Solo Mode

[dandru]

I really liked playing this game, but modding it for good solo play is tedious. I would love to play with things like manufacturing and stuff like that. I was shocked to learn there are actually vehicles in the game. Are there plans to make it a little more solo friendly. I really like the looks and mechanics of this game and I have found it a lot of fun in the 30 some hours I have put into it (so I guess I got my moneys worth in a way), but I really would like to see more of it. Before anyone comments about "oh it's made for cooperation" or "it's more fun on a server" I just don't want to. I don't like playing with other people, and I don't want to depend on anyone else, but I do like this game. I just wish I could experience more of it rather than getting to a certain point where it would take hours and hours of grinding because resource costs are too high.

[Captain Crispy Bacon]

You can always use admin commands to /give 100 iron ore or whatever if you want to skip grind.

[dandru]

ya.. but that's just not quite the same.. I am not much of a coder and would just like to have an interface to do the stuff I can do with the config files in game. Kinda like ARK does.

[Caz]

The new update brings sliders to change some settings like craft times, exp gain etc. A bit like Ark but no setting to change with regards harvest rates
I am no coder but have managed to adjust some settings so the grind isnt so bad. So it is worth looking around the net for what you are looking for.
I play solo and have a world set up with my brother, so i feel your pain with regards resource cost The new update brings labour cost into the equation making it even more challenging for solo and small groups.

[SLG-Dennis]

Update 9.0 adds new configuration sliders to make you able to configure your difficulty more in-depth as Caz said. Though, if you don't like playing with other people, i'm not totally sure why you chose Eco. I mean, i'm glad you bought our game, but i had the feeling we were stating quite extensively how Eco is mainly a multiplayer game in the description, given stuff like "Government" and "Economy" - our main features - make no sense in solo play.

[hussar]

SLG-Dennis,

I've played Eco both solo and multiplayer. I plan to play it hard when the new update is live.

My best Eco experiences have been multiplayer. My worst Eco experiences have been multiplayer. It all depends on who the other players are, and when they're on.

I rarely play MMOs of any kind, for many reasons, including: (a) often they're less immersive (you feel like you're in a theme park rather than another world); (b) other players don't play according to your schedule; (c) some other players are jerks (fewer in Eco than in games that appeal to other playstyles, but still.

I understand the solo and multiplayer experiences are much different, and always will be. You're right that some features make no sense in solo play. But please don't dismiss those who prefer solo play.

Thanks!

[SLG-Dennis]

We're not dismissing solo players, but the focus of Eco and the whole reason it exists has always been multiplayer. We do not plan to add features that are specific for singleplayer, but we will try to make Eco as configurable as possible so everyone can configure it to his specific playstyle and having fun with it.

[SLG-Dennis]

On SP you are actually just hosting a server :)
If you still got an issue with connecting, feel free to send me the logs to investigate.

And while you can simply create the biggest world possible - you will be missing out on most of what Eco is, as pollution will be no no threat at all. You still can do it. But we're not developing it for being used like that.

[Heph]

I had fun playing it solo in 2018, but it looks like there is no point in trying it again. Thanks for the reply and saving me the time. You should update the description that it is no longer a single player game.

It would have been nice to add a single option to adjust the difficulty to a single player mode...

[SLG-Dennis]

It can be played singleplayer without issue.

And a single option just won't work, as we already have a single option for it, called NoCollaboration, but while a lot of people are fine with that, for others it's way too difficult. And for others too easy. The issue is that different people have different playstyles and like different things - we cannot provide one solution to rule them all, it's impossible.

No Collaboration is our singleplayer setting, most people are fine with. For those that are not, you can change additional settings to tune it to your needs.

[dandru]

I am not good at quoting in posts, but the dev questioned basically why did I buy the game. I mean really? What kind of question is that? I like building, I like crafting, I like survival and progression. Your right I don't give a care about government or economy, I get enough of that in the real world. I do however like the art style. I like the way trees roll down a hill when you chop them down. I like chasing a deer through the forest while hunting it. I think your narrow minded view has clouded you to what a great survival crafting game you have here. There are so many things that this game does that are just amazing, but I do not have the time or patience to generally deal with other people while playing it. In general I am not "anti-social", but my gaming is sporadic at best. I play multiplayer games that tend to have a drop in, drop out type of game play. I do not however have the time to dedicate to a group of people to accomplish what you feel are the key aspects of the game. I played WoW for years, and Rift, Everquest, Everquest 2 etc, but that was back in my younger years when I had more time I could do that. I feel dismayed by the developers comments that sound to me like I am not playing their open world, free roam, survival crafting game their way, so they don't really care. It is far too late for a refund for me but statements like that make me never want to play the game again. I am not a programmer, or a developer, so I can not create such a beautiful and functional world on my own. I guess I will just go back to minecraft, or ARK or some other largely multiplayer game where my style of play is not only appreciated, but has an entire community of largely solo players that is loved by the devs. Thank you for your response, it lets me know how you feel about your player base, and I will make sure that all my friends that also love to play as I do steer very clear of it.

[SLG-Dennis]

No, i'm not questioning why you bought the game, i'm stating that Eco has been developed with multiplayer in mind from the very beginning and that Eco at its base uses features that only make sense in Multiplayer. Singleplayer was added very late in development before Steam release and only due to people asking us for it, it wasn't a planned feature. Hence it's simply a multiplayer server on your local PC. And i'm only being honest with you when telling you that our focus is a multiplayer game that can be played singleplayer and is highly configurable, but not specific singleplayer modes or features. We've been stating that forever and doing so is fair - as people then know what they buy.

I'm very happy that you like so many aspects of the game, but ultimately this game has a vision, a design and a goal - and that is not singleplayer and never will be and we're confident that this has been clear from the very beginning. So this is nothing new. It's also nothing new that we try to provide configuration options for singleplayer and are working on better out-of-the box configurations that fit for a wider singleplayer audience. This is hard though, as playstyles differ vastly between people and amount of players also changes the game massively. Different playstyles in a group of unknown people makes it being extremely difficult as we cannot offer > 100 presets for everyone.

Eco is pretty much the very opposite of a drop-in drop-out game - on nearly all servers it's played in tight timecondensed cycles of 14 - 21 days. So you are effectively criticizing me for telling you what game Eco is and not changing it to what you want Eco to be. And that's why i asked why some people buy a game that seemingly doesn't fit what they want at all, requesting the game to change to something the game is not supposed to be. We, for our game, made very clear what Eco is supposed to be and that we will work with the community to reach this goal. But we are working to reach _this_ goal, not a different one. We simply cannot make Eco a different game than we wanted it to be and advertised it to be.

But playing in singleplayer is very possible even if it needs a few configuration changes for some people, depending on what playstyle they prefer and hence it's marked as singleplayer as it got one. Steam does not specifiy anything in regards to what they consider 'has singleplayer'.

You CAN play Eco your way. Eco is perfect for playing your way, as it can be configured. But not every way is one we do actively support. Our limitations on resources wouldn't allow that even if we wanted to do that.

[Kraft51]

Originally posted by SLG-Dennis:

No, i'm not questioning why you bought the game, i'm stating that Eco has been developed with multiplayer in mind from the very beginning and that Eco at its base uses features that only make sense in Multiplayer. Singleplayer was added very late in development before Steam release and only due to people asking us for it, it wasn't a planned feature. Hence it's simply a multiplayer server on your local PC. And i'm only being honest with you when telling you that our focus is a multiplayer game that can be played singleplayer and is highly configurable, but not specific singleplayer modes or features. We've been stating that forever and doing so is fair - as people then know what they buy.

I'm very happy that you like so many aspects of the game, but ultimately this game has a vision, a design and a goal - and that is not singleplayer and never will be and we're confident that this has been clear from the very beginning. So this is nothing new. It's also nothing new that we try to provide configuration options for singleplayer and are working on better out-of-the box configurations that fit for a wider singleplayer audience. This is hard though, as playstyles differ vastly between people and amount of players also changes the game massively. Different playstyles in a group of unknown people makes it being extremely difficult as we cannot offer > 100 presets for everyone.

Eco is pretty much the very opposite of a drop-in drop-out game - on nearly all servers it's played in tight timecondensed cycles of 14 - 21 days. So you are effectively criticizing me for telling you what game Eco is and not changing it to what you want Eco to be. And that's why i asked why some people buy a game that seemingly doesn't fit what they want at all, requesting the game to change to something the game is not supposed to be. We, for our game, made very clear what Eco is supposed to be and that we will work with the community to reach this goal. But we are working to reach _this_ goal, not a different one. We simply cannot make Eco a different game than we wanted it to be and advertised it to be.

But playing in singleplayer is very possible even if it needs a few configuration changes for some people, depending on what playstyle they prefer and hence it's marked as singleplayer as it got one. Steam does not specifiy anything in regards to what they consider 'has singleplayer'.

You CAN play Eco your way. Eco is perfect for playing your way, as it can be configured. But not every way is one we do actively support. Our limitations on resources wouldn't allow that even if we wanted to do that.

ignore these people, most of them expect everything to just be handed to them in game with little to no work. admin commands and file editing (modding) is all you really ever need for the Solo Experience, as for the presets you mention ... ditch the presets, add in slider options for very specific elements (not like ARK where you can control basically every line of usable code) ... possibly these for example; XP rates, Stars gained per level, resource respawn rates (maturity rates), maybe even one to reduce pollution spread to a certain degree.

the solo experience wouldn't need much more beyond these types of options (in addition to the existing minor server option available at world creation) to accommodate the majority of playstyles out there.

[Wiggitywhack]

Originally posted by SLG-Dennis:

Though, if you don't like playing with other people, i'm not totally sure why you chose Eco

How about that's none of your business? He paid you for the game and is asking if there are ways to play it more the way he wants, which you answered. It's not necessary for you to question his reasons, and I personally find it unprofessional.

[Kraft51]

Originally posted by Captain Awesome:

Originally posted by SLG-Dennis:

Though, if you don't like playing with other people, i'm not totally sure why you chose Eco

How about that's none of your business? He paid you for the game and is asking if there are ways to play it more the way he wants, which you answered. It's not necessary for you to question his reasons, and I personally find it unprofessional.

you must be one of the players that whined until they added SP mode right? damn, the game is marketed and advertised as an MP focused game, every element in ECO has been designed specifically with this intent. its not the devs fault for wondering why antisocial soloist would every want to even consider this game in the first place. i fully understand why he asked this as i wonder it very often about many other MP focused games.

a great example would be ATLAS, it was NEVER intended to have a Single Player mode of any form. everything in that game was also designed specifically for MP, then all the soloists started whining because if they wanted to play they had to either own or rent a private server to play alone. now look at the state of that title, its dying a slow painful death now because too many Dev resources were split up in producing 2 games instead of 1. (i'm ignoring the fact of who these devs are lol)

what i don't understand is that why is it so hard to leave something well enough alone when you know from the start that its not providing the experience you were looking for. no instead players buy the game without first doing any research (reading the store description is usually all you would need to do) in order to see if the game offers what you are looking for. then later on complain because they are "forced" to play in MP.

regardless if he paid for the game or not, that question is totally valid in the circumstance. thankfully this dev team has a clear goal for their game unlike most devs in EA projects. so all this focus on SP mode will only slow progress on the intended ECO experience, which being a collaborated effort to save the planet.

myself, if i see a game i'm interested in doesn't offer all the elements i would most enjoy then i simply move on, because obviously i'm not going to enjoy it but what i don't do it buy the game and immediately jump in the forums and demand all the features that i feel the game SHOULD have. EA doesn't mean YOUR WAY every time, sometimes devs just need balancing help as this is the most difficult part of any game development and aren't looking to add more features.

[Wiggitywhack]

I'm not going to bother quoting your reply Kraft, as it's irrelevant. It's neither yours nor Dennis' job to tell anyone else how or why to spend their money. Yes, I agree Eco is not ideal for single player. You've all made that very clear to the OP. My issue lies with Dennis as a representative of SLG questioning it's players intentions. That's not his business and questioning your players intentions is unprofessional. In fact the OP was upset by Dennis' response and has claimed he's going to steer people away from this game.

That is the opposite of his job as a community manager.