Only qualms I have about working together are quitters, people who don't speak English (until I fixed that), not getting that Beast Scale I collected for myself, and load times for some people being pretty long compared to mine. Other than that, I'm good.

I have one friend I do a lot of tag team with, he's about a level of armor above me, but my skill level's higher, so we're pretty evenly matched. But still, he got all three Beast Scales that I collected...

I'm going to be honest here with a sad little fact: Ever since I reached Haven from the first day of the game, I have never done a full run with another player. I've soloed every run I ever did in this game. There were only 2 instances where I actually joined a party, and both were joining on Red Carpet Runaround for a JK raid.

I always prefer going in a group, only travelling solo if I've no choice (or the party I'm with is especially bad - I'm sorry but it's no fun for me if I'm having to revive my team mates every 5 minutes). Taking out enemies in a group is generally more fun and it also gives me more confidence for the harder areas like 3rd room arenas.

There are no pros for me, unless it's FSC. Then yeah I could use some help.
I never go with someone I don't know or trust in other cases. And if I do, I don't move to the god damn party button unless they understood how I am controlling the waves.

Solo:
+ I die less because the monsters are easier to kill and I don't have to give half my health to anyone else.
+ Easier to make a strategy because two to four aren't running around doing their own thing. (Once one of my team mates hit a trunks right at me and it hit me. I was pissed.)
+ You get all the pills and mats you find.
- If you die no one can help you.

Random Party:
- The monsters have more health.
- People hogging all the pills.
- People send me friend request so they can beg.
- We can all be on our last leg and they still want to do the danger room...
- If we're doing a boss I promise at least two people will not know what to do (even if you tell them) and just start messing everything up.

Party with Friends (well my friends anyway. I don't know about you guys):
+ You have some one to laugh with and talk too.
+ They'll probably share they're pills.
+ They'll actually follow a plan.
+ If they're awesome players then thats even better.

Yeah. Playing with Friends is best in my opinion.

I like parties better.

I sometimes will do heat runs where I want to do every danger room possible so I usually solo those runs when I want to wait on gates for a good chance of a danger room or arena. I have tons of mats because I'm a mat hoarder so I usually don't need mats. Even then I have so many tokens I don't know what to do with unless I end up not having a mat that I need.

I try not to do PUG when it comes to bosses. I end up having to explain everything to them when they won't listen anyways. Then constantly give me attitude when all I'm doing is trying to help. Then after they keep dying they end up saying "maybe we need to do it this way.." which was what I suggested in the FIRST place. IF they had just listened from the very beginning instead of giving me attitude like a prepubescent teenager then we wouldn't be in that situation in the first place. -_-

lol.

I like to party with my friends, because like chortlexu said, they share pills, they know what they're doing, and I have someone to talk to.

Though it's easier to go solo for me, because I'm a gunner (not dedicated yet, but getting there), so in something like arena, I can run around the rim and plan something, so I can survive, but it does take longer.
When I'm in a party, I can't just run around the rim, because they're not all after me, so I end up running right into a mecha knight or something.

Guess you could say I'm "on-the-fence".

Crowns and heat are shared between groupmates, while materials and consumables are divided. The fact that everybody gets as much crowns and heat in a group as they would solo is a huge upside in my opinion. Another upside to grouping that soloing doesn't have is that you can be revived free of energy cost by groupmates, they "only" have to sacrifice half their health for it.

Before I joined the guild I'm currently in though, I was going alone almost 90% of the time, except for the very few times I wanted to try and kill Jelly King (I used to go back to Haven whenever I reached the boss level if I didn't). The reason? Despite all the upsides grouping has, I found myself having a harder time doing levels (especially arenas) in groups than I did alone. Ironically I spent more energy reviving in groups than I did solo, as well.

Nowadays I still play the first few levels alone until I reach Basil, but that's for a different reason - those levels just don't give a lot of crowns. Inviting guildmates to a run starting from Basil saves them mist they would otherwise spend on unprofitable levels.

It's been said before, but everyone gets the same heat and crowns, regardless of team size. Mats and pickups (vitapods, vials, and capsules) are another story. Mats are randomly distributed and pickups go to the one who picked it up.

Personally, I like it better when I go alone. I've run with too many trolls, afkers and scrubs to count, and this has left me a tad bitter towards others. But, I still run in groups, especially in the lower tiers because it's faster to get crowns and minerals that way.

Only "away from keyboard" guy I got was on the actual run from the rescue camp to haven, and that guy got kicked by the party leader after about three minutes. No trolls, so far, and I don't have any clue what a scrub is. I just get people who know as much or more than I do and don't listen to me, not that I'd listen so much to them either...