Speculation: How do we think GTAVI Online will work?

[xNemecsis]

So I've been thinking, what could be the blueprint for the next GTA Online? Obviously, R* will (or should) want to give a fresh experience. I want a new experience, but I also love what they did with GTAV Online and I'm not sure they would benefit from too dramatic of a switch, seeing as GTAO is insanely successful, even 10 years later. The premise of GTAV Online is to build a multi-business empire through racing, contact missions, etc. and then to take the next step to heists and better opportunities to be able to set up and run your own drug running, gun trafficking, vehicle importing/exporting rackets etc. etc. so I'm wondering, with the success of GTAO, and the fact that they will want to deliver a new experience with the next installment, what will they do in order to mix it up in the next one? Do they take a chance with something completely brand new, because they can always fall back on GTAV Online, or do they stick to the blueprint, just with different opportunities and missions? RDO was a healthy change (which we all know could be significantly better) while still sticking to the criminal empire theme, but of course it wasn't hard to change things up considering the entirely different theme and time period. I'm just trying to figure out what they could do with another modern day online create-a-criminal game. I've heard some say they'll just wing it and rely on potential fallback since GTAV Online is a generational money maker, but others say they will do everything they can to bring the GTAO player-base over to the new one. Again, just looking for speculation here, and trying to hear new ideas. 

Edited Wednesday at 01:21 AM by xNemecsis

[Vice Cit]

GTAO2 will be a much bigger, more refined experience than the current GTAO. We have to remember that they never anticipated GTAO to be as big as it got, that's why they had to scrap single player DLCs to use for online.

 

This time around they know GTAO is their money maker and will plan accordingly. I'm expecting them to lean heavily into social features and also take things from GTARP. There will probably be a separate online mode dedicated to an RP style of gameplay, while also still having the classic GTAO mode as an option. 

 

Some things I think they may bring to the table for GTAO2:

• Player Gangs + Gang Territory/Wars
• Option to completely decorate your safehouse(s) once you've bought them. Imagine an almost Sims experience.
• Freeroam Heists, being able to rob a bank or other high value asset in a live session with other players.
• Big live events. 

[Rockstarter]

petty similar to how it is now, just better graphics and physics etc and of course a new map to run around in.

 

It's not unreasonable to look at RDO as a progression between GTAO and what we might see next.

 

So i expect it will start out with a few "roles", property and vehicles you can buy, PVP stuff, and will be reasonably bare boned when it releases.

 

Then, of course, more and more and more content will be added and it just might be the best gaming experience possible for the period of a few years.

[xNemecsis]

2 minutes ago, Vice Cit said:

GTAO2 will be a much bigger, more refined experience than the current GTAO. We have to remember that they never anticipated GTAO to be as big as it got, that's why they had to scrap single player DLCs to use for online.

 

This time around they know GTAO is their money maker and will plan accordingly. I'm expecting them to lean heavily into social features and also take things from GTARP. There will probably be a separate online mode dedicated to an RP style of gameplay, while also still having the classic GTAO mode as an option. 

 

Some things I think they may bring to the table for GTAO2:

• Player Gangs + Gang Territory/Wars
• Option to completely decorate your safehouse(s) once you've bought them. Imagine an almost Sims experience.
• Freeroam Heists, being able to rob a bank or other high value asset in a live session with other players.
• Big live events. 

Love this. This is what I'm hoping for, just a bigger refined experience. I'm a huge customization guy, so I really like the idea of full property customization. All of these things sound pretty appealing. Exactly the direction I'm hoping for. What are your thoughts on the CEO/MC businesses and what they will do pertaining to that? 

[AUScowboy]

They have so many assets they can reuse from current GTAO, I’m expecting them to use quite a bit of it to pad out updates over the course of the first few years, and I’d be okay with that honestly. I want access to the hundreds of cars and weapons they’ve added to current GTAO, even if I have to buy them all fresh which would surely be the case. The huge upside to setting it in modern day is that there are no limits on which vehicles and guns they can include.

Edited Wednesday at 01:33 AM by AUScowboy

[xNemecsis]

1 minute ago, Rockstarter said:

petty similar to how it is now, just better graphics and physics etc and of course a new map to run around in.

 

It's not unreasonable to look at RDO as a progression between GTAO and what we might see next.

 

So i expect it will start out with a few "roles", property and vehicles you can buy, PVP stuff, and will be reasonably bare boned when it releases.

 

Then, of course, more and more and more content will be added and it just might be the best gaming experience possible for the period of a few years.

Agreed. They have the template, just gotta bring in new ideas and new opportunities. I'm just hoping we get it before 2025 atp 

1 minute ago, AUScowboy said:

They have so many asset they can reuse from current GTAO, I’m expecting them to use quite a bit of it to pad out updates I’ve the course of the first few years, and I’d be okay with that honestly. I want access to the hundreds of cars and weapons they’ve added to current GTAO, even if I have to buy them all fresh which would surely be the case. The huge upside to setting it in modern day is that there are no limits on which vehicles and guns they can include.

Yessir! Options are almost endless. I'm just hoping they keep it mostly grounded as GTAO is now, and don't add alien enemies, vehicles, weaponry etc. I've seen people asking for that but I do not need my favorite franchise taking the Saints Row route lol. Not that I think they will, but I know some people want it. 

[Jason]

We can make some safe guesses on what to expect based on GTAO updates (both older and recent) and things they did with RDO, so stuff like;

 

Multiple avenues of progression, various criminal ventures so things like drug dealing, theft, stuff like that, though I imagine they'll start on a smaller scale in terms of what we'll be able to do at launch - no saving the world or toppling drug cartels for example, save that stuff for later down the line. We saw this in GTAO with the various businesses, and RDO with it's roles. I think it's possible they'll give each venture a proper progression path, similar to RDO's roles, where you earn rewards and unlock new mechanics/content as you progress deeper down the role/venture. So like if there was a theft role you'd start small time but as you level up perhaps unlock access to bigger jobs, from house robberies to gas stations to whatever.

 

A big one for GTAO2 is likely a massive emphasis on open world content. They made a BIG shift towards this post-heists and have talked about it in interviews IIRC. Basically, they learned people like to do stuff in open world (who'da thought it lol). So the game got various criminal empires (which will tie into above) but also, especially recently, a lot of additions to GTAO's open world like events and things like that that not only give you something extra to do in the open world but make the world feel more alive. I expect A LOT of this in GTAO2, I think they'll try and make the online open world feel a lot more alive than even in RDO.

 

A massive emphasis on being able to do things solo. They mentioned this in a recent interview but it's not exclusive to GTAO, despite these big online service games being, well, online, a sh*t ton of people want the ability to play them solo, as some sort of never ending single player RPG experience that just happens to be online. It gives other benefits too, like not having to need friends online to do stuff. I'm willing to call everything I'm saying in this post speculative, but I will say that I'll be very surprised if GTAO2 isn't entirely soloable. Co-op stuff still there, obviously, and likely coming with better party support, more like RDO posses and less like the VIP/biker mess of GTAO.

 

To add to that, this is less speculation and more hopeful but I'm hoping they figure out a way to make playing with others not more rewarding but equally rewarding. This working as a hired gun stuff for other peoples businesses is pretty awful co-op design, and the whole manual heist split stuff was a nice idea but inherently promotes just needless sh*thousery. Just throw that stuff away and make it a more typical and classic co-op experience. If businesses return, the ability to create/start them with your pals and put effort into it for equal rewards would be nice as well. Again, just my hopes, this particular bit isn't based on anything they've done with GTAO/RDO.

 

Less emphasis on PvP... possibly. I'm not convinced I'll be right, but the recent change of allowing most content to now being down in private sessions could either be them giving GTAO a swan song before GTAO2, or a signal that they're now not as stubborn on their PvPvE design, I know there's old arguments about how getting killed by flying hoverbikes will make people go spend money on shark cards (doubt tbh), but I do know that PvP has become pretty unpopular in these MMO type experiences. People tend to get their PvP fix in proper PvP games these days, and use these types of games to chill and progress their character. I'm not at all saying PvP will be deleted, but I would not be surprised if you'll be able to play all the content in the game in private sessions day 1 (if private sessions even exist), or if we'll have PvE lobbies where there's no sort of PvP.

 

Long term / post launch support is a hard one to guess. You could say don't fix what's not broken and stick with the current model and I don't think that's a bad guess by any means, but they also clearly tried some stuff with RDO and the industry has moved on a lot since GTAO launched. I expect GTA+ to be back in some form or another but I'm actually not entirely convinced shark cards will, just a hunch, could easily be wrong. I do expect their post-launch support in terms of updates to be snappier though, multiple content updates a year, more events, stuff like that. I'm not a huge fan of the rigid 4 updates per year seasons model, it promotes formulaic updates (which have plagued GTAO tbf) but yea, I wouldn't be shocked if they do a lot more there. I have no doubt that they've had tons of ideas developing GTAO that for various reasons (technical / hardware limitations particularly) they couldn't do, so they put them in the piggy bank to use for GTAO2.

 

I do also expect them to do more "live" content with GTAO2, like hosting in-game concernts and the like. R* literally have their own music publishing arm these days and a lot of the EDM stuff in GTAO is possibly directly from Sam him self, so I expect to see a lot more of this type of thing in GTAO2. Not just music/concert stuff either, but fiddling with the map and tweaking things, changing things for a short period of time. Think putting snow on the map and a Christmas tree up but on a bigger scale and more often.

 

[rebeldevil]

I am hoping R* learned a lot of things from GTAO, both its successes and its shortcomings. As stated by others above, Rockstar had NO IDEA that GTAO was going to take off the way it did. They were caught flat-footed, and the game has changed a lot as they have learned what works and what doesn't.

 

One thing they seem to have learned is that players don't like the PvPvE idea that R* had. PvP content needs to be segregated from PvE content--this is something MMO developers figured out A LONG TIME AGO, and GTAO is more and more like an MMORPG every day.

 

Macrotransactions aren't going away. They're just not. So get that idea out of your head. Shark cards (or some equivalent) will remain, or there'll be some other kind of monetization to take their place--hopefully not something like a seasonal battle pass, but with the way R* has handled the dripfeed content in the most recent update, it seems they've figured out FOMO is a good way to drive players back to the game.

 

On the balance, I don't think GTA Online will fundamentally change. PvP and PvE content will be separated, they may actually test new toys before releasing them into the wild instead of going "Man this'll be cool" and just sending it, not realizing they created a monster (I'm looking at you, OPMkII). And yes, it's true they listened to fan feedback and made the changes we asked for, but after how many years of begging did it take for them to do it? I am hoping for GTA Online's next iteration, the developers at R* react more quickly to issues within the game.

[Jason]

10 hours ago, rebeldevil said:

They were caught flat-footed, and the game has changed a lot as they have learned what works and what doesn't.

 

One thing they seem to have learned is that players don't like the PvPvE idea that R* had. PvP content needs to be segregated from PvE content--this is something MMO developers figured out A LONG TIME AGO, and GTAO is more and more like an MMORPG every day.

 

It's funny cause a lot of the lessons R* had to learn were lessons that were pretty well known even among players from the MMO genre. This isn't a R* exclusive problem, most if not all of the MMO-lites that released on console have been plagued with issues MMO's solved years ago but due to the fact these studios likely had little to no MMO experience directly or indirectly (staff who worked on MMO's in their past), it's like they had to learn all these lessons for themselves again.

 

10 hours ago, rebeldevil said:

Macrotransactions aren't going away. They're just not. So get that idea out of your head. Shark cards (or some equivalent) will remain,

 

Yea, monetisation isn't going anywhere but I'm not convinced shark cards will be the route they go with for GTAO. I know that sounds crazy given how much dollar dollar GTAO makes, but an issue with shark cards is veterans have absolutely no reason to buy them, they're primarily aimed at new players or whales. Compare this to other highly popular service games, say Fortnite just cause it's an easy example, and vets are chomping at the bit waiting for new skins to drop. GTAO though, vets don't need to spend a penny cause they play enough to buy what they want w/o spending. Will R* try and fix this or leave it as is? Honestly I have no idea, I think GTA+ was them in part testing alternative forms of monetisation that are more appealing to vets (albeit GTA+ isn't very good value for vets still), but we'll have to see.

 

Also, I know for a fact that developers with a long running game have used said game as a test bed for their next game, Valve did this with TF2, so I do think the last 2-3 years of GTAO updates, potentially 3-4 years given how long VI is taking, are full of things they're in part adding to test and get feedback on for GTAO2 content. They'd be stupid not to, really.

[AUScowboy]

12 hours ago, xNemecsis said:

Agreed. They have the template, just gotta bring in new ideas and new opportunities. I'm just hoping we get it before 2025 atp 

Yessir! Options are almost endless. I'm just hoping they keep it mostly grounded as GTAO is now, and don't add alien enemies, vehicles, weaponry etc. I've seen people asking for that but I do not need my favorite franchise taking the Saints Row route lol. Not that I think they will, but I know some people want it. 

Agreed, an abundance of real weapons and cars people actually want. They’ve blueballed us GTAO players for almost a decade on the Comet Classic, so I’m fully expecting it to be a VI exclusive at this point..

[untitledupcoming]

I kind of want GTAO2 to look more serious and less arcadey than its predecessor. GTAV was supposed to be more unrealistic, but GTAO kind of ruined the fun in that by making Los Santos the city of the future and also somehow more expensive than actual California. We need darker missions, a better storyline, and more realistic cars and weapons. I know they'll never get rid of the expensive things because they need their SharkCard® money, but they could at least try to make stuff cheaper without having to grind for money or spend hundreds of dollars on submarines and superyachts.

[KarimNTerr]

I hope, for the love of God, that it will be separate from the current GTA Online. I want to start fresh

 

Plus, imagine people with modded money unlocking everything from the start and such... it would be terrible

[xNemecsis]

8 hours ago, KarimNTerr said:

I hope, for the love of God, that it will be separate from the current GTA Online. I want to start fresh

 

Plus, imagine people with modded money unlocking everything from the start and such... it would be terrible

I want that fresh start too, but with a healthy mix of all the things that make GTAO so great. I have this feeling that they’re either gonna hit the nail on the head or completely flop, no in between, but I’m leaning toward the former.

[KarimNTerr]

6 hours ago, xNemecsis said:

I want that fresh start too, but with a healthy mix of all the things that make GTAO so great. I have this feeling that they’re either gonna hit the nail on the head or completely flop, no in between, but I’m leaning toward the former.

Hopefully they learned from the mistakes they made, and become more in touch with what the community wants. I feel like since the Summer Update (that came out before Cayo Perico) they've just been testing players response, and feedback for GTAVI if you know what I mean 

[Tez2]

• Criminal Careers / Roles / Career Builder

The Criminal Careers heavily emphasized with GTAV E&E is an example of what we could expect to see in GTA Online 2. The Career Builder was designed very similarly to RDO's Roles system. And we know GTA VI will be heavily based off RDR2 from the leaks.

 

In fact, one of the leaked vids showcasing the female Online character revealed her model name is "mp_female" which is the same model name of RDO's female character.

 

Expect progression paths rewarding you with special content like RDO's Roles.

 

• Persistent Crews / Gangs

Much like Persistent Posses in RDO, you can form up a crew or a gang and it will remain active even after you quit the game. An upgrade, I would like to see, would be to allow multiple Persistent Crews to unite under one umbrella forming up a clan.

 

• Web Catalog / Online Shopping

We will have a catalog much like "Wheeler, Rawson, and Co" from RDR2. Expect to be able to purchase clothes straight from the web catalog and be delivered to your property / apartment.

 

• Shared Loot Bag / Inventory?

As suggested by the leaked videos, the two protagonists share an inventory system between each other. This could be expanded to online with your Crew/Gang or co-op companions.

[xNemecsis]

27 minutes ago, Tez2 said:

• Criminal Careers / Roles / Career Builder

The Criminal Careers heavily emphasized with GTAV E&E is an example of what we could expect to see in GTA Online 2. The Career Builder was designed very similarly to RDO's Roles system. And we know GTA VI will be heavily based off RDR2 from the leaks.

 

In fact, one of the leaked vids showcasing the female Online character revealed her model name is "mp_female" which is the same model name of RDO's female character.

 

Expect progression paths rewarding you with special content like RDO's Roles.

 

• Persistent Crews / Gangs

Much like Persistent Posses in RDO, you can form up a crew or a gang and it will remain active even after you quit the game. An upgrade, I would like to see, would be to allow multiple Persistent Crews to unite under one umbrella forming up a clan.

 

• Web Catalog / Online Shopping

We will have a catalog much like "Wheeler, Rawson, and Co" from RDR2. Expect to be able to purchase clothes straight from the web catalog and be delivered to your property / apartment.

 

• Shared Loot Bag / Inventory?

As suggested by the leaked videos, the two protagonists share an inventory system between each other. This could be expanded to online with your Crew/Gang or co-op companions.

I actually wasn’t aware that they were going off of the RDO template for a lot of these things. Can’t complain at all, as long as they don’t abandon it like they did RDO that game could have been so unbelievably good. Here’s hoping (and expecting atp) that GTAO2 is what RDO could have been.

[Spider-Vice]

It's definitely fair to speculate that RDO contained some of the high-level concepts they were already exploring for GTA Online 2 tbh.

[VitoSpeed]

Recently I heard that someone found out about the online mode from the leaked footage from last year, such as there can be up to 32 players together, is this true?

[KINGJulienx]

1 hour ago, Spider-Vice said:

It's definitely fair to speculate that RDO contained some of the high-level concepts they were already exploring for GTA Online 2 tbh.

Yeah it was obvious they are just testing new stuff and see how would everyone react , although one thing I wish it would not be like RDO is which how each role had a cap for their rank, that was the only downside IMO. But other than that having  roles in GTAO would be fun to see

[Spider-Vice]

2 hours ago, VitoSpeed said:

Recently I heard that someone found out about the online mode from the leaked footage from last year, such as there can be up to 32 players together, is this true?

It was footage from the online mode yes but there was no indication as to what technologies it was using or any features, it was just a random ped test in a dummy Online mode, so it would be showing the same things as GTA V (32 players etc).

 

Lobbies in GTA V and RDO actually support 32 players but 2 spots are reserved.

[KINGJulienx]

59 minutes ago, VitoSpeed said:

Recently I heard that someone found out about the online mode from the leaked footage from last year, such as there can be up to 32 players together, is this true?

Yep it was found by Tez , see this comment :

 

Just now, Spider-Vice said:

It was footage from the online mode yes but there was no indication as to what technologies it was using or any features, it was just a random ped test in a dummy Online mode, so it would be showing the same things as GTA V (32 players etc).

 

Lobbies in GTA V and RDO actually support 32 players but 2 spots are reserved.

I was thinking that it would be cool if it had support for more players but then it hit me that even now when I'm on a full GTAO lobby my internet struggles to keep up and the whole lobby is a giant war

[KINGJulienx]

2 hours ago, xNemecsis said:

I actually wasn’t aware that they were going off of the RDO template for a lot of these things. Can’t complain at all, as long as they don’t abandon it like they did RDO that game could have been so unbelievably good. Here’s hoping (and expecting atp) that GTAO2 is what RDO could have been.

Oh boy you can be sure that they would not abandon it like RDO , GTAO2 is the T2 Money printer 2.0

[TheOriginalGunslinger]

Will they get rid of Passive Mode (as it currently is in GTA Online) and maybe implement the “Offensive/Defensive” option as it is in Red Dead Online?
 

Edited Thursday at 05:11 PM by TheOriginalGunslinger

[Drimes]

I will literally accept anything so long as I can keep earning in private sessions, I'm sorry, but f*ck people sometimes. 

[KINGJulienx]

Just now, TheOriginalGunslinger said:

Will they get rid of Passive Mode (as it currently is in GTA Online) and maybe implement the “Offensive/Defensive” option?
 

I kinda doubt it honestly but its not also far from the picture , the reason I think it won't be GTAO2 its because in GTA everything is literally chaos, robbery , theft, etc but in RDO you could just be a naturalist which collects samples and does not have any chaos but I could see them doing it.

[KINGJulienx]

Just now, Drimes said:

I will literally accept anything so long as I can keep earning in private sessions, I'm sorry, but f*ck people sometimes. 

Same , but since they did open everything to private sessions few updates ago as "improvements and balancing" its logical that they would keep it that way with the next game but as we all know while R* is also really good at making great games they are also good at making decisions you cannot understand and does not make any sense lol

[xNemecsis]

1 hour ago, KINGJulienx said:

Oh boy you can be sure that they would not abandon it like RDO , GTAO2 is the T2 Money printer 2.0

Lol I agree. I was starting the listen to the “they can always fall back on GTAV Online” hype but this thread did exactly what I wanted it to do for me. Reinforced the thought that GTAO2 will be insane. 

[xNemecsis]

6 hours ago, Drimes said:

I will literally accept anything so long as I can keep earning in private sessions, I'm sorry, but f*ck people sometimes. 

It’ll be nice to enjoy with other players for a while I think. Seems like they’re gonna give far less incentive to killing players outside of activities/missions. Assuming there will be no KD and probably no reward for killing other players outside of an event. 

[KarimNTerr]

Yeah, I really hope griefing will be punished a bit, not much, but make it seem like it's a bad thing to do

 

Love how peaceful RDO is

[MaddenedGhost]

8 hours ago, Drimes said:

I will literally accept anything so long as I can keep earning in private sessions, I'm sorry, but f*ck people sometimes. 

On one hand, they have enabled a bunch of stuff to be done in private lobbies of GTAO over the past two updates.

 

On the other, their most recent online game, RDO, didn't have a private lobby.

 

Who the hell knows.

 

Edited yesterday at 12:51 AM by MaddenedGhost