Alright lads, so I’ve got another idea, dont want to say what it is (I know, its worthless, but at the end of the day I still think I can get my question across without it), and its based on co op survival, as in a multiplayer survival game where you need to work together.
My question is, I want to make it so you NEED to work together, so that one man on his own could not possibly win alone. It’d be for about 5 players, and even then it should be tricky. So, how can I do this, in a none cheaty way (a cheaty way might be that it takes 10 minutes to chop down a tree, for example. No matter difficult, just slower). So what mechanics would be in place to make a survival game that demands co-operation?
I’d suggest you have a look at coop board games. There are quite a few of them out there, Pandemic, Forbidden Island and Fire Rescue come to mind.
On the harder difficulties these games can only be completed by combining the players unique abilities. Each player has unique abilities that only they can use. These abilities can form powerful combos when used together. For example in Pandemic, the medic can remove disease faster then any other player. This is great, but it gets even better if combined with the dispatcher, who can get the medic to the disease faster. The same principle goes with all of the roles. Individually they are powerful, but combined with other roles that power is multiplied. The principle is called synergy. The sum is greater then the total of its parts.
A synergy between roles could provide interesting gameplay even if users can freely switch roles.
Another way to softly enforce group play could be to have very hard enemies to deal with but powerful traps that can be operated by 2 people, keeping a threat at bay for longer so more time can be spent doing other things.
I probably should have mentioned, Im not really a fan of ‘forced skills’ in games, I prefer games, especially of this nature, to rely on what the player is actually best at in games, rather than telling them that they have skills in something. I dont really like levelling and abilities and all that.
Or you could go with runescape style leveling, and have people become gradually better at things they do. Then you can either have working together be the best way to level up to reach the end game of being a jack of all trades, or you can have survival in general be 200% more effective per additional person who is part of the activity.
Then it will encourage multiplayer without decimating singleplayer.
Unless you know the other players well, the game that you are suggesting would be incredibly annoying to play. There is not much worse than having to rely on other (potentially idiotoc) players to be able to progress yourself. You either need to market the game so you play with friends or make it that you can progress by yourself without having to rely on other players.
On a side note, it would be nice to know a little more about the game your talking about other than its genre.
Hopefully those are soft rules instead of hard rules. Like… an obstacle should be easier to deal with if multiple people work on it, but it shouldn’t scale itself in difficulty up based on there only being 1 person who works on it.
Near impossible survival could make a lot of people purposefully play your game solo because that’s what they like
As I said, Im not gonna go into the twist, I know my ideas are worthless but I honestly dont see the harm in not saying it, but playing alone makes the whole thing pointless
I won’t try to seriously guess, since I’d probably guess at some point, and then there goes your motivation. Good luck inventing incentive co op in a survival game
I wish your playerbase more than KOS (kill on sight).
Maybe it’s my dim view of the online gaming community but I am yet to find a multiplayer game it isn’t kill on sight, unless you literally cannot be killed (they still try).
Good luck and I hope your idea works. Just keep in mind that most gamers prefer killing someone than helping them.
I bet you’d be interested in a game idea I had once. It’s about wounding people but not killing them in an fps. A single bullet will put someone in shock. If you continually open fire, they remain in shock for longer. If they receive no shots for a full 5 seconds, they go into recovery mode. In this mode, they are idle for about 5 seconds on the ground before an ambulance comes by, takes them, and randomly drives around the map for a period of time based on their injury. They exit the vehicle automatically when healed.
Now the fun twist to prevent KOS
If a player received a single hit from any weapon in the recovery state while waiting for an ambulance, the player dies… and will respawn as an unkillable terror for 1-2 minutes. The terror is chosen at random and can be a massive horde of zombies controlled from above like an RTS to a cthulu like chaos god that can lob an artillery of lightning bolts onto the field, killing other players instantly but respawning them as normal players.
The game would be an fps so there’s no incentive to work together, but it could help curb the aggressive KOS behaviors some gamers have. The game will award no points for violence (except huge points for kills earned as an unkillable terror), and the objective is like a mobile king of the hill. A random decal in the map will be chosen as the collectible and users get points for running around with it. Wound a user to have them drop it.
That’s the entire game idea that I never got around to making but I think would be hilarious.
With that said - one of the best examples of co-op was a single player game called brothers: a tale of two sons.
The game could not be completed without the cooperation of the two brothers. It’s been awhile since I played it but if memory serves, one was short, skinny and fast, the other was big, strong and slow.
There was more in-depth co-op interactions beyond physicality but the jest of the game was co-op… as a single player experience.
If the two brothers were separate players it would of been co-op.
I game that forces on teamwork to survive would be rather interesting.
I have gone through the posts on here and have seen you are not a fan of perks or unique skills, which I think is a shame. I am not sure what type of game you are aiming for but It feels kinda like a desert island vibe. I have played a few games like dayz , rust and reign of kings and these all try and fail to get people to work together. This is mainly due to more advantages in killing each other than working together. other than the immediate gains of loot there is also issues of other players using up limited resources in a area like food and water.
My main points to encourage teamwork are:
Make it more rewarding, if by working together you get a better yield of resources, this will then increase the amount of time that the players can spend on doing other activities. e.g. if two players gather food together they get a small bonus, they can then spend extra time building there base ageist the indigenous killer bunny’s
Make activities that need other people, Day Z started this with blood transfusion, but maybe extend it to other activities. 2 players need to carry a log, one player needs to hold the log in place where another nails in the supports, one player has to scare a animal in the open so the other can shoot it.
And Lastly, I know you don’t like it but , classes, you could even give them randomly, but player X is a lumber jack so he can cut trees faster, player Y is a doctor so he is a good healer… BLA BLA BLA
I hope this helps, hopefully I am not talking bollocks
Simple solutions include multiple survival requirements that have exponential returns when done for groups.
Food spoiling would be a good mechanic. If one person could acquire enough food in one ‘hunting mission’ for 5 nights, but it spoils on night 3, it would be beneficial to team up with a group. Now, 3 people hunting for food feeds the whole team for 3 nights, but you have an additional 2 other people to contribute in other manners, such as building shelter or scavenging for meds at the local hospital.
Similarly, shelter has exponential return - you don’t need 5x the space for 5x the people. Building a shelter that is maybe 2-3 times the size as a 1 person shelter can house all 5 of you just fine as you share facilities. Then, once more, you have other free members that can contribute in other manners.
Make harvesting or scavenging require protection, or be able to provide cover to allies sprinting for supplies in the dangerous wilds. Make monsters have coordinated attacks, such that focusing one leaves you vulnerable to others. This makes fighting as a cohesive group much more effective.
Include sickness or other debilitating effects that temporarily hinder one member of the team unless helped by others. Medicine is much harder to scavenge for if you are already sick.
Add the ability to distract otherwise unbeatable hostiles, drawing them away from certain locations while another teammate sneaks in and gathers the goods.
If you don’t want to do innate perks, I think experiential specializations make total sense. Tasks your individual character performs over and over again become more effective, encouraging an assembly line style sense of teamwork that exponentially increases your overall productivity.
As you add in these mechanics, you can tweak them such that lone survival is near impossible, but a well oiled machine of 4-5 people can really get the ball rolling.
These are good mechanics and would definetly stop KOS. In my opinion though, the idea of not harming other players and survival mechanics don’t thematically work together. Phrases like “Survival of the Fittest” and “You gotta do what you gotta do” come to my mind when I think of survival.
I think that classes/roles would work well in the game. If someone is good at healing, then they will want to heal someone instead of attacking them. Another way you could promote cooperation is having a pvp free zone that is easily accesible, so people can form teams and then go out “into the wild”.
