Multiplayer Idea(s)

[Guest 4149880]

It needs to be so separate from the SP game that we do not even see a hint of MP in our games if we so choose. To go in hubs and see other people or to even see social places with the game telling me this would insta-destroy my immersion.

I do not care about MP but if CDPR make it a separate install we can skip then I have no issue with that. I do not want to be social in my RPGs I'm social already in real life. I'd prefer CDPR to stay away from this but I realize this is too much to ask these days to have a game without MP. Make it at least the entire MP component optional and when I said optional I mean we do not even need to install in the game if we so choose.

I don't think a separate MP is wise, for a few reasons.

The majority of fans want all or most of the development time and resources spent on single player. So what MP elements they do implement should probably be spent on ways to implement features that only support the single player experience rather then isolating the MP features off into its own little corner. Without the full force behind building a separate mode, it would be pointless for CDPR to attempt it, if the end result is a half effort addition that doesn't get much traction with the community.

Multiplayer should absolutely be optional, but if seamless MP elements like Co-op, PvP, Hubs where built into the single player world then its a good chance a lot of people who weren't interested in separate MP mode might otherwise give the seamless MP at least a chance.

With the seamless MP being optional, it would also allow those who don't want MP to simply turn it off and all MP zones that would support Co-op, PvP and Hubs would then be populated with NPC, PvE and companions, naturally.​

Some people want MP, some don't. If they do end up making an optional MP component it would probably be in everyone's best interest if its as integrated into the established single player world as much as possible so that its doesn't require as much resources it would otherwise need if MP was an entirely separate mode.

A separate mode built well after release of the game would also just hinder development time of later DLC and expansion content to expand the single player experience we all want.

Broken record- Best option in my opinion is small scale seamless MP addition optional mode, built into the already created and established single player world. Single player content shouldn't be compromised and people can also interact with the community within the game though Co-op, PvP, Hubs. On the surface, I don't see a problem with a system like this.

If there must be a multiplayer element at all (which clearly there must be, for some reason), P2P connection (in which players must opt in to use the mode at all) or a few dedicated servers to pull off whatever "Seamless" experience they claim to want will suffice just fine.

I almost guarantee 2077 won't work like Destiny as it run entirely on servers and requires online connection at all times. So I don't foresee the seamless mechanics working like that. Example of walking through the city and running into other players in real time. At least in the majority of the game space. Might be possible once logged into the games servers that you will be able to interact with players seamless in the small hub zones, though, but might require load in transition, but who knows.​

 

[Suhiira]

I don't think a separate MP is wise, for a few reasons.

MP is going to exist in CP2077, that's pretty much a given.
CP2077 is not going to be an MMO with dedicated servers and such, also a given.
Therefore the only option is local hosting.

You set up your PC to host a limited number (based on your PC's capabilities) of other players in an MP session.
(How the hell this is going to work for console players ... I don't have a clue.)
Therefore MP will be optional ... you have to either set up your game ... or join and existing game ... for there to even be multi-player.
This alone solves a good number of the problems any multi-player environment creates (assuming the tools to eject/bann/limit players on the server you're hosting exist).

It would be EXTREMELY difficult to incorporate MP into the single-player campaign ... who does the talking? Who determines where the group goes? How do NPCs react if part of the group has already completed the mission objectives? So for practical reasons it has to be pretty much a separate mode. Now you run into the problem ... what do you do while in multi-player? A bunch if essentially inane activities like GTA?

No matter how you look at it, adding multi-player to a game not build for it from the ground up isn't near as easy as the publisher exes with $ signs in their eyes ... or the players that want/demand it, think it is. Unless we're satisfied with the lame excuses for MP many games shoe horn in because someone thought it was a good idea.

 

[Snowflakez]

No matter how you look at it, adding multi-player to a game not build for it from the ground up isn't near as easy as the publisher exes with $ signs in their eyes ... or the players that want/demand it, think it is. Unless we're satisfied with the lame excuses for MP many games shoe horn in because someone thought it was a good idea.

We all know there's going to be multiplayer. Me and Beast have suggested several possible methods that we think would work. The first is a Dark-Souls like experience - I don't think either of us (At least, not I) are asking for actual story or even side-quest-story content to be accessible by all players at once. Rather, I think we're asking for players to be able to go about and do "radiant"-style side content. Outposts without too much going on, that sort of thing. Stuff that doesn't necessarily have an actual story attached to it. It would be quite ridiculous (and probably impossible without a ton of development time and money) to expect multiple players to tackle all of the story an open world Night City can throw at them, and it's ruin the single player nature of the game.

Don't ask me how it would work specifically, because I haven't thought about it - not my job. If CDPR implements something similar, they can work out the details and the mechanics themselves. All I know is it absolutely can work. I can't think of a technical or mechanical reason it can't - not one that can't be overcome, anyway. Far Cry 4 is a notable example of this sort of thing. Say what you will about the game, but it nailed coop.

Of course, there are risks associated with this sort of thing. For example, how much outpost content do you have? Does it just lack any sort of story or reason for being there entirely? Does that compromise the side quest story and main story? If so, to what degree? Etc. But like I said, problems that can be overcome, or tweaked until they work.

Alternatively, we've just suggested seamless social hubs. Either zones or bars where players can enter and just see other players. This would be entirely optional. A feature that can be turned off if you do not want it. But if you do want it, you can screw around within certain parameters (in a bar it'd be pretty stupid if players could jump around and knock everything off the tables, possibly ruining the experience for others) and hang out.

But I'm curious, what sort of multiplayer mode do you see them adding, Su?

 

[Guest 4149880]

MP is going to exist in CP2077, that's pretty much a given.
CP2077 is not going to be an MMO with dedicated servers and such, also a given.
Therefore the only option is local hosting.

You set up your PC to host a limited number (based on your PC's capabilities) of other players in an MP session.
(How the hell this is going to work for console players ... I don't have a clue.)
Therefore MP will be optional ... you have to either set up your game ... or join and existing game ... for there to even be multi-player.
This alone solves a good number of the problems any multi-player environment creates (assuming the tools to eject/bann/limit players on the server you're hosting exist).

It would be EXTREMELY difficult to incorporate MP into the single-player campaign ... who does the talking? Who determines where the group goes? How do NPCs react if part of the group has already completed the mission objectives? So for practical reasons it has to be pretty much a separate mode. Now you run into the problem ... what do you do while in multi-player? A bunch if essentially inane activities like GTA?

No matter how you look at it, adding multi-player to a game not build for it from the ground up isn't near as easy as the publisher exes with $ signs in their eyes ... or the players that want/demand it, think it is. Unless we're satisfied with the lame excuses for MP many games shoe horn in because someone thought it was a good idea.

P2P or server based games on consoles aren't anything new. The souls series as used both in the past. Server based proving the best option and works just fine on consoles and within a single player based world supporting MP in the same space all at once. Allowing players to connect to the hosts game. There's less managing and its more streamlined. All these features the Host would require have been available even on consoles so that's not the problem, but some options like player count might need to be limited and decided by the developers rather the players for game design purposes.

I disagree with the assumption multiplayer and single player can't be incorporated. What isn't extremely difficult in game design. That's no excuse. The concepts can be designed, but the game doesn't need to allow every player in the group to be the main character. That's nonsense, as in the host world, its still the hosts game, with co op players instead of companions. The host would simply call the shots because while in MP, the ultimate objective is helping the host beat the mission, but in a group of well established players, they can all decide where to go next and what missions they want to do. Players help complete the host worlds objectives and vice versa. Co op players should simply be an addition to combat rather then being deeply ingrained into the story/cutscenes in my option but feel free disagree.

Yes multiplayer will part of 2077, but does it need to change the entire landscape of the single player experience? No it doesn't, but it can add a level of interaction for those that would like to experience the game with others. How deep that may go, who knows but its not like nay of this is new this era of gaming. How its implemented, only time will tell.

 

[Suhiira]

P2P or server based games on consoles aren't anything new. The souls series as used both in the past. Server based proving the best option and works just fine on consoles and within a single player based world supporting MP in the same space all at once. Allowing players to connect to the hosts game. There's less managing and its more streamlined. All these features the Host would require have been available even on consoles so that's not the problem, but some options like player count might need to be limited and decided by the developers rather the players for game design purposes.

Unless I'm mistaken (certainly possible as I've never owned a console) there's no way for console players to host a game. Sure, they could join one hosted by a PC owner, but without a dedicated server somewhere they couldn't create a MP game to share with their console using friends.

I disagree with the assumption multiplayer and single player can't be incorporated. What isn't extremely difficult in game design. That's no excuse.

There's "difficult - this will take a programmer a few days" and "DIFFICULT - this will take many people several months".
Why do you think MMOs generally take more people longer to create then single-player games?

Do you really want me to get into some of the issues any MP game (that works even remotely well) has to deal with that single-player games don't even have to consider?

 

[Snowflakez]

Unless I'm mistaken (certainly possible as I've never owned a console) there's no way for console players to host a game. Sure, they could join one hosted by a PC owner, but without a dedicated server somewhere they couldn't create a MP game to share with their console using friends.

I suggested P2P connection as one way around this. Plenty of MP games already do this. CoD games did this on console, as there were no dedicated servers. One player is the host, the others connect to them. No, it's not the best option in the world, but it's tried and true when dedicated servers aren't available (in the case of console).

To your second paragraph, remember: the Dark Souls games handled multiplayer perfectly fine without significant changes to the single player formula. Have you played them?

I don't know how long it took them, true, but I have no reason to believe it was as long as (or longer than) a standalone multiplayer mode. You're just adding multiplayer support for otherwise single player portions of the game (not story missions or side quests in my example... just "radiant"/random stuff - in Dark Souls, you're literally just dropping additional players into the maps to fight monsters and bosses with you, there's no cutscenes for them to even show up in really), not adding new multiplayer mechanics or anything.

 

[Guest 4149880]

Unless I'm mistaken (certainly possible as I've never owned a console) there's no way for console players to host a game. Sure, they could join one hosted by a PC owner, but without a dedicated server somewhere they couldn't create a MP game to share with their console using friends.

You're mistaken. Ark for example allows users to host and own the servers that runs directly from the console, for that type of game it works. You're talking about developer owned dedicated servers used by hundreds of game developers to allow the users to simply play online? That doesn't require the host to have their own servers, and player hosting MP is surely not necessary for all games.

There is no argument online games run on servers run by other computers, but those servers do not require other players/users to need a host and not all games need them. Players don't have access to direct servers only a shared host option, and on consoles it basically works the same way behind the scenes when the player host the online game.

There's "difficult - this will take a programmer a few days" and "DIFFICULT - this will take many people several months". Why do you think MMOs generally take more people longer to create then single-player games?
Do you really want me to get into some of the issues any MP game (that works even remotely well) has to deal with that single-player games don't even have to consider?

Well I suppose that's the reason its taking CDPR several years to make the game, its not an easy job no doubt.

What you explain is your prerogative but without knowledge of how game based servers work across all platforms including consoles. It won't make much of a difference. Not stating I have extensive knowledge on every aspect of this subject but its clear, neither of us have that.

 

[Suhiira]

Not stating I have extensive knowledge on every aspect of this subject but its clear, neither of us have that.

Neither do I, I was never a network programmer. But I was, am, a programmer, so I do know the basics.

 

[Lisbeth_Salander]

GTA online is something I enjoyed for a while, yet it grew to become something I came to despise mostly because it ended up being a perfect manifestation of 'an inch deep and a mile wide'.

The decease that has spread among most open world games. "Why make a game with depth since you can fool players into buying your supperficial game?"

 

[Snowflakez]

The decease that has spread among most open world games. "Why make a game with depth since you can fool players into buying your supperficial game?"

No kidding. This was exactly how I felt when I bought GTA 5 - and not just because of GTAO. The game itself looked like it had so much to offer, but once your suspension of disbelief fell away, there was just... nothing there. Nobody to care about, the side activities were tremendously boring, and you just didn't feel like you were living in this city. I actually think GTA 4 handled this much better.

 

[cyberpunkforever]

Well', I'd like a mor simple MP, 4 player coop, big map, doing objectives and fighting waves of enemies, defensive, offensive and coop skills to choose.

and team against team, 6 vs 6 big map, maybe vehicles too, some objectives and make points defeating the other team

epic

 

[Guest 4149880]

and team against team, 6 vs 6 big map, maybe vehicles too, some objectives and make points defeating the other team

Team Death Match is the video games equivalent to sporting events which is exactly what the more tradition MP modes were based off of in the old days of video games with Doom and Quake. While fun to some, does it really fit the world of Cyberpunk or is this style of MP simply something many people think CDPR should just add in without context to the rest of the game?

I'd much prefer any MP element that's made to have some kind of deeply ingrained meaning into the actual world and lore of Cyberpunk other then teaming off for no real reason other then to win the match. There should be a reason or goal as to why players are co-op or facing each other in PvP to acquire something the other player might have or to accomplish their goal of needing to kill or subdue the other player, whatever that might be.