What is a good multiplayer game that is both (almost) endlessly replayable AND with less grinding as possible?
You must log in or register to comment.
Trackmania, although depending on how you want to slice it, you might consider it ONLY grinding.
Incredibly low skill floor (4 button racing sim) but with near infinite skill ceiling as you learn to master all the nuances of movement, surface types, tricks, etc.
Endless amounts of content with the seasonal campaigns, tracks of the day, and weekly shorts, but also just a full blown track editor for community content on the side. Each track is like a little puzzle where you memorize all the details then try and get your best performance. Play in an online server with your friends and just chat, listen to music, or watch a movie in the background. Find your favorite style and master it: tech, dirt, NASCAR, lol.
It’s my favorite game to just turn my brain off and drive.
Quake 3 Instagib.
Fighting games:
- Endlessly replayable because there’s always more to learn.
- No grinding because there’s nothing to grind.
I’ve enjoyed Tekken more than Mortal Kombat.
I mostly played Tag Tournament 2
Unreal Tournament 99.
I’ve spent countless hours in the 2004 version
To this flavor: splitgate
I was going for counter strike classic, but yup.
Tetris effect connected.
It made game of the year for a reason.
I think I’ve sunk 200 hours into tetris this year alone, I have it on like 4 systems including my SP handheld clone
I got my hopes up it was on portmaster for a moment and you were talking about rg35xxsp.
For me, it’s Starcraft 2.
- -
✍︎ arscyni.cc: modernity ∝ nature.lichess good
At the tightest-possible definition of multi-player
What do you want? Lots of games fit that description.
In some shooters, you basically only grind for cosmetics, like Overwatch, Marvel Rivals or Counter-Strike. Dota 2 is a Moba and also only has cosmetic unlocks, I think.
Maybe Minecraft or Terraria? I don’t think you really grind in these games, but you do very similar stuff all the time.
These are the features that I want to avoid: grinding for resources, cosmetics, and anything that require repetitive and/or mindless action. Any genre is good, the question is more like a test to see if a game like this can exist
No cosmetics pretty much disqualifies almost every game, because all of them have it, even old games.
In my comment before, I probably wouldn’t describe cosmetics as a grind. You just unlock stuff on the side, as a bonus, since most of it is random. It’s not like you’re going to play a thousand games of Ursa in Dota to unlock some rare skin.
A bit of cosmetics on the side is ok. What I want to avoid is cosmetics like in Sea of Thieves, where the main reason to gather resources and completing mission is unlocking them
I consider digging hours for diamond as a form of grinding, and you have to get it for crafting advanced stuff. I could play creative mode, but at that point it’s more like a 3d Paint than a game
deleted by creator
Does Factorio count? It’s a good game, you can play multiplayer, the factory can always grow (at least until your hardware, or in the extreme the software, can no longer handle it) and if you’re grinding for something rather than automating it, you’re doing it wrong.
I guess it counts because you are not grinding, the factories are grinding for you. The problem is that it’s a niche game and not many of my friends would play it
Deep Rock Galactic!
I’ve played it, but it has become a bit of a grind. The only reason for doing mission has become unlocking stuff
deleted by creator
- Works just fine with anywhere from 1-4 players
- You can have a mix of friends and random players if you want a full team but don’t have a group of four to play with
- The game is strictly cooperative so there’s no incentive to screw each other over, fostering a generally good multiplayer culture
- There’s lots of stuff to unlock but none of it is necessary for a fun and functional build
- Teamwork is encouraged and effective
- Missions are randomly generated but you’ve got years of additions to the random pools for lots of variety
- Absolutely no pay to win stuff
- There’s cosmetic DLC, but there are still absolutely loads of great cosmetic options in the base game
Edit: also, rock and stone
space station 14 (or space station 13 if you’re nasty)
Sea of Thieves.
There has never and will never be any pay to win. Everyone has access to all weapons at any time, no unlocking, just pure skill.
Up to 4 players on your team (ship) open servers with other players all sailing around all the time. You can get in an organic fight over treasure, or matchmake for ranked battles.
All of the progression is cosmetic based.
The devs have been adding content constantly since launch that fleshes out the game systems and makes for more interesting interaction.
I come back to this game all the time. Highly recommend.
Is it worth getting this late?
Absolutely, it’s still constantly getting updates, and got an actual anti-cheat recently which helped the health of the game a TON.
Huge learning curve to the game, but there’s nothing else like it.
Definitely, even better if you can try during a free weekend or get it half price on a sale.
Amazing with friends, on your own or with randos.
So many organic ways to interact and communicate with other players. Seriously cool, unique and worthwhile experience.
This game is so much fun, even when I’m the loner getting my ass handed to me on my sloop (which is most of the time). Seeing a ship looming in the distance and wondering if it’s going to come after you is such a rush.
honestly check out archipelago, it’s a framework that allows you to play a lot of different randomized games with your friends. you can play synchronously or asynchronously, and if you’re handy with code, you can even add any game you want to it
appendix
“what’s a randomizer?” a randomizer is a method of scrambling the items in a video game, while keeping it solvable, to be able to re-experience the same game with a fresh sense of progression. an easy game to think about this with is something like metroid or zelda. you need powerups to unlock certain parts of the game, but what if you could find those powerups anywhere you found a missile expansion or a chest? that’s what a randomizer is
“how does that work with multiple people?” now imagine that, between you and your friend’s randomized games, the items for both games could end up in either game. if we use the metroid/zelda idea from earlier, metroid might have zelda’s boomerang, while zelda might have metroid’s morph ball. the logic to ensure the games are solvable is still there, but you might be stuck waiting until your friend finds your key item. this is called “being in burger king” or 'being bk’d"
other vocab
check: any spot you can collect an item in a randomizer (think all collectibles and powerups in metroid, for example)
burger king: when you have run out of checks of your own and are waiting for someone else to send you a critical item you need to make any meaningful progress again. named after the first multiworld randomizer, where someone was stuck for so long, they were able to go to burger king for six hours and return only to still be in the same situation
The obvious answers are the games we endlessly replayed historically: Mario Kart, Goldeneye (VS mode), Halo (VS), Smash Bros.
If you specifically want ones on PC, I’d suggest Starcraft, Age of Empires, and probably Counter Strike (I wasn’t into that one, but it had a huge following).
Many board games fit the bill as well. Codenames (physical or online at horsepaste.com) comes to mind, and another commenter also mentioned chess.
Basically any games that were made before endlessly grinding became a thing (yep, that’s only been a thing for a decade or two).
Old School RuneScape.
Some people will say it is grindy, but those people are just weak minded.
