Question about playability

[Shootmeplx]

Hello everyone.

New poster, just bought a gold package for alpha testing!

As i've backed SC, bought ED, tried games like Empyrion, this one sure as hell triggered my curiosity.
It even did enough for me to order a gold package.

I just have some minor concerns for the game, and I see the question asked a lot, and that is how players can simply destroy a beautiful made structure, by maybe just spamming stupid stuff on it.

For instance, imagine on rust, where you'd get some guy who'd put a shelter in front of your door, which would make you incapable of leaving your home. It is stupid things like this that would destroy the game for me personally.

I understand player freedom, and I like the concept, but let's be real, we are what we are, and this kind of griefing will always happen.
Will there be a proper system to at least make sure that your home stays up? That's what really drives me, having a game in which I can explore, fight, but still have a nice place of my own to come back to, and just look at the sky. (Heh, I'm a geek, sue me).

For that same reason, I understand that it's an MMORPG and all, but hey, having a single player branch available, just for us to mess around in doesn't sound bad to me at all, so it kind of bums me out that they won't implement it.
It would also be a nice feature for when/if the game dies (it can happen to anyone, not implying anything).
So yeah, I would still like for the devs to take certain aspects into consideration, having complete player freedom is awesome and all, but it could be a big deterrent to some casual players too!

For the rest, I love the concept, I think it looks great for a pre-alpha, and I'm excited to participate in the actual alpha. Here's to hoping I get my money worth from the pledge!

Have a good day!

[Anopheles]

There will be safe and unsafe zones. I hope there will be some risk/reward system to encourage people to risk 'the dark'.

[Lethys]

If players annoy you, use that whole emergent gameplay to get rid of them.

 

Single player won't happen, it's p2p and will be online only.

[Thokan]

You'll have two things in our favor, One, this is a voxel based game on a MMO scale and thus building will require a lot more resources or, probably rather, gathering time making it inefficient to trying to "troll" someone.

 

Secondly you may purchase/craft a Territory Unit and simply claim a Territory Tile as your own and set rights and duties accordingly - deciding who may build on your tile. This will most probably be the goal of every lone wolf or small group of people wanting to set up a place of their own.

[Pang_Dread]

Few things, if you have a plot of land to build a structure in DU then you also own the permissions around that plot. Even if can put something down in the "wild" I would think there would be a buffer around it.

 

If you are not in a safe some you could simply attack the structure and knock it down. Structures in this game are all made of voxels so that means pretty much if its not in a safe zone should be able to attack it.

 

Even if can't attack other structure, if its your structure should be able to edit the voxels and make a new door or opening.

 

Single player mode... Nope not going to happen. Don't let other games bad experiences and poor design choices cloud your view of the next game and ask for things that just are not good for the game.

[Kurosawa]

it does raise a fair point for the creative players: Will my junk be destroyed the second i look the other way or will there be full protection in some way.

 

Lets face it, some only wants pve some only pvp and then the griefers and wannabe pvp'ers that go after those that do not or cannot fight back.

[Lethys]

If you're outside the safezone then people like me will destroy your stuff and raid your base while you are offline. Yes

[wizardoftrash]

There will be game mechanics for build protection, and it will likely be a feature that is a part of TU's (Territory Units). Unauthorized players will not be able to build anything or edit voxels (for example, dig or mine) in areas where a player or org owns a TU.

 

And it is true, players will still be able to attack constructs outside a safe zone, but there will probably be additional measures a player can take to protect their stuff. There will be some mechanic for shielding, which will require power, but a well protected structure would probably be impervious to smaller avatar-held weapons as the rate in which the shield regenerates will probably exceed the rate of fire of the weapons. If a player will want to break into your base, they will likely need explosives or a type of weapon built to damage constructs (not unlike Rockets and C4 in rust).

 

The devs mention continually that they will be taking measures to balance PVP and Non-PVP, so it will likely be inconvenient enough to destroy structures and large constructs that a player will have to invest quite a bit of time and resources just to break into one, and may not be able to destroy the whole thing.

 

Similarly NQ stated that though PVP will be permitted in the game, Greifing will not. There will be some system for reporting players who harass and destroy without anything to gain other than making players suffer or for players who exploit game mechanics to trap players or make it otherwise impossible to play. They aren't inviting a murder-hobo culture in the same way Rust has, "Rebuilding civilization together" is the motto after all.

 

Plus there are several orgs that are planning on building big cities that are either in the safe zone, or that will be well protected from pvp-ers and greifers. Plus by the time players will have the ability to do Construct vs Construct combat (where you have the highest capacity to destroy structures), we will probably also have automated defenses of some kind to make greifing and raiding more challenging.

[Thokan]

Yes indeed. "Protective bubbles" will protect your home from attacks, and is designed to be affordable even for solo players.

[mitharus]

For instance, imagine on rust, where you'd get some guy who'd put a shelter in front of your door, which would make you incapable of leaving your home. It is stupid things like this that would destroy the game for me personally.

 

I understand player freedom, and I like the concept, but let's be real, we are what we are, and this kind of griefing will always happen.

Will there be a proper system to at least make sure that your home stays up? That's what really drives me, having a game in which I can explore, fight, but still have a nice place of my own to come back to, and just look at the sky. (Heh, I'm a geek, sue me).

 

 

They may do something like Ark, where when you put up a structure, someone else cannot build anything within a small footprint around you. That doesn't keep you from being trapped (i.e. In Ark, large groups surrounding a structure with Behemoth gates where they can build), but it does give you a bit of breathing room.

 

As for things not being destroyed... no. As others mentioned, if you want a "safe" area, then you'll want to get a territory unit. But even then, I don't think that makes it 100% safe, just safer than without. Shielding, and other possible defense mechanisms are in the plans to IIRC.

 

-M

[Lethys]

They may do something like Ark, where when you put up a structure, someone else cannot build anything within a small footprint around you. That doesn't keep you from being trapped (i.e. In Ark, large groups surrounding a structure with Behemoth gates where they can build), but it does give you a bit of breathing room.

 

As for things not being destroyed... no. As others mentioned, if you want a "safe" area, then you'll want to get a territory unit. But even then, I don't think that makes it 100% safe, just safer than without. Shielding, and other possible defense mechanisms are in the plans to IIRC.

 

-M

No, territory unit only flags that ground yours. You can then set rules for said ground (who can enter, mine, build, with combination of scripts...).

 

You can add shields to your constructs (houses), which will require power to run. You can add turrets which will attack intruders automatically (but at a severely reduced rate - to force player driven content).

 

Nothing will guarantee that your stuff is 100% safe, the balance is crucial here. The more effort you put into defending your stuff, the more forcefully the attacker has to push - but it will always be raidable. It's only REALLY safe around the arkship

[Dinkledash]

Will TUs consist of the entire hex?  I can understand in the countryside having 250 acres as a standard unit of territory, but in cities I would think those could get divided into smaller plots at some point.  We'll have about 1000 hexes under the shield, so really the first 1000 people off the ship will have an enormous advantage if the TU is minimum 1k.  Imagine owning a square km of downtown Manhattan - you're a multi billionaire.  But can you subdivide a hex?  

[mitharus]

Will TUs consist of the entire hex?  I can understand in the countryside having 250 acres as a standard unit of territory, but in cities I would think those could get divided into smaller plots at some point.  We'll have about 1000 hexes under the shield, so really the first 1000 people off the ship will have an enormous advantage if the TU is minimum 1k.  Imagine owning a square km of downtown Manhattan - you're a multi billionaire.  But can you subdivide a hex?  

 

I believe it was said that TU's were 1K^2 and that's it. There may be tools to subdivide it once you own it... but that I don't know.

 

But it was said that it was going to be difficult to claim a TU.

 

-M

[Dygz_Briarthorn]

It's going to be difficult to acquire a second TU.
IIRC, we each start with a TU.

Permissions will help the OP.

Safe zones will help the OP.

There is no single-player mode or "creative mode".

You could try to travel to some far-distant world and be a hermit.

[wizardoftrash]

I believe it was said that TU's were 1K^2 and that's it. There may be tools to subdivide it once you own it... but that I don't know.

 

But it was said that it was going to be difficult to claim a TU.

 

-M

Since Construction Units determine the size of what can be built with them, we might see a system where someone owns a TU, and sets up a bunch of Construct Units like City Blocks. The player that owns the TU might restrict the right to build new construct units there there, but sells the rights to the existing TU's, allowing payers to set up structures for homes and places of business within the TU.

[mitharus]

It's going to be difficult to acquire a second TU.

IIRC, we each start with a TU.

 

I don't think we start with one... From the DM21 interview with JC, when he was asked what his (JC) starting play would be, his response included: "Try to claim a Territory in the safe zone so I could build things in relative peace." ... that was around, uhh... *goes to poke at the video* ... around 33:15 in.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVkbdfxiKxM&t=33m15s

 

-M

[Lethys]

You have one resurrection node to start with but not a TU

[Lord_Void]

It's going to be difficult to acquire a second TU.

IIRC, we each start with a TU.

 

Permissions will help the OP.

Safe zones will help the OP.

 

There is no single-player mode or "creative mode".

You could try to travel to some far-distant world and be a hermit.

 

We do not start with TUs, they have to be built by players and will take some time to build (maybe a few weeks from launch for the first ones). They will also require resources to support, so you cannot just drop one and leave it forever. They are also siege-able, with a 48 hour reinforcement timer, so you will also have to have the manpower to defend the TU.

[Thokan]

Will TUs consist of the entire hex?  I can understand in the countryside having 250 acres as a standard unit of territory, but in cities I would think those could get divided into smaller plots at some point.  We'll have about 1000 hexes under the shield, so really the first 1000 people off the ship will have an enormous advantage if the TU is minimum 1k.  Imagine owning a square km of downtown Manhattan - you're a multi billionaire.  But can you subdivide a hex?  

 

TUs will contain a whole hex, and you cannot subdivide a hex - only the other way around, as in you can organize multiple hexes together into one unit with same Rights and Duties.

 

What you are looking for - to organize a number of different people in one geographical position, like a city - is the Rights and Duties Management System. ( https://devblog.dualthegame.com/2015/05/21/rights-duties-management-system/ ). With the help of different tags and hierarchal tag trees you will be able to organize a large quantity of different people to different objects, duties, roles and such.

[Dygz_Briarthorn]

Dev quotes are our friend:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/devblog.dualthegame.com/2015/07/24/territory-control/amp/

Territory Units are rather rare and expensive units, made of materials that will be available only in remote areas away from the arkship, or even on other planets, and requiring advanced mining skills and tools. In other words, it will be close to impossible to build them at start. We expect certain players to specialize in the manufacturing of Territory Units, but even for them the challenge will be high, but then they can expect to get a very good price for them on the markets. We want the Territory Unit to be hard to make because we don't want a sort of gold rush at the start the game, that would favor early players and reduce the gameplay to "get as much TU as possible before it's too late".

[Atmosph3rik]

Nothing will guarantee that your stuff is 100% safe, the balance is crucial here. The more effort you put into defending your stuff, the more forcefully the attacker has to push - but it will always be raidable. It's only REALLY safe around the arkship

 

So when you say Nothing, what you actually meant is Something.

 

Sort of an important distinction.

[Lethys]

Well yeah, there's only one thing....the safezone.

 

P.s.: GrammarN.