1.0 Experimental Feedback Please let multiplayer quest clears advance everyone's tier progress

[Riamus]

13 minutes ago, Numberz said:

My 2 cents…

Every member of a group getting Dukes and Reward from the trader was quite OP.  The quests themselves also become exponentially easier the more participants there are.  Incentivizing co-op play should be a thing for sure but the rewards need to be scaled back considerably for the participants who are not the quest holder.

Rewards were reduced to basically nothing already.  No need to remove shared progression.

[FramFramson]

46 minutes ago, Riamus said:

Rewards were reduced to basically nothing already.  No need to remove shared progression.

 

This.

 

Oh no, everyone got their one bacon and eggs (and XP).

[DJDaedrik]

Yeah, this change has made multiplayer and absolute SLOG. I can think of a dozen different ways to re-balance the co-op progression system, and this is by a good margin the laziest and most negatively impactful, especially for large group play. Now the best thing to do when playing with your friends is to... not play with your friends? 2 players already doubles the total quests needed, but with my group of 5? That'd be 50 FREAKING QUESTS were we to do what friends want to do in video games, and, you know, play them together. Regardless of TFP's stance on this one, it'll be a non-issue in no time. Such an abysmal feeling change will have a mod in a week if TFP hasn't fixed it yet. Just a bummer for those that can't be bothered with mods to have their co-op prog completely borked.

[8_Hussars]

Again Contrary Opinion.

There seems to be an underlying assumption that all co-op players have to min/max Trader Stage.  Further, that to enjoy running a co-op quest every participant needs more incentive, than the safety and speed from numbers.

With the nerfed 1.0 quest rewards is Trader Stage even important, now that traders rep up simultaneously again?

The pleasure of running a POI(s) in a group is its own reward for me, or I just do my own thing and mine/build/farm to support the group.

[Numberz]

1 hour ago, DJDaedrik said:

Yeah, this change has made multiplayer and absolute SLOG. I can think of a dozen different ways to re-balance the co-op progression system, and this is by a good margin the laziest and most negatively impactful, especially for large group play. Now the best thing to do when playing with your friends is to... not play with your friends? 2 players already doubles the total quests needed, but with my group of 5? That'd be 50 FREAKING QUESTS were we to do what friends want to do in video games, and, you know, play them together. Regardless of TFP's stance on this one, it'll be a non-issue in no time. Such an abysmal feeling change will have a mod in a week if TFP hasn't fixed it yet. Just a bummer for those that can't be bothered with mods to have their co-op prog completely borked.

Yeah, that is a good point.  It’s too many quests.  I’ve changed my mind.  Perhaps a compromise where all get credit on the tier progress and get a reward but only the quest holder gets the Dukes?

[Riamus]

32 minutes ago, 8_Hussars said:

Again Contrary Opinion.

There seems to be an underlying assumption that all co-op players have to min/max Trader Stage.  Further, that to enjoy running a co-op quest every participant needs more incentive, than the safety and speed from numbers.

With the nerfed 1.0 quest rewards is Trader Stage even important, now that traders rep up simultaneously again?

The pleasure of running a POI(s) in a group is its own reward for me, or I just do my own thing and mine/build/farm to support the group.

I think you aren't seeing the problem.  Let's just look at the first two tiers on an 8 player game.  Tier 1 is 10 points and tier two is 20 additional points. 

 

That is a total of 80 quests for tier 1 and 160 quests for tier 2.  If everyone wants to quest together and if they really push things, they might complete 10 in a day on 60 minute days.  That's 8 days for tier 1 and 16 more days for tier 2.  Day 24 to reach tier 3?  That is crazy.  And that's just to complete the first two tiers.

 

Now, yes, you can split the party and have smaller groups do quests instead of the entire group, but you shouldn't penalize a group that wants to quest together.  And even if you split it into two groups of four, you still have a lot of days to get the tiers up.

 

About the only solution is to have only one person level up their tier to 5/6 and then bring everyone on high level quests to get them the multiple points per quest.  I don't think that is a good design choice, either.

 

It isn't about whether it is fun to just quest.  It is about the time required to complete the tiers.  In single player, you will always complete yours multiple times faster than multiplayer unless everyone on multiplayer quests solo, which isn't why you play multiplayer.  It should be the same progression regardless of number of players.

Edited Wednesday at 09:37 PM by Riamus (see edit history)

[8_Hussars]

27 minutes ago, Riamus said:

I think you aren't seeing the problem.  Let's just look at the first two tiers on an 8 player game.  Tier 1 is 10 points and tier two is 20 additional points. 

 

That is a total of 80 quests for tier 1 and 160 quests for tier 2.  If everyone wants to quest together and if they really push things, they might complete 10 in a day on 60 minute days.  That's 8 days for tier 1 and 16 more days for tier 2.  Day 24 to reach tier 3?  That is crazy.  And that's just to complete the first two tiers.

 

Now, yes, you can split the party and have smaller groups do quests instead of the entire group, but you shouldn't legalize a group that wants to quest together.  And even if you split it into two groups of four, you still have a lot of days to get the tiers up.

 

About the only solution is to have only one person level up their tier to 5/6 and then bring everyone on high level quests to get them the multiple points per quest.  I don't think that is a good design choice, either.

 

It isn't about whether it is fun to just quest.  It is about the time required to complete the tiers.  In single player, you will always complete yours multiple times faster than multiplayer unless everyone on multiplayer quests solo, which isn't why you play multiplayer.  It should be the same progression regardless of number of players.

Confession: I rush the bicycle and rarely or ever quest again.  (If parts/repairable bikes were more prevalent, I would not even do those.)

Conversely, If the group of eight does five quests a day for one member (to increase the Trader Rep), then "the group" has access to Level 4 quests by Horde night. Which is pretty fast.  I understand the math, but don't understand the rationale or desire.

Realistically, co-op players do it in A21 for the OP rewards over multiple traders, not for Trader Stage.  To me, it seems like an A21 meta mechanic that is being automatically applied to 1.0 co-op play; where it appears much less valid.

Given individual rewards are nerfed already, traders rep up together again, and Trader stage is mostly irrelevant in a co-op setting (as you likely have one player doing better barter/daring adventurer for the group).  What is the rationale to do 80 Level 1 quests together in order to upgrade all co-op players Trader Stage 2? 

Don't get me wrong, I am not against the idea, and there are likely better ways, just a contrary opinion.

I guess your right, I see the problem, I just don't see it as a big problem.

Edited Wednesday at 09:59 PM by 8_Hussars (see edit history)

[Riamus]

22 minutes ago, 8_Hussars said:

Confession: I rush the bicycle and rarely or ever quest again.  (If parts/repairable bikes were more prevalent, I would not even do those.)

Conversely, If the group of eight does five quests a day for one member (to increase the Trader Rep), then "the group" has access to Level 4 quests by Horde night. Which is pretty fast.  I understand the math, but don't understand the rationale or desire.

Realistically, co-op players do it in A21 for the OP rewards over multiple traders, not for Trader Stage.  To me, it seems like an A21 meta mechanic that is being automatically applied to 1.0 co-op play; where it appears much less valid.

Given individual rewards are nerfed already, traders rep up together again, and Trader stage is mostly irrelevant in a co-op setting (as you likely have one player doing better barter/daring adventurer for the group).  What is the rationale to do 80 Level 1 quests together in order to upgrade all co-op players Trader Stage 2? 

Don't get me wrong, I am not against the idea, and there are likely better ways, just a contrary opinion.

I guess your right, I see the problem, I just don't see it as a big problem.

Everyone plays differently, like you mentioned.  Many people like to complete traders as a goal.  Others like being able to take tier 5/6 quests without relying on other players to take and share the quest.  Many people just enjoy quests.  You may not care about quests, and that is perfectly fine.  But that means you don't have the same investment in questing that others have.  It may be minor to someone who doesn't quest, like you.  But for those who do like questing, it is a bigger problem.  Consider the time investment in real life to complete these. 

 

They reduced the rewards and increased the number of quests required to complete each tier.  I am fine with those changes.  That already nerfs question enough, imo.  No need to also break co-op questing for people. 

 

Note that I don't play 8 player and usually play 2 player or occasionally 3.  Rarely more.  So it isn't as significant for me as for others.  I being up the extreme case because it is applicable for many players.

30 minutes ago, 8_Hussars said:

Conversely, If the group of eight does five quests a day for one member (to increase the Trader Rep), then "the group" has access to Level 4 quests by Horde night. Which is pretty fast.  I understand the math, but don't understand the rationale or desire.

Oh, and this isn't true.  It takes 30 quests for one person to compete tier 2.  At five quests per day, that is six days to reach tier 3.  I haven't looked at the requirements for the other tiers, not even if it was still 20 points for each tier after 2 (2 is 20 additional points), that still means 4 days each tier for a single person doing 5 quests per day.  And I have a feeling the points continue to increase each tier.

[MechanicalLens]

11 minutes ago, Riamus said:

Everyone plays differently, like you mentioned.  Many people like to complete traders as a goal.  Others like being able to take tier 5/6 quests without relying on other players to take and share the quest.  Many people just enjoy quests.  You may not care about quests, and that is perfectly fine.  But that means you don't have the same investment in questing that others have.  It may be minor to someone who doesn't quest, like you.  But for those who do like questing, it is a bigger problem.  Consider the time investment in real life to complete these. 

 

They reduced the rewards and increased the number of quests required to complete each tier.  I am fine with those changes.  That already nerfs question enough, imo.  No need to also break co-op questing for people. 

 

Note that I don't play 8 player and usually play 2 player or occasionally 3.  Rarely more.  So it isn't as significant for me as for others.  I being up the extreme case because it is applicable for many players.

Oh, and this isn't true.  It takes 30 quests for one person to compete tier 2.  At five quests per day, that is six days to reach tier 3.  I haven't looked at the requirements for the other tiers, not even if it was still 20 points for each tier after 2 (2 is 20 additional points), that still means 4 days each tier for a single person doing 5 quests per day.  And I have a feeling the points continue to increase each tier.

 

That is incorrect; it takes 30 points for someone to complete tier two quests. That's 10 tier two jobs, or however many tier 1's or both tiers combined.

[meganoth]

18 minutes ago, Riamus said:

They reduced the rewards and increased the number of quests required to complete each tier.  I am fine with those changes.  That already nerfs question enough, imo.  No need to also break co-op questing for people. 

 

Both of those changes you mentioned above did nothing to the speed disparitiy between single and multiplayer. Reducing rewards slows down both and increasing number of quests does as well. (Correction: The first measure actually does, somewhat)

 

I have often been playing single player and 4 person co-op and our group was always about 3 times faster progressing than I was in single player. There are many reasons for this.

 

Only playing it ourselves will really tell us if this was the right measure to level the field.

 

Edited Wednesday at 10:44 PM by meganoth (see edit history)

[Riamus]

2 minutes ago, MechanicalLens said:

 

That is incorrect; it takes 30 points for someone to complete tier two quests. That's 10 tier two jobs, or however many tier 1's or both tiers combined.

I said 30 points for one person to complete the first two tiers.  10 for tier 1, 20 for tier 2.  It was spelled out in more detail in my post above and I even added that 2 was 20 points in the post you quoted. 

 

Are you saying that a person on tier 2 gets 2 points per quest?  That wouldn't make sense.  If that is the case, then just stick to 1 point per quest on all tiers and only 10 points per tier.  Now, someone on tier 1 quests who does a tier 2 quest will get more points (at least in A21 and I assume that will applies).

Just now, meganoth said:

 

Both of those changes you mentioned above did nothing to the speed disparitiy between single and multiplayer. Reducing rewards slows down both and increasing number of quests does as well.

 

I have often been playing single player and 4 person co-op and our group was always about 3 times faster progressing than I was in single player. There are many reasons for this.

 

Only playing it ourselves will really tell us if this was the right measure to level the field.

 

Yes, and now it is completely reversed, assuming co-op quests as a group.  It should be equal for single player or group. 

[meganoth]

12 minutes ago, Riamus said:

Yes, and now it is completely reversed, assuming co-op quests as a group.  It should be equal for single player or group. 

 

No it is not reversed as you still have many advantages as a group. Usual survival workload is shared between the group (one builds the base, one mines, one makes the food, makes it done 3 times faster). Doing any single quest is at least 2 to 3 times faster AND you can do multiple quests before returning to the trader. All the loot has a lot more chance to be useful to one of you. Oh @%$# situations are 10 times better survivable. And I surely forgot a few.

 

 

Edited Wednesday at 10:56 PM by meganoth (see edit history)

[MechanicalLens]

28 minutes ago, Riamus said:

I said 30 points for one person to complete the first two tiers.  10 for tier 1, 20 for tier 2.  It was spelled out in more detail in my post above and I even added that 2 was 20 points in the post you quoted. 

 

Are you saying that a person on tier 2 gets 2 points per quest?  That wouldn't make sense.  If that is the case, then just stick to 1 point per quest on all tiers and only 10 points per tier.  Now, someone on tier 1 quests who does a tier 2 quest will get more points (at least in A21 and I assume that will applies).

Yes, and now it is completely reversed, assuming co-op quests as a group.  It should be equal for single player or group. 

 

Yes, you get two points when you're on tier 2 quests, per tier 2 job. Alternatively, you could go back to tier 1 jobs but you'd only get 1 point per job. Tier 5 jobs, for instance, should give 5 points per job, or you could do tier 1 jobs to complete tier 5, but it would take 5 times as long

Note: This is singleplayer. I'm assuming it works the same on multiplayer, but as I don't play with friends (or have any), I cannot say.

Edited Wednesday at 11:10 PM by MechanicalLens (see edit history)

[Riamus]

19 minutes ago, meganoth said:

 

No it is not reversed as you still have many advantages as a group. Usual survival workload is shared between the group (one builds the base, one mines, one makes the food, makes it done 3 times faster). Doing any single quest is at least 2 to 3 times faster AND you can do multiple quests before returning to the trader. All the loot has a lot more chance to be useful to one of you. Oh @%$# situations are 10 times better survivable. And I surely forgot a few.

There should be advantage in numbers.  The speed you complete quests will vary significantly depending how you do it.  If everyone follows the path, you won't be significantly faster, especially in a large group because you are just bottlenecking.  In a wide open POI, definitely.  In a fetch, even less because each person needs to reach different places (usually) for their satchel.  Yes, it is faster.  But you can limit number of tier points per day for everyone and that would be a flat line across the board.

 

Take 1 player.  10 quests to compete tier 1.  If you do max quests per day, you take 2 days to complete tier 1.  Take 8 players who group together.  Each player needs to do 10 of their own quests to compete tier 1.  That is going to be significantly slower than any increase you gain from question together.  You aren't going to complete 80 quests in two days if people do quests as a group.  Each would have to do it by themselves.  At best, you might manage in groups of two.

 

 

[meganoth]

12 minutes ago, Riamus said:

There should be advantage in numbers. 

And this you have. But there is no rule that says groups should be faster progressing in a game.

 

13 minutes ago, Riamus said:

  The speed you complete quests will vary significantly depending how you do it.  If everyone follows the path, you won't be significantly faster, especially in a large group because you are just bottlenecking.

 

I can only speak for a group of 4 but we usually follow the path. And we are still much faster. Usually POIs are made of lots of rooms with multiple zombies. You can swarm in the room and everyone takes one zombie. If you are not at a stage where you are one-shotting every zombie (definitely not the case in early game) even a single zombie is taken down much faster when 4 people are pummeling him down.

 

In single player in the first days I need to do a complicated dance with a zombie where I hit, go back a step, go forth and hit, go back again,... and even have to run a bit when the zombie goes into rage. Takes a lot of time. None of this is necessary if four people are hitting that zombie, before he is in rage he is already on the ground the first time.

 

Now I would assume with 8 players it could get really crowded and they have to go separate paths or even separate quests. I often feel the same even in a 4 player group when we have reached higher levels. But that is a different thing.

 

[Riamus]

43 minutes ago, MechanicalLens said:

 

Yes, you get two points when you're on tier 2 quests, per tier 2 job. Alternatively, you could go back to tier 1 jobs but you'd only get 1 point per job. Tier 5 jobs, for instance, should give 5 points per job, or you could do tier 1 jobs to complete tier 5, but it would take 5 times as long

Note: This is singleplayer. I'm assuming it works the same on multiplayer, but as I don't play with friends (or have any), I cannot say.

Ok, I didn't look at that in game yet as I only just got to tier 2 yesterday.  If that is the case, it is better but still off.  That still means 80 quests per tier for 8 players if everyone does the quests at their your level.  That is still way too much.

12 minutes ago, meganoth said:

And this you have. But there is no rule that says groups should be faster progressing in a game.

Like I said, quests tiers can be limited per day without requiring you to do a ton more quests to get everyone up a tier.  It doesn't have to be faster OR slower.

[Riamus]

Here is a way to have quest progression the same for any number of players...

 

Right now, 10 quests per tier, so 2 days per tier for single player with max quests of 5 per day.  Make it so that you can make up to 5x your quest tier in tier points per day, regardless how many quests you complete.  That means if a group of 4 (how you play) completes 5 quests per day, they also finish each tier in 2 days just like single player.  Nice, easy.  Doesn't matter if you are doing high tier or low tier quests.  Doesn't matter how many players.  It is equal across the board.

[MechanicalLens]

20 minutes ago, Riamus said:

Ok, I didn't look at that in game yet as I only just got to tier 2 yesterday.  If that is the case, it is better but still off.  That still means 80 quests per tier for 8 players if everyone does the quests at their your level.  That is still way too much.

Like I said, quests tiers can be limited per day without requiring you to do a ton more quests to get everyone up a tier.  It doesn't have to be faster OR slower.

 

Agreed, 80 quests PER TIER is nuts. That's 480 quests until everyone gets tier 6 complete.

[Joey9Baka]

There's just no good reason this setting should be this punishing by default, no coop team will be happy having to do scaling increases of quests just to get a bike to finally start moving much less the higher tier clears. You're only actively encouraging players to not actually play together and that just makes no sense.

Arguing that co op players have it too easy because they can kill together faster is intrinsically a fools errand because that's how co op is in real life, working together with a team will be easier and faster than being solo, trying to balance coop to be slower than or equal to solo pace is crazy

 

I have been playing this game with family for so many alphas now and seen so many changes, but this is the most coop killing change yet if allowed past experimental. I really hope TFP is listening to these threads because I have known so many co op gamers over the years, and I can't see a single one liking this system. They'll all either mod it out or quit the game and leave a negative review (if they're a more normal person who's afraid of mods)

[myrkana]

This isnt needed. The advancement for tier quests is shared between all traders now, your progress at the start will be slower but it needed to be slowed. Before my day 7 I could be at tier 3 quests easily.

[Riamus]

1 hour ago, myrkana said:

This isnt needed. The advancement for tier quests is shared between all traders now, your progress at the start will be slower but it needed to be slowed. Before my day 7 I could be at tier 3 quests easily.

You still can in single player or even 2 player if you push things, and also in higher number of players if each player quests solo.  That hasn't changed.  What has changed is that instead of multiplayer progressing much faster than single player, now multiplayer progresses much slower than single player (assuming multiplayer does quests as a group).  What should have changed was to make it so progression is at the same rate trader tier regardless of the number of players.  That isn't even difficult to do as I showed in the first post on this page.  I have no idea why the swung things around 180 instead of balancing them.

Edited Thursday at 05:53 AM by Riamus (see edit history)

[Bask]

On 6/25/2024 at 6:04 AM, meganoth said:

That magazines should be exchanged to the person who needs it adds to the feeling of co-op play. In my group everyone shouts out if he found a magazine useful for someone else in the group ("Hey, I got another spear magazine for you"). And giving stuff useful to someone else is adding to the experience. And I think that is why the Funpimps added it. And that is also why they probably will be reluctant to add a switch for auto-sharing, because everyone wants to turn on a switch that saves on inventory space and nobody will think about any hard to measure consequences of long-term co-op play.

 

Players who decided to give it all to one person have made the wrong conclusion how to tackle magazines. It obviously is not fun and a great example of how to not play co-op. Co-op also means to share the fun. By the same token you don't let only one person loot in a co-op game even if that would be slightly more efficient.

 

 

The issue is that more than just one person wants to be able to make stuff of a certain type. Imagine multiple people want to use a certain type of item (obviously they will in some facit most of the time) then how are they supposed to split magazines based on who needs it if everyone needs it? For me and many others what's fun about co-op is working with and alongside teammates while still being able to do some things for yourself and personally be able to see how far your team has come. I know not all agree but many do. I guess arguing about it is irrelevant given the point is that this should be a setting to make everyone happy. Similar to the quest-sharing change, it won't actually slow down trader progression it will just mean that one person is going to be starting every single quest and that is honestly just lame. It quite literally doesn't slow down progression it's just inconvenient (that goes for mags and quests.) It doesn't even have to be auto shared with all allies, it could be an option to manually share with specific players in game. The thing we can all agree on is that splitting a certain type of magazine between teammates or splitting the quests via the quest starter is what would actually slow progression down, which nobody would do for that reason. Imagine the friend that's able to craft all the items or start the quests is offline or afk, that's not adaptation or cooperation its just poor design and a hindrance to real teamwork - "Hey I know you worked equally as hard to get our mag progression/ quest level to this point but you can't actually utilize any of that yourself; your teammate needs to when he gets off work in 4 hours".

[Arez]

I've only played one co-op game in 1.0, for a full 7 in-game days, with a large group of people. We were all split into smaller groups. 

Within the group I was with, we each took a quest and we would go (as a group) from one quest to the next until they were all complete and then we'd go back to the trader and collect our rewards. 

 

Did we progress slower than usual? Sure, but I don't know if I see a problem with that. We took on each quest as a group. I had fun and it sounded like everyone else was having fun too. 

[meganoth]

8 hours ago, Joey9Baka said:

because that's how co op is in real life, working together with a team will be easier and faster than being solo

 

What has reality to do with game balance? Nothing.

 

To everyone: Like in all alphas before people come here complaining about features they haven't actually tried for some in-game days to have actual evidence. Experimental is done by TFP so players can play the game and give their opinion from actual game play experience. If you don't want to be test dummy, wait a month for 1.0 stable.

 

And don't say "I don't need to play to know this is dumb". I have seen that sentence hundreds of times in this forum and often it turned out to be wrong.

 

 

Edited Thursday at 12:33 PM by meganoth (see edit history)

[meganoth]

3 hours ago, Bask said:

The issue is that more than just one person wants to be able to make stuff of a certain type. Imagine multiple people want to use a certain type of item (obviously they will in some facit most of the time) then how are they supposed to split magazines based on who needs it if everyone needs it?

 

An actual example from your group would have been nice for your argument.

 

My group has been playing that way for a long time now and it actually improves co-op play when you need another forge and have to ask the one doing forges to make another one. Most of the magazines are for items you build once every few quality levels, especially guns and armor. Most of the time the one person who wants a specific gun is also the person who reads the magazines for that gun. This is the natural choice because he is also the one who will find the most of that type of magazines and often the only one interested in crafting this. The only exception is if two people use the same type of gun or armor, then  it isn't hard to ask the other person to craft a helmet or pistol for you.

 

Some magazines (like traps) are for mass-produced items, but it is the task of the person who gets those magazines to produce enough of them into a storage box so others can take them out of the box when building with them. And like in any good co-op game complain when not enough of them are in the box (with all the usual jibes about underlings not working correctly 😉.

Another example is medicine, but in our group it exactly works like with food. One person is getting the medicine magazines, but for that he has to create lots of first aid bandages and put them in the medicine box. If there aren't enough ingredients to produce them he has to ask the farmer to provide more. The "medicine provider" will also usually mention when he has produced a new batch. Examples of good communication in co-op play.

 

I don't understand when you seem to argue that it is more CO-OP when everyone can craft anything and therefore does not depend on others for crafting specific things. The optimal co-op play IS when everyone depends on everyone else.

 

It works very well for us, working as a team with specific tasks for everyone. Actually co-op play and helping the others is the main glue why we still play together a small list of games for many years, especially 7 days.

If you want, please tell us of an actual example from your group where it doesn't work well, and tell us why you think it is the failure of the game and if it were different co-op would improve in your game.

 

 

Edited Thursday at 01:32 PM by meganoth (see edit history)