One of the main reasons to go party is sometimes your internet lags out causing you to die through no fault of your own. Atleast if you are with someone else you don't have to spend mist to revive.

Another benefit is heat farming.

Shadow lairs are cheaper when you split the key cost.

You can also have more weapon variety during the run

As far as I know, the increase of health per extra member is linear, meaning each player adds the same amount of health as the next. The possible damage, however, is not. This is simply due to the ability to use weapon combinations that would normally be hard to achieve (E-Vortex+4 Brandish charges).

Having monster aggro split up is not always a bad thing. In a party, you generally only have to deal with one fourth of the enemies.

When solo, some of your damage is wasted because monster health is so low that your last swing is just to finish them off. Also, most damage bonuses don't make an actuall difference as to the number of times you need to attack.

Heat sharing.

Most people can't solo Vanaduke.

just go solo. you get better at the game by going solo, and you have more advantages unless it is shadow lair or something.

Plus, crowns scale up with party size. That's always nice

@Redblades, Brandishes don't seem like great weapons for fighting Vana. Unless your confused and you think the Fire Storm Citadel is actually called Vanaduke.

Some of these have been mentioned before, but:
-You're not splitting loot, it's duplicated. The only thing split is mats and who gives a toss about mats? If you run with friends, chances are you can ask for the mat if you really need it.

-Have you ever had a 5 to 10-second lagspike? I do on a daily basis, and it's guaranteed death if you're in combat or anywhere close to a trap. It's very rare for this to happen to to players at the same time, so you're more likely to stay alive even if you just go with two people.

-There's a limit to how many pills a single person can carry. This limit is 4 times higher in a 4-man party, so you're leaving behind a lot less vials and other pickups.

-Co-op tactics! One player can use vortex, shivermist or some other support weapon while the other player has a much easier time inflicting loads of damage. The other players can cover you while you carry keys, waterballs and such.

-Enemy health gets increased per party member, but not linearly. Four players will clear a floor a lot faster than just one. This goes especially for open stages like Charred Court (second stage into FSC), where my parties typically split into groups of two.

-Honest question: Why would you play this game solo? The entire reason I play SK is because it's 4-player co-op Zelda Bomberman. If viewed in the light of being a single-player game then, well... it sucks! This is a terrible single-player game! It's one of the worst single-player action games I've ever played! There are a million better single-player offline action games out there where you're not bothered by forced, always-online DRM, money-grinding per piece of equipment measured in days and your favourite weapon suddenly becoming a piece of junk right before your eyes. Why would you play SK solo when you could be playing literally any other action game out there? They're faster-paced, better balanced, more complex, deeper, has more bosses, has more variation in their enemies and weapons, look better, have no lagspikes, have no server restarts, don't try extorting money out of you after you've purchased them nor will they pack you with any of the other bull you have to deal with when playing MMOs.

I have but a handful of reasons to play SK in the first place:
-I want to play with my friends
-I have friends from many corners of the world
-Maybe one or two of them have consoles, all of them have PCs. A lot of their PCs are crap, so I can't play most modern co-op PC games with them
-SK is initially free, and has relatively low system reqs (even if the performance is awful), so it's easy to get them to try it
-The slow pacing makes it a bit forgiving for poor latency and crappy computer specs

Spiral Knights is accessible for people with all kinds of computers, which makes it great for co-oping with friends, but as soon as you take out multiplayer the game has next to no merit left. The only unique thing I thought the game had going for it was that the Radiant Sun Shards was one of the most fun videogame weapons I've ever used and it's gone now.

Don't get me wrong, I find the game fun. For an MMO.

advantages: 1 skeleton with 4x more live is more easy, than 4 skeletons with less live

Multiplayer can go badly in the lower tiers, but at the end of tier 3 you will find a lot of players will not really hold you back at all. Now the advantage here is that more players can add to utility greatly.

One simple example is a player using a shivermist bomb to freeze mobs while another is nuking with polaris. You are both doing things completely different that create a effective combined play style that can't really be accomplished as effectively playing alone.

This might not seem that obvious in lower tiers because of the lack of gear and specialization, but it is highly visible in tier 3.

Let's say a player does 100 damage per hit, and the monster has 150 health.

In solo it takes 2 hits to kill the monster. With 2 players and 100% scaling the enemy would have 300 health and take 3 hits, just one more. In 4-player this monster would take 6 hits.

Assuming 120 health, we have a table like this:

1 player: 120 health, 2 hits
2 players: 240 health, 3 hits
3 players: 360 health, 4 hits
4 players: 480 health, 5 hits

Did writhes really just correct Quandasim's statement and zeddy back it up with sound maths?
I lol'd because I didn't expect anyone to "correct" his theoretical statement.

@ on topic
"advantages: 1 skeleton with 4x more live is more easy, than 4 skeletons with less live"
"more players can add to utility"
"some content is more manageable with teammates."
"crowns scale up with party size"
and finally "You can't kill your friends with fire pots going solo"
these are the best/funniest answers I found while reading.

Good topic, good posts +1 cookie.

"Let's say a player does 100 damage per hit, and the monster has 150 health.

In solo it takes 2 hits to kill the monster. With 2 players and 100% scaling the enemy would have 300 health and take 3 hits, just one more. In 4-player this monster would take 6 hits.

Assuming 120 health, we have a table like this:

1 player: 120 health, 2 hits
2 players: 240 health, 3 hits
3 players: 360 health, 4 hits
4 players: 480 health, 5 hits"

Well I suppose I didn't really think about overkill damage. I suppose my example is a bad one, so I guess the only way to know for sure what the scale is would be to look it up.

@ Aureate Gave a good summary of the objective list
@ Kalaina-Elderfall Gave a good summary of the subjective reasons

As a solo Dauntless Delver, I have dived 29 levels solo several times (when I had an Elevator Pass). I have beaten everything solo but Vana and OCH T3. I will likely do that someday. I have also never dived a Shadow Lair, solo or otherwise. I may do that too someday in a party, but not likely solo because the key cost is insane.

Having said all that, my own preference is both.

I solo a lot just to develop game skills, and sometimes I feel like playing alone just to unwind or relax. I strongly believe that all players, especially new players, should solo more than dive in groups to develop natural skills in this game. Especially when building up a pre-5* character. In any other game, we gamers usually go beat the single player version before playing much multiplayer, or do both simultaneously. This is no different.

I've been gaming since before there were online games. We used to improve dial-up performance by tweaking AT codes on our modems firmware. So I completely ignore lag kills as a variable in this discussion. Lag kills no matter if you are in a group or solo, so it is always a negative event. It is not any better to get lag killed in a group, just because there is somebody there to revive you. Blame the broadband provider, blame your cheap router, or even blame the game code for not being quite good enough, but lag kills are a neutral variable for me. No point arguing or disagreeing. It is just what I think. (Personally, I think OOO has come a long way in terms of improving game performance over the past year.)

I have a long friends list, and those are my most reliable party members. When it matters, I go to that list cause I hand picked them -- usually after playing with them, so I know them well. It is like my private guild. No rude, selfish, players get to stay on that list, even if they are in my guild. A few unskilled players are on my list, but I enjoy playing with them for different reasons.

Gaming with parties (PUGs, guild and friends) has its own set of pros and cons. It can be the very best experience, and equals the feeling of accomplishment you get when you beat a tough room alone. Maybe in a different way, they each have their own best moments. I can tell you that my worst day solo, is better than an average day in a party. My worst day in a party, is the worst day in the game. On the other hand, some of my best days in the game, I never even went through a gate. I just hung out with friends in Haven.

I think the ultimate would be a group of good quality players who really like each other, play well together, and find success or failure together. Then take it in stride and keep playing for the fun of it. They win often, but don't take it too seriously. I have had moments like that, but have not found that group of four or more to form a consistent party yet. That would be the ultimate.