Co-op suggestion: provide tools to support player negotiation rather than fixed solutions

Wicked Feedback
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Looking forward to co-op!

Now that co-op is on the agenda, and as someone who plays a lot of co-op games and bought nrftw seeing that it was marketed as co-op, I have an observation and some suggestions to go with it.

The first observation is that different people have different approaches to co-op - and sometimes that includes the same people at different times - that address the issue of how in-sync a group wants to stay.

The second observation is that this is primarily a social problem to be solved between players (i.e. u talk to your mates and figure out how you want to play together) rather than a technological problem to be solved by game systems.

That’s not to say the game can’t provide tools, but those tools should focus on assisting players to work out a solution that suits them, rather than trying to enforce a particular solution.

Some (off the top of my head, not necessarily comprehensive) examples of potential issues that may create tensions with each other:

  • Players may (or may not) want to keep their level of power close to each other.
  • Players may be ok with different ratios of solo to co-op activity.
  • Players may identify parts of the game as critical to ensure they are played co-op.
  • Players may have different amounts of free time to invest into the game.
  • Players may feel that missing out on crucial elements leaves them confused.
  • etc.

You can imagine, for example, that two people trying to co-op, one with a lot of time to play and the other with limited time to play, will have work out whether they only play when the other is around, or whether they need to catch each other up on events and new game mechanics introduced/discovered while soloing, or whatever.

Naturally, things like resources or gear drops may already flexibly lend themselves to players choosing whether or not to share them. Ideally this flexibility would extend to other things like xp, narrative moments, etc. Some examples (off the top of my head) of the kinds of tools that might assist players working out their own approach:

  • Some kind of xp bank that a group can construct in town, allowing sharing earned xp to some extent. That way, a player with more time may go do side activities that earn xp (up to a point) without worrying that they will get too far ahead in power. Groups who don’t want this simply don’t construct the building.
  • Puzzles with a co-op element for which you can craft a key to unlock solo. These would be placed primarily before critical narrative moment in the game. The presence of these elements serves as a natural warning to players that such a moment is approaching. Groups who are ok with members soloing those parts of the game can craft the key. Groups who want to avoid accidentally triggering a critical moment while solo wouldn’t craft/carry the key.
  • A shared journal/log/history of everything that happens on the server. Probably would help if it’s fliterable, and contains hyperlinks to other information in some kind of compendium/codex (e.g. for game mechanics, lore, bestiary, etc).
  • Some kind of simulation/time-travel room that can be constructed in town to revisit/replay crucial events.
  • Some kind of character ability that lets you see “memories” of a location. So if another player did something in an area, I can activate this ability and see and follow an in-location replay/illusion of their character running around doing whatever they did.

Basically, anything that helps a group of players stay in sync as much or as little as they’d prefer. Ideally, such tools would also be adaptable in case a group’s situation changes (e.g. going from having lots of time to play together to not having much time to play together).

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Cool.

This already exists, they showed it to us

This is the best solution in my opinion

Sometimes the narrative development or the boss fight are done in order to surprise you where you would not expect it, and therefore it would be a problem to put such an obvious gameplay warning.

These additions you propose are nice and useful but in my opinion you are slightly overestimating the problem.

Multiplayer always works better as a second playthrough.

There are always organization problems with groups of friends and if someone really cares about the story they should play alone at first or organize themselves properly with their friends.

The additions you propose are very useful to correct possible errors that could be made when playing in co-op, but it is almost impossible to create a system that can correct any error.

When a player wants to play and the other is not there the simple solution is to go to another realm with another character or if you really want to play the same character (perhaps because you want to test the build or the new weapon) you could start doing the crucible tests (I know it’s not that great right now but the devs plan to make it a lot better) or return to the areas you have already explored, there is no need to go to the new area and interact with the new content.

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Playing solo first or simultaneously in a separate instance is one approach that won’t suit everyone. Some people will want to experience the story and game mechanics together, fresh, not as veterans escorting their newbie friends stumbling around or vice versa. It can be more fun to stumble around together.

The issue is mostly social (or perhaps psychological) and primarily needs to be “solved” socially (by the players), not via technology (by the game devs). Sometimes we can’t have everything we want. I just hope the devs can take this issue into consideration and provide some tools to allow more flexibility and a more gradual continuum on which to find compromises.

The examples provided are off the top of my head and mostly there to help elaborate on the identified issue(s). Even assuming the devs agree that I have accurately identified an issue, I would expect them to brainstorm, work out and implement their own systems to suit their vision of the game.

In the end, if a group wants 100% synchronisation between members for every moment in the game, then there’s not much to be done except for the players to exercise some willpower and restrict themselves to only playing when everyone is around. However that’s usually not the case. More commonly, people will only identify a subset of things as critical to a co-op experience, e.g:

  • comparable levels of power to keep things “fair” (definition depends on who you ask),
  • registering novel/important information/landmarks to avoid players becoming lost/confused either on important game mechanics or narrative flow,
  • “critical” (definition depends on who you ask) gameplay or narrative moments developed as part of the shared experience.

Different people will add/remove their own items from such a list, I’m sure.

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    1. registering novel/important information/landmarks to avoid players becoming lost/confused either on important game mechanics or narrative flow,
    2. “critical” (definition depends on who you ask) gameplay or narrative moments developed as part of the shared experience.

Given that the game doesn’t hold your hand this would be a large departure from that.

5

It’s all relative.

Even games that don’t “hand hold” present a lot of information, otherwise you’d be sitting in front of a blank screen and silent speakers.

If you play solo, you are there for whatever and all information the game thinks it is necessary to give you. For example, typically you get to:

  • see story elements presented in sequence,
  • open up the map in sequence,
  • see game mechanics built up one by one (e.g. simply by running into weaker enemies first, and stronger enemies later).

I think you underestimate how much information players are actually given, even in non- ”hand holding” games, just through the natural flow of the game.

When you play co-op, on the other hand, it’s possible for things to be missed or happen out of sequence for an individual player, because some other player is doing things out of sight. Take whatever information the game presents to a solo player as base, and then consider that during co-op it’s easily possible for an individual to receive less than that and potentially jumbled.

Then, in a game with minimal “hand holding”, the point would be that in co-op, players can receive less information than even that minimum.

Of course, this can be (in some sense) “solved” by the players themselves. They can agree to just roll with it with individuals responsible for catching themselves up, or to talk through everything together, or to never play solo, or whatever.

The point is not to “hand hold” more than the base game experience. The point is that players can only find solutions working within systems provided by the game, and perhaps the game could provide tools that allow for a broader range of solutions/compromises to be negotiated between players in addressing the additional complexities introduced by co-op play.

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Ok but i think as you pointed out this is more of a social issue. to keep things a surprise in the game, you need to work with your friends to progress and play together when you are together.

thats just how a shared world works. one thing that could be added is the ability to replay a mission or a boss fight. no rewards for replays would make sense to prevent farming.

7

Sure, but that doesn’t mean that the design of a game doesn’t affect the range and variety of solutions available for players to work out between them.

Compare a highly linear game that has significant power progression with a sandbox game that has flat/limited power progression. With the former, a short amount of time playing apart will make it difficult to get back together. With the latter, it’s (relatively) easy to swap between playing together or apart.

Games may be more or less flexible in the options they present to players to synchronise with each other. Yes it’s primarily to be solved socially, but the game still shapes the possible solutions.