No Online Multiplayer for Pikmin 3

[JulietStMoon]

I really don't understand Miyamoto-San's logic here... How the heck is local co-op going to have this alleged "problem" any less than online co-op does??

 

[DiscostewSM]

I really don't understand Miyamoto-San's logic here... How the heck is local co-op going to have this alleged "problem" any less than online co-op does??

Is the local co-op involving 2+ players on the same console, or multiple consoles? If the former, shouldn't it be obvious?

 

[JulietStMoon]

Is the local co-op involving 2+ players on the same console, or multiple consoles? If the former, shouldn't it be obvious?

I dont get what you're saying?

 

[Eerpow]

Games may have 256 players online... but how many ppl can play Pikmin? If you go with the min. of 4 ppl, and they keep the maximum of 100 pikmin, that's at least 400 characters, meaning it will actually be harder on the network to process. Add the fact that these 4000 pikmin will be doin many different things at once...It will just add up to really bad lag. Unless of course, you're lucky enough to have extremely damned good net.

There's only 4 players though, the rest is just AI. The Pikmin literally just follow you and go where you order them, they're not dynamic.

They are dynamic and the things that happens in the game are physics based, Pikmin was a game based on how good the horsepower of the GC was, it originated from a demo called mario 128.
online multi player games such as FPS's only need to sync players actions and location. Every player have their own internet connection.
And if something lagged on someones end it wouldn't affect the rest off the players or the fired bullet location since a bullet is route is determined once a player hits the trigger, there are no major live calculations going on when it's in the air.

Pikmin however only have two players controlling hundreds of objects on the screen and none of these have a predetermined outcome, they bounce off walls, enemies etc. there's tons of data of their location in 3D space, that's for over a hundred objects flying about and on top off that the game have to sync collision detection, damage etc, it's probably impossible to sync given the average internet connection speed.
Imagine throwing a Pikmin only to miss the enemy because of lag.
No one here wants online for that game, there are many other games that need it and haven't gotten that treatment, this game isn't one of them. Playing against people online would just be tedious since you have no idea how good their Internet speed is. The game has online leader boards and that's all it needs.

RTS games don't have physics that needs to sync live, only estimated x and y values and other commands, as I said before Pikmins outcome isn't pre-calculated.
In StarCraft for example units move in clusters and in Pikmin all the Pikmins locations must be processed individually in a 3D space with live calculations of bouncing, falling speeds etc.

Look around the 9:10 mark in this video to see what I mean about physics.

 

[DiscostewSM]

I dont get what you're saying?

Simply put, local co-op (in the sense of 2+ players on the same device, not multiple devices connected locally) and online co-op are not the same in terms of design. The end result may be the same, in which multiple people can play a game together, but both deal with handling interaction differently. Local co-op and other multiplayer games that do techniques like split screen process the game solely on a single device, with all the data it needs instantly in its RAM. No internet. No networking. No lag. No waiting on requests for information. Online co-op, local network co-op (multiplayer handheld gaming, for instance) and other online games depend on sending information from each player to all other players to allow syncing of information. Even with 24Mbit/s+ connections, not only is that considered high for a game to require, but that isn't nearly enough to handle the amount of data required for exact syncing in games. Having gone over this already, I'll make it brief. Online games mostly send approximations of data to each other, and only data they need to send to keep the transmission amount low. That isn't even taking into account latency, which can affect when the data gets fully sent from one device to another. As Eerpow put into perspective, there is a lot of dynamic interaction in Pikmin 3, insomuch that approximations would not work well.

tl;dr - Local co-op and online co-op are not designed the same way.

 

[Guild McCommunist]

tl;dr - Local co-op and online co-op are not designed the same way.

In terms of tech, yes, but if the Wii U can't "handle" the online of a couple Pikmin, players, and monsters, then the Wii U has some serious flaws. I mean we can have entire armies clash in hundreds of RTS games but Pikmin draws the line? Hell, I remember being able to have large armies clash in old RTS games like Age of Empires and Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds. I know Pikmin 3 is a lot more "high tech" than those games but it's just an example of RTS games that can handle large enemy counts.

If the Wii U simply can't handle this then the question of its hardware seriously comes into question.

 

[chartube12]

I never had the chance to play the first two games. Is pikmin really that good of a series or is Nintendo just milking?

 

[Guild McCommunist]

I never had the chance to play the first two games. Is pikmin really that good of a series or is Nintendo just milking?

I think people really overrate it. I think it has a cute atmosphere and the game itself isn't horrible but there are much better RTS games available.

 

[Zero Aurion]

I never had the chance to play the first two games. Is pikmin really that good of a series or is Nintendo just milking?

Eh, it's alright. Could be better if they give us more time within the time limits or just get rid of the time limit altogether.

 

[DiscostewSM]

tl;dr - Local co-op and online co-op are not designed the same way.

In terms of tech, yes, but if the Wii U can't "handle" the online of a couple Pikmin, players, and monsters, then the Wii U has some serious flaws. I mean we can have entire armies clash in hundreds of RTS games but Pikmin draws the line? Hell, I remember being able to have large armies clash in old RTS games like Age of Empires and Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds. I know Pikmin 3 is a lot more "high tech" than those games but it's just an example of RTS games that can handle large enemy counts.

If the Wii U simply can't handle this then the question of its hardware seriously comes into question.

Again with the "well, this game does it". Seriously, that is not a valid argument, especially when using games that can require very little data to represent a single unit, and more importantly, because you don't know how the game handles the online component in the first place.

 

[JulietStMoon]

I really don't understand why Pikmin all of a sudden is "too complex" or whatever to do this when other games aren't. Seriously, what makes Pikmin so amazingly complex compared to other RTSs?

 

[Deleted_171835]

I really don't understand why Pikmin all of a sudden is "too complex" or whatever to do this when other games aren't. Seriously, what makes Pikmin so amazingly complex compared to other RTSs?

Have you not read the multitude of posts before you?

 

[JulietStMoon]

Have you not read the multitude of posts before you?

I have, and it still doesn't make sense to me (probably at least partially because I'm not familiar with the technicalities behind such a process). What makes Pikmin so special to countless other similar games with online multiplayer?

 

[Deleted_171835]

Have you not read the multitude of posts before you?

I have, and it still doesn't make sense to me (probably at least partially because I'm not familiar with the technicalities behind such a process). What makes Pikmin so special to countless other similar games with online multiplayer?

http://gbatemp.net/t...ost__p__4257026
http://gbatemp.net/t...ost__p__4257598

It's been explained multiple times.

 

[JulietStMoon]

*Shrug* I guess I just wouldn't understand since I've never played Pikmin, and I don't play RTSes in general either... heck, I don't even game online on a regular basis

 

[DiscostewSM]

Because no two games are alike, even in the same genre. Internally, they handle their data quite differently. Plus, each game has their unique qualities. Some of those attributes may not be online-friendly. Pikmin would not be Pikmin if it tried to be designed in the way some other RTS games are, because it would have to follow certain rules that allow that online play.

Frankly, no one here knows what is going behind the scenes of Pikmin 3, or any other online game to understand the complexities (or simplicity) of how online games work. All that is being thrown around are observations, not actual know-how. Like I said before, the only real people who could argue against Miyamoto's reasoning are other developers who have dived into online gaming at the code-level, not the gamer-level.

 

[Eerpow]

*Shrug* I guess I just wouldn't understand since I've never played Pikmin, and I don't play RTSes in general either... heck, I don't even game online on a regular basis

The difference lies in syncing actual physics in a three dimensional space, wall bouncing, collision detection, falling speeds etc. All this for more than a hundred objects at the same time.
In a normal RTS game you control units, all their attacks are predetermined and everything is happening on a 2D plane without the need to sync physics and other things that are crucial for pikmin to run properly. In other online games every player has their own internet connection, that's why hundreds of people can play in a mmorpg without slowdown that affects the whole game, it doesn't matter if one of the players has a crappy internet connection, the only thing that would you would see their character lag a bit but your own character would be fine because you don't need to sync anything more than your own character location values and actions.

In a game like Pikmin the real time calculated physics has to be exactly the same for both players, see how that differs from other online games?
There isn't a single game I can think off that needs to sync this much information. And if the game did have online the connection between the two players has to be perfect, if it's too slow for either player A or B the experience is ruined.

 

[chartube12]

I never had the chance to play the first two games. Is pikmin really that good of a series or is Nintendo just milking?

Eh, it's alright. Could be better if they give us more time within the time limits or just get rid of the time limit altogether.

There is a time limit? Time limit kills it. Off to heaven the game goes.

 

[machomuu]

I never had the chance to play the first two games. Is pikmin really that good of a series or is Nintendo just milking?

Eh, it's alright. Could be better if they give us more time within the time limits or just get rid of the time limit altogether.

There is a time limit? Time limit kills it. Off to heaven the game goes.

Actually, the time limit is one of the most important features in the series, and it really adds to the strategy involved in it. Pikmin is one of the few games where I'd say a time limit actually makes the game more fun.

 

[Hanafuda]

Another vote for "this is good news" ... online multiplayer has its place, but I don't want it screwing up the Pikmin experience. Racing, tennis, fighting .... these kind of quick contests are well suited to anonymous online interaction. But that doesn't mean it should be forced onto every genre, and fortunately it looks like Nintendo gets that.