I don’t group in ARPGs.
I tried a few times in PoE and Diablo 3. and I found the experience absolutely dreadful.
Yet multiplayer is a very, very requested feature. So I am wondering: Why do you group in an action RPG?
How do you play with others, and how do you organise a “good” group?
To get the discussion started, here are my main reasons for NOT grouping:
I play a lot of MMOs, in which playing in a group is a needed part of the experience. When I come to an ARPG, it is kinda to take a break from it, and mindlessly crush a few skulls on my own.
The most important reason: when I group in a MMO, there is a strategy. Everyone has a role, you have to take into account what others can do, position yourself accordingly, and use your skills in synergy with your groupmates. The fighting is slow enough to allow for organisation and talks in the group.
In ARPGs, everybody does massive AoEs and self-heals, at lightning-speed. My screen becomes a horrible mush of overlapping visual effects, while all the group members run around like headless chickens, randomly doing their own thing. They are all self-sufficient anyway. Combat is way too fast to get the group organised, or put any kind of strategy in place.
At least, this is how I feel.
Your thoughts and feelings about that?
I seldom to never group in ARPGs. In fact, I could expand that into almost any genre of game that includes optional multplayer…
Why? Well, the experience is generally toxic - if its not some arsehole kid playing the fool and purposely f’ing it up for everyone just for shits & giggles, then its some I am a “goat” player and you all need to do whatever I want kind of experience… I’m too old in my ways to have time for that crap.
In MMOs where Multiplayer is part of the experience and not optional, I try my best to find like minded individuals - mainly through trial and error on random team ups or joining guilds… Its hard but eventually you do find a small group that you enjoy playing with. If you are lucky, you might find people on chat/forums etc but I have found that most time the people you chat with dont always gel when you are actually playing together…
The only time where i have actually enjoyed multiplayer is when a group of RL friends play together - either co-op or as adversaries… but this is seldom possible as you get older and RL responsibilities kick in. I do miss the LAN gaming sessions of the past. Beer, pizza and a bunch of fools mashing keyboards till the sun came up or someones girlfriend whistled from the doorway…
I have always likened Multiplayer with RL team sports - but because everyone hides behind an online persona and does things they wouldnt normally do in RL its impossible for the veterans in the team to take idiot kids under their wing and help build a cohesive group where everyone can perform and actually enjoy themselves…
While I dislike speaking on behalf of other parts of the community. I am almost certain that the majority of people that say “they want multiplayer”, actually want trading to be a thing.
That alone would be a whole other kind of discussion why people want trading exactly. (Main reason will very likely be, that almost all items they get, at least when they are tradeable will have some value to them, even if they don’t need them themselves)
But now to your specific question:
I am not a big multiplayer enthusiast, but if done well and the gameplay supports it very well, playing together with friend simultanously is just fun.
Hanging out in voice, while doing some content together. Even the most boring and repetitive content can be a lot more enjoyable, if you have this “together feeling”.
Also, when new friends start playing the game, after I finally convinced them to try it out, you can jump in and directly help them and group up with them, without the need for “guiding them” through the game by just telling them what to do from a outside perspective.
I would never group up with randoms in any kind of matchmaking tool and will very likely stick to play together with my few dozen friends that enjoy similar games.
Occasionally if you have a good discussion withsome1 in the chat, discord or forum I would maybe invite them, or if the invite me to join and play together, but that will be the exception.
I only ever group up with my friends rather than randoms, I’ll share items/stuff with them & in PoE I’ll trade (despite it not being an enjoyable experience given most people don’t reply to whispers) but not a lot.
You may be right… but I figure there are a fair number who just want to play with friends ala Gauntlet style…
What I really dont understand about the request for Multiplayer tho… Why are people so aggressive about it? Discord has at least one or two people a day frothing at the mouth wanting MP done now… Honestly have no reference point to understand that…
But why get so aggressive? Why do they complain so much? Surely they have more important things to worry about than when a game finally gets multiplayer? Are their lives so mundane and boring that they are waiting with bated breath just for a game update?
I think, a lot of player feel like its not “worth it” right now sinking a lot of time into LE, because it is missing so much base features.
People, especially gamers are very impaitent and they want a similar experience to already very well fleshed out and established games and they feel like LE is not “complete yet”.
They expect that once multiplayer comes out, the game magically becomes worth their time.
I know a lot of people that have this “I don’t touch this game until multiplayer is released”-mindset, even though i nreality they will probably not use that feature that much at all.
I think MP will not give a lot of people that currently starve for multiplayer, what they want.
Just because MP is released LE will not magically become that game everyone has waited for, there is still a long road ahead until EHG can fully focus on expanding and evolving the game and doing interesting stuff, similar to expansions/leagues/seasons.
People want to have something to do in game, that feels “worth their time” and multiplayer will not give that to them on its own.
Personally, my wife is waitng for MP to play with me, and likely only me. I can’t muster the will to play currently, as I want to explode into MP with her and enjoy it as a fresh experience.
I disagree partially. I think it will give them that feeling of 'Ok, I got what I’ve been holding out for. Gonna play now!"
But!
Likely, as you said, they won’t do a lot of MP. I say likely, as I dont know for sure, but a healthy theory imo!
I love LE as is, but it will be a better experience for me personally when I can play with my loved one(s). I hope this helps shed a lil light on perspectives! Game on!
WHY:
Game more fun with other living entity and the choice to play with others or alone will exist i guess. In mood? you play with people, not in mood? either you play alone or don’t play lol.
HOW:
Wait&see
BTW even if there is no role or MMO like stuff i don’t care… Just killing mobs with someone you like as mentionned by Vatni is priceless to me
And since the core game is getting boring for me with all “samesy” dungeon reawards. MP is just gonna amplify all its flaws even more, so im not even touching it.
Simple… I play with friends who share an equal mind and skillset and this is fun. I’m more of a group effort player then a lone wolf. I have a lot of fun with coop games that’s why I’m happy with MP in LE.
I love hopping into game sessions with strangers. No boundaries. Just play alongside each other. If you want to take a break or just have 10 Min session before lunch, just put on the matchmaker and play.
LE feels like only half a game to me without MP… empty.
Absolutely can’t understand why people play alone in a game with coop mode. ARPGs and loot shooters are the perfect games for coop gameplay.
When I bought LE at EA release, I thought it already had MP. I reinstalled it after about the first 10 hours when I realised that there’d be no MP soon. It took more than half a year before I picked it up again. I got along with only offline for now. But if EHG would change plans to only have SP, I’d be gone.
I don’t generally enjoy multiplayer. I’ve played MMOs for decades and most of the time my experience is either:
I am a better player / better geared than the rest of the group, and it makes the experience more difficult, more slow, and more frustrating for me.
I am a worse player / worse geared than the rest of the group, and I just kind of get dragged along without actually doing anything, which isn’t very much fun.
In addition, many games don’t have good systems in place for finding / filling out groups, and spamming chat channels with LFG is one of the lamest, least interesting things I can think of to do in a game.
I have no interest in multiplayer in LE. PoE group play is awful, I never tried it in Grim Dawn due no matchmaking, Diablo 3 had the best MP system as the overall objective was just to clear rifts and had a good matchmaking system, game was more basic
Due to the way this game is designed and wanting to always progress your Monolith/farm a blessing/farm a timeline unique I cant see how MP will work fairly for randoms wanting to play together since the host will seemingly get all the progress and its going to take effort to even find relevant games
I do a lot of co-op in Elden Ring/Souls games and the best part very much like Diablo is you dont have to communicate as you already know generally what you are doing as a group etc
My friend group players PoE every league, but we never really party because the pace of the game is explosive, I can literally play an ignite prolif build that wipes 150 monsters in one cast, it becomes “follow the leader” whoever has the most aoe and nuke power leads the party and everyone else is just along for the ride.
LE has more nuance in combat because unless you are playing some monster meta build, you generally engage smaller packs that take longer. This means multiplayer works better in just a chill way where you dont have to feel rushed to keep up with someone. Obviously some builds will still nuke the entire screen and dont need a party, but if your friends play that build they probably are not interested in partying anyways lol.
This game is my casual couch game, so thats how my MP experience will go.
I mostly play in groups with friends, it just makes grinding a lot less boring to me. Guess it’s similar to people just watching TV/movies while farming away.
Sure you could just chat with people while playing solo, but it’s nice to actually show off your new stuff and work towards a goal in co-op (at least to me).
Do hope LE will end up being a good co-op experience, out of all the bigger games I’ve enjoyed PoE the least partly because of this. Every time I decided to play it, it’d end up with people running their own games because its mechanics just don’t lend themselves all that well for co-op.
Things like all players being able to make progress and pick blessings for example would be a big plus. I hate feeling like a passenger in someone else’s game, only to then go back to my own game and do the same things all over again.
Yeah, but unless something drastically changes with the end-game, you will spend more time staring at loading screens, than actually playing… if you choose to grind monoliths in groups.
As to vaporfire’s simple 2 liner why all the push.
goes directly to what was said before but ill elaborate on what llama said ive seen thi in game chat and forum posts
we the inital players beta testers do everything solo. ive seen tons of people saying my friend wont buy the game till mutliplayer so we can play together. like a few of you have said before you will help close friends leveld up learn the game. i think thats the whole premise of MP push other than trade. basically every one whos not a beta tester is either a slacker and wants to leech off of MP friends or family to learn the game gear up etc. same applies to trade dont wanna do the work to get uber gear wait till MP leech of parties earn currency buy what you want.
so i assume half is legit friends who wanna play together other half is people who dont wanna put in the time to gear and learn the game themselves they wanna be leechers.
