With the release of the Elden Ring Seamless coop mod beta on NexusMods several different conversations have popped up online around multiplayer.
The topic of invasions vs coop has always been a popular discussion among the Soulsborne community, with varying opinions on what should and shouldn’t be included in these games.
This discussion has only become more prevalent with Elden Ring, which has seen the largest number of new players for a FromSoftware game ever.
The seamless coop mod underpins this discussion as it highlights many of the issues players have with Elden Ring’s multiplayer.
Firstly we have to consider the current state of Elden Ring’s multiplayer
The system
Elden Ring uses a four-player multiplayer system where one player acts as a host and three other players can enter their world.
Invaders are those who enter the world with the strict goal of slaying the host player. They can be summoned in purposefully for duelling or will ‘invade’ in the form of an unwanted hindrance.
Notably, the latter can only occur when the host has either used an item that allows this, or has summoned other players and is playing cooperatively.
As a result, for many players playing with friends, an invader will appear and either interrupt or end the session by killing one or all of them.
Concerns with the system
The most common complaint among the player-base that likes to play coop with friends is that Invaders appear far too frequently and are an unwanted irritant.
This is further exacerbated by the currently unstable nature of Elden Ring’s servers, where random disconnects are common enough to have turned many people off the game.
New players hoping to explore the world together struggle to be summoned and remain connected. When they do, an invader almost immediately appears and, given the current meta for PVP, will likely kill them.
Thanks to the Elden Ring invasion timer system and how it works, any coop session between players can experience what feels like an endless number of invasions.
While amusing at first, it can become irritating very quickly when trying to play with a friend.
On the other hand, invaders also have issues.
Often invaders will encounter groups of ‘gankers’ – players who have grouped with the specific purpose of killing invaders rather than playing cooperatively.
And since there is a four-player limit in Elden Ring, this often leads to a single invader going up against three players who’ve built their characters specifically to PvP – this necessitates invaders to use the most powerful tools available to them and makes fights with the average co-oper a breeze.
However, the most vocal group is the co-opers, and their desire for Elden Ring is relatively simple: make invasions opt-in.
Elden Ring Screenshot
Opt-in invasions
The seamless coop mod addresses this concern and the mechanics that were introduced precisely to enable invasions to be viable.
With the mod, the players you play with will be able to use their mounts and explore the world with boundaries. Overall, the experience is much more seamless than the essential Elden Ring multiplayer experience that’s far more limited.
I’ve seen many comments that this mod is the way Elden Ring should have been from the start, with some favouring an opt-in approach and others advocating for the removal of invasions entirely.
I’ve also seen the various arguments against this.
The primary one is the nature of the games themselves and the vision they are based upon – a vision that includes invasions.
Many veterans of the Soulsborne community have been adamant that if invasions go, so will coop, as you can’t have one without the other, given the way the games are intended to be played.
Before Elden Ring, I was inclined to agree with them that the games are structured in a particular manner, and the multiplayer systems follow this. Every soul’s game with multiplayer has followed this approach.
However, as important as artistic vision is, the simple fact is that the end goal for FromSoftware is to make money.
Elden Ring has made the company a massive amount of money already, and it’s only been three months into a game whose life cycle will likely be several years.
So, if a large number of new and single-player and non-PVP players advocate for an opt-in system for multiplayer – and make no mistake, the bulk of players fall into that category – then I wouldn’t be surprised if Elden Ring 2 introduces a method for players to coop without being invaded.
Astride your loyal steed Torrent the world is ripe for exploration, just be sure to keep your wits about you.
Verdict
The nature of Elden Ring’s multiplayer isn’t going to change, but future games may see changes made to make them more appealing to a broader audience of players.
This will likely upset veteran players and those fond of invading, but I sincerely doubt that invading and PVP as a mechanic will disappear from the franchise completely.
In the meantime, however, the Seamless Coop mod is shaping up to be one of the best things to happen to the game since its release, and if you are looking for a purer coop experience, I’d recommend checking it out.
Even if FromSoftware never changes its ways, the Souls community will almost always find a way to change the game to their liking.
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