Experience: I’ve been playing for years & love it; I know everything to expect & was looking forward to bringing in my friends who also tried and liked it.
My group has largely fizzled out due to out of sync schedules, but also no one feeling like they can go in and do things/explore without accidentally triggering story content; I was messaged by a party member privately that they accidentally killed the next boss & felt bad cuz they didn’t know what was happening.
this leads to the cycle of people not wanting to jump in to mess around, Keeping the game out of the front of their mind, but then when we’re not all available, people stop playing if they miss a session cuz they don’t want to hold people back.
Solution: find a different group lol
But really, have a setting that classifies a citizen as a “Protagonist”.. this can be all quests or just the main quest, but create barriers to prevent quest steps/cutscenes from triggering unless all Protagonists are at least active in the realm.
No one classified as “Protagonist” will allow current day behavior where anyone can progress anything.
I understand the problem, but I don’t think that’s the right solution.
Your friend could’ve simply farmed stad that you guys already explored, but he went somewhere you hadn’t been yet so he found a boss. And instead of letting the boss kill him, he killed the boss.
He could’ve farmed materials, challenges and bounties, the crucible…
Totally fair, my observation is they didn’t really know they were in new territory until it was too late & fighting darek on the bridge
when talking with one my realm citizens (they like the game, but feel left in the dust, so trying to figure out the pain point/solution with them), it sounds like they just want a “traditional multiplayer” experience… which if/when they add “Guest” designations, it sounds like they can make their own realm and emulate a standard Host/Guest experience.
So frankly this might all get sorted out by 1.0, just want it documented/considered cuz in the moment we have fun, but the current format doesn’t make 4player realms feasible for me… I’m better off making a realm with each friend independently
I definitely recognize that the problem persists, but agree that designating a host isn’t the right solution–maybe a warning that you are about to trigger story content is a good compromise? It doesn’t necessarily need to be an overt statement–something like a ready check might serve enough warning without being overly obtrusive.
So I’ve noticed most of the story beats seem to follow a similar format.
You walk into an area and hit a proximity trigger. This is usually an NPC saying something to get your attention, or the camera panning for a cinematic shot. In single player this leads to a very organic feeling experience. In co-op, those become alarm bells of “HEY GET OVER HERE SOMETHING’S HAPPENING!”. Luckily my buddy and I usually stay pretty close by, but it really does lend itself to this feeling of you have to be glued to each other to make sure you don’t accidentally miss something, or trigger a cut-scene without them.
Gotta agree with some previous comments. I feel like this would have been solved by your friend discovering the boss and not choosing to kill it. Big boss health bar makes it pretty obvious it’s a boss. Options are die/respawn or quit game and later do an impression of the boss monologue on Discord so that the whole party can experience it.
In a world where dev’s have unlimited time your suggestion makes perfect sense.
I don’t think I’d like them to spend their limited time on this though.
I hear you all, and I’m sharing the story of how my realm essentially died after I/my friends were pumped for weeks to jump in & hoping the team can glean from it what they will..
Moon is going for a “rethinking coop” experience and I don’t want to stop that & 100; the priority of this request is low… but Thomas mentioned exploring “Guest” status and maybe some version of that will solve this; just throwing it out there if there might be an in-between scenario where you want people to have a home/shop in town, but the realm wants a safety net that nothing narratively will unfold without the team (or you just want to hold back one player who’s rebel without a cause lol)
Call it a long term wish list consideration, not a 1.0 launch day need
I mean, Moon is clearly good at building story and it’s a key part of the game. I don’t want to downplay the importance of that being a great experience for players at least the first time through. Everybody that I’ve played with (6 others) have all ended up spinning up a private realm so they can play through the story without missing things. It’s a very valid concern for 1.0 imo, because you only get that first impression once.
Also want to point out, in the instance where your friend found it first, they got the cutscene but nobody else ever will on that realm–so just choosing not to kill it isn’t a great solution imo. If faced with a choice between guest or ready check I’d choose the latter personally, but I think either solution would work and one of them should be in place prior to full release.
Yeah, I’m also hesitant on the ready check cuz half of what’s so cool is they make these moments cool/easy to run towards; things on fire, vista view, etc..
Example- half of us got through the nameless pass, saw the gates & inquisition from the top, and said “yeah… we better wait til everyone is here”; that organically had more of a “wait a minute” moment then walking toward a bridge, even if it was covered in fire..
Anyway, they made everything so cool & enticing that itd be a shame to slap ready check on it (unless opting into it) when they already have boss arena gates that they can leverage…
I’m sure they’ve already had this conversation at nauseam internally; forceful guidance vs complete freedom, immersion vs playing “Together”.. damned if you do, damned if you don’t
