Online Multiplayer

[Daverball]

The store page lists Local Multiplayer and Local Co-Op as part of the features, are there any plans to look into adding online multiplayer and co-op as well?

Me and my friends really enjoyed the first game, so being able to play it together sounds like a lot of fun, unfortunately we won't really have the opportunity to get together very often, so an online mode would be awesome.

[💜Sylaess]

No online multiplayer breaks my heart.. A lot.

[Apple Boom]

No offense to these guys, but online multiplayer for this game is way out of their league, imo. This game requires frame precision on the higher difficulties, and even most AAA fighting games don't get that right with netcode.

[FancySkunk]

Originally posted by The Apple BOOM:

No offense to these guys, but online multiplayer for this game is way out of their league, imo. This game requires frame precision on the higher difficulties, and even most AAA fighting games don't get that right with netcode.

Yeah the lag would be horrendous for everyone involved. Just imagine an order for fish comes into prep station 2. Player 1 presses 2, preps the fish and starts cooking it. At this point, player 2 presses 2 to start prepping the order, inadvertantly sending it out for a bad order.

[💜Sylaess]

I was hoping cook-offs, agaisnt a friend..

[Jeck]

Are we really considering latency being a problem in a game with 2 (maybe 4?) players where there are barely any game updates per second when compared to something like an FPS? This game should have been online, and the fact that it isn't is going to severely hurt it's sales. I was personally waiting for this game solely for the reason of online multiplayer being a possibility, and since that isn't happening now I won't be buying, sorry.

Looks like an amazing game, and I loved the first, but no online multiplayer is a deal breaker for me and many others.

[💜Sylaess]

I'm torn as well.. Im unsure i feel like buying it

[Jessimo]

Have you not considered the idea that each player takes half of the service stations (e.g. player 1 = odd, player 2 = even) so that both players are busy but not interfering with each other?
Also, netcode wouldn't be a problem with this

you would have to have max online 2 players tho, otherwise you'd have to increase the amount of customers/stations to such a rediculous level it wouldn't be fun.

[chubigans]

Originally posted by The Apple BOOM:

No offense to these guys, but online multiplayer for this game is way out of their league, imo. This game requires frame precision on the higher difficulties, and even most AAA fighting games don't get that right with netcode.

You're more right then you might realize. Netcode is an extremely difficult thing, and if I were to do it I have to do it 100% right or it ends up being a detraction for the rest of the game.

That said I'll have more to say about multiplayer features at a later time.

[Jeck]

It could really be simplified by only receiving button presses from connected players (and routing those button presses the same way you would a LAN second player) and also broadcast game updates, problem solved. There's no other information that needs to be sent in a game like this. You could literally have 100+ players on a private server with that small number of packets being sent.

I mean hell, I'd offer my services for free to see this get done (I've written a few custom built netcode classes over the years for various games), and from my perspective it wouldn't be a difficult thing for this game style. I loved the original but having to bring someone over my place to play is just meh lol.

[Selexo]

How about "asynchronous multiplayer", where both players are given the same senerio (cookday), and the final results are tallied at the end. You don't have to do frame by frame multiplayer which would be very hard to do. But you could provide something like shadow play where you could watch performance per meal and compare results. You could break down results like player 1 completed rush hour with this score vs player 2, boss fights would be special request meals (non standard recipe ie ; peanut butter, pickled sandwich, or vegan/vegetarian request) and you would see who got overall satisfied customer service. This kind of multiplayer could be presented as a rival diner that sit across the street from you, example like Bob's Burgers antagonist lol.. just a thought lol..

[Songbird]

Originally posted by Jeck:

It could really be simplified by only receiving button presses from connected players (and routing those button presses the same way you would a LAN second player) and also broadcast game updates, problem solved. There's no other information that needs to be sent in a game like this. You could literally have 100+ players on a private server with that small number of packets being sent.

I mean hell, I'd offer my services for free to see this get done (I've written a few custom built netcode classes over the years for various games), and from my perspective it wouldn't be a difficult thing for this game style. I loved the original but having to bring someone over my place to play is just meh lol.

I mean, I don't have a ton of experience with this sort of thing, but it certainly sounds to me like the hard part isn't what has to be sent between players, but how you handle latency (which will be present completely regardless of packet size and frequency) when it does occur. As someone else mentioned, this is a game in which some foods can be prepared in under a quarter of a second, and this is a game that needs absolute agreement between clients as to what's going on, not something like an FPS or MOBA where you can interpolate between updates.

Also, the multiplayer in the first game would be kind of dull online, in my personal opinion. One player basically just picked the orders off a list. It felt like more of a way to involve someone who wanted to play but wasn't fast enough for the real game than an equally engaging experience--maybe nice for personal company, but that's almost entirely lost online. A head-to-head battle where you send orders back and forth at each other would be more interesting, but at that point you're developing entirely new game modes rather than making a minor change to how an existing system works--certainly a post-launch endeavor since it's not in the planned features.

As for the asychronous multiplayer idea... well, that was already in the game in the form of the weekly challenges, just with less stats and customization, and versus the whole pool of players rather than just one (though you could compare against friends).

[Jeck]

Originally posted by Lupus Albus:

Originally posted by Jeck:

It could really be simplified by only receiving button presses from connected players (and routing those button presses the same way you would a LAN second player) and also broadcast game updates, problem solved. There's no other information that needs to be sent in a game like this. You could literally have 100+ players on a private server with that small number of packets being sent.

I mean hell, I'd offer my services for free to see this get done (I've written a few custom built netcode classes over the years for various games), and from my perspective it wouldn't be a difficult thing for this game style. I loved the original but having to bring someone over my place to play is just meh lol.

I mean, I don't have a ton of experience with this sort of thing, but it certainly sounds to me like the hard part isn't what has to be sent between players, but how you handle latency (which will be present completely regardless of packet size and frequency) when it does occur. As someone else mentioned, this is a game in which some foods can be prepared in under a quarter of a second, and this is a game that needs absolute agreement between clients as to what's going on, not something like an FPS or MOBA where you can interpolate between updates.

Also, the multiplayer in the first game would be kind of dull online, in my personal opinion. One player basically just picked the orders off a list. It felt like more of a way to involve someone who wanted to play but wasn't fast enough for the real game than an equally engaging experience--maybe nice for personal company, but that's almost entirely lost online. A head-to-head battle where you send orders back and forth at each other would be more interesting, but at that point you're developing entirely new game modes rather than making a minor change to how an existing system works--certainly a post-launch endeavor since it's not in the planned features.

As for the asychronous multiplayer idea... well, that was already in the game in the form of the weekly challenges, just with less stats and customization, and versus the whole pool of players rather than just one (though you could compare against friends).

You don't have to handle latency if you use the model that I suggested (simulate button presses and send game updates to the connected players). If a connected player hits a button that is too late to take effect (because someone else already activated something that disabled that action first) then it would be like pressing the button at an improper time. The game will still function, and nobody will notice any problems.

Unless you're playing with 200+ ping, it would never feel like you're online if done this way, and existing code wouldn't need to be altered (I've taken a few single player games and turned them into multiplayer games with this methodology). CSD2 sounds like a perfect candidate for this too.

I only ever really played the first game with my ex, as single player was kinda boring. Sharing tasks to complete goals is what I enioyed most about it, which is what I was hoping for with CSD2, but without online multiplayer I don't know if I can bother.

[z0rdôN]

Originally posted by Selexo:

How about "asynchronous multiplayer", where both players are given the same senerio (cookday), and the final results are tallied at the end. You don't have to do frame by frame multiplayer which would be very hard to do. But you could provide something like shadow play where you could watch performance per meal and compare results. You could break down results like player 1 completed rush hour with this score vs player 2, boss fights would be special request meals (non standard recipe ie ; peanut butter, pickled sandwich, or vegan/vegetarian request) and you would see who got overall satisfied customer service. This kind of multiplayer could be presented as a rival diner that sit across the street from you, example like Bob's Burgers antagonist lol.. just a thought lol..

Great idea!

[Jessimo]

continuing the idea of asynchronous multiplayer modes, you could have a "Last Man Standing" style mode where X amount of players enter into an infinite rush hour that gradually increases in difficulty (like food changes and station increases, but you cannot choose foods to ensure fairness.) All players can see a scoreboard of who is knocked out and who is still surviving, and the game ends when only 1 player is left. (The scoreboard could work similar to the game "Osu!" which doesn't show other players on the screen, but shows their score and multipier)

[Buntkreuz]

Hi guys. Normally wont necro but the dev above said that maybe there is something to say about this at a later time.
Since the game is part of the monthly bundle and a friend of mine and i are looking for fresh games to play together with, this would be an interesting thing to have.
Sadly online is still not a thing. But will it be or never?