Co-op games have to reward players with loot drops, and the main decision designers have to make when building collaborative gaming experiences is whether to share the spoils or award them individually. There are reasons for and against either option, and it’s important to understand both sides of the argument to decide which co-op game to play.
Some co-op games keep loot drops entirely independent for each player, using instances to create this division. You’ll see it in the likes of Diablo IV and Borderlands, and the main upside for players is that when they’re lucky enough to get that high-tier drop, it feels all the more significant.
Like if you play slots and get a progressive jackpot which others have contributed to but only you receive, the dopamine rush of a rare individual loot unlock is hard to beat. Plus, if you’re part of a group or party, other players can feel a similar sense of joy and accomplishment, even if it’s only vicarious.
The drawback is that randomness that rewards only one player doesn’t reflect the group effort put into a particular gaming session. If you’ve all been cooperating for an extended period, but only one person is lucky enough to receive something worthwhile at the end of it, it can be deflating. Similarly, if the loot isn’t shared, there’s less incentive to cooperate, which fundamentally changes how others play the game.
A number of co-op games dole out their loot in a way that’s egalitarian, with the likes of the Monster Hunter franchise taking this path over the individual-focused alternative. Doing so takes away the incentive for greedy play, as there’s no point rushing ahead to try and be the first to collect an item or resource. Also, having everyone working on the same goal means that teamwork remains at the core of the experience, and is a strategic imperative.
An adjacent advantage of shared rewards is that less experienced players can make progress at the same rate as veterans of a given co-op game. Aside from allowing mixed ability groups to get the most out of teaming up, this also means that the gear quality gap separating newbies and the old guard doesn’t stay too wide for long.
In terms of how shared rewards can be a negative feature of a co-op game, they naturally devalue any rare drops, and take away some of that aforementioned joy associated with gaining something rare. Also, when people are working together and everyone’s contribution has an impact on the outcome, there’s more chance of frustration building around a player who isn’t carrying their weight. So while the toxicity and greed of individual loot might have gone, it can be replaced by a different type of meanness and trolling.
There’s a place for shared rewards and individual loot in co-op gaming, and some titles combine the two in order to get the best balance. Which you prefer is entirely personal, and the co-op genre is broad enough to accommodate everyone.
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Some games benefit from being predictable, while others work better when randomness is a core part of the experience. The most common way for randomness to come into play in gaming today is in the form of rewards, whether that’s loot boxes or iGaming jackpots. And as a rule, being rewarded in an unpredictable way is even more fun when
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