Co-Op style seems to have changed?

[Uncle Grandfather]

After reading the update notes, I sat here for a while scratching my head and wondering if I was imagining things, and then I scrolled back in the update history:

" In co-op you will share food, gold and camp with your friends, but if you're the kind of mercenarie who appreciated the help but needs their space, you can split up to cover more grounds, increase your loot and build your resources before regrouping! "

Is this not the case anymore? Now you're just a single group that splits control among the players, rather than being able to control individual groups and join up as you wish?

That's a real bummer .. I had convinced my friend to buy it just for this. Is it still planned to allow groups to split up if they want, or is this feature done and buried?

[Dumeka]

I think it's still the same but I wasn't able to test it since I got nobody to test it with me so far.
You can add me though and we can test it together if you want. :)

[Punished "Venom" Gar]

It's still the case but there are some limitations, such as you HAVE to camp together and you can't open camp until you regroup with each other

[Uncle Grandfather]

That's unfortunate. I mean, most likely it would make sense to stay together, but I was expecting scenarios where one person could go off to a town to check for recruits or contracts or to buy/sell while another scouts around somewhere else.

If you're really locked into camping only when grouped, that pretty much eliminates any ability to move separately, given how relatively quickly days go by (and how often your group gets fatigued)

It doesn't sound much like " you can split up to cover more grounds, increase your loot and build your resources before regrouping! " now, which is too bad.

[gramcracker]

I've noticed that if you try to go too far from your co-op partner you basically hit an invisible wall. The only way you can really "split up" is to travel on opposite sides of the same path and pick up the random wood/ore/etc. that is sitting around.

The originally-described design you reference does sound a lot cooler, but I can certainly see how it would also add a lot of design complexity. For example, what happens if one player gets in a fight while the other is out of range to join? I guess you could force the other player to join as a spectator.

Fights are an easy case though, what about camping, or while someone is in town / trading? Time in the game frequently moves between paused <---> normal <---> fast forward. An easy solution would be to play at the slowest speed, but would you really wanna stand there watching your party walk in place every time your co-op partner goes to the shop, enters camp, etc.? The current system forces you to do the same sorts of things at the same time, and I believe that in practice the truly independent parties would have a similar outcome where you would always want to sync doing activities with your co-op partner that are on the same time scale.

Would love to try out the truly independent system though if it is ever added! I think one feasible option could be to just keep the current co-op system and remove the invisible wall + distance limitations for entering locations / camp, but this could easily open up the game to immense cheesing potential - for example, one player buys trade goods in a city, then the other player instantly resells them in a city across the world for a huge profit

[ThePionier]

Originally posted by gramcracker:

Would love to try out the truly independent system though if it is ever added! I think one feasible option could be to just keep the current co-op system and remove the invisible wall + distance limitations for entering locations / camp, but this could easily open up the game to immense cheesing potential - for example, one player buys trade goods in a city, then the other player instantly resells them in a city across the world for a huge profit :papyruswacky:

Well, the problem can be solved quickly.
Each player has a local inventory, and there is the group's inventory in the camp. You must first put the goods from the local inventory into the group inventory in a warehouse that the other player has access to.
This is how you can prevent the problem from happening

[Dumeka]

Originally posted by ThePionier:

Originally posted by gramcracker:

Would love to try out the truly independent system though if it is ever added! I think one feasible option could be to just keep the current co-op system and remove the invisible wall + distance limitations for entering locations / camp, but this could easily open up the game to immense cheesing potential - for example, one player buys trade goods in a city, then the other player instantly resells them in a city across the world for a huge profit :papyruswacky:

Well, the problem can be solved quickly.
Each player has a local inventory, and there is the group's inventory in the camp. You must first put the goods from the local inventory into the group inventory in a warehouse that the other player has access to.
This is how you can prevent the problem from happening

That's the case already.
As example: I wanted to tinker something on the table but didn't had enough iron so my friend said "hey I have some".
He put it in the camp chest, I took it, created the cooking pot and we both benefited from it.
We always sharing resources through the camp chest so we can advance in the profession.
His party has the blacksmith, thief and angler while I went alchemist, tinkerer and cook.

[Azta]

i think ppl misunderstanding the difference between coop and pvp mode.
you aren't raising your own mercenary group. You are still one.
If players were individual groups, that would be PvP.

[Vash]

Originally posted by Azta:

you aren't raising your own mercenary group. You are still one.
If players were individual groups, that would be PvP.

I think you might be mis-stating it. co-op just means players to work together as teammates, usually against one or more NPC opponents. PvP is when the aim is for the players to fight each other.