Co-op is now too difficult and mostly unfun.

[Mr. Rascal]

Before the current coop system, the way it worked before was fine, if not a bit buggy and wonky. When your partner died in the old coop system, the player alive would have to find a large medkit to revive their partner. Said partner would come back with a pistol and some ammo for it, which seemed fair and challenging enough. It just needed a few tweaks to fix a few things (mostly related to mutations and how rads were used).

However, with the new coop system, my friend and I just don't really have any fun in coop. In the new system, you have to give up half your health to revive your partner. When said partner comes back, they have no ammo and they have no guns, so they just walk around mostly useless even if they manage to pick up their old guns again.

Also, if you have 1 health point left and go to revive your partner, you will die. Your partner is back up and only has 1 health point but are forced to revive you now or else they will die from an invisible timer ticking down.

The timer thing is a huge issue because if your coop partner dies and you accidentally go into the teleporter, your partner won't come with you, so you start the next level instantly taking damage because you haven't revived your coop buddy yet.

The new coop system feels too strict and demanding and makes playing it in coop an exercise in frustration. I'm not really sure what they could do to improve it, but if it were up to me (which it isn't at all), I'd take the old coop system back but with the new method of handling rads and mutations (rads and mutations are now properly shared whereas before, they were kind of weird and awkward).

Sorry for the huge wall of text and for wasting your time if you read all of this.

[Yeouch]

Yeah, I kinda agree with that. I mean, I get how the new system is supposed to work, but I don't think it does a good job.

It's supposed to make it so that you are able to quickly revive someone and so that the game won't last very long if you don't. That means the dead player doesn't have to sit out for very long, which was a weakness of the old system. The health penalty is because death is still supposed to be a big deal and punishing.
Buuut the whole getting-the-player-back-in-the-game thing is undermined by the fact that you lose ALL your ammo upon death. So, the dead player might be revived quickly, but it's still going to be quite a while before they're able to get enough ammo to actually DO anything.

Of course, the ammo system in co-op doesn't work very well in other regards either.

[Mr. Rascal]

Originally posted by Yeouch:

Of course, the ammo system in co-op doesn't work very well in other regards either.

How does the ammo system not work in those other regards? I don't know a lot about the game's systems to really figure this out on my own.

I'm not really sure how they could fix it. I wish the revived partner would at least retain their ammo even if they drop both of their weapons. Also, it'd be nice if the revived character didn't lose their mutations since the rads system in coop is tied as one thing instead of both players having their own collection of rads and levels.

[Yeouch]

I mostly meant that, in co-op, it's easy to wind up with a gun you have NO ammo for, whereas in single-player that only happens if you're reckless and drain all your ammo. If you find a new gun, you can always pick it up and use it for a while, and if you're careful you'll probably gain enough ammo to keep using it. But, in co-op, it's common for one player to accidentally walk over a weapon that the other player wants, taking the ammo. Which means that weapon choice is often limited by who touched a weapon 1st.

[Focksbot]

Just picked this up again for the first time since the new co-op was implemented and completely agree with OP. Based on a few play-throughs so far, I would say it's not even worth continuing if one of you dies - it's far, far too much of a setback.

In fact, sometimes it's simply impossible to continue. The very first time I had to deal with this new system, we were in the Palace, with a couple of dog monsters left to kill. Essentially, I died, was revived, and then, very shortly after, my friend died and was revived. Well, that's it, isn't it? No ammo. No chests.

Nix the ammo penalty and it'll be fine. Having your health halved is absolutely plenty in terms of penalty - particularly as the player doing the reviving will often be having to break cover and jump into the lion's jaw to revive their comrade.

[Mr. Rascal]

Thanks for the replies, guys. I'm glad I wasn't the only one who felt this way about the new coop system. My friend just outright refuses to play it now, too, because it's just too harsh.

This is just my personal opinion but I am not a game developer so I don't have a good idea of how this would affect the overall coop game strategy but nixing the ammo penalty and getting rid of the timer that starts hurting the character alive would be nice. The ability to revive your partner should always be an option available, but if you have 1 health point left, you'll die reviving your partner. Have both the old way of reviving (find a large medkit) and the ability to give up half your health to revive your partner instantly.

Again, maybe this is asking for too much. I know the game is supposed to be challenging, but as JonSkeletone says, sometimes it's simply impossible to continue as soon as someone dies. In that case, they might as well just make it a one life only situation for both players in coop.

[Sweet C]

I've never played the old coop system, but it sounds much more ideal. It's really frustrating play coop in this game.

[simeon527]

what if reviving took half of your ammo and gave it to the revived player, or one of your guns+ammo?
or it could just remember what they had when they died and return them with it.
The timer thing is just bad, maybe they could instead make a larger penalty of some sort the longer you wait. IDK, I could see co-op being discarded for the final version.

[Emperor J]

Good points, nice to see people care about co-op.

Originally posted by Mr. Rascal:

However, with the new coop system, my friend and I just don't really have any fun in coop. In the new system, you have to give up half your health to revive your partner. When said partner comes back, they have no ammo and they have no guns, so they just walk around mostly useless even if they manage to pick up their old guns again.

I agree, big problem

Originally posted by Mr. Rascal:

The timer thing is a huge issue because if your coop partner dies and you accidentally go into the teleporter, your partner won't come with you, so you start the next level instantly taking damage because you haven't revived your coop buddy yet.

This sucks a bit, but doesn't happen that often. It's a really frustrating death though and should be fixed imo.

Originally posted by Yeouch:

I mostly meant that, in co-op, it's easy to wind up with a gun you have NO ammo for, whereas in single-player that only happens if you're reckless and drain all your ammo. If you find a new gun, you can always pick it up and use it for a while, and if you're careful you'll probably gain enough ammo to keep using it. But, in co-op, it's common for one player to accidentally walk over a weapon that the other player wants, taking the ammo. Which means that weapon choice is often limited by who touched a weapon 1st.

This also happens a lot, and is generally not very fun.

[JacobButcher]

I have also started a totally overlooked thread about this a while ago, basically complaning about everything the OP has said. Since then two updates have been made and none of them has adressed any of the long list of issues:

1. Only one player can pick a character at the start.
This results in several re-starts until both players are satisfied with their characters. So if this was meant as some sort of crude feature - it doesn´t work out and is just annoying.

2. Upon reviving the revived players looses all ammunition.
Much has been said about this. It just is unfun and as a sort of compensation for death losing hp is punishing enough in my opinion. Several other problems also arise from this...

3. Currently revived players can instantly be killed again.
This might seem as intended, but with several enemie types - laser crystals for example - this is just unfair since they can multily hit and have a range longer than what a player can see. I suggest to implement a second of invulnerability - and a proper indicator for it. A blinking character model for example.

4. Sometimes reviving just results in picking up a dead players weapons.
This just feels clumsy.

5. If a dead player touches a button on a controller the game will crash.

6. Some mutations won´t remain if a player died and gets revived.
This would only be fine if both player would level seperately. The leveling system is fine the way it is in my opinion. That way the players don´t have to fight over rads.

[...] I believe I forogt something :)

Suggestion: Leave the revive mechanic as it is, fix the bugs and negate the reviving penalty if a player just has 1 hp, maybe resulting in the second player also just has one hp. Additionally just let no weapons drop on player death. If a player gets revived he starts with the weapons and ammunition he has had before. I believe this is the way it was intended, but a tight schedule got in the way of it being implemented properly.

[Jay]

Originally posted by JacobButcher:

I have also started a totally overlooked thread about this a while ago, basically complaning about everything the OP has said. Since then two updates have been made and none of them has adressed any of the long list of issues:

1. Only one player can pick a character at the start.
This results in several re-starts until both players are satisfied with their characters. So if this was meant as some sort of crude feature - it doesn´t work out and is just annoying.

It's working for me, only the cursor for the second player doesn't follow the highlight. Apart from that player selection seems to work.

[HuntyMgee]

Originally posted by JacobButcher:

I have also started a totally overlooked thread about this a while ago, basically complaning about everything the OP has said. Since then two updates have been made and none of them has adressed any of the long list of issues:

1. Only one player can pick a character at the start.
This results in several re-starts until both players are satisfied with their characters. So if this was meant as some sort of crude feature - it doesn´t work out and is just annoying.

2. Upon reviving the revived players looses all ammunition.
Much has been said about this. It just is unfun and as a sort of compensation for death losing hp is punishing enough in my opinion. Several other problems also arise from this...

3. Currently revived players can instantly be killed again.
This might seem as intended, but with several enemie types - laser crystals for example - this is just unfair since they can multily hit and have a range longer than what a player can see. I suggest to implement a second of invulnerability - and a proper indicator for it. A blinking character model for example.

4. Sometimes reviving just results in picking up a dead players weapons.
This just feels clumsy.

5. If a dead player touches a button on a controller the game will crash.

6. Some mutations won´t remain if a player died and gets revived.
This would only be fine if both player would level seperately. The leveling system is fine the way it is in my opinion. That way the players don´t have to fight over rads.

[...] I believe I forogt something :)

Suggestion: Leave the revive mechanic as it is, fix the bugs and negate the reviving penalty if a player just has 1 hp, maybe resulting in the second player also just has one hp. Additionally just let no weapons drop on player death. If a player gets revived he starts with the weapons and ammunition he has had before. I believe this is the way it was intended, but a tight schedule got in the way of it being implemented properly.

This pretty much speaks to all of my issues with co-op currently. I imagine a proper menu for co-op is in the works, one in which you don't have to pick a character one at a time and the big character portraits don't stack ontop of each other. Also how about having mutation icons on the hud? That'd be nice.

I much prefer the revive system now opposed to the big health chest way of the past, leaving it up to RNG to decide when the second player can return was frustrating and there are too many instances in which a big health chest isn't able or likely to spawn.

Being revived to return to 1 health and 0 ammo is the biggest problem right now that I see, that isn't a bug or unintentional. To be honest it just incentives Long Arms, Trigger Fingers and holding onto that Sledge for longer than you'd like just so you'll have a weapon if you both bite the dust one after another resulting in both of you having 0 ammo.

[FujiWizard]

Agree completely. Why even allow the player (let alone force them) to attempt a revive if it will only kill both of you. Ruins Co-op IMO.

[XoArK]

Originally posted by Hops:

Agree completely. Why even allow the player (let alone force them) to attempt a revive if it will only kill both of you. Ruins Co-op IMO.

Hey, you now get all you your ammo back when reviving and you have more time to revive your partner. I like the new change.

[HuntyMgee]

Trigger Fingers is still borked in co-op, player B cannot fire while player A kills something with Trigger Fingers, essentially increasing reload time (except you can have a full clip)

Rhino Skin only lasts until you die, then you will respawn with your characters default health.

These are the only issues I still have with co-op.

[stereobub]

Originally posted by HuntyMgee:

Rhino Skin only lasts until you die, then you will respawn with your characters default health.

Am i too stupid to understand this? Rhino skin is supposed to reset after you die, like every other mutation?