Co-op Companions

[BionicFreak]

I completely understand the purpose of a singleplayer game, and that co-op games tend to ruin that RPG design, but I'd love to have local (split-screen + remote play) co-op support that lets additional players hop-in and take control of the Main Player's in-game companions (tethered in such a way that it does not impede the Main Player in any way, of course).

Imagine you're playing all alone, sad and depressed, and then your buddy picks up another controller and takes control of VASCO, and then you guys have fun exploring the entire galaxy together!

In this sense, it's still an entirely singleplayer-driven game, but you get to enjoy it with a friend. Sort of like Super Mario Odyssey, except with actual split-screen!

Sure, "leave it to the modders" is always the Bethesda way, but I'd like some official support for this.

[GAMRKNIGHT352]

Publicado originalmente por BionicFreak:

Imagine you're playing all alone, sad and depressed, and then your buddy joins in and takes control of VASCO, and then you guys have fun exploring the entire galaxy together!

Or, imagine you're having fun exploring the galaxy and constructing a base, when some troll joins your game, kills you, blows up your base, and destroys everything you worked so hard to build. Yeah, sounds real fun. Out of all single player games I know, the only ones that actually have done the whole "drop in co op" idea well are the Souls games (including ER and BB), because they give you the option of summoning other players to your game or allowing PVP or just playing offline. And it's because the core gameplay loop and design of the Souls games allows for such a feature to so seamlessly exist.

[GAMRKNIGHT352]

Publicado originalmente por BionicFreak:

Publicado originalmente por Ruin:

You clearly do not understand how much work it would require... Not to mention that shoe horning it in now would need considerable reworking of many game aspects, as the Skyrim multiplayer mod discovered, and it's really not as simple as just adding the ability to connect to another computer...

You either have ZERO development knowledge or you're thinking about it all wrong.

It would take a developer less than 2 minutes to add a second in-game camera, give it a body, and make it controllable with a second controller. In other words, I'm talking about local co-op, without the need of a second user profile (so they don't have to worry about saving a second player's data). Take this and use Steam's Remote Play, and you're set.

Now it would obviously take a little bit longer (like one day to a week, for a competent developer) to make it a quality fleshed out experience, but it in no way requires difficult network coding... because it would be local.

The reason why they don't want to take the local co-op route is because it causes massive frame drops on consoles and weaker computers, the heavier the game is, of course. This is why Halo 5 finally cut out split-screen co-op support after years of the franchise being founded on couch co-op...

And I have no doubt that the "Series X" will run into massive issues trying to accomplish this task, seeing as it can only run Starfield at 30FPS, for a single screen! However, this will not be an issue for PC players who have a capable system.

if it's so easy that any developer can do it in "less than two minutes" why don't you do it yourself? Especially considering you're such an expert on the intricacies of game development.

[Tenoshii]

Publicado originalmente por BionicFreak:

Imagine you're playing all alone, sad and depressed, and then your buddy joins in and takes control of VASCO, and then you guys have fun exploring the entire galaxy together!

Imagine cooperating with a buddy and stealing the keycard to a secret room in a weapons facility by having them distract the lead scientist while you take keycard from their belt.

[Daedrius]

Yes, there will be plenty of co-op npc companions in the game. :)

[GAMRKNIGHT352]

Publicado originalmente por Tenoshii:

Publicado originalmente por BionicFreak:

Imagine you're playing all alone, sad and depressed, and then your buddy joins in and takes control of VASCO, and then you guys have fun exploring the entire galaxy together!

Imagine cooperating with a buddy and stealing the keycard to a secret room in a weapons facility by having them distract the lead scientist while you take keycard from their belt.

and then your internet connection stutters and you both get booted from the game

[HeyYou]

Publicado originalmente por Quilnux:

OR.. Bethesda could do none of that, and just stick with making freakin' awesome SP games without all the co-op, split screen crap that just makes the game worse....

This. :D

Beth makes great single player games. Shoehorning coop into them would ruin the experience. No thank You.

[Tenoshii]

Publicado originalmente por GAMRKNIGHT352:

Publicado originalmente por Tenoshii:

Imagine cooperating with a buddy and stealing the keycard to a secret room in a weapons facility by having them distract the lead scientist while you take keycard from their belt.

and then your internet connection stutters and you both get booted from the game

Nah we will be playing on high quality Bethesda Official Servers with a lot of RAM. No internet connection stuttering possible.

[bumpywindshear]

its just going the known way, if it sell good "Starfield Online" will come...

[Tenoshii]

Publicado originalmente por bumpywindshear:

its just going the known way, if it sell good "Starfield Online" will come...

Indeed.

[BionicFreak]

Publicado originalmente por Tenoshii:

Publicado originalmente por BionicFreak:

Imagine you're playing all alone, sad and depressed, and then your buddy joins in and takes control of VASCO, and then you guys have fun exploring the entire galaxy together!

Imagine cooperating with a buddy and stealing the keycard to a secret room in a weapons facility by having them distract the lead scientist while you take keycard from their belt.

I can dig it. This is the kind of stuff I want co-op for!

It baffles me how developers refuse to add split-screen support, especially when it is WAY easier than people think. ...not that I'm denying there are technical hurdles that come from rendering a second screen in such a graphics-heavy game. But, for those of us who have capable computers, I don't see why we shouldn't be able to enjoy some classic couch co-op!

[Ruin]

Publicado originalmente por BionicFreak:

Publicado originalmente por Tenoshii:

Imagine cooperating with a buddy and stealing the keycard to a secret room in a weapons facility by having them distract the lead scientist while you take keycard from their belt.

I can dig it. This is the kind of stuff I want co-op for!

It baffles me how developers refuse to add split-screen support, especially when it is WAY easier than people think. ...not that I'm denying there are technical hurdles that come from rendering a second screen in such a graphics-heavy game. But, for those of us who have capable computers, I don't see why we shouldn't be able to enjoy some classic couch co-op!

Because one, consoles... And because two... Only the top few percent of PC's will even come close to running at at a level of acceptable performance that the amount of work required would simply not be worth the time involved in implementing it...

You yourself even acknowledge the performance issues involved... Now go and look at the average specs on Steam and imagine trying to run two different versions of a Bethesda game simultaneously on those specs, it would be a slide show on something like a 27" monitor!

Just like online coop, you clearly have no idea just how much work would actually be involved, let alone the restrictions and limitations it would impose upon the game to make it work...

No... Leave it out, rather than cater to a handful of people, and just make a better single player experience for everyone...

[[CTU]Jack_Bauer]

I am quite happy the game is just single player, the whole coop never really caught my interest, just ruined my chance of 100% games, the few friends i did play coop with were the guns blazing types i love being sneaky and taking down a base with no alarms going off.

So i am glad this game is not coop, plenty off games out there with coop options.

[I'm cucked]

Morrowind is one of the best co-op games I've ever played.

[Freak4Leeks]

yeah definitely would be a great option specifically for 2nd playthroughs when you've experienced the story and want to just be a f*cking space pirate with a buddy.

Playing BG3 with 3 others jesus christ, all 4 of us causing chaos in different sections of Baldur's Gate city was glorious it's so cool to be at the top of a building and seeing your friend all the way down the street nuking the F*CK out of people.

I imagine a mod will solve that though like usual.

[Slimdragoon]

"Sure, "leave it to the modders" is always the Bethesda way, but I'd like some official support for this."

+1