure to put your difficulty onto either advanced or elite as they'll likely be able to make the mission significantly easier with experience plus the extra loot is nice.
Why dont you guys quit beating around the bush and just say that there aren't enough players to consistently find a party.
Cuz every time i open party finder i can see at least one available : )
Players are available for parties, but due to the nature of Spiral Knights' progression system if you complete a mission once you never have to go back and do it ever again. This causes trouble for difficult missions, especially since players only tend to grind boss missions. For example, I'm not going to go back and try to find a party for "In Cold Blood" as a vanguard, and I'll never know if a player starts an open party for it since I'm vanguard rank. This doesn't mean I wouldn't love to help someone run that mission, but rather, there's absolutely no way to know that such a party exists for me.
Since vanguard is the end goal for all players, it becomes an issue. If everyone is a vanguard, then no-one will be around to help the lower ranked players via the system, but plenty will be available to help otherwise.
So yes, there are enough players to find a party, they are just higher rank and thus not running those missions.
I'm defender elite, and asked ppl. Seems like those people that are like champion, or vanguard only do arcade
Party finder is broken. It doesn't search for all mission's parties, it searches for your rank missions. That's why vanguards will not join to 5-1 mission.
I want to help with low missions, but i'm not going to check every mission below 8-1.
I'm saying that there are literally no other defender elites doing stuff like the rotting metropolis.
Also, defender elite is 8-2.
Anyways, thanks.
There are two big answers to this question-
1.) There aren't enough players to consistently fill up missions with enough people. It would take A LOT of inflow of players, and what we have isn't necessary none but it isn't nearly enough either. As Fangel pointed out, players do missions once and then farm the arcade, and that exacerbates the problem.
2.) Most areas aren't worth farming. For an area to be worth farming it needs a special drop of some kind, something that only drops there or that drops there most often. For example, royal jelly palace offers jelly gems. If you want bark modules you farm the twins.... but no one plays shadowplay, because it's hard and lacks a reward. A good solution would actually be to have less missions, and to make the ones you do have worth replaying. If shadowplay for instance dropped radiant fire crystals at a decent rate, then it would be considered for farming, and this would make me very happy.
Someone will probably come and explain fully (like Bopp), cuz im not 100% exact on this.
My thinking and experience: Party Finder shows only games that are in lobby state or recently started a new level / depth. So you have to sit tight in lobby to get company, or start the mission and reduce the chance for ppl to join.