Two player only? With that wording?

[Zgreens]

OK, So maybe I'm the only one, and if I am, I will shut up.

For reasons that don't bear going into, I am only able to play video games once a week, for about a 2.5 hour window.  (I know, we all got problems, and this is one of mine.)

The facts:

1. I've been excited about JA3 from the moment it got released, talking it up to peers.

2. The features section of every piece of JA3 marketing has said "Experience the campaign with friends in online co-op mode"

3. Announcement today: Co-op is 2 player only

4. Other games word their co-op statements thusly:

• Portal 2: "Complete two-person co-op"
• It Takes Two: "Embark on a crazy journey, purely build for two..."
• We Were Here: "Two players are trapped inside an abandoned castle, with Player One confined to a small secluded part of the castle as Player Two roams the halls trying to find Player One."
• Baldur's Gate 3: "Play alone, and select your companions carefully, or as a party of up to four in multiplayer."

I could continue, but I won't.  The only example I found that just says "friends" is "Sons of the Forest".  The wiki says it supports 8 players.  This may sound needlessly nit picky, but this detail is the difference between me being able to play this game for 300 hours, or maybe like 3.

Am I the only one who feels that this was a deliberate "whoopsie" to boost pre-orders?

[Claypl]

Its just you I guess, my guestimate is that 95% will solo this

[Jaywalker]

Co-op in turn-based is pointless to begin with: I can take my turn quicker and more precisely when I control all of my own units.

[5Cents]

Hm, i might be wrong. But i guess, most pre-orders werent done by players who are too keen for JA3 cause of Coop.

Reason is JA was never a networkgame. You could do it, in Deadly Games, however. For me, Ja is a typical 1player game.
That it was build for.
Most players want to play it alone, i guess. For me i can say that.. i actually dont care and have no intention to do any coop.

Maybe most of preorder-buyers dont care, you only can Coop 2 players.

I dont believe, it was a selling-trap or so.

But sorry, for you.

[Raeven]

The difference between multiplayer with 3+ players vs just 2 means you will spend 100x more hours in the game??

Yeah that's just you

[Jaywalker]

27 minutes ago, Raeven said:

The difference between multiplayer with 3+ players vs just 2 means you will spend 100x more hours in the game??

Obviously, having to wait for 4 people to finish their turn will absolutely extend the playthrough by at least  double the time. 🤣

[Zgreens]

46 minutes ago, Raeven said:

The difference between multiplayer with 3+ players vs just 2 means you will spend 100x more hours in the game??

Yeah that's just you

Yes, because my only gaming time is a set weekly multiplayer with two friends.

[Zgreens]

1 hour ago, Jaywalker said:

Co-op in turn-based is pointless to begin with: I can take my turn quicker and more precisely when I control all of my own units.

Yeah, me too, but some of us don't have the luxury of unlimited solo gaming time.  I understand that the majority of play hours will be solo, and I understand why, but that's not my use case.

[GODSPEED]

4 hours ago, Jaywalker said:

Co-op in turn-based is pointless to begin with: I can take my turn quicker and more precisely when I control all of my own units.

Co-op isn't necessarily to maximise something. It can be to simply spend time with someone else.

I've played Baldur's Gate 1 & 2, Icewind Dale 1 & 2, a little bit of Baldur's Gate 3 with my brother, many times. It's much quicker and efficient to play alone... but it was fun to play with him.

Same thing here. It's just fun to play with a friend or gf/bf if you can.


JA2 1.13 has multiplayer. Played it a few times with others... but that wasn't co-op, more of a VS. mode. Still kind of fun to be honest.

[Grim]

To OP, I don't think they phrased the coop that way to gain more preorders, no. That's only my opinion but it doesn't seem probable at all.

What probably happened : They wanted to implement coop in a way. They tried some things, and 2 player coop ended up being the best compromise, for game stability, ressources spent in the feature, etc. They probably didn't even expect to have more than 2 players coop and the steam page phrasing was unintentionnaly imprecise.

My wish : Like you, I would have loved to play the game with friends. I spend most of my playing time in coop with a group of friends. Playing JA3 would have been awesome? It is not possible, too bad. I will play it solo and maybe with one of them if there is a volunteer.
Would the game have been 4 coop, 3 more copies would have been sold for sure. I can't tell for the rest of the community. From my experience in the forums, there seems to be the whole spectrum, a lot of solo players, some PVPers, and several coop players I couldn't count.
I hope Heamimont will open more slots for coop in the future if the game engine allows it, but I keep my expectation low.

Note : In  JA3 turns are for the whole team, both players can play at the same time. It isn't "each character has a turn" , wich is waaaaay longer to play.

Edited July 7, 2023 by Grim

[Reedwhistle]

I don't think it was an intentional mislead and I don't think most of the JA fanbase is interested in co-op. I'm pretty excited to play with my sister though and start blaming each other for alerting the enemy or accidently wandering into the crossfire and then fighting over loot at the end. I need the 5.56 more than you! You can have all the 9mm

[D13]

I have no doubt that, should multiplayer prove popular, they will add support for more participants, maybe  even PvP. It's already a bit of a surprise to have multiplayer at all.

I wouldn't be surprised if even internally there had been some doubt about multiplayer, and in the end they agreed to start small with minimal effort, see if people like it, and if so allocate more resources. Better than building a JA3 MMORPG only to find that five people are using it.

[Claypl]

PVP mode would be probably more cool IMHO and it allows you to build upon it more then COOP. Heck you could even do some mini tournaments on it one day!

[chr_isso]

I actually see this as some mod that could be:

Have a 1vs1 style game, where you need to kill all enemies (of the other player).
You enter a sector, spawns are selected randomly, you have the same squad for equal chances and then you need to win.
1 minute per player per turn once the fight starts, so games would not take forever.
 

[GODSPEED]

1 hour ago, chr_isso said:

I actually see this as some mod that could be:

Have a 1vs1 style game, where you need to kill all enemies (of the other player).
You enter a sector, spawns are selected randomly, you have the same squad for equal chances and then you need to win.
1 minute per player per turn once the fight starts, so games would not take forever.
 

That's already in JA2 1.13

It's  really fun to pick your map, pick your mercs and loadout and not really know where or what the other team is composed of. It's actually kind of nerve-racking going against another human opponent.

If you play with 1.13 + Ai.exe, it gives you a small taste of playing vs "humans"; being flanked, suppressed and then having a bunch of flares thrown your way as enemies do not expose themselves. EEESH!!! 20+ years of JA2 standard tactics can be thrown out the window and are useless.

[Raeven]

37 minutes ago, GODSPEED said:

That's already in JA2 1.13

It's  really fun to pick your map, pick your mercs and loadout and not really know where or what the other team is composed of. It's actually kind of nerve-racking going against another human opponent.

If you play with 1.13 + Ai.exe, it gives you a small taste of playing vs "humans"; being flanked, suppressed and then having a bunch of flares thrown your way as enemies do not expose themselves. EEESH!!! 20+ years of JA2 standard tactics can be thrown out the window and are useless.

I always ask this - as a 1.13 fan, is there a version you recommend? Or do you just go with latest?

[GODSPEED]

19 hours ago, Raeven said:

is there a version you recommend? Or do you just go with latest?

http://ja2v113.pbworks.com/w/page/4218334/Downloads

Both versions below are pretty "standard" stable versions. Some of the newer version are simply incremental updates that add features.


Build 4870
If you want something way closer to vanilla JA2 with higher resolutions and with just slight improvements to amount of enemies, and a few more options regarding basic features that were disabled in stock JA2, than this is the version. I've completed the game with this version and overall it is pretty stable. It lacks some of the more expansive (but true-to-JA2) options in character builds. So the release below is the one that has become my own standard because of the character creation providing more options and the resolution options. I consider this version to be the oldest core 1.13 version you can go to and the most stable as well.

Release 7435 with update (Build: 7609)
If you want slightly MORE options in character builds, more experimenting with extra features; you've got a food system (you need to eat!), the option to use NCTH (New Chance-to-Hit system; supposedly more realistic bullet 'physics'). You get some background options for the mercs and your imp (bonuses and roleplay), many more building types to interact with in the Strategic layer (bars, prisons, mines, warehouses, etc..). It's hard to be brief about everything because there is so much, but it also offers more resolution options that are fitting to my own monitor vs 4870.

Keep in mind, anything can be enabled/disabled in the .ini editor. You aren't forced to make use of the food system, zombies, or anything you don't like.

Below are are some of the basic options:

You can also use the New Inventory System. So, items can receive way more attachments. More details on each weapon used as well. Popup explains what everything is. For myself, I never went back to the old inventory since using the New Inventory.





Here are more details on the initial in-game options you can change (anything else needs to be tweaked through the easy-to-use ini editor).

It's my go-to because it's stable and has most options I want in the game, without feeling overwhelmed with features I don't care for that much.

[Raeven]

Gotcha. I've noticed many prefer the 10 year old "stable" version as opposed to anything released since.