Do you mostly play Single player or Multiplayer?

Hi guys,

I was reading a thread this morning about someone complaining on the AI. So I did some research and found some single/multi player thread ... but nothing that would bring some numbers.

Briefly, let's pull some number here ...

Where do you spent most of your time when you play DCS? Single player or multiplayer?

Once you are playing MP on DCS, you are never coming back to SP. I haven't played a single SP mission for the last 9 or maybe 10 years.

98% multiplayer for me.

An easier approach would be to open the server list and observe how many people are online at various times. There's a few thousand people who play online, averaging it out and allowing for TZs, with the bulk of the playerbase playing offline.

Total player count is probably in the range of 100,000, give or take a few tens of thousands. Possibly as high as 200,000 if you count people who don't play often.

Multiplayer is where it's always at for me, single player is purely for testing things out.

Most of my time in DCS is spent in single player, either creating missions or flying them.

MP co-op is an important focus as to why I play DCS, but my PC isn't powerful enough to run the AI/unit count in most public servers and it only takes a server crash or friendly fire (deliberate or otherwise) to put me off - I'm too old to put up with ### like that.

I used to join the Hoggit TNN server in 1.2.x days but server crashes and AI desyncs eventually broke the habit and I pretty much stick to SP and a couple of 'small' co-op missions each week.

Currently DCS or my ISP is making even the light co-op missions unplayable as the other player warps about breaking the sound barrier.

Multiplayer is where it's always at for me, single player is purely for testing things out.

However, as a mod creator for the Caucasus and Persian Gulf Map you are probably limited to servers without integrity checks. :D

For me another limitation is the Ping. The best Ping I can get is something around 120-150. Other servers are even worse for me. So I am only playing in singleplayer until now.

It's true you can estimate the number of total people in Multiplayer by taking a look at the list at several times of day and week to obtain an average. No idea really how you would estimate the number of people actively playing Singleplayer missions, though.

Trouble with polling like this, as always, is that you only get a result from a fraction of the people who actively use the forums. That bias is probably so big, it renders these little polls fairly useless. I mean, they have been don before, over and over, and they never produce any reasonable result.

Most of my time in DCS is spent in single player, either creating missions or flying them.

 

MP co-op is an important focus as to why I play DCS, but my PC isn't powerful enough to run the AI/unit count in most public servers and it only takes a server crash or friendly fire (deliberate or otherwise) to put me off - I'm too old to put up with ### like that.

 

I used to join the Hoggit TNN server in 1.2.x days but server crashes and AI desyncs eventually broke the habit and I pretty much stick to SP and a couple of 'small' co-op missions each week.

 

Currently DCS or my ISP is making even the light co-op missions unplayable as the other player warps about breaking the sound barrier.

I was in a similar boat with my low end machine. Mainly SP

Then I got the new machine, and its 70/30 MP/SP.

It's been quite some time since I played DCS MP. It absolutely has more potential than SP, that's just the nature of humans replacing AI, but whether or not a server reaches that potential is another matter.

DCS SP has been constantly improving and I find it a good source of entertainment that you can jump into at any time and at any commitment level.

Once you are playing MP on DCS, you are never coming back to SP.

This is very much not true.

It's true you can estimate the number of total people in Multiplayer by taking a look at the list at several times of day and week to obtain an average. No idea really how you would estimate the number of people actively playing Singleplayer missions, though.

 

Trouble with polling like this, as always, is that you only get a result from a fraction of the people who actively use the forums. That bias is probably so big, it renders these little polls fairly useless. I mean, they have been don before, over and over, and they never produce any reasonable result.

ED would be able to see single player by those who authenticated via Steam / ED system - number of folks playing online. Not sure if they care to share such information though.

Single player.

Trouble with polling like this, as always, is that you only get a result from a fraction of the people who actively use the forums. That bias is probably so big, it renders these little polls fairly useless. I mean, they have been don before, over and over, and they never produce any reasonable result.

Yeah, the more casual players on or offline probably don't look here much.

I play both, and Id say 2/3 to 3/4 of the time is spent in SP.

Hi guys,

 

I was reading a thread this morning about someone complaining on the AI. So I did some research and found some single/multi player thread ... but nothing that would bring some numbers.

 

Briefly, let's pull some number here ...

 

Where do you spent most of your time when you play DCS? Single player or multiplayer?

I play both, right now I'd say 60% MP and 40% SP. But, with regard to your original reason for asking, AI, I'd say that in my case there's no difference, since I exclusively play in PvE servers like GAW and PGAW; so, yeah, better AI would be great!

Never, ever made a friend playing SP. MP only.

SP only for learning. Wouldn't have even tried DCS if it didn't offer MP.

Single and use mostly time on mission editor. Played with a friend before because we like to play not too realistic/Advanced but he got tired because we used 90% of the time loading after game crash...

It's been quite some time since I played DCS MP. It absolutely has more potential than SP, that's just the nature of humans replacing AI, but whether or not a server reaches that potential is another matter.

 

 

DCS SP has been constantly improving and I find it a good source of entertainment that you can jump into at any time and at any commitment level.

Same here. I really have neither the time or the inclination for multiplayer.

I play 90% single player myself.

Do you mostly play Single player or Multiplayer?

Once you are playing MP on DCS, you are never coming back to SP

This is very much not true.

but it’s a great slogan and marketing soundbite!

90% MP for me.

but it’s a great slogan and marketing soundbite!

Indeed. :)

It's true you can estimate the number of total people in Multiplayer by taking a look at the list at several times of day and week to obtain an average. No idea really how you would estimate the number of people actively playing Singleplayer missions, though.

 

Trouble with polling like this, as always, is that you only get a result from a fraction of the people who actively use the forums. That bias is probably so big, it renders these little polls fairly useless. I mean, they have been don before, over and over, and they never produce any reasonable result.

ED have made comments before that multiplayer only makes up a few percent of the population. It's true we don't have hard data, however, if we use the rough assumption of 5% (or less) for online which has been suggested before, it gives you an idea. More specifically, you can do some napkin math for an idea how many people it would take to sustain a company this size, allowing that not every person buys every module everytime one comes out, yet the modules still turn a profit and ED doesn't go out of business.

Numbers presented before suggest the average cost of a module is $200-500k depending on complexity, time required, etc etc, so in order for the ecosystem to work, you need at least 100,000 to 200,000 active-ish people with probably another few hundred thousand that are mostly inactive and fade in and out with the active population.

If it sounds like a lot of estimation and guesswork, it's because it is, ED don't really discuss these sort of things, but they have in passing mentioned vague values for population ratio (part of which we can observe ourselves in the server list), and module costs and timeframes. Between the two you can guess in the neighborhood. It's not very precise by any means, but it's close enough.

-edit

A forum poll isn't worth much in this context as you're dealing with the more invested, sociable segment by definition. They will tend to be multiplayer oriented.

Kind of surprised the ratio is so close. I thought it would be like 3:1 sp.