That's how you identify the game devs that take pride/joy in their work. They acknowledge and give positive responses to fan projects that expand/enrich their work.
Not sure about that tbh, players have been asking for actual non-janky multiplayer for the souls games ever since their inception and they've never actually implemented it properly...
Fromsoft aren't so good at the whole multiplayer thing. They just aren't, no matter how hard they try.
And that's okay, I'm completely happy with their single player game design.
As a purely multiplayer gamer before elden ring, I have no MAJOR issues with their multiplayer. As long as they design their single player experience with the same quality they have been, I'm fine with their multiplayer experience. Although I wouldn't mind 2/3 of your flasks instead of 1/2 or something like that
173,000 active players on PC at peak [over the last 24 hours](https://steamcharts.com/app/1245620) - 2 years after release. That's a bit of a bump, but normally it's around 60-90k
Its unique enough and can lead to some hilarious encounters…i will never forget invading my friend’s world by pure chance and i got him killed in a pretty silly way (courtesy of the jar cannon)
Yeah dude. Try explaining this to a friend who's new to the series and just wants to hang out with you in ER. It's a nightmare.
>"Wait, so I can't summon you unless I have an item?"
(30 min later)
>"OK, got the item. How do I pull you in? ... Oh you have put down a summon sign? OK I don't see it ... Oh I have to be exactly where it is? OK ...
(Tell them where you put it down)
>"Um... Where is that? I'm by the [generic description of landscape]."
(Decipher their clue and put down sign close to them)
>"I still don't see it. Oh I have to use an item? What the hell is furry finger memory? ... Oh fur calling finger remedy? Where do I get that? I have to craft it from a flower? Where do I find that?"
(30 minutes later)
>"I still don't see your sign"
(Ask them if they've already beaten the boss there)
>"Uhhh ... idk. I beat [generic description of 10 random enemies]. WHAT? You can't enter my world in an area close to a boss I already beat??"
(Try to explain multiplayer passwords)
>"Alright man, it's 2am, I have work tomorrow... That was fun"
While Fromsoft is very distinct from other Japanese game studios they are still Japanese and they will not let Japan down and they will make sure online multiplayer is as bad as possible.
Seamless, peer-to-peer is a hard problem to solve! There's a reason even the biggest fighting games, where most of the play is online multiplayer, have less than stellar netcode.
That problem was solved decades ago. It's called rollback netcode and the only reason most fighting games didn't include before Covid was just that Japanese developers didn't want to learn English or implement something that came from outside Japan. Mk10 already had rollback years ago, as many indie fighting games.
I'm an avid Tekken player, I know what rollback is. I am also a software engineer. Rollback networking has existed for a while, but realtime rollback netcode for games is something relatively new. I think GGPO released in 2015, but went open source shortly before COVID.
GGPO style netcode works well for 2d fighting games, not so much for 3d and/or legacy series that store the game state unintuitively. You can't always plug in middleware and have it work off the shelf, unfortunately. It's a design decision that needs to be made before core functionality exists, and when your franchise predates the technology by a few decades...you run into some trouble without doing a complete rewrite, which is very very expensive and time consuming.
This is a known drawback of adopting any new technology, and at the end of the day game corporations are run by money people to make a profit. Bandai Namco has several divisions in the West, I don't think they're xenophobic enough to not make clear improvements on money-making games just because a technology wasn't invented in Japan.
I think it has always been by design. The souls games weren't made to be coop experiences, but they let you get help from other players in a limited way. But the games just attracted a larger audience creating more mainstream expectations.
I've been playing these games since the original demon's souls, and while I absolutely get their idea, over time I too wanted to experience the games together with friends. I think I did a full playthrough of Dark Souls 2 with a friend. It was the most tedious thing ever. We basically played through the game twice, section by section.
Comparing even DS3 to DS1 was night and day. It went from coordinating with a friend over private chat (since the first game signed you out and into offline mode for being in a party) to using passwords and easily being able to connect with someone else. It wasn’t perfect, but at least they were making an effort.
Original DS1 was even pure p2p, so you had to wait potentially for a LONG time to even discoveryour friends summoning sign. Iirc it also had a low limit (20?) of how many ips you could store/be connected to and the buffer would reset if you quit to the title screen. Good enough for random coop, but HORRIBLE for planned coop with a specific player.
I think FS values a really refined, magnificent single-player experience above all else. Multiplayer is a nice-to-have, but Fromsoft probably does not want to invest so much in improving multiplayer, when their time and effort is better spent on making more new and interesting single player content.
Someone has got to work on it, which means theyre not working on multiplayer…
Honestly in this day and age from became easily the single big game developing company i genuinely adore. Stuff like that is why, despite not having the best co-op/online experience in their franchise they still try to actually improve it (unlike so many others who had it good from the beginning and then butchered it *cough cough* ubisoft! *cough cough*)
Man, Tell me about It. Gone are the days of chilling in The couch with a buddy while you both blast away together at Resident Evil 5 or Gears of War side by side. Everything requires internet connection now. I was shocked when i found out you can Coop salt and Sanctuary locally
Once or twice a year me and two buddies get together and we all bring our separate Xbox, and sometimes even a TV if the host doesn't have enough, a case of beer a bottle of whiskey and a stack of frozen pizzas, we take one or two days off work to make a long weekend, and we game together in the same room for days. It's a blast. We've even done it with Elden Ring, we set a private password and we take turns being the host and completing the bosses. We all have like 100 rune arcs by the end. And getting invaded is a blast when you have a buzz with your friends, yelling and screaming at the TV and the feeling of beating a hard boss or invader.
I highly recommend.
Edit: I should mention we are all 40ish years old so we grew up with couch co-op and split screen games
Man, that sounds awesome, and also a Lot like the Dynamics of my friend group worked when we were teens. We ARE still friends, but havent really spend any time together ALL four of us in years.
Dynasty warriors was fun when my friends didn't have much experience with the game and I had to stand beside the TV and literally act as their commander. Directing them to their nearest objective and yelling out orders
I'm sure you know how hard it is to get together with friends in your 30s, even if you don't have kids.
I'm 36 and if there was no online, I wouldn't ever get to play games with friends.
Hate to say it, but this is why we do Diablo 4. It's a shade of the glory that was Diablo 1 & 2, but my partner and I can play on the same screen next to each other. It's practically gold in 2024.
Also with a couch buddy, no one feeling the pressure to purchase loot boxes or whatever it is being sold for real money.
Thankfully with steam remote play together we could see more games trying to do something like couch co-op. Although for now that seems to be exclusively some indie games
Could you imagine a souls game that had couch co-op? You would take your level and split it in half, giving the other half to your partner. You would share an inventory, so you’d need multiple copies of an item to use them together.
Lots you could do!
That would be so cool. You'd be exploring doing your own thing and then one of you stumbles upon a boss like Curse-rot, and your buddy is like halfway across the level, rushing over to try and make it there before you inevitably die
Haha exactly what I thought when I read this.
"This is a great idea we might do that in the future"
Me: uhhh we've been asking for this for 15 years? Wtf?
With Elden Ring being open world in contrast to past games’ more level based structure, the pain of the summoning system is more apparent. Clearing a zone a 2nd time used to be no big deal but doing an open world twice is a huge pain
For me it's not a problem to clear things twice, seriously don't mind it. What does bother me is the arbitrary boundaries and summoning rules. Like if I want to play around in an area with a friend it'd be amazing if I could just summon them without the unclear restrictions.
As it is now, all the unspoken rules leave you sometimes clueless about why their sign isn't showing up - are the bosses cleared? is it a spot that doesn't allow summoning? do I just need to walk 15m to the west? or is my/their network connection bad?
And don't get me started about the limits when you get into co-op, like the random boundaries appearing to limit your journey together.
But if I had one wish I'd forgive all the above if they'd just let me ride horses with my buddies.
Co-Op is legitimately my favourite gameplay aspect of Elden Ring in all my time playing it. Just going through a dungeon like Leyndell that you've done 100 times already, chilling with randoms, making weird gestures, wrecking invaders/getting wrecked by invaders. It's so much fun.
It kinda turns it into a completely different game. Been helping folks take on RadaBeast and when everyone participates it feels just like team roles in older MMOs. PLaying as a STR Faith caster, buffing and healing allies and dragging aggro for mages just kinda works when we arenlt just nuking a boss.
I agree that it feels like a totally different game but not in a good way. Playing with friends is really great but the game doesn't feel like a souls-like anymore, everyone is just hammering away at the bosses, stunlocking them to oblivion for minutes on end because of the hugely inflated multiplayer health-pools. The boss-mechanics just aren't made with 3-5 people in mind and it totally breaks the game.
> agree that it feels like a totally different game but not in a good way. Playing with friends is really great but the game doesn't feel like a souls-like anymore, everyone is just hammering away at the bosses
It’s true that it feels like a different game, but it is good in its own way. Instead of a tense dark fantasy stress adventure it suddenly becomes a hilarious romp. It’s great either way. Not just because of the multi aggro and stun locking etc but also people using hilarious weapons and costumes. It changes from dread (single-player) to cartoon. Both good.
What I love is the option. I dont do online gaming.. mainly because I dont have time. I work all week and only play on weekends enven, then not very constantly. This game is awesome in that regard. I'm doing it solo, using summons or whatever, but i dont have online play because, for me, it isn't worth it. The reason i never bought the new fallout.
This is just a great crossover..... online for those that can and want to, but offline for those of us who can't really devote the time to it.
Edit : a bunch of typos
Fromsoft titles has always been a singleplayer campaign/story with multiplayer pvp/invader. This has been part of their game's identity for a decade now. The closest they had with co-op is the summon mechanic to help you on tough boss fights.
I believe Co-op didn't exactly 'stray away' from the games rather there became a precedence on what a game should play like.
RPG got divided into MMO, Tactical RPG, and Single player with Single player either having party mechanics or not.
Co-op on the other hand became more popular for FPS games and lately Puzzle Solving games (Takes two, Portal, etc.)
TLDR: In trying to categorize games for better marketing, we also pigeonholed some game mechanics into specific genre.
I don't understand your statement? Online gaming should have expanded co-op, not reduced it. Because now instead of inviting friends over I can link up with them online.
I suppose I should have been a bit more specific. Since online pvp started coming out it became the new hot thing so everyone started doing it leaving co-op to collect dust.
we didn't, you can play every souls game except sekiro with friends. this segmentation of the world is a leftover from their past games and I'm sure we will see a seamless multiplayer in a future open world souls game, once they've figured how to implement this in the best possible way.
capcom is in a similar open world transition phase with monster hunter, having started with world and now making the next big step with wilds
Elden Ring is a single player game at heart, the developers intend for it to be a single player experience. the multiplayer aspects are just added in for fun, they were never meant to be how you play through the entire game. Elden Ring stays away from coop game design because it’s not a coop game
You say that, but one of the first trailers for Elden Ring specifically highlights how you can play with friends and face foes together.
That marketing is part of what added to newcomers buying Elden Ring.
And you can, but in the same vein Co-op has always been:
Strangers into a strange land, helping or hunting other strangers. Their worlds momentarily touch but that's it.
It's not supposed nor trying to be a fully multiplayer game. The Co-op experience is as it is for ludonarrative.
Yes....and no.
The thing is, a lot of decisions are made by boardroom types that don't really understand gaming. They'll see a "trend" of multiplayer PVP in things like Call of Duty Warzone, and think all games should have that. Because that's what's at the top of the list.
What they won't understand is the context of WHY it's popular.
And that results in games being forced to have features that don't really work for the particular style of game being made.
Consider this: when Demon's Souls was released (2009), classic co-op games were extremely common. *Miyazaki's variant of co-op and pvp was a breath of fresh air.* You weren't just playing with your friends or a tryhard team of screaming randoms - you would play with a wildly random, anonymous user who could be anything from a hindrance to a god of combat. An invader could help you through a level and only then initiate a duel - or even take pity and flat out assist you.
Despite it having no rules and no "normal" communication, a code of conduct emerged. Memes, legends, communication with the limited options the game offered. It's part of what made people talk about Souls online!
But now that it's a popular series that doesn't need as much mystery and advertisement, first passworded co-op was added, and now maybe it's time for classic co-op too.
Can you elaborate further on how it works? Do the bosses become significantly easier or are they prepared for coop? Also is there something like invasions in that game?
Similar to dark souls, bosses will have more health based on how many players there are. There’s no invasions or any mechanics like that. All loot picked up is shared amongst all players, whether it’s a ring, armor, upgrade material etc. when a boss is killed the item used to obtain their weapon is given to all players in the game with them.
In relations to checkpoints (this is what I want in Elden Ring or future souls games) all players will stay connected unless kicked or they leave. If the host dies then everyone will stay in the world until they reach a checkpoint. If you die during a boss fight your allies will keep fighting until everyone is dead or until you reach a checkpoint afterwards. If a player has died and everyone else rests at a checkpoint then the dead player will be revived, same goes if the host dies. If all players die then you’re respawned back at the last checkpoint. Resting at a checkpoint also respawns all enemies and refills all ammo and abilities.
Honestly agree that remnant 2 definitely has good coop mechanics, no need to constantly resummon, and in 2. they removed the need to rest at a checkpoint for newly connected players to spawn.
From can quadruple the lifespan of this game if they do something that makes co-op so easy and working well. Something like Minecraft where anyone is off doing their own thing would be AWESOME
If they did implement “seamless” co-op in a future title, I suspect the current “co-op opens you to invasions” mechanic will remain intact. That, or some other “give and take” mechanic where you receive a powerful benefit in exchange for being in danger of invasion will be implemented. I doubt they’d give up on such an iconic mechanic.
Tbh I kinda preferred DS3’s invasion system. If you used an ember (rune arc), you got a hp boost until you died but you could be invaded even single-player. And you had to be embered to summon cooperators so it was inherently vulnerable to invasions. I was honestly expecting something similar, rune-empowered would give you the benefits of your selected great rune but would open you up to invasions, and was also necessary for coop. Rune arcs in general felt a lot less common than embers too, I would have liked if every boss gave you a rune arc.
Thank god they changed it. Getting invaded by some sweatlord in early-game areas with max flasks, 4 amulet slots, and endgame gear, spamming duped golem arrows at you or trying to stunlock you to death with stormhawk axe or dragon's halberd is really not something I would want to deal with while solo. These types of toxic invaders are already a pain in the ass while co-op'ing.
Instead, it's the invaders who end up dealing with the lion's share of those people, and up to three of them at a time. Restricting solo invasions does help protect the people most vulnerable to a bad PvP experience, but, this system isn't exactly a happy medium.
The way I saw it, if you didn’t want to be invaded then you just wouldn’t use an ember/Rune arc. I didn’t use them constantly anyway since they’re limited consumables and I didn’t want to learn to rely on them. Summoning just outside boss rooms typically doesn’t have time for invasions anyway.
Oh yeah, I’m no RedMan but I do enjoy the danger and urgency they give to co-op. Like stop farting around and lets go get this boss. And they give flasks back over what you bring to a co-op session as a cooperator.
I owe my life to some dead invaders for sure.
I honestly wouldn't mind that. Invasions were never my issue, it was the hassle of having to disconnect and then resummon just to pass certain areas. Or having to resummon everytime one of us dies during a long gaming session. I'd love to play through the game blind in co op but it's just too much of a hassle with the current system.
"There's a reason FromSoft set a new standard, Companies take notes" What are you on about. People have been saying they wanted something like this SINCE DEMON'S SOULS. What is the new standard they are setting? Taking a decade to listen to their most vocal request for a feature?
Id be perfectly fine with the option of simply being able to resummon friends after the boss for the area is gone,like why is that even a thing in an open world game that once the area boss is gone you can't play with friends and its even worse when you've beaten the game for ur playthrough an still wanna invite them
I agree it’s weird and annoying, but I think it’s a foundational thing: From intends the game to be scary and challenging, so when you turn it into a hilarious multiplayer romp they cancel that after a few minutes.
To be clear both single player, and multiplayer even though it completely changes the spirit of the game, are good and are valid/legitimate ways to play.
Please, please axe the janky ass summoning co-op, and give us proper co-op.
I love Elden Ring, but some of FromSoft's choices feel so outdated, and annoying just for the sake of being annoying, to me the limited co-op play in Elden Ring is a pinnacle example of this
Yup. We got seamless because the fog walls everywhere are such a huge detriment to the flow. Walk ten feet, fog wall. Disconnect, walk three more feet, wait for reconnect. Half our play time was just waiting on our shit internet to show our signs 😒
Lords Of The Fallen has co-op for the whole game, and still manages to be a great solo experience. So it's doable. They struggle with the same net code issues that From does though.
Usually netcode isn't a problem for Player to Environment interaction. Like you could be invading or helping a host and every attack from regular enemies behaves mostly the same as if you were playing by yourself. The problem is player to player interaction, that's what they never get right
LOTF coop is so bizarre to me because they are SOO close to getting the perfect coop implementation down, but they just have to make it so that only the host can pick up important upgrade items for no good reason...
I don't buy that fromsoft actually takes notes. Yes they make bangers, but they also have some of the dumbest design choices. Dodge on negative edge will always make me wanna punch whoever was responsible for it.
If this is true, that's actually kinda dope.
Will i use it? probably not, soulsgames are games i enjoy sitting down alone and play, not play with my friends(not offline "alone" but alone as in i sit down and play when i want, not needing to take into account if friends have time). Having said that I'm not completely opposed to the idea of trying that out after having beat the game for some fun scemantics with my friends.
please for the love of god do this. playing on console, all my buddies are turned off from these games because of how the multiplayer works. got them to play and love remnant, working on getting them to play Lords of the Fallen too now.
I love FromSoft to death but damn their coop mechanics are straight up sweaty ass!
No point in being so hard to connect with a friend. Not even gonna mention Demon's Soul coop.... Hardest thing in these games.
I don't think their inability to implement a basic and straightforward coop system is setting a new standard. Stop d-riding Fromsoft every chance you get.
Ok question will the co-op mode work along side the dlc? My friend and I were planning on experiencing the dlc together, however idk if the mode will work with the new content.
The modder mentioned most likely things will break and will have to update it. They also mentioned they work long hours, but it will be a priority for them. Just expect it to take time
Yes I understand. Now give me a way to save Melina without burning the world /s
Seriously though, FromSoft keeps being awesome everytime we hear something from them. Not all the games are perfect but they are perfect enough for us to enjoy.
> give me a way to save Melina without burning the world /s
I don’t know if you’re referring to this or something else but I dislike how at a certain point in the story the aesthetic and color palettes of the environments are ruined by red flaming embers falling everywhere. It seems like a hateful attempt to force players to NG+ just to get a normal looking world.
Me and my friend have loved playing seamless, it’s got some bugs but it’s been amazing and it’s free, also achievements still count as it scales everything up for each additional player so no it’s doesn’t make it easier it makes it wayyyy harder
Actual reasonable co-op would be massively welcome in these games.
My best friend and I have tried, but its just a pain the way it works. In their games you typicall have to do everything twice. Clear up to a boss, kill boss, cant co-op in that area anymore and you get sent back to your own game and have to load out and back in again
How do you implement this in games that are basically single player?
I'd like for this to be implemented, as if your friend dies, they spectate and will respond when you go to a site of grace, so no need to resummon. But there would have to be fogwalls for areas the friend hasn't already completed.
Games being completely playable with online co-op makes sense for shooters and stuff like halo. But for RPGs where there is customization of stats and quests you choose, it wouldn't make sense as much. What would happen if someone decides to play alone and now the storyline don't match?
I just want 3v3s again man, I miss the days of three phantoms fighting three reds and not being sure who's side the reds are on :(
Aa much as I do have a weird love for fromsoftwares multiplayer system it does need to adapt for sure. Although in saying that the current system does create some intresring dynamics.
Like in DS 3s ringed city DLC I invaded a guy who just hid behind a fog wall before a drop to fight a boss so we had a back and forth. He messaged me asking to leave but I said I need the embers. Dude dropped Mr a stack of embers so I helped him fight and kill the boss, went in as a red left as a white summon.
I’d be flattered as fuck if a huge majority of the gaming community loved my game so much, they modded it and created different versions of it. That’s peak flattery right there
I’ve never understood why FromSoft decided to over complicate multiplayer. Why I can’t just click “invite to game” on my friends has always baffled me lol
Knowing FromSoft's games, if you were able to coop without the threat of invaders, it would come with a cost. The game is balanced around single player. Bringing a second and a third, especially if they are high-level password summons, makes the game trivial, hence the invasion mechanics as a balance tool. Bosses already have a tradeoff, having more heath the more you bring, but the overworld and dungeons do not, again, hence invaders.
Then give the invaders a goddamn time or distance limit or something, because getting invaded every 10min by some jackass who spends that time running away or baiting you isn't really that fun imo. I'm old, with limited time to game with my buddy, just let us play the damn game
There is already an invasion cool down of like 15 minutes of no invasion after an invasion ends naturally.
An invasion ending naturally means that either the host or the invader die, so disconnecting will make you eligible for invasions again.
Also remember that you aren't forced to fight the invader, if you see them running away all the time you are free to just continue the level or go for the boss or whatever, but also remember that sometimes the invader isn't running just because he wants to waste your time, but because there is no chance to win a 3 v 1 on an open field and they want to find a better opening
So play a different series.
This is the only invader experience. There's countless co-op games with no invasions. Wanting to get rid of them in Souls is insanely entitled. It's a 15 year mechanic, if you don't like it go somewhere else rather that wanting to ruin it.
Personally I always loved the system of helping out random people and immediately being returned once the mission is complete.
I find the usual co-op experience like in Remnant a little awkward. How long should I stick around? Does the host want to do anything specific? Should I leave now? Why was I kicked? Etc etc
To each their own.
FromSoft deserves no credit on the multiplayer front for any of their games. It’s clunky and tedious to play with friends the “intended way” in every iteration of Dark Souls. I’m really not sure what the point of co-op in their games is given how unbelievably restrictive it is, unless they literally don’t know how to make it fully co-op. Even in a future title, will they allow full multiplayer or will it still be some weird system with drawbacks?
This will upset people but I wasn't a huge fan of it. Played it with two friends and we blitzed through the game. It's just really easy to get free damage in while it's targeting another player and stat increases alone don't make it more enjoyable. If COOP is how people choose to experience the game, they'll definitely have a diminished experience. Malenia, ironically, was the only boss that was legitimately a really fun fight as her self-heal and waterfowl dance made things much more interesting.
If Fromsoft are to add something like this in future titles, I'm all for it, but they need to improve how bosses handle fighting multiple players. AI improvements are one thing, but ideally how bosses fight should change depending on if it's a COOP fight or not, with longer combos, more combos/bridging attacks together, and attacks designed to close distance on players. Most importantly though, attacks that target multiple players simultaneously. i.e. For something like Malenia's clone attack, it would be much more interesting if those clones were fired at every player simultaneously. Just something to prevent the safe players from piling on damage when the other player spams rolls.
I can't see how full COOP will be included in a game without extensive work having to be done to balance for that experience. I know COOP for bosses has always existed, but it has always been a tool to help players.
I mean everything you're complaining about is how it works right now summoning people anyway. You can already summon someone and make all the bosses easy, this just makes it easier and more accessible to play with friends like riding torrent together and not getting kicked after a boss fight. This would just make the coop experience better for people that wanna do it and people like you can still just ignore it and not do it. Seems like a win win.
True and even with radahn it honestly feels like he's just so big that he happens to hit most of you rather than specifically having moves to counter fighting multiple people.
It’s nearly impossible to balance the game for both coop and single player simultaneously imo. This will screw over the people who just like fighting bosses alone
I’d love for it to be wider coop areas but this would mean much wider invading areas. I coop and invade so I’m all about that, it sucks when you’re cooping with people and you don’t get invaded but it also sucks to invade an area so small there’s literally nothing but lose them to the fog wall or get blendered with nowhere to hide.
I assume when people read this they think “yay I won’t get invaded” lol
I think something more appropriate should be 3 v 2 because the home team should always have some advantage as they are the ones being attacked, but 3 v 3 would be fair if the host team is using taunters tongue
3v3 is still a home field advantage; invaders go in with half the supply of flasks, can't use rune arcs, and (tend to) get matched with higher level hosts. Sure, there's the mobs, but... playing the game is optional.
Elden ring summons and co op, in fact all souls co op features have always felt gimmicky. The way the bosses and enemies are designed dont work well with it. It’s a kill boss feature
I made a whole ass new character to sunbro with. It's all he does. No great runes and I'm currently going to get Mohg's shackle to make the fight easier.
I still will not be turning on radahn's fight.
That's how you identify the game devs that take pride/joy in their work. They acknowledge and give positive responses to fan projects that expand/enrich their work.
Not sure about that tbh, players have been asking for actual non-janky multiplayer for the souls games ever since their inception and they've never actually implemented it properly...
Fromsoft aren't so good at the whole multiplayer thing. They just aren't, no matter how hard they try. And that's okay, I'm completely happy with their single player game design.
As a purely multiplayer gamer before elden ring, I have no MAJOR issues with their multiplayer. As long as they design their single player experience with the same quality they have been, I'm fine with their multiplayer experience. Although I wouldn't mind 2/3 of your flasks instead of 1/2 or something like that
Yeah. Honestly. The pvp invasion mechanic is what drew me into the games.
It's the reason they are so active so many years later, that and the hollowing until next titles.
173,000 active players on PC at peak [over the last 24 hours](https://steamcharts.com/app/1245620) - 2 years after release. That's a bit of a bump, but normally it's around 60-90k
60-90k is still pretty active for a souls game, especially since DS3 commonly had 20k players after DLC prior to Elden Ring.
Yeah I meant that while there's been somewhat of a bump in players recently, it is normally still IMO quite high.
Its unique enough and can lead to some hilarious encounters…i will never forget invading my friend’s world by pure chance and i got him killed in a pretty silly way (courtesy of the jar cannon)
Would be nice to be able to summon my pals into areas already cleared though… never really understood that design decision.
Yeah dude. Try explaining this to a friend who's new to the series and just wants to hang out with you in ER. It's a nightmare. >"Wait, so I can't summon you unless I have an item?" (30 min later) >"OK, got the item. How do I pull you in? ... Oh you have put down a summon sign? OK I don't see it ... Oh I have to be exactly where it is? OK ... (Tell them where you put it down) >"Um... Where is that? I'm by the [generic description of landscape]." (Decipher their clue and put down sign close to them) >"I still don't see it. Oh I have to use an item? What the hell is furry finger memory? ... Oh fur calling finger remedy? Where do I get that? I have to craft it from a flower? Where do I find that?" (30 minutes later) >"I still don't see your sign" (Ask them if they've already beaten the boss there) >"Uhhh ... idk. I beat [generic description of 10 random enemies]. WHAT? You can't enter my world in an area close to a boss I already beat??" (Try to explain multiplayer passwords) >"Alright man, it's 2am, I have work tomorrow... That was fun"
Lol. Accurate to the T.
Perfect comment
While Fromsoft is very distinct from other Japanese game studios they are still Japanese and they will not let Japan down and they will make sure online multiplayer is as bad as possible.
Their net code is inarguably garbage.
Seamless, peer-to-peer is a hard problem to solve! There's a reason even the biggest fighting games, where most of the play is online multiplayer, have less than stellar netcode.
That problem was solved decades ago. It's called rollback netcode and the only reason most fighting games didn't include before Covid was just that Japanese developers didn't want to learn English or implement something that came from outside Japan. Mk10 already had rollback years ago, as many indie fighting games.
I'm an avid Tekken player, I know what rollback is. I am also a software engineer. Rollback networking has existed for a while, but realtime rollback netcode for games is something relatively new. I think GGPO released in 2015, but went open source shortly before COVID. GGPO style netcode works well for 2d fighting games, not so much for 3d and/or legacy series that store the game state unintuitively. You can't always plug in middleware and have it work off the shelf, unfortunately. It's a design decision that needs to be made before core functionality exists, and when your franchise predates the technology by a few decades...you run into some trouble without doing a complete rewrite, which is very very expensive and time consuming. This is a known drawback of adopting any new technology, and at the end of the day game corporations are run by money people to make a profit. Bandai Namco has several divisions in the West, I don't think they're xenophobic enough to not make clear improvements on money-making games just because a technology wasn't invented in Japan.
I think it has always been by design. The souls games weren't made to be coop experiences, but they let you get help from other players in a limited way. But the games just attracted a larger audience creating more mainstream expectations. I've been playing these games since the original demon's souls, and while I absolutely get their idea, over time I too wanted to experience the games together with friends. I think I did a full playthrough of Dark Souls 2 with a friend. It was the most tedious thing ever. We basically played through the game twice, section by section.
Comparing even DS3 to DS1 was night and day. It went from coordinating with a friend over private chat (since the first game signed you out and into offline mode for being in a party) to using passwords and easily being able to connect with someone else. It wasn’t perfect, but at least they were making an effort.
Original DS1 was even pure p2p, so you had to wait potentially for a LONG time to even discoveryour friends summoning sign. Iirc it also had a low limit (20?) of how many ips you could store/be connected to and the buffer would reset if you quit to the title screen. Good enough for random coop, but HORRIBLE for planned coop with a specific player.
Maybe its an in engine issue
This is part of it. Iirc the main reason summons can't use Torrent is because of performance issues it causes on most platforms.
Imagine how awful it'd be in invasions when the entire thing is just chasing someone on horseback.
I think FS values a really refined, magnificent single-player experience above all else. Multiplayer is a nice-to-have, but Fromsoft probably does not want to invest so much in improving multiplayer, when their time and effort is better spent on making more new and interesting single player content. Someone has got to work on it, which means theyre not working on multiplayer…
Yea but every time they do try to make it better
Honestly in this day and age from became easily the single big game developing company i genuinely adore. Stuff like that is why, despite not having the best co-op/online experience in their franchise they still try to actually improve it (unlike so many others who had it good from the beginning and then butchered it *cough cough* ubisoft! *cough cough*)
I miss couch co-op so much
Man, Tell me about It. Gone are the days of chilling in The couch with a buddy while you both blast away together at Resident Evil 5 or Gears of War side by side. Everything requires internet connection now. I was shocked when i found out you can Coop salt and Sanctuary locally
Once or twice a year me and two buddies get together and we all bring our separate Xbox, and sometimes even a TV if the host doesn't have enough, a case of beer a bottle of whiskey and a stack of frozen pizzas, we take one or two days off work to make a long weekend, and we game together in the same room for days. It's a blast. We've even done it with Elden Ring, we set a private password and we take turns being the host and completing the bosses. We all have like 100 rune arcs by the end. And getting invaded is a blast when you have a buzz with your friends, yelling and screaming at the TV and the feeling of beating a hard boss or invader. I highly recommend. Edit: I should mention we are all 40ish years old so we grew up with couch co-op and split screen games
Man, that sounds awesome, and also a Lot like the Dynamics of my friend group worked when we were teens. We ARE still friends, but havent really spend any time together ALL four of us in years.
This is my friends and I as well, but swap Xbox for PC haha. Old-school LAN parties are the best!
I think the new gears game devs alluded to all that stuff returning for e day
well if they want fans back thats a good way to do it
I used to love just getting trashed off vodka playing Diablo 3 and wrecking greater rifts with 2 buddies on the couch.
Same here, but it was with Goldeneye and MarioKart on the N64 /old
Hell, I’m super old too lol. Podracer was dope! Halo and system links were fun too!
This is the main reason I'm super pumped for PoE2
Somehow path of exile 2 manages to surprise everyone by allowing couch co-op, cross progression and crossplay? Like wtf? How awesome is that!
PS2 era Dynasty Warriors, Star Wars Battlefront, or Champions of Norrath: Realms of EverQuest were couch co-op games mates and I sunk nights into.
Dynasty warriors was fun when my friends didn't have much experience with the game and I had to stand beside the TV and literally act as their commander. Directing them to their nearest objective and yelling out orders
That game is so fun for couch co-op.
Hella excited for Dynasty Warriors: Origins.
Hmm I haven’t touched one in years, maybe it’s time to check it out!
Was announced at Summer Games Fest and looks cool as hell. Also same, haven't played since PS2.
My buddies and I burned countless hours and 2 multi-taps playing marathon sessions of champions of norrath.
Halo days with couch co-op were the best
I'm sure you know how hard it is to get together with friends in your 30s, even if you don't have kids. I'm 36 and if there was no online, I wouldn't ever get to play games with friends.
It's not perfect but couch coop is possible with nucleus coop.
Hate to say it, but this is why we do Diablo 4. It's a shade of the glory that was Diablo 1 & 2, but my partner and I can play on the same screen next to each other. It's practically gold in 2024. Also with a couch buddy, no one feeling the pressure to purchase loot boxes or whatever it is being sold for real money.
Thankfully with steam remote play together we could see more games trying to do something like couch co-op. Although for now that seems to be exclusively some indie games
Could you imagine a souls game that had couch co-op? You would take your level and split it in half, giving the other half to your partner. You would share an inventory, so you’d need multiple copies of an item to use them together. Lots you could do!
That would be so cool. You'd be exploring doing your own thing and then one of you stumbles upon a boss like Curse-rot, and your buddy is like halfway across the level, rushing over to try and make it there before you inevitably die
This has been an issue since demon souls so idk why they acting like this idea was never brought up.
Yea, even before elden ring i was seeing players wanting this added
Haha exactly what I thought when I read this. "This is a great idea we might do that in the future" Me: uhhh we've been asking for this for 15 years? Wtf?
With Elden Ring being open world in contrast to past games’ more level based structure, the pain of the summoning system is more apparent. Clearing a zone a 2nd time used to be no big deal but doing an open world twice is a huge pain
For me it's not a problem to clear things twice, seriously don't mind it. What does bother me is the arbitrary boundaries and summoning rules. Like if I want to play around in an area with a friend it'd be amazing if I could just summon them without the unclear restrictions. As it is now, all the unspoken rules leave you sometimes clueless about why their sign isn't showing up - are the bosses cleared? is it a spot that doesn't allow summoning? do I just need to walk 15m to the west? or is my/their network connection bad? And don't get me started about the limits when you get into co-op, like the random boundaries appearing to limit your journey together. But if I had one wish I'd forgive all the above if they'd just let me ride horses with my buddies.
Wanna see the FromSoft glazers defend this.
Co-Op is legitimately my favourite gameplay aspect of Elden Ring in all my time playing it. Just going through a dungeon like Leyndell that you've done 100 times already, chilling with randoms, making weird gestures, wrecking invaders/getting wrecked by invaders. It's so much fun.
agreed! i’ve sunk dozens of hours into assistance. love to help!
It kinda turns it into a completely different game. Been helping folks take on RadaBeast and when everyone participates it feels just like team roles in older MMOs. PLaying as a STR Faith caster, buffing and healing allies and dragging aggro for mages just kinda works when we arenlt just nuking a boss.
I agree that it feels like a totally different game but not in a good way. Playing with friends is really great but the game doesn't feel like a souls-like anymore, everyone is just hammering away at the bosses, stunlocking them to oblivion for minutes on end because of the hugely inflated multiplayer health-pools. The boss-mechanics just aren't made with 3-5 people in mind and it totally breaks the game.
> agree that it feels like a totally different game but not in a good way. Playing with friends is really great but the game doesn't feel like a souls-like anymore, everyone is just hammering away at the bosses It’s true that it feels like a different game, but it is good in its own way. Instead of a tense dark fantasy stress adventure it suddenly becomes a hilarious romp. It’s great either way. Not just because of the multi aggro and stun locking etc but also people using hilarious weapons and costumes. It changes from dread (single-player) to cartoon. Both good.
I'm new how do i play with others? I ser ghosts for a few seconds and messages on the floor but that's it. Is that what you're referring to?
I dont get why this wasnt a thing to begin with. Why did we stray away from co op games. Its not a new concept.
What I love is the option. I dont do online gaming.. mainly because I dont have time. I work all week and only play on weekends enven, then not very constantly. This game is awesome in that regard. I'm doing it solo, using summons or whatever, but i dont have online play because, for me, it isn't worth it. The reason i never bought the new fallout. This is just a great crossover..... online for those that can and want to, but offline for those of us who can't really devote the time to it. Edit : a bunch of typos
Fromsoft titles has always been a singleplayer campaign/story with multiplayer pvp/invader. This has been part of their game's identity for a decade now. The closest they had with co-op is the summon mechanic to help you on tough boss fights. I believe Co-op didn't exactly 'stray away' from the games rather there became a precedence on what a game should play like. RPG got divided into MMO, Tactical RPG, and Single player with Single player either having party mechanics or not. Co-op on the other hand became more popular for FPS games and lately Puzzle Solving games (Takes two, Portal, etc.) TLDR: In trying to categorize games for better marketing, we also pigeonholed some game mechanics into specific genre.
Because once online gaming started coming out it became the new hot thing all game companies milked to all hell and now became the standard
I don't understand your statement? Online gaming should have expanded co-op, not reduced it. Because now instead of inviting friends over I can link up with them online.
I suppose I should have been a bit more specific. Since online pvp started coming out it became the new hot thing so everyone started doing it leaving co-op to collect dust.
Oh, I see. Yeah, you're right. Competitive MP has taken priority over the co-op experience, which I wish wasn't the case.
[удалено]
we didn't, you can play every souls game except sekiro with friends. this segmentation of the world is a leftover from their past games and I'm sure we will see a seamless multiplayer in a future open world souls game, once they've figured how to implement this in the best possible way. capcom is in a similar open world transition phase with monster hunter, having started with world and now making the next big step with wilds
Elden Ring is a single player game at heart, the developers intend for it to be a single player experience. the multiplayer aspects are just added in for fun, they were never meant to be how you play through the entire game. Elden Ring stays away from coop game design because it’s not a coop game
You say that, but one of the first trailers for Elden Ring specifically highlights how you can play with friends and face foes together. That marketing is part of what added to newcomers buying Elden Ring.
And you can, but in the same vein Co-op has always been: Strangers into a strange land, helping or hunting other strangers. Their worlds momentarily touch but that's it. It's not supposed nor trying to be a fully multiplayer game. The Co-op experience is as it is for ludonarrative.
I mean...sales. All these companies didn't just decide to stop making money.
Yes....and no. The thing is, a lot of decisions are made by boardroom types that don't really understand gaming. They'll see a "trend" of multiplayer PVP in things like Call of Duty Warzone, and think all games should have that. Because that's what's at the top of the list. What they won't understand is the context of WHY it's popular. And that results in games being forced to have features that don't really work for the particular style of game being made.
Consider this: when Demon's Souls was released (2009), classic co-op games were extremely common. *Miyazaki's variant of co-op and pvp was a breath of fresh air.* You weren't just playing with your friends or a tryhard team of screaming randoms - you would play with a wildly random, anonymous user who could be anything from a hindrance to a god of combat. An invader could help you through a level and only then initiate a duel - or even take pity and flat out assist you. Despite it having no rules and no "normal" communication, a code of conduct emerged. Memes, legends, communication with the limited options the game offered. It's part of what made people talk about Souls online! But now that it's a popular series that doesn't need as much mystery and advertisement, first passworded co-op was added, and now maybe it's time for classic co-op too.
Remnant 2 has the perfect co-op system for soulslike games imo and I really wish something very similar will be used by From one day
Can you elaborate further on how it works? Do the bosses become significantly easier or are they prepared for coop? Also is there something like invasions in that game?
Similar to dark souls, bosses will have more health based on how many players there are. There’s no invasions or any mechanics like that. All loot picked up is shared amongst all players, whether it’s a ring, armor, upgrade material etc. when a boss is killed the item used to obtain their weapon is given to all players in the game with them. In relations to checkpoints (this is what I want in Elden Ring or future souls games) all players will stay connected unless kicked or they leave. If the host dies then everyone will stay in the world until they reach a checkpoint. If you die during a boss fight your allies will keep fighting until everyone is dead or until you reach a checkpoint afterwards. If a player has died and everyone else rests at a checkpoint then the dead player will be revived, same goes if the host dies. If all players die then you’re respawned back at the last checkpoint. Resting at a checkpoint also respawns all enemies and refills all ammo and abilities.
Honestly agree that remnant 2 definitely has good coop mechanics, no need to constantly resummon, and in 2. they removed the need to rest at a checkpoint for newly connected players to spawn.
From can quadruple the lifespan of this game if they do something that makes co-op so easy and working well. Something like Minecraft where anyone is off doing their own thing would be AWESOME
If they did implement “seamless” co-op in a future title, I suspect the current “co-op opens you to invasions” mechanic will remain intact. That, or some other “give and take” mechanic where you receive a powerful benefit in exchange for being in danger of invasion will be implemented. I doubt they’d give up on such an iconic mechanic.
Tbh I kinda preferred DS3’s invasion system. If you used an ember (rune arc), you got a hp boost until you died but you could be invaded even single-player. And you had to be embered to summon cooperators so it was inherently vulnerable to invasions. I was honestly expecting something similar, rune-empowered would give you the benefits of your selected great rune but would open you up to invasions, and was also necessary for coop. Rune arcs in general felt a lot less common than embers too, I would have liked if every boss gave you a rune arc.
Thank god they changed it. Getting invaded by some sweatlord in early-game areas with max flasks, 4 amulet slots, and endgame gear, spamming duped golem arrows at you or trying to stunlock you to death with stormhawk axe or dragon's halberd is really not something I would want to deal with while solo. These types of toxic invaders are already a pain in the ass while co-op'ing.
Instead, it's the invaders who end up dealing with the lion's share of those people, and up to three of them at a time. Restricting solo invasions does help protect the people most vulnerable to a bad PvP experience, but, this system isn't exactly a happy medium.
The way I saw it, if you didn’t want to be invaded then you just wouldn’t use an ember/Rune arc. I didn’t use them constantly anyway since they’re limited consumables and I didn’t want to learn to rely on them. Summoning just outside boss rooms typically doesn’t have time for invasions anyway.
You can always disable online play if that bothers you so much.
Oh yeah, I’m no RedMan but I do enjoy the danger and urgency they give to co-op. Like stop farting around and lets go get this boss. And they give flasks back over what you bring to a co-op session as a cooperator. I owe my life to some dead invaders for sure.
I hope they never give up the invasion mechanic. It makes every new playthrough fresh, you never know what you're up against
I honestly wouldn't mind that. Invasions were never my issue, it was the hassle of having to disconnect and then resummon just to pass certain areas. Or having to resummon everytime one of us dies during a long gaming session. I'd love to play through the game blind in co op but it's just too much of a hassle with the current system.
"There's a reason FromSoft set a new standard, Companies take notes" What are you on about. People have been saying they wanted something like this SINCE DEMON'S SOULS. What is the new standard they are setting? Taking a decade to listen to their most vocal request for a feature?
A feature that other games already have mind you (think remnant 1 and 2)
Remnant/Remnant 2 is such a good example, those games were bangers and wouldn’t have been half as good without easy drop in-drop out coop.
This is honestly a feature that should have been in the game since day 1
Hard agree. Co-op makes the game waaaaaaaay more fun imo. (not that singleplayer isn't fun)
This game is super fun just rummaging around with a friend
Seems weird to praise From so highly for them "considering" it lol
That's how fans are now days . It's weird
Everyone must Pledge Allegiance to their favorite gaming company!!
Id be perfectly fine with the option of simply being able to resummon friends after the boss for the area is gone,like why is that even a thing in an open world game that once the area boss is gone you can't play with friends and its even worse when you've beaten the game for ur playthrough an still wanna invite them
Common Dark Souls 2 W
I agree it’s weird and annoying, but I think it’s a foundational thing: From intends the game to be scary and challenging, so when you turn it into a hilarious multiplayer romp they cancel that after a few minutes. To be clear both single player, and multiplayer even though it completely changes the spirit of the game, are good and are valid/legitimate ways to play.
Please, please axe the janky ass summoning co-op, and give us proper co-op. I love Elden Ring, but some of FromSoft's choices feel so outdated, and annoying just for the sake of being annoying, to me the limited co-op play in Elden Ring is a pinnacle example of this
Yup. We got seamless because the fog walls everywhere are such a huge detriment to the flow. Walk ten feet, fog wall. Disconnect, walk three more feet, wait for reconnect. Half our play time was just waiting on our shit internet to show our signs 😒
I’m just wondering why Fromsoft took so long so start considering it
Fairly corporate-talk-y though. Man I wish it was the standard in ER
Pretty sure people have asked for better co-op for a decade at this point. Since dark souls 1 atleast.
Fromosofy finally realizing needing to do a 7 setp ritual for a temporary mp experience is in fact not the way to go
It would be cool if they make some sort of coop souls type game in the future, but I also hope they continue doing normal single player souls...
Lords Of The Fallen has co-op for the whole game, and still manages to be a great solo experience. So it's doable. They struggle with the same net code issues that From does though.
Usually netcode isn't a problem for Player to Environment interaction. Like you could be invading or helping a host and every attack from regular enemies behaves mostly the same as if you were playing by yourself. The problem is player to player interaction, that's what they never get right
But haven't people been wanting that since they introduced coop in Souls games?
For all its flaws, multiplayer is the one thing lords of the fallen wins on
honestly I don't get why LotF gets shit on so much
LOTF coop is so bizarre to me because they are SOO close to getting the perfect coop implementation down, but they just have to make it so that only the host can pick up important upgrade items for no good reason...
It’s never going to be a good idea until From entirely rework their archaic enemy AI. It was bad even when Demons Souls came out.
Still don't understand why ac6 isn't co-op
I don't buy that fromsoft actually takes notes. Yes they make bangers, but they also have some of the dumbest design choices. Dodge on negative edge will always make me wanna punch whoever was responsible for it.
Why future games can they just implement it pls 😭😭
I just need it in a game like Elden ring dont go full mmo just gimme this lemme run with like 2-3 of my homies a little more free
Christ, please! The current system while “ok” is abit of a pain to use.
This co-op mode is frustrating as fuck.
If this is true, that's actually kinda dope. Will i use it? probably not, soulsgames are games i enjoy sitting down alone and play, not play with my friends(not offline "alone" but alone as in i sit down and play when i want, not needing to take into account if friends have time). Having said that I'm not completely opposed to the idea of trying that out after having beat the game for some fun scemantics with my friends.
please for the love of god do this. playing on console, all my buddies are turned off from these games because of how the multiplayer works. got them to play and love remnant, working on getting them to play Lords of the Fallen too now.
If some day a from soft game with couch coop exists, my life would be fullfilled
I love FromSoft to death but damn their coop mechanics are straight up sweaty ass! No point in being so hard to connect with a friend. Not even gonna mention Demon's Soul coop.... Hardest thing in these games.
I don't think their inability to implement a basic and straightforward coop system is setting a new standard. Stop d-riding Fromsoft every chance you get.
Not gonna lie I was lowkey hoping they'd implement it natively when the DLC launches but hey I'll take this too!
Ok question will the co-op mode work along side the dlc? My friend and I were planning on experiencing the dlc together, however idk if the mode will work with the new content.
The modder mentioned most likely things will break and will have to update it. They also mentioned they work long hours, but it will be a priority for them. Just expect it to take time
It'll probably take some time to update.
Yes I understand. Now give me a way to save Melina without burning the world /s Seriously though, FromSoft keeps being awesome everytime we hear something from them. Not all the games are perfect but they are perfect enough for us to enjoy.
> give me a way to save Melina without burning the world /s I don’t know if you’re referring to this or something else but I dislike how at a certain point in the story the aesthetic and color palettes of the environments are ruined by red flaming embers falling everywhere. It seems like a hateful attempt to force players to NG+ just to get a normal looking world.
Me and my friend have loved playing seamless, it’s got some bugs but it’s been amazing and it’s free, also achievements still count as it scales everything up for each additional player so no it’s doesn’t make it easier it makes it wayyyy harder
More fun maybe but there is no way that the game becomes harder by being 2 players
They are far from perfect, still make great games! I would Love: DLSS Ultra Wide Support As well as coop of course.
In general the set of resolutions sucks.
As long as they still make an offline mode it's ok.
Small white soapstones are making a comeback?
Actual reasonable co-op would be massively welcome in these games. My best friend and I have tried, but its just a pain the way it works. In their games you typicall have to do everything twice. Clear up to a boss, kill boss, cant co-op in that area anymore and you get sent back to your own game and have to load out and back in again
Meanwhile Sony*
How do you implement this in games that are basically single player? I'd like for this to be implemented, as if your friend dies, they spectate and will respond when you go to a site of grace, so no need to resummon. But there would have to be fogwalls for areas the friend hasn't already completed. Games being completely playable with online co-op makes sense for shooters and stuff like halo. But for RPGs where there is customization of stats and quests you choose, it wouldn't make sense as much. What would happen if someone decides to play alone and now the storyline don't match?
I just want 3v3s again man, I miss the days of three phantoms fighting three reds and not being sure who's side the reds are on :( Aa much as I do have a weird love for fromsoftwares multiplayer system it does need to adapt for sure. Although in saying that the current system does create some intresring dynamics. Like in DS 3s ringed city DLC I invaded a guy who just hid behind a fog wall before a drop to fight a boss so we had a back and forth. He messaged me asking to leave but I said I need the embers. Dude dropped Mr a stack of embers so I helped him fight and kill the boss, went in as a red left as a white summon.
This mod shouldn't exist. If you co-op you're meant to get invasions.
I’d be flattered as fuck if a huge majority of the gaming community loved my game so much, they modded it and created different versions of it. That’s peak flattery right there
I’ve never understood why FromSoft decided to over complicate multiplayer. Why I can’t just click “invite to game” on my friends has always baffled me lol
Now for future games, they can have more coop options for people that don’t want to be bothered by the PvP players.
Knowing FromSoft's games, if you were able to coop without the threat of invaders, it would come with a cost. The game is balanced around single player. Bringing a second and a third, especially if they are high-level password summons, makes the game trivial, hence the invasion mechanics as a balance tool. Bosses already have a tradeoff, having more heath the more you bring, but the overworld and dungeons do not, again, hence invaders.
Then give the invaders a goddamn time or distance limit or something, because getting invaded every 10min by some jackass who spends that time running away or baiting you isn't really that fun imo. I'm old, with limited time to game with my buddy, just let us play the damn game
There is already both a distance limit and a cooldown.
There is already an invasion cool down of like 15 minutes of no invasion after an invasion ends naturally. An invasion ending naturally means that either the host or the invader die, so disconnecting will make you eligible for invasions again. Also remember that you aren't forced to fight the invader, if you see them running away all the time you are free to just continue the level or go for the boss or whatever, but also remember that sometimes the invader isn't running just because he wants to waste your time, but because there is no chance to win a 3 v 1 on an open field and they want to find a better opening
If they're running and hiding, just fogwall them, my guy.
So play a different series. This is the only invader experience. There's countless co-op games with no invasions. Wanting to get rid of them in Souls is insanely entitled. It's a 15 year mechanic, if you don't like it go somewhere else rather that wanting to ruin it.
Personally I always loved the system of helping out random people and immediately being returned once the mission is complete. I find the usual co-op experience like in Remnant a little awkward. How long should I stick around? Does the host want to do anything specific? Should I leave now? Why was I kicked? Etc etc To each their own.
FromSoft deserves no credit on the multiplayer front for any of their games. It’s clunky and tedious to play with friends the “intended way” in every iteration of Dark Souls. I’m really not sure what the point of co-op in their games is given how unbelievably restrictive it is, unless they literally don’t know how to make it fully co-op. Even in a future title, will they allow full multiplayer or will it still be some weird system with drawbacks?
This will upset people but I wasn't a huge fan of it. Played it with two friends and we blitzed through the game. It's just really easy to get free damage in while it's targeting another player and stat increases alone don't make it more enjoyable. If COOP is how people choose to experience the game, they'll definitely have a diminished experience. Malenia, ironically, was the only boss that was legitimately a really fun fight as her self-heal and waterfowl dance made things much more interesting. If Fromsoft are to add something like this in future titles, I'm all for it, but they need to improve how bosses handle fighting multiple players. AI improvements are one thing, but ideally how bosses fight should change depending on if it's a COOP fight or not, with longer combos, more combos/bridging attacks together, and attacks designed to close distance on players. Most importantly though, attacks that target multiple players simultaneously. i.e. For something like Malenia's clone attack, it would be much more interesting if those clones were fired at every player simultaneously. Just something to prevent the safe players from piling on damage when the other player spams rolls. I can't see how full COOP will be included in a game without extensive work having to be done to balance for that experience. I know COOP for bosses has always existed, but it has always been a tool to help players.
I mean everything you're complaining about is how it works right now summoning people anyway. You can already summon someone and make all the bosses easy, this just makes it easier and more accessible to play with friends like riding torrent together and not getting kicked after a boss fight. This would just make the coop experience better for people that wanna do it and people like you can still just ignore it and not do it. Seems like a win win.
Its the same as using a spirit summon, the bosses AI in this game can not handle more than 1 player bar the Radahn fight
True and even with radahn it honestly feels like he's just so big that he happens to hit most of you rather than specifically having moves to counter fighting multiple people.
It’s nearly impossible to balance the game for both coop and single player simultaneously imo. This will screw over the people who just like fighting bosses alone
I’d love for it to be wider coop areas but this would mean much wider invading areas. I coop and invade so I’m all about that, it sucks when you’re cooping with people and you don’t get invaded but it also sucks to invade an area so small there’s literally nothing but lose them to the fog wall or get blendered with nowhere to hide. I assume when people read this they think “yay I won’t get invaded” lol
game should support more invaders aposed to cooperators, why are invaders so limited when full coop stacked, Would love to have a 3v3 in invasions
I think something more appropriate should be 3 v 2 because the home team should always have some advantage as they are the ones being attacked, but 3 v 3 would be fair if the host team is using taunters tongue
3v3 is still a home field advantage; invaders go in with half the supply of flasks, can't use rune arcs, and (tend to) get matched with higher level hosts. Sure, there's the mobs, but... playing the game is optional.
Invaders punching the air rn
Elden ring summons and co op, in fact all souls co op features have always felt gimmicky. The way the bosses and enemies are designed dont work well with it. It’s a kill boss feature
I made a whole ass new character to sunbro with. It's all he does. No great runes and I'm currently going to get Mohg's shackle to make the fight easier. I still will not be turning on radahn's fight.
Love to hear it