The multiplayer is a complete mess

[Traslo]

Honestly, please just delete the multiplayer if this is the state it's going to be in. 99% of matches desync, often immediately. No countdown timer or anything to lock people in so people often bug out lobbies by quitting when host had hit ready, and no real way to communicate beyond fairly poor choices of premade messages. That's not to mention the fact there's basically no Co-op dedicated content, just awkward no-one-really-balanced-this quartering up of existing stages. We can't even set which quarter of the stage we want to take!

There's no incentive for people to stay and no punishment for spam leaving it seems. Even just getting through a 40-round easy map is legitimately near impossible on co-op.

[sfnhltb]

Co-op works fine over LAN. Except for the weird issue where fast forward slows back down without being turned off every few rounds.

[patio.gurnisson]

But it's not a complete mess :)
It's just shaped the way you didn't expect and you need time to adapt.
In my case -
Matches don't desync, there could be some disconnections and even a bugged state "waiting for the end of current round" that spans until the end of the game, but this happens quite rarely (perhaps i just have a good internet connection, would recommend having it). There are like 5-10% matches where someone quits in the beginning - no problem at all if someone else is staying.
No countdown timer - yes, but it should protect from the different issue - people having no time to pick another hero between they join a lobby and game starts. Again, that's a subtle problem... if host is so impatient and doesn't give time, i'd quit and go into the next game, ez.
Messaging is poor, and AFAIK there is no hotkey for messages and emotes, so my reaction is usually 1-2 rounds late, and i rarely use messages/emotes therefore.
Map splitting is optional and it's better to have it than not. When map is split it affects your choice of monkeys and sometimes you pick a different amazingly good combination. That's fun, too.
The reason to stay, apart from being a good teammate, is to get the monkey money, and the round 100 instant monkey. There's much less reason to stay until rounds 200 and 300, that could have been rewarded better, at least in co-op (but not sure, because if something is done for a reward and not just for fun, it's.. less fun).
I'd play co-op in monkey teams mode, right now in like 99% of the games someone puts a different monkey and breaks the plot... but again, enforcing the mode may be worse.

So. The problem with co-op is not the poor UX or bad co-op teammates or whatever.. the problem is that you didn't figure out how to get fun from co-op. I'd recommend you to treat it like a challenge:
* just win a co-op game
* do most damage
* develop the best economy
* win spending least money or least tiers (CT conditions)
* win with random monkeys
* split the map and have to win with monkeys you don't usually place
* win most efficiently (least monkeys, least money spent, least micro involved)
* use a different hero which you don't usually place, e.g. Brickell or Adora
* win with the given random teammates
and so on

[Dead Meme]

Originally posted by patio.gurnisson:

But it's not a complete mess :)
It's just shaped the way you didn't expect and you need time to adapt.
In my case -
Matches don't desync, there could be some disconnections and even a bugged state "waiting for the end of current round" that spans until the end of the game, but this happens quite rarely (perhaps i just have a good internet connection, would recommend having it). There are like 5-10% matches where someone quits in the beginning - no problem at all if someone else is staying.
No countdown timer - yes, but it should protect from the different issue - people having no time to pick another hero between they join a lobby and game starts. Again, that's a subtle problem... if host is so impatient and doesn't give time, i'd quit and go into the next game, ez.
Messaging is poor, and AFAIK there is no hotkey for messages and emotes, so my reaction is usually 1-2 rounds late, and i rarely use messages/emotes therefore.
Map splitting is optional and it's better to have it than not. When map is split it affects your choice of monkeys and sometimes you pick a different amazingly good combination. That's fun, too.
The reason to stay, apart from being a good teammate, is to get the monkey money, and the round 100 instant monkey. There's much less reason to stay until rounds 200 and 300, that could have been rewarded better, at least in co-op (but not sure, because if something is done for a reward and not just for fun, it's.. less fun).
I'd play co-op in monkey teams mode, right now in like 99% of the games someone puts a different monkey and breaks the plot... but again, enforcing the mode may be worse.

So. The problem with co-op is not the poor UX or bad co-op teammates or whatever.. the problem is that you didn't figure out how to get fun from co-op. I'd recommend you to treat it like a challenge:
* just win a co-op game
* do most damage
* develop the best economy
* win spending least money or least tiers (CT conditions)
* win with random monkeys
* split the map and have to win with monkeys you don't usually place
* win most efficiently (least monkeys, least money spent, least micro involved)
* use a different hero which you don't usually place, e.g. Brickell or Adora
* win with the given random teammates
and so on

>matches dont desync
do you even play this game?

[patio.gurnisson]

Originally posted by Dead Meme:

Originally posted by patio.gurnisson:

But it's not a complete mess :)
It's just shaped the way you didn't expect and you need time to adapt.
In my case -
Matches don't desync, there could be some disconnections and even a bugged state "waiting for the end of current round" that spans until the end of the game, but this happens quite rarely (perhaps i just have a good internet connection, would recommend having it). There are like 5-10% matches where someone quits in the beginning - no problem at all if someone else is staying.
No countdown timer - yes, but it should protect from the different issue - people having no time to pick another hero between they join a lobby and game starts. Again, that's a subtle problem... if host is so impatient and doesn't give time, i'd quit and go into the next game, ez.
Messaging is poor, and AFAIK there is no hotkey for messages and emotes, so my reaction is usually 1-2 rounds late, and i rarely use messages/emotes therefore.
Map splitting is optional and it's better to have it than not. When map is split it affects your choice of monkeys and sometimes you pick a different amazingly good combination. That's fun, too.
The reason to stay, apart from being a good teammate, is to get the monkey money, and the round 100 instant monkey. There's much less reason to stay until rounds 200 and 300, that could have been rewarded better, at least in co-op (but not sure, because if something is done for a reward and not just for fun, it's.. less fun).
I'd play co-op in monkey teams mode, right now in like 99% of the games someone puts a different monkey and breaks the plot... but again, enforcing the mode may be worse.

So. The problem with co-op is not the poor UX or bad co-op teammates or whatever.. the problem is that you didn't figure out how to get fun from co-op. I'd recommend you to treat it like a challenge:
* just win a co-op game
* do most damage
* develop the best economy
* win spending least money or least tiers (CT conditions)
* win with random monkeys
* split the map and have to win with monkeys you don't usually place
* win most efficiently (least monkeys, least money spent, least micro involved)
* use a different hero which you don't usually place, e.g. Brickell or Adora
* win with the given random teammates
and so on

>matches dont desync
do you even play this game?

you mean the forum battles? no, sorry.

[patio.gurnisson]

Originally posted by patio.gurnisson:

Originally posted by Dead Meme:

>matches dont desync
do you even play this game?

you mean the forum battles? no, sorry.

or maybe that's a desync too... - "P4 has been removed from the game" is sometimes repeating until some other player quits. This is happening, yes, not so often to remember, but it happened right now and i figured that perhaps you can call it desync.
That's not a permanent desync, and the game stays playable (although this message is annoying for sure).

[TaterTot]

Its a P2P connection......
Been this way for years.
Nothing new.

[VAIN06]

Dunno what you yammering about but I just had a 6 hour session with 2 close friends without any issue. Rarely had any issue with random MM either. But yeah! I agree on that slowing down thing which affected me once.

[ν]

Originally posted by Traslogan:

Honestly, please just delete the multiplayer if this is the state it's going to be in. 99% of matches desync, often immediately. No countdown timer or anything to lock people in so people often bug out lobbies by quitting when host had hit ready, and no real way to communicate beyond fairly poor choices of premade messages. That's not to mention the fact there's basically no Co-op dedicated content, just awkward no-one-really-balanced-this quartering up of existing stages. We can't even set which quarter of the stage we want to take!

There's no incentive for people to stay and no punishment for spam leaving it seems. Even just getting through a 40-round easy map is legitimately near impossible on co-op.

Ya the desync and lack of a lobby timer / ready feature is annoying but the rest of what you mentioned isn't entirely accurate.

The lobby host can change the "quartering" of stages a lot of different ways or disable it entirely so you can place anywhere. You should host yourself so you can set this and only start the game after counting down to give people time.

The communication options are enough, but you have to buy them from the trophy store. The reason for not being able to chat is so the game can maintain a child friendly rating.

There's also co-op bosses, challenges, and maybe races? The dedicated co-op is basically the Contested Territory mode. It's a tower defense game, I'm not sure what else you would consider a dedicated co-op than placing towers and defending together in the normal co-op option. I guess you meant exclusive co-op where it can't be done solo but why would you want to lock people out of content when the system is already bad?