From the gameplay I've had so far, I'm getting the impression of that noone ever uses the "join party" function on the adventure board. Rather, they create their own parties instead.

This is fully understandable, simply due to the fact that doing anything at all costs energy and using "join party" is essentially like gambling away 10-20 energy.

Here's what could happen:

I join a party, the party I joined somehow "ended", either the player died or quit or whatever while I'm still in loading screen, game swaps me into another party and the loading process starts anew, I've suddenly lost 20 energy.

I join a party, the party I joined is in crossroads. Lose 10 energy just to enter crossroads, then I have to pay energy again to enter any real combat area.

I join a party, the party is at the end of an area. Lose 10 energy to spawn next to the elevator down.

etc. etc.

And this is why no one ever uses join party. Of the few times I've tried the guy inside is often very surprised that I joined his/her game. Of course they don't mind me joining, because if they wanted to solo/whatever they'd make the party-friend only.

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What's needed something on the adventure board that lets the player see the progress of ongoing parties that they may join. Ideally, it should be showing:
>name of party leader
>amount of players in party
>which floor the party is in
>what the room on the floor they're in is called
>how long that they have been in that floor

With something like that ingame people won't have to worry about potentially wasting 10-20 energy if they don't feel like playing solo. It would also make the game like actually multiplayerish instead of "mostly solo and maybe multiplayer when friends are online"