The perils of multiplayer

from JoeUser Forums

Our friends at Ironclad are experiencing first hand what it means to make a 4X game that has really good multiplayer.

Each time we do an update, users (almost exclusively hard core multiplayer users) come out and make posts decrying this or that change to the game.  To the casual visitor of the site, you'd think the sky had fallen "1.03 is ruined!" or "We need an emergency patch!" but when you actually look at the content of the post, it's always some trivial tweak that users believe has resulted in some fundamental game change. 

What it usually boils down to in these kinds of games is that players of a certain faction get very upset if their faction (or class in an MMO) is at a perceived disadvantage.

In an MMO, you have to take such concerns seriously. But in a strategy game, where most people are trying to play it single-player, it still needs to be looked at but also prioritized in with a lot of other variables.

A lot of people demanded that Galactic Civilizations have multiplayer.  One can imagine the amount of resources it would take dealing with users demanding absolute perfect (or at least what is perfect in the mind of an individual user) balance.

I would show you more on the Sins forums but right now someone is attacking the forums with a DOS attack (no doubt someone who lost a multiplayer game?) so they're currently down until we can block it.

62,870 views 45 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
A denial of service attack?

How... petty. The mindset of some of these people is absolutely astounding...
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I was wondering why I couldn't get on the Sins forum. Now I know.

A good example of why I don't play multiplayer. People who take the game to seriously seem to drop their mentality to that of a five year old when they lose. Almost worse are the sore winners. To many morons around to just go online and blindly play people you know nothing about.
WindowBlinds - Free yourself of the default settings, customize your desktop.
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
A DOS attack? It's just too bad you can't hack them back.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Yes, this is one reason multiplayer leaves me uneasy. I actually _want_ multiplayer in these games, and I'm (cautiously) glad that the fantasy 4X game will have it. I like to play co-op with friends, because it's fun to band together and help each other out.

Civ4 is, by all accounts, a good game and an excellent multiplayer game. Unfortunately, whenever I play it, I get this overwhelming feeling that they've left a lot of really cool stuff out that they could've done, because they focused on getting the game precision balanced for multiplayer. Who knows what cool things they could've implemented if they weren't so concerned with how it affected balance in competitive multiplayer.
Reply #5 from JoeUser Forums Top
People really are out of control when it comes to games and "balancing". It's pretty much impossible to balance anything for anyone unless everything is the same. What work's for great for one person may be awful for someone else, but is it 'overpowered' because the person it works for uses it incredibly well?

My personal belief is the best way to balance a game is to ignore balancing all together, there will be hardcore players out there who go out of their way to perfect the use of the 'underpowered' team/character/side(whatever). Personal strategy and ability is the biggest factor in gaming, some people jsut refuse to admit they arent TEH UB3R PWN0R!!1

Consider FPSs, not that teamplay snail-paced 'tactical' FPS crap, but real old school high-speed deathmatch frenzy style like Quake. I can't tell you the number of years I spent playing Quake 2. Some people swear by the rocket launcher, other people claim the railgun to by the holy grail (spawn a very popular mod Rocket vs Rail), then you have weirdo's like me who perfer the machine gun over all the weapons. Are these weapons balanced? I really don't believe so, nor do I think they are meant to be, as the average person who played these sort of games switch weapons whenever a 'step-up' is available. None-the-less people find ways to make the 'weaker' weapons work. (I chose to use FPSs as an example because it's much easier than dissecting 16 playable races and 50 various skills involved in RTSs or MMORPGs)

Take a minute and think about StarCraft (I personally perfer AOE2 and Tiberian Sun). In StarCraft you have 3 very unique playable races, how do you even compare these races as they are so different.

Last but not least, I played Planetside for sometime, and I parcipated in it's beta. I was on the New Conglomerate, a side that was deemed "underpowered" but always seemed to control most of the maps... Anyways, there were 3 sides, each had an anti-vehicle weapon, the NC's was a rocket launcher that's missle was steerable. Everyone cried nerf in droves, however, if/when they tried the weapon they would be the first to proclaim how difficult it was to steer and also how vulnerable they were while the controlled the missile. None-the-less is was nerfed, then beefed up again, and by the end of the beta period I don't even think the devs knew what was going on with it.

I went on quite a tangent. But my point is, games involve skill and thought, there will be people out there who are better players. Accept it and move on. If something is underpowered then let it go unused (as the protoss oh so often are) that simple, whining about it is likely to mess the experience up for everyone.

It's a shame that devs have to put up with this sort of thing and that it'd even turn into something like DOS attacks, they put more thought into the game than anyone else and would know it's inner workings and would have the best idea of how to keep gameplay fun and fair, have some faith in them. And really has anyone ever up and quit a game because their 'ultimate fire pillar of doom' spell costs 13 more mana?
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

I agree, I always wonder what cool stuff gets cut out because of "Balance".

Can you imagine if we had GalCiv II: Multiplayer edition?  Twilight of the Arnor would have been impossible to do because balancing 12 races would be impossible.  Some races in Twilight will inherently be overall "better" than others in all likelyhood.  But in a single player game, that's part of the charm. You make up a back story and a universe to explain it.  In multiplayer, it results in posts of "fix this!111"

Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I fully expect you to ignore the tantrums of the hardcore multiplayer crowd when it comes to your fantasy game. I want cool features and cool things to do, multiplayer balance be damned! ;)
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Agreed across the board. Please do keep this in mind when you're making that 4X fantasy game of yours, don't let the MP crowd force the factions into a state of indistinguishable homogeneity in deference to the god of balance.
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I am an avid player and have been since Ultima on the Apple II, but I never play multiplayer. Every time I tried I ran into player after player who played the exploits instead of the game. I've had many games that had multiplayer options and have never been interested in ever playing them.

I have been pretty busy with what little spare time I have had for gaming beta testing TA. I have heard great things about Sins of a Solar Empire, and I am likely to try it even though it has two of my biggest red flag words. Real time Strategy and Multiplayer. Still I am willing to spend my time and money because of the experience I have had with Stardock. I am betting that the single player mode is worth playing and the game has not been ruined catering to the multiplayer crowd.

If Stardock in the future decides to add a multiplayer option to CalCiv2 I won't be complaining. I am perfectly happy to let others who enjoy that experience have it, but I an not willing to play, beta test or buy any multiplayer expansion.

Scincerely,

[email protected]
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I have been pretty busy with what little spare time I have had for gaming beta testing TA. I have heard great things about Sins of a Solar Empire, and I am likely to try it even though it has two of my biggest red flag words. Real time Strategy and Multiplayer. Still I am willing to spend my time and money because of the experience I have had with Stardock. I am betting that the single player mode is worth playing and the game has not been ruined catering to the multiplayer crowd.


Wait for the demo, especially if you're not a fan of RTS games. I bought it on pure faith in Stardock and, frankly, I shouldn't have. Ah well, I'll get that additional $50 worth of gameplay out of Gal Civ 2, in fact I already have.
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The last RTS games I actually enjoyed were Dune and Dune II which were the only RTS games that the mechanics of building up your forces were not contrived and counter-intuitive. Everything since then seemed to me just to be bad knock offs of those originals.

Scincerely,

[email protected]
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
And that's the reason why I hope that GalCiv and non-MoM will always be single player only.
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
What I don't understand is why developers of Multiplayer games focus on balancing the game out.

People need to understand that everything has an advantage and a dissadvantage. Some Races/classes will have an advantage over another Race/class just as they have advantage over another Race/class.

A large group of people can't be exactly equal.

In my opinion just go ahead with Multiplayer in this or the next Galciv if thats what you want to do or not. Focus on allowing players to be creative and players will want it and play it regardless.
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I have loved to play online Axis & Allies with no online support but email.
That game is a clear win for Allies but online we choose who had to get the Axis by betting.
It was like: "I want xy additional points to get Axis". Lower bid was the winner, ties by die roll.
A similar solution could work for unbalanced "by design" multiplayer games.
Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Quicky comment -

I have tried MMO, a few times... AoK, Civ2 and what else and what comes forward in my mind as a common impression is these short sentences;
- LAN, p2p, firewalls (UDP-ports included) are techno gizmos tricky enough for the cpu'impaired.
- Chat message #1; "How oldar yo?"
- Click, Offline.
That's the last ANY Multiplayer stuff have seen of me, ever since.

There is absolutely NOTHING more a game can give me other than locally maintained TBS (and maybe, an extremely rare jewel of an RTS) vs good Ais & if you know me in general, *the* whole (as in, complete, wild and amazing) Sci-Fi experience.

- Zyxpsilon.
Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Local LAN isnt too bad as its at least friends but yeah, I can see the reasons why no multiplayer would be better. I have played this game for a LONG time and enjoy it more than most MMO's I have played.
Reply #18 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Oh, please. Yeah, the *multiplayer* fans are somehow more rabid than the single player people, when they don´t like a change? I´ve visited these forums long enough to see multiple temper tantrums over changes to this or that race, the economy, etc.

I still want hotseat. ^^ And balance be damned, to be honest, I want to sit down with my friends and have a hotseat MP game, nothing more, nothing less. I still hope hotseat gets included after you finish The Political Machine ( now with more race baiting from the Democratic primaries. :P ).
Reply #19 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
No, I think everyone in this thread has been limiting their complaints to the _hardcore_ multiplayer people. Those are the people who play really competitively, always worrying about ladder rankings, scores, etc., so they get their panties in a bunch if they feel choosing one race over the other gives someone an unfair advantage.

I'm a fan of multiplayer myself, and I'm glad that the fantasy game will have it. As someone else pointed out earlier, imbalanced races provide a nice way of giving someone a handicap if the players are unevenly matched. Even when playing co-op against AIs, if one player is better than the other, then it's handy to give them a more difficult race to play.

I'm also confident in Stardock's ability to ignore the outcries of the vocal minority. If they were less resistant to such things, then GalCiv2 would now have multiplayer, carriers, and stealth ships. :D
Reply #20 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I agree, I always wonder what cool stuff gets cut out because of "Balance".
Can you imagine if we had GalCiv II: Multiplayer edition?  Twilight of the Arnor would have been impossible to do because balancing 12 races would be impossible.  Some races in Twilight will inherently be overall "better" than others in all likelyhood.  But in a single player game, that's part of the charm. You make up a back story and a universe to explain it.  In multiplayer, it results in posts of "fix this!111"


Don't sweat it, cos you're damned if you do and damned if you don't (add multiplayer that is)
Reply #21 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I imagine you have to be rather thick skinned to field that stuff without getting really discouraged. I'm pretty used to the mostly casual and relaxed tone of this forum. I had sit back a little after reading a few of the hostile and unwarranted posts over at the Sins forum. I won't be spending a whole lot of time there.

I'm not a big multi-player anything for some of the same reasons you see those hostile posts in the Sins forum. I'm quite happy with the Sins 1.03 update and I think it's great. I'm really enjoying the game and the update added some very nice features. Unfortunately, some of the Sins players take the stuff way too seriously. I mean com'on, it's a game, right?

I am betting that the single player mode is worth playing and the game has not been ruined catering to the multiplayer crowd.

Get it, you'll be happy with it. The AI is really smart and it actually took me a while to figure out how to beat them, even on Normal difficulty. Go TEC!

Oh, please. Yeah, the *multiplayer* fans are somehow more rabid than the single player people, when they don´t like a change? I´ve visited these forums long enough to see multiple temper tantrums over changes to this or that race, the economy, etc.

Yea, we've had a few temper tantrums over here regarding *major* changes we didn't like, but I was actually surprised by the reaction at the Sins forum over what I think are fairly trivial tweaks.
Reply #22 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Can you imagine if we had GalCiv II: Multiplayer edition? Twilight of the Arnor would have been impossible to do because balancing 12 races would be impossible. Some races in Twilight will inherently be overall "better" than others in all likelyhood.


The Yor are currently proving themselves to be one of the weaker ones right now. Lowsy economics tends to make it difficult for them to do a whole lot of anything. Without any ability to build many economic structures without buying or stealing alternatives, they have to rely on their charging stalks which only does so much. They don't do a whole lot of good once your population grows close to 25 bil, or more.
Reply #23 from JoeUser Forums Top

And that's the reason why I hope that GalCiv and non-MoM will always be single player only.

not-Mom will have multiplayer, it'll just be a different game at multiplayer. I'm not willing to cut out features on the single player version and I'm too old and cranky to compromise on that.

Reply #24 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
And that's the reason why I hope that GalCiv and non-MoM will always be single player only.
not-Mom will have multiplayer, it'll just be a different game at multiplayer. I'm not willing to cut out features on the single player version and I'm too old and cranky to compromise on that.


Interesting, so essentially the MP game will lack the richer feature set that maintaining MP balance requires? That's a clever workaround to the problem.

Honestly, I don't care about MP. Make it a strong, deep single player experience with a good AI and I'll buy it and any expansions you care to produce for it cheerfully.
Reply #25 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
not-Mom will have multiplayer, it'll just be a different game at multiplayer. I'm not willing to cut out features on the single player version and I'm too old and cranky to compromise on that.


Huzzah! I was a little concerned that you might be forced to dumb it down for the masses. I'm not much of a MP fan myself, for the myriad reasons already stated, but the idea of being able to play against some of the smart and talented members of this forum has me sold.

Mr. Wardell, thank you for having high standards, and sticking to them. It's the reason that I'll keep coming back.