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[Men_in_Boxes]

At that point what is point of being the MP game, that you need to be online? You can do all of that offline and not worry about other players interfering.

From a publisher/developer perspective: Your money is just as good as anyone else's. Widening your potential player base is lucrative.

From a multiplayer gamers perspective: Boba Fetts (PvP types) like to buy weapons from traders and patron different cantinas built by players.

From a single player gamers perspective: It's more interesting to see to see the behaviors of real people rather than AI.

 

[CZY]

You need to add:

"I don't feel pleasure from competing with others in computer games”

Seconded. Honestly the few times I’ve finished first on a leaderboard I just felt like a fuckin nerd. Not fulfilling or rewarding at all to be better than someone else at a videogame.

 

[Fuz]

I hate people.

 

[Danjin44]

From a single player gamers perspective: It's more interesting to see to see the behaviors of real people rather than AI.

For me I have different view, for example the Father Gascoigne in Bloodborne has same hunter Axe as normal player but his animation and how he uses his axe entirely different. in PVP it just normal player with boring attacks, it just not as exciting as actual boss fight in my opinion.

 

[SF Kosmo]

Short answer, I have ADD. I like to play a lot of different games, not commit to perfecting one, and I like to be able to fit gaming into my schedule and my flights of attention, without others feeling like I am flaking on them.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Seconded. Honestly the few times I’ve finished first on a leaderboard I just felt like a fuckin nerd. Not fulfilling or rewarding at all to be better than someone else at a videogame.

Leaderboard type games are quickly receding in relevance today.

They're being replaced by multiplayer with longer arcs.

Look at Naughty Dogs Factions (the first one). It was generally highy regarded leaderboard type game, though maybe not as popular as it could have been. Factions II is all but guaranteed to be a wide open world, survival game at this point.

The focus of competing on leaderboards is being replaced by grander objectives that lend themselves to a narrative arc.

 

[GloveSlap]

I like both, but in single player i can lay down and relax. In multiplayer i have to sit up and pay attention.

 

[Black_Stride]

Theoretically, if you couldn't tell the difference between awesome AI and human opponents AND you weren't expected to socialize with anyone, would that make a difference?

So asymmetrical MP....but I always get to be the guy with the best equipment, guns, weapons, health?

Id for sure jump in MP if I could be MasterChief always versus some guys who are forced to play as grunts and elites......the grunts are forced to run away when I kill the elite, cuz the best tactic is always take out the elite first.

As long as said MP is also persistent.
So if I quit on mission 4 when i log in tomorrow, I better be on mission 4 again and the rules of said mission are grunt players should be sleeping because I waited till it was night time.

The problem with asymmetrical MP is people rarely want to be the weaker party.

The difference between MP and SP most of the time is in MP we are all equals or rather have equal opportunity to win, chance, skill, luck still plays a role, but in the grand scheme every player should have about the same chances of winning as the next player.....which is part of the reason people keep playing.....they believe their time will come.

In SP chance is basically curated by the devs, yes I might get decked on mission 4, but the devs have tried to balance mission 4 in such a way that the player isnt going to lose.

 

[manfestival]

Unfortunately I really enjoy both SP and MP. I constantly find myself envying those that focus on either SP or MP. Since there is barely enough time in the day for just SP/MP for one game. However, if a game has SP and MP. I tend to do just the SP and skip the MP. MK11 is a good recent example of this for me. MP games are on a rotation for me but it really depends on the content dump and whether enough I find the content compelling. Yet for SP I just finished solo play of the Ascent and the story of Deaths Door. Both games were fantastic in their own merits. Though I think the random nature despite being repetitiveness of MP games is part of the reason I have become such a huge fan of roguelikes.

 

[Graciaus]

multiplayer games are best enjoyed with other people. I don't have anyone to play with anymore. Meeting randoms isn't really an option since no one uses an open mic anymore.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

So asymmetrical MP....but I always get to be the guy with the best equipment, guns, weapons, health?

Id for sure jump in MP if I could be MasterChief always versus some guys who are forced to play as grunts and elites......the grunts are forced to run away when I kill the elite, cuz the best tactic is always take out the elite first.

As long as said MP is also persistent.
So if I quit on mission 4 when i log in tomorrow, I better be on mission 4 again and the rules of said mission are grunt players should be sleeping because I waited till it was night time.

The problem with asymmetrical MP is people rarely want to be the weaker party.

The difference between MP and SP most of the time is in MP we are all equals or rather have equal opportunity to win, chance, skill, luck still plays a role, but in the grand scheme every player should have about the same chances of winning as the next player.....which is part of the reason people keep playing.....they believe their time will come.

In SP chance is basically curated by the devs, yes I might get decked on mission 4, but the devs have tried to balance mission 4 in such a way that the player isnt going to lose.

Awesome post. You make a bunch of great points.

The mountain for multiplayer is providing players with the power fantasy at similar rates single player does.

I do recall this early Halo trailer (timestamped) where I thought players were going to play as Marines, collect some kind of resource (credits) during gameplay, and call down (play as) a Spartan once they collected enough.




That would have given players the power fantasy in a PvP setting but it only works if players are Marines ~90 percent of the time and Spartans ~10 percent of the time. Single player gives it to players almost all the time.

Asymmetrical gameplay currently has a lot of resistance among gamers. Everything powerful added to Fortnite gets nerfed and eventually removed after the community complains long enough. It seems like most games experience the same phenomenon from my perspective. But I do wonder if players would put up with being the Frodo (LotR) character as long as the stealth, retreat, defensive options are entertaining enough and the end reward is large enough.

 

[synchronicity]

 

[Danjin44]

 

[Black_Stride]

Awesome post. You make a bunch of great points.

The mountain for multiplayer is providing players with the power fantasy at similar rates single player does.

I do recall this early Halo trailer (timestamped) where I thought players were going to play as Marines, collect some kind of resource (credits) during gameplay, and call down (play as) a Spartan once they collected enough.




That would have given players the power fantasy in a PvP setting but it only works if players are Marines ~90 percent of the time and Spartans ~10 percent of the time. Single player gives it to players almost all the time.

Asymmetrical gameplay currently has a lot of resistance among gamers. Everything powerful added to Fortnite gets nerfed and eventually removed after the community complains long enough. It seems like most games experience the same phenomenon from my perspective. But I do wonder if players would put up with being the Frodo (LotR) character as long as the stealth, retreat, defensive options are entertaining enough and the end reward is large enough.

I would actually have loved to play marines in Halo Infinite.
If you ever played Battlefield 1, the Super Classes and even the Behemoths were basically the protagonists.....the rest of us were grunts.
If I wasnt the super class or behemoth id work my ass off to help them survive as long as possible.
So if the situation was I log in and sometimes im chief sometimes im the marines.....i would actually be game.
Id just need to be chief exactly where I left off yesterday.

The real pressure with Asym gaming is balancing the fun for the weaker side.
In most cases the only way to do this is to make you being weak a selling point....i.e the game is effectively a horror game for everyone who isnt playing the strong role.

If you remember the game Evolve.....which I supported from the jump and was even in closed betas.
The idea was perfect, the play tests....again perfect.
But once the game hit the wild, players just werent feeling it you have maybe one good match every 30 or something.
During playtesting the game actually felt balanced and losing didnt feel bad whether you were the monster or the hunters.
But something changed once the general population got their hands on it....ohh and they didnt have enough content drops to keep players engaged.

Balancing an Asymmetrical Multiplayer game would probably take more public betas than any developer/publisher is willing to give a game(Talking AAA here).
We do have success stories though:

• Dead by Daylight
• Friday the 13th
• Hello Neighbor - Better than Among Us dont @ me.

But none of these games really have a persistent world....which is something relatively easy to implement in a single player experience.
For MP sheesh just thinking about the backend of the game is making my keyboard shiver in fear from how hard id be smashing it trying to get everything to work.

I think every MP game that has tried to have a persistent world tied in has failed.

 

[speckz]

Because I'm a devoted introvert anti-social solo professional.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

The four leading complaints...

I prefer story in my games: "Who says multiplayer can't have great stories?" If Herman Hulst is saying this, so is the rest of the industry. It's also a question no one was asking 5 years ago.

I don't like the social aspect: Picture a character class (Mandalorians?) where one of their defining traits is not speaking. The lone wolf class. It's like Michael Myers walking through a house party. No one talks to or expects to coordinate with Michael Myers.

I don't like repitition: Open world survival games are the antidote to repetition. They provide players with larger power curves and give players a wider variety of tasks.

I don't want to full time job a game so I can compete: Asymmetrical design that allows players to choose what tasks they want to pursue will alleviate this.


All the reasons listed in the OP can be, and will be tackled in the next 5 years. Multiplayer is literally the Borg from Star Trek.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

I think every MP game that has tried to have a persistent world tied in has failed.

The only thing you and I disagree on is this.

Battle Royale uses a persistent world. Right now, those worlds only persist for 20 - 45 minutes depending on the game. What happens when developers start saying "That's a great idea but the only way we could build a game based on that is if our persistent world lasted 60 - 90 minutes...or 120 to 240 minutes...

Also, look at how well Rust and Ark are doing. Both games have more players today than ever, and their persistent worlds last weeks. They're also Pitfall (Atari). What happens when a AAA developer makes a Mario Bros out of that template?

 

[anthraticus]

I play games (partially) to get away from imbiciles...not run into more of them.

 

[Danjin44]

I don't like the social aspect: Picture a character class (Mandalorians?) where one of their defining traits is not speaking. The lone wolf class. It's like Michael Myers walking through a house party. No one talks to or expects to coordinate with Michael Myers.

Or I can just do the “lone wolf” completely offline, without paying any crappy subscriptions, without dealing with other players and in 10 years I can still comeback to the game and play it without fearing server shutting down.

For gamers like me MP is completely pointless.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

I play games (partially) to get away from imbiciles...not run into more of them.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Or I can just do the “lone wolf” completely offline, without paying any crappy subscriptions, without dealing with other players and in 10 years I can still comeback to the game and play it without fearing server shutting down.

My point is that single player + multiplayer historically were designed for very different tastes.

Single player was the home of large worlds where players could relax, and go at their own pace. Think Zelda, Mario Odyssey, Deus Ex...

Multiplayer was the home of small worlds where players are on top of eachother for small amounts of time. Think League of Legends, Halo, Gran Turismo...

We're now at the point where multiplayer can offer large worlds, where players can relax and go at their own pace.

Technology has finally caught up. The levee has busted open.

 

[Danjin44]

My point is that single player + multiplayer historically were designed for very different tastes.

Single player was the home of large worlds where players could relax, and go at their own pace. Think Zelda, Mario Odyssey, Deus Ex...

Multiplayer was the home of small worlds where players are on top of eachother for small amounts of time. Think League of Legends, Halo, Gran Turismo...

We're now at the point where multiplayer can offer large worlds, where players can relax and go at their own pace.

Technology has finally caught up. The levee has busted open.

But core problem is I dont want other people in my game, its that simple, no amount of "technology" going to make me want to play any MP.

 

[Antwix]

I have the unpopular opinion that talking shit gets people to perform better and better learn from their mistakes. This doesn't fly nowadays and I just get reported. Also, I just haven't found a MP game that has really hooked me for hundreds of hours like a handful of them did years back. Plus my IRL friends and my group of e-friends don't really play them anymore either and I pretty much hate people. Maybe I just grew tired of MP only games...

 

[BigBooper]

I like the freedom to experiment. If I want to slowly creep around trying to headshot everyone in Assassin's Creed Valhalla, I don't want people getting pissed at me because I'm taking too long or moving too slow. I want to feel free to blow up every single destructible object in a room or stack a car on top of a boat without my teammates being let down by my playstyle or enemy players trying to kill me.

 

[kyussman]

I like to take my time in games,soak in the world......not really something mutiplayer games are designed for.

 

[Robb]

I don't like the social aspect: Picture a character class (Mandalorians?) where one of their defining traits is not speaking. The lone wolf class. It's like Michael Myers walking through a house party. No one talks to or expects to coordinate with Michael Myers.

To me, the social aspect isn’t just ‘speaking/communicating’ with others. It also covers seeing other people in my game, no matter if we interact directly or not.

 

[Dave_at_Home]

Answer to this question is simple. I'm getting older. 36 to be exact.

I've been playing FPS competitively since freshman year in high school. Was a one point an admin on a Counter-Strike 1.5 server (good times). Anyway it's more of a factor of been there and done that. I don't have the pull to do it anymore and my time for gaming has shifted. I've enjoyed my brief stint with Halo: Infinite, but for the most part I'd just prefer letting the younger people have their fun. Only competitive shooters I'm interested in are co-op at this point.

 

[Banjo64]

I like both, and I feel for people who don’t.

Halo, Apex, Splatoon, Smash & MK8D are my current go to online games.

Single player games can be incredible, but the madness of online play simply can’t be replicated.

Aiming a noob tube high in to the sky and having it drop down and kill someone across the map 15 seconds later. Being the last person on your team alive and committing a full squad wipe on the enemy. Being splattered by a traffic cone on Halo that someone across the map fired a rocket at.

You simply can’t replicate the human variables that come with online games. Most of the funniest things that have ever happened to me in gaming have been in online games.

I still remember playing Gridlock on Gears 1 In 2006/07, my team all started making turkey gobling sounds down our mics and started doing the robot by latching on to the wall and rapidly facing left and right with our pistols equipped. Just stupid shit, but funny as fuck when strangers come together.

 

[Black_Stride]

The only thing you and I disagree on is this.

Battle Royale uses a persistent world. Right now, those worlds only persist for 20 - 45 minutes depending on the game. What happens when developers start saying "That's a great idea but the only way we could build a game based on that is if our persistent world lasted 60 - 90 minutes...or 120 to 240 minutes...

Also, look at how well Rust and Ark are doing. Both games have more players today than ever, and their persistent worlds last weeks. They're also Pitfall (Atari). What happens when a AAA developer makes a Mario Bros out of that template?

I havent tried Rust or Ark.
Fact the world is persistent for so long does intrigue me.

But what I mean by persistent is basically I could come back to an SP game basically any number of weeks later and the world is still going.
MP games generally once the match is over that world is erased.
And that world doesnt need me to keep going so for me effectively when I left the match or died in a BR game, that world ceased to exist.(I know in many games you can rejoin a server).
With a bunch of SP games these days you die, you respawn....its still the same world, or the world has reset to whatever state it was in when i died theres a sense of continuity which I think alot of non-MP players like.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

But core problem is I dont want other people in my game, its that simple, no amount of "technology" going to make me want to play any MP.

But this is the thought experiment I'm trying to propose...

If you could play a game where you couldn't tell if the enemies were brilliantly designed AI, or simply human controlled opponents, why would it matter? As long as the game is fun?

Take Spy Party for example. A 1 v 1 game where a sniper observes a group of AI with one person attempting to act like an AI while completing objectives. I don't quite understand how human controlled opponents automatically = bad as long as the PvP interactions are designed in more complex ways than shooting eachother quickly.

I like to take my time in games,soak in the world......not really something mutiplayer games are designed for.

I like the freedom to experiment. If I want to slowly creep around trying to headshot everyone in Assassin's Creed Valhalla, I don't want people getting pissed at me because I'm taking too long or moving too slow. I want to feel free to blow up every single destructible object in a room or stack a car on top of a boat without my teammates being let down by my playstyle or enemy players trying to kill me.

Can you envision a multiplayer game (Battle Royale/survival) where you're the Sam Fisher/Solid Snake class and most of the other players are Call of Duty/Master Chief types? Perhaps your objective isn't to kill opposing players, but rather to infiltrate a base and steal intelligence documents?

Now that games can host 150+ players on giant maps, designers can create objectives that appeal to people who like to experiment and go at their own pace.

 

[Danjin44]

If you could play a game where you couldn't tell if the enemies were brilliantly designed AI, or simply human controlled opponents, why would it matter? As long as the game is fun?

If I couldn't tell between them then whats the point of being the online game?

 

[existensmaximum]

because I don’t like interacting with people who break my immersion in the world/story. Games are like books/shows to me, I like to be immersed In them and enjoy them either by myself or with my wife, but not with a bunch of people.

100% this - could have been my own words.

 

[Deerock71]

Life tends to interrupt far too often for me to relax with a multiplayer game. Chilling with a game is why I've always been drawn to them. 3 kids in your life will alter what you like to chill with.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

If I couldn't tell between them then whats the point of being the online game?

Because opponents that behave in interesting, compelling and believable ways, are superior to opponents that behave in dumb, predictable ways.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Good poll. Depends on the game.

RPGs = SP. I do my own thing, take my time, dont want to coop raid or share loot or anything like that.

Sports = SP now. Used to be a mix of offline season mode and online leagues. Now I just do offline seasons. Cant be bothered with committing to online league, cheaters, boosters and shit like that. When I played NHL, it was even a hassle fighting for which position to play as I preferred wingers. And almost nobody wanted to play D or G. But if you got a full boat of gamers wanting to play together some people would force themselves to play a position they dont want to.

Shooters = MP. Havent played SP campaign in 10 years. Some people hate shooters and MP, but nothing beats this in terms of adrenaline rush or fun competing against others as a lone wolf or partied up with buddies. Ultimate replayability as no two games are ever the same even if it's the same lobby of gamers

 

[Snarts]

Skill based match making.

Almost all games have it and I don't feel like investing many hours to get good at a game only to be rewarded by being placed in MLG tournament matches every game.

 

[Neff]

I like MP games but I hugely prefer single player games due to the things you typically don't get in MP-

- Exploration
- Navigation/figuring things out/puzzle solving
- I can play at my own pace
- The degree of interaction and sense of immersion is 100% mine
- If I fuck up, it's because I fucked up, not my online partner failed or because some asshole decided to grief me

It's not necessarily about AI, or human players being sufficiently different from AI. It's about all the things MP games strip out from single player games or are impractical to implement in a MP experience. Dedicated single player games are just better and more fun, always have been. I remember particularly looking forward to Elite Dangerous because I'm a huge Elite fan, and being turned off by the mandatory MP element. Even though the game can be played solo with bots, the experience is still determined by how the community has built the game's environment. That's really what it comes down to- the experience in MP is often community mandated rather than feeling like a hand-crafted experience handed over to the individual to make their own, and I miss that. The experience should be mine, as much as possible. Me, me, me.

That said, fighting games have been a substantial component of my gaming diet for decades, and my life wouldn't be the same without them. In that regard, they're far more fun to play with others rather than solo.

No they're not.

 

[Danjin44]

Because opponents that behave in interesting, enjoyable ways, are superior to opponents that behave in dumb, predictable ways.

Actually find that opposite, real people have amazing ability to suck all the fun out of games and they always go with whats most "meta".

real players never going to give me the same excitement as actual boss fights

 

[Banjo64]

Life tends to interrupt far too often for me to relax with a multiplayer game. Chilling with a game is why I've always been drawn to them. 3 kids in your life will alter what you like to chill with.

If anything having 3 kids is why I know play more online games (quick short bursts, 20-30 minute sessions when they’re in bed). Starting a new single player campaign now feels like a huge time commitment for me. I’ll actively seek out shorter single player games.

When I was single I could play single player games for days though.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

because I don’t like interacting with people who break my immersion in the world/story. Games are like books/shows to me, I like to be immersed In them and enjoy them either by myself or with my wife, but not with a bunch of people.

I don't like opponents that break immersion either.

 

[Bo_Hazem]

Real life is my MP gaming.

 

[BigBooper]

Can you envision a multiplayer game (Battle Royale/survival) where you're the Sam Fisher/Solid Snake class and most of the other players are Call of Duty/Master Chief types? Perhaps your objective isn't to kill opposing players, but rather to infiltrate a base and steal intelligence documents?

Now that games can host 150+ players on giant maps, designers can create objectives that appeal to people who like to experiment and go at their own pace.

I could see a game like that existing. Team Fortress 2 with the spies was kind of similar.

That's not the kind of thing I described I liked to do in SP games though. We see what happens in open world MP games with some freedom to play how you want in GTA Online. People troll you and kill you over and over while insulting your mother.

 

[lh032]

so i dont need to whine about cheaters.

 

[WitchHunter]

- everyone is in a rush... go here, don't do this, don't do that, watch this video for boss strategy blablalba
- everyone is on speed or wtf?
- too much information kills mmos... it kills the exploration/experimentation aspect. information should be banned about mmos, I would hunt down MMO infosites and nuke them out of orbit with 10tb/sec DDOS (fuck up cloudflare too ), plus send army of lawyers to annihilate them... data miners: send them to labor camps etc. >DD

- everyone knew what to do with the boss, you had zero sense of achievement, because nobody wanted to wipe, everyone wanted to nuke the boss asap, get the loot, bail.
- everyone was eyeing your gear... you don't have proper gear, you are underleveled, etc. all those experts who died first in raids...
- most of the random people are just plain ignorant
- I'm not sharing my wife with anyone, same applies to bosses. I want to crack them and wear them down. don't need help with that

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

I like MP games but I hugely prefer single player games due to the things you typically don't get in MP-

- Exploration
- Navigation/figuring things out/puzzle solving
- I can play at my own pace
- The degree of interaction and sense of immersion is 100% mine
- If I fuck up, it's because I fucked up, not my online partner

It's not necessarily about AI, or human players being sufficiently different from AI. It's about all the things MP games strip out from single player games or are impractical to implement in a MP experience. Dedicated single player games are just better and more fun, always have been. I remember particularly looking forward to Elite Dangerous because I'm a huge Elite fan, and being turned off my the mandatory MP element. Even though the game can be played solo with bots, the experience is still determined by how the community has built the game's environment. That's really what it comes down to- the experience in MP is often community mandated rather than feeling like a hand-crafted experience handed over to the individual to make their own, and I miss that. The experience should be mine, as much as possible. Me, me, me.

That said, fighting games have been a substantial component of my gaming diet for decades, and my life wouldn't be the same without them. In that regard, they're far more fun to play with others rather than solo.



No they're not.

It's literally impossible to play Fortnite, Warzone, Rust, or Ark and not think current multiplayer designers are thinking about ways to...

-make the worlds more interesting to explore.
-add puzzle solving to these worlds.
-allow players to play at their own pace.
-increase the amount of immersion for players.
-remove ally behavior from player outcomes.

Everything you listed can be added or fixed as multiplayer matures out of its infancy period.

PS: Both pictures highlight protagonists observing the world at the top of a mountain.

 

[Fbh]

It's a mix of many things.

I like stories in games, I prefer the level design and encounter design of single player games, I like the sense of exploration, I prefer their pacing (when it's good) and being able to progress at my own pace, I also like some of the variety of single player with different types of enemies and bosses and I personally don't see them being dumber than humans as a negative, if anything some of my favorite games like Bloodborne would be annoying as hell if everyone was as smart as a human player. I think single player games can often create a more tightly crafted experience which I personally like more.

Now, admittedly a lot of those elements can be found in multiplayer games, particularly coop/PVE ones. I think the main difference is that a lot of PVE/Coop games, specially these days, are built around longevity and keeping players engaged for as long as possible. So they usually focus on loot, have bullet sponge enemies and involve a lot of grinding, farming and slow progression systems, all of which I hate

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

I could see a game like that existing. Team Fortress 2 with the spies was kind of similar.

That's not the kind of thing I described I liked to do in SP games though. We see what happens in open world MP games with some freedom to play how you want in GTA Online. People troll you and kill you over and over while insulting your mother.

That's only because the designers of GTA Online incentivize trolly behavior. If you design to curb that behavior, it will diminish.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

I don't like opponents that break immersion either.

Splinter Cell Conviction was atrocious. First SP cell game I played. After hearing how great these games are supposed to be where you need to sneak around or methodically kill enemies, it was retarded.

1. Shoot bad guys 15 ft away from behind a crate

2. FISHER!!! I'm gonna find you! (walks in a tight radius never checking your crate)

 

[Neff]

It's literally impossible to play Fortnite, Warzone, Rust, or Ark and not think current multiplayer designers are thinking about ways to...

-make the worlds more interesting to explore.
-add puzzle solving to these worlds.
-allow players to play at their own pace.
-increase the amount of immersion for players.
-remove ally behavior from player outcomes.

None of this means anything to me because MP experiences as they currently stand are considerably inferior to single player experiences.

PS: Both pictures highlight protagonists observing the world at the top of a mountain.

Superficially, and with a very generous lack of perception, the images are similar. But this doesn't negate the fact that the two games are nothing alike.

 

[Pagusas]

I don't like opponents that break immersion either.

Me either, but games are technically flawed, be it multiplayer or single player. Can't do anything about that other than hope developers get better and better over time.