Conflicting Multiplayer Language learning

[Fluffydragon]

I'm not sure if this is a bug, or an intentional feature; me and a friend are playing and we got to our first group of aliens. But we quickly learnt that only one of us can learn a word from an alien.

Like, if I talk to an alien and learn a word, I get it; but then my friend is unable to learn from the same alien. This wouldn't be an issue, but my friend didn't learn the word I did either. They just are a word short.
Is this a bug, or can only one person learn from an alien?

[M͕͕͗͗i͕͕͗͗y͕͕͗͗o]

only one player can learn the word from the alien

[Fluffydragon]

Originally posted by M͕͕͗͗i͕͕͗͗y͕͕͗͗o:

only one player can learn the word from the alien

Really? Do you know why that is the case?
It seems counter intuitive, to punish people playing in groups like that; to slow down your ability to learn languages purely dependent on if you are playing with friends.

[Mr. Bufferlow]

Originally posted by Fluffyboi:

Originally posted by M͕͕͗͗i͕͕͗͗y͕͕͗͗o:

only one player can learn the word from the alien

Really? Do you know why that is the case?
It seems counter intuitive, to punish people playing in groups like that; to slow down your ability to learn languages purely dependent on if you are playing with friends.

No one knows for sure but it is a good guess that it would be really resource intensive for the code to check to see if you are in MP, and then check to see how many players are in the group, then check to see if each of you have learned a word already from every nearby NPC and do this for every transaction...it sounds like it would really slow things to a crawl.

[Fluffydragon]

Originally posted by Mr. Bufferlow:

Originally posted by Fluffyboi:

Really? Do you know why that is the case?
It seems counter intuitive, to punish people playing in groups like that; to slow down your ability to learn languages purely dependent on if you are playing with friends.

No one knows for sure but it is a good guess that it would be really resource intensive for the code to check to see if you are in MP, and then check to see how many players are in the group, then check to see if each of you have learned a word already from every nearby NPC and do this for every transaction...it sounds like it would really slow things to a crawl.

The thing is I played this game over a year ago, and I'm positive it wasn't a thing then. If it was then that answer would make a lot more sense.

It wouldn't need to do that all, why would it even do that? It's not as if there's a refresh on them once everyone learns a word. The system doesn't need to know when everyone's spoken with an alien. It just needs to know if YOU did. The code would just have to ask your side "Did you do this already?" and respond to the yes or no answer appropriately; whether or not your companions have already done it or not is irrelevant to this equation.
If they have to do it this way, then why not unlock the word for the entire group? They are already reading the information from each client, it shouldn't be impossible to just send the information to all parties involved.

And knowledge stones don't have this issue. They work player per player basis just fine.

It just... feels like it's supposed to be a bug to me? but isn't? and I can't for the life of me figure it out.
Sorry if i came across as hostile at all; I've just started getting back into this game, and I keep encountering things that really make it feel like deteriorated a lot since the last time i played.