Modern 2 Player alternating Shooters?

[stryc9]

I have not heard of any of these. You know what I mean, player 1 plays his first life, dies at some point then it's player 2's shot, 80s arcade style.

Online leaderboards have given shmupping a new dimension in the world of today, and I think a score based shooter built around this old mechanic could go down well. You'd have to have skill matching though, otherwise a total scrub will die in 3 seconds and have to watch player 2 as he no misses the entire game

Maybe then Xbox LIVE Gold will be worth paying for.

[Krimzon Kitzune]

You'd have to have skill matching though, otherwise a total scrub will die in 3 seconds and have to watch player 2 as he no misses the entire game

Maybe then Xbox LIVE Gold will be worth paying for.

No.

[drei :3]

I don't think people enjoy much waiting for their turn.

Hmm.

Maybe a sort of versus game with really short levels could work, short as in 10 seconds or less. Suppose players get thrown into a bunch of micro levels out of a set of hundreds. The level order is random and there is also some random stuff inside a level, but the same level is always shown twice in a row, once for each player, and the randomized element in that level is also identical for both. To make it more fair, each player takes turns being the first who plays a level (that also makes the waiting time as long as 2 levels if the player doesn't get shot, so remember they should be really short).

Slight rubberband effect: If the player who is in the lead gets shot and the other player hasn't yet done that level, the leading player's ship turns into a bonus for the other player, appearing at exactly that spot. (I also thought about doing a rubberband effect the other way around: If you are behind and your ship explodes, it turns into an additional threat for the other player, but implementing that without having unavoidable deaths in some places would be much more complicated.)

If the levels are short enough, waiting could even be tolerable with 3 or 4 players. Leaderboards don't make sense here, though there could be different (much less random) modes where they do make sense.

What do you think?

[stryc9]

You'd have to have skill matching though, otherwise a total scrub will die in 3 seconds and have to watch player 2 as he no misses the entire game

Maybe then Xbox LIVE Gold will be worth paying for.

No.

Thanks for clearing that up for me.

I don't think people enjoy much waiting for their turn.

Hmm.

Maybe a sort of versus game with really short levels could work, short as in 10 seconds or less. Suppose players get thrown into a bunch of micro levels out of a set of hundreds. The level order is random and there is also some random stuff inside a level, but the same level is always shown twice in a row, once for each player, and the randomized element in that level is also identical for both. To make it more fair, each player takes turns being the first who plays a level (that also makes the waiting time as long as 2 levels if the player doesn't get shot, so remember they should be really short).

Slight rubberband effect: If the player who is in the lead gets shot and the other player hasn't yet done that level, the leading player's ship turns into a bonus for the other player, appearing at exactly that spot. (I also thought about doing a rubberband effect the other way around: If you are behind and your ship explodes, it turns into an additional threat for the other player, but implementing that without having unavoidable deaths in some places would be much more complicated.)

If the levels are short enough, waiting could even be tolerable with 3 or 4 players. Leaderboards don't make sense here, though there could be different (much less random) modes where they do make sense.

What do you think?

You have to wait your turn in fighting games online. What, your telling me the person waiting isn't gonna read their opponents game and learn from it while their waiting? I'm the most impatient person in the world and I would be fine with this.

It worked fine back in the day and the only reason it was taken out is cos of the rise of 2P simultaneous, which was exciting at the time, but these days just breaks scoring and such IMO.

@ drei:3 - good ideas man but I'm really talking about a more traditional approach.

But this thread I created is dead as a doornail, so I suppose we can just leave it at that.

[Krimzon Kitzune]

Actually, alternating may just work, but it would have to be presented in caravan score attack-style or something similar (see Soldier Blade or Blade Buster for good examples). This approach would encourage competition because the waiting period for each player wouldn't be so long (maybe 5 minutes at most, anything above this is probably going to push it). This is the only way it would actually work, because I'm not going to watch somebody beast an entire game for two loops and get bored enough that I want to do something else on my own.

But when you think about it, alternating 2P modes are obsolete because if you're going to play for score, you may as well play the 1P mode and take turns that way.

[Blackbird]

I think I would have to agree with the "People don't like waiting their turns." point. In my experience, modern gamers absolutely will not tolerate "dead time". They want to be in the action constantly. Indeed, that is part of the appeal of shooting games. So I feel such a multiplayer mechanic would be inherently flawed.

It would be a lot better to design a strong, compelling, and balanced co-op mode where 2 or even several players can play simultaneously from the very beginning. I think there is a lot of unexplored potential in this area for shooting games.

[captpain]

I don't think people enjoy much waiting for their turn.

Hmm.

Maybe a sort of versus game with really short levels could work, short as in 10 seconds or less. Suppose players get thrown into a bunch of micro levels out of a set of hundreds. The level order is random and there is also some random stuff inside a level, but the same level is always shown twice in a row, once for each player, and the randomized element in that level is also identical for both. To make it more fair, each player takes turns being the first who plays a level (that also makes the waiting time as long as 2 levels if the player doesn't get shot, so remember they should be really short).

Slight rubberband effect: If the player who is in the lead gets shot and the other player hasn't yet done that level, the leading player's ship turns into a bonus for the other player, appearing at exactly that spot. (I also thought about doing a rubberband effect the other way around: If you are behind and your ship explodes, it turns into an additional threat for the other player, but implementing that without having unavoidable deaths in some places would be much more complicated.)

If the levels are short enough, waiting could even be tolerable with 3 or 4 players. Leaderboards don't make sense here, though there could be different (much less random) modes where they do make sense.

What do you think?

I like the rubber banding idea. I wonder if it would feel like co-op or a competition. Probably co-op.

[stryc9]

Actually, all these ideas are nice and deserve some consideration. You see THATS why I come here

After pondering over them, I'm beginning to think my original idea is... well yeah it probably wouldn't work too well in the end, would it.

Keep 'em flowing gentlemen.

[Obiwanshinobi]

It would be a lot better to design a strong, compelling, and balanced co-op mode where 2 or even several players can play simultaneously from the very beginning. I think there is a lot of unexplored potential in this area for shooting games.

No matter how well designed, I doubt many shmuppers would play it. Raiden III has cracking co-op which hardly anybody seems to be playing.
Part of the genre's appeal is that you can enjoy it fully during irregular, brief sessions, alone. That's why those who can only play games in such manner tend to gravitate towards shmups.
What I'm getting at is - co-op in shmups does have unexplored potential, but needs open-minded audience to make it big. Like, people experimenting with all sorts of party games for the heck of it rather than compulsively restarting crowd flocking around here.

[Blackbird]

I believe there are a few significant reasons that co-op in shooting games has been a general failure (with a few exceptions).

- Most shooting games are balanced around one player and don't scale well to two players. Adding a second player typically unbalances the game, most often towards the "too easy" side.

- Most shooting games have scoring systems that are designed around having only one player. As soon as you add a second player, the scoring system becomes completely worthless. For many players, this ruins the enjoyment of the game.

- Even in shooting games that have co-op, there is typically little "synergy" between the players.

I think it could be interesting to have a shooting game that is intentionally designed for co-op.

I would propose a joint scoring system that totals the points of both players (or both players simply contribute to the same pool of points) and rewards teamwork with more points.

Additionally, I would design the craft in such a manner that they have complimentary roles. In a broad sense, perhaps you could take a page from the RPG genre and have a "tank" craft and a "damage dealer" craft. That's a really rough idea, but I think you can see what I'm getting at.

One example of a successful co-op shooting game (in my opinion) is Metal Slug, in that it's so bloody hard for most players that it is still challenging even with 2 players. I don't really run for score in this game, just "use fewer credits than last time" =P.

[Obiwanshinobi]

I'm not sure if MOST shmups have scoring systems designed around singleplayer. This may be true for modern shmups, but those are made with much narrower audience in mind than old shmups. Modern shmups are meant to be played by people who either choose gaming in seclusion or don't have a choice anymore. There's so little consensus between modern shmuppers as for what makes a score system good that very few of them would benefit from co-op coupled with fancy scoring.
I for one am inclined to agree that if co-op gets in the way of scoreplay in many modern shmups, it's because score systems of those games suck to begin with. Those few shmups with score hooks appealing to me (such as Vulgus, where chaining is not only FUN for a change, but also makes sense from purely tactical standpoint) would work in co-op as well (perhaps tweaked to an extent). I'm not sure how's co-op in Dangun Feveron and Omega Fighter Special, but since neither is massively popular with shmuppers, my chances of trying out local multiplayer in those are low.
I expect the first successful modern co-op shmup (successful in terms of some people actually playing it cooperatively and having fun at that) to alienate those who think themselves true fans of the genre.
Wasn't Strike Gunner S.T.G. all about "synergy"? Singleplayer of the arcade original surely didn't make much sense for me. SNES version is more playable in the singleplayer mode, but it's not saying much.

[Blackbird]

Even most classic games don't make sense regarding co-op scoring. Take Raiden, for example. Most of the score in that game comes from destroying enemies and picking up medals. However, there is a finite quantity of enemies and medals to go around. As soon as you add a second player and that player starts picking up power ups and destroying enemies, he cuts into the limit of points available in the game as a whole. Co-op is undermined completely, because the players are now competing to see who can capture the most of the game's limited point pool. Furthermore, comparing your score to any single player score is right out, because a co-op score will invariably be lower.

This example extends to any game where your points are derived simply from destroying enemies, which includes many (almost all?) classic shooting games.

With a lot of shooting games being popular on downloadable services like X360, I don't think that the preference for solo play needs to be set in stone. It would be very easy to get other players online if you are already on a network.

[Obiwanshinobi]

I can't see why scoring wouldn't work in something like Vulgus (or just about any shooter where enemies keep spawning until you're out of lives) if it was a co-op game. If I had to arrange a co-op version of Bosconian, each enemy you destroy would add its value to your personal score (as for the enemy formation bonus, the player who took down the last enemy would claim it his or her own), but biggest reward would be time bonus for clearing the stage as soon as possible, shared evenly among all players. That would prevent milking and the gameplay would have competitive and cooperative qualities alike to it.

[toaplan_shmupfan]

In Raiden, playing two player co-op also puts the players on a separate Dual Fighters high score board.

Both players will still get the same amount of powerups because the game adds a second powerup carrying ship whenever they appear in dual figher games. Futhermore, while it is true that each player may split the medals whether evenly or not, they each still have their own bomb stock for a potential end of stage bonus. Plus, the game still rewards the 1,000,000 point bonus for finishing the last stage before it loops again.

Co-op play is usually about two players teaming up just to beat the game's stages, not necessarily playing for score. In classic games, one notable exception would be the Atari 2600 Space Invaders variation of two opposing players competing at the same time, because the other player got awarded 200 points when their opponent lost a turn (though both only had the same 3 common turns, not 3 turns each).

In contrast, alternating turns--even if one has to wait for the other--is two player competitive.