Wait, No More Than Two Machine Online Planned?!

[sgt johnson]

I may just not be very in the know, here, but I was pretty shocked to see this in the FAQ section of the official website.

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What are your plans for expanding online play?

Our eventual goal, for all platforms, is to let players play online with six total players across two machines. In our testing, a two-console connection enables the best play experience for everyone while still providing the cooperative experience we designed the game to deliver. We do not have a firm ETA for this, but we are targeting this feature to arrive on all platforms via a free update a few weeks after launch.

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I decided to head over to the website since there really doesn't seem to be any attempt to communicate through the game's official Steam channels and while I was disappointed to see that they don't provide any details on the format and forum they want for bug-reports or questions, I couldn't believe when I saw this answer regarding online play.

If I'm understanding correctly (which I might not be), it sounds as though this means that online play will never be an effective means for getting a full co-op game unless you already have the majority of prospective players already with you, locally. In my view, the whole point of online support is so that you can have the experience of playing a full-match of whatever the game in-question is even if you don't have that number of players with you, locally. I can't even imagine how rare it will be that a group of three would hop online and randomly find another group of three for a full match. Most players will be utilizing online because they are playing by themselves, meaning that under this system, the vast majority of online matches will be relegated to a two-player only experience.

I'm extremely frustrated by the justification for this decision that is provided in the answer:

In our testing, a two-console connection enables the best play experience for everyone while still providing the cooperative experience we designed the game to deliver.

Saying networking fewer devices provides the best play experience as though that means anything other than no effort is being put in to provide what is considered a bare-minimum in-terms of online-functionality just feels insulting to the customer's intelligence. Of course networking two devices is easier than networking more than two devices, but to simply say it "provides the best play experience" is like saying online functionality will not be provided because "in our testing" local-multiplayer "provides the best play experience for everyone". If one tests a game with poorly designed netcode, of course local multiplayer will feel better, but that's why development effort is put into online-play.

It was surprising and frustrating enough to read that they do not plan to provide what should honestly be expected as a bare-minimum, but it was infuriating to see not providing a fully-developed game spun as providing players with "the best play experience".

I'm just gonna end this post here, because I'm getting more frustrated as I put this post together and while it may not change anything related to the game, I feel it's important to call this kind of thing out as opposed to letting it slide, completely!

Apologies for the long read!

[BEAR]

TMNT Shredder's Revenge should be THE standard way how Online CO-OP should be!

[stephen.frost]

While I can't share exact details now, we are still currently working on some online changes and improvements for an upcoming update.

[༺♥❀Lucina❀♥༻]

Originally posted by stephen.frost:

While I can't share exact details now, we are still currently working on some online changes and improvements for an upcoming update.

i also hope your working on the save game online feature, a friend of mine and me got error and we had to start form 0 wich is pretty annoying, we were playing on hard mode and on stage 13 it decided to give us an error.

[Princess Luna]

Originally posted by BEAR:

TMNT Shredder's Revenge should be THE standard way how Online CO-OP should be!

Yes but some people defended this at lsuch with no coop

[DanAmrich_DE]

"Later this spring, we'll upgrade the game's online mode to allow up to six machines to connect for multiplayer matches. It's worth noting that since our game uses peer-to-peer connections, more machines in more locations with more distance between them will introduce more latency. We still feel a two-machine connection with multiple players on each side will offer the best co-op experience online, but since this feature was heavily requested, you will ultimately be the judge."

https://www.digitaleclipse.com/media/new-gameplay-features-added-to-ritas-rewind

[DINNER SUPREME]

Originally posted by DanAmrich_DE:

"Later this spring, we'll upgrade the game's online mode to allow up to six machines to connect for multiplayer matches. It's worth noting that since our game uses peer-to-peer connections, more machines in more locations with more distance between them will introduce more latency. We still feel a two-machine connection with multiple players on each side will offer the best co-op experience online, but since this feature was heavily requested, you will ultimately be the judge."

https://www.digitaleclipse.com/media/new-gameplay-features-added-to-ritas-rewind

Upgrade the game's offline mode and online mode to allow up to six controllers too. PC and Steam are perfectly capable of going beyond the limit of four. When Xinput is a barrier, games use Dinput usually.

Nobody should have to use a keyboard because they're Player 5.

If for some reason, you must remain with Xinput only then look into some of the solutions out there such as OpenXinput: https://github.com/Nemirtingas/OpenXinput

[Princess Luna]

Originally posted by DINNER SUPREME:

Upgrade the game's offline mode and online mode to allow up to six controllers too. PC and Steam are perfectly capable of going beyond the limit of four. When Xinput is a barrier, games use Dinput usually.
Nobody should have to use a keyboard because they're Player 5.

Imagine if that was available on launch

[CyFiver]

Originally posted by DanAmrich_DE:

"Later this spring, we'll upgrade the game's online mode to allow up to six machines to connect for multiplayer matches. It's worth noting that since our game uses peer-to-peer connections, more machines in more locations with more distance between them will introduce more latency. We still feel a two-machine connection with multiple players on each side will offer the best co-op experience online, but since this feature was heavily requested, you will ultimately be the judge."

https://www.digitaleclipse.com/media/new-gameplay-features-added-to-ritas-rewind

What this means is you should have Regional Area's for your player-base. Even in the late 90's into the 2000's when someone from around the globe would join in on my USWest hosted games, depending on the game back then. We'd ALL get higher latency as we're all pinging a server that now has to lower everyone's enjoyment, so it can get this dude from "Often" China or similar countries across an ocean, and give them a reason-ish-able ping.

So, it could work perfectly fine if you're doing something like ONLY NA, EU, Ocean, etc, etc. But even with two consoles connecting, one from Europe and one to me here in Vancouver, BC. On the best ISP speeds. You're still going to have a terrible time enjoying 160+ MS if lucky, more like 180-200+ which in 2025 is so unacceptable.

[アウトコールド]

It's a big mistake to not launch the game with all of the planned online features already implemented. Reviews are effected and the honeymoon phase is over so there are usually less people online at once. You guys probably lost money from this by not just delaying the game.

[0wnz0r]

Originally posted by アウトコールド:

It's a big mistake to not launch the game with all of the planned online features already implemented. Reviews are effected and the honeymoon phase is over so there are usually less people online at once. You guys probably lost money from this by not just delaying the game.

shoulda delayed n prolly woulda helped them to release a demo as well to get feedback on the gameplay.

they didnt delay because they didnt wanna disappoint fans lol.... great job wit that.