Split-screen Poll | Forums

[damon1085]

I've been gone for a while and it seems like this is a dead topic, I just wanted to make one more post about it...

1. There was no split screen function in the alpha version. I was no alpha tester, sadly, but i have not seen a single video with the feature in use and they did not adress it in their opening event.

2. Yes, splitscreen is gone from the game as a whole.

3. Thank you WinterHt for making so much sense, exactly my thoughts.

1) If I was wrong about that then all my arguments got thrown right out the window.

2) I (as well as all the others that have replied) seem to be SOL. Sucks for us, but it should still be a great game.

3) WinterHt explained it better than either of us did, but honestly I didn't get any new information out of it.

Punch line is that it seems split screen was not already in game and they have a lot of other stuff to work on, so I guess it's a lost cause. I'm still really bummed and won't buy the game because of it, but I as well as Ubi will move on with life anyway. *fingers crossed* I can win a contest or something and get a free version that way

Time for me to stop my whining.

[Avatar-Buddha]

Even though only between 20%-25% of people actually cancelled their order due to the removal of split-screen 0% were actually happy about it.

Not only did it make almost a quarter of the entire pre-order population so unhappy they CANCELLED their pre-order, but it literally made NOBODY happier, there were just some people who didn't care either way.

If you make a promise, claiming something is "super required," and then go back on that promise, it's going to do a lot more harm than good, especially with the low number of quality split-screen gamers we have today.

For Full Rant See Below

In glorious days of yore, couch co-op was an absolutely integral part of a gaming experience. REAL FRIENDS would come over to your actual house and hang out with you in person to play games together.

Those beautiful days have grown further and further from our gaming experiences as games constantly move towards trash talking strangers online as you sit alone gaming into the sad hours of the night.

Although very few games have the gumption to stick to the couch multiplayer concept, those who have stayed true to this beautiful gaming ideology have benefited greatly from it. Ex. Castle Crashers, Little Big Planet, Call Of Duty.

Even some of the earlier next gen games such as Dynasty Warriors carved out a niche for themselves as a fun, simple, couch multiplayer game. Although they haven't done ANYTHING new in the last decade just the IDEA of being couch multiplayer is so fun that they have produced dozens of games in their series.

For Honor not only created itself with the claim that "Split screen is super required," but set itself up as a new age, modern hack and slash - beautiful melding of Dynasty Warriors and Chivalry. Few games stick to their guns, few games do what they say, few games rise above mediocrity. In an age where No Man's Sky lied so maliciously it incited threats of lawsuits, and Ubisoft releases unplayable games like Assassins Creed Unity, so riddled with glitches it created thousands of hours worth of videos on Youtube, the gaming community starves for a proper couch multiplayer game. Call of Duty is one of the highest grossing franchises of all time, sought so passionately it incited a full on HEIST!
http://www.ign.com/articles/2011/11/...-armed-robbery
Is this BECAUSE they offer couch multiplayer? Well that's speculative, but having an incredible, and outstanding feature certainly doesn't hurt their sales.

No Man's Sky promised multiplayer and delivered nothing but an opportunity for the highest refund rates on Steam in all of history.
For Honor made a similar promise that it only recently proved was a lie.

Don't sacrifice couch multiplayer for "other features."

There are so many reasons to keep couch multiplayer:
Do it for the sheer fun of playing with a friend, the concept on which you CREATED the game itself.
Do it for the unique opportunity to make a gaming environment that so few developers have touched.
Do it for the love of gaming, the way gaming first started, as something to share with the person next to you.
But above all else, do it because that's what you said you would do. Do it for integrity, and for honesty...
Do it For Honor!

Because if you don't have that, you're worthless, meaningless, nothing.

[Avatar-Buddha]

I haven't quite cancelled my order yet. I'm waiting for more details from the Devs. But yeah, if it's well and truly completely gone. I'm out.



Interestingly, the people complaining are saying the same thing, roughly. If we want the split screen experience we will stop following this game to go play others. The problem is we were told that this would be a split screen game, got our hopes up, and then that was taken away. So, of course, those who find split screen one of the most enjoyable gaming experiences will back out. That's why we're writing posts in the first place, to explain that yes: without split screen we will back out to play different games.

In any case, I do hope we get a bit more clarity on the issue. And if I do not buy the game I still do hope that everyone else has fun and the game is a success. It looks like the Devs have put a lot of effort into this.

The issue for me, (and many other gamers) is there simply aren't that many good split screen games out there. Finally one comes out that looks cool, has a great premise and PROMISES split screen. For them to then cancel that feature is a huge F YOU to gamers and fans. Much more so than if they just hadn't had split screen in the first place.

[damon1085]

The issue for me, (and many other gamers) is there simply aren't that many good split screen games out there. Finally one comes out that looks cool, has a great premise and PROMISES split screen. For them to then cancel that feature is a huge F YOU to gamers and fans. Much more so than if they just hadn't had split screen in the first place.

Well said. Ubi is basically giving us a big middle finger here which is part of the reason why I will not buy this game without split screen coming back. And for the record, I agree with almost all of your points in the "full rant" section of your comment. But now it's time for me to defend Ubi... albeit only a little bit.

I don't recall Ubi ever saying that split screen was "super required" or critical to the game. They did, repeatedly, say that split screen would be included (until the end of the Alpha test anyway), but in my mind that is not the same as promising to keep it or saying it is critical to the game. Personally, I disagree with Ubi on this point... I think it IS critically important to the game, and I think the ~25% of people who have cancelled/won't buy the game indicates that. But I can also understand that they have limited resources and that they seem to believe those resources would be better spent polishing the game play rather than writing code to re render all the graphics in a split screen format. As others have suggested, Ubi could push back the release date a bit and do both, but that wasn't their decision.

So to sum up... Ubi has made they're decisions. I - and it seems many others - think they're the wrong decisions, but maybe that's why we aren't team directors or executives at a game designer/creator like Ubi.

I almost forgot to mention, I love that you brought up Castle Crashers. It is definitely a different game from For Honor, but it is maybe the best $15 I've ever spent on a game. Myself and 2 others were sitting around looking for something to do. We found Castle Crashers and I pulled the trigger to buy it at full price. The 3 of us proceeded to spend the next ~5 hours straight playing that game and we all loved every second of it. This is why we need more split-screen/couch co-op games. There's nothing quite like spending time in person with your friends enjoying common interests. As you point out, video games are significantly removing this from their ecosystem, and I think this is causing many gamers, like myself, to spend less and less time (and therefore money) on gaming in general.

[Dez_troi_aR]

You people need to stop to take this so personally.
Ubisoft for shure did NOT cut splitscreen to "give us a big middle finger" as you so desperatly want to believe. This company has no agenda to bully you coop gamers.
The Narative you tell here becomes more winy with every post. We have gone from "this is sad, Ubi might loose me as a customer" to "Ubi purposefully wants to **** me over by promising me split screen, which made my live heaven, and then cut it out".
I have the impression that you just want to see youselves as victims.
I just cant wrap my mind around the fact that split screen should be so central to the game. Yes, you can play through the campaign in coop mode once or twice which will keep you entertained FOR SOME HOURS. The Game itself on the other hand is clearly meant to be played in OnlineMP and has the potential to be attractive over a long term period. You will want to rise up in leagues, improve your skill, earn little rewards, maybe win tournaments. Dont tell me that the lack of the former outweighs the latter!

The reasons why it was cut were explained.
IF you are so intimidated by the removal of something that was always just ment to be a side feature of the game, you are free to NOTbuy this potentially awsome game (and finally stop making and necroing wine-threats)

[damon1085]

Dez, you need to calm down a little yourself. Yes people have taken this a little too far, possibly myself included. But if us complaining really bothers you so much that you're getting worked up and are basically yelling at us because you think our opinions - and let's face it that's all this is, opinions with very few facts sprinkled throughout - are invalid then maybe you need to remove yourself from the situation and avoid these threads.

Also, I read the thread where you and the other guy wrote some huge posts going back and forth... you both went rather overboard. Although him associating Ubi's decision with his brother's mental health is so ridiculous that I don't even know what to say about it. To be clear, I hope his brother is doing well, it just has nothing to do with this game. Or if it does, then he needs to seek professional help immediately. Moving on...

"You will want to rise up in leagues, improve your skill, earn little rewards, maybe win tournaments. Dont tell me that the lack of the former outweighs the latter!"
I couldn't disagree more!!! We've talked about this before so I'll keep it brief. I won't play online, I won't play in tournaments, I don't care about the cosmetic rewards from 'climbing the ladder.' All I really want to do is play a good game with a decent campaign story that I can share with people I know who come over to my house (or I to theirs) to hang out. So for me, the lack of the former absolutely outweighs the latter. Now, I recognize I'm in the minority here, and that is why Ubi wants to focus on the online MP. However, if I don't make my voice heard, then I might as well sell all my gaming gear right now because no games will ever be made that I'll want to buy. That might be a bit of an exaggeration, but in all honesty I've been looking for a new game for months... maybe even a year or more, and so far nothing has fit what I'm looking for. That's why this one hurts so much. It had everything. And now it's missing the core feature that I want.

Does Ubi, or any other developer, owe it to me to make the game I want? Nope. Do I owe it to them to buy their game anyway? Nope.

I almost forgot... where/when did they explain why they dropped it? The only thing I can remember is from the 'what we learned from the Alpha' video where it was said that split screen is being dropped to focus on other things. That is so incredibly vague you might as well have just said, "no we're not doing it," and left it at that.

[Dez_troi_aR]

Dez, you need to calm down a little yourself.

I know, guess i should.

I don't really know why this gets me so pumped. I keep asking myself if i had some sort of a traumatic experience as a child, like noone wanting to splitscreen with me or if i was humilated so bad in streetfighter that i want no player 2 now but generally all was even and fair

Well, guess i've said whats on my mind several times now and am only getting more angry now, so ill take your advice.

I love good single player, too! *insert obligatory witcher fanboyism here*. Currently i play rise of the tomb raider, can mostly give praise to that, if you are looking for a game atm.

[damon1085]

It was Tekken for me... I always struggled in that game, lol. Of course I was maybe 8 years old when I was playing so I was mostly button mashing which really didn't work.

I just recently started playing Witcher 3, so I should be good with single player campaign games for a while. But I really need a multiplayer (preferably co-op) game to play with my gf and random friends that come over. That's where I/we've been struggling for a year or so. We played Borderlands 2 for a while, but we've put hundreds of hours into that and done everything there is to do... usually multiple times. So we need a new one... and the search continues.