(Feedback) Co-op is fun, but I'm missing meaningful interaction

[Germz]

So far I've been having a good amount of fun playing together with a few of my friends. We've come from Ravenswatch and really liked it, and SWORN is very enjoyable in its own right. Action roguelikes just work really well for us, it's a fun novelty to play them in co-op-- and as we're individually fans of Hades's gameplay and this title borrows a lot of mechanics from it, we got into the rhythm of it pretty quickly.

However, what we've noticed so far is that while playing together is fun enough, there's not enough mechanical incentive in the game to work together in any way. Weapons and spells don't interact with other players, there is no way to protect each other, no way to boost each other's damage, crowd control is so short that it's difficult to coordinate a strategy, etc.

In essence it feels less like we're working together as a team and more like we're just playing the same singleplayer roguelike at the same time.

Conversely this is something I really liked mechanically in Ravenswatch; abilities that shield the player often also shield allies, you can position yourself to block projectiles for allies, there are skills focused entirely on healing allies or timing crowd control for coordinated attacks, and some upgrades even take advantage of status effects allies can apply - and it's honestly the kind of thing I'm missing in SWORN.

That being said the core gameplay loop is really enjoyable and we've enough of fun just exploring different character builds, weapon and spell combos etc that the game still feels relatively fresh; it's just that apart from the novelty of playing together in a discord call I'm not necessarily feeling the incentive to, and I'm worried how long the co-op aspect will stay interesting. I do hope this is something that can be explored in the future.

[Shinny]

Half agree, but I've often experienced the opposite--a few builds have nutty co-op synergy and some gods in particular seem to scale off multiple players invested. Cliona is an easy example (spirit charge with multiple people applying weak) and I'd love to see how the Mab duo scales with multiple people applying weak. Mab poison feels like it scales far harder than it should (it actually makes Mab damage feel good) when multiple players have poison boons. Beira CC synergy gets absolutely goofy. Gog stagger needs an overhaul for co-op, but it still scales much better with multiple people.

Heck, my group's "safe" sovereign clear setup has everyone running Monk shields because we all benefit from each others' shields. The "shield blocks all damage" upgrade only works for yourself and not when you cast on allies...unless those allies have that same upgrade, in which case things get goofy. And I just did a 4p Beira Rook Commander Shield run yesterday where my cast had maybe the fastest freeze application I've ever seen thanks to rapid-attacking allies.

But the way the game handles difficulty also disincentivizes many forms of coordination--especially positioning-dependent coordination. My group also plays Ravenswatch, and when things get serious we all slide into loose formations based on our character kits and the terrain. Good luck doing that with Meteors + Exploding Mushrooms + Round Table dodging the slam attack and off-map archers. Or anywhere on Zone 2 with water and those in-map mushrooms.

When this game increases the difficulty, that mostly means map positioning difficulty, not enemy difficulty. And that's a severe impediment to the sort of group coordination I think a lot of us would enjoy in co-op.

Other problem is that it feels unusually hard to target gods for games in this genre, even once you're already on the path for them. My last co-op run, I started with a Babd light imagining it'd be my main attack to synergize with my friend's Cliona build (love the Babd Cliona duo)...and I didn't see any of my core Babd options until Zone 3 despite burning all my rerolls trying to force more Babd. Really hard to put together a build to synergize with your friends when you've such limited ability to continue along a god's boon paths.

[Germz]

Thank you for sharing your opinion! I wasn't aware of all interactions and skills yet-- I've just gone in and unlocked Monk's shield spell and it's frankly exactly the kind of gameplay I'm talking about, being able to actively assist allies. The upgrade only working on allies if they pick the same upgrade is... odd? Seems unintended - I don't think there'd be harm in just making it innately work that way without requiring everyone to play the same class/loadout.

I think that's kind of the cinch of why I think your examples don't really align with my mindset in this; getting lucky on getting passive interactions doesn't feel like actual co-operative gameplay to me, and more like exploiting the way the game handles status effects. Might be because it effectively incentivizes players to play similar if not exactly the same builds to get the most damage output.

I think being able to get certain 'reactive' options or duo boons regardless of if you can apply the status effect yourself would be great for this, like getting spirit charge if your ally has a Weak effect even if you yourself can't. Maybe even locking players out of picking the same options to enforce that. If only one player can reliably inflict Weak, but all the other players get powerful ways to exploit the Weak status with triggers and bonus effects-- that on its own would make working together in choices feel a lot more meaningful and less like you're just copying each other. Something like that might be hard to implement, though, considering the game is designed to be player both singleplayer and multiplayer; I'd imagine if it was co-op only making these kinds of interactions lockout-worthy and powerful to compensate would be a lot easier.

Mostly, though, I'd still like more active components to this, especially in player skills and attacks. You've played Ravenswatch so you'll understand what I mean when I mention Melusine and her ability to reliably shield/heal allies along with herself when picking the right perks, or Monkey King passively sharing his damage and shield boost with allies moreso when aiming for a stance swap build, or Scarlet's second ultimate sharing invincibility with the entire team, or Aladdin's entire wish mechanic-- things like those make co-op feel like a very different experience compared to solo play, and it's something I'm still not really feeling in SWORN. Having a weaker build and forcing my allies to spend resources reviving me when I can't provide neither comparable damage or any ways to support them in return... it feels like I'm a burden to my team sometimes, something folks I've played with echo. It's a DPS race, essentially, with everyone providing essentially *just* selfish damage and occasionally a minor status effect like Weak, and that's it.

[Shinny]

Right, that makes sense. You want more active, explicit engagement. The obvious problem, which you hinted at, is that you'd need one of two things:

1) A secondary set of boons/items/hammers just for co-op. Which presumably would scale differently based on the # of players involved for some things. This would take work to implement & balance.

2) Co-op only effects on existing abilities. Probably easier than the above, but less...interesting.

I'm not sure either of these is realistic to expect. My gut instinct is that a better way to approach this would be a co-op specific upgrade tree with lots of flippable nodes to explicitly allow synergy. That would obviously still take work, but seems easier to sequester to that specific part of the game + implement. Things like "allies within X range get partial benefit from defensive buffs" or "when you heal, nearby allies heal for a % of that amount". Maybe something about allies qualifying for status-related duos through you.

That said, I think the primary impediment to cooperative gameplay is still that we spend most of our time fighting map effects instead of enemies. No matter how much mechanical support is provided, I don't think we'll get the teamwork experience we want until that is addressed. Because the only way to scale up enemy health, something that's vital to the co-op challenge, is by increasing the difficulty. And that comes with all kinds of unfun map modifiers that undercut the co-op experience in particular. With those map effects mitigated, it'll be a lot easier to see how team-oriented gameplay flows and where adjustments could be made.

I do disagree that it's a DPS race, though. Imo the game turns into a survivability/sustain race after pretty early. Because it's easy enough to get more damage, but you get attritioned down so hard and low-survivability party members can force you all to take -% party health, which is a run-killer. That's part of why a dedicated Beira freeze build can be far, far more valuable than more damage.