Just to be clear, I'm not talking about LFG bounty trains or similar made groups. This is just the random, out in the field, joining up for synchronicity and buffs - it's usually just for one or two bounties but sometimes folk stay in-group afterwards for dailies and reduce the grind for all. I tend to be a joiner rather than a maker but my OH is definitely a maker - he tries to join people up as often as possible, especially in areas with low population. Sometimes (e.g. lantern assault) a half-dozen people in a group can complete the run where the same number of individuals would probably fail. Or at least it seems that way to me. Thing is, we've noticed a sharp decrease recently in the willingness of players to join a temporary group. Lots of refusals or ignores (this is not the same as "already in a group"). He's not ninja inviting them to instances after the bounty (which I find annoying but ignorable). We're just suggesting a temporary team-up. If we get a healer or troll in the mix, that's a bonus. Is this a thing other people have noticed?
Many players - like myself - do open world missions and bounties while waiting for raid/alert queues to pop. If they join a group - they're removed from the queues. After leaving the group, they have to requeue and - since queues work on "first come first served" basis - they've lost their place, which often means waiting a lot longer, especially on less populated servers and especially for villains. The reason you're seeing more declined invitations is probably because now you can invite villains into hero groups and most of them had to learn to do open world without a group, so joining one is not worth losing place in the queue, particularly for a faction-locked raid, like AnB, which can take forever to pop anyway. Bounties are so easy that most players don't need support and being ninja-invited to a group - often repeatedly - can be an annoyance, since the same button on the controller is used for accepting invites and many other things, like jumping, or making selections in menus, or inventory, so it's easy to join without meaning to, before even noticing what's happening. The invitation popping up at the wrong moment can also prevent a player from blocking, or dodging a one-shot, so it can literally cause a KO. Personally - I'd rather not be ninja-invited for anything. It's the quickest way to end up on my ignore list.
I enjoy being in group runs in open world group missions but most of the time, am doing them alone. I find that the best way to get people's attention is to use the shout chat. This is where I find out that there's somebody is forming a group and this is where I ask (shout) for help if I feel like there's not enough people doing the bounty. If anything, I would like to be able to "shout" to other phases because sometimes, there's just no interest for others to join the mission from the same phase. It would be easier to create groups, too, if you have access to multiple phases. I have used LFG before for open world missions and have been mildly successful for bounty spams but I don't want to use it for an open world mission that lasts 2-3 minutes.
If I am at any open world bounty and not waiting on content to queue, I am happy to join any groups. The only ninja invite I really don't like dealing with is league invites.
If I'm taking on an OW solo, I feel bad turning down strangers' invites because I'm pro teamwork. If I do, there's a reason (Moon mentioned open queues, eg.*). Unless I'm playing after 1am and can't be bothered, I'll shoot a quick "ty but can't grp rn" tell. Hate to discourage or upset team-oriented players, but on balance, ninja invites are abrupt and presumptuous at best. I've yet to ignore due to ninja invite, but I gotta admit needing to decline 1 player 3x seems excessive. I send a tell by then for sure. While I have no way of knowing if players are declining ninjas more, respectfully, I hope so. The humble perspective of one (generally sociable!) player- speaking only for myself. *Other reasons- involved in a chat that could be muddled by added group entries, OW numbers-testing, awaiting inv for something else, waiting for friends' availability to inv them, not wanting to risk random collection node loot inventory flooding, pre-avoidance of a potential social interactions I don't have time to participate in, etc.
I used to shout in every OW area where I have 'repeat' type work to do (like seasonals or daily/weekly missions on alts), but it seems most people are uninterested in grouping, so I no longer do. Part of that is (as Low mentioned) it interrupts the queue process, and I think the other is some people use this to take advantage and just squat for a free ride. I'm not talking about sharing credit, like you do one thing..I'll do another...we both benefit. I'm talking where someone invites 3 or 4 people, then just sits there doing nothing. A good example of somewhere I'd 100% join up is if someone wanted to group for these seasonal outdoors. You play the game, I do the kills, we both queue for the alert and are done in 1/2 the time with the set. If you run 1 toon, it's not a big deal, but if you are blasting through 10 alts, yeah.....it's a time/effort saver. A good example of the other scenario was JLDC dailies or the tablets. I'd see group builders who would just hover mid map and do nothing other than fill the group. It could be argued that the group building is 'work' but once you have a few people 'squatting' it ends up with 2 or 3 people doing the work, which can be annoying, even if in the end it's still faster for them. I WILL join a group generally if I'm not in a queue, if invited...but no longer try to make them either. The only other thing I'll frequently join is an assault group in mogo, but that's more because finding a phase that works has added difficulty where it should not be.
Like moon mention a lot of people, myself including are in Q for normally a raid because of how often assault glitched i would only be trying to do it while I do raids and once I was done with raids I switched to a alts. In short I'm on to raid and only care about weekly and Daily till I am finished with raids
This, right here. And the few times I'm not waiting for a queue to pop, like when I actually am running bounties, I'll get an invite from someone else running the current bounty, and when I join I get a message that they've queued up an instance, so I then have to leave the group so I can continue working on bounties. So, to make things easier on myself, and to avoid any hurt feelings, I just decline group invites, unless I requested the invite. Better to just use shout that you're putting together a group, and wait for people to say "inv pls" -- or ask if there's already a group you can join.
If I join one of those groups where they are also queued, generally I just won't queue. If they post up a message about queuing up, I'll respond "oh, I thought we were doing bounties" or whatever and boogie out soon after, or get kicked. Now, if I get pulled into a group, with the queue up....and then the leader says 'hey, we are doing XYZ after we finish....want to join?"....I might stick around if the group looks decent depending if I need the thing they are running. Otherwise, don't mix and match and expect everyone to go along just because you said so. It's rude and annoying.
i keep group invites turned off. its toxic behavior to just randomly invite players without asking for reasons people have already mentioned. you do not need to be in a group to complete a bounty
I do appreciate your point about grouping and queueing. It makes sense. ArtemisWonderWoman7’s point about prioritising raids where the OW equivalent is buggy is also valid. That said, the assault has been fine for me all week. We usually do the current worlds one after another and cycle through our characters. Instances are fitted in at different times. So it’s a good reminder that not everyone plays the same way. I think it’s important to not be a repetitive pest, although I hardly think a single invitation (one without an instance queue hiding in the background) qualifies. We’re on PC so we don’t have that issue with buttons, another good point.
I used to hate the way LFG filled up my chat box so turned it off. These days I keep it on for precisely the reason you mention – bounty spams. Consider me there for at least a couple of rounds if I am online, and I will rotate characters if my main has done all the numbers (which she usually has). It’s also a good way to get low population bounties without hanging around waiting for a train to start or pass through. Hard agree – I’ve seen people try it on LFG. But I’m not sure how successful it is. In-phase shouts sometimes work, sometimes don’t.
Yes, there are great reasons for not being interested in grouping up for a short time. I guess it comes down to communication skills and available modes (only so many), and one player’s method might be anathema to another. So you’re basically saying you don’t like them all that much, but you do like contributing to teamwork so you won’t blow someone off just for trying. With you 100% on the tiresomeness of multiple attempts.
Typically I'll accept unless 1 of 2 things: 1. I'm in a q which I care more about and don't want to break it. 2. I'm multi-tasking and so a liability. The second one is usually only a thing if I'm grinding for the feats where I'll stay in the area and help when others start if I'm free. For instance I killed Hank maybe 15 times in 3 hours on Saturday evening but there were multiple 5-10min stints when I had to be tabbed out doing other things.
Pretty much - I don't see the point getting bent out of shape about it. I initially got worried because I thought it was an expectation that if you grouped with people then you'd help them with whatever, but I got over that. If they want to set a queue and not ask, it's on them if I decide to leave after completing the immediate objective.
One of the things that annoys me about the game is the over/mis-use of the word toxic. I do think you have found your best solution though.
you dont think its toxic when people spam invite you to group and you cant use your loadout or ui because the invite windown keeps popping up? players weaponize that function and target other players to harass them. its happened to me and i had to dm mepps to step in and get them to stop. even when you have invites turned off it spams the chat box that someone is trying to invite you.
Earlier you said: "its toxic behavior to just randomly invite players without asking" - you didn't differentiate between a single invite and multiple spam/harassing ones. A single invite that's not repeated by a player that has no intentions of harassing you is not toxic, - it's worlds away from the ones who, as you say, "weaponize that function and target other players to harass them" which I would call toxic behaviour because it's repetitive and designed to be harassing.
