Possible issue with coop games.

[RCIX]

Basically, I feel like co-op games are ultimately flawed. What it seems to do is come down to "single-player, but with other people" (if that makes sense). What I mean is that since you're either facing a pre-scripted set of events or an AI of some sort, you end up running out of unique situations, and so you basically use up whatever game is in question.

The key seems to be either in PvP (like Starcraft II, as you always get something new with each different game), or builder games (like Minecraft, since you basically have an infinitely large set of legos to play with).

Just thought I'd throw this out there for discussion

[x4000]

There is nothing flawed about "single player, but with other people," though I don't agree all co-op games are that. But a huge part of the POINT of co-op is to be single player, but with other people. Co-op isn't meant to add any life beyond the single player experience. If the single player experience will be long lived, so with the co-op one.

Why is co-op so important? Because gamers are getting older, and those with spouses or children aren't going to want to sit alone in a room playing by themselves anymore. And when there is a skill gap, they won't ant to play pvp. That's most families right there. For a lot of longtime gamers, it is "play co-op or largely give up the medium."

Co-op is not only not broken, it should be in every game ever made coming ou these days. For more detail in my thoughts: http://www.co-optimus.com/article/2282/the-case-for-co-op-according-to-christopher-park.html

[TechSY730]

Co-op is not only not broken, it should be in every game ever made coming ou these days.

Could you PLEASE tell that to FPS (and 3rd person shooters) developers. Especially the two companies that make Call of Duty and the Bad Company franchises.

For all of it's flaws, Borderlands had a pretty good co-op. It is pretty much the only mainstream shooter (that I have seen) in the modern generation that has co-op for the campaign.

[Sunshine!]

Not only is co-op not broken, Co-op is twice as fun as single player.  One of the determining factors in how long a game actually gets played for me and my brother is whether it's co-op and we can trash the AI together.  There is seriously nothing better, especially when the game allows for shenanigans/has open-endedness that allows from some really bizarre (but amazing) glitches.  If Deus Ex (the first one) single player had a co-op mode, we would pretty much never have to buy another game, ever.

Co-op is extremely important as a feature in FPS games, and the inclusion of co-op in certain more recent RTS games like Red Alert 3(even though I haven't played it), and AI War (it blows my mind how awesome you guys are) is a huge step in the right direction for players who want to enjoy a game together without being competitive.  Building everything around competitive gaming is a no-no and will drive away players who think competitive gaming, and the mentality required for it, is BS.

[BobTheJanitor]

L4D has decent co-op FPS gameplay. The AI director can be pretty good at surprising you and setting up ambushes. Of course it's not as challenging as playing versus mode with human opponents, but it's OK. The longevity of the game does come in versus mode though. And I agree that the mentality required to survive in a competitive game world is very different. What ever happened to friendly competition?

[Red Spot]

snip

Put like that, isnt any shooter just a shooter.
Isnt any red just red.
......

Yes, MP is often in many ways like SP, but with more. But we humans like doing things together and those of us that also like playing games tend to double their fun by combining them.

If you look at many many many (actually pretty much all) games, how often are basicly little more than repetition. Taking AIW (sorry Chris ), isnt it basicly nothing more than just taking an other planet, and repeating that untill you can kill the 'boss-planet'. If you take a bit deeper look you'll quickly notice how unique conquering that next planet actually is. Playing MP also does that, adds that certain, often mild, layer of randomnes.

[x4000]

No offense taken at all, I quite agree.  If you zoom out far enough from anything, a macro pattern emerges that is quite repetitive.

What do you do every day?  Go to work, except for weekends, and then you die.  Isn't being married just like being single except with someone else always in your house?  There's not really much difference between elementary school and high school in the broad form, now, is there? 

[RCIX]

What i'm saying is that co-op games don't really have much more life over single-player ones; unless you can create some sort of super AI that is just like a human at playing but capable of perfectly adjusting it's skill so that its always fun to play (the AI war AI is close, but not quite there ) then all coop games will ultimately have a limited life. Don't get me wrong, there probably will always be a market for coop games, and it definitely looks like it's growing lately, but I dont think that any coop game will have a lasting appeal like Starcraft or Minecraft does/will for a long time to come.

Contrast that with PvP games, where you end up being able to obtain a massive number of unique experiences from the same relatively small set of rules. Co-op can sell a game, but it's my bet that PvP that would keep people playing.

I'm also more interested in increasing the "viable match range" of PvP: how can you make it easier for lower skill players to have a competitive game with higher skill ones without totally devaluing skill?

[BobTheJanitor]

I find it curious that you mentioned Minecraft in there. Are you counting that as a PvP game? I mean you could technically get two people together and whack at one another with swords, but that's probably going to be the worst PvP experience ever. If anything, the enjoyment in multiplayer Minecraft comes from co-op building. I guess you could count griefing/destruction of people's projects in multiplayer, but that's not PvP, that's just some guy being a jerk.

[Sunshine!]

I'm more interested with how you can make the anonymity of the internet not make people such jerkwads in PvP games.  FPS games are less of a problem, I think, because you can drop in/drop out and there's more players, and regulars on each server you can get to know.  RTS games are a problem because there's two or four of you (sometimes more, but not frequently), who you prob don't have much association with, and who are going to be FAR more nitpicky about your strategy and skills.  You start an RTS game with someone, and you're stuck with them for at least the next 5 minutes until they steamroll you if you don't want to get a loss added for disconnect.

Back when I'd play Warcraft 3 online pretty regularly, I'd never play basic games, or any of the really competitive games like DotA, because seriously those people are absolute tools.  The games might have been fun, but I'm not going to have fun playing against someone whose attitude turns them into a raging pottymouth.  This is a particular problem with RTS games with minor differences in skill translate to vastly different results, since you're spending half an hour (or more) per win instead of 30 seconds per kill.

Addressing your actual point, the way to alleviate the skill differences between players is to reduce micro.  How do players win at Starcraft?  Micro, micro, micro.  There's a reason Korean pro starcraft players try to hit 300-400 actions per minute (have fun with your carpal tunnel in 3 years).

Also, the way you're associating minecraft with your point here is completely wrong, as Bob has pointed out.  Minecraft's main benefit, as is the benefit of many MMORPGs, is in the co-op.  It just happens that the scale of the game allows for co-op to run in the foreground, unlike many FPS games where the single player campaign is 8 hours or so, so the co-op viability is determined by how many times you can stand running through that same 8 hour stretch with a friend (or a bunch).

[x4000]

Is infinite longevity really a goal of an individual game?  After all, if you make a game that has infinite longevity, then players don't have any incentive to buy the sequel.  I mean, with AI War I kind of eat those words because we try to make insane variety there, but we also don't try to sell any sequels.  We do sell expansions, though.

What I mean is, if the examples of co-op not extending the solo experience are from large companies, do you expect that's really is a goal of theirs in the first place unless they are an MMO?  Even just from an artistic standpoint, I think that most game companies are trying to make really polished finite experiences that are amazing while they last.  That's, again, not my thing -- I like making procedural stuff that has a lot of replayability, since I really like to long-term inhabit the worlds I create -- but I can understand the mentality for many other games.

In other words, do you think we've even had a lot of game designers trying to give the goals you mention a fair shake?  I know AI War aspires to that sort of thing, but what other games can you think of where that is even remotely a goal of the game's creators?  I think we won't know more what is possible until more designers even try.


Anyway, it also depends on the genre.  In a strategy game or an FPS game, you need really good AI bots, mainly.  In many other genres -- platformers, adventure, etc -- you need a really good procedural worldbuilding system.  That's what I'm trying to accomplish with AVWW, after all.  In many other genres -- racing, action puzzle, runner, etc -- you wind up with that sort of replayability based on just the simple twitch mechanics of it all, if the game strikes just the right nerve in players.  In a few genres, such as mainly story-heavy ones like RPG, or emotion-based ones like horror, I think that there's not really a way to make that open-ended experience you describe.

And anyway, why can't something be both?  You can have human adversaries and human allies both.  That basically describes MMOs, any team-based FPS game, and so on.  You can even have games where there are a few humans acting out the part of all the enemies, like dungeon masters in pen and paper RPGs, or Zargon in Hero Quest, etc.  Even co-op board games without a game master have been proven possible, with the introduction of Shadows Over Camelot.

That's sort of what I mean by we won't know until more people try.  It's an exciting time to be a game designer, and I think that there is tons of potential in all directions.  What's with the pessimism? 

[RCIX]

I find it curious that you mentioned Minecraft in there. Are you counting that as a PvP game? I mean you could technically get two people together and whack at one another with swords, but that's probably going to be the worst PvP experience ever. If anything, the enjoyment in multiplayer Minecraft comes from co-op building. I guess you could count griefing/destruction of people's projects in multiplayer, but that's not PvP, that's just some guy being a jerk.

I counted that under the second category of "builder games".

I'm more interested with how you can make the anonymity of the internet not make people such jerkwads in PvP games.  FPS games are less of a problem, I think, because you can drop in/drop out and there's more players, and regulars on each server you can get to know.  RTS games are a problem because there's two or four of you (sometimes more, but not frequently), who you prob don't have much association with, and who are going to be FAR more nitpicky about your strategy and skills.  You start an RTS game with someone, and you're stuck with them for at least the next 5 minutes until they steamroll you if you don't want to get a loss added for disconnect.

Back when I'd play Warcraft 3 online pretty regularly, I'd never play basic games, or any of the really competitive games like DotA, because seriously those people are absolute tools.  The games might have been fun, but I'm not going to have fun playing against someone whose attitude turns them into a raging pottymouth.  This is a particular problem with RTS games with minor differences in skill translate to vastly different results, since you're spending half an hour (or more) per win instead of 30 seconds per kill.

Maybe it's just me but I don't actually run into those people a lot in Starcraft II. *shrugs*

Addressing your actual point, the way to alleviate the skill differences between players is to reduce micro.  How do players win at Starcraft?  Micro, micro, micro.  There's a reason Korean pro starcraft players try to hit 300-400 actions per minute (have fun with your carpal tunnel in 3 years).

Also, the way you're associating minecraft with your point here is completely wrong, as Bob has pointed out.  Minecraft's main benefit, as is the benefit of many MMORPGs, is in the co-op.  It just happens that the scale of the game allows for co-op to run in the foreground, unlike many FPS games where the single player campaign is 8 hours or so, so the co-op viability is determined by how many times you can stand running through that same 8 hour stretch with a friend (or a bunch).

Hmm. Interesting. The question becomes how can you "map" this longevity back onto other genres (RPGs, action games, platformers, etc.)? Is it just a matter of having good procedural generation behind your already solid gameplay? Or is there a different "key" that no one has found yet for these genres (unlike Minecraft)?

Is infinite longevity really a goal of an individual game?  After all, if you make a game that has infinite longevity, then players don't have any incentive to buy the sequel.  I mean, with AI War I kind of eat those words because we try to make insane variety there, but we also don't try to sell any sequels.  We do sell expansions, though.

What I mean is, if the examples of co-op not extending the solo experience are from large companies, do you expect that's really is a goal of theirs in the first place unless they are an MMO?  Even just from an artistic standpoint, I think that most game companies are trying to make really polished finite experiences that are amazing while they last.  That's, again, not my thing -- I like making procedural stuff that has a lot of replayability, since I really like to long-term inhabit the worlds I create -- but I can understand the mentality for many other games.

In other words, do you think we've even had a lot of game designers trying to give the goals you mention a fair shake?  I know AI War aspires to that sort of thing, but what other games can you think of where that is even remotely a goal of the game's creators?  I think we won't know more what is possible until more designers even try.

I was considering from a player's perspective. But yeah, i see your point.

And anyway, why can't something be both?  You can have human adversaries and human allies both.  That basically describes MMOs, any team-based FPS game, and so on.  You can even have games where there are a few humans acting out the part of all the enemies, like dungeon masters in pen and paper RPGs, or Zargon in Hero Quest, etc.  Even co-op board games without a game master have been proven possible, with the introduction of Shadows Over Camelot.

Isn't that basically team PvP?

That's sort of what I mean by we won't know until more people try.  It's an exciting time to be a game designer, and I think that there is tons of potential in all directions.  What's with the pessimism?  

Not pessimism, just a thought i had and figured that if any forum was best for discussion of this topic it was this one

Apologies for the long response time, just pretty busy lately and have like 5 other forums to visit :3

[Ozymandiaz]

Co-op is not only not broken, it should be in every game ever made coming ou these days.

Could you PLEASE tell that to FPS (and 3rd person shooters) developers. Especially the two companies that make Call of Duty and the Bad Company franchises.

For all of it's flaws, Borderlands had a pretty good co-op. It is pretty much the only mainstream shooter (that I have seen) in the modern generation that has co-op for the campaign.

You can count l4d as coop as well I guess. Tho it also has a versus mode.

But playing the campaing mode in l4d2 on hard settings tests your ability as a team to do well


Edit:

And as a general thought of coop, I love it. Thats tha main resaon I play the EVE MMO. Sure, it has lot and lots and lots of PVP, but that PVP would not be as fun without my in-game buddies by my side to do that with. Same when gears of war first came out, I had fun with a friend doing a coop game. I never played it again after we finished the coop campaign though

Same with AI War, I love playing it with a friend when I get the chance, but AI War also stands solid as a solo game.

[TechSY730]

Co-op is not only not broken, it should be in every game ever made coming ou these days.

Could you PLEASE tell that to FPS (and 3rd person shooters) developers. Especially the two companies that make Call of Duty and the Bad Company franchises.

For all of it's flaws, Borderlands had a pretty good co-op. It is pretty much the only mainstream shooter (that I have seen) in the modern generation that has co-op for the campaign.

You can count l4d as coop as well I guess. Tho it also has a versus mode.
...

Duh. How did I forget l4d when I made my original post. 

Okay, make that two mainstream modern generation shooters with good co-op of the campaign. Though nice to know it isn't dead, that ration is still sort of pathetic. 

[zebramatt]

Isn't a vast part of what makes MMOs successful is that they are substantially cooperative?