8 months later, how's the state of Death Stranding shared-world on PS4?

[texhnolyze]

Has the world changed drastically since launch? How many megaprojects are there? Has the world become easier to travel due to the multiplayer collaborations?

Since this is one of the major systems in the game (aka Social Strand System), I'm kinda confused that why there hasn't any significant news and/or story surrounding it. Most of the discussions I've read/seen are mostly about the story and gameplay (delivery/combat), but almost nothing on this particular aspect of the game.

 

[Mr.Deadshot]

That's not how it works. You get mixed with random other players and I think you don't even see all of their buildings.

 

[Minilla]

The rain dissolves all the structures over time, so if you go away from the game, your buildings disappear'. And its really not an advanced building multiplayer system. You can't build mega projects. Sounds like you have gotten the wrong end of how this actually plays out ingame.

 

[Deleted member 44371]

That's not how it works. You get mixed with random other players and I think you don't even see all of their buildings.

Click to shrink...

thats disappointing

 

[Patitoloco]

Your world is not with the same pool of players as your neighbour, for example, you play with a particular subset of that for your whole playthrough.

 

[Ovvv]

thats disappointing

Click to shrink...

Could you imagine what it would look like if you saw everyone's buildings? It'd be a disaster

 

[Minilla]

thats disappointing

Click to shrink...

Nah, the game would be terrible if you saw all their structures.

 

[Striferser]

I left the game for several months then come back when photo mode implement. There's still structure available to help you out. It seem your and other players structure deteriorate based on your in game time.

 

[Argentil]

Mm, I noticed that even after 2 weeks of playing that most of my structures had decayed and required repairs, which meant trudging up mountains again to fix everything. It turns the game into a giant slog if you play in bursts instead of all at once.

 

[sredgrin]

It's a bit too saturated I've found. Bought it in the 30 dollar sale,but I missed out on the boat of seeing things kinda grow and instead after every connection flood you with tons of stuff to use. Makes it easier but felt like I missed out. So decided to shelve it for the PC release, want to attempt to see it before there's like a million holograms, storage, and markers and whatnot.

 

[texhnolyze]

Your world is not with the same pool of players as your neighbour, for example, you play with a particular subset of that for your whole playthrough.

Click to shrink...

I see. How many players are there within a pool, exactly?

I guess everyone's experience (and world) will be different in that case. Also, what happens when everyone in that pool has stopped playing altogether, would you be transferred or stuck in that dead world?

Mm, I noticed that even after 2 weeks of playing that most of my structures had decayed and required repairs, which meant trudging up mountains again to fix everything. It turns the game into a giant slog if you play in bursts instead of all at once.

Click to shrink...

Can your structure be repaired by other players?

 

[hydruxo]

I've always wondered how the game will be in a few years when nobody is really playing it online anymore because the social strand system is such an integral part of the gameplay loop. Without it I think it'd be a heavily gimped experience because having other players' structures around the game world was a huge help when you're trying to get around.

 

[Xils]

I wonder if someone can mod the PC ver. and make a private server or something that have a fixed set of players and you can see all their structures just to see what it'll be like.

 

[Patitoloco]

I see. How many players are there within a pool, exactly?

I guess everyone's experience (and world) will be different in that case. Also, what happens when everyone in that pool has stopped playing altogether, would you be transferred or stuck in that dead world?

Click to shrink...

Mmm I would say a lot (I only recognized a couple of repeated names during my whole playthrough).

Maybe I explained it wrong before, it's not a matter of dropping into a server with specific people or something like that. When you reach certain story beats (mainly opening a channel in the chiral network), the game populates the world with random stuff from the servers, and fills the map. It always fills the map with enough stuff for it to not be empty (except in certain areas where it's difficult to build) and for you to have room to build stuff.

But it's impossible for the game to not have items to fill with, it uses the entire game population for it. IF the whole userbase stopped playing, the NPCs also build stuff (you can play the game offline, they just create default stuff for you).

One thing is certain, once one thing gets into your game, it will stay there forever (or until it gets destroyed by the rain, but it's usually repopulated). So, if you pass once through a bridge at the beginning of the game, and you go through the same section again 20 hours later, it will be the same bridge from the same player.

Can your structure be repaired by other players?

Click to shrink...

Yes, and you can repair other people's structures.

 

[grady]

In my experience, having only started it a week or so ago, there is still a measured sense of progression in terms of the structures themselves, especially roads. Currently the highways only extend a mile or two out of South Knot Distro centre, and each day I play they get a little longer. It's nice to see when people add materials to your structures and things slowly come together

 

[Crazymoogle]

I've always wondered how the game will be in a few years when nobody is really playing it online anymore because the social strand system is such an integral part of the gameplay loop. Without it I think it'd be a heavily gimped experience because having other players' structures around the game world was a huge help when you're trying to get around.

Click to shrink...

I have no direct evidence, but I'm convinced from what I've seen that the game actually has a certain number of "NPC players" in the pool to smooth out the process, both for the "endgame" as you say but also when the game is just starting on any given platform. NPCs would go a long way to smooth out bumps and probably would have helped the dev-team to simulate the experience when they were offline. (I suppose another option beyond "NPCs" would simply be to record milestones in player progress and "replay" them to get the same effect.)

I suspect the real "silent" experience is simply if you can't connect online; at that point nobody would be spawned because even the "NPC players" data would have to be sent from a server.

 

[Deleted member 2595]

I've always wondered how the game will be in a few years when nobody is really playing it online anymore because the social strand system is such an integral part of the gameplay loop. Without it I think it'd be a heavily gimped experience because having other players' structures around the game world was a huge help when you're trying to get around.

Click to shrink...

I hope they'd do something like slow down building deterioration over time, perhaps like 2% per week until, a couple of years from Launch, building deterioration is almost static and anything you build is basically permanent.

But knowing Kojima he probably did no such thing.

 

[Zok310]

Logged in a few weeks ago, nothing really changed from a few months ago.
My structures were all still up. Got a ton of likes the minute i logged in, but if something needed to be built i still had to do it on my own.

I think structures would have been better if they were more curated by the dev like the highway system was. Instead you get these unusable structures from other players that you end up removing to free up clutter or because they don't route around the world efficiently.

 

[Hella]

Did anyone ever figure out exactly how it works? Is there a real-time or in-game timer on structures built (counting down to their dissolution), or does it just phase them in and out as you progress the story? I was always curious as to the specifics.

It always sounded like the idea behind No Man's Sky's multiplayer, except much smaller scale (which kinda makes it more complicated tbh).

 

[RestEerie]

thats disappointing

Click to shrink...

it's 'journey' like.......or even dark souls like if you will (in regards to the specter blood pool in the souls games).

 

[Bomi-Chan]

iam going to start the game next month, i wanted to know, if there is something new compared to the launch-version. i also heard of decaying buildings and MP does not really feel like MP...

 

[WackoWambo]

I wonder if someone can mod the PC ver. and make a private server or something that have a fixed set of players and you can see all their structures just to see what it'll be like.

Click to shrink...

woah

 

[GurrenSwagann]

I finished the game when it came out and last week wanted to come back and mop up the platinum, my structures were still there. I was happy to see other structures put up around so I could use their ziplines rather than my own!