Co-Op Thread

Discussion in 'Card Hunter General Chat' started by Magic Elves, Nov 13, 2014.

  1. Farbs

    Farbs Blue Manchu Staff Member

    Bandreus likes this.
  2. Phaselock

    Phaselock Bugblatter

    Would a dedicated co-op UI help ? Maybe a simple pre-vis to help players/devs envision stuff better ?
     
  3. Farbs

    Farbs Blue Manchu Staff Member

    We have a little bit of that already, with the PASSED banner appearing as your team passes. Do you have any specific suggestions? I'd love to hear 'em.
     
  4. Phaselock

    Phaselock Bugblatter

    I meant a common UI that allows easier co-op matchmaking than:

    These steps are multiple mouse clicks, can we cut down setup time/costs with a single better interface ?
     
  5. Farbs

    Farbs Blue Manchu Staff Member

    Ah, right. So...
    1. When co-op campaign launches you'll also see a slot for your current co-op character, which should make this easier
    2. We can't really optimise this step out. Someone has to build a team somehow. We might need a more obvious interface for it though.
    3.5 You won't be able to enter ranked games while in a team
     
    Magic Elves and Bandreus like this.
  6. CT5

    CT5 Guild Leader

    Fifjunior7 and Bandreus like this.
  7. Flaxative

    Flaxative Party Leader

    Would coop be easier if folks used a voice chat system to coordinate their teams? And is there any way we can help people organize that?
     
    Farbs and Bandreus like this.
  8. BlackVoidDeath

    BlackVoidDeath Guild Leader

  9. Farbs

    Farbs Blue Manchu Staff Member

    I spent the morning looking into WebRTC based options. The technology is definitely on its way for web P2P voice chat, and there are a bunch of services that are almost able to help us right out of the box. Unfortunately I haven't quite found a way forward yet, but I'll definitely keep my eye on it.

    At a guess I'd say our best likely outcome is a Voice button on the team chat panel. Click that and it'll open a new browser tab to the site and room hosting your team voice channel.
     
    BlackVoidDeath and Bandreus like this.
  10. Farbs

    Farbs Blue Manchu Staff Member

    In the meantime, if you're on a team and using Firefox you might want to try Firefox Hello.
    Once you create the room share the link in team chat and your teammates can join in. They don't need to be using firefox for this to work.

    It's not as simple as a Voice button on the team chat panel, but hopefully we'll get there.

    EDIT:
    Aaaaand we're there! I added a Talk button, which pops open a channel for your team on appear.in. You still have to click to allow your microphone and again to return to the Card Hunter page/client, but it's still a heck of a lot less friction than any client or login based alternatives.
     
    Last edited: Jan 22, 2015
    BlackVoidDeath, CT5 and Bandreus like this.
  11. Phaselock

    Phaselock Bugblatter

    Kudos to CT5 for videos. Tho it was painful watching the recruiting. I broke down the process and its largely 2 flags.

    a) A player wants to lead a co-op party
    b) A player wants to join a co-op party

    Off my head, I'd suggest a status indicator preferably in the lobby name list with a button option to set the co-op preference. Party leaders can just scroll and invite whoever has that flag up or vice versa. Would this streamline the party recruitment ?

    Not saying voip isn't viable, just that in reality not everyone has a mic.
     
  12. Jade303

    Jade303 Thaumaturge

    That's good that you guys are talking about this. It's pretty tough trying to organize a co-op game!

    Could you add a new chat window which supports multiple people so that anyone trying to organize a game isn't hogging the world chat? The team chat only has 2 other people, and then you're trying to talk with 3 other people, and then more people ask about playing co-op.... how about a "co-op chat"? XD
    Or at least a group conversation option in addition to normal 1 person messages?

    I know this has bounced around before, but it would also be REALLY useful if you added team square marking/flagging. Trying to explain to your team mate which square you want them to click on is a headache.
     
    Magic Elves likes this.
  13. Kalin

    Kalin Begat G'zok

    Yes, a Co-op chat room in the lobby would help. This would be a good place to put a "Co-op Help" button that explains how everything works.

    Or how about a button to send a message to all your friends who are online, maybe with an option to not send to any that are currently in battle?
     
    Magic Elves likes this.
  14. Farbs

    Farbs Blue Manchu Staff Member

    We've been thinking about a co-op specific room, largely for the sake of campaign players who will probably never even visit the multiplayer area. There's still some design work to do there, but yes I agree we probably need something.

    I'm still not sure about Tile/Card/Character pinging - There's a risk that CH Co-op can devolve into one player calling the shots and everyone else mindlessly clicking where they're told. Pinging would make this much, much easier.
    It's also a lot less "human" than voice/text chat, and human interaction is the whole point.
     
  15. Sir Veza

    Sir Veza Farming Deity

    Having many years of experience with how poorly the average person follows simple instructions, I doubt you've much to worry about. Besides, if it's gonna happen it's gonna happen. Slowing the process only makes things drag for everyone.
    IMO, humans are grossly over-rated.
     
    Kalin and cheeseex like this.
  16. Bandreus

    Bandreus Thaumaturge

    Imho, the main gist of any co-op experience is not each player involved taking his actions autonomously, but rather coordination. A ping functionality would make coordinating much, much easier, which I see as a welcome feature, rather than anything potentially dangerous.

    As for tools making co-op easier, I would start from the very basics: i.e. create a Co-Op sub-forum.
     
    Flaxative, Magic Elves and Sir Veza like this.
  17. Magic Elves

    Magic Elves Thaumaturge

    From my experience in co-op, there's a few general command structures teams fall into at the moment.

    1. General anarchy towards the goal of winning. Usually doesn't do too well.
    2. General anarchy, but with people passing on their own when they know someone really needs a move.
    3. One experienced player tries to co-ordinate, but it doesn't work out too well with the other two players.
    4. Two experienced players agree on most strategies. Newer third player offers less advice.
    5. General autonomy with players handling the fine movements on their own, but asking/saying when they need help from another player.
    6. Direct brain-to-brain communication, total consensus between players. I've only had this happen in a 2v2 with @Inkfingers so far, though the 3v3 with @Fifjunior7 came close.

    With pinging added, I could see the most change happening in 1, 3, and 4. Scenario 1 would probably become a mix of semi-conflicting pings, Scenario 3 would be more co-ordinated at times, and Scenario 4 would move closer to Scenario 6.
     
    Last edited: Jan 23, 2015
  18. cheeseex

    cheeseex Kobold

    and 6 it would make everything faster (the game yesterday with me BVD and fif was alot like 6 which is what took so long)

    the problem i found with 6 is that it tends to take abit to co-ordinate which is what lead to people with certain custom makes with no timer. however not everyone has one/knows how to make one. causing panic late game due to time making the game over all less fun

    may i suggest an automatic timer extension when the game realizes its a co-op match?

    can the game make that distinction? (i would assume so)
     
  19. Magic Elves

    Magic Elves Thaumaturge

    Considering the timer is tied to the map instead of what mode it's in, I would think not. Dedicated co-op maps selectable in-game would be a good way of getting around that, as well as be a stepping stone to reimplement 4v4 and 5v5 as they could be made specifically for larger parties. They wouldn't even have to be unique maps, just altered versions of ranked maps. For example, I was semi-considering expanding Celestial Dojo to 4 Victory squares by copying the center area again to allow for 5 spawn points.
     
  20. Fifjunior7

    Fifjunior7 Hydra

    Great ideas here. And yes Magic Elves, the point you make about player strategy and more experienced players is entirely valid. Sometimes we can question the actions of our teammates. It would be nice to have a more efficient way to communicate strategies. One possible solution is no time. It would be useful to have set co-op maps with no time instead of having to create one of your own.
     

Share This Page