[Problems with .23 From a PVP perspective and just how to fix it]

3 minutes ago, Sybily said:

being able to recycle damaged elements back into its parts might make more sense so that way you can actually loot something of some value... basically... if an element loses just 1 life its almost worthless.

This too, I'm surprised that haven't added this in yet as well...

[Problems with .23 From a PVP perspective and just how to fix it]

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:
  1. Creates excessive risk and inclines less people to travel out into space
  2. Inability to trade "used" elements... even though you can buy/sell used cars, games, GFX cards, laptops ect. in real life.
  3. Forces people to carry excess weight on their ships by having whole replacement elements.
  4. Severely hinders PVP since there is virtually no reward or fully developed, profitable, fun and engaging salvage mechanics
• Suggested ways to fix it:
  1. Due to excessive risk, instead of just the counter to an element make perma-destruction occur in this fashion
     1. 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.
     2. When an element is destroyed and restored it will function at 90% efficiency even if it's at 100% health.
     3. Every subsequent destruction/restoration of an element will result in the element operating at an addition 10% loss in efficiency
     4. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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:
  1. 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
  2. Still didn't stop people from building Borg cubes
  3. 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:
  1. 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.
  2. 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.

[Whatcha Been Makin']

27 minutes ago, fiddlybits said:

Your use of lighting and shadows here is really nice. Well done.

Thank you very much sir

[Whatcha Been Makin']

On 11/30/2020 at 2:35 PM, NQ-Naunet said:

Hey everyone!

I wanted to kick off this section of the forums by inviting you to post about your fave in-game creations.  

If you've made something you're really proud of, we'd really like to see!!

Take care, and happy Monday!

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.

[Warp removing any risk from pvp needs to end.]

14 hours ago, Physics said:

If NQ made a friend / foe system that actually worked well and was relatively easy to use, i think you would find these factions emerge. We definitely do need this system, not just some half baked transponder things. Would it be that hard to make a system based on organisations and their players rather than single ships?

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.

[Warp removing any risk from pvp needs to end.]

On 1/7/2021 at 2:01 PM, Physics said:

With the current system players are able to mine and warp haul the rarest resources back to the safe zone triangle with absolutely no risk, just pure reward. This removes any need to tactically think of ways to haul these resources back, hire military escort services or scout their travel path. 

This of course will end with the release of Atmos pvp / territory warfare but this may well be a long time away. So I have a proposal that should be light on development resources that would bring the risk aspect back in to the game while also giving ways to avoid pirate warp exit point camping.

 

Warp cost change.
 

Currently the cost of warp is calculated from a formula that takes total warp distance multiplied by ship weight. You set the warp at A and are frozen until you reach B of which the warp cells used are removed from inventory on arrival and ship unlocks. 

 

A better way of doing this is for the Warp cost to start at 1 cell, the cost then increases while you are in warp due to warp distance you have covered. If you reach the warp cell limit of your inventory you will drop out of warp wherever you are on the line. Additionally you can now choose to exit warp at any time of the journey.

This allows players to change direction and move off the common travel routes without the need to slowboat. Doing this will also change your target planet / moon warp exit point.

 

Now finally until Atmos pvp / Territory warfare is introduced I recommend moving the warp exit points and warp interference radius of planets not in the safe zone triangle out in to the pvp area of space by around 5 - 10 SU. This will finally add some risk for the higher resource rewards from these planets.

 

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"

 

 

[Whatcha Been Makin']

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!!!!!!

[Spaceboys ask big wipe]

On 12/31/2020 at 11:51 AM, Xennial said:

I think it's funny when people attempt to put a real world price tag on virtual items. You realize by the ToS you own NOTHING in game, have ZERO rights to it in any capacity whatsoever. It will at some point in the hopefully distant future be erased from the planet when DU servers shut down. 

 

Them wiping is not 'robbing' you of anything because you 'own' NOTHING.

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.

[Spaceboys ask big wipe]

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

[Spaceboys ask big wipe]

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.

1. T4 - T5 mega nodes in Asteroid belts PVP space only
2. AVA - STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM LOCK AND FIRE, you will lose sooooo much interest if you do it that way
   1. 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.
3. Tractor beams and Harpoons and Interdiction for Warping ships
4. Space anomalies to encourage exploration
5. More wrecks rather than the crumbs we have today
6. 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)
7. 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.

[Spaceboys ask big wipe]

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.

[Spaceboys ask big wipe]

3 hours ago, Xennial said:

I feel that many can't see the forest through the trees as it relates to a wipe even perhaps NQ. When I say wipe I mean the only thing that can be retained is skill points and empty blueprints (magic blue prints negates a big point to a wipe in the first place). Also a wipe MUST come with 0 bots active in the market save to sell schematics.

• 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.

3 hours ago, Xennial said:

The question of to wipe or not has 0 to do with 'fairness'. Anyone can objectively see groups will have advantage in any system related to the scale of their operation. Solo players who crying foul is just a rehash of the casual vs hardcore gamer arguments found in EVERY MMO. To be blunt any such concerns of it being unfair that 100 players can achieve or access more content then 1 or 10 can simply be dismissed.

• 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.

3 hours ago, Xennial said:

What NQ need to considers is what they want DU to be. Do they want to spend the next 12 months having to balance everything against the norm of everyone flying around in invincible M -> L core 'luxury' ships , tricked out with T5 everything? Do they want there to be any place in the universe for XS or S ships? When my org thinks to build a hauler they think in terms of how many KT they want to haul as a standard metric. Whats the point of XS, S , or even M weapon systems or ships in a universe filled with L core battle boats?

• 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.

4 hours ago, Xennial said:

I know I know, energy system will solve all that!! No they won't. It is common place for people to use M or L cores "just because I can". What happens when the population is threatened with the idea that "gasp" they might have to replace the elements after casually smashing into the ground because they never learned to fly because gold scrap was everywhere? They explode in outrage of course! Never did it occur to anyone that these over-engineered ships might actually someday cost something to maintain because it never dawned on them these are supposed to be capital ships.

• 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).

4 hours ago, Xennial said:

You want a wipe, then wipe for the right purpose, to overhaul the progression curve from SP sandbox to an actual MMO. The schematic prices in 0.23 were fine. If anything the non finished product schematic prices were to low, and the finished far to high. You want someone to specialize in screws, then you need to not setup the price structure that someone able to afford the end schematic would obviously be able to afford the sub parts. You could have also gone ahead and made the sub component part recopies not produce a gaggle at a time and have them take far longer to make. You want to break omni factories, then you have to break the efficiency found in setting one up in the first place. If I need 100 machines to produce the number of screws needed to make 1 large engine per day(extreme example), I'm going to seriously ask myself if it's not far more efficient and cost effective for me to buy the end assemblers to make 10 per day if I buy the screws from other players on the market. You do this by making the end assembly comparatively far cheaper to set up compared to actually supplying that industry time/cost wise with parts to keep it running. This spurs people to make the sub parts as a business and prevents even groups from being able to just outright out produce the little guy in end products. 

• 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.

4 hours ago, Xennial said:

If you want a DU where it's not everyone running around in M /L ships then you adjust the difficulty of making and maintaining those ships appropriately. You naturally start this paradigm with Medium ship parts and up of all tiers. Make it so the average player has easy access to XS / S ship parts, containers to M for example. All Medium ship parts require uncommon sub components, all large advanced etc.

• 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.

4 hours ago, Xennial said:

This entire concept ONLY works with 0 bots in the market. You need to frankly force people to sell their ore to other people. A game where people receive money every day for logging in NEVER has a cash flow problem. Quanta is a medium of exchange and it's value should be determined by the free market not some arbitrary idea that people have that you need XYZ 'faucets' for people to earn money. You can faze out the daily award as you add alternate ways for players to make the same given X effort per day. People have this bad habit of thinking the game has to provide $$ from heaven of the economy will fail. The 'value' of that money is not in it's generation but in how much the average player has and is thus willing to pay for things. That value can only be set by a free market where bots are not constantly perverting it's perceived value. .You only have to balance that daily cash against how fast you want schematics to be bought. You have the nanocrafter in the game to allow people to make XS ships anywhere without touching a market.

• 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.

4 hours ago, Xennial said:

The only way DU will ever have a functional market is if people start to relate the time they spend mining to some value received. Why are goods sold at less then ore value now? Because you can mine at such a rate and haul so much so easily that no one perceives the value of that time spent. If most people were using the capacity of small ships , and medium or smaller containers to haul things around that time would have to weighed far more seriously because of the logistics of how long it would take to bring that 2Kt you just found worth of ore back to market 100t at a time and the time it will take for it to sell to other players given current demand / price.

• 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.

4 hours ago, Xennial said:

Shift your thinking NQ from SP sandbox to MMO. L core ships should NOT be the norm. Even M ships should be purpose built major investments. If you do not shift your thinking on this I fear DU will forever be plagued by having to balance against everyone always having everything and XS/S even M ship parts being utterly worthless.

• 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.

[Spaceboys ask big wipe]

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.

[Nerf the BORG cube before it becomes every PvP ship in DU]

6 hours ago, Zamarus said:

Most of your suggestions as of how are pretty ba, I dont think it would work out with targeting the design by identification. The only good suggestion imo is core size locking weapon size. And also as Olmeca wrote, make thinner ships harder to hit by proxy of voxel width on the different axises from the shooters perspective. Together it would keep small ships able to exist in a battle with larger ships but also big weapons being exclusive to larger cores would make bigger crewed ships worthwhile more than just flexing.

 

12 hours ago, SirWillyLongShank said:

There's multiple issues at hand here....

1) "Voxelmancy" is such an arduous process, no one wants to take their works of art out on the field.

2) Safe Zones allow people to play their PVE play style with virtually no risk.

3) Sell bots at the start of Beta allowed massive initial Industry to jump off..... Leading now to an unhealthy saturation of warp drives/cells.... Not everyone should have them and be able to warp from safe zone to safe zone. Warping SHOULD be expensive.

 

This has lead to PVP only being performed by those that want it. Hence, you are getting ships that are Min/Maxed, true war machines....

 

Add to this that NQs current model of combat is all about statistics.... More voxels means more life. Filling the build box grants you more engagement time.

 

Let's also note that square flattened areas are much easier to repair on the fly.

 

And, people are still testing how the game works, finding the weak points, Min/Maxing .... Your not gonna take the sports car out to go learn how to drive.

 

So yeah, of course the cube is the meta, it will continue to be. As long as the game is changing, and the combat style remains status quo, there is no real reason to have anything other than an impenetrable cube. 

 

I'm not even going to answer your poll, because your "solutions" aren't going to fix anything. And they have a passive aggressive, egotistical tone that belittles the cube builders. The rhetoric showcases almost 0 realistic DU combat experience. Not everyone cares about "How pretty, and important does my ship make me look today?". I'm ok with a Borg Cube because it gets my butt in the pilots seat frequently and consistently, and allows me to experience the game's combat system readily and adaptively.

 

PVP is not in a state that I think it should be. But Nerfing everyone, because some people are analysing and building using the constraints of the game to increase ships efficiency/potency, and your choosing vanity over functionality, is just ludicrous.

 

If you want to fix the cube. Change how damage is dealt and targeting is done. Higher cross sections should be more easily identified, either by range and targeting speed or both. Encourage "Stealth" ship designs, lower profiles and such. And they should change how rounds impact damage works. Right now it's all explosive splash style of damage. There may be different resistances, but it's still all splash damage. A low damage armor penetrating kinetic round needs to be added.Where damage is dealt in a straight line through the ship (to a certain point depending on size, quality....blah blah blah) and the collateral damage, or cavitation, or hole, is very minimal. They should also add a more thermal damage type, that has little effect on armor but wreaks havoc on elements. 

 

What we really need.... Is to stop the toxic "Nerf Talk Meta", who's motivation is holding everyone else back, because we can't figure the game out. And let's work towards real solutions that will encourage ingenuity, and community growth.

 

 

16 hours ago, MaximusNerdius said:

This shows that you obviously have very little understanding of the amount of thought and effort people actually put into many different cube designs. If it was as simple as throw a box together and toss some engines and weapons on it, I'd support your silly poll but anyone who's actually been out there PVP'ing and not just doing arranged fights or preying on haulers can tell you every single cube is different. While I do look forward to the day that NQ makes changes to PvP, I hope their focus is on the actual PvP issues and not just this silly worry about "OMG no moar cubes". Many of us put lots of thought and effort into our builds and every single fight against other cubes I've been in has been different because of that effort the builder put into it. PvP will only get better when we have less desync and server issues, so let's hope NQ focuses their efforts on that and less on this silly complaint about cube meta.

 

Note that I do want them to one day address the cube meta, but this insane focus on that over actual PvP issues is just crazy.

 

12 hours ago, Memoti said:

So what your asking is for NQ to force players to build ships & ship designs that you approve of, that you deem worthy, and that you feel has had enough thought, prep, and innovation put in it that it's up to your high, impeccable, & un-erring build status, that everyone else in DU must measure up to. And through game mechanics, you want NQ to restrict anything that may result in a ship design that is unworthy or beneath your high standards? That sounds like a wonderful idea to. Forcing a player base or population into doing things always brings  out the best in them, encourages innovation, and lets design & imagination explode. Excellent idea!

 

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

 

[Nerf the BORG cube before it becomes every PvP ship in DU]

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:

1.     Is a simple yes or no
2.     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.

[“Marketplace Heist” Response]

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