Games for 4-5 person groups?

[Sajiri]

I have a group of friends I used to regularly play online games with, we'd all get together in the evenings and just have fun, but we havent had anything to do as a group for a while now since some of them got bored with Ark. So Im hoping to find some suggestions on what to do.

There's a usual group of 4 of us, with a 5th quite often joining in, so preferably anything that has five person groups. Im not looking for usual mmos that involve questing and grinding and usually seperates people among level ranges. Things we have played as a group and had fun with are things like League of Legends, Ark, and phantasy star online 2. Currently trying to convince one of the guys to try out monster hunter online, but that one is 4 people instead of 5.

[TaRix]

Have you tried some MOBAs (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena)s? They're not for everyone and certainly not for me, but they do focus on team play.

There's all kinds of them, but major ones of note include League of Legends, Defense of the Ancients, and, um, Clash of Clans...

Gearbox released BattleBorn which is a hybrid MOBA and team story thing.

Player skill (and game familiarity) is much more important in an MOBA, so player level isn't the be-all end-all thing.
And, if you're playing with friends, you're not nearly as likely to be cursed to oblivion for making a mistake.

[Sajiri]

Yep, I said I'd played League with them :P it was actually the first one we all played together, though they seemed to lose interest after a while when bots became too easy but nobody was really wanting to deal with actual pvp

[Mutazoia]

There are always FPS's (My group started off with UT). There are a few new one's out...some one already mentioned Battle Born, and Blizzard is launching Overwatch (played the beta...was fun even if they only rotated the same 4 maps).

Other than that you may want to look at some of the old school Arcade style games like Gauntlet (although now that I think about it, Gauntlet is 4 people, not 5.)

[huttj509]

my group of 5's goto is heroes of the storm (and it's free, as a plus). We've been doing diablo 3 with 4, starcraft 2 with 3.

Also playing round with team Factorio (building factories to colonize an alien world).

[Cikomyr]

Skip Diablo 3 and go Grim Dawn.

If you like Left 4 Dead group vs Horde, you can try Vermintide, which is somewhat of a progressive rpg

[Corlindale]

Path of Exile is fun and supports up to 6 players. Same genre as Diablo 3 and Grim Dawn.

It's free to play (in a non-horrible way), so there's no cost to trying it out.

[Cikomyr]

Path of Exile is fun and supports up to 6 players. Same genre as Diablo 3 and Grim Dawn.

It's free to play (in a non-horrible way), so there's no cost to trying it out.

I kind of get behind PoE as well, but i dislike it being extremely loot-dependant.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

The "5 players" part definitely makes it tricky. Otherwise, I'd suggest Magicka as a great option, but I think that caps at 4? It's free-for-all technically co-op magic-blasting.

You could definitely try non-League MOBAs for variety, but it tends to mostly be the same deal with different seasoning. Heroes of the Storm does stand out for streamlining a bunch of the fiddlier technical details, which makes it far easier to learn the game and become at least a bit decent.

There's a bunch of FPSes you could try out, naturally. Team Fortress 2 is free and pretty goofy, and I've had a blast with Half-Life 2: Deathmatch. Mostly because you get a gravity gun.

[Corlindale]

I kind of get behind PoE as well, but i dislike it being extremely loot-dependant.

I think this depends on what your goal is. If you're just playing with your 4 friends and having fun getting through content, I don't think it needs to be a concern that you don't have any of the extremely rare, top-tier items. And you'll have some advantage when finding gear in a big party, if you are nice about sharing all the stuff you find - so if the melee guy finds a great bow, the ranger can get it, for example. It's not like D3 where you'll only find stuff tailored to your own character.

Yes, Merciless and maps can be hard without the top-end gear, but I've heard that co-op is supposed to make things a bit easier, so maybe it will work out ok after all. And even if you don't get to the end-game, just playing through the first difficulties with a couple of friends should be great fun in itself.

[Hunter Noventa]

Terraria is like a 2D minecraft with bosses progression and base building and all that, it can do up to 8 players in multiplayer I think

[Anna1996]

I you have PS4 then maybe you could buy Uncharted 4? I heard that the multiplayer is pretty good and you can play it with 4 friends. The downside is that it is a PS4 exclusive. I do not know if you have or if your friends have it.
I also heard that Rocket League is a lot of fun and it is available on PC, Xbox, PS4.

[thorgrim29]

So, radical departure in genre but the Civ games are a ton of fun online.

[Cikomyr]

I think this depends on what your goal is. If you're just playing with your 4 friends and having fun getting through content, I don't think it needs to be a concern that you don't have any of the extremely rare, top-tier items. And you'll have some advantage when finding gear in a big party, if you are nice about sharing all the stuff you find - so if the melee guy finds a great bow, the ranger can get it, for example. It's not like D3 where you'll only find stuff tailored to your own character.

Yes, Merciless and maps can be hard without the top-end gear, but I've heard that co-op is supposed to make things a bit easier, so maybe it will work out ok after all. And even if you don't get to the end-game, just playing through the first difficulties with a couple of friends should be great fun in itself.

This is kind of why I feel Grim Dawn might be better. Progression is really fun within each specialization's skill trees.

[Mobius Twist]

You didn't mention if your friends are all local or remote.

If local, then Artemis, Spaceship Bridge Simulator (http://store.steampowered.com/app/247350/) is a strong contender for party game. Each person holds a station (on a separate computer terminal) and represents a position on a Star Trek-like bridge: Helm, Communications, Weapons, Science, Captain, etc.

There are a bunch of missions you can run through, though most depend on securing a Deep Space station of one kind or another from a threat (of one kind or another). It's cooperative, challenging, and, depending on your preferences and friends, actually fun.

[Knaight]

If local, I'd go a step further and recommend going to board games heavily.

Sticking with computer games for the time being though, I notice that the example list is exclusively cooperative games. Is that essential, or can we open the field a bit to competitive games? If so, that dramatically increases the number of options. Civ was mentioned, but the 4x genre in general supports more than 5 players, and more than a few support enough to even have a 5 player team that works out well (Dominions 4, for instance).

[Sajiri]

There are a lot of good suggestions here I'll have to start bringing up to them.

Unfortunately there's no local play, otherwise Im sure we'd be able to expand our list of activities far beyond computer games. For now I think we prefer cooperative play. Half the group just wants to play stuff together for something to do together, while half are more competitive (and one guy is really competitive), I think there might be some stress and hurt feelings if we started trying to play against each other

[Mobius Twist]

If local, I'd go a step further and recommend going to board games heavily.

Sticking with computer games for the time being though, I notice that the example list is exclusively cooperative games. Is that essential, or can we open the field a bit to competitive games? If so, that dramatically increases the number of options. Civ was mentioned, but the 4x genre in general supports more than 5 players, and more than a few support enough to even have a 5 player team that works out well (Dominions 4, for instance).

Actually, that's a good point.

Tabletop Simulator (http://store.steampowered.com/app/286160/) is a thing. You can play board/tabletop games together remotely quite easily. TotalBiscuit and friends do it on the regular. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHMZtzpjT_E) It supports most games you can think of and you can even end each game with a ceremonial Table Flip.

[Mobius Twist]

There are a lot of good suggestions here I'll have to start bringing up to them.

Unfortunately there's no local play, otherwise Im sure we'd be able to expand our list of activities far beyond computer games. For now I think we prefer cooperative play. Half the group just wants to play stuff together for something to do together, while half are more competitive (and one guy is really competitive), I think there might be some stress and hurt feelings if we started trying to play against each other

How do you feel about cooperative tabletop? Games like "Pandemic", "Forbidden Desert" and "Sentinels of the Multiverse" support groups of 4-5 players, but don't depend on having more than 3 if you're short one time. There's no real progress made from session to session, no dependency on a given person, and you can give different roles/classes to people depending on how aggressively (or competitively) they play the game.

There are digital versions of all of these using Tabletop Simulator, as I mentioned above, so you can skype/ventrillo/whatever together and even record your adventures for posterity.

[Starwulf]

I think this depends on what your goal is. If you're just playing with your 4 friends and having fun getting through content, I don't think it needs to be a concern that you don't have any of the extremely rare, top-tier items. And you'll have some advantage when finding gear in a big party, if you are nice about sharing all the stuff you find - so if the melee guy finds a great bow, the ranger can get it, for example. It's not like D3 where you'll only find stuff tailored to your own character.

Yes, Merciless and maps can be hard without the top-end gear, but I've heard that co-op is supposed to make things a bit easier, so maybe it will work out ok after all. And even if you don't get to the end-game, just playing through the first difficulties with a couple of friends should be great fun in itself.

ya know, I always hear that maps(not merciless though, it's a gear check, but not a big one imo) are tough without top-end gear, but the real truth is, only the highest tier of maps, and even then usually just the unique ones + Aztiri are the ones that actually require top-tier loot(and honestly, I managed to beat Aztiri solo without top-tier as well) to actually beat them. I don't think I've ever had a single piece of gear that was considered top-tier(I've gotten close on a bow and a chest piece though, both cost me 10+ exalts) and I've been able to clear maps up to the last tier solo and in groups fairly easily. You just have to be smart with your gear choices and skill tree, and don't neglect having max resists(and even a piece or two that lets you go beyond).

The only low level map I couldn't beat was the Hall of Grandmasters, and even though that thing says like level 70 on it, it's a lie. I've taken in friends who actually had top-tier gear and we still got our butts whupped on that map. It's basically meant for a full group of players playing the current meta-characters with the best loot possible to beat.

[Grif]

ya know, I always hear that maps(not merciless though, it's a gear check, but not a big one imo) are tough without top-end gear, but the real truth is, only the highest tier of maps, and even then usually just the unique ones + Aztiri are the ones that actually require top-tier loot(and honestly, I managed to beat Aztiri solo without top-tier as well) to actually beat them. I don't think I've ever had a single piece of gear that was considered top-tier(I've gotten close on a bow and a chest piece though, both cost me 10+ exalts) and I've been able to clear maps up to the last tier solo and in groups fairly easily. You just have to be smart with your gear choices and skill tree, and don't neglect having max resists(and even a piece or two that lets you go beyond).

The only low level map I couldn't beat was the Hall of Grandmasters, and even though that thing says like level 70 on it, it's a lie. I've taken in friends who actually had top-tier gear and we still got our butts whupped on that map. It's basically meant for a full group of players playing the current meta-characters with the best loot possible to beat.

I'll note that maps themselves can be pretty uneven in difficulty, and the tiers are really more of a rough indication on what you roughly need.

[Starwulf]

I'll note that maps themselves can be pretty uneven in difficulty, and the tiers are really more of a rough indication on what you roughly need.

Yeah, I'll definitely agree with this. There are certain maps I'll look for when I first start mapping in a new season, and blow through those until I've managed to acquire a few more levels or a few gear upgrades, then I'll start doing the other ones. Once you hit the point of being able to do the 80-81 maps though, at least in my experience, you really don't need to be discerning. I mean you'll still have ones you prefer, but usually if you can do one, you can do the other with very few exceptions.