To build on my idea of MP dungeon having unique parts that require 2+ players.
I imagine a boss that is simultaneously conscious in all of time up to current time. So when you get to him, the party can burn him down a bit (10% maybe), then he gets invulnerable, because his past self is aware of your coming and he “prepares” for your attacks. One or more players would then have to go back in time to prevent the boss from getting that ability. This could work for multiple “phases” where each time the boss ‘adapts’ a new ability that requires the party to split to remove the new ability.
I don’t want multiplayer that requires certain builds or build types (like tank, healer, dps, etc.). I just want a multiplayer that requires 2+ players of any kind to get through the content, via puzzles and needing multiple things done at the same time kind of stuff.
My expectation is that the MP will offer the same core functionality we have in D2-D3 and PoE. So that you can if you so desire party with people, and also can trade items. Guild functionality/storage would be nice as well, so that we can chat privately and share with our best friends. And of course safe/dedicated servers for character and item storage to prevent cheating and loss of progress, etc. Whether you want to play alone or with a group, the “multiplayer” environment is what’s key here; the persistence and consistency that offers makes for a different game from something like Grim Dawn, because there is an economy and sub-universe that is being shared amongst all players.
What I’d love to see on top of that is that the skills and gameplay embrace and encourage player synergies, such that you can have characters built to specialize for party use. You can see there are some seeds of this in some of the skills, including the use of words like “companion” to perhaps differentiate between pets and team members. I’m not saying I want to see the holy trinity or anything like that, but it would be cool to spec my paladin or druid with an eye towards tank/buff or group healing or whatever, and party with a friend who is specced purely for damage but relies on others for defense.
Yeah that sums up our try at PoE MP pretty well. We gave it a good go but ultimately PoE is not really a team game. I would call it more an online SP game with social and trade aspects(which tbh I don’t mind). I know there are huge guilds but I do wonder how many of the members actually team up or if they just pool items/resources.
I did hit the jackpot with build choice that league and had the most fun I’ve ever had in PoE but after a while it was so boring for you. I was killing entire screens due to Winter Orb being crazy over powered with Inpulsas and you sucked up all the loot(you are the master at this). The Atlas and MP seem to clash in PoE and really don’t encourage you to team up.
As for MP in Last Epoch, I’d like it to take all the good bits of the other big arpg’s and improve on them, a huge task but I have faith . I think D3 did the best so far and that is the arpg I have teamed up in more than any other.
I prefer having your own loot drops otherwise @llama8 will suck it all up before you get any . The feature D3 had of showing the unique drops your guild mates had in the chat was also really fun, I just wish you could have shared them even when not in teams. Also I’m not a huge fan of being forced into teams to complete content, we have mmo’s for that and I don’t think it fits in these type of games.
I don’t understand why people are so against MP only content. It is really selfish, imo, of people to think that they should have access to every single piece of content in a game and that it has to fit exactly their playstyle to get it, and at the exclusion of people that disagree.
There are only 2 ways to be. Either MP content is MP only, and thus can have unique features, or MP is basically just playing the solo content with more people. I will always be in favor of MORE content, even if the content is specific to a certain game mode (Multiplayer, Campaign, Solo, PVP, Battlegrounds, etc.)
Your opinion is valid but i’ll have a go at an answer anyway:
I’d suggest that some are against it because of fear - mostly of other players and how toxic some games can be that have MP content in it or things like Gear Scores where you cant get to do the content because you dont have gear and people wont help get you the gear because you dont have experience.
Some of it is that there are people that simply want to play SP only. They’re not interested in teaming up but still want to experience the game in its full depth. The argument being they’ve paid the same amount so you shouldn’t exclude them from the content, there should be a way for them to experience it.
That’s their opinion, same as your opinion is they can be exluded.
That’s quite a binary choice and there is probably some middle ground there somewhere but its a hard question to answer - do you frustrate a portion of your player base by including MP only content or frustrate a portion of your player base by not having MP only content?
My opinion on the content you mention is that you should never force people to do PVP content unless the game is designed from the start as a PVP game.
That is why I would recommend against any sort of class/gear check. If you don’t have friends that play the game, there should be very simple player matching mechanics. That is why I said no content should be based on class/build but rather just a requirement for 2+ bodies. This also allows players to sell completion services, which I think are a good thing in community cohesion.
The thing is, having MP only content isn’t exclusionary. It just makes it so people have to join a party to get access to it. Not having MP only content excludes the added content from EVERYONE as it doesn’t get created in the first place. They can allow parties to play in the existing game. I am just saying they should add MP only content on top.
I would side with the people that want more content and not a lack thereof. The people wanting no MP only content really have no grounds to stand on. It is like saying, “keep the game as is instead of adding more content”. MP only content isn’t taking anything away from anyone.
Just because people don’t want to play PVP (myself included), doesn’t mean it shouldn’t exist in the game. There should definitely be Arenas/Battleground instances where people can PVP. Just because I don’t like to PVP doesn’t mean that people that do shouldn’t have the content.
Content is also gated by difficulty, but that never seems to be a problem for anyone. I have never seen any of the PoE end game content, even playing thousands of hours. It seems much easier to pull together a rag-tag party than to reach the peaks of difficulty in a game.
In the end, most of the arguments against playstyle exclusive content seems to be biased towards the solo gamer. Maybe people should come at the argument with the thought that the playstyles are equally valid.
i’m not going to reply to your other points as they’re all a valid opinion and an interesting view. Some good thoughts in there.
The last bit though sort of misses some of the point. For some people the thought of having to group up with others is abhorrent and their opinion is just as valid as yours and mine. FWIW i think MP is a massive part of a game but even I am reluctant at first to jump into MP simply because of how toxic some people can be - Keyboard warriors…
Right now in early access the players already in the game have a real chance at setting the community tone and helping to dispel some of that prejudice some SP players have about MP. If we can do that, and it is totally possible, then there is a really good argument against solo only playstyle
It’s not quite that binary though. If they didn’t make that content they would make other content.
The devs have previously said that they don’t want to exclude people from content on the basis of mp/sp. I’m not sure how I feel about that since I like the idea of more complex content that requires more bodies, but I also know that if I didn’t like mp, I’d be sad if I didn’t get that content.
There are some ways around that though, as I’ve mentioned before, in SWTOR’s Shadow of Revan expansion they had two versions of the end fight, one for sp and one for mp in the form of a normal raid.
I actually think the storyline part of the game should be exclusive to single player. Maybe people would complain about that too, but that just seems silly.
I understand that if they made MP only content, people would say, why isn’t that new content available to all playstyles? Fine, they can do that, but if they do, it won’t be multiplayer content. It will be single player content that can be zerged by groups to abuse the economy of the game (when trade is a thing).
The point about having different modes of dungeons for single player and multiplayer isn’t reasonable. It would take a lot more programming, and the people complaining about not having access to everything would then just complain about not having access to multiplayer mechanics in single player.
This is going to be one of those situations like the Berkeley incident. The college that was offering all of its old courses for free online. A few people ended up complaining because they weren’t captioned. The school didn’t want to spend thousands or millions of dollars captioning free material, so they removed it for everyone.
I’ve come across one properly offensive person in this game, reported him and support dealt with it. Thus far the community is very helpful and distinctly lacking in arsehats. That said, the community is also very small and when it grows larger it will attract more f*******s. Hopefully the devs can implement a report function in chat that sends support a copy of the offending chat as well as a link to it in their logs.
not a bad shout that, its pretty much like that in Red Dead Redemption 2. A SP story content game that then has an optional online game part of it.
Would you have separate characters for the SP and MP part and what about tackling cheating if SP characters are stored locally but could then be used in MP play?
Basically its going to be a compromise somewhere as you simply cant please everyone. Frankly I dont think they should try to either as it always end up annoying everyone.
I would recommend against separating characters by mode unless they decide to have an offline mode (people that want to SP exclusively and maybe even character editor to test builds). Those characters should not be allowed in online mode. Adding to that, online mode character data should not be stored locally on players PC’s specifically to avoid item duplication and cheating online. Once multiplayer and trade is a thing, having people be able to just import items and characters into the online community would destroy the game.
I don’t know that we currently have the ability to play offline. I know that there are probably a lot of people that would like that though.
I also assume people would make different characters geared towards different goals. I could see having a multiplayer character, a solo MoF character, and even a PvP character. That is, unless they allow a few build templates for each character that you can switch to. Would be cool if you could have your one character but with 3 templates. That way you wouldn’t have to respec your entire character to play PvP, or level a new character for it.
I honestly don’t understand why having MP content only (even if the devs say they won’t do that) is a problem.
When the subject popped in another thread, I pointed out that in ARPG there is already content gated behind time investment, especially when we will be in a time-limited league system.
But curiously it seems to be an “acceptable reason” to gate content even if as a matter of fact if you don’t have time (due to real life engagement or whatever) or friends to play with, it’s way way way easier to find extra people to play with than extra time especially if there are existing features in the game for that (specific chat section for grouping, matching system, etc…).
i cant tell you how much I loathe time limited leagues. But I have to accept them, and therefore the gating mechanic, because I want to play the game. I just really hope its less frequent than in POE (pretty sure it will be the same but offset by a month).
My one wish would be to do away with time limited leagues but that wont happen, and no, I cant just chose to play the out of date standard (or whatever its called) because my friends like the league system and so for me to play with them I have to accept starting over every XX months.
The current (or most recently spoken about plan was to have an offline sp mode (hopefully without a login for those with **** internet) and closed servers with the character data saved online (like PoE and D3). Currently the game is a mix of the two, with the game being offline and character data saved on your pc), an online chat and a login required to play.
. I think D3 did the best so far and that is the arpg I have teamed up in more than any other.
. The feature D3 had of showing the unique drops your guild mates had in the chat was also really fun, I just wish you could have shared them even when not in teams. Also I’m not a huge fan of being forced into teams to complete content, we have mmo’s for that and I don’t think it fits in these type of games.
but i’ll have a go at an answer anyway: