Inquisitors,
today's topic is perhaps the most discussed request on our forums - of course, it is about Co-Op Void Crusades!
First things first, I'll save you some guessing time, as I can confirm that indeed, Co-Op Void Crusades will definitely happen in the future, and we are already past a number of testing phases.
Let's talk about when and how exactly will we accomplish this. Originally, Void Crusades were designed as a completely solo adventure for players, but later on as we were analyzing mission statistics, we realized that the Crusades become a major, integral part of not only the leveling experience, but of the endgame as well. Consequently, the first posts about taking four-man Inquisitorial parties on Void Crusades emerged on our forums not long after the initial release of the Ivory Crusade.
We knew that this is what our players wanted, and in many ways, we wanted to do this, too - but we had a tough time to decide where to even start, as the core elements of the Void Crusade were pretty restrictive when it came to cooperative gameplay.
The dilemmas started as early as launching a Void Crusade. Who should pay for it? Everyone or only the leader? There were numerous reasons (investment, user experience, ease of use) for both sides, but eventually we have decided that only the leader should invest Void Shards.
This decision was made as the content update that will bring us the cooperative Void Crusade experience will contain many more additional features related to Crusades. One of these will be the Shard Exchange feature which will allow players to swap their Void Shards for different colors to make an easier launch available.
These compromises allowed us to further design the Co-Op system for Void Crusades to allow drop-in/drop-out gameplay, e.g. new members will be able to join an ongoing Crusade and will receive rewards according to their own individual progress. This means that the loot bonuses are tracked individually for each party member and stored on the backend, so players who join only for the final mission of a fully cleared Crusade will receive significantly less loot from the final chest as opposed to those who did the Crusade all the way from the beginning.
We decided to keep it simple for the Life system as well. As long as there is someone is alive in the party, they will be able to resurrect dead party members and the Life penalty for dying will be reverted at a cost of a whopping 10% reduction in Loot Quality. This is arguably less challenging than having a permanent -1 Life penalty for each death, but we figured that a harsh mechanic like that would sacrifice a lot of fun and fluidity, not to mention it would be an opportunity for griefers. Additionally, there will be an increasing timer on the self-resurrect button to further incentivize players to help their teammates and resurrect them instead.
Void Crusades contain a ton of unique scripts and game modes as well, so all of them had to be adapted for Co-Op gameplay, but our coders handled this challenge with ease (so far… ;). Such were the Wandering Servoskull, or the Encrypted Dataslate along with its Decryptor Terminal - of course, no matter who picks up the Dataslate or interacts with the terminal, the secret unlock mechanics will work as long as both elements are interacted with properly.
All the unique gamemodes such as Forcefield, Sabotage, Sporocyst Assault, and so on had to be transformed into Co-Op friendly missions as well, but a larger hurdle was to make sure that all the secret unlocks will work no matter which party member (or what combination of them) finds a Secret or Covert mission. These two hidden mission types are an integral part of Crusades as not only they are needed for full completion, but they also give players the most significant loot bonuses. Not to mention it's fun finding them ;)
Info-fragments will work in a similar way as well, so no matter who interacts with them, the chests at the end will show information for everyone if there were Info-fragments collected. However, only the party leader will be able to open up the 9 Void Chests at the end, because each chest contains specific rewards, as this is one of the main quirks of the Void Crusade. The main chest containing generic loot can be opened by anyone of course, as it does not consume a Key, and it contains generic loot. Needless to say, no matter who opens which chest, every party member will get their rewards according to their class and individual loot bonuses - but the choice of the reward types will be the leader's.
So far we have been testing Co-Op Crusades for a couple weeks now, and even though it's only testing, the benefits and the fun factor of being able to tackle the challenges of the Void with a party are apparent.
And for the most important question - we feel that it would be fitting for the upcoming PC season to contain all these new features (along with some other ones I've yet to talk about), so when Season 3 hits, Inquisitors will no longer be alone in the Void.
The Emperor Protects.
Megapull
Design
Endgame Team
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Nevertheless, we will try to exclude any abuse to ensure safe runs.
And if one Challenge says exactly the thing I mentioned in my first post, neither of these options is acceptable. Because do not say that NONE kind of Coop group is required to be able to get through some/one or more of the Challenges that will pop up during future Seasons when Coop is introduced.
Originally, the console versions of Inquisitor were released a couple months later than the PC version back in 2018 and since then we have been sticking to this approach. PC updates come first and in the meantime the console team does its own porting/testing stuff. These platforms are equally important for us, only there is a shift between the patch releases.
Co-Op Void Crusade will come to consoles with Season 3. But before that, there is still plenty of time left before the end of Season 2.
add me in a friend and I will gladly go on a void-crusade with you. and you also have a good co-op matchmaking system and some time before the patch, it's a great way to make in-game friends.
And to be honest, I do not like it one single bit.
And these are just some examples.
And also something for you in Neocore Team to think about before Announcement.
what's problem? just play with friends
It is far from obvious for everyone to have that. So damn, you are indeed lucky. You must be very popular, since you are obviously having no issues with friends. I see you are privileged.
Hhmmm, well. For many people, this is good news I will mostly assume. And indeed, it may be even fun too, in some cases. But I must admit that I also a bit of grief with some players. When it comes to certain players in Coop, they just like making some kind of Chaos within the group. It is aways something with every game out there.
What worried me though when it comes to this Co-Op Void Crusade is this coming up: Season Challenge - Make one FULL Group for Void Crusade, complete FULL Void Crusade with FULL original Members Cast Level 100 required. No Deaths allowed during Crusade to complete.
All it takes now is for one single player to have a bad hair day, or to receive one single wrong word, and he/she completely destroys it for everyone in one single go. Hahaha, you didn´t make the Challenge, in some kind of way. This is just, in some way or another, bound to happen sooner or later
So in my opinion not a good or similar Chalenge to have for a Season. And when now this Coop thing coming up and will be available, there WILL be SOME kind of Co-Op Challenge in some kind of Season. Hope it will not be, but...
Nevertheless, we will try to exclude any abuse to ensure safe runs.
Set this current order state as My default.