Multiplayer expectations

[William Blake]

As we know, the game is supposed to have a multiplayer component. Steam page says "Online PVP". We also had dev statements saying roughly "multiplayer is a significant part of the game and many game mechanics are designed with that in mind". We also know that multiplayer is going to grand strategy and not tactical battles as in original KoH.

But I want to talk about your expectations about it:

• Do you care about multiplayer at all?
• How long do you think a multiplayer game should be? 15 minutes, 30, an hour, several hours?
• How many people players do you think a game should have to be interesting for you? 1 on 1, 2 on 2, many vs many?
• Do you think it should be open (all players against all) or predefined allies/fixed teams?
• In your mind, a player vs player game is all about military victory? Economy domination? Roleplaying? A win by a combined score (World Emperor vote)?
• Do you think all players should start at the same starting condition or you are ok with different players starting for different kingdoms with different starting resources?
• Would you rather play on full Europe map or you would want a smaller more balanced/smaller map?
• Do you want AI playing or just player kingdoms?
• Do you think you will keep playing a game you cannot win anymore? What would make you leave a game in a middle?
• Do you think a player needs a global progression/achievements to have something to go from one game to another or multiplayer games should have no connection to previous games a player had?

The reason all these questions matter in my mind is because it could have most significant impact on both game design and player experience, yet I doubt that anyone ever had a conversation about that at all. Given we had most unexpected things to come up about most obvious things before, I'm really curious what you guys think about all that.

 

 

[BC Knight]

Interesting questions:

• Do you care about multiplayer at all? - Maybe not a lot because I don't have a lot of time to commit but will see.
• How long do you think a multiplayer game should be? 15 minutes, 30, an hour, several hours? - With what I said above, I think multiple sessions - save reloads each session, sessions are 3-5 hours each - this is my expectation
• How many people players do you think a game should have to be interesting for you? 1 on 1, 2 on 2, many vs many? - depends on the people who live in the same time zone or close and have similar schedule like me.
• Do you think it should be open (all players against all) or predefined allies/fixed teams? - both decided in the beginning
• In your mind, a player vs player game is all about military victory? Economy domination? Roleplaying? A win by a combined score (World Emperor vote)? _ don't like playing multi and thinking about victory conditions, it feels like a race (Well its probabply the point of playing pvp ) - Set time and try to enjoy as much as possible and when it's finished like after One time 6h; Double-12h; M-18h; L-24h; XL-36h; QueenSize-72h; KingSize-168h (Just examples, dont know if these numbers make sense) check the board to see the player with the maximum score. Roleplaying,  Trying to create different scenarios; cunning strategis; temporary alliances in order to defeat a strong kingdom and after that arguing about territories. With that said if the goal is to quickly conquer the map by peasant sieges, I would not join the game. On the other hand If there is a chance to experience: 2 rival player joining a crusade at the same time, fight together, conquer the holy lands, then they fight each other for control of the land, and when they are most exhausted the AI comes back and destroy them both. With experience like that I wouldn't care if I won or not 
• Do you think all players should start at the same starting condition or you are ok with different players starting for different kingdoms with different starting resources? - Both, depends of player preferences. You may feel bold and would want to start with OPM vs. someone who plays with Mamluks
• Would you rather play on full Europe map or you would want a smaller more balanced/smaller map? - I think local maps would be more playeble and interesting  - Balkans, Hre, England . Even if someone makes a mod designed mostly for multiplayer they would optimize it to be with the best possible setup for that. Dev maps optimized for multi - DLC - sounds like an option to me
• Do you want AI playing or just player kingdoms? - I don't understand this question. If it's what I am thinking having all kingdoms to e controlled by player will be too much for me, and if someone is destroyed and has to step out early- mid game would not be cool.  
• Do you think you will keep playing a game you cannot win anymore? What would make you leave a game in a middle? - talked about this in #5
• Do you think a player needs a global progression/achievements to have something to go from one game to another or multiplayer games should have no connection to previous games a player had? - sandbox is better - rely on player imagination and variety, why play always the same setup

[Lighthope]

3 hours ago, William Blake said:

Do you care about multiplayer at all?

No.  Not at all.

Just casting my vote.

[William Blake]

Would you drop multiplayer all together if it made single player release date one week sooner?

[BC Knight]

 

46 minutes ago, William Blake said:

Would you drop multiplayer all together if it made single player release date one week sooner?

no i dont care about the release date as long it will release 😄,

 

why you dont answer these questions yourself?

[William Blake]

33 minutes ago, BC Knight said:

why you dont answer these questions yourself?

Well,

• I do care about multiplayer, a lot
• But I don't think it should be the same game
• I don't think there is a good way to make KoH2 as I see it to have ANY decent multiplayer with shared mechanics
• I'm trying to validate my feeling that most of the people here or anyone who is looking for original KoH do not care about multiplayer
• Because of that I'm trying to build up a case to drop multiplayer concerns and make good single player KoH2 first
• At best some later time you can make almost another separate game with same assets to make multiplayer, maybe
• But in order to make a solid multiplayer in 2021 you need to build a game which can compete with fully multiplayer titles and anything else is just a waste of time

Something like that, if it make sense.

[Bassilisk]

I am really only looking forward to multiplayer. It seems there are no really good grand strategy games that are more than 2 players. I played medieval total war the original and only dreamed about it being multiplayer. I think for amount of people and how to play should have options and be decided at the beginning. Whether teams like 1on1 or 5on5, or more my cup of tea of free for all with like 10 players. I think games should be anywhere from 30mins for a small map, up to like 5 hours for a large map with lots of people. Yes AI should controll countries but this should be an option to do all human for small maps or a mix for larger but whatever the match creator wants in the begining. 

Truly this game has potential to revolutionize rts/grand strategy with good single player and multiplayer. I would be devastated if they didnt put out really good multiplayer.

The games I like to point out for reference is medieval total war for what a game could be like that should/could have had multiplayer and been awesome, or age of conquest IV which was strategy like risk and multiplayer which was great but lacked depth and rts battles

[William Blake]

40 minutes ago, Bassilisk said:

Yes AI should controll countries but this should be an option to do all human for small maps or a mix for larger but whatever the match creator wants in the begining. 

Would you be ok with mostly AI kingdoms on a map, but an ability for a human player to join a running game and take over an existing AI kingdom to play for, or human players leave in a middle of a game and their kingdoms going under AI control?

[Lighthope]

7 hours ago, William Blake said:

Would you drop multiplayer all together if it made single player release date one week sooner?

I seriously doubt multiplayer coding takes only a single week.

But I'll play along.  No, I would not drop multiplayer.  Just because I won't use it doesn't mean others aren't interested.

[Lighthope]

4 hours ago, William Blake said:

Would you be ok with mostly AI kingdoms on a map, but an ability for a human player to join a running game and take over an existing AI kingdom to play for

No.  Pick your kingdom at the beginning and that is yours until the Second Coming.

4 hours ago, William Blake said:

or human players leave in a middle of a game and their kingdoms going under AI control?

I might go for that idea.  That way someone can keep playing if someone else drops out.

[William Blake]

2 hours ago, Lighthope said:

No.  Pick your kingdom at the beginning and that is yours until the Second Coming.

Well that could be a problem. If you want a lot of people playing a long game the chances that people would leave in a middle are very high. It would be very beneficial to allow  other people to join an existing game in a middle so you could balance people leaving with new players. Although I have to admit I don't really know a good solution to that problem. Just a thought. 

[Bassilisk]

I think yes people should be able to join over AI but have a vote, or option to let game be open to joiners or closed so no one can join. If people leave AI takes over

[Zerg]

20 hours ago, William Blake said:

Do you care about multiplayer at all?

Yes, I do. I would still buy and play the hell out of the game without it, but if the multiplayer does work well, I would gift the game to 2-4 other persons aswell.

20 hours ago, William Blake said:

How long do you think a multiplayer game should be? 15 minutes, 30, an hour, several hours?

It should be savable and continueable. A full game will probably take about 3 to 20 hours, depending on how hard a player/team can steamroll and win.

20 hours ago, William Blake said:

How many people players do you think a game should have to be interesting for you? 1 on 1, 2 on 2, many vs many?

Of course it would be awesome to have 50 real players on the same map, but this will not be possible because of bandwitdth-limitations and such. I would guess they (the devs) try to optimize it for 3 to 6 players.

20 hours ago, William Blake said:

Do you think it should be open (all players against all) or predefined allies/fixed teams?

Definetly open, diplomacy could be alot of fun if all players are in the same discord. There you could replicate real-world examples of medieval diplomacy (all the backstabbing and complex agreements).

20 hours ago, William Blake said:

In your mind, a player vs player game is all about military victory? Economy domination? Roleplaying? A win by a combined score (World Emperor vote)?

All of them combined. Just like in CIV you should be able (especially in multiplayer) to win through different means. I'm sure everyone will hate the player who hires 6 spies just to fuck with the others right from the beginning :D

20 hours ago, William Blake said:

Do you think all players should start at the same starting condition or you are ok with different players starting for different kingdoms with different starting resources?

I would find it very boring if everyone starts sames. I don't imagine this game has a hardcore-pvp game, so most probably players will not aggressively go for other players right from the beginning. This type of games are just not build for high-competitive pvp games.

20 hours ago, William Blake said:

Would you rather play on full Europe map or you would want a smaller more balanced/smaller map?

Full Europe and/or custom/modded maps (Just like the one planned from Calliope).

20 hours ago, William Blake said:

Do you want AI playing or just player kingdoms?

AI needs to be their to fill up the map.

20 hours ago, William Blake said:

Do you think you will keep playing a game you cannot win anymore? What would make you leave a game in a middle?

Yes, just like I said earlier. I don't see this game as a high-competitive game. And also, there are always ways to fuck with bigger country (*cough* spies *cough). Also, bigger players are more likely to be targetet by other players so there will be organic balancing.

20 hours ago, William Blake said:

Do you think a player needs a global progression/achievements to have something to go from one game to another or multiplayer games should have no connection to previous games a player had?

The online-profile could state some statistics like games played, but apart from that, no.

 

Overall, I can say that I hope multiplayer will be a similar expierience to CK2/CK3 but with the gameplay of Knights of Honor. I don't play competitevly, I just play to have fun and whats more fun than to fuck around with friends on a big map in a game we know from 15 years ago and loved?