Online Co-op

[Mac]

Is this planned or not? I have looked on these forums but haven't found a concrete Dev answer.

Looks like a great game, but I'd be interested in online co-op primarily.

Local is fine, but in this day and age, alot of friends tend to be across great lengths.

Appreciate your help. Thanks.

[DecoyOctorok]

I am sorry that we've given you trouble when looking for an answer on this, so I would like to give you the most complete answer I can.

Online co-op is not currently planned. The reason for this is comes down to complexity and time. Online multiplayer introduces a huge amount of complexity into the way any game needs to be structured (code-wise). Gungeon was started as a single player only game, and it was only by limiting the co-op to local that we were able to work that feature into our development timeline without huge re-writes, and delays. Believe me, we looked into online extensively, and asked around. We determined that a conservative estimate would have our gameplay engineer working for around half a year to get it up to snuff, and that would be at the cost of several bosses and enemies (the bread and butter of the game). In addition, our team is very small and we do not have an experienced network engineer here, so it would be very difficult to estimate how much time it will take or even guarantee the quality and performance of the net-code. This is compounded by the fact that our game is extremely fast paced and unforgiving at times, and if a player gets killed because of latency- that would make me very very sad. I can’t think of another bullethell game that moves as fast as ours with online co-op. (I'm sure there are and I just don't know about them, regardless it is something that makes online particularly hard for our game).

Tim Ambroji, one of the devs on Jamestown, another really great bullethell/shmup game with local only co-op echos the sentiment here. [blog.us.playstation.com]

Originally posted by Tim Ambroji:

We’ve tried to make it happen a few times now, but you wouldn’t believe how hard it is to port a local-only game to online multiplayer when it wasn’t designed that way in the first place! Not to mention, Jamestown is a twitchy, low-latency game where a single frame of error often means the difference between life and death.”

Rami Ismail, part of Vlambeer commented on adding online co-op to Nuclear Throne here.

Originally posted by Rami Ismail:

Six months would actually be a lowball for getting it right.

We can add broken online in two months of work, but it'd be unbalanced, frustrating and laggy. Basically any complaint you see about online games.

I think to get it right, we'd have to restructure the game from scratch, and make every enemy shoot half the amount of projectiles. It'd just be a different game. As of now, there's a *lot* going on at all time.

Someone else in another thread on these forums suggested the notion that any game backed by Devolver Digital has no excuse for not putting online multiplayer in. To that person, I say this: Please understand that while Devolver is an amazing publisher that we love very much, part of the reason they are so great is that they let us do our thing. They are not game developers, there is no one at Devolver who is going to swoop in and solve a several month network engineering problem.

We understand that lots of players would like to be able to play the game with their friends who aren't in the same room as them, and sincerely wish that it was easier for us to put in the game and guarantee its quality.

With all of that said, Nvidia has announced something called “GameStream Co-op” which, in theory, allows a second player to take control of the Player-2 slot, with the video being streamed to them. It is currently in beta, and we have not been able to test it yet. Similarly, the same type of sharing can be done on the PS4 with SharePlay. Hopefully these services will work for some people, though I am not confident in them enough to call them a real solution to online multiplayer, at least for our game.

I hope that answers your question, and thank you very much for your interest in the game.

Cheers

D

[tomchynsky]

Professional answer.

Anyway, good luck, DodgeRoll Games!
We love you and we can't wait for EA/Alpha/Beta <3

I'm your and your game true fanboy.

[Mac]

Thank you for your lengthy and detailed response. I very much appreciate it.

I will be picking up this title to enjoy by myself, I was just hoping that I could enjoy it with other buddies of mine online. It is one of those titles that jumped out at me and yelled "amazing co-op fun; madness with ensue".

Nonetheless, I believe it will be a solid title, and I very much understand your thoughts and decisions.

[max]

Realm of the Mad God is a Perma Death Bullet Hell MMORPG , they've had their own issues but the online gameplay is pretty smooth. Not saying it's easy or anything like that, but this was just in response to you saying you didn't know of any fast-moving online bullet hell games, and ROTMG supports multiplayer on a very large scale (maps can have like 100 players).

[DecoyOctorok]

Originally posted by maxross21:

Realm of the Mad God is a Perma Death Bullet Hell MMORPG , they've had their own issues but the online gameplay is pretty smooth. Not saying it's easy or anything like that, but this was just in response to you saying you didn't know of any fast-moving online bullet hell games, and ROTMG supports multiplayer on a very large scale (maps can have like 100 players).

You are right- I forgot about that one, even though I played it quite a bit. I'm of the opinion that the guys who made that must be wizards. :p

[*Yuki*]

Coop tag in steam is only for online games, plz use only "local coop". Thanks

[DecoyOctorok]

Originally posted by *Yuki*:

Coop tag in steam is only for online games, plz use only "local coop". Thanks

done.

[MerkyFresh]

Very detailed response. Whether you put in Online Co-op or not I'm getting this. It would have been nice but meh its fine I dont care that much. I want the game be what you guys set out to make and if it doesn't have online then so be it. It will still be a hell of a game. Can't wait for it!

[Cryder]

Very understandable that there is no online multiplayer, it's a costly endeavour after all, especially for an indie title, and ESPECIALLY if it was not the original intent to include it. Hope the game will be great and make lots of money!

[punchobastardo]

Originally posted by DecoyOctorok:

Originally posted by *Yuki*:

Coop tag in steam is only for online games, plz use only "local coop". Thanks

done.

you may re-do it, 'cause it's still listed there and is misleading. Also it would be the reason I would buy your game which won't be the case unfortunately...

[Shrumbuggler]

To be honest, Im really sick of so many games "tacking-on" poorly planned or thought-out co-op modes just because you "have-to-have multiplayer." For example, I love nuclear throne, but their co-op mode is so horrendously glitch-ridden that whether or not it could be considered even playable depends on who you ask. I would rather have a functioning local multiplayer than a terribly implemented online multiplayer.

And there are far too many of those.

[DecoyOctorok]

Originally posted by punchobastardo:

Originally posted by DecoyOctorok:

done.

you may re-do it, 'cause it's still listed there and is misleading. Also it would be the reason I would buy your game which won't be the case unfortunately...

Huh- well I did remove it, perhaps someone else on the team marked it again. I'll fix it.

[Some Donkis]

Originally posted by Le Perv:

Saddest ♥♥♥♥ ever. Was so hyped for this game to play with a friend, and now its useles local coop only again........ ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ 2016 and we still cant get online coop for games. Magicka did it years ago and a lot of other games can do it without problems. Lazy devs imho. I`m over 30 and work 9-10 hours a day, I cant like every other day have friends over to play this like back whenin school. Get your ♥♥♥♥ together, you could have done something amazing making this game online coop, but noooooo, lets just take safe/lazy route and be like "A lot of other games can`t do it, so we can`t do it, sry". Pathetic attitude. Rant out. No reason to reply, not gonna check back since game is dead for me. Gl with ur launch anyway.

Wow, how pathetically whiney. If you think they are so "lazy" why don't you help them make online co op. I'm sure you have vast knowledge on how to set it up. You seem to know everything about it to have made a statement like that.

[Saylis]

I have to say i wish all company’s even the AAA company’s had this kinda transparency. Props to the Dev for the answer and I will be buying this game online co-op or not.

[DecoyOctorok]

Originally posted by bazgar357:

Originally posted by Le Perv:

Saddest ♥♥♥♥ ever. Was so hyped for this game to play with a friend, and now its useles local coop only again........ ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ 2016 and we still cant get online coop for games. Magicka did it years ago and a lot of other games can do it without problems. Lazy devs imho. I`m over 30 and work 9-10 hours a day, I cant like every other day have friends over to play this like back whenin school. Get your ♥♥♥♥ together, you could have done something amazing making this game online coop, but noooooo, lets just take safe/lazy route and be like "A lot of other games can`t do it, so we can`t do it, sry". Pathetic attitude. Rant out. No reason to reply, not gonna check back since game is dead for me. Gl with ur launch anyway.

Wow, how pathetically whiney. If you think they are so "lazy" why don't you help them make online co op. I'm sure you have vast knowledge on how to set it up. You seem to know everything about it to have made a statement like that.

Thanks for defense, this is the internet and there will always be haters. But if you look at his other posts that guy's just a troll, and a racist. If he comes back just to be mean I'll ban him.