Lousy Update

[Bluddy]

I don't play multiplayer, but it sounds to me like the old system is preferable since it encourages synergy between the players. If you want to promote players playing in the same chunk, there should be a bonus for that.

[TechSY730]

Yea, I think that a compromise between the two systems is in order. Some sort of sharing no matter where everyone is, but some sort of bonus for being in the same room too.
Also, if auto-distributing of stuff is added back, some way to make this clear it is happening should be added. That was one of the reasons why the system was changed in the first place, to make a system that made it clear when other players got stuff. (There is a mantis post somewhere with discussions about how to make auto-distribution more apparent/intuitive. I'll post a link if I can find it)

EDIT: I realize this would be a big change, so it may have to wait until 1.3

[MouldyK]

STOP THE lovably PRESSES, GUYS!

Me and LayZboy have just cracked the code!

Why not have a box we can put resources into at the settlement? It would allow players to put their unused things in, like Jade and that for another person to collect later, so if I get like 20 Magmas, I can put 10 of them into the box for LayZboy to collect when he is next at the settlement.

It still means to max out how much resources you get, you can work in the same chunk, but it provides an option for those who just can't be bothered to do that to still work together in a sense.

It's like the synergy what occured pre-beta, but making it more manual on whether you want to share or not.


The advantage of this over the post-beta is clear, but what it has over the pre-beta way is that it does not mean players get a copy of something they don't need everytime someone else picks one up.



Also, Chris said that resource-sharing might be something he wanted to do, so maybe soon is the time to look into it?

[nanostrike]

You know...to solve and avoid this whole issue, you could've made the Shared Resources an optional setting...

[keith.lamothe]

MouldyK, I'd actually already stopped the presses to implement a somewhat similar idea, but thanks for making sure

Just in for 1.116:

* Added "Drop One" buttons to the player crafting stockpile to allow players to give crafting ingredients to other players.

[x4000]

You know...to solve and avoid this whole issue, you could've made the Shared Resources an optional setting...

The more I think about it, the more I return to my original conclusion that shared resources wouldn't work as an optional setting.  Well, I mean we could add it as basically a "cheat code" sort of option, not that that really matters.  But it wouldn't be a balanced way to play the game (and wasn't really, before, either).  But it's a lot less balanced now because so many other things changed that impacted this, so we couldn't leave it without it basically being a super-easier mode.



In terms of the rest of the stuff in this thread, 1.116 just came out and hopefully these things help at least: http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=AVWW_-_Post-Launch_Series_2_Release_Notes#Co-Op_Improvements

Beyond that, more discussion and/or clarity is needed in order to really understand what the needs are and how we might fill them.

[LayZboy]

But it wouldn't be a balanced way to play the game (and wasn't really, before, either).  But it's a lot less balanced now because so many other things changed that impacted this, so we couldn't leave it without it basically being a super-easier mode.

I don't know about playing with randoms, but when I play the game with MouldyK I don't really care that something is imbalanced or overpowered. I just want to have fun playing with my friends.

Also getting resources was never "hard", it was (and still is) just a chore to get what you need.

[x4000]

True -- when I say balanced, I don't really care about that in the strict numerical sense of AI War here, either.  For us, too, we're primarily looking at the fun factor.

And one of the things that hampers fun factor is if you're chewing through levels too fast, for instance.  That means that you're seeing less of each level, spending less time with each spell, and feel more like you're on a treadmill.  The less-common activities like attacking a lieutenant become annoyingly frequent, and so forth.

That's the only reason that "balance" really matters to me.  What I suppose I should say is "speed of progression" instead of "balance."  If you're really overpowered or really underpowered, then the game gets annoyingly fast or slow and the content is less fun to play, essentially.

[zebramatt]

Also, once you're playing the game in a way which is considered extremely non-standard, fun new stuff which is added later might not be the least bit fun for you, as your style of play was not considered in its conception. Experience has shown that that inevitably leads to reports of features not being fun for some people - or actually reported as a bug. And either that point of view must be actively and publicly rejected by the developers (which for Arcen is particularly problematic due to their generally responsive nature) or development resource must constantly be diverted to account for the non-standard play.

[aleksa6]

I sort of vanished off the face of the Earth, sorry about that, long story.
In any case, sorry if I also came across as insulting or offensive. That was not my intention at all to begin with, and looking back at my first post, I feel like I had just been insulted by myself. I don't know what it is, but I have a talent for phrasing something with the most innocent intentions to sound like something more of a death-threat/blackmail. Curse my conversational skills or lack thereof. I'd like to first state that I love the game AVWW, regardless of how different it may be since the update.

In any case, I agree with a lot of the suggestions in regards to the installing of the old system. I do believe that it would benefit a lot of players who wish to play the "old" version by having the "shared resources" feature available optional by serverside settings a suggested, due to the fact that a majority of the population hosts private servers for their friends and family, myself included. My girlfriend, as it stands, is so advanced in the game with a majority of spells that I just can't seem to create without finding the proper materials. As such, I'm essentially useless, and nothing more than a random entity to which she can speak with. Prior to the update, I was able to catch up with her simply by logging in and grabbing a fistful of spells to equip.

BUT, the game shouldn't by any means REVERT to the original. It SHOULD have this current feature available, as it fits wonderously with public servers. by being able to turn this feature OFF, it would also allow public servers to allow players their personal progression within their game. Thus pleasing both worlds with a mere checkbox.

I realize I shouldn't tell you how to develop your own game, and I may be out of line, but I just wanted to say what I felt would benefit this game and make it the gem it truly is.

[keith.lamothe]

I sort of vanished off the face of the Earth, sorry about that, long story.
In any case, sorry if I also came across as insulting or offensive. That was not my intention at all to begin with, and looking back at my first post, I feel like I had just been insulted by myself. I don't know what it is, but I have a talent for phrasing something with the most innocent intentions to sound like something more of a death-threat/blackmail. Curse my conversational skills or lack thereof. I'd like to first state that I love the game AVWW, regardless of how different it may be since the update.

No worries, we're used to new-to-the-forums folks firing off a few rockets before they realize we're actually listening and calm down

In general, the less "heat" we detect in a request/suggestion/bug-report/etc the less friction it causes on our side.  We'll still generally try to process angry feedback, but it is substantially less likely to be well-received.  Just remember we're human (both in our ability to make mistakes in the game, and to make mistakes in handling feedback) and it should be fine

That said, I'm not really the one to respond to the actual questions raised here, but I know Chris was wanting a more specific understanding of what folks wanted to do that they can't do now.

In case it wasn't clear earlier, we did add one thing to improve the current model with respect to co-op: you can drop stuff from your personal crafting stockpile and other players can pick them up, allowing transfer.

[aleksa6]

Good to hear I haven't angered anyone.

So are you still unclear as to what we expected?

Well to put it as to the point as possible...

What I wanted, and what I can assume everybody else suggested in regards to my post in "reverting" the game, is this:








A host has a checkbox in hosting a server: Shared/Unshared progress. This would actually be in the World Creation menu.








Shared progress:

Classic format. Basically, the way the game was before the major update.

All resources/spells found and learned would be shared among all players.
This way, a new player will have access to all spells and resources simply by going to the Workbench and selecting the spells unlocked by players ahead of him.

Perfect for private servers among friends and family who just want to play together.





Unshared progress:

New format. Basically, the way the game is now.

All resources/spells are only obtained and unlocked by the individual himself.
Unlike in shared progress, if Player A were to get some materials and unlock a spell, Player B, the new guy, would not have access to it unless he, himself, unlocks the spell gem and learns it manually.

Perfect for public, 24/7 dedicated servers hosting in MMO format.

[aleksa6]

Aaaaaaaand no reply.

[x4000]

Sorry, you responded while I was out on vacation, and by the time I got back it was apparently pretty buried by other threads.

In terms of having the shared progress, that would be very difficult to do; I'm not sure that I can think of a way to make that really work all that well without literally giving you double resources when you're adventuring together.  I suppose we could make something like a rule where anyone not on the server gets a copy of resources that are collected or something, but in a server with many people that would really give them quite a many duplicate copies.  That's something we could make a server option, sure, but still.

In terms of a new player getting access to all the spells and resources upon joining, that would now be impossible because we no longer keep track of historical resources, and spells are all unique.  If they joined they could get a copy of what other players have currently, but they aren't gaining anything that was historically granted that way.

It's not simply a matter of the old model was giving players a copy of everything -- it literally kept track of everything the players had centrally in one list, and then kept track of what each player had spent.  And the spells weren't just handled globally in some stockpile, they were literally just flags saying "this is now unlocked" whereas now spells are actually unique objects unto themselves, with modifiers and so forth.  A central list of flags wouldn't cut it.

For someone coming in late to a world, on a small private game, I don't see why the first player can't just give them a spellgem.  It is not going to be long before the players are trying to get spells of the NEXT level anyhow, and so within an hour or so any sort of gap has long-since disappeared.

I know that's not the answer you were looking for, but I really can't understand the use cases where this would be a running problem with a group.  If you're playing with a group that plays together regularly, there's no problem.  If you're playing with someone who joins your existing game new, you just give them one of your spells and they are caught up quite quickly.

Especially with the more recent changes to the game, you now get resources AND spellgems themselves far more rapidly.  You could literally have a new spell for the new player every 5-10 minutes if you go after a bunch of missions.

We are working on something big coming up for the game, though, and your comments are relevant for what we're doing on that.  I'll definitely keep them in mind.

[nanostrike]

The issue is that, as people have said, aside from sharing the resources, there's no reward for multiple people playing in the same chunk (And thus increasing the enemy HP and such).

And even if there was, what it would do is shift everyone towards using the same spells, since you're all getting the same rewards.

What's needed is to shift the focus of teams to missions and add some sort of reward-choosing thing, IMO.  Where after a mission, you get a choice of potential rewards.  And these rewards should be greater if more people were in the mission (Since it was harder).  That way, after a mission, one person could pick that awesome Ice spell, while another picks the Fire spell.