Remnant 2 proves that Dark Souls and Elden Ring have no excuses for their clunky co-op

FromSoftware pioneered the soulslike genre, but its multiplayer components always fell short. Remnant 2 rectifies this issue and understands why co-op is vital.

[mandf]

It's not clunky it's intentional. I have no problem playing with friends on elden ring

[PunksOnN4G]

So its Clunky LOL... bro stop intentional u elden fans will do anything to cope LOL

[mandf]

Fan or not it works just fine. It's not spoon fed for an easy game. It's mechanics are original not copy and paste

[MrNinosan]

It's absolutely clunky and intentionally stupid.
I absolutely hate playing Elden Ring co-op, but really want to do it. But the way it's done is lame and plain silly.

I really hope a real co-op patch will come along the years.

[Zombieburger638]

Me and my buddies used the coop mod and while it’s fun it definitely breaks the game a bit. It’s much better with the vanilla system.

[Goosejuice]

Does it work? Yes. Does it suck? Yep. There's a reason why one of the top mods on pc changes the whole coop mechanic and let's ur friends stay in the game. It's an annoying feature that works but why?

[Zeref]

It's definitely clunky. I understand some of it was intentional, like limiting co-op (for extra challenge I guess??) by having it done through the flower thing but it's dumb and annoying. If I want to play with my friends that's what I want to do. Not having the flower thing pretty much killed the whole session until we were later in the game where you could easily grind them which is still annoying af. Let's not even talk about when the host dies. The whole thing needs to be reset. Some areas you can't even access without resetting.

Elden Ring is my game of the generation so far. But there's no doubt that the co-op sucks.

The co-op mod made it infinitely better. But by the time we discovered that we were already over Elden Ring.

[Kaze88]

for extra challenge, no playing solo is the vanilla style to play the game. Coop is just to make life easier. For extra challenge you take rings that for example reduce your health or play without gear or play with heaviest gear that you cannot roll.

[Daeloki]

It's clunky no matter how you look at it. Constant connection problems, no way of simply joining your friend or inviting them to a game aside from setting up a password on the summoning system. In ER sometimes the summon mark shows up, sometimes not, sometimes it shows up but nothing happens when you use it. Don't get me wrong, I love ER, it's a great game, but they're using a vastly outdated co-op system.

[Kaze88]

It's intentional. If you can have your friends anywhere at all times it makes the game easy. Only on certain portions of the game or bosses you can have your buddy there. Annoying at times yes since you need to always summon your friend back after death etc. but it is intentional. The game and balance was not for you to have your buddy always there. In Remnant you don't fail if the host dies and you can revive, in souls there is no revive. The connection problems, not seeing friends sign even with password, those are not by design. For pc there is a coop mod, it makes it way easier to join friends, but also makes the game way easier.

[Kaze88]

Coop game vs single player that has coop/pvp elements.

[anast]

For MP those games are built around PVP. The "co-op" feature is just tacked on, they aren't MP PVE games really.

[jznrpg]

I like the co/op for Souls games. What’s the issue ? I talk to my friends we plop our signs down on a designated area and that’s it. It’s easy . I solo souls games first then do co/op but I have no issue with their design choice. Hate these articles

[GameBoyColor]

I think the problem is you have to keep doing that per area, multiplied by how many friends youre playing with. It get's annoying fast.

[Daeloki]

The problem is how unreliable and outdated the sign system is, sometimes it works, a lot of the time it doesn't, and when it works there's still a high chance of getting disconnected for no apparent reason. The article points out that there is a better way of doing it.

[CrimsonWing69]

I dunno, the way co-op works for the Souls and Elden Ring games are so fitting. It’s as convoluted and obtuse as everything else in those worlds. I actually admire the setup and once you understand the whole setting up a co-op password and dropping a sign there’s really nothing to it.

[Ataraxias]

Co-op is vital in Remnant cause the game is lame solo. Gear that is locked behind puzzles that have to be done in multiplayer is a system that is going to age poorly.

[Daeloki]

It also proves you can have a soulslike game with different difficulty levels and it doesn't ruin the experience of anyone else.

[MrBaskerville]

You can do it that way and you can do it like they did it in Elden Ring. Both are perfectly reasonable ways to go about easier difficulties. Biggest difference is that Elden Ring is more in world and let's you rely more on other players when you get stuck.

[Daeloki]

That's such a tired argument, the co-op systems in FS are unreliable and the playerbase is among the most toxic people out there. To this day I have not heard a single good argument why these games can't have difficulty options.

[anast]

I can grind to souls level "150" before new game plus and basically "Wally pip" the boss fight if I want to. Difficulty sliders aren't needed for any "Soulsborne" game other than Sekiro because you can't grind for levels.

Of course, I am all for accessibility options and if this is what you are arguing then I agree.

[Daeloki]

Okay but why should someone have to grind to level 150lvl to make the game easier, when it could be done by simply choosing a difficulty level? I get that it's not difficult to grind necessarily, but not everyone has the time to do that either. Having a difficulty setting does not take away from anyone's experience.

And absolutely agreed with accessibility options, but even those are laughably limited in even the most recent FS games.

[anast]

@ Dae

The level grind is a part of how the game is made. People that like their games like it this way. I don't get why it should be changed. I would just play a game that I like instead of demanding games that I don't like to be changed.

[Daeloki]

"The level grind is a part of how the game is made. People that like their games like it this way. I don't get why it should be changed. I would just play a game that I like instead of demanding games that I don't like to be changed."

But that's the thing, you can have that and have difficulty sliders, they're not mutually exclusive.

[anast]

@Dae

"But that's the thing, you can have that and have difficulty sliders, they're not mutually exclusive."

Sliders are not needed to have fun, because people have fun without them. Millions actually, yes, millions of people are doing fine without sliders. None of this is mutually exclusive and that's the point.

Answer this question: Why try to change a game that you don't like instead of playing a game that you like?

[Daeloki]

"Sliders are not needed to have fun, because people have fun without them. Millions actually, yes, millions of people are doing fine without sliders. None of this is mutually exclusive and that's the point.

Answer this question: Why try to change a game that you don't like instead of playing a game that you like?"

Those millions could still keep playing just the way they have, but adding a slider would make the game more accessible to a bunch of people. Adding a difficulty slider would not take away from anyone.

And to answer your question, it's not so much changing the game, but adding a feature. I like the game, I still think it could be improved upon with a difficulty slider and a modern co-op system.

[anast]

@Dae

Yeah, if core audience hated the fact that the game doesn't have a slider then of course. But the people that enjoy the game do not care and that's millions. A lot of them prefer not to have it for the "old school" feel. I am not sure what people get out needed to change this. Plus, the difficulty is adjusted by grinding, which is how the games are designed. I don't know why playing a game how it is designed is such a bad thing, unless you don't like the game, which brings us all the way back to the first point. Unless of course for some reason you are physically unable to play it that way, then there should be some options. But I watched people play dark souls with their feet so....there is that.

If a sliders don't change anything then there is no reason to add it or not in the first place. Adding something that doesn't matter is not a good enough argument for a company to spend the resources to program that in.

PC version have easy mods, I guess people could just play it with those mods. It is a bit bizarre though because it isn't like these games have awesome stories that people are missing out on. The games are built around combat. But no one should stop modders.

It is hard to say easy mods improved these games other than throwing off already unbalanced games, save Sekiro. And a slider wouldn't improve the framerate. So the improvement angle is not strong enough either because a slider doe not address any of these fundamental issues.

I think the strongest argument would be accessibility.

[Daeloki]

I still don't get what the problem with a slider would be. The "old school" people could keep playing it on as hard a setting as they want. And those who don't have the time to grind (full time job, maybe two jobs, kids etc.) would have an option to still enjoy the game. No matter how you try to phrase it, your arguments come off as gate keeping.

"If a sliders don't change anything then there is no reason to add it or not in the first place."

Oh come on, that's not what I said and you know it.

[anast]

@Dae

To wrap things up, you haven't convinced me and I haven't convinced you.

Thanks for the discussion. I enjoyed it.