GallopingTortoise

Let's set aside for a moment that wiping beta player constructs at launch was always unfair, given past commitments. NQ have now heaped insult on injury with a number of stealth nerfs at launch:
 
Alioth T2 Distribution: 
I did 80 territory scans on Alioth at a ~3 tile spacing and found zero T2. None at all. Zip. Nada. No T2 - after spending 3 days building the XL assembler and scanner. This is a broken gameplay loop. Combined with the removal of Malachite from Alioth, the stealth nerf of ore distribution on Alioth resulted in a week of wasted effort. Forcing effort with no payoff is not gameplay. 
 
If NQ had been transparent with us before launch, said they were going to nerf T2 on Alioth, I wouldn't have wasted that critical week. I would also have rebuilt my base before launch so the BP wasn't made of 500,000M3 of Copper. Now, to deploy my BP I have to swap copper for another honeycomb, and then go back and untangle where the new material has blended with the same material already in the BP. More rework, on top of the wasted time.
 
1000m Build Height: 
This was self-evidently dumb. By choosing a 1000m cap instead of 1128m, it's impossible to build a 1000m AGG pad without placing your foundation core at an exactly multiple of 128m (since you won't be able to place the top core if there is less than a 128m gap.) Even then, you can put nothing on your 1000m pad, no elements, no structure. And you have to either use smaller cores for your top layer (increasing server load) or build your base from the top core, down - which means tall temporary scaffold structures first to place top cores and work back down - while others complain about griefing the entire time. 
 
A large number of pre-launch bases had AGG pads at or slightly above 1000m. All these pre-launch base BPs are now bricked.
 
This misstep demonstrates a fundamental ignorance of their game's own mechanics by devs, and poor understandng of players. To make matters worse, the change wasn't even included in patch notes. The only place it was mentioned - just wks before launch - was in 'Ask Aphelia #12. Few players had any opportunity to fix their builds before launch. This mistake (1000m vs 1128m) would easily have been picked up if players had been warned.
 
In summary, not only did NQ reneg on prior commitments to honour our builds in their 'persistent' universe - the only compensation being retained blueprints - they went on to stealth nerf the BPs we kept. 
 
[EDIT: Because this rule is not yet being enforced, and it is still possible to place a core above 1000m, this will create even more pain for players uncertain or unaware of the rule - should NQ decide to delete structures after they are built. And for as long as the rule is unclear, it is impossible to safely place the foundations of a tall structure.]
 

 
Missing STUs for 'Contributors' (and Surface Natron):
By making Sanctuary the only place with surface natron near Alioth, Alpha contributors already had a significant advantage at launch - since natron is needed to make many popular elements: screens, lights etc.. NQ then messed up further, by jacking up the distribution of STUs meaning only some Contributors received them. ~10 days later, this still has not been fixed. This means a small number of players, purely by chance, have the only access to surface natron near Alioth.
 
HTML/SVG nerf and Indiscriminate LUA Changes: 
The disabling of HTML screens was long rumoured, but took so long to be done it appeared to have been abandoned. Waiting till launch to tell players all SVGs and HTML are also now bricked is also poor form and counter-productive. Because a large number of ship BPs from pre-launch contain screens using HTML, and virtually every factory monitoring set-up, any player flying these ships or running these factories, will now simply go to settings and re-enable HTML, to be able to play the game - undermining the point of the exercise to phase out HTML, and prolonging the inevitable pain and frustration when it is finally done. This pain is now unavoidable given the original misstep of building a new API with zero compatibility with HTML/SVG. (The new API should always have been implemented in a way to minimise the effort of reworking existing content for players - rather than forcing ground up rebuilds of all screens. Better still, existing content should ideally have been ported on behalf of players.)
 
Combine this with the frivolous renaming of a number of LUA cmds, additional rework has also been created for players to reimplement scripts written before launch - for no apparent reason. 
 
STILL No Static BP Placement Snapping!: 
We asked for this in the Alpha Trello 3 yrs ago. It was poorly implemented on day one - snapping new cores only. Hundreds of players have asked for it to be fixed for static BPs over the years. It never made sense that new cores snap into place, but static BPs work of a bizarre raycast that doesn't even align with the player camera and - annoyingly - nudges by 2 voxels instead of 1. This feature was already long overdue, but now made more critical since it is essential to redeploying any mult-core construct after the wipe. Finally... finally, it was coming! In the launch livestream it was promised for launch here, at timecode 35:38:
 
Instead, we now learn this was skipped, rendering all multi-core static construct blueprints useless. 
 
Summary:
 
- Forcing players to constantly rework their builds is not gameplay.
- Reworking existing content is a poor proxy for new gameplay loops.
- Player input is invaluable. 
- Last minute, uncommunicated changes rarely if ever have a positive outcome.  
 
The culture at NQ of disregarding the time and effort of players, and lack of consideration of impacts on our gameplay, is worrisome. More worrisome, is the tendency to continuously rework existing content - mechanics, terrain, boolean noise - rather than develop significant new features, many of these features requested years ago. NQ are still missing the winning strategy of successful 'player generated content' franchises like Minecraft, where the focus of the first several years was on adding new gameplay loops - as opposed to continuously reworking existing ones. Reworking existing content decays player satisfaction by forcing the constant rework of our own builds. And making changes by stealth only magnifies the problem.
 
Until this is understood, the future of this franchise is fraught. 

Schemitics reduce server load by simultaneously inflating the cost of products while at the same time reducing spare ℏ. 
 
They also significantly reduce fun.  I’ve spent a really dull hours just trying to scrape together enough ℏ with the tiny fragments of what remains of our org by surface scavenging the shit out of everywhere I have permission. 
 
It’s worse than mining used to be. 
 
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. The whole premise of “entirely player driven and built” is a laughing stock. 
 
bots control our hex-rent. Bots control our schematics. Bots control our sales taxes. Bots hand out and receive missions. Bots sell pretty much everything anyone needs. Bots buy stupid almost unlimited amounts of ore and bots hand out a daily stipend. And bots control whether or not we can fire weapons. 
 
what is there actually left to play and strive for other than building?
 
why is there no energy required to run anything? Why is there no oxygen requirements for our habitats?
why is there no food or farming? 
 
why are there no threatening box life forms that raid our camps?
 
why are there no mysteries beyond a few lowest possible effort alien cores?
 


 
what an absolute joke. 

 
 

One consideration is for ore distribution to shift on a set cadence. Say every four weeks (or eight or something), ore distribution changes, forcing people to re-scan and drop mining units. This keeps tiles from being locked up forever.

Pretty much all the T2 has already been claimed. 
 
many newbies will only get dregs and the asteroid system is obviously not working. You know you have a problem when there are less asteroids than major orgs. 
 
It is clear that NQ have created a game that will create a first tier of unmovable, impenetrable incumbents and leave nothing for the second tier.  Kinda like their ore. 
 
now if they brought in a planet where the ores shifted gradually over time that would be far more viable long term than the current system but totally unrealistic…
 
As it is, all the planets are basically pwned less than a month after the game went life. 

knowing that they can never find anything other than T1 again means many miner type players have left. 
 
Imagine creating an MMO where nearly all the key central assets are permanently locked down within 30 days without a chance to ever challenge them. 
 
thades is dotted with hexes that have a single TU and a single mining node. 
 
zero development, zero building, zero “sivileyezashun”. 
 
“but more planets” I hear some say…  sure another couple of week’s “gameplay” and those planets too will be devoid of anything but T1. 
 
to end my rant, or as the younguns like to say, TLDR:
 
The game is a paradox. It feels simultaneously deserted yet at the same time, the logistics of this game is only suited to  support triple digit player numbers maximum and is flawed at such a fundamental level that NQ will need to pull something spectacular out of their collective… hats … in order for this game to last past the year in any meaningful way. 

Hardly "always".  Note I'm an Alpha Tester.  Prior to 0.23, industry was fun.  You would make progress based on effort expended and could feel good doing so.  Optimizing a layout, using Transfer Units to keep things running - this was fun.  Now it feels like the head banging in the title of this thread.  Oh, not to mention you could take a two week vacation and come back and pick up where you left off.  With luck, might have even raised some quanta via your dispensers.   Now everything is based around paying the tax man.
 
I've invested 4 years of my life in this game, and subscribed myself and 2 alts for a year in hopes it wasn't as bad as I heard.  It is.
 
I really feel bad for anyone coming into this game 6 months down the road, presuming its still running.  Surface ores are going to be the stuff of legends.
 
The balance is simply broke.  We tried for years to discuss this with NQ... but they knew better.  Not.  Most everything I've seen since 0.23 has been implemented to reduce the cost of running the servers - and sold as "performance enhancements", at the expense of players.
 
Its depressing.  I'm too old with too much medical history to every hope to get in the ground floor of another game with this potential.  Sad, just sad.

Well, I like the message and I like the intent. But like others I fear on the intentions. But since we never see any NQ presence on the forums who knows if they will ever read this post anyway.
 
What scares me is that you talk in your message of the problem with PVP while there are certainly many problems with it as their are with every single aspect of the game… as for now PVP is such a marginal part of the game there are tons of issues more prominent that must be addressed very quickly if we don’t want this game to die. 
 
The biggest bulk of active players in such a game will always be builders, industrialists and farmers. But as for now the economy of the game is complete [filtered]ed up and unsustainable. With bots running out of ressources to buy people buy ore at rates that are not even worth farming them. Owning tiles makes no sense as with the rate on some ores it would cost you more to pay for the tile weekly that what you could make with it. Too many things feel like chores in this game, everything takes way too long, you pass way too much time looking at your screen waiting for something to get crafted or for schematics to finish. They need to work on making this game more fun before everything else.
 
If you want fun pvp and massive one what they should do is add some form of challenges you can do in multiplayer with ships with the VR. That’s instant fun, maybe with a leaderboard and potential to make money if you end up in the wining team. 
 
To make any type of weapon you need tier 3 and ammo tier 2. To buy one of pvp ships you need to farm in an insanely annoying way by harvesting your tile for a week. Unless you know the game by heart and started playing since early beta and know what to do, chances are that if you are interested in trying out pvp you’ll stop playing the game out of boredom before experiencing it. And if you stick to it cause your masochist you’ll cry when you realize there is no fun dog fight in this game. Just click to identify and then click to shoot. That’s so exciting at all. 
 
We need more PVE before anything, alien space ships we can fight that travel in space some NPC spaceship with cargo to blow up. Space is huge you spend sometimes days to find anyone to attack having some chances to find at least a PVE one would make it more worth your time. 
 
Asteroids are way too few even out of the safe zone they should multiply them by 10 at the very least. People were already extremely scared of loosing their ship before but now everything takes so much more time and so much more complicated to make that people will so rarely take the risk of going out with some ship of value that you’ll never ever have fun pvp unless it’s organized between big organizations. 
 
Pretty much everything is to be reworked in this game. But the economy must be fixed at fist and super quickly or by next months game will be as dead as beta. 

Well.. As NQ has been on a spree of actions and changes to dissuade players from .. well.. playing..  Most of the locations that did what the exchange seems designed to do that were created by players have been either destroyed, abandoned, or just left unattended.
 
There is no player base to support player creations like this anymore.
 
While not enough sure, many came at the start of beta and a good few community/player driven initiatives started. The expectations were that NQ would drive progress, advancement and bring player controlled and owned markets into the game. None of that happened.
 
The game has stalled, features have been removed or eroded and from what we know it would appear that player markets are entirely off the table.
Dragon Assembly had a really cool player driven trade post on Jago, many had stalls there and there was a pretty steady stream of visitors. The place is dead now.
Moustache riders had a pretty nifty boardwalk with shops, stalls and trade set up on Alioth.. It's entirely gone now.
 
Both places featured quite prominently in streams on twitch but both streamers are no longer active. Markee will probably get back in and give the game one more serious injection of support on release in the hopes of it picking up steam. I do not see Moustache Riders return as they are mostly very disillusioned with NQ and the game. Other trade/industry driven project have gone too.. The last bastion is probably gottchar and IC but the latter seems all but extinct by now as well.

All these project, to some extent, did what the exchange intends to do and all are gone, not due to player being unwilling to work around the quirks of the game but because NQ was not able to keep then engaged and actively drove them off in some cases by choices made.

Personally, if I see some motion as far as new players arriving at release I will probably restart my idea of a noob friendly org, not so much to hold their hand but more to bring them up and let them be self-sufficient and independent while serving as a backbone to fall back on when needed. But I'll drive people to player content, avoiding the exchange as much as possible. We do not need NQ to create these things, we need NQ to create the tools and options to do it ourselves.

I must agree 100%

I upgraded to a proper solid state drive and added another 16gb and it did not resolve the market issue. This is a server side issue that needs to be addressed.
 
I also agree with the rest of your post as I setup industry to automatically build tier 1 pilot elements with a screen that shows Ore levels (thanks to a org mate). All that newbies that join needs to do is make sure the ore containers are filled and they can build ships. Nothing fancy but I spend a lot of hours on this and I just don't have the in-game currency to setup a factory to craft 10% of what my nano crafter can do.

I got into DU because I was tired of Eve and wanted something new and different, now it seems NQ is just copying EVE without looking at the pitfalls. Learn from EVE's mistakes (They have been trying hard to undo historical mistakes they have made after a lot of people have left the game)
 
Schematics is not so bad as I get the fact that super factories is an issue however saying that the current way it was implemented is completely killing the game.
 
They should have just given one schematic of each up to tier 3 for everyone to do basic building and still produce some elements to sell on the market to buy more schematics and steadily build up small factories.
 
This would still have killed the super factories. Now only Orgs with deep pockets will be making money leaving simple folk out of the game. Basically the rich will get richer.
 
There are so many other basic issues that needs to be fixed and new player are not just leaving because of content but performance issues.
 
Anyway my 2 cent's will join back in a couple of months hoping things have changed for the better

To be honest the idea was not to make some in-depth analysis, rather to see the general feelings of a part of the player base. I think most of us are aware by now that the devs don't really take this kind of post seriously so it doesn't really matter anyway. 

I really liked industry.  It was challenging to see how many machines I could get going at once, how far ahead of my queue I could get and so on.  I would tweak on it for hours.  That fun is now gone and I am to be nerfed down to a refiner and honeycomb maker. So everyone in my org will now have to ask me to make all their honeycomb for them.   This is not fun game play.  Not ALL of us are here ONLY for the giant PVP battles that JC clearly wants to force us into.  He does not seem to want a universe full of diversity of game-play (like in most sandboxes) in any way shape or form.  We are ALL to join the three of four giant orgs in the game and become cogs in their machines.  I wanted a sandbox where I could help build a civilization, not be a slave for giant orgs that may or may not even want to get to know me as a person at all. 
 
I am still hanging on, but ONLY for the sake of the players in my org.  I only have a few left and I love them to death, but I suspect that the ones who don't just outright quit will be forced to join larger orgs if they too want to engage in any PVP at all.  I doubt we will be able to build the modest sized transport company I have dreamed of anymore.  I dont have time IRL to do all that mining.  So, we'll see what happens, but I can tell you this.  I am REALLY going to miss playing with my factories.

Can you imagine being a new player? Every hex that isn't a 25km flight to the nearest market is claimed or mined out.  Testing the cargo limits of whatever ship you've managed to scrape together you hit the lagfest aka markets and crash your ship.  Your little xs core is destroyed and you need to buy a new core.  Just as you are feeling lucky that the market you've crashed at actually has one in stock, the price of the thing comes into your field of vision.  You stare blankly at the screen for 30 seconds before hitting the escape key and punching the exit to desktop.  The only bright spot is that they've probably quit the game before seeing the price of a schematic.

And people like YOU are why this game is going to die. Don't tell other people how the game should be played or what to do in their free time.
 
Removing gameplay options is almost never a good idea, especially when there's already so little to do in the first place. Have fun building your digital civilization with 12 people.
 
The great thing about free markets and capitalism is nobody is required to pay for products they don't like. You and JC may not like the way people are playing the game but guess what, we're the ones paying NQ's bills. It doesn't matter why people left or if they were playing the "wrong" way. NQ is now missing that revenue stream and the game is missing the content those players could have produced.

Please do NOT tell people how to play the game.
I've more or less the same strategy: solo play, absolutely prefer to be independent, spending most of my time (did at least pre-patch)  building up my base where aesthetics is a priority, crafting some space ships, and visiting other territories to view their creations.
 
Playing an MMO does not mean that you're required to group with others.
Everyone is free to play how he prefers to - we are talking about leisure time.
 
If you like playing solo - just do it, it doesn't hinder others in any way playing in a party mode if they want to.

Unfortunately...after so many years and so much effort, I tend to agree. 
 
I don't believe they will ever be able to deliver on the concepts pitched in their trailers.
 
I do not believe NQ is going to grow (or even own up to its mistakes) so long as it maintains its current leadership.
 
I know some people think that there's huge potential in DU and that things will be great once NQ fixes everything...but you have to look at the last six years of development and ask yourself when this magical future will arrive.
 
Look at the last few months of dev since they launched the paid game...you really think given another couple years they'll have everything fixed up...? 
 
The sad thing is that people are really passionate about this game even with all its failures. The player base is loyal to a fault, and NQ has ignored their own customers to follow JC's ready player one fantasies.
 
They see criticism and imagine a bunch of haters, but people are taking the time to explain what's wrong and NQ is just rolling their eyes and doing whatever their leadership wants...the only point of beta to them was to collect money, because they sure don't care about collecting feedback. 

Failed experience. Let's move on.
 
At this point NQ should scrap everything, close the beta. Persisting will hurt more the game.
 
Go back to a closed alpha without NDA. Because that NDA is what misled this game: small echo chamber with a few people without fresh ideas and fresh opinions from the outside world.
 
Do like Starbase: don't invite people to a closed alpha simply because they give you money. Invite people who are constructive and actually test and brake stuff. 

Probably, we're trying to set up a transport company and were "just" about to start taking orders.  But it does require a LOT of industry,  I am just not certain if we can pull it off anymore with all the new changes and being a smaller org.  I am uncertain if there is a place in this game for small businesses like ours since it will be next to impossible to compete with the giant orgs now.  And the last thing I need is another "job" by running a large org.  It seems that being a small org is just not good enough for what the developers of this game want.  Idk.  We'll just have to wait and see ?‍♀️
 

imho the problem with industry isn't solved by schematics, it's just pushed back.
 
The problem was the "zero cost" of producing: once you have your machines (refiners, smelters, ..., assembly lines) you don't need power , fuel or whatever to use them. You have no upkeep at all. You just need to input ores.
 
That's why even a solo player could gradually build and use a huge industry: what he already has cost nothing to run.
 
That's why ores were more valuable than their contribution in final products: because it cost nothing to transform them once you have the industry so for instance 10L of hematite are worth more their ratio in <whatever is made with 10L of hematite> because they are less 'specialized'. 
 
Schematics don't solve that. It's a band-aid, a bad one. Their timing is bad. The implementation is sloppy and it adds unneeded complexity (talents and tiers of machines). In a few weeks the situation will be the same but a lot of players will be gone.
 
Running costs (power, fuel, fees, whatever) was what was needed. And they said it's planned so why not wait till then ?
 
 
 
 

Look, the majority of your player base does not like this patch. and you should be more than aware of it. There were things that could have been done, things that have been suggested on here a multitude of times in the past. This patch... despite your Discord Q&A, and all of your live streams, all it showed us is that you simply did not listen to your player base, or their ideas. We are the beta testers, and we have given our feedback on so many, if not all of the currently available  aspects, and tools of the game which could increase the enjoyability for everyone.
 
your testers are leaving. I've seen several people  cancel their subscription, myself included. My sub ends on JAN 11 2021, and from how things are looking, I do not think Ill be resubbing after that date. However it isn't too late. There are other updates which could fix this, patches that can draw DU's community back to the game. After watching your discord, the forums, and talking to so many other players from in game, and on other discord servers. I think I can summarize the changes needed which could bring some the faith back to DU's community.
 
1: SCHEMATICS: Now I want to say this first. Schematics are not inherently bad, however the way it has been implemented is the biggest problem we have here. It was implemented to bring value to intermediate parts, and to suck money out of the world. You want to have players buy them off of the market. you want the market to be used, correct? There were better ways to handle this problem. 

Schematics can stay, but not for everything. By placing them on absolutely every item that we can produced through a factory unit, you have effectively placed a ransomware on your own game. We cant do anything anymore without forking over absurd amounts of cash to get access to the game. This is not a model for any level of play. New comer's will be turned away from this, and more experienced players will simply give up on the game, which they have done.

Basic Items of all types should be free of schematics. Doing this allows everyone to at least experience the core  aspects of DU. we can build, fly around and explore. DU can feel like a game again, and not a second virtual job. 

Schematics can be on everything else. Military engines, advanced, or uncommon parts, advanced weapons. Everything that isn't tier 1 should have a schematic in order to give your player base a goal, a reason to want to improve, to invest time into DU. (but maybe release tier 1 weapons as civilian weapons that need T1 and T2 ores only.  just so that newbies can get the feel of how combat works in this game, yea?)

2:RECYCLERS AND SCRAP: recyclers are sitting In a weird spot, right? they only have 2 uses. To make scrap, and to pump out gasses. These two simple jobs makes recyclers relatively useless in the grander scheme of the game when compared to all of the other industry elements. What if they didn't have to be? what if they could be redesigned to be one of the most important industrial units in the game, and provide a way to fuel the economy in way we currently cannot reproduce on our own through emergent gameplay? What if.... they could... Recycle? 
 
Scrap as it stands now was an OK Method to repair our elements in the earlier days of this game. but those days are long gone, and you need a reason for the market to exist, you need a reason for people to sell small parts, intermediate parts on these markets! Ok. We can do that, and recyclers are the answer. Allow recyclers to break down elements, and damaged elements with less that 3, or 5 repairs left. Allow the amount of "lives" of an element determine how many intermediate components a recycler can pull out of any particular element. Allow it to be random in which parts are chosen. For example, if you recycle one space engine, you get the ionic chamber, and a few screws. If you recycle a second one, you could get the reinforced frame, and a burner or two. It could also produce scrap still!  Scrap can come in the form of a useless item that needs to be further broken down to remake pure metals. But wait. what will we use to repair our elements if  scrap becomes useless? INTERMEDIATE PARTS!

look at Space engineers for inspiration. we use components to repair their broken blocks. You do not need to equip the parts you need, the welding tool simply pulls the correct parts out of your inventory, and applies them to the damaged block until it is repaired! Its simple, its elegant, and immersive. Doing this creates not only an actual engineering role for crew members, but it creates salvagers, recycling plants dedicated to breaking down old parts. It creates jobs in DU that people can take their roll in, and  enjoy. This can be even furthered with skills to make recyclers more efficient at pulling out parts, and breaking down elements faster.
 
Intermediate  parts will be in high demand  on the markets after this because they are NEEDED to repair elements as opposed to scrap. 

PS: make cores repairable with intermediate parts too. larger dynamic cores are already hard to make, having the ability to restore them with the rare parts they require would be a nice thing to have.