Dixiii

Updates? Hehe. How about at least fixes? They removed graphics post processing smoothing filter in February. That caused many problems: nothing visible in the night, too bright light sources, bloom do not work anymore, orange blinking lamps on factory units looks exactly like red passive lamp, and many many others. There was a lot of complains in discord, and they promised some fixes. I returned to game recently, in September, to see how it goes. To my disappointment - it's still same bad, and worse, since almost everyone gone, and as several people said about 50-60 players left in the game.

They also do nothing about selling DAC's. They exist, they can be used to pay for game, but no shop to buy them, no way to safe trade them. Why so? It's a proven method of attracting more players to the game (PLEX in EVE, gold in Albion and so on). Same time they do strange thing, like adding new planets. Who need them? Were existing overcrowded? Were prices for resources too high? Absence of high tier resources? Answer is no for all above. Doing some other steps, that community propose, and attracting more players to make the game really mmo, and not almost single player, is much more important.

It’s still unclear for my, why NQ no trying to actively fix situation with DU. They have: - good working engine - differently looking planets with various environments - elements building system - ship building - nice graphics (for now nice only daytime) To make it looks acceptable at nights they need to return smoothing filter used in 2022, or fix it another way. - flight system - LUA script system Quite a few well made systems. They just miss easy understandable and reasonably fun goals in the game. About today’s game balance, and typical for mmorpg goal of "earing some money". Online population is quite low, so chances to sell something to others players are very low. Especially for newcomers. To earn at least some quanta (in-game currency), there are only two ways. Do up to 3 flight challenges once a day for some small amount of quanta. Or do transport missions that are boring waste of time. Primary way of earning quanta, by selling Tier1 resources to NPC was up at the day of game release in September 2022 for about two months, but was removed (*) by NQ. This also caused major DU population loss. (*) I know it was not technically removed, rather not updated. They had NPC vendors, buying T1 resource at fixed price of 25 quanta/L, in every market, with rather big volume, but still limited. When those buy orders were fulfilled they never refreshed them, neither introduced something new. Currently there are no easy and gameplay interesting ways to earn quanta. As a proof of that I see some complains on forums and in Discord, that tile rent fee should be less, schematics should cost less and so on. This apparently point on a surprising to veteran players fact, that newcomers and returned casual players run out of money too fast. Why not to add, refresh some other ways to earn quanta? 1. Refresh old NPC buy orders at 25q/L of Tier1 resources. If you want to make it a bit more challenging – add them on all planets, except Alioth, or on more distant planets only. This will not kill/break economics, since due to degradation of online population there is almost no economics. Only thing that still can be sold on the market are Tier2+ resources, still at very low prices. The way of adding T1 buy orders is simple and easy. If you think it’s too boring, let’s looks at next. 2. Instead of basic resources, create NPC buy orders for various elements. To make some diversity and add some challenge, make those orders last for limited time. Just for sample, Basic Atmospheric Engine L was selling for about 400k (we use prices of times when the game had still a lot of players, let’s say November 2022). So set an NPC order for it, depending on location, 120% of 400k on Alioth, 200% on Jago. Will look like this: NPC buy order: Basic Atmospheric Engine L, Jago, every market, price 800k, qty:100’000, last one week. Prices should clearly be profitable. Current T1 ore price is around 8-9q/L, while NPC was offering 25. This will not be so plain and simple as selling Tier1 ores to NPC, but if orders will be random, will adds some fun of building items, or just buying them on Alioth market and transport. This will depend on random, since for mentioned above engine, it might be easier just to buy, deliver, and sell it, while for some non basic hover engine situation will be quite different. Current system, where players are expected to waste a lot of real time, flying missions to distant planets, same time adding more fun and targets to PvP players clearly do not work well. Look on almost absent game population!

Your 1.4 joke update is not funny at all. It's just looks stupid, and is a waste of time.

It might be fun to try to guess, but the prize is completely useless. Because it can not be converted back to Pure Gold. In whole DU carefully avoiding of allowing players to get anything valuable from any shiny things they've found in the world. Be it lots of honeycombs, or abandoned factory with full crates of T1 components, there is no way to reprocess honeycombs or parts into basic resources or Pure metals.

Main problem, from my point of view, that it's hard to pick side of the game that needs more attention 🤪. I'd vote for new features, that allow some action. But fixing bugs and improving interface (visibility of buffs goes here) is also very important. I have a feeling that DU was released in semi-unfinished state. To my surprise and disappointment I see not enough NQ activity in last four months after release. Good team of programmers and game designers should be able to implement many more missing features and fix bugs much faster.

A lot of players can be pessimistic now, as online numbers are quite low. NQ can sit almost idle and earn a little - subscription money from new players. But think it's a wrong way for NQ, since base of the game - graphics, engine, already created base mechanics for a lot of things are good enough. DU just missing some easy to understand and not hard to add game activities, like mentioned before PvE in a safe space vs ships and turrets. Or even easier: randomly generated temporary market buy orders at high price, with some announce. For sample: "Aphelia corporation buying up to 100'000 of Basic L size engine on Theoma Market 3, price 500k per item, for next 24 hours". Will add some fun and action to the game for sure.

Lets ask about a small fix first. Current game mission running interface is not friendly related to cooperative mission running. If mission packs will be automatically claimed to user name and have names generated as: Large[or VeryLarge] to <mission end planet>, this will make cooperative gameplay easier. Now lets evaluate current situation: In whole, for now, the only way to gain Quanta in game is missions. Since auction trades and direct trades is only Quanta transfer between players. Courier missions are very boring gameplay activity. Most players trying to optimize it, by using dedicated freighter pilot, and loading a lot of mission packs into one ship, while only taking high profit long distance freights. Leave this activity as is, since it works for now. But, game activities, that bring Quanta in game, should be more interesting and diverse, be they active or more passive! The only alternative that we were promised some time ago are PvE missions. Important part – we are waiting for Missions on planet ground and in atmosphere, not many su away in space. You have nice looking planets, that probably took a lot of effort to design, but the is no game activity to travel around those planets on low altitude. Distant space missions will be same useless for majority of casual players, same as current distant asteroids and wrecks. NQ already destroyed second game activity that was giving players Quanta and fun - selling T1 ore to market bots. This action drive at least half of game population away from the game. Restoring this will not break economics, it will just makes the game more playable to larger audience. To make it more fun, you can restore bots only on distant planets, or make ore prices range from Alioth dependent. In whole NQ has very solid game base, made of planets, crafting, flying, ship design, combat. But they lack all fun and entertaining game activities, that attract actual major player base of casual and semi-casual players to the game. Playing DU, where there are about 100 or less crafters online, who craft everything for themselves is not fun. There are too few players. I do not think that objections "it's a sandbox, leave DU as is" are valid. With proposed improvements, and added various activities DU will be same sandbox, but much more fun to play, and will attract larger audience. MMORPG with so few players like now, will not stay alive for a long time.

Tiles should never be locked/kept for free. Only exception: one HQ tile for same 90days, only when: - an account is inactive - the tile was active for a month at least - there are a lot of elements or voxels on it. Means it is actually an HQ tile, where a player have his factory or/and architectural buildings. All other tiles should be paid weekly 500k. If not paid they go inactive, with -500k balance. After another week they become free, if not paid 1M at least, to restore positive balance of 500k. Why? Because tiles are limited resource, and should not be kept away from the game and other players for free. The only way to hold a tile should be 500k/weeky with very little exception for saving HQ, that is hard to move or disassemble/reassemble. In whole I think, that current resource mining design with tiles rent is bad and should be remade completely differently, closer to old times SWG mining. But this is a lot of work, and I doubt will be done ever, or any soon.

There are zillion games for solo pvp. Making team ships better is new and nice idea. StarCitizen is a good example.

Good news. Could be nice to know, about possible dates, like "you'll see some new planet next month, and PvE on test same time". Or when?

The released DU in unfinished state with lots of bug and mission features. But playable. I think majority of players, me included, expected that most bugs and some interface polish will be done in nearest months. Almost nothing, just some new bugs to replace some old bugs. We really expected more content - any kind of PvE vs flying ships, on planets and maybe in space. Nothing. More diverse and active way of earning some game currency by selling T1 ores to npc gone. Not modified, updated, tuned some way to be more fun (like price depends on a distance from Alioth), just gone. Lots of people quit because of that. Courier missions is most boring thing you can imagine. Make those mission more cooperative gameplay by removing invisible personal tags from courier packages - also no. There are almost none easy understandable activities for new comers, that can give them any source of income.

I have more and more doubt that this game will turn better and become more active in nearest months. After two patches there is a complete silence. No news, no announces of next patches and features. Nothing. Same time, I see more and more claimed tiles turning inactive and fading away. Same time market activity falls. Because currently there are almost none interesting teamplay activities. Various means of T1 resource gathering and selling it to market bots (even distant bots on Teoma/Jago) gone. With word "for economy balance". The only income of quanta, left in game, are boring transport missions, that are mostly "waste a few hours of real life time watching your ship flying in space at max speed". Nothing else! I do not count 100k login reward, and 300k challenge that is same everyday and can't be considered fun activity anymore. This is too few for a mmorpg game to keep it alive. DU has nice graphics, interesting crafting, complex ship building. But all those features should be supported by easy understandable and fun to do everyday activities like PvE mob shooting, searching something on planets (for sample: same wrecks hunting, but on planets, and with any PvE fights on arrival, even with turrets). Else, freshly arrived players from Steam loose interest very fast, since they see no easy to do activities.

Old SWG mining model was much better. Ore deposits had similar distribution (big medium and small spots), also need to be scanned, but was temporary and respawned after being mined out or in several days. Something similar, modified closer to DU mechanics should work better. Because current resource mining on tiles is very boring. You either have some good tiles and do boring calibrations weekly, and have no idea what to do with all Quanta you gain. Or have almost no chance to claim any good tiles since they all taken. Same and worse problem with T5 alien resources. The only big PvP guild easily denied everyone's access to everything in T5, warp beacons included. This does not looks healthy for the game. There is no competition, nor any pvp activity or conflicts. One guild has it all. Rest of game audience have to play without tier 5 at all. Does not looks as a good game design.

It's getting boring. Feature, everyone missing mostly - any kind of PvE combat, and it still absent and even not announced at all. Online numbers are getting less and less, seems mostly fans of factory building games remains, but this leads to a problem: almost no one buying stuff on the market, since they make everything by them self. Introduction of Talemai made things active an entertaining for a few days, but not for a long.

Just tell us, when PvE vs ships will appear. Majority of people waiting for that...

Simple solution - when BOTs appear, they just buy all current orders that are 24.75h and less, at offered price. No one get extra money, no chance to get instantly rich by doing buy-sell-repeat. It looks like plan A in original post. And I see no problems at all. NQ said already: BOTs will return some day. Those who hold ore will sell it at 25. Those who have active orders are ready to sell at their price.