Daemortia

Hey Noveans! 
 
If you want to react on the Developer team reply to the Core Slots limitation Community feedback, please discuss it below!
 
Best regards,
Nyzaltar.
 
 
 

I think this answers essentially all of the concerns raised yesterday.
 
Plenty of personal core slots for mining and decent sized base.
Plenty of org slots for community projects.

Thank you for listening to us!

I think this answers essentially all of the concerns raised yesterday.
 
Plenty of personal core slots for mining and decent sized base.
Plenty of org slots for community projects.

Thank you for listening to us!

Following the discussion around yesterday’s devblog, the community asked us to look over our figures to see what we can reliably sustain in terms of construct limits. In this communication we want to take the opportunity to outline what we have decided to change from the previous devblog as well as to explain some decisions such as the mechanics of construct abandonment and our reasons for arriving at our previous figures. These proposed changes are still being developed by our design team and we welcome your continued feedback on this major update.
 
Organization Constructs Slots versus Personal Construct Slots
 
There appeared to be some confusion in yesterday’s devblog between organization and personal construct slots. Personal construct slots are always independent of organization construct slots. 
 
Before outlining the details of the construct slots, it’s important to note that our position on excess construct abandoning mechanics. For the avoidance of doubt, when this change is implemented in the Panacea release. No construct will be subject to abandonment through the following mechanics for at least the first month after release.
 
This is to ensure as smooth a release as possible, and to allow our players who want to specialize in the architectural gameplay loop or the collecting of wonderful constructs, some time to accrue talent points and to adapt.
 
Personal construct slots:
 
Can only be used for constructs in the player’s ownership. Can not be assigned to organizations. Are non-transferable to other players. Are gained through talents independently of organization construct slots.  
Organization construct slots:
 
Can be assigned to any organization, regardless of membership. Can not be assigned to players. Once assigned to an organization, can not be repealed from that organization for 30 days. Once repealed, the organization will have until the next bi-weekly construct check to ensure that it meets its construct slot requirements. If that bi-weekly construct check determines that the organization has more constructs than it has slots, the organization will receive a warning and be required to ensure the constructs count is brought down to its capacity. If the next bi-weekly construct check following that warning determines that the organization still has more constructs than it has slots, random constructs from that organization will be abandoned until the organization is back in compliance with its slot capacity. All this means that even if you go over the available slot count, you have at the very minimum 14 days to correct it.  
We are keeping the random nature of selection for construct abandonment. This is because as game developers we know that if there exists a way for a game system to be broken, our players will find it. In this particular instance, given the gravity of the impact, we feel that it’s important to protect the game and our community from abuse, and the randomization is an effort to do that.
 
We hope this clears up some of the lingering questions that were remaining yesterday.
 
Player allocated slot amounts, why so low?
 
Following internal research, we determined that currently per active player there are approximately 25 constructs in the game at the present time.
 
Therefore we believed that having a total of 42 slots per player would have been enough to provide an overhead for the community to be able to distribute the available slots amongst each other and support each other's projects.
 
We do value our players and recognise that some of you own considerably more constructs than that average, and though we want to encourage collaboration and community, we don’t want to constrain those players that prefer to go it alone.
 
And, we’ve heard you. 
 
We are looking into an alternative approach that we feel will meet the majority of the community needs while also meeting our requirements for the long term sustainability and balancing of Dual Universe.
 
Talent Changes
 
We are going to increase the core allowances. In yesterday's devblog we proposed a figure of 42 total constructs. We are going to increase that through the introduction of talent changes that will require considerable time investment but keep the door open to players that wish to own many constructs.
 
The new talents are separated into three tiers, increasing in expense significantly per tier.
 
The new figures are (subject to change)

For personal construct slots:
 
The base personal construct slots will be increased from 2 to 10 slots without any talents. The first tier personal construct talent will grant 3 slots per level (up from 2), for a total of 15. The second tier personal construct talent will grant 5 slots per level (up from 1), for a total of 25. The new third tier personal construct talent will grant 10 slots per level, for a total of 50.  
This will allow for a maximum personal construct limit of 100, once all the talents are fully acquired.
 
For organization construct slots:
 
The base organization construct slots will grant 10 slots without any talents. The new first tier organization construct talent will grant 3 slots per level, for a total of 15. The new second tier organization construct talent will grant 5 slots per level, for a total of 25. The new third tier organization construct talent will grant 10 slots per level, for a total of 50.  
This will allow for a maximum organization construct limit of 100, once all the talents are fully acquired.
 
The combination of the two will allow a determined player to reach the maximum number of construct slots that we can reasonably maintain. This will take substantial time investment in order to be a specialization within the game. 
 
We will still be refunding the following Legate based talents:
 
Organization Construct Management Organization Construct Management Specialization Advanced Organization Construct Management Specialization  
These talents will be buffed to collectively increase the maximum ceiling for the organization's construct limit to 1625.
 
If you have already trained Advanced Organization Construct Management Specialization to level 5, by reinvesting the refunded talent points, we estimate that you will be able to reach at least a construct slot capacity total of 80. Further, given the grace period of at least 1 month following the Panacea release, we hope that those amongst our players who value their construct capacity can increase it to a comfortable level of approximately 125 construct slots before needing to make decisions on which constructs to keep.
 
We want to thank you all for your feedback and take this opportunity to recognize the passion you our community have for the future of this game. We would love to hear how you feel about the new changes outlined above in this forum.
 

Several thoughts:

1) Using personal orgs to bypass personal limits was never intended.
This change seems like a huge step in the right direction. The general thought is that this is the direction that was intended from the very beginning. However...

2) Mining Units significantly increased the required core counts.
I am primarily a solo player. I would consider myself very conservative with my core count usage:
2 static core for my base (1 factory, 1 parking lot) 1 pocket ship 1 warp shuttle 2 haulers 1 available core slot for setting down blueprints for sale With the addition of Mining Units, I had to either spend lots of talent points or use an org to hold all the extra cores needed for those.
 
3) Large projects, ship builders, etc.
While I currently do not have a large runway, museum, or elaborate headquarters, I do know several people that do. The proposed changes would effectively destroy most of the ship displays and decorative builds that so many people use to sell their constructs. It would eliminate a lot of the places that people enjoy visiting.

Final Thoughts...
At it's heart, this is good idea.
But in its current proposal, it's far too restrictive and does not account for the dramatic increase in required cores brought on by the mining update. Could this increase have caused the need for adjusting the limitations?

Please, either significantly increase the counts provided and/or increase personal limits.
Not doing so would seriously harm the players who have put time and effort into this game and make this world feel alive.

Several thoughts:

1) Using personal orgs to bypass personal limits was never intended.
This change seems like a huge step in the right direction. The general thought is that this is the direction that was intended from the very beginning. However...

2) Mining Units significantly increased the required core counts.
I am primarily a solo player. I would consider myself very conservative with my core count usage:
2 static core for my base (1 factory, 1 parking lot) 1 pocket ship 1 warp shuttle 2 haulers 1 available core slot for setting down blueprints for sale With the addition of Mining Units, I had to either spend lots of talent points or use an org to hold all the extra cores needed for those.
 
3) Large projects, ship builders, etc.
While I currently do not have a large runway, museum, or elaborate headquarters, I do know several people that do. The proposed changes would effectively destroy most of the ship displays and decorative builds that so many people use to sell their constructs. It would eliminate a lot of the places that people enjoy visiting.

Final Thoughts...
At it's heart, this is good idea.
But in its current proposal, it's far too restrictive and does not account for the dramatic increase in required cores brought on by the mining update. Could this increase have caused the need for adjusting the limitations?

Please, either significantly increase the counts provided and/or increase personal limits.
Not doing so would seriously harm the players who have put time and effort into this game and make this world feel alive.

Several thoughts:

1) Using personal orgs to bypass personal limits was never intended.
This change seems like a huge step in the right direction. The general thought is that this is the direction that was intended from the very beginning. However...

2) Mining Units significantly increased the required core counts.
I am primarily a solo player. I would consider myself very conservative with my core count usage:
2 static core for my base (1 factory, 1 parking lot) 1 pocket ship 1 warp shuttle 2 haulers 1 available core slot for setting down blueprints for sale With the addition of Mining Units, I had to either spend lots of talent points or use an org to hold all the extra cores needed for those.
 
3) Large projects, ship builders, etc.
While I currently do not have a large runway, museum, or elaborate headquarters, I do know several people that do. The proposed changes would effectively destroy most of the ship displays and decorative builds that so many people use to sell their constructs. It would eliminate a lot of the places that people enjoy visiting.

Final Thoughts...
At it's heart, this is good idea.
But in its current proposal, it's far too restrictive and does not account for the dramatic increase in required cores brought on by the mining update. Could this increase have caused the need for adjusting the limitations?

Please, either significantly increase the counts provided and/or increase personal limits.
Not doing so would seriously harm the players who have put time and effort into this game and make this world feel alive.

Several thoughts:

1) Using personal orgs to bypass personal limits was never intended.
This change seems like a huge step in the right direction. The general thought is that this is the direction that was intended from the very beginning. However...

2) Mining Units significantly increased the required core counts.
I am primarily a solo player. I would consider myself very conservative with my core count usage:
2 static core for my base (1 factory, 1 parking lot) 1 pocket ship 1 warp shuttle 2 haulers 1 available core slot for setting down blueprints for sale With the addition of Mining Units, I had to either spend lots of talent points or use an org to hold all the extra cores needed for those.
 
3) Large projects, ship builders, etc.
While I currently do not have a large runway, museum, or elaborate headquarters, I do know several people that do. The proposed changes would effectively destroy most of the ship displays and decorative builds that so many people use to sell their constructs. It would eliminate a lot of the places that people enjoy visiting.

Final Thoughts...
At it's heart, this is good idea.
But in its current proposal, it's far too restrictive and does not account for the dramatic increase in required cores brought on by the mining update. Could this increase have caused the need for adjusting the limitations?

Please, either significantly increase the counts provided and/or increase personal limits.
Not doing so would seriously harm the players who have put time and effort into this game and make this world feel alive.

Several thoughts:

1) Using personal orgs to bypass personal limits was never intended.
This change seems like a huge step in the right direction. The general thought is that this is the direction that was intended from the very beginning. However...

2) Mining Units significantly increased the required core counts.
I am primarily a solo player. I would consider myself very conservative with my core count usage:
2 static core for my base (1 factory, 1 parking lot) 1 pocket ship 1 warp shuttle 2 haulers 1 available core slot for setting down blueprints for sale With the addition of Mining Units, I had to either spend lots of talent points or use an org to hold all the extra cores needed for those.
 
3) Large projects, ship builders, etc.
While I currently do not have a large runway, museum, or elaborate headquarters, I do know several people that do. The proposed changes would effectively destroy most of the ship displays and decorative builds that so many people use to sell their constructs. It would eliminate a lot of the places that people enjoy visiting.

Final Thoughts...
At it's heart, this is good idea.
But in its current proposal, it's far too restrictive and does not account for the dramatic increase in required cores brought on by the mining update. Could this increase have caused the need for adjusting the limitations?

Please, either significantly increase the counts provided and/or increase personal limits.
Not doing so would seriously harm the players who have put time and effort into this game and make this world feel alive.

15 Personal Constructs + 25 org assignable constructs=40 max constructs with maxed talents for a solo player.
 
Things I'd like addressed:
Why introduce MU's if you're just going to reduce our core count when they take at least one core per tile?
 
What incentive is there now to design and build ships/statics for sale?  People aren't going to buy them because they have core limits and we can't show them because we also have core limits.  How will I buy more of Tobi's ships if I don't have the core capacity?  Why would I try out Cobqlts PVP ships if I'm max cores?
 
Less builders/designers means less ships available means people will be less likely to risk their current ships to getting blown up at the hands of the PVP folks?
 
Less PVP targets means less PVP for those folks....are they supposed to start running missions?
 
Who's going to design racers for Friday night races now?  Is the Dome going away because AngryDad has to decide between his hauler and the Dome core?
 
A lot of people have bought ships and now are expected to just disassemble all of those ships despite the quanta spent on them?
 
For a game that is strongest as a building game, this seems to be a big slap in the face for the builders.  Whether it's the revenue lost for the sellers or the creativity that's being stifled because we don't have any cores left to build with, this change will have chilling effects on all of us.

0.23 and What We Learned

In reading through the reactions from our community regarding the recent 0.23 update, we’ve gained some valuable insights. 

Before we talk about the changes we’ll make in our processes going forward, let’s get back to the fundamental reason behind the update itself. What we did in 0.23 is at the heart of the vision for a game where a society of players is interacting directly or indirectly with each other through an elaborate network of exchanges, cooperation, competition and markets.
 
As it was, the current state of the game consisted mostly of isolated islands of players playing in almost full autonomy. A single-player game where players happened to share the same game world but with little interactions.
 
It’s hard to imagine how the appeal could last for more than several months for most players once they feel they have “finished” the game. It is also a missed opportunity to try something of larger proportion, a society of players growing in a fully persistent virtual world. For this to work, you need more than isolated gameplay. Players need to have viable reasons to interact and need each other.
 
In many single-player space games, you have ways to make money, and the game then offers you ways to convert this money into whatever you need in the game to progress, mostly via markets. This is the state in which we should end up for Dual Universe once all the necessary ingredients are in place, You get into the game, you farm a bit of money in fun ways, and you buy more and more powerful ships, equipment, weapons, etc., to help your character grow. The difference is that here, the ships or equipment you buy have been made by other players, instead of the game company. On the surface and during the first hours of gameplay, to a new player it would look similar to any of those other space games, but it would in fact reveal itself to be much deeper once you spend a bit of time in the game. Everything you would do would be part of another player’s or organization’s plan, everything would have a meaning. And soon you would realize that you too could be part of the content creation and, somehow, drive the game in the direction you want.
 
In its current beta stage, DU doesn’t have enough ways for people to make money because we haven’t yet had the opportunity to implement all of the necessary features. There’s mining, of course. Trading is not as good as it will eventually be because markets are not really used to their full potential. As a consequence, players rightfully turned to a solo or small org autonomous game mode. 
 
We tried to nudge people out of this with the changes introduced in 0.23. While necessary, many players expressed that the changes of 0.23 came too soon because it lacked a variety of lucrative ways for people to make money outside of mining.

What We’ll Do Now
 
The vision expressed above still holds. We want people to consider going through the industry specialization only if they intend to become industrialists and not necessarily to sustain their individual needs; however, we understand that it’s too soon to press for intense specialized gameplay considering the lack of sources to earn money. 
 
Here’s our plan for now. We will modify the formula of the schematic prices to make it considerably more affordable for Tier 1 and still challenging and worth a commitment but less intense for anything Tier 2 or above. 
 
This will allow most factories focused on T1 to resume their activities rapidly while keeping an interesting challenge for higher tiers, spawning dedicated industrial facilities aiming at producing to sell on the markets. We will also reimburse players who have bought high-priced schematics since the launch of 0.23 (please give us some time since it may take a few days as we go through the logs).
 
We will keep monitoring the price of schematics to see if it makes sense to increase or decrease the costs. The right approach to set such a price would be to evaluate how much time it takes to recoup your investment by selling the products that the schematics allow to produce. It should be a few months so that the investment is a real commitment and it makes sense to plan for it.  We currently lack the metrics to properly assess this return on investment time. We need a player-driven market price for the components and a market price for the products to assess the profit made by each run of a schematic. This will come when the markets start to work as intended, and we can gather more data about them. 
 
Feedback and Testing

The release of 0.23 also taught us that we need improved ways to test new features, both internally and with community participation. The Upvote feature on the website was a good start, but it’s not enough. 
 
To address this, we have two courses of action that will be taken. The first will be to set up an open public test server, hopefully with shorter release cycles, for players to try out new features. This will also allow us to explore ideas and be more iterative. If all goes according to plan, this test server should be introduced for 0.24, the next release. It will mirror the content of the production server with regular updates to sync it. 
 
The second important initiative is to revise the role of the Alpha Team Vanguard (ATV), getting them more involved in early discussions about new features and the evolution of the game. We are still defining the framework, so more information will be released as available. 

What is to Come
 
In the short term, we will push a few corrections to improve 0.23, which include:
 
Ships will now stop (be frozen) when their core is destroyed in PvP, making them easier to catch. Element destruction will impact the restoration count only when it occurs through PvP, at least for now (not when the ship is colliding/falling as we want to avoid having players penalized simply for crashing their ships because they’re learning how to maneuver them, for example). Recycling of un-restorable elements through a recycler that will take an element as input and grant a small amount of the schematics required components as output.
The next major release is already in the making and will be about the mission system, a first step toward giving players more fun ways to earn quantas. We will reveal about it shortly so that we can get as much feedback as possible.
 
We also want to reassure you that the mission system is not the only answer to offering more varied ways to earn revenue in Dual Universe. Things like asteroid mining and mining units will be introduced in the next few months. 

This list is by no means complete, but should be a good jumping off point that gives players reasons to fight and to explore, opportunities for pirates, new ways of making money, and a plethora of other activities our creative community will think of even if we didn’t. 

That’s it for now! We want to thank you again for your support and patience as we progress along this beta road! See you soon in Dual Universe!

Want to discuss this announcement? Visit the thread linked below: