FerroSC
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Posts posted by FerroSC
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12 hours ago, Taelessael said:
Problem is players don't take everything, nobody wants the bits to a thousand novark speeders.
Why not just have a countdown start that trashes the construct X hours after the first salvage takes place? Once it's been salvaged it has a 12 hour cool down then *poof* it's gone for good. Now the salvage game play still exists and the construct is cleaned up for the rest of the folks. Seems pretty obvious.
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47 minutes ago, BlindingBright said:
So for me personally, having paid for an active subscription for over a year of beta... I feel like NQ is now holding my constructs and game progress hostage.
People might say this is a bit over dramatic, but I feel the exact same way. We are always reminded that this is a beta and "play the game you have, not the game you want" but when the devs won't be clear with what game you have, it's justifiable to feel like you feel. NQ: just put the info out there already and quit bullshittin' with folks limited free time they are using to play your game.
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5 hours ago, RugesV said:
Or do you feel you should be grandfathered in under the old price? I think there are very few things in life where your grandfathered in under an old set price.
Should be grandfathered in, especially considering they haven't launched yet.
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4 hours ago, blundertwink said:
FTUE is what will make or break this game
So what, we wipe every month so everyone has equal access to a market spot? Where does that rabbit hole end? How far ahead can an organization get after launch before they need to wipe again to let new players have a fair chance? By this metric, you might as well play sea of thieves and get a clean map and a shiny new boat every time you log in. Sorry, but new players shouldn't get prime real estate. It's just not a thing.
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3 hours ago, PotatoMart said:
- new players can not craft things to make profit from them, because they lack the skills and the prices are partly below production prices anyway (oversupply of items and ores)
This will be true for any new player with no skills regardless of a wipe or not. There is always a learning curve and barrier to entry into industry in an economy based mmo. Supply issues are fixes with materials depletion/element degradation and other burn mechanics and quanta sinks, not wiping the entire economy.
3 hours ago, PotatoMart said:- new players find it difficult to get good ore tiles
- new players have a harder time to get Quanta
- new players can only look for their home away from the markets
"Can't get ore tiles." Sure they can, join my org we got all the tiles they want.
-ore tiles are already limited and will be continually sought out. A wipe does nothing to help with this. I promise if they wipe and start over, my org would end up with better tiles and new players would likely have even less to choose from being that we have had nearly a year to learn these systems and develop strategy.
"Harder time earning quanta"? Nope.
-large orgs provide better earnings opportunities than a server full of freshly wiped accounts. Industry creates jobs, which is where new players get paid, so this point is also wrong.
"New players can't get the best real estate". This isn't limited to new players, it's part of the game.
-new players can look for homes wherever they want and tiles become available everyday. In any game where there is limited real estate, you have to work your way up to end game content of having the best real estate. Nobody is rolling 20 deep into a full loot PvP zone on day one expecting a W. End game content takes time. Primo location is end game content, not a given for every player. If every player deserved a plot next to a market, we would need a thousand markets, wouldn't we?
So as you can see, you have yet to provide one single thing where a new player is excluded from content because of the existence of more advanced players. If anything, you've proven how beneficial the established orgs are and given plenty of reasons why new players need established orgs just as much as the orgs need new players.
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2 hours ago, blazemonger said:
Not really, beta keys were perks and the cost of a pack was mostly coveringthe included DAC
I bought the founders pack because it had pets, collectibles and beta keys. I actually inquired about buying more beta keys that I could give away and was told no. The DACs werent even a factor in my decision. I am a multiple account player so i just let the subs renew on the credit card. The beta keys were one of the key selling points for the packs, not an after thought.
Regardless, your point was "when all these players who aren't paying leave the game their shit will be abandoned because they won't pay for subs". Right? I'm just trying to piece together the idea. Why are these beta key players not going to keep playing? And if they do quit en masse as you say would happen, Why would the remaining players not be able cannibalize their abandoned stuff? We got a dozen ships and players at the ready scouring for abandoned and forfeited constructs. I guarantee my crew isn't the only ones. Allowing these wrecks to be abandoned and litter the environment just creates more content: salvaging, scouting, hauling and potentially pvp engagements over constructs in dangerous places... all that potential content gets wiped for what? I don't understand. All content is player generated and there are many of those players on beta keys, yes, and many will likely not continue once the free ride ends, yes, but the fact remains all content is player generated, regardless of how many or how few players there are and how those players earn their game time. That's my point: to hamstring content creation at this point in the process is just kinda silly.
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22 minutes ago, blazemonger said:
Not really. a good portion of currently active, or inactive with assets in game, beta key characters...
Every beta key was paid for by way of a previous game purchase so this idea of "beta key freeloaders" is unfounded. Regardless of what those accounts have and what will happen to it I'd they fail to renew a sub, the gametime was still paid for somewhere by someone. Regardless of payment status, the players in the game currently are the only people generating content. That's indisputable. They aren't making content because of what NQ has done, they are creating in *spite* of the setbacks and changes NQ has provided. So to say "these players are so few they don't matter", which was the point of the comment I responded to, that statement is just not the whole story because the "so few beta players who don't matter" are in fact the only ones generating content and barring some significant additions to the game, these same players are the only ones that could provide any type of content on launch aside from "surface gather to build shitty speeder". I'm not making any argument for what they should/will/might do. I have no idea, but it seems with the previously implemented "magic blueprints" you could clear the game world and let the active beta players pick back up basically where they left off, without any of the other clutter remaining in the world. It's the only way really the established orgs would possibly tolerate and continue to play through a full world wipe. Fwiw, I think at this point NQ should just completely jump the shark and say this is going to be a web3 blockchain based game. Lol. Why not at this point?
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Can someone help me understand what it is a new player is excluded from when they join the existing game? What content does the existing game world prohibit a new player from doing? I hear this talk about letting people get a fresh start and a new release so everyone has an equal advantage or whatever... but I haven't heard what it is these new players wouldn't be able to do? How does one "win" DU and if there is no "winning" then how can there be an advantage?
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23 hours ago, blundertwink said:
Some will be mad, but I think there's a misunderstanding of the demographics if people think wiping the servers will "kill" the game.
The beta population is tiny. Too tiny to be a concern for NQ's bottom line. Especially betas on an actual subscription.
The difference between keeping all the beta players and losing them all is almost immaterial at the scale they need to achieve to stay solvent.
They needs 10s of thousands of subs to turn things around. To maintain at the scale of their company today, they'd probably need near 100k subs -- and $12 million/year in revenue isn't even enough for a company of NQ's size and costs.
So...NQ doesn't really care if every beta leaves because they decide to wipe or decide to not wipe. They'd rather keep us, sure...but they're going to do whatever believe will get them to that scale, and "will beta players leave" just isn't an important part of that calculation.
I agree the beta players themselves represent a very small portion of the potential playerbase. You fail to recognize that the beta players do represent 100% of the content, however. So yeah there are a small number of players, but that small number is basically building the game FOR NovaQuark, and paying doe the privilege. So my take is why would NQ remove all the content, just to level the playing field for new players to catch up with what you call a "tiny" number of players? Seems to me they cam have their cake and eat it too by leaving everything as is and just pushing ahead with a launch. I'm not an expert, but it just seems allowing your sandbox game to be built by countless hours of some of the most try-hard gamers around(myself included, not being derogatory there) would not be something you would want to undo, especially when your entire selling pitch is based on "player created world". You make good points, it'll be interesting to see how it shakes out.
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6 hours ago, VandelayIndustries said:
It's the warning signs. I've seen it before in EvE. I have gifted to Plex for good and Broadcast for Reps in eve that focuses on mental illness and mental health. People often dive deep into mmos and the early warning signs are confusing the game and real life. The early signs I've seen before start exactly like that saying that "since there is max speed in space IRL then there should be none in the DU game". That's what I'm saying. Maybe it amounts to nothing, which I hope, but if I can offer encouragement to rethink or get professional help if needed then it's worth it to me. Mental health is something every one should constantly work on, and encourage others too.
Dude, quit gaslighting these people into thinking you care about their well being. You used mental health issues as a way to demean the original comment, now you're gaslighting like some mmo white knight. It's gross. Stop. If you really are concerned about this individual's well-being you should reach out on a 1 to 1 basis and not embarass and stigmatize by making an example out of them here in a general forum.
- Sejreia, fridaywitch, Mncdk1 and 2 others
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17 hours ago, Jake Arver said:
You mean you have not watched the last two NQ videos or paid attention over the past 18 months where pretty much every video has a reference to them having to cust cost and things being too expensive for them? The mining changes are brought in with one of the mentioned and direct drivers being the (financial) cost NQ incurs serverside on the current mechanic. I'd say NQ committing to just one weekend to test Demeter on PTS is another signal they can't afford to keep those servers running for longer.
Demeter is a crucial update for NQ, not opening the PTS for a good amount of time, allowing the changes to be properly tested over some time makes no sense other than not havin the means to provide that .. I see no other explanation but feel free to offer one if you do..Can NQ still deliver the game they set out to create? Of course they can but the chance of that really s not very high. I do still have some hope NQ will make a fool out of me and make me eat my words.. And I wil lhappily do so if that time comes. But I do prefer to take a position of logic and common sense, based on clear signals and events.
--those who just dismiss anything I say outright may as well stop reasding here--
As you asked for "proof", here's my reasoning;
Facts:
- NQ opening up the game to the public with "beta" last year was at least to a considerable extent driven by the need to start making money, JC said as much in the announcement.
- It was never the intention to go public until release (kickstarter/post kickstart campaign, backer pledges during (pre) alpha, every indication up to April last year)
- The main investor replaced JC as CEO, taking over NQ in March this year
- JC has since left the company entirely (as per a post by NQ-Pann)
- The last injection of capital was June 2019 (NQ announcement and crunchbase)
- NQ has a total investment of around 24M, including backer pledges, and has been running on that for about 7 years now.
A simple calculation would show you (on an optimistic budget) NQ will need to generate about 350K a month to just pay the bills.
Known factors:
- Office in Paris
- Office in Montreal
- Around 65 staff that we know of from LinkedIN
- 24/7 fairly complex serverinfrastructure rented through AWS
- At least two PR/marketing companies we know of
- XSolla
The offices are (mostly) rented desks so those cost may actually be lower currently, which may well have alowed NQ some serious savings. But just the employee salaries will gobble up the majority of the 350K I am going with here, salaries in the Paris and Montreal areas are considerable.
There is no indication whatsoever that there was a new investment round or that one is coming. If it was/is, that would be a big positive and reassuring PR newitem to share, so silence here to me can only mean that here is none.
A reasonable and simple calculation from the above would lead to NQ needing about 50-60K steady paid subs to just pay their bills, and I am just not seeing those numbers.. There is 41K tiles claimed on Alioth and from a conservative number of about 20K backers and their alts or invited players on beta keys they handed out, none of whom are paying a cent until release. The numbers are just not there.
So yes, while there is no direct proof for any ofthis, the circumstantial evidence, the signals and straightup logic would lead to a reasonable assumption NQ currently has some severe financial limitations at least. Of course I can always be wrong, but I see no reason to believe I am.This is a pretty solid argument for what you're saying. I dont think it's as dire as you paint it up to be, but it's clearly not a cash-flush free for all over there either. All businesses make efforts to save money, be it fuel/employees/computers whatever. Even profitable companies try to cut costs so I'm not as alarmed there. The 350k number actually seems right and the valuation/fundraising seems about right with the 22mil figure, but again there could be other loans/financing/lines of credit that we aren't privy to, but we should assume crunchbase would have those numbers so for my taste the 22m is correct. The catch here is they didnt start at the 350k monthly figure and likely didnt swell up to the 65 employees number until the last year or so, so that 350k/month figure could have easily been 100k/month for the first several years, which buys them a little time with their cash on hand. Very interesting numbers to arm-chair CEO this thing with. Thanks for taking the time to put the facts/numbers together. Makes for a good chat and gives folks some insight into the testing process we are all a part of. Cheers.
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1 hour ago, Jake Arver said:
I fear that due to financial limitations though, NQ will just go with this one weekend and push the update.
Can you provide us any proof of these financial limitations or are you just making stuff up based on information you think you know but actually don't know?
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17 hours ago, helvetian said:
there's no logical explanation for the old scanner results (that might have been taken a year ago) to suddenly become up-to-date when they didn't refresh before.
This is a really valid point and may have just changed my mind on this particular point. Ore scans never updated before, based on ore being extracted so it doesn't actually make sense to have them updated for this expansion. Just because they technically *can* update them, doesn't mean they should. Good point.
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2 hours ago, Orth_Tanic said:
Is Biden running the show? 1 M a week for tax's that is way to high do away with tax's and keep it how it is I would rather pay a high price upfront to not be taxed. That and people have real lives sometimes people might not be able to get logged into the game and then when they come back they will owe millions in tax's
Not good tax's suck in RL no need to have them in a game. I have played other games that required tax's to be paid to keep land and it killed not only me but entire clans from playing it. Looking at that I have I am not sure I would even be able to afford keeping what I have had for over a year now. I don't really see myself playing a game where all my time is used up to make sure my "tax's" are paid. I been all in 100% with DU but this change may make me rethink playing.
Tax's can be a HUGE game braker. The only way you will be able to survive is if your in a large Org with a large cash flow the solo player and smaller orgs will die and people will stop playing.Would you be this anti if it was called "maintenance fees" instead of taxes? I agree the amount is a bit too high, but the point of the tax system was to keep tiles from being locked from inactive players. I think there is some math to be worked out, but I think the reason behind the tax is a good reason, just needs some math and some patience to listen to the community, but it's not a game breaker. If anything, it's a game helper to make tiles available to new players, or existing players who are trying to expand. Also, to your last point I think driving the real.estate market I to the hands or organizations is kind of the point, to encourage cooperate over isolation, but it might be a misguided idea.
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30 minutes ago, Hagbard said:
this would still lead to all good mining tiles to be claimed in 24h
First off, I also agree 1mil over week is pretty steep. But the above statement , you have made a couple times and I'm curious: Can you breakdown some numbers for us? I assume you have done the math on number of tiles versus the cost and the number of players, etc. Would the solution be to level out the tiles so L/h is more equal between tiles? What would the fix be to create a more sustainable system? Re-fill the ore pool for unclaimed tiles every month? Wipe all the scans we already have? Curious to hear what you think. Thanks.
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OP, I'm sorry if I derailed your post. I'm sure you have put every bit as much time into this game as I have, if not more. I disagree with your assessment of exploit usage and I used way too many words to say that. The ideas of buffing elements is a good start. Realistically, new elements are part of the fix here. Why does the thrust end of an engine and the power generating end of an engine have to be the same element? Combustion chamber and burner, linked somehow maybe? Who knows. I think more complex systems and additional tools would be a great discussion without the caveats of the exploit usage. In my opinion the rationalization of the exploit usage detracts from the constructive discussion of "where do we go from here". Again, sorry for derailing. Hope our next exchange goes better. I'll try harder next time.
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19 hours ago, CyberDay said:
Im confused why Ferro thinks that they are bound by the Player ToS.
The devs are not bound by their own ToS, per se.. the devs arent users so they're not bound by a "user agreement" but the way it is now neither are the players. The official rules say one thing and the announcement says another. It's just bad communication and sets a really bad precedent that "rules are meant to be broken."
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1 hour ago, Atmosph3rik said:
This is the same idea from the other thread that you've posted in like 5 times arguing against it though lol
Except the other thread is about why stacking was used to begin with, in which the author tries to convince the reader that the exploit was used for anything other than an in-game advantage. From "different metas" to artistic ability, that thread basically said stacking was used for every reason other than in-game advantage. Didn't need me to derail it. Some posts are train wrecks from the beginning..
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On 9/22/2021 at 11:37 AM, Sabretooth said:
Or does stacking prevent fuel use? If it doesnt, I think it should be a feature in this game. Sure 2 military= 4 basic engines, but the weight!!! yes yes
I think some designs maybe deserve stacking, really!
I've thought this too. An industry unit where you could put 2 completed engines in, one gets consumed in "research" and the other comes out of the industry with a substantial buff, far beyond any talent buff. Obviously 1 + 1 would not equal two, but you would open up a wide variety of design options if something like this was available. Depreciating returns on researching the same engine could be tweaked so it's not too OP of a mechanic, and fully researched Exotic engines would take weeks to complete so its not for everyone, but why not let people make super charged engines and stuff? Seems like a solid idea.
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3 hours ago, EpicPhail said:
Your reaction here is the same as if I asked the question "How would one go about breeding a new color of tiger" and you come in and reply with "But tigers are orange and black"....
But tigers ARE Orange and black. Fun fact: a tiger is orange because its primary prey are color blind. To those animals, tigers blend right into the jungle because green=orange to the colorblind animals. Mammals lack the ability to produce the color green in basically all cases, so evolution adjusted to this limitation and created the ultimate jungle killing machine.
So now you know why we don't need another color of tiger because outside of curiosity and spectacle, it is inferior to the black and orange tiger.. because black and Orange, in this scenario is the meta.. just like cubes are the meta. If the animals were color blind on a different spectrum the tiger would have evolved to be another color. Another "if" that is irrelevant because the meta is the meta which is based on reality, not on hypothetical MS Paint squares and poorly constructed paragraphs. So you and I agree, in another universe things would be different.
You're trying to explain something everyone understand already: why stacking was used. Problem is, your reason is wrong. You're giving the builders this creative license that everything they did with this exploit was for creative/artistic reasons and if only the game was "better" then this exploit would have never even been used. You're saying "if we had more tools, people wouldn't have used the exploit" which is just a ridiculous point to make because 1. There is no way to prove what would have happened so it's a pure hypothetical argument (see also, not a constructive criticism or anything else that is useful aside from a conversation starter) and; 2. People will always use exploits regardless of the tools they have available. There are no ethical cheaters. There are ships that are currently exploiting the bug for many, many different reasons and the "preservation of artwork" IS a valid reason not to delete the constructs but it's hardly the reason the exploit was so widely exploited. All these "unbalanced" ships are for players to game the system and gain an unfair advantage. Aside from like The Nautilus and some other flagship creations(which are all very very impressive and should be preserved) , there isnt a jancko ship in the game that was build "just because I didnt like how a wall of engines looked". They were made to min-max the physics engine in the game and for nothing else. Cheaters gonna cheat, regardless of how many excuses you make for WHY they cheated... cheating is cheating.
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41 minutes ago, Daphne Jones said:
The advantage in combat is that the ship can have higher acceleration without incurring a cross-section cost. Target cross-section affects hit probability.
On top of that, it negates any "battlefield literacy" a non-advantaged player may have. Consider this: an experienced Pilot sees a M core ship inbound. This experienced pilot has been playing a long time and he knows very well the capabilities of each core size and the risks associated with engaging each one. With the "unbalanced" elements, his battlefield literacy is 0. He has no idea what could be on that M core. He knows what is on *his* M core, but without a fair playing field this player is not just potentially disadvantaged at a technical level; But he is also disadvantaged at a tactical level because all of his information, which should be accurate, is completely unreliable because the rules of the game are not clear. Even if the ship he is facing DOESN'T have any unbalanced elements, the fact that it persists in the game means any engagement is done blindly without anyway to know what you are actually going to encounter.
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8 hours ago, EpicPhail said:
People like Arch or FerroSC make it obvious they didnt even make it past the title before spewing out a predetermined opinion that has nothing to do with the actual suggestion at hand here in this thread.
I read all of it. I had to read some of it a few times because the ideas weren't very well organized. You are arguing against the "cube meta" . We get it. Meta means "most effective tactic available". Would you prefer a cylinder meta? Perhaps a spherical meta? Your post here basically says "if things were different we could do different things". Then you made some poorly argued descriptions of what "different" would be, but you never really land on anything you are trying to endorse. You simply don't like the cube meta and think everyone around you is stupid because "they just don't get it"... cylinders, cones, rings.. all shapes could be meta if conditions were different. Well, if "if" was a fifth we would all be drinking. If dont mean shit. Maybe in another universe those can happen, but in this universe we are worried about 3 planes. X, Y, Z. It JUST so happens that a cube is perfect for min/maxing a ships ability to maneuver efficiently in these directions. You don't like cubes. So you made some drawings to prove what we all know: cubes are meta. Then you made some long winded reasons about why people used and exploit and then you made an attempt to rationalize being able to keep the exploit based on some hypothetical metrics that could exist in the game but don't. Them you closed it with "did I ramble?" Which indicates you are unsure of your own ideas and you realize they are poorly presented. Then you came and threatened to report people who disagree with you, then you claim no one read your post. And now we are here. Thus ends my book report on your post. I'll look forward to reading the next one. Have a great day.
- decom70 and JohnnyTazer
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On 9/18/2021 at 12:22 AM, Hirnsausen said:
Any ship inside the unsafe zone can attack only armed ships. If a ship is not armed, it cannot be attacked (an "intergalactic charta" prevents that).
I made this suggestion a few weeks ago on the subreddit and got roasted by the downvote brigade, but I still think this idea has merit.
- ArchAngelT and Hirnsausen
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34 minutes ago, XKentX said:
2 PVP pros discussing how and what ships should be used in PVP
Hi. I'm not a pvp pro and never claimed to be. I've been shot down a couple times and never actually fired a weapon myself. I am 0-3 at PvP.
I am, however, fluent in English and can read the ToS and the recent Dev announcement and identify the contradictions between the two. Im not suggesting what ships should be used, I'm suggesting that the message from NQ be consistent and changes implemented on a way that is as fair and equitable as possible.
The script you suggest would be fantastic. Other suggestions have been good, too. A variety of options have been suggested and we should feel free to discuss those as a player community. It seems the only bad ideas in this discussion have come from NQ themselves in the way they have chosen to tackle this issue. I don't think coming onto the forum and being condescending to other players is constructive in any way, but everyone has their own interests, I suppose. Lemme ask you this Kent: if NQ grounded all the ships with "unbalanced" elements until they were fixed, not deleted but simply immobilized, would that be a reasonable solution for this problem or do you think the ships should be allowed to persist and NQ should let them fade out organically and focus on other things? What other ways could they fix this that would allow players to keep their investment but not their in-game advantage?
Haven't played since the wipe. How is the game going these days?
in General Discussions
Posted
The game definitely falls within the "mmo" genre. The population is quite small but seems to be dedicated and some of us do have fun despite the lack of any meaning development in the past (checks calendar).. forever.. but there are enough players for the economy to function and have people to shoot at sometimes, so the game isn't dead but its not bursting at the seams either. People just like being hyperbolic in their reviews, I guess.