Co op required survival game

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?

Thanks

 

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.

TLDR:

• Give players different roles
• Provide a high level of synergy between the roles

 

Classes and roles.

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.

 

Oh no, without explaining the twist, the point is its near impossible to survive without other players

 

You've gone off the deep end and created a world in which cooties are real and you need them to survive!?

 

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.

 

You most likely would

 

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.

 

I'm not a fan of co-op game play personally.

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.

 

Simply turn off PVP damage. If the main aim of the game is coop, don't have a direct mechanism for players to compete.

Sure, players can indirectly compete be destroying others food sources, and other nastiness. But not by shooting in the face.

 

I've seen that & "reflect" modes in some games where hitting an ally actually applies the damage to you.

 

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".

 

I'm amazed at how well this thread has stayed on topic. I guess it's truly an interesting problem to consider.

 

Not if the experiance the developer is trying produce is cooperation. You want to think in terms of survival of the group, rather then survival of the individual.

Ultimately to encourage cooperation you have to have greater rewards for cooperation then for competition.

 

Off the top of my head I came up with basically what @Tomnnn mentioned.

Classes or more specifically skills. Why does the stereotypical D&D party consist of some kind of Warrior, Wizard and Rogue/Ranger? And often when two people play together in D3 one will have a Warrior type character and the other a Sorceress or Archer. The reason is they each excel at certain types of encounters.

With a skills-based approach one player may move somewhat slowly, be tough as heck, excel at melee combat while also having the grit to cut down a tree fairly quickly. However building may be slow for them due to limited architectural skills. Another player may excel in range combat, move fairly fast and be able to build things faster. However, they might me much more of a glass character.

Each can survive and thrive on their own but clearly they would be better off working together.

 

Think about this in real life. Why do we need to work together? Why don't we just kill each other and take each others stuff?

positive reinforcement

Simple things like lifting a heavy object is much easier with a team mate, and could be impossible on your own.
You might need someone to give you a quick boost up and ledge and then pull them up in turn.
Receiving gratitude can be a powerful influence, perhaps helping others and working together could increase your happiness stat of some sort that makes you slightly better at everything and players can identify you as being helpful.

One thing I've noticed about survival games is that most of them give you a MASSIVE inventory. It's something I don't like in general as it just seems silly to carry a tonne of stones, a door, 500 chicken breasts and 13 guns in your back pockets.
Imagine a game where you can only carry what a real person could carry, you'd need some sort of cart to transport your haul of iron ore back to your base, and you might need more than just yourself to pull that cart.

In regard to KOS - negative reinforcement

People that murder and steal are frowned upon in society, perhaps you could have some sort of "Wanted" system in your game where players that are witnessed committing crimes can be reported and then they get a big red "HOSTILE" marker above their head.

If you look at serial killers, most if not all of them are mentally unstable. Perhaps you could have an insanity meter, killing raises your insanity meter, especially if you are killing someone that's unarmed/defenceless or just spawned. (That's like killing a baby!) When the insanity meter gets too high your characters starts to change in different ways. You might lose control of him occasionally and watch him rant and rave and bang his head against the wall. You'll basically become obviously hostile to all other players and they won't want to work with you (unless they're insane too)

Sorry to ramble on, hope this is helpful

 

Interesting and oddly specific skills between those two characters It is certainly a solid premise, though

For some, it is the morals that empathy can provide. For others, it is the fear of hellfire

Lol, I've seen that wayyy too much in games. While it works, it limits role / character diversity because that scenario doesn't work out very well for a 300 pound tank and a 90 pound rogue.

This gives me an idea. What if, to deter KOS, there were NPCs that reacted like a society would? Then you wouldn't need to police your players because the game itself would do it! It'd be like GTA's police, except perhaps angry mobs instead of an organized police force.

I forget where and when it was discussed, but I once thought of a system where KOS players get marked by the system so that when they die, they respawn as a rare version of a living resource. If a possible role to play in a game is a hunter who tracks boars, a player with many 'murders' would respawn as a golden boar who would be super valuable for other players to gang up on and kill. To ensure that random kill-on-sight behaviors are curbed, you would make that player continually respawn as a boar until they achieved a certain objective or remained logged out for a certain period of time. This would put them through similar hardship that they caused other players who were trying to accomplish something but were always interrupted with unwanted pvp