I’ve seen it many times over the course of the past 20 years, in many game communities. A certain player base asking, requesting and sometimes demanding a multiplayer mode. But then when a given game gets said multiplayer mode, I see most of those people playing it solo. By “see” I’m referring to streams, VODs, feedback from friends, discussions on the internet, etc.
It appears to me that even in games that are entirely multiplayer-focused and build around that feature, a huge part of the player base seems to be playing solo exclusively.
I don’t get it. Why does a multiplayer mode seem so important to some people when they don’t actually use it for its primary purpose, to play with others? Is it just about having the option, “if I wanted I could (but I actually don’t want to)”?
And in case you’re one of the players who plays online but solo exclusively, and provided there’s an offline and an online mode in a given game: Why do you prefer online/multiplayer over offline? What is it that you value in a multiplayer environment? Value more than having full control over the game, where you don’t have to deal with server issues, login errors, maintenance, ISP issues, or the game becoming a paperweight when the servers inevitably go down after years of service because the game is no longer profitable?
P.S.: I wasn’t quite sure whether to put this topic into the Discussion or Off-Topic section. If a mod feels it would better fit the Off-Topic section, please move it there. Thanks.
Main thing i can come up with is to be able to trade?
I also usually play solo, but its cool to have an AH (bazaar) where you can trade some uniques you cant seem to find on your own.
Games that offer a trade system (bazaar) usually have lowered drop rates to encourage the use of the trade system and to compensate for the way easier access to certain items. The most prominent example is probably Diablo 3 in its early days. And that topic was recently also discussed in regards to LE’s trade.
So, if there would be no trade system, most games would have way higher item drop rates and you’d be able to find items yourself more easily.
It’s hard to answer, because each game is different. But, globally:
Very often, an online environment is way more dynamic than an offline one.
Most developers will try and keep online players busy with small activities, like seasonal quests, treasure hunts, mini-games friendly competitions, many other fun ideas that you seldom find in offline games. Every month, if not every weeks, you can find something new to do or some new area cosmetics.
Personally I play almost always solo because I love exploring slowly, reading all the flavour texts, seeing all the details of a world, trying all the silly side activities, and groups always want to rush-rush-rush and level super fast, which I find incredibly boring (I always try to slow down my xp gains, not speed them up, to avoid being over-levelled for the area I am in).
Yet I love MMOs because of the huge range of different activities they offer. It is hard to find a solo, offline game with that many differents side options (although I love Hogwarts Legacy so far in this respect, it feels like a single player MMO, there is so much side stuff to do! I am hooked).
That said, this is mostly for MMOs.
Here in LE, it was always rather obvious that most of the people shouting that they wanted multiplayer actually mostly wanted trade, as proven by the huge fuss about trade a few months ago. And possibly power-levelling, I don’t know, I avoid this kind of thing like plague.
Companies make them straightforward, without the possibility of skipping one of a thousand small steps. No class specialization requirements. Running through checkpoints, chopping everyone left and right)
Side quests are unattractive and are performed on the same principle.
Only visual effects depend on the choice of the class.
Now it’s just much more convenient to be alone in games.
I’ll never play a party with summoners in POE. Because of the amount of visual effects, I just don’t see my character.
Tell me, in this action role-playing game, have you come across the fact that you would need a different class (role) than yours?
Is anything in this game given to different classes in different ways?
If not, why would players complicate the gameplay if it only interferes with the game?
It’s not the MP that is important but the fact that servers come with MP.
Previously any competitive side of the last epoch was purely trust based as there was a way to edit files etc to gain items and whatnot. This was a turn off for a lot of people
Then losing your saves if you switched pc etc. was another issue but now things are not local because of servers so even if you swap pcs all the time your saves remain there without having to manually move them or having to rely on steam sync
Also, previously the game being offline meant that there will be a wipe no matter what once servers come because you are not able to move your offline files to online
Now if everything goes to plan people keep their progress as there are no planned wipes (only upcoming cycles eventually) that act as a economy reset and ladder reset but all the upcoming content goes straight to standard as well. (Someone correct me if this has changed recently but last time i heard about this the plan was to give all content to everyone when cycles launch)
Thank you for all your replies so far and the different perspectives you offer.
Would you consider LE a competitive game or is that aspect important to you?
I guess that depends on what you were aiming for initially. For me, there’s no wipe and never will be, because I play offline exclusively. Unless the devs decide to change the save file format for some reason and don’t offer a way to translate the old format into the new one. But that is quite unlikely at this point.
Service games - which I would consider LE to be at this point, at least its online portion - always have at least one wipe (unintentionally) “planned” in their life span: When the game is no longer profitable enough to justify/warrant maintaining the servers, then all your progress will be lost forever. This is especially true in times when prices for energy increase exponentially and countries/governments impose additional conditions on operators of server farms that have consumption rates equal to entire cities. Players often seem to forget or ignore the downsides of such a service.
I guess the majority of the player base won’t see that happen since they play a game for a couple of hours and then move on.
The idea of losing my progress in this game, or any game I have spent a lot of time in is pretty unsettling. You’re very right it is a gamble. EHG’s been pretty good about listening to players. I don’t know if they could release a goodbye patch to allow conversion of characters from online to offline in the hypothetical scenario where online play is mothballed is possible.
I’m likely to spend a significant amount of time playing this game going forward regardless, but I too hope we maintain our progress regardless of future circumstances.
Amusingly… time will tell how well the gamble of multiplayer pays off. And if it doesn’t it’s sort of a kind of meta narrative to have our timeline collapse and erase stuff.
I’m sure, Foe sees the game indeed from a more competitive side.
At the moment, there’s the arena ladder (not available currently). This mode is used for community driven tournaments. One of the more annoying things was to validate if a run was legitimate as savegame editing was a thing.
So even if there aren’t many competitive gamemodes, people try to ise what we have to make the best of it.
The answer to the thread title is actually surprisingly simple: It’s not the same people.
Like the sample size you have is both hilariously small, and biased.
The forums only account for so many players, the most replied thread of the suggestions -board on this forum has 750 or so replies. Even if those were each a unique account, that would still only account for less than 3% of the peak concurrent players, never mind the total number of players. Not only is this a tiny percentage it also has a huge amount of room for variance.
Because the folks who come to discuss do so for a reason, maybe it’s because they felt something was needed, maybe something was bugged, or maybe something was added to the game while they weren’t here and now it sucks.
This is the most likely reason why you’re perceiving what you are.
Like I GET why the forums and reddit and the like seem schizophrenic at best.
One day they’re clamoring for one thing, and the next they’re denouncing it as the worst thing ever.
But unless you can actually point out the exact people who’re posting one thing and then the other, it’s most likely not the same people.
Yes, it is, in some cases. Some friends confirmed that they are among those people and we discussed that topic. Now I want to bring some more people, perspectives and opinions into the discussion. Also, some people here in the topic confirmed they are among those people.
Besides, how do you know it’s not the same people? Did you ask all of them?
I never claimed it would be anything else. And this is also not meant to be a study of some sorts, just asking some people who also might count themselves to that group of people what their reasons are and discuss it a little.
…I’ll admit, in some cases this most likely does happen.
The way you started this thread made it seem like it’s common that MP is requested heavily, and then not made use of by the community at large.
If you meant that it’s only in some cases then I won’t question it, at all.
Their reasons on why they do this would have been an excellent way to preface the discussion you wanted.
Care to share them?
Ah well, then I’d say the title is a bit too argumentative if that’s all you wanted, but I’ll at least add some reasons why I have been playing solo while online in a game like LE:
Wanted to play with friends, but for some reason couldn’t, perhaps they didn’t find the game interesting enough, or had other things in the way.
Playing solo while friends are offline, because I have way less life than most of them.
Services that the possibility of MP provides that don’t require to be constantly playing in a group, such as Trade.
Hope that helps, sorry if I came on too strong, lumped you in with some other folks I’ve seen yell at “players” for requesting a feature and then lashing back at it.
In addition to the obvious things people have already mentioned, I think a game having its own servers and saving your data for you raises it to another level.
It’s not just a little RPG you’re playing on your own anymore, you can play with others if and when you want and the game seems like it has more potential at that point.
I prefer to play at my own pace which is why I prefer solo. I’d get behind my party if I stopped to look at drops or use skill points. Playing at my own pace allows me to do that. I’ve chosen to delete my offline characters and play online as I intend to play cycles when they become available as new content will likely be online in cycles not in the standard server. POE is like that. All new content is on the new server each new patch. There is a standard server but it doesn’t have the new content. It was much the same for D3 and I expect it will be the same for D4.
