How do you play? Solo or Squad?

Solo. I don't mind joining a squad if the invite comes along, but I don't seek them out.

Unless friends decide to come and play with me, I tend to run around on my own in MMOs. I blame being kinda shy and, in plenty of cases, worrying about messing up. Especially in games that I'm new to.

b:surrender

I do a litle bit of every thing, the funny thing is that you never know where/when you gonna meet your next great game friend.

My ideal squad is made of 1 cleric and the rest barbs and BM.b:victory

I play both really. I love teaming up, though my tolerance for idiotic squads is very low. On my BM I used to FC a lot, but most of my friends have overleveled me and stuff. So most of my squadding is rushing through BHs for my own lower-leveled alts.

For most quests, I like to stay on my own so I can take my sweet time doing whatever I want. I hate when other people just meditate when I do all the work, so I'm not gonna make anyone go through it because, after killing 10 mobs, I feel like going AFK for 2 hours. If it's a quest I really wanna get rid of, I might consider squadding.

Basically gets down to if I'm not in an instance, I'm usually on my own.

Bellatriix - Archosaur wrote: »

Kind of a dumb question, but how do you play the game? Do you prefer to be solo, or squadded with close friends, over new people?

Well, I nobody I know plays PW, so it's the first one :-)

My total party time is pretty low --- I've done 2 FB19s, and a few turtles and Florafangs. The lack of public chat means you don't get to do people's FBs, and the other two are just random encounters as well.

For myself, I don't like the powerlevelling, even though PW encourages it --- if I can do a quest then I'll do it, and if I can't I'll wait until I can, or let it expire. Too bad I don't know how level difference and resistances affect damage, so I can't take the database-data from a boss that I was able to kill and project when I'll be able to kill another boss, so I've pretty much given up caring about bosses at all --- so no party time to be expected since I can't know whether I could do it for someone.

My guess about Gouf was pretty good though --- I bagged him on the first attempt, and he was still dangerous. But stat changes were moderate compared to Krixxix; some of the other bosses that I have quests for have insane damage values and much higher levels.

Basically means I do my normal quests, and skip all the boss quests more-or-less permanently. Currently I have a somewhat-interesting quest to kill 3*20 monsters in Wraithgate --- I know that at least one kind of these can be reached without having to get past a boss, so that's a more interesting quest --- not impossible like the bosses, but slightly more dangerous than the trivial normal quests, and it might need more than one go depending on how many monsters you can kill before the first boss :-) I'm also planning to try and work my way through the Kings Feast dungeon --- I have to bring some fruits to some NPC in there, which might be doable as well.

Of course, all this also makes me stand out a bit. I already noticed that through my 20s and 30s --- I was probably the only player without a glowing weapon, until I did my FB19. I never used the FB29 reward (which I got at 63), so no glowing gear since I dumped the FB19 only a few levels after getting it. Again, almost everyone else seems to glow, so if you don't then you've got a somewhat unique look :-)

EIodi - Sanctuary wrote: »

(I really dislike the random party loot share on PWI.)

Well, I would never accept another setting. For one thing, I've played ranged chars "forever", and that's the only way we get drops. On the other hand, for a potential next game I'm considering a melee char (provided I can find a guide...), and even though that would mean first hand access to the drops, I would still want to come up with a fair sharing scheme and inevitably fail at that. So random takes care of that too.

Unless I'm playing with my husband (who is also very antisocial), I'm a solo player 99% of the time.

We've just had way too many bad experiences over the years. There have been a handful of really nice people we've met (and had some of our best MMO experiences with them), but it seems like for every nice one you encounter, there are 50 bad ones. People who are annoying, rude, selfish, greedy, can't type/communicate worth a damn, get you killed by doing the stupidest things, like to create trouble between group or guild members, are drama queens, constantly whine and complain, just want to chat you up rather than play the game, and the list goes on and on...

Playing solo makes it much harder to accomplish certain things (or rules them out completely) but for me it's an acceptable trade to avoid the hassle and aggravation of having to deal with those kinds of awful people.

But occasionally I will group with others if they speak to me directly and ask politely (rather than just throwing up an automated invite out of the blue), or if I see there's a group that's having trouble finding members to take down a specific mob/boss. After which, I usually thank everyone for the group and then leave, unless the people are very nice, in which case I'll stick around for a bit. But eventually I like to go off and do my own thing. I'm a casual player, and I like to take my time and let the whole experience soak in, spend time exploring the world, work on my crafting, take screenshots, take the time to actually read the quests, etc. I hate being dragged around at top speed by someone (or a group) who just wants to fly through the levels as quickly as possible.

i like to do the squad thing. when i solo grind or quest i lagg out or dc and die and lose all that exp so i just like to go in bh and look at the forums while i drag along behind and auto attack the boss. much easier b:victory

Kinda both. I tend to do or try to do things alone, but I dont mind if a friend wants to come along with me. As for instances, I prefer to squad up with friends/guildies/friends' friends and WC only if we cant find the missing person.

Though, I tend to join random squads for fun in spur of moment or, if I am killing a boss and have spare spots, WC if other people needs it.

I love..........Sqauloing.

Damewort - Sanctuary wrote: »

Squaloing? A squad where everyone is afk and you have to do all the dirty work? Hate them >.> *goes afk too*

No. It's where I go solo the toilet, while the squad does the work. b:avoid

Michael_dark - Lost City wrote: »

Is that what you call the noise you make when the water spla.... err.. nvm. I don't want to know.

b:bye

If you ever squad with me, you'll find out, whether you want to or not. I always give a detailed account of where I've been. A VERY detailed account. b:sin

Fuzzy_Wuzzy - Raging Tide wrote: »

Depends on what Fuzzy is doing. Questing has more or less always been done alone for months now that everyone spends all their time in instances doing daily quests. Since the addition of 3bh/day it seems almost impossible not to quest alone. Fuzzy remembers the days when you would actually run into others around the world working on the same quest. Now, most of the map is a ghost town so even if you wanted to invite someone to squad, theres never anyone around.

As for when Fuzzy runs instances he more or less works with the same crowd of people. Doing runs like bh89 or frost its just quicker to work with friends who know how each other operate. No need to waste time. Get in, get the kill, get out.. no fuss no muss. Working with friends and trusted ally's be the best way to go.

Then there is the question of random squads. Fuzzy does do some random stuff. Every once in awhile he finds himself standing around in arch and sees many many people crying out for help in a 39 or 51 or whatever. Why not? Fuzzy answers random shouts from the lower lvl people fairly frequently now for fun. Takes no time for him to run most of those instances and almost 100% of the time alot of the lower lvl people are impressed a 9x would take the time. They seem to have this idea that all higher lvl end game players are just snobby @$$holes so Fuzzy do what he can to shatter that myth.

b:thanks

^Basically all of this, 'cept I run BHs and FFs with randoms frequently since most of the 8x+ in my guild are always....busy...b:surrender I shall also be interested helping random lowbies when I'm 9x too, to also help break this tradition of all high lvls never having time to help them ^^. Thanks Fuzzy for caring and I too would like more of these player to realise there is more World out there in PWI than just only instances and Oracles! b:thanks

Fb/tt/nirvana/etc: obviously squad, since I'm a wizard with average gear, it's easier, and usually i just squad with friends or faction members. It's rare for me to squad with 5 people and not know 1 of the others in squad at least.

Everything outside of instances/non-instanced bosses: Solo, if i can. Usually am in squad with my wife and talk to her, but kill stuff by myself. Normal pve isn't hard once you learn your class.

depends on what i'm doing.

if i'm grinding for xp, drops, or kills, i'll usually solo just to avoid the distractions of chatting. (well, more than i already do in guild chat... i can keep up one chat session while grinding, but working guild chat, squad chat, AND grinding gets to be too much.) usually i'll accept a squad invite from randoms who happen to be grinding the same thing, but i don't really talk to them if i do.

anything more complex or involving, i like to be able to talk about the situation with somebody. that'll usually mean a question in guild chat leading to squad invites, and often a pretty talkative gaming session in-squad.

and yeah, vent makes a HUGE difference. so much easier to be social when you don't have to stop gaming to type. i'll have to start prodding my guildmates to use vent...