Author Topic: Multiplayer....  (Read 41551 times)

Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: Multiplayer....
« Reply #15 on: September 12, 2013, 03:52:39 pm »
It's crazy how easy that was.
Says the executioner after pulling the guillotine rope ;)
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Offline x4000

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Re: Multiplayer....
« Reply #16 on: September 12, 2013, 03:55:02 pm »
True!  It took a lifetime to birth and raise that man, and then he's dead in an instant. ;)
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Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: Multiplayer....
« Reply #17 on: September 12, 2013, 03:56:00 pm »
We'll just say an EagleBot tried to play MP, and, well...
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Offline goodgimp

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Re: Multiplayer....
« Reply #18 on: October 01, 2013, 12:29:10 pm »
I hope you guys get MP sorted out at some point post-release, either in the form of a patch or a DLC or something. I'm very interested in the game but it's a no-go for me without co-op. I've read the thread and understand why it's not there, but I won't be purchasing this title without that component and wanted to at least provide a datapoint instead of staying silent.

Good luck with the release!

Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: Multiplayer....
« Reply #19 on: October 01, 2013, 12:33:28 pm »
I hope you guys get MP sorted out at some point post-release, either in the form of a patch or a DLC or something. I'm very interested in the game but it's a no-go for me without co-op. I've read the thread and understand why it's not there, but I won't be purchasing this title without that component and wanted to at least provide a datapoint instead of staying silent.

Good luck with the release!
We appreciate your saying something.  If no one ever said something the feature would probably never happen.

That said, in order for it to happen we need an answer to this question: what do you want MP in Bionic to even do?  None of the obvious (to me) approaches seem feasible from a "is this fun?" perspective because they either involve crazy unintuitive rules or tons of waiting.
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Offline goodgimp

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Re: Multiplayer....
« Reply #20 on: October 01, 2013, 12:44:08 pm »
We appreciate your saying something.  If no one ever said something the feature would probably never happen.

That said, in order for it to happen we need an answer to this question: what do you want MP in Bionic to even do?  None of the obvious (to me) approaches seem feasible from a "is this fun?" perspective because they either involve crazy unintuitive rules or tons of waiting.

That's hard for me to say exactly since I haven't played the game. If this is a game that co-op just doesn't fit at all then that's all there is to it. :) I have very little solo game time, most of my gaming time is spent with friends or family, so a multiplayer component is almost a requirement for me to buy a game these days. I've just looked at the Bionic Dues features page, watched the video, and thought that it looked great and would normally be an instant buy for me.

I hope my post didn't come across as some sort of whiny ultimatum or something, that wasn't the intent. I  really like Arcen Games and so only wanted to provide feedback as to why I'm not planning on buying the newest title and what would prompt me to buy it in the future. I totally understand if those criteria are unable to be met for a particular game, in which case I'll be around for the next one that supports co-op. I know I'm just a tiny datapoint in a sea of them but I at least wanted to try to provide you what data I could on one of them.

Offline x4000

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Re: Multiplayer....
« Reply #21 on: October 01, 2013, 12:50:22 pm »
It didn't come across as an ultimatum at all, often I'm in exactly the same boat as you and so I quite understand.  It's definitely a tricky proposition here, though.

The main problems seem to be:
1. Having a shared set of Exos is not fun, but the game isn't really designed around having multiple copies.
2. Putting Exos of multiple players into one mission just doesn't really work well because of timing issues (either things get slow or they get crazy, there's not much middle-ground).
3. Having a multiplayer mode where players are always in separate missions and are thus "alone together" would work in some ways (logically, I mean -- it would be a technical upheaval of no small scale for now), but that gets rid of all the fun chances to really work together on things, etc.

I dunno.  I keep coming away with the impression that the multiplayer would be inherently inferior no matter what we do, or else it would be disappointing in the sense of not providing much togetherness.
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Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: Multiplayer....
« Reply #22 on: October 01, 2013, 12:53:02 pm »
I dunno.  I keep coming away with the impression that the multiplayer would be inherently inferior no matter what we do, or else it would be disappointing in the sense of not providing much togetherness.
That's my sense of it too.

So really the challenge is to you community folks: come up with a multiplayer approach you're actually _excited_ to play, and we'll talk :)
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Offline Pepisolo

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Re: Multiplayer....
« Reply #23 on: October 01, 2013, 03:16:52 pm »
Here are a couple of balancing ideas. Oh, this is presuming each player gets a bot on the map and a turn each which I think is really the best way to go.

In order to balance the game, you could have a system something like System Shock 2 used (not the greatest example seeing as the co-op mode is very maligned, but hey) and use the pre-existing difficulty modes to rebalance the game for the increasing number of players.

For example, player picks a two player game -- the game would automatically use hard mode.
Players pick a 3 player game -- game sets to expert.
Player picks a 4 player game -- Misery it is then!

The advantage of this is that it doesn't require wholesale rebalancing of the game for multiplayer mode. Disadvantage is what do you do if the player wants a 4-player Misery game? Also, would the balancing even do the trick?

Second idea, I thought something like this might work for a proper Dark Souls co-op mode, but maybe it's worth discussing for this game. Instead of rebalancing the enemies what about if you instead rebalance the player exos? Or does this produce the same problems (or even result) as rebalancing the enemies, I'm not sure.

Player picks 2 player mode -- all exo stats now 50%.

Player picks 3 player mode -- all exo stats no 33.3%.... etc (can see some problems already with this..trap skill for example).

That's about it, just throwing ideas out. I've been on the look-out for a roguelike with good multiplayer for a while -- if anybody knows of one, please do tell.

Offline Teal_Blue

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Re: Multiplayer....
« Reply #24 on: October 01, 2013, 03:27:40 pm »
Didn't see Pepisolo post, i was writing too long, anyway, here's some thoughts...



Ok, lets see if i can offer an idea and not get too carried away, but more feet on the ground kind of thing.

What if...
                         we had 4 to 6 player co-op where the players go into a lobby and get a 'single' bot, what they get is one of the base exos, not the epics. they can trick it out with perhaps 2 accessories (there are usually 4 in a team of 4, so that is doubling for mp, but i'll explain why that is ok in a minute)

So, when they are done tricking it out they hit a 'ready' button, that just tells the others they are ready to go. First one ready will be assigned the unofficial role of commander, meaning if the other 3, or 4 or 5 players aren't ready, he can signal them with a red 'Hey!' button that simply flashes and honks and lets the other players know you are waiting on one or more of them.

When in the mission, they each control their own bot  and go in rotation in the same order as they 'readied in'.
So we have player 1, player 2, player 3, player 4, player 5, and player 6 and then the bots, which can move together or separately, you just put in 4 times as many bots as before.

Am i trying to be stealthy and careful and bob rushes in willy nilly guns blazing and ruin everything!? WELL, we are going to have a talk about that!

So, we need to have some form of 'communication' inside the game, either voice, or chat window and maybe a ping on the map thing. But anyway, i think this could work, its just a matter of the team being civilized inside their game and talking and deciding what they want to do, perhaps in the lobby before they get into the game, or sit in the game and talk strategy and then start moving about.

Anyway, the sequence of players taking turns will work, if some 'single' person (first one ready) has the ability to bump the others if they aren't quick enough. For Friends this shouldn't be too rough as they know each other, but would solve people holding up your game and you not knowing them very well. Also, you could have a default 'Fail' timer, say 5 minutes, that is ticking down and if everyone isn't moving after 5 minutes on their turn it dumps them automatically, and if the entire team isn't ready to go within say the same 5 minutes in setup, well then the team is warned at 3 minutes, warned again at 4 minutes and game cancelled after 5 minutes.

If this is all played on someone's home machine and they are all dialing into one players pc, then all this stuff about 5 minute drop time can be disregarded and the person hosting can call the shots on how long to wait and what is reasonable.

Still with alternating turns for the players, each with a single exo, instead of a whole team, so the team consists of a player having a single exo each, and then pumping up the bad bot numbers to deal with 4 or 5, or 6 people running around a mission.

Also if the missions are randomly built, then perhaps 're-sizing' them for 2 or more people would be a good thing, Gives more room to run around. Of course this involves other things like cover and other things too, but if this goes in later you can take your time and get it to work without the pressure to get this in quick and have it work while players expectations are panting.

Anyway, just my two cents, I think it could work, and if done in the background and slow, it doesn't have to be a pressure cooker, and also, the players in the team have to take some responsibility on how they deal with each other in a game, it isn't all on the dev to figure that out, or make that work. Just give them their turns and tell them to be nice and then throw them to the wolves... er, bots i mean.  :)

-Teal

« Last Edit: October 01, 2013, 03:30:38 pm by Teal_Blue »

Offline x4000

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Re: Multiplayer....
« Reply #25 on: October 01, 2013, 04:05:07 pm »
Bear in mind that balance isn't even a consideration or a worry yet.  That's something that is fairly trivial.

The problem is as the following:

1. If "every player gets a turn" but every player has to wait for the prior player to go before they get their next action, then walking down a hall is torture (that's like 30 turns, potentially).

2. If "every player gets a turn" but you don't have to wait on other players, I don't really know what that means.  If I act 3 times, do you get 3 queued actions?  Boy would that be exploitable.  Etc.

3. If "every time a player acts, the bots act," which is what we had before, then you get untenable situations where one player basically has to do nothing because to act will make the bots act and kill the other player.  So there are severe limitations there.

Hence the dilemma.  Scaling bots is just details, if we actually had a functional model for moving around.  The root problem here is much, much more fundamental.
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Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: Multiplayer....
« Reply #26 on: October 01, 2013, 04:14:41 pm »
Yea, numeric balance isn't the problem.  If a model is really fun then it would still be fun even if we didn't touch the numbers at all (we probably would, but just saying).

The first question to answer is: You're fighting a mob of bots.  Your friend is coming down a 20-tile hallway to help you.  How is this handled in a way that is fun and not brokenly-exploitable?
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Offline x4000

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Re: Multiplayer....
« Reply #27 on: October 01, 2013, 04:54:22 pm »
The second question is: You're fighting a mob of bots that are arrayed in front of you.  Your friend is positioned a couple of tiles back behind you and to the side.  How can they help you in the fight in a way that does not cause the bots to unexpectedly unload all their ordnance into you when you are not ready, and which is not exploitable.  And which is still fun.
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Offline Pepisolo

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Re: Multiplayer....
« Reply #28 on: October 01, 2013, 04:58:41 pm »
OK, cool. This narrows the root cause of the problem quite a bit -- forget all the balance stuff! I'll think on it some more to see if I can come up with any ideas. Hmmm.... (thinking)

Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: Multiplayer....
« Reply #29 on: October 01, 2013, 05:01:09 pm »
Hmmm.... (thinking)
Is that a plume of smoke I see coming up over the horizon?
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