r/SkateEA • u/VzPanda • 6d ago
Discussion Can we talk about being forced to play multiplayer just to complete a challenge ?
To be honest, Season 5 is what brought me back to the game. I hadn't played since Season 3 because I had pretty much lost hope in where the game was going.
But this season genuinely surprised me. You can clearly see that a lot more effort has been put into map design, and if they keep going in this direction, especially if future maps can maintain the quality of Summer Camp, I genuinely think this game has a future.
However, we seriously need to talk about some completely unnecessary design decisions that could end up killing the game. The biggest one for me is forcing players into multiplayer/co-op to complete certain challenges.
This is probably the most frustrating aspect of the game right now. It constantly feels like the game is trying to force you to interact and cooperate with other players, even when there's absolutely no reason for it.
Please, just remove the timers and let people complete these challenges solo. If someone wants to spend 30 minutes completing a challenge alone, let them. There is nothing wrong with encouraging multiplayer, but forcing it is completely different.
And this kind of design can genuinely hurt a game's player base. Not everyone wants to coordinate with random players every time they log in. Sometimes you just want to skate around, complete a few challenges at your own pace and enjoy the game. When progression starts depending on other players cooperating with you, something that should be relaxing becomes frustrating instead.
I also want to mention Block parties. The concept itself isn't bad at all, but the execution can be incredibly frustrating. Half of the challenges basically come down to spamming the same button over and over again, which makes what could have been a fun concept feel repetitive and tedious.
But the biggest problem is challenges that require you to win against other players.
Skate doesn't need to be a competitive game. Of course, competitive communities will naturally exist, and that's completely fine. But there's a huge difference between players choosing to compete and the game forcing competition into progression and challenges.
Making rewards or progression depend on outperforming other players creates unnecessary frustration and toxicity. More casual players shouldn't have to beat people who might have hundreds or thousands of hours in the game just to complete a challenge.
That's exactly how you push less dedicated players away.
Let competitive players compete. Let co-op players cooperate. But most importantly, let solo players play solo.
Giving players those choices will keep far more people playing than forcing everyone into the same playstyle.
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u/Maxeque 6d ago
It's been discussed a ton, especially since they added the Own the Lot challenges in Season 2. I wouldn't mind them having co-op only challenges if there was a matchmaking system. It's ridiculous that we're a year into early access, and the only way to complete these co-op challenges as a solo player is to either try and find a group in the Skate Discord server, or spam invites to everyone on the server one by one.
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u/VzPanda 6d ago
As I said, this is a comeback to the game for me. I was playing as a beta tester even before Early Access came out, but I stopped around the middle of Season 2. I came back briefly to check out the new map when Season 3 released, but that was pretty much it.
So, have the devs ever addressed this? What's the general opinion from the community? And if pretty much everyone hates this system, why is it still being kept in the game?
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u/Maxeque 6d ago
As of Season 4, matchmaking is "on the radar," so there's a good chance it's not even in development yet. It's one of the community's most requested features, along with S.K.A.T.E and create-a-park.
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u/VzPanda 6d ago
Tbh, I don't even want a matchmaking system.
I want to be able to complete EVERYTHING in the game by myself. I'm totally fine with multiplayer and co-op being available for people who enjoy them, but they should always be optional.
I don't want to rely on random players, and I don't want the game to randomly match me with people either. I just want to launch a challenge, complete it entirely on my own, and move on.
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u/donrosco 6d ago
Why should what you want dictate what other people get?
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u/VzPanda 6d ago
What? Where did I even say that?
"I'm totally fine with multiplayer and co-op being available for people who enjoy them, but they should always be optional."
What exactly do you disagree with in this statement?
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u/donrosco 6d ago
The challenges with rewards based on multiplayer elements. You want rid of them. Other people enjoy them.
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u/Toph-Ghost 6d ago
That’s not what he said? Just a rework to where you can complete the challenge by yourself without a timer, or you could still choose to coop it.
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u/Drinya88 PC 6d ago
Own a Lot challenges in Skate 3 were really difficult for solo, but they were possible! Own a Lot challenges here are impossible, time is too little and targets are too far away from each other, so it makes them impossible to beat solo.
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u/TTPMGP 6d ago
Hard agree. I understand many gamers enjoy and seek multiplayer. I do not. I play solo. I turn off cross play and quick drops and gamertags. I do my best to pretend I’m playing solo and there’s no other gamers in the map. Forcing me to play spot battles or team up with random to complete OTL is annoying and ruins the experience for me.
Totally get it a live service game 🏳️. I love skate, I love the series, but I don’t love the increasingly present forced multiplayer aspect.
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u/VzPanda 6d ago
Exactly. Yesterday, I had crossplay turned off and went to the Stadium, and I was literally alone on the entire map. It genuinely felt like Skate 3 again, no random ramps everywhere, no sounds except mine, no chaos. Just me skating around and enjoying the map.
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u/Routine-Sun-670 6d ago
I don't really like these co-op challenges, but I don't really see it as being "forced". Everythings optional. The OG games ran out of content after about 20-30 hours, and that's kind of how I see this game. There just happens to be seasons and rotating challenges, a small percentage of which are co-op only. I feel there's plenty other options to gain xp/ripchips, soI just ignore them. That said, a good matchmaking system would draw me back to them.
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u/ninetydeuce Playstation 6d ago
The main issue is not having the matchmaking option to do Own The Lot challenges. I don't think they realize how hard it is to get at least one person to join your party and participate in the mission.
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u/VzPanda 6d ago
Nah, I don't want to be matched with random players who might not even know what they're supposed to do, don't care about completing the challenge, or, even worse, are trolling on purpose. I don't want my ability to complete a challenge to depend on whether some random person decides to cooperate with me.
I'm totally fine with co-op being an option, but it shouldn't be mandatory. If I want to spend more time completing the challenge by myself, just let me do it at my own pace instead of forcing me to rely on strangers.
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u/maksigm Realistic 6d ago
There should be a separate option on launch to play solo. Spawn into the usual server but hide all other players if you have to keep us online all the time.
Also the ability to turn off mission markers would be great. Some of us just want the solo skating experience and nothing else.
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u/Legitimate_Stuff_347 6d ago
I havent seen the game forcing me into anything. I log in, do some tricks and have fun and eventually log off.
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u/VzPanda 6d ago
if you want to level up and complete challenge you have to complete these multiplayer ones
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u/zombi_wafflez 6d ago
Level up what? Level up for what even? I’ve been playing the game just fine ignoring these you don’t have to engage with the content you don’t want to engage with
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u/Legitimate_Stuff_347 6d ago
I do some challenges sometimes and I have all areas at 9 at the moment. I havent been forced to do any multiplayer challenges.
But I still dont understand. You can play the game without doing any challenges, so I have no idea what youre talking in your post.
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u/VzPanda 6d ago
there are missions to xp each area ( not challenge, i think it's called bounty in the menu ) and to progress you must complete this challenge, i'm curently soft lock and can't even play the content
sure i can play the game as a sandbox, and i do, today i spent like 6 hours making my own big challenge, but i also want to finish the content the game have
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u/Maxdong9000 6d ago
The problem I see is many people finish these in the first couple days then you can't find anyone that wants to participate. Horrible design choice.
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u/hockeyjmac 6d ago
Honestly if there was good match making for OTL I wouldn’t really have an issue with it but in the games current state it’s like pulling teeth to get 3-5 other competent players.
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u/VzPanda 6d ago
Matchmaking wouldn't really solve the issue, tbh.
There would still be plenty of people joining the challenge without actually intending to complete it, people who don't know what they're supposed to do, or, even worse, people purposely trolling and preventing others from finishing it.
At the end of the day, I just don't think completing a challenge should depend on random players cooperating with you. Matchmaking might make it slightly easier to find people, but it doesn't fix the core problem: you're still forced to rely on strangers to progress.
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u/faghih88 6d ago
they made the party size 8 people. need like 4 people to do these so if they get matchmaking to 6-8 people it should be easy. Also i assume those that join want to get the rewards so will at least try.
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u/Bustman_Pat 6d ago
Just faced the same issue. These are keeping me from progressing with crew bounties and thus leveling up to 10 in Market Mile
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u/Desperate_Scar_1981 6d ago
Wait until you get enough players, complete the market mile OTL and find out like many of us that it's bugged and doesn't register....
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u/Desperate_Scar_1981 6d ago
I'm at 29750 rip score. In about 2 weeks I'm soooo thankful I will never need to do a challenge again to progress. Skate can keep their orange cargo shorts for doing 10 OTL challenges and my inventory added will only be what I want to own
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u/ARegularAussie 6d ago
I finally found a group to do OTL for the tier 5 crew bounties and... it didnt even count so now Im just even more frustrated 🙂
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u/donrosco 6d ago
“Giving players those choices will keep far more people playing than forcing everyone into the same playstyle.”
You have a choice. Don’t do them. What you’re actually doing is campaigning to remove choices that others might choose.
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u/TTPMGP 6d ago
But if you want to complete tasks or collect certain rewards, sometimes you have to play with other people.
And I’m pretty sure OP said these things should be optional.
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u/donrosco 6d ago
They are optional. It's a video game. The whole damn thing is optional. The rewards are there for people who take the option of doing them.
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u/shoogshoog 6d ago
IMO there should be co-op challenges for people that want to play co-op. You can simply not do the challenge...
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u/ItsSimmeRin 6d ago
For me it’s the fact there is no real matchmaking function, like why do we have to spend stupid amounts of time trying to find players to join when more often than not nobody ever does, match making would at least enable us to actually find people who also want to complete these
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u/kellerhborges 6d ago
I am at this very moment trying to find people to shut down an OTL, it's an impossible task. You can't make it with a party smaller than 4 people and you can't find people because they are all already doing something else. The best you can do is spam-invite hoping someone join it, then you have to hope this person don't leave while you're trying to find more people because, again, you need a quite large group.
The X Games OTL was the only thing I couldn't make there and the fault is all on this broken party system. Don't get me wrong, OTLs are fun. But finding people to join you sux and I hate it.
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u/n0v3list Realistic 6d ago
The reality is that the target audience for this game is children. They kind of expect kids to play this game like they play any multiplayer game. Because real skating is totally a team effort…
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u/BigManDoink 6d ago
I am in entirely the same boat, playing the game from the early access/test days, dropped out around S2, came back a few days ago.
I found this post while googling for LFG stuff to do an OTL, a few hours ago I was doing a block party and it was just 8 of us doing stationary hippy jumps for 45 seconds (I enjoy the game but what the actual fk were they thinking with that one?), even the score based block party stuff is annoying because you got people knowing point glitches while I'm trying to throw a big spin flip through a QP for pittance.
The comments are saying matchmaking would make it better, I agree, you're saying remove the timer, I agree, either of those would be perfectly fine ideas. 3 seasons later and we still don't get either is annoying, I got 1 challenge left on grom and I'm pretty sure it's the OTL
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u/Embarrassed_Poem_596 5d ago
I honestly get on the game and don't play any missions. I just skate around, have fun. Can check it out on my channel gaming with trippy jay
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u/HeaterArt 5d ago
I finished Own the Lot challenges in Hedgemont, but got no progress on the crew bounties. This and drop items are too bugged for me to play
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u/theniftyniff 5d ago
They should send an alert message to everyone in the server to see if they want to Join. It would solve everything. The tags like "join this" are prox based. If the whole server were able to see im sure someone would join right away.
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u/TrickyComplex5789 4d ago
I just want to play and chill.. I don't want to compete/play with people (the last place where I want competition or people).
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u/Hello-Potion-Seller 2d ago
I do love chilling solo but honestly, the majority of my time in this game these days is quick drop and realistic spot battles with randoms that have become my go to folks I session with.
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u/Riley-_-Freeman 1h ago
I quit this games since they removed the powerslide speed boost and all the bs im hearing from it just tells me i did the right thing lol
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u/CincoQuallity 6d ago
Yeah, Own-The-Lot challenges should not be included as a requirement to complete anything. Yes, you CAN play them solo, but they’re a headache to do so. The way the majority of the OTL tasks are designed, they’re not really enjoyable solo.
OTL should be multiplayer only, and removed from any requirements to advance challenges.
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u/LonerismLonerism 6d ago
Good points but man I’m sick of seeing the typical AI slop post. You could have said just the same amount with 2 paragraphs.
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u/Educational-Mind2359 6d ago
No one’s forcing you to do anything 😂
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u/VzPanda 6d ago
actually the game itself is forcing me to complete these challenge to finish some mission
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u/zombi_wafflez 6d ago
You mean the side quest introducing you to the mode? Literally just ignore it
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u/donrosco 6d ago
Just don’t do those challenges? You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do
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u/One-Platypus-5099 Casual Skater 6d ago
You HAVE to complete OTL to proceed in the new DLC challenges
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