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croxis

Alpha Tester
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  1. Like
    croxis got a reaction from satoshi in Limiting Script Automation will Hinder Economic Growth   
    I have yet to play a game where the act of mining (or resource gathering in general) was itself fun. That is the other balance to the equation.
     
    I'll quote Sid on this one. The fun in games is "a series of interesting choices." Game mechanics that stabilize into a status quo (Rust and infinite oil) will result in a boring game for all sides. Mechanics that never result in a stable equilibrium (Rust with limited oil) requires individuals and groups to reevaluate and iterate on their systems if they want to keep the status quo.
     
    Here is my ideal:
     
    * Everyone can get some basic resources and build simple constructs (like a small hover bike) themselves so they can bootstrap on their first play or after a total loss, but most will purchase from the market to fullfill most their resource and construction needs.
     
    * The players we consider miners wont really mine themselves, mining is generally automated and the miners manage more of the logistic side of things, be it keeping a cheap mining rig functioning or a massive pit quarry with numerous automated drones. A player who is good can run a massive rig, or a smaller one and pursue other gameplay.
     
    * Player choice is needed to keep it running. Neglect the mines too long and they will begin to not produce at capacity and even break down.
     
    * Profit = Income - Expenses.  Even a cheap rig will cost some money to run. If "everyone" is mining then mineral prices will drop to the point of being a loss. Others will flock to more profitable gameplay and prices will rise again.
  2. Like
    croxis got a reaction from ATMLVE in Avoiding Survivorship Bias   
    Space Engineers, Minecraft, and Arc (all with survival mode and with mods): My brother and I have shelved this for now. We felt like we have reached the end game of what we set out to do and the game loop has become stale. There are no more challenges we want to overcome or problems that we need to engineer a solution for. We've overcome the survival aspects of the game to the degree that it is just creative mode.
     
    On the other hand we play all of the above on very small, private, pve-centric servers. We don't want to participate in pvp combat because, to be honest, we can't play all the time every day to make sure our hard work isn't lost. One success of Eve is that a thorax is a thorax and so I'm ok losing it as long as I can afford a replacement. However my creative work is much more important to me, so I don't want to put my hard work at risk.
  3. Like
    croxis got a reaction from Aeon_II in NO MORE EVE ONLINE PASSIVE SKILL TRAINING   
    I posted this on another thread of this exact same topic.
     
    * Eve, specifically, does a couple of nifty things with the skill system. Each skill has a very limited number of levels (5). It is the number/diversity of skills that is more important. This means that the only big difference between a new player and a vet is the number of roles that they can choose to take on.
     
    * The time to train 1, 2, 3, AND 4 of a skill is far less than just 4 to 5. That means that within a skill a newer player at level 4 is quite comparable to a vet a level 5 as none of the skills offer super drastic bonuses between levels.
     
    * A player can unlock the next gameplay they want to get into while still playing their current in game role.
     
     
    There is a major problem with gaining experience with doing that task, and that is human psychology. Humans are natural min/maxers. Time and time again players will create unfun grind to max a skill, even if developers never intended for it. Here is a random made up example: Skills in construction efficiency increases the more the player builds things. That sounds great because you expect that it is a reward for players being successful builders. What ends up happening is that players will just build as many uninteresting useless cubes that they can afford to min/max their skill before their Next Big Thing™. The developers can spend time creating and balancing "gotcha" mechanics to try and prevent this - not just for construction but combat, mining, and every other gameplay element, which will end up adding to a LOT of developer time. Or they can use an Eve line time based skill system and the developer time can be invested into interesting gameplay.
     
    I really think, for a massive multi player game, that eve's time based system is incredibly elegant.
     
    edit for words
  4. Like
    croxis got a reaction from Gojo_Ryu in Long-Term Resource Availability and New Player Conundrums   
    I apologies that I wasn't clear, but that isn't what I posted. The tl;dr is that very basic, simple things is renewable/self sufficient. This is to get new players started quickly, a pathway for players who lost everything to restart, and reduce the chance of getting totally 100% stranded.
     
    I thought I was explicit with a BASIC construction material -- the voxel cube stuff for building constructs. With a good first player experience/tutorial a new player can have a structure built within 30 minutes. This construct will have no elements, because OTHER materials are needed to build functional elements. This will require the player to explore to obtain the other resources themselves or buy from a market. I would expect that a player could sit around on their farm if they wish because of the market, they are just indirectly paying others for it.
     
    The other issue you didn't consider is rate. The basic resource production chain is relatively slow. So if the player wishes to build or power more things faster, they will also need to gather/buy resources.
     
    I would expect that the arcship zone has non-renewable resources that will deplete over time. But as infrastructure and markets develop those materials will be available for purchase.
  5. Like
    croxis got a reaction from Gojo_Ryu in Long-Term Resource Availability and New Player Conundrums   
    I've proposed in past threads on this topic that the basic resources are renewable -- so a farm and/or hydroponics produces plant matter which is process into hydrocarbons (fuel) and can be processed further into basic construction material (plastics). This solves the spawn area resource problems. Because construction seems like a major focus of the game it also makes sense to have the basics be self sufficient for those far away colonies and ships.
  6. Like
    croxis got a reaction from VerZalj in Ship-to-ship repairs...?   
    It's your *assumed* simple game mechanics. Unless you are a developer you have just as much knowledge of the mechanics as everyone else on this forum. Dual can be coded with shield boosting mechanics, shield draining mechanics, both, or neither.
     
    "No magic healing buffs in dual." Really, show me the quote from the devs. It is one thing to argue for or against a mechanic or you like or dislike an idea, it is another to state something as fact when it is not.
     
    The flavor of the mechanic can be whatever it needs to be -- sleeper tech, mana, nanites, etc.
     
    One of my criticisms of Eve is that combat seems mostly decided when you launch from the hanger with the ships and loadouts brought. If a game is a "series of interesting decisions made by the player" then most of those decisions happen before the fight. Combat should be fun for everyone. Without support roles the only actionable items in the fight itself for multicrew ships is piloting and weapons.
     
    Support gameplay is something I am more interested in as both a player avatar and even as a multi crew ship. I love being the mechanic in Guns of Icarus -- prioritizing repairs, the tool I use to repair, and the types of buffs added to the different elements. I would enjoy similar mechanics being an engineer on a multicrew ship.
     
    If we want to go with the nanite flavor a support ship could be equipped with nanite bombs. Shoot them at a baddie to do some damage or debuffs, or shoot them at a friendly to do some repair or buffs.
  7. Like
    croxis got a reaction from Saul Retav in Limiting Script Automation will Hinder Economic Growth   
    I have yet to play a game where the act of mining (or resource gathering in general) was itself fun. That is the other balance to the equation.
     
    I'll quote Sid on this one. The fun in games is "a series of interesting choices." Game mechanics that stabilize into a status quo (Rust and infinite oil) will result in a boring game for all sides. Mechanics that never result in a stable equilibrium (Rust with limited oil) requires individuals and groups to reevaluate and iterate on their systems if they want to keep the status quo.
     
    Here is my ideal:
     
    * Everyone can get some basic resources and build simple constructs (like a small hover bike) themselves so they can bootstrap on their first play or after a total loss, but most will purchase from the market to fullfill most their resource and construction needs.
     
    * The players we consider miners wont really mine themselves, mining is generally automated and the miners manage more of the logistic side of things, be it keeping a cheap mining rig functioning or a massive pit quarry with numerous automated drones. A player who is good can run a massive rig, or a smaller one and pursue other gameplay.
     
    * Player choice is needed to keep it running. Neglect the mines too long and they will begin to not produce at capacity and even break down.
     
    * Profit = Income - Expenses.  Even a cheap rig will cost some money to run. If "everyone" is mining then mineral prices will drop to the point of being a loss. Others will flock to more profitable gameplay and prices will rise again.
  8. Like
    croxis got a reaction from friendlytyrant03 in Stupid ideas #2   
    All weapons turn to paint ball guns for April 1st
  9. Like
    croxis got a reaction from Dunbal in NO MORE EVE ONLINE PASSIVE SKILL TRAINING   
    Fun should always trump realism if a choice has to be made.
  10. Like
    croxis got a reaction from Deacon in The all mighty rifter.   
    I'm more partial to the star fury myself
     

  11. Like
    croxis got a reaction from Talyn VonGoosen in Building in hostile environments.   
    Famous last words for a programmer.
  12. Like
    croxis got a reaction from Violet in Crypto-Currency ?   
    What is the point? One of the basic ideas behind the block chain is to create "p2p" transaction history. Something totally un needed in this game. Its an MMO with authoritative servers thats going to use (probably) traditional databases and logging. There is nothing to gain by using blockchain schemes other than nerd wankering.
  13. Like
    croxis got a reaction from IffyCougar832 in Building in hostile environments.   
    Famous last words for a programmer.
  14. Like
    croxis got a reaction from BliitzTheFox in NO MORE EVE ONLINE PASSIVE SKILL TRAINING   
    I posted this on another thread of this exact same topic.
     
    * Eve, specifically, does a couple of nifty things with the skill system. Each skill has a very limited number of levels (5). It is the number/diversity of skills that is more important. This means that the only big difference between a new player and a vet is the number of roles that they can choose to take on.
     
    * The time to train 1, 2, 3, AND 4 of a skill is far less than just 4 to 5. That means that within a skill a newer player at level 4 is quite comparable to a vet a level 5 as none of the skills offer super drastic bonuses between levels.
     
    * A player can unlock the next gameplay they want to get into while still playing their current in game role.
     
     
    There is a major problem with gaining experience with doing that task, and that is human psychology. Humans are natural min/maxers. Time and time again players will create unfun grind to max a skill, even if developers never intended for it. Here is a random made up example: Skills in construction efficiency increases the more the player builds things. That sounds great because you expect that it is a reward for players being successful builders. What ends up happening is that players will just build as many uninteresting useless cubes that they can afford to min/max their skill before their Next Big Thing™. The developers can spend time creating and balancing "gotcha" mechanics to try and prevent this - not just for construction but combat, mining, and every other gameplay element, which will end up adding to a LOT of developer time. Or they can use an Eve line time based skill system and the developer time can be invested into interesting gameplay.
     
    I really think, for a massive multi player game, that eve's time based system is incredibly elegant.
     
    edit for words
  15. Like
    croxis got a reaction from Violet in Mass, Density and Inventory management   
    Could do some handwaving with a magic hand (ha!) replicator. Your on person inventory is converted to energy on stored in your battery (I haven't thought this fully through).
     
    Another point in low gravity you can store more mass because the weight is the same. And zero gravity you can store as much mass as you want, acceleration becomes more challengine though.
  16. Like
    croxis got a reaction from wesbruce in actual physical targeting instead of locking   
    "Tab targeting" could target detected subsystems/body parts (shift-tab for example).
  17. Like
    croxis got a reaction from kristakis in The all mighty rifter.   
    I'm more partial to the star fury myself
     

  18. Like
    croxis got a reaction from Traceur in Ship to Ship Communication and / or Player to Player Communication?   
    MMOs are also social experiences -- (futile) attempts to make communication more realistic can really hamper the success of the game.
     
    There are in game reasons to have "ship to ship" communication. For example, ships and probes sharing sensor data. Will this be "magically" done regardless of distance? Will communication range be a factor? Will there be no magic checkbox and sensor sharing has to be a protocol written by the in game programmers (this would lead to some interesting emergent gameplay).
     
     
    Ninja edit: Let me put it this way -- one of the advantages of limiting range of in game comms is that it would help keep people closer together and the population density higher, giving a better illusion of a bustling metropolis. However I feel the same effect could still be had if being in antenna range to civilization had in-game purpose -- such as sensor sharing, telemetry, access to the in game market, and so on, so venturing out into the wilderness has some effect.
  19. Like
    croxis got a reaction from magnatron in What are skills? and how do they work?   
    I don't think it is cheesy at all, because what the player can do will be limited by the items and equipment they carry on them.
     
    Players also get very attached to their avatar, yet their gameplay interests will drift over time. My character in Eve is 10 years old now I think, and it has done everything from nullsec miner living to mission running to wormhole explorer to pvp warp scrambler to logistic healing to battleship dps. And with time based skills I continued doing what I enjoyed while training for the next thing I was interested in, without having to start over with another character from scratch. My husband is different, he loves leveling alts in WoW.
     
    What you propose is a player designed class system. And being humans who are natural min/maxers these classes will end up more or less just as ridged as if the devs hard coded them. The more I think about playing Dual over the course of years the more the idea of classes, be it by skill cap or hard code, makes me lose interest because my main would be perminatly shoehorned into a role that I may want to change over time.
  20. Like
    croxis got a reaction from Cornflakes in Ship-to-ship repairs...?   
    It's your *assumed* simple game mechanics. Unless you are a developer you have just as much knowledge of the mechanics as everyone else on this forum. Dual can be coded with shield boosting mechanics, shield draining mechanics, both, or neither.
     
    "No magic healing buffs in dual." Really, show me the quote from the devs. It is one thing to argue for or against a mechanic or you like or dislike an idea, it is another to state something as fact when it is not.
     
    The flavor of the mechanic can be whatever it needs to be -- sleeper tech, mana, nanites, etc.
     
    One of my criticisms of Eve is that combat seems mostly decided when you launch from the hanger with the ships and loadouts brought. If a game is a "series of interesting decisions made by the player" then most of those decisions happen before the fight. Combat should be fun for everyone. Without support roles the only actionable items in the fight itself for multicrew ships is piloting and weapons.
     
    Support gameplay is something I am more interested in as both a player avatar and even as a multi crew ship. I love being the mechanic in Guns of Icarus -- prioritizing repairs, the tool I use to repair, and the types of buffs added to the different elements. I would enjoy similar mechanics being an engineer on a multicrew ship.
     
    If we want to go with the nanite flavor a support ship could be equipped with nanite bombs. Shoot them at a baddie to do some damage or debuffs, or shoot them at a friendly to do some repair or buffs.
  21. Like
    croxis got a reaction from wesbruce in Agriculture,woodcutting etc in Dual Universe   
    Food/hunger works for a couple of purposes: it creates a form of player progression by as the player begins to automate part of food production to free up time for other activities, arguably it is a negative reward because the player is removing a punishment. It is also resource planning, plan an expedition outside of the infrastructure poorly and you die.
     
    The problem this isn't a survival game, the progression does not fit thematically. For a game about design and construction food will just turn into poop -- it isn't particularly exciting. Sure a player can design and build systems for food production, but it would be much more fun to design and build systems for hoverboard and ship construction.
     
    For resource planning we already can have that with fuel, energy, and ammo. Plan those things poorly and you are just as dead.
     
    In other threads I've argued that agriculture can be used to solve the newbie ark resource problem -- simple construction materials can be made from literal renewable materials -- plastics from algae for example. So FARMING can still be an important thing, both on ground and in space, but for more fun mechanics instead of poop production.
  22. Like
    croxis got a reaction from Cybrex in A cranky request about forum signatures   
    I'm noticing that more and more people on these forums have awesome graphics in their signatures, that happen to be quite large. In fact they are often larger than most posts! My mind is getting addled in my old age, and what I'm interested in (the words you say [type?]) is getting lost in the visual clutter. I love to see your advertisements for your empires, corporations, and hippy communes. Would you mind just making them a bit shorter?
     
    Now pardon me as I yell at some kids to get off my lawn with their stupid snapagram-book phones.
  23. Like
    croxis got a reaction from Astrophil in Customization/fashion?   
    I demand Project Runway in game.
  24. Like
    croxis reacted to Anfros in Agriculture,woodcutting etc in Dual Universe   
    In a game that specifically revolves around fighting for survival at every turn, I agree that the need for food/water/sustenance is a good mechanic. But my impression and hope is that the main point of this game will be social interactions between players with creation, destruction, politics and other mechanics acting as a catalyst for those interactions. When basic basic survival is not the main thing in a game but the devs decide to tack on foodlike mechanics anyway, in my experience, most of these mechanics usually boil down to "you need to take a break from playing the game every x amount of time and go interact with this random unfun mechanic before you can continue playing the game". In my opinion these kind of mechanics need to be at the center of the game or they will be more annoying than fun.
     
    To me it basically boils down to this, the player should not be incentivized to log off. If a player feels they cannot sit around just chatting with their friends ingame, without interacting with the game in any other way, because doing so actually punishes them that would, in my opinion, be VERY bad for the game. The easy solution to this is making the food requirement low enough to be trivial, but then why have it in the first place.
     
    As for the idea of having the player consume food even when they are logged off, that just punishes people who have to be away from the game for extended periods of time, which in my experience from games like this is going to be punishing enough anyway.
     
    That being said food is a reasonably good way of going about an upkeep mechanic, making sure people need to bring supplies to support any effort they are undertaking. I think there are better ways to go about it though, that feels less punishing for the individual player. For example fuel, life support, ammo and many many more things and I expect there will be multiple such things in the game.
     
    That said I am not against food as a thing, if for example we have npcs in the game I can see food being part of their upkeep mechanic, and I would love for agriculture and forestry to be in the game just like I want mining to be in the game. I'm just againt using it as a survival mechanic.
  25. Like
    croxis got a reaction from guttertrash in Radio Chat Options   
    I would be much more interested in mumble integration, or a web api like eve, where I can create channels and access control based on the permissions I give my corp/nation/nonprofit and the relationship status with outside individuals and groups.
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