Multiplayer

The Etherscape is an always online multiplayer game. When joining a server, you will adventure along with the other players working together. All progress is automatically saved and permanent.

Players per Server

Etherscape is aiming for an ambitious target of supporting 100 simultaneous players on a single server. This will enable large groups to work together on server wide missions and objectives. Currently the alpha is set to allow 20 players on an individual server which will be increased as additional performance testing is completed.

Instanced Loot

Loot in The Etherscape is instanced so that there is no need for players to race to be the first to pick up an item. Each player will see their own loot which they can interact with. This ensures that playing together is always beneficial and there are never reasons why you wouldn't want to team up with someone else.

Difficulty Scaling

In order to balance difficulty properly when multiple players are joining together for a quest, enemies receive a special "crowd resistance" bonus. The bonus depends on how many players are nearby them.

Nearby Players	Resistance	Advantage*	Resistance 17+**	Advantage*
1	0%	0%	0%	0%
2	25%	50%	37%	26%
3	40%	80%	54%	38%
4	50%	100%	64%	45%
5	57%	133%	70%	49%
6	62%	166%	75%	52%
7	66%	200%	78%	54%
8	70%	233%	80%	56%
9	72%	266%	82%	58%
10	75%	300%	84%	59%

*Advantage is a calculation of how much faster a group of that size will be able to clear a level assuming that they are all of equal power. For example, 3 players of equal power doing a level 15 quest will complete it ~80% faster than a solo player.

**Crowd resistance becomes stronger at level 17 and above. It is tuned to ensure that more players of equal power are still beneficial and provide a faster clear but not as significant. This is because loot quantity is significantly better at those higher levels.