Playing with a friend because of the virus, it's my first time playing multiplayer, I've only played singleplayer before. What should I know?
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You've entered a land of pure bliss. If you don't have a pre-set favorite empire try something supportive like helping your buddy out as a megacorp giving him branch offices while he helps you in return by building trade value while in a trade federation.
Multiplayer settings are generally grand admiral and scaling with x5 crisis, but if that doesn't sound fun do what fits how casually you prefer to play.
Role play is a blast. My empire for our next big game at the start of the week will be "The Powerpuff Girls", but I'm not the only one and we have the green/red/blue flag colors for the map along with the Professor, so as the map fills out it looks neat. Idk if the other guys will actually play as Mojo Jojo or some other in-universe empires but either way it makes it so much more fun.
If you are playing against your friend there is more to it but, if yall are playing with friendly intentions there isn't much strategy needed or much to know other than just having fun with it.
Multiplayer settings are generally grand admiral and scaling with x5 crisis, but if that doesn't sound fun do what fits how casually you prefer to play.
Role play is a blast. My empire for our next big game at the start of the week will be "The Powerpuff Girls", but I'm not the only one and we have the green/red/blue flag colors for the map along with the Professor, so as the map fills out it looks neat. Idk if the other guys will actually play as Mojo Jojo or some other in-universe empires but either way it makes it so much more fun.
If you are playing against your friend there is more to it but, if yall are playing with friendly intentions there isn't much strategy needed or much to know other than just having fun with it.
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That you can't play stellaris in multiplayer because of repeated desyncs the further you progress. The game is unplayable in multiplayer after 2300 and the devs don't care.
Don't.
You're wasting your time until a fix.
Me and my mate are playing too because of the virus and we have two broken games because of desync.
You're wasting your time until a fix.
Me and my mate are playing too because of the virus and we have two broken games because of desync.
What you should know is that you would be in for is an amazing game of exploration, expansion, conflicts, discoveries, negotiations, excitement, and all around fun if you enjoy strategy games. But, then you and your friend will reach a point where the game starts crashing due to desyncs. The first won't be too bad, just a simple restart from the last save. But then the next comes, and if you continue to try, they start coming sooner and sooner after a restart, until the futility sets in...
So, ultimately, it will leave you extremely frustrated I believe, like it did me, and more so if you knew just how long these were happening. Especially, when you knew of a time this was a great game to play with friends and family and all could share in a great time.
Thank you for the advice, I appreciate it, and that sounds like fun. I'm pretty familiar with the tendency of online gaming forums to be... overzealous... in their estimation of how playable the game is. Have you played multiplayer recently and do you agree with the doom and gloom from the other replies?
If by that comment you are referering to the 3 out of the 5 people who have adviced you not to play it until there is a patch, then by all means, play it. But its a waste of time. You will get to about year 2300 if you are lucky and then you will start getting desyncs. Then you have to reset the game, over and over and over again. If you enjoy resetting games over and over and over again, then like I said, by all means, play.
I would also like to point out the majority of other people pointing out the desync issue on the forums. But I'm guessing they're all "overzealous" as well.
Eh, unfortunately their disgruntled state is validated. While a large part of the forum filled with the overzealous complaining with lack of knowledge of basic game mechanics, the desyncs are an actual and quiet large issue.
That said, my group has been used to it for so long we have routines and a few workarounds so it doesn't really bother us. Don't get me wrong it is a #1 priority issue and should be at the top of the list for game improvement, but we just adapted over time.
An average game for my group looks like this.
-Play till 2350ish when the first desync happens
-Throw out the invites and everyone grabs a beer/soda/bio-break
-Everyone meets back in 10-15 mins regardless of load time so no inconvenience
-Everyone zooms into a system on the edge in void of space including the host so no start-up lag causing another desync on load, then start the game on slowest and increase speed after the first month is done
-Play for another 1-2 hours on average for us until another desync happens
-Take another break, this one is getting close to dinner time so it's around 30-40 mins, ourselves or the wives/girlfriends usually cook around then, throw out invites and everyone meets back later
-Repeat the prior step to meeting back up and starting on slow zoomed in
-Third desync is when we usually call it a night.
If something super eventful is going on like a crisis we'll give it a final chance but that's as far as the patience goes since our daily lives allow us to get past the first couple without any inconveniences to ourselves since we have to eat drink use the bathroom and stretch our legs anyways, after that it's a loss for us. The main problem for most people aside from the desync interruption itself is just how long it takes to load back up a game, it is very nasty and could waste 20 minutes of your life if everyone is actually just sitting there waiting for it which I imagine most are. And if you load up and desync instantly again because they didn't use the zooming into an empty system trick, which I imagine most don't, then you get to waste another 20 minutes loading back in for everyone. After an hour of that and not getting back in I think most people lose it.
Well that's about it in a nutshell I think. It's problematic, but if it isn't the focus of your group's day can be managed like a board game you walk back and forth to for no more than a few hours without getting irritated. Really depends on the people you're playing with and how casually they take it.
(edit, I play multiplayer exclusively, it was the first thing I was thrown into with my buddies so never touched much on solo, too lonely for me)
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Well I guess you don't have as much of a reason to be "disgruntled" or "overzealous" because you're one of the lucky ones who has an additional 1-2 hours between desyncs. I actually wouldn't mind that too much. Its still unacceptable and it should just work. But with me and my friend we have tried 2 games this expansion and both of the games get us to about year 2300 and the game desyncs constantly within 5 to 10 minutes each reload. On the way to 2300 its totally fine without a single hiccup.
You might have noticed I said "this expansion". I've played since Stellaris was first released and I've played ever expansion on release. I wouldn't call myself a pro by any means, but I would consider that I have enough of a understanding to know what I'm talking about. I never played multiplayer until just before Apocalypse came out, simply because I have no interest in playing others online, just co-op with my house mate. We had no desync issues at all, but as soon as Apocalypse released we was having the same issue as we are doing now. Few patches later, fixed. We usually don't rush to play story packs, just the major expansions. So we missed out on Distant Stars. Came back for Megacorp and we got the same issue again, constant desyncs. Few patches later, fixed. Missed Anicent Relics, back for Federations and what do you know?! Constant Desyncs and the cycle repeats I assume, fixed in a few patches. But the point is this shouldn't be happening every major expanion. I got no idea what it was like during story packs. Its like the devs didn't even play test the multiplayer and just fix the desyncs after release. I understand each major content update can cause issues, but this should be ironed out in play testing and before release.
Sorry for long rant
Having played multiplayer for about a week in a new multiplayer game, yes it is absolutely as bad as people say. We've just entered a war and in the time we've been in it we've had over 20 desyncs.
I (and I hope many others here) can tolerate a certain amount of rehosting and trying to fix problems, but at the moment the game is legitimately unplayable because you need to rehost every 3 minutes or so on normal or fast, maybe every 5 on slow speed, even if you play a game on slowest in singleplayer, you'll progress faster than any multiplayer game at the moment from the sheer amount of rehosting that needs to be done.
just having people being able to rejoin and not instantly desync again would make this problem 50% less infuriating and save hours of time if you have the endurance to actually keep going without getting absolutely fed up with stellaris.
Oof that's frustrating, it seems like you are not alone in that either by any means. I'm not actually sure why our game doesn't desync quiet as often as most people seem to desync, just dumb luck to who is hosting and their hardware compatibility with the game perhaps. The only time I remember Stellaris multiplayer functional was way back in the day before the rework of jobs and districts and whatnot, even then maybe my memory is foggy. Such a shame too since multiplayer seems to bring the best out of this game, when it works properly..
I agree, me and my friend can play all day and the time disappears. Its an amazing game... when it doesn't desync. Again it would be bareable if it was an hour or so between each but its every 5 minutes. Yet again I bet in a few weeks it will be patched but by then we would have played the game to death by ourselfs and not be interested in multiplayer together because we experienced the new content on our own. Thats why we wake for new expansions because it feels brand new and fresh so we can experience together. Pointless if it doesn't work.
Thank you, I appreciate it a lot. We haven't encountered a desync yet but we're not past 2300 so your guide will probably be really helpful.