Coop games thoughts...

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Wed Feb 10, 2016 1:19 pm

In another thread, I mentioned that I have been playing Borderlands in co-op mode with my kids lately, and all three of us are having some of the most gaming fun of our lives. Thanks to wONDERPUG and gODHUGH sending me some old PC parts, we'll be able to continue the series afterwards, with each of us on a separate PC.

I was thinking about afterward, though, or possibly breaking up the Borderlands games with something a little different to keep things fresh. I'm thinking slightly older games, though, as they'll run better on the older PCs, and since I'll have to buy two or three copies of each, stuff that drops to single digit prices during the Steam sales would be ideal. They'd need to support three-player cooperative play over LAN or 'net. The nature of the content isn't a concern with my kids. MMOs are probably out, as I can't afford three subscriptions, and most aren't balanced well for three players (although if anyone knows of a good F2P that scales well to three, let me know!) My thoughts so far:

Borderlands 2
Dungeon Defenders
(We already have both of these.)

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel
Diablo 3 (although it is never on sale)
Ghost Recon (the original)
Torchlight 2
Titan Quest: Immortal Throne
Possibly Left 4 Dead 1/2 if it is really cheap on sale, as I think it would get repetitive quickly.

A lot of these are just 'get a quest, kill everything' type games. I was also hoping for something with a little more depth, but that's a little harder to find in three-player coop.

I'm researching, but I find that OOs opinions are the best resource out there.

Paingod · Post by **Paingod** » Wed Feb 10, 2016 1:24 pm

My son loves Terraria, and the wife and I have copies. On rare nights, we'll all three join up in a multiplayer game and have some chaos. Before he got it, I used to play it a lot with my wife.

The wife and I have played Borderlands, and Don't Starve Together... but she's not a huge gamer anymore and only has small fits of wanting to play anything.

TheMix · Post by **TheMix** » Wed Feb 10, 2016 1:39 pm

Scanning through the co-op games in Steam, there aren't many that I'm familiar with.

Obviously the ARPG games (Diablo, Titan Quest, Torchlight, Van Helsing, etc.) are going to give you some character development as well as the co-op experience. But, as noted, you aren't going to get a lot of depth.

L4D 1/2 does go on sale. And it can be a lot of fun. But it does get repetitive. Still, it's fun to play in shorter spurts. And it does ramp up well. It'll be challenging.

Dead Island is one that isn't on your list. It's not for everyone though. But it does allow you to play through the campaign in co-op. I've played it through 4 times now. Once with every character. Twice in co-op. As long as you don't cross-platform co-op (pc and mac), you shouldn't run into any difficulties. One thing to note, however, is that it doesn't ramp up the difficulty. Not that I've ever noticed. Same number of zombies with 2 players as 1 player. And they don't seem any harder to kill. I still have a lot of fun with it, however. If you want to try it out sometime, I can add you as a friend so you can use it from my library.

Steam also included Icewind Dale. I never tried that or Baldur's Gate in co-op. So I don't know how well they work. But if you look for the original and not the enhanced, the price probably won't be too bad.

Huh... Red Faction: Armageddon apparently has a co-op mode. Didn't know that. But it's a separate mode; you can't play through the campaign together. I'm not a fan of those types of co-op.

I never played it, but there was a following here for Magicka. I got the impression that it's also essentially an ARPG though. So it may not be what you are looking for.

If you want to go more "old school", there is also TableTop Simulator. That would give you access to some board games.

Scuzz · Post by **Scuzz** » Wed Feb 10, 2016 1:53 pm

I have been co-op gaming for years with my youngest daughter (who is 22 now). We have played the following....

Portal 2
Castle Crashers
The entire Gears of War series
one of the Halo games
Borderlands 1
Borderlands 2
More Lego games than I can remember

Castle Crashers allows for 4 people co-op i think.
Portal may be limited to 2 as may most of the Gears of War/Halo games.

I don't know if they are still available or for what console but the old Baldurs Gate console games were multi-player hack and slashers. Not nearly as good as the PC version but fun in a multi-player non thinking way.

We will probably be starting Borderlands: The Prequel in the next two weeks and I plan on getting her Lego Marvels Avengers for her birthday next month.

blackjack · Post by **blackjack** » Wed Feb 10, 2016 1:53 pm

Helldivers on PC is certainly the most co-op fun I've had (with strangers or more familiar Steam friends) in years. I'm a little burned out now (something like 90 hours in it on Steam, after about 40 on Vita last year). It's to some extent a simple game, but people working together in it is what makes for storytelling and making it special -- which is really hard to explain to people who never played it.

For me the strange thing with Diablo and its ilk is I had way more fun when most of us were on dial-up (Diablo 1997, Diablo II and its expansion 2000-2002) than on D3 when I had broadband and battle.net was more emphasizing always-onness. Just didn't make the same kinds of co-op pals anymore. I guess part of that is wider choice and the masses generally running from one hot release to the other in a matter of weeks in most cases. The days I might play the same game with co-op buds for a year ore more (as with Diablo until Ultima Online stole most of its players; or Diablo II) seems largely over.

I love Grim Dawn but it's not a secure server situation, and while I don't really care if everyone's hacking their game saves around me, I really don't play it co-op online much, which is probably a shame.

Also had lots of fun with Mass Effect 3 co-op. In fact I never really got far in the SP campaign on it. And the co-op was so intense that it ultimately destroyed my Logitech illluminated keyboard, which Logitech was willing to replace once under warranty. Still about the only time I ever had any computer accessory replaced under warranty. I may have not actually mentioned to them I broke a "scissors key" by pounding keys too hard in Mass Effect 3 co-op.

NickAragua · Post by **NickAragua** » Wed Feb 10, 2016 2:20 pm

Some suggestions:

Monaco - top down "grab all the gold" game. Each character has a special ability. Many different possible approaches to each level, and a lot of levels. Goes especially smoothly if you coordinate with your teammates.
Magicka - "put on your bathrobe and wizard hat". Use eight different elements to combine them into spells of various kinds. Gets pretty chaotic. Friendly fire is on, so expect to get clobbered by your teammates.
Broforce - Chaz, Guapo, I and another friend I went through most of this a couple of months ago. It was amazing. It's a platformer with lots of guns and chaos.
Swat 4 - this is an oldie but goodie. Get out your beanbag shotguns and prepare to yell "police! get down on the ground!" a lot as you repeatedly tazer people in the nuts. Also, prepare to get really paranoid about every door in the level, because you just never know what kind of AK-47 wielding whackjob is hiding behind that door. Which is why you want to "breach bang and clear". Don't forget to ziptie everyone you come across. Pretty sure it supports up to 4 player coop.

The other upshot of these is that they're relatively cheap (in the "under $20" range) and have no system requirements to speak of, unless you're running a machine from the 90s. But if you can run Borderlands, you can run these.

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Wed Feb 10, 2016 2:31 pm

My thoughts? I like games, but I'm fairly picky. It really annoys me that there is a whole swath of games that are classified by my name and I don't play any of them!

Sepiche · Post by **Sepiche** » Wed Feb 10, 2016 2:36 pm

One of my favorite gaming experiences of all time was playing through System Shock 2 coop.

Bad Demographic · Post by **Bad Demographic** » Wed Feb 10, 2016 2:46 pm

The old Dawn of War games are pretty good. Bob and I still play them.
Serious Sam II was a ton of fun multiplayer (the more the merrier). And I think I have 2 copies (disks) - if so, I'd be happy to send them to you. You'd only have to find one other copy or get one on sale via Steam.
I also have 2 copies of XMen Legends: Rise of Apocalypse I could send you if you think you can get or buy another copy.

I second Don't Starve Together.

NickAragua · Post by **NickAragua** » Wed Feb 10, 2016 2:55 pm

Bad Demographic wrote:The old Dawn of War games are pretty good. Bob and I still play them.
Serious Sam II was a ton of fun multiplayer (the more the merrier). And I think I have 2 copies (disks) - if so, I'd be happy to send them to you. You'd only have to find one other copy or get one on sale via Steam.
I also have 2 copies of XMen Legends: Rise of Apocalypse I could send you if you think you can get or buy another copy.

I second Don't Starve Together.

I loved the Dawn of War 2 series, but it's only 2-player coop. I mean, there's a survival mode, but it's not worth $40.

Can't believe I forgot Serious Sam. The classic ones (First/Second Encounter) and the new one (BFE and the expansion) are superb. The one in the middle was mediocre.

I had forgotten about X-Men Legends, but yes, that was also an excellent game. Unless one of your teammates develops a love for destroying every wall in every level. That was cute at first, but then got super boring.

Anonymous Bosch · Post by **Anonymous Bosch** » Wed Feb 10, 2016 3:23 pm

Monaco: What's Yours Is Mine is definitely worthy of consideration.

Also, given your appreciation of Star Trek, the Artemis Spaceship Bridge Simulator ought to be a no-brainer. In a somewhat similar vein, though with a completely different theme, there's also Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes.

Trine 2 is great fun with three players, too.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Wed Feb 10, 2016 3:38 pm

I'm not sure what the system requirements are but Helldivers was on sale (might still be) and it can be played multiplayer (it is a purely coop game) on a single computer (would need multiple controllers though) or more than 1 computer. It runs on the PS3 and Vita, so I gotta figure it would run on anything that can run Borderlands.

It's fun and exciting and while it doesn't offer quests or interesting story like Borderlands, it does have experience points, leveling up and gear unlocks, which helps make it more interesting.

edit: I see Blackjack has it covered.

Bad Demographic · Post by **Bad Demographic** » Wed Feb 10, 2016 5:12 pm

NickAragua wrote:
Bad Demographic wrote:The old Dawn of War games are pretty good. Bob and I still play them.
Serious Sam II was a ton of fun multiplayer (the more the merrier). And I think I have 2 copies (disks) - if so, I'd be happy to send them to you. You'd only have to find one other copy or get one on sale via Steam.
I also have 2 copies of XMen Legends: Rise of Apocalypse I could send you if you think you can get or buy another copy.

I second Don't Starve Together.
I loved the Dawn of War 2 series, but it's only 2-player coop. I mean, there's a survival mode, but it's not worth $40.

Can't believe I forgot Serious Sam. The classic ones (First/Second Encounter) and the new one (BFE and the expansion) are superb. The one in the middle was mediocre.

I had forgotten about X-Men Legends, but yes, that was also an excellent game. Unless one of your teammates develops a love for destroying every wall in every level. That was cute at first, but then got super boring.

The old Dawn of War (not DoW2) can take more than 2 players. We played it at a LAN party way back when.

Chraolic · Post by **Chraolic** » Wed Feb 10, 2016 5:21 pm

The multiplayer mod for Just Cause 2 is probably great fun if you're playing with people you know.

Paingod · Post by **Paingod** » Wed Feb 10, 2016 5:27 pm

I forgot - I had also gotten a multiplayer server setup for Freelancer and tried that out with my wife. We didn't play long enough to do much, but while it was running it worked well.

You might try things like MechWarrior Online with reduced graphics settings. It's free to try and play, rounds don't take forever to play through, and they keep releasing new Mechs and maps. It may not be overly pretty with everything turned down, but it can be good fun - and with three people in the same house working together you'll get to use better coordination than I ever did solo in PUGs. I used to play this quite a bit on my older machine, and it ran well. I've only tested it on my new one.

Tampa_Gamer · Post by **Tampa_Gamer** » Wed Feb 10, 2016 6:30 pm

Interesting topic. I think I mentioned at least in one other thread, but by far the most gaming fun I have had in recent years is playing with my 3 kids who range from 8 - 14. While they started on consoles (and still play them) they love the flexibility of modding that a PC brings to the table and we all have Steam accounts. When they talk to their friends about PC gaming/Steam, they get blank stares.

Anyway, I converted a failed attempt at a family HTPC in 2009 into a server for our house, and each kid has one of my "older"computers with expanded memory/newer graphic cards as needed. Our current favorite is Helldivers, which allows us each to use the same character in single-play or co-op whenever others are around. I shy away from MMO or other on-line games because I do want to control the environment for now.

That being said, our current favorites (apart from a heavily modded Minecraft server) are:

ARK (LAN server)
7 Days to Die (LAN server)
Empyrion (LAN server)
WURM: Unlimited (LAN server)
Sword of the Stars I (not II) (us vs AI)
Forged Alliance (with Forever Mod) (us vs AI)
Torchlight II
Quake Wars: Enemy Territory (us vs AI)
Team Fortress 2 (LAN server)
Dungeon Defenders I/II
Company of Heroes I

On hold pending future updates to fix the multi-player experience:
Space Engineers/Medieval Engineers

Thinking about/tracking for the future:
Evochron: Legacy (LAN server)

[edit] forgot to mention that for communication we still use Ventrilo due to its small footprint and I don't like to rely on in-game only communication. I would be curious to hear what others use.

blackjack · Post by **blackjack** » Wed Feb 10, 2016 6:32 pm

GreenGoo wrote:I'm not sure what the system requirements are but Helldivers was on sale (might still be) and it can be played multiplayer (it is a purely coop game) on a single computer (would need multiple controllers though) or more than 1 computer. It runs on the PS3 and Vita, so I gotta figure it would run on anything that can run Borderlands.

It's fun and exciting and while it doesn't offer quests or interesting story like Borderlands, it does have experience points, leveling up and gear unlocks, which helps make it more interesting.

edit: I see Blackjack has it covered.

That's OK, no Helldivers mention is superfluous!

Yup, Helldivers remains on sale (base version $13.99; Digital Deluxe $27.99; all the DLC packs), Steam page indicates about for the next 43 hours or so from this minute.

I loved Borderlands but I have embarrassing and rampant motion sickness issues with many 1st and 3rd person games that that ultimately was one of them.

NickAragua · Post by **NickAragua** » Wed Feb 10, 2016 6:32 pm

Bad Demographic wrote:The old Dawn of War (not DoW2) can take more than 2 players. We played it at a LAN party way back when.

True, but it's no coop game, that's for sure.

Bad Demographic · Post by **Bad Demographic** » Wed Feb 10, 2016 6:50 pm

NickAragua wrote:
Bad Demographic wrote:The old Dawn of War (not DoW2) can take more than 2 players. We played it at a LAN party way back when.
True, but it's no coop game, that's for sure.

Well, not co-op like a fps, but we always play on the same side.

blackjack - I know what you mean about gaming motion sickness. I'm better than I used to be but I usually have to "practice" a first person game (15 minutes at a time) to get used to it.

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Wed Feb 10, 2016 7:31 pm

Thanks for all the ideas. The computers (once I get the aforementioned used parts delivered and installed) will be able to run anything but high end stuff from the last couple of years (although with reduced settings.) I'm sure Helldivers will run fine (although it didn't appeal to me visually, just a personal thing.) A big part of the request for older games is simply finding stuff I can grab for a couple of bucks on Steam, as multiple copies racks up the price fast. $15 for Helldivers becomes $45 for three people. Serious Sam, though. Serious Sam 2 is currently .99, while The First Encounter and Second Encounter are packaged together for .99 right now (and the first two games were better than Serious Sam 2 (which was the third game) anyway. They aren't terribly deep, but the price is right!

Some of the other ideas were great, and I'll look into them. Some of them I haven't heard of. I also tend to avoid 2d games, but that's just a personal preference.

morlac · Post by **morlac** » Wed Feb 10, 2016 7:54 pm

I'll second or third some listed already then add a couple....

Helldivers : made by the magika team so sneaky amount of depth and chaotic coop action. You will kill each other accidentally a lot. Someone will occasionally kill someone on purpose. Good times will be had. More expensive then your looking for probably.

Magika : should be able to grab super cheap...see above but with Magic!

Titan Quest Immortal Throne : Hell yes. Should be able to grab 3 on sale for around $10-$15 max for the lot.

Anything with Serious Sam in the name : Old school shooter, great fun coop, should be super cheap.

Broforce : Go watch trailers. Nuff said.

New Suggestions :

Rocket League : Best game/most played I have gotten over the fall/holiday sales. I bought a lot. Online multi but you guys can join and all be on same team. Lan w/ bots should be in play as well. I Believe it is on sale now for around $13ish.

Renegade Ops : Older action game that is great Coop.

Tao · Post by **Tao** » Wed Feb 10, 2016 8:28 pm

Torchlight 2 is awesome and with the various mods you can get a lot of mileage out of it (if your a fan of ARPG) and it's fairly cheap

7 Days to Die is a blast multiplayer if you host your own session and is also not too expensive at the moment

If Terraria clicks with your kids you can probably get 100 hours out of it

Orcs Must Die 2 is a blast multiplayer but I do not know if it supports more than 2 players...did not see a reference on Steam

Lord of the Rings: War in the North is great fun and fairly cheap now a days...some of the battles can be a bit frustrating and may take a few tries to pass but still a lot of fun

Sanctum 2 is good for a few hours of fun and very cheap

Sentinels of the Multiverse is a tad on the expensive side for multiple copies but one of my all time favorite games (think I am closing in on 150 hours)

Path of Exile is a completely (truly) free to play ARPG... personally I find it a bit too faced paced for a good multiplay session but I know a lot of folks who play co-op

Table Top Simulator isn't too terribly expensive and opens up a ton of gaming options

Terra is a F2P MMO that is pretty good about not banging you for micro-transactions and it's quite fun

Skyforge is another MMO that's free and worth checking out at least for the short term...prolonged play can lead to monetary investment

Neverwinter Nights Online is another really fun MMO that you can play free to relatively cheap

All three of the above mentioned MMO's work really well with 3 man teams if you are half-way competent, actually if your good you can solo quite a bit of the content so 3 people should be a breeze until end-game

Lordnine · Post by **Lordnine** » Wed Feb 10, 2016 8:34 pm

No mention of Trine yet? Trine 1 & 2 are probably two of the best 3 player co-op games.

Also, I know you are looking for PC, but if you have a WiiU, check out Affordable Space Adventures. It's a great (funny) three player game and one of the best uses of the WiiU pad of any game on the system.

Anonymous Bosch · Post by **Anonymous Bosch** » Wed Feb 10, 2016 8:57 pm

Lordnine wrote:No mention of Trine yet? Trine 1 & 2 are probably two of the best 3 player co-op games.

FWIW, I made mention of Trine 2 right here.

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Wed Feb 10, 2016 10:49 pm

Tao wrote: Orcs Must Die 2 is a blast multiplayer but I do not know if it supports more than 2 players...did not see a reference on Steam

It was one of my very first thoughts, but it is two player only.

Tao wrote: All three of the above mentioned MMO's work really well with 3 man teams if you are half-way competent, actually if your good you can solo quite a bit of the content so 3 people should be a breeze until end-game

That's actually what makes MMOs a problem. I've played a bunch of MMOs with a two-person duo - WoW, LotRO, CoH/CoV, Guild Wars, Champions, DCUO, Rift, SWtOR, and a few I've probably forgotten. All had most of their world content balanced for a single player. Playing it with two made it effortless almost to the point of boring. Playing it with three wouldn't be much fun at all. At least unless you played by doing nothing but group content, over and over, which wouldn't be much better.

Anonymous Bosch · Post by **Anonymous Bosch** » Thu Feb 11, 2016 1:58 pm

Blackhawk wrote:I'm thinking slightly older games, though, as they'll run better on the older PCs, and since I'll have to buy two or three copies of each, stuff that drops to single digit prices during the Steam sales would be ideal.

...

A lot of these are just 'get a quest, kill everything' type games. I was also hoping for something with a little more depth, but that's a little harder to find in three-player coop.

In terms of older co-op games with some depth, have you considered replaying some of the BioWare / Black Isle Studio classics? e.g. Baldur's Gate: The Original Saga, Baldur's Gate 2 Complete, Neverwinter Nights Diamond, Neverwinter Nights 2 Complete, Icewind Dale Complete, and Icewind Dale 2 Complete, all of which can be played co-operatively over a LAN.

If you don't already own the vast majority of those games, buying through GOG ought to be fairly cost-effective, too, as you wouldn't need to purchase multiple copies of the same games.

Kelan · Post by **Kelan** » Thu Feb 11, 2016 4:03 pm

Terraria is great fun and inexpensive. Starbound is pretty good too and similar although still being developed.

I will echo some of the suggestions that Tampa_Gamer mentioned and that I have had a lot of fun recently in ARK, Wurm Unlimited and Evochron: Legacy. Ark is probably the most fun for a wider audience as Wurm Unlimited can be a little archaic and grindy even though it has lots of creative flexibility in creating your own settlements and towns. Evochron is a bit of a hardcore space combat simulator although they do also have other activities you can do. Ark is pretty dang awesome, but it has been known to bring some PCs to their knees with their requirements, so not sure how well that fits in with the PCs you have to use.

Daehawk · Post by **Daehawk** » Thu Feb 11, 2016 11:58 pm

The 90's was coop heaven. Im very disappointed that the new DOOM wont have coop. Unbelievable.

AWS260 · Post by **AWS260** » Fri Feb 12, 2016 12:53 am

There are a bunch of great recommendations in this thread. I'll just add the Dynasty Warriors / Samurai Warriors games, which are incredibly dumb, totally ridiculous, and fantastic for local co-op.

gilraen · Post by **gilraen** » Fri Feb 12, 2016 1:22 am

AWS260 wrote:There are a bunch of great recommendations in this thread. I'll just add the Dynasty Warriors / Samurai Warriors games, which are incredibly dumb, totally ridiculous, and fantastic for local co-op.

I love those games but I always preferred them on console...DW8 was marginally unplayable on the PC until I got an XBox controller for it.

NickAragua · Post by **NickAragua** » Fri Feb 12, 2016 12:04 pm

Daehawk wrote:The 90's was coop heaven. Im very disappointed that the new DOOM wont have coop. Unbelievable.

Actually, that's another great coop game. Grab your doom WADs from wherever they're sitting, download Brutal Doom v21 (or whatever they're up to now) and fire it up over the LAN. It's about 20x more bloody and awesome than the original.

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Tue Feb 23, 2016 6:23 pm

Thanks for all of the suggestions in this thread. I have added Serious Sam 1 & 2 HD, Left 4 Dead 2 and Titan Quest: Immortal Throne to their libraries (I already owned, and have played, all of those.)

I set up an extra Steam account to make a wish list and keep an eye out for sales (as some of the game I already own.) I've added Sanctum 2, Helldivers, Torchlight 2, Trine 2, Dead Island, and Portal 2 to the list, and am looking at Tera and Guild Wars 2 as MMO options.

I've also considered Neverwinter, as we're also doing an pen-and-paper D&D game together, so they know the tropes, but I seem to remember from my time in Neverwinter that there was very, very little challenge when playing solo, and I didn't really care for the way they handled their free-to-play elements. I'd say the same thing about LotRO - it was a great game, but their free-to-play effectively ends at level 20. Rift is a lot of fun, and their free to play is fantastic, but again - it is so easy solo that I can't imagine three-manning it.

Anonymous Bosch wrote: In terms of older co-op games with some depth, have you considered replaying some of the BioWare / Black Isle Studio classics? e.g. Baldur's Gate: The Original Saga, Baldur's Gate 2 Complete, Neverwinter Nights Diamond, Neverwinter Nights 2 Complete, Icewind Dale Complete, and Icewind Dale 2 Complete, all of which can be played co-operatively over a LAN.

Now that's an interesting thought. I've got, and have played everything on that list (save that I never finished IWD or NWN 2.) How do the Infinity Engine games play in co-op? The combat was so fiddly with strategies that I can't imagine playing it without being able to pause to issue orders every few seconds.

Anonymous Bosch · Post by **Anonymous Bosch** » Tue Feb 23, 2016 10:17 pm

Blackhawk wrote:
Anonymous Bosch wrote: In terms of older co-op games with some depth, have you considered replaying some of the BioWare / Black Isle Studio classics? e.g. Baldur's Gate: The Original Saga, Baldur's Gate 2 Complete, Neverwinter Nights Diamond, Neverwinter Nights 2 Complete, Icewind Dale Complete, and Icewind Dale 2 Complete, all of which can be played co-operatively over a LAN.
Now that's an interesting thought. I've got, and have played everything on that list (save that I never finished IWD or NWN 2.) How do the Infinity Engine games play in co-op? The combat was so fiddly with strategies that I can't imagine playing it without being able to pause to issue orders every few seconds.

If memory serves, the host decides which players are given the ability to pause the game during the initial set-up. So you can configure your experience however you prefer. I believe you could also set it up to automatically pause the game when attacked, or automatically do so after each round of combat. I recall the BG series working pretty smoothly, particularly when you were in the same room as other members of your party and could call out your plans and tactics.

blackjack · Post by **blackjack** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 5:41 pm

Belatedly chiming in that Tom Clancy's The Division in my limited experience is fairly fun co-op. I can't really tell if Friendly Fire is in it, but to this point I've never experienced any. It's not really something that requires formal teamwork, I'd say, but if you get too far separated you'll have trouble reviving/healing each other. otoh, you don't want to bunch up (grenades and flamethrowers can wipe your whole team). So maybe the strategy is separating enough to avoid that, and to get some flanking fire on enemies if possible; but not so far apart you can't help each other if needed.

In the non-Dark Zone areas, each player gets his own loot so you don't need to squabble over it.
If you're heavily wounded, you can crawl around for a while, and a co-op partner can revive you.
I think in some areas if you're fully "out for the count," then you can't even move, and if not revived by a certain time, you respawn at the nearest checkpoint. Some critical mission areas are labeled "no respawn." It seemed like there, basically, I couldn't do anything but wait for my bud to revive me.
Automated matchmaking works pretty well imho.
It's easy enough to add UPlay friends to your team, and you can set a team to "friends list only"; I think that means friends can join your mission group on the fly though I've not tested that yet.
If your Steam profile is public, it seems to let you import your Steam friends list).
PC version has integrated voice chat as well as mmorpg-style text chat (though as I babbled elsewhere, nobody else seems to use it). I think the text chat could benefit from color-coding for each players' name/text.
Various co-op focused abilities/talents/perks are scattered through the game so if you like to play alongside other players, there's plenty you can choose to benefit co-op partners.
I'm not far enough in the game to speak to enemy types much, but I find it much easier to cope with charging tower shield-wielding melee rioters or the flamethrower cleaners when I have at least one other player to draw their attention, shoot 'em in their unprotected backsides etc.

morlac · Post by **morlac** » Fri Mar 11, 2016 11:28 am

Wife and daughter gone all weekend and two buddies are in town and staying at my place. Old school LAN partying starts tonight!

On the docket:

The Division
Diablo 3
Helldivers
Rocket League

Can't wait haven't LAN party in ages!

blackjack · Post by **blackjack** » Fri Mar 18, 2016 1:17 pm

My Division update is the story missions are certainly more fun with 3-4 players imho.

Different level players can group up and have fun but if you play much over your head count on getting one-shot killed often (guess that's par for course for MMOs with character levels).

The co-op ness is both of the care bear sort (healing/reviving other players) and I'd say simply ganging up on enemies together. I would say it's very much improvised, on the fly, how players work together.

For better or worse, nobody much talks or communicates in groups, either via text chat or head set, in my albeit limited experience. I remain convinced many players don't even realize the PC version has text chat because the text chat window only shows up if someone types in something. Or it may be a shooter type game doesn't draw terribly chatty people, which is fine.

I thought I'd discovered some way to selectively mute group members' headsets but last night I couldn't figure out how to do that again. So my group-ite kept coughing and clearing his throat, don't think he realized his mic was set to auto (not "press to talk").

Jaymann · Post by **Jaymann** » Fri Mar 18, 2016 2:11 pm

My son and I fired up EQ 1999 for some old school co-op. Of course every place with any exp opportunity was camped, so we invaded the dark elf city and started killing guards. It was all fun and games until my son got GF aggro and ended up getting trained. But he is a cleric so the exp loss was minimal. Good times.

NickAragua · Post by **NickAragua** » Fri Mar 18, 2016 2:45 pm

This is a bit out of left field, but apparently, "Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X." has online coop where you can go through the campaign. It's a pretty fun arcadey flight game. Of course, if you don't have joysticks, it's kind of pointless.

Brian · Post by **Brian** » Fri Mar 18, 2016 3:10 pm

blackjack wrote: I remain convinced many players don't even realize the PC version has text chat because the text chat window only shows up if someone types in something.

For one thing, the text chat hotkey isn't one of the more common ones. If I remember correctly, it's the \ key.

I tried to respond to your text message last night but it took me a while to find the text hotkey and when I finally did, I tried to text chat you but I got this message (or something like it...)
"Localized chat is disabled. To enable... blah blah something I don't remember" and by the time I tried to get that sorted out you had already signed off.

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Sat Feb 18, 2017 10:23 pm

Hello, next year! In the past year, the kids and I have done a lot of cooperative gaming. We finished the BL1 playthrough we had started at the beginning of this thread. We followed it up with a second playthrough + DLC, two runs in BL2 + DLC, BL: The Pre-Sequel +DLC, some Dungeon Defenders, Serious Sam: The First Encounter, Torchlight 2, and are winding down another double play of BL1. After tomorrow we'll just have the DLC ahead of us, then we'll be looking for something new. I've still got a few titles on deck. We have Left4Dead, more Serious Sam, Titan Quest, ARK (although I played some ARK, and honestly couldn't get it to click.)

We need a change, though. Everything we've played has been some sort of Diablo-ish action title, including all three Borderlands games. They are simply clicking and looting, clicking and looting. It's fun, but gets really repetitive after a while when there are few decisions to make during fights.

I'd like to sit down with them and play something with a little more depth and complexity, and was thinking about an MMO. I'd consider WoW (achievement and mount hunting with them would be a blast), but it would cost ~$200 to get all three of us up to date, then $45 a month for three subscriptions. That isn't happening. ESO is the same way. There's no subscription, but I'd still have to shell out close to $100 to get us all started. My budget is much, much closer to $0.

So I went through my brain for MMOs. I wanted something with a good F2P model, where we could drop a few dollars here and there without feeling robbed or pressured. That eliminates LotRO or anything else by Turbine. I want something with a good cooperative mechanic, whether the traditional tank/heal/DPS or something else, so I'd probably eliminate Star Wars: The Old Republic, DC Universe Online, and Star Trek Online (if they had good support for cooperative play beyond just 'more firepower', I never saw it.) I didn't love Champions.

So, MMO with some gameplay depth, a good group mechanic, a fair free-to-play model, and something to do besides just slaughtering waves. Oh, and preferably not a top-down Diabloesque POV.

That leaves:

~Rift (great F2P model)
~Neverwinter (I only played a little, so I'm not sure how well this fits, but I'm concerned about the practicality of F2P)
~Guild Wars 2 (Same problem - I only played a little and barely anything about it.)
~Some other game I haven't tried.

Anybody have any thoughts?