Koffye

So... Should we expect anything else from this? Maybe extra lore about the aliens and the Astrophage? What about the missing planets?
 
The PvE stuff was fun, good way to make some cash too, but the way the boss event happened was weird, everyone got coordinates to what seemed like an empty point in the world. Maybe next time give everyone an actual date/time? Maybe even send a newsletter inviting everyone to it or post on social media?
 
Anyways, it was nice to have something different to do in-game, good job on that.

I'll give you the benefit of doubt.  You're making some of the same arguments that I and many others have been making for years.  
 
"This approach will destroy this game" - Too late.
"Since he wants to have access..." - Part of the game is PvP and was part of the plan from the start.  Want access to all the game then don't complain about PvP unless you're providing specific examples and potential improvements (that will mostly be ignored by NQ in my experience).
"Since I'm putting in my real money..." - Buyer beware.  That money is gone and you stepped into a restrictive ToS in the process.
"The current state... ...they stop playing" - Again, too late.  Don't believe me?  Ask any of the dozens of Alpha players that rage quit or the hundreds of Beta players that silently quit... oh, too late yet again.
"Only a change to the current rules..." - We're light years beyond rule changes alone being able to salvage things.
"Any reference to the original assumptions of the game..." - Isn't that the definition of starting with a flawed plan?  If you disagree with the initial premise of the game and you disagree with the current rules of the game how can you expect forum conversations to fix either/both?
 
I'm sorry to be the one to break it down for you this way.  There's a ton of history that your comments demonstrate you are not aware of.

an Anniversary wipe

an Anniversary wipe

an Anniversary wipe

Thanks Koffye.

Andsim, the easiest way is to log into your account at the website address above. You should see a "Log in" on the top right of the screen, from there you go to the Account\My Products section, and you can choose from there how you wish to renew or auto renew and your payment options.

Welcome to Dual Universe new Novean, please let us know if you have any additional questions. 😻

Greetings Noveans!

We've got some numbers/data to share with you today, all about PvE Missions and what Noveans have been up to in them for the first 15 days after 1.4 was released. The data you see below is from June 20th, 2023 to July 4th, 2023 inclusively. We asked NQ-Lasius to dig deep to find us some numbers to share with all of you. One thing is for sure, you've been pretty busy out there! 🎆

PVE Mission Statistics From June 20th to July 4th (2023)
 
Total number of missions attempted (taken, failed or successful): 1,470
 
Overall Failure vs. Success Rate: 
Failure: 51%
Success: 49%

Mission Success & Failure Rates per Difficulty Level:


 
Very Easy: 57% Failure Rate / 43% Success Rate
Easy: 43% Failure Rate/ 57% Success Rate
Medium: 58% Failure Rate/  42% Success Rate
Hard: 71% Failure Rate / 29% Success Rate
Very Hard: 90% Failure Rate / 10% Success Rate
 
Most popular planets to start missions from:
 

 
Alioth: 88.4%
Thades: 4.3%
Madis: 4%
Talemai: 3.3%
 
Total quanta earned (all successful missions):  933 095 000
 

 
Average time to complete a mission: 26.03 Minutes
 

 
Average time to successfully complete a mission by difficulty level (minutes):
Very Easy: 19.04
Easy: 26.08
Medium: 27:02
Hard: 34.07
Very Hard: 34:00
 
Shield Types Used:
Extra Small: 31%
Small: 48%
Medium: 17%
Large : 4%
 
Weapon Types Used:
Cannon XS: 36%
Cannon S: 46%
Missile XS: 15%
Laser S: 5%
 
We hope that you've been enjoying PvE Missions and that you will continue to fight the good fight! 

Ok I checked it and now it works with the uploading, maybe I downloaded an old config 🤔
 
Thank you a lot, Koffye and Sleim!
Its an honor for me 😊

the script is updated for the pve mission lua changes and doesnt care about how many guns or handling. make sure to download the latest versions:
https://github.com/sleim22/Sleim-Hud/releases/tag/v2.3.7
i just testet it and dont get any error

Great update for the keybindings.
-I can cycle through enemies, identify and "engage target" with all weapons and that with shortcuts. Nice
- The NPCs are an easy kind with no movement/pathfinding, but still lays a foundation for more pve combat in the future. More pf that please

I enjoy the ship building and do not mind spending some time each weekend to collect ore and then sell products and some ore to make money for this activity so the game was mostly fine for me beta because I had a head start on all the blockers (mainly schematics and taxes). However, after the wipe I am still scanning for tiles I can use and only have a modified starter ship with a scanner added.
 
So, I would say that the main issue with the game is how many players NQ actually expected in game, with resources being extremely rare in the game now much more so than in beta - sighting the T2 ore price, which is about 3 times higher now and that being the basic ore needed to just move around the game. It just feels like they assumed they would have  low number of players and would make sure the game resources reflected that.
 
My secondary is the tax system itself is hard for new players to pay if they do not do any challenges or missions, which I imagine most will not do (as I have) almost 100 of each challenge since release and doing a scan a day on each T2 ore tile I have to try and make them profitable.
 
I do disagree with deleting player content if people leave, I think instead it should be archived off into magic blueprints sat in the players character inventory. There are two reasons for this:
 
1) The main reason people say they will not return is they lost all their stuff.
2) The people who made the better creations should really be enticed back into the game so we can all enjoy their stuff again.
 
Also I would suggest that being able to vote for landmark constructs that stay in game regardless of the creators in game status should be a thing It could be a monthly / yearly competition type thing with the three top voted entries, becoming landmarks and staying in the game for all time (Or as long as DU). I am sure many people would enter this to have their claim to fame etc.
 
Anyway if they do keep releasing content at present, I will keep playing the game for a second year to see how it develops.

Its pretty important to talk about the element changes. Some of which sound like they are going to be pretty drastic. Like a complete meta change.  So what works today wont work tomorrow. And you might think, thats ok. everyone will be hit equally. But we know those larger groups have some people testing out the PVE for NQ. which means they will have the knowledge and have the ships ready for when it goes live. 
 
So a list of every element change that is planned would be nice.  Even knowing that the list is tentative and may change. 

1.) Hire a designer/modeler in the short term.
2.) In one content patch release the atmo xl engine and combine it with the release of an Cash Shop (real money)
- Sell skins for engine's
- Selll skins for avatar ( easter event skin,  christmas skin, etc.)
- Sell skins for pets
 
Just milk us dry with your costly skins
 

I take a few moments to inform (if whoever is interested in the information) that I am suspending the subscription of another of my alt accounts.
 
I had already suspended one of my 3 accounts, I had made the feedback on the PTS during the update and the highly insufficient balancing of the PvP. This was the reaction to the still haughty and disdainful behavior of the Chief Game Designer at Novaquark towards his community (in this case PvP).
 
The additional blow in the back leading me to delete the subscription of another account, is the fact that NQ allowed the bug exploit to occur allowing a group of players to remove a beacon while it was submitted to the seat mechanics. This is simply unacceptable and disgusting to the highest degree.
 
The icing on the cake is the disastrous communication regarding April 1st. I usually have enough humor for this sort of thing, but I couldn't help but cringe.
You could have at least had the presence of mind to teaser (however minimal) your new PvE features.
 
This post is not for free bashing. I just wanted to share as an adult and in all honesty my current feelings.
 
Indeed I always keep an account that retains access to the game.
But I have little hope left.

This game never even made it to beta in anything other than name. For all intents and purposes this game is still in Alpha.

NQ be like:  "Ummm... sure, territory warfare is a concept we've talked about...  Roadmap? LOL.. Where we are going we don't need roads.... We might introduce power requirements at some point possibly... Sorry not sorry the collision detection broke all your ships... again... We are the Metaverse company... Avatar PvP? Yeah, nah... LOL...  In the meantime, have a pointless floating robot and purple voxels... 3D Blog tool goes brrrrrr....  Oh noes, you're going to have to refactor your Lua just a couple more times now... promise....   Wipe? What? No, we'll not be wiping again... But can't exactly promise we won't have to wipe again... "

Or perhaps someone signed up 200 more alts to farm missions?

Some of the people who have plasma are literally getting up at 3am for fights, taking the day off work, etc..  this is endgame content and the people who want it without putting the effort in want it on easy mode.
 
Compared with what you have to do at the moment to get a plasma, no amount of the current PvE in the game could ever compare with it.  PvE is just mining and trucking stuff about, perhaps occasionally getting exploded because you can't run away fast enough.
 
IMO endgame means competing against other players for something.  If you put endgame content behind something where the primary challenge is to endure repetitiveness (like eve PvE, for example) then it diminishes the value of it and isn't really endgame content at all any more.
 
Feel free to disagree...

If I’ve learned anything over the last 7 or so years, it’s that NQ prefers to do things without lube. I’m afraid it could never be.

Hello, Noveans!
 
We're sorry for our mistakes regarding Backer Rewards in our 1.1 Update News communication. We're writing this to fix all confusing or misleading parts on which rewards are attributed to which tiers and why. If you'd like, keep this communication as a reference instead of the previous one. We have also made a list of what has been delivered and what remains to be delivered for digital and physical rewards.
 
Backer rewards: Avatar skins
Alpha team outfit 
(Gold Founder Backer tier and higher) Arkship passenger outfit - Bronze* 
(Silver Founder Backer / Contributor Supporter Backer tiers and higher) Arkship passenger outfit - Silver* 
(Gold Founder Backer / Sponsor Supporter Backer tiers and higher)  Arkship passenger outfit - Black*
(Sapphire Founder Backer / Patron Supporter Backer tiers and higher)  Earth legacy outfit - Silver*
(Gold Founder Backer / Sponsor Supporter Backer tiers and higher)  Earth legacy outfit - Black*
(Sapphire Founder Backer / Patron Supporter Backer tiers and higher)  Military outfit **
(Silver Founder Backer tier and higher / All Supporter Backer tiers)
* As mentioned in a communication back in March 2018, several rewards from Supporter Packs have been gifted to Kickstarter backers. 
** As the extra Character Customization tokens won’t be added to the game, the eligible backers received the Military Outfit to compensate
 
Backer rewards: Emotes
 
Base emotes (Gold Founder Backer tier / Sponsor Supporter Backer tiers and higher):
Dance Cry Thumbs down Thumbs up "Just DU it"  
More emotes (Sapphire Founder Backer / Patron Supporter Backer tiers and higher):
Victory Threat Facepalm Silly dance Salute  
Backer rewards: In-game Pets
 
Kickstarter Pets:
Kickstarter Pet tier 1: Automata Nora-SP 
(Silver Founder Backer tier and higher) Kickstarter Pet tier 2: Automata Nieve 
(Gold Founder Backer tier and higher) Kickstarter Pet tier 3: Automata Spud-7
(Sapphire Founder Backer tier and higher) Kickstarter Pet tier 4: Automata Max-E
(Ruby Founder Backer tier and higher) Kickstarter Pet tier 5: Automata Elite
(Emerald Founder Backer tier and higher)  
Supporter Pack Pets:
Supporter Pack Pet tier 1: Anicham Scrap
(Silver Founder Backer / Contributor Supporter Backer tiers and higher) Supporter Pack Pet tier 2: Anicham Comp
(Gold Founder Backer / Sponsor Supporter Backer tiers and higher) Supporter Pack Pet tier 3: Anicham Max
(Sapphire Founder Backer / Patron Supporter Backer tiers and higher)  
 
What has been delivered and what remains to be done:
 
Digital Rewards: 
 
Skins:
Alpha team outfit (delivered, can be found in-game) Arkship passenger outfit - Bronze (delivered, can be found in-game) Arkship passenger outfit - Silver (delivered, can be found in-game) Arkship passenger outfit - Black (delivered, can be found in-game) Earth legacy outfit - Silver (delivered, can be found in-game) Earth legacy outfit - Black (delivered, can be found in-game) Military outfit (delivered, can be found in-game)
In-game Pets:
Kickstarter Pet tier 1: Automata Nora-SP (delivered, can be found in-game) Kickstarter Pet tier 2: Automata Nieve (delivered, can be found in-game) Kickstarter Pet tier 3: Automata Spud-7 (delivered, can be found in-game) Kickstarter Pet tier 4: Automata Max-E (delivered, can be found in-game) Kickstarter Pet tier 5: Automata Elite (delivered, can be found in-game) Supporter Pack Pet tier 1: Anicham Scrap (delivered, can be found in-game) Supporter Pack Pet tier 2: Anicham Comp (delivered, can be found in-game) Supporter Pack Pet tier 3: Anicham Max (delivered, can be found in-game)  
Others:
Name in game credits (delivered, can be found in-game)
(Note: offensive or inappropriate names haven’t been included) Forum titles (delivered, can be found on the forum) DACs (delivered, can be found in your Dual Universe account on the game website) Original SoundTrack (Digital version)
(In progress, will be found in your Dual Universe account on the game website) Artbook (Digital version)
(In progress, will be found in your Dual Universe account on the game website) In-game titles (when eligible) (delivered, can be found in-game) Resurrection node* (with special skin) (delivered, can be found in-game) Furniture Set* (delivered, can be found in-game) Sanctuary Territory Units* (delivered, can be found in-game) Arkship cryogenic tube* (decorative) (delivered, can be found in-game)  
* As mentioned in a communication back in March 2018, several rewards from Supporter Packs have been gifted to Kickstarter backers.

Physical Rewards:
 
As mentioned in a previous communication, we had to sign with a new partner for the Physical Rewards logistics (packaging and shipping) and we had hoped to deliver the Physical Rewards for the end of this year (2022). Unfortunately, this took more time than expected. We are expecting to sign with our new partner in January 2023, and from there, we hope to ship the rewards progressively. We also had an issue with the Collector Boxes, which needed to be remade. Keep in mind that the following ETAs is just a rough estimate for now and we are not protected against extra delays:
 
February 2023: We hope to start sending Physical Rewards for Silver, Gold and Sapphire Founder backers.
March 2023: We hope to start sending Physical Rewards for Ruby, Emerald, Diamond and Kyrium Founder backers.
Later in 2023: We hope to start sending the Physical Reward (T-Shirt) for Patron backers.
 
In January next year, we will give you a status update to keep you informed about the progress for the shipping of the Physical Rewards.
 
That’s all for now!
The Novaquark Team
 

Thank you for communicating with us.

NQ: please introduce a new type of radar with a detection range of constructs that have weapon elements to say... 10su. The new radar should be considered a weapon as well. There should be no objection to PvP enthusiasts being able to find each other to fight.

A few comments from someone who has always been very involved with Astros since they were on the PTS, and of course with PvP as well:

THE TACTICAL MAP:
It looks really nice, but whether it is really helpful in battle? I don't know yet, furthermore it could be possible to triangulate the posioition again via the additional information.  However, if the red/green friend/enemy identifier should also exist in the 3rd person view, I would be more than happy.


ASTEROID REWORK
Currently it is already so that everyone flies with a one-way ship on the PvP astro and makes more profit than if a large Org with a whole fleet moves out. I do not understand how you have to support that. However, I also see much more critical that the tiers are no longer displayed. There are large groups that fly out with 20-30 players including PvP ships, etc. The changes make this even more unattractive and for the individual player the question is raised, whether a large Org is even worth joining? Astros are one of the last mechanics you could do as a group event. If that is also gone and the Alien-Cors on itself let be, I see the gameplay for larger groups no longer (except you want to build a large city, etc.).
 
 
SALVAGE OPERATIONS
 
We have to see how this is implemented, but probably there are either too few places, so that at every place a PvP fleet is present, or it is simply not worth flying there. Currently, there were only a handful of wrecks that were worth finding and bringing back safely. However, if there are significantly more, the market will be flooded with them very quickly and countermeasures must be taken.
 

Hello everyone,

here is a lengthy impression from a noob, who has not followed the game prior to "release", not been in beta.
 
I actually joined this game by chance because I was frustrated with Star Citizen being not a playworthy game after 10+ years of development / funding campaign and a budget of a frecking half a billion dollars. In a rant about SC someone mentioned DU, I pictured it as a mix of minecraft and space engineers (with simplified physics though) but as a MMO.
The possiblilities for constructions and on top of that a seemingly powerful scripting layer sounded amazing. Good enough for me for starters, even if subscription-based.
 
The first worrying thing I noticed (apart from bugs), people asking in the help channel for an admin and being told, those are not reading this channel and the only option to get your problems fixed ("maybe" and after a period of "days") is to file a help ticket. Customer support seems non-existing or only in a homeopathic dosage. On a game that allegedly has been released AND is subscription-based, I want to point out again!
 
The bugs I and others encountered (on my side primarily regarding the daily challenges) seem to be around for years according to people that played the game from the start of alpha.
 
Now don't get me wrong, I had a lot of fun in this game, even though I did little more than building up an industry, moved to Alioth after six weeks I spent wasting to build a mediocre space ship, found a nice org, moved to their HQ and rebuilt my industry again. I have not been to other planets apart from Haven and Alioth, no T2+ mining bases, no PVP, etc
 
What I conclude until now is, that this game is not much more than a sceleton of game content around mining, industry, construction and ship building. Everything feels not fleshed out, rather prototypical and quite incomplete, at least when judging from the perspective of "ordinary" games. The features that stand out, are the possibilities to create constructs and I dont know any other game that offers that to this degree (even if much more is imaginable). And that part gave me a lot of fun. I totally understand, that for someone who is not interested in that at all this game is devoid of worthwhile content.
 
In my personal game experience so far, the greatest challenge is to earn money, especially since the challenges are broken and the air delivery challenge got removed, which by the way I enjoyed quite bit, it tought me how to fly and was my main source of income (the space challenge is much less fun and even more bugged and less profitable so I skipped that most of the time). This is another observation I made: it seems to happen quite often that if a feature doesn't work in the game, it is not being fixed, it is not being improved, it's just being removed making the game even more bland.
 
Since it is hard to get money (maybe I am just too stupid, but it seems to happens to a lot of new players), game progress is even slower. I have a hard time to pay the rents for my 2 territories on Alioth and the schematics I need to build stuff. The only worthwhile mission is the 180k delivery on Alioth, which for me takes around 20 mins (though I frequently effed up my atmospheric reentry and damaged my ship so this mission becomes a loss, but of course this is on me). I would like to build up my base, but I can't afford an L-Core (not to speak of territory scanners and other 1million+ components), I would like to build ships, but I need to spend a lot of my play time to  get money by doing missions and produce the few articles that can be sold on the market with a margin, get my mining bases going, ferry around ore and products, etc.

 
What worries me a lot from a game development perspective, is the slow progress. And this seems to be the case for a long time, according to alpha veteran players.

In all honesty and of course my view is highly subjective, but at the moment this game feels like a disregarded bastard child that has been cast out to the streets in rags by its step-parents to beg for money in order to pay the debts of its dead father.
I am a SW developer myself and daresay, I have an idea what can be accomplished in a certain timeframe with a certain manpower. What has been anounced for the next patch, given the time frame of MONTHS is - again I feel sorry to say it - just outright loughable, close to customer fraught.
 
I have not followed the game development, I don't know what has been promised over time, what has been changed, who got fired or replaced and how that affected the development.
For now the game is enjoyable to me, especially since I found a nice org. We have great plans and want to build a city (no, not to rent apartments to people and nonsense like that) just for the sake of the challenge.
 
What I am worrying the most at the moment, is that NQ might not even have the ambition to bring this game further and make it successful. It _feels_ like it is being run on a sceleton crew just to get some subscription money to cut the investor's losses until it runs out of subscriptions and then is being shut down for good.
And these worries demotivate me to actually creat some awesome stuff in the game, because this takes a huge amount of time and effort. Who wants to do that when he is afraid that it all might be taken offline in a couple of months?
 
And that would really be a shame, because I see the potential.
 
DU is not the first game that has been thrown out to the market unfinished (not just unpolished) (No Man's Sky anyone?) and with technical difficulties. Most of these issues could be solved with further development.
 
A small example:
The problem with the delivery challenges not registering my delivery, therefore making the quest stuck forcing you to repeat it in total, could _probably_ be solved by giving the player a button on the progress screen (beside the container for the delivers) to activate a function that recounts the content in the container and set the mission progress accordingly. Or reset the progress and allow me to empty the container and fill it again.
 
A large example:
 do believe this game needs PvE as an additional game loop for players who shun PVP but want some action. From what I have seen so far, what is possible with scripting (like archHUD) to steer the behaviour of ships, this is not a far stretch from having automated ships that could act as NPCs. What else would be required
- a possibility for ships to function without player control. Maybe via an additional AI core, which makes the ship functional and fulfills some basic decision making (fly to a location in space, scan for targets, attack targets until destroyed, fly to next location, rince repeat until either dead or "finished with the patrol/out of ammo" fly back to the spawn point or end of mission point - reset ship)
- with the scripting possibilities the behaviour parameters can be randomized so that not very ship flies the same route, behaves the same, etc
- it would require a mechanism to spawn those ships, shouldn't be too hard, it works for asteroids, already
- We already have ships, there is not even a need to design new ones, they just need to be able to act as NPCs, a huge range of variants could be created
- I would strongly suggest that these NPC ships should also be able to fight and be thought in the protected zone not just in the outer PVP zone. NOf course not within the small zone around the celestial bodies and maybe not between Alioth, Haven and Sanctuary, to have a real peaceful area for new players. But in the outer region and around the planets at the rim of the protected zone it should be possible. Therefore this requires the possibility to activate your weapons and target NPC ships.
If PvE was only possible in the PvP zone this wouldcause rampant ganking issues of PvPers that hunt PvE-players, so there should be an PVE-only zone. But this does not rule out to have more challenging and more rewarding NPCs in the PvP zone which add another level of action and conflict and give PvPer an incentive to defend these areas against the cowardly "Inners" to have an edge in resource income.
 
This would give players the possibility to have some action, risk their lives and ships, and gain loot on success. For noobs like me having the chance to loot some Tier 3+ elements or voxel material (and maybe even other stuff in the containers) that would be enough incentive to play this game loop and in a later stage to go to the PvP areas and risk more for more reward.
 
Ok, so now some desicion makers at NQ might say, "we do not have the DEV resources to do all that". Well, let the community help you! There is an insane amount of creative talent out there. Make a community challenge out of it!
- Provide the basic mechanism to create an autonomous ship (like an AI core element that acts as a control unit)
- Provide the scripting API to control that AI core. It can be rather basic at the start, we are in space! We don't need navmeshes and expensive AI libraries and stuff like that!
- Organize it as a community challenge, hand out the AI cores (start with XS only, and limited number), let the community build and design, observe what works and what is too performance straining, what functions should be optimized into C++ routines, etc.
- Provide prices for successful designs or let the community decide.
- Finally proclaim, which NPCs shall be taken into the game, have them spawn.
- Rince repeat the whole thing with S, M, L, XL, maybe later with expanded AI.
 
If it is undesirable, e.g. in terms of griefing, to have a lot of autonomous ships in player hands, or too performance-intensive, have the AI cores removed from players completely (which would be a pity, really), or have them limited, by supply, on a per player/per org base, or disallow armed ships in player hands, or all of it together. Personally, in the long run I would probably be satisfied with having an autonomuous  taxi/ferry ship, that can fly on its own to my outposts, where I can un/load it via VR, to ease the resource gathering. I dont need a personal USV noob hunter craft that rampages through the inner zone and griefs people without me even witnessing it.
Though it would be cool to have a carrier ship that can spit out lots of combat drones.... yeah the possibilities are endless, at least in theory...
 
Long story short: this game has a lot of issues, but even more potential. It would be reassuring if NQ would demonstrate some long-term commitment. I don't see that at the moment not even ideas. Be honest to your community. We dont want this game to fail!
 
I for myself do not need a "Ready Player One" or "Metaverse" vision. This movie's story was about a dystopian, virtualized but totally disfunct and impoverished society that went astray big time. Who the hell wants that?
Not me for sure! I just want a decent space-themed MMO with a great degree of creative freedom that is FUN to play and enjoyable after a hard day of real-life work. Should be doable...
 
Regards, Kaine Vulpayne

Again a time sink. I am not happy with this change. So, after my workday i should spend 4-6 hours (probably more) only for scanning the correct roid? I dont see this as a positive change

Again a time sink. I am not happy with this change. So, after my workday i should spend 4-6 hours (probably more) only for scanning the correct roid? I dont see this as a positive change