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Near Future Needs


Penwith

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@NQ,

 

While I am not a naysayer regarding 0.23, and I heartily agree with the changes, overall...

 

The more sensible posts of opposition have made a point that I happen to agree with, more opportunities for players to feel a sense of wonder and/or success and progression are needed ASAP, as opposed to a few months from now.

 

My words should not be taken as being regarding only the acquisition of wealth, although for many players that is their primary near-term concern. Instead, my position is that a player just joining the game with a beta subscription has very little to do that is exciting. There's much in the intention of possible futures, but this game is competing for a finite amount of time to be spent on gaming in the midst of a highly competitive industry.

 

Therefore, the primary concern, in my view, is adding content in the immediate future, that causes a player to WANT to return to the game, beyond the "minecraft in space" experience. Of course, squashing game-breaking bugs is critically important and should be a priority, but the lack of apparent opportunity, whether true or not, causes potential new players, and also new players to think twice about playing this game.

 

There is tremendous promise within DU, even though we do not all agree as to the method that such promise should or is to be realized, I think most mature players will agree that they clearly see the potential, and even accept that the development process requires time to bring forth its fruit.

 

However, this game's appeal and potential market of customers is not only to a select group of people, but a wider audience who come into a game with certain expectations, 1) it will be fun, and 2) it will be worth the financial and time investment.

 

Obviously, this game is not meant for players to hit "end game" access to T5 products within a matter of weeks or even months, but more like a year or more. And I am completely fine with this.

 

On the other hand, beyond building ground facilities, space facilities, or ships, there's not much else except mining and what strained efforts at pvp/piracy there are. True, wrecks and the ship event brought to us, but honestly, these appeal to a fraction of the players and not everyone even had an opportunity to participate in the most recent event. If we cannot do it, it really does not exist for us, at least in the short-term.

 

Admittedly, the industry change has slowed down progression and certain opportunities (such as affording a good space hauler or fast courier ship) even more, and overall I am totally fine with this. Yet,  what else is there for a player to do upon logging in? Yes, they can seek to make money or build. Both of which are worthy goals and have more than one option available.

 

Great.

 

What is there to keep a new player interested in returning? Or an old salt, for that matter?

 

Exploration is what originally drew me to this game. The ability to name new planets/moons has a certain appeal to me. And while we are not there yet, I do hope that such is in the future of DU.  But...

 

What about now or next month or three months from now?

 

A mission system was mentioned, most recently in the stream on Monday, but also previously. Terrific! That will be something to pursuit when it arrives. What can be done before that blessed day?

 

Some have asked for PVE, presumably NPC pirates or maybe dangerous fauna or even flora. Of course, these will take development and resources, which in turn require an investment of money and time in their creation. These also have some interest for me.

 

So, what about before the end of this calendar year? Can the mission system, at least an early form of it, make it into the game for us to test out and mess around with over the Christmas holiday season? I teach school, so that works for me, but many people tend to have extra time during this part of the year (in the year of covid), unless they are in sales (poor sods).

 

If the mission system cannot see an introduction, how about a special mining/relay event, kind of an "intercept Santa's helpers" event where players mine out special ores, which then must be transhipped to a location on another planet, warp being disabled for ships carrying this ore), with the winning team getting a prize, and all participants receiving various rewards depending on their participation level? Even pvp players could get involved, trying to capture the ores for themselves, to deliver to the appropriate location. Maybe we can all get a special schematic, or do a short mission to receive it as a reward, for industry to make special and specific event containers to hold this special event ore. 

 

How about planting research stations, or facilities, as part of the wrecks feature, which have a few lower tier (t2-t3) schematics and perhaps a chance at a higher tier ones (t4-t5)?

 

Perhaps a ship building contest were we all receive a package of ship parts (all the same) and the goal is to make the 1) fastest ship, 2) best designed (aesthetically), or 3) most  indestructable, or something along those lines?

 

A final thought, maybe players are given special holiday season tokens, which are awarded each day they log in, between now and 10 January (or whenever), which can be saved or spent on various decorative elements (made special for the even) or ship parts that have a unique skin.

 

These are just things I thought of while typing this post.

 

I am positive that others have thoughts of they own towards easy (relatively) to create and mange events or content that will help keep players in a positive mood, in spite of all the negativity being proclaimed by those most bent out of shape over the recent changes.

 

I do invite anyone else with other content suggestions, for near-term, and are easy to manage/create, to share here, too.

 

We don't always have to agree or even get along, but I believe that most all of us here would like this game to be the most fun and entertaining version of itself that it can be. Also, can we please just save our demands for a wipe or a return to pre-patch for other threads, among those that already exist, for example?

 

Regardless of whether or not you think these ideas are worthy of consideration, at least give the credence to the spirit in which I have delivered them.

 

Penwith

 

Dread killer of chickens,  Scourge of raccoons, and Devourer of pecan pie.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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All you ppl playing DU can hope for is NQ acknowledging there are problems before holidays. If you are really, REALLY lucky you may get a quick fix to certain glaring problems before holidays. Anything beyond that is just daydreams and unrealistic. Especially when considering that NQ needs months to do a QA or answering mundane questions 

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Only 2 real problems i see short term are some low end fixes i.e XS-S engines and parts craftable without schems as well as some "general purpose" parts like screws being unlocked so noobs can build a basic flitter. And for a general talent reset.

 

Those would take a lot of the sting out of this patch until we get more content.

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Yes, JC did specifically state that talents effected by this patch would be reset, but that did not happen, at least for me. Not that it was a huge deal to train the new talents.

 

However, I do see that a reset across all talents for all players would be beneficial, as some/many would respect out of most or all industry and into something else.

 

We can already craft out of our nanopack and I think that doing so without schematics is a good thing. Yet, I do believe that advancing from the small scale to industry really is deserving of schematics.

 

Instead of unlocking them, I'd rather see an "introductory pack" for industry (in the future as a reward for doing industry tutorials) which provides schematics for certain things, free of charge. So, for example, a set of schematics that allows players to craft XS boxes from an Assembler S, would be a nice start/introduction to what a future in industry might hold. Such a thing would not unbalance the newly "balanced" industry, and go a long way towards allowing people to start from that point, being that hydraulics and frames are useful for other things, too.

 

It might also be that an "advanced" schematic be made available, which does allow players to craft XS-S engines, and other items useful for turning an atmospheric speeder into a space capable one. Again, one set of schematics that allow one to reach that result, would be very useful. This one, however, could  have a cost associated with it, perhaps 100k (but provide several schematics that currently cost 75k each.

 

 

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4 minutes ago, Penwith said:

Yes, JC did specifically state that talents effected by this patch would be reset, but that did not happen, at least for me. Not that it was a huge deal to train the new talents.

 

However, I do see that a reset across all talents for all players would be beneficial, as some/many would respect out of most or all industry and into something else.

 

We can already craft out of our nanopack and I think that doing so without schematics is a good thing. Yet, I do believe that advancing from the small scale to industry really is deserving of schematics.

 

Instead of unlocking them, I'd rather see an "introductory pack" for industry (in the future as a reward for doing industry tutorials) which provides schematics for certain things, free of charge. So, for example, a set of schematics that allows players to craft XS boxes from an Assembler S, would be a nice start/introduction to what a future in industry might hold. Such a thing would not unbalance the newly "balanced" industry, and go a long way towards allowing people to start from that point, being that hydraulics and frames are useful for other things, too.

 

It might also be that an "advanced" schematic be made available, which does allow players to craft XS-S engines, and other items useful for turning an atmospheric speeder into a space capable one. Again, one set of schematics that allow one to reach that result, would be very useful. This one, however, could  have a cost associated with it, perhaps 100k (but provide several schematics that currently cost 75k each.

 

 

A talent reset below X total points would go a long way towards fixing those who were unfortunate enough to start in the last couple of weeks like myself I think, as we can place our starter skills where they are needed more under this new format.

An introductory pack of industry schematics either for free, or a bulk discount price would be excellent.   Better still packages of schematics that target the most commonly needed/requested starter items... Storage Boxes would be amongst that for sure.....

As it stands now though....  It is literally about 4-5 days straight mining....  more if you actually have a day job and kids, and get 2-3 hours to play maybe... to be able to do anything else other than ... er ... mining..... 

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I do think it is also important, in the vein of my post at the top, that we ask for things that are doable and reasonable, instead of demanding that the river change its course, with regard to game development.

 

Ask for tweaks and adjustments on our end, than expect them to spend hundreds/thousands of man-hours rewriting code. Years ago, when I worked in the industry (before Hasbro bought the company and fired us all) I had several programmers far more willing to consider requests that did not make unreasonable demands on them or their time.

 

But, it is what it is and things will turn out either for good or ill.

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Not jumping for an argument here, just my view...

 

Markets are cluttered and very laggy for me before the patch. Now it's likely to get far worse. I can't run out and get a new system, memory, or graphics card. Would have been nice to have that fixed first.

 

I have no money for markets, T1 T2 ores are not profitable and will foreseeably get worse as more people dumb those for quick cash for the schematics. I had just  started trying to BUY the ore to PREVENT me from mining before the drop. I don't have time in RL to spend hours mining for a few quanta.

 

It would have been nice to have been eased into this a bit. Yea I knew a change was coming but not the extent of the cost. Besides this would have given time to fix the lag, setup more ways to obtain money, and maybe I could have afforded a schematic or two instead of being dead in the water.

 

I don't expect anyone to care about my view, but I will speak my frustration and hope that before the end of the year, something shakes loose to make the game playable (FOR ME) again.

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4 minutes ago, Karellean said:

A talent reset below X total points would go a long way towards fixing those who were unfortunate enough to start in the last couple of weeks like myself I think, as we can place our starter skills where they are needed more under this new format.

An introductory pack of industry schematics either for free, or a bulk discount price would be excellent.   Better still packages of schematics that target the most commonly needed/requested starter items... Storage Boxes would be amongst that for sure.....

As it stands now though....  It is literally about 4-5 days straight mining....  more if you actually have a day job and kids, and get 2-3 hours to play maybe... to be able to do anything else other than ... er ... mining..... 

Well, it would certainly be 4-5 days of learning the ropes, which should include mining to an extent.

 

This is where I think it essential that the tutorials be finished/fixed, allowing new players a better starting experience. It was very disappointing for me to see that most were unavailable, when I first started playing.

 

A leg up, but not a handout, is in order.

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8 minutes ago, Deintus said:

Not jumping for an argument here, just my view...

 

Markets are cluttered and very laggy for me before the patch. Now it's likely to get far worse. I can't run out and get a new system, memory, or graphics card. Would have been nice to have that fixed first.

 

I have no money for markets, T1 T2 ores are not profitable and will foreseeably get worse as more people dumb those for quick cash for the schematics. I had just  started trying to BUY the ore to PREVENT me from mining before the drop. I don't have time in RL to spend hours mining for a few quanta.

 

It would have been nice to have been eased into this a bit. Yea I knew a change was coming but not the extent of the cost. Besides this would have given time to fix the lag, setup more ways to obtain money, and maybe I could have afforded a schematic or two instead of being dead in the water.

 

I don't expect anyone to care about my view, but I will speak my frustration and hope that before the end of the year, something shakes loose to make the game playable (FOR ME) again.

My son, who plays on a computer a few feet away, had massive lag, everywhere. It turned out to be his drivers. Once he updated all of those, the lag is limited to markets, for him.

 

Not saying you have not done so, btw.

 

But, I do agree with you. Visiting certain markets are like playing Russian Roulette, with a far more significant level of risk than 1 in 6.

 

I've already suggested, in these forums, that dynamic cores be unloaded and tokenized after two hours in a market hex, with ship and cargo put into that market container. The tokenized ship can only be deployed in that same market hex. Deploying can happen once every 24 hours, to help limit the abuse from those who love to scam, I mean park their "ships" in the way of everyone else, lagging the hell out of the area, up to 30km or more.

 

Also, reducing the stations around the Ark, to a single one, with shuttle to Sanctuary (from there they can use teleporters to the different stations), would also help reduce clutter and lag. We do not need several ship stores , either. A waste of resources and a zone of death and despair for those unlucky enough to have an elevator draw at the wrong time.

 

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