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Carnegie

Alpha Tester
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Everything posted by Carnegie

  1. I don't play the game anymore, except to fly down to Haven and check it out (just another rock with grass and trees). However, I do recall suggestions I made a long time ago about mining. I was one of the early people to suggest an auto-mining feature , however it was nothing like the current implementation. I still wanted the digging but the only difference to mining was that you set up a machine on the node itself, not on the surface. Certainly did not want taxes. To deal with the problem of too many tunnels, there should have been a tunnel collapse mechanism that erases tunnels after no presence of a human after 60 days. Easy enough to implement, just keep a least recently used timestamp on each tunnel object that gets refreshed any time a player walks by. In a nightly maintenance sweep, all tunnel data structures with old time stamps simply get deleted. The other idea was that nodes respawn after a while of being dormant (like a month or two). That would give incentive for people to fight for meganode tiles. well since there probably be a wipe anyways, there is another opportunity to fix this mechanic. Or not. I probably won't play again unless there is enough critical mass of players to make things interesting again. Here is the thing about voting on wipes that I have seen over and over again over 20 years of playing MMOs. 1. The people with nothing to lose and everything to gain always vote for a wipe as they have no skin in the game. 2. The people that were "betrayed" by a wipe stop playing. These are the true diehard, committed people that actually generate the content that NQ keeps talking about in their visions. 3. The "betrayed" people leave with their amazing creativity to some other environment. 4. The people who wanted the wipe are left with the daunting task of creating a new content base. 5. However, the people who voted for the wipe are generally tourists, and are not the building personality type ... so not much gets built. 6. The level-the-playing-field tourists get bored and leave with a mild shrug. (They don't care - they had nothing to lose anyways) 7. Trust is broken for builder personality types. 10x harder to convince new ones - advertising not much help here - they go by word of mouth 8. Ghost town
  2. Besides, you won't need a wipe soon. I stopped playing due to tile taxes (I can't commit to a fixed schedule), and I visit here occasionally to see what is new and if it is worth my time to come back. My guess is that there won't be many veterans left by launch (unless changes are made). Only people that play are the ones who have seen the misleading ads and play for two weeks while they are confused as to where the action is. Why are the ads misleading? They show a large vibrant population and imply PvP activity. Also the real people in the ads haven't been active for more than a year. What happened to land territory warfare outside the safe zone? Game is boring because there is no risk. You don' t need risk everywhere, but it should be available somewhere with meaningful rewards equivalent to the risk. It needs survival-type challenges in addition to legit PvP. Why should I fight for plasma? Lack of plasma doesn't affect me.
  3. Nope. I have never heard of a new player that joined because there was a wipe. New players join MMO sandbox games for a new experience and potential for being part of something larger than themselves. Agree that the game needs more players to survive. The game simply needs to be more fun to attract new players. Most of the arguments about mechanics are just noise. NQ needs to stand back and revisit the concept of fun.
  4. I am already in the process of mothballing my stuff. I can't justify any more hours investing in this if it all goes up in smoke. There was minor progress on the PTS , with at least weapons fire being visible. The situational awareness is still poor, hard to see who locked radar on you when all the ships have the same name. (which I am sure is a deliberate tactic by orgs) There needs to be a yellow glow or highlight on ship icons that have targeted you. The warning that "You are being attacked!" isn't very useful unless its just the two of you out in deep space. My experience with the PvP was mediocre at best. The ship I was targeting kept jumping around, as if it couldn't decide where it was. After I changed direction to follow it, it suddenly teleported back to its original position defying all laws of physics both real and imaginary. Sounds like a cache or buffer problem. The new mechanics have promise, but it is a bit of lipstick on a pig. The experience has to be snappy (not sluggish), smooth and consistent. Still no HUD for solo players, its nuts to have to keep hitting INS multiple times to toggle between flying/situational awareness and managing weapons. I have thousands of warp cells from my factories in storage, but I am having a hard time being motivated to feed them with raw ore. I could go anywhere I want, but not feeling the desire right now with the combination of releasing the game without planetary land warfare and possible wipe announcement.
  5. Yeah, I am seeing a lot of those too. A bit puzzling as a new player is expecting to see what was in the ad. Once they look behind the curtain and say to themselves "wtf?" they will probably leave and lose trust in NQ. A shame to burn new players before good content is available. NQ should have waited until at least Athena was out for a few weeks.
  6. I did think of that, but then I thought of the warp speed reduction. If the new lower speed of warp was sufficient to keep you from flying through a planet, wouldn't it be the real top limit? I am not railing against warp here, as I can make plenty of cells for myself with even a surplus, but just saying the devs need to be really careful about applying new rules without a full analysis of its effects and their effects. Fundamentally, each new rule should create two potential gameplay decisions for every decision it takes away. Too many restrictive rules lead to the creation of one or two "metas". We see that now with voxel-less ships. Voxel armor is mostly obsolete due to ratio of damage absorptions. The reduction of hit points per material was strange, it should have been the opposite. If there was a problem with massive ships being invulnerable, then improve the largest weapon damage yields instead of nerfing armor. That seemed odd to me.
  7. It seems to me that many of the issues with gameplay arise from a root cause: A split in philosophy in how players are supposed to act. (Open vs. Guardrails) Movement: Open world claim: Go anywhere, fly anywhere Guardrail philosophy: Limit speed to 30k to promote a feeling of "vastness" Natural philosophy: If you go too fast, you can't slow down and miss your destination or make a crater By using a guardrail, a whole new set of side effects come into play for PvP, which then requires a whole new round of guardrails (top speed per core size) Also the original reason for having the 30K limit pretty much went out the window with introduction of warp drives. Mining: Open World claim: Mine on any planet or asteroid Guardrail: You have to maintain your mining units every few days with calibration to force people to participate regularly Natural: Land based territory warfare. If you can't defend it you lose it. Side effect of guardrail: Requires an all-in effort, which is a commitment of personal time. It is an ultimatum of sorts, and ultimatums more often fail than succeed or, at the least, lowers morale. Economics: Open world claim: There is a player economy Guardrails: bots and schematics Natural: prices move according to real supply and demand The reason that the natural approach didn't work is that there wasn't a natural supply or demand curve supporting it at the time. If PvP ever becomes a real thing with territory warfare, then the demand curve will take care of itself. The original concept of schematics was to force people to rely on other people to buy parts or elements. The problem with that approach in 0.23 was the idea of "force the players" to act a certain way. Territory Open world claim: land warfare to control tiles Guardrail: everything is in a safe zone and taxed Natural: fight for what is yours The problems with the current situation: a. There is not much difference between one tile and the next. The mineral extraction values are tightly controlled to be within a certain range. b. The tax on tiles make it so expensive to maintain, it really isn't worth fighting for compared to just moving to another tile (with the exception of T4/T5 but those are too rare for generalized war) c. Once you own a tile, the extraction rates for T4 are almost the same as T1. I have collected 800 kilotons of T4 ore in just a few weeks once I found a set of tiles and got rare mining units. And you wonder why prices for high tier ores are so low. This was not the original intent of having different tiers at all. My scrap needs are satisfied for a while. d. There is is only one weak strategic value to a tile and that is distance to a market. A strategic value is the control of or access to something larger than itself. ( A river, a deep water port, safe passage to somewhere else, railroad endpoint, recharge point, repair depot, bonus nexus, etc.) again, guardrails on top of guardrails. It is a patchwork of limits with officially sanctioned exceptions. Bottom Line: Open world games need to use incentives to encourage behaviors, not guardrails and hard rules. People who are attracted to the open world concept are inherently turned off by guardrails.
  8. With all this uncertainty about the future of my efforts, I am mothballing my stuff and cutting back my time spent on DU to the bare minimum. If this goes on too long, my interest will start gravitating to other options for my daily attention: back to EVE check out No Man's Sky try out Elden Ring or one of the many other options out there I think the biggest shock to my expectations was the announcement of this being the last major update before actual game release. I kept playing from hope. This announcement tells me there will never be land-based territory warfare. That is not a thing you can add after a release. Without land-based territory warfare you will not get a true demand curve for things in the market. There is no skin in the game for space territories. Owning a spot in space is no more important than having a calendar on the wall of your favorite thing to stare at. With a release announcement in the current state, it puts a huge amount of pressure on Athena to make massive injections of fun. I'm sure it will be fun for a short time while people explore the new mechanics, but long term? The solutioning approach to gameplay issues seems to be on the myopic side. Using the approach of "what is the minimal change we can make to address the problem" results in some strange side effects that often make the original problem worse or create a new problem. For example, having an unlimited amount of missions between two points makes no sense and is ripe for abuse. This feels like a "yes boss, we fixed that problem, now lets fix the next one". That is the problem with checklist mentality vs. a craftsman mentality where you take pride in your work and dive deep into truly understanding the situation. Going back to first principles and and really looking at ongoing motivations from each participant's point of view in a scenario is really the only way to go.
  9. Wow, that brings back some memories. Nothing like Pink Floyd for some deep philosophy. 🙂 Problem is that even if everyone "restarts" at the same place, within a month the front runners will be so far ahead that they are actually behind you (possibly shooting at you)
  10. so what is wrong with having a few rich people? They add character to the game. This obsession with fairness is not natural. I am not rich by any means, but I don't mind if others are, as they are either wonderful allies or a goal worthy of bringing down. This isn't the kind of game where you have a score. What is the actual need for a "level set" that is driving the wipe requests?
  11. Indeed, human nature for most people is that they like an occasional fight with other real people, but not a protracted one. Too many negative feelings to go on for long time. War for most people is for negotiation, not hate. The natural trend is then for short wars and longer peace. In other games with PvP, peace broke out and the players got bored and the game died. (Life is Fuedal) So that is why you need 50% PvE, .... because NPC bots wont get tired of being the bad guy.
  12. I don't see why I have to go to a 3rd party solution for what should be in the game. I don't trust outside software as it hasn't always been tested and may have strange side effects. One of which may be to trigger the EQU8 anti-cheat system and then I get banned. No thanks. Also it isn't just me. If we want to have decently sized PvP population in space wars, then it should be fun out of the box.
  13. Industrial Suggestions: 1. On one of the interviews with NQ, the NQ person was surprised that the host had 1200 transfer units in his factory. I suspect that number (which seems big to me too) is due to the limits on how many input/output ports exists on containers and industrial equipment. If the current limit went from 10 to 15 (or 16 if you are a hex kind of guy), then there would be much less need for transfer units. I suppose early on it was part of the design to encourage players to find clever ways around these limitations, but the side effect is extra server load and more complicated factories. 2. Add a feature in transfer units to move by a ratio or percentage of the source containers qty. It would simplify things greatly if one could split the contents between two containers about evenly (or some other ratio) rather than just being limited to an absolute amount maintain limit. Why do I want to do this? I need more than 10 links to the materials inside the container without starving one side or the other. I don't know if this is possible in Lua, but many people don't have the time or inclination (willingness to deal with debug headaches) to learn a new programming language.
  14. To give more detail on a better PvP experience: Provide the option to have a visual HUD interface for the gunner seat to be able to target and see weapons fire and damage effects in 3rd person view. There is a lot of 3-D location context that you can't get from a list of numbers. Targeting ships that you are heading towards but not the closest in the list is one example. ....................... As far as the upcoming rebalancing, having voxel honeycomb armor should have a role, keep using Core Stress for extreme cases but not for a typical situation. Being able to specify general location of targets would be cool, so you can try to take out the engines only. Then voxel armor could protect vital areas as a design tradeoff. If that is too hard, then specify from a list of [general attack (as default), shield, core, engines, weapons, inventory, control seat, adjustors, brakes] as a priority damage goal for weapons fire. .......................... Also I know there is a filter for inventory but it would also be convenient to be able to sort by type (then within that, by name) without filtering. (I would have that as my default setting)
  15. Another thought is to improve the asteroid mining experience. - I understand the purpose and need for multiple stages of discovery, but having 5 steps instead of 4 crosses the searching experience over from "immersive" to annoying. It just isn't worth the time and repetition for the small amount of ore that is in the asteroid. Double their size and triple (or more) the amount of ore inside. 1. Make it worth the effort 2. take longer to mine everything - thus allowing more time for pirates to show up 3. create behavioral content by needing to set up defenses to protect your ship while underground - could be a way to test out surface-to-air-space based combat. 4. because the defenses would be deployed in one place for the duration of the mining op, they should be strong enough give the pirates a good fight. After all, the pirates can always run away. - Perhaps allow organizations to set up a base on asteroids with limited rights, but the ability to defend itself from strangers (even when offline). The locations would still be public (since they are broadcast) but now they have teeth. Once the ore is gone, the asteroid could be used as a fuel or parts & repair depot.
  16. - mining units : it would be great to have lights on them so I can see status without having to open them up. red: something is wrong .. container is full, efficiency is at zero, links are broken, etc. yellow: mining unit is operating but it outside the stable calibration time window and efficiency is declining green: mining unit is operating normally within the calibration time window (these are the ones I don't have to open up) - industry: similar to above, add a yellow light to show that it stopped production due to reaching the maintain limit, but nothing is wrong - using ship maneuver tool on space stations. Reduce the boarding range or be more accurate using the actual cross section to determine if I am actually boarded when standing on space station surface. - PvP: see explosions and weapons fire (laser beams, missile trails, railgun streaks, etc.) from external view. Hard to fly and fire a small fighter craft using remote and watch the effects at the same time. Constant switching screens with insert. Maybe I'm doing something wrong but it feels very clunky - seems like a undergrad college project interface, not a multimillion dollar game, lol. Thanks!
  17. I suppose I didn't explain myself properly. I am not talking about the people who are aware this rule exists. I think it is a great rule and will really benefit the congestion around markets. The scenario I am referring to are the players who have drifted away from the game (thus not paying attention to any announcements / news/ etc.) but have built some amazing ships and buildings in the past. Many people I know (myself included) have disappeared for weeks on end or months due to life circumstances. During that time I wasn't sure I would be interested in coming back. Recently I only came back due to the reduction of taxes on tiles, but I haven't kept up on details of other events. My point is that the "hibernating" players should get a chance to know their stuff is about to be repossessed and put on the curb for anyone to take. Some people would see that loss and be discouraged from starting over, and the game ecosystem would lose out on a substantial creative talent. (some of those ships are truly amazing - did you see that space bacon-burger?)
  18. One thing to remember is that all people are not equal in the creativity and perseverance to make massive beautiful ships. To draw more future players, the artistry that these folks have created is golden. I showed my 14-year old son what can be done in Dual Universe and he got interested in joining the game. He doesn't get the draw of industry yet or PvP, but he can see what is possible. However, once people who have drifted away from the game with the possibility of returning someday see that their hard work of months was claimed by some one who happened to wander by... well the DU ecosystem will have lost a shining beacon of creativity forever. Please, please @NQ devs ... send some emails or at least somehow get in touch with the owners of these ships. Extend the initial deadline to more than 7 days. Everything in this world runs on a 30-day notice, so imagine the shock of losing so much work just because real life got a bit crazy for a little while. Next round of notices can be 7 days, but not the first! Not nice NQ.
  19. That's a really good point. I started thinking about that after I posted. Agreed that if a powerful entity held on to it too long it would get too strong and get out of reach of all the other groups, causing the game to darken into dystopia. We would have to wait for a new star to arise and save civilization from collapse. Some structural force needs to be in place to prevent that: In the real worlds these are the kinds of things that weaken the leader: 1. Civil war 2. Corruption 3. Loss of interest in leadership 4. The others band together to take down the tyrant In this case, there might be a few options: A. The longer you stay, the heavier you get, eventually you can't lift off the surface anymore and have to resurrect on Sanctuary for a slow recovery. B. You can only visit for one stint per time period due to risk of radiation poisoning, and if you leave you can't come back for 10 days. C. There are multiple moons and an org could only participate on one of them as a selection from leadership.
  20. Before beta. Sometimes people go away for a while and come back. Some people just can't stay away forever and are jonesing for a fix of the unleashed creativity in this realm even if there are toxic plants here.
  21. First of all a big thank you for lowering tile taxes. The game is now playable again and I hope to see more old timers like me coming back. So, onward: 1. New player industrial experience: - for industry, remove the need to go on a scavenger hunt for schematics for lowest level everything (when learning the game, who wants to be frustrated by not being able to make screws and pipes?) - Keep schematics for Uncommon, Advanced, Rare, and Exotic (provide unmovable default schematics for all basic level items that comes with each industrial machinery) 2. Mining now is more practical and I like it, but I do miss the teamwork that goes along with mega deposits. I haven't checked out asteroid mining yet, but if mega deposits don't exist there, consider having some to excite the guild into grabbing a big chunk before rival guilds show up. (PvP space only) 3. Long term PvP reasons to fight: A. Comradery B. Adrenaline C. Power D. Pride F. Access to content that is not available to lesser warriors For example, have a wandering curated moon that is a small paradise - very visually appealing (Sanctuary used to be very nice until the sky turned a smog orange, then I never went back) - have some wandering animals - full PvP on the surface and surface-to-air defenses can be build on tiles - while standing on the surface, each player gets a 200 talent points per minute instead of the normal 90 (goes back down to 90 if logged out) - there can be only a limited number of people on the planet before the training benefit drops (say up to 300 people = 200 point/min, 301- 500 people = 150 points/min, and 501 - 1000 people = 120 point/min) - the idea of the population limit is to encourage a "king of the hill" type fight - people who gain access will need to defend their gains from challengers. - unique minerals to be mined that act a super fuel or shield boosters, or accelerated mining tool boost This paradise moon should slowly meander through space to prevent a giant flotilla of space stations from sprouting up around it. - there can also be a dark secret (like it really isn't a moon but an ancient alien ship) - if this is a successful idea, there could be multiple moons with different benefits (instead of a training boost, then a daily login stipend boost)
  22. True, I believe the game is incorrectly designed for fairness of results, not fairness of opportunity.
  23. I think the concept of fairness is misunderstood by young people and the devs. To be fair means to be equal for everyone in terms of opportunity, not results. It is a subtle but huge difference. Conversion of opportunity to good results requires intelligence, awareness, hard work, and persistence. Some people tend to think fairness is equal reward... that is not the case and shouldn't be the case. If a game was completely 100% fair in results, then it would be boring as hell to play. Challenges are what make things interesting and worth playing. However, there are different kinds of challenges. 1. Natural challenges: Difficulties due to events naturally occurring in an ecosystem. Conflict over desirable, scarce resources is one example. People generated challenges. 2. Artificial challenges: Pointless busywork. Schematics for basic items like screws/pipes and mining unit calibration are great examples of pointless busy-work. To devs: Be fair in opportunity but don't try so hard to make sure all participants get a medal for showing up. People only respect a reward if they have to think and sweat a little for it in a meaningful way. Concrete suggestions: A. PvP should be fighting for something desirable other than bragging rights (that gets old quick) B. Mining & Industry should be able to make lots of ships cheaply - so they can be destroyed in battle. Pretty bookshelf ships don't have lasting appeal. Maybe partial insurance? C. The economy relies on a full player base, right now the game is barely hanging on to a few hopeful players - the economy needs NPC buyers to raise money when real player population is low. Ditch the NPC buyers when the player base comes back. Simple formula: num_npc_buyers = 1000/ (1 + avg_num_players_online) D. The reliance on players to build sights worth visiting has a fatal flaw. When there are few players, all the planets are barren. There should be some cities or something to visit in far-away planets. People travel in real life to get exposed to different cultures. The sameness of everything is a real downer after you have traveled for hours to get there. Terrain differences don't count. Anyways, DU has a fantastic code base just begging for someone with gameplay design wisdom to take charge. Design by committee doesn't work by the way.
  24. Ore prices are low because no one is building anything, so no demand. No one is building anything because nothing is getting destroyed in battle. There are no battles because there is nothing worth fighting for. Something worth fighting for is access to more game content. Like a stargate to another system perhaps? Other potential ideas: - Power to give other players a reduction in a hindrance (aka calibration reset time, other limits) - Free rare schematics - Decorative clothing or special ship color/decorative effects - Free warp cores, fuel, etc. - Access to a lost planet that no one else can go to - Access to isolated PvE content - A castle on a hill with goats
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