Party Rules...

[The Grey Otaku]

On a couple of occasions I've run afoul of someone in a party who wanted to take the lead and pretty much kill everything single-handed, but hadn't said anything about that when I joined the crew.
I've only ever played one MMO before, and about the worst possible sin one could commit would be to stand there and do nothing while one person did all the work.
People who did that were called "leeches", and no one wanted to be called a leech.
Still, having one really strong player effectively carry the rest of the party seems pretty common here, and that raises a couple of questions, (aside from the ethics of contributing nothing to a group, which kinda bugs me)....
1) If the guy who wants to do all the work doesn't tell you as much from the outset, how the heck are you supposed to know that's his plan?
2) Doesn't standing there watching while one player plays and the rest watch kind of a) mess around with the whole levelling/skill-building concept? I mean, sooner or later, you're gonna have to stand on your own, aren't you?
And b), take a lot of the fun out of playing the game? Personally, I'd rather have it take longer and maybe die a couple times, but actually *play*, and feel like I contributed to the crew when I do a dungeon.

Is there anything like a "Party" Forum where people put together crews of like-minded individuals, and thusly avoid the unpleasantness of having someone called out for not playing the way the leader wanted them to?

[McLovin]

I think by party forum you really mean a guild/clan which unfortunately isn't in the game yet. They could add a LFG section to the forum, but having someone reply to your post within a reasonably short amount of time and also having a character around your level is pretty unlikely, especially with the size of the player base right now and the small fraction of players that actually visit the forums. And then on top of that you'd have to reply to one another and decide to get online at the same time to group up and run the dungeon. (That's why most MMO's nowadays have dungeon queues and the dungeons have a level range, so people can group up with others around their level as quickly and easily as possible. Although it can lead to people being really anti social since it requires no effort or communication to group up and run dungeons.)

Unfortunately that's just how things are, if you're standing outside of a dungeon trying to make a group you'll either have people above your level with better weapons that'll breeze through it, or people lower than you who'll struggle compared to you. It's very unlikely that you'll find multiple people looking for a group at a dungeon at the exact same level with nearly identical weapon damage. So really you're just better off playing alone if you really want to experience the content and have an average difficulty. Grouping up for dungeons in this game is mostly for farming XP and loot. (at least from what I've seen.)

If you really do want to play with other people around your level you still can though, it'll just take a bit more time and effort on your part. I'd suggest standing in front of the dungeon you want to run and starting a party, then typing the details in the little box that appears above your head when you make one. For example: the dungeon name, T=the difficulty you want to run it on (normal, hard, or hell.) and the level range you'd like for the players that join (levels 11-14 for example.)

It should look something like this. Looking for players level 16-20 for Sakurajima Normal.

You might be waiting a while, and if you want a full group you'll probably have to be more social (if you don't talk to people who join about getting a full group first they might just jump in right away or get bored and leave without some talking.) but I think that's your your best option right now.

[Courina]

actually there's penalty for not killing (or you said it was called leeching) as the exp gain appereantly calculated in 4 parts : participation , first hit , damaging , killing. so technicaly if you doin nothing, technicaly you only got one parts (participation). appereantly this was intented to give competition to the killing. (also the killing mechanism kinda weird as whoever land the last hit, the exp and loot belong to that person and their party) .

also there's also dungeon mechanism that make stuff get more harder with more party member you have , from solo for simple dungeon to 5 ppl for more crowded mobs and harder boss. so technicaly by joining party, you already contributed for more loots and exp. (and the loots is different for each person, so dont worry being greedy there...)

so answering your question.
1. it actually win win solution as you all got loot, the carrier got more exp and at the dungeon end (if you finish it) you all got same clearing exp. it does sounds like encouraging leeching, but recent released jp mmorpg appereantly love this mechanism...
2a. yes and no, you might still have to learn some player skill like how to kite etc, but as you got all your loot(read : all, again ,each person gain different loot at their screen), i dont think you have to really worry about your gearing. About leveling skill you can just train it yourself with easier field mobs as they leveled depend on hit , not depend on how strong the mobs it smack with. (someone said in other thread just go raep all kijinuma outside onigashima for skill leveling, hahaha). And no worries about stats , those are level related , you aint goin build some str muscle by keep swinging sword, purely exp dependand.
2b. now that tricky question , as it return to the player itself. according what you were saying , might you "enjoy" the game by gettin party member that was par with you. Or start invite some irl friend to play with you?

also before i forgot, there's no guild/clan yet, but you can use groupchat feature to keep in touch with ppl , might good subtitute for guild for now. (max 30 ppl i heard)

[ogre]

as a solo player i like this system i mean in the fact if i want challange i play solo and if i want to be lazy i play in groups


as hibrid its pretty easy

but i know one thing i know i dont like leechers but ma woman dont like challangers so i have to accept she like easy and party for me does just that