recommend best way to play online with friends

so i'm still new to GTA online. a friend of mine is new to GTA online and xbox in general. and in the future i imagine i'll have another friend or two end up joining in on the fun.

we're slowly figuring out how GTA online works. so far we've deduced that a "session" is the online surface world, and "jobs" are the games you play within the world. alright, so far, so good.

but we're having problems staying together. sometimes we will join a session together, start a job together, then after the job it puts us in two different sessions. even if we started that job from a closed "friends only" session. it will return me back
to the friends only session, and send him back to an open session.

also i'm still not sure how to join larger jobs, like say a deathmatch with 10 players, together. if i'm not the host of the job i can't figure out how to invite him to participate in the same job that i'm in.

we don't use parties. we haven't tried that yet. in my experiences with xbox live (mostly halo 3 and modern warfare 2/3) i had always found that parties muddied the situation more than it needed to. but with those games the play style was
simpler. there was no "session", only "jobs".

just looking for some advice on the best way to go about playing online with a friend. start an xbox live party? will that keep us together?

basically all we're looking for is to not be seperated while we play. if he starts a job, i want to be invited to participate. if he leaves a job, i want to follow him back to the online session. we're learning how GTA online works... slowly... but we still
haven't figured this part out yet! thanks.

:)

 

GTA online having the same fate as...

I find playing privately and inviting friends in to be the best way to play online. I don't really want to play with random people.

 

I Hate Hackers. Why do people like cheating in multiplayer games?

GOOD WORK , I PLAY ONLINE WITH FRIENDS AN FAMILY YET BEST WAY IS TO REPORT CHEATS AN GET WEBSITES BANNED WHO ADVERTISE INFECTIONS

 

After the job are you guys voting for free roam ? It's supposed to keep Xbox live friends and party members in the same session. Sometimes it dosent work and you get split up. No big deal whoever has room in their session can invite the other to their session
from the xbox live friends list.

 

also to invite someone to your job (obviously you have to be host of job to send invites) all you have to do is go to the second screen of the job before you launch the job and there are the options for sending out invites to your job.

 

yeah i figured out invites to a job as the host... but sometimes you want to join some jobs (for instance, a deathmatch with 12 people playing) that someone else has started. is there no way to join a job in progress as a group? i'm thinking like in halo
3 you could meet 2-3 friends in a lobby, and then search for a game in progress as a group. then when that game ended, or when one of you (the leader) left, you took the group with you.

i have another question! if you are playing a "closed session" can you still perform jobs with other people who are not in the session?

man this is all very complicated...!!! we are going to try a "party" today, see how it goes.

 

If you and your players are at the exact circle spot in the world where the marker is for the mission you can go in one at a time but that doesnt always work. So yes you need a party they work fine in GTA. It is helpful to be in the same "session". Also
if you are next t each other you hop into the started job together not a mile away from each other and when you leave the job you will still be beside each other and 9 times out of 10 you will be in the same type of room that you left from be it private or
public.

 

Use Xbox button to invite friends to server and party chat. Then after that once all in said server, only use cell phone for all invites then after. That's keeps you all together. Also your better off starting in invite only sessions servers for now till
the $billion dollar bounties go away.

 

Very informative Graw. I like to use the cell for invites but I didnt know that doing so keeps you together. i know im not the OP or the one asking but hey thanks.