No Plans for Friends-Only Option in Co-Op

Well, for those among you (like me) who were hoping NWI would be at least considering a friends-only option in co-op, I was informed today through Support that there are no plans for that feature. ....which would be fine for me if at least they were considering server rentals for console like DayZ has but that too is not something they are giving serious thought to.

Bugs aside (like the preset issues and crashes), this is the one thing that has been spoiling our experiences in Sandstorm co-op. Initially, playing with random folks wasn't an issue as people were finding their footing in the game and overall had a cool demeanor. People were also more inclined to work as a team.

Now our only hope is to have enough people from our group in a given session to have a much bigger influence over the gameplay. .....but that's getting hard too as they seem to be losing interest due to the problems with randoms along with the crashes and other issues.

This is sad news and is making the new Portal feature in BF2042 (coming out next week) a lot more attractive. We may end up dumping Sandstorm until they can at least start offering servers but by then, it might be too late.

Plans for listenserver were shelved long before release in 2018 for PC version and even back then it was heavily requested feature.
Let alone now.

@arc
....but PC players at least have the option to rent a server through a service like Nitrado, right? I would be ok with that option as an alternative. I periodically rent servers for DayZ on PS for just my friends and I.

@kean_1 For more causal of players that want to jump in with minimum hurdles and just play, it's not really an alternative.

NWI is trying to appeal to broad audience and they fail with the basic functionality of having P2P/Listenserver based experience.
They focused on needless features some of which got cut off from the game.

@arc said in No Plans for Friends-Only Option in Co-Op:

@kean_1 For more causal of players that want to jump in with minimum hurdles and just play, it's not really an alternative.

NWI is trying to appeal to broad audience and they fail with the basic functionality of having P2P/Listenserver based experience.
They focused on needless features some of which got cut off from the game.

I'm not saying rental servers would appeal to all but I'm sure there would be interest in it. To be honest, there really are no hurdles especially for those of us who play with groups of friends. For randoms that just want to jump in to automatic matchmaking sessions, that would still be an option.

DayZ offers servers through Nitrado which I have rented myself. It's easy enough for friends to log on and if owners want, they can even open them up to random people. .....there is a server listing that is displayed same as some other games even ones like Battlefield. In fact, BI was surprised by just how popular the server option was. More people began renting servers than they ever thought would have.

My point is that having the option to rent is better than not having the ability at all to play without randoms like it is now. It's come to a point where we are dealing more with toxic and/or annoying players in matches than time spent playing the game. We also can't play the way we want to play which is a real shame. The game has potential that we can't always tap into as a result.

last edited by Kean_1

This is some sad news. I was very much hoping that we could get that as a feature because the randoms me and my friends tend to get in with these days are the types that should prefer playing CoD or Battlefield because they're only interested in getting more kills than anyone else, instead of working together to capture and secure the objectives, and it really breaks the immersion that this game can have. Me and my crew haven't played in a few weeks due to the frequency of the crashes, and since those don't seem to be changing any time soon either, it's likely we won't be back to this game.

A seemingly poor decision on their part, as you, me and surely others would pay for a service to rent private servers so we can play with who we want. Sucks pretty bad because this is such a fun game when it actually works, and you get in with some good people.

@huggniceman
Yeah, unfortunately being forced to play with randoms really ruins a lot of our matches. As you said, if they aren't just purposely trying to be disruptive, they are more concerned about getting the most kills rather than playing as a team.

That's not what co-op is supposed to be about. I wish my friends could play by ourselves whether its just two of us or 7. I don't care if the game remains the same difficulty, I just want to play with friends who like to play the objective as a team. .....and communicate.

NWI changed a lot and even more so just before they were bought out by the Embracer Group. I'm not sure they are really committed to their console players to be honest. We're still dealing with popular, day one bugs. ....I doubt we'll see private servers or even rentable ones anytime in the near future. It's too bad because we really like the game otherwise and wish we could support it more.

Right now I've been dabbling in BF2042's Portal mode trying to create hardcore experiences and I've been quite surprised at what I've been able to come up with. .....bugs and all. This might be what we switch to in the coming days at least for now.