SamuraiStyle

Join Date 11/2014

Sins 2 Multiplayer is Underrated — What’s Stopping You from Jumping In?

The game could grow

I’ve been diving into Sins 2 PvP recently, and I’m genuinely surprised more people aren’t trying it. The amount of tactical options, uneven (in a good way!) faction strengths, and varied map setups make for super dynamic and memorable matches. Add to that the potential for clutch teamplay, and you’ve got a game with serious depth.

The devs have clearly put effort into building a solid foundation — AI is decent, and solo play is great for learning — but RTS games thrive when PvP is active. No AI can replicate the mind games, pressure, and adaptability of real opponents.

So I wanted to ask the community:

🔹 What’s keeping you from playing PvP?
🔹 Is it UI/onboarding? No matchmaking? Unbalanced games?
🔹 Or just haven’t given it a shot yet?

Also, if you're an active PvP player — what would help bring more people in? What needs fixing or improving? I'm helping gather feedback to better frame the MP experience from the community's perspective.

Would love to hear from both veterans and people who haven’t touched PvP yet. If we can make it more welcoming, I think Sins 2 could have a thriving multiplayer scene long term.

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Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2415

For me, it's always a time issue.

For years I played StarCraft 2 MP. I got up to high diamond and those games were typically only 15 minutes or so.

A decent Sins II game takes like 40 minutes to get going.

I almost think the game might benefit from an accelerated start or something that is more optimized for shorter multiplayer games.

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Your premise is that people like PvP. The reality is a lot of people don't. That means either co-op with friends, or risking a PUG, else sticking with solo play. If timezone or internet connection is a problem offline play is especially important.

SoaSE2 matches are also fairly time consuming. We've one match we're something like 7 hours in and still not finished. Because of extreme lag and desync issues lategame on the part of one player we may never get around to finishing it.

The fastest match I've played was about 1 hour 30 and that's because Impossible AI started pouring through the wormholes before serious defences were established and it was about to become a RoFL Stomp affair, and we weren't doing the stomping.

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On the contrary, people love pvp. I think currently, several multifacet reasons are why.

One: Yes the game play is long but can be sped up with gaining faster resources, faster research, faster ship building and increasing speed of the game x2, x5 or x10. You can truncate a 7 hour long game into a 2 hour long game.

Two: this game is still currently in development. Sometimes, not all players update their game versions to the latest.

Three: Some players are playing with mods on, which are incompatible with someone playing on vanilla without mods enabled. They won't even show up in the lobby.

Four: timezone

@Frogboy That's something I've always wondered why Sins Rebellion and Sins 2 doesn't have an option like many games to have all Civilian and Military Research trees unlocked and researched with the option to enable it at the start of game lobby? Like you said, it can get up to 40 minutes to get a game going maybe up to Tier III on military and civilian research unlocked. For multiplayer, having that option to unlock all Research tree at game lobby can mean games won't be that long and more players might play it.

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Some people love PvP, sure, but note that I said a lot don't. It's not mutually exclusive.

Yes you can speed up the economics, research, ship construction to speed up gameplay, but that's not really an issue. Increasing game speed up to 10x is possible, but multiplayer doesn't permit speed changes - once it's set it's set. Frankly 1x speed can be too fast at times. Yes you could truncate a long game into a quick one - certainly the Replay option works that way, but being playable is another matter.

Updating is almost automatic so if you're online then you're likely playing the latest patch.

Mods could be an issue, but how common is that?

Timezone isn't an issue if you're playing with IRL friends.

Having more start options e.g. all research unlocked could be interesting. But you'd probably still need to build the civil and military research centres to enable it. Alternatively, what if the starting fleet was customisable? What if instead of 2 scouts or whatever TEC and Advent get, or 2 scouts + 3 light frigates + colony capital ship for the Vasari, you were given a supply quota - selectable at start, and then 'built' your fleet before the game start i.e. something like a Total War: Whatever multiplayer? Obviously Vasari would get an extra 100 Supply whatever as they don't start with a planet. You'd be limited to capital ships, scouts, light frigates and colony ships if no tech was unlocked, but if the full tech tree was unlocked, and the start supply was high enough then maybe you could start with a titan in your fleet!

FWIW the tech unlock may not be of interest to those I play with, but a 'build your own start fleet' likely would!

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I wouldn't mind a co-op game with some folks, but I have absolutely no interest in PVP because all RTS PVP games end up the same way; first to successfully rush their opponent wins. Yay, how fun...

I'd rather stay single (player) for most games.

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I haven't even tried. I played MOO2 back in the day and there were constant issues. IMHO in multiplayer a game should have a turn timer - like speed chess does. It also should have an AI that takes over if a player disconnects until the player rejoins.

The other issue I recall is that every 3x game I ever played had the exact same dynamic - once a player got ahead there was nothing anyone could do to stop them. It was hours of prep to throw away because another player had a lucky map placement or event. Over and over again. And if you were the lucky one - - the "I Win' button is just no fun.

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I am very interested in team multiplayer is it possible to create a section on this site for community replays so we can study and share tactics?

I feel like is a very small community very confined and closed to itself. People should be posting replays to Youtube. I'd like to shout out for Aqua995 for hosting sins tournaments on his channel: https://www.youtube.com/@aqua995

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Quoting missstar,

reply 8

I’ve dabbled in Sins 2 PvP and I like the strategic depth, but the length of games is a real hurdle. It takes forever to get to the “fun” part, and by the time you're fully invested, someone desyncs or drops and ruins the whole flow. RTS PvP also tends to bring out a competitive mindset I just don’t always enjoy.

Hey, what's the stage is the "fun" part? Full T5 upgrades, or would you say an earlier stage of the game?

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2 months later,

Lost interest playing with strangers.

Those who want to play dont want PvP.

Ive long since abandoned online pvp games, Im back to local offline in whichever games there are.

Soase2 is much faster so far than old game, without increases in incomes and builds, I remember 7-8 hours games, which was cut to like 3-4 with increases to income s research and constructions.

I was a bit wondering if it was bad making 2 tiers of one tech. Like initial tech and mastering it, like in the first game not much to do with MP I guess

I have had many hours in Starcraft 1 and 2, Warcraft 2 and 3, Generals, Zero hour. Most of them I did not touch PvP.

Like, are you ronze league, platinum, gold, whatever. Like AoE 4 if AI doesnt work ,they are saying the ydont want me to play their bugged crap game. Because I wont touch PvP, because it is my choice to not want PvP.

If I felt like 'sweating' Tryharding', then I could try. I dont like being boxed in by some meta, meaning, either you play exactly this one built efficient build, over and over meaning, the game you play degenerates, if I were to follow Id be a degenerate too. Or I would be giving somebody free wins for refusing to go with the herd. There are so many tactical, operational-tactical ? Strategic options ??? Okay, let others try, I dont feel like wasting my time figuring that out.

Multiplayer PvP is so cool. So, 'everybody' starts it, you manage to tell people only the cool ones play multiplayer kind of psychological warfare, So, if you cant compete fairly ? What then. Compete you must, since only the cool ones are competitive. What does that incentivize ? Cheating. Cool kids play PvP, thus some or many of them play by lets say, different rules I absolutely detest in games that have AI, when those cheat without letting you know. I hate cheating in both PvP and vs AI. Double standard - the Hypocrisy of it takes any sort of fair competition out. Though I think the last time I played online PvP was BF1. 8-9 years ago. Before that CoH 2, bf2,2142, bfbc2. Before that no internet anyway so online gaming wasnt a thing, back in high school internet cafes with half of class shooting each other in a lan party (CS 1.5/1.6, for RTS-es we had CnC Red Alert , not Computer numerical control or whatever )

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