Could we win XP in multiplayer matches?

[Frankie Godskin]

As C2B says it's not an online focused ARPG, and it seems that it never has been. I'd suggest Obsidian were quite foolish to not have made this crystal clear earlier on - they should have learned from AP that when people expect your game to be something different they get pissed off. But the design decision itself is perfectly fine - DS3 simply belongs to a different type/genre than, say, Diablo 2.

 

Personally I wouldn't have minded either way, online MP or co-op. But if DS3 were to go the online MP route, a million things about the game would need to be changed. The level cap is 30 right now - what's the point of keeping a single player running around if he will max that early? The game is story-heavy and with lots of dialogue - that will get really really boring if you want to grind a boss 500 times Mephisto-style. So on and so forth. If we keep DS3 as the game it is now, then just change it so you can carry across your characters, what changes, really? That won't make this game WOW or Diablo 2, like some people want.

 

It's a case of two different philosophies with accompanying design features and player experiences.

Saying this is not an "online-focused-RPG" is a lie. All the videos are highlighting 4-player co-op. It's what drew me to the game in the first place. Doing something half-assed and then claiming "it wasn't our intent to do it right" is just silly logic.

 

As for getting a character to max level and using them again...yes, that's the point of these games. Showing off your character to friends, helping newbs out, trading your great gear, these are all things you do with a maxxed out character.

 

My issue isn't that I can only enjoy the game one way, my issue is that they could have made the game enjoyable for your style and my style, but instead chose to only make it enjoyable for you. Which means I will not be buying it (except when it's really cheap), and that's a dumb business decision.

Hear, hear.

 

Gamers who don't know this going in are going to be really pissed, and those who already don't like obsidian for whatever reason but are willing to try this game given the benefit of the doubt will never buy another game from obsidian again.

 

No.

 

 

 

Actually a lot of people will be really pissed off. Obsidian has made a classically stupid decision. For no real reason either. Its not like Diablo 2 didn't have a story. There was a way to make everyone happy here and Obsidian just decided to make what they wanted to make and not deliver to fans of the genre. Big mistake always.

 

Still no. And yes they had a reason and they made good on it.

 

 

I the only thing for which there is no reason is your blindly defending a stupid design decision. Play the demo and tell me that full online co-op wouldn't have been awesome.

 

I'll play it but I can still tell you already. No. Its not designed that way. Some of the reasons are already posted in the other thread.

You're incorrect. And if I'm coming off as the new guy who only created an account to complain, you're definitely the devout fan who's blindly defending a horrible design choice. If someone is uninformed about the backwards nature of this co-op and buys the game, they will feel duped and deceived. This could cause ill will towards future Obsidian games.

 

I've been looking forward to this game for months. Every time it seems like a title's going to "get it right," it falls short. Two Worlds 1 and 2, Fable 2, Daggerdale, now Dungeon Siege 3, etc.. I don't want an MMO, I want Oblivion with 4 player co-op. And since there have been a ton of advances in the past 5 years since Oblivion released, I don't think I'm asking too much. And yet, instead I keep getting let down by titles that can't even touch a 5-year-old game that's rusty by today's standards.

 

Even simpler, I want a fantasy Borderlands. That game hit every note right with its levelling, abilities, weapons, and design.Just model off of that, change the art style and make it a fantasy game, and you'll get my cash.

 

But this? This is just a train wreck. The ONE THING that made me want this game is gone. That's two potential new customers lost. What a waste.

Edited June 1, 2011 by Frankie Godskin

[sportsdude]

I'm a little unclear on how this multiplayer works. So, if I want to do coop with a friend, one of us has to be host the entire time to keep both of our characters? And the character I use in single player doesn't crossover to multiplayer? Instead I start an entire new character? Is this right?

 

I was hoping this game would have a system like Borderlands did. That was, in my opinion, as close to ideal as you can get for a game like this on a console. I'm still interested in the game because I thought the demo was fun, but if I can't use one character through single and multiplayer then I may just pick this game up later used when it's more affordable. I mean, the game is fun but what's the point in online play if I can't use the character that I devoted so much time to in the single player?

 

Is it possible this could be fixed in a patch/update? I don't want to turn my back on the game entirely because of this, but I just don't understand why the multiplayer is like this, even after Obsidian said they were going out of they way to make multiplayer not only fun but easy to do as well.

[Tigranes]

Pretty much, think of every single campaign - whether SP or MP - as separate, without crossover between them. Whether you play alone, with a friend, or a stranger, you start a campaign, you pick your character - that character, its XP, and loot, exists and is saved in that campaign, but isn't taken out.

 

Since MP is built to support drop-in/out, you can join a game that someone else might have been playing for 5,10,15 hours - you just join, pick a character, which is autolevelled to where everyone else is, then you play together. Same deal if your friend leaves and you want to keep playing. The issue right now is that the savegame file for your campaign is stored on the host's computer - if you want to play on without the host, you'll need to manually transfer the savefile over.

 

So the design is, it's very easy for you to (a) join a friend who's already been playing for a while, then play with him, without being very underleveled or having to play alone to 'catch up'; (b) keep on playing even if your friend goes away for a while, or even permanently;

[tabicat]

You control a character in the host's game, and that XP/progress is saved with the host's. So you do gain XP, but you don't take it back into your local game.

 

If you continue to play with the host, however, you will always have your progress/loot/etc.

 

Since the demo doesn't allow you to save your progress, I wasn't able to try this out. Unfortunately, I'm still a little confused.

 

Let's say I start a new game, and I immediately invite a friend online. We play a couple hours, and I reach level 5 and he reaches level 6. Then I save the game and turn off my Xbox.

 

The next time I continue with the same game and invite the same friend. Will he be playing the same character at level 6, and I'll still be at level 5? How exactly will that work?

 

What if he wants to play a different character next time? Will that character start off at level 1, while I'm still at level 5? And will his level 6 character still be there, waiting for him to play?

[lethale123]

You control a character in the host's game, and that XP/progress is saved with the host's. So you do gain XP, but you don't take it back into your local game.

 

If you continue to play with the host, however, you will always have your progress/loot/etc.

 

Since the demo doesn't allow you to save your progress, I wasn't able to try this out. Unfortunately, I'm still a little confused.

 

Let's say I start a new game, and I immediately invite a friend online. We play a couple hours, and I reach level 5 and he reaches level 6. Then I save the game and turn off my Xbox.

 

The next time I continue with the same game and invite the same friend. Will he be playing the same character at level 6, and I'll still be at level 5? How exactly will that work?

 

What if he wants to play a different character next time? Will that character start off at level 1, while I'm still at level 5? And will his level 6 character still be there, waiting for him to play?

 

everyone is always the same level as the host player

[Tigranes]

everyone is always the same level as the host player

 

Actually, this isn't confirmed, since XP gain might be different for each player when they are playing.

 

I expect that in the above example, if your friend decides to jump in as a different character, it will be autolevelled to the host character's current level. And his previous (level 6) character will be in the void, waiting for someone to pick it up.

[Xiaolin]

*sigh* I am ,like several other posters, one of the ones that was avidly waiting for this game. I will however not be buying this game soley because of the TERRIBLE decision to focus on single player at the cost of MP. I was quite worried when I heard that Squenix was the pub for this game and if some of the posters here are to be believed then I had every right to be. Only Square would think an arpg loot focused game should be mostly about story and single player content. I know! Lets make a racing game that focuses on story and single player content! Oh right.... those games sell great here in the US dont they? Unbelievable. Well good job dissapointing a great many gamers Obsidian/Square or whoever is the moron that thought Dungeon Siege should be more like Final Fantasy.

[Pidesco]

This isn't a loot focused game.

[hopfrog16]

This isn't a loot focused game.

 

Really? So you wouldn't mind beating the game in your newbie gear, eh? This is definitely a loot focused game. The kind of equipment you wear greatly effects how useful you are, and wearing different kinds of equipment greatly help or hurt your play style (depending on what stats you focus on improving through your equipment). After all, if it wasn't a loot focused game, why would 2-4 things pop out of a treasure chest when you opened it? Why would we then care whether or not if a rare or unique item could drop out of a barrel by breaking it, like in other loot focused games (and believe me, I always break every barrel I can just for that reason, heh)? I'm not saying I agree completely with what Xiaolin says, but to say that DS3 is not loot focused is just not factual. =P

Edited June 6, 2011 by hopfrog16

[Wombat]

Watched this guy's game-play. Let's see how much time he spent on reading/listening the dialogue.

Yea...quite many people seem to have expected more of exploration compared with story, or dialogues.

I don't play a game in such a way by myself but I can see clearly why some people complaining after watching this.

[Matt-C]

This isn't a loot focused game.

This isn't an anything focused game.

 

Every time someone asks why something in this game has been terribly implemented the response is "that isn't the focus of this game".

 

Outdated Graphics - not the focus of the game

No PvP - not the focus of the game

Terrible Co-Op - not the focus of the game

No character persistence across games - not the focus of the game

Low level cap - not the focus of the game

Only a small portion of the loot has a visual difference - not the focus of the game

Predefined characters and classes - not the focus of the game

Character lasts the scope of a single playthrough (no newgame+ etc) - not the focus of the game

the list goes on and on

 

 

How is it that so many people just naturally thought these basic features would be in the game? Because they are the staple of any decent ARPG? because the original had all these features 10 years ago? who knows.

 

I was reading the GameFaqs forums today and all I could see were posts about people cancelling their pre-orders because they all thought this game would follow on from DS1/DS2/typical ARPGs.

 

Apparently the focus is storytelling, and it may be premature for me to say this, but I really doubt it will be a memorable story in any way, shape, or form..

 

Let's look at the hypothetical situation of Obsidian acquiring the rights to the Diablo franchise and then pulling a stunt like this, would the reaction be the exactly the same as mine to DS3? Of course it would be, just on a much much larger scale. Obsidian are somewhat lucky that the fan base for Dungeon Siege is nowhere near that of Diablo, but does that give them the right to butcher everything that made Dungeon Siege? Well apparently they think so.

[Gorth]

This isn't a loot focused game.

This isn't an anything focused game.

 

Every time someone asks why something in this game has been terribly implemented the response is "that isn't the focus of this game".

 

You forgot a few things...

 

Not translated into Basque language - Not the focus of the game

Not released on the 25th of May - not the focus on the game

Not adapted to Kinect interface - not the focus of the game

Not playable on a persistent dedicated server - not the focus of the game

Not released on iPhone - not the focus of the game

Not made for Matt-C specifically - not the focus of the game

 

...and so on and so on.

 

I think you've decided that it isn't what you want and you are feeling angry that other people might actually like it. Who knows, maybe the focus of the game is simply that it is fun to play for those who participated in the making of it, like just running around hack and slashing monsters and bosses while gathering increasingly powerful loot?

 

On the other hand, without the game you would have missed out on all the fun you've had recently, hanging out here, insulting people, being all negative and trying to come up with new ways of elaborating on why nothing is right. You've probably spent more hours on that than many people spend on playing some AAA titles and ought to donate the amount of a full game to your favourite charity in return

[Wombat]

I admit that, whether its Diablo or MMO, Blizzard style so-called RPG is more of gradually changing combat-focused game-play by building "economy" behind it. A reason why I cannot get into a game-design scheme like this is that I feel as if I were a pet or bacteria thrown in a sandbox/test tube built by the game designers. Personally, I don't call Diablo game-play as role-playing experience since its more of combat game-play advancement system mainly by character customizations such as equipments, class choices and leveling-up than role-playing, means, interacting with characters and worlds.

 

Actually, this is not a first attempt for some of Obsidian designers to combine a Diablo-clone with dialogue-based story progressions.

From Lionheart at wiki

The game has also been criticized for its attempts at combining "Diablo-style," hack-and-slash game-play with a more dialogue-driven approach. IGN's Barry Brenesal wrote, "the problem of deciding what kind of game it really wants to be, RPG or Diablo clone, is probably the most serious problem it's got." He continued, Lionheart "feels like a good game got lost somewhere en route, and ended up being pushed out the door with some basic features missing."

I still remember the time I played Lionheart demo to find that, despite its using so-called S.P.E.C.I.A.L., the only option is combat whilst S.P.E.C.I.A.L. in Fallout is one of the tools offered to the players to build their own stories. This, by itself, won't come up well with Blizzard's game-design philosophy above.

 

Probably, we shouldn't categorize them under the same name or RPG since the factors from them don't seem to fit together.

[Matt-C]

This isn't a loot focused game.

This isn't an anything focused game.

 

Every time someone asks why something in this game has been terribly implemented the response is "that isn't the focus of this game".

 

<carefully compiled list>

You forgot a few things...

 

Not translated into Basque language - Not the focus of the game

Not released on the 25th of May - not the focus on the game

Not adapted to Kinect interface - not the focus of the game

Not playable on a persistent dedicated server - not the focus of the game

Not released on iPhone - not the focus of the game

Not made for Matt-C specifically - not the focus of the game

 

...and so on and so on.

 

I think you've decided that it isn't what you want and you are feeling angry that other people might actually like it. Who knows, maybe the focus of the game is simply that it is fun to play for those who participated in the making of it, like just running around hack and slashing monsters and bosses while gathering increasingly powerful loot?

 

On the other hand, without the game you would have missed out on all the fun you've had recently, hanging out here, insulting people, being all negative and trying to come up with new ways of elaborating on why nothing is right. You've probably spent more hours on that than many people spend on playing some AAA titles and ought to donate the amount of a full game to your favourite charity in return

 

haha love your list, although I think you took it a bit far. My list was simply made up of features this games predecessors had but this one lacks.

 

I honestly hope people spend more time on the games they have purchased than I have on this forum... but I guess you are right, and I am in a fairly giving mood right now, so I'll donate $100 (Australia gets owned with computer game prices) to a charity

[MonkeyLungs]

What can change the focus of a game?

[DarkLord RuKen]

Dear Obsidian,

 

Our language has several expressions that are so universal that everyone has heard it time and time again, such as: "Do unto other as you wish done unto you", or "Don't piss in the wind", but this one goes directly to you "If it isn't broke, DON"T FIX IT".

 

Why you would set up your multiplayer experience the way you have is appalling. I can't see in my mind why you would do this knowing it will make you lose sales. You would have to know this decision would be limiting the already niche market.

 

And your answer to this is "It's a story driven ARPG". Seriously? That's like saying you would rather watch a "story driven porno". Mixing Hack-n-Slash with story is much like mixing water and oil.

 

I personally came here because I want a sequel to Champions of Norrath and I was hoping this would be a good substitute for that. While this game has some similarities to that, it is not that game. Even so, looking past that desire, and looking at this game for just exactly what it is and not comparing it to any other games made. Your multiplayer is set up terribly.

 

The story to this COULD be epic, I don't know yet. I can guarantee though, that after the first or second play through, it will become tiresome. You have it set up so that we will have multiple copies of the same characters spread out over so many multiplayer games that your story will be nothing because it will become a nuisance.

 

NOONE playing multiplayer is getting on the multiplayer to go through the story. They are playing multiplayer to SLAY **** OVER AND OVER with their friends.

 

"Hey bro, it's been so awesome chopping goblin heads all day, but why don't we put down the swords and magic spells and listen to what Magistrate Donnie has to say about his budding affection towards Elizabeth the 3rd and how they snuck out their windows at night to shag in the horsebarns, but were caught by Squire Fenis who told Elizabeths father the Patron of Neggile and how it started a conflict between the two families and now the Saint Tingals family will have more position in the Congress of Willows to make advances in the ongoing feud of Resonaet... "

 

You see that? Do you see how a story ****ed up the fun 2 guys were having killing some goblins? That's what you are trying to do to me.

Edited June 6, 2011 by DarkLord RuKen

[Starwars]

I'll be handing out razorblades and Linkin Park CDs on the day of release for anyone interested.

[cgerrr]

It actually boils down to a very simple design decision. Do you build an online multiplayer experience where the main point is to create, keep and build your character? Or do you build a co-operative system where the main point is to experience an instance of the game together with other people? Diablo 2 is an example of the former, and then all the other design decisions follow from that - i.e. you have 'New Game+' modes to grind your character up to level 99, you have a threadbare story and a modular campaign design so it never matters that you might jump all over the plotline or kill the same boss 500 times. On the other hand, you don't expect this from BG: Dark Alliance, some of the LOTR games, heck, even a Halo co-op campaign (which, from my experience, is kept separate from its online multiplayer). In a pure co-operative experience you see design decisions that are about helping make it easy for people to play together and keep up together and experience the story and gameplay together.

 

As C2B says it's not an online focused ARPG, and it seems that it never has been. I'd suggest Obsidian were quite foolish to not have made this crystal clear earlier on - they should have learned from AP that when people expect your game to be something different they get pissed off. But the design decision itself is perfectly fine - DS3 simply belongs to a different type/genre than, say, Diablo 2.

 

Personally I wouldn't have minded either way, online MP or co-op. But if DS3 were to go the online MP route, a million things about the game would need to be changed. The level cap is 30 right now - what's the point of keeping a single player running around if he will max that early? The game is story-heavy and with lots of dialogue - that will get really really boring if you want to grind a boss 500 times Mephisto-style. So on and so forth. If we keep DS3 as the game it is now, then just change it so you can carry across your characters, what changes, really? That won't make this game WOW or Diablo 2, like some people want.

 

It's a case of two different philosophies with accompanying design features and player experiences.

In case someone didn

[C2B]

I'll be handing out razorblades and Linkin Park CDs on the day of release for anyone interested.

 

They'll sell like hotcakes.

[Frankie Godskin]

Heard about the Obsidian layoffs and remembered this thread. Someone high up at Obsidian is making consistently poor decisions, such as the omission of proper multiplayer in DS3 and awarding bonuses based on Metacritic scores. It's no surprise people are losing their jobs, and I wonder if the company will survive long enough to get its poorly-implemented South Park RPG out the door.

Edited March 15, 2012 by Frankie Godskin

[Sannom]

Heard about the Obsidian layoffs and remembered this thread. Someone high up at Obsidian is making consistently poor decisions, such as the omission of proper multiplayer in DS3 and awarding bonuses based on Metacritic scores.

You've got the bolded part wrong : publishers (like Bethesda) base bonuses to Obsidian off Metacritic scores, not Obsidian's management.