Guild Wars 2

Other than things like dungeons of course. My bf and I duo and someone kept asking to join our party (actually, spamming the invite). I let the person in..but I didn’t see the point because we tend to jump around the map a lot. We sit in the same room on separate computers so…communicating in-game while pve and story mode just slows us way down. lol

I’m just wondering, is there an added benefit to actually picking up another random person to our “group”? With the trinity not needed anymore…we don’t need a tank or a healer, so what’s the point?

Right now my friends just use it as a private chatroom so we don’t have to whisper to each other constantly or don’t want our conversation to be seen in guild chat.

Chat, locate on map, share map markers and general organization. There is little point not to do it if you intend to play with other people.

Convenience, mainly.

There are also a number of powers and traits that effect “you and your allies”, which I’d guess means you and your party members.

Jack of Tears.9458:

There are also a number of powers and traits that effect “you and your allies”, which I’d guess means you and your party members.

Nah, that’s everyone.

Jack of Tears.9458:

There are also a number of powers and traits that effect “you and your allies”, which I’d guess means you and your party members.

No it means “you and all people within range that you are aligned with (ie on the same side as in wvw or spvp)”. It isn’t limited to those you are grouped with.

I stand corrected … but when those other people aren’t in your group it’s hard to see if they’re being affected by your traits and skills or not. When they are in your group, you know for sure.

So then, I have to go with Eochaidh, just general convenience … it’s easier to stay together in a group if you can see where the other people are on your minimap; and group chat is more reliable than /map or /say when you wanna talk to everyone you’re playing with.

The call-target/target function only works for groups, as does map & radar pings and sketching. Only party members will be invited to enter your personal instances. Portraits to monitor health and status. Although grouping could be handled better, there are still plenty of reasons to be in one if you’re playing with someone specifically.

Okay, these are all good points, but in my example I’m really referring to random people that are just running around the map doing events and whatnot. We’re not in the same guild. We haven’t spoken to each other at all (random strangers).

In another game I played, the quest would be “go kill x amount of this mob” and when we got to the spot of those mobs it would make sense to group up (or be killstealed or loot looted). Plus, like you said Edge, as a healer I would want to see health and status, but in GW2…I’m not a healer. My skills affect everyone within my range. I specifically cast those spells while in the middle of as many ppl as possible to maximize effect.

So…I guess I still don’t see a good reason to just randomly pick up strangers in our duo party. It seems it would be a hindrance. Which bothers me a little, but not 100%, because I meet more people when I solo, but I don’t necessarily need to meet people when I’m duo with my bf.

Guess that’s a drawback to removing the “trinity” system. Not enough party incentive it seems.

Well, the fact that players can so easily work together without being in a group is actually by design and a feature Arenanet seems particularly proud of.

I think this actually works in your favor. Like you said, you prefer to remain a duo when playing with your partner. At the same time, you can easily work alongside a third player just by traveling in the same direction for a bit and looking out for one another. If you really need to communicate something important, there’s always local chat.

My friend and I were grouped, and took out a champion monster with the help of a third player who was not in our group. Make use of combos when you see them, help either player get some breathing room whenever one of them needs it, that sort of thing. Went pretty fluidly and effortlessly (the functioning-as-a-group-while-not-grouped part, the fight itself was really challenging. Fun though!).

Solbrio.1902:

Okay, these are all good points, but in my example I’m really referring to random people that are just running around the map doing events and whatnot. We’re not in the same guild. We haven’t spoken to each other at all (random strangers).

Force of habit? I get a lot of those invites too, don’t really know what to do with them so if i’m in a chatty mood i let them in, if i want to be left alone i ignore

It might have been only me, but when I was a random WvW group, we got a substantial xp boost when we all focused on same mob. No, it wasn’t the “explore” xp because we were killing for a while and every time we got a specific fixed amount of xp.

seeing the condition your party members are in, easy navigation across the map, staying together with people you enjoy as opposed to strangers who happen to be in the same place, call target coordination, really just the same as in every other game.

I’ve grouped with randomers before and after a while we were also spread out across the same map. This actually came in very handy however, we all told each other about DE’s that were goin on near us and this meant we ended up chaining DE’s around the map for hours. Never a dull moment really. While this could be done in map chat to notify all people, I’ve noticed that most people don’t even pay attention to or join in with map chat. So grouping with a few people will sometimes get you into a DE that you may otherwise miss if you’re just breezing through content.