Why do you (not) hide from searches?

This thread was sparked by Bill Z's "Hide from searches?" thread, in which he cleverly asked participants to not describe why they do or do not hide. It made it easier for him to count and lessened the chance of threadjack.

I'm creating this thread so people have a chance to explain their choice.




As for me: I spend about 90% of my playtime on a team, but I hide from searches because I don't join PuG teams.

I form them. There's just too much drama out there and I like to run teams by my rules. I don't want to hear the empath whining because people won't "gather for buffs" or the tank crying about knockback. If you're on my team, you're having fun. If you don't like the way I run things, get lost. We're here to have fun. You play your way and let the other guys on the team play theirs.

Nobody talks to me, so it's like I'm on hide anyway!

I stay off hide because once in a great while, like the other night, when feeling depressed and masochistic I get a tell from "enegozer bunneh" (name changed for no reason) asked if I wanted to kin for an Eden Trial. I thought, hey, it's better than nothing, and I was right.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Deus_Otiosus This entire post should receive some kind of award for being both hysterical and fantastic. Well done.

Despite all the horror stories about how playing on large servers results in people getting ten blind invites per minute while set to reject all invites and in their personal base, I get about one tell asking me to team per... several weeks. On Virtue. And I play in the evening American time, right around peak hours.

It's obviously because nobody wants to tame with my lame non-healz0rs Defenders anyway.

I hide because I get tired of Blind invites to AE farms by someone 20 or so levels below me. I also have a couple of cyber-stalkers.

"Sorry bucko, but CoH and CoV are the same game." -BackAlleyBrawler
"Silly villain, CoX is for Heroes!" -Saicho

I don't hide because I like to get random tells from strangers and responding with what appears to be a virtue style mistell.

the worst that happens is I politely decline a couple of invitations to team.
If I happen to have some free time, I'll occasionally even accept and every PUG is entertaining in its own way.

/hide is handy if you've got someone specific you'd rather not deal with at the moment, but I hardly ever use it.

I hide because I don't PUG and don't want to give anyone the impression otherwise.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dispari I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.

I don't hide because I'm indifferent if random people talk to me or not.

I don't hide because on Virtue I've never had to - I only get like, one team invite every so often, and only if I'm in a crowded zone or during an event. I've never had repeated "JOIN ME" messages, so I've never found it took more effort than "Decline" to avoid them.

I don't hide because I see no need to. I get almost no blind invites, and very few cold calls to join a team. I do get a number of polite requests to join a team, almost all of which I turn down with no issues. I've never had a "Rude Tell".

I don't want to hide because I hate the thought of new people coming to CoH and seeing no one when they search.

I have nothing to hide, and fear no one

I don't get team invite messages all that often (once every other night maybe) and wind up accepting 50% of the time anyway. I can't think of a single cold request I've ever gotten for power leveling or money hand-outs or anything of that nature.

muuhahahah, I did something cleverly!

I stay on hidden from searches because I'm predominantly a soloist. On those rare occasions that I get tired of soloing, the first thing I do is keep an eye on PinnBadges. If I see a callout for a TF, I'll join it. If absolutely nothing is going on, I'll throw out the "I've got such and such here that wouldn't mind teaming if someone has a spot" on the same channel.

When THAT fails to get a bite, I'll un-hide and keep soloing. Often times I won't make it through the first mission after doing so before someone invites me.

However, I rarely ever stay with such a team for more than a mission or two before I go back to soloing. Too much usually occurs to agitate me rather than please me.

For me, it's very succinct: I welcome every opportunity into my gaming experience, as you never know which ones will lead to fantastic people.

That made me smile, Marcian.

Marcian's view of the world: "There's fun people out there to meet!"

Bill's view of the world: "There's morons out there to avoid!"

I don't hide because as mentioned before the invites (blind or otherwise) don't stream in (freedom). I'll maybe get 1-2 per session if I'm solo'ing. Hardly worth being afraid of

I also greatly prefer to PUG because the game is roll-your-face-on-the-keyboard-easy so anything slightly more organized than a below average pug is usually strong enough to take down the STF. So I won't hide from the only form of teaming that doesn't put me to sleep these days.

My Grav/TA is hell to level and I'd rather run a Synapse/Positron etc to get over the 35 hump than solo it. Generally, you level faster in teams and I like the wackiness that can erupt in pick-up groups.

I only ever hide while in PvP zones or doing heavy marketing...the rest of the time I can just turn on my "No teams" flag and go from there.

I'm (currently) fortunate enough to be part of a very active SG where the people actually like teaming with eachother. If there are more then two of us online (read always) then we are on a team. So search comments and hidden status are irrelavent to me.

Sure today is the first day of the rest of your life. But so was yesterday. And look how that turned out.

I spend 99.99% of the time either solo or teamed with people I know. The people I know are mostly moderately-to-highly competent and are generally used to one another, which has spoiled me horribly. Every once in a great while I join a PuG, which generally culminates in me thinking "Huh. What do you know. It is physically possible to teamwipe in these circumstances."

I hide mostly to cut down on the number of polite invitation refusals I need to issue, because I don't like to just ignore the reasonably literate ones. (HAY I CAN JOINZ UR TAEM I won't even acknowledge.)

There's nothing out there to hide -from-, so I don't. Sometimes I want to join a random team, and sometimes I get a random invite to do so - But it's no skin off my nose to politely decline the few I get when I'm not in the mood to do so.

It used to be an issue from PI PL days - especially when my two emps got into range. They have better places to farm or whatnot now, though. These days, though, I'll hide if:

- I'm going into a PVP zone. Yeah, I know, "they're dead" - unless they're not. And I'm not going to give anyone free info on where I am, who I am, AT and real level. Let 'em find out the hard way. This is probably the most frequent for me (and I'll forget to turn it off after a while.)

- Just not in the mood to deal with people. Normally after having someone under level 10 start pestering my 30+ characters. Though that's typically an /ignore rather than a /hide.

- At work. Yeah, we have slow days/hours and I'll hop on to check something or whatnot, but I won't join a PUG (or team with friends, but they know better) since I may be gone if something comes in I need to take care of. Not fair to a potential team, so I avoid the problem completely.

See my Guides and Tutorials

I like the challenge of playing with inept people sometimes. It's one thing to solo, it's another to have seven other people trying to sabotage the mission with a sort of religious zeal. Also, my ego tends to be really frail, so it's helpful for me to feel like the most superior force on the team.

Blind invites don't really bother me very much. I don't understand the difference between just inviting me, and between having a pretty conversation and then inviting me. Such conversation rarely reveals any information about the play style of the group I'm about to join, and I've had good and bad teams from both blind and pretty invites.

All a pretty invite does is tell me if you're good at typing or not, and after you've lived in the internet as long as I have spelling errors stop bothering you.

So, no, I more or less have never hidden from searches. I don't know that I even remember how to hide from searches.

I do not hide because it helps with meeting new and interesting people.

I hide for three main reasons:

1) I don't like PuGs. I've done plenty of them here and in other games to know I just don't enjoy them.

2) I occasionally play from work. Like Memphis Bill, I can't ensure I'll be able to be constantly alert and available, and that's not a fair thing to inflict on a team. It's easier to just be hidden, play solo, and avoid leaving people hanging.

3) I'm an introvert. This part is often very hard to explain to non-introverts. This does not mean I do not enjoy other people, that I don't like them and want to be alone. What it means is that it is easier to be alone, to avoid others.

You might like to play football, or go swimming, or go jogging. It might be pleasurable for you. But it is effort. It isn't something you want to do all the time. I have no problems interfacing with people (most of the time), but it's work.

Just like a strong person might have no trouble lifting a heavy box, it's still effort for them to do so, and they're not just going to randomly lift heavy boxes all the time whenever someone asks them to. Interfacing with an introvert can be much the same thing, except that it isn't culturally acceptable for us to say "No interaction for me today, please."

So I /hide, accomplishing the same thing while avoiding the "how rude" factor.