individual and social play

[Greymain]

Guess in a way this is that old solo/group debate but I am not advocating any changes in Vanguard.

I must admit that I find it difficult talking to strangers and I know I am not alone. forcing me to join a pick up group in order to complete a dungeon will mean not doing the dungeon unless someone invites me into their group. I refuse to beg, which I how I feel about sitting outside a dungeon with LFG floating above my head.

My ability to progress depends on my Guild. Here I have my pool of friends who I can talk to, Guild chatter is part of the core playing experience. But I also enjoy my own company. Not being an aggressive player my role in Guild groups is usually one of supporting the hard nuts.

A role I had for many years in real life. I used to be a rock climber able to ascend some of the hardest routes at that time. However I was not the lead climber rather the guy who had the reputation as a very safe pair of hands when the lead climber fell off. All fine and challenging but sometimes I felt the need to escape the interdependency to climbing and walking solo in the mountains relying on nothing but my own skills.

This too I look for in a MMORPG. I want the choice to wander solo exploring the land. Just as I never attempted difficult routes solo so I am content not to be able to solo difficult mobs.

It seems to me a matter of balance not either group or solo play.

whats your approach?

[Pirotess]

I must admit Im very reluctant to group outside my guild. Far too often I find others outside the guild to be completely inept and that ruins my enjoyment of the game. Certainly there are diamonds in the rough and great situations I am robbing myself of by doing that but I game to relax not wonder when the next PUG is going to screw me somehow.

That said I enjoy solo exploring when a game is fresh and new to learn the lay of the land and how to get places so I can direct my guildmates to interesting places. Eventually though I must have a group of some sort to enjoy myself and preferrably a group of groups. I derive a large amount of enjoyment from strategizing new boss encounters so I gravitate to those experiences. I used to like the solitude of soloing but I think I got too much of a good thing and burned out on it in EQ.

[Fooee]

I usually group, hopefully with guildmates, but sometimes with strangers. Sometimes you learn new ways to do something when you group with different people, but sometimes you get the clerics who dont heal, or the tank who thinks hes invulnerable and just pulls anything. So I would say I try either way, but do enjoy grouping with friends and guildmates more.

[Flagg]

I don't mind an pick up group now and again then problem I always had was that once toon got closer to the high end people started caring about efficenty and even if you were a member of a guild it became hard to get groups as anything other then the holy trinity. Guild group emeber group where already filled and pickup groups didn't care how good you the player was just how much damage or how bad they needed your class to do _____.Talking with others, even if they are strangers, is the biggest if not the only reason I like these games. For every one ahole out there you will run into at least 3 epople that care and are helpful or that is my experience anyway.
Solo play in every online rpg I have ever done is boring and lack luster with single player rpg's there is the end game and you actually end the game beat the bad guy whatever. Mmmrpgs most end mobs requir multihours raid in which you are just another member. When ldon came out I thought it was the perfectway to slove the casual player gap. Alot of people that solo say they do so because the only have a small amount time to commit to the game at a time, ldon introduced missions that could easyly be done in less then an hour and a scucess brought about points that you could save for very nice rewards.

[Jaeth]

I prefer group play. Solo content is fine, but grouping is where I'm having the most fun.

[canardvc]

Grouping is where I have the most fun, with guildmates first, or with strangers, I don't mind, but when I'm bored with it I go solo ; it can be relaxing sometimes.

[Coinspinner]

In DAoC I hardly ever grouped on my Thane (tank with nukes) or runemaster (nuker). It seemed every character below level 50 was a twinked and powerleveling alt or a BG character. I asked to group a lot and was just rejected. I had the LFG flag on at all times and never got an invite. I just soloed until I got bored and played somethign else. I made a Warden (tank/support/healer, very watery) and suprisingly got invites all the damn time without even looking for them. I got to like grouping but hated Hibernia and the jerk Hib players on that server. My own guildmate stole my gold and convinced the rest of the guild I'd never given it to her even though we arranged it in guild chat. I quit that sorry game.

FFXI is about 90% group based until endgame. Since BLM is a beloved class in that game it was possible to get invites while /anon to searches and /invisible to your friend list if you were good. I was good. Still, there were slow days... and months. Putting together a group was a chore but I got better results than waiting with my LFG flag on and your comment up, especially while leveling THF and RDM. For missions and quests I had no qualms about putting together a party to tackle them, the problem was a lack of interest or time in the populace combined with stringent party requirements.

NM hunts were the only time I was really shy about grouping. Missions are fun and everyone on the group benefits from advancing. But I waited months to get a moldavite earring because I was too ashamed to ask even my linkhsell for help in getting an item for myself. I finally got it when a pickup group I was in passed by the area just as the NM popped. The shaman's cloak was much harder and I passed the level range where it's useful without collecting it.

In WoW I started at release as a hunter. Not the most group friendly class. By design WoW does not require you to group to advance. The reason to group is to have fun and obtain gear from an instance or finish a quest. Whenever I grouped to complete a quest the group would disband immediatly after the objectives were complete. There was very little gear for hunters to be found in instances and instances were often unfriendly to a hunter's need for space and a clear shot. These two things, and the general player base's attitude and hurriedness, kept me from bothering with instances with that character.

I tried a druid. Lovely class. At the time they could tank or heal effectively depending on the gear they wore and talents they took. I tried to be good at both. And I grouped a lot. Ran instances. I learned that even though WoW is a relatively simple and easy game the average player somehow still manages to suck. I couldn't find a group were 3/5 players weren't clueless and in a rush to reach the boss. I was cheated out of loot by ninja looters more often than not.

Summary:
I like being required to group in order to get good exp and to complete highly rewarding quests, but not to camp a spawn for a single good drop. Games that don't require grouping to advance result in an extraordinary number of players who don't know **** about the game and grouping or are just arseholes because they know there's a good chance they'll never see you again.

Also, I love pick up groups. Grouping with the same people day by day is as boring as soloing.

[Trevis]

Group all the time if possible. If the group is full of asshat, I would leave and login to another character.

It's not worth it if you are stuck in a group that you don't enjoy only to get some exp.

Individual play for a while to farm items or work on quest.

[froma]

I will give almost any group a shot. Meeting and befriending random people during various adventures is one of my favorite aspects of any MMO. It is only a matter of time before the bad apples become obvious. While this didn’t necessarily happen in WoW (it seems my server had rather low standards), I’m not worried that Vanguard will isolate those that are unable to behave properly in a group.

[Foxeye]

Playing with my SO is my priority in these games. It's important to us that gaming be a way to spend time together, so that's non-negotiable. Unfortunately that increases the chance of any given day being one where one or the other of us can't deal with the outside world. So we don't group too often.

But I do rather enjoy groups. Even the bad groups. Because it gives you stories to tell. You can laugh at the dumb people. And then sometimes the people are great, and you laugh at the jokes. Seems, well, win-win (assuming you dont' really care about XP).

But then there are those days you want to log in, but you don't have the energy to deal with others.