Community Question: Why don't you play public parties?

cant find people my lvl/difficulty at the time I wanna play

Do party a bit with friends now and then

Pace

1) I like to go at my own pace. I don't like having to wait on others or make others wait on me.

2) Loot. Not only do I hate the idea of having to rush for my own drops, but I also feel awkward taking non-allocated items such as white Triple Color + Link items, white 6S Items or white 5/6L Items that drop.

3) More loot. I know this sounds silly at first, but because I keep all loot toggled "On" at all times, it tends to cover my entire screen making it impossible to see what I'm doing. This rarely, if ever, happens when I'm playing alone.

4) Stupid shit I probably shouldn't get -that- mad about. For example, I've opened a public Fellshrine party before. We (5 people) were farming it just fine, all peaceful and stuff. 6th guy joins and rushes ahead of the group in each instance killing all of the rare mobs then leaving the instance 'till we started a new one.. We honestly didn't notice until 3-4 clears, because Fellshrine farming tends to be somewhat laid back...people tend not to pay as much attention.

Loot. Adversarial cooperation is certainly an interesting conceptual juxtaposition - very artsy - but it is not particularly fun.

i think the main ingredient to making public partying successful is to cultivate a feeling of camaraderie with your fellow exiles. i noticed that with Dark Souls, except for a very small minority of sphincters, there is a high level of mutual respect and empathy between players.... even in PvP.

I relate a small anecdote to show that this same spirit of camaraderie is also present amongst the public partiers in HC.
I created a party as a lvl 4 character and was joined by another player called Roxette. Together we battled through the lvls from the Mud Flats to the The Ship Graveyard.
When we went into the 'graveyard cave, Roxette portaled back to get some gear to counter the Flicker mobs, i didn't have the same luxury, still having an empty stash, and though we were careful it soon became evident that i would most likely die in that miserable cave, so i reached into my stash and entrusted Roxette with the most valuable item i was carrying, a chaos orb, which i had just found.
I figured Roxette had a better chance of making it out alive than i did, and i would rather another player have the benefit of this item instead of it being lost.
As it turns out we both made it through and when we emerged topside Roxette return the chaos orb. This is the caliber of play that makes public partying particularly satisfying.....

I consider it a true joy to randomly find these valiant and honorable souls amongst my fellow exiles.
If this sort of public partying is the exception and not the rule then i sorrow for this community.

Because I like to go at my own pace and most people wouldn't have the patience to wait on me. I don't like being rushed.

I like to listen and read quest dialogue or pause to inspect my surroundings instead of just speeding through instances and slaughtering mobs.

I like to take lots of breaks, and think others might find it boring if one always leaves and comes back.

Also, I tend to progress very slowly and could imagine the pace being way faster with someone else. I spend at times quite a lot of time in the passive skill tree, even in the wilderness, so again, it might be boring for others.

1). Don't like FFA loot

2). I don't really like the attitude of a lot of people in default general chat so that puts me off playing with people I don't know. Not everyone is like this and I'm sure there are plenty of decent people who remain quiet but most of the more vocal people come across as quite immature, always bragging & linking their items, putting other people down etc. Not the sort of people I am interested in playing with.

3). Like playing at my own pace where I can stop and go afk any time I like etc. I have done a lot of hardcore raiding in MMO's in the past and now when I play games I'd rather do something relaxing - I simply prefer to play at my own pace and on my own terms, not other peoples.

- Lag
- The players running for rares, uniques, orbs, even if its your name on it.

I know it's a thread about "why do you not party?"...
but let me give you a heads up guys:

As long as the problem isn't your computer (which at times mine is and I play with insane lags...) you can influence your party by one simple and hard thing: Talking to each other, showing trust and giving the other the option to return this trust. I can only agree with nemesis here (tx for the very nice story! btw.) and would go even as far and say, camaraderie can be built anywhere. What do you guys do when a random player joins the party? Some are silent, some say "hi"... dunno I always try to welcome the player with his/her name, showing him I do care who joined my party.

I admit, partyplay is a social stress (that's why some people like solo play and note: that's not a bad thing). Just seeing the responses like "i don't like rushing for loot" or "I feel like I'm taking too many breaks", may be a legitimate reason not to party. Yet, if you give the others a chance to adapt to you it might work out (sometimes not and that's fine). Playing in a party means adapting to other players' playstyle and that is work! (Not to mention it's necessary to chat) Don't expect parties to work properly together at the first mob or the first instance. All the good things need time. And there's a bunch of amazing people out there ;-)

I could go on hours about it. (still)

Sorry for this post not "really" according to the thread title.


=)
cheers,
ere

edit: rereading i noticed that i wrote "why do you not party", but it was "why don't you play in public parties". However, to me it feels as if the posts in here are concerning partyplay itself. So I guess it's ok...