So a couple of friends and I (4-5 total people) have been playing games together on Friday nights for 5ish years. We've played a bunch of magic (FNM for a little and cube for a couple years), some other board/card games, a couple random games for a night each, and a fair amount of League of Legends recently. We've had the issue that people have wildly different skill levels, so League (and cube) haven't always been that great. In addition, we're splitting up in the next couple month (three of us have found other opportunities and are moving far away), so it'd be nice to be able to continue when we're apart.
We were looking for a good cooperative game to try out, preferably PC, though another digital system or a physical game would be fine. We were talking about our dream game: something like World of Warcraft's dungeons, but without all the grinding, other people, or other stuff - just interesting content that we tackle as a group and have fun. We talked about Diablo, but there isn't really that sense of tackling a dungeon so much as everyone just doing their own thing and it's more grindy than session-based. I realize I'm kind of describing Dungeons and Dragons, but DM'ing is a ton of work, there's a fair amount of initial ramp up required, and it'd be tougher to play long distance.
Other cool competitive games where we can play as a team would be appreciated as well, but preferably ones that play well even with people of completely different skill.
We have another co-op thread around here somewhere (buried in the 'other games' section), but if you want co-op games on the PC, without other people and where varying skill levels are involved, most of them are going to be some form of FPS:
Left 4 Dead (You don't have to be particularly skilled to have fun)
Left 4 Dead 2
Monaco: What's your's is mine
Torchlight II (It's basically Diablo, but more like Diablo II than III)
Minecraft (one of you would have to create a server)
Terreria (Like Minecraft, but 2d)
Dungeon Defenders
Castle Crashers
Borderlands (Honestly - this game is pretty great for different skill levels because it's not a hardcore shooter, it's an action RPG and it feels less Grindy than Diablo)
Borderlands 2
Payday
I think Minecraft would be your best bet. The server is a dynamic world you're all involved in, and generally I'll play with a large group of friends and we'll build a settlement together and then work on exploring the world and finding dungeons, or once we're sufficiently rich we'll build elaborate projects. It tends to be a great game where a bunch of people can drop in and out.
Pandemic is a popular and relatively quick to play coop boardgame.
Arkham Horror is a more involved and drawn-out (3+ hours generally) cooperative boardgame.
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Forbidden Island is a good tabletop co-op game. The PC list above is pretty good, I would just add Team Fortress 2 (there's a human vs bots mode if you don't want to play against other people) and recommend that you stick to the first Payday game. Payday 2 is more grindy than a Korean MMO and the community is toxic.
You could make a clan or another less formal group and join pretty-much any team-based online game, that's what I've been doing with my friends in League of Legends. LoL has got quite a bit of potential grind though, so it might not be the best.
Magicka is pretty fun, and fairly easy to start up, as is Alien Swarm. Just be prepared for total party kills, they're both pretty brutal.
Killing Floor is good, it's basically L4D Arcade edition: less story, more survival gameplay. Also pretty brutal, but hillarious.
My friends and I also play Age of Empires 2 over lan, that can work as a VS or CoOp game, depending on how you set the teams. Apparently there's an updated re-release either out or in progress, which would probably work better over the internet.
I'll second the Left 4 Dead games and Minecraft, they're pretty fun with friends.
L4D2 has all of L4D built in, so don't bother buying the first game.
I've never had a Minecraft server last longer than a week or so though, so I don't know how the lategame feels. Finding a good mountain and carving out a doom fortress is usually pretty fun.
I second Pandemic, it is great fun and you can up the difficulty if you want.
I haven't played it yet but Space Alert looks like an awesome co-op game.
Descent is almost co-op (1 DM player vs the heroes).
Last Night on Earth - kind of co-op (you play on teams)
I agree %100 with Terraria, Borderlands and L4D. I have to say though, I know that WoW has a bunch of grinding, but if you all invite each other to the game you get three times the exp, and will get to the good end game parts very quickly. Also maybe look into Dragons Crown or Scott Pilgrim the Game, they're like those old arcade beat em ups mixed with some leveling. They're both good times.
With L4D being suggested, I'll toss Killing Floor out there. They're a bit different, but ultimately I enjoy KF more. It's an older game and cheap. L4D will have you covering more ground and blasting mindlessly more, whereas in KF you need to be accurate and react to what is dealt to you (not to say l4d is mindless, but in combat I feel like I'm just shooting and meleeing nonstop like a machine, where in kf accuracy is rewarded in most cases (blaster style is possible below the highest difficulties still if you desire it though)). You're given a level and you have to survive waves. Basically survival mode from L4D, but KF features a class and leveling system, and a better variety in weapons (you can use any in any class, but there is a steep price drop for on perk weapons (ie flamethrower on a firebug)). You need to know how to defeat the different types of monsters, but there are easy/normal difficulties to lower you in gently.
One of the most important differences is that teamwork is spoonfed to you in L4D. You go out alone and get smokered or whatever, you die. You have no control once you're disabled. Teamwork is crucial to KF, but there's nothing forcing it like that. It's just that a variety of weaponry compliments each other; while one guy can clear the trash, he might need help on the fleshpound (but you aren't technically forced into that, a skilled player can kill FP with any weapon if he has enough room and time- so if you are the last surviving player you aren't entirely ****ed, there's an outside shot of you making it to the end of the round (when people come back)). KF scales from easy to hell as well per person from 1-6.
Neither are very dungeon-crawlery though... Path of Exile is basically a sequel to Diablo 2 (and free to play). Right now I personally play League of Legends and started some Battlefield 3 with some friends recently (was free to download a bit ago). Both are fun, encourage teamwork, and are more fun the more people you have.
By your description.. I'm tempted to suggest a MUD. Most are ***** (specifically color wise..) and are really hard to get into though. They're pretty dated and I doubt most people would be interested.. I'm past my mud-phase (though it lasted a long time while the one I played was around (tried a few others briefly but they just had nothing on the one that was shut down).
FPSes are really forgiving in that if you aren't always playing together it's less of a big deal. Sure you level up in bf3 and unlock stuff (weapons, accessories, gadgets, specializations), but the game doesn't take that into account and teams are just mixed experience players. Most games that have you trawling a dungeon for gear are gonna have you level up, which means unless you guys are always all together someone can get left behind (and usually leads to a *****load of characters and trying to keep track of which are with who).
I don't agree about l4d's coop aspects at all... there's tons of depth to teamwork in it. And honestly everything you said in the rest of that paragraph is true of L4D - weapon type compositions matter (all shotguns means separation attacks will ***** on you, nothing auto or semi-auto means you'll have trouble clearing big hordes and dealing, you need a mix of autos and shotguns to optimally kill tanks, etc). There are also in fact ways to deal with all incaps on your own - hunter pounces and jockey leaps can be shoved with good timing, with t2 melee weapons chargers can be killed as they're about to incap you, smokers can be killed by most weapons at the proper range after the tongue lands but before the incap starts... although of course even great players will not always have the opportunity to do these things.
Sorry but "You go out alone and get smokered or whatever, you die" makes you sound like a new player, that's just the tip of the iceberg that yes, a new player should learn fast. Anyway just because you can get incapped and then have to wait for your team doesn't diminish the depth of teamwork, it just shifts it to preventing incaps and creating situations where incaps can be reliably cleared quickly. Not to mention all the other teamwork aspects unrelated to incaps, because in fact good teams very rarely plan attacks around getting kills directly with incaps
A lot of what I said is specific to PvP gametypes, but the tough PvE modes have more depth than just that too.
We were looking for a good cooperative game to try out, preferably PC, though another digital system or a physical game would be fine. We were talking about our dream game: something like World of Warcraft's dungeons, but without all the grinding, other people, or other stuff - just interesting content that we tackle as a group and have fun. We talked about Diablo, but there isn't really that sense of tackling a dungeon so much as everyone just doing their own thing and it's more grindy than session-based. I realize I'm kind of describing Dungeons and Dragons, but DM'ing is a ton of work, there's a fair amount of initial ramp up required, and it'd be tougher to play long distance.
Other cool competitive games where we can play as a team would be appreciated as well, but preferably ones that play well even with people of completely different skill.
Thanks in advance!
Left 4 Dead (You don't have to be particularly skilled to have fun)
Left 4 Dead 2
Monaco: What's your's is mine
Torchlight II (It's basically Diablo, but more like Diablo II than III)
Minecraft (one of you would have to create a server)
Terreria (Like Minecraft, but 2d)
Dungeon Defenders
Castle Crashers
Borderlands (Honestly - this game is pretty great for different skill levels because it's not a hardcore shooter, it's an action RPG and it feels less Grindy than Diablo)
Borderlands 2
Payday
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I think Minecraft would be your best bet. The server is a dynamic world you're all involved in, and generally I'll play with a large group of friends and we'll build a settlement together and then work on exploring the world and finding dungeons, or once we're sufficiently rich we'll build elaborate projects. It tends to be a great game where a bunch of people can drop in and out.
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Pandemic is a popular and relatively quick to play coop boardgame.
Arkham Horror is a more involved and drawn-out (3+ hours generally) cooperative boardgame.
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Magicka is pretty fun, and fairly easy to start up, as is Alien Swarm. Just be prepared for total party kills, they're both pretty brutal.
Killing Floor is good, it's basically L4D Arcade edition: less story, more survival gameplay. Also pretty brutal, but hillarious.
My friends and I also play Age of Empires 2 over lan, that can work as a VS or CoOp game, depending on how you set the teams. Apparently there's an updated re-release either out or in progress, which would probably work better over the internet.
I'll second the Left 4 Dead games and Minecraft, they're pretty fun with friends.
L4D2 has all of L4D built in, so don't bother buying the first game.
I've never had a Minecraft server last longer than a week or so though, so I don't know how the lategame feels. Finding a good mountain and carving out a doom fortress is usually pretty fun.
Art is life itself.
I haven't played it yet but Space Alert looks like an awesome co-op game.
Descent is almost co-op (1 DM player vs the heroes).
Last Night on Earth - kind of co-op (you play on teams)
Terraria is pretty fun as well, and scales past 4 people nicely.
I had a lot of fun with Left for Dead also, though I've never tried the second one.
Art is life itself.
One of the most important differences is that teamwork is spoonfed to you in L4D. You go out alone and get smokered or whatever, you die. You have no control once you're disabled. Teamwork is crucial to KF, but there's nothing forcing it like that. It's just that a variety of weaponry compliments each other; while one guy can clear the trash, he might need help on the fleshpound (but you aren't technically forced into that, a skilled player can kill FP with any weapon if he has enough room and time- so if you are the last surviving player you aren't entirely ****ed, there's an outside shot of you making it to the end of the round (when people come back)). KF scales from easy to hell as well per person from 1-6.
Neither are very dungeon-crawlery though... Path of Exile is basically a sequel to Diablo 2 (and free to play). Right now I personally play League of Legends and started some Battlefield 3 with some friends recently (was free to download a bit ago). Both are fun, encourage teamwork, and are more fun the more people you have.
By your description.. I'm tempted to suggest a MUD. Most are ***** (specifically color wise..) and are really hard to get into though. They're pretty dated and I doubt most people would be interested.. I'm past my mud-phase (though it lasted a long time while the one I played was around (tried a few others briefly but they just had nothing on the one that was shut down).
FPSes are really forgiving in that if you aren't always playing together it's less of a big deal. Sure you level up in bf3 and unlock stuff (weapons, accessories, gadgets, specializations), but the game doesn't take that into account and teams are just mixed experience players. Most games that have you trawling a dungeon for gear are gonna have you level up, which means unless you guys are always all together someone can get left behind (and usually leads to a *****load of characters and trying to keep track of which are with who).
Sorry but "You go out alone and get smokered or whatever, you die" makes you sound like a new player, that's just the tip of the iceberg that yes, a new player should learn fast. Anyway just because you can get incapped and then have to wait for your team doesn't diminish the depth of teamwork, it just shifts it to preventing incaps and creating situations where incaps can be reliably cleared quickly. Not to mention all the other teamwork aspects unrelated to incaps, because in fact good teams very rarely plan attacks around getting kills directly with incaps
A lot of what I said is specific to PvP gametypes, but the tough PvE modes have more depth than just that too.