Free roam confusion

[Hoochfox]

I straight up don't understand free roam. It seems like I'm forced to accept randos with their own individual goals onto my squad regardless of setting, and that leaving without unanimous agreement means abandoning the mission... and I'm not even clear on whether it actually is a mission as such. I don't understand if abandoning means that I lose everything I've collected. If that's the case, then the whole thing sort of seems aggravatingly pointless. What's the scoop, here? Can I keep randos out of my instance? Do I lose everything if they force me to abandon? Can I leave the bloody area without abandoning or convincing several other players to allow it?

[Watermelons]

You're not changing the setting then. Bring up the pause menu while you're on your Orbiter or in town, and click on the box next to your name. When set to Public, it has an icon of a globe. You can set it to anything besides Public and it will prevent random players from joining your game.
And you don't have to leave an unwanted squad in Free Roam locations via the Abort Mission. You can mouse over your name in the pause menu and it'll show you the option to simply leave the squad, and it'll disconnect you from the squad without losing loot or XP and, bugginess notwithstanding, your progress on a bounty.

I don't have a lot of faith in DE when it comes to not-♥♥♥♥♥ netcode, but the Leave Squad option in open world maps works surprisingly well, at least in my experience.

[jonnin]

set to solo before you go in.
It works.

[Hoochfox]

Okay, thanks. I leave my mode set to 'friends only' by default, but maybe those friends don't? I thought they did.

[Watermelons]

Publicado originalmente por Hoochfox:

Okay, thanks. I leave my mode set to 'friends only' by default, but maybe those friends don't? I thought they did.

You may be better off setting it to Solo since that outright doesn't even let you bring up an invite screen, let alone throw you in an unexpected public game.
Minus when Railjack first came about and bringing up its navigation screen from the Orbiter did exactly that, which was annoying but was fixed soon after.

[Sceles]

Publicado originalmente por Hoochfox:

Okay, thanks. I leave my mode set to 'friends only' by default, but maybe those friends don't? I thought they did.

Only host's setting matters. If you're alone and invite people you become the host. If you join someone who's alone through your friends list then he becomes the host. In public matchmaking the host is randomly selected. Host always has number 1 next to his health bar when in mission.

[Hoochfox]

Great clarification, thank you.

[ShatteredPumpkin]

btw you can also leave the group when you are in a open world by pressing ESC and move your cursor on your profile there it says leave group and it will move you out of the group but wont end the mission or world you currently in only works in open world though