It’s simple. If the game releases and the MP servers never work, is the game still playable in SP? If yes, MP is actually a tack-on (technically). If no, MP won’t fix it and will definitely only make it worse.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t have it at all–I want it too–but it’s entirely illogical to think we should force MP into the game before it’s ready. That approach is guaranteed to ensure the core game and MP both suck.
Also, this…
It’s just wrong, borderline dishonest. That game’s MP is a wreck because (a) all loot dropped is shared and (b) they focused so hard on making everything about trade that hunting for drops yourself or with a party often feels like a stupid approach. They make it so you do whatever you can for currency and use that to get what you need. SSF is a different story entirely, but that has nothing to do with MP anyway.
you’re missing my point. If crafting never works, is LE playable? If there is no sentinel is LE playable? There is no one system that is critical for the game to work as a whole, but they are all needed to make the experience feel good and coherent.
you clearly have no idea about the issues with MP in POE to even call me dishonest. I am referring to progression systems in POE (atlas, league mechanics) which have nothing to do with the two points you raised.
And I might use your words that this is borderline dishonest as a point to refute me. There is such a thing as Permanent Allocation.
This is actually a highly dishonest argument just to try to turn it around.
Except MP isn’t. If Sentinel doesn’t work, MP doesn’t work. If combat is buggy/laggy or causes framerates to plummet, MP will make it worse and still not work.
Let’s cut the BS out and make it simple. Do you really think they should be rushing MP out when so much else is still so unfinished? Do you actually believe that wouldn’t just make both worse?
Explain how it is a dishonest argument when you’re the one throwing the label around. Are you telling me that there is no option in POE for loot not to be shared?
I didn’t say they should be rushing MP. I am saying MP design needs to be considered alongside the implementation of other game systems. And right now, I am not seeing any indication that is the case. I am concerned that EHG might be building a beautiful and strong igloo but my family of 4 can never fit in.
Okay, this is where we’re hung up. I was seriously beginning to wonder how we got our wires crossed. Basically, I believe they are considering those factors in their design as they go, so MP coming later when the groundwork has been laid makes total sense. Mike talks about this sort of stuff on several of his streams.
Mike talks about MP in very vague terms on his streams which doesn’t assure me that that is necessarily the case. When I look at the current implementation of endgame design (the current mono web), I have doubts about whether the progression system is too similar to others in POE which faces issues where they basically disincentivise group play.
Now this is not to say that the devs don’t already have this figured out and they may well have a plan in mind when MP is implemented (to make sure group progression feels good). I am just stating upfront that based on the information that the devs did share with us, I don’t have enough to go by to be assured that a good MP experience is catered for.
I am happy to wait for as long as it needs to be ready. I have been supporting this game for a loooong time. And I have never demanded that the devs should implement MP NOW. But from my perspective, not having seen the devs talk/share any info about how MP would work is concerning to me. Even if MP is not implemented yet, is it too much to ask if the devs have an idea how a party raiding mono would progress? How would the echoes for each player develop? Would the echo rewards be the same or different for each island? How does clearing shades affect each player’s timeline? I don’t think these questions should be planned after MP is implemented. A plan should be in place way before that.
PS: anyway, all these arguments are moot. While I support @rittchard OP; at this point I am prepared to just wait for EHG’s promised delivery of MP later this year. Then, we would have a better sense if some of these concerns we have are valid.
Okay, that makes a lot more sense. I actually strongly agree with this part:
It’s just that I see it a couple ways.
They probably don’t have a full outline for how MP will handle the new mono system yet. I think they’re still working out the kinks first. They probably have some rough idea what they want, but it would be hard to give any concrete details about that until they’re happy with where monos are.
I’ve said this before, but Early Access communities are notoriously rabid about “the devs said…” kind of stuff, so Mike & Team are rightfully being quite cautious about it.
I don’t honestly think the end of this year is a realistic deadline for MP with how much is still on their plate. Maybe I’m wrong here, and I’d be happy to be in this case, but the side of me that has experienced this sort of thing in other games is highly doubtful. Realistically, I see it being closer to a year from now, give or take a few months.
So while I understand how it’s concerning for you and others, my attitude is much more relaxed on the time scale side of it, so it’s easy to take that wait-and-see or “It’s ready when it’s ready” approach.
I will say, though, that while I certainly don’t want to pressure them into doing things before they’re ready, I agree that hearing something a bit more concrete would probably be quite welcome. I just found the general tone of some of the more impatient people here as being too demanding, so it seems necessary and natural to push back against that.
Because short of a Tardis, that’s the only way to have any idea as to the intended direction of the game.
There is still quite a lot left to do on the optimisation side of things but we don’t really have any idea on how far though they’ve got because they’re, understandably, playing things close to their chest & letting us know a fuller extent a week or two out from release (of whatever it is).
I’m also on team MP-is-core-'cause-devs-kickstarted-with-it.
https://imgur.com/Qx8wWE0
These things are core features & they’ve even rolled back on one of them (I’ll let you guess which one, answers on a postcard to the usual address! Winners will be announced next week!).
Which feature is at the top?
Which feature have they scope-creeped by 50%?
Which feature is on both “core” & “stretch goals”?
If it was actually that core to the mechanics of the game, we would have had it much earlier than now and it would likely be an utter shit show as a result–similar to what a lot of MMOs do in early development.
So if you go back a year & then say the same thing about the Rogue’s lack of appearance, does that statement still remain correct? Or go back 2 years & compare the monolith then to what we have now.
Just because they haven’t implemented a thing doesn’t mean it’s not important.
The game just doesn’t perform well enough to be able to handle MP well. Therefore implementing MP & it being a shitshow (due to performance reasons) would be a bad idea commercially, no?
TLDR - the game is incomplete, so I don’t think it’s reasonable to take it’s current state & say that anything currently not implemented is therefore “not core”.
I didn’t say it wasn’t important. I don’t know why people are reading it this way. I’ve actually said multiple times that they should be developing with MP in mind (and I think they are), but that’s different from implementing it before the rest of the game can support it. The fact that the game can, and will, have offline single player also shows that it’s not a critical component to the function of the game as other features I listed are.
“Less” important is different from “Un-” important. I do think it is “less” in this sense, because we want a fully functional, coherent game. Without that, MP means nothing.
It is, that’s why they’re taking their time with getting the game capable of doing MP because it’s an important (some might say, core…) part of the game.
Yeah, that’s a fair question. As I pointed out earlier, Mike talks about it on stream. I know you said he’s a bit vague about it, but my impression has been that they do put a lot of careful thought into the long-term consequences of how these systems play out. They aren’t fortune-tellers or time-travelers, though, so sometimes they miss something or just get it wrong. However, the impression I get is that they do consider these things in their internal discussions about various features.
Here’s an example, if that helps.
In case the time stamp doesn’t work, start it at 52:35.
I know he doesn’t explicitly state it, but the underlying implication is that in MP having one player who has to keep his “momentum” up while the other player’s build is much slower would cause the two to be unfun to play together. He’s talked about a similar notion with regard to movement before as well.
I wanted to find you the part where he talks about movement in particular, but there’s hours and hours of footage to comb over with no notes/bookmarks, so it’s kind of too much effort to just provide the example. This one’s basically “close enough.”
Yes, he has. I am well aware. But also yes, this is what I consider a “vague conceptual response”. This point about differential in movespeed resulting in bad party play is a well-known issue in POE and has been discussed to death even in LE. So it doesn’t really boost my confidence to hear Mike mentioning that.
I know they do discuss a lot of such issues internally. And I know some of my criticism of POE’s progression systems were also noted and discussed by the devs. So I know they are well aware of the issues. But I just simply don’t have enough information about whether their proposed solutions in relation to game systems would solve the issues well.
I accept that the silence may be them thinking that it is much better to present the actual product/solutions and allow the community to comment on them when they’re ready; rather than talking “details” which players cant really see or try out. Still, I think it is fair for me to say that based on what had been shared on MP so far, there are very few (if any) details on concrete MP designs - how it would look like and work in LE, how it would integrate with existing game systems, etc.
I get that. For me it’s really a simple matter of the game just not being there yet. Conceptually, I wouldn’t ask Columbus for Google maps of America, lol. We just need to wait until the appropriate time comes.
Ive probably said it before but I do not care for multiplayer, however for all its failings in the genre - Diablo 3 had a great multiplayer system namely for the reasons:
‘join game’ just auto connecting you to a random game without any thought required or ‘new game’ if you wanted to either begin one or invite friends - it was extremely easy to get started with strangers
Diablo 3 rift system was basic but filled the role perfectly - you had to kill the Rift Guardian but only after you killed enough monsters to fill the bar. Everyone knew their ‘role’ which was just to quietly team up and kill mobs so once again you just joined a game - teleported to someone inside a rift and began killing…it was seamless almost an unspoken language. I had many sessions were me and complete strangers did many rifts and just dropped excess gear on the floor for others but never actually communicated. that might sound strange but for me its perfect as im dont talk much ingame
PoEs online is garbage and ruins the aspect of multiplayer and the game economy itself. if you want to know how bad multiplayer can be look there - due to massive amounts of Item Quantity increase and phenomenal power of Aurabots scaling certain builds. Multiplater in 2013 was ok becuase we were all so weak we had to band together to actually get through the game. I did many Docks runs with strangers and it was pretty good but it just got awful around Fall of Oriath or even prior who knows
Imagine if when LE releases MP, in a group you had 200-250% more item drops ‘to compensate’ the fact you are in a group. Due to reward scaling imagine if an optimised group could find 100 Exalted items PER monolith (im not joking)…that would be broken right? well that happens in PoE daily except its actually worse
I havent played D3 in years and I never play PoE in groups unless a specific reason. I also in 2000 hours of Grim Dawn NEVER played MP because I had to manually choose a game that was open and it felt I was crashing someones party and I actually didnt want to socialise with anyone I just wanted to kill things in a group…once again D3 got it very right as a casual/experience MP setting
