Useful Coop Courtesy Tips

What is advice worth remembering if you don't want to annoy people you are playing with? (Feel free to reiterate the obvious things.)

Here's one:

When monster density thins in larger arena fights, you don't really have to move too much to survive comfortably. Circle-strafing at full speed ends up drawing monsters' ire in ways that are unpredictable to other players -- particularly bad if there are cyberdemons around, which would otherwise be relatively harmless to everyone. And if you're using the rocket launcher, you can end up randomly hurling rockets square at people's asses, which is not so pleasant. Either circle more slowly or pick a zone and stick to it.

Use chat if someones texting you? I just played with 2 other guys who were complete silenced, no chatting...

Here's a crazy one: ask before exiting the level of everybody is good. Not saying wait around for 5 minutes while they OCD every single clip pickup they can find, but at least a basic "heads up I'm about to exit" is helpful.

Like rd said: avoiding excessive movement, though that should be a basic tactic in both SP as well as MP, except that in MP the problem compounds with each additional player and therefore the tactic is more important.

Sharing; basic sharing, yes? It's amazing how much easier a fight can be when all players are fairly decent, more-so than everybody hurting or just not good while one player is rushing in.

Play the same or complimentary to your partners. Either everybody cheeses or nobody does, or one person grabs the attention and tank/kites while the other DPS's distracted enemies, otherwise team balancing gets thrown off and problems erupt.

Don't pick everything up on the first pass. You lose everything if you die, factor in lag and confusion (generated from having multiple players in a map) and somebody will likely die at some point; might even be you! Leave yourself two or three deaths from now some supplies; you might need them. Especially when there's a group wipe in one large arena and now everyone has to enter one-after-another into this giant mob of fun. Take only what supplies you immediately need and leave the rest for later. Even in survival this tactic is important, though a bit less-so when you only have one life to begin with.

And yes, above all else, communication (and working as a team [which itself is against the fast-paced grain of Doom]) is paramount to a better success rate. A well-oiled machine will always out-perform the sum of its parts acting separately for their own interests.



I would love to find a small group (2-4 people) to semi-regularly do coop (or better yet survival) while acting at least somewhat as a team. Not saying coordinate everything, but also not saying that wouldn't have its appeal too. Would also be nice to see more co-op-specific wads come out. Would be some interesting oportunities for puzzles with another player(s) present.

I'm going through a particularly shitty internet patch ATM so im hardly DMing/dueling, anyone who wants to coop, please feel free to hit me up on IRC.

Another one is to be courteous with lifts. If a lift only fits one person, don't jam the damn thing by trying to sr50 shove your way in - just be patient and you'll all get through faster. I see this one all the damn time in coop games.

Lol who cares about coop, there is no real punishment for dying anyway

Survival tho; yea my objective is to beat the map, not let the other players do a mega sphere shopping mall. The only time I don't exit is when I need that mega sphere, nice and selfish. Survival is all about keeping yourself alive and not others anyway, surviving. This is at least less true when playing non-pub or tournaments, where your buds can mean getting through the next map alive. Any pub players besides me can suck it tho. I'll probably even kill them myself, pub players suck

I like to encourage bravery so that my fellow players complete hard fights for me. Let people fight battles on their own so you don't get the crossfire. Take every powerup and item because you are more important than everybody else. Multiple lives: don't respawn on purpose lol. Bad men should get ssged into a death pit.

So yea, I present the importance of oneself over others in contrast to all of the above helping hand styles of play, at least for pub survival (which is pretty crappy anyway)

You can step off a lift just a little without activating it and sending it back down. Do this if you're riding a rising lift with other people.

If you found a nice item, tell about it in chat so that other people can get it too!

In general, I agree with yannara that it's nice when there is at least some talking going on during the game. Feels so much more pleasant. Especially when most people are joking, no matter how crappy the jokes are. It's just cool when there is a fun atmosphere on the server.

When I realize that I'm a much stronger player than other people on the server, I typically slow my pace down so that they can kill some stuff too. It's not fun for them if I get like 80% kills. If I progressed far away while everyone else is lost, I'll wait for them to catch up or even show them the way.

Abstain from radical speedrunning shortcuts unless people are clearly okay with them. If you exit the map at the start with a rocket-jump trick, it's fun only for you and noone else.

If you're crawling through a tight corridor with a bunch of other people, don't stand too close to them: make sure that they have some room to quickly move back if necessary.

If you're spectating, you can warn the team about incoming dangers that they can't see yet.

Don't turn into a horny retard when there is a girl on the server.

Combinebobnt said:

Lol who cares about coop, there is no real punishment for dying anyway

Survival is the only cooperative gamemode I've played and is what I had in mind, but there isn't much reason to exclude advice relevant or specific to other modes.

Fonze said:

I would love to find a small group (2-4 people) to semi-regularly do coop (or better yet survival) while acting at least somewhat as a team. Not saying coordinate everything, but also not saying that wouldn't have its appeal too. Would also be nice to see more co-op-specific wads come out. Would be some interesting oportunities for puzzles with another player(s) present.

Interested.

Maintain a distance from anyone that's currently using rocket launcher.

If you have a key and you suspect that other people don't have it, you can hold the corresponding door for at least 15-20 seconds and help the team a lot.

If you're fighting a cyberdemon, you reaaally need to think about who's behind you. Of course, they are supposed to think about that too, but still.

Have 30 shells? Then you probably don't need this shell box as mush as some of your friends. Have 15 rockets? Same thing. This is just an example and every map has its own formula, so just think about this stuff sometimes.

Remember that arch-viles are extremely exploitable in coop since they instantly switch targets. So if your friend is fighting one and you think he might be in trouble, the best thing you can do is to shoot the arch-vile and hide behind a wall or something. This is especially useful when there are multiple AVs.

You can easily solve a traffic jam in a 64-wide corridor if there is a corner somewhere by standing in it:

rdwpa said:

Interested.

Nice; I'll let you know when I get a new rig. Btw on a totally unrelated note: (first time saying this anywhere, too, heh) my laptop began to shit the bed less than an hour after our last duel. Needless to say, I totally blame you for it, kek. Be cool if we could get another 1 or 2 in on it by then, too.

1. Sometimes it's useful to decide ahead of time who will take the right side of a corridor, and who will take the left. This allows 2 players to coordinate a joint attack down a hallway, without shooting each other. This is especially useful when the BFG or rocket launcher are being used :)

2. Play coop with friends that are not dicks. Good friends fight along side you, and share the spoils. Dicks will hide around the corner, and look for secrets while you clear out a couple of rooms, then jump in, collect, and go hide again. I never understood the fun in that, but it happens.