Vanquish383

My sincere thanks to NQ for their efforts to make this game.  I think it has great potential, but wanted to give some candid feedback on my experience. 
 
I've been enjoying this game throughout the beta, mostly as a solo player who has focused on industry.  I was starting to recruit players into my org and also belong to another org.  I have a modest but capable factory (until now) where I have been making products such as lights, displays, doors, etc. and successfully selling them on the market.  I invested the profits into crafting ships and expanding my base.  I enjoyed the market and crafting very much until this update.  (https://discord.com/channels/184691218184273920/748572194463940759/789842770884821022)
 
Now my factory is nearly useless.  I don't have enough talent points to access much of my industry and refineries, plus I would need to buy expensive schematics.  What am I supposed to do with a factory full of machines I can't access?  I can't earn credits other than mining, which is very tedious.  Without credits, fuel and materials, I can't build or fly ships or build bases and factories.
 
You haven't nudged me away from solo play (a direction I was already heading).  Instead you have pushed me off the cliff.  I tried to train using the talent points I had (a very tedious and obscure process) and ended up with a useless factory that I can't do anything with, ships I can't fly and nothing to do but mine.  I could join a large org, but my vision of building up a smaller org and recruiting players is dead.  I was very active in the market, now I can't make anything to sell.
 
I will not be playing DU anymore, at least until the gameplay changes in such a way that solo players/small orgs can have a path other than endless grinding in the mines.

Illusion of content.
 
Before many felt like they had nothing to do  - they had a factory that could produce everything and they just needed to sink in hours mining to throw in the ore to get the stuff out on the other end.
 
Now - they need to sink in months of mining to get the same factory running again. They have a 'goal' now - to get back to where they were a week ago - or they can quit.

A lot of good points, theories and remedies posted in here but I am afraid it may be too late, its already a ghost universe in game.
 
One thing NQ will learn from this is that in the live service markets; when your customers leave because there is little to no content after they spent hours building up their assets, they are likely to come back after a while when new content eventually gets added. They were set up nice too because people did not mind letting their talents train whilst they played other games in the meanwhile, they had a fun experience playing the game at the least.
 
With this approach they effectively nuked those players. Unhappy players will unsub/refund and move on, never to return because they have been done dirty,  its too late for NQ to act all pikachu face over this. All the feedback that was given beforehand said this would have happened but they pushed through anyways.

Do you think that be a slave of the market for everything you need is funny mechanics?  
 
If players are complaining about the few things to do, would not be better to add new things to build instead of making existing harder?
 
If you wish players to collaborate, why then not introducing some community goals like building or defending something?

First off, I still kinda like the game. Now let’s dive into the negative things.
 
Unfun things and tedium is being added. Fun things are being removed. Grayseeker worded it very nicely in the JC Q&A:
 
"Creative people aren’t driven by economics, power etc. The driving force is to create, to build. And DU is awesome for this. A primary reason the market hasn’t been used as you would like could be because people love to make the stuff themselves. Are you concerned  that people will sink all their money into schematics to carry on building as they have been"

King JC misinterpreted the question and answered "We expect a minority (10%?) to go into the industry gameplay, and compete on the market to provide low cost "products" to all the other players."

JC, please tell us, how do you play the game?  Plenty of users would love to see you livestream normal gameplay, not just looking at nice buildings, but actual normal gameplay, like endless digging, fiddeling around with the market interface, checking all your machines if any are stuck. Have your ship bug out and crash for no reason, you know, real DU gameplay.



When is mining going to be more than hours of clicking while watching a movie?

And when will there be any positive changes to the mess that is the interface? Which number is bigger on first glance, 105532952 or 53223924? How about 105 532 952 or 53 223 924?

Search the market and tell me how much adjustors L are on Lacobus, or if there are any at all, while you yourself are on Alioth.

Try this, put 150 silumin in a container, nothing in another, and connect a transfer unit to move it. Click "doable". Now type the word in manually.

Ever made an "executive chair"? I never did, I just see them pop up on my notification log when I sell them. Because when you changed the name for navigator chair nobody bothered to change the text in the market files.
 
Or the sizes, ever wanted to know what size container or engine or whatever you just sold? Sorry, can’t do.
 
Further, we now don’t even know which market we sold something at anymore.
 
Got stuff at multiple markets and want to look through them? There are 100 ways to sort the inventory of a specific market container, but not one to sort the containers to show only non-empty.

Right at the start new players actually think there is a core limit. I mean there kind of is a core limit, until you find out there is not.

And the same is the case for territory units.
 
VTA or whatever you call it, why do some players get insider knowledge?

Is there a reason why I can inspect a stack of ore in my inventory to see the total mass, but not in the market inventory?
 
Too many elements and your craft flies at a small fraction of the displayed speed. Wh
 
y do I have the feeling I can add to this list for another hour or two?



And what did we get in the last patches? Was any fun stuff added? We got more bugs, more falling AGG as you removed the tools to keep them afloat.

Random people got insider info and could keep their riches.

Some others got rich because they saw the change in time about bots now buying ore for double price, or they had some other insider info.
 
Everybody else lost, my whole factory can not be rebuilt as it was using dynamic lines. All we can do now is dedicated lines to spam certain items, as not having a machine run 24/7 after you buy the schematic is a waste.  My social aspect in this game was people giving me a list of items they want to pick up the next day, All I can say now is "I don’t have 90% of those items, but the others I have 4000 times." And then bring it to the market. The dead market with all the trash of people who quit, corps that no longer exist and hubs full of items nobody wants. You were afraid the world you created could look empty, now it looks deserted instead.

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
 

I was blowing up ships in the other game and that facebook ad popped up saying I can do it better in DU.
 
I believed it...

Why exactly the minority of people that runs the market should provide low-cost products? The lack of competitors doesn't make price higher? And usually people are drive by profit, not by the purpose of providing services/goos for a reasonable or low price.
 
Furthermore he doesn't actually answer why creative people should be find more fun on buying things from market rather than creating things by themself.
 
I was one of those: I do not care about profit or to save time by purchasing things on the market. I was very satisfied to be able to create things by myself. That what your marketing sold me when I subscribed and what I was looking for.
 
If you want us to collaborate...why don't you simply add some community goal like building something or defend from a pve threat? Why are you obsessed by reaching "end-game" things? Why so obsessed by market and profit? How do you know which end game each player set for himself? Wasn't you that say that every player had to set his own goal?
 
You removed this mechanism, now I have no purpose to continue playing this game. I'm non interested in grinding money for buying things on market. That is an experience that I already have in real life, no need to play a game for that.

Sell ore to bots.

Now get back in the mines. The mining slaves don't get to ask questions.

I think there are 2 main lessons NQ needs to draw from .23.
 
1) How many of you are still working toward solving the Gold Star puzzle? Only a handful of people will chase events, wrecks and such just for the sake of doing it. Without sustainable, predictable, dependable rewards; any content is stillborn and waste of precious devtime. 
 
2) If only 10% of players are supposed to engage with industry as JC aspires (a valid aspiration), then others need gameplay loops to engage with. There is only one loop of reliable moneymaking, and that's mining -> industry -> shipmaking. 
 
I like to be constructive, so in this thread I'd like to discuss what other ways NQ could easily create more such loops without allocating too much devtime. Here are some ideas (not necessarily all mine):
 
Low Cost Exploration: Scatter reliable quanta rewards across planets/space to generate exploration gameplay. Here is a detailed version of this idea.
 
Low Cost Asteroid Belts: Generate asteroids in PvP zone periodically (copy/paste Thades' belt asteroids if needed), insert high tier meganodes in them, add their coordinates to districts. 
 
Low Cost NPCs: Code really simple NPC ships (e.g. they just orbit planets or moons in PvP zone, or patrol between planets, and they attack back whoever targets them) reliably spawning around planets and moons. 
 
NQ can always iterate on these to make them less grindy, more engaging and interesting. No matter how many of us will complain about mining here, there are many who engage with it because it's rewarding. The game is in the immediate need of new gameplay loops that has rewards as reliable as mining. As mining and PvP shows, it's OK if the gameplay is released at a primitive state.
 
Do you have any other ideas on how NQ can add new gameplay without costing them months of devtime?

Why exactly the minority of people that runs the market should provide low-cost products? The lack of competitors doesn't make price higher? And usually people are drive by profit, not by the purpose of providing services/goos for a reasonable or low price.
 
Furthermore he doesn't actually answer why creative people should be find more fun on buying things from market rather than creating things by themself.
 
I was one of those: I do not care about profit or to save time by purchasing things on the market. I was very satisfied to be able to create things by myself. That what your marketing sold me when I subscribed and what I was looking for.
 
If you want us to collaborate...why don't you simply add some community goal like building something or defend from a pve threat? Why are you obsessed by reaching "end-game" things? Why so obsessed by market and profit? How do you know which end game each player set for himself? Wasn't you that say that every player had to set his own goal?
 
You removed this mechanism, now I have no purpose to continue playing this game. I'm non interested in grinding money for buying things on market. That is an experience that I already have in real life, no need to play a game for that.

But EVE also has content to keep you busy in the meanwhile..
NQ on the other hand has added 'end game' grind of the type you would find in a established long running game to a 'beta' that doesn't even have a complete game loop yet.

Aww - you think they care what we think - that's cute.
 
https://dualuniverse.featureupvote.com/suggestions/122819/recipes-as-items-industry-balancing
 
Read through the feedback for the proposed schematics change from October - they totally cared what we thought.

NQ is trying to sell an early alpha state development as a released game in beta as a paid for live service game. They are not owning up to their commitment and promises set out starting from kickstarter and continue to water down the game.
 
They are trying to make things work but due to the way they designed the game are not able to build complete game loops to facilitate that and seem unwilling to make changes to be able to actually do that by introducing PVE content which is needed to make mechanics work and instead think that they can save the game by introducing a Battle Royal mode and a creative sandbox mode.
 
They think that the mission system is the silver bullet that will solve all problems, they think that by adding a magic "available power" number to tiles they can create power management that is immersive and attractive. They do not consider options and suggestion that actually trigger gameplay for all game play styles and make the game complex, strategic and emergent.
 
If players find creative ways to play without affecting others, they nerf these options. If players find creative ways to play while impacting others  though creating obstacles and risk for others with the same end goal/effect, NQ thinks that's fine and really cool.
 
They say that the industry changes are what was always intended but they were not ready and the result was that  too many player got to "endgame" content (whatever that means) too fast.. Thing is, the changes do not take that endgame content away, it just denies those that did not get there yet for whatever reason the ability to do so while the ones that did will be able to carry on . NQ pretty much is of the opinion that as a solo player or small group you have no problem as you can just pay others whatever they want to ask for by using te markets.
 
Large orgs can isolate entirely from the in game economy and fend for themselves regardless of the changes because it hardly affects them as they have already stocked up and have so much money they can just blanket buy what other will have to work weeks, if not months for to get to. _THAT_  is what the economy is not starting, the isolationist behavior is not with the "small guy", it is with the big orgs who have build their own infrastructure internally, and did so to some degree by using early exploits, loopholes and possibly insider info, and have zero need or incentive to use or feed markets/the economy outside of dumping surplus at whatever price they desire to set for it and/or use their position to undercut and push out anyone trying to get a piece of the pie.
 
Yes, it would certainly cause a setback for many who worked hard to build a small business for themselves in game but the only way to correct the stranglehold the big orgs already have on the game will be to wipe and allow everyone to build their dream on even footing after massive changes are introduced which really are the definition of alpha state of development for a game.
 
 
To quote myself from Discord;
 

 
 
 
And yes, I do feel I am being "clear, polite and to the point."
 
 

Let it sprout organically
 
Civilizations won't exist or sprout just because you practically force players to specialize, the reason it happens in the real world is because people NEED to, they don't want to do that in games, that they pay a subscription for nonetheless, to even presume people would is condescending to your playerbase
 
Let the pace of the game be viable for individual players to achieve things they would normally expect to achieve by playing solo, then the civilizations would sprout up by people who decide to come together and make even greater things
 
Interdependencies will still happen organically from people being better at or enjoying doing certain things than others, you don't have to put game mechanics which arbitrarily make it harder for everyone to do those things
 
Here's how a lot of people feel about the update from my recording during the AMA, and my input as well;
 
 

The prices of high end items also affect new players, even when they do not build them themselves. The schemas must be purcheased with money and money can be generated by mining only (apart from the daily quantas, which are negligible compared to the price of the high end schemas). As most manufacturers of the high end items will not mine themselves to generate the money for schemas, somebody else need to do it for them. That will mainly be new players - either directly as org slaves or indirectly by selling to bots and than buying from players. For new players there is nothing to do than mining for many days or even weeks before they are able to start with something that is interesting or even fun. With such a first impression I would leave immediatley.

While I'm sure he's an absolutely brilliant AI engineer, JC is utterly incompetent at game design.
 
With pvp as broken as it is, there were really only 3 attractions to the game: mining, industry, and building. There's a reason everyone was building their own giga factory. There's simply nothing else to do.
 
You could mine and sell ore then buy elements or mine and build your own industry. Most everyone opted for building their own industry because it's both easier and a more efficient use of time.
 
They noticed that markets weren't being used so instead of adding more content to allow players to do something other than mining and industry they simply took away industry. You can't immediately remove 50% of a game's content overnight and expect everyone to be happy. I'm honestly shocked that NQ/JC either didn't anticipate the backlash or simply didn't care.
 
What do we have now? Mine for ore, sell it,  then build stuff. There's literally nothing else in the game. No way to make money besides mining. This patch should have been deployed after implementing additional mechanics for making money. As it stands now, you mine to sell ore (at continuously dropping prices thanks to supply & demand) or you do... nothing.
 
I'm actually impressed. I haven't seen this kind of incompetence in game design since no man's sky and even that was arguably more fraud and deceit than incompetence.

I completely agree. Why he has at all cost force players to make part of the market and capitalist mechanisms? That, by the way, to works needs to create unbalance between players: we cannot be all wealthy otherwise none is. So actually how he thinks that this could make the most of us happy?
 
I already live in a world that work in this way, and I do not like. I play a game, this game to experience different experiences: able to build thing and be creative.
 
Now what I got is grind for money in order to be able to buy things... What an original idea!
 
If JC wants us to collaborate, why he do not simple introduce a goal that does that: a PVE threat (alien species?) Or build a star gate to other systems or whatever? Be creative and introduce a community goal! 
 
An advice for NQ (if any even read forums): if players complain about the fact there are few things to do, you just introduce new things to do and build, you do not just make existing things harder and tedious.
 
Thank you for all, but my experience with the game ends here.

Yes! Hell yes! Exactly. I do not play the game to be a space beggar and work hard on low-paid and super-boring work (mining) for long and long hours and days. No thanks, this is enough for me in real life. I played the game for fun. For build a factory, produce modules, build ships, travel. I hate mining, but I did it for my own needs. But now I can ONLY do mining. And nothing else. Haha, seriously? Play the game with yourself NQ, im out.

Well what can I say that others have not.
 
 
I'm not rich, like to solo so I guess Nova don't want folks like me about any more so I'll take the hint.
 
Un-Subbed and Un-Installed.
 
Good luck with the direction you are going in but really not for me.

I completely agree. Why he has at all cost force players to make part of the market and capitalist mechanisms? That, by the way, to works needs to create unbalance between players: we cannot be all wealthy otherwise none is. So actually how he thinks that this could make the most of us happy?
 
I already live in a world that work in this way, and I do not like. I play a game, this game to experience different experiences: able to build thing and be creative.
 
Now what I got is grind for money in order to be able to buy things... What an original idea!
 
If JC wants us to collaborate, why he do not simple introduce a goal that does that: a PVE threat (alien species?) Or build a star gate to other systems or whatever? Be creative and introduce a community goal! 
 
An advice for NQ (if any even read forums): if players complain about the fact there are few things to do, you just introduce new things to do and build, you do not just make existing things harder and tedious.
 
Thank you for all, but my experience with the game ends here.

207 votes.
 
https://dualuniverse.featureupvote.com/suggestions/122819/recipes-as-items-industry-balancing
 
The comments even back in October 7th were mostly negative. 
 
What is the point of this voting and commenting if NQ doesn't listen anyway?
 
So many comments explaining why this is a bad idea - back in October...and nobody gave a damn.

NQ: "Oh no, you've got level 3 in most refining and smelting and almost was tier 3 at all industry but that's worth absolutely nothing because today, today we've lost our freakin' minds and opted to make you train that industry ALL OVER AGAIN and dump HUNDREDS of MILLIONS of credits into the market just to make the same stuff you could make and skilled up to make faster and more efficiently yesterday." 
 
Honestly. Yesterday I could happily build ship parts to build ships to build blueprints to give away for free. Yes, I run FELD.
 
Today, I have to not only buy schematics for everything I need to build to build ships, but I also need to "train up" to the correct level of industry to actually build the schematic. And to refine ore. And to smelt the actual mats to make the parts. PICK ONE! Either train or schematics. I am being punished for wanting to design and build ships now. I'd not minded schematics as that didn't require me to work with the terrible training queue. (Move to TOP/Highest Possible button please!). Now I need to fish through the markets, spend what little UEC I have, and hope I can find what I need to continue making free and better (yep, no design is perfect) designs for FELD.
 
But NQ did both. Which is pretty lame since TRAINING only slows down industrial player's OTHER training by about 3 months so they can train in the higher tiers of... industry.  If NQ wanted to stop everyone training for 3 months then NQ should have just paused everyone's training queue for 3 months.
 
AND WHERE IS THE PUNISHMENT FOR THE MINERS? Really - they just OCD raw ores all day with ZERO cost and ZERO need for industry. They have ZERO training to do to know how to mine ores. They have ZERO things to buy to actually mine the ores. They just sit back and reap profits. That's been my biggest beef with this whole thing - miners have strip mined almost ever l of t3+ ore out using multi-boxing to run multiple scanning rigs and mining alts that the prez of NQ ENCOURAGES PEOPLE TO DO.  If I want to get T3+ ore via mining as a single boxer I am forced to scan areas in hopes I can find something that strip miners have missed or deemed "not worth their effort."
 
Toss in that this just means multi-boxers just need to set their alts to train the new skills and wow, no way for any soloist to compete even as a niche industrialist.
 
Well thank you, NQ. It all adds up to a major excuse not to play. I am debating just not playing. I liked to build stuff and give away the designs but now it's just work and doing what I hate most - WAITING for something that should be nothing to get done.
 
The only gameplay I am thinking about doing now is scrapping everything, freighting it all to my plot on Sanct, and uninstalling.  Industry is just to punitive now.
 
I might revisit in a few months to see if NQ came to some form of reality.

Good... I'm really sorry to say, but to my eyes, they are just a bunch of things that no one cares about. There is nothing from the promised feature list, the introduction of new game loops, or quality of life improvement of core activities (like mining). 

From my point of view (and I'm quite sure that it is shared by many), this doesn't incentivize people to continue paying for a subscription. 

If any of the staff is reading this, my feedback from the experience I got playing the game is: "this game has some potential, but it has nothing that keeps me playing it. I bought a space building game, but  instead I got a mining game. Mining that is neither funny nor addictive".
 

I am one of the guys that joined DU on beta launch so my account is expiring at 26/12 (initial 3 months + 1 free month)
 
I was expecting the next patch to be like something that makes sense for you to actually pay for another 3 months of... doing QA...
 
Let alone content I like that is completely ignored (PVP - it doesn't matter is it cube or S core or L core, there is still 0 motivation). I don't see any content for any game play type in this patch.
 
The factories thingy, it's not content it's just train skills, put that schematic thing into it, forget about it.
 
I thought they gonna add something so they can like launch PR campaign to get new dudes, convince old ones to get back etc but what would they put at the banner now?
"Come back to DU, if you lose your internet connection you now lose you ship!" that's why people should pay another 21$ ? 
 
What do you think ?