Biblitz

I've stopped playing/paying DU for a month or so now and thought I'd just do a check in. Have things gotten better since the 0.23 patch? Have players returned? Are the markets stable? Any plans to revert back to pre 0.23 factory schematic wise? Just curious, thanks!

My 2c. Existing changes and the desired end result NQ is looking for can only be attained with a complete everything wipe, all skills, buildings, EVERYTHING. Everything that is happening now is a half measure and a Band-Aid to bring this from A->B unnaturally.

Probably the dumbest quote of the year. Tons of sandbox games, if not the majority of them are great for solo play.. and up until the patch this game was one of them...

I think NQ has mentioned that the word schematic is somewhat a misleading word for what it is. I also had posted this: https://board.dualthegame.com/index.php?/topic/21697-opinion-schematics-costs-make-no-sense/ along the same lines. Thinking this through a bit more I think the word you want is "Tooling". Tooling would need to be developed for each machine producing a part and is the industry term used in the real world for this. Additionally it is also the most significant investment when manufacturing a new part. Honestly though, in the far future one would imagine most tooling would just be 3d printed, I'm in principle against the latest changes still but i hope this helps!

The problem is that this system is dependent on users, and the desired emergent behaviors will not happen if a huge portion of the player base leaves discouraged and the player base is not replaced.

If the direction of the game is going the route of prescribing I play the game a certain with with artificially massive grind/time sinks: At best a small % of the player-base throws up their hands and says this is not for them and the game ends up being a success with new subs. At worst the mechanic also adds so much tedium to anyone wanting to do a factory they eventually ditch the game as well and we watch this games huge potential die on the vine over the next year or so. I hope most people realize the latter is really what is likely going on here...

Tottaly! To me this was fun:

https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/dual-universe/company_financials Probably way out of date.. are the estimated number of players / subbed accounts posted somewhere?

Without turning this into a rant, I'd like to justify my position that Schematics make no sense whatsoever (after taking some time to think about the patch). I feel many people may be bothered by this patch and can't quite put a finger on exactly what is the root of all the angst. I'm going to make an attempt boil things down to the broad statement that: "Users are bothered by crafting Schematics in the latest patch because everyone knows it's an unrealistic, game developer only artificial mechanism to slow user progression in the game." Consider the following: In just the last ~50 years, the internet and digital technology has revolutionized how information has been disseminated to the masses. Look at Mp3's & Napster 20 years ago. Now basically any Movies and TV shows can be available on-demand anywhere. 3D Printing is in its infancy and already millions of modeling files can be found to print many useful and useless things for free or near free. One can now google almost any topic and go down a rabbit hole if they so choose to learn many things only taught by institutions and experts. The trend is clearly towards more information to more people faster and with less barriers, including money. Now fast forward 500+ years into the future... the cost of schematics make absolutely no sense whatsoever. I'm not saying a game needs to be perfectly realistic, but this is so far removed from anything plausible that any regular user using this mechanic knows it's a completely artificial developer solution to an in game market balancing problem. This is not just "users not liking a big change" situation. I know the game is in flux but I'd like to state that I believe NQ had things closer to "right" without schematics for industry. The intellectual property cost of things in game should be at or next to nothing and user/market driven If industry schematics were to be implemented, they should be for improvements upon existing items or creations which can be easily replicated, user priced and sold on free markets. It's just more fun to have a goal that is attainable solo within a few weeks of work instead of artificially restricting players to socialize, coordinate and grind forever in order to build a single advanced schematic. It "feels" wrong to gamers because they know it's a restriction limiting their freedom to play the game they way they want to. Even if it has it's intended effect on markets and industry production, the game is worse off than it is now from a "fun" perspective. Players are smart, and they instinctively know when they are being bent towards a certain vision vs given a change for the better. This is introducing a massive grind/time sink onto something that already took weeks to work towards. I don't have all the solutions to the challenges NQ faces with markets & user progression but I believe this patch is not the right solution, this sucks the fun out of the game and is going to continue to do so in the future. Unfortunately, because NQ is running on a Subscription model during BETA to keep things afloat fiscally, maintaining their user base is critical to the survivability of the company moving forward and an unhappy userbase (right or wrong) can spell the end of the game . FWIW my major was in Technology and have 20+ years industry experience. Hoping NQ has some tricks up their sleeve and can prove me wrong!

1000% percent agree buyers/sellers should be listed to some degree. Benefits far outweigh the Negatives. I've personally given NQ Slack on this as they're were manipulating the markets in order to keep things afloat in Beta.

I played the game because i liked building a do-everything factory out on Feli. I mined to supply my factory. I built ships to support building my factory. I explored to find resources to facilitate better things in my factory. Having a do-everything factory was a challenge in itself to build, but it was great! Then when i finally wanted to do a new challenge I would build a ship, and repeat all of the above until i had every piece for my very own ship! Now i can only afford a handful of decent schematics or a few handfuls of crappy xs ones only to eternally grind my way back to having fun again ?

So near the end of my 3 month sub, played for a solid 2 months of it then just occasionally the last couple of weeks up until the patch. I will not be renewing (decided this pre-patch already) This patch has honestly terrified me, I can see what NQ is trying to do - but IMO its a big gamble that may backfire. I'll use myself as an example: I've been playing the game to have fun (like most players I hope!), amass some wealth, mine and had the most fun hooking up factories to produce everything of all sizes up to T3. After producing almost everything, (and honestly have more fun knitting the factory together than anything else) and being happy to have amassed ~32m (which is not much relative to some players and a lot to others) I thought after this patch I'd be able to have some fun still buying a few schematics and setting up a few specialized assembly lines for a few of the T2-3 things. I should add I'm out on Feli and kinda like it here, along with probably dozen other players or so... Wow, the price to get started is not only steep, they are astronomical - this game would be a complete grind fest for me to continue moving forward. I do not want to make and sell 300 billion xs & s parts to eventually afford enough to buy an M schematic and M related components. I'm afraid to buy any higher priced schematic because the game is still in flux and i have a feeling they may have to adjust pricing a few times, or everyone else has the same idea and will build the same thing. Additionally, i'll likely have to move back to the soul crushing FPS Destroying markets on Alioth... around people... this is really against the grain with my own playstyle. Looks like solving complex factory wirings will be going away for me as well. I had the most fun making a do-everything factory - now I'm forced to make a simple widget factory in order to grind out enough widgets and dollars to maybe one day afford another widget factory to do this all over again. ? I sure hope this game works out in the long run, I've had a blast playing it so far - Good luck NQ! I'll check back in a year and see where it's at

Eve Online had/has strict rules for staff interactions within the game. Violation of this code would mean termination of the employee. Dev's should dev in a specific dev environment/ Dev's can enjoy the production version of the game on equal footing to other players. GM's should only influence the game where needed/warranted. I'm sure they have some of this in place already, although this thread rightly brings into question some of it.