Why are you punished for playing co-op?

[Kavrick]

So in co-op it seems like your XP is effectively cut by 50%, this is kinda a massive issue for a game that has co-op as a major selling point, the game so far doesn't seem to have any sort of xp share so xp grinding is already a thing (which isn't a massive deal by itself, i know some people hate xp share), but playing in co-op effectively means you have to grind for double the amount of time, which really does suck.

[ONISAIBOT]

Originally posted by Kavrick:

Originally posted by ONISAIBOT:

Solo Player - 100% of the work => 100% of the XP
Co-op Player - 50% of the work each => 50% of the XP each

What's so hard to agree on here?

Co-op is not easier than solo, so this is not how it works.

You seem to forget that the burden of consumables and therefore money on the players, is halved aswell. Co-op is definitely easier.

[Natulyre]

Originally posted by Sir Seal The Slippery:

Originally posted by Natulyre:

I don't think there's any discussion to have about whether or not players should have a fair amount of xp regardless of their preferred playstyle (in regards to co-op vs solo). How about we just ask ourselves how can we approach this in the fairest way, with regards for *both* solo and co-op player.

Well,i DO think that people who team up,should not only get the,,same''ammount as people who play alone,but even more.
Why?
Because it takes longer than simply playing solo.
You got to find a partner first,invite him,travel together,coordinate your moves(and right now,coop is really buggy aswell).
In a mmo,templay should always give you a advantage over people who play alone,thats the whole point.
The system is supposed to make you socialize,even if you just do it for the extra perks.
It makes people interact more,and thats what a mmo is about.
Not about isolating yourself,doing your own thing(you can do that,but you shouldnt get rewarded for it)

I personally agree.

I don't know how it should be tackled. Maybe just by give them what's missing (so 2x current exp). The repercussion is that each TemTem in-play would personally get more xp than what they regularly would in solo play. But overall both solo and coop players would gain the same amount of XP per fight.

[Sir Seal The Slippery]

Originally posted by ONISAIBOT:

Originally posted by Sir Seal The Slippery:

Well,i DO think that people who team up,should not only get the,,same''ammount as people who play alone,but even more.
Why?
Because it takes longer than simply playing solo.
You got to find a partner first,invite him,travel together,coordinate your moves(and right now,coop is really buggy aswell).
In a mmo,templay should always give you a advantage over people who play alone,thats the whole point.
The system is supposed to make you socialize,even if you just do it for the extra perks.
It makes people interact more,and thats what a mmo is about.
Not about isolating yourself,doing your own thing(you can do that,but you shouldnt get rewarded for it)

Solo Player - 100% of the work => 100% of the XP
Co-op Player - 50% of the work each => 50% of the XP each

What's so hard to agree on here?

Like kavrick said,coop is more difficult,actually.
You have to communicate with your partner(extra work),or risk messing up.
Teaming up,means more work/time spent in general,compared to solo play,where you dont have to worry about meeting,finding a partner,coordination....
If solo play gets too comfortable and rewarding,only a small ammount of people will be doing coop,and mostly just with their friends,not strangers.
I dont think i have to explain,why the lack of player interaction,would be a problem in a M M O,right?

[xinf3ctdx]

Originally posted by Kutsuu Mugen:

Even if you consider it a disadvantage to play co-op due to splitting the xp between your single Tem and your Friends Tem I still think that is perfectly fine and how it is meant to be, or you can go Solo where 2 of your Tem get the full xp amount.

This game is similar to Pokemon but you get the choice to Co-op rather than solo everything.
If your so hurt over loosing 50% of the xp with Co-op then I suggest you go solo, cause it sounds like your trying to say - (I want all 100% of the xp and my friend doesn't deserve it) - which sounds rather childish.

EDIT - Even if you feel your being under leveled as co-op most of what you would of done in Pokemon is fight battles in the grass to catch up.

This game is not about who can level up quicker, it's about enjoying what it has to offer and now you can co-op where as Pokemon is pure solo.

It's got nothing to do with leveling up faster than your partner. It's about co-op effectively crippling you for solo play since half of your experience is going to your partner. If you're just doing co-op for literally everything, then it's fine since half of the team is made up of yours and the other half is made up of your partner's, but the instant you stop doing co-op, you're left with a team that only got 50% of the experience from the battles that you just did. The point was "Why does playing co-op punish you?" You get half of the experience for battles and you're expected to grind more to make up for the loss in experience just because you want to play the game with a friend? Like, no one asked for you to make excuses for the game. "You can just grind wild battles in the grass to catch up." Yeah, and we can just play solo for the whole game if we don't want to lose out on half of the experience from tamers, but that doesn't make co-op any less punishing, does it?

[Dumbinho]

Halved XP is so bad... I won't play co-op in this case.

[Sir Seal The Slippery]

Originally posted by Elvick:

Originally posted by Sir Seal The Slippery:

Like kavrick said,coop is more difficult,actually.
You have to communicate with your partner(extra work),or risk messing up.
Teaming up,means more work/time spent in general,compared to solo play,where you dont have to worry about meeting,finding a partner,coordination....
If solo play gets too comfortable and rewarding,only a small ammount of people will be doing coop,and mostly just with their friends,not strangers.
I dont think i have to explain,why the lack of player interaction,would be a problem in a M M O,right?

I'm sorry, you just literally detailed what co-op is and how it works then said that's why it's hard.

"you have to team up and set up a time to play together"... duh.

And since they are friends you will likely be on discord, or something else to talk with them to setup your co-op. But ingame text will come eventually they just have to redo it.

Yes i did,whats wrong with that?
You DO have to set a time to meet up,invite each other,coordinate inside a fight aswell....thats all true.
And ofcourse,this is more work than just playing when you want,without waiting for someone to either meet up with you or make his move in a battle.
Talking with them via voice chat or discord/steam,is extra work aswell.

I dont think you get my point here.
Yea,i explained the obvious(that you have to meet up,invite and all that),but unfortunately,people dont seem to understand it any other way.
Coop is more work,so it should offer more rewards,really simple actually.
In pretty much every mmo out there,you get a nice reward for teaming up with other players,because,well,its a mmo,where people are supposed to socialize,interact with other players.....in short,play the game how its intended to be,and for doing this,the game gives them a pat on the head,and rewards them.
Its not some singleplayer game where you turn on coop just for the lulz and because you want a challenge.
Youre usually rewarded with gear that you cant get by yourself,more exp after finishing a group dungeon compared to just leveling up on your own,achievements for doing raids,faster questing.....youre not only compensated for the extra effort so youre,,even''with solo players,youre also getting a nice extra reward,solo players cant get.
And thats exactly how it should be in a mmo.
Playing on your own,should be possible,but it should have multiple dissadvantages.
Dissadvantages that make you consider teaming up with others.

But what do you get in temtem for teaming up right now?
Nothing at all.
The dissadvantages even outweigh the,,perks''.

TLDR:I went into detail why coop is more difficult than solo,yes.And thats where the problem lies,because coop should be EASIER,not harder.Thats the whole point.If you cant do something alone,you seek help from other people,strenght in numbers,you know.

[Dread Pirate Roberta]

The entire first page, and likely a whole lot more, is a bunch of posters trying to create an argument out of restating part of what the OP said, while failing to understand the purpose of the post. It is a ridiculous design flaw to punish Co-Op players, forcing them to grind twice as much between bosses / power checks than Solo players, when the stand-out feature of your Pokemon Clone is that you can play Co-Op!

Gotta love the trash fire that is Steam Forums.

[Triu]

Enjoy the game, if you're gonna play in co-op do some grinding. I find you need to do some in solo anyways. Farm some TemTem with good SV's and knock out the others, why try to rush the game if you're playing with a friend. Stop trying to rush to the end, and be done with it. It's a game, play it, enjoy it, period. If you have a suggestion then submit feedback, but complaining about it and not offering up a good solution isn't productive.

[Sheetso]

Originally posted by Triu:

Enjoy the game, if you're gonna play in co-op do some grinding. I find you need to do some in solo anyways. Farm some TemTem with good SV's and knock out the others, why try to rush the game if you're playing with a friend. Stop trying to rush to the end, and be done with it. It's a game, play it, enjoy it, period. If you have a suggestion then submit feedback, but complaining about it and not offering up a good solution isn't productive.

oh dear... and then why we should call this game an MMO or coop multiplayer if you get punished when you play in multiplayer?... thats rly not to hard to understand, nor is it?

[Tactrix]

Originally posted by Kavrick:

So in co-op it seems like your XP is effectively cut by 50%, this is kinda a massive issue for a game that has co-op as a major selling point, the game so far doesn't seem to have any sort of xp share so xp grinding is already a thing (which isn't a massive deal by itself, i know some people hate xp share), but playing in co-op effectively means you have to grind for double the amount of time, which really does suck.

Because why should you have friends when everyone else doesn't?

[Sheetso]

Originally posted by Tactrix:

Originally posted by Kavrick:

So in co-op it seems like your XP is effectively cut by 50%, this is kinda a massive issue for a game that has co-op as a major selling point, the game so far doesn't seem to have any sort of xp share so xp grinding is already a thing (which isn't a massive deal by itself, i know some people hate xp share), but playing in co-op effectively means you have to grind for double the amount of time, which really does suck.

Because why should you have friends when everyone else doesn't? :cozybrawlhalla7:

best answer!!!! i´m gonna vote for ya comment !!! ^^

[Ragemonkey]

Originally posted by Kavrick:

Originally posted by ☢︎PenguinHD☢:

the XP is usually split equally between the pokemon active in battle when you're soloing, so it makes sense that if you go into a battle with a friend it would still be giving you split exp, otherwise you'd be receiving 2x the exp in co-op

Yeah but you still need to remember that stuff like trainer battles you can only do once, so you'll be getting way less xp overall, having two people do the same content shouldn't make your progress slower, that's backwards.

You can also come back and solo kill monsters for your Co-op friend and get them much higher xp farm , if you got the full amount this would be busted. It seems slower because your not lvling as many Tems, but you are getting unbalanced help if you are a higher player coming back for a friend. If you hurry and get the cowards cloak, that will help with lvling more than one Tem.

There are also plenty of things that make it easier if you have friends, I gave my friends fire and water Tems way before they could get them and that made it way easier for them. I find it is kind of give and take with co-op / trading

[Varivox]

Didn't know they halved the xp. That's a terrible idea imo:

First, the game is trying to be an MMO. If they implement features and functions that actively punish you for playing with other people, the game may as well be a single player game. It may not "technically" punish you, but it is taking away more xp from you. It makes sense from a mathematical standpoint, but from a gameplay feature it sounds like I'd rather just play solo.

Second, it just sounds like it increases the grind. Rather than reach level 100 with 100 battles, your now asking me to reach that same level with 200 battles. Again, mathematically it makes 100% sense do divide the xp up, but it's adding another reason for me to not play coop in an MMO.

A good MMO will try to push people TOWARDS working together. That's why we get guilds, raids, etc. Just look back at the days of WoW. People would run a dungeon together to get EXTRA XP, the mobs were a bit more difficult, but with 5 people it went fairly smoothly. In exchange for playing together, players recieved more XP than they would otherwise recieve. However, loot became an issue as you were effectively dividing it up and only getting 1/5... So we got the Need/Greed/Pass system which somewhat allieviated that.

In Elder Scrolls Online (It's MUCH better than it was on launch, but that's another topic for another thread), players in PvP like Cyrodil (The big PvP zone) recieve only what little they might contribute individually if they play as a solo character. However, start a raid party and now every enemy that you tag, every quest you complete applies to everyone in the party! I got a completed quest when we stole the Elder Scroll from an opposing faction, and I was about as far away as I could be from the turn in. The game actively incentivizes me to team up.

Same for Guild Wars 2. Go play WvWvW as a solo player and you'll get "meh" experience and rewards. Go play WvWvW with a huge party and you get WAY better rewards. Same for the big zone events in PvE where you are not only prioritized on getting heals from your party (an AoE heal will apply to party members first THEN to others outside the party if applicable) but you also get additional participation credit for the teams. Again, I'm incentivized to work with others.

If TemTem is really trying to be an MMO, it needs systems in place that promote teamwork and parties. If 2 people team up, they shouldn't divide 100 xp between themselves, they should get EXTRA on top of what they'd otherwise get. Mathematically, it may not be "punishing" me for playing in a party, but it's telling me to go through 2x the loadscreens for half the reward alone.

[Orcus187]

So after reading through the whole forum twice and seeing the arguments laid out I'm gonna have to agree with the OP as well here. The issue that I believe the OP is stating is that at least 1 of his Tems and at most 3 of his Tems are always going to be behind by 50% per battle due to how the XP is given out. This is unless he grinds Solo play twice as hard if he decides to routinely switch between solo play and co-op play. This is the issue I believe he is trying to make along with others in this forum. If you only do Solo play or you are only doing Co-op play then the XP share isnt an issue, but once you rotate between Solo play and Co-op play then it becomes a problem. And I would believe that a majority of people who play Co-op are not going to be playing 100% in Co-op so they are indeed being "punished" for playing that way. Here is why I believe this and what I think the OP made clear in all his statements.

Solo Play- You always level up 2 of your Tems at time in a single battle. If you have the cloak then you can always level up 3 of your Tems at a time in a single battle.

All the exp from the battle will always get split between your 2 or 3 Tems if you do no party switching during the battle. So during each Solo battle you do 2 or 3 Tems will always be gaining exp towards their level ups. If you do party switching then you have a pool of 6 Tems that you can level up at a time in a single battle.

Co-op Play- You always level up 1 Tem only now at a time and your Co-op partner levels up 1 Tem at a time. If you have the cloak then you level up 2 Tems only now at a time. If you co-op partner has the cloak as well then they can also always level up 2 Tems at a time.
If you do party switching then you have a pool of only 3 Tems now

All the exp from the battle will always get split between only 1 or 2 of your Tems now if you do no party switching during the battle. So during each Co-op battle you do 1 or 2 Tems now will always be gaining exp towards their level ups. If you do party switching then you have a pool of only 3 Tems now that you can level up at a time in a single battle.

Here is the Math part. Example will provide 2 fights. 2 solo fights and 2 Co-op fights. Each fight will provide the players with a total of 120 exp after the battle. Each Tem has 0 exp going into the fight. Example will only have 3 Tems available to make it easier to follow and less to type, so basically no party switching. The math wont change with party switching during the fight as total exp is still split evenly between all your tems that fought.

Fight One: Solo Play- with No Cloak will always end this way with 120 exp to give out

Your Tem1 that fought- earned 60 exp after battle
Your Tem2 that fought- earned 60 exp after battle

Your Tem1- now has 60 total exp towards their level up
Your Tem2- now has 60 total exp towards their level up


Fight One: Solo Play- With Cloak will always end this way with 120 exp to give out

Your Tem1 that fought- earned 40 exp after battle
Your Tem2 that fought- earned 40 exp after battle
Your cloaked Tem3 sitting in back up slot- earned 40 exp after battle

Your Tem1- now has 40 total exp towards their level up
Your Tem2- now has 40 total exp towards their level up
Your cloaked Tem3 sitting in back up slot- now has 40 total exp towards their level up


Fight Two: Solo Play- with No Cloak will always end this way with 120 exp to give out

Your Tem1 that fought- earned 60 exp after battle
Your Tem2 that fought- earned 60 exp after battle

Your Tem1- now has 120 total exp towards their level up
Your Tem2- now has 120 total exp towards their level up


Fight Two: Solo Play- With Cloak will always end this way with 120 exp to give out

Your Tem1 that fought- earned 40 exp after battle
Your Tem2 that fought- earned 40 exp after battle
Your cloaked Tem3 sitting in back up slot- earned 40 exp after battle

Your Tem1- now has 80 total exp towards their level up
Your Tem2- now has 80 total exp towards their level up
Your cloaked Tem3 sitting in back up slot- now has 80 total exp towards their level up





Fight One: Co-op Play- with No Cloak will always end this way with 120 exp to give out

Your Tem1 that fought- earned 60 exp after battle
Your Tem2 that would have fought in solo- now earned 0 exp after battle
Co-op Partner Tem1 that fought instead- gains that 60 exp after battle instead (as they should. We can all agree I would think that both players should always split the exp 50/50 since its a 50/50 battle. That isnt the issue here at all)


Your Tem1- now has 60 total exp towards their level up
Your Tem2 that would have fought in solo- now has 0 total exp towards their level up


Fight One: Co-op Play- With Cloak will always end this way with 120 exp to give out

Your Tem1 that fought- earned 30 exp after battle
Your Tem2 that would have fought in solo- now earned 0 exp after battle
Co-op Partner Tem1 that fought instead- gains that 30 exp after battle
Your cloaked Tem3 sitting in back up slot- earned 30 exp after battle
Co-op Partner cloaked Tem3 sitting in back up slot- earned 30 exp after battle

Your Tem1- now has 30 total exp towards their level up
Your Tem2 that would have fought in solo- now has 0 total exp towards their level up
Co-op Partner Tem1 that fought instead- gains that 30 exp after battle instead
Your cloaked Tem3 sitting in back up slot- now has 30 total exp towards their level up
Co-op cloaked Tem3 sitting in back up slot- now has 30 total exp towards their level up

Fight Two: Co-op Play- with No Cloak will always end this way with 120 exp to give out

Your Tem1 that fought- earned 60 exp after battle
Your Tem2 that would have fought in solo- now earned 0 exp after battle
Co-op Partner Tem1 that fought instead- gains that 60 exp after battle instead


Your Tem1- now has 120 total exp towards their level up
Your Tem2 that would have fought in solo- still has 0 total exp towards their level up


Fight Two: Co-op Play- with cloak will always end this way with 120 exp to give out

Your Tem1 that fought- earned 30 exp after battle
Your Tem2 that would have fought in solo- now earned 0 exp after battle
Co-op Partner Tem1 that fought instead- gains that 30 exp after battle
Your cloaked Tem3 sitting in back up slot- earned 30 exp after battle
Co-op Partner cloaked Tem3 sitting in back up slot- earned 30 exp after battle

Your Tem1- now has 60 total exp towards their level up
Your Tem2 that would have fought in solo- still has 0 total exp towards their level up
Co-op Partner Tem1 that fought instead- gains that 60 exp after battle instead
Your cloaked Tem3 sitting in back up slot- now has 60 total exp towards their level up


So after 2 battles Solo Player has this as their exp gains:
With no Cloak and no switching: 2 Tems at 120 exp each for a total of 240 team exp
With the Cloak and no switching: 3 Tems at 80 exp each for a total of 240 team exp

So after 2 battles a Co-op Player has this as their exp gains:
With Cloak and no switching: 1 Tem now only at 120 exp for a total of 120 team exp
With the Cloak and no switching: 2 Tems now only at 60 exp each for a total of 120 team exp



So after the 2 battles the Solo Player has the advantage in team building exp earned for their Tems. Out of a total of 240 exp to split between their 6 Tems they gained all of the 240 exp. When Solo Player switches to Co-op out of the 240 exp to split between their 3 Tems they only gained 120 exp of out of a possible 240 exp as the other 120 went to their Co-op partner (Again as it should since they did half the work). This is where the 50% loss comes from. It will always be a 50% loss in team exp earned as you just are not fielding as many Tems in Co-op during battle as you are in Solo Play. You are fielding exactly half of what you would field from Solo Play which is why you lose half the exp for each battle fought. Solo Play has a field of 6 they can switch up from in one battle and Co-op only has a field of 3 they can pull from when switching. Now when Solo Player leaves the Co-Op play and they insert that 2nd Tem back into their team they have to fight 2 battles to catch it back up for each 1 battle fought in Co-op to be at the same level they should have been if they fought Solo.

It doesnt matter that they can switch up the Tems in the pc at any time to always field a different 3 and that they can switch up the Tems during the battle because they will always have less Tem gaining exp per battle in Co-op than in Solo Play.

The person who constantly switches between Solo Play and Co-Op play has to work harder than the person who plays just Solo or plays just Co-op play due to they are always losing out on team exp building. They are constantly leveling only half of what a strictly Solo player and strictly Co-op player will level. If you are strictly just playing Co-op the other half of the team is compensated by you Co-op partner. The team exp is split exactly as it would be if you played strictly as a Solo player. The only time it is not the same is when you switch between the two because you lose the 3 Tems that were on your team from Solo Play to switch to Co-op and you will lose the 3 Tems that were on your team from the Co-op Play to switch to Solo Play. Because of the constant switching you are always losing out on team exp for 3 slots.

Now here, where I see the huge problem is how exactly do you fix this issue. I've seen a couple comments that never got acknowledged that said give 100% still to each player but actually split that exp between multiple Tems and not give it to just 1 Tem. For example if we used the 120 exp then each player would gain that full 120 exp but it isnt put fully on Tem1. It is instead shared with Tem1 and their Tem2. In essence it is like they did a Solo battle but with a Co-op partner. The problem with that that I see is when the player uses 3 Tems in one battle. The exp lost from not doing Solo play then doesnt go where it needs to go since all 3 Tems at that point are earning exp from the battle since they fought in it. Now one Tem will gain extra exp that they should not have and we are left with the same issue of 1 Tem gaining double exp. The other issue is that the 3 that they cannot field in that one battle do not get any exp still because they are not in the team party either. So maybe if there was a way for one of the 3 Tems that was on your own team but not in the Co-op team party to get that other 60 exp then possibly that could be feasible solution. I really dont have an answer either to this as I see it to be a bigger issue than what I can possibly figure out. But i do recognize at the current moment that this is an issue for a player that will be switching between Co-op play and Solo play.

[RedShipRaider]

Originally posted by MrChuckleteeth:

Why is this a thread? Can people not do basic math?

Originally posted by MrFluffyWolf:

1 out of 6 is not meaningfully different from 2 out of 6,

Apparently not.