Why is solo-online necessary

[Mr.America]

I'm getting rather tired of bad connection issues in a game where I don't think it's needed to have the average gameplay necessarily be online. As such I'd like to know from more knowledgeable fans of the genre, why is it needed, that my solo-boss attempt has to suffer from lag and stutters? Is this an EA thing? anti-cheat? something else?

[GirthQQuakes]

Anti cheat is definitely part of it.

If everything happens client side, with no internet connection, the entire game can be easily hacked.

[Xaelon]

Security is the main reason.

It's nigh impossible to make sure the cash shop is secure without an internet connection. Even if they were to require authentication on login and/or whenever accessing the shop, there would still need to be some local file to tell the game what MTX you own.

People can and will hack any kind of local file, so what does someone do if they want fancy skins without paying for them? Edit the file and trick the game into thinking they own all of them. Thus, the game thinks you own those skins until you let it talk to the server again.

The same thing goes for your character's stats and inventory. Without the server to talk to, the game doesn't have anyway to tell the difference between normal and hacked items.

And that's the reason why most F2P games require a constant internet connection, even if it doesn't seem to provide a direct benefit to you as a player.

[SkaldedDawg]

Originally posted by Xaelon:

Security is the main reason.

It's nigh impossible to make sure the cash shop is secure without an internet connection. Even if they were to require authentication on login and/or whenever accessing the shop, there would still need to be some local file to tell the game what MTX you own.

People can and will hack any kind of local file, so what does someone do if they want fancy skins without paying for them? Edit the file and trick the game into thinking they own all of them. Thus, the game thinks you own those skins until you let it talk to the server again.

The same thing goes for your character's stats and inventory. Without the server to talk to, the game doesn't have anyway to tell the difference between normal and hacked items.

And that's the reason why most F2P games require a constant internet connection, even if it doesn't seem to provide a direct benefit to you as a player.

All of this is true. Good call. I still want to play offline. GOG where are you? ;-P

[SomewhatSolo]

Originally posted by GirthQQuakes:

Anti cheat is definitely part of it.

If everything happens client side, with no internet connection, the entire game can be easily hacked.

This. It's also one of the reasons I play games like this cause once you cheat,.... theres no going back.

Heck, 500 hours in and I still haven't used Trade. Love the challenge, thrive on working for what I get, need to have a reason to keep playing.

[SkaldedDawg]

Originally posted by SomewhatSolo:

Originally posted by GirthQQuakes:

Anti cheat is definitely part of it.

If everything happens client side, with no internet connection, the entire game can be easily hacked.

This. It's also one of the reasons I play games like this cause once you cheat,.... theres no going back.

Heck, 500 hours in and I still haven't used Trade. Love the challenge, thrive on working for what I get, need to have a reason to keep playing.

I checked out trade and it looked like a bunch of farming for stuff to buy stuff I don't need. Maybe if there was an AH, I would have more interest in it. I don't want to deal with ♥♥♥♥♥♥ trade partners and a crap web interface. Love the game, though.

[Mr.America]

Originally posted by Xaelon:

Security is the main reason.

It's nigh impossible to make sure the cash shop is secure without an internet connection. Even if they were to require authentication on login and/or whenever accessing the shop, there would still need to be some local file to tell the game what MTX you own.

People can and will hack any kind of local file, so what does someone do if they want fancy skins without paying for them? Edit the file and trick the game into thinking they own all of them. Thus, the game thinks you own those skins until you let it talk to the server again.

The same thing goes for your character's stats and inventory. Without the server to talk to, the game doesn't have anyway to tell the difference between normal and hacked items.

And that's the reason why most F2P games require a constant internet connection, even if it doesn't seem to provide a direct benefit to you as a player.

Sounds reasonable, yet it doesn't touch my problem really. I understand that shop items should be protected from hacks due to financial reasons for the devs -> where cash items are interacted with, make the game online, e.g. login, town... AFAIK (haven't looked at shop after first week) there weren't any direct gameplay modifying cash items like damage or defense items.

People will hack if they want to, noway to get around it, any firewall around it will eventually just hinder honest players. If the issue would be hacked items, people spawning impossible or perfect roll items, why not just either a) check inventory on login or logout, serverside would be easiest? or b) whenever you create an instance, all items are determined then and there, so you can then play in your instance and not manipulate it anymore, e.g. give the logged player a list of item id's they'll receive in this map and then check the items received when leaving the instance again, if there's an impossible error between the serverside and clientside lists -> kick and delete progress/ban idk and idc.

If people are hacking their appearance for their own amusement I'm not really seeing the issue here, these people wouldn't buy cash items anyway and outside of solo-instances they'd have to be ONLINE to present their cool appearance to other people.

If the issue is that people would just activate godmode and infinite damage to kill the map in seconds... well, high level people are doing that all legit already anyway... so... if people were to do that in their own maps ... who'd get hurt.

I guess the only "real" issue I'd see would be cheaters gaining a crazy advantage in trade, as they could just skip the game altogether and just start an instance, receive all the items through their filter, leave the instance and do maps in seconds this way, completely collapsing any competition for trading items.

Yet I fail to care for irl trading of game items...