What Am I Missing?

[Stg]

I have been wondering what all I am missing out on (if anything) by playing single player. Is there a substantial change in gameplay with multiple people or is it the same game with a loot-whoring twist since everyone will be vying for the stash rooms?

I was hoping to get my buddy into this game with me, but Tera has been taking up all of his free time and with my work schedule (18+ hours a day normally), our free time rarely meshes.

[blastpop]

I've been perfectly content playing the single player. Not a big MP game fan to begin with.

[Misery]

I've been perfectly content playing the single player. Not a big MP game fan to begin with.

Same here.

I dont think anything really changes with MP anyway aside from there being other players around.   The gameplay likely stays exactly the same, and pretty sure there isnt any MP-only content anywhere.

[tigersfan]

I dont think anything really changes with MP anyway aside from there being other players around.   The gameplay likely stays exactly the same, and pretty sure there isnt any MP-only content anywhere.

Yeah, Misery is right. We actually try pretty hard to make the experience as similar as it can be. That way folks who want to play MP only, or who want to play SP only, or any combination in between, can all see the same things.

[Chex Warrior]

To be honest, both SP and MP are a lot of fun.

[MouldyK]

Yeah, there is not much change to be honest, which is good as I can do some things like get wind shelters which some people find boring, then wait for someone to come on so we can do the Lieutenant.

It's nice for drop-in, drop-out style of play.

[TechSY730]

IIRC, the multiplayer feeling like singleplayer with more people is one of Arcen's design goals for multiplayer in their games. They like having sort of a unified "feel" of the game, even with the additional strategies that multiplayer opens up.

[Oralordos]

or is it the same game with a loot-whoring twist since everyone will be vying for the stash rooms?

The items follow black-list procedures. That is to say, each player can grab most items once each. So no vying for the stash rooms either.

[x4000]

or is it the same game with a loot-whoring twist since everyone will be vying for the stash rooms?

The items follow black-list procedures. That is to say, each player can grab most items once each. So no vying for the stash rooms either.

Actually sometimes it's also a whitelist, where everyone in the chunk at the time can grab it, but nobody else can if they come later.

And for things like crafting ingredients, those all just go into a central bin and everyone can spend each material once. 

Building supplies and guardian power scrolls also go into a central bin, but they can only be used once since they benefit everyone anyhow.

---

As techsy730 notes, generally speaking what we're going for in co-op of our games is "I want to play too!"  "Okay, let's do that!"  In other words, it's 2+ people sitting down to play the main game experience (aka the solo experience) with as few changes as possible.  I really hate FPS games where they have a separate co-op campaign, for instance; then if I want to see everything I still have to play solo, when I probably want to play with my wife the whole way through.  Or if someone else were playing solo, they'd be missing out by not doing the co-op stuff.  Blech.

All that said, the social element naturally changes everything in any co-op game.  Just because the rules are pretty much the same and so forth, doesn't mean that the overall feel doesn't wildly diverge.  It tends to do so because people can split up tasks and flank enemies and do all sorts of interesting things that way.

[Chex Warrior]

MP also adds a certain tension to Journey to Perfection missions, more so than SP.

[LayZboy]

Well monsters take longer to kill when both of you are in the same area, which makes it pretty boring to kill stuff.
Other than that though, it's pretty much the same as single player, everyone shares resources so you can go after the stuff together if you can be bothered/using the same spells.

You can also pause the overlords room if you're nearly dead, get your buddy to pause the chunk just after you leave to get some HP, then un-pause when you get back. It normally produces some pretty weird bugs though, like overlords bugging out and having minus hp and things.

[Bluddy]

I think monsters should get a non-linear boost from MP (if they don't already). So if you have 2 players, rather than monster HP being doubled, it should be multiplied by about 1.5. So there's still an advantage to having more players, it's just not as huge as if there was no HP boost.

[MouldyK]

I think that is hinting we should stop doing that since bugging the room is useless and means the battle was pointless lol.

Overall, multiplayer just really speeds up the playing for both people as it mean you can get things done twice as fast even with just 2 people, however you honestly miss nothing but maybe some extra fun in the multiplayer. Just personal preference really and sticking to SP won't hurt your gameplay.


Also, Bluddy, I agree with that, or maybe 1.75 at the most. Something to benefit more players.

Even having a slight increase of spawn monsters and them having 1.25 more health would be effective maybe since it will mean more things you need to shoot at together? I dunno, just doubling it seems to be more effort if you both aint shooting at the same thing.

[x4000]

Even having a slight increase of spawn monsters and them having 1.25 more health would be effective maybe since it will mean more things you need to shoot at together? I dunno, just doubling it seems to be more effort if you both aint shooting at the same thing.

You're assuming two players -- and that spawning more monsters would actually work (it wouldn't, often).  Generally speaking if you had, say, 8 players and 8x as many monsters then you would find it unplayable.  Or pick your numbers, it just simply doesn't scale.

Regarding monsters taking longer to kill in MP, that's simply not true.  Simple math:
- If player A does 1 unit of damage, and monsters X and Y have 2 units of health each, then in solo it takes player A 4 shots to kill them all.  So, 4 shots per player, since there's one player.
- If players A and B both do 1 unit of damage, and monsters X and Y have 4 units of health each (thanks to MP buff), then takes the players 8 shots to kill them all.  So, once again, 4 shots per player.

If players split up and fight different monsters in the same chunk, then yeah it takes twice as long to kill each one with two players; but the number of shots fired to clear the chunk remains the same.  It's possible we might do some sub-linear scaling of monster health in the future, but that's more a matter of simply having to cave to very wrong perceptions that people have rather than any basis in real balance.

The simple fact is that having a friend helps enormously already, even with perfectly linear scaling (common misconception of "why have the friend there at all").  If you and your friend stand right on top of each other, then both of you can be hit by enemy shots, sure.  But otherwise the enemy can only shoot at one of you (or the chasing enemies can only chase one of you, etc).  You can flank enemies and shoot them from multiple directions, and ultimately overwhelm them if you play your cards right.

So you wind up getting into extreme "takes much less damage" situations even if you're good about it.

Perception matters, obviously.  But in this case people's perceptions about the math of it are woefully incorrect and that kind of saddens me; it's so well balanced right now, but people are rejecting it because of doing bad math.

[timesend]

Personally I've mainly played multiplayer in AVww. In my experience it really adds little negatives to the experience. You are able to gather resource faster, use combos which would otherwise be madness (for example one player full wild age dps, otherone a mana high hero using shields to block enemies). And simply playing with another human can lead to some intresting scenarios. (looks at the meteor flying towards his face). The game isn't drastically different and its difficulty isn't really increased or decreased but that is what makes it so fun. The only problem is that you tend to need to be playing on a difficulty both players are happy with. Their is no absolute reason to, but i do suggest trying it.