Palad1n

This is just another example of over complicating things. I am 100% convinced now that the community has far superior game development common sense and understands things better than the devs. 
 
This new schematic system is for the very tiny percentage of hard core player groups while making it extremely difficult for solo and small groups.
 
Schematics should only be for the fully completed item, IE: Engines, Thrusters, Shields, AG, weapons, etc. 
 
All components should be a simple drop down for each machine and you could even add a small reasonable amount of currency over time as a means of "maintenance / upkeep". 
 
 

This is just another example of over complicating things. I am 100% convinced now that the community has far superior game development common sense and understands things better than the devs. 
 
This new schematic system is for the very tiny percentage of hard core player groups while making it extremely difficult for solo and small groups.
 
Schematics should only be for the fully completed item, IE: Engines, Thrusters, Shields, AG, weapons, etc. 
 
All components should be a simple drop down for each machine and you could even add a small reasonable amount of currency over time as a means of "maintenance / upkeep". 
 
 

If I heard correctly there are going to be schematics for the pures. I do not think this is a good idea. 
I think the schematics should only be for finished products.

Ah, joy. More gameplay that involves waiting on timers. 
 
Auto-miners: wait for timers. 
Schematics: wait for timers. 
Talents: wait for timers.
 
So...mining, industry, and skills development is literally as engaging as watching a clock.
 
Casio must be feeling the heat of competition!
 
Again, no information about the wipe nor any acknowledgment of the concerns players have shared about how this will likely make industry more monotonous, grindy, and boring...
 
All the concerns players have shared will yet again be ignored, and yet again NQ will push out an update that will (yet again) be wildly unpopular, leading to more refactors down the road (yet again). 

If they are correct then it will take weeks to make enough cells just to warp the material needed just to make the cells in the first place. Someone please tell me there's more to this.
 
NQ - please keep in mind that we don't need more AFK-gaming. If your intention is to force people to slow-boat then you're shooting yourself in the foot with this one.

Everything makes it sound like DU is running off a skeleton crew now.
 
They don't have time, they don't have time, they don't have time. That's all they can say. 
 
Yet...what's changed in the last 3 months, exactly? They opened the exchange, they added DACs, tweaks graphics slightly, and they refactored the LUA API...? It isn't like it takes them time to ignore posts asking about the wipe...so where is this time going...? 
 
NQ's CEO has been very clear that they are working on new projects other than DU. It's hard to imagine that DU is receiving 100% of NQ's resources with the state of the game and its progress. For all we know, DU is being desperately maintained by a team of a few people as NQ throws money into an NFT pit with their next project. 
 
Of course, DU development has been slow for a long, long time now, so...who really knows 🤷‍♂️
 
And that's why this change will go live -- because they "don't have time" to make something that would actually work. I mean, if it takes 3 months to not even decide about a wipe...it'd probably take 3 years to actually fix industry in a way that doesn't ruin what limited engagement there is. 
 
Be ready for their explanation of why this was the right call and why we're all wrong, hah! 

Its been a while, and I didn't realize that you no longer mine up voxels? o.O Wasn't the whole mining thing a big part of the game? So your saying folks just set up auto miners on the surface and then go collect the stuff periodically? I guess their voxel system is more broken and limited than I thought, as mining was one of the more enjoyable things I liked, hunting down ores deposits, creating data pads with results, selling those to the market.

Its been a while, and I didn't realize that you no longer mine up voxels? o.O Wasn't the whole mining thing a big part of the game? So your saying folks just set up auto miners on the surface and then go collect the stuff periodically? I guess their voxel system is more broken and limited than I thought, as mining was one of the more enjoyable things I liked, hunting down ores deposits, creating data pads with results, selling those to the market.

Its been a while, and I didn't realize that you no longer mine up voxels? o.O Wasn't the whole mining thing a big part of the game? So your saying folks just set up auto miners on the surface and then go collect the stuff periodically? I guess their voxel system is more broken and limited than I thought, as mining was one of the more enjoyable things I liked, hunting down ores deposits, creating data pads with results, selling those to the market.

Ya you just put down a mining unit and visit it like once every 3 days to calibrate or something. The only "hand mining" is if u visit asteroids.  Their database couldnt handle all the digging or whatever, too expensive.

I think it's funny that the majority of self-proclaimed "PVP" players all demand to get to be the pirate.  But none of them seem to be interested in playing the game in a way that creates PVP for other players.  Get out there and haul something in the PVP zone, build something in the PVP zone.  Do something in the PVP zone.
 
Everyone wants a shooting gallery.  But no one wants to be the duck.
 
Have you considered that's because shooting galleries are boring, and no one wants to be the duck?

Always the same two things around here...if it isn't people arguing about a wipe, it's arguing about PvP. Now that the wipe has received 1500 posts with little hope of answers from NQ, it's back to debating about PvP. 
 
I don't get why there's such an obsession with tearing down the safe zones as if that's the only thing the game needs. 
 
Every piece of evidence and history suggests PvP is a niche activity within an already-niche game...combat in DU just isn't interesting to me. It's boring. It's slow. It doesn't perform well. 
 
I play a good amount of actual PvP games. I'm not risk averse or shy about competition or teamwork, and I do wish PvP in this game was better...but the actual mechanics just aren't developed enough. Combat in this game has very little depth.
 
All that aside, removing safe zones is kind of a moot point when there's no prospects of territory war. Why does it matter where there's safe zones when there's literally nothing to fight over...? 
 
Alien cores are DU's only version of territory war for the foreseeable future. Alien cores might be the only version of TW that DU will ever see, period.
 
I see no evidence that they'll magically resolve the many performance issues around combat, and unless they do there's no way they'll roll out TW universally. Maybe we'll see TW in space someday. Big maybe. 
 
TLDR: It's great if you like PVP, but IMO it isn't nearly developed or mainstream enough to "save" this game. 

Close to my perception of this, I think however that some in NQ are still inside JC's "reality of things bubble", thinking that it will all work out and the setbacks are not really all that severe.
 
For me, and from many of the things we learn from things like the current series of devblogs, it seems that while we have had a good few indicators that release is close and NQ is working towards that, many designers and devs seem to be pretty much in "Alpha development mode" still and just stick to their "we're going to do all these things" while much of what they are talking about will really be very problematic to get into a game once it is released as it may well and to a serious degree disrupt the game as a whole. That disruption itself is not unexpected due to the nature of the changes, but these should happen during Alpha stage development and not this close to release. Add to that we just learned that NQ has not even started (memory0 optimizing yet and you start to get the picture.
 
The disconnect between the two is the problem. Fact is that DU is still very much an Alpha game and if you treat it as such and look objectively, while there is some delays, the game is not that far from where you'd expect it to be at this point as once you finish Alpha, actual beta stage will generally be fairly short. And I really think DU as a game is not that far from being ready, but ready for actual beta, not for release.
 
I’d really wish NQ were able to secure another 8 figure investment, allowing them to close back down to the point where they can “pause” subscriptions, release their limitations on having to take drastic actions to be able to progress faster and remove expectations of a release coming soon.
 
I can certainly see a future where NQ could start proving ROI on the existing and the mentioned additional investment with a solid base game and a healthy outlook on expansion.
After the mess JC left behind, they need more time and a better management of the project. Unfortunately, as it stands, it seems neither is an option.
 

WHY ARE PLAYER'S BEING SO MEAN TO THE DEV'S?

I think it is time we have an honest accounting of the real problems here, cause there is more than one elephant in the room, but there is definitely an Elephant King!

While the developers are sitting here both refuting/ignoring criticism and saying they know what is best,
does NQ stop to think about why members of the community "provoke"(vocally criticize) their developers, vs. NQ just treating their critics as bad apples?

1. Could it be that the players feel their trust has been betrayed by the developers?
2. Could it be that the developers have ignored players, and players see themselves being blatantly ignored?
3. Could it be that players feel disrespected by the developers after years of funding/subscribing to & testing their product?
4. Could it be that every time the community sounds the alarm, the devs continue to plow right into development icebergs like the Titanic?
(game breaking/buggy/forced updates, that ruin our ships, make our work obsolete, or further erode the little incentive/purpose there is to do things in game currently.)

5. Could it be the destabilization injected by the developers announcement, and delay to wipe/wipe timeline?
6. Could it be the "fight club" we aren't allowed to talk about, where criticism of developers results in forced removal of those critics?
(As they are discounted as trolls, unconstructive, and undesirable rule violating members of the community, many which were once die hard defenders of this game in the beginning)

7. Could it be NQ keeps replacing things that were promised to be community driven, with NQ curated and controlled perks that will eventually give an advantage to NQ pets and fanboys. (vs. actually giving us more tools to socially connect, say a better chat system, the ability to send messages to offline players in game, and more capability to build and manage our own communities/host events.) Ya know things we have wanted for years now, and you refuse to implement.

Meanwhile...

8. Could it be that anyone that has been here more than 3 months, knows developer decisions have resulted in a massive shedding of players.


THE KING ELEPHANT

The truth is the developers advertised, took funding, and sold a different promised game vision,
and now for a couple of years held a death grip on their own broken vision of the game they actually wanted to make instead.

A bit of bait and switch isn't it? The crux of the problem, the dissonance between developer and community.

What we have in common now is that both players and developers feel disrespected, and that isn't something you see with...
Kenshi, Slime Rancher, Valheim, Satisfactory, Kerbal Space Program, Astroneer, Monster Sanctuary, etc etc etc...

We were promised and even given something very different in the beginning than what we have now. A universe that used to have us excited and invested, and even devoted to Dual Universe, every time servers came back online. Now we are being given something VERY VERY different, and we don't like it, and all those that have left the game may have liked one or two changes, but overall disagree with overall pivot of development.

Those of us still here still see the bones of the game we were promised, dying to a slow necrosis of development decision cancer that is killing what gameplay we loved best about Dual Universe. The community debates/speculates helplessly back and forth between each other in the back seat, while developers say " I hear you, now hold my beer" and continue to drive off the cliff.



So here is my CONSTRUCTIVE FEEDBACK to our dear dev's: (Not that it will change their behavior)

1. Go back and review what people loved about Dual Universe at the launch of BETA.
(When people would spend all day building, and flying and mining, even when the servers were like gimpy hamsters with epilepsy.)

2. Go back and review what you promised people during Kickstarter, when you sold packages, when you made promotional material and we were saying "take my money!".
    Then look at the contrast and see just how far you have strayed from the world you promised. If you still think you are delivering what you said you would, then ask yourself
    why you feel you are saying one thing and we are hearing/playing something very different?

3. Go back and review the community members that used to defend you, and encourage you, and support you.
    Ask why old allies now seem to be enemies, and loyal followers and masses alike have abandoned your current crusade.
    If you can still justify all those you have lost, then ask yourself who will remain, who do you hope to replace them with?     and then be very clear about which type of players you want to attract from here on out and which of us should go find another game.

It isn't that we see you as less than human, it isn't that we want to hurt you as the developers, and we surely don't want to see Dual Universe fail.
What we do want is posted every day by members of your community, it is no longer just a few rogue players demanding change, it is the majority of people posting.
There is a darn good reason that the "INTERNAL DISCUSSION thread has 42 PAGES of disheartened community members posting mostly negative feedback/criticizing NQ.
That new threads are about problem 1,2,3 and a,b,c... and that we sometimes create our own threads for topics vs. the pinned threads that you unpin and bury acting like it never happened.

If you want feedback, YOU ARE GETTING IT, and your actions need to reflect you are paying attention vs. "we hear you" <continues same behavior>.
It is the same as saying "I'm Sorry" and then the very next moment committing the very same offense.

Right now your request for feedback, seems like a request for praise and gratitude, and then you are upset with us, when we don't feel or express either.



CONCLUSION:
You act like we are turning our back on you the developers, but if you continue with the bait and switch, and tightening control on the narrative and in game replacing player driven features with NQ managed/controlled things that can be leverage/perks to promote an elite few (64) teachers pets "DU Oligarchs" (influencers/promoters), then the gaming community will ultimately turn its back on you if you continue this path.

Then everyone will lose, the developers, and the community, and Dual Universe will fade away to be forgotten along with all those before that made these mistakes and suffered similar fates.

Games that have players sharing positive experiences about them, have those posts because that is what the community feels about the product/service. DU used to be one of them. So stop vilifying your community for telling you over and over again how they feel because it isn't what you want to hear and it doesn't offer another solution that you will ignore, time and time again.

Create an experience that your community loves, and you will see it reflected in our communication.

It would be nice to actually see a blog with real information that provides substance, not the current parroting of what has been said but in different word play for the past many months. The current blog doesn't give any specifics, no details of any kind regarding emergent gameplay or how exactly NQ plans to fix the already completely broken economy. 

NQ still appears to be on the same collision course after receiving countless well thought out detailed feedback and examples of why certain changes or lack of specific changes will not work. 

All I have read is "we know we have made some major mistakes" but then give no information as to what you are willing to do to fix them. A full blown server wipe / reset of the economy is required, but ONLY after you have actually got all the other systems in place into the game and are locked in on "feature complete" functionality. 
 
To date, NQ has made several major game changes that destabilized the entire economy and then decided it wasn't worth the effort to roll things back or really fix the problems. You still have a bot system that totally screws with the market and certain players / organization exploit the heck out of it with every change NQ makes, and nothing actually happens to correct these problems. All I have heard is "it only affected a small number of accounts, so no big deal, we aren't worried about it" type pf mindset that your team seems to be proud to convey on a consistent basis. 
 
Overall, the current state of the game doesn't feel like NQ knows what they are doing. You seemed more focused on making trees and rocks look nicer but feel the massive latency / lag issues around most of the economic centers is acceptable. You would rather allow folks who have long left the game many months ago to keep their ships and cargo containers in-game along with all the clutter instead of doing a full wipe / clean of each area. 
 
Your team seems to be super sensitive to certain types of feedback from a minority of players that seem to sway your decision making. 
 
Please get the right kind of folks to run NQ who are not afraid of making the tough decisions. 
 
IE: Make a decision to remove all constructs sitting at or near every single economic center / trade post if those constructs have been sitting there idle for 30 days or longer. Make an announcement, give folks a week or 2 to decide if they want to log in to move their constructs, or if they just don't care of having them lost or packed up. 
 
Best of luck and wishes on this very ambitious project, it wouldn't hurt to also be more transparent on who in NQ is doing what kind of job / roll, as we know JC is no longer in control of the company, but we have no information as to what, (if any) his new responsibilities are. 

This is expected in line with the general MO of how NQ "communicates", yes. What is concerning to me is that the dev blogs now are mostly about spinning  opinions and trying to pacify the community and less about actual changes, improvements and features.
 
To be honest, if NQ would announce pushing out release until next year at least, three months of radio silence and development freeze as they restructure, regroup and then come out with a new plan they intend to stick with/to, I'd be absolutely fine with that and that would be the first _actually_ structural communication we would have seen in a long time.
 
"We know we messed things up, we realize we need to fix it. We can't do that while we keep addressing these things in public so we ask you to give us this time to make things right. We'll come out guns blazing and refreshed to show you how we will improve things going forward" .. now that would be a message I could accept, understand and get behind. Would I be skeptical? Absolutely, but I would also see the reason in that and accept it.

Sorry, but this is just the next iteration of "we heard you"
 
There is nothing substantial in this post, it does not commit to anything and just reiterates how NQ has failed to listen (which is not the same as hearing in case you wonder) to what their community is telling them.
 
That hey seem to think that much changed from Alpha is frankly very funny as they have just continued their attitude and ways from there with little to no change, that they seem to think or try to make the claim they did is probably the most worrying aspect of this post.
 
The proof wil be in the pudding here but based on the many previous attempts by NQ to spin their mistakes and shortfalls by not really taking ownership but pretend they will does not give me much hope for change.. But we'll see

Doing updates is fine but we need CONTENT like asap. We need new solar systems places to explore etc a actual working market without Ore bots etc, working mission system, NPC's to fight etc the list goes on. On most days you can go into the discord and listen to conversation happening in the voice chats about the state of the game whats missing etc and we all have different opinions but the game in general is missing so much that it is hard to see the game finished. There is so many problems that we currently face along with WE NEED A WIPE as ore bots that keep getting reset has destroyed everything.

Question: Why do CAD and simulation software exist in real life? Why do humans IRL not just slap stuff together and see if it will fly?
 
If the game still required balancing thrust around center of mass (like I hear it did way back in early Alpha), this becomes even more important.
 
People should be able to learn game systems without needing to risk days, weeks, or months of grinding if they get it wrong.

Nice to see another SWG refuge that understood and greatly appreciated the industry system. It hasn't been seen since that time anywhere and it's sorely missed. I believe devs with advanced degrees tend to over think everything and lose perspective on what fun means. 
 
I would pay 2x the monthly subscription to get a good MMO experience that implemented most (if not all) of the features that SWG had. 

Not liking the new changes coming up and thought I'll give my 0.02 cents worth. Been away from DU for sometime now and have an industry half finished, nothing major though now I'm not sure where to go given the changes that are coming in for both industry and skills. 
 
Industry changes:
 
How is this going to force specialisation except really only make it difficult for new players and smaller factories. The big timers with their mega factories that already mass produce just about anything everything will be able to flourish by selling to the less fortunate. Really only way around it is to do a wipe and force everyone to the same rules.
 
This could have easily been avoided by enforcing power management on everyone's factories. This is a missing feature and it would not only encourage specialisation, but can be applied to existing factories by turning off what can't be powered, and well if they are rich enough they can afford to buy the power. Those of us soloists and smaller or newer players can still be able to create our small factories to play the game, and when it comes to doing commerce and making in game money then the markets will play a big role as no solo player could afford to create a mega factory with simple power management mechanics. Heck you could do away with the limit on links with containers and machines too as power management would limit what you can do too.
 
Skill barrier/wall changes:
 
This I hate, one thing I hated in eve and the one thing I loved about DU skills was that you can do anything just like in RL, but you wont' be good at it unless you skill up. Why was this such a bad thing? Why is it necessary now to lock industry and weapons behind skill walls. This is a horrible idea!
 
Not to mention that all the skills we've invested in are now probably not aligned to what we've been doing. I bet we all have a lot of wasted skills in areas that could have been better spent on this skills barriers now.

On the plus side, cyberpunk will be out this week and maybe I should jump on that hype train instead, maybe by the time I've finished with that NQ will do a full wipe and remove this skill barrier idea.

1. I would actually apply common sense and know that having edit powers at any market was likely a bug and report it. 
 
2. I would then not use said edit powers and continue on as normal. 
 
If folks are unable to apply common sense in these type of games, then the community is better off without them, as these type of players are the ones that create more issues and want to fight, kick, have a tantrum and use the time worn excuses of "but the game let me do it", "the coding sucks! redirect blame to devs!", "my definition of what a bug and exploit is different from the majority of common sense folks, but that doesn't matter!", "where was my warning!! QQ" 
 
Devs gave a very clear warning weeks ago regarding using unintended gameplay and the use of bugs / exploits, even if the devs had not yet acknowledged it, yet some folks feel their lack of common sense and playing the ignorance card should absolve them from punishment. We don't need these folks in this game. 

So the only issue I am seeing is RDMS / promotion issues that caused the theft. Not seeing any actual "exploit" of any kind and the details that very few shared again prove that it was a permissions issue or a promotion issue. Legates have full access and trying to claim that none of their legates would ever do such a thing is fooling yourself. No game master / admin of any MMO would be able to provide all the details after investigating things, such as giving a name of who actually did so due to their privacy provisions. 
 
I dealt with a lot of insiding tickets when I worked at Blizzard with their in-game support team. We never gave out details because of privacy provisions. I fully expect the same in DU. 
 
I have even seen times when a guild master is the culprit, takes everything out of the guild bank and sends it all to one of their alts, then plays the dumbfounded card with their clan. In some cases it is all a mind game and deception is a powerful tool. 
 
Unfortunately DU is lacking some very basic QOL core features, such as giving orgs some means to track who takes things out of containers, puts things in, etc, along with a log of who edited construct voxels. (IE:Player A removed 60m cubed of carbon fiber from Construct C) 
 
It sucks when other players with permissions steal from an org, but this is all on the super legate in promoting folks to legate, and setting RDMS rights. 

1. I would actually apply common sense and know that having edit powers at any market was likely a bug and report it. 
 
2. I would then not use said edit powers and continue on as normal. 
 
If folks are unable to apply common sense in these type of games, then the community is better off without them, as these type of players are the ones that create more issues and want to fight, kick, have a tantrum and use the time worn excuses of "but the game let me do it", "the coding sucks! redirect blame to devs!", "my definition of what a bug and exploit is different from the majority of common sense folks, but that doesn't matter!", "where was my warning!! QQ" 
 
Devs gave a very clear warning weeks ago regarding using unintended gameplay and the use of bugs / exploits, even if the devs had not yet acknowledged it, yet some folks feel their lack of common sense and playing the ignorance card should absolve them from punishment. We don't need these folks in this game. 

1. I would actually apply common sense and know that having edit powers at any market was likely a bug and report it. 
 
2. I would then not use said edit powers and continue on as normal. 
 
If folks are unable to apply common sense in these type of games, then the community is better off without them, as these type of players are the ones that create more issues and want to fight, kick, have a tantrum and use the time worn excuses of "but the game let me do it", "the coding sucks! redirect blame to devs!", "my definition of what a bug and exploit is different from the majority of common sense folks, but that doesn't matter!", "where was my warning!! QQ" 
 
Devs gave a very clear warning weeks ago regarding using unintended gameplay and the use of bugs / exploits, even if the devs had not yet acknowledged it, yet some folks feel their lack of common sense and playing the ignorance card should absolve them from punishment. We don't need these folks in this game.