Specifically things like instanced 5 man dungeons (like Ragefire Chasm or the Deadmines in WoW) which are explicitly designed to challenge a full party of a certain level range. Notably, not endgame content. I'm sure the answer changes based on different factors (e.g. how good are the rewards? What are the drop rates like? Are similar rewards available elsewhere? How long is the dungeon? Am I late picking the kids up from soccer practice?), but I'm curious what folks' thoughts are. I'm personally sour on the idea, but I understand that my attitude is "the less MMO an MMORPG can be, the happier I am", so MMO designers should probably disregard my opinion.

Supplementary Context: usually about once a year, I get the bug to hop into an MMO. However, I am not a good MMO player. I tend to flit around my gaming library like an ADHD pixie on cocaine, and there's no telling how long my interest will sustain itself. Therefore, any "meta" choice I make is purely by accident, and I don't spare even a moment of thought on "efficiency". In fact, I've often thought of my dalliances in MMOs as digital tourism. By and large, I'm there to craft, read quest dialogs, and poke around in the weird corners of the map for a couple weeks before logging off for another few years. Anytime I've ever done group content (which is, admittedly, not often), I'm desperately trying to keep up while someone nukes everything in the dungeon as they sprint towards the end. I wind up feeling like my lackadaisical approach is probably fucking up someone else's farming loop. Now, I don't think either the sweatlords or I are playing the game "wrong" so to speak, but our priorities are in conflict. Maybe I'm letting people-pleasing anxiety get the best of me, but I feel like the person that cares enough to grind a dungeon reward as fast as possible should get right of way over my happy ass who will intentionally sandbag my way through a dungeon if the vibes are right. Therefore, I tend not to engage with such content, if it's not possible to solo.

This has all come to a head because my current preoccupation is Star Wars The Old Republic. Given this game's much greater emphasis on story and dialog than a typical MMO, I actually feel like there's RP content that I want to see in the dungeons, irrespective of any item reward. To the game's credit, many of these can be done solo by selecting the "story" difficulty option before loading in, but not all of them. I just don't want to be the asshole holding up the party cause I want to watch the 3 minute into cutscene (or whatever) while everyone else is hammering their skip buttons trying to get to the boss.

Not necessarily asking for advice, as the solution seems obvious to me (it's "talk to your fellow players", like it always is), but I thought this might foster some discussion, especially from old heads who might have lived the raid life back in the day, but now have different priorities.

I hate it, but understand why they put it in multiplayer games.

I hate it.
I'm literally waiting for Warframe's new "forced six-player mode" to allow undermanned teams (future update), so I can try to solo it. Unless I can carry the team myself, I feel like I'm not contributing and therefore never want to play with others.

In a single sentiment? Fuck em.

If you didn’t want me to sit there watching the content cutscene, reading intro text and participating in your game, don’t put cutscenes and text in. Somebody worked on it and put in the effort, least I can do is try and enjoy it without peer pressure to get me to skip any optional bits.

Ultimately a good mmo should be playable and fun solo without the need to involve other people, but adds interesting twists, complexities and mechanics when there’s multiple people attempting the same content as a group.

The game design should serve the people playing it, not people serving the design of the game in order to make it playable.

I hate being hand-cuffed to other people. I just want a cool world to explore and experience, temporarily group up when i want to. I'm the opposite of most people, i like leveling and growing my character and despise end game gear grind shit. I don't understand how people can stand grinding the same dungeons over and over again for hours on end for a tiny chance to get a new gear piece. When it comes to hitting max level, that's when i start a new character and class.

I really only have the WoW experience (I went back to classic two years ago), but that seems fine to me. I've leveled characters to 60 just fine without stepping into a dungeon, but I've also carried a lot of guildies through all the low- to mid-level dungeons. I look at them as alternate paths.

I do hate it that some class quests require dungeons though - that's more on keeping with "forced grouping" to me.

In swtor it's recommended to try story mode first, to experience the story on your own at a reduced difficulty, where possible.
And then subsequent runs can be Skippy, for the grind.

For myself, I enjoy being carried by whales who don't bitch about carrying or are actually enjoying it, in which case I have no issue lathering them with praise.

The only reason I dread forced grouping is meeting all-around unpleasant fellows who just drain all the fun out of playing because it makes me wanna annoy them back if only to be petty.

In FF14, it tells you if it’s someone’s first time, so for big setpieces, there’s a culture of “let the newbie take the lead and do all the cool stuff.” I’ve seen everyone like stand beside the interactables and pose, too, so they know where they have to go. I absolutely don’t mind waiting for a newbie and letting them get the full experience.

But then, they’ve also gotten better about not making it, like, 20-minute unskippable cutscenes, and weaving it better into the gameplay so the people coming back have less waiting around to do.

Forced to group reminds me of college and forced group projects. Hard pass as you know someone is not going to do their job...

That's the type of content I enjoy the most. Lately MMOs have been drowning in solo content and while it doesn't "hurt" me in any way, it also does not interest me in the slightest, so I end up losing interest.

The few MMOs I played have normal/easy/exploration versions of group content instances, where it's generally expected to be slower and at the very least do the quest and watch cutscenes. I do those up until I'm comfortable with the layout and mechanics and move on. When I encounter people doing the quests in harder instances I do get mildly annoyed, but depending on what exactly is it I can slow down to give them time to click through the dialogue options. If they state beforehand that they are doing something extra or they want to go for a secret/achievement that's usually out of the way, I'm almost always down.

Just set your expectations right before dipping into any group content. If the instance is expected to be easy and is even designed specifically for low power players then it's entirely your prerogative to take it as slow as you want, do the quests, watch the cutscenes, and anyone who is rushing it is the one ruining the experience. If the instance is clearly going to be difficult then don't pug it, find your own group that wants to learn it or look up the mechs beforehand if you don't mind that (I know I hate looking up tutorials myself).

Nowadays there are also so many casual chill guilds in MMOs that specifically gather players who play 2h a week, go very slow, help out with all sorts of content and such, try to look for and join one.

The only aspect of group content I dislike is the potential of future lockout due to extremely low engagement. In those cases games must keep some incentives for all sorts of players to continue replaying old content regardless of whether or not they need anything from that specific instance.

Honestly it depends, if different roles are needed and have to be performed to get through the dungeon then I think it is kind of cool and a fun experience, coordinating and doing your roll and stuff like that. But if it is just a slaugtherfest to be run through then fuck it.

A lot of it hinges on the playerbase and modes of communication though, if you can't communicate and find each other properly then it is kind of meh tbh, even worse if there are no players or generally just shitty attitudes to newer/unexperienced players.