Xarius

I am freaking hyped. Thank you for listening and acting on what we are telling you guys for once! Please keep it up!

Overall good changes, I like it. Much better than last patch. Keep steering toward a positive direction.

I had this issue. It cleared up after I cleared my shaders and rebooted my computer.

I agree totally. In a good balance, both feed off of each other.

I would like to thank everyone who has taken the time to constructively comment.

Thanks so much for your input! I definitely know a lot more could be done, even with the suggestion I made, that's why I wanted to discuss it. I love the idea of drones to battle, and how to effectively implement it so it doesn't add a bunch of extra server load. Wonderful Ideas!

Thanks for your opinion! Whether they do, or do not is not the reason for this thread. This is for constructive suggestions and because I wanted to share my thoughts. I respect your opinion but I did not post this thread as yet another avenue for other people to flame NQ. I am sure you could find better places to do that. Thanks though.

Thank you all for your feedback! I know a lot of people are jaded with development and or feel like player voices are not heard. The fact you took the time to read and comment on my ideas instead of just passing it by because something like it is likely not to happen is not lost on me. My post was intended to build upon mechanics already in place in the game. I do agree with you though that beyond ship wrecks, asteroid hunting, and scanning tiles for ore there is no much of an exploration aspect to the game. Though I don't understand what you mean by turning it around? The ideas I suggested offer both PvE and PvP elements. I think the solution to this is kind of already in the thought process. Need to make it annoying enough to get caught by a Bounty Hunter that it's not worth letting it happen. You are definitely right - I think my thoughts were going more toward what could possibly make the world feel more alive and draw them in aspect. But definitely adding the Work Order system could do the same for Industrial Minded players, plus maybe keep some of the ones who are currently discontent with recent changes and where they see things going from there. Also, Long Live AI Aphelion, may he sew Chaos forever! (Or at all!) Yeah I am painfully aware of the current stance toward anything NPC unfortunately. I posted in full knowledge of that. I do not expect all or any of these ideas to go forward and be implemented, it was more of a viable path I could see going forward. I am learning a lot by being part of this community and watching out NQ handles player feedback, a lot of it falls into the "I would never go that route" - but at the same time to be fair, I am not developing the game so I personally don't know what obstacles and challenges they face. I do also though hope they change their mind. There is much potential in adding even basic NPC Mechanics, even if they didn't scratch the things I was talking about in the OP. I think the argument of "We want everything to be player done" is out the window though with Alien and Autogenerated Ship Wrecks.

I understand =/

Please do! I invite discussion, and through thought things can only be made better.

So to begin I want to state I understand that not everyone will like or agree with what I am saying below, nor do I expect them to. I am in my last year of College for my Bachelors Degree in Video Game Design and Development and taking what I have learned both from my studies and from many many hours playing Dual Universe I brainstormed the following. Again, I do not expect anyone to agree, nor do I think that my chosen field of future Professions makes me any better or smarter than anyone else. This is my opinion, and I am sharing it. Also, this will be a long post. Disclaimer over. Phase 1 With there already being auto-generated alien ships, alien cores, and shipwrecks that spawn into the game, the mentality of “Everything in Dual Universe needs to be player made” has already been discarded to an extent. The game, while fun in many aspects, lacks content. Both in PvP and PvE. There needs to be an alternative to running missions, or trying to turn a profit by mining or building industry. Those are core aspects of the game, but they only offer so much in the way of “content”. PvP also offers a style of gameplay, but it is niche and lacking as well in content. You fly around in PvP space hoping to find someone you can kill that won’t kill you, or trying to mine minerals off a valuable asteroid without your ship being exploded. NPC Ships is a first step in adding content to both. Phase 1, Step 1: Ships, Safe Zone PvE Combat and Simple AI The ability to spawn ships and other things into the game already exists and is being utilized by current systems such as Asteroids and Shipwrecks. Using those systems to build off of, it would not be a far stretch to spawn in functioning ships of Varying types. Additionally, since Autopiloting systems are implemented by players via LUA, it also would not be a stretch for NQ to implement simple AI scripts for the generated NPC Ships. How it could work: The system spawns a ship randomly, no closer than 30su to a Safe Zone Planet anywhere inside the Safe Zone. Then at random the script choses a destination. One of the SZ planets or their moons, and sets course. As the ability already exists for the game, or a construct to know when you are within a certain area of the game, the ship would despawn if making it within 1su of its target. Before reaching its destination, it is vulnerable to attack from a player who spots it. Upon being attacked the ship would use whatever maneuverability it can to try to escape. If it’s core is destroyed it is of course available to be looted, ownership taken, etc, just like in any other PvP Combat. Of course attacking an NPC Ship inside of the Safe Zone should not come without consequences, but those are laid out in an additional update. The purpose of Step 1 is to get the system into the game, see how it is working, and work out the kinks. Benefits: New PvE Content that helps teach simple PvP to people looking to learn. PvE content for PvPers who may be on at odd hours and have fewer real player targets. An additional income mechanic especially with component recycling coming into the game, that does not rely solely on grinding and time gating (other than searching out the randomly spawning ships). Phase 1 Step 2: Law, Order, and AI Update 2 With the implementation of NPC Ships, and the ability to attack them in the Safe Zone, mechanics should be developed to give consequences for being a pirate in the SZ. Aphelia designates a safe zone, but how does she enforce it? Currently it is just a circle around three planets where weapons do not work. Much like the poor NPC ships being destroyed, this step would introduce some new ships and mechanics that offer that enforcement, if even in a limited way. How it could work: The System Spawns peacekeeping ships that travel the pipes, and a few that travel courses around the SZ in general. The ships would vary from smaller to larger obviously, with different types of armaments and difficulty. When a player attacks a NPC Ship just as it likely would in a Real Scenario, the ship would send out an SoS on the attacker. This flags the attacking player, or player construct as a pirate for a given amount of time. During that time any flagged character, or character construct that comes into contact with a NPC Peacekeeper Ship can be engaged and attacked by the NPC. The combat can result in the player being killed, the NPC being killed, or by out maneuvering and getting out of contact range of the Peacekeeper. Benefits: New PvE Content that helps teach a slightly more advanced form of PvP. Makes being a pirate actually feel like being a pirate running from the PoPo. Make the Safe Zone a Safe Zone for a reason that makes sense. Phase 1 Part 3: Bounties NPC Organizations already exist in the game. Aphelia gives missions for them all the time. They also exist in the Challenges. So it would only make sense if you start racking up kills on their NPC Ships that they would start getting cranky with you. How it could work: When you reach a certain notoriety with a NPC Organization a bounty could be issued by them through the mission system that lasts for a certain amount of time. If a player has a bounty on them, they are free game within the Safe Zone. This, much like the Pirating flag that instructs Peacekeeping Ships that you are attackable, allows you to be engaged by other players, even within the Safe Zone. It would have to come with some features though, and consequences for being a bad pirate and getting yourself killed by a Bounty Hunter. 1: If you are killed while you have a bounty on you there would be a cooldown that prevents you from being able to attack the NPC’s in the Safe Zone for a certain period of time. This would help prevent someone spamming the system to let their friends kill them for bounty money. 2: Players in an organization you are in are not eligible to collect the bounty. No gaming the system peoples. 3: During the cooldown you would also not be available for Special Missions outlined in Phase 2. Benefits: Eases players into full PvP situations. Additional Content for PvPers who wish to be Bounty Hunters. A more realistic universe. Phase 1 Part 4: Beyond the Invisible Safe Wall Taking everything learned and refined from the first four phases, extend this system to the other outer planets and areas. Higher profile NPC Targets with more goodies and parts. Except these ships are armed. This would provide both a PvE avenue for out of Safe Zone Combat Content, while also allowing for PvP players and Organizations to hunt down, and even fight over the NPC Ships. The same Bounty System would apply to these ships, and likely give a higher reward fee considering the ships taken down were more valuable. Could easily see a Scenario where a few players are fighting over the same ship, while also fighting each other, as the ship fights them as well. Pure Chaos. Love it. Benefits: PvPvE More fun content and options Phase 2 Now that we have added some new features and life to the Universe, things are definitely looking up. But we can expand upon the new systems and the old to add more things for players to do and make their place in the Dual Universe. Phase 2 Part 1: Work Orders With the prices, especially of T1 ores constantly fluctuating in value, generally in the case of T1, dropping like a rock, Work Orders could be an amazing solution to this problem. Many Elements can be made with the cheap ore, such as wings, basic engines, containers, etc, but unless you have mega factories with a generous flow of materials, Life can be rough to build your empire. Works orders a Solution to that problem. Markets can already give you the average value currently being set market, region, or universe wide, so why not integrate that into Work Order Missions. How it could work: Work Orders for T1 ore can be issued by various Markets or Organizations for delivery. This can be adjusted and valued by averages. In addition to being paid fair market price for your ore at the going rates, you could also cash in on some mission income for delivering to complete the order. Much in line with how missions work now, the missions would require you to deliver OreX to PlaceY. Work Order for Components can be issued by various Markets or NPC Organizations. These could range from parts, manufactured materials, or complete elements. (Someone has to make those Ailerons being delivered to Market 12). Again, paying fair market value plus a mission completion reward. Benefits: * Offers additional ways to make money without having pure bots to buy up ore at the Market, which NQ has said will not come back while utilizing the Mission System. *Someone just dropped 200 Wing M’s on the Market and undercut you? Fine. Sell the ones you have made to Aphelia for components plus the mission delivery award. *Stimulates the Economy and helps diversify the monopoly of component manufacturing. *Give industrialists more incentive to do what they enjoy doing and make an earning off of it. *With Ore, Components, and Elements being flushed into oblivion, it would help raise the actual value of the Ore used to produce and make T1 more profitable. Phase 2 Part 2: Extended Bounty System Someone blew you up while you were just trying to run that mission package to Jago? Do you want to return the favor, but aren’t much of a PvPer? Do you just want people to blow up people from Legion? Is it -worth- it to pay someone to enact revenge on your behalf? Then the Bounty System is for you. How it could work: A bounty system added to the current mission system. You offer up a Bounty, choose the target, and place the bounty. When/If someone kills the target with the Bounty mission, they get the payout, minus Mission Fees of course. Of course they will know who put the bounty out on them... So might want to watch your own back! Benefits: Sweet Sweet Revenge. More content for players wanting to be Bounty Hunters. Phase 2 Part 3: With the implementation of the mechanics in Phase 1, a dark opposite to Aphelia has emerged, just on the edge of the Safe Zone and PvP Space. A Rogue AI working for who knows who or what, has missions available at its station. These missions send you after specific targets for specific things, and none of it could be considered legal. How it could work: Taking a mission would provide you a general location where the target will spawn, and a general time frame of when to expect the target to be passing through. The missions could range from just destroying the target and pirate what you want, or maybe the mission requires something from the cargo hold of the ship you just blew up for cash. What it would ever want with the Terran DNA samples, who knows. Value of the mission reward would depend on the difficulty of the mission. Some targets may be armed, or not, or maybe there is a very brief window in which you would be able to find the ship. Regardless, you like getting your hands dirty and as long as you haven’t failed recently being successfully hunted for being a pirate, these missions are for you. Benefits: PvE Pirate Missions in both Safe Space and PvP Space. More Content = Things for players and new players to do except grind = Good. ------ So as stated previously, this is just a thought experiment based on my own opinions and things I think would bring some much needed content and life to the game. What are your thoughts? Would you like to see these types of things implemented? Are you hardcore ZugZug stay the course? What do you like, what do you dislike? Please discuss.

So... You work on redeeming yourself by fixing the problems caused with Demeter, or at least, patching them to make them better. You are punishing Solo players once again and do to the track record of ignoring player feedback, I have no faith you will find a better way of doing this, not until you force it into place regardless of feedback and are forced to back peddle later only to promise to do better next time. NQ - You have lost my trust. Yeah, I have stuck with this game for so long because of it's potential. I truly believe(d) it could be the best sandbox game on the market. I played it because I could do anything I wanted solo. I could build my own city, build a dozen ships to display and sell, and play the game the way I wanted. But unfortunately, with each major update, you are taking away more and more freedom for me to do what I enjoy doing. I have waited, given feedback, and been hopeful. But it is clear with the current plans for the next update that the plan is to continue to limit what players can do on their own as you try to herd them into large organizations. I have met amazing community members, and other than disagreeing with the changes being made with the game, the Staff has always been friendly and helpful when needed. By far I think the community in this game is the best I have ever had the pleasure of being a part of, but I think this is where I bow out. I can not justify to myself putting more hours into a game where I am going to be continually limited patch after patch simply because I enjoy playing the game alone. Thank you for the good memories. Goodbye.

This is indeed a step in the right direction. Would it have been better to have listened to the community earlier, yes absolutely, many of the changes you are implemented were suggested during the Public Test for Demeter. That's what player testing is for, to listen, adapt, and then implement, not push through something regardless of feedback. I hope in the future you follow the feedback before you implement something your player base is warning you about. That said, good work, keep raising the bar.

NQ: We want your feedback! Players: Ore yields are too low, taxes too high. Here are several different ways to make this update viable. NQ: PTS Open again! With no changes to anything players were worried about not being changed. I mean, I have to give credit where credit is due, they are freaking experts at just ignoring feedback and pushing things anyways.

Welcome! I hope this change means you will start listening to player feedback more, stop pushing changes that are not ready or poorly implemented, and you actually respond to feedback as opposed to pretending it doesn't exist.

Betty White is a Goddess

But that is your choice to PvP. It's your choice to waste fuel and time. Just like it's a PvE players choice to only stay in PvE zones and be limited by them. So, you would be choosing to pay the Taxes by PvPing. You've won me over. I am all for the taxes in this scenario.

Another question: Are there plans to tax PvP content like you are PvE content? It seems only fair that pirates and other PVPers have to pay out of pocket to recore ships they destroy, or when they strip the elements, or empty the containers, that were built and paid for by the taxes of Territories and the slow mining placed on those territories.

I see you are quite adept at ignoring any opinion that isn't yours, regardless of how it's displayed. Good to know. But okay, let's Tax PvE content and hamstring the economy even further by reducing the amount you can earn through mining. So how about we go further and make it fair. Let's Tax PvP. Let's levy a flat tax each time you initiate PvP, of course this should be based on the core size you are attacking. How about a tax when you remove an element on a cored ship, and of course if you decide to re-core it, you should be taxed on the value of the ship based on the current market price of the components used to build it. You would of course also need to pay a tax valued on the contents of the ships containers as well. Of course we also need a weapon tax, scaled per weapon, and tier of weapon. I mean, you could always place some miners to supplement income, or just find ships to kill to make your loss in profit, or risk getting ganked yourself to run the missions or asteroids. I mean, it only makes sense.

Agreed. A change like this would not be as bad if it did not effect older players and newer players disproportionately. The current economy from Ore, Parts, Territory and PvP is based off a system that was formed in a much more free market then what this is being transitioned into. People who have been around longer, and took advantage of the market are likely sitting on Billions, or for the average casual player probably hundreds of millions at least. To some extent they can weather this without too much worry in the near future. But with prices as they are, newer or brand new players are going to be walking up hill with a carrier on their backs trying to get into a good position. Something like is proposed, at the current values they have set, would only be long term viable if there was a wipe. So everyone could start off with the new way of doing things on the same foot.

Okay, lets go step by step. Try to keep up. You said "As for complaints about the majority of asteroids being in the pvp zone, you do have another option. NQ said they are adding more safe zone asteroids, so now you simply need to race to them when they spawn." I said " Race to all the PvE Asteroids when they spawn. Don't worry about work, family, or other obligations. Sit ready, with DSAT in hand, scanning the universe and waiting for a node to pop up, so that you have a chance of getting ore before it's mined out." To which you replied "n your complaint about needed to be around all day on Saturday to race to PvE asteroids, you completely glossed over the fact that most PvP asteroids go completely undiscovered and unmined the entire week." So your entire point in that is, If you don't like, go into the PvP Zone. Kinda sounds like you want to force people to go into PvP to be able to mine what they need. Now lets talk about buying the ore off Markets. It's overly expensive, and there is not going to be any kind of equivalent exchange between the ore you mine and sell and the ore you need to buy. You talked about mining out a single slab of hexes in an efficient way. Okay. Let's use the one I provided in the attached screenshot, and let's pretend it's the best values I have been able to find. You efficiently mine all that ore. Let's pretend and say prices don't inflate when ore becomes less scarce to keep it simple and people start to horde what they have stocked up because of lower ore yields. Right now Hematite sells for about 116/l Bauxite sells for about 110/l Going to focus on those, since they are the highest values on the hex. I need Acanthite for my factory. It is currently selling for 999/l So I would roughly need to sell 7-9 liters of Hematite and Bauxite per 1 liter of Acanthite. I also need Columbite, which sells for 2300/l - That's almost 20/l of Hematite per 1 liter of Columbite. As opposed to being able to just go mine what I need now, you are telling me I need to sell the other ores I need that I can mine, to buy the ores I also need and I am not mining, and if that is not good enough, well I can mine Asteroids. If I can't find any in PvE space, well, guess I need to go into PvP Space? So if I cut out asteroid mining, what do I do to make up for the huge difference I need to make up in prices, including the territory rent on 7 hexes to efficiently mine those two resources? All that is left is Mission Running, which I am sure you know, to do efficiently, also takes you through PvP Space. So we are back to feeling like you are being forced into PvP Space - because the ability to be self sufficient and mine what you need is being taken away, or as you said, don't do what they "Intend" and inefficiently mine as my earlier point indicated. You can talk circles around how terrible this is all you want, but no matter how much lipstick you put on a pig, it is still a pig.

You can find them on their Discord.

Firstly, if you read my reply completely, you missed the point entirely or there is a failure of comprehension. It was under the scenario that you wanted to mine every single ore, which many people with factories will need to do. For max efficiency, you need the surrounding tiles claimed also. If you are lucky enough to get tiles with all the ores you need, you could probably find them in as few as 7 planets. I was not talking about Bulk mining a single tile, so your illustrative example has nothing to do with what I was talking about. You state the intended use. I will correct that for you. "The way they want you to use them.". Now on to Asteroids. Yes, not going into PvP for Asteroids is definitely a choice. A choice that is being taken away by the ability to mine ALL the ores, not just the ores on ONE TILE, effectively. So please, don't try to push my point into your narrative.

They talked about it in the DevBlog.

K, So - by your logic. Race to all the PvE Asteroids when they spawn. Don't worry about work, family, or other obligations. Sit ready, with DSAT in hand, scanning the universe and waiting for a node to pop up, so that you have a chance of getting ore before it's mined out. But if you can't do that, it's okay, because you can go back planet side and play aforementioned annoying mini-game in hopes that you squeeze out a tidbit more ore, which by the way, you'll need to sell most of it to keep up on the tile upkeep, since you are going to be needing so many claimed tiles. Now, that's not including the cost of the mining units, whatever that may be. Basics will likely be cheap, just like engines and other elements, but each level you go up you are investing more and more quanta to mine a slightly more expensive selling ore. But of course, you are going to need to buy more tiles. Let's say okay, it's viable to do. Let's go with your logic. There are 20 different ores you can mine. So at minimum, you are going to need to have 20 mining units, just to mine a bit of each ore. Which will require you, if you are lucky, to only have to mine on what, 7 different planets/moons with well thought out tiles and good ore values that cover everything you can get on that planet. Though most planets for a good ore value, you'd probably need a few different locations. But let's stick with 7 is a lucky number. To get the max benefit for the mining unit on that tile, you'll need all the tiles around it. So 7 planets, 7 tiles per planet. Unless math fails me, that's 42 tiles. So 42 million a week just to mine every single ore in the game efficiently, with just 20 mining units digging out 1 kind of ore each at a rate of 100-150ish/l per hr if you are lucky. and have talents etc. Maybe a bit higher. We'll go on a optimistic median though end and say you are getting 150 l/hr. That's 3.6kl per day, per ore, or 25kl per ore, per week. I can literally mine 25kl of ore by flying out to a random tile, use my scanner, and spend 20-30 minutes mining. A weeks worth of auto-ore, in the time it would take to VR to all the different planets and play that god-awful mini-game, every two days, 20 times, to make sure I can pull the same amount of ore out of the ground, as if I were mining it by hand. Perhaps I am misunderstanding - But how is this a change for the better, when ore prices are already sky-high while it's easy to mine to the ore in greater quantities then autominers will allow? So we are back to the Asteroids, and praying that you happen to be on the right time that one of the maybe 20 safe zone asteroids spawn, and have time to make it to one before it is mined out.