Co-op is a joke!

[MikeOxlong]

When buying Elden Ring, I couldn't wait to hop into this amazingly detailed, beautiful open world with my friends, battling monsters wherever we roam. Little did I know, that Elden Ring has the worse implementation of co-op I've EVER seen in a video game.

First of all, connection problems occur regularly, resulting in being disconnected from the game and having to rejoin again. Every time you disconnect, you have to wait in a loading screen to go back into your world, wait to be summoned again, and then you have to wait in another loading screen to load back into your friends world. Another note, this also means that enemies will lag and sometimes look like they're teleporting if you are not the host of the session.

Second of all, every time you or the host dies, you are kicked from the session and have to be reinvited. This means that you load back into your world, and then once you're in your world, you have to go through the stupid process of getting summoned into your mate's world again (more on that soon), then after he summons you, you have to wait again as you load BACK into his game. Absolutely ridiculous.

And third, back onto what I was saying before, the process to actually activate the ability to play co-op is so unnecessarily complex. You have to make a multiplayer password and make sure both you and your friend have the same one. You'd think you can just send a steam invite to your friend, but no, instead you or your friend have to find the summoning imprint that the player joining the host's world has placed on the ground. Not only this, every time you play with friends you have to eat a remedy. You have to find the ingredients for this remedy and make a new one every time you invite someone to your world. And if you die, you have to make another one too. And due to connectivity issues, there's a possibility you'll be waiting in loading screens longer than actually playing the game, no matter how good your internet is.

Fourth, you are extremely limited as to what you can do. You can't use a horse while playing co-op, making some bosses extremely difficult and free roaming the world with your buddy slow and pointless. This is an extremely large game world, not allowing horse riding is hard to fathom. Not only this, the joining player will have less health flasks, making them way more vulnerable. You also can't trade with merchants, you can't fast travel, you can't use spirit summons, and much much more. Some may argue that this makes bosses more balanced, but I respectfully disagree. Making enemies do more damage and take more damage would've been a far better alternative. I was excited to finally play an RPG with a friend, running around the world and killing whatever wanders on screen, but going on an adventure with your friend is unfortunately impossible in co-op. Walking around the map takes far too long, and most of the time you will be disconnected due to connectivity issues before you get anywhere.

And then, my fifth and final gripe. Invasions are horribly implemented. This doesn't really relate to co-op, but I thought it was worth mentioning. Me and my mate have been fighting a boss, made some considerable progress, and then had someone invade us who is at least three times our level before killing us and ruining the progress we made. This isn't PVP, this is griefing. This has happened three times, and every time we have had to fight someone who is far more powerful than us. I don't know who's idea it was to make it impossible to turn off invasions, or to allow invasions to occur during boss fights, or even not have a basic level scaling system in place to allow a fairer fight, but someone clearly wasn't thinking straight. Invasions are actually quite a cool feature, but if someone is being invaded by a far more powerful foe, and some people don't even want to engage in PVP, then why is it impossible to toggle?

Sorry for my little rant there. But if the multiplayer system doesn't change, then frankly, I'd go as far to say that this game may as well be a single player game. Multiplayer is not worth it in it's current state.

Edit: turns out I was wrong about the invasions. There is scaling in invasions. However, everything else I said still stands.

I've also seen a lot of people claiming that the co-op shouldn't change because it's been like this in previous Dark Souls game. This however is a stupid argument. Why wouldn't it improve? This is a sequel, and the first open world Dark Souls game. The co-op system definitely needs a rework, and fanboying the game by acting as if the co-op system is perfect is ridiculous. There are far better solutions than the current implementation of co-op currently in the game.

Edit 2: I also just found out that once you kill all the bosses in an area players can no longer co-op there. Yet another ridiculous limitation

[baardie]

It would be ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ amazing if coop would work, I can see 1 friends sign but not the other wtf

[Lankester Merrin]

get over it

[LQIM]

It IS a singleplayer game

[zero]

Origineel geplaatst door Ricar'do:

It would be ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ amazing if coop would work, I can see 1 friends sign but not the other wtf

double check they did the password properly, its case sensitive.

[baardie]

Origineel geplaatst door zero:

Origineel geplaatst door Ricar'do:

It would be ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ amazing if coop would work, I can see 1 friends sign but not the other wtf

double check they did the password properly, its case sensitive.

Tried password and no password, still nothing, both of us can summon other people but not eachother

[[SWE]Junker]

Origineel geplaatst door Stix_09:

Origineel geplaatst door SWEJunker:

So ..You tell me to think ? and to that I will tell you that there is multiple ways to get 4 player co-op as DIFFICULT as the singleplayer experience , just increase the HP of every enemy is one simple solution . The thing is the game ALREADY has Co-op for 4 Players just in a very odd way of doing it , but with the constant invasions that could be left in place the progress will still be much harder for any group of 2-4 players and with some added HP on everything it could be a blast now it's just an annoyance. The .." Think before you speak" comment is just hillarious !!

Boss health does scale when you coop, but its easier when u have multiple ppl.

Look dude YEAH i understand that , that is what everyone is saying including the ingame messege for co-op , but the current version of co-op to just beat bosses for players that just can't beat a certain bosses is just WAY more casual than a proper 4 player Co-op mode could be(if they designed it) and as I said I would be happy with it even have the invasions intact becsuse that in itself would make it more difficult aswell. I think you soulsplayers are stuck in some kind of odd bubble or something !!

[soso]

The way the trailers showed multiplayer made it look like you could explore the entire open world together.

[[SWE]Junker]

Origineel geplaatst door LQIM 2:

It IS a singleplayer game

Nah it isn't !! The multiplayer aspects are all over the game and has always been in the previous titles aswell !!

[[SWE]Junker]

Again, every souls player and now Elden Ring fan boy can just stop for a second . Elden Ring isn't that damn hardcore at all mind you since they added statues of Marika and you can use summons to beat bosses OR you can get 3 friends to help you also beat the bosses already ingame !! It's just hillarious that the fanbase defends this somewhat dorky system like a broken record or a mantra from a religious kult !!

[Stix_09]

Origineel geplaatst door SWEJunker:

Origineel geplaatst door Stix_09:

Boss health does scale when you coop, but its easier when u have multiple ppl.

Look dude YEAH i understand that , that is what everyone is saying including the ingame messege for co-op , but the current version of co-op to just beat bosses for players that just can't beat a certain bosses is just WAY more casual than a proper 4 player Co-op mode could be(if they designed it) and as I said I would be happy with it even have the invasions intact becsuse that in itself would make it more difficult aswell. I think you soulsplayers are stuck in some kind of odd bubble or something !!

Ya but this is not a 4 player coop game its a single player game that has limited multiplayer. Multiplayer is just to make it a more interesting single player experience (the non PVP I mean, that's different).

Its not meant to be a full coop traditional game by design.

Games like Arma and COD are that type of game, not Souls games.

Early souls games like Demon souls never even had a password.
IMHO though I would like though to have option when doing coop to not be invaded except when its a game mechanic , like in past Souls games.

[[SWE]Junker]

Origineel geplaatst door Stix_09:

Origineel geplaatst door SWEJunker:

Look dude YEAH i understand that , that is what everyone is saying including the ingame messege for co-op , but the current version of co-op to just beat bosses for players that just can't beat a certain bosses is just WAY more casual than a proper 4 player Co-op mode could be(if they designed it) and as I said I would be happy with it even have the invasions intact becsuse that in itself would make it more difficult aswell. I think you soulsplayers are stuck in some kind of odd bubble or something !!

Ya but this is not a 4 player coop game its a single player game that has limited multiplayer. Multiplayer is just to make it a more interesting single player experience

Or to make it so that certain individuals can beat bosses they can't defeat alone by summoning up to 3 friends or did you forget about that one? The summoning signs and blood stains and the constant ghosting of other players are making it a special singleplayer experience and I agree with that but that is only a small fraction of Elden Rings "limited" multiplayer and If only these features where present I would have agreed with you!!

[Stix_09]

Origineel geplaatst door SWEJunker:

Origineel geplaatst door Stix_09:

Ya but this is not a 4 player coop game its a single player game that has limited multiplayer. Multiplayer is just to make it a more interesting single player experience

Or to make it so that certain individuals can beat bosses they can't defeat alone by summoning up to 3 friends or did you forget about that one? The summoning signs and blood stains and the constant ghosting of other players are making it a special singleplayer experience and I agree with that but that is only a small fraction of Elden Rings "limited" multiplayer and If only these features where present I would have agreed with you!!

Some ppl only play offline, and some play online , but don't want to play coop. U should not be forced to coop to kill bosses.

[[SWE]Junker]

Origineel geplaatst door Stix_09:

Origineel geplaatst door SWEJunker:

Look dude YEAH i understand that , that is what everyone is saying including the ingame messege for co-op , but the current version of co-op to just beat bosses for players that just can't beat a certain bosses is just WAY more casual than a proper 4 player Co-op mode could be(if they designed it) and as I said I would be happy with it even have the invasions intact becsuse that in itself would make it more difficult aswell. I think you soulsplayers are stuck in some kind of odd bubble or something !!

Its not meant to be a full coop traditional game by design.

Games like Arma and COD are that type of game, not Souls games.

Early souls games like Demon souls never even had a password.

Please !! Point me in a direction where the developers of this game actually sais this ?

Origineel geplaatst door Stix_09:

Origineel geplaatst door SWEJunker:

Look dude YEAH i understand that , that is what everyone is saying including the ingame messege for co-op , but the current version of co-op to just beat bosses for players that just can't beat a certain bosses is just WAY more casual than a proper 4 player Co-op mode could be(if they designed it) and as I said I would be happy with it even have the invasions intact becsuse that in itself would make it more difficult aswell. I think you soulsplayers are stuck in some kind of odd bubble or something !!

Its not meant to be a full coop traditional game by design.

Games like Arma and COD are that type of game, not Souls games.

Early souls games like Demon souls never even had a password.

Please point me in a direction where the developers actually sais this !! The whole idea with co-op that is present in the game and it's ingame explanation for it tells me dffrently because it sais it's there to help you defeat the bosses !! And on top of that you can farm runes toghether you even have shared experience between your co-op partner !!

[Stix_09]

Experience playing all the souls games vs your first souls game?
This discussion would not exist if the OP understood this.
These games are intentionally vague, always have been.
All souls games are similar regarding online experience, not traditional MP at all.
Bloodborne I think was 1st game to have passwords, now DS1 remaster added it later.
Why would u need a password if mplayer was traditional coop?
The whole summon mechanic would be like a traditional coop game.

Devs don't tell u a lot of stuff.

[Lestrad]

Honestly, this isn't specifically Elden Ring related, but I just can't grasp why it's so hard to get a good, open world, action/hack-n-slash RPG that's properly coop.