Multi-player ally suggestions

[Spatch]

I have been playing a new playthrough with my son while waiting for A20.  It has brought to life several QoL issues that should be addressed (and maybe they already are in A20) at some point.

 

1.  We need a way to be able to keep quests that are shared when allied with someone and not have to constantly reshare our quests every time we team up.  This is not just a QoL issue but has resulted in lost quests after the quest holder and ally have completed the quest but not yet turned it in and then we have to log out for some reason.  The ally loses the quest and the holder can no longer share it on the next log-in.

2.  We need a way to add an ally who stays an ally until we un-ally them.  Having to send a friend request after each login is just annoying.

3.  Ally selection should be able to be done before joining the server and the server should allow allies to spawn in the same location on first entry into a new world.  One of us is invariably multiple klicks away from the other on first spawn and one of us loses the protection of the spawned area not to mention has to trudge through often very dangerous areas to get to the other.  Yes, we could just wait to ally when we are stronger, but the game should have a way to allow those who want to play together from the start, a way to do that without the long treks.

4.  This one is not one that I am passionate about, but a round-robin loot system, or individual loot in an end-poi chest, might be something to consider.  I'm not sold on this idea but it is something we run into and it would be nice if we didn't have to "race" to the end to see who gets the loot.  This is already done on the quest rewards so I would think it wouldn't be too difficult to add.  Or, to keep it more realistic, have the option of two loot chests if teamed up.  Like I stated, not sold on it, but I do feel like something is missing in this regards.  Trying to teach my son to share so that may be the solution. 

5.  I might be missing something on this one but have a way to share a land-claim block.  Only one of us can "rearrange the furniture".  Now as I am typing this, I wonder if I can put down a land-claim as well in the same area?   If not, a shared land-claim is the way to go.

6.  Traders allow us both to turn in our quests at the same time but not access the inventory.  This could be due to not wanting to worry about duplication issues or something programmatically difficult, but sure would be nice if one of us didn't have to stand around waiting.

 

Looking forward to A20!

[theFlu]

1 is pretty rare, but annoying for sure, I wouldn't mind a fix. I guess it is kinda hard, done poorly you could end up duplicating a quest over and over (one person never completes it and just re-shares). They'd have to keep track of who is on what stage of a quest "instance"; not impossible, but maybe a lot of re-work if the system doesn't support it.

2 Yeah, "having to" is kinda fine, but when you forget for half a session... it sucks..

3 Two variably "hacky" solutions; you can teleport a player to you in debug mode (dm), I can't remember the exacts though. Or alternatively, you can edit the generated world to remove most spawn points in spawnpoints.xml. Just remove the ones you don't want to end up at. The coords are 0,0 at center, positives grow top-right like any graph, so, negatives are south and west.

4 Learning to share is probably the easiest solution, not to mention the most useful...

5 I don't think there's a way for shared ownership, a little annoying, but it's not like you need to move things a whole lot.

6 Would be great, but I find a fix unlikely, but if they end there, they could also fix the normal containers at the same time ...

[pApA^LeGBa]

1) Yes, please. Nothing to ad here.

2) Same as 1)

3) KingGen Mapgenerator has the option to create maps with one spawn point only. But it would be a nice option to have in vanilla aswell, only an option tough and not beeing forced to spawn in the same location.

4) Not to keen about that one. Makling things to easy if you have a end chest for every member. I rather have it that we see what´s in and then split up the loot as needed. It´s usually "it´s your quest, you get what you want, we split up the rest" and move on to the next quest from another person.

5) Oh yeah, that would be so neat. Everyone who is in the party should be able to move things around. It can be quite annoying if you have to wait for the person to come online if you need stuff beeing moved.

6) Yes.

[meganoth]

3) One member in my group would want that too but I find this makes the start of the game a lot more interesting as you have to fend for yourself at least for a short time. I usually stay where I am for a day or two in a temporary hiding place, get some useful stuff and then join the others.

 

4) The game can have up to 8 players playing together. Dividing up a loot chest between 8 would make it unlikely to get a single good item out of it and giving everyone a similar pile as a single player would get would make quests in MP go from overpowered to OVERPOWERED WITH CHERRYH ON TOP 😉

 

6) I agree with TheFlu this is unlikely to happen because it would open up duping issues again.

 

Edited November 9, 2021 by meganoth (see edit history)

[Star69]

I like all of your suggestions, even 4. I believe it’s done in the Borderland series so it can be done but maybe it’s a Unity issue?? With 3, we see it as once everyone is spawned, we head to the ally with the best city. I’ve only quested with 3 in the party, one kills, one salvages and one collects all of the loot(person with looty goggles). Everything goes into a community box, person whose quest it was gets first dibs. Selling is done by the one with the best better barter. Although, we do try to get one person with better barter 3, another 4 and the 3rd have a 5 so we get the best variety of inventory. Of course you have to trust your allies are doing the right thing. One change to vanilla that we made was to increase ally experience range to 10,000m…..none of us likes it at 100 but it’s a personal choice. I’ve been playing with these guys for years so we tend to like things the same way and we don’t compete against each other.

[Boidster]

I thought "Ally" is remembered, but "Party Member" is not. I play almost exclusively co-op on a dedicated server and I don't recall either of us ever having to re-ally. We do have to party up each time, which is kind of annoying. Could it be the dedicated server that is preserving the Ally relationship, whereas a client-hosted game doesn't do that?

 

I also hallucinated at some point that party members were able to pick up workstations within my LCB zone. I don't quite know how old that hallucination is, though we did do some LCB testing earlier this year after we enabled 3x LCB per player in our world. I can't find any supporting evidence for the idea of party-shared LCB though and my next co-op session isn't until Saturday so let's just assume I'm completely wrong for now. I should cut back on my nightly rum ration...

[Star69]

Yes you are right on the Party Member but I'm sure that's what op meant. Having to Party Up every time you join is annoying. Moreso for me right now as I'm working through disconnection issues and have to rejoin 3 or 4 times an evening. The LCB issue is still an issue, only the person who puts down the LCB can pickup workstations.

[Boidster]

The party thing is annoying. We usually get to the "hey share your quest" stage of the play session before I realize I never saw/responded to his party invite.

[Kalex]

Yeah having to re-share quests and re-party after every login/crash is a serious pain in the ass.

[meganoth]

15 hours ago, Star69 said:

I like all of your suggestions, even 4. I believe it’s done in the Borderland series so it can be done but maybe it’s a Unity issue??

 

There is no reason this couldn't be implemented, I'm sure. But 7D2D is no Borderlands. It hasn't the variety of Borderlands weapons.

 

Does Borderlands allow you to sell weapons and get useful stuff for it? If I remember correctly it doesn't and that makes it much less unbalancing to give out 8 weapons to 8 people as that translates only to potentially small improvement of their weapons.

 

Does Borderland increase enemy count or difficulty if more than one player enters? This could be another difference, 7D2D does scale zombies in POIs only slightly in relation to players so that a group of people can clear a poi in a fraction of the time a single player needs. 

 

[Boidster]

2 hours ago, meganoth said:

Does Borderlands allow you to sell weapons and get useful stuff for it?

 

Yeah you can dump weapons for cash (a fraction of their value) and then buy stuff with that. But vendor items, IIRC, were rarely as good as random loot drops.

 

Quote

Does Borderland increase enemy count or difficulty if more than one player enters?

 

It actually scales enemies to each player, it seems. You see enemies appropriate to your level, I see enemies appropriate to my level. I haven't quite sussed out (and don't remember; it's been a while since I played BL) how that works out if, say, we're looking at the exact same entity. Taken at face value, the scaling system would mean that you see level 40, I see level 30. Damage given and damage received is appropriate for what we each see (so your L40 enemy's bullets do 20 dmg to you, but my L30 enemy - the same guy standing right there - only do 15 to me).

 

It used to be more 7D2D-like at least as regards level scaling (not quantity). If I as a level 20 entered your level 40 game, I'd see level 40 enemies. (And in the first game it was strictly area-dependent: this enclave was level 5-10, that hideout was level 20-30, always.) So n00bs can be overwhelmed if they stray from the highest-level character(s) or into especially dangerous areas.

[Lenny Lettuce Lips]

+1 on this, these would be some nice quality of life fixes or even options. 

It is basically second nature for us (though we have whiffed sharing quests which sucks) so I won't be upset if these things are never implemented, but I like what you're onto. The one I would like is the trader inventory access. If it's two or three extra people, we all wait in line for a while and it's a bummer. Especially on fresh stock days. 

[Spatch]

Thanks for all the suggestions!  We have now implemented the looting of quests based on who starts it and it is working great!  Regarding ally vs. party member, yes I mean party member, not ally.

BTW, none of these are things I'd leave the game for - have been playing it for many years and love it in each new iteration.