What is peoples take on the "multiplayer"?

[Konrad]

I've played the game a bit, but trying to not play it too much before release. Seams like a really solid puzzle game, and i enjoy the "multiplayer" twist og seeing other people running around, and silently guiding others to hidden stuff or though a maze.

However i'm kind of hopeing for even more multiplayer experiance where you could solve puzzles together, puzzle where you can maybe move parts at the same time as another player (that could still be solved solo if needed) and maybe even some dedicated.
I have NOT tried partying with anyone yet, so maybe some of this already is in the game, maybe not.

But i would love to hear what other people think, and what other people are looking for in a "multiplayer" puzzle game.
Is this good enough?
What is missing?

[The Sojourner]

Maybe in time, threads for partying will pop up here as well as on the Discord fan server.

[joridiculous]

Basically pointless.
Having a multiplayer part of the game is ok enough, but this should in base be a singleplayer NOT always online puzzle game. It want be that many years before they shut down "the service" and you expensive game is useless.

[󠀡󠀡]

I was doing those ring puzzles at the temple and when there were 2-3 other people there they be competing for the puzzles. Reminded me of the good old days of Runescape when you farmed chickens for feathers. There'd be like 10 people camping the chicken spawn and the fastest person would get the loot.

[CascadeHush]

The shared world is nice and fits the theme of the game. I think if it was a bare landscape like The Witness it would feel a bit depressing and empty. Plus people can take your sky drops or ameliary rings so there is some interaction there if you want to try to compete with somebody.

[francky]

I like it, it's pretty cool, but
- it's quite laggy at times which sucks for the movement stuff
- it makes the game unplayable offline which is completely unacceptable, it could be a cool timeless chill puzzle game but now it's going to be dead in a few years when the servers are offline

[outlaw_hat]

There's too much rubberbanding.
People solve the rings puzzles as I'm trying to solve them.
They also solve the balls as circles puzzles as I'm trying to solve them.

[Coco]

My thoughts are the multiplayer is just a way of adding DRM. It over all makes the game worse as the one thing I'd want to use it for is to meet other people who like the puzzles and talk to them. The game goes out of its way to not support that so over all I view it as a major detriment to the game itself.

As it's a puzzle game I have trouble seeing a future where the world is heavily populated anyway, I expect the game to mostly play like a single player game but force an internet connection, add lag issues and eventually make the game unplayable once they decide hosting the server isn't worth it anymore.

I strongly believe the multiplayer of this game needs to be dropped or heavily revamped to give it a real reason to exist.

[SteGHOSTaurus]

I like being around people but not having to interact with them, so this multiplayer is perfect in my opinion.

[Konrad]

Originally posted by Coco:

... is to meet other people who like the puzzles and talk to them. The game goes out of its way to not support that...

What do you think the game does that makes it "go out of it way to not support that"?

[Coco]

Originally posted by Konrad:

What do you think the game does that makes it "go out of it way to not support that"?

There's no in game chat feature or even a way in game to add them as Steam friends. If you want to communicate with other players you have to use the extremely limited emote system or plan in advance with someone you already know so you can talk over Discord or some other service.

[Adun]

I hope they'll implement a single player feature, because from my experience, multiplayers always end in griefing.

[MannyKlystron]

Puzzle PIrates is still running 20 years after release, maybe something easy could be swiped from that.

Probably nothing like custom titles though unless we want e.g. "Adept at <looker_name>'s Mom"

[Truth_X_ile]

All I see the multiplayer for is a competitive nature, where I like to do things myself, I prefer not to be spoiled of puzzles, but when it comes to the open world puzzles, sometimes I see people trying to solve my puzzle, so I just move on, as if to steal from me the sense of puzzle solving nature wouldn't be something I enjoy at all

Also had suggested them to be able to hide players &/or pings to prevent such spoilers, especially with things like Sentinel Stones from the demo which makes it obvious seeing where a player stands & as they solve it, tells you the same location spoiling the factor of it being a puzzle to solve

The multiplayer aspect also doesn't have any form of chat, although you see on the side bar that it states people solving puzzles, but as soon as it shows up, it's also gone just as fast, other than emotes, pings & such, could do with more features or at least a chat function that you can maybe have specific channels for each type of puzzle, so there could be discussion from various players of said favorites or needing help understanding specifics if they wanted any tips or help in that sense

Good Luck & Have Fun

[The Sojourner]

Originally posted by ึ:

All I see the multiplayer for is a competitive nature

Multiplayer games need not all be competitive — they can be cooperative as well! In fact some users have suggested some puzzle types that could encourage cooperative puzzle solving (after all, if it takes two to tango...).

Originally posted by ึ:

I like to do things myself, I prefer not to be spoiled of puzzles, but when it comes to the open world puzzles, sometimes I see people trying to solve my puzzle, so I just move on, as if to steal from me the sense of puzzle solving nature wouldn't be something I enjoy at all

...and that brings me to a(nother) theory on why there's no singleplayer mode, and that there might not be one on release: because once players find it, many of them might just use it and avoid the MMO aspect altogether. Many puzzle games are already fairly solitary enough — it's nice to be able to not do this alone, even if a puzzle gets solved in front of me (which btw always comes back in those cases).

[exe3]

Seems to be there just for narrative reasons. I was only half reading the story but it sounds like narratively there's heaps of people doing the puzzles so instead of having tons of NPC's either robotically standing around or unnaturally running around the devs made it that other players are doing it. Sounds neat on paper but is A) kind of pointless and B) does act as a sort of DRM that unless removed will kill the game in the long run when the servers are shutdown.