Since Mount&Blade II: Bannerlord was announced as the next installment of Mount&Blade, the idea of a possible implementation of a co-op mode was a really hot and debated topic among the community. Nevertheless, the subject has never had the luxury of its own thread, where its pros and cons can be freely discussed without being swarmed and mixed with hype and blog requests. Therefore, I hereby declare the co-op thread opened.
What about the technical details/difficulties? and the gameplay? it will be live action participation for both players? if someone is sieging a castle will the other be able to intercept? should they be both logged in to play the specific scenario? will the computer AI have any preferrence between them? what will the dynamics between AI and human players will be? how will it decide with whom to allign or begin a war against?
as for the characteristics i already stated my opinion. i believe it would be pointless if:
1) it was only cooperative and they couldn't be rivals.
2) it cannot host at least 4 players, which gives much better dynamics, strategic and diplomatic depth etc.... .
*"if they want to speak in private they should meet personally... " or what? the skynet banerlord AI will intercept, understand, and use against them their messages?
Of course, they should be able to be rivals, but I'm a bit skeptical about a too big number of players. I consider that 2-3 are enough, well, maybe 4, but certainly not more. Otherwise, there would be serious technical and methodical difficulties.
As I have stated in my ideas on the OP, I want the experience to be as close to SP as possible, so every action should automatically have its own consequences regarding AI relations with players.
I'll write about battle interactions a bit later, as my swarm of ideas is not yet complete.
man, realistically, i don't see it happening any time soon... . meaning any time at all... .
other thoughts:
if one player has a higher ranking/nobility in calradia, be a king, lord etc, and the other is just a peasant, will he have any special priviledges/authorities against him?
will one player be able to hire the other in his army as a lord or officer?
will automated and fastbattles/sieges exist in this mode?
Implementing it is not impossible; the devs said they tried different solutions themselves, so, it's just a matter of providing feedback and methods that could work.
As a king, interacting with other players should be somewhat different, since you're playing with a human who actually thinks, not a programmed AI. Thus, your main options should be to offer a fief or kick him out of the faction. The rest of the things should be discussed via chat (or voice chat).
We still don't know what improvements Bannerlord has regarding parties; some people have speculated that we might attach to us otherAI lords (as marshalls), but that's just speculation. Anyways, if you mean that more players should be in one singe party, then I have no idea how that would work, because it would cause problems with AI interactions. For example: if you meet an AI lord on the map, who is gonna talk to him? who is gonna plan the battle? what if the others don't want to enter a specific scene at once? That would be too annoying. That's why each player should have his own party.
After all, they could communicate and decide whether they really want to meet/start a battle/help each other. It wouldn't even be necessary to put them in one party.
Nevertheless, the subject has never had the luxury of its own thread, where its pros and cons can be freely discussed without being swarmed and mixed with hype and blog requests.
To be fair, there are a considerable number of threads about this over at The Privy Council suggestion board. (A quick search of coop and co-op of that board turned up around 3 pages of relevant threads.)
I highly suggest folks that want to discuss more detailed feature suggestions, like this, to make use of that board.
Would love to see co-op, even if it's just two players in the same party, would be amazing. A way I could see more players in a game, would be a server based game where like you said, invited only players could join/leave when they wish and when no one is in the game the game time pauses. Somthing like that would be nice with 8 friends or so. But i'd still stand by 2 player co-op lords.
One thing to consider would be pausing or slowing the game, but that would be inconvenient for other players. Perhaps the host could have the option to decide what would happen (slow/pause/do nothing) to the game if one of the players got into a situation mentioned above. Just like in Europa Universalis, a host could choose how much to slow the game or whether to pause it. But we need to reduce that kind of situations to the minimum.
1) When all players are not doing anything, the game could pause just like in singleplayer, if all players are resting in a camp or a settlement, the game could speed up. 2) Ordinary menus could be replaced by upgraded context menus. They could have all the options of an ordinary menu and more, like talk to a person that can be found inside (including merchants, mercenaries, lords, guild masters, elders, companions (context sub-menus could be used to reduce size)) so the player doesn't have to enter the actual scene.
Context menu, just with a lot more options and sub-menus to reduce the need for a player to enter scenes.
3) When a player is interacting or if he decided to enter the scene, he should still get event notifications and see his current position on a minimap which he could use to see if a player isn't camping his position or if noone is going after him while he's interacting.
The design could be better, it's just an example.
4) For auto-resolve, the battles could work like AI vs AI battles if no players are willing to participate, but want to send their troops. In a 1 v 1 player situation, if one wants to send his troops only, then it should work like in normal singleplayer, one player battles the other one's troops. Also, in singleplayer, when you start a battle, no extra reinforcements can come from the campaign map. To prevent or nerf this, we could hide the battle, prevent interaction or add a timer for the arrival of reinforcements or enemies. If the oppossing force is beaten before the timer, the winners can escape without fighting the enemy reinforcements. The time it takes for reinforcements to arrive could be proportional to the size of those reinforcements. If a player wins the battle, but only after the timer had ran out, he would have to fight the new forces after respawning (like in singleplayer, when reinforcement waves reach their limit, you have to reset the battle with the remaining troops on both sides). Another timer would still be needed for making a decision whether to fight or to surrender, if the timer runs out the default decision could be "Charge the enemy.".
Nevertheless, the subject has never had the luxury of its own thread, where its pros and cons can be freely discussed without being swarmed and mixed with hype and blog requests.
To be fair, there are a considerable number of threads about this over at The Privy Council suggestion board. (A quick search of coop and co-op of that board turned up around 3 pages of relevant threads.)
I highly suggest folks that want to discuss more detailed feature suggestions, like this, to make use of that board.
If we had a forum section for Bannerlord suggestions and developers read it, then posting there would be a good idea, but that will probably happen when the BETA testing starts.
My personal opinion is it should be from 4-6 players. Host can save game so you can continiue playing another day! And yes this game mode should be with your friends and not randoms so i totally agree on the game invite thing.
Additionally i believe it would be best just making everything real time with no pauses at all. Which actually would make it funnier chilling in your castle when it suddenly gets besieged etc. If people don't like the real time thing, well then there's singleplayer. And i prefer having a real time co op campaign than none at all!
In battles i think for the "leader" he should have the option of being able to assign if he will control everyones men or they should have control of their own, this would add more tactics since you would be able to make epic flanks etc.
One thing to consider would be pausing or slowing the game, but that would be inconvenient for other players. Perhaps the host could have the option to decide what would happen (slow/pause/do nothing) to the game if one of the players got into a situation mentioned above. Just like in Europa Universalis, a host could choose how much to slow the game or whether to pause it. But we need to reduce that kind of situations to the minimum.
1) When all players are not doing anything, the game could pause just like in singleplayer, if all players are resting in a camp or a settlement, the game could speed up. 2) Ordinary menus could be replaced by upgraded context menus. They could have all the options of an ordinary menu and more, like talk to a person that can be found inside (including merchants, mercenaries, lords, guild masters, elders, companions (context sub-menus could be used to reduce size)) so the player doesn't have to enter the actual scene.
Context menu, just with a lot more options and sub-menus to reduce the need for a player to enter scenes.
3) When a player is interacting or if he decided to enter the scene, he should still get event notifications and see his current position on a minimap which he could use to see if a player isn't camping his position or if noone is going after him while he's interacting.
The design could be better, it's just an example.
4) For auto-resolve, the battles could work like AI vs AI battles if no players are willing to participate, but want to send their troops. In a 1 v 1 player situation, if one wants to send his troops only, then it should work like in normal singleplayer, one player battles the other one's troops. Also, in singleplayer, when you start a battle, no extra reinforcements can come from the campaign map. To prevent or nerf this, we could hide the battle, prevent interaction or add a timer for the arrival of reinforcements or enemies. If the oppossing force is beaten before the timer, the winners can escape without fighting the enemy reinforcements. The time it takes for reinforcements to arrive could be proportional to the size of those reinforcements. If a player wins the battle, but only after the timer had ran out, he would have to fight the new forces after respawning (like in singleplayer, when reinforcement waves reach their limit, you have to reset the battle with the remaining troops on both sides). Another timer would still be needed for making a decision whether to fight or to surrender, if the timer runs out the default decision could be "Charge the enemy.".
I think the easiest way to solve the time flow differences would be to slow every one down to the same speed as soon as one person enters a scene. Time would slow for any one on the world map so time progression matches that of the scene another player is in. The world map speed would still be the same for distance traveled over time, it would just take more real time to get where you are going.
Sadly the easy solution is rarely the correct one. I can see people getting annoyed at being dropped to regular time passage randomly as people enter/exit/re-enter scenes.
I don't think multiple user controlled players on a campaign map would be still considered co-op. It would be multiplayer campaign. Co-op as far as i can remember has always been user controlled players on the same team. Therefore a single player like mode where other players mainly come into play outside of the map view makes more sense (towns, tournaments, battles). Now if each player on the map view like suggested is still supposed to be on the same team then it does make some sense, but other players being allowed to roam around almost defeats the purpose of co-op if they are not involved with the host in his play through. why not play your own single player game then.
IMO invited players as companions to a host player seems more feasible and would still make a world of a difference already. Everything else either leans towards multiplayer campaigns or battles.
Having other players as companions is better than nothing, but having CO-OP/Multipalyer campaign (the name doesn't matter, it's the idea that's important) would be awesome. In such a campaign, all players should be free to do what they want just like in singleplayer mode and treat other players as AI lords with some extra options and adjusted interaction.
The name only matters a little IMO because they are two technically different kinds of gameplay.
example: Halo Co-op mode has multiple players in a single player like campaign mode, except other players are basically tagging along. Multiplayer mode is where everyone involved is on their own or in team battles against one another. typically does not involve any story mode like features.
so,
1. anyone who just wants to battle/fight with other user controlled players are asking for a multiplayer battle mode in which people can just go in and fight.
2. anyone who wants multiple players in single player like fashion with each player getting their own single player like features is asking for a multiplayer campaign.
3. anyone who just wants to tag along with a friend in their single player campaign is asking for a co-op.
rumor has it that co-op has been mentioned somewhere as a possibility for mount and blade 2. i just think anyone who gets there hopes up for general multiplayer action when we're talking about co-op only may be let down.
The name only matters a little IMO because they are two technically different kinds of gameplay.
example: Halo Co-op mode has multiple players in a single player like campaign mode, except other players are basically tagging along. Multiplayer mode is where everyone involved is on their own or in team battles against one another. typically does not involve any story mode like features.
so,
1. anyone who just wants to battle/fight with other user controlled players are asking for a multiplayer battle mode in which people can just go in and fight.
2. anyone who wants multiple players in single player like fashion with each player getting their own single player like features is asking for a multiplayer campaign.
3. anyone who just wants to tag along with a friend in their single player campaign is asking for a co-op.
rumor has it that co-op has been mentioned somewhere as a possibility for mount and blade 2. i just think anyone who gets there hopes up for general multiplayer action when we're talking about co-op only may be let down.
I think those descriptors are a tad limiting for a thread about brainstorming. As I took it the goal is to try to come up with creative (potentially viable) ways people could play Banner Lord together beyond the current multiplayer system we have in Mount & Blade.
Another thought. If a companion type system were to be implemented, it would be awesome for the main player to be able to delegate control over chosen troop groups. Imagine sending your Captain, sergeant, etc. on a wide flank with cavalry or what have you, while the main force keeps the enemy army occupied.
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