Demlock

The Above image is a snippet from a post on the .23 patch regarding Perma-destruction of elements and Weapon limitation of core size. Below I go over some of the problems with these two aspects of the 0.23 patch and outline potential ways to make it better and more enjoyable. Element Perma-destruction: Problems: Creates excessive risk and inclines less people to travel out into space Inability to trade "used" elements... even though you can buy/sell used cars, games, GFX cards, laptops ect. in real life. Forces people to carry excess weight on their ships by having whole replacement elements. Severely hinders PVP since there is virtually no reward or fully developed, profitable, fun and engaging salvage mechanics Suggested ways to fix it: Due to excessive risk, instead of just the counter to an element make perma-destruction occur in this fashion When an element takes damage, have it's efficiency decrease by the percentage of health removed from the element. Simply put, if an engine, wing, adjuster, air/space break ect. has 90/100 hp then it will function at 90% efficiency. When an element is destroyed and restored it will function at 90% efficiency even if it's at 100% health. Every subsequent destruction/restoration of an element will result in the element operating at an addition 10% loss in efficiency When restoring the efficiency or running maintenance on an element that has been destroyed say 4 times (making it 60% efficient) create a UI that will require the person to use X number of parts that it took to create the element. This X number of required parts is reduced based on the maintainer talents applied when fixing the efficiency (yes that means new talents to train for a maintainer/grease monkey). The maintainer can use a portion of the parts required to restore a portion of the elements efficiency, because not all of the time will you be able to fully restore a weapon or engine and will need to stop at a market to buy more parts to fully repair the engine. The Inability to trade "used" elements that feature a low max efficiency should still be tradable on the markets and not limited to just bartering. This aspect cuts out the PvPers who want to sell salvaged parts on the market and also cuts out a whole market from those who like to buy/sell items new or used. Forcing people to carry whole replacement elements (even a core) is not an optimal stance. Or, I should say that it should not be the ONLY choice a pilot or crew have to repair/restore/maintain the elements on their ship. Allowing people to use parts to restore the efficiency of an element will help virtually everyone since perma destruction will no longer exist and it will remove the risk factor for everyone to be able to jump back on and enjoy the game. In addition, the perma-destruction of an element will only exist if a person/crew is unable to restore the efficiency of an element. Because at the end of the day, if they can't restore the efficiency of an element then when it's max efficiency, after getting destroyed 5 - 9 times, goes down, then the element is nearly useless to begin with. This brings back the reward aspect of the risk of PVP. When two ships go at it, in the game's current state, they both stand to gain nothing and lose more than just ammo and voxel and elements... and time. Giving people the ability to repair and then restore an elements efficiency will encourage PVPers to get back out there more and plunder the booty. Weapon limitation for core-sizes: Problems: Too overzealous of an approach and clearly focused on just the excessive borg cube issue which lead to no one building legitimate ships in PVP Still didn't stop people from building Borg cubes destroyed a lot of builds where some ships could feasibly support a weapon that was 1 size higher than it's core size. Suggested ways to fix it: Allow for cores to use a weapon size 1 size up. By doing this it will make XS and S core ships feasible in combat once again. Medium size ships will be able to contend with Large cores. and Medium core ships will actually be afraid if it is taken on by multiple Small core ships. However, Medium core ships will still be able to hold their own in a fire fight. Balance the numbers better. Right now the initial numbers for the T2 -T5 items seem unjustifiable. Meaning, there's no justified reason to go for T3 or T4 cannons when T2 does the job just fine. The current "why" behind chasing after higher end items does not line up with the reasoning for gathering up all the needed materials to produce them. (Disclaimer: Yes, I understand that MMOs of this kind always have a balancing act going on when it comes to content so you're probably already aware the need for better balancing)... I'll update soon with proof of concept.

Thank you very much sir

While most proud of my word, I do hope that JC sees my post (looks past the rash stance) and internalizes the overall meaning behind the statements. I made these hallways in extreme detail and depth and I'm producing another one pushing the bounds of this game to the limits and beyond. All to say, this is what the people will lose the ability to do if this game fails to deliver fun to the people who are paying NQ to make a great game... NOT A SIMULATOR.

If NQ would make a system that actually drove content then maybe the game would not be in such hot water. instead we got .23 and a response saying "WE HEAR YOU" when it was obvious they weren't paying attention the first time people told them DO NOT PUSH THAT DUMBASS PATCH. Sometimes over-zealousness in reaching deadlines will blind you to the negative effects you'll have on the product you're about to modify.

Here you go Physics I what you're saying is what I and others are saying here too. It's literally all over the DU forums. The carebears got what they wanted and now the game just isn't worth playing. What's going to bring in the people and the money is better PvP. NQ needs to face facts that people play these kinds of games for combat. If there's nothing like that in good quality and fun. People will say "F*** this game, NQ ruined a marvelous idea"

Most of my people are playing other games. If Novequark doesn't turn this game around and make PvP, discovery/exploration, mining and events fun and truly worth enjoying with: - less effort - Less tedium - Less ridiculous mechanics that make people want run their hands through a wood chipper then there will be less of the following: Please NQ please please please... Don't push out patches that kill your own game LISTEN to your ATV people, they're telling you what the community wants and enjoys Quit listening to the carebears when there's literally thousands of people willing to PvP but not willing to subscribe to a game that feels like work. Some suggestions (Don't be mad, these are some suggestions based on conversations I've had with hundreds of people who barely play or are waiting for NQ to turn this game around): Make more Events ( you may not want to but in the end you're going to have to make engagable NPCs in order to drive activity in this game pre-launch, otherwise this game will stagnate because there's little enjoyment in the game's PVP and very few people enjoy industry mining and markets) Make Asteroids span the entire circumference of the current DU solar system or Make them randomly generate in space GIVE US THE ABILITY TO DO DEEP SPACE SCANNING so we can actually DISCOVER stuff in the game. Don't just expect us to travel endlessly in this game with a 2su view and think "This is a great idea, they'll definitely find something with that range!" GIVE US: TRACTOR BEAMS HARPOONS Interdiction fields For AvA: I personally say DO NOT DO LOCK AND FIRE however, if you believe that's the only route then I'd highly suggest making it auto-lock and the firing part is done by the player... you know.. like how a normal 1st person shooter is. The chance to hit could be based on where your cross-hairs are focused on the person you're auto-locked on to. The auto-lock can change based on how close or far away you move your cross-hairs to/from the target. This will give the closest simulated feel of 1st person shooter using the lock-fire approach. DO NOT add in some ridiculous mechanic timer such as the "You are being targeted" feature with ships. It's probably the quickest way to permanently turning all Eve and other PvPers away from your game. for grenades: Lock and fire just won't be optimal. This SHOULD be done in a way where a person doesn't have to be locked onto anyone to throw a grenade. The server can do all the little calculations it needs to if at all to simulate the arching and explosion and even the object bouncing off the wall and/or bouncing next to the intended area to be detonated. Think about it this way. Sometimes you don't always mean to shoot to kill. Sometimes you shoot to suppress the enemy and stop them from moving. Sometimes you toss a grenade (or flashbang) to disorient any targets in a nearby area. Above all else... DO NOT: Produce AvA WITH A UI THINKING ITS GOING TO BRING PEOPLE BACK INTO THE GAME. Produce AvA with some time-delayed targeting mechanic thinking it's a great idea Produce more limitations to either slowing people down or turning them away from either PvP or the game over all Make AvA more of a drain on energy and resources than necessary. There's been some valuable lessons to be learned from EVERY patch and update since alpha 1. Basically... EVERY time you've put out a new update with severe extreme resource, time and energy demands on people, you lost a sizable portion of your community either immediately or overtime. LEARN from your mistakes and stop repeating history. There are a lot of extremely talented people who have walked away from this game because the mechanics that have been added since .23, please seriously listen to the ATV and others who know what people are willing to spend their money on. There are those who are holding out for hope and we're rooting for you, but when you push patches that have overzealous features because it's "too easy" then you'll get a mass exodus and bad word of mouth resulting in less people signing up & logging on. We believe in you, straighten up and fly right NQ!!!!!!

I think its funny you assumed my "robbing people blind" statement was directly pointed towards money or ownership of anything... other than time spent. The ToS in terms of ownership is something that is inherent with the game, and should go without saying.

JC said himself that he wants for there to be a thriving civilization come launch. Wiping goes completely against what he wants. The only way a wipe will work is if people get to use their magic blueprints and keep their talent points. Aside from the notions previously mentioned. JC also stated this was a "soft-launch", which means we're playing for keeps. Which also reinforces the notion for subscribers to keep what they've worked hard to build. So again, if a wipe needs to happen, because they "Absolutely have to" then the magic blueprints need to be activated so those who paid physical money for the work they've put into the game see some kind of value behind their work. Otherwise, NQ wiping with no magic blue prints means they've just robbed people blind... which means barely anyone would trust them at all

It erks me to no end that the ATV people outright TOLD NQ the problems of the patch. Said what needed to get addressed and NQ didn't listen, and went ahead with their plans anyway. Then AFTER the community said "Fuck this shit" and started mass exodus the game NQ back peddled on the stuff ATV said to back down on. Like NQ: WHY THE HELL DIDN'T YOU LISTEN THE FIRST DAMN TIME?!?!?!? Then pushed out a statement saying "We heard you".... no they did not. NQ only listened when people started to unsubscribe and NQ started to lose money. The sequence of events unfolding couldn't be more "Bass Ackwards"... Like seriously NQ is only listening to the things they want to hear. Catering to a niche carebear crowds when the larger portion of the community stays silent because they don't feel like writing full length articles on what sucks and why. Thinking the game needs to be made harder and BARELY HAVE A GRASP ON HOW TO MAKE MONEY BY MAKING A GAME FUN. If you wanted a true simulator then put that into your description in the game so that you draw in the crowd that buys into a simulator. The PvPers... the THOUSANDS OF PVPers who want to spend money on a game that offers fun and challenge (NOT TEDIOUSNESS) will go to games that are WORTH spending their money on. OTHERWISE, save your game by adding shit that will draw in the crowd and make them want to play the game. T4 - T5 mega nodes in Asteroid belts PVP space only AVA - STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM LOCK AND FIRE, you will lose sooooo much interest if you do it that way There's barely much PVP going on now, applying AVA by way of lock and fire when the server is barely getting stressed out from ANY PVP in space today is just a cop out. Quit trying to take the most challenging path for NQ to develop for AVA and do it the same way it's always been done. A physical projectile being shot from one location and landing at another with AvA. All this calculation based AvA may seem nice on the beginning but by making the game less enjoyable/fun there will be less and less of it happening over all. Or If this is TOO much of a complication then PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE find a better alternative to lock-n-fire shit. As it stands so many people are turned off by the way PVP is now. Having lock-n-fire first person shooter is just only going to add to one more reason to NOT play this game. Tractor beams and Harpoons and Interdiction for Warping ships Space anomalies to encourage exploration More wrecks rather than the crumbs we have today Ability for people to develop their own schematics to sell on the markets ( A FUN WAY TO MAKE THEM, instead of some overwhelmingly complex implementation that is AIDS to even bother getting into) 2 - 3 NEW SOLAR SYSTEMS If NQ does this, then it will be the defibrillator NQ needs to bring the crowd back to the game and more money to be generated. HANDS DOWN. Because there's nothing to do, people see no need to subscribe. It's causing less cashflow to get into the game and more people to walk away because they're pushing shit that makes the game worse and less fun. Instead make shit that energizes people to play the game not want to gag on a baseball bat at the thought of having to mine to craft to indi to build to fly to .... ugh... fuckin hell ... to just do anything at all. If there was 2 or 3 new solar systems in the game with exotic planets to check out, I'd happily command my people to gather the fleet for a "Great migration" to the new system. Fight anyone for the new elements and happily mine and craft and all the crap just because Flying for days and weeks just to explore somethign new is a LEGIT reason to stay in DU. With PvP? I'd love to board someone else's ship at 5-10,000km/hr with harpoons and tractor beams. Pulling someone out of warp to kill the crew and take their stuff. With exploration? IF WE HAD deep space probing abilities and better notifications about random celestial events to give us a better heading of where shit is so we can explore it then yeah. I'd gather a crew to go explore the new thing. With T4-T5 mega nodes on Asteroids? OMG would you see some heavy activity in the community. but with what they've done? there's literally ZERO reason to play... ZERO reason to fight... ZERO reason to even bother doing anything in the game. Those 7 points above = CONTENT that the community is unable to and unwilling to try and create themselves. NQ needs to do it or people will trickle out the door more and more.

0.23 was the feature that made the game excessively difficult for many but not all. My personal view is that NQ needs to be focusing on adding features to the game that make it fun and enjoyable for the community to even have the energy to get involved in. "There's no where to go but up from here" I'm going to make this claim: If NQ doesn't push to make this game fun, to offset the difficulties they've created it will not survive long after launch. Many people don't like coming home from work to do more work. It's what won't make money for NQ's DU to survive as a game. The only thing left to do would be to sell the technology and close up shop and move on to the next project.

This hardball approach to the game is the reason why people get up and walk away. If there's any one lesson that players and NQ should've realized by now is that when you lean to hard to one side or the other it creates this initial implementation of the game that costs us both carebears and PVPers... basically community members, and friends. On a larger scale it costs NQ subscriptions which means they get less money during beta. I can agree with this 100%. There will ALWAYS be groups of people who will "no-life" an mmo and get further ahead faster than many others simply because they're in a position to do so. The point of smaller sized ships comes with boons that L core ships do not possess: L core ships accelerate slower (typically) and legitimate PVP l-core ships will not be seen in atmospheric areas. XS,S and Medium core ships are easier to make atmo capable and the smaller sized ships are able to act as faster haulers vs the mediums (if properly designed) When Energy mechanics come into the light I'm almost certain we'll see the field shift to ship designs take on a more thoughtful approach vs. the brick shits you see today. For those who build the luxury ships means they put in the hundreds to thousands of game hours scanning, mining and refining and crafting the T5 everything to have that ship. As you mentioned earlier there's ALWAYS going to be people who will push for the absolute best of everything. The matter of balancing is a common denominator across all MMOs. I actually agree with certain aspects of this point. Having an L-core means you possess the ability to take care of it from start to finish. You're able to field a crew to manage the power, handle fuel costs when travelling and deal with the PVP costs when in combat. Loss of elements should come at a price, one that makes PVP both enjoyable and have you stop briefly to consider how much of a risk you're taking by going "all-in" on this engagement. This balancing act is important for NQ to consider because while you want to ensure there's a risk you don't want the risk to be so overwhelming that people just say "Fuck this shit I'm out" at every opportunity to PVP or even travel outside the safezone. (Again, going back to being too extreme on anything leads to people not playing the game or subscribing and telling their friends, don't bother until they... NQ... gets their shit together). To this nugget, no, the schematic prices were insanely high... again they leaned TOO FAR to one extreme rather than starting low and then slowly turning up the heat over time. This has been a constant thing every time they've implemented something new in DU where they've gone too far to one side or the other and the game just sucked horribly. ATV would even tell them, "Don' t do this, and don't do that" but the Devs wouldn't listen and push out the bullshit anyway. As a result the community would go into an uproar. They did it several times during alpha 1,2 and 3 and here we are during beta experiencing the same thing again. Each time they've done it the activity in the community dropped dramatically shortly after seeing the changes they put in were done so leaning too far to one extreme or the other. As far as the implementation of schematics? There have been mixed views on it. I do feel there could've been a much more fun an immersive way to implement it, that wouldn't have been this overwhelmingly complicated thing that caused an already hurting community to lose so many people. As far as omni factories go, people will always go for aiming to produce everything the most efficient way possible in a move to swallow up everyone else. Similar to the PVP front where you'll always have someone going for T5 everything. As forth the entirety of this piece goes, it leans WAAAAY TOO FAR to one side and makes the game more grindy than it already is. Overall I think DU has hit a pivotal point in grindiness to actual gameplay and I'm sorry but schools of thought like this, while well meaning, only serve to drive more of the community away. Examples that drove away the community during Alpha (and yes I understand it's alpha): Implementing Industry for the first time with high costs Implementing PVP with excessive bugs Fixing bugs after nearly half a year of the community dealing with the most game breaking ones for both Industry and PVP Locking every single element behind talents, thus preventing players from being able to test the game out at all Implementing Talent system with excessive bugs that ATV attempted to point out. NQ taking well over 3 months to drop the price of AMMO when both ATV and the growing pvp community told NQ within the first 2 weeks of PVP industry that the cost was far too high. There's some merit here I feel but again... adjusting the difficulty is leaning far to deep into the extreme side. People who think adjusting the difficulty are missing the mark on making the game fun vs. more tedious. There needs to be more fun ways for people to engage in a difficult mechanic to entice them to venture down the road to begin with. If something isn't fun people will grind themselves into not wanting to play the game and as a result will unsubscribe. Again... people are calling for the game to be more difficult will only find themselves playing this game alone. Eventually their own friends will walk away and will begin to see NQ close up shop because they went the route of making a "NOT FUN" subscription based game thinking everyone wants to sign up for a grind that yields very little FUN. Let's identify the ways you're able to make money in the game if there were NO OTHER PLAYERS AROUND: Daily rewards Selling ores to bots Because these 2 faucets are the only sources of income in the game, then when there ARE players around what will the sources be then? Other players? No, because there will be many greedy individuals looking to gobble up every known piece of quanta in the game and everyone will be too poor to buy anything. This will force people to once again go back to mining and making their own stuff. AGAIN, leaning TOO FAR to one extreme or another here. Now THIS has some solid merit. If NQ implemented a suggested cost/value to the cargo onboard a ship that you aimed to sell on the markets that would help people identify a relative price they should sell their goods at on the markets. Not everyone is an economist and has degrees in the area. However, when people receive a suggestion from "On-high" they tend to go with what's suggested and place based on it. "Word of mouth" by way of NQ suggested prices based on calculated time spent flying/mining tends to go a long way potentially creating a legitimate economy. Similar to EVE... (A game that's been going 15+ years) and virtually every MMO out there, everyone in various aspects of the game will "Follow the meta". Balancing is a constant thing that occurs in every game with every new feature. So telling NQ to do X,Y,Z to prevent balancing is just going to fall on deaf ears. As mentioned before, XS,S,M ships will prove to be far more viable come atmo pvp. As the weight of Ammo currently takes a toll on ships and their storage capability ships designed for atmo combat have to be designed with some serious considerations. Even with full T5 cargo talents the weight and volume of ammo in it's current state takes up vast portions of storage room and with both core locked weapons and surface area chance to hit, forces pvpers to design ships that are actual ships and not blocks of bullshit with tons of weapons all over. Once energy mechanics come in, you're going to see a difference in how ships are built and how long they take to be finished.

Firstly I'm going to just put this out there right now. The only way that wipe will ever work is for NQ to allow the current players who are testing and playing the game to keep their trained talent points and have magic blueprints. As JC said: "You can play the game as if you're actually playing sort-of live" The interpretation is that we're playing for keeps now. If neither one of those are provided then the population of DU will drop to a few hundred players a week and low activity. Will it ever return? I don't know but I can confirm that BOO will effectively mass exodus the game and the true carebears will be able to flourish unchecked, and unchallenged. Carebears will be able to grow without any risk of traversing the starts and do Whatever they wish without fear of Pirates. As it stands, in order to maintain some semblance of energy to play the game we had to diversify our focuses to other games and come back when the will to play is there. If they wipe without: - preserving talents - activating magic blue prints BOO and many other PVP groups will be leaving. Now I do see the need for a wipe though. Just not one that sets everyone back to zero because some who play the game think it's unfair advantage. The newer launch players will need a chance to grow and claim their territory. However the main question here is: Why the hell am I playing this beta now? Why are thousands of those still playing the game putting in the time? People already hate mining in this game, why should they have to mine all over again? The voxel libraries that already take a long time to produce just to have to do it all over again after beta? People who are paying for subscriptions right now just to have to do all that work all over again? No If this game wipes, those who've put in the time now just for the ability to carry their builds and designs and constructs into launch will leave permanently and the word of mouth generated from that alone will make this game die on a financial level. Many of the streamers have already left the game because playing this game was hurting their viewer base... and thus their money. Will the tech be seen as something that's viable? Possibly, however, NQ said themselves that the benchtesting they can do doesn't hold a candle to the benchtesting data that comes from the massive armada battles that the community can create. The further they push this game to an extremist case because of the carebears crying and screaming to change the game to their liking will mean that less people will be interested in the game because it only boasts the environment best suited to the smallest group in the game industry. One more time: If they wipe without: - Preserving talents - Activating magic blueprints This game will die and it's return will be based entirely on how far they can stretch the money they have/get to how long can they afford to keep this game running.

Well, I'm glad that everyone is at least posting thoughts and ideas about how to address it aside from the initial view that my posting this was simply to moan and complain about X,Y,Z. My time is rather limited and writing a long diatribe about my views of PvP in DU to date in extreme detail with well thought out analysis is not something I can do at the moment. In all honesty, getting people riled up over something that's not 100% complete sometimes leads to more astute minds shining through to offer perspectives leading to a better way forward. As nearly all responses here have had either a hint of, or a sound take on PvP most can agree it needs more work. I'm glad to see that the discussion is being had at the end of the day on how to make something we all enjoy better for the future. Do I hate the borg cubes? Yes, its absolutely ridiculous Do I want a PvP system that pushes people to work towards ships that are effective, practical and have more than just 6 sides to it? Yes Are there ways to do so? Yes Is that my main point for this whole post? No

Hello, This post is being put up and polled to get NovaQuark's attention regarding certain mechanics of the game that may or may not be intentional. After a fair number of PvP engagements in DU I've noticed that people are beginning to dive deeper into the cube meta of DU. As in construct XS/Small Core ships that are just a big brick of ridiculousness and large weapons. By maximizing the entire build space of a construct people will fill it with voxel and other essential elements to just power punch an enemy off the field. An effective strategy I must say. While it is not the only strategy in the game I'm trying to view this topic from a longer term or generalized view of the game (from my perspective... which could be totally wrong). NQ and even JC has envisioned people building amazing and powerful ships to traversing the stars and battling each other for one reason or another. However, people will tend to follow the meta until NQ makes a change that forces the crowd to take a different path. With the current stance of PvP, NQ will begin to see more and more ships produced that are just shoe boxes or cubes with no thought, effort, or design prowess behind the build. Without going into too much detail or some long drawn out diatribe, I've created a poll with: Is a simple yes or no Is an option selection based on some ideas I and others have had regarding how to kill the cube and force people to build actual ships instead of boxes. I'm asking for NQ to prevent this from becoming a thing by nerfing the cube meta and forcing people to have to build legitimate ships.

This whole forum post has been one of the highest intakes of salt yet... both in quantity and quality. Glorious from start to finish. I, for one, support the banning of individuals who do some seemingly ridiculous things KNOWING they're going to get banned while doing it. Then, complain about getting banned knowing they were going to get banned in the end. Like wow, people like this are the reason warning signs exist